Last month, I met an old friend. He had done himself well, and is now the HR Head – or Chief People Officer as he would insist - in a blue-chip company.
"How have you been?" I asked him.
"Oh, I am doing well," he replied.
"...and how has the current recession affected you?" This was a curiosity for me: what would the HR professionals be doing with people when there is not enough market demand to keep the employees productively employed.
"Not much, really!! We have managed it well," he said. "In fact, we just concluded an Employee Alignment and Optimization initiative last week."
"Employee Alignment and Optimization" seemed such a sexy term. It conjoured up images of a happy bunch of people being helped by my friend and his HR team to bring their interest and capabilities in-synch with their work and performance.
"That’s really nice! You mean, you assessed and re-allocated them so that they get to do what they are really capable of doing, and enjoy doing?”
He looked aghast and uncomfortable. “No! no!,” he said. “This was actually an initiative to disengage about 200 of them from the organization.”
“You mean, you fired them?!!” I was startled, not being sure how can one “optimize” and “align” people by firing them.
“No, actually, we didn’t have to fire them, at all,” he beamed, happily. “ In fact, as we had planned, it was a voluntary separation. It was really a very smooth process.”
I was thoroughly impressed. “That’s really remarkable!,” I said with awe. “ It says so much about the level of commitment you must have fostered among the people, that they could make such a sacrifice for the larger good of the organization. Imagine!... you send out a mail saying that we need 200 volunteers to leave the organization – and people actually volunteer.”
My friend looked at me as if I had lost my beans. “Of course, Not! It was not like that at all!!” he almost choked. “This was a very systematic and thorough exercise; we planned it with precision, and with full confidentiality; and we trained our HR and line executives to communicate the choice to the 200 of our employees who had be separated.”
I was befuddled, “….and what was the choice?”
“Oh!,” he said with the pride of a general who has cleverly ambushed the enemy. “We told them that they can volunteer to resign; they will have to sign a document to that effect. It was our legal department which suggested this. In return, we will give them 2 months of “sabbatical leave” – “
“Sabbatical leave! You mean, the company will finance 2 months for their re-education?” I was amazed at this generous gesture, though by now, I had nagging doubt that there must be a catch somewhere.
“No, no!, we can’t do that. Think of the costs!” he corrected me. “You know, what with this sensitivity of media about the pink-slips, we had to really think about what to call this interim period. What we actually offered them was 2 months of further employment at half salary, and they don’t have to come to office – actually, they can’t enter office, at all! We also promised to help their outplacement, and they get a decent separation package after 3 months. Depending upon their length of service, they would get 2-months to 10-months of their pay as the severance pay.”
“…and what if they didn’t accept this offer?”, I was curious – or as Alice would have said, it was getting curiouser and curiouser.
He laughed, waving his hands in the air. “Actually, there was not much of a choice for them.” he said with some satisfaction. “We had their performance ratings, and other inputs from the line managers, which we could use to retrench them. We told them that, upfront.... our Legal Dept had already put together a strong case for termination for each of them, really!.”
A stray thought suddenly occurred to me.
“But tell me,” I asked. ”why did you want to fire – er, sorry, disengage - them in the first place!?”
He looked at me incredulously, as if I was from some other planet. “Don’t you read the newspapers?” he asked. “I don’t know if this is a cyclical recession or a meltdown, but the point is that we need to cut down costs – and maintain our margins.”
“But aren’t employees the “resources” – I mean, Human Resources? I know organizations which even call them “the most precious assets” or “human capital”? How did they suddenly become “cost” to the company?”
“Ugh! You don’t seem to understand…,” he lapsed into silence for some time. “After all, “resources”, “assets” etc., are just words. The key issue is: whether, as HR professionals, we are contributing to business or not.”
“But what happens if the business picks up in a year or so, and you need more people?”
“If that happens, we will have to hire new ones”, he said in a matter-of-fact manner. “The point is that have to maintain our profit margins of 35%...”
