I started my career with Wipro in 1983 recruited straight out of BITS, Pilani. I joined freshers from IIMs, RECs, IITs, and IISc, who Wipro had chosen for its newly formed Information Technology Division. During the next three months of orientation training, I heard many different folks from R&D, Sales, Quality, Manufacturing come and talk to us on different topics. We had an impressive sales training workshop where all of us were put through the hoops on how to talk and interact with customers, through role-playing. The climax was, of course, the address by A. H. Premji where he talked not about revenues or bottom line, but about Wipro's value systems and beliefs, and his vision for the kind of organization he wanted to build where means mattered as much as the ends. The impressions of Wipro that formed in me then, are still fresh in my mind: That of a big company out to change India's IT landscape. An A-class leadership team with impeccable credentials - top-notch engineers and MBAs with experience in blue chip companies including the Tata Administrative Services. A company that wants to do the best for its customers. And, above all, a company that while striving for the greatest heights demanded the highest level of integrity from each of its employees. We had all the bearings and élan of a company that was prepared for the long haul.
Looking back, it is obvious that Premji was not thinking short term! He was laying the foundation for what he obviously believed was an opportunity to build a global player in the nascent high growth technology industry. He was choosing each person on the team with care; much like a builder would pick his materials if he were aiming to build a skyscraper. Hats off to Premji and his likes, for honestly, to most of us, the India of that era did not look or feel like it had the potential to be a technology powerhouse. These pioneers had to do a great leap of faith then, but today they stand vindicated many times over.
Now, fast forward to today. Unlike that era, the India of today feels like a very different country. During the last couple years, we have seen the Indian economy come out of recession faster than any other country in the world. Employment numbers are up. Consumer confidence is up. In fact we are doing a lot better than where we left off in 2007. For, this time our growth is across sectors and is beginning to be driven by domestic consumption. President Obama visited us to strike deals that would generate jobs for Americans (!) And the French and Chinese leaders closely followed him, for the same reason really. The mood in our country is decidedly upbeat, as we look forward to doing even better in the coming year.
While we have had a couple brief periods of 'India Shining' in the past too, this time somehow, things appear to be for real. We seem to have entered a secular period of sustained growth since the last 10 years. Governments have come and gone across the country, but the economy has marched on unabated at 8-9 per cent growth. We are seeing growth across sectors, and across geographies - witness Bihar in the last 5 years! Interestingly, India's growth momentum is accelerating at the same time that the developed world appears headed for a sustained period of slowdown. And this is sending large quantities of much-needed capital our way, which is being used to create physical, social and economic infrastructure at a pace and scale we have only dreamt of hitherto. It does appear that the 'decoupling' of our economy from the west that pundits have been predicting for long, is now underway indeed.
Now, add to this all the inherent advantages we have known we possess as a country, and we can see why the world is looking to India as one of the future engines of economic growth. We have one of the biggest talent pools in the world today; especially if we include the Indian Diaspora which is more than ready to pitch in to fill the skill gaps, be that in technology innovation or international marketing. We understand the language of venture capital, start-ups and entrepreneurship intuitively, given our thriving small business culture. We have an independent and functioning judiciary. Our democracy empowers people to demand equal chance at growth. India has an enviable demography wherein more than 50 per cent of our population is below the age of 25, and more than 65 per cent are below the age of 35. Plus our economy is predominantly led by services and domestic consumption very much like the US economy and quite unlike others.
Indeed, today, the state of our economy is a lot closer than we realise to that of post World War II USA, when the term 'American Dream' began to imply boundless opportunities to anybody who dared to dream. When the US became the magnet for attracting capital and talent from across the World; When it became the fountainhead for new ideas in finance like private equity, venture capital and sweat equity; When it grew the World's largest enterprises like GE, HP, Walt Disney, WalMart, Apple, Microsoft and set the tone for a sustained economic leadership. The art and science of 'management' evolved and took root during this period with new concepts like strategic thinking, the 4Ps of marketing, assembly line manufacturing, global sourcing, mass merchandising, etc., teaching people how to build successful organisations.
