While going through the fortnightly process of musing over the next topic to address in Colborn’s Corner I couldn’t help but start to think about the rapidly decaying position at MG Rover and the HR issues that flow from it.
Those of us who have been involved with site closures and sudden, catastrophic, employment changes know just how challenging they are to handle both emotionally and practically. Not only is one’s personal situation potentially under threat, but also those of many colleagues.
But how far should we go in protecting the position of those we recruit externally? How many of us at one time or another have sung the praises of our organisation and enticed someone to leave one employment and embrace our own organisation – only to see three months later that recently filled job being displaced and the recent recruit put back on the job market?
Leaving aside for the minute the wasted cost to the business, should we say anything about the impact of this on the individual? How far does our responsibility extend to those outside our organisations?
Some would argue that matters such as this will be dealt with by the labour market itself; the argument runs that you should treat people fairly otherwise your organisation’s reputation will suffer, constraining the future supply of candidates.
But is this sufficient? Unless you are a headline employer, does reputation count for anything? I think that the reality is that as long as your reputation is not at either of the extremes, it will not matter – so where do ethics then come in if they are not market driven.
Some larger organisations will have teams who address issues of corporate and social responsibility – but many do not and that is normally where HR plays a part.
Of course one of our responsibilities is to protect the organisation from tribunal and other legal claims, but how far beyond that should we go? Are we to be the organisational conscience? Do organisations even need a conscience? If the answer is yes, how do we handle that when the inevitable conflict occurs between business performance and an ethical consideration?
And it does happen; a few years ago I was involved in a business where the male Sales Director subjected a female HR Manager to an act of sexual harassment. When the matter was raised with the MD the response was that he was a very good Sales Director. Would we let the matter rest there today? I think not. Sad to say it was insufficiently challenged at the time.
But today we are ever afraid to raise our heads above the parapet and shout when we know things are not right? Do organisations support those who do such things? I see many whistleblowing policies, but most of the time they are rarely used, if at all. Can we assume from this that all is well in the organisations they come from? Quiet frankly, I doubt it.
So what should the HR professionals be doing about it? At one end of the scale there is a view that we should do nothing, we are part of the management team and as long as we keep our employers out of Tribunal we are doing them a great service and when it comes to matters of right and wrong we should stop there.
At the other end of the scale, however, is an HR team who are prepared to stand up and be counted when they see things that are not right, not because we wish to be ‘goody-two-shoes’, but rather because we believe people should be treated decently at work not just to improve retention rates, but simply because people deserve to be treated with respect.
Colborn’s Corner: series articles
