Relocation; Career Lifeline or Suicide?

Getting out of your comfort zone. Fear of unknown. Starting all over again. Leaving everything behind. It's not as it looks like. Costly and lonely. Difficult to adapt! These are all the things people think and say whenever faced with the question of relocation.

It's not all that bad. In fact, it's not bad at all! It's exhilarating! 

This is the third time I have temporarily relocated to a whole new city (country in fact!), thousands of miles away from my last comfort zone. It's the best thing that's ever happened to me!

New city is a new challenge, a new opportunity. People call it struggle, but I call it experience! 'Moving' gives you another shot at life. A new city is a new you, a place where most don't know you and you can be whatever you want! It's a brand new start to your new life and you got two options. First, to accept it as a struggle, and work hard to make your impact while holding on to your roots and adjusting your new world to suit yourself. This approach is a more lonely, but widely used approach where people look back at everything to compare and find positives/negatives of which place is better.

The second approach, however takes a little lighter stance to the situation, where new city is full of fun, people and opportunities waiting to be tapped. Instead of adapting the city to yourself, you adapt yourself to the city, its culture and customs! Instead of appreciating your past and trying to find opportunities (or people) to connect with your past, you try to filter them out to find the locals who've lived in the area all their lives, to learn from them and get involve in what they're doing.

The exact same approaches can be used with your career! You can either continue doing what you were, and find similar like-minded people to work with, because that's what you've been good at and that's your comfort zone. Or, you can enjoy a brand new start to your new life with something you always wanted to do and couldn't, or something which suits best to the environment you're thriving in! Always be open to new ideas, meet new people everyday and observe what's best for the business within that local environment.

Most importantly, a new location gives you another opportunity to avoid the mistakes you did in the past, emulate the successes of people you've been inspired by in your past, in a new setting and give a great first impression to the stakeholders in your new life! 

This is +Nauman Wasif, tell me what you think!

Recruitment & Selection: East vs West

After 5 years of work experience, with 15 different job roles in around 10 different organisations, and 100s of job applications/interviews in the West, here I am in a completely different world of corporate practices (or in some cases, malpractices) in the ever colorful East. In my opinion, it's quite interesting how HR practices vary from region to region, some of which I would like to document here.

1) Job Listings;

Age Discrimination requiring Payment upon Application

Moving from West, where adverts are role specific free of any kind of gender, sex, age, race discrimination, it's an entirely different scenario in the East.

Here in South Asia, the listing is majorly person specific, and almost all vacancies would list at least some sort of a discriminating criteria. Gender and age discrimination is widely found, however in some instances might only encourage member of a certain religion or resident of a certain area to apply for a particular job.

2) Job Applications;

Job listings in the West, despite being more fairer in defining candidate eligibility, then creates the biggest barrier when applying for that role, with mostly long winded application forms, almost demanding life long history of work experiences and skills, where every form is different! This creates unnecessary inertia for candidates and in some instances almost puts them off from applying for the advertised position. Some might argue, after such an investigation, employers can probably guess your age, gender, race etc by evaluation of your application form.

However, here in the East, most organisations will only demand your CV/Resume to be able to process your job application, and the first time where you'll fill a form, will be at the first interview. Websites and platforms such as www.rozee.pk, are majorly used to source candidates based on a unique application form, by both large and medium enterprises, streamlining the selection process.

3) Interviews;

While the East offers a fast-track to the interviews due to quicker application form processing, it can take months to get through the interviews (and a massive fuel bill due to number of visits). Almost everyone with a degree (minimum Masters) will get called for the first interview where you'll be asked to fill an appalling application form which will cover your whole life history. 

It's not just a typical knowledge and skills evaluation form, but in this form, the mandatory fields will include a candidate's age, gender, religion, sect, father's name, father's occupation, number of siblings, job occupations of siblings and other personal information on which the individual has no control over, and which in no way influences the ability of a candidate to perform in the workplace. 

After this beautifully crafted personal investigation form, you get to meet someone you think is the HR manager, department head or CEO, however you usually find out later that it could be one of the interns or company secretary taking your first interview. Then you get forwarded to HR executive, who, in case of approval/disapproval, forwards you to the HR Manager, who then forwards you to Department Head, then to the CEO (regardless of approval or disapproval as no one within that chain has any authority to hire or fire, apart from the CEO). Before every meeting there'll be a delay correspondent to the position of the interviewer, starting from 10 minute delay on first interview to 45 minute delay on final interview with the owner/CEO.

