Just don't do it....

So many times I meet people who want to do things just because everyone else is doing it, at times without even thinking about the impact on their organisation. Recently I got asked a question saying 'I hear that stock options keep coming in favour or going out of favour with employers, so do you think I should do this for my organisation at this point in time'.

What most of us fail to understand is that no HR program works in isolation. If one is putting in a suggestion scheme in place then just putting the scheme in place and having financial rewards for the best suggestions does not lead to the success of the program. The intent of involving everyone in the success of the organisation also needs to be backed with a lot of communication about what the organisation is doing or trying to do and connect them with the reality of the business so that the suggestions that come are not ONLY towards improving the peripheral issues, like switching off lights and putting signages, but they also help resolve serious business issues faced by the organisation.

A stock program is an ownership program hence along with giving stock one also needs to create an environment of ownership through various behaviours that the owners, managers and peers need to display to get the maximum benefit from the program.

Hence 'Just don't do it...' because its the current fad right now, but seriously evaluate what you want to achieve and also what all you will need to do to make any of the HR programs successful.

Sanjay

Dead Horse Theory

Someone forwarded an interesting mail which did sound a good fit with many corporate policies. So read and have fun.

'When you discover that you are riding a dead horse, the best strategy is to dismount and get a different horse.'

However, in government, education and corporates India, more advanced strategies are often employed, such as:

1. Buying a stronger whip.

2. Changing riders.

3. Appointing a committee to study the horse.

4. Arranging to visit to other countries to see how other cultures ride dead horses.

5. Lowering the standards so that the dead horse can be included.

6. Reclassifying the dead horse as 'living impaired'.

7. Hiring outside contractors to ride the dead horse.

8. Harnessing several dead horses together to increase speed.

9. Providing additional funding and / or training to increase dead horse's performance.

10. Doing a productivity study to see if lighter riders would improve the dead horse's performance.

11. Declaring that as the dead horse does not have to be fed, it is less costly, carries lower overheads and

therefore contributes substantially more to the bottom line of the economy than do some other horses.

12. Rewriting the expected performance requirements for all horses. And, of course,

13. Promoting the dead horse to a supervisory position!