Stop Mourning, Start Acting and...Act Fast!

I will not mourn the death of the 23 year old rape victim. She was a Brave heart who fought till her breath fell short of her courage. She is the heroine of the nation and would continue to live in our hearts forever. Her soul is alive and would remain so forever! Through the inhumane ordeal that she went through in the last two weeks, all reports & hospital bulletins showed that her will to live had not diminished and she fought her battle alone. Finally she lost her life but her spirit is the winner. I salute her courage and her zest for life in face of excruciating pain & mental trauma. I will not mourn her death...She is alive in our hearts and am sure she is alive in all your hearts as well!

The last two weeks also saw intense public reaction and media outcry over this issue. Issue! hope this does not die as another issue in this busy world! All the public anger, candle light marches are not forgotten by the people who initiated or appreciated the same! I am sceptical because public memory is really short. Bhanwari Devi who was gang-raped 20 years back elicited similar reaction but she is still fighting a lonely battle for justice. Does it take 20 years to decide? In these 20 years thousands of women and girls have been raped, molested and teased.

Will this public outcry change anything? In the last two weeks when the entire nation was in shock, the brutal torture and rape of the 23 year old in Delhi continued to be on media headlines, atleast three more rape incidents were reported...out of which one was a gang-rape, another was an incident involving rape of a minor girl...I mean what kind of society are we living-in?

I have no time to mourn and if you have to mourn then mourn all those millions of women & girls in this country whose modesty has been outraged, who have been humiliated, their bodies have been violently breached and souls have been crushed by blood-thirsty demons. They may be alive but their souls have scars deeper then the dead sea! Unfortunately most of them await justice till now!

Stop Mourning, Start Acting and...Act Fast!


Bust the Myths
Two myths need to busted before we look at possible action steps to tackle the diseased part of the society.

1. Men will protect women! Men can never be saviour for women. 90% of men in this country are not worth trusting. You don't believe me! ask any girl or women, almost each one of them have faced some or other kind of harassment at some or the other time at hands of men. Lewd remarks or lewd looks is something that all girls & women have faced. And come to think about it, in a country of 1 billion people almost half of the population is of women. Only girls & women themselves can protect themselves. The day women stand-up & fight the things will start changing. This is not suggest that no man cares for the safety of women. In the endless protests at India Gate, Raisina hills & Jantar Mantar, thousand of men also participated. But half a billion of girls & women in this country still hold the key

2. Social Change is the harbinger of peace for women! Roots of problem are not ensconced in the society. Poor treatment & harassment of women starts from home. Most Indian homes are unequal for girls & women. Girls are never in as much favour as boys! Boys are seen as investments for future whereas girls are seen as liabilities. Women in homes, especially married women are mostly treated as glorified maids. Education of girls, healthcare of girls always takes a backseat. Girl infanticide is brutally common. And we think change will begin from society. We first need to clean-up our homes.


Action Points
A. Girl & Women Empowerment: A large majority of this country worships goddesses. Each girl and women will have to take the form of Durga or Kali at some or the other time!

1. Young girls must be taught about self-defence in wake of any attack or harassment meted out to them. Martial arts training and not just physical training (PT) must be compulsory & free for every girl.

2. Like other popular social campaigns, an awareness drive must be initiated in every school to educate girls on issues like bad touch and how to prevent & protect themselves from such harassments.

3. Raise alarm - Most harassments happen discreetly in public places. Any girl or women who faces such situation in public transport, public waiting areas and even at social or family gatherings must raise alarm. However key will be if other women raise alarm, even if they find that their neighbour being pinched, lewdly commented or touched. Girls & women have to support each other and these bast###s have to be exposed!

4. Although, it may sound a bit extreme, but women need to given guns. Imagine, if the 23 year rape victim had a gun with her, then probably her fate would have been different. Besides, no matter how much our police force becomes vigilant, it is impossible to police every citizen. And then, there would be some who would say that giving guns to common civilians would increase violence. Forget it! those who commit crimes get weapons some way or the other, mostly illegal. The ones who are left hapless are the common people like you and me. So give guns, at least to women.

B. Institutional Intention: All the organized institutions, like schools, colleges, offices need to strengthen both prevention & protection mechanisms to deal with any such incident.

1. Create awareness drives.

2. Strengthen & secure reporting mechanisms. Make it safe and confidential for girls & women to report.

3. Initiate immediate action and be ruthless against the perpetrators of such crime.

4. Compulsorily have women psychologists & counsellors - permanent or visiting, in all such institutions, for support, counselling or therapy to all the victims in the event of any such unfortunate incident.

5. In schools, recruit drivers, cleaners, office boys with as much care as one recruits the teachers.

C. Judiciary Lead: Lakhs of pending rape cases in court does not help to rein-in the lusty voluptuous vultures on the prowl. People may say that politicians or police would solve the problem. Perhaps they will, but I will put my money on our judiciary system. If our legal system becomes more responsive and acts in time & with more impact then it will be a great ray of hope. Separate fast track courts should be set-up permanently for all rape & molestation cases and all criminals should be brought to justice. Judiciary should also seriously consider revisiting the law governing such cases. Seven years of imprisonment is an insult to the rape victim.

This is not the time to shed tears; instead this is time to act! This would be our true tribute to the Delhi brave heart and all those women who have been tormented by the savages. So, Stop Mourning, Start Acting...and Act Fast! We as a nation cannot afford to disengage the better half of our country's population!

(with inputs from my wife Vandana)

Ceteris Paribus, People make the difference!

Online shopping is really gaining momentum. Citibank recently launched the online shopping festival for its card holders. And now another online shopping festival is underway, with more offers & attractive discounts. I have become an almost consummate online shopper, shopping from books to MP3 downloads, from flowers to groceries, from fruits & vegetables to gifts…


However my online shopping experiences have been mixed. From good to disgusting, from great to disappointing. The reason is not too difficult to comprehend. In online shopping the technology & interfaces are almost similar from seller to seller. However, since there is no physical meeting place for the shopper & marketer, customer support (service) becomes a crucial differentiating factor.

Every such online shopping site has a 24×7 customer care helpline. But then some of these helplines really makes things uncomplicated, while others need help themselves :-) ! Online sellers like Jabong, Flipkart, Bigbasket, Phoolwala have delighted me, some others have been let-downs. Let me tell you two such poor & good experiences.

Poor First

Bad news must always precede good news, if both have to come together, hence the poor experience first. On one such online seller site called home shop….., I selected a gift that I wished to send to a friend in another city. I checked the delivery areas on the site and it was mentioned all over India. To double-check, I called the 24×7 customer care number and the lady on the other side confirmed that the gift could be shipped to the north-eastern city of India, where my friend resided. After spending about an hour on this much touted online seller, when I finally decided to buy the gift, that I had selected, a message flashed that the product could not be shipped to the city of my choice. I was surprised since both the web & phone confirmations earlier had revealed a different result. I again called the helpline. This time it was some other lady who first took a long time to understand my problem and then her response was so casual that it irked me. She told me in hindi – “aisa ho jata hain Sir, kabhi kabhi aap jo product select karte hain woh kuch shaher mein deliver nahin karte”, meaning that ‘it sometime happens that the product that you select, we cannot deliver it to some cities’. Then I asked her that why did they not reflect this on their website and why did the previous customer care executive confirm the possibility of delivering it to the same city? To this she again said very casually – “aisa ho jata hain, Sir”, again meaning ‘this sometime happens, Sir’. I was feeling as if I was an idiot that I could not understand this simple rationale. Idiot I must be, for I should have guessed the ‘chalta hain…’ culture is indigenous! And anyways Katju has stamped it that this country does not have 3 but many more idiots! I abandoned my shopping there itself.