Whereas, in my experience of the West, when you're called for an interview, it's mostly a make or break moment. It's usually straight to the point, where the telephone operator will usually advise the candidate beforehand on the format, structure and criteria of the interview and you'll be met and navigated into the organisation with the help of an employee on your first visit. The interview may include some out-of-the-norm activities, role plays, psychometric tests and checklists, where the candidate might feel overwhelmed and uncomfortable through the process, but it mostly would be strategically linked to the kind of work you'll be doing or the environment you'll be operating in.

4) Feedback/Decision;

Speaking from personal experience, the better employers in the West will usually give you a call back to give feedback on the interview and gently explain why the job will be/will not be offered, however there can be considerable delay in getting back due to administrative barriers or until the successful candidate has accepted the offer.

However, there's no such thing as feedback in the East, and certainly not when the candidate is unsuccessful. Even when the candidate is successful, the HR executive will wait until the candidate calls to inquire about its application status, and then the candidate will be called for a final 'interview' to give details on the offer.

5) The Offer; 

Job Advertising in the UK

Now, in the West, when an opening is advertised, it'll usually display the kind of compensation a candidate can expect, displaying figures within a shorter range with reasonable levels and working hours. When the job is offered, the compensation is mostly firm and not negotiable so it's 'take it or leave it'.

In the East, this is a more complex stage of recruitment and selection, especially when it's a career job. The advert will show salary ranges from ranges going lower than minimum wage to peak ranges, where sky is the limit, in order to attract everyone to apply. After various interviews, trials and meetings, the offer is usually presented by the top person in the hierarchy, which will usually be one of the most ridiculous you'll ever hear! (sorry, I've not had a decent offer yet!)

The offer will be followed by various examples about people working in the company, company background, the riches of the owner, training opportunities, the foreign presence with chance to travel, personal acts of generosity and working environment, to encourage the candidate to accept the offer. Even then if the candidate think it's too low, the focus will shift on the individual with scrutiny over candidate's lack of past experience, incompatibility of it's educational background, lack of proper skills, unsuitability to deliver within the current areas of expertise etc, which would usually end with a challenge for the candidate to find an employee within the organisation who's not happy or find a better company who'd pay better!

6) Working Conditions;

In the West, the hours of work, holidays and performance standards will be defined on the contract which you'll be expected to work and manage flexibly working accordingly. However, in the East, there's no such thing as fixed working hours and you'll be explicitly told that if you can't work overtime and on Saturdays (without a premium), you're no good for the organisation. Working hard has a whole new meaning, which actually means working 14 hours a day and 6 days a week without any defined criteria for growth, premiums or performance related benefits.

Working environment however, will be more social and informal within Eastern settings with people taking a calmer approach towards work, more socially integrated with activities like meal shares in lunch hour and cricket matches on weekends among the colleagues, like a big family. Contrary, in the Western settings, work is done more seriously in a fast pace with high emphasis on quality and performance.

Conclusion

What I have presented above may just be my personal experience, and things might be different out there, however it largely depends on the type of industry you're operating in and the level of roles a candidate is seeking. Personnel function is largely handled by people who're dealing with people to add value to a business, and with various different types of people from different backgrounds,cultures and education levels around the World, Human Resource is one area of business which is most influenced from region to region. 

You can guess a lot about the HR practices of a place by the people operating it!

Stop Discrimination. Promote Equality!


This is +Nauman Wasif, tell me what you think!

Need business advise? Visit www.nwhworldwide.com and get in touch!

5 Reasons why retail jobs are not all that bad

Part time retail jobs, no doubt, can be one of the most hectic and regrettable jobs anywhere in the world. But after spending my last 4 years under the green neon lights of one of the largest retail stores in the UK, I've discovered it's not all that bad.

1. The Experience;

While all the other organisations are juggling between skills and experience of applicants, retailers hire the character. A chance is given to everyone who is trainable, and is retained as long as the work ethic is consistently positive.

I was given the opportunity, and trained until I was absolutely confident with people. Then I was multi-skilled and trained on other functions of the business. And then, when they saw I still have a life, they trained me on other departments totally unrelated to my contract and given further responsibilities and expectations. The customer, management and colleague interaction offers a great learning experience of the dynamics of the work force.

2. The Social Circus;

While the interactions provide a learning experience, it also creates an environment of patience, tolerance and understanding of human kind, because on a customer facing role, you pretty much get to see every type of human living out there. Not to mention the friendships and relationships you make within your workplace, it's an ideal place for social enthusiasts.

