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1731 Views
14 Replies
1731 Views 14 Replies
Type: HR, Report if not a HR topic
I always believed that HR is like a doctor. When a doctor saves somebody’s life, the patient terms him as a God. He becomes the biggest hero of that patient’s life. Just like when an HR offers a job to a needy guy. Neither the doctor nor the HR classifies what is the background of a patient or a candidate before they start their job. Neither they do any favors nor do they take the place of the God. They just do their job. When we see the other side of the coin, it makes the scenario real tough. When a patient dies, then apart from his/her family, the entire mass blames the doctor. As if he deliberately let the patient die. Just like an employee blaming HR and making him/her the biggest villain when they are sacked/laid off. This is just a part of their profile. But a normal person or an employee does not understand this. For them their life or job means everything, rightly so. But why the person sitting other side always has to face the fire? Just because they are doing their duty? What an irony! Tough to understand, tougher to convince. Bu this is life. All the time you cannot keep people happy. That’s why somebody has quite rightly pointed out, if you have kept people around you always happy, then you must sacrificed a lot in your life. It holds true a large extent. Actually, one cannot.
The prime catalyst in igniting this thought in me is the layoff process which I was a part of. Fortunately or thankfully, whatever you say, I was on the other side the fence. But when I put myself in the shoes of employees to whom we break the news that today will be your last day, it feels shocking and it really hurts. The worst part is the after-effects of this. Once you break the news, then you have to face questions to which you do not have an answer. What is the answer, when somebody asks on what basis she/he is laid off, when somebody says I have 3 year old daughter, when somebody breaks down completely, somebody simply says ‘I do not want to go, I love this company’. I did not have the answer to one of these.
But I am doing it, with all the conviction, as a part of my profile, my job & for my organization. Because, when I think from my organization’s standpoint I see a bigger picture. I find that that in order to save 200 employees we need to get rid of those 20 and we made sure that they are the bottom 20 and we also kept other attributes in mind as well. At the same one can also see a larger perspective if he/she goes through the record of layoffs in last 6 months alone in bigger brands. Be it IBM, Jet Airways, Wipro or many others. Their layoff process and pattern is tougher and sometimes humiliating, but they can say that they can afford it. Because they have a big brand name attached to it.
It’s just that, I am just an average gal overloaded with organizational goals and preloaded with emotions. So it becomes tough to find a perfect equilibrium. You know what, I was wrong to think that recruitment was monotonous, it is too far better than saying ‘goodbye’. We all are a part of this corporate culture, sooner we realize & accept it, better for us. This culture has got two sides, but one should take all in the right spirit and come out of it as a winner.
Just another day at office!!!
How can we go on when we're not able to cure a patient, when we look into the eyes of a patient or his family knowing we're helpless, knowing that we'll ruine their hopes?
How can you go on when you must decide who's dreams or evolution you'll allow to grow in your organization and who's path you'll just close?
It's tough and we're all humans with strengths and weaknesses. We're human and we're supposed to care but also to be objective...
Here is the irony:
I believe that a good professional working with people has to care, to empathize.
This motivates a doctor to do his best for any of his patients, to care about the faith they sometimes put into his hands and the burden they put on his shoulders.
This makes the HR more implicated in the team and more close to the people.
...but if you're like that, you don't spare your feelings, you are affected by everything that goes wrong, you're letting your self feel a part of what the person depending on you feels.
A good professional must also keep his objectivity and make the right judgment, sometimes in few seconds. We need to have the right criteria to choose, to decide what to do and be sure our decision is the best. We need to have this clarity in thought, this thoroughness in observation so when we have to tell the "bad news" we can look at the person knowing that no matter how hard it was for us too because we allowed us to care, we made the right choice.
After all what these people want from us?
Professionalism, power of decision, objectivity, determination and ability to see "the big scenario" beyond every small decision assumed.
Do u think that every HR or Doctor are doing their best.
Unfortunately Ashutosh, as in every field of activity, not all of us are doing their best: some because they lack the skills for that, some because they are too shallow and prefer an easy task and not too much responsibility, others because they simply don't care.
To be a good doctor you need to have that special "gift", that special inborn skill, that desire to help others and also consciousness to constantly learn and be able to do not only your best, but the best possible.
What is sad is that some of my colleagues see this job like any other job, which has to be done to earn money and in the end of the daily program go home never thinking what you've left behind you.
What is sad is that they also think they know enough and never question themselves if they could have done more.
I think that you also have to posses special skills to be a good HR professional, to know how to talk to people, how to be the real link between employee and employers, how to manage difficult situations, how to motivate the team, how to lead your people...and so much more.
It's also not a job to choose because you think you'll be able to do it. You have to know from inside, to feel that this is what you want to do and can do.
Not all the HR are best in what they do or they realize the importance of their role inside the company.
So it is sad is that in both cases people who are depending on them loose their right for a better future, personal and professional.
Actually we never like whenever someone talk negative about our self.
I can also give thumps that other did. but really I want to know more about it.
I have lot of question but I am not raising here because may be some member not like that. Although you have clear the things as much as possible.
Thanks a lot
Regards
Ashutosh
Further to your question, what I believe is every HR & Dr are doin their best, thats y in todays era the value of both Dr. & Hr are increasing day by day.
Taking the example of HR, you urself can verify that they are playin sich an imp role in an organisation and we say also that HR are the blood of any organisation which keeps them running and same is the case with Dr. too, look at the way medical sci is at which place.
And moreover, what I personally believe is One's job is job and we should never ever mix personal life and professional life.
And espc. it applies to HR that they have to be strong.......take fr an example that a person is very poor and he is not workin also properly by which the company is in loss, then definately the first step taken by the HR would be make him productive and if still its not working then chuck him out.
This is wat an HR job is, we cannot be sentimental at many cases.
This is wat I feel.
Warm regards,
Priyanka Singh
This topic has really given a food for thought to all of us who have read it. I truly started comparing the HR professional as well as a Doctor.
Where Human Beings are existing in an organisation or any place, emotions are bound to be involved in every small thing that we do in our day to day life.
But I found this situation as one where there are 3 patients in a hospital, amongst which one has his brain dead & there are only 2 oxygen pumps present in the hospital to save lives. Spending the available resource on curable patients would be more sensible than a patient whom we are having no hopes.
Yes emotions are bound to be involved as all the 3 patients have a family to take care of, but in such a situation, a doctor will be in such a situation, where in he would like to save all the 3 of his patients, but may be the hospital authorities wont allow him to spend a resource on a patient having no hopes to survive.
Yes, the doctor only would be blamed in such a situation, because he is the one who is the face of the hospital to the patients families & is doing only what he is asked to do, but circumstances are not under his control, finally the decision would be taken by the hospital authorities themselves or only by god, offcourse because it is a matter of life & death. But sacrificing one patients life having no hopes of being cured has saved the lives of the other 2.
Today is the world of cutting edge competition. If you perform, you survive or vice versa. This is a hard truth. But an HR person also in case of layoff like a doctor has nothing under his scope, he does only what he is asked to do. Yes, the employees have a family to take care of. But recession has given another good reason for the companies to layoff employees.
But in case employees have a slightest hint that they are about to face such a situation, they can prepare themselves for another better opportunities. The emoloyees should also try to take things positively & in their own stride as something much better must be lying for them in the future.
Being in the profession like Human Resource, dealing with human in day to day life, we are bound to hear both good & bad from all around us. But we have chosen this profession knowing all this. So be more strong & learn dealing with this situations is what I have realised from the discussion
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