Develop People or Select People?

Jika anda seorang HR di perusahaan, suatu saat anda dihadapkan pada suatu pertanyaan seperti ini "lebih baik menghabiskan uang untuk mengembangkan orang atau memilih orang yang tepat?"

Jawabannya akan sangat beragam sekali sepertinya .... Namun sebelum kita coba menyimpulkan, ada baiknya kita ilustrasikan kondisi sebagai berikut:

1.   Anda  pada sebuah perusahaan yang sudah lama berdiri, sudah ada orang-orang senior disana. Perusahaan anda harus berubah dan perlu banyak melakukan inovasi. Mana yang anda pilih? Mengembangkan orang yang ada atau merekrut orang tepat untuk melaukan perubahan? Yang jelas anda sulit untuk melakukan PHK bagi pegawai yang senior, apalagi perananan serikat pekerja yang kuat

2.  Anda pada sebuah perusahaa yang baru berdiri, perlu orang-orang yang berpengalaman untuk mengembangkan perusahaan ini. Pegawai yang ada saat ini masih relatif muda dan belum berpengalaman, namun mereka memiliki antusias untuk belajar dan bekerja yang tinggi. Mana yang anda pilih? Menghabiskan uang perusahaan untuk merekrut pegawai profesional atau mengembangkan pegawai muda yang ada?

Coba anda renungkan .........................................

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Mengembangkan orang..... ya, itulah jawaban yang sebagian besar orang HR lakukan. Mengapa? karena orang-orang HR selalu berpikiran untuk mengoptimalkan sumber daya yang tersedia.

Suatu hari sebuah perusahaan besar merekrut seorang Manajer baru, Manajer tersebut adalah lulusan universitas yang terkenal di dunia, dia di gaji 2x lipat lebih tinggi daripada Manajer lain pada umumnya. Suatu ketika dia dipanggil Direktur perusahaan tersebut karena target kinerjanya tidak tercapai.

Direktur: "Mengapa target kinerja anda tidak tercapai hingga saat ini? Apa yang anda lakukan sebenarnya?"

Manajer: "Ini bukan salah saya Pak, bagaimana mungkin saya bisa mencapai target perusahaan, kalau saya hanya diberikan 3 orang staf. 1 orang staf saya kerjanya sangat lambat, 1 orang staf saya sering hilang saat dibutuhkan di kantor, dan yang terakhir kerjanya hanya telpon-telponan dan main internet. Saya sudah melakukan usaha yang terbaik, bahkan saya sampai lembur setiap hari, namun target tetap tidak tercapai. Ini kesalahan bukan sepenuhnya di saya Pak, kesalahan perusahaan ini lah yang merekrut staf-staf saya yang tidak bisa bekerja"

Direktur: "Baiklah kalau begitu..... mulai besok kamu tidak usah bekerja, kamu saya pecat!"

Manajer: "Loh... kenapa begitu pak, salah saya apa?"

Direktur: "Seperti yang anda katakan sebelumnya, kesalahan perusahaan ini adalah merekrut orang-orang yang tidak bisa bekerja. Dan ternyata kita salah merekrut anda!, anda sebagai Manajer bertugas untuk MENGEMBANGKAN orang-orang yang ada di perusahaan ini, agar target kinerja bisa tercapai"

Dari kisah di atas, apakah anda mau berubah pikiran, bahwa merekrut orang lebih penting dari mengembangkan orang?

Kebanyakan orang HR  berpikir bahwa mengembangkan orang lebih penting daripada merekrut dan memilih orang. Semakin orang bertambah usia, maka karakter orang akan semakin kuat dan cenderung sulit untuk berubah. Artinya orang semakin lama semakin sulit untuk dikembangkan. Sementara anda setiap tahun harus menghabiskan uang untuk melatih mereka dan berharap mereka dapat berubah. Nyatanya.....? anda hanya bisa berharap dan berharap.....

Bayangkan saja isteri/suami anda di rumah.... seberapa % mereka berubah setelah menikah dengan anda? Sebelum menikah, anda berpikir untuk menerima kekurangan pasangan anda dan berharap setelah menikah, sedikit demi sedikit mereka bisa berubah.

