On The Job

Problems with Airtel? The secret to service is...

2008-08-29T05:29:00Z

Well, after getting into office early to watch Obama's speech, my mobile rang with a number I didn't recognize.

It was Manoj Kohli. Yes, as in The Manoj Kohli, the man at the helm of the company I semi-slammed in today's column.

"Thank you for your column," he said. "I found it helpful and true."

We chatted for a few minutes on how he still wants to provide the cheapest rates and the best service--and how the two are difficult goals to meet indeed. He said upping soft skills is an area of great importance for the company, and I said that was a pet area for me and my column (and this blog) also.

Anyway, before we hung up, I thanked him for responding and reminded him that most customers don't have a weekly column, so was there an ombudsman or someone to turn to?

Kohli himself said he deals with about 10-15 customers a day and then he told me about a woman named Tina Uneken, who might be able to help if you have complaints. Her number is 9810006571. And the email is tina.uneken@bharti.in.

I just opened my inbox to several emails from Airtel customers commiserating. Here's just one example from a reader in Mumbai:

" I share you (sic) views. Dropped calls service drop for long periods during the day Are the daily service problems. One gets several calls for add on cards. Untrained Staff pushy sounding rude asking too many PErsonal details. Not knowing customers problems. I was told I çan get gold simcard From a AIrtel gallery you go to one of those you ARe told to go peninsula topwer at parel..."

Call Tina. Share your woes. And tell me how it goes.

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Obama with my breakfast...

2008-08-29T02:36:00Z

What does it take to finally get me into office at 7:45am? Barack Obama's acceptance speech for the Democratic nomination.Nothing on my political views here but you all know I am a sucker for good orator.

Did any of you do the same? I am messaging the good lines with my US-based brother, who stopped the car with three friends on his way to Miami for the weekend to watch The Speech. I literally dropped my kid at the school gate, not taking her up the stairs to class, leaving her confused until I said I had to go run to office to see Barack Obama. She has been doing pretend meetings with him and McCain, so she understood exactly what I meant and told me she'd catch it on YouTube.

I watched on NDTV and just switched over to CNN for the post-game commentary. It's just ended. What's your take?

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The money's great, but the wife's not happy

2008-08-28T10:27:00Z

I wasn't that surprised when I read Rajeshwari Sharma's story this morning about Indian firms seeing costs surge by hiring expats. And I think at some levels--namely, middle management--it is resulting in upping expenses all around as you manage both salary and ego (pay the locals more so they don't feel inferior, is how one manager explained it to me). As an expat, another problem becomes Indians' readiness to ask you how much you make and then when you play coy, they'll ask how much you pay in rent. You can literally hear them multiply by 12 to calculate what you must earn on top of that! (Now, I don't tell anyone what we pay our landlord; we made that mistake once with an uncle, who somehow let the whole state of Assam know!)

But I paused when I came to this line: "The survey also says that spouse dissatisfaction was one of the major factors for failure of international assignments. Some 12 firms surveyed cited family expectations and spouse dissatisfaction as a major challenge in case of managing international assignees. Yet, only eight of them surveyed had policies addressing these issues. '...Softer issues, such as spouse support measures and repatriation planning still take second place to other operational aspects of international assignment management,' says Rupam Mishra, head of global mobility practice at Mercer India, a part of US-based Marsh and McLennan Companies Inc."

Some companies, like Indigo Airlines, which has hired many foreign pilots, do focus on getting the whole family support. The company works with Global Adjustments, a company I quoted last year in a column about how few trainers there are in helping expats understand the Indian workplace. But I was surprised because I have found in the case of me and my also American-born husband, he has adjusted much easier than I to India's ways and whims.A different workplace and the vibe of New Delhi proved an initial shock to my system, whereas his ability to paint at home, chill with other artists, shuttle our daughter around and really enjoy her, eased his entry to India. (Of course, his roots ultimately rest in Delhi, as his mother grew up here, so maybe he felt he was coming home...)

For the spouses who remain unsatisfied in India, there is help, however. A group called Strategic Links India has been formed and holds networking sessions and panel discussions on how to make the transition easier. Just this week, one list-serv I am on showed that Strategic Links is partnering with the non-profit Permits Foundation to lobby for spouses of expatriates nationwide to get work visas and permits. When I was a journalist in the US, I ironically wrote about this issue from the other end, where women of H-1B visa holders go to the US and find themselves unable to work. And then coming to India made me wonder if these virtual online-order weddings of Barista brides were the right way to go. The Permit Foundation wants to hear from expat hires and spouses in this online survey; the results will be used to lobby governments to make labour laws more expat-friendly. I wonder if it is administering the survey in the US, too, because I know a lot of Indian women angry over their sudden at-home, unemployed, "dependent" status.

