Dear Balaji,

With your latest post you have clearly exposed yourself and your arbitrary style of working without observing any HR norm and standards.

Your latest post clearly suggests, not only your policy is to work arbitrarily by depending only on presumptions and shortcuts, but also you try to read between the lines without understanding what others try to communicate.

If you properly go through my original posting, you will find that the very opening sentence of my suggestion was “Of course a probationer, as per the prescribed provision of the organization about termination without notice can be resorted to.” BUT my suggestion was quite simple that before taking a step to terminate the probationer, the poster of the problem may try to find out the cause of absenteeism and to avoid any hasty step.

JUST TRY to reread my original comments and, as presumed by you, intimate me —

WHERE DID I SUGGEST TO START DISCIPLINARY PROCEEDINGS?

If you don’t want to go back to read my original comments, I reproduce here at the end of this discussion for your convenience.

ON THE OTHER HAND, your contention, What I am suggesting is that there is no need to do anything big,”I would like to draw your attention to your own suggestion, where you gave a very big and wrong advice to shirk from the duty clearly forbidding him not only on one count, but on several counts, by clearly stating –

“In your case, you do not have to initiate any letter to be sent to him. Just keep quite. Don't even load his data onto the payroll master for processing salary. Don't even consider him as an employee.”

All this provides us what type of HR duties you would be doing and advising to others also. In this respect, I would like to put straight questions to you:

1) If you have recruited an employee by which provision of law you should not do anything in regard to his termination?

2) Does your suggestion to keep quiet not forbidding an HR personnel to do his genuine duty?

3) Does advising him not to load data on to the payroll master not forbidding him to do his genuine duty?

4) Does advising him not to consider the duly recruited employee as an employee not forbidding him to do his genuine duty?

5) Once an employee is recruited, which provision of law provides you an arbitrary authority not to treat him as an employee unless you formally terminate or dismiss him?

6) What is the basis of your firm conviction that the things would not have happened to the taste of the employee, as you have stated, “This is EXACTLY WHAT HAS HAPPENED in this case?” Is not it your presumption only?

7) Do all the recruitment formalities adopted by your organization are farce and fictitious?

8) Provision of which law provides you, as an HR man to arbitrarily function at your sweet will and not to discharge your duties and responsibilities towards employees and an organization of which you are also an employee?

You must know that such type of arbitrary attitude of the HR personnel is the main reason behind the HR not commanding due respect amongst the employees of the organizations.

EXTRACT OF MY ORIGINAL COMMENTS DATED 23.10.2010

“Of course a probationer, as per the prescribed provision of the organization about termination "without notice" can be resorted to.

BUT, never take any hasty step just on presumption basis unless you are really sure that the employee/probationer is absenting willingly and unauthorizedly. Humanitarian grounds should never be lost sight of if you want loyalty and sincerity of employees. There may be some compulsion with the probationer, like accident of self or a family member, death of any near relative, sudden serious illness of self or family member.

If the candidate has a contact number, must try to contact him or his family members on phone or through some messenger. If you find some evasive response, only then you can be sure to some extent that the candidate does not want to serve your organization. Get the outcome of contact recorded and bring that to the notice of the competent authority. Only then decide whether to serve him a notice for unauthorized absence or terminate without notice upon getting a formal decision of the competent authority.”



From India, Delhi
Dear VK,

You may like to read reply to Balaji's response. I think you will find answers to your queries also there.



About being on rolls of any absconding employee, if you do not do your duty to formally show exit to any employee, he will remain employee of the organization and can claim any time his post irrespective of whether he remained absent without pay. So, HR formalities are a must to do if you want to terminate him. You should not keep any loop hole open to be taken advantage of by any one at any time simply by omitting any HR formality.



So, the solutions offered by Balaji and you were not the slutions, rather were the likely cause of aggravating problems in employee-employer conflicts. If you have practiced the solution offered by Balaji and you, just give me complete particulars of the employees (including their addresses) whom you would have treated as non-employees without observing prescribed formalities of their formal exist from your organization, I shall prove my stance practically when I would legally compel your organization to rejoin any one or more of those employees.



Anyway, if you still have any more question, you are most welcome.


