Introspecting the HR Function
- 3
Some Ideas for Action
In Part 2 of this
series, we dealt with what are some of
the things an HR Manager must do to
graduate from being a manager to becoming a leader. Having successfully made this
transformation, this concluding part of
the series now takes up the issue of what are some of the “new and innovative” interventions that the
HR Manager can initiate in his organisation.
Once again, if you can recall the learned tomes delivered
at various Public Seminars and Workshops on the broad theme of “HR in the 21st Century” or
“Role and Responsibilities of HR” ,
a large number of them are aggressively accusative or condescendingly
disparaging about HR’s “disconnect” with “business” !
Senior HR Professionals who address such gatherings act "holier than
thou” in accusing their HR colleagues (they themselves being honorable
exceptions, of course !) of not being able to justify HR interventions on the
touchstone of business viz., ROI. HR Managers are exhorted that they must
justify every intervention/action they propose,
in monetary terms which must be acceptable to the CFO or his henchmen.
We are today getting
requests from Heads of HR, who have
called us to discuss our conducting some training programme for them, to give them (i.e. the Heads of HR) a good
“justification in monetary terms” as to
how the cost of the training will be recovered and become profitable for the
company !! What can be more tragic or
ridiculous that in today’s “advanced management era” the value of training is not seen in the
knowledge it adds to the individual or how it leads to development of the
individual --- the organisation couldn’t care less !
What is important is how it will benefit the organisation in terms of
“the bottom –line” and how soon it can
happen. And to do this HR Managers are
asked to develop Metrics to showcase their performance – in terms of monetary
gain from the things they do or propose to do.
HR
must vigorously contest this pressure and this approach. In my view,
HR is not responsible for the business – top line or bottom line. HR’s whole and sole responsibility is people
– their welfare and well-being, their
engagement and motivation, their complaints and discomforts, their aspirations
and hopes, their dreams and its fulfillment.
If HR can look after the people
(in the organisation) these people will
look after the business – topline and bottom line and the mid-riff too, for
good measure !
HR must not allow itself to
be bullied into having its performance judged by the straitjacket of “Rupee Cost – benefit analysis” and ROI
(Return on Investment) and such
financial/monetary measures which are applicable to operating departments like
manufacturing, sales and suchlike. This is not HR’s lookout and cannot be pushed on HR’s lap by the non –
performing Operating Divisions of the
Company.
Well, if HR
is not to be judged by monetary metrics,
then how is its performance to be judged
? If metrics is what are required,
let me propose the following :
a) Measure the “sound of laughter” in your organisation. Indeed, do people laugh at all ? Check – you may be in for a rude shock.
And if they do
not laugh, what does it tell you about
the organisation, its working
ambience, its ability to absorb
criticism, make fun, pull each other’s legs, have fun and thus develop inner
strength to face the innumerable and inevitable “stresses and strains” that any organisation faces ?
b)
Measure the decibel level of
“chatter” which is not merely or only about
“chit-chatting” but actually about the
free interchange of ideas, vigorous
arguments about differing points of view and the ultimate emergence of a
filtered conclusion that is a synthesis of the best of each viewpoint into a
synergistic whole.
c) Monitor and record the time
people come for work
– how many come in time, how many come before time and how many come as reluctant stragglers because they have to, only because they are employed here ?
Do you ever
survey and enquire why some people are “regular late-comers”
? What can be done to get them on time ; do they require some kind of flexi –
time, possibly some different timings, maybe some time-concession ? Is this
a “temporary phase” that will go
away or is this simply his/her character
? And, if it is the latter, have you counseled the person and do you have
the organizational “guts” to discipline him or dismiss him, if that
is what is called for ?
d)
Monitor and record the time
people leave for home
– how many leave before time, how many on time, how
many who stay back, not only or merely to please / impress the boss, but because
they so much enjoy their work that they do not really look at the clock for deciding when to leave ?
e)
How many of your employees
regularly attend health check-ups organized by you and what is the
health/fitness profile of your employees
? How many are suffering from Heart problems, High/Low
BP, Diabetes, If your employees are not physically fit how
do you expect them to be mentally so and how are they going to fight the battle
in the marketplace which they are routinely exhorted to engage in ?
f)
How many of your employees
have a hobby that they are seriously attached to or engaged in (reading, listening to
music and suchlike doesn’t count !) and where they have acquired some level of
competence and standing amongst their
peers ? e.g. Philately, Photography, Music (Singing or playing an instrument),
gardening, teaching the
under-privileged, social work and similar. The prevalence of such hobbies and “non-work interests” amongst your employees indicates that your
employees have well-rounded
personalities who can not only handle crises situations, and also have better standing in society and their
immediate neighborhood which is a major plus point for the organisation.
