Human Resources: Do we need them?

Often in office we wonder who makes the most money by almost doing nothing. It’s the Human resource guys. They come later that 10:00 AM and lecture on punctuality and work ethics. As soon as the lecture is over they head for shopping in office time. When they come to office after elongated shopping and see some hardworking guy chatting on the google, they start over again on lecturing on the work ethics and using company resources strictly on official purposes.

Soon the clock strikes 3:00 PM and they head towards the Café Coffee Day to discuss gossips column, relationship trouble and so forth. Heading back to their offices at five they take out some files and check their emails and then head home. In the entire day they however keep their "office" chat window in "too busy to chat" mode. Indeed, they are busy.

The basic question is "Do we need them". They are the people who try to templatize everything. For instance the questions
1. Please walk me though your resume (this has attained a particular importance in India owing to the fact smarass English speaking is the key to success)
2. Why are you looking for a change.

And then they ask you when is a right time to call you…and then they never call.

Here I share some of the experience with HR people. And I will also mention the names of those people.

Frost & Sullivan
Ever since Anmrita Vakil joined Frost, most analysts left the company. The reason is not just the stupid HR policy in Frost but also her lack of knowledge on anything under the sun coupled with her behavior that fails to maintain all codes of modesty. I remember during our HR appraisal, she had asked the Senior Analyst and the Industry Analyst to be frank about our experiences, and we bet we were, thinking that all our conversations were confidential as promised. But in reality she just poured out to the directors and seniors and so things became a little (actually a lot more tough). Now also Frost takes away the same amount in Provident Fund for all the employees. For me the contribution was clearly, just 6% of my basic while the government rule is (12.5% from employees salary and 12.5% by the company). So when we clarified it with her, she said that everything is according to the regulations. Later when we got our statements of account our basic salary was shown reduced to match the low EPF contributions. Upon enquiry her behavior led to several resignations.

In fact I remember her sending an email asking her form 10 for my PF payout a month back. I am yet to get a reply.



Hewlett Packard
I was offered a position in march and the HR person was Amrita Dhar. I was to join on April 21. From April 10th I kept emailing Amrita Dhar(HR manager) asking about three trhings:
1. Which campus should I report to?
2. What is the address of my guest house?
3. Will there be an airport pickup?

Till noon 20th I had no answer so I had to cancel my tickets and paty a huge penalty. On April 23rd they realized that I have not reported and started speaking to me. I said I will be there a week later you answer my three questions. Till today (August 10th) I am yet to receive my answers.


SAP
This is by far the most unethical recruitment ever. Their HR manager is Richa Bhargava. After two rounds with Gurgaon office head and one with the Germany office head, she said that their will be an HR round with the team. I said fine. On July 24th she asks me to book a reliance web world. I requested her is she could do that from her end because its expensive for me. She said “ NO U HAVE TO DO THAT” and banged the phone. The next day she calls and tells me that in case you have booked you cancel it and fly to delhi tomorrow. I said what about the cancellation fees for the web-conference? She answered “ we wont pay that”. I said ok then send me the tickets”. She said “You book the tickets we pay after 2 weeks”.

Then I remember a friend of mine who went to SAP Gurgaon office 2 months back for an interview. I asked if he was reimbursed. He said no. Then I informed Richa that since you are interested in hiring me please arrange for the tickets, else I am not interested in booking the tickets myself. The culture SAP under Rich’s l;eadership is simple " we will interview candidates on their resource not ours”.

NetScribes
They had once offered me a job in their Mumbai office in 2006. I rejected the offer because I was underpaid comparison to my experience, designation, and also the cost o living in Mumbai.

From 2007 April an HR guy called Nikhil called stating that they would like to open an office in Calcutta and if I were interested to take a senior position. I was happy at the prospect. From that day onwards Netscribes forgot about me. Then in almost end of June one of their HR Sukanya Gowda, called me and asked me to be free in a particular time. I kept waiting but nobody called. Then this was done for few days and ultimately someone did call. On June 30th I was called by the Swimming pool in Oberoi Grand, and a guy called Deepanshu assured me that I will be a part of their team. Days passed and then I called Suknya, and she said that I was selected. The next day I received an email thanking me for my interest and that I was not selected. I enquired with her and her boss (another mind of a pea nut size) called me names.

Compare Infobase
This is an organization that copies web content, rephrases them and call them theirs. I was called for an interview. I knew that they cannot afford my Frost salary but I was looking for a job that gave me financial independence without stress so that I can paint in my spare time. I was asked to write a paragraph on the impact of globalization on Indian economy. I used game theory and perfect competition to come up with answers. It was a neat writeup and having a GPA of 4.0 in my grad school I was confident of nailing it. The next day their HR person Shoma, called and said that my performance was poor. A friend later told me that they look for class X standard write-ups.