As an aside, for those of you in Delhi or Gurgaon, it looks like Strategic Links is also holding a conference on "Medical Challenges for Expats in India." Info is on its web site. Perhaps I am being hypocritical to my equally expat self but I can't sympathize too much with expats and their trouble finding adequate health care... If they wanted the authentic Indian experience, that's about as Indian as it gets...

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At Citi, there go the colour copies and BlackBerrys...

2008-08-26T20:18:00Z

Citibank just told its employees to get a better handle on costs, including measures as saving colour copies for presentations, making double-sided copies more often, restricting mobile expenses to just business calls and limiting the BlackBerrys... Sounds like a lot of what we have been hearing in India, as a recent column and blog post mentioned. Regular readers of my column also know my long and storied relations with Citi and cost-cutting (disclosure: I am an investor) but these moves surprise me because I thought the company was already pretty much down to the bare bone. Indeed, this AP story says: "The moves are yet another step in the bank's attempt to become profitable again after three straight quarters of losses. Citigroup, currently the nation's largest bank by assets, has already eliminated more than 14,000 jobs this year and raised about $40 billion in capital after losing a cumulative $17.4 billion during the last quarter of 2007 and the first two quarters of this year."

One thought I have is that asking employees to make double-sided copies might backfire because those things require, like, a PhD in logistics. Past efforts to do this at other companies have found workers spend so much time and effort trying to figure out the machine, they often end up losing paper in trial runs but want to show the big bosses that they are saving paper so they still show up to meetings with the two-sided handouts! And BlackBerrys, while I also have spent much wordage and ink cursing mine, can help workers remain attentive to their supervisors' and customers' needs. The personal versus business call thing, I understand in principle, but have you ever tried to separate out the calls and felt like the three hours you spend doing that could have been more efficiently spent on real work??!! In a previous employer, ironically during the go-go-go 2000s where even dogs were starting dot-coms, we had forms where we had to fill in boxes for every personal call we made--even the missed call to Ma! I got so fed up, I just stopped submitting my bills for reimbursement. Hey, wait a second... do you think that's the point of such measures?

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Psychologists in HR

2008-08-25T08:45:00Z

I came across Bhavna Padmanabhan, a clinical psychologist while working on the story, Motorola asks ex-employees for second chance. She works at Bangalore-based exit interview specialist, AceEngage. Bhavna has a masters in clinical psychology and has been put on the Motorola rehiring project for the next 12 months. Interestingly, while talking to ex-employees she categorises them into two segments – red (people showing no inclination to join back) and orange (people with some amount of interest). Her goal is to convert all ex-employees into green that is, a win back. Irrespective of whether an employee is red or amber, Bhavna will call them five times over the course of a year and engage in the art of persuasion.

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Is Lean here to stay?

2008-08-25T06:38:00Z

Among various things that my mum keeps tabs on include the stories that I work on. This weekend while enjoying her masala dosa at a restaurant, she asked "what's your story this Monday?" I replied disinterestedly "It's an interview with a management guru." What does he teach?, she dug further. I definitely did not want to go on with this conversation but I still said, well…he teaches Lean principles. "What's is Lean principle?"
I was about to ramble some management jargon when I stopped eating to think how do I explain a process that has caught the imagination of the entire world to a woman whose understanding of management is as good as mine of astrophysics. I tried to recollect the answer Lean guru James Womack gave.
He said "(It was) the Toyota guys who thought: Why can't we have a high velocity, responsive, low inventory company which is also able to deal with high variety and offer products at low costs". The hidden genius here was Eiji Toyoda (former managing director of automaker Toyota Motor Corp.). Eiji's exposure to the large volume production of US automakers in 1950 made him focus on making many cars in small batches, unlike American automakers. The small inventory system where stocks were replenished when required, not only helped the company cut wastage but also gave the company flexibility to bring in changeovers.
Hmmm…after a bit of deliberation I told mum that Lean is a process system very akin to the way she manages groceries. She looked as if she has been struck by a thunderbolt. I hurriedly offered my explanation: You (my mum) buy small quantities of fruits, vegetables, ice-cream and other sundry stuff and replenish them frequently. Since the quantities are small, you buy a huge variety of food and it's always fresh. There is little wastage and refrigeration takes less amount of time since the portions are small.
When I went grocery buying while I was living on my own some time back, I would buy large packs and brag about how much money I saved. In reality, there was more wasatge and little variety. For instance, I would buy a litre of chocolate ice-cream and I would be eating the same flavour for a week. Not to forget the longer refrigeration time and the struggle in scooping out ice-cream from the frozen pack. Rarely did I finish the icecream (obviously I would have got bored by the same flavour), which either made its way to the maid or the trash can.
Before I could finish with my oversimplified analogy with Lean, my mum exalted at her adeptness in home management skills remarked, "oh! another common sense approach packaged in cerebral mumbo jumbo." Her cynicism of intellectual thought had again got the better of her!

