Just Joined! Itchy Hands Looking To Change?

When Mr. X joined the mid size Company, within 2 weeks he felt everything needed a change and makeover. The first thing that required major modification was the Company Policies and immediately he got to work of designing new ones. At the end of 4 weeks from his joining date he had a new set of policies ready and looked forward to furnishing them before the Management, get an approval and be the proud creator of them.

A proud creator yes, but the policies never got approved! Several reasons could be possibly attributed to it like: how could it be that not one policy was perceived as a fit to the Organization Culture; what was the urgent need of modifying them, that too in such a short time of being on board; copied from internet resources. Plus rapport building became a huge task which couldn't be overcome with time!

A conversation with a friend led to the question: How long can an employee recruited for a crucial decision making position take, before he/she can start rolling out the decisions and the Organization would listen to him/her? The friend said ideally not more than 3 weeks and by then he/she should be well acquainted with the operations/systems flow and all that his responsibilities demand. However when it comes to introducing changes the 3 weeks is too short a time. That’s the easiest way that can lead to his being crucified before public eye. Neither would he be able to please the Management nor gain the confidence of his subordinates/colleagues or the employees.

Company policies are something that is based on the common vision and goals of the builders of the Organizations which are duly passed on down the level of hierarchy. Playing with them is a sure shot way of receiving heavy criticism and resistance. But this holds good only for Organizations that fall in the bucket of being Tier-1 and/or Tier-2. There are still quite many of those who form the bulk of mid size Organizations – for some of them their respective policies are nothing but copied material from Internet (CiteHR in fact is an excellent resource for anything that has to deal with HR) and they have always been mavericks in the way they operate and implement activities. Introducing a change out here would mean disturbing the fine balance between Management, employees and the new person hired from a corporate HR background. The others are those who are bound tight by their policies and find changes nothing less than unnecessary fingering just to prove the newly hired individual is a capable addition to the team. Both ways it’s too premature to believe that nothing is going right in the first place. No doubt the new addition may have been hired to well implement the necessary visions of the Management, however for being effective the right time would begin only after months of careful scrutiny of the culture and the way employees respond to it.