The New Hero

Many years back, when I was still residing in one of the sleepy towns of North India, I remember that when a dealer of Hero Honda bikes expired, the Munjals and their senior managers themselves paid a visit to the bereaved family and offered their condolences. The dealer had been a long time associate of the company. The Munjals also assured their continued support for the dealership and to the young successor of the deceased dealer. The news made headlines in the local dailies and a lot of goodwill among the public in general was generated, for it was unprecedented for a company’s chairman to be paying personal visit to dealers, especially in small sleepy towns.


This quality of the Hero group’s first family has endeared them to their various stakeholders. True engagement lies in connecting the ‘internal’ with the ‘external’ of an organization. After splitting with their Japanese counterpart Honda in December 2010, Hero group has a task in hand to restore the confidence of the employees (internal) and of the customers, investors and society at large that includes their business partners as well (external). And the group seems to be making all the right sounds -

When the new logo of the now – Hero Moto Corp was unveiled then Brijmohan Lall, Chairman, Hero MotoCorp Ltd, said “Today is a historic day. It is not just a change of name; it marks the ushering in of a new era that will unlock the immense potential of this company to build its own capabilities to grow beyond boundaries and set new benchmarks. As we set out on this exciting new journey, we look forward to the continued support of all our stakeholders including dealer friends, suppliers, employees and all our associates.”

The latest campaign of Hero Moto Corp featuring the theme song – ‘Hum Mein Hain Hero’, composed by the Oscar winning A.R. Rahman has become quite a hit. The credit goes to the innovative strategy of ‘engaging’ with the customers and the society at a tangible level. The company has solicited videos from the public-in-general singing the song (whose lyrics are uploaded on the website in various languages). Fresh TV ads are being prepared by editing & combining the videos uploaded by the people. Videos can be uploaded at http://heromotocorp.com/ or http://www.billionvoices.in/index.php . In this age of social networking people seem to be loving it, for it gives them an opportunity to be on television and gain instant fame. The company is loving it, since it gives them an opportunity to actually connect to millions of people and also to maintain the freshness of their advertisements without almost spending a penny. The resulting ROI must be very high.

The lessons of engaging employees can come from anywhere and as we look at the Hero Moto Corp today, the lessons are five –

• Get the communication right.

• Get the target (the ones to be engaged) to participate.

• Give the target instant yet tangible takeaways.

• Zero or minimal investments can also give very very high ROI.

• Many times investment is leadership rather than money.

Strategic Disengagement

When Mohandas Pai quit Infosys in April last year, it came as a shocker to many. Mohandas Pai had a long stint at Infosys and as the CFO, he played a strategic role in transforming Infosys into one of the world’s most respected and widely known software services companies. Mohan was an integral part of the Infosys team that enabled the first listing of an India-registered company on NASDAQ and the first sponsored secondary offering of American Depositary Shares by an Indian company. He was voted ‘CFO of the Year’ in 2001 by IMA India. He won the ‘Best CFO in India’ award from Finance Asia in 2002, and ‘Best Chief Financial Officer in India’ in the Best Managed Companies poll conducted by AsiaMoney in 2004. Hence when Pai left Infosys, many rumors were floated. Although both Pai and the Infosys management denied any differences, Pai’s decision was largely seen as a discontent over the company’s strategy in choosing the CEO of the company. The idea of musical chair for the top post open only to the founders of the company, saw other deserving aspirants like Pai losig hope. “Pai should have been in line for the COO's post but the prospect of waiting out Shibulal's term with no guarantee that he would be elevated in his mid-50s to the CEO's post might have been the trigger for the decision.” Losing a seasoned player like Pai was definitely ‘no gain’ for the company.

Something similar is now blowing over HUL. The exit of three of the eight executive directors in the last 18 months, as well as managerial-exits at other levels has begun to ring alarm for the company. The FMCG giant once considered the ‘impregnable vault of top-notch talent, is now beginning to look vulnerable’. The exodus of top executives of HUL is being linked to the strategic changes affected by the Unilever CEO Paul Polman. Paul, the first outsider to assume the company’s CEO position in the last 77 years, besides consolidating the HUL business into our divisions, has brought about some changes like –

• Centralizing much of the decision-making globally.