Needless to say, we left each other, puzzled – and the rest of the conversation, somewhat, went on the same tenor…
And I recalled Jerry Harvey’s classical article: “Eichmann in the Organisation”…
“… it was not the Nazis only who were to be blamed for what happened to Jews – but also the Jewish Council in Germany. To quote:
“…the collusive role played by the Jewish councils – the most powerful, respected, and trusted members of the Jewish community – in the liquidation of their own people, including, in the end, themselves…. they compiled lists for the Nazis of persons to be deported… served as police during actual seizure of people and property… “ etc.
In the contemporary scenario, Eichmann was the quintessential Human Resources professional, and would have approved of the new HR Mantra:
Align!... Optimize!!... Fire!!!
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Align!.. Optimize!!... Fire!!! - The New HR Mantra
Saturday, March 21, 2009
Beyond "what ifs" and "Somedays"...
It is ages - more than 2 months - since, I posted here...
One of the reasons was also the 1st National Conference on Social Entrepreneurship, which we organised at XLRI on Jan 31-Feb 1, '09... and this post is about some of those "entrepreneurs with a social cause"...
Their presentations videos - and links to their websites - of course are available there at:
http://social-entrepreneurship-at-xlri.blogspot.com/
...and the photo slide-show of how the Conference unfolded is here:
Photographs of Day 1:
Photographs of Day 2:
But, listening and interacting with them, made me recall the preface to Rashmi Bansal's book Stay Foolish, Stay Hungry:
- "Of all the questions we leave unanswered, the one that comes back to haunt us the most is: "what if...
- what if I had married my college sweetheart?
- what if I had the good sense not to?
- what if I had been born in this joob market?
- what if...
- what if I'd planned a little less?
- what if I'd planned a little more?
- what if I'd chucked it all, and started my own company?
"What ifs" are never idle fantasy. They are hopes, dreams and desires.
Logic and reasons are the naphthalene balls we use to pack them away into a sandbook called "someday". But when that day comes, we are too old, too poor, too tired or too lazy.
.... those people who seized their moment. So they would not wake up one day with regrets. Of course, they saw markets and opportunity and need gaps. But more importantly, they stood in front of the mirror and saw their true selves.
That self told them it was meaningless to sell soap just because you are paid well to do so.
That being corporate slave was in easy option, but not the one that felt right.
That there was something bigger and better to do with their talents."
Many years back, I had read Odyssey: From Pepsi to Apple. In one of the conversations, Steve Jobs had asked John Sculley:
"Do you want to spend the rest of your life selling sugared water, or do you want a chance to change the world."
Thursday, January 15, 2009
India Inc. vs. "Mera Bharat"
Few News Items which came out during last couple of days:
Modi PM material for Anil Ambani, Sunil Mittal
...As the fourth edition of the Vibrant Gujarat Global Investors Summit drew to a close at Ahmedabad on Tuesday, corporate India, shedding its usual reticence, hailed the BJP leader’s (Narendra Modi's) stewardship and went to the extent of putting the "prime ministerial class" stamp on him.
ADAG chairman Anil Ambani, while addressing the valedictory session of the meet, was effusive in his praise of Mr Modi’s leadership. "Narendrabhai has done good for Gujarat and what will happen if he leads the nation," he said. "Gujarat has seen progress in all the fields under his leadership. Now, imagine what will happen to the country if he gets the opportunity to lead it," he said and added, "Person like him should be the next leader of the country"....
Bharti Group CMD Sunil Mittal also showered encomiums. "Chief minister Modi is known as a CEO, but he is actually not a CEO, because he is not running a company or a sector. He is running a state and can also run the nation," he said.
....Both Mr Mittal and Mr Anil Ambani described Mr Modi as the "future leader of the country," given his "capacity to dream with open eyes" and "drive to achieve the results." The younger Ambani asserted that Mr Modi’s achievements in leading Gujarat to an industrialised state had made him "a proud Indian and a proud Gujarati." He said the way he had transformed Gujarat, he could change the complexion of the country as and when he takes over its reins.
Tata Group boss Ratan Tata led the corporates in lauding Mr Modi’s track record. "I have to say that today there is no state like Gujarat. Under Mr Modi’s leadership, Gujarat is head and shoulders above any state," Mr Tata...
