HR | richardsandwell

I had the misfortune to listen to a friend describe the process by which people are made redundant in organisations these days. Rather than just pin the redundancy tail on the poor donkey who will be the recipient of the job loss (hand them a cheque and say “sorry, it didn’t work out”), these HR idiots first decide that two people are in the frame for the the loss, and then subject them to a process whereby they have to compete for their job – the job being called the ‘Competitive Slot’. This process takes up to 3-4 months, during which the poor people are made to perform like cage fighters with each other, trying to out-do the other and be the ‘winner’.

This is all done to make the process seem fair and consultative, and I daresay, to make it appear that everything has been done to protect the company from litigation should someone decide that they have been badly treated. The poor sods, they don’t know the half of it. Lets consider the flip side. Imagine, you have been put into a competitive slot, in say, September, and you’ll know the outcome at some point in December, and that your performance will be judged and weighed and balanced in that time. Are you going to :

a) work out that it is both of you that they want to get rid of, so they can bring in someone new?

b) go home, and tell your wife and family that you have the possibility of losing your job around christmas time?

c) get depressed, drunk and give up

d) watch ‘Falling Down’ over and over again

e) all of the above…

Well, yes – ‘e’.

But above all, you are going to be very stressed. You are going to go through at least 5 circles of hell, have numerous sleepless nights, take it out on your wife and kids – and possibly your colleagues, generally be wary of interacting with the very people who have already and will continue to judge your performance, and generally be perceived as a bit of a dead man walking. After all, you were put into a competitive slot, so there must be something wrong, right? But suppose you win? Will you ever be able to trust ‘the company’ again for putting you through that? I’m looking at this and thinking that there is a big negative in staff morale that no one seems to weigh up here.

I believe, and yes, it is a bit cynical of me, that this sort of nonsense is HR making work for themselves, to justify their own pitiful existence. They create the stress and then deal with the consequences – is it all a big job creation scheme for them? Or is it another manifestation of the crass insensitivity displayed by the newly machismo’d up department called HR that we all used to know as ‘Personnel’ and ignore by and large. When did they get so bloody important that they are allowed to play with people’s lives when their qualifications are probably no better than the average estate agent?

The disturbing upshot of this is that the possible outcome of the competitive slot business could be one of the competitors deciding that the garage rafter and a noose is his only way out. Whither HR then? Culpable?

I’ve been unemployed ^h^h^h^h resting for most of this year, save for a month at a disastrous cluster-fsck anarcho-software-as-a-m*sturbation-aid house where the CEO felt that you couldn’t possibly have any use unless you had read at least two self help books and three “feel the fear and then finger-bang your cat” type books a month – but that is for another post, I feel.

I’ve been doing the rounds of the agencies on a daily basis and one thing I have noticed that appears to have gone by the wayside is good manners. I’ve been a contractor for so long I can’t recall the last time I was a permanent employee, so getting a new job every so often is second nature to me, but there appears to be a new creature at employment agencies, and he/she has a rather disturbing attitude. This is the mannerless lout who feels that they are qualified to tell you that, despite the advert that suggests that they are looking for someone with recent experience in x, you aren’t right for the role. Dare to protest and they get very aggressive, very quickly about why they are right in an overly confrontational way. I don’t know what such rudeness does for these people, and short of calling them labial (think about it) and hanging up, I don’t know how to cope with it, but maybe that it precisely the reaction they are trying to elicit.

Compare this with other, established agents who may tell you that you’re perfect for the role and “give me five minutes with the client and I’ll get you an interview” and never call back. They are both as bad as each other, sure, but the former are becoming more prevalent. Again, no manners…

I’m wondering, is it that I am of a “certain age” and therefore intimidate these people in some way? Ageism aside, is there a niche market in employment agencies for placing “oldies” that agents haven’t worked out yet? [*]

So as a bit of fun, if you were running an agency for the placement of mature IT people, what questions would you use to test whether a potential ‘wrinklie’ might be right for the role? Navigation commands in wordstar? Describe the difference between config.sys and autoexec.bat? How do you reveal codes in DisplayWrite 4?

There will be a job at some point, I’ve no doubt, and it will be enjoyable and fun. But why should I have to put up with the gamut of bad manners on the way there?

[*] Can I ask any more rhetorical questions? Do I sound like Sarah Jessica Parker in SATC? Eeek, do I look like her?

The Personnel Department

Manners maketh the lout