• Forcing company to consider outside talent for every senior management role.

• Roles have become fewer, more functional, and narrower.

• Longer tenures for managers, at every level including CEO.

The impact of such changes have been reportedly –

• Lesser operational freedom for managers.

• Managers feeling stifled with paucity of growth options.

• Internal candidates unsure of their career progression.

• Global posting no longer attractive.

The company on its part claims such changes to be a part of their talent management strategy and an effort to invest in young, diverse and high-potential individuals. But even that does not explain the curbing of managerial freedom in decision-making, decline in growth opportunities even though the company is growing and career opportunities losing their panache. A competitor is reportedly netting many HUL executives.

Many years back when Indian public sector banks rolled-out VRS (voluntary retirement scheme) to allow the mediocre to have an honorable and attractive exit route, it ended-up losing its most talented employees, instead. The loss of the PSU banks, was the gain of many foreign and private banks entering the Indian scene at that time. The proposed ‘golden handshake’ turned out to be a ‘thorny-handcuff’ for the banks that were left grappling with loss of intellectual capital, high customer discontent and a stronger competition from the new players (whom they help unknowingly).

Does this mean strategic changes are not required? No, at times changes have to be affected at a strategic level, however a good strategy shall never lose its connect and sight with its people (especially talent) and with its priorities. Besides such changes should never lead to an advantage for the competitor, when in the first place that was meant to be a competitive advantage for the company itself.

Cases for Strategic Disengagement?

The 'Buffalo Model'

Interested in buying a Buffalo that gives 20 litres of milk per day? Well! It’s not me asking you that question, it’s actually Indian e-commerce Web site eBay. ‘A seller had listed a “milk giving black young buffalo, 20 litres per day.” The “Item condition” was described as “Used.” Delivery would be free, by national courier. There was even a seven days' exchange offer thrown in.’

Although, eBay India did not want to talk about where the listing was posted from as the company did not want “a prohibited item to portray the rural penetration” that the Web site has made, however, the fact that awareness of e-commerce has grown to the extent that a livestock-owner somewhere in the country chose to put up his buffalo for sale on an e-commerce Web site is both amazing and indicative.

Indicative in the sense of new business models taking shape and the need to innovate in times when the going seems to be arduous and demanding. The other day Mr Kris Gopalakrishnan, Executive Co-Chairman, Infosys remarked – ‘Cloud computing, mobility, big data and analytics are new entrepreneurship models for India to pursue.’

Innovative business models require grassroots innovation. Such innovations happen through a culture of innovation that an organization creates where employees find greater engagements then there mere jobs. Google & Facebook have done it better than Yahoo; Titan has done it better than HMT; Microsoft has done it better than any other companies…

Such innovation culture shall have essentially four core elements –

1. Freedom – to think radically, to express, to differ, to experiment, to act…

2. Commitment – from the top, for planned resources; to take risks.

3. Develop – contemporary skill inventory; expertise; talent.

4. Network – for networking and facilitation; with clients/customers.

You may call it the 'Buffalo Model.'

Customized Delight

'At 3 a.m. Antoinette Leatherberry hauled herself out of bed to get ready for a flight to Arkansas. The 47-year-old Deloitte principal trekked from Philadelphia to Bentonville almost every week to consult with Wal-Mart ( WMT - news - people ). It was a grueling schedule, but Leatherberry loved the work.



This week was different. She stepped into the bathroom and found her husband, Stephen, sprawled on the floor, dead from a heart attack. Describing that morning now, a year afterward, she still sounds shaken.


The shock of loss was compounded by worries about work: How would she handle 60-hour weeks, care for her 9- and 10-year-old daughters and manage her own grief?


Fortunately for Leatherberry, Deloitte had a number of programs in place designed to help its 38,000 U.S. employees manage crises and balance work with lives out of synch with the old-fashioned American ideal of a working husband and a homemaker wife. (Only 17% of U.S. households fit this description, according to Labor Department data.)


Because Deloitte dwells in the world of business consulting, most of the programs have jargon-heavy names and corny acronyms like win, for Women's Initiative, the firmwide effort it began 17 years ago to support and promote women. But beneath the consultant-speak, say advocates for women in the workplace, is meaningful action that has transformed Deloitte from a sexist boys' club to an inclusive company where managers bend over backward to nurture women's careers.......


