Fallacy of Corporate Integrity

If you have not heard the ‘heaven and hell’ joke in the context of recruiting and being an employee  the next day, then you have not worked long enough in the corporate.

The sarcasam is seething and it shows the dark underbelly of corporate. The blame can be diverted to a large number pf places from over enthusiastic, under trained recruiter to pushy business managers who want the recruitment to be completely like a sales process and a factory churning out numbers without making sure that the right quality is coming through the gates. It is like the 60s and 70s of America, making loads of cars with the poor quality until the Japanese hit them on their own home ground.

Corporate is fighting its integrity war with the value poster hanging on the wall everyday. The little lies about the numbers, the cut and paste culture, turning out reports which are unchecked or delibrately inflated. Getting the numbers for the week which in all likelihood will disappear next week and the recon will not happen. The untruth of the company culture to a prospective candidate, the false promise of CTC to an unsuspecting candidate who understands it too late. All these small lies are what generates the culture of non-performance, non –productive employees and ‘look the other way’ managers and many times of the senior leaders.

Almost all the companies in corporate will have honesty/integrity as one of their core values. And almost all of them break it the day the poster gets distributed. There are corner talks on how this is not practiced on a day to day basis in the company. Whenever an employee asks an uncomfortable question, he is made to feel guilty and more often than not laughed at by his colleagues. It is difficult to walk the talk. Companies who are serious about such things have serious consequences attached to the violation of the values. Many times they take the extreme and tough action on the defaulting employees for most of the others to get fed on the rumour mill and for things to be set right. It is tough to ask someone to go for violating the values of an organisation but most often than not it works. In my experience as Head of HR for a large organistaion, I had to take these calls. They never made me comfortable but as a corporate leader I had maintain the sanctity of what values we standby.

Tough role for HR but something only they or the CEO can uphold and are the last man standing on such matters. The fallacy has to be lived everyday, if we are serious than HR will have to take tough stances and execute some tough measures, it is not easy but many a times it is not difficult if you come to think of it. Very often when you stand up to the bullly called the world and shake it by its beard, you will be surprised as to the beard comes off in your hand.

Come on, Shake the bully often!!