Esangathan-indian Pilot-conclusions And Recommendations

Indian Pilot Conclusions and Recommendations by Mandar VARTAK (Mahindra&Mahindra) and Chitresh MARKANDA (TechMahindra) eSangathan is a FP6 EU-funded project with the following consortium : DISTANCE EXPERT Project Coordinator Contact: Nicole TURBÉ-SUETENS AGEPROOF Contact: Marianne ZIEKEMEYER COPENHAGEN BUSINESS SCHOOL Contact: Leif Bloch RASMUSSEN FOLKUNIVERSITETET Contact: Martina Sophia BACH MAHINDRA & MAHINDRA Limited Contact: Mandar VARTAK NETCIPIA Contact: Miguel MEMBRADO TECHMAHINDRA Limited Contact: Chitresh MARKANDA www.esangathan.eu

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TABLE OF CONTENTS WHAT YOU WILL FIND IN THIS DOCUMENT ................................................................ 3 1.

PILOT BRIEF ................................................................................................ 4

2.

SCOPE OF PILOT........................................................................................... 5 2.1 OBJECTIVE 5 2.2 IMPLEMENTATION PROCESS 5 2.2.1 Establishing the CWE infrastructure 5 2.2.2 Identification of the user Group 5 2.2.3 Customization of the CWE 6 2.2.4 Training of the user Group 7 2.2.5 Monitoring the usage 8 2.2.6 Resolution of issues 9 2.2.7 Tracking the user feedback and expectations 9 2.2.8 Team Syntegrity Session 9

3.

KEY OBSERVATIONS .....................................................................................11 3.1 ADVANTAGES OF USING CWE 11 3.2 KEY CHALLENGES OF USING CWE FEATURES 12

4.

KEY CONCLUSIONS AND ADOPTIONS .................................................................15 4.1 BASED ON BENEFITS 15 4.2 BASED ON PEOPLE 15 4.3 WEAKNESSES OF CWE 15

5.

KEY RECOMMENDATIONS ...............................................................................17 5.1.1 Implementation 17 5.1.2 Corporate Strategy 17 5.1.3 Interaction medium 18

6.

FUTURE OF THE PILOT..................................................................................19 6.1 STRATEGIES 19 6.2 INFRASTRUCTURE 19

7.

RETIREE EXPERT IN M&M IN THE FUTURE ...........................................................21 7.1 HR POLICIES 21 7.2 TRAINING 21 7.3 SOCIAL INTERACTIONS 21 7.4 ORGANIC STRUCTURE 22

8.

CONCLUSION ..............................................................................................23

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WHAT YOU WILL FIND IN THIS DOCUMENT The aim of D038 - Indian Pilot (Mahindra Pilot): Conclusions and Recommendations document is to present key observations, conclusions and recommendations based on the experiences of Mahindra Pilot. It also addresses the future needs of the pilot and the retirees who have participated in this initiative. Based on the recommendations and conclusions a “model” can be developed, which can help in utilize knowledge of seniors and possible employment opportunities for ageing workforce in India and other countries. Following are the highlights of this report: Key issues Awareness and ICT

of

CWE

Hard skills and soft skills

Ageing workforce friendly HR policies

Motivation to work after retirement

Observations The retiree experts are not very well aware about the ICT and CWE.

Recommendations Publicize the advantages of ICT skill Make ageing employee aware of CWE usages and its advantages include ageing CWE experts in designing and honing the CWE Adequate Training of ICT skills is recommended Retiree experts are not adaptive Frequently update the skill set of Ageing for new skill set Workforce Lack of e-skills Motivate them to learn new skill set Retiree experts are like asset for Adequate training of CWE is required any organization recommended Organize the Knowledge sharing session in the team HR Policies are not friendly to Make HR policy more ageing people retiree experts. They had some friendly grievances about the current Establish a meaningful communication policy. channel to solve the problems of ageing workforce Provide the option of workplace i.e. Work-from-Home Time limit relaxation Make them feel like a regular employee contributing in organizational growth Majority of ageing person don’t Facilitate them for participating in want to attend the office after 50 social activities depending on their rather they try to indulge their self preferences and in-line with corporate in some social activities. social responsibilities. Create senior (e-)platforms as it will help to feel social included again in the organization Table 1 – Report Highlights

