TJinsite ? On layoffs, India Inc still leaves employees in the lurch

NEW DELHI: Soon after Citigroup let go of 100 employees across India last month, many functional heads received an unusual brief. They were asked to scout for jobs for those who had been terminated.?

Counsellors were also roped in to soften the blow and professional services firms were hired to make the career transition of the terminated employees ? some of them star performers ? smooth.

At this moment, Citi is not the only company trying to find jobs for the people it has let go. A few others, including Bharti Airtel and DLF, are also doing it right now or have done so in the recent past, officials at these companies said.

India Inc, now in the throes of its second round of layoffs since the Lehman Brothers collapse in late 2008, is slowly learning to treat executives well, even as they are being led up to the exit door.

Job cuts are inevitable. But the cold, insensitive and sheepish way of handing out pink slips is slowly being replaced with responsible and supportive approaches.

HR gurus say how a company parts ways with employees will have a significant bearing on the morale of the remaining workforce and also on the company?s ability to attract talent in the future. Managing layoffs well is important for the sustainability of the ?employer brand?.

?Citi provides services of global outplacement firms to employees displaced during any review,? says Stephen Cronin, managing director, human resources, Citi South Asia. It helps such employees with coaching on job search skills, interview techniques, placement support and even basic application letter-writing skills. The bank foots the bill.

GE is another example. ?In the past, we have either absorbed the affected employees in other GE businesses/roles or engaged outplacement agencies to help them get suitable opportunities externally,? says David C Lobo, senior VP-HR at GE India.?

Bharti Airtel, which has made hundreds of jobs redundant in recent months after a restructuring exercise, now works with an ?ecosystem of partners to identify suitable placement opportunities? for employees it lets go. ?We do our best to facilitate the career transition,? says an Airtel spokesperson.

Outplacement exception rather than rule

?We also use the services of specialist transition counselling organisations to help our people in defining their new careers.?

DLF, which had set up a subsidiary DLOR, to manage construction of its large projects, has now decided to farm out such work to companies like L&T and Shapoorji Pallonji.

A company executive, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said nearly 350 employees of DLOR are likely to be re-deployed at the other construction firms.

DLF declined official comment. Outplacement or career transition, HR lingo for such services, is still the exception in India even though it is the rule abroad. Very few companies, like the ones listed above, do it. Much of India Inc leaves employees in the lurch when they are laid off.

?Majority of career transition buyers are large Indian conglomerates and MNCs that focus a lot on employer brand,? says Chaitali Mukherjee, country manager of career transition and outplacement firm Right Management. ?Many companies have made it a part of their organisational process, but it is done at a small scale.??

She puts things in perspective with some data from her firm. Globally, Right Management earns half of its revenues from talent management and the rest from career transition services. In India, career transition accounts for just 10% of its business.

?Companies tend to think ? when I am asking him to go, why should I invest in him ? this when people are being let go due to business reasons,? says Mukherjee.

Adds Vikram Chhachhi, executive vice-president at Chicago-based search firm DHR International: ?Companies here do not have large processes around outplacements because the pressure on sourcing talent, staffing, recruiting is much higher. Outplacement is widely acceptable in Europe, but not in India.?

The result is badly-managed partings even at senior levels. Devika Sehgal was the country manager of a Swedish telecom software company in Mumbai. She set up the office here. In early 2011, after some global management changes, the HQ asked her to fire some employees.

Article: The Economic Times

Bogged down by workplace dynamics? Find out more on how to deal with office troubles & the latest buzz on who is hiring and who is firing?Here

Source: http://research.timesjobs.com/?p=5465

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