Chairman Is Not A Good Listener,Real OD Change Management Task

Dear Seniors,

I have recently joined a real estate organization.

The chairman here is first generation entreprenur,he has been a driver in his past life.............he bought land somewhere.................in that long process became richest in India in terms of his wealth and land property.

Now he has started his own developing company in real estate.

He is very soft and empathetic to lower grade of people like drivers,pantry,house keeping,secretary etc.

now we are hiring new team pf professional in all fuctions but he is not caring towards those.

He feels whatever wealth he has accumulated is becoz of those people he had to work with him in past.

He is very strict and non understanding when it come to those new professional team.

We are working 9 hours 6 days a week.

Professional expect some work life balance in their life.

They expect atleast alternate saturdays off if not all.

Our CEO has tried to convince him many a times but he refused it straight all time.

How to convince him as emoployee Champion for this change in working hours policy.

He doesnot listen it at first place.

Kindly guide me.

Hello Komal,

I think there's one basic flaw in your argument--there are many companies in India where 6-day week is still followed. In fact, until the IT industry took off about 20 yrs back, this was, by & large, the norm in any industrial segment.

Without pre-judging your situation, try to make use of the basic Human nature--what's in it for me NOW?--to handle your Chairman.

To elaborate, in general, human nature is to check for what he/she gains in any interaction/relationship/activity--the only difference being, some have it much more than others [and some even to the extent where such an attitude hurts them, even though they don't realize it]. Your Chairman seems to be in the last category.

One of the main factors that govern the laws related to Working Days/Timings is w.r.t. human need to get refreshed/recharged. Suggest asking him to try out 5-day or 5.5 day week for sometime--say for a month or two and see how the efficiency levels increase among the employees. Assuming the request form the professionals desire/request is genuine & sincere, they will definitely put-in much more efforts into whatever they are doing, when their request is granted. Any Final Boss of a company would normally do anything to see that the performance improves--with min cost outflows. No Boss would generally say NO to an idea where the employees can do 'x+y' work when earlier they used to do 'x' work in a given timeframe.

Hope you get the point.

If you can think of any other way(s) to achieve this aspect/desire in the Boss, then you can try it out too. Since your CEO too is in favor of this issue, suggest have a brain-storming session with him & other concerned senior people & plan it out.

However, also pl keep in mind that those who have come up the ladder the hard way are usually street-smart. So any sort of over-smart actions from your end could boomerang--meaning the professional team have to live upto the impression [performance enhancement/improvement] being given this way.

Reg Govind Singh Negi's second suggestion--reg attrition--it can work ONLY IF that's a current concern in your company. If not, then it won't--since the Chairman's focus would be on CURRENT/PRESENT--most likely he wouldn't understand the full impact of this aspect, even if you mentioned it.

All the Best.

Rgds,

TS

Thanks for your valuable inputs Mr. TS,but I would like to know is there a technique where I can measure the productivity or effectiveness of the team in that one month time to show him in concrete.
I can ask to have 5 or 5.5 days working as an experiment for some time lets say one month,but how will I measure the changes in terms of the performance of the employees................how will I prove that they are doing :x+y instead of only x with this change.???

Hello Komal,
Suggest DON'T take upon yourself what others ought to be doing--pl remember that you are basically facilitating what the CEO & other HoDs want to be implemented.
The targets which you are talking about should be fixed by the CEO & HoDs & then should be adhered to--if not surpassed--by them. Let them take the responsibility of handling the performance of their teams. Even though you--as HR--may like to do it or are asked to take it up, try to involve them & make it THEIR decision--that way the chances of the whole idea succeeding are higher, since they have a stake in it.
All the Best.
Rgds,
TS

Dear Komal,
i will suggest you, in your company weekly work is realy as per law & your company is real sate company in act 1956, so this formulation we can't change, but yes you can suggest that to your chairmen regading to improve the efficiency of the work effectiveness, safety Quality it should be neccessory & this we will give the perticular time frame of perticular person it can be understand & think about on this matter. i think it is pvt. company not public but we have manage all those thinks as per law......
Rgds
HRD

Dear Komal

I was serving in a Company as HR HEAD and I had a similar CEO who was very adamant and a person who did not have any empathetic attitude. When there was a pressing demand for 2nd and 4th saturday when I took up with him. He flatly refused and advised me to be very rutheless on employees and their demand for leave on saturdays was not liked by him. When absenteeism went very high we assessed the reasons that it was due to poor work life balance. Attritioen also rose and people shifted to compettive companies. When enquired during exit interveiws they said 5 days a week and good canteen facilities and better salary. These factors were high lighted not by me but by operations Heads in the monthly meetings. Never, never in your life time HR should espouse any cause of employee directly to top boss. It should go from others mouth and we supportthem. Your Job will be at high risk if you take these type of issues to your Boss whatever he may be. No wonder this company agreed for opening a canteen and had half a days on Saturdays and options were made to work on any sundays to compensate. Especially where women employees are more this saturdays will be very useful. If you ask me should we have Weekly offs on two saturdays in a month, I would say frankly it will not be beneficial to organisation as work do not go on fast pace on Fridays and targets are not met.In manufacturing set up this may not possible.

My advice: act slowly and be very strategic on such welfare measures but not aggressive.

S.MANOHAR

GROUP HR HEAD/NSPL/CHENNAI

Thankyou so much Mr. Manohar for your kind advice.Since you have faced such situation in your past so your comments are worth considering.
Thanks for your time and concern.

Very interesting situation - expressed very well. This is a typical case of clash of ideologies. One feels that the work is worship; and the other feels that work is for survival. One thinks that working is only, life; but the other feels, work is part of life. One feels organization is the family; other feels ‘I have my own family’. We professionals (including me) always think like that; and feel any problem can be solved by using IQ (sound logic), forgetting EQ, and SQ are equally important for solving even simple problems in life.
Any improvement is a change.
Any change is perceived as a threat to security.
Any threat to security gives rise to emotional resistance.
Emotional resistance can only overcome by stronger emotion. Anybody who thinks we can overcome an emotional resistance with logic was probably never married.
And bringing a change in emotions takes lot of time and patience. Your team must bring this change in your chairman through tact. Good luck.