Turn right at the Light: Physics, Meet Neuroscience!

Just got this amazing summery of science article from Rajini Rao. Below, it would be interesting to see physical, electrical and chemical processes combined. Rao also comments, the neurons could express light activated ion channels ("optogenetics") that can change the electrical gradient across the neuron membrane and thereby change electrical cues. I feel like bio computers aren't far. However for me I don’t still have an answer, that could we artificially produce living cells? Just a Material thought.

Whatever ..., read what they have found ?

Axonal growth directs the development of the nervous system, and the repair and regeneration of neurons. Chemical and electrical cues are known to guide the growing tips of axons, but a new study published in Nature Photonics reveals that "fluidic shear forces" can also play a role.

• Starting with neurons growing in a straight line for over an hour in culture, scientists created a shearing effect on one side by using a photon-driven micromotor. To do this, they used the birefringent property of calcite beads,held in a laser trap and subjected to circularly polarized light. The result was that the beads started to spin, either clockwise or anticlockwise. This is cool, but the really interesting finding is what happens to the growing nerve tips.

• If a particle was spinning counterclockwise to the left of the axon (fluidic shear runs in the direction of growth), the axon quickly turned left (within ~350 seconds), towards the bead. Conversely, if the particle was spinning clockwise, the axon turned away from the bead. Mirror (opposite) effects were seen with spinning particles to the right of the growing tip. Not all the neurons behaved this way…some just kept going straight, but the results were statistically significant. Variations of the experiment, including changing the orientation of the spin or placing opposite spinning particles essentially confirmed their hypothesis, that the growing tips could sense mechanical force .

• The forces were estimated to be ~0.2 pico Newtons, which is the same order of magnitude detected by the hearing cells in our inner ear.

• What are the practical uses for this light driven, non-invasive technique of guiding nerve growth? "One can envision large arrays of these devices that can direct large numbers of axons to different locations," the authors state. "This may have the potential for use in vivo to direct regenerating axons to mediate brain and spinal cord repair."

Simple fun from a simple script

Windows scripting sometimes found awful. Accidentally I found the following script. It is fun. If you run could run this You wouldn't kill the process it consumes, till you restart. Interestingly One can treat this as a kind of simple virus. However many viruses may not be having gigantic codes as we all tend to assume. They will be simple but creative like below ...

@ECHO off

:Begin

msg * Hey

msg * Are you having fun?

msg * I am!

msg * Lets have fun together!

msg * OMG you have been owned

GOTO BEGIN

Recruiting High Skilled Employees

1. Introduction

“There is something that is much scarcer, something rarer than ability. It is the ability to recognize ability.” — Robert Half

Above quotation extracted from recruitment expert Robert Half not explains only the scarcity of talents, but also describe the rarity of talent to recognize the abilities. Providing a background scheme to this analysis the report will discuss about a local software company which very recently started its operations to provide Research and Development Services for global software Giant for their data mining products.

The local organization already had over 10 years experience in the software Industry. But virtually they had no experience to R&D in data mining. However, in order to have this project, local management was too eager to take the risk. Their plan was to hire 120 new Engineers, and train them to achieve the same level of competency of the foreign client within two years. In order to facilitate the process foreign expatriates were brought in from the client organization. Organization was very success to brand their direct link to the Global giant. Compared with the industry they declared to offer best pays to the Engineers. With no delay they found very success in recruiting a talented pool of experienced qualified professionals to their work force letting them more time to train the staff. Company stayed top in the university rankings for fresh graduates.

Unfortunately the success in recruitment did not prolong. The codes were not meeting the standards of foreign client. Then they decided to train employees on code quality. However, it was less successful than expected. After two years, at a senior management meeting organization openly declared that their recruitment process is having some issues and they have not recruited the right people. Following that they brought to restructure the organization to rectify the roles. Surprisingly the core employees to the organization quit very soon damaging the whole image of organization as a R&D center. Later to attract talented employees organization had to introduce costly programs like “Referral Reward Scheme (RRS)” with 50% of 6 month salary bonus to the employee who effectively contribute to bring in a single successful candidate.

Above failure followed by a successful recruitment of scarce talents, paves the way for this report. Report’s objective is to find out how organizations could do better in hiring high skilled people and based on that final recommendations were given.