From India, Delhi
Dear Gopal,



I hope you will also find answers to your queries in reply to the response of Balaji and VK.



About direct and indirect cost of fresh recruitment formalities for substitute and the cost of simple investigation to find out the cause cause of absconding of an employee, better you calculate yourself, or even ask a cost accountant to do for you and you will find an alarming difference than even your imagination. Neither recruitment, nor employee retention and employee relations is a child's play, what to say of the discharge of HR responsibilities as a whole.



Why to go for any previous example of any court ruling, just you give me complete particulars of the employees (including their addresses) whom you would have treated as non-employees without bserving prescribed formalities of their formal exist from your organization, I shall prove my stance practically when I would legally compel your organization to rejoin any one or more of those employees.



I would like to advice you, try to command respect as a rational HR man, rather than earning hate of employees with arbitrary actions or inactions.






From India, Delhi
Dear Mr. Dhingra,
I would like to reciprocate the advice given in the last para to you as well. You being an HR professional (?) I would rather suggest you to analyse the situation as if it happened with your organization and try to find out whether the management would like the HR to invest more time and energy on such issues. The answer to this will satisfy you, as well. However, pl don't label me as an anti-employee HR professional. I believe, that it is the prime responsibility of each and every HR professional to do a root cause analysis to suggest a best suitable solution to the problem. Mr. Dingra, all your suggestions / advices are one sided only using a defensive mechanism and as such, does not seems to be helpful in resolving any issue. The origin of the discussion is to find out an amicable solution to the issue rather than creating a platforum for argument and counter argument to reach nowhere.
Thanks.

From India, Jaipur
Well Gopal thanks for your opinion but personally saying our management doesnt find it useless if we try n contact the person n in terms of our time it tks 2 min n money just local call charges.
so probably u estimated my long comment meaning as expenses but still it takes very less time n energy to try n speak to the person. if not answered then 1 letter n person is out. agan standard registry charges apply.
Didnt mean to be offensive but probably this was my first thought after reading ur comment..
Regards
Neha

From India, Chandigarh
Dear Mr. Dhingra,

I have carefully gone thru your response to my post and posts of Mr. Balaji and Mr. Gopal. I have following comments to offer. These are my final comments and I will not be commenting further in this post to stretch it further.

• I think a very basic and important fact in this case is “Employee has deserted you on a second day of his joining, he is not interested in working with you and he has stopped attending duties on a very second day of his employment and has not bothered to inform you anything” I feel you are not at all taking notice and cognizance of this fact.

• Legally and Technically you are right in saying that, employee may claim employment since he has not resigned or terminated and not relieved. But what are the chances of such a claim from an employee who is not at all interested in working with you and who is gainfully employed elsewhere.

• There are occasions when 40 or more employees join on a single day and entering of their data in HRMS and Payroll System may spill over next 4-5 days. What is a point in entering and keeping the data of employee, who is no more with you?

• I have already made it clear in my earlier post that, in case employee turns up after few days with some genuine reason for absconding, you may consider his/her rejoining on merits.

• I fail to understand how ignoring a past employee, who has worked with you only for a day and who is not at all interested in working with you will lead to “Aggravating problems in employee-employer conflicts”

• It will be better if you enlighten us, as to how exactly you are going to prove your stance practically in respect of employee who is not interested to be our employee, leave alone rejoining or reinstatement.

• There is no possibility of these kind of employees hating us. They are not at all interested in working with us and we have not troubled them any way during or after their one day stay with us.

From India, Pune
Dear Gopal,

About the question of time and energy, answer to your comments lie in Neha’s brief but befitting response to your comments, as they lie just after your comments. But I know you won’t like to admit where your presumption and policy becomes wrong. Probably you consider yourself as the most expert HR professional (?).



In fact, it is not the management, but it is the individual HR professional who doesn’t like to spend even a few minutes at the very initial stage to find out the root cause as against his own presumptions.

You try to suggest me to analyse the situation, but instead of resorting to analysis, you try to stick to your own one sided presumption, as your analysis, without even trying to know the basic cause of the employee about his being absent by spending just a few minutes of your time in calling him on phone or sending him a written notice. My suggestion was based on my real practical professional experience for about 40 years. I used to analyse every situation before taking any action, rather than making my own presumptions, as you do in playing with the career of employees on mere presumption basis.