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1. PILOT BRIEF The eSangathan project started on October 1, 2006. On 1st April 2007, a pilot implementation of a collaborative working environment for ageing workforce started in India at Mahindra & Mahindra Group, one of the top 10 industrial houses in India. The main objective of the project is to see how innovative approaches based on use of ICT (Information and Communication Technology) and more specifically CWE (Collaborative Working Environments) can generate new ideas, models and work environments for e-Inclusion of Ageing Workforce. Tech Mahindra, a leading provider of IT solutions and Services Company, has created Web 2.0 collaborative portal with technical support for the pilot members. The collaborative solution is hosted and managed by Mahindra & Mahindra Corporation, helping the retiree experts and serving people 1 to perform regular business activities and contributing knowledge to the organization. In Mahindra Pilot, the ageing workforce spreads across the M&M group with key participants from sectors including Automotive Sector, Information Technology Sector, Systech Sector, and Specialty Business Sectors. The pilot is populated by 10 retiree experts with more than 100 serving people spanning the Indian sub-continent and abroad. 80% of the retiree experts are between 59-65 years old, youngest member is 59 and oldest member is 70 years old.

1

Serving People - employees who are working with the organization under retiree experts

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2. SCOPE OF PILOT

2.1 OBJECTIVE The Mahindra pilot is aimed to provide Collaborative Working Environment - CWE for the M&M ageing workforce, who continue to work for the group after retirement with the following considerations: • • • • • • • •

Participation of at least 30 members, among 30 people 1/4th of them being retiree experts Adaptability of people (including willingness) in using the collaboration tools Impact of CWE on the working life of the user group in carrying out their official duties From retirees’ angle From the other participants’ angle From Management’s angle Understand the advantages and weaknesses of existing CWE and further user expectations from corporate and social standpoint Understand the awareness on aging workforce situation and CWE’s role in the same among society and corporate

2.2 IMPLEMENTATION 2.2.1

PROCESS

ESTABLISHING THE CWE INFRASTRUCTURE

Mahindra & Mahindra had Microsoft SharePoint 2003 for Knowledge management initiative, even before eSangathan. Knowledge Management initiative was in process of migrating to Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007. This has become a natural choice for Mahindra Pilot of eSangathan project, to have the same infrastructure along with Microsoft Office Communication Server for instant messaging. Further on, Netcipia Place has been added for collaborating with seniors from Öresund Pilot. 2.2.2

IDENTIFICATION OF THE USER GROUP

The Mahindra Pilot is spread across various sectors of M&M group and composed of ten retiree experts. The total strength of the pilot is more than one hundred (100) members, inclusive of serving members, retiree experts.

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The retiree experts have undergone user selection process, with the following criterion: • • •

Retirees who have retired or on verge of retirement from M&M or other organizations 2 now serving contracts with M&M. Driven by Corporate IT and M&M HR as an initiative. Criterion: Place of work, age of retiree, type of work, computer proficiency.

The retiree experts of various sectors were profiled based on the following: • • •

2.2.3

Usability Engineering team has come with basic questionnaire to understand the retiree both personal and professional qualities, Hard and Soft Skills - Technology exposure questions in order to measure Soft and Hard Skills of Individuals [OECD & Eurostat - Community survey on ICT usage 3 ]. Profiling into three types of users namely, • YES-YES – Advanced user with good ICT skill set, for example a user with all basic ICT skills including computer programming • SO-SO – User with medium level in ICT skill set, for example the user has basic skills along with CWE skills like use of Instant Messaging, Search or Wikipedia • NO-NO Users – Basic user with minimum ICT skill set, for example the user having general computing skills and not having CWE skills.

CUSTOMIZATION OF THE CWE

Based on the profiling and business needs, the CWE has been customized to retiree expert’s expectations, along with Web 2.0 features on M&M portal, instant messaging and offline access. Tech Mahindra’s User Interaction Design group (UIDG) designed the User Interface templates for the retiree experts and developer implemented it into the Share Point .The CWE portal integrated with Mahindra Connect - a Knowledge Management initiative, has features such as document management with workflow & version management, search, discussions, blogs, wikis, calendar, project planning, tasks & contacts management, instant messaging and offline access of eSangathan portal. Information Architecting was carried out and a four-level exchange communities were created.

