First one was by a close friend Rishi, who told me a saying told to him by his grandmother.
“Jo hota hai acche ke liye hota hai.“(Whatever happens, happens for the good).

Though earlier I disagreed with this adage, and refuted it on the basis that this is like resigning to fate, but that is not wht it inherentely says.And over the period of time, I have experieced the reality of this simple adage.Whenever I am down, this adage resonates in my ears, and gives me strength to “walk on“.

Second one was by a colleague from my earlier job, whom I admire and respect dearly.
He was a Stud, and a person whom you would like to emulate. But his energy levels were simply incomparable. He was Debraj-Da.
I had just started my career, and like all freshers had fanciful ideas of work. When confronted with roadside stuff, I was really sad that this is not the kind of work for which
I did my engineering.
One day over a bottle of beer, I spilled it out to Debraj-Da.
He consoled me first of all, but told me sthg which was really big.
He told, “Agar koi tumhe raaste par pada ek pathar bhi hatane ko kahe, to aise hatao, ki log kahe ki kya kaam kiya hai.” (If someone asks you to even remove a stone lying on the road(in effect ask you 2 do a lowly or silly work), do it in such a fashion that ppl are made to notice and applaud you even for such a silly work).

These simple words had a lot of effect on me as a person, and I developed an attitude where I dont say no to any damn work. This attitude not only helps one in personal life, but is esp. effective in professional world.One is not always confronted with quality work in office, and also neither one is not made to do lowly work in their own life. So, keeping
such words in mind surely helps.And these two adage wud surely stick with me life-long.

I was thinking of any more such adages that have touched me in life, but as of now, I could recollect only these two. Wud definitely append this post, once I come across sthg as big.

Asset

P.S. To my readers: I was badly tied up last few weeks. Wud surely try 2 keep the blog updated regularly.

Now, this is the pretext on which I am going to build this post.
India is a country long marked by insurgency. We have been regular targets of Islamic militants, and now even the Homeland security is coming under threat, with lot of Indian nationals being accomplices to the heinous crimes committed on their own fellow nationals.Indian armed forces, like US ones, are in acute shortage of skilled manpower to fight this menace.So, what I am suggesting is to bring a similar kind of draft in India to make such a service compulsory for all graduates or volunteers.I would go one step ahead and would like to introduce a resolution that would make the students of elite institutions in India to work in Indian PSU’s after passing out.

To elaborate on the last suggestion: All men and women who pass out from institutes of higher studies(and that includes elite institutes like IIT’s and IIM’s) should be subject to choose one of these services for a short period of time(say 2-3 yrs.).For all the engineering and management graduates, I would suggest them to serve for a couple of years at Indian PSU’s. There may be a problem of aplenty as there might not be so many vacancies to absorb so many ppl. The solution to this can be recruiting people from institutes in the order of their ranking in India. Like firstly the IIT’s and IIM’s passouts should be absorbed at these places, and so forth.

The whole idea would require massive effort on the govt. front.It will demand that all young people be registered in a massive data base that details their skills and strengths, their weaknesses and dalliances. It will know who are linguists and who are likely good at combat.It should include all relevant data about their training, skills, health and legal records, and then choose those with needed skills for specific urgent tasks–whether military, homeland security, or “other national interest.” .A voluntary option can always be given as a starting point, but to make the optimum utilization, people should be allocated one of the above services based on the competency matrix made as part of the data gathering.

The selection at PSU’s can be carried out as is done normally at campuses. The placement season should only involve PSU’s to participate.Preferably, the students of higher technical education should be subject to only PSU jobs, unless they voluntarily wish to choose one among the military,security or the community service.Otherwise also, girls should be given preference to go for community service unless they feel more comfortably working for the armed forces.

The timeframe I am looking for serving is till 2-3 yrs after passing out, or say after 19-20 yrs. of age, whichever is later.Though this timeframe can be put to moot.
Also, people should be given a chance to choose an option to continue in their work even after completion of this timeframe, if they so desire.

Let’s find out wht can be pros that can result out of this idea.

1. The acute shortage of manpower of Indian armed forces would be solved to an extent.

2. The homeland security would receive a boost, and would have more ppl to serve.It would help in stregthening the information network required to abort many such military attacks, that happen with the internal accomplices.

3. A ‘citizen’ army–that is one drawn from among all citizens–is less likely to fight wars of empire or wars for corporate interest, and more likely to recognize unjust wars and human rights atrocities.This much needed internal force of people would help not only prepare for war on battlefields, but would act as a deterrent to any anti-social elements present in the society.