You also profess to believe that it is the prime responsibility of each and every HR professional to do a root cause analysis to suggest a best suitable solution to the problem, but still you won’t like to do a root cause analysis by having any response from the employee, as you want to impose your own presumption on the pretext of root cause analysis, without going through the circumstances, whether it is the compulsion of the employee not attending being unfit due to sudden serious illness, accident, death of his near relative or any other eventuality, or whether faulty HR policies are the root cause. Unless you go through this process, how you can claim to do the root cause analysis. I think better try to understand the real meaning of “root cause analysis”, rather than just to use the words in a meaningless manner.

I have not labelled you as an anti-employee HR professional, but you have yourself proved to be of that.

My suggestions were neither one sided nor for using a defensive mechanism, as I suggested to take in to confidence both sides, the responsible management as well as the concerned employee. My suggestion was based on my practical experience for about 40 years. On the other hand your suggestion/advice was clearly one sided based on mere presumption without going in to the root cause of the problem, and also your replies to my queries are mere a defensive mechanism just to stick to your presumption about the employee that he does not want to work. But you won’t like to admit all that.

Had you considered this forum as not the platform for argument and counter argument, you could well have taken my suggestions in right perspective. But, you preferred to adopt defensive mechanism just to stick to your presumption to prove that as only the root cause analysis of the problem, and started counter arguments.

Sorry to say dear, you are just exposing more and more of yourself.




From India, Delhi
Dear VK,

In your first bulleted point you have stated, the employee is not interested in working with you. The question arises, how you could come to this conclusion without even trying to contact him? Is it not your presumption? You have further stated, I have not at all been taking notice and cognizance of this fact. The question arises, which fact? Do you consider your presumption as the fact, when you have not tried to verify about the reason from the employee? The fact is that, which is established beyond any doubt. Simply use of the word “fact” does not become the fact.

Thanks, in your second point, you have admitted at least one thing that Legally and Technically I am right in saying that, employee may claim employment since he has not resigned or terminated and not relieved. About your point, “what are the chances of such a claim from an employee who is not at all interested in working with you and who is gainfully employed elsewhere,” here also you are making two more presumptions by stating “not at all interested in working with the employer” and “who is gainfully employed elsewhere.” The question arises, how did you come to the conclusion that he was not interested to work with the employer, whether he is willing or not and whether he is employed or not gainfully elsewhere, when you have never tried to verify all these things and still not ready to verify?

About your query, “what is a point in entering and keeping the data of employee, who is no more with you,” the question arises, which law provides for any exemption for the employer not to enter and keep the data of a formally employed person? You have already admitted that legally and technically he remained an employee of the firm. You cannot even escape entering of the data, even if he is terminated after one day, as you cannot confiscate his salary of one day for which he has worked with you. The question arises, does the commercial accounting, profit and loss account, and assets and liability accounts of a firm allow not to show its liability for one day’s salary, which became due to the employee for his working with the firm? Better ask this question from the Chartered Accountant of your own company. You will know the implications of falsification of accounts of the company.

About your point, “in case employee turns up after few days with some genuine reason for absconding, you may consider his/her rejoining on merits”, the question arises, when you are not considering him as your employee, and your employment record is totally blank about his employment, where is the question of the management agreeing to his claim for rejoining? He will surely be left in lurch due to the inhuman and arbitrary policy that is being adopted by the HR right from the initial stage.

About your inability to understand how ignoring a past employee can lead to the problem of aggravation of employee-employer conflicts, I am sure by the passage of time and gaining more experience in HR, you will surely learn that and remember me about having rightly pointed out towards that. However, for clarification sake it may be pointed out, once the ignored employee puts his claim and the management becomes hesitant to admit his claim to rejoin, don’t think that the employee who has come with full determination to exert his claim would keep quiet and could turn back quietly on asking by the management. He would definitely publicise the bad policies of the HR to make all other employees and trade unions alert about that. Any trade union or the media coming to his recue may cause havoc for the organization by aggravating the employee-employer conflict and even leading to lock-out. You should not forget about the recent instance of Hero Honda employee-employer conflict and ultimate lock-out affecting badly the revenues of the company. I have already advised that an HR personnel should not keep any loop hole unplugged.

