The Dynamics of Performance Management

Performance Management is one of the most debatable topics in HR as its a pivotal HR function. The entire process of Performance management has long been explored and studied.

However the session on PMS by Ms. Kalpana Ganesh, Assistant General Manager, Corporate HR from Ashok Leyland was far more practical and relevant than a text book session. She took us through the positive feedback session of a performance appraisal. And gave us a feel of how a 360 degree appraisal would happen.

As we jointly listed out the entire process of Performance management, Ms. Kalpana explained how a very strong PMS in an organization, would automatically enable, engage and empower the employees of an organization. Performance management is indeed a responsibility of the entire organization and not just the HR department. The roadmap in an organization leading to the PMS was discussed by the lecturer and the students together.

The parts of PMS, namely setting of KRAs, KPIs and goals, is most often a difficult task for HR executives. Ms. Kalpana gave us a mission for which the students had to list out the KRAs, KPIs and goals. This activity made us analyze the importance of the need to understand the business of the organization, its mission and how the goal and objective of every employee needs to be aligned to the organization.

The objective of any PMS is to assess an employee’s performance and relative worth and contribution to an organization. Finally, it is the responsibility of the HR to grade the employees based on their performance appraisal and normalize the ratings given to the employees.

Performance Management undoubtedly plays a pivotal role in any company. Ms Kalpana Ganesh gave us HR students a splendid insight into the realities of PMS. There was a lot of learning from the real world and for the real world through the entire session.

by Soundharya, HR Varsity

Personal Effectiveness

First impression is the best impression”, this can be achieved only by ensuring personal effectiveness. Ms. Rajeshwari , HR Manager, Fresh and Honest, has had an enormous experience interacting with the candidates in the interview processes. This experience has made her realize how important it is to be personally effective, to ensure one has the right attitude to face the corporate world. She put us through three activities which required us to work as teams. The major take away from these activities were teamwork, strategy formulation, creativity, good communication and good planning. She also took us through a presentation stressing on formal dressing etiquettes for both men and women. It was a good learning session and it educated us on the importance of personal effectiveness to stand out from the crowd.

By Anuradha, HR Varsity

Can tradition combine itself with the modern trend?

Yes, if we are talking about CBS!

Tradition says a B-school always coaches a student in General Management before venturing into specializations. At CBS, tradition is followed – but with a difference! The difference lies in the modern and creative methodology adopted to make students understand and appreciate every concept.The subjects are designed in such a way to provide an insight into the fundamentals of every aspect of management

Real time case studies and role plays form the starting point for teaching the seven P’s of marketing and students get to analyse them .There is more to accounting and finance than just numbers as logic is often used to create solutions. Debates on the financial results and accounting scandals are discussed openly in forums .

‘Will Maslow’s theory of motivation be applied in a real organization?’ Yes and how? Find out from the Human Resources sessions at CBS. The most creative activities and games are undertaken to drive every theory and concept in HR. Never will a CBS student think of these as mere theory classes.

One will find all subjects right from the ‘normally considered dry Economics’ to the ‘mind-boggling Research’ to be taught and delivered from the angle of application in a real life management scenario.

‘Learning for the real world’ is what every student can feel and understand from every General Management session at CBS! And the graduates of today actually are at the right time to enter into this ‘World of real learning’!

Role is just a set of expectations ..

This is my 28th year in HR” says Vasanthi Srinivasan, Assistant Professor, Organisation Behaviour and HRM, IIM-B with an elegant smile on her face. She was addressing the students of HR Varsity in CBS.

The interactive session began with a question posed to her from a student with respect to the academic knowledge and its application in the organizational environment. She replied by describing her first job experience and took us through compensation benchmarking exercise – the real aspect of it. This triggered more questions from the students and the session led to a discussion on compensation benchmarking process.

We also learnt the way to differentiate role and task. The learning that “Role is nothing more than a set of expectations” cannot be forgotten at any moment in our life.

She has done abundant research, published papers and her research on Competency Management helped her to highlight the three frames of competencies for HR professionals. She threw light on “unstated assumptions in Variable Pay” which would be kept in mind when we need to design compensation structure for our organizations. It was an enlightening session that made us realize the strategic importance of this function.

Loyola College wins Brainiac 09

Wonderful experience, we were for a surprise with the kind of stage we set foot in!” “We had a great time, enjoyed every bit of the quizzing” “The audio, the lighting, even buzzer did the magic for us!”

These were the few of exclamations we got to hear at the auditorium on Tuesday evening by the shy, happy, pleased participants about a first of kind event that was held by Chennai Business School.


If A1, A2, A3, A4 etc are different sizes of paper… What is C1, C2, C3 etc is? Startled, awed? Well such were the questions that marked Brainiac ’09 on April 7, 2009. The evening was started early with enthusiastic participants, audiences started walking in. The stage was set for the teams that would be battling it out for the grand prize and their way to path of fame.