Could this then be our time to do the same? Can we dream of creating our model of World-class organisation - like Bharthi did in Telecom? Like Wipro, Infosys did with IT Services? But many times over? Perhaps a new model of retailing, a new banking system that lends itself to the needs of our country and then to the rest of the emerging world. Imagine what it would mean not just in terms of the number of jobs but the quality of jobs. It would mean that our best executives could be in Jeff Immelt's or Indra Nooyi's shoes sitting in India. No more perceived or real glass ceilings, which prevent our best people from reaching the top slot. We would have new management theories originating from here as we learn from our failures and successes. No more waiting for a Facebook to arrive at our campus to dole out jobs. Our elite kids will have the opportunity to take up jobs where they will rewrite entire industries!
But for all these dreams to become reality we need the leadership, which comes with a brand new mindset. A leadership, which has the confidence and audacity to believe that we can be the America of tomorrow in our own way. A leadership like Premji's in the 80's, which is thinking very long term and is therefore working to lay a strong foundation. A foundation comprising of the best people; A foundation, which is built on the right values; A foundation, which can support not just an organisation but also the community around it. We need leaders who are thinking transformational and therefore have the patience to do things the right way at a sustainable pace.
We are today at the cusp of 'once in a life time opportunity' to create history. This moment comes but once in the economic history of countries and we are very fortunate to be in the midst of it. The dimensions and contour of what we can achieve is truly mind-boggling. This is the time to think long term, think big and think global. It is a time for fundamental transformation when we need to rethink education, finance, infrastructure, technology, the whole works. It is the time to unshackle ourselves from old mindsets when we looked up to the West for all answers. Can we make a start with 2011? Can each of us resolve to think and act on a different scale from the past years?
In the end the choice is for each one of us to make. For if we do not somebody else will come and grab the opportunity. Remember East India Company?
Wish You All A Very Happy New Year!
Dec 31, 2010
A Mistake In Time Saves Nine
A great career involves twists and turns before one discovers the true vocation
The year was 1985. The newly minted engineer from IIT Madras arrived at Jamshedpur to take up his first job with TELCO as a Graduate Engineer Trainee (GET). Surely a dream job for a mechanical engineer in India those days. Sadly this engineer was soon to realise that his dream job was a bit of a nightmare waiting to happen, just as many of us did with our first jobs. He found out that what it took to succeed on the shop floor at Jamshedpur was not the analytical skills that had got him into IIT, but the ability to manage and motivate workers, which nobody had cared to teach him at IIT! It was no fun when he found himself to be the butt of jokes even as he tried speaking his textbook Hindi with the workers, who were more conversant with local dialects of Bihari. It was even more demeaning when he found himself making tea and samosas for workers as a caterer’s strike hit the morning chai supply and threatened to stop the production line! Stressed and disillusioned, he did what many others in the GET programme have done before and after – prepared hard to escape from there by applying to every school in India and the US that would deliver him from the throes of depression he found himself in. And deliverance came in the form of admission to IIM(A) in his case.
But wait a second...this story doesn’t end here. Years later, after his despair about his wrong career choice had vanished, he realised that the experiences in those two years were surprisingly responsible for shaping his future successes. His baptism by fire taught him more about life than the 20 years before at home and school. He owed his newfound ability to laugh, have fun and enjoy life to his Bihari colleagues whose attitude towards life was refreshingly different from the Chennai TamBram culture with its 1001 rules. He had learnt that the art of people management was as critical as the science of designing machines, and this helped him in building great organizations when he eventually set out on his entrepreneurial journey later in life. It humbled him to know that he was never going to be as good as the engineer from Bihar College Of Engineering when it came to mingling with the workers on the floor, and getting them to accept him as their boss. A great ego check and a key learning on the kind of jobs he should avoid. So it came to pass that years later, well after he had run miles away from mechanical engineering and shop floors, he could connect the dots and reflect on the learnings from that mistake he had made early in his career. Steve Jobs put it very well when he said, “ Again, you can't connect the dots looking forward. You can only connect them looking backwards, so you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future……because believing that the dots will connect down the road will give you the confidence to follow your heart, even when it leads you off the well-worn path, and that will make all the difference.”
