Besides performance-based rewards, human resource (HR) departments across organisations need to recognise and reward the potential of employees, according to Anamitra Chatterjee, dean of Kolkata-based Unitedworld Business School.
“HR heads need to treat non-performers with respect. They should assess the potential, give challenging assignments and if they falter, they need to support them,” he said.
Chatterjee was delivering his address on ‘Human resource management in current economic scenario’ at ‘The Indian HR Convention 2010’ hosted by Unitedworld Business School in Hyderabad on Sunday.
“A lot of people will look to change jobs because of the perception that they are mistreated, and HR’s job is to make sure that companies retain the good people and be the employer of choice,” he added.
According to Suman Rangabhashyam, senior consultant at Business Simulation Training, the law of demand and supply mercilessly applies to HR too. During the economic downturn, companies were able to downsize by getting rid of redundant workforce and dead wood. They also restructured the employee compensation (mostly by decreasing) to stave off financial losses.
“Only those employees were retained who proved their worth. The employees had to accept all kinds of compensation-related compromises while maintaining the same or even higher level of efficiency and productivity and could thus survive the financial slowdown. It is pertinent for HR professional to find solutions to new age HR issues and address them effectively,” he said.
These survivors got the opportunity to handle a variety of tasks that further sharpened their skills and made them multi-skilled, said Habeeb Ghatala, dean of Apollo Hospitals Education and Research Foundation.
“At the same time, those who were out of job lost this opportunity to hone their skills in a new challenging environment. Adding to the woes, slashing of training and development budgets has led to a depletion of the number of skilled employees within the companies,” he added.
