Take Care before You Close the Door!

A young lady was going to meet a boy whose family had approached the girl’s family for marriage-alliance. She had no idea as to how to come-up with an opinion about the boy. Although she had given-in to the pressures of her parents and agreed to go for a typical Indian arranged marriage, however the last thing she wanted was to enter into a nuptial alliance with a wrong person. She did not know whom to turn-to for some right piece of advice. Finally she spoke to her father, the one man she had looked up to, her role model. He told her that the best way to judge a man is to see how he speaks to those who are not as privileged as he is, and accordingly advised her to meet the boy in a restaurant. He told her that if the boy politely calls for the waiter then in all probability he is a decent person; however if he whistles or sibilates while calling the waiter then probably she should quietly slip-out of the date. The young lady found five sibilating match-seekers before finding her knight in shining armor. She was lucky that her father had told her the magic formula and she knew that her right man would treat everyone with respect and dignity, even the ones who do match his status or wisdom.
Similarly the litmus test for any company’s culture is how it treats those employees, whom they ask to leave. Most of the times a typical transactional approach stops them from caring for people whom they ask to leave. The kind of impact that such an approach has on the laid-off employees and perhaps more on the ones who have been retained is disastrous. If you work with such a firm then you know that your company cares for you till you are on the rolls and live with a fear that it could be your turn someday. Some of the worst mistakes that companies commit when laying-off people are: a) laying-off people on Friday (Monday becomes an uncertainty for even those who have not been pink-slipped); b) Laying-off in lots (kills morale and creates fear psychosis – ‘is it my turn next?’), and c) Dilly-dallying documents or payments of the laid-off employees (employees know that they will be in trouble the moment they are out of favour).

Should a company treat its laid-off staff more decently? The answer is of course Yes! But why? Forget all the responsibility part (although not inconsequential); it makes a huge business sense. Imagine you are the one (god forbid but for sake of empathy) who is pink-slipped. But your company offers you an outplacement service and helps you finding another ob. Not only will it boost your morale but also relive you from the stress of joblessness & the fear of compromising with family responsibilities. Besides, if this company calls you back in the future, won’t you come-back immediately? Would you not recommend this company to your friends?

Rahul Bajaj in an interview many years back had said that when Bajaj needed to lay-off employees when the company was transitioning into a bike company, some of those people who had been with the company for more than 2 decades, came and asked him that how would they go and face their family? Their families had been proud of them because they had served a company like Bajaj for such a longtime. Now what would they go and tell their families, that the same company wants them no more! Rahul Bajaj had confessed in the interview that he had tears in his eyes when his employees asked him such questions.

Parting many times may be necessary but is nevertheless painful.Many times companies hide behind the fact that they are faceless. An employee of the company tells another that it is the company’s or management’s decision. The damage that such approaches cause to engagement of employees and consequently the employer brands is immense.

Nothing stops a company from treating its employees decently even when it lets them go! Companies like Citigroup, Bharti, DLF etc. seems to be among the select-few who care! They have been known for providing global outplacements services, counselling and career guidance to laid-off employees, search for possibilties of redeployment within the group umbrella and even hiring outplacement agencies to help such employees.

Care a little beyond the door too and do not shut-it on the faces of those who are shown the same.