Following his heart was exactly what Barack Obama did when he decided to embark on a career as a Community Organiser in Chicago. The path eventually led him to a successful political career and the office of the President of USA. But was it so obvious when he started out? What was crystal clear was that he was admittedly making the mistake of forsaking a six-figure salary in a law firm of his choice, which his Harvard degree would have granted him. “I always felt that the value of a really good education is you can take more risks,” Obama said in November ’07 on Charlie Rose. “Ultimately, if I really need a job, if I’ve got to pay the bills, I’m going to be able to find one.”
And that point really hits the nail on the head! What is the sense of pursuing a great education, if at the end of it one does not earn the luxury of making mistakes and picking oneself up? As many of you may know, Harsha Bhogle, India’s leading sports journalist and broadcaster, did not start out as one. He first tried his hand at chemical engineering even as he pursued sports commentary as a hobby in the background. He quickly moved away from engineering to business, perhaps realising that he was not cut out to be an engineer. His next move took him to IIM(A), and that was followed by a short stint in advertising before he took the plunge into television. It is not like we can write off his initial forays as missteps in an otherwise stellar career. It was surely this unique background that gave him the advantage of lending a completely different perspective and depth to his sportscasting, and thereby made him stand out in the crowd. In Harsha’s own words, it is his varied exposure and training that have led to his excellence in his chosen field… it is what makes people remark, “Wow yes! Hang on! This guy has more than just cricket in him!”.
This ability to try different things, which perhaps look completely foolhardy on the face of it, is very critical when we plan our career. It is the only way we can figure out our true calling, as the false starts tell us what we would, and more importantly what we would not, enjoy doing. Most of us in India spend our entire schooling in an education system which expects us to know what we want to become by age 14. As if this is not enough, our social set-up is so straight jacketed that our parents and extended family members insist on drawing up our future to the last “t” even before the namkaran is done. The net result is that while we come out as engineers, doctors, and lawyers at age 22, we actually have no clue as to what it means to be one. Now imagine if we shied away from taking any chance with our career where would we end? Career is not about drawing boundaries and walking in a straight line. It is about self-discovery and life long learning. A great career is characterised by the twists and turns that one takes to meander into the untrodden path to finally discover what will make us truly happy. That is when we get motivated or charged up to do our best. Many a times it is about realizing what will not work for us. Failures and mis-steps are so critical to this process of self-realisation that avoiding or side-stepping them would be tantamount to short changing oneself. “Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new” said Albert Einstein and that sums it all.
Published in Business World dated 13 Nov 2010
The year was 1985. The newly minted engineer from IIT Madras arrived at Jamshedpur to take up his first job with TELCO as a Graduate Engineer Trainee (GET). Surely a dream job for a mechanical engineer in India those days. Sadly this engineer was soon to realise that his dream job was a bit of a nightmare waiting to happen, just as many of us did with our first jobs. He found out that what it took to succeed on the shop floor at Jamshedpur was not the analytical skills that had got him into IIT, but the ability to manage and motivate workers, which nobody had cared to teach him at IIT! It was no fun when he found himself to be the butt of jokes even as he tried speaking his textbook Hindi with the workers, who were more conversant with local dialects of Bihari. It was even more demeaning when he found himself making tea and samosas for workers as a caterer’s strike hit the morning chai supply and threatened to stop the production line! Stressed and disillusioned, he did what many others in the GET programme have done before and after – prepared hard to escape from there by applying to every school in India and the US that would deliver him from the throes of depression he found himself in. And deliverance came in the form of admission to IIM(A) in his case.
But wait a second...this story doesn’t end here. Years later, after his despair about his wrong career choice had vanished, he realised that the experiences in those two years were surprisingly responsible for shaping his future successes. His baptism by fire taught him more about life than the 20 years before at home and school. He owed his newfound ability to laugh, have fun and enjoy life to his Bihari colleagues whose attitude towards life was refreshingly different from the Chennai TamBram culture with its 1001 rules. He had learnt that the art of people management was as critical as the science of designing machines, and this helped him in building great organizations when he eventually set out on his entrepreneurial journey later in life. It humbled him to know that he was never going to be as good as the engineer from Bihar College Of Engineering when it came to mingling with the workers on the floor, and getting them to accept him as their boss. A great ego check and a key learning on the kind of jobs he should avoid. So it came to pass that years later, well after he had run miles away from mechanical engineering and shop floors, he could connect the dots and reflect on the learnings from that mistake he had made early in his career. Steve Jobs put it very well when he said, “ Again, you can't connect the dots looking forward. You can only connect them looking backwards, so you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future……because believing that the dots will connect down the road will give you the confidence to follow your heart, even when it leads you off the well-worn path, and that will make all the difference.”