Bayangkan saja Nabi Muhammad SAW, beliau memperoleh kenabian di usia 40, dan meninggal pada usia 63. Kurang lebih 23 tahun beliau menyebarkan Islam di Makkah setelah kenabiannya, namun beliau terpaksa harus hijrah ke Madinnah karena sulit mengubah orang-orang Makkah yang berniat membunuhnya. Orang besar seperti Nabi Muhammad SAW saja perlu waktu lama untuk bisa merubah orang, apalagi kita manusia biasa.

Jika anda mempunyai pilihan, mengapa tidak sebaiknya anda meluangkan waktu dan berinvestasi dalam merekrut/memilih orang-orang yang tepat di perusahaan anda. CEO pada perusahaan-perusahaan besar yang tergolong perusahaan Good to Great (silahkan baca buku Good to Great, penulis: Jim Collins), mereka menghabiskan sebagian waktunya untuk mengeloa HR.

Semoga tulisan ini bisa menginspirasi anda untuk lebih bijaksana dalam menentukan pilihan

Penulis: Ridho Hutomo

Best Company in Performance or Best Company to Work?

Jika seorang pekerja diharuskan memilih diantara 2 pilihan, bekerja di perusahaan berkinerja terbaik atau bekerja di perusahaan yang menyenangkan, mana yang akan dipilih?

Kebanyakan Generasi Y saat ini berorientasi pada hasil yang cepat, yaitu cepat dapat gaji besar, cepat dapat jabatan, cepat dapat promosi, dan segala sesuatu lainnya , yang penting cepat. Tak heran pula jika Generasi Y saat ini cenderung lebih cepat stress dan cepat sakit.

Banyak dijumpai pada saat rekrutmen tenaga kerja, para Generasi Y memiliki penyakit kanker,gula, kolesterol di atas ambang normal, hepatitis, dll, sementara para eksekutif muda yang telah bekerja 5 – 10 tahun sudah terkena stroke.

Tak heran apabila perusahaan-perusahaan besar saat ini banyak yang menjalankan program work-life balance.

Berdasarkan data Fortune 500 pada tahun 2013, Wal-Mart Store menempati ranking 1 dengan revenue $b 469,2 dan profit $mm 16.999. Namun nyatanya, perusahaan yang menjadi tempat incaran para pencari kerja adalah  Google yang ada pada ranking 55 dengan revenue $b 52,2 dan profit $mm 10.737. (http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune500/index.html)

Meski Google kalah ranking, namun perusahaan ini menjadi perusahaan terbaik di dunia untuk bekerja selama 4 tahun. Perusahaan ini menawarkan kenyamanan kerja bagi pekerja-nya. Dari sisi perusahaan mendapatkan produktivitas dan peningkatan kinerja, sementara pekerja mendapatkan kehidupan yang sehat dan bahagia. Sebuah win-win solution.

Jika pekerja boleh memilih, tentunya semua orang menginginkan mendapatkan yang terbaik, yaitu bekerja di Best Company in Performance dan Best Company to Work. Namun apabila harus memilih salah satu, tentunya perlu dipikirkan secara bijaksana mana yang paling sesuai dengan keinginan masing-masing individu.

“Tidak pernah ada pilihan yang salah, yang salah adalah menyesali pilihan yang telah diambil”

Pekerja di perusahaan Jepang kebanyakan mungkin tidak punya waktu yang cukup untuk keluarga, karena harus sering lembur (overtime). Namun bisa jadi kebahagiaan bagi mereka adalah mengabdi dan bekerja keras bagi perusahaannya. Bahkan tak heran, banyak orang Jepang malu untuk pulang kantor apabila matahari belum terbenam. Jika dibandingkan tingkat turn over pekerja di Jepang dan Amerika, maka tingkat turn over di Jepang jauh lebih rendah.

Semoga tulisan ini menginspirasi Generasi Y untuk lebih bijaksana dalam menentukan pilihan

Penulis: Ridho Hutomo

Why Generation Y Yuppies Are Unhappy

Say hi to Lucy.

Lucy is part of Generation Y, the generation born between the late 1970s and the mid 1990s. She's also part of a yuppie culture that makes up a large portion of Gen Y.

