Mockery of Workforce planning

-

 Human resource across globe is observing sharp trends. Furlough, hiring freeze, great resignation, moonlighting and now once again layoff.  Elon Musk decided for mass layoff at Twitter few days back. Now, Zuckerberg announced layoff of 11,000 employees of Meta. Those who could survive this lay off  are also grappled with fear of their future at work. Its the great example and time to observe 'Survivors syndrome', defined as the fear amongst the employees who survive after the company's decision to lay off the other colleagues. 

The issue is grave but I am startled with the other issue- Workforce planning, strategic human resource management. The reason to raise these issues is the news about the employee who joined meta two days ago and for joining his job he relocated to the other country (Canada) where he was assigned work. Just two days into the new job and new location, he was informed that he was laid off (Times of India, 11th Nov 2022. Pg.13, column 2). Doesn't this ring an alarm? The human resource department is hiring to fill the positions and the CEO is announcing a layoff, almost at the same time. Isn't it a mockery of planning and the claims that human resource is a business partner, strategic partner and whatnot. It is evident that when company like Facebook which claims to have employee-centric approach, has an imbalanced approach, what could be expected from other organizations. If the HR were the strategic partner, the department would have frozen hiring and would not have asked the candidate to relocate and join work. To layoff employees can not be the sudden and instantaneous decision of the CEO.  It is definitely a strategic move. But where is the so called 'strategic & business partner' -the human resource professional in this script. Its eye-opening. 

Share your views


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Pre Merger doom

-
  T he year 2003 is noteworthy in the history of Air India due to a plethora of reasons. The competition was rising as more foreign carriers were expanding their operations. Air India’s load factor dipped to 70.5% in 2003-04 from 73.1% in 2001-02. Fortunately, it turned out to be the year of revival. Under the stewardship of J.N Gogoi and Sunil Arora, Air India managed to stay afloat. The management of Air India and the Ministry of Aviation worked in unison for the first time in decades. At that point, Air India’s functioning was regularly crippled by the overwhelming number of labor unions.  The lack of competent leaders in the past had built the bargaining power of these unions. During the outbreak of SARS, the Indian Pilots Guild placed forth a directive that demanded the halt of the operation of flights to all SARS-affected countries in Asia. If there was a crew member or a passenger who had traveled to a SARS-affected country in the past 10 days and if they were now in a...
Read more

Indi go-es to the Air India

-
     Indi go-es   to the Air India Magic is in the air of India. India witnessed this magic on the 2nd of July, 2022. Magic of change, Magic of confidence, Magic of trust….. The Sunday papers carried an interesting headline. “Passengers faced delays on Saturday and  more than half of the flights operated by India’s largest airline departed late  after a large number of its  cabin crew members  called in sick ”. The mass leave of the employees was attributed to the recruitment drive of Air India which is recently bought by the Tata group. Isn’t it magic?? The airline against which employee unrest pervaded for more than a decade, is now causing tremors to the competitors. The fact that Air India is able to attract prospective employees from its competitors despite the widely known discontent amongst its employees is nothing short of ‘magic’. It is certainly early to conclude but time shall reveal if the change in ownership is the source of this m...
Read more

The Big Indian Wedding: Air India and Indian Airlines

-
  P ompous flaunt, nosy relatives, and huge debts are all features of Big Indian weddings and one other event; the merger of Air India and Indian Airlines.  Air India and Indian Airlines were merged into a single entity in 2007. While the implementation of the merger was abrupt, the idea had been tabled for discussion for decades. It was first brought up by former Prime Minister Rajeev Gandhi in 1984. In 1985, the “National Airports Authority of India”, “Pawan Hans” and “Indira Gandhi Rashtriya Udaan Academy” was set up. Through the set-up of these institutes, the then Prime Minister attempted to strengthen Indian Civil Aviation, and the merger of Air India and Indian Airlines was actively discussed. At that time, Indian Airlines did not carry the same brand as Air India and hence a merger would have meant the dilution of the brand carried by Air India. Citing the aforementioned reason, the idea of a merger was dropped. As the competition grew more aggressively, the idea ...
Read more