Jumping Juhi – Long weekend wasted by working on Saturday

Its Dussehra Today. In India, it is one of the big festivals, celebrated all across India and because of this we had three days weekend. But Jumping Juhi again.. Unfortunately I worked even on Saturday and enjoyed only two days as weekend. I don’t know why but she always like working on weekends. She not only work herself but also make all of us work.

I do not mind working on a Saturday, if it is really required. My job is not a very high pressure one, though sometimes there is work pressure. But why I have to waste my long weekend by working on a Saturday for someone else. When questioned about our working saturday, she justified that we will get two holidays anyways, so we can work on Saturday and this justification was really irritating.

The topping on the cake was, even after calling all of us she did nothing much. We were sitting there her personal assistants and she was wasting time, talking to people here and there. The actual productivity for the whole day was just two hours.

BIE...BIE

Picture Courtesy : http://www.sxc.hu/photo/1129274

Every HR professional, has faced the situation of releasing people, speacially in recent past when we all were hit badly with recession. But is it really a release? Why we call it release? The meaning of release is to free from confinement, bondage, obligation, pain, etc.; let go ( Ref: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/release) Release is from prison not from the organization. I personally feel that the better term is to call it as “Business Initiated Exit” BIE

Points to ponder while discussing with an employee “Business Initiated Exit” BIE

Empathize
Make the other person realize that it is not a happy decision for the company or for you as well. Make her understand that it is a business reason and nothing could be done about it. Also this can happen to anybody tomorrow including you.

Be Compassionate
Speak to her in a tone which shows that you are really feeling sorry and compassionate for the employee. She should not feel that you are being rude or stern. She is being asked to leave, which is a sad moment for her and in such a moment she requires your compassion more than the logic. The worst is if you just sit their without uttering any word, just like an ice slab.

Give Enough Time
You should spare enough time to sit with the employee for this discussion. The employee should not feel that you are just doing this as one of your regular tasks. She should not feel that she is not worthy even of your time. This would hurt her more while she is anyways broken by this decision of the company.

Be clear about the offer you are making
Be very clear about the offer you are making to the employee for his exit. This is not a bargain table. The company has already made a decision to discuss the exit with the employee and company should be ready with the offer for the employee. This offer may include the time until which the employee would be in the organization, the amount given to the employee, the exit process etc.

Discuss timelines
Discuss various timelines clearly with the employee,
a) By when will the employee tender her resignation?
b) By when will the company provide the full and final and all other dues discussed.
c) By when will the employee receive her experience letter

Jumping Juhi - Idea show off @ last minute

Since last one month Jumping juhi knew about this occassion, when the old guy in our organisation was about to retire. I asked so many times for the approval for the expenses so accordingly we can plan for the celebration. But always she ignores, showing her business.

And today in front of complete business group, Juhi jumped, showing as if she is the only person who cares about the employees. She ordered me to arrange for the celebration, as if she has just got the brilliant idea and all other are fools who never thought of this.

Today is wednesday and the celebration is scheduled for friday. Now i only have one day left for all preparation.

Why cant she give me enough time to plan and perform....

Jumping Juhi is an imaginary character. All her similarities to people around us is coincidental. Jumping Juhi is a light hearted series to portray work related scenarios in a fiction mode. The intention is not to malign anyone's image or to make fun of anybody.

Farewell to the employee

One of my friends who is heading the India division of one of the US based organization asked me a question. Her company is small, with around 20 employees only. The company has seen some bad times during last year’s recession, when she released more than 75% of her employees. Though the company is still trying to overcome the recession storm, still she has started the recruitment and has rehired many of the old employees. But the attrition rate is not very less, employees are looking for bigger and better pastures. The average age of employee in her company is somewhere around 8 months.

One of her performing employee has resigned as she is getting married and moving to the new location. She was working with the company since last two years. Few employees, who were working with her since long, are in favour of giving her a farewell. Now the director of the company asked me what she should do. She was not in favour of making this as a precedence of giving farewell to employee, as the attrition rate is high being the average duration of employee, less than a year. She was really worried about the cost implications.

The first and foremost, I asked her to decide whether she wants to give the farewell or not.

If she wants to give an elaborate farewell, please go ahead for a lunch at some restaurant, but involve all the employees, and not just a bunch of people closer to that particular employee as this will be organizational initiative.

If she is not, she can also pick on the below mentioned ideas, which are not very expensive but will result in goodwill which is far valuable.

