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March/April
2003
Coping
with chaos
HOW
TO MANAGE YOUR WORKFORCE IN UNCERTAIN TIMES
STUFF
HAPPENS – and tends to happen when it is least convenient.
That is the “chaos theory” of modern management,
and modern managers need strategies for dealing with it.
For example:
- Workers
are increasingly unhappy with their jobs – a trend
reported here last November and discovered by Forbes magazine
in January of this year. So what happens when a key employee
departs for greener pastures?
- At
press time, the U.S. military was calling more and more
Reservists and National Guard members to active duty. Who
might be called from your company’s U.S. operations,
and what are your obligations for their re-employment?
- Position
openings placed on hold have begun to cause morale and productivity
problems, yet higher management remains resolute in its
decision not to hire. What, if anything, can you do?
- When
the economy does improve, you don’t want to be left
at the starting gate while all your competitors capture
the top talent. How can you avoid finishing last?
Readers
can complete their own lists. Perhaps, for instance, one of
your direct reports is a definite “weak link” –
but you are concerned that firing him or her will be approved,
while hiring a replacement will not. Or you need to
reduce headcount but have no weak links.
As the old saying goes, if there weren’t problems, God
wouldn’t have created managers. And anticipating problems
is at least half of the battle for solving them. The smart
manager therefore, with the active participation of the organization’s
HR professionals, will do a little brainstorming to identify
the “what-ifs” that may be lurking just around the
corner. The even wiser manager will address existing issues
and concerns as well.
When Active Duty Calls
Do you know who belongs to a Reserve or National Guard unit?
If not, that information is undoubtedly in personnel files,
and members probably attend summer camp each year as well.
Also, they may be looking pretty anxious these days.
Those who serve their country deserve the highest respect
– and the Uniformed Services Employment and Re-Employment
Rights Act of 1994 (known as USERRA) ensures they receive
it.
The Act, in brief, prohibits employers and their agents from
denying employment, re-employment, promotion or specified
employee benefits because of an employee’s or job candidate’s
military service. Of particular note, employers must provide
leave for military duty – with no limit on duration during
times of war or national emergency. USER-RA also mandates
prompt re-employment (in the same or similar job) when military
service ends, unless the employer’s business health has
worsened drastically, accommodation of a newly acquired disability
would create a significant hardship on the employer, or the
employment left behind was of temporary duration.
Moreover, the returning veteran is considered eligible for
the same pay increases and promotional opportunities that
he or she would have received if military service had not
occurred.
Any organization anticipating military leaves should consult
with an employment lawyer, because there are nuances in the
Act concerning matters such as benefits extension. Also, individuals
in some states may be entitled to pay and benefits protection
beyond that required by USERRA.
The departure of someone for military duty is like the departure
of any other employee – i.e., disruptive – with
the exception that the departing military employee will be
returning. In a large corporation with many similar jobs,
it should be relatively easy to shift workload for a year
or two and then find an opening upon the person’s return.
Smaller organizations will not have the same “luxury”
and may need to fill a vital position opening with a temporary
or contract worker.
Other Unplanned Departures
Once fired, most terminated employees admit they should have
seen the handwriting on the wall: important meetings to which
they weren’t invited, files quickly thrown into desk
drawers when the employee visited the boss, the awkward silences
and averted eyes of fellow employees, etc.
If truth be told, when an employee quits (instead of being
fired), most bosses likewise should have seen the handwriting
on the wall: closed-door telephone conferences, unexplained
absences, missed deadlines, a change in attitude or work ethic,
etc. Barring the unexpected offer of the “perfect”
job, most people leave for reasons that could have been discerned
in advance, such as missed raises or promotions, personality
conflicts, negative perceptions about the company’s future
and so forth.
There is no reason to wait until a valued employee quits to
try to do something about it. After-the-fact counter-offers
typically don’t work because they are blatantly transparent
(“why am I suddenly worth a raise?”), reflect the
inconvenience of an unanticipated departure (the project is
only half-done) and generally do nothing to address the concerns
that caused the employee to take another job. If you smell
trouble, it’s better to address the problem now. The
concern one shows today can keep a minor irritation from becoming
a major inflammation.
And on a larger scale, be sensitive to organizational morale
in general. In a recent study, only half of all employees
were happy with their jobs, so how are things in your organization?
Better than average, worse than average or about the same?
“It’s Our Policy, Stupid”
Repeated productivity studies have shown that corporate staff
reductions reach a point of diminishing return, yet companies
often keep cutting. Similarly, the survivors of corporate
personnel reductions may well increase output for some period
of time, but eventually it declines. Worse yet, a freeze intended
to stop new job creation becomes interpreted to prohibit replacement
hiring – and key positions go unfilled.
Sanford Rose Associates has watched some employers forego
rational hiring, capital investment and other key decisions
as individual managers, fearful of the economy and their own
futures, become less and less inclined to take risk. Thankfully,
that is not true of all organizations.
Imagine for example a team of five high-level individual contributors,
who are responsible for a major product-development project.
Corporate headquarters issues an edict that every work unit
in the company will shed 10 percent of its personnel. The
manager of the individual contributors faces a difficult decision,
since she can eliminate 0 percent or 20 percent; half a person
is not an option. Does she fight for the retention of all
five or try to play the loyal soldier? Then suppose that a
trusted executive recruiter informs the manager that a sixth
individual with unique skills, whom the company has lusted
after in the past, has expressed interest in changing jobs.
Should the manager add to staff, replace staff or pass on
the opportunity?
Nine times out of ten, mandates to control personnel or other
costs are well intentioned; it’s the application that
gets so screwedup. Courageous managers will press for clarification
of policies that make only partial sense and will fight –
within reason – for exceptions to policy when less rigidity
can produce greater reward.
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