In another query, in a bid to exert on your presumption, I find you have not refrained even to twist my question posed to you by putting your own presumption, “in respect of employee who is not interested to be our employee”. Where did I mention about the employee not interested to be your employee? This also proves that you depend more on presumptions rather than facts. You may please try to re-read my last response to you, with particular reference to your claim that you had been practising your (presumptive) solutions of not taking any action or not entering data for salary of the absenting employees. For your convenience, I repeat my words If you have practiced the solution offered by Balaji and you, just give me complete particulars of the employees (including their addresses) whom you would have treated as non-employees without observing prescribed formalities of their formal exist from your organization.” Being a practical man, I need not explain to you theoretically, how I would prove my stance. Just give me the requisite data and see how that is proved practically to see how your management is exposed.

About hatred of employees, you are taking in to account only those employees whom you have not taken on rolls, while I am talking about the whole lot of employees of any organization. I give you one suggestion, you just ask someone outsider to investigate in your own organization by conduct of a survey, not revealing himself to be your own man, you would find how much respect your HR enjoys amongst the employees of your own organization. One drawback of your HR you have already admitted about what you are already practicing, the others you will know from the result of the survey.




From India, Delhi
Dear Mr. Dhingra,

With reference to your comment on 2nd para, I am of the view that you jumped into conclusion without referring to the whole matter. You may refer to my posting on 25th Oct for clarity. I think, you need to be little bit flexible in your approach. While respecting your age and experience, I would like to reiterate my stand that no corporates/ organizations, as of now, would be willing to invest resources for non-productive activities, like the one you have been referring to and recommending throughout - even if one may brand it as cause of aggravating problems in employee-employer conflicts and subsequent repercussion (?). Further, it seems that there is a need to change the 'think' process as it is very old and will not hold good in the current scenario. Just to quote an example, nobody is using C or C++ now for programming but progressed with .net or similar. There are many more examples to quote. For survival, one needs to be adopting to change. Change is imperative - not only in technology but in attitude, behavior and approach of an individual too. To face the cut throat competition and to achieve the business goals, employers are always looking / experimenting new things and in relations to Human resources, they expect that the HR professionals needs to be totally in line with the business requirements. As such, only in the name of maintaining industrial relations, I don't think that issues like the one which is the subject matter of entire discussion, will create an employee - employer conflict leading to industrial unrest.

By the way, thanks for the time you are spending to educate on legal/IR aspects but I am sorry to say that it is not in line with the new HR concept. Have a nice day and I am not going to respond any further on the subject matter.

From India, Jaipur
Dear Gopal,



Thanks for your comments. But, your pointless reply to my comments shows you are still adopting defensive mechanism although that contradicts your own earlier views. By this you have tried to expose more and more of your wrong and anti-employee policies.



I have not jumped to any conclusion, as to arrive at some conclusion after proper analysis, I clearly suggested to investigate the reason for absence of the employee. Contrarily, you jumped to the conclusion that the employee was unwilling to work in the company without even trying to know the reason behind the absence of the employee. At least your friend tried to find out the cause of absence of an employee of his organisation and could analyse the position. But, you could not learn any lesson from him also.



It is quite surprising that there were 6 (six) paragraphs of my comments, but you preferred to offer your comments only on one para, i.e., 2nd para. The question arises, why your response is with specific reference to ONLY the 2nd para of my comments, WHY NOT with reference to all the 6 (six) paragraphs of my comments? That clearly means, no plea is left with you to offer against the rest of the 5 paragraphs of my comments, and you quite agree on 83% of the points raised by me. Even with reference to my 2nd para of my comments (17% only), your response contradicts your own earlier stand where you stated that you believed it as the prime responsibility of each and every HR professional to do a root cause analysis to suggest a best suitable solution to the problem, but contrary to it you still don’t like to do a root cause analysis by having any response from the employee, but still you don’t want to spend even a very brief time of yours for just a few minutes whether he is willing or not to serve your company. I repeat the contents of 2nd para of my earlier comments here for refreshing your memory:



“In fact, it is not the management, but it is the individual HR professional who doesn’t like to spend even a few minutes at the very initial stage to find out the root cause as against his own presumptions.”