2

For example, M&M has employed Scientists from Defense Research and Development Organization - DRDO as Consultants

3

Computer and Internet users’ skills for carrying out selected activities (2005) - EU-25, Source: Eurostat, Community survey on ICT usage in households and by individuals

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Figure 1 - eSangathan – Information hierarchy

• • • • 2.2.4

Level 1 - Community/Site for Retiree Expert and his team, Level 2 - eSangathan – To promote knowledge exchange among Pilot members, Level 3 - Mahindra Intranet - eSangathan – To promote knowledge exchange between Pilot members and any Mahindra & Mahindra employee Level 4 - Netcipia place – To promote knowledge exchange between Oresund Pilot and Mahindra Pilot

TRAINING OF THE USER GROUP

Subsequently, the end users - both retiree experts and serving members were trained on CWE platform. The training course on CWE structured for 3 to 5 days depending upon the availability of Retiree Experts, had Basic, Medium and Advanced levels. For pilot members based out of Mumbai is conducted at the offices of corresponding retiree experts at M&M and at Tech Mahindra premises for people based out of Pune. Following is the structure of our training program: Training course on Collaborative Working Environment for the pilot members: CWE Tool

Basic Level

CWE Portal

Portal overview dashboard/home page Libraries

to

upload

and –

Medium Level

Advanced Level

Search on the community portals and internet search engine

Blogs, Wiki, Project Plan, Recycle Bin

Creating

Discussions,

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Instant Messaging

Offline Access

Documents, Media, Images.

Calendar events, Tasks and Contacts

IM Overview, Connect to your instant messaging server

Manage contacts

Share applications

Send messages with files

Start a video conversation

Check-in\Check-Out Handling

Offline Access Error, Resolving conflicts / duplicates

Set up your Contacts List, Start a conversation and View and change presence information Offline application overview, configure and connect to Online portal and Synchronize

Table 2 – CWE Training Course for Pilot Members

Apart from introducing the CWE environment, the users were provided with PCs and with exercises for getting hands-on experiences. Some of the retiree experts preferred training to be tuned to their needs, bringing in their business scenarios with serving members. 2.2.5

MONITORING THE USAGE

Indian Pilot of eSangathan comprises of 10 communities, where the usage statistics such as number of users, requests, total number of users, referrers, destination pages, search queries and search results was provided by the Microsoft Share Point. The statistics were gathered on monthly basis for different CWE tools at various levels. A consolidated report is prepared based on number of users and total usage of features used by the pilot members. Following are the analysis to be extracted from the data collection: • • • •

Number of users participated in various communities Frequency and duration of usage of collaborative workplace Time of the usage Extent to which the teams use the CWE

Based on the statistics, technical team would identify features that are not being used by the pilot members and organize necessary training to promote the feature with its advantages and sample scenarios.

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2.2.6

RESOLUTION OF ISSUES

The support team of the eSangathan - Mahindra pilot has been solving issues in relation to the usage of the CWE feature, data migration needs to CWE, access issues such as provision of access to new members, restricted access, new sub community sites, coordinating with fellow members for sharing of knowledge and establish links to retiree experts of different group of companies and pilot members. 2.2.7

TRACKING THE USER FEEDBACK AND EXPECTATIONS

The Mahindra Pilot conducted the survey of satisfaction to find out the usages, in terms of frequency and duration of usage of the collaborative workplace, time (of the day) of the usage, Usage of synchronous collaboration features and Usage of asynchronous collaboration features. The feedback of pilot members was collected using a questionnaire 4 related to personal information, professional situation, computer skills, frequency of use of CWE environment, suggestions for improvements in CWE etc. 2.2.8

TEAM SYNTEGRITY SESSION

Mahindra Pilot conducted Team Syntegrity session, aimed to: • •

integrate set of people who seek to compress their divided views into a united message, Provoke discussions with arguments and counter-arguments between participants

Mahindra Pilot has invited all the retiree experts but only five retiree experts participated in this session, started with the introduction of various retiree experts. Then the retiree experts were given a brief about the session and its importance. All the sessions were face –to-face and monitored by Mr. Vartak Mandar and Mr. Chitresh Markanda, moderators also took the help of Copenhagen Business School team on the telephone call in organising the session. The participants has come up with fifty Statements of Importance (SI) and based on voting the SIs were shortlisted to the following: • • • 4

Capture, sharing of knowledge & experience of seniors / others Access online anywhere Enhancing capabilities of retired persons through use of it

Appendix B – Survey on Satisfaction of CWE

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•

Provide safety, security & support to seniors through it and deployment of support resources. (Refer Appendix A for complete list of SIs)

The mythology opted for session was appreciated by all the retiree experts. The Participant only suggested for less number of iterative voting processes during the short listing of Sls, due to lack of time.

