‘lovely’ Human Resource Practices

April 28, 2010 - PRLog -- Human resource has become the mainstay for the smooth functioning of any organization. In the corporate world, considerable attention has been paid
to the HR activity from large multi-national organizations to small startups.
Increasingly, the importance of HR is being felt even in universities for their smooth functioning.  As the business practices are fast evolving on campuses
so are the HR practices.

A case in point is Lovely Professional University (LPU), Phagwara, which has employed some of the best HR practices for delivering the best to the students and its staff. In the recent past, the university has put in place concepts like reverse mentoring, introduced Online Task Management, established Training Cell within the HR department, set up the best appraisal system and evolved an exit policy that takes a feedback of the staff before they quit.

Through reverse mentoring, a concept that is familiar in the corporate world, the university has changed the way business is conducted on its campus from the betterment of students to the development of curriculum to the modifications to be incorporated in the pedagogy. The concept is simple but is proving to be an effective way to transfer knowledge from the younger staff to the older employees. The logic of reverse mentoring in the university is that the older staff will take inputs from the young faculty as they understand the students’ thought process, their expectations and requirements much better.
Employed with the primary objective to overcome a major flip-side of experience, reverse mentoring in LPU is improving productivity and providing a platform to identify emerging young talent. The open-enquiry academic environment of the university is providing wonderful context for reverse mentoring to be practiced.

With the world constantly changing, often times experience gained at one time period may no longer be applicable to a later time frame. Explaining the concept, Mr. Mittal points out that the younger faculty in the university armed with previous experience regularly provides feedback to the management about the needs of the industry. The information thus received is used in designing a new curriculum conforming to the needs of the students. In addition, the younger faculty guides the management in developing the pedagogy that will prove to be most effective in imparting learning.

Says Ashok Mittal, Chancellor Lovely Professional University, “Junior lecturers offer their suggestions to HODs on a certain style of teaching that will lead to greater grasping of course content by the student and vice- versa. This is indeed helping us in formulating some very positive initiatives like University Management System.” The University Management System is a single platform where the students can get information about latest happenings on campus, information about their attendance, exam results, leave status etc. The student also submits his reports online, invites clarifications on ambiguous issues and can post suggestions for better functioning of the management.

In another HR driven policy, the university has introduced an Online Task Management with the help of University Management System.  The Online Task Management is special software designed to track the activities of the university’s staff. The employees at the end of the day have to fill in the day's activity hour wise as to how much time has been spent on what activity. This ensures that the time is properly utilized and no man hour is wasted.

The Training Cell in the HR department ensures equipping the employees with the latest technology being used to perform a task. Also, the training cell trains the university’s staff on issues like personality development, business etiquette, behavioral study etc. which will help the employees perform better.
The university has put in place one of the best appraisal systems which
happens thrice a year i.e., quarterly, bi-annually and annually. These appraisals are conducted by the head of the department, head of the school (E.g.; Lovely School of Technology).
The most difficult tasks of HR personnel are to retain people.  But when exit becomes inevitable, the university has a clear cut exit policy in place where the HR takes the feedback of the employees on the reason for quitting their jobs. The HR personnel conduct exit interviews to find out the grievances of the outgoing employees.  The exit policy is not only helping addressing their
grievances but at times helping in retaining the staff.

Though most of the universities across globe are working like the government departments but these initiatives generally tells another end of the story which is a more savvy in nature as well as objective.


For more information contact:
Bluelotus Communications
Ishani - 9822014528

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Blue Lotus Communications are Communication Consultants with an array of health care, technology and finance clients. The other businesses of the group include a design boutique called Mustard Designs and Blue Bytes, an Information Logistics service.