Human Resource and India –
Have you ever experienced an HR manager/ executive in your company come forward to you when you need help? Have you ever experienced them counsel you and boost you up for better performance? I don't think you have ever come across with such experience, I can guarantee you have experienced exactly opposite what I just said.
Learning and Development is a vast area and process for any company – Big MNCs of Indian Company has a large group of employees involved in this department's work, but in India, it is famous in the name of Admin / HR / Training/ facility department. Whereas all these are part of the big umbrella called Learning and Development.
Well, Human Resource is the important key factor of Learning and Development department where company recruit talents / skillful employees. Let us not discuss the work condition in India that would be a different subject altogether. Now what HR does – Recruitment – recruitment of talents or Skillful employee as suitable for the profile, they are being actively involved in recruitment by preparing job descriptions, posting ads and managing the hiring process and also they do Assessment, Ratings, Salary negotiation, they also look after employee Retention, employee Attrition (retirement, elimination, resignation, etc.). Apart from the mentioned works HR also responsible for - Supporting the development and implementation of HR initiatives and systems. Providing counseling on policies and procedures. Why am I explaining what is the HR job because most of the things doesn't happen in India, for example, this part –Supporting the development and betterment of employees, providing them personal counseling when needed (during performance appraisal HR generally appraise the employee with figures and numbers, other X factors are invisible – like the nature of the employee, relationship with subordinates, if the performance down then for what reason? – Personal or professional?) all I mean to say I observed a lack of empathy and compassion in this department during my small work life span.
Group counseling, arrangement for the training of employees those performances are not up to the mark is also a part of HR job but mostly training arrangement handed over to the Training department (although very fewer companies in India are sadly encourage to have such departments, unless it's needed, therefore only Bank and the Insurance company have such departments as a mandate because without training these organizations cannot be run) or the direct reporting manager, it should be the collaborative work between Training and HR department with the intervention of reporting manager. The HR department finds the best people out of the lot, what if corporate failed to find the best HR? if they are not the best, is it possible for them to search for someone talented, compassionate, overall a good human being?
Treating all employees equally should be one of the prominent qualities of an HR manager, grandiosity is not meant for this department but unfortunately, we often experience a completely different scenario in our workplaces. HR manager is only talking to the higher-level managers or seniors, they are not reachable to their juniors unless it is needed like issuing ID cards / Visiting cards or issues related to attendance or leave, and during the time of resignation. The department distinguishes human beings as junior and senior whereas for them it should be all human beings first.
What I mean to say – this is high time to look into these problems and understand the core issue to create a good working culture and better human being at our workplace. The HR department must arrange training for their department, now why HRs need training? Training is a subjective matter irrespective of age, position, department it has to be given to every employee by the organization. "Learning and Development "- the word itself crying out why it is needed, for the development and betterment of an individual, training on Mindfulness, Leadership, Behavior, customer care should be given to the HR department as well. This department is needed to be compassionate and grounded more than any other department in the organization.
Being simple and compassionate doesn’t mean that they are emotional fools, they will be far more intelligent than any other employee, they will have the capacity to see through you and look at the bigger picture. Because the more generous you are the more knowledgeable you will become.
An employee with a one-year work gap no longer consider an employee anymore by any organization, they are not eligible to negotiate or call themselves experienced which itself is an irony. If you have mentioned you are certified in…..or you got the certificate for…. (I’m not talking about frauds here) Please read the book thoroughly before going for an interview because they are going to ask you a random question from the book to test your capacity on that particular subject, which also is an irony. You can have a 10000 certificate and will have experience too in the same profile but if you do not have the certificate particularly mentioned for the job role you will not be qualified even for the interview.
The interview pattern and selection process in India is ambiguous and no one knows what they are looking for, they only know their position written on their visiting card and the department they work for, grandiosity develop from false ego it may cause talent to leave the organization and never even recognized as a true potential by any organization further.
I think Corporate needs to be more focus for creating valuable employee rather than sales and marketing, numbers matter but if the company have efficient talented and compassionate people to work with numbers will talk itself and that will only possible when they understand the concept of Human Resource.
