Employee Centric aint no Metric

If you happen to live the professional dream, have an MNC job with fancy title and fancier workstations you would quite fit in to the target readership for this one. With more and more people jumping on the corporate bandwagon, the need for effective people management techniques is at an all time high.

Waking up in a swanky multi story office after sleeping in the Lalaji's factory/shop for over 100 years, a lot of dignity needs to be gained for the professional elite in India. Offices are abuzz with words like Retention plans, Employee centric policies, Morale boosting exercises and numerous such phrases that make work seem like a joyride.

I wonder if at all companies ever consider the fundamentals that support these moves and the diligence behind these policies. After all, To err is human and Human Resources is Human too! What happens when the implementation goes wrong or the veracity of commitment towards benefit is prone to being under suspicion?

A hard-working entry level employee deserves a few choices when it comes to work conditions, but the CEO is also an 'employee' and a beneficiary of employee centric policies. Where do you draw the line? It takes no geniuses to conclude about who has the last laugh in the confrontation of interests, if at all the junior employee decides to challenge the authority of his senior.

At times the demands of the junior could be unjust and at times the senior could be a total jerk , set out to piss the world off as a revenge to his wasted youth. The debate has no end and eventually boils down to individual cases.

The world is witnessing the onset of the HPHE employee, well, just to keep you in the loop, HPHE is Highly Paid Highly Educated. This would imply that the employees are well paid since they have spent a fortune getting themselves prestigious educational dog tags that make them stand apart in every job interview and shine like a funky diamond on their resume.

This also boils down to a cold fact that with a lot of green currency rolling down their accounts on every pay-day, companies expect them to perform miracles, failing to do so leads to a ridiculously short 'perform now' period which transforms into termination in the event of failure to meet expected performance.

Is the whole highly paid employee concept worthwhile? Job security flirting with target expectations is not a pleasant idea to someone who loves the word stability.

In the Indian context, the love for the Government jobs emanates from the job security associated with it. If popular notions are to be considered, its a one way ticket and an employee cannot be fired inspite of consistently performing below expectations. Looking at our Ministers and Police officials, I can testify about that for sure!

Considering the other aspect of it, the situation where Senior Executives enjoy their position purely on the basis of the time they spent in an industry, is unjustified. On several occasions it has been observed that junior employees are far more educated and intelligent than their leadership (I know most of you would whisper 'yeah/true' as you read this), but there is no room for expressing anguish over lack of the pre requisite leadership skills.

It is this disgruntlement that leads to attrition, lack of morale and lowered productivity which eventually neutralizes all other employee benefits.

Another question that bothers a well oriented mind is, how far to go with pampering the employee? Or on the other hand, how restricted and fun depreived can you keep a job to maintain decorum?
Too much pampering might lead to an employee taking benefits for granted and expecting more on a regular basis, another theory believes that he shall stay content and a happy employee is always productive. A restricted employee might fear the bosses and perform well under those circumstances, well, on the other hand he might just decide not to take the pressure anymore and quit. Side effects include Fragging in extreme situations (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fragging).


The bottomline is that an employee should not be mistreated on personal, religious or gender grounds. Most importantly, the feeling of being 'dispensable' should never creep into an employee's mind.

A Dumb HR Department or an unpopular Senior Executive can be as bad as spraying CS Gas in the office. Employee centric policies begin with hiring people with adequate IQ and proven leadership skills. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CS_gas)

You can have a man work under fear or pressure, but eventually we all know the fate of a pressure cooker without a vent!


Dedicated to all my colleagues.