The Hindu Business Line : A new approach to recruitment and staffing

Adjusting the bar: Employers could solve their staffing problems by allowing for flexibility in minimum qualification requirements and by employing part-time workers.

R. Raghavendra Ravi

Walk into any organisation today and you will hear the statement: “We are unable to get people.” We are going to hear more of this and the rhetoric will get shriller. In my work as a consultant with many companies, big and small, I hear this often. So what choices do organisations have, with so many jobs chasing much fewer people and employers exhibiting a preference for the better ones all the time?

We continue to see that some people get three offers while many others do not get any. The irony is that those who do not get an offer still benchmark themselves in salary terms with the best in their class and do not want to accept jobs at a “lesser salary”. The other new phenomenon is that parents tell their wards not to join a job in “lesser known companies” or for a “lesser salary”. This situation puts a lot of pressure on all, especially the frontline companies and sectors that are not the flavour of the season – like manufacturing.

The situation outlined above is at entry levels. For lateral entry positions, the problems are slightly different. At any level of salary, people feel that they are under-paid. They always know someone in their peer group who is paid three times what they are! They are constantly on the look out for a better opportunity. There is virtually no one who has not registered himself/ herself with some job portal or the other. With excellent search facilities, all the employers today know who is trying elsewhere. It is no longer a secret that you are trying for another job. In fact, I know of employees who deliberately register themselves on a job site and let their employer know that they have done so.

In sum:

We have a set of youngsters who have unrealistic expectations.

We have a set of employees who are constantly looking elsewhere.

This problem is compounded by another pattern in April/May – appraisal time. Whatever be the appraisal and salary hike, you see a wooden face on the other side of the table. Employees today refuse to accept an honest appraisal. They believe that some other employer will soon call them and give them “what they deserve”!

What can organisations do? While the problem cannot be wished away, here are a few things that companies can try.

Slice the job thinner and do away with minimum qualifications

Often, I find that companies do not consider people without some qualifications which they consider as basic for a job. There is a case for reviewing this. As a young trainee in the late 1970s in a vanaspati factory, I used to see old Mr Jacob, a school drop out, drawing samples from the vanaspati plant hour after hour, and analyse the samples for acceptability. There were a few routine chemical tests, which he used to perform diligently day after day. His test results were always accurate and the quality control manager had no difficulty in certifying batches of vanaspati based on Mr Jacob’s analysis.

Most companies – particularly in that era — would have appointed only “qualified chemists” for this position. In fact, with no distractions and the kind of practice Mr Jacob had, he was near perfect in his job. No chemist could have matched him. Also, Mr Jacob was a happy man, knowing that he was doing a job “higher than his level”.

I am sure that many of the standard jobs we have in organisations today can be sliced thinner and each thin slice can be safely handed over to “less qualified” people who are available as employees. The key question is: Can corporates work on this critical task? We may need to spend time and effort training people, but this is easier to do since we will have to train them for specific tasks. It is time we started thinking of how to employ those who are available and redesign positions as opposed to finding the right person for a specific position. Often, I have seen companies looking for a clone of the person who has left, to fill a position and such a person may not be available.

Do we need full-time employees to fill all positions?

This is another key question that organisations need to ask themselves. This is another old mindset, which is not compatible with current realities. With vastly enhanced computing power and the implementation of sophisticated software in organisations, several full-time positions have actually vanished. I remember purchase departments in major companies were as large as 10 in number; the same departments have today been reduced to three and they do other jobs as well! This is the effect of redesigned processes that companies follow in the purchase function today. Similar is the story on the sales side — companies had any number of “sales coordinators” to collate the daily reports of salespeople in the field. All these positions have vanished since the new-age salesperson logs into a central server and fills in the daily report in a standard format, and the rest is done by the software which churns this data.

With the kind of accounting packages that are available, does a Rs 10-crore company need a full-time accountant? A couple of data entry people supervised by a part-time accountant is more than adequate. In fact, accountants with a good knowledge of accounting and book keeping are not available. Can we get to the stage of paying a knowledgeable accountant well for a part-time job? Can we trust him with responsibility? Many companies think that the accounts department has confidential information and it is difficult to trust a part-timer with such information . Is this really true? How are we employing security agencies to guard our offices and factories? Are they not better than “our own” security people? In fact, they follow the security procedures better than “our own” people. They are well-trained and since they do not know people personally, they do not make any assumptions — they check everybody and everything in the same standard way. Similarly, as long as the part-time accountant is not working for competing companies, there is really no chance of a leak of confidential information.

A friend runs a software company in Chennai with a part-time HR chief! She comes in two days a week and does a competent job, which the earlier incumbent could not do in five days of the week! Competent individuals are looking for flexible organisations and fulfilment. Today, I may not be able to get a competent HR person on a full-time basis even if I am willing to pay, but can get a competent part-timer. Such part-time workers also bring with them the accumulated experience of several organisations and can cross-fertilise solutions! What a bonus!

are we utilising homemakers?

This is a serious question, which must occupy the minds of industry leaders and HR professionals. We have a large number of well-qualified women, who are unable to take up full-time jobs due to their family commitments. Consider the case of an engineering graduate who worked in the design department of a large electrical equipment manufacturer for four years. She got married and has two young children now. She cannot work full-time and by the time she is free to work, in another six years, the world would have changed and she would have ‘lost touch’ with her field. Can we afford to waste such talent? We spend a lot of money training an engineer and simply because we are not inventive enough, we lose this engineer and her talent!

Many homemakers I have talked to are willing to work if they can be given strict three- or four-hour jobs. Even in this era, there are no appropriate opportunities for these talented people. The online “earn from home” opportunities depend on very basic skills and do not utilise the full potential of the educated homemaker.

Retirement at 58

This is another archaic ‘habit’ designed during the era of widespread unemployment. With life expectancy rising, there is a need to revise this limit. At a practical level, even today, people who are unsuitable at 45 are being eased out and those who are competent are given extensions beyond 58, but at lower levels of compensation.

The emerging reality is that people may have to work till they are 65 in order to maintain a certain lifestyle and not be dependent on their children. Also, once it is clear to people that they have to do this, they will invest time and energy in developing themselves for a longer career. Many organisations today stop sending employees older than 50 for any kind of training programme! This happens because we think that they are over the hill. Today, can we afford to lose people in their late 50s and early 60s who have a wealth of experience and knowledge? Some of them work in small organisations for a very small compensation; the attitude of many of these employers is “anyway you have already retired!”

It is for us to create appropriate opportunities to utilise the energy and talent of a variety of people in our country. We are facing a boom and we need the energies of all our people to utilise the opportunities thrown at us by this boom.

(The author is a Chennai-based management consultant.)

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