Shyamal Majumdar: 'Involuntary leisure without pay'

It is time someone started a campaign for plain English in human resources

A middle-level executive in a foreign bank was called by the human resources (HR) head last month only to be told that his position had become redundant so he should resign with immediate effect. This is pretty standard procedure followed by companies all over the world, but what was unusual in this case was the way the HR head tried to present the case.

The executive couldn't resist a bitter smile when he recalled the conversation with the HR head. He was first told the bank believes in "constructive dismissal" since its HR policy is to allow senior employees to construct their careers not only in the bank but also outside. The executive said he later checked the meaning of the term in management books and found that it was less charitable than what he was led to believe. Constructive dismissal is jargon for "employers manipulating the employment situation so that the employees feel they have no option but to resign".
 

Going by the jargon that HR departments have innovated, it seems they never sack or fire anyone. The HR head also told him he shouldn't treat the "disengagement" as sacking. Rather, it was a move to help him make an orderly transition between career changes, while undergoing a period of involuntary leisure without pay.

The gentleman was obviously blissfully unaware of the pain that this incomprehensible jargon caused his hapless victim. The executive said his only response to the gibberish was to ask the gentleman to "cut the crap" and pay his dues. "I don't know what the HR head was trying to achieve. Why couldn't he just tell me that my skill set is no longer relevant to the bank and I should resign?" he said.

He did tell the gentleman this but was told that the bank was trying to give him a "career-change opportunity". Such an insane defence of an action is the reason a study by PricewaterhouseCoopers had argued that there was little evidence of HR having increased its presence or profile within the boardroom, despite years of arguing that this is where its future lies.

To be sure, all department heads use such jargon but HR guys, it appears, take the cake. Consider this example of a speech given by the HR director of a firm to its new appointees: "I am sure all of you would fast-track your holistic, cradle-to-grave thoughts about going forward. We also must have a coterminous stakeholder engagement."

"Are we working for a mortuary?" asked a trainee afterwards. Another said, the speech was confusing at best and meaningless at worst. Why say "coterminous stakeholder engagement" when he probably meant that we should talk to people in other departments regularly?

Yet another HR induction exercise asked new recruits to be aware of the "change curve", which begins with satisfaction, then moves to denial, resistance, exploration, hope and finishes on commitment.

If you can't make head or tail out of this, you are not alone. Using such language makes it less likely that HR will secure buy-in and support from the top - something that is crucial to the success of any HR initiative. Not for nothing did Jack Welch, former CEO of General Electric, ask HR departments to get out of their hopeless jargon and the picnic-and-birthday card mode if they wanted to have a voice instead of just a seat at the high table. Perhaps it's time someone started a campaign for plain English in HR - no nonsense jargon, just common sense and proactive, effective HR.

It is not unusual for a majority of managers to say they are confused about what HR does. That shouldn't be a surprise, as a Mercer global study found that 84 per cent of business executives admitted to having no more than a moderate understanding of the return on human capital in their organisations. There are, of course, multiple reasons for this confusion and anxiety related to HR. For example, in annual review meetings to fix the budget for the financial year, HR heads usually have no answer on the return on investment on the grounds that they do a lot of intangible things, and quantifying them is almost impossible. That logic doesn't hold good any longer since recent studies have shown it is possible to establish a clear numerical relationship between good human capital management and enhanced financial performance.

The other reason is an obsession for jargon. Attend any HR seminar these days for even an hour and chances are you would hear the following gems: "We should try and snorkel in the same think tank"; "We should cascade that strategy down through the organisation", or "Get all your ducks in a row" and "look under your bonnet".

Don't know what this means? Be sure that not many do. A simple Google search can quickly reveal that those outside the HR profession often refer to the idioms as "HR gobbledygook", or "HR blah blah".