UNIT – I Lesson 1 HRM – AN OVERVIEW Lesson Outline Nature of ...

know the rules, modify his behavior in accordance to rules. He must be given an
opportunity to explain his case by appearing before an impartial team of enquiry when
charged with any misconduct. The management should never forget that any person who
leaves the firm is going out to represent the organization, either bad-mouth or praise it.
Termination of this variety is aimed at serving as the strongest deterrent for other
employees from engaging in punishable activities, rather than as a revenge on the people
caught in the wrong side of rules. Termination of other employees has the potential in
most of the employees to bring about a phenomenon called avoidance learning whereby an
employee pursues serious efforts to avoid of similar situation to them. Termination in one
department could have ripple effects in other. Terminations beyond a perceptible limit
could result in difficulty in attracting fresh talents into the organization. Fortunately, such
disciplinary terminations have alternatives too.
Direct confrontation by supervisors, a day of paid leave to induce reformative
thinking etc, are aimed at making the erring employee introspect about what happened.
Some organizations resort to progressive discipline involving increasingly higher intensity
for punishments for every repetition of previous mistake or offence. When a person is
found to be guilty of one offence, there should not be a carry-forward effect of the offence.
The supervisor and the others in the organization should take care to appreciate if the
employee engaged in any laudable activity. A clear-cut, written-down policy on
termination would help to prevent the fire-at-will practices by some managers.
Discharge also means termination, but not necessarily an act of punishment. A
discharge does not arise from a single, irrational or unacceptable act. There could be a lot
of reasons for a decision to discharge an employee. A discharge takes place when the
management of an organization decides that there is a poor fit between an employee and
the organization. Discharge might be a result of either poor performance of the employee
or a failure on his side to change some unacceptable behavior that management has tried
repeatedly to correct. In the case of discharge, the employee would get more termination
benefits than what would be possible when dismissed. Outplacement assistance for a
discharged person by the employer is gaining ground in recent times, even as skills
become redundant and jobs get outsourced en masse.
Voluntary resignation by employees is emerging to be a very common form of
separation from an organization. The decision to quit depends on the employee’s level of
dissatisfaction with the job and the number of attractive alternatives available outside the
organization. Some organizations in the Information Technology Sector have