Exclusive: Pink Slip Blues

By John Kerry Sharma

HR people need to help employees recover self - worth before new jobs

While most of the sectors currently facing layoffs do not offer workers anything beyond minimum wages, media attention has been concentrated on how the once-pampered corporate sector is being brusquely given the pink slip.

Human Resource (HR) professionals now advise the laid-off to lower expectations. Hithendra KR of Ikya Search Partners says the maximum layoffs are happening at the lower-middle end, at the assistant manager level. “We have been seeing maximum layoffs in financial services and in the steel industry. We advise employees to be flexible. I had a candidate from investment banking who took a credit management job in a bank, something he would not have done before. He did it happily — and with a 30 percent cut.

For many HR professionals, their mandate to hire has either shrunk or come to a halt. Hitendra, however, avers that this is actually a good time to hire. “We tell companies that many good professionals are available now at reasonable prices.” Following the fire-sale metaphor but contradicting him, Anu Sharma of Bangalore’s HR Practice says, “It makes sense for some companies to hire now, especially if they are getting a skill set they could not afford before. But if you hire a good professional when business is poor, the employee will have little to do.”

In 2000, Sharma watched the dotcom bubble burst from the inside of indya.com: she saw 98 percent employees laid-off, but the layoffs were conducted so successfully employees threw a pink-slip party.

Sharma outlines some of the issues uncovered in this round of layoffs. “Many people do not have their personal finances in order and are completely unprepared. And the stigma of a layoff is high.” Sharma says companies have been exacerbating this by announcing that they are laying off their lowest performers: “When a company lays off 1,000 people, it goes beyond low performance. It’s an entire vertical you are eliminating.” Like other HR professionals, Sharma now spends time helping shocked victims recover self-esteem before facing prospective employers.