The Jabong Experience

Ok! Now the good, rather the great one! After giving-up on the earlier seller, I entered Jabong for the first time, suggested by a colleague. I followed the similar process, selected a product, confirmed the delivery areas and then tried to purchase the same. I could not successfully place the order at the first-go since I has missed clicking on a small check-box that would segregate my shipping & billing address. I did not realize this till I called their customer care number. My call was answered by a lady who later turned-out to be the most patient & extra-ordinarily helpful customer care executive that I had ever come-across. She patiently listened to my problem and immediately spotted the cause for my payment not going through! Most other customer care executives, at best, would explain the process and then hang-up. But this lady on the other hand explained me the process and then offered to stay on-line till I completed the whole process. That was so helpful that within minutes, I could complete the whole process and successfully place the order. Not for a single minute, did she express any hurry or irritation at my error. On the contrary she was genuinely supportive and very courteous. Very contrastingly, two days back when I had called the bhartiya rail call center, the executive would wait for me to take a pause & without waiting for me to finish my enquiry would thank me & hang-up. I had to call the rail call center 5 times to get the small bit of information that I was seeking! But here at Jabong, it was superb! If I remember correctly, the name of the Jabong executive was Kanika Mehta. When I gave the feedback to her supervisor Ritu, she told me that Kanika was amongst the star performers and my appreciation was her hat-trick for the day!

Why Jabong rocks?

What would make the home shop...... customer care executive respond so nonchalantly and the Jabong executive respond with so much empathy & warmth? While this could be easily dismissed as being encountering two different individuals, the truth may not be so! My previous encounters with home shop...... has not been very good. Besides, there is ample data with me (considering that I am shopping online quite often, additionally I speak to a lot of my acquaintances who are regular online shoppers) to show that certain online sellers just do not get it, while others simply rock! Isn’t the same true with physical sellers as well?

The difference is not the individuals but the culture that prevails in these two organizations. While one is regressive and lacks cohesion & engagement, the other is progressive & engaging. The result - employees start behaving differently. I strongly believe that the ecosystem has a great influence on the behavior. In this case the organizational ecosystem cultures are impacting employee behaviours differently.

The point is…

External engagement (with customers) is a function of the internal engagement (with employees); and the strong determinant of the internal engagement is the organizational ecosystems’ culture.

Need I emphasize more? Anyways I am definitely going back to Jabong, the next time I think online shopping!

Katju & CEAT drive the same car!

Morning radio was buzzing in the car; mad mornings with Shradha on one FM channel & Vodafone Happy Mornings with Prithvi on the other, the RJ’s chit-chat, some good & some not-so-good songs, lots of advertisements, all become my every morning's long-driving company!


Most advertisements (who anyways pay for the radio shows that we tune-in-to) are to be tolerated or skipped. However one such advertisement this morning caught my attention, not for its greatness or novelty but because of something else. Without any further ado let me tell you how the ad went about, that was about some masters diploma in management, offered by a certain college - “...when you are an ordinary employee you receive instructions; when you complete …..Diploma in management from ….. then you give instructions…”

Undoubtedly, the message was one of the crappiest one that I have heard in recent times (Is this the way to advertise for an educational program on offer?); but more than message, it is the mindset that bothered me, the mindset that management is all about giving instructions! This mindset is unfortunately not only of the business college that advertised or of the agency that created the message, but of a large section of people who believe that managing is about controlling people and dishing-out instructions to them.

The command & control structure pervades all societal spheres in countries like ours. At home husband/father is the boss whose wishes must be fulfilled by wife & kids. I have lost count of kids who have told me that they picked engineering or a particular discipline in their graduation because their Dad wanted them to do so! Or girls who can’t take-up a job because their Dad won’t let them be in a particular city! On the home-front for most women, their mother-in-law is the boss. When she sneezes, daughter-in-law freezes! In society, everyone who has some power tries to be the boss! And in organizations manager or supervisor tries to wield the control stick. Giving instructions becomes their sole realization of their existence! Should it come as a surprise that supervisors are amongst the most hated entities in organizations revealed by survey after survey! The control mindset is disengaging and obsolete. Those who try to do it are sub-optimal performers and use it to shield their incompetence.

The point is engagement is largely a design issue. One of such design elements is structure that prevails in an organization. On paper, although, many organizations claim to be ‘flat’ but their people especially the managers & supervisors ensure that structure remain typically hierarchical & pyramidical. Recently a senior leader of an Indian company told me how much difficulty they were having in implementing a truly flat structure, preferred by their European clients, in their organization, largely, because the managers were resistant to the same. The main reason of the opposition was their perceived loss of control!

Such design issues need to be addressed if engagement with its people is anything that an organization is trying to attempt! But then the beginning of structural changes happens from the families & society. Are we getting there? Yes, but we still have a long way to go & the pace is very slow. For now most of us would have to live with our master-blasters & although we refuse to believe Press Council of India (PCI) chairperson Justice Markandey Katju’s assessment of Indians, is the truth very far from that? After all CEAT also said the same thing sometime back in their television promotional campaign! Didn’t we agree then?

How safe is your workplace?

Bangladesh garment factory fire that killed more than 100 people recently has put the workplace safety issue right on the table once again. The factory that was reportedly a supplier to big retail giants had minimal fire safety mechanisms. Locked exit door, fire extinguishers for namesake, no emergency exits – all this meant that the factory was a death-trap waiting to take its toll on the hapless workers.


Such accidents are not uncommon in Asian countries. Not so long ago on April 2012, the roof collapse of a blanket factory in Jalandhar killed several workers. The factory reportedly flouted most of the industrial safety norms. Almost every year before Diwali, one of the firecracker manufacturing units reports an accident. This year was no different. A major fire in a fireworks manufacturing unit in Sivakasi in Virudhunagar district in south Tamil Nadu killed more than 50 people.

Even a year after the infamous AMRI hospital tragedy in which nearly 93 people were smothered to death by smoke from a fire in the basement, smoke management is reportedly still in poor state among developers and enforcement agencies. There have been some patchy attempts to retrofit existing buildings-offices, malls and hospitals-with a fire fighting system that controls and evacuates smoke. And in many cases although there are gadgets in place but there is no system to ensure that they function in an exigency.

These incidents are followed by few arrests, some noise and after some days of finger-pointing, the issue dies down, waiting for the next accident to happen.

Workplace safety norms are freely flouted in many third world countries. Several reasons are cited for the same. The reasons that commonly come to the fore are technical and legal compliance issues. However managerial & behavioral reasons seem to be at the core of such apathy towards workplace safety. Such managerial & leadership behaviour is best described by the enquiry report on the Fukushima nuclear accident.

Fukushima nuclear accident, the worst nuclear disaster after the Chernobyl accident was termed as ‘man-made’! The findings of the commission probing the accident elicited shock and fear amongst people all over the world. The enquiry report reportedly points to typical ‘reflexive obedience’ behavior amongst Japanese behind the accident. Reflexive obedience simply means a lack of questioning emerging out of strong bureaucracy and collusion of selfish interest. The result - People at Tokyo Electric Power put the interest of the organization before that of the consumers and let the safety slip. A culture of ‘reflexive obedience’ meant questioning was blasphemous & conveniently kept people so disengaged that no one cared while the plant condition deteriorated progressively. The leaders and the HR function of the organization were unable and unwilling to change the culture and the rot set-in deeper & deeper. In the end, the cultural tsunami was stronger than the natural tsunami.

But such culture of ‘reflexive obedience’ is not only limited to Japan or Tokyo Electric Power. Six years back, one of my students was doing his internship in a paper mill in the northern part of the country, owned by a prominent industrial group. His project was on workplace safety. The report based on interview of workers, supervisors of the factory revealed gaping safety flouting issues. Despite the fact that he did a remarkable job, before submission, he was asked to water-down his findings by his industry supervisor who was a manager in the same mill.