Your own post of 25.10.2010 suggests that on contacting the absentee employee your friend found defective and deceptive policy of HR as the management did not offer what was promised to him. On one hand you advocate the policy of analysing the situation and on the other you do not want to get in touch with the employee to get his views for his absence so that your HR policies may not get exposed as the defective, deceptive and unethical policies of the management. Thus, you contradict your own early stand for the need of analysing the root cause.



You have referred about some “new concept of HR”. By the way, what is that new concept of HR and which scholar or researcher has suggested that. I would definitely like to study that “new concept”. Does that suggest that you abandon even the most necessary tasks of making your record complete and make recruitment process as mere informal process just to honour the sweet will of an individual HR professional, as he does not favour to discharge his responsibilities pretending to be the desire of the management, or pretending to be the “new concept”?



For your kind information I use to challenge the imaginary theories of some of the world’s top 20 Management Gurus through Harvard Business Review & Harvard Business Publishing of the Harvard University, Wharton University, BNET, etc. While a few of them acknowledge their shortcomings, a some try to delete my comments with the fear that the same may go against their reputation. At one time University of Harvard, world’s most renowned University, was compelled to restore my comments when found that the action would go against the University’s own reputation. I also happen to be Executive Member of the McKinsey & Co. For MckInsey Quarterly, and the Aberdeen, the world’s renowned management consultancy companies. I have yet to come across any such “new concept” that you are trying to preach. I am sure, had there been the facility for you to moderate or delete any comment on this forum also, you would also have tried to delete my comments.



You have tried to teach me about the need to be little bit flexible in my approach, where I tried to suggest a flexible approach to the problem, while on the contrary, your approach is quite inflexible, as you still persist on your formula of work shirking by the HR professional. By asking me to be little bit flexible, did you mean, I should not have commented against your unethical inflexible approach?



Reiteration on your stand that no corporate/ organization, as of now, would be willing to invest resources for non-productive activities, is just a farce on your part, as instead of rectifying your approach to be practical and rational in your business activity, yourself is adopting a non-productive activity of aimlessly wasting time repetitively to defend your wrong and unethical policy. So, clearly you or your organization is investing in non-productive activity. Contrary to it, no corporate/ organization would be willing that its HR professional should abandon any essential process to accomplish the job to close the chapter once for all, rather than leaving a loophole unplugged to create problems for the future, as you suggested on the problem referred by the author of the thread.



In a frantic bid to defend your wrong policy, you have quoted even a wrong example, as “nobody is using C or C++ now for programming but progressed with .net or similar.” Probably you are extremely mistaken. It doesn’t mean that if you are not using something, the same is discarded worldwide. At first .net was available even when in 1979 ‘C’ was developed and improved further as ‘c++’ in 1983. Secondly, probably you don’t know both ‘C’ and ‘C++’ are still being taught and C++ is one of the most popular programming languages ever created, C++ is widely used in the software industry. Some of its application domains include systems software, application software, device drivers, embedded software, high-performance server and client applications, and entertainment software such as video games. Several groups provide both free and proprietary C++ compiler software, including the GNU Project, Microsoft, Intel and Borland. C++ has greatly influenced many other popular programming languages, most notably C# and Java. SO, .net would be lame without C++ till it is not replaced by some other innovative software.



You profess about the Change in technology, attitude, behavior and approach of an individual. That does not mean you leave any essential process completed. Change does not mean to use hit and trial methods. Change also needs some processes to be established and accomplished. You can simplify a process with regard to the law of the land, but not neglect that altogether. Better try to learn what actually is the change process.



May the employers be always looking / experimenting new things and in relations to Human resources, but that does not mean that, you as an employee of some organization may neglect your duties and responsibilities in the name of your employer or in the name of the new thing. Ignoring a process is not a new thing, but an old tactics of the employees, as a dereliction of their duties & responsibilities.



You are welcome to give your comments, if you still have any doubt in getting yourself less exposed by yourself only




From India, Delhi
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