It’s all about an experience….

Two years at TISS have come to an end thereby marking the end of formal education. What has TISS given me? A brand name that has enabled me to reach the threshold of an organization. What next?
Well, in fact formal education can take you this far only. It can give you a brand and open doors. Further opening of doors and finding the way completely depends on you and your personal brand.

There are 2 things that come to my mind especially at this juncture when I am going to join an organization. First of all, there would be many like me who are eager to join their respective organizations where they have been placed. Personally, I have a lot of expectations and also hope to add value to the position that I am going to occupy. At this point there could be point of concern, i.e. to what effect can you bring about changes in an organization. Well, the fact is that ideally one should not hope or think too much about introducing an organizational change as early as joining.

Perhaps the answer lies somewhere in Stephen Covey’s 7 habits of which one is to widen your circle of influence (1). While joining the organization, we might belong to a particular department, say human resources. Ideally, the focus should be on improving the systems and processes that lie within the realm of HR and thereby slowly gaining the confidence of the people around you. Here is where your personal brand matters. Be it any sort of transaction that you are having with your people around, you need to create an experience for the other person (2).

For instance, as HR people, one of our routine functions is recruitment. If we were to draw a parallel between a prospective customer and a prospective employee (synergies between HR and other functions can be another post in itself), the way we would go about interviewing a candidate would be different. This only means that the interview in itself should be an experience for the candidate. What would constitute an experience is completely up to you. Basic etiquettes like offering tea, snacks etc are to be followed and attempts to make the candidate at ease should be made. It would be great if the candidate upon rejection could be given some sort of feedback as to why he failed to make the cut. All this would prevent the candidate developing a negative feeling and instead would etch a positive impression in the mind of the candidate about the organization as a brand and he/she is most likely to join your organization in future given a chance.

This is just one example of what HR professional can do in terms of providing an experience. There are umpteen transactions that happen in an organization on a daily basis. Care should be taken to make them all meaningful and engaging experiences.

As poet Maya Angelon said, “People will forget what you said, they will forget what you did but they will never forget what you made them feel”.

It’s all about providing an experience and thereby enhancing your brand value and subsequently your organization’s brand value…