Tag: UnitedHRSolutions

Our Journey of 35 Years

It is September, and along with the festivities of the GOD of auspicious events, a faint tune of the old song ‘Come September’ lingers around. The season of Ganpati is all about new beginnings and blessings.

For us, at United HR Solutions Pvt Ltd, it is the season of gratitude and nostalgia. Why? Because September is our birthday month!

Yes! On 5th September, 35 years ago, we started from a proprietorship concern, called United Consultants, run by a father-daughter duo. From the days when the concept of a recruitment consultancy was new in the vocabulary of the city of Ahmedabad, we have come a long way. This miniscule two-member team grew up to be a franchise network of 10 branches around the country. We transformed ourselves into a corporate structure soon, becoming United Placement Pvt ltd, and later to United HR Solutions Pvt ltd.

What was our Vision? We all had a common Vision with a Mission of Bringing people together with a Human Touch. Since the inception of United HR Solutions, we have kept the Rotary four-way test in mind, especially the bit which asks one to ponder: Is it Fair to All Concerned?

It has been our mission to ensure fairness in dealing with our clients and candidates. Openness about the process and the communication, taking ownership of the assignment to ensure that we understood the needs of the clients and the candidates, alike. We have always stood TALL for our ethics and work culture. We believe in placing the right people at right places, in the right way.

How have we spread our wings, and where has the light of our vision taken our clients and candidates? The continent of Africa had always been our starting point and continues to be the core of our journey. We continue to explore newer territories, and have shown the jyot, the Torch, to Indian professionals in 30+ countries so far. Many of our candidates thus placed have grown in their careers to ranks of GM/CEO’s. We are Proud to call these GMs and CEOs as some of our Regular Clientele.

We continue to spread the light within the Indian recruitment scenario in various hues and shades. Having tasted the work cultures of multinationals like General Motors, General Electric by doing their Turnkey staffing, we moved on to  key role placements in companies in almost every industry. Thanks to our Baroda branch, we have also tested waters in Temp staffing and excelled in Process/ speciality chemical industry recruitments.

In our 35-year-old journey, our strength has been our people. As the name UNITED suggests, they have remained United with us, some of them since the early years of inception. We are filled with a new wave of nostalgia as we realise, we also have people associated with us for close to 20 to 25+ years.

We value their association and are proud of their accomplishments. It’s after all the TEAM which makes the COMPANY, as TOGETHER WE ACHIEVE MORE.

Obvious Insights for Better Productivity

In our earlier article we talked about the power of the ideas that sound obvious. In a culture where innovative, out of the box thinking is encouraged to the extent of ignoring the basics, the simple, effortless obvious ideas are often the ones which actually push discussions and brainstorming sessions further. Building up on it and continuing on this line of thinking about the obvious, we dug up two other insights, backed by research of course, which remind us about the power of obvious and seemingly counterintuitive ideas.

Such ideas seem like they might not work well, and might hinder productivity and motivation. But ‘countering the intuitive’, sometimes, these are the kind of ideas that might give the necessary push needed to get things done.

So, let us take a look at them quickly!

Complaining can (sometimes) be Productive:

As suggested in one of our earlier articles, suppressing negative emotions can actually lead one to be demotivated and unproductive. Picking on it and narrowing it down further, complaining can actually lead one to think in the right direction.

Generally, the work culture doesn’t encourage complaining. Whenever we find ourselves complaining, we tend to catch our thoughts and remind ourselves to be grateful about all the other possibilities. Research by Harvard Business Review, and as quoted by an article by Growth Partners Consulting suggests how teams which engage in complaining once in a while actually perform better. They often engage in complaining, or as the article puts it ‘visiting Pity City’ and that actually helps them because of,

‘…the safety they feel with each other and how these behaviours build relatedness within the team, an important psychological need for motivation.’

Sometimes, you just need to get the complaints out of the way, out of system to move on to finding solutions, instead of letting those thoughts become unwanted pieces of furniture in your mind. Venting a little might let the others who might be feeling similarly know that they aren’t alone, enhancing the sense of relatedness, teamwork and team-chemistry.

So obvious when we think about it, but that is the thing with these ideas- they hide in plain sight. Just like the next one.

Working Endlessly Doesn’t (Necessarily) Lead to Getting More Work Done:

It is almost as if we take pride in ourselves when we think we have been working endlessly. We clock in the number of hours and we feel the kick of being productive. Some of us even blame others for not working hard enough when they don’t get the desired results, and hard work equals to long hours, right? Long hours equal to getting more work done, right? Well, not always.

Research by Human Performance Institute shows that taking frequent breaks- not working endlessly for long hours- can lead to more productivity. In fact, they have also named the phenomenon; they call it ‘oscillation’, the time we spend strategically to recover from stress. Oscillation is done to ‘shift between energy expenditure (stress) and restoring energy (recovery).’ The article cited above tells us further,

‘It sounds elementary but the research is undeniable. Taking short, intermitted breaks throughout the day enables our body and mind to recover from this energy expenditure. As a result, we make better decisions, think more critically, and prioritize effectively. We are more productive when we take breaks.’

Be it the Pomodoro technique which tells us to work with intense focus for 25 minutes, and then take a break, or the 80/20 rule, which says how 80 percent of output can come from only 20 percent of causes, suggesting that we work smarter and not harder, there are multiple examples of models which show that oscillating between periods of intense focus and refreshing breaks can work better instead of toiling endlessly.

