Memo to school HR managers on managing teachers

This refers to the constantly emerging reality that, in today’s world, managing human capital, by itself, is already more difficult than managing money, machines and other assets and activities. With much more intensity and complexity, managing human capital in Universities, Colleges and other academic institutions demand in us, the HR managers, a greater measure of wisdom, a wider and higher perspectives in human behavior, a deeper degree of discernment and a more developed reflective thinking faculties. Managing people in an academic community requires a set of special skills in communication, human relations, problem-solving and conflict-resolution. There are simply arrays upon arrays of rising expectations that HR practitioners of lesser caliber are bound to falter and fail.

First of all, we need to have adequate basic knowledge of labor laws and regulations. It is a must that we have gained a mastery of the laws on recruiting and hiring people. We have to know the distinctions among regular, casual, contractual, probationary and project employees. We need to have a working knowledge on the law and regulations on legitimate job contracting as distinguished from labor-only contracting. Also, we need to master the laws on wages, hours of work, including the 8-hour and 40-hour labor law, and know the nuances of overtime work and pay, and also the pay for work on holidays, night time, rest days and special holidays, the SSS laws, the workmen’s compensation laws for diseases, disability and death.

We, HR managers in academic institutions, should have complete knowledge, not just a little learning on, the laws on unions and union certification issues, collective bargaining negotiations and administration, unfair labor practices and how to avoid and settle them, as well as the law on the workers’ rights to peaceful concerted activities, including the right to strike, as well as management’s option to lockout in relation to unresolved labor or industrial disputes. Above all, we need to know the art and science of grievance handling and voluntary arbitration, as well as conciliation and mediation, and compulsory arbitration, including the powers of the Secretary of Labor to assume jurisdiction on disputes that are causing or likely to cause strikes in indispensable industries.

We cannot rely on the external legal retainers and counsel all the time, and for they cost too much money or they seem to lack a sense of urgency, not to mention their somewhat too removed, too disinterested lack of familiarity with the realities on the ground. They often give advises and opinions that are not really responsive to the burning realities in the day-to-day interactions between the management and the faculty and non-teaching staff. In many instances, lawyers submit recommendations that too adversarial and too legalistic. They want always to go to court or to arbitrate when some, if not most, problems can be negotiated or conciliated. Most importantly, and I say this with due respect, lawyers do not seem to have a well-honed sense of urgency. They are never on a hurry. They tarry at the expense of the clients, us.

As a retired former Undersecretary of DOLE, and as a former top corporate executive of San Miguel Corporation and Pepsi Cola, I am currently being asked by various corporations and conglomerates to conduct in-house learning sessions on such subjects as Employee Discipline, Grievance Management and Procedures, Problem-Solving in HR and Employee Relations, The Art and Science of CBA Negotiations, The Process of Dispute Resolution and Settlement.

Many companies that are successful in their businesses are investing in building competence among their people. We, HR managers, should consider this proactive, anticipatory option as better than reacting and firefighting. When I was in San Miguel, we founded and helped in the building of a SAN MIGUEL LEARNING CENTER in Tagaytay. It is the haven where our people were sent for three-day to ten-day learning courses, all expenses paid by the company and on company time. The teachers were also San Miguel top executives and managers and outstanding outsiders who, by their performance and achievements, in work and in profession, have earned the right and the privilege to teach with handsome allowances and perks.

Much more than labor laws, or any law for that matter, we, HR managers, especially us, in the academe, must, by this time, have already learned, but must constantly remind ourselves of, that we need to understand human behavior. There are simply some immutable laws that do not allow any amendment, at any time and in any place. One of these is our people’s insatiable thirst for more learning, for information, for more knowledge. That moment when a company stops to train its people is the moment that the company starts to die. And we, HR managers, by doing nothing, is the one who must own the guilt for such demise. In Malaysia and in Indonesia, they would say: Sayang. In Japan, the HR managers would tender their resignation. Here, we do nothing. Sayang.