Too often, we see too many cases of people layoff. This is painful and is degenerating into a dangerous practice across industries. And every one knows that people who are laid off, are seldom responsible for the problems that force companies to take such drastic measures. Check the news columns for the names of companies who resort to this tactics and you would be surprised. You would find that most of these companies would have won awards for best places to work and their HR practices would have got international awards for most caring organization and best people centric policies.
Why is that organizations claim ‘employees’ as their key assets and ‘employee first’ as their belief; but succumb to the tactics of knee jerky lay-offs.
This clearly shows that what management ‘speaks’ and what it ‘does’ are different and probably, it is under severe conflict.
A necessary condition for an organization to build an ever flourishing company, is that it secures the jobs of its employees, now as well as in future. If it can not, then, the management is not capable of taking the business towards its goal.
For it to secure jobs of its employees and it to invest in their future, it is important that the organization does not see employees as its cost but necessary ingredients for today’s and tomorrow’s success. This can only happen if the revenue (value addition) of the company grows much faster than its operating expenses. And this will happen only if management is predominantly focused on creating value addition and in ever improving its value proposition to its clients, than on cost reduction.
Here is the caselet that brings forth people management as the key responsibility of the organization. It takes you through the myopic strategy of a large and reputed organization in containing cost, that has devastating implications to its business.