Workplace safety is more a cultural & behavioral issue. Legal machinery definitely needs to strengthened & tightened and cases fast-tracked to punish the offenders. However such incidents would be prevented only when a cultural transformation happens.

Newton in Mangal Bazaar

This time Dusherra break was in Baroda. It has been more than a month now, but the hangover still remains, especially of the Mangal bazaar that we visited on the last day. Baroda has its own charms - small city, safer for women, historical background and colourful Gujarati culture & food. But, my co-brother and sis-in-law who reside in Baroda, had promised that our visit will not be complete if we did not see Mangal bazaar. Naturally we were curious and decided to visit the landmark place.

The ‘Mangal Bazaar’ was a terrific (could also be read as terrifying) experience. Mangal in hindi means ‘good in every way’ or ‘the one that brings good luck’. I have never seen any more ironical name than this. Anyways the best thing about Mangal Bazaar is that all laws of Newton can be experienced in that place.

A view of Mangal Bazaar

Newton’s first law also known as the law of inertia states that ‘…any body continues to be in a state of rest or motion until and unless acted upon by an external force’. The bazaar runs into narrow lanes that is packed with so many people that once you are inside the bazaar, even if you are in a state of rest, the rest shall ensure that you are put into motion and if you are in motion, you could be brought to a grinding halt anytime, in vertical or horizontal alignment with the ground.  

Newton’s second law of motion states that 'Force = Mass × Acceleration'. The greater the push (mass of the person from whom you get the shove) and depending upon the direction and speed that the ‘shove’ is moving, you shall be forced-propelled in some direction.

Newton’s third law of motion states that 'every reaction has an equal and opposite reaction'. How true!   If you try to move in the north direction, an equal effort tries to take you to the opposite south direction in the bazaar.

We could survive Mangal Bazaar and our experience of Baroda is wholesome now.  Those who opposed FDI in retail should be brought to this bazaar and they will understand the futility of opposing the same. No form of organized retail can pose any threat to small shopkeepers here. They have captive customers who would come-in there, as much for the cheap stuff, as much for the ‘mangal experience’. The shopping seems so much complete to them after all the struggle and haggle.

Anyways the point that I am trying to make is that Baroda or Vadodara is a different city! Travelling from one end of Baroda to the other end takes less than an hour. The city is small and has a relaxed motion and demeanor. For nine days in a year people play Garba without any guilt. Work-Life seems perfectly balanced here. The bazaar charms are add-on combos. The needs of the people are radically different in places like Baroda then here in Bangalore. 

Accommodation, transport, commute, social support, school distance for kids all these are hardly an issue. Considering the affluent & enterprising Gujarati community and the presence of large number of small and medium scale industries, contemporary HR practices, organization culture, work environment, development opportunities, career progression seems to be required more for the thousands of people employed in various such units.

Like many other things, engagement solutions can also not be generalized. Mangal Bazaar and Forum Mall are two different worlds!

The Importance of being (not) Important

Someone is ‘important’ somewhere, and whoever gets importance becomes ‘important’. The other day at a Puja Mandap in Baroda (on holiday with my family at my sister-in-law’s place for the Bengali Durga Puja) a lady in saffron saree had been invited for the inaugural speech of the Maha Saptami cultural evening. She spoke something ‘important’ that some people seemed to notice, less for the content, more so that she was after all the chief guest. Those who listened or did not listen but saw her through her speech were not so lucky that she sits through any of other evening cultural roller-coaster in the offing. She left immediately; after all she must be having something more ‘important’ to catch! Her gait was interesting; she hardly looked at anyone and had a very serious expression on her face & walked briskly. Following her were the ‘important’ post-bearers of the pujo committee and two more ladies in saffron sarees. Those must have been the followers of the lady who gave the speech. One of those ladies was trying to hold the hand of the speech-lady on the pretext of helping her in her brisk walk. This I guessed must have been a ritual elsewhere but here in presence of some dhuti-panjami & tat-saree clad  intellectual bongs, this human crutch was not the ideal PR tool perhaps. The speech-lady kept pulling her hand away and walked even more briskly out of the pujo madap. This made her look even more important. However the audience seemed to forget her moment she left the venue. Nobody appeared even aware of the fact that she was there, forget about remembering anything that she spoke.

A bong’s pujo is incomplete if he does not visit some 10-20 more pujo-mandaps, besides their own ghoroa pujo mandap, although all seem to look the same. In out one such visit to one such pujo-mandap we learned that this pujo had a historical value. It was the oldest pujo in Baroda and the venue was housed in the local legendary Maharaj’s palace premises. It was Maha Ashtami evening and  such pujo evenings of bongs is not without some koltoral anushthan. One such cultural evening was about to begin in this venue as well and her giving the inaugural speech was a saffron-clad man, with a saffron headgear. He spoke of youth movement, awakening and Vivekanand in his speech. After our dorshon of Durga Maa’s idol, we were kind of browsing through some handicraft stall in the venue. While my family was busy in appreciating the craft and bargaining it’s price, I was ‘unimportantly’ idling nearby, when I saw the saffron swamiji getting into a car  (obviously his speech was done and it was time for him to leave). One devoted pujo committee member who was there to see-off swamiji, touched the feet of swamiji as he settled down on the car seat, as on-lookers looked-on. ‘Importance’ of swamiji was not lost on anyone, not even on swamiji! He did not even look at his reverent feet worshipper and signalled a blessing sign with his hand in thin air. On-lookers found swamiji even more important but the importance faded before his car tail-lights could fade completely.

That is importance for you… Someone is ‘important’ somewhere, and whoever gets importance becomes ‘important’, yet ‘importance is so fleeting. Yet people and organization seek it more and more, blissfully unaware of the fleeting nature of importance. A boss who is only important in his office, a professor who is only important in the class, a politician only important to his servile sycophants, a chief guest who is important only at the venue… Oh! at times this importance is sickening.

What is important to you may not be important to me and vice versa. Similarly what is important today may not be important tomorrow. Take the latest Linkedin survey among the Gen Y reveals that formal attire and 9 to 5 jobs will soon be a passé. LinkedIn’s survey titled ‘Office Endangered Species’ said the top three office tools targeted for extinction by 2017, among professionals in India were the tape recorder, standard working hours and desktop computers. Fax machines, Rolodexes, USB drives, cubicles and landline phones were some other items that were set to become extinct in a few years.

Importance is not engaging; engaging is!

Gen Y Games - Reveal

Online games are emerging as a recruitment tool. For tech-savvy millennials, games are fun and constitute a higher engagement model. For companies, they allow them to better quantify a candidate's performance.

At L'Oreal India, the cosmetics and beauty products company, graduates and post-graduates being considered for a job have to play a game called Reveal. It simulates the work environment; players move through various challenges across departments - finance, sales, marketing, operations and research and innovation.

Candidates pick an avatar and interact with graphical characters in different departments. They start with product development, and then navigate their way through three rooms and answer over 500 questions. Meanwhile, a computer program keeps a tab on time spent to complete each task and assesses logical reasoning and analytical skills.

(Source: The Times of India)

'Leave' me, but be with me!!!

Few days back I heard of a company having some engagement events on a weekend. Bad idea, I thought. I am sure nobody wants to go on a prized weekend, after the extremely busy  and tiring week for any of such events. However some organizations seem to be realizing that rather then spending on such weekend events and causing more disengagement than engagement, giving some time-off to their employees with their families is a much better idea.
Companies are increasingly realizing that in this fast-paced world, for their time-famined executives one of the best forms of engagement is to give them some quality time-off, so that they can address their personal concerns and priorities.

"While most organizations offer maternity leave, ICICI Bank has gone a step further. It has introduced 'fertility leave', in addition to 'childcare' and 'adoption' leave. The bank allows 180 days of leave to employees seeking to undergo fertility treatment. Besides this, 36 days of paid childcare leave is available every year to women and single fathers working at the bank. The new leave policy is part of the bank's 'Saath Aapka' programme...