Modi’s ‘Taj Mahal’ to displace 35,000 families, says IIM-A study
They say its Modi’s ‘Taj Mahal’, but the Sabarmati Riverfront Development Project, which is expected to attract maximum attention during the Vibrant Gujarat Global Investors’ Summit 2009, will displace around 35,000 odd families from the riverbed and the surrounding areas, according to a study conducted by the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad (IIM-A).
Navdeep Mathur, a professor at IIM-A, said: "We conducted this study as part of the PGP-PMP course on displacement and rehabilitation issues in the governance. According to the interaction with community leaders and activists, we came to know that nearly 35,000 families will be affected".
Mathur’s team visited the riverbed area in October, followed by a field visit two weeks ago in January. He added: “There is no clarity on the counting of project affected families. We found out that the there was little or no communication with the communities”.
The survey of NGOs - Action Aid and Sabarmati Nagarik Adhikar Manch - and social activists stated that about 35,000 families will be affected, which is in stark contrast to the 4,400 figure given by the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC) initially. The locals of the riverbed, with the help of activists, had filed a petition against the AMC in the Gujarat High Court.
Elsewhere, a news item - Half of Vibrant Gujarat Goes to Sleep Empty Stomach mentions some statistics:
etc.
Postcript: A couple of friends wrote back on the above post that it would be fairer comparison if Gujarat's hunger record is placed along side the national average.
That is a legitimate query, and will certainly help in forming a more balanced view about its growth or otherwise. The India State Hunger Index from IFPRI report is as below. Among 17 states, Gujarat ranks 13 - above Chhatisgarh, Bihar, Jharkhand and Madhya Pradesh
Saturday, November 22, 2008
What Can You Do with Rs500 (US$10)?
What can you do if you get Rs 500/- (approx US$10)?
Maybe nothing!... it is so little
Maybe everything!... it is so much!!
One of my students sent me this amazingly simple - yet unsettling - 2min clip by Nitin Das of Filmkaar (Our mission is to make 'Extraordinary films with Ordinary people'):
500:
http://in.youtube.com/watch?v=M0XTPSYdP08
After all, we do live in "two Indias", where:
Thursday, November 20, 2008
...putting the Humpty-Dumpty/ Global Economy together again!
The Global Economy, as we know/ believe/ are told, is in recession/ downturn/ meltdown....and the corporate and global leaders are trying their best to repair/contain the damage. Ordinary people around the world are told that everything will work-out fine with the new initatives where the government and industry leaders are working hand-in-hand... They will, so to speak, put the humpty-together again!
Of course, these are complex decisions, having wide-ranging impact on the national and global economy; most people don't know/understand how these decisions are taken.
Here are some examples!!
Fed Hires Failed Bank Executive
The Federal Reserve Bank is drawing jeers for hiring a former top executive from the now-defunct investment bank Bear Stearns to help it gauge the health of other banks.
The Federal Reserve Bank has hired the former head of risk management for Bear Stearns, which imploded this spring.
Michael Alix was head of risk management for Bear Stearns for two years until the institution imploded this spring, a victim of its (risky) subprime-mortgage related investments.
Last Friday, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York quietly announced it had hired Alix to advise it on bank supervision... [Read on...]
...On Private Jets to Plead for Public Funds
The CEOs of the big three automakers flew to the nation's capital yesterday in private luxurious jets to make their case to Washington that the auto industry is running out of cash and needs $25 billion in taxpayer money to avoid bankruptcy.
Even as their companies fail, Ford and GM CEOs continue lavish lifestyles.
The CEOs of GM, Ford and Chrysler may have told Congress that they will likely go out of business without a bailout yet that has not stopped them from traveling in style, not even First Class is good enough.
All three CEOs - Rick Wagoner of GM, Alan Mulally of Ford, and Robert Nardelli of Chrysler - exercised their perks Tuesday by flying in corporate jets to DC. Wagoner flew in GM's $36 million luxury aircraft to tell members of Congress that the company is burning through cash, asking for $10-12 billion for GM alone.... [Read on...]
AIG Execs At Posh Resort After $85 Billion Bailout
News cameras watched as American International Group, or AIG, executives were once again living it up at a fancy resort in Phoenix.
