One of the World’s leading technology companies has declared that it would become an equal opportunity employer, ie it would not discriminate against employees on the basis of race, religion, caste, language or performance. Commenting on this latest announcement Mr. Charlie Flute, Sr HCP (Human Capital Practitioner) said, “We are only articulating what has been a part of the company’s value system for a long time. We have followed a Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy when it comes to employee performance. We never asked about people’s performance and we never told them that they did not perform”
PARETTO & 80-20
We asked Mr. Flute how his organization would deliver high performance with such a value system. He responded, “See you have to be pragmatic about these things. Let us look at Paretto’s 80-20 principle. 80% of the work is done by 20% of the people. Even Paretto implies that the remaining 80% are contributing. The exact percentages are difficult to quantify, given the matrix structure of organization. 50% of them are supervisors and 30% are additional supervisors. Yes the numbers look unfair on the face of it but please understand our customers demand 99.95% performance not 80%. So every last bit matters.”
JACK WELCH v/s BUDDHA
When we pointed out that his organization sacked 5% of the bottom performers, Mr Flute summarily dismissed our suggestion of hypocrisy. “We don’t take Jack Welch and his management philosophies seriously. We follow a Buddhist Management philosophy.” So on what basis are these 5% employees sacked? “Bad karma in a previous birth. Firing these people is a good way to cleanse the company and keep its karma pure. It will make us successful in the next birth”
Tommy Says..
This piece of news has left the neighborhood dogs howling. We met Tommy, the neighborhood mongrel who gave us a salacious version. “Man, the only people who get fired there are people who give us biscuits with no hidden intent. The rest of 95% who keep their jobs come to befriend us and learn a trick or two on tail wagging, boss licking, giving cute looks, back biting on behalf of boss etc. The worst are the HCP people! Human Chauvinist P**s Alright!”
We asked Tommy if he is not indulging in undoggily conduct by bitching about people who befriend him? “What to do man I caught this disease from them humans. Its worse than rabies. At least with rabies I only try to bite my own back.”.
Good or bad this is the new avatar of the corporate world.
