Is corporate environment is becoming more open to pink slip disclosures
If you are fired or sidelined, should you openly air your feelings?
The email sent by ex-Yahoo! CEO Carol Bartz's to her staff, immediately after her recent sacking, in which she declared, 'I have just been fired', followed by her expletive ridden press interview soon after, knocking the Yahoo! board, has sparked furious discussion. Closer home, Dr Pervez Ahmed, till recently CEO and Managing Director, Max Healthcare, has apparently openly admitted he was asked to leave.
I was curious to know if our corporate environment is becoming more open to such disclosures. I put this and other questions to some senior executives. Are companies becoming more open and mature, capable of taking such embarrassments in their stride? Also, has our society changed sufficiently to accept pink slips as a fact of life, leaving behind the taboo attached to it?
Priya Chetty-Rajagopal, Vice President and Partner, Stanton Chase International, is quite sure it has not. "I feel very uncomfortable when I hear the words 'sacked', or when someone calls up to tell me he or she has been laid off. I do not know how to react," she says.
In Indian industry, long dominated by the public sector, job security was a given. Indians became aware of pink slips only in the 1990s, when the United States was hit by a slowdown and layoffs - which included Indians working there - followed. Ever since the Indian economy was liberalised, many companies have been increasingly moving towards a hire-and-fire policy.
Indians lay great store by their jobs and the positions they hold. "I remember a wedding invite I got long back," says Chetty-Rajagopal. "The card mentioned the designations of both the bride and the groom, who worked for IT firms." Work, often, plays a larger than normal part in the lives of Indians. "Indian managers are known for their high degree of ownership towards their jobs, unlike their western counterparts who are detached. For the latter, the job is just one of the many things they do," she adds.
Given this cultural context, it is not really advisable for either the employee or the employer to indulge in a no-holds-barred public discourse when they part ways. Those I spoke to felt the chances of being misunderstood were high and bad-mouthing one's former company or exemployee was not a good idea.
But our corporate culture is changing. Some people have evolved and are ready to sit down with consultants or future employers to honestly appraise themselves.
A human resource executive, who declined to be named, narrates an incident in which a company head actually gave his board reasons to show the job he was doing needed a person with different skillsets. "He was effectively asking the board to remove him as he was confident of finding another job in another organisation," she says.
Of course, there is always the possibility that news of departures and internal disagreements is leaked by other sources - which appears to have been the case when Wipro chief Azim Premji sacked his joint CEOs, Suresh Vaswani and Girish Paranjpe, in January this year. But thanks to their reputation in the market, and the fact that they chose not to rant in public, both were deluged with job offers.
But public silence does not mean concealing the real reasons for leaving a company from a future employer. "I respect candidates who are honest in admitting to the conditions of their departure, and have the courage to admit their failures," says Anjali Bansal, Managing Director, Spencer Stuart, India.
I was curious to know if our corporate environment is becoming more open to such disclosures. I put this and other questions to some senior executives. Are companies becoming more open and mature, capable of taking such embarrassments in their stride? Also, has our society changed sufficiently to accept pink slips as a fact of life, leaving behind the taboo attached to it?
Priya Chetty-Rajagopal, Vice President and Partner, Stanton Chase International, is quite sure it has not. "I feel very uncomfortable when I hear the words 'sacked', or when someone calls up to tell me he or she has been laid off. I do not know how to react," she says.
Shamni Pande
Indians lay great store by their jobs and the positions they hold. "I remember a wedding invite I got long back," says Chetty-Rajagopal. "The card mentioned the designations of both the bride and the groom, who worked for IT firms." Work, often, plays a larger than normal part in the lives of Indians. "Indian managers are known for their high degree of ownership towards their jobs, unlike their western counterparts who are detached. For the latter, the job is just one of the many things they do," she adds.
Given this cultural context, it is not really advisable for either the employee or the employer to indulge in a no-holds-barred public discourse when they part ways. Those I spoke to felt the chances of being misunderstood were high and bad-mouthing one's former company or exemployee was not a good idea.
But our corporate culture is changing. Some people have evolved and are ready to sit down with consultants or future employers to honestly appraise themselves.
A human resource executive, who declined to be named, narrates an incident in which a company head actually gave his board reasons to show the job he was doing needed a person with different skillsets. "He was effectively asking the board to remove him as he was confident of finding another job in another organisation," she says.
Of course, there is always the possibility that news of departures and internal disagreements is leaked by other sources - which appears to have been the case when Wipro chief Azim Premji sacked his joint CEOs, Suresh Vaswani and Girish Paranjpe, in January this year. But thanks to their reputation in the market, and the fact that they chose not to rant in public, both were deluged with job offers.
But public silence does not mean concealing the real reasons for leaving a company from a future employer. "I respect candidates who are honest in admitting to the conditions of their departure, and have the courage to admit their failures," says Anjali Bansal, Managing Director, Spencer Stuart, India.