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3. KEY OBSERVATIONS This section addresses various advantages and the challenges of using CWE. 3.1 ADVANTAGES OF USING •

•

•

•

•

• •

CWE

CWE is an important tool used to Capture, Share of Knowledge & Experience of seniors & others: India has got larger workforce participation from the younger generation, but not everyone is talented. The cream is getting absorbed by global companies, Indian IT industry and some of them are migrating to different countries. There is clear need to retain the older workforce as mentors to groom the available pool. CWE tool can be used to capture tacit knowledge of the retiree experts from their usage of technical document review and informally through discussion forums, blogs and wikis, that can be used when needed and available for the multigenerations to utilize the experiences. For example, a retiree expert mentoring a serving member for new product development using a Wiki. CWE helps to Enhance Capabilities of Retired Persons: The tool helps the retirees to enhance the communications with the help of corporate blogs, ability to track business activities and tasks. The CWE tool also allows to use wealth of knowledge existing and experts of the pilot and other participants can be approached. Review of retiree experts skill set to their CWE usage important for implementation: CWE tool can be used to monitor the feature usage by retiree expert and a planned review on the issues faced on why a particular tool for example Wiki or a blog is not used often. If there is any inertia on using a tool/feature of CWE, the support team can act by facilitating specific training need and can illustrate the benefits of people of the pilot or others of using such a tool. Ability of CWE to provide DATA SECURITY is an important feature: The CWE tool provided with high level of security requirement based on roles of people at various levels of information architecture. For example, libraries with restricted access are being used by the pilot members for corporate budgeting, supplier sourcing and sharing new product information. CWE as a platform of SHARING OF COMMON INTEREST DATA: The CWE can have a common place where they can share information / knowledge suites to all members of general needs. For example, information on engineering standards, specifications and technical information of common interest can be shared using CWE as a knowledge repository to reach wider audiences. CWE eases process of locating Seniors (Right people) by identifying various Labor market requirements of Skill sets, develop adequate CWE processes to fit retiree experts in Labor markets CWE encourages members to learn by doing and hence creates PARTICIPATIVE MEMBERS

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•

•

• •

• •

Retiree Experts preferred Access Online anywhere (including home): Retiree Experts have expressed the need of CWE tool to be enabled on intranet/extranet for multiple locations and multiple channels such as web and mobile portals. At present CWE is supports for PC only, this can be enhanced for mobile platform. Open CHANNELS OF COMMUNICATION for Retiree Experts and organization’s knowledge capacities. Pilot members feel that they can utilize larger pool of people with multi-facet knowledge for advices on key information that could help them in finding quicker solutions to problems. For example, CWE is used as a repository the availability of standards and specifications on engineering tools. Participants could post queries in forum asking specific standard for transmission or aluminium bronze bars and rods. CWE helped MONITORING ASSIGNMENTS ONLINE: The tasks management feature of CWE has allowed to retiree experts who has assigned tasks could monitor it by percentage of completion. Drawings and documents exchange and amendments can be discussed: The business related documents and files that can be published using CWE workflow with an approver/reviewer. Depending on the review comments the author can update it and publish for end-users. Usage of Wikis for collection of Technical data: Pilot members co-authored wikis to publish technical information and articles of general and team specific nature. Viewing of important circulars/notice sent by the group leader: Pilot members found CWE tool very useful for instant announcements like news, bulletin boards, events, customer visits, meetings etc.

3.2 KEY CHALLENGES OF USING •

•

•

CWE FEATURES

Use CWE Participation in Group discussion/meetings: Use of CWE for discussions has enabled team members from multiple locations to contribute on a topic, without physical presence. For example, pilot member could do a power point presentation using application sharing / white board feature of instant messaging application. Retiree Experts to use key features of CWE such as Video-conferencing, e-media: The adoption to online publishing, blogs, wikis, instant messaging and video conferencing for networking with people requires good amount of perseverance. Helping people develop the skills to participate in a "social" version of a wiki by encouraging them to use them for their own personal productivity and learning. CWE is a catalyst in enhancing DATA-INFORMATION-KNOWLEDGE & WISDOM relationship: CWE tool can be an important tool to capture the reactions of a human mind. According to Russell Ackoff 5 , the content of a human mind can be classified into Data, Information, Knowledge and Wisdom.