I have a term for yuppies in the Gen Y age group -- I call them Gen Y Protagonists & Special Yuppies, or GYPSYs. A GYPSY is a unique brand of yuppie, one who thinks they are the main character of a very special story.

So Lucy's enjoying her GYPSY life, and she's very pleased to be Lucy. Only issue is this one thing:

Lucy's kind of unhappy.

To get to the bottom of why, we need to define what makes someone happy or unhappy in the first place. It comes down to a simple formula:

It's pretty straightforward -- when the reality of someone's life is better than they had expected, they're happy. When reality turns out to be worse than the expectations, they're unhappy.

To provide some context, let's start by bringing Lucy's parents into the discussion:

Lucy's parents were born in the '50s -- they're Baby Boomers. They were raised by Lucy's grandparents, members of the G.I. Generation, or "the Greatest Generation," who grew up during the Great Depression and fought in World War II, and were most definitely not GYPSYs.

Lucy's Depression Era grandparents were obsessed with economic security and raised her parents to build practical, secure careers. They wanted her parents' careers to have greener grass than their own, and Lucy's parents were brought up to envision a prosperous and stable career for themselves. Something like this:

They were taught that there was nothing stopping them from getting to that lush, green lawn of a career, but that they'd need to put in years of hard work to make it happen.

After graduating from being insufferable hippies, Lucy's parents embarked on their careers. As the '70s, '80s, and '90s rolled along, the world entered a time of unprecedented economic prosperity. Lucy's parents did even better than they expected to. This left them feeling gratified and optimistic.

With a smoother, more positive life experience than that of their own parents, Lucy's parents raised Lucy with a sense of optimism and unbounded possibility. And they weren't alone. Baby Boomers all around the country and world told their Gen Y kids that they could be whatever they wanted to be, instilling the special protagonist identity deep within their psyches.

This left GYPSYs feeling tremendously hopeful about their careers, to the point where their parents' goals of a green lawn of secure prosperity didn't really do it for them. A GYPSY-worthy lawn has flowers.

This leads to our first fact about GYPSYs:

GYPSYs Are Wildly Ambitious

The GYPSY needs a lot more from a career than a nice green lawn of prosperity and security. The fact is, a green lawn isn't quite exceptional or unique enough for a GYPSY. Where the Baby Boomers wanted to live The American Dream, GYPSYs want to live Their Own Personal Dream.

Cal Newport points out that "follow your passion" is a catchphrase that has only gotten going in the last 20 years, according to Google's Ngram viewer, a tool that shows how prominently a given phrase appears in English print over any period of time. The same Ngram viewer shows that the phrase "a secure career" has gone out of style, just as the phrase "a fulfilling career" has gotten hot.

To be clear, GYPSYs want economic prosperity just like their parents did -- they just also want to be fulfilled by their career in a way their parents didn't think about as much.

But something else is happening too. While the career goals of Gen Y as a whole have become much more particular and ambitious, Lucy has been given a second message throughout her childhood as well:

This would probably be a good time to bring in our second fact about GYPSYs:

GYPSYs Are Delusional

"Sure," Lucy has been taught, "everyone will go and get themselves some fulfilling career, but I am unusually wonderful and as such, my career and life path will stand out amongst the crowd." So on top of the generation as a whole having the bold goal of a flowery career lawn, each individual GYPSY thinks that he or she is destined for something even better --

A shiny unicorn on top of the flowery lawn. 

So why is this delusional? Because this is what all GYPSYs think, which defies the definition of special:

spe-cial | 'speSHel |
adjective
better, greater, or otherwise different from what is usual.

According to this definition, most people are not special -- otherwise "special" wouldn't mean anything.

Even right now, the GYPSYs reading this are thinking, "Good point... but I actually am one of the few special ones" -- and this is the problem.

A second GYPSY delusion comes into play once the GYPSY enters the job market. While Lucy's parents' expectation was that many years of hard work would eventually lead to a great career, Lucy considers a great career an obvious given for someone as exceptional as she, and for her it's just a matter of time and choosing which way to go. Her pre-workforce expectations look something like this:

Unfortunately, the funny thing about the world is that it turns out to not be that easy of a place, and the weird thing about careers is that they're actually quite hard. Great careers take years of blood, sweat and tears to build -- even the ones with no flowers or unicorns on them -- and even the most successful people are rarely doing anything that great in their early or mid-20s.