2. Methodology

Recruitment cannot be considered as a single stage purpose. According to Garry (2008) recruitment and selection process is a series of hurdles aimed at selecting best candidate for job. There he defined the following steps for success of recruitment process.

Figure 1 : Recruitment process suggested by Garry Dessler (2008)

Report uses above model to evaluate each given stage at the recruitment process of above organization. With each step the report will find out the issues to be dealt with and the important decisions to be made. There it will also look in to alternative ways and potential outcomes.

3. Analysis

3.1 Employment planning and forecasting

At this stage, report expected to discuss importance of proper job analysis while looking into planning and forecasting. At the time the organization plan to start its R&D product was at maturity stage. Therefore, most the Jobs available to R&D were hypothetically to improve existing features or fix existing bugs. Company failed to understand this. Organization wanted to hire kind of entrepreneur high skilled innovative top technical talents. Doing that organization have expected to prove their capability to recruit top talents, to the foreign client. But that improper motive should have missed the essence of importance of job analysis at the early stage of recruitment. Moving with the time along with this staff, organization sound many quality issues with their services. Later it was realized that the employees found themself not happy to the tasks they were assigned with. These set of employees had joined the organization with great expectations to do high skilled technical design oriented R&D works. But the tasks they found were much quality oriented and maintenances oriented. Contrast to Client culture, local developers thought doing quality and maintenance related works hinders their career progression and professional dignity. They may also knew that they had a good demand outside.

Employees openly complaint to the management about their intrinsic demotivation over the tasks and roles assigned. But management failed to do more as that was the nature of job that they had. This stared an informal power struggle between top developers and management where the top talents decided to leave the organization.

Above is best evident that this organization had not done a proper job analysis. It also showed their professional immaturity in recruitment for business needs.

Professor Ipek Kalemcin (2003) find following five factors must be reflected from a staffing plan. Next it will review the planning process of the orgnaization aginst these factors.

Stautus	Symbol
Favourable
Un favourable

Figure 2 : Indicators of favorability

Factors to consider at staff planning	Review
1. Projected turnover (as a result of resignations or terminations)	This was done to a certain level. But organization never expected such an imediate employee turnover.
2. Quality and skills of employees (in relation to what you see as the changing needs of your organization)	They rarely planned the need to the change of roles. Later realized the dynamic need of frequent role changes due to the nature of job offered by the client.
3. Strategic decisions to upgrade the quality of products or services or enter into new markets	At the early stages they only expected the head count. Lowest level roles were asigned according to the instant availability. Just did what the foreign client requested.
4. Technological and other changes resulting in increased productivity	Local management failed to forecast changes. Foreign client communicated the changes well in advance. But the management took more time to realize them.
5. The financial resources available to your department.	Finance wise organization have tough controls. Department managers always took recruitment decisions, and were effectively financed with their needs.

Figure 3 : Review against the factors for Planning

According to above review it is evident that organization did not had a comprehensive recruitment plan. It seems the recruitmets were decided most the time to the gut feeling despite the available HR principles and models. Organization could have done better in recruitment if they had properly planed the roles with what they critically want considering the changing needs of business.

Dessler (2008) suggest like all good plans, management must build employment plans on basic forecasts. He suggests three areas to consider for an effective employement forcast.

Areas to be considered in forcasts	Review
1. Personal needs	Personal needs were never forcasted. If they did forcast they will not hire highskilled developers for quality asuarance and maintainance tasks.
2. Forecasting the supply of outside candidates	Oragnization never did this. They believed that they can atract a good crowd if they spend enough.
3. Forecasting the supply of internal candidates.	They had an internal project which was at the decline phase. They just wanted to move them for the new project, with even assessing their capabilities. İt was after the first performance review organization realize majority of these cadres not fitting the job and they wanted to move them to other projects.

Figure 4: Review on employment Forecasts

Above review will best evident to why this organization failed to forecast. At recruitment they showed no commitment towards personal need forecasts which end up filling their positions with unfitting personal objectives. They never forecast the internal supply of candidates, but absorb internal individuals without assessing and forecasting their fit to the available roles. If organization was able to successfully forecast above, they had a good chance to avoid recruiting unfitting talents. Fitting talents to the role may have created a pleasant working environment avoiding many confusions and demotivations.

So it is proved that if used HR management principles and findings this organization could have done better in employment planning and forecasting at their recruitment process. It is also evident that recruitment of fitting talents to the fitting role is more important than recruiting top talents to every position.