5

Volume 16, 1989 p 3-9. Ackoff, R. L., "From Data to Wisdom", Journal of Applies Systems Analysis, http://www.systems-thinking.org/dikw/dikw.htm

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Figure 2 – CWE = Data/Information/Knowledge/Wisdom Catalyst

Data represents a fact or statement of event without relation to other things. Ex: It is raining. Information embodies the understanding of a relationship of some sort, possibly cause and effect. Ex: The temperature dropped 15 degrees and then it started raining. Knowledge represents a pattern that connects and generally provides a high level of predictability as to what is described or what will happen next. Ex: If the humidity is very high and the temperature drops substantially the atmospheres is often unlikely to be able to hold the moisture so it rains. Understanding is an interpolative and probabilistic process. It is cognitive and analytical. It is the process by which I can take knowledge and synthesize new knowledge from the previously held knowledge. The difference between understanding and knowledge is the difference between "learning" and "memorizing". Wisdom is an extrapolative and non-deterministic, non-probabilistic process. It calls upon all the previous levels of consciousness, and specifically upon special types of human programming Wisdom is essentially systemic. Ex: It rains because it rains. And this encompasses an understanding of all the interactions that happen between raining, evaporation, air currents, temperature gradients, changes, and raining. First four categories relate to the past; they deal with what has been or what is known. Only the fifth category, wisdom, deals with the future because it incorporates vision and design. •

CWE to be integrated with e-learning solutions, digital Libraries: Integration with systems such as e-learning and digital library can have greater impact on enhancing capabilities and allow access anywhere functionality for ageing workforce.

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•

• •

6

Balance between STRUCTURED AND UNSTRUCTURED DATA necessary for increasing Retiree Experts interactions: According to Merrill Lynch, unstructured data has more than 85 percent 6 of all business information such as e-mails, memos, news, user groups, chats, customer calls (Minutes of Meeting), reports, letters, surveys, white papers, marketing material, research, presentations and Web pages. CWE tool should facilitate a balance between both types of data. By having innovative tools such as Business Intelligence can be developed on unstructured data. For example, RFP application for vendor selection process, Sales Force Automation that can have a dash board to preempt a sales manager on number of customer follow-ups that lead to a sale, which also can provoke to discussion. CWE with such type of applications can create more interest for participating. The retiree experts preferred the email over CWE for the communication and found it very convenient. They wanted the integration of email system with CWE. CWE must include systems to provide Safety, Security and Support to Senior Citizens/Aged through IT and deployment of support resources: CWE tool should facilitate social needs apart from business needs, such as emergency support, travel booking, general needs like bill payments, groceries and approaching government organizations. The CWE can facilitate with information services that is a one stop solution to offer professional and personal requirements for the seniors. Having worked in CWE enhances the capability of seniors to overcome the inertia of using an online ticketing system or looking for knowledge by networking with people from external mediums such as using Netcipia 7 for private or public communities.

February, 2003 - The Problem with Unstructured Data – http://www.dmreview.com/issues/20030201/6287-1.html

7

Netcipia – online web CWE platform that offers free public and private participative places to create communities and monetize online expert content to Internet users worldwide.

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4. KEY CONCLUSIONS AND ADOPTIONS Following are the key conclusions and adoptions by the pilot: 4.1 BASED ON •

• • •

BENEFITS

Both Qualitative and Quantitative measures shows that “business benefits” is the ultimate motivator of adoption of CWE. The pilot members have adopted to share documents, drawing across the team at multiple locations. Thus avoiding the inability to email system send files more than 10 MB size. “ICT & CWE Friendliness” aids to better adoption of CWE Flexibility in Customization of CWE environment as per Retiree Experts requirements are important for implementation success The multiple features provided in a portal could be confusing for at least some users. Therefore, a limited number of features having focus on specific user requirements would be more helpful. Handholding during the initial phase is very important.

4.2 BASED ON

PEOPLE

Participation of members from Senior Management in CWE set as a role model for the team members to adopt in performing day-to-day business activities. However, working with younger employees would create a pull for ageing workforce towards using the CWE. • • • •

Need to share common interest areas, help others – is a key motivator for Retiree Experts “Custom Training” is important for successful CWE usage Extendibility of platform securely beyond office premises such as Customer, supplier or Home premises, is a key requirement of CWE Exposure, usage, experience of ICT/CWE are the best way to enhance Hard & Soft skills

4.3 WEAKNESSES OF • • • •

CWE

Continuous practice of using the collaborative work environment is essential to further improve the inclination to use the CWE. Large number of face-to-face training sessions, hand-holding important for keeping up the motivation of Retiree Experts while learning CWE Training for all members – including Suppliers, Customer, Serving persons to be carried out Mix of Structures and Un-structured data is important to over-come initial Inertia in CWE implementation

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• • • •

Greater control over CWE, such as Admin rights, Database Access for developing custom query / reports, Disk space allocated and FTP access for uploading multiple types / files. These are important for some of Retiree Experts to perform effectively Speed and Availability of Infrastructure such as Broadband, PC, PC Accessories are important factors in CWE implementation Offering multitude channels of communication – formation of communities at department, organizational, inter-organizational, interest-group levels key to success of CWE Adoption to CWE may take some more time before it becomes a normal way of working as in case of email systems.

