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B. Operational Experiments
Google did a great job of experimenting with plate size to figure out
an optimal shape that could meet its target of kicking employees
back into shape (guilt and shame worked powerfully to reduce the
number of trips employees made to fill a small plate) and help them
reduce their calorie intake. I have seen such experiments to control
wastage of food during lunch breaks. At one manufacturing firm, the
HR Department set up a Scoreboard to show how many kilos of food
was wasted the day before and so on. Obviously, such loud displays
helped control the menace to an extent. At another place, a young
engineer decided to stick graphic photos of poor children dying of
hunger right next to the serving area. Consequently, people got the
message and while some folks attributed their loss of appetite to the
pictures some said it made them more sensitive about the quantity
of food they loaded on their plates. Unlike the operational
experiments Google undertook, the examples I cite may not have
been the result of any meticulous planning, rigorous measurement
or even continuous experimentation. At the same time, I cannot
help but point out that HR is expected to change employee behavior
in numerous ways for a variety of reasons. That, to say the least, is
exactly what HR is expected to do (if we hear our Line Managers
correctly). Therefore, If earlier, HR did not have the tools to study,
analyze and mold employee behavior, thanks to Big Data Analytics
it now has a wide and bewildering array of tools that have the
potential to predict and regulate employee behavior, on a mass
scale.
While most of the examples here pertain to food, I am hopeful that
Operational Experiments in HR will extend to other more promising
areas of employee experience as well. I remember the case of a
"desi" (no HR Degree / no Strategic HR Experience) HR Head who
was asked to hire a Costing Manager. The company he works for has
a lone manufacturing unit outside Delhi. Once the Costing Manager
was on board, the company realized he had no job since he needed
data on work in progress - timely data on finished and unfinished
goods and inventory, almost on a daily basis. As the company did
not have an MIS or any practice of tracking anything remotely called
" operational and production data", the HR Head secured permission
from the MD to circulate chits of paper to collect such data from the
company's 300 odd employees (all semi-skilled) at the end of each
working day. In exchange for 10 rupees every day, each employee
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