Cocktail parties, limousines and dinner at a top Phoenix restaurant were part of their latest retreat.
AIG instructed the hotel to keep everything secret, no signs with its name were allowed.... AIG made significant efforts to disguise the conference, making sure there were no AIG logos or signs anywhere on the property.
An AIG spokesperson said there were no AIG markers in order to minimize signage costs and to lower the company's profile.
A hotel employee told ABC15, "We can't even say the word [AIG]."... [Read on...]
$500 wine at White House Financial Crisis Meeting?
The global economy may be undergoing a significant downturn, but the White House's dinner budget still appears flush with cash.
After all, world leaders who are in town to discuss the economic crisis are set to dine in style Friday night while sipping wine listed at nearly $500 a bottle.
According to the White House, tonight's dinner to kick off the G-20 summit includes such dishes as "Fruitwood-smoked Quail," "Thyme-roasted Rack of Lamb," and "Tomato, Fennel and Eggplant Fondue Chanterelle Jus."
To wash it all down, world leaders will be served Shafer Cabernet “Hillside Select” 2003, a wine that sells at $499 on Wine.com.... [Read on...]
Sunday, October 26, 2008
The "Free-Market Oracles" say it was all wrong!! - part-2
Continuing from the previous posting:
Almost two decades back, in a 1989 essay, Francis Fukuyama had declared The End of History (a thesis which he later elaborated in a book titled The End of History and the Last Man). His basic constention was that with the dawn of Liberal Democracy and Free Market Capitalism, mankind had achieved the fundamentally most effective and the final stage of human government and method of organising the economy.
With this achivement, he stated, all competing ideologies have fallen, or will fall. He wrote:
"...What we may be witnessing is not just the end of the Cold War, or the passing of a particular period of post-war history, but the end of history as such... That is, the end point of mankind's ideological evolution and the universalization of Western liberal democracy as the final form of human government."
Such a momentus claim about the triumph of western (American) politico-economic system made Fukuyama something of a celebrity, and a poster-boy for the neo-liberals...
Recently, however, like Alan Greenspan's self-enlightenment that free-market capitalism is not flawless, Fukuyama too accepted that along with the Wall Street, the utopian vision of capitalism has also collapsed.
Excerpts from his article The Fall of America, Inc. (Newsweek, October 13th,'08)
"The implosion of America's most storied investment banks. The vanishing of more than a trillion dollars in stock-market wealth in a day. A $700 billion tab for U.S. taxpayers. The scale of the Wall Street crackup could scarcely be more gargantuan. Yet even as Americans ask why they're having to pay such mind-bending sums to prevent the economy from imploding, few are discussing a more intangible, yet potentially much greater cost to the United States — the damage that the financial meltdown is doing to America's "brand."
Ideas are one of our most important exports, and two fundamentally American ideas have dominated global thinking since the early 1980s... The first was a certain vision of capitalism—one that argued low taxes, light regulation and a pared-back government would be the engine for economic growth.... The second big idea was America as a promoter of liberal democracy around the world, which was seen as the best path to a more prosperous and open international order....
...But now the engine of that growth, the American economy, has gone off the rails and threatens to drag the rest of the world down with it. Worse, the culprit is the American model itself: under the mantra of less government, Washington failed to adequately regulate the financial sector and allowed it to do tremendous harm to the rest of the society."
Fukuyama goes on to justify that the Reagan-Thatcher revolution of unleashing the "free" market forces was appropriate in that historical context, but does accept that:
"...Like all transformative movements, the Reagan revolution lost its way because for many followers it became an unimpeachable ideology, not a pragmatic response to the excesses of the welfare state. Two concepts were sacrosanct: first, that tax cuts would be self-financing, and second, that financial markets could be self-regulating.
...Reaganomics introduced the idea that virtually any tax cut would so stimulate growth that the government would end up taking in more revenue in the end (the so-called Laffer curve). In fact, the traditional view was correct: if you cut taxes without cutting spending, you end up with a damaging deficit.... globalization masked the flaws in this reasoning for several decades. Foreigners seemed endlessly willing to hold American dollars, which allowed the U.S. government to run deficits while still enjoying high growth, something that no developing country could get away with.
