Associate developed market with the Americas, heavy and precision engineering with Europe, rich market with Middle East, mass production with China, mass production in mid 19th century and quality manufacturing and processes now with Japan and Fosters with Australia.
What would you associate with India?
The dump yard for the west and now the east too? The industrialists who are growing beyond India and making a name for themselves and the country in the international market? The second fastest growing economy?
Apart from these, this country is known for a city that made its mark for India in the international business map – Bangalore. This city and the BPO (which later spread to cities like Pune, Gurgaon, Hyderabad etc) have almost become synonyms to India (there are other synonyms too, but ignored for the benefit of this article) in the west.
And once you are in India, you find a few common characteristics in the BPO industry here (probably across the world). Late nights, challenging the body clock, youth, language foreign to their mother tongue, cabs crowding the roads and the lack of employee loyalty.
Lack of employee loyalty is now slowing creeping to the work culture of Indians across industries. There was a time when employment in this country was like a traditional Indian marriage. Like a mother advising her daughter to live out her life with her husband and in-laws, an employee was expected to live out his/her career in the first organization he/she joins. Switching jobs in between was taboo and not a fashion. Today, a person working in the same organization for more than 2 – 3 years is considered to be old-fashioned and incapable. I recollect an induction in one of the many companies I have worked in, during this short career of mine. The HR tells us that the COO of the company has recently completed 25 years in the organization and immediately, I hear a comment, “he wouldn’t have prepared well for his interviews”, there was another comment, “poor us, we are going to work for a nerd”.
What has brought about this drastic change in work discipline? Trying to answer this question, I have a numerous reasons popping up my mind. It could be because of the abundant employment opportunities that are being created by this ever developing economy. It could be because of the increasing salary levels in the industry, the BPO community could have initiated a contagious cultural shift. Or it could also be the impact of the blending of the cultures with a lot of cross border trade and employee movement happening today.
I fiddled with these reasons once again. All these are external to the organization. Is the organization doing anything to stall this attrition rate that the industry is observing today? Who is responsible for this? What are the reasons why an employee could shift? Who is responsible for managing the human resource in an organization? This investigation takes me to one division in an organization with which I interact the least – the Human Resource Management.
In a knowledge industry where knowledge is supposed to be the biggest asset an organization owns, the most important function has to be the one that manages that knowledge pool – the HR. This is the division that has to constantly interact with this knowledge pool, create a sense of belonging, and motivate them to contribute their share of knowledge for organizational success. On the contrary, I have seen is a model that Indian HR community follows – the FISO.
FISO Model of Human Resource Management
This is a model commonly found to be prevalent in the industry today. A very successful model in mathematical terms, the advocates of FISO model argue that they are able to recruit 2 % more than the attrition rate of an organization which is hovering around the 30% mark. The name FISO has been benchmarked against the inventory management jargons and stand for First In Second Out. No. Unlike the inventory management concept, this does not mean that the first recruited employee is likely to leave the organization second. FISO is the series of interactions every employee has with the HR in their organization. The first time they see them is the day they are recruited and the second time is when they leave the organization (that too, thanks to processes called exit interview). All this while, an HR is toiling to find a replacement for a person whom he/she has recruited a few months back. Human resource management is thus thrust upon a person who does not have anything to do with human beings and is only accountable to the work he is responsible for. The employee in between is an orphan in the system. A manager is not answerable for the attrition rate, and the HR manager manages to salvage his pride by increasing the recruitment percentage. Where does this employee go to? And then he has another HR from some other organization calling him (this HRM is also facing the similar challenge of increasing the recruits in his kitty). Obvious, with no reason/person to show loyalty towards, the employee moves on in his life to the next organization, with a larger purse, which otherwise he wouldn’t have dreamt of.
Do a research and statistics would prove that an organization would spend more money trying to retain an employee who is serving his notice period, than what would have cost the department with regular interactions. I have been a part of heated discussion (not sure why the person who was drunk had to object me) arguing that HR role in India is yet another BPO job, a call center briefing prospects, probable employees in this case, selling a seat in the organization highlighting money/travel opportunities and not the job/profile. And there is this new “not at all loyal” employee community who wants to compare the 2 or 3 offers in hand and bargain with the sellers – the HR. This is a free buyers market where there is nothing other than price and demand that counts. “Is there something that I lose in this organization if I quit today? Nothing other than money that the company will give me after I complete one full year (many companies feel that this is a way to reduce employee attrition). Oh! So what, the company that is going to recruit me will pay that to me”. This is the effect of a money market for employment.
I don’t want to write this article just cribbing about a profile that is responsible for me getting my salaries in time, conducting my appraisal in time (might get delayed at times also), get me printed copies of letter from the company, and also give me opportunities to earn money when I help them in recruitment. I wonder if it is this difficult to be friend to a set of employees, understand them, and spend time with them and when needed give the carrot or use the stick? Has any organization experimented with their human resource? Apart from the annual/quarterly games and cultural events organized, have any organization tried to proactively interact with its employees? Have they tried to retain their employees by not just showing them money? Have any HR department tried to be the best friends of the employees of that organization? If yes, these companies are the ones that will have the best motivated employees. HRM’s will not have to call up prospects. There will be people willing to work for you. If ever, I get an opportunity to manage this wealth, you will find positive answers to many questions I have posed here.
Work can be fun, if it is done in an atmosphere that supports it.
