Have recently support re-organisation strategy for one of the top 100 companies (market capitalization) in human resources department. HR is frequently portrayed as “evil” by all, but reality is they do what the management tells them to.
Here are some interesting insights into the modern management mind:
– If you earn below $150,000 a year (£100,000 or €100,000) you are labor. Nobody really cares about you. Expendable. The only thing required from you: do your job and keep the low profile, and participate in HR surveys.
It does not really matter what the survey answers are, as long as you keep talking. Management reports how many people still talking to them.
– Balance between work and life. On average in the group (earning $50,000-$80,000 a year) people were:
• Traveled, spending half a year away from the office.
• Working 42 hrs a week, 50 hours, when you include travelling (airplanes, trains, etc).
• Losing 18 weekend days (individually), as company want to travel them on weekends to be at location first thing on Monday and work “the full week”. Additionally, 22 weekend days were lost because it was not economically justifiable for them to travel home.
No overtime is paid or bonuses to recognize the disturbance and disruption caused by such work (family and pets separation, disturbance and discomfort, , travel time to and from, the loss of normal rest days / public holidays and to cover the specific conditions affecting the worksite).
– Organisation is deliberately not staffed for any type of contingency, expansion or opportunities to grow. If you are getting paid for overtime schedules are rigorously enforced to avoid, if you not – work load is such that you will longer. Calculations were done to “promote” staff (where it makes sense economically), thus avoiding overtime and get them more work to do for “free”.
– Annual pay rise is done using bonuses to no pension contributions are made, avoiding liabilities long term.