Thursday, September 10, 2009

Can't Fire

It will be a dejavu for Mr Naresh Goyal , head of jet airways. Last year during tougher times he tried to remove around 1900 employees from the jet payroll , which sounded a right decision for the company as many of these people were on probation and they had completed their probation period post which it was Jet's call whether it want them to continue or not, given the special macroeconomic conditions there was no other option . Of course no one can deny the human side of the story but this risk has always been associated with private jobs and people today come prepared to face it any time .

Doing a job today does not make you feel as safe as it was 4 years back or much safer before 2000 bubble burst or safest before GE Neutron Jack era when lifetime jobs were guaranteed and companies like IBM was famous for committing to life time employment of its employees . Currently once more jet fired 2 pilots facing an unprecedented situation with almost entire pilot staff going on a synchronized leave. Organizations which are service intensive and have to face volume of customers on many touch point every day turn themselves into a tricky situation by such issues , some thing similar happened in 2006 when some staff of gourmet ( a food supplier to airlines) was fired resulting a strike which meant no food in flights irrespective of the fact that many of these flights were as long as 14 hours journey.

In such conditions company would not have any choice but give it up to the demands of the union. Even though there is no such instance observed in IT industry where in last two year thousands and thousands of people have left the job but there is definitely damages, when companies remove employees who are redundant or so called non performers , people who have been retained also feel the fear and start looking for the opportunities to leave the current company . It may result to a fast attrition rate once normal times return back which leaves companies into a situation where they have work but no resources and now they are bound to hire resources from market at higher costs.

Given this vicious cycle , it seems organizations just can't fire but still they do ....

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