Do you feature them in your
house magazine, if you have one ? Do you felicitate them so that their
achievements are known to the rest of the organisation ? Do you encourage them so that they can
develop these “after – work” interests ?
g)
How many of your employees
are members of professional organisations like AIMA (All India Management
Association), IEI (Institution of
Engineers, India), IIIE, NIPM, HRD
Network, IIMM and various others ? If the numbers are few you can be sure that
your organisation is slowly becoming fossilized and outdated because its managers are not in touch with professional
developments in their fields and the only knowledge they are working with is
the knowledge they had when they graduated from their respective colleges, decades ago.
In today’s highly competitive word,
this is a dubious distinction that spells certain doom for the
organisation. We strongly recommend to
organisations, whenever we are carrying out
consulting work that organisations must not only permit their employees
to join professional organisations and take part in its activities on “company
time”, they should encourage and assist them to do so – even
going to the extent of paying the initial Joining Fee – the subsequent Annual
fee can be paid by the employee on his own.
I reproduce below an e-mail that I received from one such manager in
this regard, which will clearly
illustrate the point I am making.
From: Anand Ambdoskar
To: pratik
Sent: Tuesday, January 22,
2008 4:57 AM
Subject: Fw: AIMA - 9th
National Seminar on "Performance Related Rewards"
Dear
Mr Varma
First
of all I thank you once again for insisting upon taking membership of
AIMA; I am seeing the advantages now.
It
gives me a great pleasure in sharing this information with all of you.
On
January 17-18, 2008, All India Management Association (AIMA) has organized
9th National Seminar on "Performance Related Rewards" at Delhi and
I was invited there as one of the speakers. It was a great occasion for
me to share our Company's practices on this national platform.
After
my presentation on January 17, the Programme Director Mr M R Gera, in
his review-session, has appreciated our successful journey of more
than 12 years in strengthening the Performance Development Process
and given compliments for our three innovative practices:
·
Implementation of
Three-tier Moderation and consistency in doing that year after year;
·
Considering
Competency rating for increments and promotions, and differentiating the
business results from competencies;
·
Commitments by Top Management
that are being demonstrated through Review mechanisms.
Anand
The tremendous sense of achievement
that Mr. Anand experienced is evident from the above letter. ; besides,
he also brought name and glory to his organisation because of the public
acknowledgement of the “innovative
practices” that Anand’s organisation has
pioneered in their Performance Development Process.
Thus it can
well be appreciated that in addition to the employee’s personal
development, such membership of
professional associations and bodies brings great respect and prestige to the
organisation when its employee becomes an important office-bearer and is widely
respected amongst his professional, colleagues.
h)
How many man – days of
training do your employees undergo each year ? Our own empirical study based on enquiries
with various organisations that we come into contact with (excluding IT and BPO sector with whom we
do not have much dealings) suggests that if it is calculated for the managerial
(i.e. non – workmen category) the figure
is a pathetic ½ man-day or less and if
you include the workmen then it may well be less than 1/10th of that
!! How stupid then to complain that
Indian workmen are less productive than their counterparts in the developed
economies or in the East Asian countries when companies just do not spend a
single paise on “training” their workmen.
Similarly, the ½ man-day average training across
organisations for the non-workmen category can scarcely be called adequate if
we want to have managers who are in step with the changing times, changing
priorities, advancing technologies and challenging competitors in the
marketplace.
Indian organisations
are notoriously short-sighted in the matter of training. The moment there is a whiff of a slow-down
in sales or if somebody utters the word
“recession” immediate instructions go
out from the CEO (egged on by pompous and
short-sighted CFOs) to slash all expenses and the first candidate for such slashing is invariably training ! Little do these CEOs/CFOs realize that “if training your people is costly,
not training them is costlier”.
So if ½ - man
day of training is inadequate, what
should be the desired minimum man-days of training for employees ? This is not very difficult to estimate. Let us take the case of Capital Assets, chief amongst which are plant & machinery,
various equipment and land/buildings.
