Do you have the choice to work on what you love ?

There’s a profound shift in the world of work, an era of lifetime employment to multiple employments to entrepreneurship is now giving way to the gig workforce. Most of the organizations today have a mix of full time, contingent, gig and even crowdsource talent with latter ones becoming increasingly prominent much sooner than expected.

I happened to meet a young professional who started his career in 2011 with a top tech company and was soon reeling with boredom and out of the race on a corporate ladder. Different projects were pulling him in different directions and daily routine was exhaustive enough for a rollover to another day. Away from home in a new city, the only smiling moments for him were a few likes and wow’s on social media.

While on a taxi trip in Delhi, he was inspired by Mahavir who was driving for both Uber and Ola on the same day depending upon which one was giving better value per hour. Mahavir was able to derive best returns for his skills and time without restricting him to any one provider. This experience inspired him to leave his regular job in 2016, just 3 years in the gig world, he is now serving 5 tech organizations including two competing ones extending handsome earnings. Having gained expertise in the rare skill and a strong social network helped him carve a niche for himself.

The skill has become the new currency and the value of critical skills is on the rise. A choice to work on what you love every day also comes with a flip side, critical skills are not permanent, demand to supply gap is being identified and getting filled faster than ever. A specific skill currency value may crash quicker than a stock market rally. The gig work also comes with an uncertainty of cash flows with a need for continuous investment into self and network development.

Current generation and organizations are embracing this workforce mix without a proper framework to protect the interests of gig workers. Missing social security umbrella especially in the growing economies and lack of pricing models are amongst the key factors to be addressed to unleash the true potential of gig work models.

Modern-day HRMS solutions are gearing up to these new ways of working, innovative solutions to connect organizations to the larger talent pool in the open-world curated to the specific business requirements are being introduced to boost the productivity and profitability. 

“Embrace change. Envision what could be, challenge the status quo, and drive creative destruction.” Charles Koch

Ved Prakash Singh is Vice President and Business Head at ZingHR (www.zinghr.com). 

ZingHR is amongst fastest growing HRMS solutions with over 550 clients and about a million active users spread across India, Middle East, South East Asia and Australia. Harnessing the modern-day technology coupled with strong functional and business understanding ZingHR stands as a unique platform which aims at delivering Business Outcomes alongside HR Transformation.

Management Lessons from 'Mission Mangal'

At this time when all of us stand beside ISRO for success of Chandrayaan 2, I had the opportunity to watch ‘Mission Mangal’ throwing up lessons from the lives of scientists and their pursuit to explore the unexplored and conquer the unconquered. 

“Gettin’ good players is easy. Gettin’ ’em to play together is the hard part.”

- Casey Stengel

‘Mission Mangal’ is a rousing story of an ordinary team accomplishing an extraordinary feat by asphyxiating challenges on-course through continuous innovation, grit and determination. The story exhibits the power of a team and the right attitude towards the goal as an underlying factor behind the success of any mission. Alongside entertainment with humour, the story serves as a leader’s handbook in building high performing teams.

Below is my take on some of the key lessons:

1.    Leader’s take responsibility for the failure

The movie begins with the failure of the GSLV mission. Rakesh Dhawan (Akshay Kumar) takes the outright responsibility of the failure even though Tara (Vidya Balan) repeatedly admits that it was her ignorance which led to the failure. Dhawan displays the true spirit of a leader - ‘Success belongs to the team and failure is yours’.

2.    Failures are temporary, leaders bounce back stronger than ever

After the failure of GSLV, Dhawan is moved to a different and seemingly impossible Mars mission. Disappointed momentarily, Dhawan quickly gets back into his real self. As leaders, you will encounter failures but your ability to bounce back will determine the accomplishments you can make in the long run. No leaders can rise without failure, watch out if you are not failing, probably you are not picking up challenges beyond your proven potential.

3.    You don’t need the most experienced team but an aligned high performing team 

If you have got a team which has all the experiences required to perform the task at hand, you are not heading towards achieving big. As a leader your dearest responsibility is to align the team at hand and convert them into high performing group. The turning point of the Mission’s success was when Tara reignited the passion of the scientist in each team member leading to a change in their attitude from ‘9 to 5 job’ approach to ‘My mission, my passion’.

4.    Continuous innovation and problem-solving is the key

The movie showcases many examples of simple and practical ideas inspired by cooking, sailing, waste management etc espoused for appropriate challenges. As long as teams are focused on the final objective, innovations galore. Those who don’t experiment can’t be called scientists; those who don’t solve problems can’t be called leaders. 

5.    Back your Team and Team-mates

Varsha Pillai (Nithya Menen) was proposed to be given full support during pregnancy and childcare alongside the freedom to select if she wanted to be a part of the mission. Similarly, Neha Siddiqui (Kirti Kulhari) was offered accommodation by colleague Ananth Iyer (HG Dattatreya). Your team is about individuals coming together, there would always be one or the other challenges faced by your team members. If we can nourish an environment of mutual and organizational support, people would go beyond the call of duty to ensure the success of the mission.

6.    Your present is as precious as your future

Eka Gandhi (Sonakshi Sinha) the propulsion control expert, was able to contribute only when she left aside distractions of change in role or job application to NASA. The lesson is to plan for the future but live in the present or you may not realize the true potential of the opportunity at hand.

7.    Looks or past records can be deceptive

Plus-sized Varsha Pillai turned out as an expert lightweight satellite designer and the senior-most team member Ananth Iyer came up with modern-day innovation to create the composite material for satellite using plastic waste, aluminium and other items. Leaders get the best out of their teammates irrespective of their looks, background and past glory propelling them way ahead of their own aspirations.

8.    Push people to make them think alternatively 

Eka Gandhi got stuck and was unable to create a trajectory path within allocated fuel and timeframe until pushed for outcomes by Dhawan. Though the alignment and motivation serves most of the situations, it may sometimes be required to push people out of their comfort zone to ignite alternative thinking.

9.    Leaders back leaders who believe in themselves and dream big

Dhawan’s statement “Karenge sir, pata nahi kaise par karengey, karna hi padega (We will do it, sir, don’t know how but we will do it, we will have to do it)” displayed his resolve towards the mission inspiring initially skeptical ISRO Chairman (Vikram Gokhale) to agree and extend greater resources towards Mars mission. When you believe in yourself and back your functional plan with high resolve and passion to achieve, other leaders start believing in you and often start co-dreaming.

Wishing you an exciting Leadership journey, keep learning, keep inspiring and keep empowering….

…….

Mission Mangal is based upon the real event of ISRO’s (India Space Research Organisation) successful mission to Mars 2013-14 making it the only Asian country to reach Mars and First Nation globally to achieve the feat in the first attempt. Only Russia (Roscomos), USA (NASA) and Europe (ESA) had sent successful missions to Mars before India (ISRO).

Credits : Mission Mangal Team, Blog Editing by Murtaza Ali Khan @apotofvestiges