Case 1: An MBA institute that has consistently commanded respect for over a decade from not only students, but also from companies and other institutes. Students, faculty, directors have come and gone over the years, but the non-teaching staff (accounts, admin, library, gardeners, maintenance) have more or less stuck on. The commitment, courtesy and competence of the non-teaching staff has to be experienced to be believed. I am yet to see this level of professionalism in the corporate world. Something innocuous happened in the summer of 2011. It was vacation time, but the institute was working as usual. A few staff members decided to regularly play badminton in the institute's excellent sports center between 4 and 5 pm. Their ethics ensured that work (if any) was not affected by their pursuit. However, the institute's 'think tanks' took offense against this and issued a ridiculous circular as follows - "All staff members are hereby informed that they should not visit the sports center during working hours (9 am to 5 pm). Also, the sports center shall be closed duly at 5 pm)".
The commitment and loyalty of the staff has dramatically reduced after this incident. Almost every member who would happily come to work at midnight or work extra hours during events without extra pay now reluctantly stay back even for an hour after 5 pm.
Case 2: This happened when I was employed with an Indian company at Bangalore. For a research project I needed a statistical software installed on my PC. There are specialist analysts who would normally work on the software, but on this project I needed to run some analyses by myself. So I met the SysAd guy and told him what I wanted. He agreed. After an hour he called me and apologised for not being able to do what I needed. His boss had seen him with the installation CD and demanded to know what he was upto. When the SySAd guy told him the story, he was asked to ask me to ask my boss to send a requisition. I asked my boss who asked me to write the requisition which he would forward to the IT boss as 'approved'. So far, so good. After an hour when I checked on the status, the IT boss said he had received the approval, but he was unable to act on it as it was supposed to be routed through the office administration manager. I forwarded the mail to the office manager and also called him to say I have sent the same. After a couple of hours with no CD, I went up to the office manager and it was only then he checked my mail promising to get the work done. In the evening, when I checked again the office manager said that according to company policy, researchers were not allowed to install this software on their systems.
I left the company shortly after and joined another company overseas where upon a casual mention to my boss about my need for a dedicated printer at my desk resulted in the IT guys setting it up within an hour.
These two incidents should highlight the fact that employee commitment, employee happiness, employee eagerness to work doesn't depend on monetary benefits alone. In fact I believe salary and 'commitment', 'happiness', 'eagerness to work' are very poorly correlated. I am sure there will be quite a few studies with statistical proof endorsing this theory. I also believe that what employees need, want and appreciate is an environment where they 'feel like working'. Do not mistake 'feel like working' to be 'comfortable' or 'non-competitive' or 'easy' or 'non-demanding'. By 'feel like working', I mean where internal clients, colleagues, support staff and admin staff create an environment that can facilitate employees to work better. Make no mistake again. By 'facilitate', I do not mean comforts like central air-conditioning or fresh flowers on every desk. Neither am I referring to gimmicks like 'employee of the month' or 'office picnics'. In fact, in an earlier article titled 'Rise in Attrition: Is Work Culture Responsible?', Advancedge MBA, Dec 2004, I had vehemently opposed imposition of non-work related group activities like going for an office dinner, office party on unwilling employees. I had talked about how organizations evaluate an employee on whether he 'belongs' rather than whether he 'delivers'. Work culture rules are being set and measured more at pubs and cigarette shops than at work. Coming back to the present issue, by 'facilitate' I am alluding to everyday rules, regulations and policies that can either make or break an employee's day.
Not for a moment am I talking about discarding regulations and discipline. I am a vociferous proponent of a structure and control. But, provided they are sensible, logical and just. An employee shouldn't find himself uttering the words , 'the only way to uphold justice is to break the law'!
But senior management, policy makers and HR managers need to seriously look at the way we function. There is a need for some deep introspection on the objectives of certain procedures, effect of procedures on efficiency, happiness and eagerness to work. The staff of the institute later admitted that they would never dare let official work get affected by their break and that they would have willingly stayed back for an hour even without being asked. They didn't have to tell me. I know. I would have done the same thing myself.
Senior management, policy makers and HR managers need to understand quickly that employees are people with emotions and thoughts. They are mature decision makers and except for a few bad employees here and there, the majority love to work. Indian managers need to set aside their ego and get out of the mold of 'ruling' and 'controlling'. Power is meant to facilitate and not to restrict.