The minimum Repairs and Maintenance expenses
typically incurred on such Capital Assets ranges from a low of 2 % to a high of
6 to 8 % of the capital value.
Assuming we are
to go by the low end value of 2 %, one
can estimate the training man-days as 2
% of normal working days i.e. 300. Hence
the minimum man-days of training (akin to repair & maintenance of plant & machinery), required to keep the
Human Assets in good shape for performance, works
out to a minimum of 6 man-days. In high technology or rapidly changing
technology companies or highly competitive environment, this figure can be at the higher end of the spectrum
i.e. 8 % of 300 working days
i.e. 24 man-days per year.
Hence the ideal
training man-days per employee per year should range between 6 to 24 days as
dictated by the business you are in.
Under no circumstance can a company get away with ½ man-day or 1 man-day
of training per year, irrespective of what the CFO feels or advises. Can you argue that because there is
recession, we will not oil or grease our machines ? Can you argue that because there is
recession you will not repair a leaking pipe
or a crumbling wall or a beam or column that is developing cracks ? Then how and why do managers argue that employees
do not need any “repair and
maintenance inputs (which is exactly what training is)” and can and should continue to perform at optimum levels.
This is
essentially a mind-set issue as also a political one. For instance,
the sales and marketing functions do not cut on their dealer
entertainment bashes in times of recession.
In fact, they argue, successfully,
that at times of recession you have to invest more in promotional
efforts be it advertising, dealer promotion, parties, tours and junkets to
maintain and get back the business that is shrinking. This is because Sales/Marketing team sits
close to the CEO, they always have
his/her ears and are more swanky,
articulate and aggressive in their style. Even the powerful CFOs are helpless
to stop them. Unfortunately most HR
Heads are more worried about “pleasing
the CEO and not getting on the wrong side of the CFO” and go out of their way to cut their “department
costs” to curry favour, instead of fighting for their function and
insisting that essential and routine training, recruitment and other
development activities must go on and it
is the business of the revenue earning sections of the company to ensure flow
of funds for the same. Undoubtedly, in a crisis situation, everyone must take a cut but otherwise, HR
Department should refuse to become the
“fall guys” for the rest of the organisation’s
failings.
Coming
now to the internal performance of the HR Department, here are a set of metrics that might be considered
:
i)
How
many candidates called for interview do you meet on time i.e. the time given in the interview call
letter ?
j)
How
many days do you take to issue an appointment letter after a candidate has been
selected ?
k)
In
how many cases do you actually check references of selected candidates ?
l)
How
many candidates do not join after receiving your offer letter and what is the
trend is such numbers over a period ?
m)
What
is the turnover rate amongst employees who are below 27 years of age ? This will help you know whether your
organisation is exciting enough for the young and the impatient and the
footloose.
n)
How
much time do you take to respond to internal queries from employees or request
for any special assistance ?
o)
What
is the oldest paper/document/letter sitting in the HR Department which is yet
to be processed ?
p)
How
many of your statutory Reports (be it related to PF or ESIC or Municipality or
any Government/Statutory Authority dealt with by you) are delayed with respect
to the deadline date ?
q)
By
how many days is the completion of your Performance Appraisal System delayed,
every year ?
r)
By
how many days is the declaration of Annual Increments delayed every year ?
s)
In
how many cases, by percentage, are you able to settle a resigning or retiring
employees’ dues, on or before his/her
last day in office ?
t)
How
much time do you take to act upon the PF Transfer request of an ex-employee who
has moved to another organisation ?
As the reader would have
sensed, the whole thrust of the above is
to encourage the HR function to
- Take a hard look at
its own performance in relation to what “HR is expected to deliver to
employees”
- Not get bullied by HR
theorists and CEOs /CFOs into having their performance judged by criteria
that are inappropriate for the HR function
- Monitor, on a regular basis, employees’ feelings and concerns (real or
perceived) so that immediate corrective action can be taken
- Fight with top
management for not side-tracking HR requirements under the garb of “essential budgetary cuts” and, finally
- Put the employee at
the centre of organizational focus and concern on the premise that an organisation can only do
as well as the competency, energy, enthusiasm, motivation and morale of
its employees.
Good or bad
business environment affects all organisations equally. However good, bad or indifferent employees
only affect that particular organisation.
It is HR’s role and responsibility to ensure that its
organisation’s employees have peak performance
capability by ensuring an environment that is supportive, encouraging,
challenging and fun.
Mumbai
December 1, 2013