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5. KEY RECOMMENDATIONS The main objective is to implement a true Enterprise 2.0/3.0 global strategy for Mahindra & Mahindra, at all the levels and for every project, to insure 100% productivity and extensive Knowledge management. 5.1.1

IMPLEMENTATION • •

• • • • • • 5.1.2

Experience & Knowledge management are important for an Organization. Systems needs to be designed with a lot of care taking into account what, how much, who, how it is shared. This will deliver efficiencies and lead to large productivity gains. Enablement of CWE to accessing anywhere has immense benefit for a retiree expert, for example, hassle free CWE access from home, office, customer and supplier premises along with access on mobile. The solution need to be designed to enable tasks that are most appropriate in a remote working environment. Enhancing Capabilities of Retired Persons via adequate and custom training is an important enabler. Also, organization should have defined processes for acquiring post-retirement skills. Integrate business critical systems with CWE that can provoke discussions and knowledge sharing. Piece meal approach in introducing CWE features at multiple stages based on the skill set of pilot members. Constant review of CWE usage and identify training needs on the frequency utilization of CWE feature and publish CWE reports to encourage usage among pilot members. Provide dedicated technical support team for trouble shooting specific needs of pilot members. Providing Safety and Security at corporate level to Retiree Experts with use of IT and other support systems.

CORPORATE STRATEGY • • • •

Human Resources department to encourage and draw policies to enable Retiree Experts to enable him/her skills for post retirement works HR – to review policies to provide flexible working environments for Retiree Experts in terms of remunerations, designations, participating in social activities and facilitate CWE system for both professional and personal services. Contracts offered to Retiree Experts should offer flexibility for Intellectual Property Rights - IPR creation and usage Training – Adequate Training processes to be developed that would improve both hard and soft skills of Retiree Experts

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• 5.1.3

Knowledge Management – KM processes to undergo changes to be more and more participative, interactive and organic

INTERACTION MEDIUM

5.1.3.1 Internal people • • •

Once in a while, pilot members preferred physical meeting of people for more effective that emails/phone calls or CWE. Senior Management mandate important for CWE adoption, having seniors as role models helps to take enhance the skills of pilot members and capture knowledge more effectively. Email notification is a widely preferred option while using CWE

5.1.3.2 External people • • •

Conferences – most effective way tool for dissemination and Panel discussion are most effective tool for developing / debating concepts and build consensus. Blogging site - www.eSangathan.in, wasn’t popular in India for non-eSangathan members to contribute as a blog or to publish a page Dissemination via “Word of Mouth” most effective form of Communication

5.1.3.3 In General • •

Motivation is most important factor for a Retiree expert to explore and learn CWE Retiree Experts view Public Wikis, blogs, newsletter as a powerful tool for Dissemination. They ran some of these for their communities and interest groups

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6. FUTURE OF THE PILOT Mahindra pilot would continue to run in M&M infrastructure for next couple of years and the pilot would be managed by the M&M Corporate IT department. 6.1 STRATEGIES According to a survey of 4,742 employers spread across all major sectors conducted by Manpower India 8 , recruitment major found that a majority of the respondents did not have any strategy in place to retain or use 'older workforce' — employees aged 50 years or above. Experienced, well-trained manpower is simply walking out of the office door, never to return. Following are the strategies that need to be addressed in continuing and enhancing the pilot: • • • • • • • •

Human Resources proactively adopt flexible working culture - visiting office for attendance not mandatory for performing business duties. Human Resources (HR) to identify people on the verge of retirement and implement mandatory policies for the employees for CWE training session and monitor the progress. Provide incentives / rewards on their usage or provide high ratings on their appraisals. Enablement of CWE tool accessible on multiple modes such as mobile devices. Continuous development and integration of applications like SCM, ERP, Sales Force, Business Intelligence systems, e-Learning and digital libraries that can provoke discussions and knowledge sharing. Prepare an action plan on the frequency utilization of CWE tools feature specific quantitative usage and publish reports to encourage usage among pilot members. Share knowledge on qualitative usage of CWE tool usage experiences of multigenerational workforce among pilot members, for example use of WIKI used as publishing tool for technical articles. Provide dedicated helpline numbers and trouble ticketing system to attend specific needs of pilot members.