Dont focus on customer happiness. Focus on employee happiness - they will take excellent care of your customers for you.
The commitment and loyalty of the staff has dramatically reduced after this incident. Almost every member who would happily come to work at midnight or work extra hours during events without extra pay now reluctantly stay back even for an hour after 5 pm.
Case 2: This happened when I was employed with an Indian company at Bangalore. For a research project I needed a statistical software installed on my PC. There are specialist analysts who would normally work on the software, but on this project I needed to run some analyses by myself. So I met the SysAd guy and told him what I wanted. He agreed. After an hour he called me and apologised for not being able to do what I needed. His boss had seen him with the installation CD and demanded to know what he was upto. When the SySAd guy told him the story, he was asked to ask me to ask my boss to send a requisition. I asked my boss who asked me to write the requisition which he would forward to the IT boss as 'approved'. So far, so good. After an hour when I checked on the status, the IT boss said he had received the approval, but he was unable to act on it as it was supposed to be routed through the office administration manager. I forwarded the mail to the office manager and also called him to say I have sent the same. After a couple of hours with no CD, I went up to the office manager and it was only then he checked my mail promising to get the work done. In the evening, when I checked again the office manager said that according to company policy, researchers were not allowed to install this software on their systems.
I left the company shortly after and joined another company overseas where upon a casual mention to my boss about my need for a dedicated printer at my desk resulted in the IT guys setting it up within an hour.
These two incidents should highlight the fact that employee commitment, employee happiness, employee eagerness to work doesn't depend on monetary benefits alone. In fact I believe salary and 'commitment', 'happiness', 'eagerness to work' are very poorly correlated. I am sure there will be quite a few studies with statistical proof endorsing this theory. I also believe that what employees need, want and appreciate is an environment where they 'feel like working'. Do not mistake 'feel like working' to be 'comfortable' or 'non-competitive' or 'easy' or 'non-demanding'. By 'feel like working', I mean where internal clients, colleagues, support staff and admin staff create an environment that can facilitate employees to work better. Make no mistake again. By 'facilitate', I do not mean comforts like central air-conditioning or fresh flowers on every desk. Neither am I referring to gimmicks like 'employee of the month' or 'office picnics'. In fact, in an earlier article titled 'Rise in Attrition: Is Work Culture Responsible?', Advancedge MBA, Dec 2004, I had vehemently opposed imposition of non-work related group activities like going for an office dinner, office party on unwilling employees. I had talked about how organizations evaluate an employee on whether he 'belongs' rather than whether he 'delivers'. Work culture rules are being set and measured more at pubs and cigarette shops than at work. Coming back to the present issue, by 'facilitate' I am alluding to everyday rules, regulations and policies that can either make or break an employee's day.
Not for a moment am I talking about discarding regulations and discipline. I am a vociferous proponent of a structure and control. But, provided they are sensible, logical and just. An employee shouldn't find himself uttering the words , 'the only way to uphold justice is to break the law'!
But senior management, policy makers and HR managers need to seriously look at the way we function. There is a need for some deep introspection on the objectives of certain procedures, effect of procedures on efficiency, happiness and eagerness to work. The staff of the institute later admitted that they would never dare let official work get affected by their break and that they would have willingly stayed back for an hour even without being asked. They didn't have to tell me. I know. I would have done the same thing myself.
Senior management, policy makers and HR managers need to understand quickly that employees are people with emotions and thoughts. They are mature decision makers and except for a few bad employees here and there, the majority love to work. Indian managers need to set aside their ego and get out of the mold of 'ruling' and 'controlling'. Power is meant to facilitate and not to restrict.
Dont focus on customer happiness. Focus on employee happiness - they will take excellent care of your customers for you.
1 comment:
My friend, i finally read this yesterday. On one hand i do agree, a good stack of the working force wants a conducive and appreciative environment. But to the rest of the (massive and majority of the) crowd, i think it's about the basics too brother. And that fortunately / unfortunately takes sole importance than anything else. What you seem to be referring to is of the whitest of white collar positions, if that makes any sense :-) But in the pyramid - not just of a corporate hierarchy, but also of the corporate sector as a whole - this constitutes a very small, but not negligible, percentage my friend.
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