4. Community service as a full time employment would be a harbinger in bringing changes in the social mores in the society.These dayz, there r ppl who r involved in such services, but the percentage of tht kind of ppl is pretty low. When the govt. perforces ppl to choose it as a full time occupation, ppl wud b left with no option. This wud not only put more ppl at such work, but would actually make ppl perform tasks which they wud never go forth, though by force.

5. Community service would try to bridge the gap between the haves and the have-not, and would try to make the haves understand the real plight of India’s poor.With the booming economy, there are plenty of today’s generation who have born with a golden spoon.They are not even aware of the true India, wht Gandhiji once referred saying “India lives in its villages”. The sharing of actual plight of the poor would make the haves empathize with the have-nots and hopefully try to usher in a changed attitude among the youths.

6. The sense of patriotism would find place in today’s youth. I was really surprised to watch on TV the other day, that many people don’t even know why they are enjoying a holiday on 2nd of October.Working at the grass-root levels and serving for the country is very differnt than working in MNC’s.The former lets one being attached with the soil.

7. It would also provide a force that has the language and computer skills so lacking in the current force.Most of today’s wars are fought with technology.The coming of new, fresh and educated minds in such services would lend the much needed skilled manpower required to handle the new technological advancements.

Now, comes the pros of the suggestion to make the students of higher education work at PSU’s. I feel if this sort of thing is implemented, it would go a mile to bring a lot of changes in society.

1. First of all, with the introduction of such a clause, such education would become swht unglamorous, esp the MBA’s. The rat race which poor students are forced to at school level would receive a jolt, as parents would start thinking in terms of getting their kids to other occupation which suit their skillset and frame of mind. As of today, even if a person is good at a thing like sports, arts; parents push them to go for an MBA, as tht is where the moolah is.

2. These elite students on which govt. also spends a lot of money subsidising their studies, will get a chance to serve for the nation.

3. The so-called brain drain concept will take backseat for some time.

4. The flexibility of letting the students look for jobs after their stint in PSU’s shud also serve them good.

5. The ‘Babu Culture’ in Indian PSU’s will be turned upside down, with the students with fresh minds coming to donn the mantle, thus introducing fresh as well as innovtive ideas to implement solutions.

Now, the kind of clauses which some other countries have for such a draft is still debatable for Indian conditions, like in Israel all Jewish and Druze men remain on call until age 42, women until 24. In practice, men are now required to train for one month only until age 35, and women not at all, but all former enlistees may be called up at any time, especially if they have unique skills not satisfied by existing recruits.This can be a serious bottleneck with the implementation of such a resolution, coz it binds the person to serve. He/She may/may not be called to serve for the country at any point during his career which might not be acceptable to all n sundry.

Also, force, compulsion, conscription, involuntary servitude–for any role–whether as linguist or border guard or officer or foot soldier or in PSU’s– undermines a basic human right for people of all races and classes: free choice, especially over one’s work and one’s life. Furthermore–like the death penalty–conscription gives any state a power that is liable to be misused, and that is dangerous in the hands of those who see themselves as the embodiment of some ill-defined national interest.

Overlooking the shortfalls, I feel this idea needs to be debated in India at various public forums, and a final draft shud b prepared taking into consideration satisfaction of all concerned, and weeding out all clauses that can be possibly adjested to suit Indian conditions.

I feel, if implemented, this idea will go a long way in changing the labyrinth of the Indian society, and the country as a whole.

Asset

This scenario has resulted in an “Employee Driven Market” rather than an “Employer Driven Market“. Org. run after employees to get their work done, rather than employees running after them to get themselves recruited.In such a volatile scenario, for a successful org. it is as important to recruit skilled ppl, as to retain them.This is what I am gonna emphasize in this post.

So, what is attrition, what forces it to happen, and is there a way to stem to rot, if not completely stopping it? Are there any answers.Let’s examine.

An employee leaves a job either for a better prospect, better money, better profile, better work env., OR coz he’s either pissed off with his boss, or the work culture, or the kind or quality of work he is doing. It is said that employees don’t leave their companies, they leave their bosses.I will not discuss this issue here, but will try to focus on the other kinda employees.

