Dr Srinivasan, CEO, HR Strategist and a corporate trainer, answers HR related questions from the readers exclusively for Clean India Journal
In a housekeeping company, how can HR practices be re-established?
In today’s business scenario, finance can be arranged and technology can be bought but unless the organisation has quality people, creating organisational excellence will remain a pipe dream. This is truer in case of the FM industry which is service oriented.
To attract and retain good people, it is absolutely important that the enterprise has credible HR policies and systems.
In fact, a strong platform of systems, policies and procedures can help an organisation to be professional and therefore, differentiate it from other unrecognised firms operating in the FM space.
How can a housekeeping company retain an experienced and trained employee?
This is often the problem faced by either small set-ups or even large organisations that see salary and benefits as sole anchor to retain people.
In fact, this is the least effective anchor. To retain people, the organisation must:
- Add value by developing the people
- Provide accelerated growth for truly outstanding and critically important people
- Develop internal organisational visibility as a professionally managed entity
- And, most important, create a sense of pride in the employee
I, therefore, think it is over-simplifying to say that people leave the job because of competitors offering higher salary and benefits.
The question an employer should ask is why an employee looks out for another job in the first place. In my mind, an employee looks out for another job if the above conditions are not met in his current organisation.
Salary may not always be the reason. Also, remember some attrition will happen and should be welcome as it helps to infuse ‘New Blood’ into the organisation.
After certain years when a senior employee is not open to change, it becomes difficult to tackle him. In such a situation what should an employer do – retain him in the organisation or terminate him from the services? It is a delicate situation.
Dogmatism never helps anyone, be it the organisation or individual. This is one message the organisation must communicate across the organisation.
Anybody who is not ready to adapt to the business demands must be counselled and if he/she refuses to embrace change, then he/she must be asked to leave.
Please remember that at times this could be a difficult decision to make if the organisation lacks the bench strength to seamlessly fill in the position.
In such cases, the organisation must quickly develop internal resource or look out for the right person before taking the decision.
