http://thehrprofessional.wordpress.com/2010/10/03/paak-ghaya/

 Extracted from my http://www.thehrprofessional.wordpress.com  

Paak Ghaya!

Images Rotten(Overripe)  Fruit – For Demonstration Purposes Only!

For those who do not know what it means, I know you are dying to let me tell you what it means, but have patience with me Dear Reader; because it is going to be clear in the next few sentences! I can assure you that it is Hindi, just in case you are wondering what it all means! And why not? After all, I have a great following in this group too!

You know those of us so-called Human Resources Professionals always say this thing – it is not the reasons given to you by a Staff who is leaving the establishment (mad house! Or one flew over the cuckoo’s nest!) That is valid and being more important but actually what was it that had prompted that person to start to look for another job in the first instance that is more important! Does not make any sense, or is the gist lost in its meanings? Let me explain.

In normal what they refer in Human Resources as an Exit Interview (let us ask you why you are leaving interview), the Staff may give a number of reasons why. For example the salary is higher being received in the new place. Perhaps and or fringe benefits and perks, or a higher more senior job even if sometimes there maybe no visible financial advantages per se (in some cases even losing out financially – but then you may be right in thinking that no ‘one is mad enough’ to do such a thing! You may be right too, but do not forget that there is a mad house out there too, and peoples are capable of doing the least and when expected syndromes too!). But then it is easy for us to judge as ‘outsiders’ and unless these things have happened to you or are happening to you now! Trust my word on it, I know I have been there too, in many times and too close for comfort either!

What I am trying to say here is this – as an establishment you need to find out what was it that had prompted that staff to apply outside in the first instance! It could be a small thing to the boss in charge and or to the establishment, but could be a major issue and or catastrophe to the Staff. For example when a Boss shouts and screams to a subordinate in front of his own peers and his own subordinates, what does this Boss expect? What do we have big rooms for Managers and Supervisors for? It is to use for privacy and discuss sensitive issues in the privacies of those rooms. Like a sceptic friend of mine would have remarked – The big rooms surely not for decoration, but for usage. He would go on to say – God gave you brains to use, and this too not for decorations! 

It isn’t the 100th blow that knocks a good man down. It’s the 99 that went before: This is why people leave organizations – Azim Premji. – WHY EMPLOYEES LEAVE ORGANISATIONS? – (much of this article is based from that article) unquote.

The article goes on – Every company normally faces one common problem of high employee turnout ratio. People are leaving the company for better pay, better profile or simply for just one reason’ pak gaya ! 

Why do experienced, professional and talented employees leave despite a top salary?

The answer lies in one of the largest studies undertaken by the Gallup Organization. The study surveyed over a million employees and 80,000 managers and was published in a book called First Break All the Rules.

It came up with this surprising finding: If you’re losing good people, look to their immediate supervisor. More than any other single reason, he is the reason people stay and thrive in an organization.  And he’s the reason why they quit, taking their knowledge, experience and contacts with them. Often, straight to the competition.

“People leave Managers not Companies,” write the authors Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman. “So much money has been thrown at  the challenge of keeping good people – in the form of better pay, better  perks and better training – when, in the end, turnover is mostly  Manager  issue.”

If you have a turnover problem, look first to your Managers.   Are they driving people away?

Beyond a point, an employee’s primary need has less to do with money, and more to do with how he’s treated and how valued he feels. Much of this depends directly on the immediate manager. And yet, bad bosses seem to happen to good people everywhere..

A Fortune magazine survey some years ago found that nearly 75 per cent of employees have suffered at the hands of difficult superiors. You can leave one job to find – you guessed   it, another wolf in a pin-stripe suit in the next one.

Of all the workplace stressors, a bad boss is possibly the worst, directly impacting the emotional health and productivity of employees. HR Experts say that of all the abuses, employees find public humiliation the most intolerable. The first time, an employee may not leave, but a Thought has been planted…

The second time that thought gets strengthened.  The third time, he starts looking for another job.  When people cannot retort openly in anger, they do so by passive aggression. By digging their heels in and slowing down. By doing only what they are told to do and NO MORE. This is done by omitting to give the boss crucial and very essential information.

That could impact and seriously jeopardize an organization. Have you seen this in real life? A new staff joins and is highly keen and motivated. He seriously and genuinely cares and feels for the organization. At the risk of his own job (remember probation and can be terminated in a week’s notice at the least?) he speaks his mind in order to try to rectify, remedy and correct a situation. His peers look up at him in disdain, cynicism and even bordering contempt – in their hearts they say we have seen and heard these all over before (so what else is new?). In the end another (new) frustrated, de motivated, dehumanized Staff hits the dust! Another casualty figure to contend!

That is Paak Ghaya, or in Hindi – over ripe fruit, cannot be eaten anymore! 

It is said – “If you work for a jerk, you basically want to get him into trouble.  (The sooner the better!) You don’t have your heart and soul in the job”. The day he leaves, there is a BIG CELEBRATION party the villain has gone, no more trouble, no more pain, no more suffering. Until the new Manager has come in ‘with a new broom sweeping better’ – unless and until that is he starts to behave like his old peer again (Remember Animal Farm?).

Different Managers can stress out employees in different ways – by being too controlling, too suspicious, too pushy, too critical, too manipulative (divide and conquer syndrome, even if it is the establishment that eventually suffers!) – but they forget that workers are not fixed assets, they are free agents. When this goes on too long, an employee will quit – often over seemingly trivial issue.

It isn’t the 100th blow that knocks a good man down. It’s the 99 that went before. And while it’s true that people leave jobs for all kinds of reasons- for better opportunities or for circumstantial reasons, many who leave would have stayed – had it not been for one man constantly telling them, as Arun’s boss did: “You are dispensable. I can find dozens like you.”

While it seems like there are plenty of other fish especially in today’s waters, consider for a moment the cost of losing a talented employee. There’s the cost of finding a replacement.

The cost of training the replacement. The cost of not having someone to do the job in the meantime. The loss of clients and contacts the person had with the industry. The loss of morale in co-workers. The loss of trade secrets this person may now share with others.

Plus, of course, the loss of the company’s reputation. Every person who leaves a   corporation then becomes its ambassador, for better or for worse.

We all know of large IT companies that people would love to join and large television companies few want to go near. In both cases, former employees have left to tell their tales. “Any company trying to compete must figure out a way to engage the mind of every employee,

Jack Welch of GE once said.   Much of a company’s value lies “between the ears of its employees”.  If it’s bleeding talent, it’s bleeding value.

Unfortunately, many senior executives busy traveling the world, signing new deals and developing a vision for the company, have little idea of what may be going on at home. That deep within an organization that otherwise does all the right things, one man could be driving its best people away.

Next time you as the Manager or Supervisor feel like screaming and shouting at that Staff of yours – THINK AGAIN. As I said before – God gave you brains to use, and this too not for decorations!

Images Rotten(Overripe)  Fruit – For Demonstration Purposes Only!

By: 

Majid Said Nasser Al Suleimany