Interview a Manager - Coursework Example

He has a degree in economics. He followed it up with a Masters in Business Administration from Harvard Business School. 1. What is the biggest challenge in recruitment and what is your role in the process? How would you modify that role if you could? A: The selection of a candidate with a good blend of technical and interpersonal skills is the biggest challenge. Often, we have people who are very talented but who are not great team players. My role is to facilitate processes that enable the right candidate is selected.

I do this by ensuring that the interviewing panel always has people from different functions such as Production, sales, Human Resource etc. Given a chance, I would ask for a third party Human Resource agency to screen out candidates who do not fit into a certain aptitude and attitude profile. This would considerably reduce the load on us. Besides, psychometric and aptitude testing services have matured over the years and their success rates are consistently good. 2. Do you consciously think about how you motivate your employees?

What role does positive and negative reinforcement have in your attempts to motivate employees? A: Well, that is a challenge that I face every day. I take care to see that new employees are often taken through an elaborate induction process so that they feel part of the community. For existing employees, I plan and execute specific workshops that blend fun and learning. Additionally, we encourage weekend parties where there is interaction with a larger group of people. Positive reinforcement works better.

When there are rewards that accompany good performances, employees are motivated to work better. This can be in the way of non-monetary benefits too. Sanctions and reprimands, punitive measures turn out to be counter-productive at times. We notice a negative reaction to such measures. Throughout our company, we make it a point to emphasize positive reinforcement methods as a way to motivate people. 3. How do you encourage employees to accept and embrace changes in the work environment such as new software, policies, or procedures?

A: We make it a point to keep job rotation options open. Veterans in sales have taken up roles in finance and vice-versa. Agreed, such people are few in number, yet we ensure that such options are open. They help people embrace change quickly. Whenever we have ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) upgrades or other such organization wide developments, we train all the employees through a structured program. Earlier, in the course of an acquisition, the radical change caused a lot of stress. We managed it with heightened levels of re-orientation, induction and familiarization programs.

By the end of the actual acquisition process, employees had oriented themselves fully to the new management and policies. 4. Does your organization provide any on-going professional development activities for managers such as financial support for conferences or seminars, tuition-reimbursement, etc? How important is that in your own career development? What would you like your company to offer that it currently does not? A: Yes, our organization stresses the need for continuous knowledge development.

As part of this policy, we have structured programs in place. We partially finance employees who undertake higher education degrees in business management when they are conducted