In Leatherberry's case, a five-year-old program called Mass Career Customization proved a lifesaver. All Deloitte employees, including senior managers, can choose to "dial up" or "dial down" their careers, depending on life circumstances. Twice a year (or as needed) employees meet with a counselor and decide how they want to work in four categories--pace of career, workload, location and schedule (including travel and telecommuting), and role. Employees can elect to scale up or cut back on any or all of the four. Cut back productivity by 40% or more and compensation is reduced.


For Leatherberry, who had been traveling from Monday until Friday every week, location and schedule were the crucial pieces. She dialed her travel schedule back to one or two nights a week. She didn't trim her hours, however, so her compensation stayed the same. At the end of the summer, after hiring live-in help, she dialed her travel schedule back up.


In 1993, before Deloitte introduced its Women's Initiative, only 7% of its partners, principals and directors were female. Though the firm had been hiring equal numbers of male and female employees, the annual attrition rate for women was seven percentage points higher........


By The Numbers: Accounting for Gender


Deloitte started its Women's Initiative in 1993. Here's how its gender breakdown in mid- and senior-level U.S. staff has changed since then.


30% Percentage of women managers in 1993.


37% Percentage of women managers today.


7% Percentage of women partners, principals and directors in 1994.


23% Percentage of women partners, principals and directors today (total: 1,053).'

(Excerpts from the article - Making A Female-Friendly Workplace by Susan Adams, Forbes Magazine, April 26, 2010)

Signs of a Disengaged Organization

Is court is the right place to settle issues between employees and employer? Right or Wrong, but definitely not the ideal place, especially when the issues are trivial and could have been easily sorted-out away from the public and media glare.


The fact that for the first time a serving general of the Indian Army has dragged the government (employer in this case) to the court over the issue of correction of his date of birth is both unprecedented & unfortunate. Army Chief Gen V.K Singh has reportedly challenged the government in the court over the festering issue of his DOB, that he claims to be May 10, 1951 then what the records show to be May 10, 1950, amidst accusation that he was trying to extend his service at the fag-end of his career.

The issue appears too trivial to become a case in the court. Is it a case of a general trying to protect his honour or an organization bearing the brunt of a disgruntled employee? Well! The blame-game can continue but truth may never be known. However one thing is certain that prima-facie it is apparent that the issue could have been resolved internally. And, who shall win this case is of less significance. More than anything else, it perhaps shows how the organization is communicating; what levels of trust prevails in the organization! If the head of the organization (equivalent to CEO of the company) feels that the only recourse with the employer is the legal recourse, then what impact does it have on the morale of other employees in the organization? Is this a sign of a deeper systematic rot? Is this the symptom of a disengaged organization?

An airline recently dropping its passengers at the wrong airport, the pilot mistaking Kochi for Kozhikode; the members of a state legislature demanding a gadget that has yet not been released by the company that manufactures the same aren’t they all similar symptoms? Although, they appear to be funny& trivial, but deep down something appears to be seriously wrong inside the organization.

A latest Volkswagen Polo, TV advertisement shows a man (owner of the VW Polo) taking a rebirth as son of his own son to ride the car again. The punch line appears – ‘Volkswagen Polo, You will come back for it’. Another advertisement that caught my eye was of Hero Motor Corp, the new avtar of Hero Group (after breaking-off with Honda) trying to build its brand. A song ‘Hum Mein Hain Hero’ that has become quite famous now is played in the background but unlike the first ad of their campaign (where it shows people fighting against their odds& winning), it depicts kids lip sing the song. Both advertisements attempt and largely succeed to create a strong ‘engagement’ with the audience. The hero ad tries to engage with the kids, their future customers (who shall not remember them as Hero Honda).
Both these ads show- a) A little communication can create engagement; b) However, communication has to be appealing (touching both emotional & rational chords) to create engagement: and, c) Engagement is always for a very long term. It never sets- out to just to cling for the time being. The vision is always for a long haul.
Engagement is no rocket- science but some organizations make it look like one.

Mobile - Agile or Futile?