Many a times I have seen ppl hv left organizations due to job dissatisfaction which encompasses
- Poor quality of work
- Monotonous work
- Lack of challenges
- No prospect of reskilling
- Strengths not getting utilized i.e. not given work they are good at

I feel stemming attrition is the biggest challenge for HR in today’s IT industry.So, how can they go about their job.Let’s look at a scenario first.
IT industry works on an ad-hoc manner. They don’t hv ppl of certain skillset available at a particular point in time.They just make one of their employees learn the technology and start working.With the fast changing pace of technology, employee along with the company has to be on it toes to learn it.So, what happens is an employee learns a technology, implements it in a project, and then becomes slave to it, in a sense he is the one who has implemented it, who has spent months or s.times yrs. mastering it. So, now when the implementation is done, and there is very less scope of him learning anything more in it, he is left with no options. He can’t move out of the project, as the company can’t find his replacement.He gets bogged down by this, doing monotonous work day-in & day-out, and one fine day decides to move out of the organization to work on sthg different.If you analyze this scenario properly, the employee doesn’t want to move out of the org., but the org. forced him out.

Another scenario can be when an employee is getting a lot of diff. kinda work, but is losing interest in wht he does, or is not getting interest in wht he does. He has no qualms with the org. as such, but somehow is not able to build up his enthusiasm in his work, for which he indirectly blames the org. Slowly this indifference gets converted into resentment and the employee decides to walk out.
Who is at fault here? Could the org. had taken some precautionary steps to stop such ppl from moving out.

Here are some of my suggestions.
I feel in an IT industry, a typical kind of job involves interest for not more than 3 or max 6 months. Employee rotation is very important after this period of time.If a person can’t be shunted out of an assignment, at least his role and responsibilities can be swapped within the particular team working on an assignment.E.g. A software developer does out and out coding, and a tester does out and out Testing.These are specialist roles and a swap may not seem advisable at the start. But with the lapse of the timeframe I mentioned, resources can be swapped within the team. Of course, this is a high risk scenario, but is a sure shot hit with the employees if the manager can pull it off.

Another suggestion is to create backup resources. This idea can be pretty useful for a big org. which keeps no. of ppl on bench at a time, but can still work for a smaller org., if implemented tactfully.Generally, a team working on projects comprises of the no. of members being billed to the client. Generally, to overcome lack of skillsets or to make use of the existing employees, a company involves more no. of ppl to get the work delivered at any cost; means 2-3 ppl may be working on a module for which the company doesn’t hv a qualified resource, though the billing is only being done for a single resource. This is a pretty common scenario in industry.After all, such a large population needs to be fed.How can this idea made to work to stem attrition? Let me explain.

A company can profile all the members of a team, and then can push new or the existing resources into newer roles or greater responsibilities.By the time the fatigue may start to creep in the team, its tht time when to push for this process change(ideally as I said this period can be 3-6 months).
Let’s talk it out with an example:
Imagine a project implementation of 6 months.After that, the project goes into a support phase, or doesn’t involve much critical changes as such.What happens normally in such cases is, that most of the team moves out after implementation, and some support guys are left to clean the shit. They grow so bored out of their work in 3 months, that they wanna either move out of the project, or if the company doesn’t let them do it, move out of the company.What can be done is that those ppl sitting on bench or being released can be pushed to take over their role before the fatigue factor sets in. This time duration is project specific and has to be decided upon by the manager on a case-to-case basis.
What it does is, it helps the employee on a project to keep tht enthu running, not get bogged down with the monotonous work; and secondly for the back-up resource, it puts up a great opportunity to learn sthg new.Ideally, i wud wish this new resource stepping into the shoes to be a notch lower in his profile. This wud not only make the new work challenging to the new resource, but wud also help the org. as it wud result in building resources.This cycle should continue as above for the new resource, if the existing project runs for yrs on end.

Another aspect I wanna touch is to sort out the scenario 2 I listed above, where ppl lose interest in work, and fail to understand the reason of it, and finally they blame the org. and quit.
I wud not say tht wht I am gonna suggest is applicable to all cases, but will definitely work out in quite a few cases if worked upon diligently.Ppl lose interest in work due to plenty of reasons, I am not gonna delve upon it. But there is one category of ppl who lose interest in work coz they are not being given the work which they like or they can do best.
An old adage goes “Find the work which you like. And you don’t have to work a day in your life.”
So, how can the org. tap on such aspects or rather problems with their resources. Every industry deals with a document named “Appraisal Document“. It lists all the work done in a given period by a person, also listing “Strengths” and “Weaknesses” observed by both tht appraisee as well as the appraiser. This is the section which will help out the HR deptt, if they focus their efforts.
Peter Drucker says effective ppl “Make the strengths Productive“.
Many a times, ppl either dont understand wht is best for them, or they dont hv the bandwidth to figure it out. They mostly put the blame on their work, or org. as such.
What HR deptt. needs to do regularly as an exercise is to analyze these strengths very properly and try to map the person’s strength to a role in a project or an org.In short, make him work on his strength. This will not only keep him happy, as he is being made to do the work which he does best or loves to do, but will also help the org. as the productivity for tht person will go up dramtically.
This wud require lot of efforts on the part of HR deptt., they can either hire more ppl or involve Managers to contribute to this process. Ideally, managers are closest to their teams, and they can gauge a person much better than HR. But as they are pretty busy chaps, HR needs to do the bulk of work.

