Escalation: Why, When & How?

Hello Folks,

This is in continuation to my earlier post named "Does 'Professionalism' means 'Tying-A-Tie'?".

After facing all those stupid, unwanted problems, I've finally shifted to an other employer, who turns to be my ex-company's client. Actually, there wasn't any official agreement between my ex-employer and I that I should not join any of its clients within any specific time period. But, after I've joined this new company, I started facing that same old unprofessional behaviour from my ex-company again, after they came to know that I'm with one of their clients.

You know we have to get Form-16 from all of our ex-employers (with whomever we have worked in the same Fiscal year) in addition to our current company's Form-16, to file for IT Returns for the current Fiscal year. For this, I've started communicating through emails with my ex-company inquiring about my Form-16 couple of months ago, but as expected, there weren't any responses to my emails. I have started editing the subject of the email with Reminder1, Reminder2, Reminder3 etc each time I resent those inquiry emails to them, but no responses yet.

One good thing about me (not self praising :P) is that when I was quitting that company, I've noted down the email addresses of all the people in HR, Legal, Admin, Finance, IT, their hierarchical (first level, second level, third level... ) reporting managers' contacts including CEO, CIO, CFO, Chief Legal Officer, all VPs. And I got the email addresses of the Govt. of India IT Officers' from web, who manages that particular region where my ex-company falls under.

I've been emailing HR asking about my Form-16 since last 5 months (I know Form-16 will be ready by June, but I wanted to change my address in their records to where they should be sending my Form-16), but not a single time that HR responded back to me or acknowledged me on the receipt of my emails. He could have at least replied back saying that it will be taken care of or something like that. But never did he.

The corporate rule across the IT world is to respond to emails from whomever are they from with in 48 Hrs with the status of request at least, which they failed to do even after multiple attempts by me. Obviously this implies how pathetic and unprofessional that company's employees are, including HR who holds high responsibilities with regards to Human Resources.

The last email which I sent them was on the day before yesterday, with the subject edited as 'Reminder4'. This time, I've already lost my patience and copied all the people in that HR's hierarchial structure (his manager, his manager's manager, HOD, VP, COE, CFO, CIO, Legal Head) and the Govt. of India IT Officers under whom my taxes and PF are maintained.

If I tell you the outcome, you would probably be surprised :D

Well, I've got the response within 1 Hr from the VP-HR apologizing for the HR's behaviour and saying that my Form-16 will be sent to me ASAP sometime this week :)

You should know, in few companies, how pathetic HR will be as opposed to how well they should maintain relations with their employees and of course with ex-employees as well. May be current employees are 'building blocks' for that company, which doesn't mean ex-employees are already broken blocks :P LOL. After all, ex-employees are also one of the factors that builds company's reputation within the IT world. Few sick HRs think that they are the rulers, they should know HR will exist only when resources exists and they should understand how important are the decent Human relations within and outside the organization.

So, what I want to convey you finally? :) Well, not much but be aware of collecting all the necessary information while you leave the company which will be helpful for your future activities in one or the other ways.


- Keep all the people/ team'c contacts (HR, Legal, Admin etc - email addresses and phone numbers) while you leave the company, you may need them going further even when you would have joined another company.

- DO NOT send separate emails at different times if the matter of inquiry is same. Keep 'Reply'ing to the same sent email(s) with subject being edited to Reminder1/2/.... and copy one level higher official each time you resend the same email. Which means you are keeping the 'Chain' of emails, and not seperate emails. This way, when you escalate it, people will know since when actually you are trying to interact with the person and yet no help from that person.

- Have at least 48 Hrs gap while you resend the same email to that person (let them take time to look into the matter you are asking for, which is ethical).

- Wait until 48 Hrs after you send a follow-up email with subject having 'Reminder 4'.

- Still no response? Escalate it to all the Higher Authority people in that company. They have to respond now, because it's about company's eithcs we are pointing out.

In my case, that HR must have been 'ASHAMED' of his behaviour, because his VP did reply to my email (after escalation) apologizing me for HR's behaviour, copying that person, CEO, CFO, CIO and other people in the management. Truly, thats enough when someone apologizes on your behalf, keeping you and all your managers in loop.

So, does escalation help us in anyway? Well, yes it obviously does have an impact on the flow and the people, but we don't need to necessarily escalate for each and every small thing. We should give them a chance and/ or time and when there is really a problem with that person's professionalism, even though the request falls under his/ her scope, escalate it. Trust me, escalation also means how unefficient the people are, for not responding to requests even after multiple attempts and even after taking his/ her so sweet long time. Escalation will have a negative impact on the person whom we are escalating on and a positive impact on who are escalating. Oh btw, it could be the other way around as well, depending on what, when, to whom and how we are escalating. So, always remember, escalation should be professional as well, with genuine and valid reasons. Think twice before you escalate on anyone or anything, because it costs some impact.


PS: The pictures are not mine and are taken randomly from web!!

Communication Is All About It!?!

I'm not so proficient in English but can manage to be as clear & simple as possible. I hate to use native language at work place, but there will be circumstances where we will be forced to do something which we don't like to. Corporate cultures should be so inspirational that an employee would feel comfortable in all the ways being with a company. Both hygienic & motivational factors affect an employee.

You would have come across this quote somewhere: "If You Have To Do It, You Might As Well Do It Right! If It Is Worth Doing At All, It's Worth Doing It Right!!!”
Both employee & employer level communications should be good enough that no one can point out or laugh at it. Especially, when a customer visits a company's web site, he should not feel there's something not good in it or something which sounds bad even though it may be right grammatically. After all, the web site resembles the company's reputation/ image, in this e-world.

Corporate Level:
I was going through one of my employers' policies (intranet) and found the phrase "travel cum hotel expenses". I mean, Cum???!!!! Grammatically it may sound good, but it's a slang in other countries which has a vulgar meaning. What I mean to convey here is we can use better words in a written communication (at least) avoiding people to make fun out of it. Especially when there is a scope of client's coming across company's information - no matter over web or any other channel.

You may now say "what's there in using 'cum' here?”, but please give it a thought putting yourself in an audience's (can be clients/ customers/ whomever) shoes. Then you will get to know what exactly I'm talking about. I personally did notice people laughing at such things, when I was at client's place/ country.

An Individual Level:
Also, see how awful you'll feel when you get to see your inbox with a newly popped up email like below:

Subject line contains:
"u r free" (as it is, no caps, no exclamation, nothing)

And the Body contains:
"Hi

If u r means come to my place, we will discuss on XXX."

What actually will you feel looking at it? First thing is at that instance, I did not understand what actually it means. Secondly, I thought I did something wrong and that person want me to go to him to discuss on the same. Next the subject annoyed me a hell - I'm free?????? I'm mean??? And what not can we think of!? Huh!!

Actually, that person is 'requesting' me to train him on the subject XXX and wanted to check with me whether I'm free to sit and discuss with him or not. But did convey me a totally different message which made me feel very uncomfortable.

These things happen to every one of us, in some or the other way and occur only because of lack of communication skills (at least I feel that).

I can give you more real time examples than the above, which happened throughout my career and I am sure many of us would have faced this kind of stuff.

This lack/ gap can be filled if one has that willingness to improve himself/ herself throwing his/ her ego aside. It also depends on companies who really have to identify these lacking stuff in their employees and allocate some budget to provide training(s) necessary to every individual. After all, communication is an exchange, not just a give, as all parties must participate to complete the information exchange and hence it's so important.

So what all I mean to convey here is:
"Communication works for those who work at it." - John Powell

Please share your thoughts on this.

Cheers!!