6.2 INFRASTRUCTURE Following are the infrastructure enhancements that need to be addressed: •

8

Internet Connectivity can be facilitated to the retiree experts by administration department. This would allow seniors to concentrate only on their core business

April, 2007 - The New Agenda for an Older Workforce

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• • • • • • • • • • •

9

activity, rather than following up with various service providers for connectivity, follow-ups on downtime, bill payment and refunding from organizations. Increase in limit on size of the community site and individual file upload as required by the different team according to company policy The CWE portal should be accessible quicker at different locations and multiple devices for example mobile platform as well. Minimize the downtime / inaccessible time of the CWE infrastructure Provide dedicated helpline numbers and support engineers The CWE portal should be compatible for multiple browsers such as Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, and Netscape Navigator etc. W3C guidelines 9 to make Web content accessible to people with disabilities The CWE platform should provide FTP or other native file-upload mechanism for uploading files Integrate internal applications such as ERP, SCM and other systems with CWE that are being used by the retiree expert / his team members with single sign-on feature Minimize the downtime / inaccessible time of the CWE infrastructure Provision of offline access of community when the user is not connected to the internet Enhance help documentation customized for Retiree Experts on various CWE tools/features

Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0 - http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG10/

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7. RETIREE EXPERT IN M&M IN THE FUTURE Following are the strategies that need to be addressed in retaining and increasing the number of retiree experts using the pilot: 7.1 HR POLICIES • •

• •

Adopt flexible working culture for retiree experts with “work-from-home” option, instead of retirees continue to work like a regular employee Recruiting Retiree experts as “Consultants” or “Contractors”. Retiree experts has served in the past with higher designations, some of the retiree experts felt that the term “Contractor” refer to all types of people supporting the organization. So they preferred to be termed as “Consultants” Identify and induct more people under this pilot from various sectors. Bring CWE usage as mandatory practice by retiree experts so that the tacit knowledge of the retiree expert is captured.

7.2 TRAINING • • •

Facilitate adequate training needs depending and frequent follow up on utilization of CWE tools. Induction of new members - retiree / serving member with standard training materials. Induction of serving members into CWE training tool who’re on the verge of retirement and would continue to serve for the company.

7.3 SOCIAL INTERACTIONS Most of the retiree experts prefer to do social activities after retirement. Organizations should enable / facilitate them for participating in social activities depending on their preferences and in-line with corporate social responsibilities. For example, facilitation of CWE girl child education and projects that support seniors for personal services Engage retiree experts in regular knowledge sharing sessions with other members of the pilot. This can break the inertia in retiree experts and start adopting CWE with the fellow members. Allow more people to participate universally not restricted to one organization. The present environment is meant to be used by employees of M&M Group, this can be expanded for the participants from outside the group.

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7.4 ORGANIC STRUCTURE The system should be able to allow capturing organic information such as sharing of library of standards, latest technology information between pilot members.

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8. CONCLUSION According to a survey conducted by Manpower Consultants 10 , an employment services consulting company, most organizations in India do not have a strategy to retain or recruit ‘older workforce’ 11 The survey highlights: • • •

10 11

Only 14 percent of the respondent organizations are having a strategy for recruiting older workers 16 percent of employers having retention strategy for older people. This generation of workforce is very experienced The Older Workforce need to be taped and utilized as “mentors” for training and honing a larger pool of young raw talent. Collaborative Working Environment can play a major role for e-Inclusive society with active participation from ageing workforce.

Manpower India - Survey Older Workforce - employee aged 50 or above

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Appendix A – Team Syntegrity – List of SIs #

Statement of Importance

#

1

Locate Seniors – Process

2

3

Identify Skill Sets

4

5

Identify Labour Market Requirements Of Skill sets

6

7

Map Available Skill sets With Requirements

8

9

Develop CWE Process For Fit Of Seniors To Labour Market

10

11

Training On CWE / eSangathan For Seniors

12

13 15

Establish Communication Channel For Seniors To Interact Enhance Usage Of eSangathan Channels Of Communication

14

Statement of Importance Reaching Out To Handicapped / Disabled For Care & Support Enhancing Capabilities Of Retired Person Through Use Of It Health, Hygiene And Harmony Of Senior Citizens Facilitating Handicapped People Through Use Of It (Say Visually Impaired) Enriching Life Of Retired People Through Knowledge Sharing, It And Networking Identify, Develop And Deploy Resources To Support Senior Citizens Provide Safety And Security To Senior Citizen / Aged Through It

