I keep bumping into people who are completely uncool. I swear there are some who have not realized that our function is not called Human Resources anymore. We are about Talent Management. You do not hire fellows anymore. And you get a minus 5 if you think that it is the folks in Staffing or Recruitment that give you jobs. That department is now called Talent Acquisition.

My friend Prof Madhukar Shukla says that the term “Human Resources” tends to dehumanize people and views the employees as one of the factors of production at par with land, capital or enterprise. I explained to him that for a while the trendy things was to refer to good ol’ employees as Human Capital or Intellectual Capital. That must have made communication difficult. Imagine someone saying, “I will join you for lunch at the Human Capital’s Cafeteria”. Just now as we speak the new term of endearment at the workplace is “Talent”. Even those employees who can best be described as possessing only enthusiasm unfettered by talent are also now walking in the workplace with a swagger. Everyone is behaving like the little monarch who needs constant attention and fussing only so that they stay on your payroll and do not walk away for a 40% pay hike. Now that there are no more employees left in the workplace, just raw “talent”, the rules of the game are changing.

Talent is defined as an “endowment or ability of a superior quality”. It is an innate ability to accomplish stuff that is beyond the ken of an average person. The person in charge of Talent Acquisition is impacting your business way beyond what you realize. Hire the wrong people and that not only impacts morale, but also impacts your firm’s competitive edge. Hence the task of the interviewer is to spot such talent and lasso them in to the organization. This is not a job for the faint hearted. When a sports coach goes from village to village to spot children play street football, they see a large range of players and then spot that exceptional person who goes on to become the next God of Soccer. You need to have that soccer coach in your organization who can sift through a million resumes and sit through numerous interview meetings until they find the person who has that ability of a superior quality.

This is a vital job. So do not leave it to an ape who hires your next CFO by asking deep probing and dumb questions like, “If you were an animal which one would you be?” These questions may be cute conversation starters if you are trying to make a quick impression at the office party, but do not use it for choosing talent. Make sure that the person entrusted to spot talent is trained to look for gems amidst millions of badly written resumes. Talent Spotter has to be able to look for the right fit without getting distracted by glib talk. So before you look for more employees … er… talent to hire, make sure you have the right person in charge of Talent Acquisition.

See you for coffee at the Talents’ Cafeteria of our office.

There is no time to waste. So we have added one more TLA (Three Letter Acronym) to our vocabulary. We are finding ways of achieving WLB (Work Life Balance). So what does getting that WLB mean? Is it driven by the individual or the organization?

We all play multiple roles in our lives – that of an employee, a parent, a spouse, a friend, a sibling, a son/daughter, a neighbour etc. When any one role takes precedence and prevents tasks related to the other roles being done effectively, there is need to fine tune that balance between various roles.

As employees we all want faster promotions, more money and live the lifestyle that Bollywoood stars do. Organizations need to be more competitive and deliver more with less resources. In a growing economy like India’s salaries are going through the roof. To be ahead of the competition, we are all putting in longer hours at the workplace. How many of you still pursue the hobbies and sports that gave us so much joy and meaning when we were growing up. If we revived them today, those would rejuvenate us and prevent burnout in the workplace. WLB means being able to find the time for the roles that rejuvenate. That could mean being with family for some or listening to music or going for a trek to discover Nature.

Sometimes the problem is different. I was talking to my friend who is the head honcho of a big corporation which has put managing WLB as a key priority for every people manager. He was talking to me of his team member Soumya, who comes in late everyday because he drops his kid to day care which doesn’t open until 9:15am. Then he has to go home for lunch and inevitably gets late because of traffic snarls. In the evening Soumya leaves at 5pm sharp everyday because he has to go for his evening MBA four days a week and on Fridays he takes language classes. Soumya refuses to work weekends since the “organization is telling the employees to push for Work Life Balance.” His boss asks me, “Isn’t Work the first part of the WLB equation?” Yet this employee will compare increments and career opportunities with all others who are busting their gut trying to meet office deadlines. Isn’t that unfair, my friend asks.

When I look at my neighbour’s daughter who is all of twelve and has to come back from school and immediately rush off to take Tennis/ French/ Ballet on weekdays and has to go for Karate and Theatre classes on weekends, that makes my workday seem light in comparison. Her mother told me that during summer she will take classes on creative writing as well, since she will have more time. All this is needed to make your child an all rounder I am told. Last Sunday I saw her punching her day’s schedule into her cell phone as she walked in to the elevator. I am getting a PDA for my birthday, she told me.