Following his heart was exactly what Barack Obama did when he decided to embark on a career as a Community Organiser in Chicago. The path eventually led him to a successful political career and the office of the President of USA. But was it so obvious when he started out? What was crystal clear was that he was admittedly making the mistake of forsaking a six-figure salary in a law firm of his choice, which his Harvard degree would have granted him. “I always felt that the value of a really good education is you can take more risks,” Obama said in November ’07 on Charlie Rose. “Ultimately, if I really need a job, if I’ve got to pay the bills, I’m going to be able to find one.”
And that point really hits the nail on the head! What is the sense of pursuing a great education, if at the end of it one does not earn the luxury of making mistakes and picking oneself up? As many of you may know, Harsha Bhogle, India’s leading sports journalist and broadcaster, did not start out as one. He first tried his hand at chemical engineering even as he pursued sports commentary as a hobby in the background. He quickly moved away from engineering to business, perhaps realising that he was not cut out to be an engineer. His next move took him to IIM(A), and that was followed by a short stint in advertising before he took the plunge into television. It is not like we can write off his initial forays as missteps in an otherwise stellar career. It was surely this unique background that gave him the advantage of lending a completely different perspective and depth to his sportscasting, and thereby made him stand out in the crowd. In Harsha’s own words, it is his varied exposure and training that have led to his excellence in his chosen field… it is what makes people remark, “Wow yes! Hang on! This guy has more than just cricket in him!”.
This ability to try different things, which perhaps look completely foolhardy on the face of it, is very critical when we plan our career. It is the only way we can figure out our true calling, as the false starts tell us what we would, and more importantly what we would not, enjoy doing. Most of us in India spend our entire schooling in an education system which expects us to know what we want to become by age 14. As if this is not enough, our social set-up is so straight jacketed that our parents and extended family members insist on drawing up our future to the last “t” even before the namkaran is done. The net result is that while we come out as engineers, doctors, and lawyers at age 22, we actually have no clue as to what it means to be one. Now imagine if we shied away from taking any chance with our career where would we end? Career is not about drawing boundaries and walking in a straight line. It is about self-discovery and life long learning. A great career is characterised by the twists and turns that one takes to meander into the untrodden path to finally discover what will make us truly happy. That is when we get motivated or charged up to do our best. Many a times it is about realizing what will not work for us. Failures and mis-steps are so critical to this process of self-realisation that avoiding or side-stepping them would be tantamount to short changing oneself. “Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new” said Albert Einstein and that sums it all.
Published in Business World dated 13 Nov 2010
Analysis: Power Of Choice
Women can, and should, demand a working environment that helps us give our best.
"When you come to a fork in the road - take it" said Yogi Berra, a major league baseball Hall of Fame player and coach. I'm reminded of this as I sit down to analyze this case. Life is about making choices. It is no different for the women in the corporate world today. On one hand she can choose to keep quiet and act like Sexual Harassment (SH) cannot and will not happen to her; she can chose to make a noise after it happens or she can choose to quit and fade away because she couldn't take it. On the other hand, she can proactively demand an environment which will discourage SH from happening. Ultimately the choice is for her to make. Time and again women make the mistake of joining wrong places, facing issues and then feeling trapped with no choice but to quit or toe the dominant line. This has led to disastrous consequences for career women. Any number of studies have shown that women quit from the workforce in large numbers between 25 and 35 years of age as they find their employers do not have any policy to help them tide over their short term need to spend more time with young kids. A recent *McKinsey study titled "Women Matter" talks of how 87% of the women in middle and senior management chose Work Environment as the single most significant factor affecting their career decisions while only 49% chose Family Circumstances. So if women are serious about building careers they either have to change the environment or they need to choose organizations with the right environment. The presence or absence of SH surely is one of the biggest indicators of the quality of work environment for most women. But how do you know where an organization stands with respect to SH and many such uniquely gender specific issues such as flexi-time, work sharing etc? The best way to determine this is to be very alert for the subtle and not so subtle messages that the organisation is sending out through its external façade.
