Do the HR understand the meaning of the terms "Notice Period" and "No Poach" and its significance?
Case of the Notice Period:
A recruiter who is working in an agency receives an offer from a corporate company. The recruiter is very happy to have got an opportunity to work in a corporate company. The role offered is of a post man... sorry a recruiter. Now comes the best part - the HR of the corporate company, releases the offer letter with a clause saying that the recruiter needs to join their company within 2 days. The recruiter is excited and visibly flying in the air.
He is a top performer in this recruitment agency and would be a definite loss to the agency. He puts in his resignation letter and requests to be relieved the next day!!!! The agency manager clearly refuses to relieve the recruiter and asks him to serve the notice period and be with the organization until a replacement is found and the knowledge transfer happens satisfactorily. A lot of discussions and negotiations later, the recruiter calls the HR of the new company to extend his Date of Joining, as he is not getting relieved. Now the climax, the HR says, his offer would be valid only if he joins them in the next 2 days and would be withdrawn if he doesn't. The poor recruiter is clueless and in a state of shock, as the offer and the new company is great, but the HR is not ready to oblige.
My questions:
1. How come the HR, who are supposed to be experienced, matured and understand the company policies, ask a candidate to join them in 2 days, forgetting that they need to serve the notice period at their current employer?
2. Are the corporates so big and do not care about HR ethics, that they treat agencies like dirt and do not give a damn to their business and pain they go thru?
3. Is this kind of ethics being taught to the HR team from their seniors, who are so called big wigs in the industry and give crap and BS in all the forums and HR discussions?
4. If their employees want to be relieved in 2 days time, would they agree? Don't they understand this common sense that a notice period of an employee is to be served is important to all organizations.
5. If the recruiter absconds from his current employer and joins the new company, without a formal relieving process, does it not mean that the candidate is on dual employment and is not lawful. Does the new company take responsibility for enticing the candidate to take this extreme step?
6. Is this pressure tactics justified on a candidate and the direct impact of this kind of a tactic on the agency?
Case of No poach:
An agency has signed a formal agreement with a company and allocates a good recruiter to service its requirements. The recruiter works very hard and closes on most of the requirements which are shared with the agency and builds a good rapport with the company. Now the big question gets asked from the recruitment manager - "you know our requirements very well and have done a good job of closing most of them. Will you join us?".
My questions:
1. A "No Poach" clause in the agreement is applicable only to the company and not to the agency?
2. A penalty / legal suite is mentioned in the agreement, if an agency poaches an employee of the company during the tenure of the agreement and 1 / 2 years post the expiry of the agreement. Can we impose the same from an agency perspective?
These HR policies are only crap and is one sided to benefit the company and not the agencies. Any views and thoughts???
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3 comments:
guess, when a agency can wait for a person to join them, the companies also should wait...end of it, both of them are struggling to make their business and identity...
“The HR of the corporate company releases the offer letter with a clause saying that the recruiter needs to join their company within 2 days.” – Please pardon my ignorance but no HR releases such Offers with immediate Date of Joining until and unless that was pre-discussed with the candidate during the Interview. And the recruiter had given his/her consent to the same. It’s but obvious that each and every organization requires resources to join them ASAP. Following observations:
1. “The recruiter is very happy to have got an opportunity to work in a corporate company.” – I think the answer lies in this sentence. Not only does this mean, the recruiter was keen to move to a corporate company, but “The recruiter is excited and visibly flying in the air” means the recruiter must have expressed his/her desperation in joining the corporate company as soon as possible.
2. Why was the recruiter so keen to join a Corporate company even though “He is a top performer in this recruitment agency and would be a definite loss to the agency.” Does this mean the recruiter was not taken proper care of? Just like people from the Agency ridicule a corporate recruiter - “The role offered is of a post man... sorry a recruiter.”, why does a “top performer” puts in his/her resignation letter and requests to be relieved the next day?
I think, the problem lies in the thought that most recruiters working in agencies have – "Life in a Corporate is much better (financially/stability-wise/social status-wise/visibility-wise/role diversification-wise/work pressure-wise) than in a Recruitment Firm."
And unfortunately, except for a selected few recruitment firms with a corporate culture and for those few people who prefer to be a part of “profit-center” Business Leadership role rather than be in a “cost-center” HR role, this hypothesis seems to be true.
Statistically speaking, a significant chuck of recruiters would do anything to get into a corporate profile just because they feel that “the work-pressure is much lesser there”.
Pardon me for answering your question with a question.
Would any agency (who’s getting substantial business from a certain client) claim “No Poach Penalty” for an employee whose mentality was to quit his/her job and join that client company? Legally, the agency has full right to prosecute the client, but would it make any business sense to lose a client over some "ex-employee"?
I'd like to know if there was commitment from the candidate that he/she could join ASAP. 2 days to join a firm doesn't sound realistic!
Can HR do such a thing? Well, there's nothing that stops HR from acting like a jerk. It's definitely not reasonable, but it's not unavoidable either.
This post throws-up another interesting point. Are the agencies in-sync with the changing times? If a recruiter from an agency still believes that corporates offer a better deal, then is it time for agencies to take a look at its business model? Maybe it time to cut margins, share profits, improve benefits & perks. Yes, it's a lot of money spent. Again, the agencies need to decide if that amount spent is more than the worth of losing great talent.
About the "No Poach" agreement, each side can only control factors that are within their limits. The agency can educate the recruiter to say 'NO', but is the agency good enough for the recruiter to reject an offer? In reality, the Company is being unethical and chancing its arm! Again, there's no law stopping people from acting that way.
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