HR Is Not A Policeman

Long back in a history class I had read concepts of international policeman. For a long time it enthralled and captivated every pupil’s mind, how and which policies of the United States of America resulted to it being referred as the international policeman. True to its name, even today with what happens in Afghanistan, Iraq or Pakistan; US of A has a major hand to play while portraying itself as a peacemaking force.

No I’m not discussing the world politics, but drawing a parallel to the very concept of policing around! One of the functions in an organization vis-à-vis Human Resource is several times taken to be the department used for policing around the organization’s views. The definition of being one can bring about goodness to the organization as well as be misconstrued.

When I talk of the goodness, we have a body that tries its best to lay out protocols and ensure compliance on universal grounds without deviation or exception. Some may argue why at all is the department needed when neither can it take decisions of its own nor can it think out of the box nor does it yield productivity of any kind. A function which by itself is bounded by policies those that end being meaningless, when others in the market are adopting the open house schemes. However how much ever one may decide to deny the need for discipline, end of the day as personal experiences everybody starts believing in the sanctity of the methodologies. For example dress code is a thought for contempt for many, whilst others believe it’s a must to harbour company’s culture.

The goodness is not that worrying as much as the misinterpretation is. How many times have we come across individuals from HR who believe, they have the supremacy to decide the future of an employee – either making or breaking it? How many HR’s think they can get away with whatever they do, because they are a part of the elite managerial group that handles employees? Ever heard of an HR suggesting that they have the liberty to break the rules/clauses/protocols since their policies are for the delivery functions and not support? Seen an HR who thinks they have rights to all the privileges and nobody can question them on the same? I have for myself seen people from the HR brigade exhibiting such behaviour.

Why if you ask me, or for that matter they themselves; all you can gather from their expression is that they are the one’s making the policies and they have certain anonymous powers to bypass them!

Before I got into the profession a friend of mine had then said, how one needs to be careful with not annoying an HR during campus placements. Narration of a story followed, the moral of which was, the lady HR didn’t find the candidate smart to talk and exhibited a personal disliking, hence closing his chances for employment without consultation with technical experts. Interviewees line of thought (including his friends) says unfair deal, HR are dangerous to mess around with. Interviewer’s line of thought says the person seems weak in the capability to be trainable due to severe communication barriers. For serious HR’s they know it well, how not to mix personal and professional experiences/instincts. If they aren’t one, they themselves would be poor judges of the right candidature skill and degrade the objectivity involved in the situation.

Another instance when an HR believes he is not liable to pay fine when he loses a material that is the property of the organization. While the delivery guys should be instantaneously fined, because they committed a serious offense. Why should HR or any support function be an exception here and believe they have superficial privileges that allow them to act the way they do?

Or why do they believe certain rights should be exclusively provided to them, when at the same time the policy says check the employees on it and rectify issues if any?

The other day I heard someone quip (in serious tone); let’s make a sick room within the HR room. An inquisitive person asked, and why is that the thought. The answer was something like ‘So that we can all rest whenever we feel like to. But the delivery guys should think twice before entering the room, since it’s the HR they are coming up to.’

With imaginations running so vivid about the seamless powers a designation is entitled to, HR is certainly not a policeman trying to enforce things, moreover boss around for wrong reasons. Perhaps one of the activities entrusted by the organization upon HR shoulders is be within the policy limits, however if somebody thinks it gives them the edge to act beyond their skin; they certainly require to assess their skills and career track. For that matter, any career track, if one’s acting beyond the desired attitude, time for solitude and introspection!

Bad Practices - Retention Techniques

With ever surging attrition comes a huge responsibility on the HR and Talent Management team – ways to retain talent, those resources that were hard to find and engage in business.

For some organizations the creativity comes in booms salvaging the business needs, yet there are some of them who have bad practices being followed with utmost ritual.

Laterals are always the hard nuts to be cracked and convince from altering their decision, however freshers can always be easier to convince, except the bright fellow who is a star performer. An industry secret always says never go for a lifelong high performer. They hop sooner than the rest and are the most dissatisfied of the lot.

Coming to the bad practice, as an industry standard hardly any organization would prefer a new resource that has scored lower than 60%. There are also places where the scores can be flexible if higher up the course line a definitive learning pattern has been discovered.

There are still some who believe in absorbing as many as they can to meet their resource requirements, putting an important clause in the appointment letter, stating that unless and until the employee doesn’t provide all the certificates and testimonials he/she shall not be confirmed from his/her probation status. To many it may sound as a fair deal, as collection of documents is a tedious task and 90% of employees do not have the entire gamut of things asked by organizations. Eventually documents keep coming which in turn yields to filing issues and loss of data.

However there’s a catch in the clause, despite sounding convincing. The employees in this case are unable to submit the requisite documents as they’ve not cleared the backlogs, hence do not possess the marksheets! As long as they keep writing papers, for which they no longer are regular students; they keep being in the fluid situation where they cannot put down the papers. The question of career progression keeps falling in their laps where proving to prospective employers about the extended period of probation can be a daunting task! After all we as recruiters do raise our eyebrows when we find discrepancies regarding difference of years between important qualifications which override the stipulated time. Or even if the appointment letter says the probation period is of 6 months and the experience letters includes the detail that the individuals’ probation lasted for 1.5 years.

Those organizations may suggest that they have no alternate option of retaining talent other than this technique coz of the geographical and industry challenges they face. Quite many cities/towns are rich in resources of a certain kind (manufacturing) or are placed at strategic locations (enveloped by benchmark IT industries). Creating a niche for themselves in a hoard of others is a challenge by itself for remaining in business and making profits. Under such conditions the workforce keeps rotating among 3-4 Co.’s that hold the fort in that area, serving competitors and bouncing back at previous employers. Like a shuttle they keep frequenting among the odd 3-4 power players, hence diluting the quality of domain knowledge and innovativeness in their skills and application. Times like these invite new breed to enter the veins of the organization bringing along new energy and enthusiasm and they do not mind many a times as long as they are working and being paid for it. 

But such justifications still do not balance the bad practice adopted at those places. Giving a chance to those that do not meet basic requirements, due to xyz reasons can still be said to meaningful. Eventually those organizations that allow some flexibility also link up initial appraisal to performance and aptitude of the employee. However tapping potential and not giving them due credit or motivating to go beyond their limits just coz they do not have marksheets and testimonials speaks volumes of unprofessionalism from a Co.’s viewpoint! Either they need to eradicate such practices or come out with better ways of retaining talent and getting work done from them!