O, She was young and beautiful!

(A song composed out of Proverbs chapter 5, which I heard in '99 during the CMTC camp at Kotagiri)

Proverbs Chapter 5

She was young and beautiful
She was anytime on the phone, I talked o her all the time
She said that she loves me and be with me all of my life
Honey drips from her lips and sweeter were her words
I thought she's the one and only woman of my life

O She lied all the time!
She had many others on her mind
She wasted all the time and made me cry all night..

All these things made me recall Proverbs Chapter 5
Wrong became the trend, bitter was the end
Wasterd were all those days, so foolish were my ways
I've come to be much wise, to a stranger woman is disguise..

O she lied all the time..!

Employee Value Proposition or Capitalist's Value Proposition...

Visiting D-75, Malviya Nagar (The VADHMN den) always results in some post of mine... We're a bunch of professionals from Sales, Operations, Finance & HR from Banking, IT-ITeS, Manufacturing industries and we caught up chatting on various trends across our respective organizations and sundry..

I got to know of a leading bank where an Manager committed suicide due to work stress, another manager who's psychic behaviour gets all his juniors go bonkers; Companies where benefits being provided earlier are being withdrawn, and new leaders taking over at the top and not taking employee-friendly decisions... and many more...

The question here is: Do companies really mean to assess the value proposition in their decisions or the impact their decisions might make for employees at all?

Maybe, it's just another HR tool to sugarcoat the bitter truth. But, does HR too own those decisions? Questionable. Well, the matter of the fact is, without any doubt, that the first assessment of any initiative is to know what's the value proposition for the shareholders? If that's good enough, everything else is overridden. If, as a byproduct employees benefit out of it, the companies encash it as a 'EVP offered at XYZ Inc.,' Way to go guys, what say?!

So, next time you hear that 'EVP thing', ask yourself, if it is EVP or CVP?

The Castration theory....

Ahem, before you start thinking what not... let me get it right. It's only about performance and rewards. That's all!

It was not two years back that one of my student-friend K.Ramanathan had shared this theory with me, and it was just a few weeks back that we met and refreshed our memories and got discussing about this theory again. I've personally shared this with many friends of mine, but here it goes online... to everyone who reads this blog...

Well, it's no rocket science. It's all basics, and perhaps, this simplicity is what is so interesting about it...

We came across an organization which paid its employees more than they actually deserved (personal opinions), according to our analysis of a few of the employees' skill-sets. These employees had got used to higher pay packages over a period of time and such lifestyles, that when they wished to quit for better opportunities, they actually found themselves in a fix. On one hand, they weren't actually skillful enough for progressive responsibilities, and on the other, if they found a job, the pay packages offered were either similar to what they were receiving, or lesser.

In a way the peoples' lives got accustomed to such a way of living that they could not survive on lesser salaries, and even if they wanted to leave their current organizations, they had no choice but to continue... That is The Castration Theory. A person is slowly castrated that they become unproductive for others...

Hmmm... a good strategy for companies to retain people, though. People beware!

Corporate Mafia & Human Resource Management

HR (and Administration) Departments are being pursued by owners and top management to operate as a Mafia. Well, this mafia is to specialize in a very niche area--

• To spy around the office so as to keep a watch on undercurrents
• Threaten and/or Create problems to retain employees who quit
• Tamper / Tarnish the careers of quitters by bad-mouthing
• To network with companies to find which quitter is joining where

It is very typical in a business segment where attrition is soaring that people run pillar to post trying to retain employees. Gone are the days when contracts/agreements/bonds used to create that block in employees' minds before they separated from their employers. The employees is literate (not quite enough) of their rights and responsibilities to tackle the agreement issues.

I would not generalize these practices to all companies, but I certainly opine that this may be a common practice in small organizations, organizations with closely-knit cultures and companies operating in niche markets. It's a real sorry state is how companies are trying to retain people. Instead of resorting to best practices and retaining people by offering a 'package of interest' (including a good combo of hygiene and motivators) to them, they're trying to retain by fear.

The impact of the whole exercise nevertheless does not result in retention, but it results in--

• Tension in the organization
• A hostile organizational climate & culture
• Tragic Impressions left on existing employees
• A chain reaction over existing employees to follow a cautious and hostile exit
• Poor (read pathetic) branding of the organization

Yet, many follow these practices knowing the results. It's somewhere a drive of the top management to 'TEACH A LESSON' to the people who quit and implant FEAR even in the minds of existing employees so they may think twice before they think of quitting.

Well, though the HR is empathetic towards the employees and can argue a case, HR management has limitations set by the CEO/Director, which then, fall out of the domain. In fact, if HR doesn't cooperate, then people definitely have their ways to pursue their causes...

A few companies I believe do not relieve such employees, and wait to know the name of company the candidate is joining and then call them up to threaten that they may be sued for dual employment of candidate. Even more pathetic is when companies use their influence with local authorities (police) and file and FIR against the employee possessing company assets, and Bingo! who's gonna look for physical evidence of intellectual assets... Phew!!!

These practices are quite disheartening, and all the more stressful to employees as 'COMPANIES ARE FOLLOWING THEM'.

The topic is open for your criticism / additions / suggestions...