PROMOTIONS LINKED WITH RETRENCHMENT
During my tenure as Head- HR with a family owned business, I was summoned one fine morning by our Chairman.
" Nitin, we have more headcount. Lets plan down sizing. My target is around 20-25 people in staff category to be sent home in next month. Please work out."
My past experience of two organizations came handy and I prepared a detailed proposal. Also identified a tentative list, based on their performance and kept it with me.
Then I called a meeting of all heads and informed them about Management's plan. I requested them to identify and give me a list of name/s from their departments, whom they would like to terminate. Rest HR will handle.
Shock for almost all. Something new was going to happen and hardly they had participated in similar exercise earlier. I shared with them standard HR Criteria for such kind of situation and assured all possible help to see that the sailing is smooth.
Almost a week went. No response, no names, no lists. HODs and departmental managers were still confused and probably were not ready to enjoy bad name.
Again I was summoned by chairman to know the update on this front. I told him the facts. The old man lost his cool and immediately called a meeting in his chamber. Around 10-12 HODs came- totally clueless.
Chairman looked at me and instructed- " If you do not get name/s from any HOD by end of day, then put that person's name in retrenchment list. If no one in any team is bad performer then either my departments are world class and hence they do not need any manager to supervise them or my HODs are incompetent to assess and spot a poor performer from the team. In either situation, I do not want such HOD with me."
The meeting got over. All approached me. I once again extended help to them. One very pertinent question came-
" Since you are Head- HR, are you going to start from your department?"
Being a seasoned HR professional, I had anticipated this question. I simply replied- " Yes ! A team of five reports to me for looking after all India HR operations. One of them will go.So I am cutting my strength by 20%."
Their last hope also failed. Some how, I got 20-25 names from all departments. They were more or less matching my personal list.
Rest process was confidential. We succeeded in right sizing. There was obvious resistance, but finally things fell in place.
I did one more thing- "transfer of ownership." The retrenchment process (either through resignation or termination with all legal formalities) took place in presence of respective HOD. Otherwise, I would have enjoyed bad name (I was obviously prepared for this because as HR, I am never on popularity track. If HR is responsible for ENTRY, then they must accompany the employee till or beyond EXIT.) I told each HOD- " If you are issuing increment and promotion letters every year to your teammates proudly, then be prepared for issuance of retrenchment letters as well. Do not try to be in good books of out going employees giving them a feeling that HR is the bad man. This is pure professional act and we are not their enemies. "
Before next appraisals, I devised a new rule- Each HOD while submitting me a list of employees to be considered for promotion (with due justification) should also submit me another list (with justification) of people (poor performers) to be removed. Then the balance can be achieved. You are appreciating good performance at the same time you are not soft to non performers. The message was loud and clear and it worked.
When I look back, I realize, the reasons behind working of this rule were- Chairman's much needed support and a very strong PMS (Performance Management System). All in all, we linked promotions with retrenchment !
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