3.2 Build a pool of candidates

Organization was very successful in doing that at initial stages as they declared to offer industry best salaries. They successfully brand their direct link to global giant in order to attract a good crowd. They used extensively the newspaper advertisements as well as the web for market communication. The recruitment advertisement was also effectively used as a way to communicate the existence of business. Even they made advertisements to industry magazines and journals as well as to the university notice boards.

Anyway the organization’s early success in making an effective pool of candidate through intense communication of benefits did not prolong. Later due to the drastic drop of organization reputation makes it harder to get collect some good CVs. Organization was earning a bad word of mouth from the desperate leavers. So the report realizes the need of maintaining a good employee reputation to attract a good pool of fitting skills.

3.3 Application selection

Application selection was done from the collection of CVs brought over web. Applications were reviewed manually and IT was not much used to sort them out. They had to use a simple IT based system to sort the applications so that it reduces the search efficiency. There were three HR members hired but they were not intervened to this. Team leads instantly went through applications and approve them to call for interviews. They did not go through the all applications, but selected some random samples to select the best. Many times internal employees brought new applications and management put more bias to the applications which came through known employees. However, since the selected applicants had to go through a series of selection tests and interviews, correct selection of appropriate applications supported by IT may save time to interview inappropriate employees. It must be appreciated that application selectors try to give equal priority to practical performers compared academic performances.

3.4 Selection Tests and Interviews

Once a good application found, the candidate is called for tests. If the candidate does well with the tests he will be called for interviews. That brief the Organization’s tests and interview process.

Tests were done by selecting questions from a repository. Senior engineers created the test questions and many times just copied them from internet and filled the repository. This was not a good practice as the test questions were more generic than what it actually required to the position specifically. On the other hand questions were indeed tough and were testing only the technical competences. Quality aspects of the work was least tested. Later organization noticed that there are some quality issues. It was not meeting the client quality standards. Even by providing sophisticated training programs developers found not interested in improving quality aspects of work as expected. The most reason for that could be developers hired are more feature oriented. It is the general behavior of the local software industry is that developers are mainly focusing the development phase of software product life cycle. They thought quality oriented work are challenging their dignity of proficiency. Quality related works are being treated as a task of unimportant non skilled tasks by genius local developers. Breaking these believes were hard. Many thought that getting quality related works will hinder their personal career growth and they ultimately decided to move for other opportunities. If organization could have test the seriousness of quality needs for the business they must have test that during interviews and tests. Even they could examine the candidate work samples for the quality aspects.

Language communication skills were tested adequately for all levels. For senior positions they used the interview with foreign client so that to make sure candidate is comfortable in communication. However, the interviews put less focus to make sure that candidate is culturally savvy. Cultural aspects were least regarded but the language skills. If interviews were able to communicate that need, or even test that need – organization may have stopped many cross cultural conflicts that were found intense enough for some resignations. Even the many interviewers thought the interview is a medium to introduce the new role to selected candidate who was successfully through the selection test. It was even a belief about top management as they all are technical people. They thought “If you can get through the selection test, interview is nothing much - but your job”. That will explain the immature nature of HR process at interviewing. On the other hand interviews were done by a random selected group. But essentially one member represented the team where the interviewee is to be recruited. However many times the other two participants were acting as observers as they hardly understood the job, as they are representatives of different teams. Most the time the leads who got effective bargaining power may get the opportunity to call for vacancies. Vacancies were always defined by gut feeling not by a proper analysis. There for majority of interviewers in the panel will have very less awareness about the job. It was noticed that some interviewers clarify the role after interviewing is completed.

Above brief will best explain the need of HR professionalism to the practice of selection tests and interviewing process. If had adequate HR knowledge, organization may have avoid many unfitting decisions.

4. Becoming an Employee

Organization’s orientation and the introductory period to the job was highly appreciated by recruits and was well organized. Orientation was twofold; overview and job-specific. Enough time was given to familiarize the product and no pressure was put on to the employees on this period to involve in serious tasks. Mistakes were highly tolerated. Trainings were provided based on the experience position and skill level. Even the foreign client was surprised to the speedy absorption of technology by new recruits.

There for Orientation (or lack of it) will make a significant difference in how quickly an employee can become more productive, and also has long term effects for the organization.

5. Recruitment Complexities

Author Dessler (2008) defines five factors of recruitment complexities which make the process more complex. Following will review how these factors affect the organization.