The quiz master for the evening Mr. Giri ‘Pick brain’ Balasubramanium kept the participants and the audiences on their toes with questions like who set up the Shram Sadhana Trust or what is the result of excellent and oxide? One could not help but retrieve all the general knowledge they read about or saw!

The quiz kick started with selecting three teams from six teams who were quizzed in two rounds consecutively to select the participants to combat it out for the coveted prize, with each team having two members. The final round included rounds like direct questions, business pixels, connecting images etc where the gusto of different teams was shown each the fiery red buzzer went off. The teams that took chance with negative marking got lucky and went on ahead of other teams.


The battle was intense and each team fought hard but in the end, there has to be just one winner. The winners for the day from the Loyola college took home a cash prize of Rs. 50,000 which was presented to them by the chief guest of the ceremony Mr. R. J Shahaney , Chairman of Ashok Leyland and Chairman, Board of Advisors, Chennai Business School. The runners up won a whopping prize money of Rs. 20,000 which was presented to them by Mr. Mohan Menon, CEO of Chennai Business School. The participants were not disappointed and neither were the audiences who were all each given attractive gift hampers and prizes.

The event was well ended with a note of thanks to all the volunteers, audiences and the participants who were involved in making the event a success! So, quizzing with some fun anyone?!

Contributed by Usha Mariyappa, Marcom Varsity

Brainiac 2009 - Chennai goes quizzing

"You can teach a student a lesson for a day; but if you can teach him to learn by creating curiosity, he will continue the learning process as long as he lives."
Clay P. Bedford

Chennai Business School (CBS) an institution dedicated to creating ‘industry-ready’ managerial talent, is conducting BRAINIAC 2009, an intercollegiate quiz competition, which is aimed at undergraduate students across several pre-selected colleges in Chennai.

The format comprises a grueling and highly competitive preliminary round, which tests participants on business trivia, general knowledge and events/happenings. The winning teams from the preliminary rounds, one team per college, will be in for an exciting and thrilling Grand Finale, which will be held tomorrow at the Chinmaya Heritage Centre in Nungambakkam.

What's a great quiz without a great quizmaster?

Quizmaster Giri “Pick-Brain” Balasubramaniam, who is very well- known among both the quizzing aficionados and the audiences for his sharp acumen and keen wit, will conduct the final event.

The winning team in the finals will receive an attractive cash prize of Rs 50,000. The two runners-up teams will receive cash prizes of Rs 20,000 each.

If the action in the prelims is anything to go by, the Grand Finale will be one of the most exciting quiz events in Chennai!

An Encounter with Product Concepts !

Workshop by Mr.Visvanathan, GM- Marketing Services, Cavinkare Pvt. Ltd.

Real life experiences help us understand things better. They provide us the first person view of the matter so that we relate to such things from close quarters. One such fascinating experience was the workshop on Concept development conducted by Mr Visvanathan, General Manager - Marketing Services, Cavin Kare.

The theme of the workshop was to give a first hand view on how a 'good' concept for marketing any product is developed. The various insights that get into making a concept and finally testing it. The effectiveness of the concept can also be tested , thereby giving us means to understand the life cycle of the processes involved in this.

Practically, how brand managers do this exercise is what Mr.Visvanathan took us through during the sunday guest sessions at CBS and it was an exciting journey right from the beginning. As it is a capsule course specially made for Chennai Business school, Mr.Vishy set the stage initially by asking a plethora of questions both at abstract as well as application levels. Then came the seam-less inputs from him, which made is to think differently in conceiving, analysing and finalising about any product concept. It’s always important to understand what goes through the mind of a customer before he buys a particular product. This is the key point for any marketer, using this the product concept for selling it to the customer is developed.

In a nutshell, if one could answer the following questions, one can peep into the mind of a brand manager when he is working on a concept development:

What is the accepted customer belief pertaining to the product in contention?

What are the benefits provided by the product to customer?

What are the reasons to believe this?

Think u can crack them!!!:)...

Another important aspect is the differentiating factor among products and their relevance to their target group. This point was constantly reiterated by him, as he said that most marketers get this wrong. They always concentrate on the differentiating factor and miss out on its relevance. We could actually understand the concept of developing a concept(now that’s called playing with words!!;)) by working on the idea ourselves for brands like Sunsilk shampoo, Meera Herbal Oil and a few more.

But the icing on the cake was when he finally made us to correctly crack those questions mentioned above for various products, putting us in the shoes of a brand manager . Now that’s what you call a really rewarding experience. It never seemed to be just another sunday as we got one more arrow in our marketing quiver. Sharp.

By Pradeep , Marcom Varsity ,CBS