When it comes to events or celebrations, the retailers are probably one of the most enthusiastic businesses, may it be football world cup, valentines day or diwali. The differences and diversities are ignored when the fish is half price on Good Friday!

3. Flexibility and Job Security;

While being one of the most ruthless and cruel organisers of 'human capital', they absolutely can't afford to let an efficient member of staff leave, that's why they are known to offer great flexibility to not too hard working individuals, mainly students. 

The flexibility and job security offered ensured that I don't run away else where, even when I had two other jobs in the working week in addition to university commitments. Maybe I was that good that they didn't let me go, but I think they must have forgot to tell me that!

4. Growth opportunities;

Despite the numerous number of people complaining about lack of opportunities within retail, the born leaders and those with extraordinary people skills always manage to go up the hierarchy by hook or crook. There's opportunity to shine for those who are gifted and not afraid, because it's not particularly an easy environment to grow. 

The current managers have been through the system, the journey makes them hard, and they make sure their successors don't have an easy ride too, therefore only the tough ones are able to succeed. Saying that, it doesn't always appear to be one desirable place where one would like to see itself, or maybe that's what they try to show.

5.  Peace of mind;

The body aches, but once the card is swiped out, everything is history. You don't ever carry any work with you home, apart from the horrible feeling of being back in the day after, and your rate of pay is not dependent on any pointless target, you always get paid for the work you do! 

I've worked under various different managers, and I think leadership is one of the biggest factors which influence worker satisfaction, loyalty and performance. I may have been really lucky to experience the points mentioned above, but I can guarantee if I was to debate this sensitive topic myself, I can write a book!

This is +Nauman Wasif, tell me what you think...

7 Tactics to Outsmart the Competition

This article is greatly influenced by Richard D'Aveni's 7S framework where he proposes the tactics for firms to gain temporary advantages in the marketplace to stay ahead of the competition, highlighting the velocity of competitiveness and change experienced by businesses in today's day and age.

As this blog takes inspiration from management theories and business practices to suggest ways to develop oneself personally, the approaches suggested by D'Aveni (in brackets) will be reflected here as personal traits to gain a competitive advantage to beat the competition.

1. Connections (Stakeholder Satisfaction)

While keeping stakeholders satisfied is an ultimate goal for any business, maintaining a healthy relationship with your connections and adding value to it by networking further should the goal for every person out there competing to achieve growth. This will result in great opportunities for personal and professional growth, giving you a head-start in any field, as businesses and projects are run by people with whom you would ideally want to connect with!

2. Reputation (Strategic Soothsaying)

It's important to build a strong reputation and be popular for what you do best, by communicating your personal brand to the targeted audience while ensuring the positive word about your performance is fluid enough to reach potential clients. Optimize what you say!

3. Action (Speed)

Personal flexibility and adaptability to develop new skills, outside your comfort zone, with the urgency of taking action can boost personal confidence and capability to outsmart the competition. There might be failures, but if you fail fast enough, you'll succeed quick as well. Just do it!

4. Lead (Surprise)

Don't be scared to take up an approach out of the norm, while 'stability' may appear to be a desired state, it's counter-productive in competitive environments. Therefore, instead of following the crowd, take a direction where you're able to lead from the front. Embrace instability and make the most of it!

5. Innovate (Shifting the rules)

This approach is by far the most effective, where innovation can change the way things are done within your field, leaving the competition confused. Always find newer and better ways of doing things and create disruption to influence a response from the competitor!

6. Broadcast (Signalling) 

You may have the best qualifications and extensive experiences in your chosen field, but if it's not being promoted within your competitive circle, you're losing out on potential opportunities by not maximizing your competitive advantage. Be bold and be seen!

7. Multi-skilling (Simultaneous and sequential strategic thrusts)

Planning to sustain your competitive advantage for a longer term would need strategic thinking into diversifying your skills and competencies in more than one area. Not only will it enable you to generate a secondary income stream and stay one step ahead of the competition, but it'll also provide a contingency plan and position you to surprise the competitors.

These initiatives are assumed to provide only temporary unsustainable competitive advantages due to competitor's habit of catching up quickly with best practice in today's hyper competitive markets. However a series of temporary competitive advantages will provide momentum to sustain a competitive edge and enable you to be the smartest person in the room.

This is +Nauman Wasif ... Tell me what you think!