• You are here:
• Home
•  / 
• HR Download
•  / 
• Staffing & Compensation
•  / 
• Story

Advertisement

HR Download - Staffing & Compensation

What's your story idea?

Turnaround Competency - a surviving skill for HR leaders  (View Comments)

Bhumish Khudkhudia

Posted On Tuesday, June 22, 2010 at 11:52:03 AM

Turnarounds are always turbulent and often messy. Turnarounds succeed or fail based on the team’s ability to manage organisational change. Finding cash and restructuring the operations of the business is certainly complicated.

Managing the intricacies of layoffs, reorganisations, and motivating employees to do more with less is just as complex. In the aftermath of the financial crisis of 2008, for most of the companies the turnaround agenda will play a prominent role - whether as a contingency plan for the white board or as a dogged reality. 

HR leadership is uniquely positioned to lead the “people” side of the turnaround effort. They have a broad view of the employee base; and, ideally, HR leaders also possess the communication skills and relationships to effect change.

Sanjay Verma, Corporate Vice President – HR, Synefra Engineering and Construction Ltd opines, “My personal insight in dealing with the turnaround process is to inter-balance organisational positioning, people alignment and process improvisation. The older the organisation is, the more difficult it would be to ‘make the elephant dance’. Employee buy-in is a fundamental and vital step in turnaround. An intense, organisation-wide focus on intrinsic changes is needed to charter the organisation to a rejuvenated mission.”

Priya Ranjan, Director-HR, Bharti AXA Life Insurance Company rightly points out in the context of Financial Crisis that the HR Manager must act as a Change Agent. “HR managers should be able to manage change in different areas as far as strategies, goals and expenses of the firm are concerned. HR Manager must ensure that their functions propel the concept of driving accountability culture and redefining the roles of the important employees. Employee motivation and retention is very important. Important employees should not have any kind of negative impact. Sometimes, their emotions do get rattled. Hence, HR must make sure that they don’t get away.”

“HR is trying to re-establish ‘trust’ and ‘confidence in the future’ of the organisation”, says Rani Desai, Vice President and Global Head, Human Resources & Organisational Development, Geometric Ltd. During the turnaround, typically, the organisation is trying to stand on its own feet, once again with the same stature, as it was before. “There are structural issues that need to be taken into account, including a redefinition of roles with optimised expectations of outputs. Therefore, the jobs have to be redefined, and there has to be clarity in terms of accountability. New set of policies, processes are required to meet with the new expectations. There are credibility issues that HR manager has to tackle, and also communication becomes another important element in the organisation.”  
 
But, what are the challenges that HR managers are likely to face during the turnaround of the company? Desai explains about the multifold challenges that HR Managers face during turnaround. “It is essential to handle the trust issues of employees empathetically and sensibly; training employees to be multi-skilled, building competencies, and hiring talent is another key area to concentrate. Human capital is the key resource for any company. At times during turnaround many good people are lost, or leave. This may lead to the overworking of existing talent, leading to an unappreciated work environment.  Hence, it is really essential to retain the talented workforce and meet the expectations of employees as well."

Finally, what should be the turnaround roadmap for HR managers? Verma says that while varying with the organisational need and chemistry, the generic roadmap for turnaround would consist of 3 phases:

Diagnose - the impending trouble or the danger signals
Strategise - choosing the appropriate turnaround strategy
Execute - the change process, its monitoring and course correction

Turnarounds are demanding, risky, and tricky; and, they almost always pivot on key issues in leadership, communication, and change management. These are issues that the competent HR Leader will be qualified to tackle. Experienced turnaround professionals understand this and will welcome the help. The HR executive sets the tone and leads the process for layoffs, reorganisations, and compensation changes – all critical components of an effective turnaround.

Most Searched Tags

Advertisement

Thought Pool

Here's your chance to be our 'Student Journalist of the Month', a contest for aspiring students to pool in their ideas and views on burning issues in the Human Resource space. It's simple! Post your article here and you could be the winner.

Topics of the month

• The need for CSR
• Role of EQ in a successful career
  

Terms & Conditions