But GYPSYs aren't about to just accept that.

Paul Harvey, a University of New Hampshire professor and GYPSY expert, has researched this, finding that Gen Y has "unrealistic expectations and a strong resistance toward accepting negative feedback," and "an inflated view of oneself." He says that "a great source of frustration for people with a strong sense of entitlement is unmet expectations. They often feel entitled to a level of respect and rewards that aren't in line with their actual ability and effort levels, and so they might not get the level of respect and rewards they are expecting."

For those hiring members of Gen Y, Harvey suggests asking the interview question, "Do you feel you are generally superior to your coworkers/classmates/etc., and if so, why?" He says that "if the candidate answers yes to the first part but struggles with the 'why,' there may be an entitlement issue. This is because entitlement perceptions are often based on an unfounded sense of superiority and deservingness. They've been led to believe, perhaps through overzealous self-esteem building exercises in their youth, that they are somehow special but often lack any real justification for this belief."

And since the real world has the nerve to consider merit a factor, a few years out of college Lucy finds herself here:

Lucy's extreme ambition, coupled with the arrogance that comes along with being a bit deluded about one's own self-worth, has left her with huge expectations for even the early years out of college. And her reality pales in comparison to those expectations, leaving her "reality - expectations" happy score coming out at a negative.

And it gets even worse. On top of all this, GYPSYs have an extra problem that applies to their whole generation:

GYPSYs Are Taunted

Sure, some people from Lucy's parents' high school or college classes ended up more successful than her parents did. And while they may have heard about some of it from time to time through the grapevine, for the most part they didn't really know what was going on in too many other peoples' careers.

Lucy, on the other hand, finds herself constantly taunted by a modern phenomenon:Facebook Image Crafting.

Social media creates a world for Lucy where A) what everyone else is doing is very out in the open, B) most people present an inflated version of their own existence, and C) the people who chime in the most about their careers are usually those whose careers (or relationships) are going the best, while struggling people tend not to broadcast their situation. This leaves Lucy feeling, incorrectly, like everyone else is doing really well, only adding to her misery:

So that's why Lucy is unhappy, or at the least, feeling a bit frustrated and inadequate. In fact, she's probably started off her career perfectly well, but to her, it feels very disappointing.

Here's my advice for Lucy:

1) Stay wildly ambitious. The current world is bubbling with opportunity for an ambitious person to find flowery, fulfilling success. The specific direction may be unclear, but it'll work itself out -- just dive in somewhere.

2) Stop thinking that you're special. The fact is, right now, you're not special. You're another completely inexperienced young person who doesn't have all that much to offer yet. You can become special by working really hard for a long time.

3) Ignore everyone else. Other people's grass seeming greener is no new concept, but in today's image crafting world, other people's grass looks like a glorious meadow. The truth is that everyone else is just as indecisive, self-doubting, and frustrated as you are, and if you just do your thing, you'll never have any reason to envy others.

Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/wait-but-why/generation-y-unhappy_b_3930620.html

Top 10 Human Resource Management Challenges

Today's Top 10 Human Resource Management Challenges

Due to the fluctuating economy as well as local and global advancements, there are many changes occurring rapidly that affect HR in a wide range of issues. In the Survey of Global HR Challenges: Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow, conducted by PricewaterhouseCoopers on behalf of the World Federation of Personnel Management Associations (WFPMA), several challenges for human resource management were revealed. This survey, which concluded that "despite national and regional differences, there was remarkable unanimity," disclosed the following top 10 human resource management challenges:

Challenges	% of Companies
1. Change management	48%
2. Leadership development	35%
3. HR effectiveness measurement	27%
4. Organizational effectiveness	25%
5. Compensation	24%
6. Staffing: Recruitment and availability of skilled local labor	24%
7. Succession planning	20%
8. Learning and development	19%
9. Staffing: Retention	16%
10. Benefits costs: Health & welfare	13%

Source: http://www.villanovau.com/human-resource-management-challenges/