A company which is dominated by men at executive levels, hardly has any board representation of women is willy nilly telling you that it has not found the need to promote gender diversity. It is communicating very openly that if you want to come and work for it you need to adjust to its culture and its norms, which so far have failed to be "women-friendly". Such companies if at all they had SH policies would still fail to implement them in letter and spirit. On the other hand there are companies, which will have more than a sprinkling of women in their ranks because they have recruited, retained and promoted women proactively. A very prominent example is of course ICICI in India. Such companies will demonstrate zero tolerance for any behavior at any level which would lead its women employees to feel anxious and uncomfortable. This is what HP's board demonstrated loud and clear when it asked its best performing CEO to leave. This was not a knee jerk reaction. It stemmed out of HP's long-standing commitment and conviction around gender diversity. It is a well-articulated corporate strategy, which was kick-started by its ex-CEO Lew Platt to stem the high turnover of women managers in the '80s. Now in the 21st century HP, roughly one out of three department heads is a woman, and two of the top five executives were women during Carly's time.
There is also a bigger driver here. The same McKinsey study quoted earlier showed that companies with a higher proportion of women on their management committees are also the companies that have outperformed their sector in terms of Return on Equity, PBIT and stock price growth! So more reasons for talented women like Amai, Radha, Indra, Mini and Megha to choose a company, which is actively looking to provide the right framework to protect women against any discriminatory practice like SH.
In this context, Sujoy's words should be music to their ears as it reassures them that they are in the right place. His actions clearly show that he wants to create a working environment, which is equally welcoming of men and women. He wants to be equitable and fair so that he has the best chance to retain Amai as well as Kamal. His earlier experience at Arcola has taught him that SH cannot be brushed under the carpet and it will rear its ugly head in completely unexpected quarters. Putting in place a policy and process for dealing with SH is therefore a no brainer for him.
If I were in Amai's place I would see Sujay's proactive stance as a symbol of his superior leadership qualities. I will work with him to ensure that SH and other such progressive HR policies that would help me perform better and build a career in Kippol are put in place sooner rather than later. Mini gets it right when she says that as women we have to stand Tall. We need to have the self-confidence and belief in ourselves to choose how we will live and work. We can and should demand a work environment, which would make us feel comfortable and help us give our best. If it is not available where we work we should vote with our feet and go work with companies, which do care to provide for our specific needs. Or else even start our own firm. Today's woman will not whine - she will walk out, head held high for she knows her worth. She is ready to take the fork.
(This story was published in Businessworld Issue Dated 08-11-2010)
"When you come to a fork in the road - take it" said Yogi Berra, a major league baseball Hall of Fame player and coach. I'm reminded of this as I sit down to analyze this case. Life is about making choices. It is no different for the women in the corporate world today. On one hand she can choose to keep quiet and act like Sexual Harassment (SH) cannot and will not happen to her; she can chose to make a noise after it happens or she can choose to quit and fade away because she couldn't take it. On the other hand, she can proactively demand an environment which will discourage SH from happening. Ultimately the choice is for her to make. Time and again women make the mistake of joining wrong places, facing issues and then feeling trapped with no choice but to quit or toe the dominant line. This has led to disastrous consequences for career women. Any number of studies have shown that women quit from the workforce in large numbers between 25 and 35 years of age as they find their employers do not have any policy to help them tide over their short term need to spend more time with young kids. A recent *McKinsey study titled "Women Matter" talks of how 87% of the women in middle and senior management chose Work Environment as the single most significant factor affecting their career decisions while only 49% chose Family Circumstances. So if women are serious about building careers they either have to change the environment or they need to choose organizations with the right environment. The presence or absence of SH surely is one of the biggest indicators of the quality of work environment for most women. But how do you know where an organization stands with respect to SH and many such uniquely gender specific issues such as flexi-time, work sharing etc? The best way to determine this is to be very alert for the subtle and not so subtle messages that the organisation is sending out through its external façade.