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What's Kashmir got to do with placements and exams?

2008-08-22T05:33:00Z

A lot, actually. While my column today focused not on issues related to workplace or education, two professors I interviewed for the piece (but didn't end up quoting) were downright sorrowful over what the recent violence and curfews have meant for higher education. At the University of Jammu, classes were supposed to start up again in early July and in early August in the case of the business school. That, obviously, hasn't happened. The regular routine for families in Jammu has become to run out and go shopping in the morning--and then stay cooped up inside. Students' lives are on hold, as they wonder if they should just give up on the year and seek admission elsewhere.

"It's been a big disaster. We were just starting our academic session. July is gone. August is done," said Professor Ashok Aima, a business policy professor at the University of Jammu's business school. "Our children have to compete at the national level, they won't understand why they can't."

The director of the school, Keshav Sharma, said the irony is that Jammu has not had to contend with much of spillover from the ongoing Kashmir comflicts as "Jammu has always stood with India."

Indian companies, are you listening? How about reaching out to the universities in Jammu & Kashmir and offering to absorb a few candidates during special placement sessions? The same could go for admissions in postgraduate programmes. While we're at it, let's extend the offer and exemptions to the innocent victims of bandhs in states like Kerala, West Bengal, Assam, Mizoram, etc. Wait, that's a lot of youths with lives on hold. So would it just be easier to exempt schools and colleges from militants' wrath during such demonstrations? Of course, that might actually lead to some economic development, which often doesn't seem the goal of said militants... Go ahead, make my day and react. As Sri Sri Ravi Shankar himself said last week, "Dialogue is the only way to resolve the present crisis."

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Pay attention!!!

2008-08-20T09:45:00Z

A lot of things have changed in the last six to eight months in our lives. Among many things, unending battle with flab has become more challenging, bills have gone up for the same amount of stuff purchased, payouts made to maid and cleaner have risen, and most importantly calls from recruiters have disappeared like they never came in the first place. Seems like just the other day when the ball was in an employee’s court and she was literally calling the shots. A slowing global economy, rising inflation and input costs have clearly spoilt the party. Changing jobs is no longer as lucrative as it used to be. The phase of jaw-dropping hikes is over as of now, say recruiters. According to staffing firm Ma Foi Management Consultants' chief executive officer E. Balaji, "Candidates were able to get average increases of 40-50% last year and in some cases the hikes were up to 100% while changing jobs."
"The last six months, however, have seen average hikes on changing jobs come down to 20-25% on an average."
Thankfully, pay hikes have not seen much impact although frequent official trips, parties and off-sites have become a thing of the past. This year the average increase in compensation has been 14.8%, slightly lower than hike of 15.1% in 2007, according to Hewitt's latest salary increase survey. However, things does not seem to be looking up just yet. The average salary projections for 2009 are lower by a percentage point at 13.9%. For more on this, check out stories published in ET and TOI and let me know how is it going for you or your work buddies.

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Is your office filled with early birds?

2008-08-20T07:59:00Z

What's the best time to get to work?

I ask that question today with a confession--I got in really late, like 11:30. I was working this morning, mind you, but I had these stories I had to edit really fast so I just did it from home. I also had phone calls I had to make so I did it from the car. I sent e-mails to my team, as well. So yes, I was working. Just not in the workplace.

Does it matter? I actually think it does... As a woman with a young child, I am a big advocate of working from home or at least employers looking nicely upon flexible timings (which is a nice way of saying you are always on call). But I also get so frustrated when I am trying to call a company or service and nobody answers land lines at 10am. Even banks and their late opening hours kill me--it would be so great if I could drop my daughter at school and get some more dreaded chores done. (Does anyone know a tailor in Delhi open at 8am??)

So am I hypocrite for suggesting that many offices in India could benefit from mandatory start times? Say, no later than 10am. For a column I wrote last year, I interviewed HDFC managing director Aditya Puri who suggested that his early start time--7 or 8am--is the reason he can be out the door by 6pm on most nights. He says he spends one hour a day actually working and planning and the rest of the time on getting other people to do their jobs. Sounds like a nice philosophy to me. Might we begin by getting people into work earlier.