Some regulations are reportedly coming into effect that shall make it mandatory for mobile manufacturers to affix a radiation-tag on the handsets. These tags shall inform the users about the harmful effects of the radiation that a phone emits. Only time shall tell how consumers shall react to such tags but it is really funny that things have come to such a passé. Will now our mobile phones have warnings messages written ‘Using this handset may be dangerous for your health’ like the cigarette packs have?

Mobile communication has undoubtedly transformed people used to communicate. Imagine at one point of time if you had to make an STD call, you would have to go to the telephone office and book a trunk call and then again go at the designated time to make that call. Today calling anyone anywhere in the world is just a finger-click away. However with the utility also came the ills which had to mainly to do with the way people starting using the gadget. The result was at times funny, at times, dangerous, sometimes insensitive and at other times taxing. I am always amused when I find people taking calls even when they are using the restrooms. Sometimes if you enter a public restroom then you might be greeted with someone clutching the mobile phone between his ear and shoulder, busy talking, almost forgetting the very purpose of getting in to the restroom in the first place. At other times, I have seen people coming towards me talking and smiling to themselves. On closer introspection, you will find that they are talking on mobile ‘hands-free’. The number of accidents that happen to people, who use mobile when they are drive, is on the rise. Using a mobile when driving a vehicle when driving a vehicle is not only dangerous to the person engaging in the act but he/she also risks the lives of others on the road. Have you seen people talking on mobile loudly in public places especially in a doctor’s clinic or in a hospital? That’s what I call as insensitive use of mobile. Actually I have even seen people taking calls when attending cremation of a friend. How bizarre! One moment the person is mourning the last rites of his friend, the other moment the mobile rings and is happily chatting completely oblivious to the situation.

However one impact of mobiles that has been profound is the ability to reach anyone at anytime. The anytime reach-ability of the mobile has also meant that it has caused lot of stress. This has been most pronounced I the case of work. There seems to be no respite for many who just cannot switch-off from the work. They virtually carry their office in the form of their mobiles wherever they go, 24 hours, 365 days a year! That’s horrible. The nature of work hours, more than the actual work hours have led to drastic increase in work stress.

In some companies however, a deal has been struck between the employee unions and the management that calls for restraining the management from making calls or sending messages to their employees during certain hours. For instance in the case of the German car manufacturer Volkswagen, an agreement has been reached between the IG metal union and the company’s management not to send any emails to the employee’s BlackBerrys between 6:15 p.m. and 7:00 a.m. Similarly in the case of Henkel, an agreement was reached recently to spare employees from any messages during Christmas and New Year and also during weekends, except in case of an emergency. The common belief in these companies is that people must not be pestered for work during times meant for their families. This would lead to lesser work stress and better productivity.

Irrespective of whether the radiation-tag comes to the mobile handsets or not, some companies are fast realizing that asking their employees to use mobiles always for work, without a break, is dysfunctional and unproductive.

Mobile can be agile, provided used in style that is not guile or futile, but can bring back to work the much needed smile!

The Choice to Leave

‘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)

Work in Space!

One of the things that I remember very vividly from my childhood and now sorely miss in the hi-tech city life is lying on the roof under an open sky and gazing at the stars. The sky used to appear like a huge black velvet screen with diamond-like stars pierced in it. And whenever one of those stars was dislodged from its positions and started a freefall, immediately I would in my mind repeat all my wishes, for I had heard that wishes made by looking at a falling star often came true. I do not recount how many of those wishes came true but that open sky, the vastness and the open airy feeling is definitely not coming true anymore. The high-rise concrete and the haze caused by the gallons of smoke bellowing from all machines of man have blocked the view. I am not complaining as I have chosen this life myself and enjoy it’s trappings like no other, but there is something about open skies that draws us closer. The clear blue skies with cotton-like clouds sailing over our heads, the misty sky during the winters dropping dew drops from nowhere, the pouring sky during monsoons drenching us with contentment and at times the still-sky where nothing seems to change position yet time passes with its speed. There is an excitement, adventure, romanticism with an element of vulnerability under the open sky that I have always loved and liked.

