Human Resource Management in a Project Organization versus an Operations Organization

Within last week, I received the sad news regarding two colleagues’ lay off from my former project organization. This was not a surprise due to the fact that all the major projects that the company was dealing were completed since months now and the company had lost all the prospective biddings in a very confined and limited telecommunications market. Of course, without a new project in visible future, the company had to cut its losses at some point and minimize the manpower overhead. The really sad thing is, these two colleagues were experienced, smart and loyal employees who will be hard to replace should the business bounce back. So, the question is, how can a project organization retain key employees in the absence of a prospective project?
Projects, by definition, are unique undertakings with a definite start and end dates. Projects don’t last forever, operations of a company does, of course, as long as the profitability is sustained. Is transferring the key project employees to operational departments like Sales, Marketing, Finance and Administration the solution for retention? Can the company still utilize these proven project employees in these operational domains?

I think the answer is “hardly”. There are several reasons for that, but primarily, the project people have the project mindset. They are used to work under strict deadlines, for defined tangible outputs and most of the time under high pressure. This is high adrenaline environment and as we all know, adrenaline is addictive. On the other hand, the operational departments are quite different habitats. In departments like Finance and Administration, the tasks are repetitive and expectations are predictable. In departments like Marketing, mindset is completely different, creativity and deadlines are not the best friends. And in Sales, yes, the presssure is there but at specific intervals within specific targets. At the end, when the sale is done, product delivery, acceptance, support becomes somebody else’s problem and that is always a relief for the Sales team. Project people hardly fit into these roles. And then, there is the fundamental question, do they really need to fit? Do companies need project managers with sales skills? I am a strong believer in specialization and expertise so, I seriously doubt that.

Bottomline is, companies need projects to retain their key project people. Or else, those who live by the sword, will always die by the sword.

Written by Kaan Bora on October 29th, 2006 with 1 comment.
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