Be it the surprising power of the obvious, or the quiet sense of relatedness that complaining leads to, or the underrated activity of taking rest, the seemingly counterintuitive insights are often the ones that can lead to more motivation, productivity and work satisfaction, countering the notions that entrench the contemporary work culture.

Recruitment Story: The Sweet Rewards of Professional Excellencies

recruitment story 2 design

A gesture that has a personal touch, for a professional feat goes a long way in boosting levels of motivation, confidence, and work-satisfaction in the employee. Acknowledging and being grateful for any such gesture, and articulating it to the person who gave the “reward” strengthens the professional bond.

How would you like receiving a huge cake on your wedding anniversary from a prestigious client?
Pretty overwhelming, joyful, valued, surprised?

This is probably one of the best feedback someone might receive for their professionalism.

It is time for another recruitment story giving lessons, both personal and professional.

This team leader got a call from a lady in Singapore, who had found out about United HR through a reference.
The lady from Singapore eventually became a regular client.
And the team leader helped her get a lot of candidates for several management and directorial positions. The lady from Singapore phoned the team leader regularly to express her happiness whenever someone got recruited. The team leader too, always answered the calls warmly, and made sure the quality of work was maintained.
Now one day, the team leader received another such call from this lady.
It happened to be the team leader’s thirtieth wedding anniversary. As the client lady from Singapore expressed her happiness about the latest recruitment, the team leader thanked her for giving such a happy news on a day like that. More pleasant words were exchanged and the call was over.
The team leader got another phone call from a different person asking for her home address, and assuming it was for a professional reason, gave it.

Fast forward to when she was at home. The doorbell rang, and lo and behold, there was a cake delivered to her from the client lady in Singapore, for her “ wedding anniversary”! That person asking for the team leader’s address was calling from Hyderabad (he was a successfully placed candidate), and was directed by the lady from Singapore to do so. He had selected a huge cake with wonderful icing.

This client lady had also emailed praising the landmark number of thirty years.

The team leader had received felicitations from distant places! Both, the client and the candidate had gone an extra mile.

One talks about the sweet returns of a great job. But rarely one thinks of receiving such a literal sweet return!

 Efficiency, and consistency are two factors that contributed to establishing a sense of reliability.

This reliability goes a long way in retaining clients and maintaining client-relations.

It is hard to imagine something similar happening if the team leader wasn’t consistently delivering results. She clearly didn’t stop making efforts after just one successful assignment. What’s more, there was always cordial, warm communication taking place. This goes a long way in making sure the client feels valued.

The personal touch in a gesture is truly a marker of the client-satisfaction.
And sure enough, in this case ,professional excellence leads to a figurative cake and the sweet taste of job satisfaction, which are way beyond the monetary rewards.

Kudos to Mrs. Ansuya Satish, who is the team leader in the story and we thank her for sharing pearls of wisdom, and take things to learn from her.
She has been one of the Great Pillars, on whom the Glorious History of United HR rests.

Mrs. Ansuya Satish
Mrs. Ansuya Satish

Recruitment Story: Sleeping, Smelling, Dreaming Generators

recruitment story one

Some of us would be familiar with our parents and grandparents telling us stories about the struggles they had to go through when they were younger. Anecdotes about walking long distances to go to school, when all we have to worry about now is whether we will be able to catch the bus on time. About how one had to actually spend hours in the library to look for one tiny snippet of information, when all we have to do is one Google search.

Looking at these incidents with humour is all very well, but the thing is, all of this is true. We have to admit that our parents and grandparents did some pioneering acts which might daunt us if we think about it now.

Here we present one such story about our initial years.

Flashback to almost thirty years back. The India we know today was different then. The world as we know now was different then.

There was a requirement of an “Operator” for an 11,000 kva, 40 feet tall generator at a Textile mill in Nigeria.

The only brief given was the person should:

“Sleep with Generator

Smell of Generator and

Dream Generator.”

 What?

This was no era of KRAs.

This was no era of specifications of degrees or specialisations.

This was no era of interconnected email networks which now ensure that there is an almost instant spotting and filtering of potential candidates. Headhunting was the only way.

Add to the mix, although generators were a norm in industries in India as well as Nigeria and electricity not as widespread as it is now, a machine this big was still a rarity.

How would one cope with a “Brief” like this in the present day?

It was the brief where we had to understand that there was a need of someone who knew all about dismantling and assembling generators like the back of his hand.

They needed someone who could work hands on with a generator. Or more specifically work hands on with an 11,000 kva, 40 feet tall generator.

We found the perfect candidate for this position. Yes, with no KRAs and just this brief. Yes, in that era.

This was all done, under the able guidance of our CEO, Dr.O.P Pahuja, who is a hands on Engineer himself. This tells us so much about his visionary nature.

Dr. O P Pahuja
Dr. O P Pahuja

This recruitment story is of the time when industriousness, problem-solving skills, perseverance, awareness, risk-taking, courage were the qualities that were necessities. They were needed to thrive and keep companies running successfully.

This recruitment story is a testimonial to the pioneering and industrious nature of Team United HR. It aligns perfectly with one of our mission statements: “Putting right People in Right Places”