Dear All,

Need your advie/suggestion on the following.

We have recruited one guy two months ago in our technical dept. (he was pursuing MBA in second year). At the time of interview we had agreed to give him a month’s leave for his final exam. And we did give him the leave. Currently he is on leave for his exams. Now we came to know that he has appeared one / two interview and he got selected also in some company.

Friends, Also we came to know that he will be coming to our organisation for putting up his resignation.

My question here is, should we accept his resignation & relieve him or can we terminate him or what else can be done (Apart from speaking to college personnel & blacklisting the college)

Also is there any law preventing us to terminate such people.

Your inputs is required at the earliest.

Thanks,

Chouhan

One can certainly understand your frustration at having spent so much time and money on recruiting someone, only to have them resign.

However terminating someone (except on grounds of illegal activity) also has a negative impact on the brand value of the company in the market. As long as this person studied for his MBA examination during his leave as promised, he has fulfilled his ethical and moral obligations to the company.

One cannot really prevent an employee from searching for better opportunities elsewhere. As for attending the interviews, he could have done that anyways, whether or not he was on leave. Even if this person has attended interviews.

I would gently submit, that you perhaps need to reconsider your decision on terminating this person. A better way would be to simply let him resign. If he doesnt, excellent ! It is an indicator that your company is better than its competitors at retaining talent.

Thanks and have a great day !

Rajasekar

Hi,

An organization must strive to keep people who are happy to be working with them. So, if the employee wants to leave, let him go his way.

The frustration is probably since you considered him for long leave. If he comes back and puts in his papers, you could consider the leave taken as loss of pay.

Working in an organization and chosing to move on, is a purely professional decision, and we,in HR, should not be emotional about employees who want to move on. I believe that it is in everyone's best interests to shake hands and wish him well. This way, there is no loss of good will. Ex-employees are brand ambassadors and can affect the way an organization is seen.

Also, in a lighter vein, if we, in the IT industry, terminate every employee who attends interviews after applying leave, we will have no employees left!!

Wishing you all the very best!!

You must have put more efforts during recruitment process. You are thinking on one side of coin, if you think on other side of coin you may change decision. As per the understanding between both of you, He availed leave to attend the examination, by design or default he might have got another job. Naturally as a human being every body want to grow as fast as possible. I feel termination may create negative impact. i may be wrong also.

Regards

bindu

This is unfair way to treat employees. Only bad employers do this. Do not get indulged into all this. It's a private life, whatever he does. I can understand that it's a matter of trust but as a good professional company, & as a community, we should be above all these.

In case he is not happy, he will definitely leave. Always treat employees with respect.

I was in IT industry for 4 years & this was the trend, what you have written. Most of such companies are closed.

Let people not gossip in company on such matter. Rather we should tryy to create retention policy & how can you attract him not to leave. These are my personal views.

Thanks
Sanjay Mewar

Dear friend,

I do agree with the other members that there is no point terminating the employee, that too when you "came to know from somebody" that he's been giving interviews and got selected.Do u want to punish him for misusing the purpose of his leave?For that matter obody who attends an interview would tell his/her organisation that he's/she's going to do so..he/she wud also be availing SL/CL/PLs for doing so...also how does blacklisting the college/talking to them help? I personally feel that whatever ethics/loyalities one carries as a person are not what one's MBA Institute instilled in him..If one looks for a change,it is for one's personal benefit, be it monetary or professional/else ..instead you could relieve him without any grudges when he wishes to resign and also take his feedback on the reasons why he felt the need for a change within 2 months of his tenure with you? Maybe U cud get some good inputs which would help you in retaining such candidates in future !

Thanks and Regards,

Priyanka

This kind of situtation prevails mostly in most of the organizations. However, as Human Resource professionals we need to respect the private life of the employees. Though it is a matter of trust & faith, but one more aspect to this is the feeling of insecurity of the employee, if he discloses about other employement options he is looking for.

Let this not become a matter of gossip in the organizaton.These are my personal views.

hrtech

If you haven't read this before.. just check it out!

Why do Talented employees leave companies ?? The answer lies in one of the largest studies undertaken by the Gallup Organization. The study surveyed over a million employees and 80,000 managers and was published in a book called "First Break All The Rules".