Ø Recruitment should be aligned to strategy

Organization failed to realize the strategy of the foreign client they work for. Initially it was thought that they were to do more with more design and development kind of work, later it was realized it was to do more with maintenance. However product was at its maturity stage too. But there were also some feature development works as well. As a result management failed to bring clarity to recruitment against strategy.

Ø Type of Job

As discussed before organization failed to predefine correctly the type of job. Most the times lowest level recruits were dynamically deployed to many different teams without a proper planning. Many employees resist these unplanned temporary task assignments.

Ø Pre-screening

Application selection was done from a pool of collected CVs. But no explicit prescreening was done for many positions. Familiarity of the applicants to the existing staff was effectively used. However a considerable effort was put to select appropriate applications manually by reading the CVs.

Ø Image

Organization had a reputed history. With the direct links to the global giants they took the attention of many employees. This facilitates them to attract good CVs.

Ø Employment law

Employment law was best followed during the recruitment process.

There for reviewed above complexities at above organization, it is proved that organization failed to realize the strategic need of Human resource. At the same time they failed to realize and plan the scope of individual jobs to the developers (Lowest level). As a result they failed to resolve the recruiting complexities which lead to make their failures to retain top talents.

6. Recommendations

Given above facts it is very evident that success of recruitment is not ensured by just hiring top qualified most experienced reputed professionals. Individuals can be very skillful in their distinct disciplines. But there will be no use for these skills if these individuals cannot bring the expected synergy to the available job. As highlighted in the top quote, just bringing the scares abilities will not be sufficient. Organization’s recruitment process must also have the adequate competence to recognize these abilities as well. On the other hand recruiters must realize the job. There must be a comprehensive job analysis and planning. This must be done considering strategic needs of the possible jobs. Then it must realize the best fitting ability to the possible positions considering the cultural aspects. Testings and interviews must be carefully planned and done as described to make sure the fit between the job and individual talents. Creating a big candidate pool may bring more opportunities for a most successful selection. Application selection must be designed in a time efficient manner with the support of IT. Successful recruitment process will be over after a recruit become an employee with a good orientation program. An effective recruitment model may best resolve the recruiting complexities.

Failing to find the fitting talents, organizations will have to face severe repercussions as described in the back ground scheme. Therefore, to avoid the risks of wrong recruitments organizations may effectively use the above model (figure 1) to plan and codify their recruitment process at each stage as illustrated throughout this report. For that use of professional HR knowledge will be most crucial

7. Conclusion

As described in the methodology, provided Garry Desler’s recruitment model (figure 1) the report evaluates the organization’s recruitment process to realize each stage. At each stage, the issues to be dealt with and the important decisions to be made is described. There alternative ways and potential outcomes also reviewed. Finally recommendations were done in order to do better in the recruitment process for hiring high skilled people.

8. References

David, A., Decenzo, S., & Robbins, P. (1998). Human Resource Management (7th ed.). Singapore: Thompson Asia Private Limited.

Dessler, G. (2008). Human Resource Management (11th ed.). Prentice-Hall.

George, B., Scott, S., & Arthur, S. (2000). Managing Human Resources: New Delhi: Prentice Hall of India.

Kalemci, I. (2003). Chapter 3:Personnel Planning and Recruitment. Retrieved from http://mail.baskent.edu.tr/~20494685/Chap3.ppt

Kondo, F. (2003). Story Project Centric Organizations: The Impact on Recruitment and Retention. Retrieved March 15, 2008, from ww.icmrindia.org/casestudies/catalogue/Human%20Resource%20and%20Organization%20Behavior/HROB014.htm

Rewarding high Achievers in Offshore Software Research and Development

. 10

Introduction

“Start with good people, lay out the rules, communicate with your employees, motivate them and reward them. If you do all those things effectively, you can't miss.” - Lee ia coca

Borrowed above quotation Lee Iacoca describes the variables for success of business basically in terms of human resources. On the other hand these can be viewed as general perceived norms that most HR managers tend to practice more often. However the significance of rewarding as a mechanism to motivate employees is highlighted and accepted around the world. The back ground to this essay is an offshore software research and development organization which employ skilled set of well qualified young graduates, experienced and seasoned managers, enough modern layouts and rules supported by sophisticated technologies and backed by a world famous industrial giant, effective communication through flat organization structures and offers best reward packages of incentives in monitory terms. Even though they provide everything so far the business fails to retain their top engineers.