A company which is dominated by men at executive levels, hardly has any board representation of women is willy nilly telling you that it has not found the need to promote gender diversity. It is communicating very openly that if you want to come and work for it you need to adjust to its culture and its norms, which so far have failed to be "women-friendly". Such companies if at all they had SH policies would still fail to implement them in letter and spirit. On the other hand there are companies, which will have more than a sprinkling of women in their ranks because they have recruited, retained and promoted women proactively. A very prominent example is of course ICICI in India. Such companies will demonstrate zero tolerance for any behavior at any level which would lead its women employees to feel anxious and uncomfortable. This is what HP's board demonstrated loud and clear when it asked its best performing CEO to leave. This was not a knee jerk reaction. It stemmed out of HP's long-standing commitment and conviction around gender diversity. It is a well-articulated corporate strategy, which was kick-started by its ex-CEO Lew Platt to stem the high turnover of women managers in the '80s. Now in the 21st century HP, roughly one out of three department heads is a woman, and two of the top five executives were women during Carly's time.
There is also a bigger driver here. The same McKinsey study quoted earlier showed that companies with a higher proportion of women on their management committees are also the companies that have outperformed their sector in terms of Return on Equity, PBIT and stock price growth! So more reasons for talented women like Amai, Radha, Indra, Mini and Megha to choose a company, which is actively looking to provide the right framework to protect women against any discriminatory practice like SH.
In this context, Sujoy's words should be music to their ears as it reassures them that they are in the right place. His actions clearly show that he wants to create a working environment, which is equally welcoming of men and women. He wants to be equitable and fair so that he has the best chance to retain Amai as well as Kamal. His earlier experience at Arcola has taught him that SH cannot be brushed under the carpet and it will rear its ugly head in completely unexpected quarters. Putting in place a policy and process for dealing with SH is therefore a no brainer for him.
If I were in Amai's place I would see Sujay's proactive stance as a symbol of his superior leadership qualities. I will work with him to ensure that SH and other such progressive HR policies that would help me perform better and build a career in Kippol are put in place sooner rather than later. Mini gets it right when she says that as women we have to stand Tall. We need to have the self-confidence and belief in ourselves to choose how we will live and work. We can and should demand a work environment, which would make us feel comfortable and help us give our best. If it is not available where we work we should vote with our feet and go work with companies, which do care to provide for our specific needs. Or else even start our own firm. Today's woman will not whine - she will walk out, head held high for she knows her worth. She is ready to take the fork.
(This story was published in Businessworld Issue Dated 08-11-2010)
Investing In People
Two books that talk about re-orienting employee management strategies in diverse ways for both humanitarian and financial gain.
2009-10 has been a very difficult year for employers and employees. The Wall Street debacle has shown the high cost that society has to pay when compensation and benefits are structured to encourage greed at the top. There has been a hue and cry about bank CEOs taking bonuses, unmindful of the countless numbers who have lost jobs because of them. This raises some fundamental questions: Is there any way for the company, its employees and the community to succeed together? Can investing in rank and file workers actually lead to higher profitability? Are we getting too obsessed with the creamy layer and forgetting that our core business differentiators are our unsung heroes on the shop floor? In her seminal book, Profits At The Bottom Of The Ladder, Jody Heymann has addressed just that. The book, according to her, answers the key question: Is it truly financially beneficial for companies to cut wages and limit flexibility, or is there a path forward from which companies can profit financially along-side employees?
