India Shining???

The Times of India, arguably a rather venerable newspaper in India published with much glee, the news that for the first time in history, average Indian's income crosses Rs 3000.

While on the face of it, this is ecstatic news supposed to make you feel good and believe India is shining, a few facts would put the matter in perspective.

1. The average Indian is predominantly a fictitious character. The fact being that the middle class is slowly becoming a thing of the past. Rising incomes in key sectors ensures that the chasm between the haves and have-nots is essentially becoming wider and more well defined.
2. Any conclusion regarding an average distribution of demographic information, generally assumes that the distribution of the population is on a Bell's curve or somewhere near that. The truth is the population in India is nowhere near a bell curve, but rather as shown below. Applying a simple average to this type of distribution would produce a rather skewed result.

So when the news piece starts with the following line:
The monthly income of an average Indian for the first time in the country's history has crossed Rs 3,000, thanks to economic reforms and a high growth rate of above 9% achieved for three years since 2005-06.

I am seriously tempted to believe that this might just be a media stunt by some rather unscrupulous people, both in the media as well as the political machine, who still live under the false impression that resurgent India will now gobble up every lie thrown at them without question!!! The halo effect of a rather deserved mandate better die down now, because the great power has been given, and we will watch you while you perform your great responsibilities!!!

Of accommodating organization cultures......

I have no idea what to call this... but it really had my friend and me in splits for ten minutes!!

The story goes that around lunchtime, my friend recieves a mail from his boss with the following subject:

IEEE Seminar on 30th August 2008

As such mails with most bosses go, my friend naturally got suspicious. After all, his boss was actually asking him to go to a seminar??

The body of the mail just had the following words:

IEEE is conducting a seminar on Entrepreneurship on the 30th of August 2008 at xxx place

Please see if it is useful for you.


Okay, this is a new one..... However the piece de resistance was the following line:

It is free.

So how is that for the goof of the year?? You allow your subordinate to go to an Entrepreneurship seminar just because its free!!

So its OK if the subordinate gets motivated to quit and walk the lone road, just because its free??

Like I told my friend, he's lucky to have such an open and accommodating organization!!

Accessible HR for the H!!!

I was discussing "work life" with a friend over coffee and he brought up a very peculiar practice in his organization.

Apparently the HR department of his organization was placed in a secured cubicle room in the building. Few employees, if any, had access to this secured cubicle enclosure.... which evidently made use of state-of-the-art electronic access methods.

So each time my friend needed some help with HR, eventually he was supposed to address this on the phone or if the matter needed the "physical presence" (sic) of the HR person, he was supposed to reach the place and call the HR person out of the enclosure.

This reminded me of a strange business model that banks had, where you would be charged each time you used the services of a human teller at the bank. Another reason I kept my money with the nationalized banks.... after all, I hate to be restricted to finite options of machines.....

But that's digressing from my point. Eventually Human Resources is a function to manage the Human Capital of an organization. Restricting access to the HR department is similar to not allowing the Materials Manager into the stockroom, or maybe not allowing the Finance Manager to touch the Account Books.

Perhaps the HR department was inundated with multiple queries about trivialities like "Where do I get the company transport?", "What is my PF number??" [PF is akin to 401k in India] or during appraisal time, when that million dollar question is repeated a thousand times: "When are the raises being announced??".

But the solution for that is definitely not putting HR in solitary confinement. Companies would rather do well by checking whether there is a discrepancy with the policy or processes by which these trivial issues are addressed in the organization. If a trivial query continues to arise with clockwork regularity, there is a good chance that the issue has not been addressed adequately enough in the process implementations, inductions, knowledge sharing sessions, HR orientations etc. that companies do as part of their onboarding or employee engagement initiatives.

The fallout of this, as I see it, will be a sure disconnect that employees of a company will develop with the organization. Sooner than later, employees will consider HR as an ornament, who comes in and organizes the occasional party or off-site outing..... and that possibly the only sensible way to solve a problem that genuinely requires HR intervention, like a coworker conflict or harassment, would be to QUIT.

Just like a bank that offers me lousy service, I'll just take my business elsewhere!!!!

So much for talent retention..........

Of Recruitment Consultants.............

This one I could not resist. I'm sure I echo the pain of millions of IT jobseekers when I post this. I'm really not sure whether I'm getting a bit emotionally motivated to post this, but I just had to make a point.