AS explained in stage one, a new rewarding scheme for developers of this particular organization was introduced suddenly as part of the alliance agreement with the foreign party. It was decided to reward employees with merit increments to their salary after a yearly evaluation against achievements derived on a balance score card based forced rank method. Parallel to that structural regulation was also brought to duplicate the structure of foreign counterpart in order to centralize the control of administration. The immediate diffusion of top talents following new rewarding scheme evident the failure of that incomplete approach and paved the way for this research. This investigation explores the theory behind how these software companies can reward developers in order to motivate and retain them to become top-producing organizations that will invent the best ideas and products for future.

Reward and Motivation

There is a popular belief that, what gets rewarded gets done. You get more of the behavior you reward. (Michael le Boeuf) Even though this is true to some extent, the concept of rewarding is much more complex, and can easily be shown with numerous failed attempts like discussed in the background scheme. According to Green (1995), motivation refers to the initiation, direction, intensity and persistence of human behavior. A reward is that which follows an occurrence of a specific behavior with the intention of acknowledging the behavior in a positive way. These definitions help this essay to indentify mutually exclusive nature of rewards towards motivation.

Types of rewards

Steve Jobs, the reputed CEO of Apple computers, define reward types while highlighting the significance of a reward system to his business (Kotelnikov, 2008). According to him reward types are more than just bonus plans and stock options. While they often include both of these incentives, they can also include awards and other recognition, promotions, reassignment, non-monetary bonuses (e.g., vacations), or a simple thank-you. There he brings a broader variety to the reward types and a deeper sense to concept of rewarding.

According to McClelland’s (1987) theory for motivation, the need for achievement, the need for affiliation, and the need for power are three factors for motivation. The assumption of McClelland’s theory of needs is that people with different needs are motivated differently. The implication here is finding what motivates certain individual groups and assigning them with different rewards. Those with high needs for achievement should be given challenging projects with reachable goals. They should be provided with frequent feedback. Those who seek a need for affiliation should be placed in groups that can work as a team. Those who have a need for power should be given an opportunity to manage others (Long, 2009). Hypothetically that seems to be a good method, but practical application of such approach is questionable due to difficulty to realize individual expectations in to exact organization objectives.

Herzberg (1959) introduces two-factor theory of motivation. The two are called the hygiene - motivators, or the extrinsic-intrinsic factors. Considered implications of Herzberg’s theory, there can be two kinds of rewards, termed extrinsic and intrinsic. Extrinsic rewards are external to the individual (Work conditions, salary, job security etc). That can be monitory and non monitory. Intrinsic rewards are internal to the individual which cannot be measured in monitory terms (recognition, sense of achievement, personal growth, responsibility, nature of work etc). Author got a chance to interview the crowd who left the organization immediately. According to them majority were not happy about the tasks they were assigned as part of their new roles. Apparently most of the developers quit the job for a lesser salary. That reaffirms the significance of non monitory intrinsic rewards to developers.

Discussed above views on rewarding essay argues that external benefits are not always the most motivating reward. There it needs to consider the other different expectations of employees. Effective reward may be knowing what employees will find rewarding. Monitory rewards only will not help motivate employees all the time. When an employee’s performance, morale or motivation has not been influenced by a reward, it is likely because it can be the wrong reward for that employee.

Importance of intrinsic rewards

Lucia (2009) finds people naturally want to feel valued and appreciated, not only when contributions are significant, but anytime of the year. She suggests verbal praise and recognition is easy and delivers a big impact. There for it can be done more often at a less expense but can have a greater positive impact contrast rewarding annual performance evaluations. Recognition and appreciations may act as intrinsic rewards, which in other terms can be effectively used to craft effective rewarding mechanisms. Going further at an offshore development environment recognition programs can surface internationally accepted careers.

Given the importance of recognition as an effective intrinsic reward, essay highlights the importance of inculcating a culture of recognition and appreciation.

What can be the best reward for developers?

Taking background organization into example, majority developer demography falls between 23 – 35 age range and they are all graduates with proven academic records. Specifically most the time fresh graduates join R&D because they expect good industrial exposure. This you crowd may like challenges. At the same time it is the industry induced passion for developers which is also influenced by university culture.