It came up with this surprising finding: If you're losing good people, look to their immediate supervisor. More than any other single reason, he is the reason people stay and thrive in an organization. And he's the reason why they quit, taking their knowledge, experience and contacts with them. Often, straight to the competition.

"People leave managers not companies", write the authors Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman. "So much money has been thrown at the challenge of keeping good people - in the form of better pay, better perks and better training - when, in the end, turnover is mostly manager issue."

If you have a turnover problem, look first to your managers. Are they driving people away?

Beyond a point, an employee's primary need has less to do with money, and more to do with how he's treated and how valued he feels. Much of this depends directly on the immediate manager. And yet, bad bosses seem to happen to good people everywhere. A Fortune magazine survey some years ago found that nearly 75 per cent of employees have suffered at the hands of difficult superiors. You can leave one job to find - you guessed it, another wolf in a pin-stripe suit in the next one.

Of all the workplace stressors, a bad boss is possibly the worst, directly impacting the emotional health and productivity of employees. HR experts say that of all the abuses, employees find public humiliation the most intolerable. The first time, an employee may not leave, but a thought has been planted. The second time, that thought gets strengthened. The third time, he starts looking for another job. When people cannot retort openly in anger, they do so by passive aggression. By digging their heels in and slowing down. By doing only what they are told to do and no more. By omitting to give the boss crucial information.

Dev says: "If you work for a jerk, you basically want to get him into trouble. You don't have your heart and soul in the job." Different managers can stress out employees in different ways - by being too controlling, too suspicious, too pushy, too critical, but they forget that workers are not fixed assets they are free agents. When this goes on too long, an employee will quit - often over seemingly trivial issue. It isn't the 100th blow that knocks a good man down. It's the 99 that went before.

And while it's true that people leave jobs for all kinds of reasons - for better opportunities or for circumstantial reasons, many who leave would have stayed - had it not been for one man constantly telling them, as Arun's boss did: "You are dispensable. I can find dozens like you." While it seems like there are plenty of other fish especially in today's waters, consider for a moment the cost of losing a talented employee.

There's the cost of finding a replacement. The cost of training the replacement. The cost of not having someone to do the job in the meantime. The loss of clients and contacts the person had with the industry. The loss of morale in co-workers. The loss of trade secrets this person may now share with others. Plus, of course, the loss of the company's reputation. Every person who leaves a corporation then becomes its ambassador, for better or for worse.

We all know of large IT companies that people would love to join and large television companies few want to go near. In both cases, former employees have left to tell their tales. "Any company trying to compete must figure out a way to engage the mind of every employee, " Jack Welch of GE once said.......Much of a company's value lies "between the ears of its employees". If it's bleeding talent, it's bleeding value.

Unfortunately, many senior executives busy traveling the world, signing new deals and developing a vision for the company, have little idea of what may be going on at home.

That deep within an organization that otherwise does all the right things, one man could be driving its best people away.

Prof Tandon

This is an interesting topic that you are discussing. The threads that I read are equally interesting. As a business consultant, please allow me to discuss this topic from another angle or point of view.

The termination of employment can always be done, subject to the "due process" normally required by local or labor laws where the company operates. In our country, termination of employment is regulated by a Labor Code.

Terminating an employee "on leave" (in this topic: academic leave) depends on a lot of considerations. When a company has an internal policy that defines the use or availment of an academic leave, then any breach thereof can be subject to appropriate sanction, including dismissal if warranted. However, without a policy on the matter, an organization will find it difficult to justify a dismissal or termination.

I could understand the frustration or anger that may be involved over an employee availing a benefit or preferential treatment, who suddenly leaves a "kind and generous" organization. But, as many have said, why bother? Employee retention requires "two critical elements". One is employee "personal work values", and the other is "corporate advantage".

When you want someone not to trick you out after the availment of a company benefit, make your policies on the benefit clear. Things would have been different (in this case), if the company has a policy that says: "Employees availing an "academic leave with pay", must render a certain number of years of service to the company. Resigning from the job without rendering the required service shall make the employee liable to refund all expenses, including salaries paid to the employee during the entire period of the leave".

msantos