16

Participative Members

17

Monitoring Assignments Online

18

Data-Information-Knowledge Relationship

19

Access To Online Communicator From Any Global Location

20

Structured And Unstructured Data

21

Integration through Email

22

Learning By Doing

23

Sharing Of Knowledge

24

Failure Mechanisms - FMECA

25

Education

26

Quality Function Deployment

27

Writing Blogs

28

Working From Home

29

Data Info Exchange

30

Intranet - Extranet Environment

31

Understanding The Needs Of Each Others

32

Data Security

33

Connecting People through E-Media

34

Sharing Of Common Interest Data

35

Welfare & Harmony Among All

36

Usage Of Wikis For Collection Of Technical Data

37

Network Of People

38

Access To Tech Standards In Granthalaya

39

Mobile Instant Messaging

40

Interaction With eSangathan Community Members

41

Video Conferencing

42

43

Use Knowledge Of Seniors

44

45

Use Experience Of Seniors

46

47

Security Of Seniors

48

Participation In Group Discussion/Meetings

49

Enabling Senior Citizens Through It

50

Advise/Instructions For The Group Leader Can Be Taken As And When Required

Sharing Of Knowledge/Information With The eSangathan Community Members Viewing Of Important Circulars/Notice Sent By The Group Leader Drawing/Docs Exchange And Amendments Can Be Discussed

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Appendix B – Survey on Satisfaction of CWE Face-to-Face survey was conducted using the following questionnaire: • • • • •

On CWE usage pattern For what purpose you are using this community site? How many times in a week do you visit your community site? How often you are using this site to complete your routine office activities? Which features of the site do you use regularly?

Results: The retiree experts and their team mates mostly used the CWE for knowledge sharing. For e.g. Mr. Venkateswaran (retiree expert) and his global team used the document sharing feature for uploading the articles of common interest, also shared the drawing and other technical documents. In general retiree experts used the CWE twice or thrice in a week and their team used the CWE feature on regular basis. The most of the retiree experts used the Document folder, Blogs and Discussion forum. On CWE features usage: • • • • • • •

How many documents have you uploaded in your community site? Have you uploaded your regular templates / contact information of important people? Have you used blog or wiki section? If yes, for what purpose? Have you used Alert feature available in the site? Have you accessed this site from your home? If yes, were you able to open/upload any document? Have you tried Instant Messaging? Have you put your short CV in the Netcipia Blog?

Results: The retiree experts and their team frequently used the document uploading feature of CWE. Most of them used it for sharing official documents, technical standards/specifications and other confidential documents with access control. For example, Mr. Arora, Project Leader (retiree expert) used the community site for sharing the information with fellow teammates and uploaded the various documents on topics such as Manufacturing technology and processes, upcoming technologies and improvement strategies existing processes. Also retiree experts uploaded various templates used from official processes and used Netcipia for knowledge exchange between pilots by updating their profiles, commented on the themes of Oresund pilot and created blogs.

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Retiree experts and their teams also used the other features like wikis, instant messaging, alert feature etc. For example Mr. Madhukar joshi has been using it for sharing knowledge in which his fellow team member can also edit the same page and Mr. Venkateswaran used instant messaging for sharing presentation with colleagues. General Feedback: • • • •

What is your team’s feedback on this site? How many of your team members are using this site regularly? Do you think this site provides better collaboration platform? Have you or your team faced any problems while accessing any of the sections on the site?

Results: The feedback of CWE tool for performing business activities from various teams was very good. They also pointed out some other feature which they had used. For example – Mr. Arora team point out the task list and calendar feature was very helpful in tracking team members and the percentage of accomplishment. They have suggested including additional features in CWE, for example, • • • • •

Mr. Joshi suggested to integrate existing applications with CWE and share standards/specifications Mr. Ahuja suggested to use e-media to enhance communication Mr. Venkateswaran team suggested for higher upload limit on file and lagers disk space to upload the files. Also suggested for incorporation of FTP in CWE Mr. Arora suggested CWE to have tight integration with email system such as alert facilities to be enabled on every feature of CWE tools. Mr. Kishan Singh has suggested to use CWE for domain specialist advices

Most of the teams used the CWE on regular basis to perform their day-to-day activities. The feedback against the question “Do you think this site provides better collaboration platform?” and response was overwhelming “YES”. All the retiree experts emphasized the frequent use of CWE in day-to-day official activates.

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