Compassionate leave is another format that has been introduced by many organizations. AtKPMG, employees can avail of seven days of compassionate leave in a year in the event of the death of a close relative...

In other firms like Apollo Hospitals, compassionate leave also covers marriage or studies. Apollo Hospitals decided to offer compassionate leave (7-10 days in a year) over and above the regular leaves available to employees as a gesture of appreciation...

Thomas Cook has a 'special leave' to provide assistance in times of accident, surgery, medical emergencies and hospitalization. 

Accenture also implemented a similar provision this year which allows the primary caretaker, regardless of gender, eight weeks of fully paid leave on adopting a child." (Source: Companies say 'we care' with fertility leave, Namrata Singh, TNN)

Special leaves seem to be the new engagement mantra and rightly-so.

Happy Birthday! Dr. Manmohan Singh

Do nice people have a chance in this country? Take our Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh for instance. He has been bashed from all possible sections, that include his political peers, civil society, media and almost anyone who could take a dig at him. He has been called a ‘silent’ prime minister, dithering, ineffectual bureaucrat, underachiever, ‘Poodle’ and ‘Puppet’ and all sorts of condescending things. But the fact is that he is  perhaps the only educated, wise and descent politician in the country whom you can look up to.


Who else???

I am so glad that he is our prime minister. His grace, intellect and dignity is par-excellence and exemplary. And to be fair to be him, in the dirty constraints of coalition politics he has been able to perform really well.

But see what we do to him!!! The other day my colleague & friend Prof. Ray Titus made a very interesting comment. He said that the very fact that Dr. Manmohan Singh lost an election makes him a qualified candidate in the political arena and public life. Interesting! just think about it...

But do we really deserve him?

In yet another incident, according to a newspaper report, the officer who was instrumental in stopping the award of a multi-crore annual maintenance contract on a single tender basis at a public sector enterprise was harassed for his honesty. The whistle-blower was reportedly forced to fight a five-year-long legal battle after he was implicated in disproportionate assets by the company officials and government-backed investigation agency.

The result? The whistle-blower saw officers 10 years junior to him being promoted while he fought his court battle to clear his name. If the media reports are to be believed, then the resulting erosion of trust on the organization’s leadership and progressive disengagement of the whistle blower and employees like him is anybody’s guess. Not surprisingly the organization has seen series of employee protests over the past few years.

Do nice people really have a chance?

Rediscovering Selfishness

French billionaire Bernard Arnault decided to sue a news daily over a headline – ‘Get Lost you rich Idiot’ in response to his decision to apply for Belgium citizenship. France’s controversial proposed policy to tax the rich very heavily is driving them away from the country. And obviously there are many who feel the rich should stay and get fleeced. I know most in our country feel similarly and there are two reasons for it – one we believe, like many French socialists, that we should take money from the rich and give if those who do not work all in the garb of larger welfare; and, second, in our country money has been equated with fifth for most of that has been created by ‘few’ who could ‘fix’ the system. However that’s not how money has been created by everyone, everywhere. There are people who through their enterprising ability, hard work& industriousness have been able to create immense value and in the process have successfully created wealth.

And there are millions of taxpaying citizens of France, India and world over who know the value of hard work, who know what it takes to earn a day’s wages. Then there are sloths who want to live an easy life on the hard-earned money of those millions others. Research indicates that many, who received unemployment allowance in Europe, actually blew the money in night clubs, rather using the same on their essentials. But still they should be protected……..why? Why penalize those who work hard and contribute to the value creation in a nation, and reward those who do not want to work?

But that is socialism for you that parts of Europe, India and now Obama’s America believes in - social welfare at the cost of those who work hard every day. Protection of downtrodden, weak, poor….. similar logic? Ayn Rand in her epic book ‘The Virtue of Selfishness’ (1964) wrote- “Since nature does not guarantee automatic security, success and survival to any human being, it is only dictatorial presumptuousness and the moral cannibalism of the altruist – collectivist code that permits a man to suppose (or idly to day dream) that he can somehow guarantee such security to some men at the expense of others. This is the psychological confession implied in such questions and in many issues of the same kind... More often, however that psychological confession reveals a deeper evil: it reveals the enormity of the extent to which altruism erodes men’s capacity to grasp the concept of rights or the value of an individual life; it reveals a mind from which the reality of a human being has been wiped out.'

The socialistic welfare concept is a fallacy that makes people believe that government can ensure their well-being even if they don’t do enough for themselves and their families. Even more evil is the premise that robs people who work hard and wants them to believe that they have an obligation to part a good share of their income for welfare of someone whom they don’t know

Ayn Rand further writes in her book – 'A society that robs an individual of the product of his effort, or enslaves him, or attempts to limit the freedom of his mind, or compels him to act against his own rational judgment – a society that sets up a conflict between its edicts and the requirements of man’s nature- is not strictly speaking, a society, but a mob held together by institutional gang rule. Such a society destroys all values of human coexistence, has no possible justification and represents, not a source of benefits, but the deadliest threat to man’s survival.'

I am not negating charity but engaging in such an act should be an individual choice not a gang –compulsion. Behind the garb of welfare, the corrupt political set-up and ‘match-fixers’ fool and loot all.

Take the FDI in multi-brand retail issue in India for example. A nationwide forced shutdown, hooliganism against public in general, all in the name of opposition against FDI in multi-brand retail. And what is the ground of such opposition – same rhetoric of ‘welfare’. People like Didi feel that FDI in multi-brand retail shall endanger the ‘shopkeeprs’. So they are worried about welfare of those shopkeepers who have been fleecing us for ages? Why they are not worried of the billions of consumers in this country? Why do they want to rob us of better products, improved service, more choice, better quality and more competitive prices?

The system is fixed and so is welfare. Nexus between traders lobby and politicians could not be exemplified any better. And, they are worried about handful of shopkeepers losing their jobs; then why are they not worried about millions others losing jobs (those jobs which could be created in the organized retail, if FDI is pumped-in).

More FDI, more choice better quality & better prices for consumers resulting in greater consumption, more revenues, more sectorial growth, more jobs, more disposable income, more consumption….. Is this logic so incomprehensible?

Not at all, those who are opposing FDI in multi-brand retail are only concerned about their own welfare, of their kins & friends, at the cost of others. So is selfishness bad? Selfishness in the garb of selflessness is bad. Being selfish and asking or rather forcing others to be selfless is bad. Like those call the French billionaire a rich idiot are or those who oppose FDI in India are doing!

Pure selfishness is actually a virtue. I know we have been taught the opposite and most of you must be shocked at my utterances. But man by nature is selfish. Man works, shares, loves, cares for selfish pursuits. Selfishness is at the root of civilization, existence and life. Ayn Rand had written – “In popular usage, the word “ selfishness” is synonym of evil; the image it conjures is of a murderous brute who tramples over piles of corpses to achieve his own ends, who cares for no living being and pursues nothing but gratification of the mindless whims of any immediate moment. Yet, the exact meaning and dictionary definition of the word “selfishness is ‘concern with one’s own interest’.”

And how being concerned of one’s own interest could be bad? However, only if everybody did that and did not expect others to forego their own interest whilst they pursue their own.

A person becomes selfish for a more secure future for himself and for his family and starts an enterprise. He becomes selfish to produce better goods and deliver better service than anybody else to his customers. The people who work for him become selfish for a better career and future for themselves and hence buy-in to the selfish ideas of the entrepreneur. The customer becomes selfish for better consumption and buys those goods & services. The result is better pay-off for everyone. However in this entire cycle, if anyone while remaining selfish himself/herself wants or forces others to relinquish their selfish motives then ‘some’ lose in the process. And if everyone remains selfish and accept others selfish pursuits as much they do their own then everyone stands to win.

