A human resources (HR) practitioner recently revealed that dealing with labour relations is the hardest part of his job.
“In the Philippines, I mean in this side of the world, it is more difficult, according to some of my friends in the foreign chambers, it’s more difficult to fire one rank-and-file employee than to divorce their wife,” said Ernie Cecilia, chairman of the Human Capital and Publications Committee of the American Chamber of Commerce of the Philippines.
Asked if he wants to propose changes to the Philippine Labour Code to make it more favourable to employers, Cecilia said, “The idea is to level the playing field, not to favour employers per se but to at least allow businesses to make a decent profit by not constricting the possibility to hire people and probably terminate employment.”
The human resources specialist said attracting more investments will help create more employment in the Philippines.
“Unless we make it really more inviting, the Philippines will be tailing again our ASEAN neighbors in terms of getting the investments that will have created more employment,” he said.
Cecilia also shared his tips on how HR practitioners can manage a multi-generational workforce.
He said HR managers should ask age-diverse teams to work on projects together.
“Creating diverse, age-diverse project teams or task forces can help you solve organisational problems or issues better with differing perspectives, differing skills,” he said.
“And while traditionally, the older employees will be coaching the younger ones, the baby boomers who are not so versed with technology can get some of the newbies to coach them on how to improve their use of technology,” he added. – ABS-CBN News
