A Company For Confusion
I was reading an amazing article by Capgemini regarding #Strategic #Personnel #Planning (#SPP) and it suddenly reminded me of a rare real event in my career.
Here I share the short #story and of course the #lessons I learned from that. In the process of #change or #improvement in an organization #structure, there are certain important steps which we should be aware of.
Background:
I had a successful time in a small-medium #IT company for several years. Closing #profitable deals, leading an agile sales and commercial team and growing my skills in business development / management. It was not easy to develop business aspects in such a company because of many strategic barriers and I decided to apply for roles in bigger companies. During my job search a friend of mine who was working in the biggest #office machines company in the region, offered to take my CV to his manager.
I was excited
about taking recruitment steps because this company was not only the #biggest in #business but also one of the #nicest places for employees. My last interview
was with the company owner, who is one of the cleverest, nicest and richest #entrepreneurs I ever met and he was #happy to have me onboard as a business
development team member.
The hiring process went quite fast and soon I found myself
entering the headquarters of the company. It was the first day and I had to
wait at the entrance to be picked up by HR. A gentleman from #HR took
me upstairs and led me to a big room where 3 people were seated. The HR
gentleman asked one of them to tell me something about their department.
The HR gentleman also told me that after the briefing I may sit in my own room
which they prepared for me in advance.
Problem:
According to the #briefing I understood they are not part of
the business #development #team (where I was hired for) and they only recently heard about the business development department in their company. It was the first #surprise and I found the second surprise very soon. Assigned #room for me was a
2m x 1.5m space with a chair and a desk. There was no window, no phone, no computer.
It was only a chair and a desk. It was smaller but similar to the Dick Cheney's room in the Vice movie 😄. I spent my first day alone in that room waiting
for the HR gentleman to give me more #information and my ID card. I tried
but I could not find him.
The Second day, he picked me up at entrance because I had no ID or
proof yet. He told me that my direct #manager / #supervisor is on leave and
I have to #wait until she comes back and approves my ID card. Until then
somebody from HR would pick me up from the entrance every morning and I
should stay in my room in the company building, otherwise they would consider
me as absent at work! It was not yet the #smartphone era, so I had to spend my
time reading #newspapers, magazines or books all day long at work! I had several
times tried to talk to somebody from HR or other departments / people, but it
was not useful. I had no ID card in order to enter other parts of the
building or meet people in other departments!
Consequence:
This was my situation for 10 days! All this time I was
thinking and trying to figure out the situation. It was very #rare. In my mind it was
not possible that in such a famous organization this much confusion happens!
Deep in my mind I was not sure about quitting the job. On the other hand, how
long later and when will my manager return to work?! On the 10th day I received
a call from a company which I applied to and finished interviews a while ago.
They offered me to start work with them immediately. Considering my situation
and confusion in my thoughts, I accepted their offer and then I went to the HR
Department and resigned. Surprisingly they did not accept my #resignation
because according to their #internal #process, I must submit my resignation
to my direct supervisor! This HR feedback showed the highest level of spoiled organization system and #governance and convinced me to leave this company as
soon as possible.
The next day I started my work at the new company and I am
grateful for this event because working at that new company improved
my career/life to much higher levels. After 15 days of my new job start day, I received a
call from my never met, ex-manager from the confusion company. She asked why I
left and did not wait for her to come back! She stated that they needed me and they counted on me to start new developments! I explained my situation to
her and I wished #luck for her endeavors.
Lessons Learned:
1- Communication is the key, whether setting employee's goals
or interdepartmental transactions.
2- Strategic moves of the organization in both internal
and external aspects and developments also should match with hiring strategy.
3- Efficient and #agile businesses are performing effective
business process review regularly.
4- Beware and avoid the One-Man-Show #scenario in a big business
environment.
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