Heymann has traveled across the world studying companies in diverse environments: Isola in a socialistic, developed economy like Norway, SA Metal in AIDS stricken South Africa, American Apparel, Jenkins Brick and Costco in the cut throat free market economy of USA, ACC in rural areas with nil infrastructure in India. She has demonstrated resoundingly through live case studies that it pays to invest in your critical workforce especially during downturns. This is true across industries and across borders. She points out that in any business there is a core set of employees whose performance can make a significant difference to the top-line and bottom-line of the company. These are the factory workers in a manufacturing business, the warehouse employees in a retail store, call center based support agents for a technology company and so forth. The companies highlighted in the book have invested in their core but non-elite employees by understanding their needs and aspirations, and meeting them effectively. For instance, SA Metal in South Africa set up an on-site Aids Clinic to meet the needs of its employees and in doing so greatly improved employee attendance. Similarly, Costco effectively met the aspirations of its employees by establishing a culture of hiring and training where a simple cashier could one day become the CEO. ACC had to set up plants in the hinterlands of India with no physical infrastructure, and therefore took it upon itself to build schools, hospitals, housing, and roads, an entire township for its employees.
In short, the book reinforces our faith in doing good not just at a philosophical level but also at an economic level. It emphasises that 'profits' need not be divorced from doing the right thing by your employees. Not surprisingly, Judy found that the list of companies that met her criteria were predominantly held privately. This goes to show how corporate behavior especially towards the silent majority has become distorted, dictated more & more by short-term expectations of Wall Street. This book is a must read for all CXO's who value the means as much as the end, and who want to touch people's lives in a positive way as they build profitable companies. Indeed, as Mike Jenkins IV, CEO of Jenkins Brick, eloquently says, if you invest in 'quality' people, you get 'quality' output . How simple!
The second book interestingly addresses the same issue in a different way
Can we help employees perform to their potential by tailoring organisations to fit employees? The authors argue very effectively with case studies that this is not a Utopian dream anymore. In fact many companies are doing it already on a case-by-case basis, though it leaves them open to charges of unfair treatment by employees. So Susan M Cantrell and David Smith have detailed in their book The Workforce Of One the multiple ways to go about customizing the HR initiatives to suit the diverse needs and aspiration of an increasingly complex workforce.
Workforce Of One is a powerful concept, which ought to be studied seriously by the HR professionals in India given that our economy is driven by the exponential growth of knowledge workforce. The book argues passionately that today's workforce is the iPod generation used to consuming its own unique content. The same person when he comes to work in an organisation will expect that the work, compensation, benefits, training et al. should also be designed for their specific needs. No two individuals learn the same way and neither do they look for the same benefits. It is amply seen in the way women in workforce have been demanding more flexible timings. The authors point out six trends - including among others, the increasing diversity of the workforce, and technology which allows us to know each employee intimately - that are driving the workplace to become 'MyPlace'. The lengths to which organisations cited in the book have gone to customise work environment is a real eye opener. Microsoft with its multiple workspace options allows employees to work from a Spa or an Xbox lounge. Best Buy with its highly flexible "results-only" work environment allows employees to customize their jobs, schedules, and place of work. Container Store has done away with the employee manual, relies on just a few simple HR guidelines, and allows employees to define their work-life & career path. Susan & David make you want to start your career all over again in one such company! The book is a veritable bible for any forward looking HR professional or CXO who wants to implement a new way of managing talent to increase productivity. It not only demonstrates why this approach is the way to go, but also tells organizations how to do it by adopting any of the four options suggested by the authors, or maybe even a hybrid one.
We finally have an HR management tome, which puts employees' right and square in the middle of all policies meant for them, and shows that it is the only way forward for organizations that depend on people to deliver ever increasing productivity. We should keep in mind though, that the Workforce of One approach, while motivating employees to give their best, may still not be the panacea for all ills. It did not, for instance, prevent Microsoft from losing its leadership edge over the last ten years. But it is definitely the way to go if we want to ready the organization for the new generation workforce.
2009-10 has been a very difficult year for employers and employees. The Wall Street debacle has shown the high cost that society has to pay when compensation and benefits are structured to encourage greed at the top. There has been a hue and cry about bank CEOs taking bonuses, unmindful of the countless numbers who have lost jobs because of them. This raises some fundamental questions: Is there any way for the company, its employees and the community to succeed together? Can investing in rank and file workers actually lead to higher profitability? Are we getting too obsessed with the creamy layer and forgetting that our core business differentiators are our unsung heroes on the shop floor? In her seminal book, Profits At The Bottom Of The Ladder, Jody Heymann has addressed just that. The book, according to her, answers the key question: Is it truly financially beneficial for companies to cut wages and limit flexibility, or is there a path forward from which companies can profit financially along-side employees?
