Feature

Retrenched employees need to start afresh

Vinita Gupta on the responsibility of an organization towards its employees, before and after lay-offs

The dreaded phase of retrenchments might soon might soon be a thing of the past with the recruitment market opening up, slowly but surely. But how should these employees start afresh? Will they get the same respect, salary and position in their new job? It is very crucial that the new organization should make sure that the laid-off employees are given equal treatment.

Negative vibes stage

Typically, when an employee hears the news of his/her lay-off, they are in the stage of ‘denial’ (why me, why now, I was doing so well as compared to peers, etc.). After a little more realization, he goes into an ‘anger’ mode (company does not care, they are playing favorite) which leads him/her to envy others and build rage against the company. In certain cases, post anger, the employee wants to bargain with the employer to seek alternative positions. In case nothing is working out, his/her state turns to depression post acceptance of the lay-off.

Mamta Wasan, Vice President, Human Resources and Training, FIS said, “Most employees especially in India and in the young age group of ITES and IT professionals, would feel personally affected and feel a sense of anger towards both the organization and the immediate supervisor when he/she is laid-off. Emotions move from anger to despair to deep depression depending on the personality of the individual.”

According to Scott Cawood, Vice President Worldwide Human Resources, Synygy, said that employers can do the following to help minimize the negative vibes:

• Be honest with the employee about what is happening and why
• Always speak to the person face-to-face; never use email or phone call to give them the news
• Give them the time and space to “recover” before leaving the building or office
• Offer job related support (resume writing, someone to speak with regards to a job search, etc.)
• Provide benefits as long as possible
• Do what you can to get the person mentally ready to start a new search or get to their next step. Otherwise, the employee may literally be frozen and will be unable to determine what to do next
• Offer to write the employee a letter of recommendation for their next role; to assist them in attaining a new position

Anupam Pahuja, Managing Director, India, at SumTotal Systems, believes that understanding that it is natural for the employee that he has gone into such a situation, leads to reduce the negative vibes generated internally. Organizations have to be very transparent about the reasons of why these decisions were made. Also, they should have a transparent system to manage the performance of the employees, and employees should be completely aware of their performance, so that such a situation does not come as a surprise. Organizations should also teach their managers to deal with tough situations through training for driving a high performance culture.

Role of HR

By having transparent, automated and integrated strategic HR functions (learning, performance, and compensation), organizations can make sure that they have access to the holistic view of their employees. Using this information, companies can quickly track learning, close skill gaps, compensate star performers, and manage succession to reduce the risk of disruption. This also allows organizations to identify bottom performers and have strategies in place to move them up or out, as well as reduce turnover with career planning.

Wasan mentioned some steps that HR should follow:

• An organization should be guided by following the values and percepts of the company in all its dealings with the individual
• At all times, HR must uphold the individual’s dignity and self respect
• Any severance must be as per policy, and employees should be aware of what the organization can do for them quite clearly—from the amount, process, steps, assistance desks, placement assistance, etc.
• The lay-off should be treated as a secret; not as a topic for discussion
• A professional approach with compassion is key to make an employee feel well-treated under the given unfortunate circumstances

Never make an employee feel inadequate or take this personally. These are the business realities for today and are less to do with the person and more to do with being in the wrong place and at the wrong time.

“Stick to the organizational values as you exit the person. If one of your firm’s values are ‘integrity or respect,’ make sure you utilize these values in the exit process—both the decision of who is impacted and the actual meeting where you tell them the news. Companies who abandon their values during bad times show their true colors and always end up damaging their relationships with employees,” said Cawood.

Maintaining employees’ dignity

There are different approaches companies take. A large growing company must ensure that they place a new employee who was laid-off, the same way they would any employee—correct fitment as per their existing compensation structure. After all, the market environment could see another upturn and if the fitment is not correct, this is the first employee it may lose.

For smaller companies, this market scenario has thrown up opportunities to attract prospective employees that they could not afford earlier. There are other ways to make the role attractive if the past compensation is not in line with what this company can afford. The type of role, opportunities, freedom at work and respect for the skills and talent this person brings in must be essential to how this prospective employee is recruited and retained.

“Working with a good transition services company which can identify appropriate jobs to the laid-off employees and re-skill them to get one if they are not able to do so will ensure them that their career is taken care off,” asserted Pahuja.

Cawood revealed that many companies frown upon people without jobs in their application process and it is important to look beyond the ‘laid-off’ label and truly evaluate the candidate for both technical

and cultural fit of your organization. He said, “The fact that someone has been laid-off should not automatically mean they are less qualified than other people—no one knows the story behind a lay-off and I have found that employees who are laid-off make excellent employees because they realize how hard they need to work to keep a company growing and therefore not having to face lay-offs ever again.”

Thus, it is essential that if an organization has retrenched people or recruited a laid-off employee, they must create a plan for how they will deal with these people. Often, this is overlooked and can have serious implications.

vinita.gupta@expressindia.com