Selfishness is at the heart of engagement too. An organization engages its employees for the selfish reasons of engaging its customers better. What’s wrong in that? An employee accepts to be engaged when he/she sees his/her selfish pursuits being fulfilled. Engagement cannot happen if people cease to be selfish.

Take the case of banks in India which according to recent newspaper reports are facing problems in keeping staff at smaller & rural locations. The employees, mostly younger lot, posted in such locations complain of factors like absence of cellphone signals, choice of food, weekend entertainment; women complain of too much distance from their home & having to stay away from their family as reasons behind their unhappiness with such postings. The resultant high attrition is concerning the banks.

Are the employees being selfish? Yes, but what’s wrong with them being selfish? And what should the banks do in this case. They should also act selfish. If they think that they need these employees to serve their customers better then they should try & act in a way that they can provide these facilities to their employee at such locations. And if they think they got the wrongs people inside, then they should look for the right people who can serve their customers better and who will not have such complains. Such selfish motives on everyone’s part shall engage employees better and consequently customers better. This shall result better payoffs for all & sundry.

In this regard, I quote from my 2011 book Employee Engagement – ‘In an employee feedback and organizational health survey of the employees in remote locations by Aditya Birla Group, the company found that employees in remote locations – factory townships had long-standing needs that were similar to their colleagues in urban locations. Some of the issues that emerged were healthcare, entertainment, education and career for spouses. The findings were very interesting and showed how place or location may not change the way people wanted to live. They found, for instance, that today’s middle-class, young engineer finds a dissonance. He not only wants a great job and a good company, he also seeks a contemporary look and location.

To ensure that such locational dissonance did not happen, the company came-up with a range of solutions. To start with it changed the exterior colour of the residential flats; it tied-up with an event management company to develop events that appeal to various constituencies like musical nights, devotional music programmes, concerts and so on. The company is also said to be discussing with PVR cinemas for setting-up multiplexes near the townships.’

Who is going to benefit anyway?

HBR published reams of paper on Balanced Score Card application in performance management and competency management and suddenly this – “The government today cleared a proposal that would allow it to provide reservation for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes in promotion in state jobs. The Union Cabinet, at a meeting chaired by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, approved the proposal for making provisions for quotas for SC/STs in promotions in government jobs.” (Source: ET)

So you know one thing for sure it is not only Obama & Romney who are preparing for the elections. After all 2014 is not too far away!

But then the question is who is going to benefit anyway? Even if it benefits few individuals, isn’t the larger question about performance management? At a larger level isn’t the issue all about managing organizational performance? Will such a strategy help to improve the individual performance and consequently the organizational performance? And if not, then would such a scenario endanger the existence of such an organization? And if the organization collapses, who is going to benefit anyway?

In her paper ‘The Good, the Bad, and the Unavoidable: Improving the Public Service in Poor Countries’, Merilee S. Grindle notes that – “…Contrasting conditions of sloth and efficiency, indifference and responsiveness, stasis and reform characterize public sectors in many poor countries. Talented people can be drawn to public service in such countries and significant reforms can be introduced to set the bases for improved performance. Despite many good experiences, however, governments in most poor countries continue to perform poorly. Improving this bad situation is essential. Like their U.S. counterparts discussed elsewhere in this volume, public sector reformers in developing countries need to consider changes that directly address performance incentives and management practices. But even with such changes, the unavoidable reality of inefficient, ineffective, and unresponsive government is likely to persist for some time to come. Just as in the historical evolution of the public sector in the U.S. and other now developed countries, good public sector performance ultimately depends on the development of political societies that expect and demand efficiency, effectiveness, and responsiveness from their governments.”

Gen Y: The Reversed Happiness Quotient

Institute for Wellbeing Management, Bellevue University, Nebraska, USA, a non-profit consulting group on employee happiness, started a blog on Employee Happiness – tips, tricks & tools sometime back. They identified and involved 26 authors for writing invitational blog post every Sunday.


My first post for this blog – Gen Y: The Reversed Happiness Quotient has been published the Sunday Sept. 2, 2012. You can read the same here - http://employeehappinesstipstrickstools.com/

Please share my post with others if you like the same and post a comment should you feel like. I shall indeed be thankful.

THE ACHIEVERS 50 MOST ENGAGED WORKPLACES™ AWARDS

The Achievers 50 Most Engaged Workplaces in the United States, 2012 have been announced. This annual award recognises top employers that display leadership and innovation towards engaging their employees. The award is judged by a panel of judges which evaluate each applicant based on the eight elements of employee engagement:

1.Communication,
2. Leadership,
3. Culture,
4. Rewards and recognition,
5. Professional and personal growth,
6. Accountability and performance,
7. Vision and values, and,
8. Corporate social responsibility.

'The award understand these practices are not only good for employees but also the bottom line. Companies that focus on employee engagement tend to perform better financially, attract and retain the best talent and enjoy improved customer service and client retention.'

Indian Companies in the THE ACHIEVERS 50 MOST ENGAGED WORKPLACES™ AWARDS list -

• Infosys Limited
• Tata Consultancy Limited

Social Media Enagagement Strategy

Current efforts of engaging employees using social media has been limited to at best having a social media presence and building networks with employees. However the future of social media engagement would be drastically different and unimaginable.


The ‘internal’ resources are the set of employee that an organization has and the ‘external’ resource are the vast untapped talent in the eco-space. In my opinion the companies can use both a ‘passive’ and an ‘active’ social media engagement with these communities. Hence we create something like four combinations out of this theory – ‘Passive Internal’, ‘Active Internal’, ‘Passive External’ and ‘Active External’. I shall try to expalin each one, without necessarily intellectualising the post:

The first one ‘Passive Internal’ essentially involves using social media to passively engage the internal resource i.e. the employees. This happens through communication of company’s happenings, changes, achievements, future plans etc. Through company blogs, letting employees network among themselves, letting employees share their employment experiences and even letting employees share how they can innovatively use the products of their company for example employees of some retail companies have shared pictures & posts on Pinterest which is like a virtual bulletin boards about the garment combinations that they have used during the weekend . Alcatel-Lucent uses several social media tools in its business, including internal social media networks created specifically for employees. Within this framework, employees can engage and converse with each other about pretty much anything. Facebook-like platform – Infy Bubble, Cognizant 2.0 or C2, Wikis and Justask at Tata Consultancy Services, Channel W and My Wipro World at Wipro Technologies, Ideabank of BankWest, Australia are few but very strong examples.

The ‘Active Internal’ is where company uses social media to seek ideas, suggestions from their employees. The company also tries to connect with employees and their families and even tries to leverage internal talent identification and internal head-hunting using social media. At Dell, social media is becoming a part of everything that employees do. It is used in internal collaboration, product development, social commerce as well as talent acquisition. Some of the social media tools embraced by Dell include Salesforce.com’s Chatter tool for internal social networking as well as a number of internal blogs and instant messengers. These are great for sharing information, forming project-based or interest-based groups and generally breaking down the silos you’d expect in a large organization.

The passive and active are essentially interpreted in the above two cases according to the one-way or two-way bridges built by the company. In passive mode the idea is to inform and/or provide a platform to employees to share. Whereas in active mode the company wants to hear from employees, explore their potential and tap in to the same.

The ‘Passive External’is the next phase that basically sees a company reaching out to the willing social media contributors in the eco-space and networking with them, often involving them through discussion groups, followership etc. The idea is to create brand advocacy groups and get connected with the cast willing talent base outside the institutional employees. For example about 5 months back the Asst.Vice President and Head of Training & Development Division at Sharjah Islamic Bank, United Arab Emirates started a discussion on one of the groups in Linkedin – ‘’Another name for "Training Department". Hundreds of suggestions have poured-in and more than anything its has given an opportunity for the bank to connect to many training professionals and organizations, that it can possibly tap into more actively later.

