Brewing productivity potions

Try asking employees in your organisation about their favourite place at work. You'll see a disproportionately large number of hands being raised for "around the coffee machine".

Even those who stay glued to their workstations all day needn't necessarily be working like beavers. In these wired days, online games and chatting takes up a significant part of the workday.

So how does an organisation ensure its people work when they are supposed to, without acquiring a reputation for slave driving? Try this one for size: by actually encouraging them to work less. Lights at the offices of the Bharti Group are switched off at the official closing time on at least two days a week.

Which effectively ensures that "" at least for those two days "" the telecom major's 9,400 employees don't waste their working hours, hoping to catch up later.

Bharti's HR practices also encourage interaction between families "" especially parents "" of employees and their colleagues and superiors. While that fosters employee-organisation bonding, it's also got a perhaps-unplanned advantage: if you don't pull your weight, there's always a chance that someone will tell your mom!

Then there are all those extended lunch breaks. Many organisations have found a simple way around that problem, at least "" by setting up cafeteria inside the offices. "That ensures people spend just 20 minutes eating in office, instead of spending an hour outside, eating lunch," points out Soumen Basu, executive chairman of HR consultancy Manpower.

All right, you've managed to get them to their workstations, but how do you ensure employees work effectively? By conducting dry runs, perhaps. At IDBI Bank, new recruits are made to work for the first 10 days at a dummy branch.

They are then trained in select job functions and how to react in conflict situations. It's also the ideal time for HR to note where the employee's main interests lie. Which paves the way for future job allocations.

If in spite of this, an employee is performing at less than full strength, IDBI begins with counselling "" usually conducted by the employee's immediate superior. "Ninety nine per cent get the message and get to work," says Rajan Ghotgalkar, corporate head, retail banking and branch operations, IDBI Bank. The hard-to-convince 1 per cent is shown the door.

But it isn't always that simple. After a point, almost all routine jobs become boring. That's why many organisations outsource their standard work, to ensure productivity is maintained, points out Basu. That probably explains the rise of BPOs. Now if HR departments could just find a way to outsource that coffee break as well.