...The second Reagan-era article of faith — financial deregulation — was pushed by an unholy alliance of true believers and Wall Street firms, and by the 1990s had been accepted as gospel by the Democrats as well. They argued that long-standing regulations... were stifling innovation and undermining the competitiveness of U.S. financial institutions. They were right — only, deregulation produced a flood of innovative new products like collateralized debt obligations, which are at the core of the current crisis.
....the downside of deregulation were clear well before the Wall Street collapse. In California, electricity prices spiraled out of control in 2000-2001 as a result of deregulation in the state energy market, which unscrupulous companies like Enron gamed to their advantage. Enron itself, along with a host of other firms, collapsed in 2004 because accounting standards had not been enforced adequately. Inequality in the United States rose throughout the past decade, because the gains from economic growth went disproportionately to wealthier and better-educated Americans, while the incomes of working-class people stagnated..."
Full article is available here
Thursday, October 23, 2008
The "Free-Market Oracles" say it was all wrong!! - part-1
Two "free-market" evangilists retracted their beliefs this past week...though slightly too late!
Here is the first one:
WASHINGTON (AP): Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan says the current financial crisis has uncovered a flaw in how the free market system works and that has shocked him.
Greenspan told the House Oversight Committee on Thursday that his belief that banks would be more prudent in their lending practices because of the need to protect their stockholders had proven in the latest crisis to be wrong.
Greenspan said he had made a "mistake" in believing that banks in operating in their self-interest would be sufficient to protect their shareholders and the equity in their institutions.
Greenspan said that he had found "a flaw in the model that I perceived is the critical functioning structure that defines how the world works."
Thursday, October 09, 2008
Alternatives to Singur
This week, Tatas drew curtains to their Singur Nano project...
...This being a highly govt-subsidised project (ref: Nano-economics), this withdrwal perhaps also perhaps saved the exchequer (and therefore the taxpayers) around Rs.3000cr
The "public" discourse on this project (which ,unfortunately, has now got reduced to the MSM's rant, and the corporate press-releases) has typically been tinted with a with-us-or-against-us kind of argument, i.e., the terms of debate are: if you don't support this project, then you are against "industrialisation"/development.
As an old adage of public deception says:
"if you get them to ask wrong questions, you will never have to give the right answers."
So since no one has asked this:
"are/were there alternatives to the Singur model of land-acquisition/industrialisation?"
Actually there are a few which I could find:
To quote:
"For the steel plant at Salboni in Bengal, JSW has offered free shares worth the value of the land over and above full upfront cash compensation.
....Over 700 land owners has received cash as well as free shares of the new company, promoted by JSW Steel, which will build a 10-million-tonne plant over the next 10 years involving an investment of Rs 35,000 crore.
It has often been said that JSW could offer shares because there was only a small parcel of private land at Salboni. But Jindal said a larger number would not deter him in future."
[Read more...]
To quote:
"Rajasthan's Barmer has paved the way for a new formula for land acquisition with the Jindals agreeing to rent the land from farmers for lignite mining rather than getting the government to acquire it.
The power plant at Bhadres will mine 17000 hectares of land for lignite which will fuel the plant according to the new deal once the mining is over.
The Jindals will hand the land back to the farmers... According to a survey the lignite will last for only 43 years and according to the deal once the lignite runs out the mining will stop and the land will be given back to its owners, the farmers."
[Read more...]
To quote:
"Are the blood and tears of the poor a necessary price of ‘development’? Was there no way of making the landholders and sharecroppers in Singur beneficiaries of ‘development’ instead of its victims? There was, but the Tatas never even considered it and took refuge in the legal plea that they were not involved in the acquisition of the land.
To see how easy it would have been to co-opt the landowners and sharecroppers, one needs to ask just one counterfactual question: what would have happened if the Tatas had decided to set aside just one quarter of 1 per cent of their annual sales revenue and distributed it as an annual royalty to the owners and sharecroppers, for the use of their land? With an annual turnover of Rs 5,000 crore (from 500,000 cars), the royalty would have amounted to Rs 125,000 per acre per year to be split between landowners and sharecroppers. To recover this added outlay, the Tatas would have had to increase the price of their car by only Rs 250."
