See- Saw...The Balance keeps shifting

While the ongoing discussion in the class Saurabh had raised the issue of bargaining power saying that IIT Mumbai was at the receiving end following the rejection of offer letters by Infosys. According to my views there is very little probability of the employer being at the receiving end i.e the bargaining power to be shifted in favour of the employee. As discussed by my friends earlier in many posts this can happen in some situations where the organization has no substitute or replacement for the current service offered by the individual. The main reason for my view is as discussed in class by Sir that the market would regulate itself as in the case of IIT Mumbai where there would been a limited applicant pool for Infosys next year. Hence for the current scenario an employer would in most cases have the benefit of replacing the current employee making such an offer.

In the case of Darrel Hair the employer ICC disclosed the confidential non-negotiable offer by Hair thereby making his case negative in front of media and people. He was not allowed to officiate in any of the following matches until the end of his contract. Later Hair resigned on 22 August 2008 in order to take up a coaching role without any terms and conditions. So, we saw a shift in the bargaining power from employer to the employee in the example where the employee was never at the receiving end.

Darrell Hair was able to make a non-negotiable offer only because he had been one of the best and respected umpires for 16 long years. He was in the elite panel of the umpires in ICC. Now I would make an similar offer to an employee if I am indispensable to the organisation and have sufficient skills at that point in my career which don’t have any replacement in the job market. Also it wouldn’t matter to me whether the employee acknowledges the offer or rejects it as I would have a lot of options to choose from.

If I would have received such an offer from my employee then I would have accessed the value & contribution of employee to the company in the present and the future. Also I would have definitely seen whether the current job contribution could be replaced from either within or outside the organisation. If the overall contribution would be significant and losing such an employee would affect the organisation significantly then I would have tried to see whether further negotiations would be possible with the employee or not.