June 28, 2007
Regular readers of Personnel Today will be familar with the Michael C Fina cartoon-strip advertisement that occupies the slot below Guru's back-page column.
Click here to see an example of the Michael C Fina "employee recognition blunders" cartoon...
Well, Disciple Lucy has written to Guru with news of an employee recognition blunder that would make even the reward specialists of Old Fashioned Industries blush.
She writes:
I thought you might like to hear about a 'fantastic' long-service award. My partner works for a large multinational company which shall remain nameless (oh all right, it's Siemens).Sometime during his ninth year of service he discovered that there was a long-service award of £100 for staff who had served 10 years. Well, by 'award' they mean that you can purchase something for £100 and then give them the receipt and claim it back on expenses. Does that seem a bit of a niggly reward scheme?
Anyway, he has now passed his 10-year anniversary and hadn't heard anything, so he asked his line manager if the long-service award existed. His line manager emailed the human resources department and received a reply saying: "Ooh, we don't know. We'll find out and get back to you."
After two weeks he'd still heard nothing and emailed HR again but received no response.
What a great way to show your staff how valued they are (or aren't)! Not only do they have to claim back their measly £100 - that's £10 a year folks - instead of being given it, but they have to chase it up in the first place!
Can anyone beat this Scrooge-like example of employer meanness?
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