Though I have made a few positive suggestions, but they may come with their own pitfalls, and can completely bounce if not carried out effectively.And also, this is not an exhaustive list of suggestions which will help the org. stem the outflow of ppl.
But I feel, these are just some of the steps which are missing in today’s industry, and if implemented with rigour and sincerity, can help a lot in retaining ppl.

N at last, as they say “No idea can be stopped whose time has come”
Similarly, no employee can be retained who has made up his mind to quit.

Asset

But when I look at college students or fresh passouts now, I c complacency and arrogance setting in them.They are so sure of getting the job, that they guile away the college yrs. doing evrythg else than study.Their fundamentals are made of sand, and they are least bothered abt it, coz today’s env. doesn’t require them to be good at them. They kick any job that doesn’t put them in glass cubicles, or one which makes them do some shitty work in the fields.Evryone wants a desk job, or in other words, wants to join the IT industry. They feel tht’s the easiest way to earn money these dayz.Of course, where will you get paid for checking mails, and making GF, and partying all night, writing blogs, chatting, boozing and wht not.
I come from a conservative school of thought which had a belief that without sincerity and hard work, things can’t be achieved.But today’s scene belies such idea.But only just. This is wht i am gonna emphasize.

When I joined my first job, I was living alongside a bunch of college ppl.I used to scold them always for study, as I never saw them serious with studies. Though they scored well in their college usually, but they had weak fundamentals.At times, I used to even tell them that this way getting a job will be difficult for them, and they used to laugh it off.But I was really surprised when all of them got into good companies without much ado. They had this satisfaction on their faces,of proving me wrong on my predictions.And these guys are not alone, there is a whole bunch of them, who feel industry and companies are their mistress, and will pay them whtever they demand, even if they dont do an iota of a work.

When I look at the job scene, and the way projects are getting executed these dayz, I am able to understand this phenomenon.India is unarguably the hottest IT destination today. Most countries, including US, outsource their work to India, coz of cheap and skilled availability of labour.To a IT company, billing of a resource is all that matters.The kind of work they do, or the kind of growth it provides to an employee, the company is least bothered. One of the biggest ambiguity in this whole IT industry is to calculate the effort reqd. to complete a work. One can calculate how much time one man can take to make a table,lets say; but how will you calculate the efforts involved to incorporate a functionality in the software.Quantification of skillset is an improbable task in the IT industry.Though there are no. of tools and formulas which one can employ to calculate this figure, but even then that figure is subjective. Many a times, Indian companies make use of this flaw and demand more money from customers by billing more ppl.So, wht happens is tht the work tht can be completed by 10 ppl, has 30 ppl employed on it.N if u ask me frankly, it wud actually be executed by 2-3 ppl only out of a team of 10.So, that leaves 20-25 ppl with no work to do.Company is happy to feed them as they are getting billed, and the ppl are happy as every month-end they’ll be getting their free pay-cheque.This scene gets repeated ad nauseaum in most companies, more so in Biggies.

This phenomenon leads to a no. of side-effects which are spoiling the very base of the Indian education structure.All these ppl who are getting easy money tend to feel tht this is the way a Job works, it requires no effort, and the pay also keeps on piling up with every appraisal cycle.They spread this view amongst the peers, the student fraternity and the likes. This view gives birth to the present day easy going attitude of students towards the studies and job in general.The materialism, consumerism, loss of ethics and morals from the society are just the children of this kinda attitude.After all, wht wud a stale mind do,splurge on pleasure of course.

Now tht I have explained this phenomenon, let me come to the point I was really trying to convey.I am not a pessimist, but a person who feels one shud hope for the best and be prepared for the worst.Taking that logic forward, imagine if all this bubble goes bust.Countries call off their projects, outsourcing almost comes to a naught, may be due to any dramatic reason, lets say a depression happens round the world(which is imminent in coming yrs.). Countries may either completely turn down projects or come to a point where they ask the Indian companies to downsize.What would happen then?
IT companies have to lay down most of their taskforce, or bear the cost,hoping for this catastrophe to get over.My experience says in such situations only a few category of ppl remain safe–
One who have worked well over the yrs., and have strong fundamentals.
Two, ppl who hv good contacts, but in cases where the asses of even big bosses are on fire, such ppl also perish.