Perhaps to recreate this feeling of spaciousness and freedom that people generally feel under the open sky, a German company has come up with a dynamic luminous ceiling system for offices that can make workers feel as though they are working under the open sky. ‘As the wind swiftly blows clouds across the sky, the light is in a constant state of change.' The researchers from the Stuttgart-based Fraunhofer Institute for Industrial Engineering IAO replicate the luminous ceiling indoors by using a combination of red, blue, green and white LEDs in order to produce the full spectrum. This combination makes it possible to generate more than 16 million hues. Preliminary studies indicate that users (employees) have found the lighting to be extremely pleasant.

Workplaces are drastically altering and the contemporary workplace design place emphasis on engaging the employees by creating a feeling of informality, spaciousness and freedom, much contrast to what offices have traditionally meant – claustrophobic cubicles, boring interiors and formal curbs. Organizations are realizing hat to unlock the true potential and creativity in employees, the workplace design and environment plays a significant role.

In June 2011, the late Steve Jobs announced Apple’s plan to build a new building that shall look like a spaceship and could house 12000 people. Amazing design with 80% of the area under landscaping, 6000 trees, modern amenities, clean energy and much more. In the video (link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2do9-wauI98 ), the late jobs takes you through his dream that he planned to make a reality by 2015.

May be one day, the workplaces shall come with customized & dynamic wall-papers, sky-shots, climate-preference switches and more, recreating a place that we cherish… Too much of a dream?

Who's on the seat next to you?

During bus journeys at times you may bump across very irritating people. The other day, I was able to secure myself a seat only towards the rear-end of a mini-bus. The roads and the worn-out shockers of the bus meant that my journey was quite bumpy and my bones & joints were tested once again. I however buried myself in a Ruskin Bond to take my mind-off the excruciating ride. From one of the stops boarded a middle-aged man with receding grey hairline and an outstretching waistline. He sat next to my seat in the opposite row. I and he were separated by a narrow alley. After sometime he stretched his hand across, to rest it on the back of the seat in front of me. He had not only blocked me in my seat but his hands were almost parallel to my face and I started to feel a little uncomfortable. He happened to know the person sitting on the seat ahead of me and started to loudly converse with him. After sometime he fell quiet and started to glance through a newspaper. Then he again patted the guy in front of me and gave him to read a comic strip that he had just read in the newspaper, with a wide grin on his face. His teeth colured by betel leaf were looking as if soaked in blood after a fresh hunt. He held his monstrous-grin till the other guy turned back and gave him a smile back. This turned the grin on the face of the ‘monster’ next to me into a loud roar-like-laughter. More than half of the bus turned back to see what had just shook the earth. But the ‘monster’ continued to be blissfully unaware of his actions and continued with more such misadventures till the end of the journey. By that time, along with my bones, my mind also felt cracking.


The lack of awareness about the implications of one’s actions on others is what makes a person irritating and at times obnoxious. However surprisingly many people suffer from such lack of awareness. When managers in any organization suffer from such syndrome then the impact that it has on his team or department members is always dysfunctional. Managers are key to engagement and one of the first steps towards improving effectiveness is to try to become more aware of one’s words and actions on others. The truth behind the famous adage that ‘people do not leave their organizations, they leave their supervisors (managers)’ makes such awareness even more important.

Recently, Nandini Piramal, Executive Director at Piramal Healthcare Ltd. said in an interview that – “The ultimate in people management is about how you make it a win-win situation for everybody involved. People have to want to do something for them to execute it well. In a way, I don't look at HR as a separate function. How you manage people, how you think about people, their careers — that's what a good manager should do. HR does provide structure in how you think about these things. But ultimately, if a manager doesn't think about these things, he's not playing a manager's role.”

Some of the things that managers usually do without realizing their implications are self-praise, crack loathsome jokes, steal credit, belittle junior colleague in front of the latter’s family, become rigid & bureaucratic, pretend, use wrong language, show cultural-insensitivity, show gender-insensitivity etc.

An airline recently started a system, by which using social media, passengers would be able to determine the person who shall sit on the seat next to him/her. Only if people could do the same in choosing their mangers! But since such an idea seems remote, hence the organizations can do better by training their managers on how to become better co-travelers in the organizational journey.