Joshua Cook (2009) defines the key to success at Google, Inc, beyond the incredible perks and the compensation is their work process which offers intrinsic rewards: no real hierarchy, tiny work groups and purpose, did not create monolithic groups or hierarchy, no official channels, and employees were kept very independent. The basic concept inspired by this is to maintain an entrepreneurial culture. Author Trucker (2002) finds organization can design programs and rewards specifically to spark and encourage employees towards innovation that add value to organization.

There for considered the psychological need for achievement as the key expectation of developers this essay argues entrepreneur culture can be an alternative best reward for employees of effective R&D environment. To establish this culture key intrinsic rewards have to be correctly understood.

Identifying achievers

It's natural to achieve a good response from workers when they know there are positive rewards. In order to reward, achievers should be recognized. There can be many methods to recognize achievers.

An achiever can be defined contingently. Also achiever can be defined based on annual performance. It will be hard to predefine contingent achievements due to variable situational significance and difficulties in measuring the outcomes. However author admits that recognizing and rewarding these behaviors are highly desirable. There rewarding should be done immediately so that the reinforcement effect will be high, otherwise people won’t see and remember the importance of it.

But for the sake of rest of essay, taking compliance to back ground scheme into consideration, it will look at performance based evaluation systems to identify high achievers.

Importance of a comprehensive evaluation system

For example performance of sales engineer can be measured in terms of sales volume. But in case of software developer, depend on the requirement he may do many things – including customer meetings, junior trainings, write codes, test codes, designing software components, prepare graphics, and many more. The complexity of tasks can also be different from individual to individual. This diverse nature of job description makes life of evaluators hard to measure comparative performance.

However at this particular organization individual performance were evaluated based to developer lead agreement on appraisal review. But Lead was responsible to rank the people according to a provided frame work considering many aspects like code quality, delivery time, attitude, behaviors, team skills, task complexity, business impact, communication etc. The complexity was intensified when teams are operating from global remote locations and cross team ranking was requested. In addition to that it also finds flaws due to,

1. Lead’s favorableness

2. Employees bargain power to convince his contribution

3. Variation of cultures

As a result recognizing high achievers so far become very controversial. The conflict between leads and developers are always evident when both parties couldn’t agree.

Taking the same process, leads must also at a confusing state even though they found many good performers, the normal distribution curve base force normalization methods does not allow them to declare them as performers. In other terms performers are forcefully defined to be minimum so that it forcefully neglect recognition of work of many good developers. This can obviously negate the motivation of developers.

Pierce (2007) is of the view that performance is always a function of ability and motivation. He gives the equation below to underscore his argument.

Job Performance=f (ability) (motivation)

Provided above equation, when negate motivation, Job performance will decay. This will best explain the repulsive effect of incorrect evaluation.

Described above limitation in force ranked performance evaluation methods, essay point outs the significance of just and fair conduct of evaluators and processes to business. Essay argues that organizations should inculcate just and fair judgment culture to retain motivation of R&D Engineers.

Impact of culture

Global behavior of software research and development business makes it often famous for multicultural, diverse work forces. Having people from different regions, different ages, ethnicities, educational backgrounds, R&D teams boast for diversity. The perception towards the way employees exhibit their performance at the workplace can be highly diverse when it comprises these kinds of global teams. There are high context cultures and there are low context cultures. According to the Hoftstede (2001) cultural dimensions the leader subordinator relationship and perception can be dependent on cultural variables like masculinity feminity, power distance, Long term short term orientation, individualism collectivism etc.

There for realizing the cultural aspects will be very important during performance evaluation and bringing in recognition.

Remote Nature

It is at last the remote partner, who is going to take the final decisions on performance based annual rewards. Local organization’s try to please them as much as possible and will hardly intervene the parenting decision. Remote observers most the time have perceptional biasness to the individuals based on communication they kept, not on what actually performed. They don’t actually see and convinced the realities of actual work place. This invisible nature makes the situation more favorable for people good at convincing communication. In contrast unknowingly it may side line good developers who doesn’t possess such skills.

Structure

Firtz (1996) defines "Structure is an entity (such as an organization) made up of elements or parts (such as people, resources, aspirations, market trends, levels of competence, reward systems, departmental mandates, and so on) that impact each other by the relationship they form. There for a structure which brings more visibility to the contribution of Engineers may result positive relationships which may positively impact organization objectives. Then it will easy to recognize achievers and will make it help others to admit that.