Finally the ‘Active External’ happens through the much talked about social media recruitment, back-channel referencing and talent poaching. Under the title ‘By Graduates for Graduates’, Unilever’s Future Leaders Programme sees current graduates helping to recruit the next graduate intake by managing the social networks sites.

In these two cases, the passive and active interpretations are slightly different. The passive efforts with the external resource essentially lets company network with millions of talent outside the boundaries of the company ho are willing to contribute and the company can tap into their potential by c0nnecting with them, using heir ideas and inputs and by creating a greater brand-affinity amongst this talent base. Whereas, the active mode, sees the company trying to use social media to build more efficiencies into its HR system.

The Ides of August

“…At the stroke of the midnight hour, when the world sleeps, India will awake to life and freedom…” who can forget these famous speech! These lines resounded literally in my ears last night as I could not sleep since the power supply was disrupted and not restored till morning. But I am not losing hope, I am hopeful that at least by today evening before the independence day celebrations are over, we shall again have electricity. And, we should be thankful that we do not have to burn paraffin wax more than one or two nights in a row for light. We have a power connection!!! And they say…we must feel proud!!! And they are all honourable men.

Anyways, my day started and since I had to go for celebrations somewhere, I decided to have a quick bath. The tap in the bathroom started spewing muddy water as soon as I turned it on. The water seemed unfit even for irrigation. Hence I paused my bath and thought of enquiring the reason for the brownish black water in the bathroom. Our building association secretary told me that the rain gods have to be blamed for the same. I was puzzled, but she quickly explained that since this year it has rained less, hence the borewell is spewing mud with water. She was helpless and asked me to wait for the rains. I did not know that while living in this IT city, I was sharing destiny with the farmers in Vidharbha who wait for the rain clouds to be pleased for the farms to be irrigated. I never got this great feeling of brotherhood. And they say…we must feel proud!!! And they are all honourable men.

After somehow managing to make myself presentable, I caught-up with the morning newspaper to glance through the headlines. A shocker awaited me as the day’s headlines screamed about a ghastly incident about a couple who had become victims of honour killing in the hands of their own blood relatives. The couple’s intercaste marriage against the will of their familes was their only fault. They leave behind an 8 month old daughter. Caste is above human feelings and human life and even above an orphan infant’s helpless wails? 65 years have not changed certain things it seems – perhaps this is what is called rooted to tradition. And they say…we must feel proud!!! And indeed they are all honourable men.

Time to go! So without wasting any more time, I took-out my car on the road. Like every day, the road felt a little bumpier. The little rain that we had this year has been enough to leave its marks on the road in form of potholes. The ones formed yesterday have grown bigger today and the one forming today shall definitely grow deadlier tomorrow. I recalled that the road had been laid only last year. Wow! The road has lasted full one year! And think of it after these rain (or no rains) we have hopes for an all-new road once again! That’s too good…besides the new tarred surface that we shall get, it shall provide economic advantage to few. What if it that advantage is skewed in the favour of some? One of the PWD minister of a northern state has been reportedly quoted telling to the PWD employees that ‘if you work hard, you can steal a little’. New road…the thought of it sends me in a frenzy… And they say…we must feel proud!!! And they are all honourable men.

Still in my thoughts, I was driving my car and was yet to hit the main road. Just then I saw a group 5-6 kids playing on the road, enjoying their freedom. Since the kids were encroaching the road, I had to stop my car. What surprised me though was that adults accompanying the kids were standing on the roadside and happily chatting. When I asked the kids to move, the adults on the roadside glanced at me and again went back to their chat. I could overhear them talking about a biker who must have passed that place a while ago and they were cursing him – ‘what can’t he see the kids play, he should have not sped in that way…’Hmm! So it is the biker’s fault, after all kids would play on roads and he should have been more careful, right? Everyone here treats the road in front of his house or apartment as his own playing ground. What a great feeling of one community… And they say…we must feel proud!!! And they are all honourable men.

After negotiating the community lanes, I hit the main road and within seconds I found myself drowned in the sea of maddening traffic. But you know what, on our roads you can just overtake from any side you like, change lanes at you will, honk as much as you want, stop whenever and wherever you like to, turn your vehicle wherever the thought hit you of doing so, not get surprised if a cow or buffalo is in your company and so on. In truest sense, if you want to experience freedom, come and drive on our roads. Where else would you find a road that lets you do whatever you want… And they say…we must feel proud!!! And they are all honourable men.

The route that I took was to pass by a railway station. As my car reached near the station, there was a huge traffic jam. A multitude of people were scrambling to enter the premises of the railway station with their belongings. I was amazed at the huge unusual rush. I asked one person that had railways started some special train or given some independence day special offer that they were all mobbing the place. Instead, I was told that that there had been some threats of attacks that have been given to people from a particular north-eastern state, in light of the recent riots in that state and violence in another city. Fearing the attacks thousands of innocent civilians were forced to flee the city that they had chosen for their livelihood. I wondered whether it is the great migration post-independence that we were witnessing! Those who had issued the threat are among those people who never fail to ensure that we get to witness history even if we have missed creation of the same before, time and again. And they say…we must feel proud!!! And they are all honourable men.

I thought it best to turn my car back and return to the safe environs of my home. I was so happy to see my family again. Rest of the day I spent just enjoying the celebration on display in the ‘idiot box’. As I write these lines, I do not know who is preparing to take the capital on seize for their political gains as millions struggle to go to work or return back to homes, how many more girls are being killed in womb or how many brides are being burnt alive for money, how many girls are being harassed by the moral police brigade for teaching them a lesson… Surprisingly when I share this with people many of them tell me to be more positive and feel proud of our country’s rich heritage and history. And if they say…we must feel proud!!! After all they are all honourable men.

'Undo' Death, 'Redo' Life!!!

Microsoft Office gave man a unique option, amidst other array of choices, the ‘undo’ command. With this command we may undo any previous text or formatting and if ‘undo’ has to undone then there is a ‘redo’ command as well that restores the earlier text or formatting.


Many times I have wished that if we could have the same buttons in our life as well…’undo’ the mistakes that I made, and ‘redo’ the same if the latter was a mistake in the first place. I don’t know how the world would turn-out to be if such buttons actually existed…may be a better place or may be even more chaotic. But the matter of fact remains that we are not lucky to have such buttons.

One reality that stares at everyone’s face at some point of time is death, although we do not like to think about it, especially when it comes to our loved ones. God forbid if it happens to one who is close to us, this is perhaps one thing we wish we could ‘undo’… and ‘redo’ or restore life & vitality in them.

Death strikes hard when it occurs at a young age and even worse if it hits the earning member of a family. The entire family, especially the kids, face a crisis that affects their whole life. I am sure the young kids and family of the GM(HR) killed in the Maruti Suzuki’s Mansesar plant’s madness would wish so much if they could ‘undo’ his death. Most companies have some form of one time compensation that they pay to the next of kin of the deceased employee. However there is one company which has taken such support extended to the family of the deceased employee to an altogether next level.

Google anticipates major life events of employees as soon as they join the company. Death is an eventuality, but Google not only very realistically anticipates the same for its employees but also secures their families in the event of such an eventuality, in a way that they would never monetarily miss their mom or dad who was once a member of the Google team. According to the report, under the perks scheme, along with 50 per cent of their partner's salary for a decade, surviving spouses will also have access to their partner's shares in the company. It also claimed that ‘benefits’ extend to all employees and do not require any tenure or accruement, and if a couple has children, they will receive 1000 dollars a month until the age of 19, or 23 if the child is a full-time student.

I do not know how Goggle employees would be reacting to this benefit but the move is tremendous, undoubtedly!!! We, in our lifetime earn to not only make our present better, but also consciously & at times sub-consciously try to secure the future of our families. A company that promises to look after your family & kids till they can self-sustain themselves in this material world could be the ultimate reassurance that an employee may ever want.

