HR For The Elite

The great divide that exists in a manufacturing sector is of the two categories: the worker level and the staff/managerial level. When it comes to the functionality of Human Resources in this sector, there is a modified version that has been into existence since long, better known as the Personnel Department. They look into each micro level of the organization ranging from dealing with Trade Unions, to handling contractors, to being the caretakers of housekeeping and safety propositions. They even have employee grievances both from the worker and managerial level in their kitty, et al. They go around getting water source tanks cleaned too with disinfectants and sometimes have worked in those roles that were very technical, yet the organization needed the shift. It surely amounts to enormous tasks under their paper weights.

But on an hypothetical comparison with the IT industry, where Personnel is non-existent the functionality talks about words like Employee Engagement, Succession Planning, Competency based Development, and the likes in this genre. When we try importing these concepts into the manufacturing sector, and in particular the mid sized organizations, what happens is initial resistance and severe criticism that follows. One of the contributing reasons that I can think of is that these terminologies sound like fancy words picked up from an American dictionary. And it’s like an uphill task to convince people that HR is here for good and means good intention.

Analysing on the criticality of one of these aspects namely Succession Planning, for one it’s the workers who are into the jobbing process in the industry. Be it the welding, or soldering, or working on auto parts or with the arc furnace there are skilled and un-skilled workers for each category of work. Whereas the staff/managerial employees are into supervisory work and their main competency involves around understanding the drawings and technology behind a process. The technicalities are what staff/managerial employees possess; however working on site with tools, cranes, lathe machines etc is the workers job. And if these workers go on strikes, the organization suffers in productivity. When we talk of Succession Planning, we may have our slots filled in for staff/managerial level folks by the next competent fellow fished from the market. Yes without him any breakdown in a machine cannot get proper directions to be fixed, or the strategies and shortest path solutions cannot be brought about. But it’s equally necessary to fill in the slot of a worker, who after 3 decades of service in the organization leaves a post vacant minus the skill too. Though it’s well known that doing a certain task for n number of years makes the person able and capable in it; however when we talk about using shorter path means to achieve quicker cycle times of the products life cycle and achieving delivery time; won’t it be quintessential to have a similar competency chart available for workers too. What if worker x is on leave for 2 days, there should be a worker z to quickly fill the spot! We as HR involve ourselves into designing On-the-Job-Training (OJT) schedules of numerous training sessions for the staff/managerial; however how many OJT schedules for workers are made? What if an organization has a worker’s average age of 40-45? The next decade would see the organization exhaust it’s value in the market as the core skill workers would be due retirement. Succession Planning isn’t just about queuing up the next man hour resource, it is about a competent workforce that needs less of coercing into doing the job and an equal opportunity of availing training and upgrading themselves in courses that are relevant. It’s a part of an HR’s responsibility to aide everybody in the organization. But if the HR and the Top Management feels that the organization would be wasting resources on unnecessary development of a task that requires no prior knowledge, but just common sense and the knowledge of the right way of doing a certain thing, which is more or less monotonous in nature; we are indicating that after all HR policies are for the betterment of the Elite a.k.a. staff/managerial.

Along with grooming the next level of employees, we also indulge in activities that would make our employees happier in the long run. We come out with this message that says “Look we are not just aiding you in your career growth; but we are taking care of you as well in the best of the ways. It’s because you mean as much to us, as we do to you!” We’ve come up with various policies indicating the benefits that they would be entitled to receive because they lay in the band level. Surely it does make them happy, and yes it has been a practice being followed all over the globe. Benefits like purse allowance, magazine allowances, etc, all tagged under the Fringe Benefits kitty, of which am so thankful to the Government for abolishing it from the Budget 2009. We do try our every bit of taking care of our employees; however why just restrict such benefits to staff/managerial levels? Human Resource is about taking care of the entire employee base of the organization and inching towards development of every individual. Would HR always cater to the needs of the Elite or are there chances of broadening the span to the less blessed? Would introduction of HR in an atmosphere that existed as a conglomerate of functions – Personnel Department survive the tests of meaning good intention? Would Succession Planning stand good for workers? Would mid sized manufacturing organizations grow with the process or end up being tangled in a mess of understood and not much understood methodologies? All of it depending upon the culture of the organization and the openness to accept HR with arms wide open, minus the nitpicking of associating it with American mumbo-jumbo as well as broadening the expanse and the reach of the HR Department in the lines of hereditary Personnel bloodline.