I wonder if companies besides those that depend on shifts--BPO, hospitality, retail--have adopted stricter timings. If not, how do you motivate young workers who increasingly seem like night owls to get in at a decent hour so at least your day, as a manager, can begin... Let me know. In return, I'll try to be here by 10 tomorrow.

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Will my access card work tomorrow?

2008-08-14T05:55:00Z

With some 6-7% of the IT industry having seen lay offs over the last one year we thought it was the right time to write something around what it is like for the individuals who get the stick. Read the article here

A psychologist I spoke to in the course of researching for this story told me that even people sitting on the bench, often turn to her for counseling thinking: 'Will my access card work tomorrow?'

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Faking it!

2008-08-11T07:33:00Z

How much is too much? This is one question which kept coming up during my conversations with human resource managers and executives from background screening agencies while working on today’s story published in Campaign. Most of them agreed that it is easier to tell black from white (detecting misrepresentations of facts and figures and taking appropriate actions against it) than grey (deftly puffed up resumes). Recruiting managers say they find it very tough to see through the latter. A HR head of large pharmaceutical company recounted this instance of a researcher who mentioned in his resume that he spearheaded a particular project in his earlier company. Luckily, the manager knew some people working with the candidate’s previous employer and found out during reference checks that though the candidate was a part of the project, he was definitely not leading it. “We obviously did not withdraw the offer letter given to the candidate but we knew that his stated achievements had to be taken with a pinch of salt,” says the HR manager.
As I heard more such stories about overstated accomplishment, it struck me in an odd way that could this possibly be a generational thing? Is it partly because of the fact that modesty is no longer seen as a virtue by the super confident, go-getting generation X and Y employees unlike the baby boomer generation or is it just an individual act. Do let me know what you think.

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Does your office loo still have tissue?

2008-08-07T20:36:00Z

I am not sure what reaction I will get to this week's column. Regular readers know I usually stick up for the worker, with a few exceptions. But about two years ago at my first press conference as a journalist in India, I was astounded by the spread for a food buffet--before the CEO even addressed us. I was amazed by the folders and the lavish decorations--all for a simple question-and-answer session. That was just the tip of the iceberg (lettuce, yes they had that too), it turned out. Corporate spending, to me, has seemed out of hand for some time now. So even though some of the memos I have seen companies issue in recent weeks have been beating around the bush and coded language for "we cannot rule out layoffs", I largely agree that there is no need for so many offsites, no need for first-class travel, no need to stay in five-stars. (Boss, don't throw these words back at me when a conference comes up in Bali!) And all the time spent strategizing how to keep workers from quitting with frivolous perks feels like it did take time away from scaling up workers' skillsets and other benefits. A few months ago, I sat in on interviews of a software services company and stopped counting the number of complaints from job seekers driven away from previous employers by bad food and poor transport arrangements... Why do you think this is?

On another note, how have these memos you all have been issued worded? A memo I viewed that ICICI sent out in June exuded quite a bit of annoyance with workers' unreasonable expectations and continuing attrition rates. Here's an excerpt:

"Employees cannot view organisations on a year to year basis. In a time frame of 3 to 5 years an employee will see growth balancing out. It would be a mercenary attitude to say let me make the most of everything when I can. When employees relate to organisation on a here and now basis and are unwilling to even commit 3 years, this will drive organisations to adopt the same stance. If many of our employees care to check out they will realise how we stand by our employees in times of distress and go out of the way to support not only them but also family members. Look around ..."

Hmmm. In principle, I agree. But man, it sounds like a threat... And the person who sent this told me ICICI almost cut the tissue out of the loos also--but then didn't. Thank god for some .... er... hygiene basics. Care to share your company's missives? Feel free to blank out the name. Leave your comments please.

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Before placements begin, please think think think...

2008-08-07T09:27:00Z

I got a really nice note from a reader today on last week's column. He writes:

"I agree with your view that Indian Institutes are slightly short on numbers in terms of lecturers such as the persons mentioned in the article. Unfortunately, that is not something that can be addressed in the short term as it would require a paradigm shift in the approach and thinking on the part of the administrators running the show.
I have working for a software firm for the last two years and have been extremely fortunate to handle a gamut of critical, almost insane situations. I totally connected with the line 'Life is rough. It is best to suffer and then learn. Then it will stay in your head forever.'
Looking back at my graduation, I felt never thought or applied myself only because I did not have a guiding force and partly because I did not make any attempt to give me any 'Lakshya'. Most students in our country end up doing this and make the wrong career choices.
In your view, is there any way to give a sort of patch to this problem in the short term before it can be addressed in what one could call the long term?"

