Anticipating appraisal at the time of financial meltdown

The collapse of Lehman Brothers, the world’s largest investment banking organisation and the sell-out of Merrill Lynch brought along with it doomsday for millions of employees and would-be employees engaged in various sectors all over the world. National and international media is abuzz with news of lay off, pink slips, sacking, retrenchment, salary cut and similar horrific sounding words. Fresh recruitment in large IT, ITes, real estate, investment banking and multinational companies has been put on hold. Even the job aspirants who were previously issued offer letter now have to wait for an indefinite period to get another call from the HR department.

Even the employees who were happily working in their organisation and were looking forward to a stimulating appraisal are also feeling the jittery due to this evil financial meltdown. Employees normally work in an organisation in a hope to get a good increment for a job well done and this in the long run work as a motivation. But the present financial crisis has also spoilt such dreams of employees. Instead they are only praying for the almighty to show them a ray of hope. Many employees are afraid of demanding or even questioning the process of appraisal at this critical point of time, fearing they might lose their job.

Interestingly, if the scenario is seen from a different angle then it can be found that this financial meltdown and the resulting crisis and panic in the job market are the handiwork of the HRs (equally of large, medium and small companies). They are making the most of this situation, when employees are walking at tight rope and the employers have given the full autonomy to the HRs to reduce cost anyhow. For the time being they are cherishing every moment of pain, agony, frustration and tension of the hapless employees.

Taking chance of the situation even the HRs of small companies are also flexing their muscles. The small companies are less affected by this financial meltdown compared to the big and medium companies, but such small companies and especially the HRs are employing the situation by applying pressure tactics on the employees. They are masterminding unique methods like spreading threat mails, warning mails, rumours etc to keep the employees under pressure. Either they are deliberately delaying the appraisal cycle of employees or creating suspense about the appraisal. Even those who are apprised on time are not given the deserving pay hike.

As the full form of HR mean human resource, the HRs in reality should act more delicately for the benefit of the human resource of an organization rather than just showing their inclination towards the management.