For any job seeker worth his resume, especially in the IT field, we have got into the habit of recieving 35 mails a day from recruitment consultants trying to convince you that you are a right fit for a profile that has nothing to do.

Just for the record, I'm an IT Infrastructure Consultant. I advise and guide customers about how to use IT Infrastructure effectively. My experience in writing code is limited to C and Perl and that too, just for kicks. I've never written commercial code in my life.

And then I recieve a mail which tries to convince me that I'm the one to do it. After 9 long years honing my skills in Networks. Here is the mail, verbatim. I thought I'd spare the recruitment consultant his 15 minutes of infamy, so I let Mr. CottonEye Joe from XYZ speak to me:

*****************************************************************

Hi Professional,

while congratulating you for your resume being picked and short-listed by us for Top 10 clients in INDIA.

We are pleased to let you know that one of our reputed client is looking for a qualitative professional just like you.
Our client particularly looking for the following skills: Technical Architecture - Microsoft Professionals with 5 to 9 years of IT Experience only.

Demand - Skill/location specification is as below

SKILL LEVEL LOCATION

Technical Architecture - Microsoft .Net Professionals
TL
Bangalore,Mu! mbai,Hyd erabad,Chennai

Technical Architecture - Microsoft .NET Professionals
AM
Bangalore, Chennai

Education: B.E degree in Computer Sciences, Electronics or equivalent; extensive experience and demonstration of required skills may be considered substitutes for
degreed educat! ion.

XYZ - In constant pursuit of Excellence
XYZ will provide you with a world full of opportunities, enviable avenues, very alluring yet enterprising cities, most incredible pay packets and some of the most prestigious corporate companies to choose from and work with. We are glad to have some of the fortune 500 companies in our clients' list to challenge your appetite for the best in the market.

Talent, merit, intelligence, hard work, and perseverance are the things we revere and respect. We value your ingenuity and strive to fit you in the best available! job and position you rightfully deserve. We see to it t! hat you will get the boost to reach for the highest orbit of your career.

XYZ - add wings to your career!

Kindly send your updated Resume along with your salary details and contact details to us in the next available moment to help us help you build your dream career.

TREAT THIS MATTER MOST URGENT AND RESPOND IMMEDIATELY.

Please send us the following details:

Current and Expected CTC:!
Notice Period:
Preferred location :
Date of Birth:
Mobile no:
Email id! :
First name:
Last name:

Kindly send your updated Resume to us in the next available moment to help you build your dream career.
&! nbsp;

Best ! Wishes
CottonEye Joe, XYZ

************************************************************************

This mail actually left me with a myraid of emotions.

It started with "elation", I've always wanted to be known as a Professional..... maybe the best way would be to make it my first name??

Then it turned to clear "joy", I had finally got so famous that I can get shortlisted for a job without an interview.

"our reputed client is looking for a qualitative professional just like you." Sure, do they look for other types as well?? Feeling: Bow down before the Master, lowly employers!!!

Then comes disbelief! Microsoft .NET!!??!! My resume is out there is cyberspace, but I can lay a bet that .NET never even featured as a typo in it!!! At this point, I kinda felt like Neo in the Matrix, where he says..." I know kung fu". Only thing, Morpheus answered, "Sure thing. No need to show me".

After this I lost track of it. Frankly because when someone is telling me about a job, I want to hear the job description. That's what they taught me in Business school!!! But then there's no more job and I get a nice marketing pitch about the recruitment consultant company.

I have still to find a recruitment consultant who is not "In constant pursuit of Excellence" and who will not "provide you with a world full of opportunities".

But then this would take the cake. "enviable avenues, very alluring yet enterprising cities". I'm still wondering!! If you can figure this one out, mail me.

"Kindly send your updated Resume to us in the next available moment to help you build your dream career." Sounds like an infomercial, doesn't it... "Our operators are standing by. Call now".

I think a disclaimer would look professional as well, in addition to that marketing tirade. Something like "If this mail is not relevant to you, please ignore the same". But NO!! The mail had to end perfectly unapologetic for wasting my time, filling up space in my mailbox and abusing my personal information which they had [I'm referring to my email id, which incidentally also contains my REAL FIRST NAME].

So now you know, with what confused emotions, I write this post. I wonder if my fellow professionals in other countries have it as bad. If only they read my resume, those two pages that I've slaved over for nine long years!!

I guess I'll just go lie down for a while now.....................