When you come to think of it everything around us has an expiry date... food, medicines, assets, relationships, civilizations and for that matter even Human beings.. but do employees have an expiry date!
It has been ingrained in us that people are an appreciating asset and to think of an employee carrying an expiry date sounds like an oxymoron or crazy to even contemplate. And if you are the HR guy making such mention, its possibly the end of the road. In anyway I sometimes feel HR are more like educated and polished versions of Union leaders always coming to the CEO with an appeal for some benefit here or 5 day working or more holidays but lets not get there, we will deliberate that some other day.
In fact leave aside HR, most owners pride themselves of employees being with them through the ages and where loyalty weighs heavily for such individuals. Often such individuals in the company are protected with an emotional halo! touch me not types. From my experience and to make a generalized observation, such long serving individuals are actually a millstone round the neck of the company from a future perspective and particularly for the owner. I say owner because though the owner may usually have high regards for the contributions of such individuals he generally is aware of the limitations of these time tested war horses who unfortunately have passed their prime time. These are the individuals who have reached a glass ceiling and to put it in candid parlance-Attained their expiry date!
Most CEO's don't like to accept or acknowledge this aspect either because of ignorance or because of being in self denial and sometimes insecurity-What will happen to our Accounts if I tell Harish he has reached his expiry date!! what if he joins our competition etc etc So most owners try and reform these once upon a time accomplished individuals, counselling him, training him, shouting at him- all with the intent and wishful thought that he will achieve some escape velocity and move to the next level. The crux of the problem is that the owner expects the horse to now run like a Cheetah.... At best a horse can be trained and conditioned to become a fast horse but he can't morph into a Cheetah. Hence if you are looking for a Cheetah to man the position, companies need to realize they have an expired resource and they need to deal with it. This would benefit both the individual the Company and most importantly the new recruit.
Persisting with them and trying to make them work with newly recruited talent is the next big nightmarish experience. Potentially designed to fail...Trust me on this and take heed! I would go one step further to state that If you measure closely, the cost of these dysfunctional outcomes cannot be even imagined and some have bearing on culture which are irreversible.
The objective of this blog is to encourage your HR to do an audit of all the potential talent and those that have hit a glass ceiling. The next is to bite the bullet and move towards action in the most sensitive and articulated approach. Oh yes if you feel too hot to handle this subject there is always Bluesky:)
It has been ingrained in us that people are an appreciating asset and to think of an employee carrying an expiry date sounds like an oxymoron or crazy to even contemplate. And if you are the HR guy making such mention, its possibly the end of the road. In anyway I sometimes feel HR are more like educated and polished versions of Union leaders always coming to the CEO with an appeal for some benefit here or 5 day working or more holidays but lets not get there, we will deliberate that some other day.
In fact leave aside HR, most owners pride themselves of employees being with them through the ages and where loyalty weighs heavily for such individuals. Often such individuals in the company are protected with an emotional halo! touch me not types. From my experience and to make a generalized observation, such long serving individuals are actually a millstone round the neck of the company from a future perspective and particularly for the owner. I say owner because though the owner may usually have high regards for the contributions of such individuals he generally is aware of the limitations of these time tested war horses who unfortunately have passed their prime time. These are the individuals who have reached a glass ceiling and to put it in candid parlance-Attained their expiry date!
Most CEO's don't like to accept or acknowledge this aspect either because of ignorance or because of being in self denial and sometimes insecurity-What will happen to our Accounts if I tell Harish he has reached his expiry date!! what if he joins our competition etc etc So most owners try and reform these once upon a time accomplished individuals, counselling him, training him, shouting at him- all with the intent and wishful thought that he will achieve some escape velocity and move to the next level. The crux of the problem is that the owner expects the horse to now run like a Cheetah.... At best a horse can be trained and conditioned to become a fast horse but he can't morph into a Cheetah. Hence if you are looking for a Cheetah to man the position, companies need to realize they have an expired resource and they need to deal with it. This would benefit both the individual the Company and most importantly the new recruit.
Persisting with them and trying to make them work with newly recruited talent is the next big nightmarish experience. Potentially designed to fail...Trust me on this and take heed! I would go one step further to state that If you measure closely, the cost of these dysfunctional outcomes cannot be even imagined and some have bearing on culture which are irreversible.
The objective of this blog is to encourage your HR to do an audit of all the potential talent and those that have hit a glass ceiling. The next is to bite the bullet and move towards action in the most sensitive and articulated approach. Oh yes if you feel too hot to handle this subject there is always Bluesky:)
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ReplyDeleteExpiry date, can this Concept can be related to career progression? In my opinion, When there is no further scope for training an employee or visible skill gap we should look for a new person to do the job. But how to plan this transition is the challenge. Eg. You cannot train an accountant to be a CFO with training. So if you need a CFO you need to have a new recruit and simultaneously analyze whether the old employee.. here accountant can contribute to the finance function of the organization.
ReplyDeleteWell every individual is wired to go right to the top so at a potential level there is no limit. The challenge is that within the time available can the person pace with the organization and if the organization cannot wait that long it needs to explore alternatives. Training and exposure are extremely important to harvest talent pipeline but also need deep investments
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