Kiss & Hug versus Real-Deals

Influenced by ‘KBC’, the Indian version of ‘Who Wants to be Millionaire’, I and my son often play our own version of the quiz-show at home. The other day, it was first my turn to be on hot seat and Arnab was the quizzer. I was wondering what would he give me as ‘prize money’ and thought maybe he will fake it like kids do with some torn pieces of paper as currency. But he turned-out to be smarter than I thought he was and when I answered the first question correctly he announced with flair that I had won one kiss & a hug from him. The he followed this by showering the ‘prize’ on me immediately, as a ‘signed cheque’. He asked me five more questions and every time he kept increasing the kisses & hugs much to my amusement and our happiness.
Then came my turn to be the quizzer, his turn to be on the hot seat. I thought I shall copy him and give him kisses & hugs as he keeps on answering the questions correctly. But this time again, he turned-out to be smarter than I thought. When he answered the first question correctly and I told him that he had won a kiss & a hug he took the same but said that this won’t suffice as the ‘prize money’. He wanted some real deals every time he gave a correct answer. So I had to give him a ‘Calcium Sadoz’ tablet, a Hajmola (tasty digestive chew), Mentos and few Polo Mint-rings in the subsequent questions and his correct responses that followed. He however did not miss-out on my kisses & hugs, as well.


Expectations from everyone are not the same. From someone it may be just and kiss & a hug whereas from someone else it may be some real-deals as well, in addition to the kiss & hug. Engagement is as much on the rational plane as much it is on the emotional plane.

Maruti Suzuki, India’s largest carmaker seems to be doing just that! The year 2011 saw the carmaker being jolted by series of labour strikes at its Manesar plant in North India. The worker’s demand for fair-treatment and for a separate union, than the already existing labour union at the Gurgaon plant, was opposed by the management. The face-off between the management and the workers reached a flash-point when the management demanded the worker to sign a good-conduct bond. However after losing out on considerable sales and market-advantage, the management seems to be finally learning its lessons. It has done a complete U-turn on its earlier stance. Now the Maruti management is actively following-up with the state government’s labour department for the verification and registration of the new union formed by the workers at the Manesar plant. In addition they are also revising the wages of the workers and currently are in the wage-settlement process. The Management initiative to get the new union registered is more of a ‘kiss & hug’ whereas the wage-revision is more like the ‘real-deal’.

Remote Control

"Anita Guha has been working from her home in Mumbai for the past 10 years. She facilitates leadership development programmes for IBM. She opted to work from home when she had her second daughter. She didn't want to miss out on her children's early years. Later she found herself taking on mostly global roles, where she could be more productive at home. She could also save time on commuting to work. IBM was fine with the arrangement....
Google offers employees in India flexible work timings and the authority to define their own schedule and type of work. SAP allows employees to work one day a week from home. Some have formal work-from-home policies, but with the condition that employees have to work it out with their manager.

Saritha Raghavan, HR solutions analyst at Juniper, had been advised by her doctor to take special care when she was expecting a baby. "Since my parents lived in Kerala and my spouse had an extremely busy work schedule, it was very difficult for me to cope alone. Juniper supported me at this juncture and permitted me to work from Kerala," she says.
Vishak Gopinath, part of the corporate communications team at Cisco India, says he frequently works from home. "I also often leave the office early to beat the evening traffic, and then work from home." Rony Thomas, corporate communications manager at HP India, says the facility has been a boon for him ever since he and wife Priya, who also works, had a baby 19 months ago. He says the focus in HP is on getting the work done. "A lot of people take calls late in the night or early morning, so we are flexible about the day timings. You have to work it out with the manager," he says."

