Compromises

1. We make compromises when we accept something which is not what we desired. Compromises are made due to our long held beliefs. These beliefs are basically about the relationships between various aspects of what we wish and what is available. Most of the time these beliefs are so well established in our thinking pattern that we do not even notice that we have them and we start believing them as true or accepted way of working.

2. One such compromise we always make is when we try to hire a person for a particular job in our organization. We specify the requirements, lay down the qualifications and experience, and skills required for the job. Then we go about trying to find a person who will best fit these requirements suited for the job with the hope that the person selected will be the best and most suitable and will fit in our organization like a fish takes to water. This is where we make our first compromise and it is the most difficult one to understand and break. We make a compromise to hire a person rather than help make the person acquire the required skill and experience. We try to fit a person to the job, job requirements and skills but we do not go about fitting a job to a person. We do not want to spend time, effort, energy and money on a person so that he grows to fit the job perfectly. We accept what is best available rather than develop a person to fit the job. 3. This is where we make the first mistake. We normally make the mistake due to a number of reasons:-

(a) It is easier to hire a person than to train him.

(b) Hiring process can be totally outsourced thus saving time and effort.

(c) You are not sure of your capabilities and have fear of failure.

(d) You do not have confidence in your training methods and procedures.

(e) You do not sufficient time or finances to train as you had not anticipated or forecasted this requirement.

(f) You are just lazy and wish to go with the flow rather than swim against the current.

4. A person you have hired has normally worked in another organization for some time and leaves that organization to join yours due to a variety of reasons:-

(a) Financial consideration- higher pay.

(b) lack of promotional prospects.

(c) Dissatisfaction with the work culture.

(d) Higher promotion.

(e) His goals and organization goals are not in resonance.

(f) Interpersonal or personal problems.

5. If we look at these reasons carefully then we realise that these are exactly the reasons due to which a person would like to leave your organization and go somewhere else. If you can bring him in by promising better pay, work culture and promotion then another company can always better your offer and take him away from you thus leading to a heavy turn around of manpower. Moreover, a person who comes easily would also leave you that easily. Basically what you have achieved is a temporary and stop gap arrangement only. You will also be worrying as to what all your secrets, clients and business this person might take from you to the other organization.

5. The best way out of this is to have persons who are loyal to your organization and trustworthy and would like to stay in your organization. This is possible only if we have people who have been given necessary skills in your own organization. The emphasis is to train and develop your own people rather than hire from outside. You are also not sure as to what all culture that person might bring into your organization. A very promising and successful person from outside may not be able to deliver what you expect him to do. Moreover there is no way you can be sure that a very successful person will continue to be successful. Qualifications, experience and skill may have a Strong relationship with the past and present but have no bearing on his future performance.

6. When you hire a person hire him for attitude, aptitude and character and not for skill and experience. Skill and experience can be given or acquired but character , attitude and aptitude can not be given or acquired . Either you have them or do not have them.

7. The only way to develop loyalty and trust is to train and develop employees. At the worker level it would be better to have unskilled workers and then train and develop them for different jobs in the organization. Use job rotation to help them develop and learn different skills and utilize them in different jobs. Reward them as they acquire different skills . These rewards could be monetary, public recognition and even promotions. The biggest advantage that the organization can derive is that it will have a large workforce of trained and skilled workers who can be asked to perform any job. Thus shortages of skilled workers at any given time is easily looked after as other trained persons are available to do the job.

8. We tried this approach in our organization where all the work force in the factories were unskilled, no previous experience and between 18 to 22 years of age. They were trained in the factory and mostly on the job with job rotation such that each worker gets a chance to learn and work on all the machines. The result was a growth rate of 40-45% for 10 consecutive years and a turn over ratio of workforce of less than 0.5%. Most importantly it helped us to build a high degree of loyalty and trust between workers , supervisors and managers.

9. It is the same thing when you say that you are the best company and the best people working for you but fail to realise that what you are going to do after you have the best people. People will leave your organization to go and work in other companies which in their opinion are better than yours. We fail to understand that it is the ' best syndrome' which is keeping us at the same level and eventually may pull us down when complacency sets in. It would be advisable to concentrate on continuously train , develop the employees so that they can become better and better, as there is no limit to this process of development. What you get back is not only a better performance but also a loyal and trustworthy employee.