And we are not even taking of the innumerable benefits that Google’s offers to its employees in their life, but it seems to Google & its employees ‘even death cannot do them apart’. Perhaps the ‘undo’ command is a little less missed by the Google employees!

Secret to Safe Stock Investments

A class 8th teen girl who became a mother after being raped by a neighbour was issued a transfer certificate by a school in Bangalore. Threats from the rapist kept her silent and she went through medical complications before giving birth to a child. The school obviously thought that keeping the girl in the school would dent their reputation and wanted to throw the girl out of the school. In such situations the victim is generally abandoned and is left hapless on her fate. However in this girl’s case two unexpected support – one from her parents who have stood by her and filed a petition in the court against the school’s decision; and second the Karnataka High Court that has ruled in favour of the girl and instructed the school to take her back in the school. But for the girls and family any respite seems to be still a distant dream. As per reports the family continues to be harassed and boycotted by the locals.


According to yet another khap panchyat like ruling, a group in Ranchi, the state capital of Jharkhand has warned girls against wearing jeans and tops and have threatened them with dire consequences should they dare to do so!

From Ranchi to Bangalore, our society has treated girls and women like doormat, loading their dirt on them and then throwing them away for being subject to that mess.

In giving their due to girls and women the society shall do no favour to the former. In fact they shall be doing favour to themselves.

Take for example, the latest research report by the Credit Suisse research institute, created in the year 2008 to study the trends to affect global markets. According the report, companies with women on their boards performed better in challenging markets than those with all-male members in their boards. The research, which includes data from 2,360 companies, shows a greater correlation between stock performance and the presence of women on the board after the financial crisis started four years ago. Some of the important findings published in the report are:

1. Shares of companies with a market capitalization of more than $10 billion and with women board members outperformed comparable businesses with all-male boards by 26 percent worldwide over a period of six years.

2. Stocks of companies with women on boards tend to be a little more risk averse and have on average a little less debt, which seems to be one of the key reasons why they've outperformed so strongly in this particular period.

3. Net income growth for companies with women on their boards has averaged 14 percent over the past six years, compared with 10 percent for those with no female director.

4. The net-debt-to-equity ratio at companies with at least one female director was 48 percent, compared with 50 percent at all-male boards

5. Still there are many industries, worldwide, that do not promote women to their boards.

So finally the secret to making right investments in stocks is out! The next time you think of investing in stocks, look at the baord profile of the company. If you don't find any women, better play safe.

Anyways, I have said this before, I shall this again – a society that treats its girls and women with respect, does good to itself and its future. When a man gets educated, he runs a family, but when a girl or a women gets educated she transform the entire family and many a times the next few generations to come.

Those people harassing the teen victim or the group dictating women on what they should wear are cursed and are digging their own graves and may be for their future generations.

The Bull(ish) Pull - Employee Word-of-Mouth

In marketing it is said that ‘there is no better publicity than word-of-mouth’. When a marketer talks about his product/service you tend to believe some and discount some, but when your customers start talking good about your product/service it becomes much more believable. In technical terms the latter, where the customer publicizes the product, is known as ‘below the line’ or ‘pull marketing’.

‘The founder of Red Bull used pull marketing to promote his original product in the 1980s. He hired a Red Bull Wings Team to go out and talk to people one-to-one about the product. This helped to create consumer interest in the product. As people experienced the drink and appreciate its qualities, they became advocates for the brand. They shared their opinions with other consumers when they talked with friends. The promotion therefore created a ripple effect.’

Similarly the best publicity for a company’s employer brand is the voice of the employee. Puneet Bajwa, my ex-student and now a proud HR generalist at Tata Consultancy Services showed-up the other day partly by coincidence, partly by design, at my office. A customary question whenever we meet any of our past students is how are they doing? This question of mine was met with a very enthusiastic response from Puneet. She was gung-ho about her workplace and her manager. Her excitement about her organization made me to probe deeper into her experiences that ‘engage’ her so highly to her organization. My curiosity was even more since I had done a case on how TCS engages employees through a performance driven culture in my 2011 book ‘Employee Engagement’.

Puneet’s feeling about her company are so genuine and brimming-over that I just had to sit back and listen. Talking to Puneet was discovering even newer perspectives about the way TCS engages it’s employees. TCS comes-out as a very employee-friendly organization, and even more than that, a very female employee-friendly organization. Besides the usual stuff that companies generally do to engage women employees, TCS does something wonderful. It educates young mothers, amongst its set of employee, on the challenges of the early growing years of their child and the importance of spending more time with their child. The company even offers less demanding roles to such women, should they chose that way, so that they can attend to the needs of their infant child. These women employees are can later choose more demanding roles, once they feel that they can give more attention to their work.

As a HR generalist she manages the entire lifecycle of employees, her other counterparts. She was equally appreciative of her present and past managers. The support and the kind of opportunities that she received from her managers was ‘simply fabulous’, according to her. Her manager was responsible for letting her take early responsibilities in her career, that helped her to make her mark and create a space for her in the organization. Such support from managers (also read supervisors in PMS context) is not very common if research statistics are to be believed. Considering such facts, Puneet’s excitement is understandable.

I asked Puneet what are the top 5 things that she liked about her organization. She took 5 seconds to tell me these 5 points –

1. Great Manager (supervisor).

2. Autonomy at work.

3. Her role.

4. Compensation *

5. An Empathetic organization.

In my mind I thought that what better promotion of TCS’s employer brand can happen than an employee doing a voluntary publicity.

An engaged employee is not only the best brand ambassador that a company can have, through him/her it can perhaps garner the best zero cost, high impact publicity. And with social media around, the word-of-mouth may reach millions in seconds. Need I emphasize more…!!!

Return of Dark Ages

Half of India sunk into darkness as three grids in the North, East and North Eastern part of the country tripped. An estimated 600 million were plunged into darkness for more than 24 hours in what has infamously been now recorded in India’s name as the world’s biggest power blackout. Trains were jammed, traffic lights disrupted, factories stopped, and whole life came to a standstill for more than half of the nation. But most of the cricket crazy nation complained that this power disruption should not have happened atleast on the day when India very rarely registered an away-series win at Sri Lanka!

Maruti Suzuki’s violence and the stories emanating from the incident are most unfortunate and equally dark. The repercussions and far greater than estimated and may indicate a wider labour crisis in India that may hamper it’s image in the global market.

On one hand the statement of the S. Raju HR head at Maruti’s Manesar plant is heart-rending and send chill down one’s spine. The kind of riot & arson that happened in the those few hours on the fateful Thursday is horrifying tale of madness and labour extremism. The fact that this incident could have been prevented and the GM (HR) could have been alive but for the lack of agility of the police is shocking and numbing.

On the other hand, other stories that are emanating from the worker’s side show a huge disengagement amongst workers arising out of long brewing discontent. I quote from a recently published article:

"Mukesh Kumar Yadav says he’s struggling with medical bills after he lost two toes in an accident this month at a Maruti Suzuki India Ltd. (MSIL) plant. He’s a contract worker who earns a fraction of a permanent employee and isn’t entitled to on-the-job injury compensation.

“We do not matter to them and they have no duty toward us,” said Yadav, who takes home about 7,000 rupees ($126) a month as a forklift driver at Maruti Suzuki’s Manesar plant. “Maruti just gets us to work and gives us money.”

Prior to the violence erupting July 18, the Manesar plant had already seen three production stoppages in the past year, as workers went on strike demanding the right to form a union, higher pay and better working conditions.

While Yadav didn’t take part in the July 18 riot that shuttered the plant and led to the death of a manager, his story helps show why discontent was brewing among workers. Other carmakers should take note of worker complaints in the run-up to the violence at India’s largest carmaker because wage disparity is prevalent across the auto industry, said Ammar Master, an analyst at LMC Automotive.

