Saturday 21 July 2012

An HR's Idea of a Vacation


Those were the winters of Nainital. I along with my friends of IMT-HR had booked the Corbett Lodge in the deep unchartered valleys of the exotic hill-station. My friends had gone for sight-seeing and the Safari-wala had insisted them to visit the Sunset-point in particular. I somehow wasn’t feeling well and thus didn’t feel like accompanying them. They criticized me for this and told me you’ll be missing a great fun. But I preferred to stay back at the lodge and ordered for a coffee.
Sitting alone in the balcony, I was examining the texture of the land and admiring the miraculous tectonic creations. A narrow passage ran through the hillocks making way for a river lit by the rays of the dying sun ready to show up again in a matter of hours. The ripples of the water reflected the weak sunshine straight through my spectacles as I sipped in the evening coffee. My gaze followed the flow of the river to where it was ending and by the time it stopped following, the sun’s rim had touched the edge of the river. The scene was like a painting, though my mind deciphered the scenic beauty from a different perspective. A perspective which would enhance the vision of my career.
For me, that time, it was not just a mere coming-together of 2 nature’s greatest gifts but a gift for my thinking, my point-of-view, my approach towards my career. It was a union of HR managers (sun) and the personnel (river). The sun makes the river glitter; it makes it shine not just in the day as sunlight but even in the night as moonlight. Similarly the efficiency of a staff depends on the knowledge bestowed on them by their respective HR managers. Be it good (day) or bad (night) times the HR takes them through. A blending not just of two greatest forces in the world but a combination of administrative personnel functions and performance.
The sun sprinkles its light equally to each and every particle of water irrespective of the nature of that particle; similarly an HR is indiscriminate about the various diversities prevalent in the organization. This can be exemplified by the organizational transitions taking place in Bank of Montreal, Quebec.
As I was busy relating the scene to an organization suddenly the waves started building up in the waters. The level of the water began to rise; the white herons took off in an instant for their nests like an HR manager who anticipates the future supply and demand for employees. A sense of terror started prevailing in the atmosphere. I, the least concerned and the least terrified of all didn’t stop thinking and relating it to my career. What if these are indications of the various challenges that an HR management has to face in an organization. These could be the economic and technological changes in the work environment or some sort of organizational restructuring. The tides need to be pacified.
All the processes going on in this world are governed by a set of rules and regulations like gravity. So was my thinking. An HR management must have a set of predefined rules and regulations and certain assumptions which it must abide by, in order to ensure a healthy and sound HR functionality. These could be ensuring equal employment opportunity, ensuring diversity in workforce, compensations and benefits, ensuring healthy relationship between employee and management.
The scene had such a deep impact on my perception towards my management branch that i felt like i had discovered something great and blissful. My approach towards HR had completely changed and a voice said from within me that there’s no stopping me from understanding the greatness of my field and faring well in it.
It was hard to realize that I had spent two hours watching the magnificent and informational sight until one of my friends called me from behind saying ‘we’re back’. One of them teased me saying ‘I feel sorry for you as you couldn’t enjoy some of the most beautiful places on earth’. I recalled how I had spent the past two hours and replied back ‘I surely missed the hang-out with you guys, but what you missed is something you might regret in future.’ And I narrated the summary of what I had discovered. I could see their faces turning green with envy.

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