HR Negotiation Tactics: How Would You Handle Being Misled About Notice Pay?

I received the following query from an HR person and wanted to share it with all of you for your input:

"I have recently joined an MNC. During the interview, I was asked to start within a week of receiving the offer, but I explained that I needed to serve a two-month notice period. I requested that if they required me to start immediately, they should compensate me for the notice period. HR refused, citing the lack of a policy for this situation. Despite this, I was enticed by the company's brand and decided to join within a week, which damaged my relationship with my previous employer and caused me to forfeit my notice pay. After joining, I discovered that the company did have a policy of reimbursing notice pay. I felt deceived. When I questioned a senior HR member about why they misled me during the interview, he simply smiled and said it was part of a negotiation game, in which they came out on top and I lost. How do you perceive this negotiation tactic employed by HR?"

Regards

It would be foolhardy to call it a game of negotiations. The gentleman who refers to this incident as "negotiations" must not have an iota of an idea of what negotiations are!

The job applicant was needy, and the company took undue advantage of the applicant's neediness. During the interview, the interviewer must have gauged the impatience of the job candidate. The company harnessed this impatience to their advantage.

Interpretations of the Incident

a) Any policy made for the organization must be applied consistently. Inconsistent application leads to frustration and lowers employee morale. While HR might have saved the cost of the notice period, could HR calculate the cost of the low morale of the job candidate?

b) HR is the custodian of the organization's culture. Through informal communication, the newly joined employee will spread this message in his network. Generally, informal communication is accepted at face value. This incident will create an atmosphere of distrust in the company. What would be the cost of the environment of distrust? Can HR calculate that?

c) Organizations grow because of innovative ideas by employees. The newly joined employee has started on a bitter note. With this bitterness in mind, will this employee come up with innovative ideas? If not, then what would be the cost of lost opportunities? Can HR calculate that?

d) Rather than negotiation, it is a game of skulduggery. The incident could be a reflection of the valueless culture that prevails in the company. The cheated employee could start counting his days in the company. The incident has sown seeds of attrition. What would be the cost of future attrition? Can HR calculate that?

Final Comments

It is a well-known fact that HR, in general, is unable to do Cost-Benefit Analysis (CBA). The lack of this business acumen holds their growth back, and hardly any HR becomes a CEO. Let us consider that there was pressure from the top to play tricks of this kind. However, rather than doing proper CBA and anticipating future costs, HR has played into the hands of top management. While there could be personal gain for HR in such a case, it has come at the expense of the organization.

Thanks,

Dinesh Divekar

Concurring with the views of Mr. Dinesh, I add that the action of HR raises questions about the ethical culture of the organization and, more precisely, the HR department. The very basis of any negotiation is to achieve a win-win situation for both parties, and therefore, it necessarily has to be based on ethics and mutual trust to achieve it. In this case, it is not negotiation but treachery and dirty trickery. There is no scope for dirty tricks in negotiation. The organization might have acquired the employee, but it may not retain him for long because it lost his confidence and trust. Such actions dent employer reputation and branding in the market. The HR is wholly unprofessional and unethical.

Regards, B. Saikumar

Thanks for the valuable sharing by both Mr. Dinesh and Mr. Sai. I agree with all the views you have shared. The HR should not have acted in such a manner. He should have disclosed the information to the candidate and then negotiated to reach a win-win situation.

Candidate's Responsibility

I also want to share my views on the candidate. The practice of the candidate quitting the job within one week to join a new organization because of the brand is not acceptable. Doesn't he have roles and responsibilities to ensure a smooth exit process? Being an HR professional, he should not have acted this way, and I strongly disagree with his decision. What is the guarantee that he/she will not behave the same way in the current organization by quitting without giving reasonable notice?

Regards