Human Resources & Human Beings!

Are humans resources or are they simply human beings who turn up for work ? Are they resources at the work spot and cease to be resources when they walk out of your office? These are fundamental questions that need to be answered by the 'Talent Philosophy' of an organization.

Many an organization,treat sacked employees very poorly,subjecting them to the humiliation of a body search as well as searching their car and so on. These are departing employees who had probably served your organization for a number of years before you found them incompetent.

The fundamental point is, is an employee as asset. Infosys says that employees are assets and so reflected in their balance sheet. Wonderful, but the problem is when the value of the asset depreciates. What then? Sack them..............

How else would you look at at an employee in an age when everything is to be measured and encapsulated in a 'bottom line'? Many Japanese firms treat their employees as 'investors', where the employee is investing their skills & time with the organization. The perspective now changes, dramatically. It is probably the reason why Japanese firms see longer serving employees.

While I respect American Management practise, I also believe that,we should be wary of blindly following imported practices. Management has much to do with a nations philosophy, ethos and culture. To ignore these is stupid and akin to throwing the baby out with the bath water............

While my line of thought looks utopian, I firmly belive that humans are not only about resources and business and bottom lines!

On Edge!

A sobriquet long lost is that of Bengaluru being a 'Pensioner's Paradise'. What it has gained in glitz, glamour & energy has been at the cost of a laid back lifestyle and a gentle civility.While the rapid and many say rabid commercialisation of this town has troubled many, the recent spate of high profile murders has really thrown the spanner in the works.

An IT staffer slitting the throat of his wife. A BPO employee being brought down in her prime. What next? Invariably the finger is pointed to a helpless police.However a closer look at what caused the killings would indicate a breakdown in moral values rather than that of law and order.

A fairly senior policeman told me " What can the police do if a husband wants to murder his wife?" I guess that is a question that, society will have to answer. A while ago, I had said that Bengaluru will be the next hub for innovation, simply because it offers the immigrant a cloak against failure and so allows greater risk. Unfortunately it is this cloak that allows many to cross the line in crime as well.

There are no easy solutions. Lifestyles that are driven by material needs are the order of the day and I do not see that changing in the near future. A society driven by aspiration is good as long as it is ready to wait for its just reward. The issue is when we attempt to take shortcuts, driven by peer pressure, to find solutions.Could the IT staffer have divorced his wife rather than killing her? Was the process too long & torturous? Instant gratification can dish out immediate penalties, like the gent is finding out in jail awaiting his sentence.But then who can wait?

A friend, while gently stroking his petunia's, peered at the humongous traffic on the adjacent road and sighed.The sigh, told the story of a city lost, to a generation.....................!A city on edge, to another.

Whistles and Blowers!

This morning, while on the tread mill I struck up a rather interesting conversation with a friend who lives in my apartment complex. The guy has worked with a couple of large IT firms in Bengaluru, one Indian and the other an MNC.
The chat was about the efficacy of policies and procedures in an organization and the level of implementation.( look at my level of commitment, talking shop even at the gym,hahaha) A case in point is the –Whistle Blowers Policy. Most large organization worth their salt has such a policy in place. However post the Satyam scandal; there has not been a single incident, in India, where the whistle has been blown on corrupt workplace practice. Can you believe that in a system as corrupt as ours, there would not be workplace practices worth looking at closely and reporting? Or is it the repercussions of reporting, wrongdoing? The fear?
With sweat trickling down our sides, we moved on to the Performance Appraisal system, in these organizations. On paper the process looks watertight. Three sixty degree feedback, an allowance to challenge your boss, if you do not like what he/she has said about you. However, how often do you find somebody challenging their boss? The answer is –zilch! Does this mean that all appraisals are correct and above board? You’ve got to be kidding to believe that!
I strongly believe that if you have got policies in place and the outcome appears to be too good to be true, then it is exactly that- cooked up results. This is where the top management ought to step in, support the system and closely look at the efficacy of policies that they have formulated and put in place.
The PA system in wrong hands can play havoc, with careers and can be used to elicit all sorts of favors, from people afraid for their jobs. The possibilities are frightening. It is also possibly the reason, why workplace relationships have become transactional and devoid of trust.
Many years ago, when a very senior IT professional, from Infosys, was under a cloud for sexual harassment, the then CEO , NRN, did not bat an eyelid in jettisoning the man, though grapevine said that the accused man was Narayanmurthy’s protege! Zero tolerance- there you have it. It is little wonder, why Infosys, is where it is.
After huffing, puffing and talking for about forty minutes, my friend and I parted ways, he to navigate the mind boggling terrain on the Kanakapura Road, which now resembles a lunar landscape and me to set course for Anekal. On the way home, I bumped into Raju, the security guy, from Nepal. A sprightly young fellow, I like him. Raju was testing out a shiny new whistle and looked satisfied with the ear splitting sound it emitted. In a grey world I’m glad somebody blows a whistle once in a way, somewhere, sometime and feels happy!