70% weightage is given to the employee perspective. So it is an Employer of
Choice awards but based on the employee perspective. The Employer is judged on
the HR practices, he has put in place for which 30% weightage is given
The Jury comprising K Ramkumar, Group Chief Human Resources Officer, ICICI
Bank, Madhukar Shukla, Professor, XLRI, Jamshedpur, Ganesh Chella of Totus
Consulting, Chennai and Tarun Seth of Shilputsi debated the findings day long, throwing up learning’s for everyone.
The key revelation from this debate was that the adoption of well known HR practices do not necessarily bring in the highest employee satisfaction scores. This threw up surprise findings, where companies known to adopt the best HR practices did not figure in the top ten as their employee satisfaction scores were low.
So what does that mean for us HR professionals?
The reason in my view is that "best practices" in HR become "expected practices" very very soon. If you had to use OB jargon (from Herzberg's motivation theory) factors that are considered "motivators" become "hygiene" very very soon.
Consider the case of a great boss. When you work with a great boss in a firm, any boss you would work with later has to compete with that image of a boss in your mind. And you might end up dissatisfied with every subsequent boss after that :-)
So what is considered a "best practice in HR" gets assumed and taken for granted very soon. Open communication? Transparency? Cab pick-up and drop? Pool tables in the office? Free food and laundry? Stock Options? 120 percentile of market salary?
They'll make news when they get introduced in the organization or noticed when a new employee joins.
But eventually what will keep an employee satisfied and motivated and working in the organization is the nature and quality of work.
The organization that can provide a context for their employees to make their own personal meaning will actually succeed in doing HR's real role.
This is a bit of an oxymoron statement. I do not see how a company that has great HR practices can also have low satisfaction scores. I do agree with Gautams analysis of these findings ,though, that nature and quality of work are important ingredients for ensuring high satisfaction levels. However an organisation which does not ensure proper career development and planning or then fitment into jobs --leading to low satisfaction levels--simply cannot be called an organisation which has great HR practices. Also, while people sometimes tend to take good HR practices for granted, there are so many firms which have terrible HR standards that those who do work in respectable HR policy organisations do know that the grass is not greener in this respect on the other side.
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