‘Homegrown firm Marico, which makes Parachute coconut oil, does not keep a muster to monitor employee walk-ins at work. If an employee takes a day off, he or she is not marked absent. Nor is the employee required to file a leave application. Like Marico, many other companies have struck out the system of casual leave (CL) and sick leave (SL) from their leave calendars. Hindustan Unilever, Asian Paints and Jyothy Laboratories are some of the other companies which do not follow a CL/SL system and believe in empowering employees to manage their work schedules to meet their targets.
This trend can be observed in industries like FMCG and financial sector, where employers are concerned about the end result and perhaps it helps in employee retention as well. Such initiatives have a positive impact on the productivity of employees who can manage their work schedules better in addition to attending to family needs.
"There has been a paradigm shift and the younger work force cannot be bonded and expected to work looking at their wrist watches. The young task force is hungry for success and appreciate the flexibility to manage their time," said Monika Tripathi, VP, Elixir Consulting, a recruitment process outsourcing firm. There is a positive correlation between flexibility in the workplace and employee productivity, she said.Marico offers flexi-timings as it believes that every employee has the capability of managing his or her life best if he or she is her own boss. "If I'm an employee and am given a delivery level to achieve, I would merely deliver them and go back home. So there's a coming to office and going home factor attached to this. Once you get into this cycle, your risk taking will be limited to that extent," said Milind Sarwate, Group CFO and Chief HR Officer, Marico....
(Source: Companies let employees manage their leave, Namrata Singh, The Times of India, Jan 3, 2012)
2 comments:
Hopefully this initiative will expand its wings beyond FMCG as well.
But I suppose such initiatives at times also reduce the number of leaves availed by employees becoause when we have a check or are restriced to something we are tempted to it.
But overall, its a good initiative
dear Manmohan,
You are right. As much choice to decide shall instill a sense of freedom in the minds of the employees, in effect the less leaves may be availed by the employees.
Hence the success of such initiatives rests ultimately on the culture of the organization. There will be a lot of difference in the way employees interpret such initiatives in a threatening culture versus a culture of trust.
Hence I always say that culture is the incubator of all engagement initiatives.
Thanks,
Debashish
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