“This combination of lower economic benefits and perceived inequality is a ticking time bomb waiting to explode at the slightest altercation,” said Master, who’s based in Bangkok. “This is going to be a problem for everybody unless they address the issues. If these labor issues are not addressed, it’s going to take away investors from India.”

India’s series win at the next door neighbour’s place and one bronze medal in London Olympics so far (with an average of 1 in a billion) may give us the illusion of light at the end of a long dark tunnel. And we may again say … Jai Ho…

Failure to address “people-centric” issues can jeopardise a cross-border M&A deal

"Sure, M&As grab headlines for their multi-billion dollar deal values. But if you think it is only sale-price which is the key to success of such deals, you may be in for a surprise.


Talent management, executive rewards, coupled with governance and organisational culture have emerged as key factors to successful cross-border M&A, according to the results of Mercer’s 2012 Asia Pacific Cross-Border Post-Merger Integration Survey.


“Failure to address “people-centric” issues appropriately can jeopardise the overall success of a cross-border M&A deal,” the survey says.


"Planning and execution around critical areas such as talent management, executive rewards, governance and organisational culture are essential during all stages of transactions," said Mr Len Gray, Mercer’s Global & Asia-Pacific M&A leader.


Forty-one companies across Asia Pacific that had recently acquired a new overseas-based business were interviewed by Mercer. Those interviewed on a one-to-one basis from these companies include: Human Resource Directors, Business Development and Corporate Strategy Executives from forty-one multinational and large local companies across a wide range of industries (retail, energy, food and beverage, financial services, engineering and technology) participated.


Only 24 per cent of the respondents cited sale price as a critical success factor for their M&A.


The majority, 76 per cent, said that business and organisation integration was the most important success factor, followed by talent retention (59 per cent), pointing to a strong emphasis on people- related issues.


Interestingly, almost 60 per cent of respondents identified culture as a top key challenge during integration, but most companies’ integration plans lack the right kind of detail.


“Working with HR on a robust integration plan prior to deal-close is vital, and means that critical people-related details are properly addressed and managed,” the survey revealed.


The experiences of survey respondents indicate that engaging HR professionals from the outset helps protect against unanticipated people issues arising during integration.


It indicated that 66 per cent of companies see executive compensation and benefits as their primary focus during HR due diligence. However, many companies do not have a clear strategy for managing differing executive reward schemes. Handling discrepancies between pay packages on a case-by-case basis can lead to prolonged and costly negotiations.

Further, 61 per cent viewed governance of the acquired company as the second most important initiative during integration. Strategies reported range from taking majority board seats and appointing key executives, to leaving the new company in the experienced hands of its existing leadership. Either way, organisational governance is seen as a key consideration when mergers span borders.


The report also found that a culture integration strategy will not fly without the buy-in of senior leaders. Any successful plan needs to be developed, owned and driven by these key influencers.


Keywords: cross border M&A, merger and acquisitions, M&As, talent management, Mercer 2012 Asia Pacific Cross-Border Post-Merger Integration Survey, Mercer survey, Mercer."

(Source: ‘People-centric’ issues key to successful cross-border M&A: Mercer survey, by Richa Mishra, Business Line, July 27, 2012)

Social Bankruptcy

Within a fortnight after the shocking incident of gang molestation & public stripping of an innocent helpless girl at Guwahati, comes another shocker…A young lady is sexually harassed, slapped and assaulted by four youth in a moving train, in broad daylight and in full public glare. The lady, an orphan, runs towards the other part of the compartment to save herself when the youths ask for sexual favours in return for money. She refuses and resists and is thrown away from the train. The lady lands 25 feet below on a dry river bed…

Not a single passenger protested the crime or came to her rescue. Her only fault was that she was travelling alone in the train (read as without a male counterpart, in our country). She survived miraculously, but suffered grievous injuries. The place (Maddur) where the incident happened is only about 80 kms away for the IT super city Bangalore.

What is common between the two incidents? No prizes for guessing…devilish behaviour of few men and total public apathy. Such behavior is spiteful, unfortunate, uncivilized, savage and uncultured.

I am not exaggerating or over-generalizing but most men folk in this part of the world behave like wild animals. For that matter ask any girl or women in this country, if ever they have encountered any kind of teasing or sexually laced advances or attempts by men folk. Almost every female will tell you that they have witnessed something of this sort (minimum is an uncomfortable bad touch) at one time or the other in their lives. The culprits are all around the streets, lanes and public places, and many times the tormentors are close relatives and friends. The victims are helpless, most of the times, and silently suffer because of taboo or fear of social boycott (as by default a lady’s morality is questioned in such cases in our culture) or because of fear of physical security of self and of family members.

I am not painting the picture black, but undoubtedly there are lots of ugly black spots & blotches on our social canvass.

Even pathetic is the response of the custodians of the civil society. They are insensitive, preach morality to female victims instead and do nothing more than lip-service.

Organizations, mini-society in themselves, are mirror images of the larger society. At the cost of repetition perhaps, but I wish to emphasize that they need to be more cognizant of the social dynamics that prevails in countries like India. Such prowling vultures, who see women as an object of desire, could inhabitate organizations as stealthily as they populate the larger society, in the garb of official cloaks. The organizational policy and machinery must be sharp and alert to detect such people with sick minds and deal with them in the toughest manner possible.

A Melbourne Business School report has found that sexist jokes negatively impact women’s performance at work. The report also indicates that organizations fail to tackle ‘low-level of sexism’ despite having policies in place that target ‘overt sexual harassment’.

In India, the situation worsens further because the policies not only fail to check the rampant ‘low-level of sexism; in organizations but also many a time fails to deal ‘overt sexual harassment’ with an iron-fist. Amongst many reasons for the same, lack of proper reporting mechanisms, management apathy (much like prevailing social apathy), long legal route and social harassment of the victim, are the primary reasons. It’s high time organizations do something about this issue that perhaps single-handedly erodes engagement in organizations, especially of the female employees.

Socially and culturally, however, I feel we are close to bankruptcy. Hopes of social and cultural transformation seem bleak at the moment and without the same, I do not see how our organizations would be able to deal with such menace.

Social Media & Individual Liberty

Nothing is private on social media, not even when you try to ensure that it remains private by using closed groups or anything. Surprises on social media could be pleasant at times, and sometimes they may be definitely unwelcome. Like yesterday, someone tagged me to photo on Facebook without any knowledge of mine. When I checked my mail (that is my username for my FB account), I saw some 15 comments on that photo. The comments were not that good, worse some thought that I had posted that photo. However the good thing was that I could immediately clear the air by posting a comment and ensured that I could be untagged from the photo. Despite this the experience was not all that sweet. My right to express should not be hijacked by someone else who tags me to something that I neither know nor do I subscribe to.


Social media is a unique many to many communication tool that ensures messages, comments, news, events etc. becoming viral on the web in matter of minutes or hours. The impact is huge. The power of social media is unmatched and profound. It has given people like Justin Bieber superstardom status.

Having said this, from a user point of view one needs to be a little careful about one’s social media activity. Whatever one shares on social media could reach many intended and also to many more unintended in very less time. I am all for the free nature of social media. But I think both individuals and companies need to be careful of their social media activity that it does not breach any other individual’s liberty. No one has the right to trespass on the liberty of others, as much as they have right to protect their own.

Take for instance, late last year a British body that helps improve relationships with workers warned employers that they could end up being sued if they use sites like Facebook to spy on the private lives of their employees. The body found that some companies were using social media and web to glean personal information like religious belief of their employees and using it against them. While social media offers employers an opportunity to pre-qualify their candidates before hiring using social media and web information, technically called backchannel referencing; some companies seem to be trying to get hold of the personal information of their employees.