1. Call for a pot luck party in the office where, few chosen ones or every employee brings some specific dish to eat and the organization should sponsor a gift for the departing employee.

2. Organise gathering of employees over snacks.

3. Ask every one to write best wishes and personal messages to her on a plain T-shirt. This would be inexpensive as well as apersonal gift.

4. Ask the collegues of the leaving employee to speak something about her on a video and burn this CD to gift her. You can play the CD in the gathering, where she would feel very happy hearing good things from her fellow colleagues.

Advantages of organizing a farewell party

* The employee who is leaving feels good, that his work was appreciated and acknowledged by the organization. At such gatherings, emotional bonding takes place which is very necessary, especially for the smaller organizations.

* It creates goodwill among the remaining employees towards the organization.

* It’s a good platform to highlight the positives of the employee, so he feels happy about her stay. A happy employee, leaving an organization is a good source for publicity of your organization.

* At such gatherings, special qualities of a good employee should be highlighted to emphasize the attributes appreciated in the organization. This may include performance, longer stay with the organization or any other thing worthy of mentioning.

When the farewell party is not appropriate

* If the organization has asked the employee to leave, due to any reason.

* If the employee has been with the organization for a very short duration, lets say for few days or just one month, without any special contribution towards the company.

Jumping Juhi - My Office.. My Home..

Jumping Juhi spends most of the time meeting people. She talk.. talks.. and talks.. like she has a free cell phone sim connection fitted inside.

Once she completed talking with all the people (which may or may not be work related) by 6 pm in the evening, she takes her team to task.

Nobody knows why she behaves like this. If she is born like this or has become like this. But one thing is sure she likes the office very much. Either she saves her residence’s electricity bill or she saves the cooking cost , but she spends most of the waking hours in the office. She reaches office by 9.00am in the morning, meet all people, do lots and lots of gossip, eat like there is no tomorrow and start work only at 6.00 pm in the evening.

The complete team is really fed up with this behaviour of jumping juhi.

Jumping Juhi is an imaginary character. All her similarities to people around us is coincidental. Jumping Juhi is a light hearted series to portray work related scenarios in a fiction mode. The intention is not to malign anyone's image or to make fun of anybody.

Plan for Manpower Transition while merger of companies

I have some experience in integrating the merged organization. Hands on working during the transition process have given me very good insight and great experience. Moreover, I am learning from other’s mistakes.

To tell you about one incident, Once at 9.30 pm on Sunday evening I got the communication, that next morning we would be completing the transition of one division of the new company which has more than 100 employees. I was asked to finish with the new appointment letters along with the new salary structure for all these employees by next day morning.

Now I know how to work on stretched goals, but unfortunately I did not even have the existing data for all 100 + employees. Without the existing data, it was not possible to formulate new salary structures for the employees. It was a challenge but I was supposed to complete the task by next morning. So in the morning, I called up the HR person and the accounts person of the acquired company to get complete data of the employees. I called up the person in the payroll outsourcing team, who created the new salary structures for me in an hour’s time. And we were ready with all that was required by 12 o clock in the morning.

I am sure, that this transition would have been planned atleast two days in advance, but the lack of communication from top put undue challenges in front of me. It was not only at the backend, where we faced challenge in communication but even the employees were not aware about this transition process uptill morning.

I believe that transition is an important exercise which should be planned properly. We can not take the employees of merged company for granted. This really reflects poor on the image of the company.

Learning from this whole episode, following are tips to be organized in a better manner when such transition is planned.

1. Get the correct point of contact in the merged company who can provide you complete data.
2. Get the headcount data well in advance and get it verified from the finance department as finally finance department is releasing the salary of the employees.
3. Try getting the appointment letter and the employment files of all the exisiting employees of the merged company.
4. Get the salary restructuring exercise done in advance. Get professional help if required as salary restructuring is an important exercise. We need to maintain the balance between maximizing the benefits to employees and reducing the cash outflow from the company.
5. Once the salary figures are in place, take prior approval from the authorized personnel. Do not wait uptill last minute.
6. Prepare the letters well in advance.
7. The most important of all is communication with the employees. Please inform them in advance so that they are mentally prepared for the transition.Last minute communication does not portray professional image of the company.
8. Prepare a presentation to be given to all employees addressing various issues which may be there in the employee’s mind. Also give time to the employees where they can ask their queries.