Heymann has traveled across the world studying companies in diverse environments: Isola in a socialistic, developed economy like Norway, SA Metal in AIDS stricken South Africa, American Apparel, Jenkins Brick and Costco in the cut throat free market economy of USA, ACC in rural areas with nil infrastructure in India. She has demonstrated resoundingly through live case studies that it pays to invest in your critical workforce especially during downturns. This is true across industries and across borders. She points out that in any business there is a core set of employees whose performance can make a significant difference to the top-line and bottom-line of the company. These are the factory workers in a manufacturing business, the warehouse employees in a retail store, call center based support agents for a technology company and so forth. The companies highlighted in the book have invested in their core but non-elite employees by understanding their needs and aspirations, and meeting them effectively. For instance, SA Metal in South Africa set up an on-site Aids Clinic to meet the needs of its employees and in doing so greatly improved employee attendance. Similarly, Costco effectively met the aspirations of its employees by establishing a culture of hiring and training where a simple cashier could one day become the CEO. ACC had to set up plants in the hinterlands of India with no physical infrastructure, and therefore took it upon itself to build schools, hospitals, housing, and roads, an entire township for its employees.
In short, the book reinforces our faith in doing good not just at a philosophical level but also at an economic level. It emphasises that 'profits' need not be divorced from doing the right thing by your employees. Not surprisingly, Judy found that the list of companies that met her criteria were predominantly held privately. This goes to show how corporate behavior especially towards the silent majority has become distorted, dictated more & more by short-term expectations of Wall Street. This book is a must read for all CXO's who value the means as much as the end, and who want to touch people's lives in a positive way as they build profitable companies. Indeed, as Mike Jenkins IV, CEO of Jenkins Brick, eloquently says, if you invest in 'quality' people, you get 'quality' output . How simple!
The second book interestingly addresses the same issue in a different way
Can we help employees perform to their potential by tailoring organisations to fit employees? The authors argue very effectively with case studies that this is not a Utopian dream anymore. In fact many companies are doing it already on a case-by-case basis, though it leaves them open to charges of unfair treatment by employees. So Susan M Cantrell and David Smith have detailed in their book The Workforce Of One the multiple ways to go about customizing the HR initiatives to suit the diverse needs and aspiration of an increasingly complex workforce.
Workforce Of One is a powerful concept, which ought to be studied seriously by the HR professionals in India given that our economy is driven by the exponential growth of knowledge workforce. The book argues passionately that today's workforce is the iPod generation used to consuming its own unique content. The same person when he comes to work in an organisation will expect that the work, compensation, benefits, training et al. should also be designed for their specific needs. No two individuals learn the same way and neither do they look for the same benefits. It is amply seen in the way women in workforce have been demanding more flexible timings. The authors point out six trends - including among others, the increasing diversity of the workforce, and technology which allows us to know each employee intimately - that are driving the workplace to become 'MyPlace'. The lengths to which organisations cited in the book have gone to customise work environment is a real eye opener. Microsoft with its multiple workspace options allows employees to work from a Spa or an Xbox lounge. Best Buy with its highly flexible "results-only" work environment allows employees to customize their jobs, schedules, and place of work. Container Store has done away with the employee manual, relies on just a few simple HR guidelines, and allows employees to define their work-life & career path. Susan & David make you want to start your career all over again in one such company! The book is a veritable bible for any forward looking HR professional or CXO who wants to implement a new way of managing talent to increase productivity. It not only demonstrates why this approach is the way to go, but also tells organizations how to do it by adopting any of the four options suggested by the authors, or maybe even a hybrid one.
We finally have an HR management tome, which puts employees' right and square in the middle of all policies meant for them, and shows that it is the only way forward for organizations that depend on people to deliver ever increasing productivity. We should keep in mind though, that the Workforce of One approach, while motivating employees to give their best, may still not be the panacea for all ills. It did not, for instance, prevent Microsoft from losing its leadership edge over the last ten years. But it is definitely the way to go if we want to ready the organization for the new generation workforce.
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