[Read more...]
I am still searching for solutions between the "number-driven economic growth" vis-a-vis "models of sustainable development"...
If you have any clues, please help out...
Friday, October 03, 2008
Bailing-Out the Wall-Street Bail-Out Plan...
This is bizzaire and hilarious...
The $700bn Wall Street bail-out proposal was defeated in the US House of Representatives last week. One of the criticisms - among many - of the proposal was that it hardly had anything for the Main Street taxpayer.
To be fair, the new version, which was approved by the US Senate later, has several provisions (e.g., disaster relief breaks, better deductions for costs of higher education, relief from the Alternative Minimum Tax, etc.) which will help many ordinary americans...
These new provisions - which also add another $112bn to the bailout plans! - contain some other measures of tax relief, which... err.... well, here are some examples:
etc...
As one of the commentator said: "You can't make this stuff up."
Sources:
Thursday, September 25, 2008
Notes from the B-School Factory...
The recent Outlook Magazine - which carries the survey of India's Best B-Schools - has two very refreshing and insightful articles.
Excerpts:
1. The Matchstick Managers
- It came as a much-needed shock to the system. Two months ago, IIT Madras director M.S. Ananth raised an issue that everyone in the academic fraternity agrees with, but no one quite wants to speak about openly. Questioning the relevance of the IIT entrance examination, he said the present system fails to attract the best talent, those with raw intelligence. This, he stressed, was because a large number of students took the help of coaching institutes to crack the exams and did not possess the genuine skills required for the IITs.
While Ananth’s observation was based on the Joint Entrance Examination (JEE) for the IITs, it applies equally to the Combined Admission Test (CAT) and other tests conducted for entry into India’s premier management institutes.... For instance, there are the Xavier Admissions Test (XAT)—which has 43 affiliate B-schools, the Management Aptitude Test (MAT) as well as a slew of state entrance tests for various management institutions. Most of these use similar methods to test candidates....
...What then are the complaints against the current system of testing? For one, there is a clear feeling that it lacks in testing social values, considered important today. Says management guru Mrityunjaya B. Athreya, "The B-schools have gone too far towards the objective-type examinations and there is a general decline in language and communications skills. These are important for management. There is also not enough stress on the general skills and knowledge required in this kind of work." He goes on to add that while business is gradually stepping up its exposure to corporate social responsibility (CSR), that spirit is not visible in management entrance examinations. "It is not enough to produce technicians and engineers. We need holistic people," says Athreya."... [Read on...]
- "...It was a surprising, and telling, exclusion from the list of compulsory courses at IIM-A. From this year, ‘Indian Social and Political Environment’ is no longer an option for first-year MBA students at the country’s leading B-school. The course, which has been around for many years, encouraged MBA students to learn something beyond boardroom skills by allowing them to regularly interact with disadvantaged sections of society and visit sites of development projects, among other things. This year’s batch at IIM-A will no longer have that privilege... There were some who felt this could be just another example of how alienated business schools are from the country’s social realities. And how, with a single-minded focus on training executives to be in sync with the corporate mantra of maximising growth and profits, B-school graduates are becoming immune to larger social responsibilities.
....Managing land acquisitions and the environment, for example, are seen by most students as more annoyance and expense than responsibility. That’s a pity, because businesses have to willy-nilly deal with such issues that have widespread social ramifications. Looking at the intense opposition from local stakeholders to the numerous SEZs being planned, or the environmental opposition to large projects, one would have thought B-schools would sensitise future managers to these prickly matters.
..."Most students who come to business schools do so with a one-point goal of getting a good salary. They seem to be increasingly less informed about the problems our country faces and less concerned about the larger humane role that businesses can play," adds Jayanta Bandyopadhyay, professor at IIM Calcutta’s Centre for Development and Environmental Policy. "It seems educational institutions are creating intellectual marginals at the core of our metropolises," he observes.
The B-schools, unfortunately, couldn’t care less. Most MBA graduates are lapped up with high salary packages by firms hungry for fresh talent. In that sense, there’s no market-driven push to incorporate courses of greater social relevance. And this perpetuates business that is isolated from the rest of society".... [Read on...]
