Let the work challenge the people rule

I had supported a depot-entry rule intended to make attendance review consistent across landscape assignments. The rule treated a missing entry as an unexplained absence unless the employee corrected it through the normal process. That approach assumed the depot record described every authorised working day. It did not preserve the route by which an operating supervisor could send an employee directly to another estate.

Forty disputed records exposed the problem. Assignment review established that twenty-four related to authorised offsite work. Ten represented actual absence, while six lacked enough evidence for a conclusion. I withdrew the automatic adverse treatment of the whole group. The ten absence records still required their own contextual review; recording absence was not a finding of misconduct. The six unresolved cases remained open rather than being made to fit either category.

The correction used ₹41 lakh and nine weeks of defined review and implementation work. Operations confirmed the assignment account, HR changed the record route and appropriate advisers considered individual consequences where needed. We retained a reason for each correction so the revised process did not become an informal permission to overwrite an inconvenient entry. Supervisors also needed a way to document offsite authorisation before it became a dispute.

The outcome was twenty-four corrected records, ten retained attendance facts and six matters requiring further examination. It was not a claim that every pay question had been settled or that the process could never produce another error. My responsibility was to recognise that the policy I approved had created certainty by omitting a legitimate kind of work. I changed the decision rule rather than ask employees to keep proving exceptions to an account we already knew was incomplete.

A promotion exercise covered twelve vacancies and twenty-four applicants. The initial route required every applicant to accept relocation, which excluded eight people who could not make that commitment. Sixteen remained eligible under the general rule. When we examined the vacancies with operations, only three required mobility; nine were local roles. The exclusion had occurred before the organisation established whether the condition belonged to the job being considered.

I proposed reopening the exercise against explicit requirements for each vacancy. This was not a commitment to appoint the excluded applicants or to remove travel where it was necessary. Managers had to explain the work, the capability evidence and the practical location demands. Every one of the twenty-four applicants could then be considered for suitable roles without the blanket mobility condition deciding the outcome in advance.

The ₹68 lakh programme ran for four months and covered the defined assessment and implementation work. Eleven appointments followed: eight among applicants able to relocate and three among those who could not. Thirteen applicants were not appointed, and one vacancy remained open. The remaining post was not counted as filled merely because the revised process had improved access to consideration. Unsuccessful applicants still needed a clear account of the decision relevant to their application.

The outcome changed who could enter a proper assessment, while preserving the selection responsibility. I learned to separate an employer’s general preference from a role’s actual requirement before putting either into a gate. The numbers describe this exercise only, without asserting a wider employment-law conclusion or a permanent appointment rate. A useful people decision can open a fairer route and still end with difficult choices, unsuccessful applicants and a vacancy the business has not yet been able to fill.

Forty-one newly appointed supervisors were proposed for a common development programme. The plan showed seven experienced mentors and appeared to provide a support arrangement for everyone. Discussion with those mentors established a practical initial capacity of four participants each. That meant twenty-eight supported places, leaving thirteen supervisors outside the first cohort. Assigning all forty-one names would have concealed the difference between nominal coverage and time available to help.

I recommended a phased programme with an explicit later cohort. Operations retained responsibility for the instruction, supervision and authorisations necessary to perform each job safely; none could wait for a leadership-development place. The mentoring programme had a narrower purpose: helping new supervisors discuss decisions, prepare conversations and reflect on the transition from doing work themselves to coordinating others. It was not a technical certification route.

The initial twelve-week programme used ₹78 lakh of separately approved project expense for protected time and defined delivery support. That amount was distinct from recurring annual HR function expense. Seven mentors supported twenty-eight initial participants. The other thirteen remained identified for the later cohort rather than appearing as completed participants in the initial report. We kept the sequence visible to the people affected and their managers.

The result was a development promise aligned with the capacity available to deliver it. We did not infer measured improvements in safety, retention or supervisor effectiveness from participation alone. Those would require their own evidence. I accepted a smaller first cohort because expanding the list without expanding the support would have turned an apparently inclusive programme into an unreliable commitment. The decision also made the next question concrete: what additional qualified time would be needed before the organisation could responsibly offer more places?