Project 100 Series is a personal project to challenge myself creatively to turn my thoughts on the working world, leadership, HR, employer branding and employee experience, into visual designs, aiming to create my own 100 illustrations over the next 1 year. Follow me on Linkedin, Instagram or even on my website, and keep me encouraged to continue creating these designs, until I reach design #100.

Current status: 20 / 100  (9 Nov 23)

All HR functions can be grouped into 5 core HR areas. The exposure, experience and mastery that you have within these 5 core HR areas will then identify you as a Generalist, Specialist or an HR “Unicorn" Master. A Specialist will be a master within any one of the 5 core areas, with exposure/proficiency within the remaining 4 areas. HR “Unicorns" are hard to find. Thats why smaller HR teams have a few Generalists to cater for all needs, while bigger HR teams are built around a group of Specialists, each with mastery within their own areas, to complement each other.

HR teams need to evolve quickly to look at HR data to gain more Foresight, to be able to “see" whats going to happen ahead. To get the most value from the huge volumes of HR data collected every day, momentum is building for HR teams to be more data driven and to be able to perform Real Time Analytics. The faster data is analyzed, the fast decisions can be made, else opportunities will be lost. At the speed things are changing, with the advancements in AI and Machine Learning (ML), its a matter of time before every organisation will be able predict employee behavior before it even happens.

The talent war is real and a company employer brand plays a crucial role in attracting the right talents to an organisation. The reality today is that candidates see many different company brands in the crowded job market that they want to work. It is up to the company to constantly take a step back and rethink strategy to make their own employer brand attractive enough to continuously attract candidates!

The future of HR is data and analytics. That’s why every HR department should have an HR Data Warehouse at the center of everything that it does. Transform and load all data from different HR databases/tools into one unified HR data warehouse and watch the “magic" happen. Here are some possibilities of using HR predictive capabilities and prescriptive analytics.

How do you achieve an ideal performance? Your Ideal Performance Zone is between your Comfort Zone and Stretch Zone. With the right amount of pressure, you can and will achieve this. However, too much pressure may cause you to go into the Strain mode and worse, eventually into a Burnout state. On the flip side, too little pressure, will make you become bored very easily.

What do you do if you are at a career crossroads? Many of us have gone through this. Most important is to take a step back and think impactful thoughts.Here are 6 impactful thoughts that could be useful for you. It doesn’t matter which road you take, don’t worry about what others are saying, follow your gut and take action!

Here’s a view on 6 effective ways to manage talents in today’s world. I believe the above 6 are the core to have in today’s environment.

Mental Wellbeing is an important element for overall employee wellness. In line with the World Mental Health Day yesterday (10 Oct), here are 7 steps to Mental Wellbeing that is needed for the workplace. Its okay not to be okay. A healthy mind leads to greater things.

Change management in HR is one of the toughest areas to implement. This is because the implementation in reality, almost always never happens as per the plan or how we imagined it to be. Be ready to keep on iterating and reiterating the plan, which makes the project success even more sweeter and satisfying when it is achieved after all the challenges, roadblocks, twists and turns are encountered and dealt with successfully.

The pandemic has really changed perceptions on mental wellbeing. This is especially true on the ridiculous amount of time spent commuting pre-pandemic vs the realisation that this time could be used for more positive experiences. A hybrid employee experience is the way forward and the future of work.

Applying for a job can be one of the hardest things to do, which requires lots of patience, time and effort. However, the reality I have seen is very different from that. The visualization below shows how I have noticed most candidates typically spend their effort vs. time when applying for jobs. They will normally spend good effort in the beginning but leave the application for a while before rushing at the very last minute to submit the application, much later after a job has been advertised. By that time, majority of candidates would have lost out on precious prep time and ability to be seen by recruiters faster than other candidates.

You may or may not have heard the saying “the longer you stay in a role, the more you become like furniture". I have always found this saying to be hilarious yet very true. The longer you stay in a role or a company, the harder it will be for you to get out of your comfort zone and try new things. This ultimately can affect your employee experience. Here’s my visual interpretation of that saying, imagining the career mobility to be interpreted by different “furniture" mobility. What type of “office furniture" are you? Are you on your way to be built-in cabinets?

Most view Employee Experience and Employee Engagement as the same thing but in reality it is not. I see it as two separate things that are connected. Whatever Employee Experience throughout the employee journey are inputs that attract and reflects the type of Employee Engagement output employees will feel. Negative Employee Experiences will lead to lower Engagement scores and vice versa.

Going back to the office allows employees to spend more time with colleagues, especially the lunch experience of going out together. However, there is one thing that has not changed from this employee experience, pre or post pandemic. Every time there is an informal lunch outing, its funny how quite a bit of time is always spent on one thing. And after all that time spent deciding, almost always you end up at the same place!

The 4 stages of Product Life Cycle are Introduction, Growth, Maturity and Decline. The same product analogy, applied to employee life cycles, with the 4 equivalent stages of the Employee Life Cycle being Onboarding, Growth & Development, Experienced Skills and Declining & Obsolete Skills. Difference is, employees can be reskilled!

The reality about online learning is that, we spend more time searching and thinking about taking up an online course vs. actually spending time going through the course.

When we want to share on social media, we only share about the good things. But when we want to share feedback to someone, we only share bad things.

When we interview candidates, we see achievements on a resume. But when the candidate joins as an employee, we get to know the real employee through his or her purpose, motivation, interests, happiness and even sense of belonging.

An employee’s journey at the workplace to have an analogy similar to stock price movements, filled with ups and downs everyday. 

To achieve the best we can, improving Customer Experience (CX) should be coupled with improved Employee Experience (EX) and amazing User Experience (UX). 

© Copyright Mithi Maniam 2023