Many human capital managers sing for their ‘supper’

Davies Ndumiso Sibanda, Labour Matters
MANY human resources practitioners mislead management into dismissing permanent employees or employees that are good candidates for rehabilitation.

The problem starts with organisations failing to respect the skills of a human resources practitioner and having him or her work under conditions where the only means to keep a job is singing for their supper instead of giving the organisation sound advice.

I worked with a managing director who would tell his general managers that in matters of discipline, if you can’t convince your human resources manager that there is a dismissible case don’t dismiss.

Before any dismissal was effected, he needed a written opinion from the human resources manager on prospects of success.

That opinion guided the way forward.

If many cases were lost outside due to the human resources practitioner’s bad advice, he would take the human resources practitioner for the division to task.

I learnt to give professional advice even if it did not make my colleagues happy.

Organisations should hire human capital managers who are competently trained in discipline law; where they are not trained, they ensure they are trained.

The training should be extended to all heads of department and chief executives so as to avoid tensions related to discipline between senior managers and human resources practitioners.

Training junior managers in discipline law before training executives is usually a waste of resources as the drivers of the organisation’s discipline culture are chief executives and their heads of department.

Human capital managers have numerous painful stories related to bad instructions from heads of departments and chief executives who have not been trained.

They will order dismissal of employees over gossip, tip-off anonymous and rumours which cannot stand legal scrutiny in terms of the law of evidence.

In worst cases some of the dismissal orders if followed end up destabilising the flow of the organisation and impacting negatively on meeting targets.

I have known cases where some organisations unfairly dismiss employees causing fear amongst professionals resulting in mass exodus.

There are organisations with a bad history of dismissing employees for no good reasons thus denting people’s careers to an extent that very few good professionals want to work for them.

In some cases, the problem might not be the whole organisation but individual managers who have disastrous discipline management skills that repel workers, thus there will be mass exodus from the department to other safe departments within the organisation.

The cardinal principle when it comes to discipline law is to see all employees as assets of the organisation who first of all should be managed through a deliberate “planned maintenance” programme where periodic “servicing and repair” are core and its disposal is an option of last resort.

The board of directors should drive this culture.

Disposal of employees through dismissal is about getting rid of institutional memory, experience, investment in skill that were given to the employee.

There is also destabilisation of the work chain as the replacement employee learns the ropes and teamwork is compromised.

Best practice says no employee should be dismissed unless the misconduct, in the eyes of a reasonable person, goes to the root of the relationship.

It must not be done to stroke egos of senior managers, they have to learn to live with good workers even if they do not like them.

In worse cases, I have seen occasions where employees are dismissed unlawfully at any cost so as to create opportunities for friends and relatives.

Sometimes a good worker is sacrificed over gossip by other workers who lie to the employer so as to protect their corruption which is being disrupted by the good worker., thus the need for thorough investigation before taking disciplinary action.

In conclusion, for organisations to get quality advice on discipline from their human capital managers, they must structure the position such that its part of the executive team and have the advice given respected by senior managers and success is only possible if senior managers are trained in discipline law and the culture is supported by the board.

l Davies Ndumiso Sibanda can be contacted on: Email: [email protected]