If I had the exactly right answer, I think I'd be a millionaire and a winner of the Nobel Prize (or at least a Padma Shri) ... and then we wouldn't have this current crisis where a whopping 75% of the million graduates from Indian colleges are unemployable. But a few thoughts off the top of my head. First, counseling is needed early and often. By that, I don't mean pre-placement talks that woo and wow. I mean, sitdown meetings between students and someone in the college who has their best interest at heart and can say, "Dear student, what do you want to do in life? What are your goals? Your dreams?" My cynical friends will sigh and say, "Yeah right. Let's first try getting college lecturers to hold class. And you want counselors?" So my suggestion comes with the caveat that the entire university system is broken. These counseling sessions need to be held long before companies set their foot on Day Zero or Day Zero-point-Two so that the students who give interview answers are not mugging some rehearsed answer on why consulting is the career for them but able to speak honestly and with tangible goals. It helps the employer, too, trust me.

The other issue is that we have placed far far too much emphasis on good marks as a means to success. My daughter's school recently held a parenting session and the lecturer asked us bluntly, "Think of all the truly successful people you know. Did they get the highest percentage in school?"

Most likely, your answer is no. In fact, the more defiant in the bunch took that attitude to surge to the head of the pack.

Also, I am always amazed by the stellar level of achievement in India, people who rise from literally nothing--currently reading Subroto Bagchi's book Kiss the World and feeling inspired by his story--but how come that doesn't translate into a million inspirational speakers and mentors scattered across campuses, even their native villages? Bagchi is excused, since from his book, I think that is precisely what he has done. Now how to get that message to the people who need to be inspired, to be told they themselves are the answer, not a cousin or connection who will find them a government job. (Can you tell my relatives from Assam have been calling again?)

Finally, I fear the zest to make everyone have skills and be so darn "ready to work" (sounds like a microwavable product) has left aside the parts of academic study that offer intangible skills but lifelong lessons. I wrote a column about this once titled "Develop skills and minds". By that, I mean the absence of quality faculty and the "guides" that the above reader spoke of might see students turning to Jane Austen and William Shakespeare, Girish Karnad and Ram Kumar, for inspiration. We always talk about soft skills development like handshakes and deodorant, but arts and culture also go a long way in developing the emotional quotient that might not be apparently needed for an entry-level job but is crucial for lasting, sustainable success. Besides, those aren't shabby mentors if you need to apply classroom instruction to the real world.

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Is your company in PINK?

2008-08-06T18:06:00Z

It's one thing for a firm to be in the pink and another to be able to make it in PINK. No, we are not discussing the colour pink or a company's financial health for that matter. We are talking about global recruitment firm Manpower Inc being named one of PINK magazine's 2008 Top Companies for Women.

PINK's annual ranking, which has been issued for the second time this year, recognizes the prominent role of women in companies, particularly in leadership roles. The US-based magazine evaluates firms on parameters including the number of women present in the board and handling with profit and loss responsibility; leadership training, mentoring and coaching programmes to retain and encourage talented women and evidence of pay equity.

Manpower with 40% women in its executive management team and 43% women as country managers worldwide clearly thinks pink. Within its US operations, 70% of employees at the manager-level and above are women and the India operations have 53% women staffers — a number far higher than most companies in India. To find out about the gender ratio in some of the leading companies across the board and what stops women from breaking the glass ceiling, check out these two stories that were published in Mint in November last year.

It’s about time that we have something like PINK too. It would be interesting to find out if companies here are looking beyond maternity leave and flextime and making it possible for women to occupy top jobs. What are your view on this?

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What's Facebook got to do with human resources?

2008-08-04T07:18:00Z

There was a time when a human resource manager was more a name than face. The only people who could put a face to the name were people in the HR fraternity and lifers at workplace. For most employees the HR manager was a person one probably met (during interview) once or perhaps never, only sending that occasional mail or making that call if some compensation related matter needed to be escalated. One bore the image of HR managers as the ones wearing boring suits/saris and speaking a language that could give you enough material to write a book on jargon.
But like many other things, HR professionals too have undergone a makeover over time, thanks to the increasingly strategic role human resources play in businesses today. Today’s HR managers are smart, articulate and nattily dressed. They are increasingly seen and heard on various HR forums, newspapers and television and are pretty much keeping pace with changing times. Many HR managers I speak to extensively use technology and new medium of communication such as social networking sites (LinkedIn, Facebook, MySpace et al) for their work. See today’s story in campaign. They are well networked not just in their home ground but also globally.
There are still those old school boys, who are not present in these new media spaces or lagging behind their technology savvy peers but given the past, one can see these reticent mangers too joining the bandwagon. What do you think? Do let me know.

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