A good rewarding scheme

As discussed before organizations objective towards rewarding is positive reinforcement. A line of sight should be maintained between rewards and actions. There for a rewarding mechanism has to play a vital role here. Analyzing above facts the essay suggests an SMART approach to rewarding mechanism.

1. Specific - achievements rewarded should provide an important return to both the performer and the organization.

2. Measurable - The employee's or group's goals should be within the reach of the performers.

3. Relevant - The program should operate according to its principles and purpose.

4. Time - The recognition/rewards should be provided frequently enough to make performers feel valued for their efforts

Controversially rewarding mechanisms should discourage unintended behaviors. There for it may also define disciplines for punishments.

Strategic use of rewarding

The authors Bruce and Pasternack (1998) describe reward system reinforces the company's high expectations of its employees to grow, learn, and lead. Offshore software R&D business strategically can stay ahead in the competition, by means of employing and facilitating innovation through employing skilled innovative people and inculcating an innovative culture. As Bruce suggest, reward system can effectively contributed to attract motivate and retain good people, which obviously highlight the strategic importance of a good rewarding mechanism.

Rewarding high achievers – if done improperly?

“Used properly, rewards can increase the frequency of a desired activity (or conversely, can decrease the frequency of an undesired activity). Used improperly, rewards can result in the desired activity being suppressed and/or undesired activity being encouraged; improperly used rewards can also create confusion among employees” (Labelle, 2005). The above sentences will not only explain as to why an organization should commit to designing the best possible reward scheme for its invaluable people, but will also will reminds the negative impact of it if improperly used as discussed through the back ground scheme. Employees were not empowered; poor motivation and encouragement; people do not feel their contributions make a difference; people work defensively and not creatively, they did their job, and nothing more. Once they find a good offer they may quit.

On the other hand if rewarding only high achievers, others might feel they are sidelined and not recognized. In ethical dilemma it is so questionable, weather it is ethical to rank and reward only a single player in a team game.

Conclusion

The literature review and the research conducted proved quite useful in understanding the importance of a ‘proper’ design for a reward program for offshore software R&D business.

Reasons for failure of the rewarding program were clearly identified. The program requires to respect expectations of developers. It must have well communicated. The nature of business and the existing culture of organization must also have taken in to consideration.

Motivation was a behavior that can be influenced by reward. Even highly motivated can be frustrated, discouraged, or tired on a project. Team members like to know they are valued, their efforts are noticed, and their good work is appreciated. Each employee is different and motivated by different things.

Many rewards types were understood. Money was not always the most important. But using both intrinsic and extrinsic rewards with cash and non cash means may have led to the majority of the positive reactions. In order to reward the correct behaviors, identification of right achiever was found vital. There the role of evaluation and identification mechanism should be carefully and fairly handled. There can be limitations in any evaluation mechanism. However rewarding can also be strategically important.

Finally these kind of rewarding schemes teach employees to be good, for the sake of rewards and to avoid punishment. There for if a rewarding mechanism can address the morality of employees to keep them all happy, probably that can where most success to business be.

References

Adler, L. (2007, October 7). Identifying and Recruiting Achievers - ERE.net. ere.net - Recruiting intelligence, recruiting achievers. Retrieved December 2, 2010, from http://www.ere.net/2010/10/07/identifying-and-recruiting-achievers/

Articles - Break the Golden Rule: How to Retain Your Best People. (n.d.). . Retrieved

December 2, 2010, from http://www.envisionsoftware.com/articles/Break_the_Golden_Rule_techy.html

Bruce A.Pasternack and Albert. J. Viscio(1998, February 17) The Centerless Corporation, Simon & Schuster

Clausen, Thomas S (01/02/2008). Appraising Employee Performance Evaluation Systems. The CPA journal (1975) (0732-8435), 78 (2), p. 64.

Dalton, Patrick (06/07/2004). Employee Retention. ABA bankers news (1530-1125), 12 (14), p. 1.

David McClelland (1987) Human Motivation

Employee retention strategy.(n.d.)..Retrieved December 2, 2010, from http://www.scribd.com/doc/31427411/Employee-retention-strategy

Engineering Employee Retention. (01/10/2008). Training & development (Alexandria, Va.) (1055-9760), 62 (10), p. 55.

Fritz, R. (1996) Corporate Tides: The Inescapable Laws of Organizational Structure. Berrett-Koehler

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