Let’s say the first and the second category of ppl do survive this crash.Even after that, more than 80% of ppl crash out of job.What will they do, how will the govt take care of them, or employ them.It will lead to a big crisis all along. India will not only lose a lot of money, but will see its GDP eroded overnight.Does the govt. has any contingency plan on that.I dont want to discuss this topic now, but what I wanna discuss is does the easy going, money proliferating IT junta has any plan to survive it, OR
are they even confident enof of pulling things off in such horrific conditions.
The answer, if you ask me, is sadly NO.

There may be two ways to survive the crash:
1. Try to get absorbed in any other industry in India, so that neither the person nor the country loses out on being productive and contributing to the GDP.But that wud raise a question, how will a computer engineer get absorbed in a manufacturing industry. That brings me to the point that it is the aptitude and the analytical abilities of a person that makes him perform in a given condition.
IT industry is the most widely open industry, when it comes to technology. Most of the technologies being used in practice are never taught in colleges, but still ppl adapt to them and use them effectively. Adapting to a technology requires an aptitude to learn things and deliver.What builds this aptitude is the hard work done at college and university levels, or even at job levels, when one is made to work in unknown/unchartered territories. When a student would shun his studies in college, feeling that he is assured of a job; and when an employee finds solace in sitting on bench and collecting the pay-cheque; without the concern to reskill; tell me how is this aptitude gonna build up. Of course, it will not be a one-day or the one-week affair which can be made to execute in bad times.
How will the bunch of ppl who have never worked hard to earn money, and those who have never thought abt reskilling themselves contribute to the country when good times are over. What wud these bunch of ppl do, other than being a burden on the govt.?

2. The other way to survive the crash is to become an enterpreneur.
“What happenned if I lost my job, as the market goes bust, and it cannot absorb me. I’ll work over to setup sthg else on my own, and make it as an enterprise.”
Can we think like this today? At least the ppl in IT industry, and I feel today’s youth in general doesn’t have the bandwidth to even imagine this thing.
B-Schools are a rage in India today.Why?Not because it makes you a good manager, teaches you managerial concepts but becoz u can be assured of a big fat cheque at the end of the course.
Today ppl think the following way:
“Who bothers abt taking pain to setup sthg on his own?
Why take such risk,man, when a company is willing to pay you loadfull of greenbacks.
Of course, everyone can’t be a fool like SaratBabu, who kicked plum jobs to setup an Idli-Vada joint.Goodness me, to sell Idli-Vada, after IIM-A.Was this guy nuts?”
If you talk to most wannabbes on the street, this is the reaction you’ll get when u ask them “Will you venture out on your own after getting a degree?”
First of all, our education system doesn’t teaches or rather encourages us to become enterpreneurs.And
secondly, the students don’t have the will to toil on their own when they are assured of a fixed and easy money after passing out. What this has done is make students shun enterpreneurism and shy away from risks.That whole attitude is slowly evaporating from the society.
So, just imagine if and when the crash happens, how many ppl will have the will, the tenacity, the confidence, and the acumen to pull sthg off on their own if the situation so demands.The answer,I feel, is Very Few.So, that will again leave the 90% ppl with no contribution to country.Again the same problem will raise its head, how to handle such mess.

So, my concern here is the changing mores of the society, fuelled mostly by the unexplainable boom in the IT industry, and the easy access to money that is making the today’s youth hollow from inside.One who can’t handle pressure, one who is not ready to take risks, one who runs away from hard work, one who is moving away from studies, one who is slowly being moulded into machines who can perform but lose the power to think on its own, to have the mental tenacity to achieve the unthinkable.

All this reminds me of the movie “The Matrix“. Alike that movie, aren’t the youths today becoming sthg of a energy cells being used just to make the machines rule over them.They live in an illusory world which has blackened out the actual scenario that is hitting them in the background.They will never know when the plugs will be taken off them, and right now they have no plan, neither the mental strength to fight out that scenario.
I consider myself a citizen of Zion(it may be an illusion also), and I think there are more members like me who populate the city. I sincerely hope to find “The ONE” to liberate the souls of today’s youth and bring them back to my city.It will be then when India will really shine.

Amen.

Asset