IBM
Allows several category of employees to work from home. for many others, it's flexible, with managers taking the call, Work/life balance touches morale, productivity and retention. Current lifestyles have resulted in higher stress levels and IBM takes a positive view towards creating conducive environment to help people integrate work and life.
Dell
Has launched a 3-month Connected Workplace pilot project in Nov. 2011. Under this a select team connects to the Dell network only through remote connection.
Microsoft
Allows flexible scheduling, allows employees to work part-time or full-time from home, provided the manager permits.
Juniper
Allows flexible scheduling, allows employees to work part-time or full-time from home, provided the manager permits.
HCL Technologies
has initiated a work from home policy. the idea is to improve employee morale and motivation.
Accenture
Has a formal flexible working arrangement poilcy that enables employees to take up flex time and work from home. has employees who have been working from home ofr years.
Yahoo
Allows employees to work from home provided they are avaliable on calls, participate in meetings and are able to meet deadline. Encourages employees to work on outcome-based working model and hnece doesn't track number of work-hours put in the office.
Google
Offers employees flexible work timings and the authority to define their own schedules/type of work.
SAP
Allows employees to work from home one day a week. With permission of the manager this can be extended upto two days.
CISCO, WIPRO, Intel, HP, Netapp, Texas Instruments
Very flexible options, requires manager's permission
Infosys
wroking for 3.5 hours in a day is counted as being present on the day. The rest of the hours can be done at home with the permission of the manager.

(Source: Officially at home, Sujit John, The Times of India, Jan. 3, 2011)

Three Critical Faciltators
The three critical faciltators in letting people work from places other than office are -
The Manager
Manager is key in the entire scheme of things. If the manager is stuck-up the whole arrangement goes for a toss.
Employee
The maturity of the meployee and self-management ability is important. Outcome-based working models are helpful.
Technology
The third and the last critical link is the technology that acts as a enabler

Engagement Velocity

A typical day, the ‘strike-day’ in a particular southern state that has a history of strikes, the scene is all but predictable. The members of the political party that is staging the strike outside the secretariat start the strike on a quiet note. Slowly they start piling in front of the Secretariat building. The constabulary is standing on the other side, with the front row composed of fresh recruits who have been ragged enough by the seniors and are raring to let loose the batons that they are wielding on anything mortal. Then some stones are thrown by the demonstrators. Before the entire verbal order by the constabulary in-charge can be completed the ‘itching front-row enforcers’ let loose their sticks on the 'stoning protesters'. By that time ‘Varun’ arrives to the scene. Varun is the water cannon used by the constabulary to disperse protesters. The next thing you can see is that the demonstrators are floating and are being swept away in a pool of water. At times, if tear gas shells are fired at the demonstrators, there are cadres within them (those wearing masks) whose job is to block the shells and throw them back at the constabulary. The constabulary is seldom wearing masks and the next thing you see is a part of the ‘originators’ jumping on their own missiles, teary-eyed. The whole scene is so predictable and repetitive that it appears both sides know their ‘roles’ too well and in no time everything is over and pridefully ‘nothing’, absolutely ‘nothing’ has been achieved.


The year 2011 had been a year of strikes- the big Maruti strike, the Bosch strike, the Coal India strike, the endless Air India strikes and more…However it is still not clear what most of these strikes were directed at or what they aimed to achieve. For instance the Maruti strike started on a demand to form a separate union by workers at a particular plant, continued on workers disagreement to sign a ‘good-conduct bond’ instructed by the management and failed to achieve anything substantial except causing the company to lose on critical sales especially of diesel cars at a time when total car sales were not looking particularly bright (YoY). The Bosch strike started with workers protesting against proposed outsourcing of ancillary activities by the management, with accusations by workers against management’s changing stance and retraction from promise of not doing so! The strike ended without any agreement and the case has been referred for adjudication. The Air India strikes by pilots, ground-staff have been riddled with controversies in the backdrop of despicable performance by Air India. In short, in all these cases the disengagement was clearly staring at the world. It was more than obvious that a severe lack of trust and low engagement was the bigger reason than any other quoted by the workers or the management for these strikes. They appeared to be too orchestrated and both the sides taking historical roles rather than trying to understand each other or converse with each other.

Direction is always relative to something – Instead of saying that the church is to the north of capitol or to the south of the supermart, if we say that the church is in the west, you will never find one, would you? Similarly engagement is always relative to something. Engagement to job, to the leadership, to the contributions, to the idea-sharing & creation, to the career-options and more, on the super base of organization-culture of trust & openness. And, hence, any misdirected engagement effort, which is not clear on objective it seeks to achieve, shall not yield anything. The onus of this does not always lie with the management alone but also with the employees. Else, both the parties shall continue to ‘act’ their ‘roles’, without practically achieving anything worthy.

Just to reinforce in the new year - Engagement is like Velocity, which is a Vector entity - must have speed as well as direction!