Current Corporate Scenario

A man appears for an interview in a start-up company and the conversation begins:

Interviewer: Vishwas, what is your area of expertise?

Vishwas: Sir, I have no expertise, but my strength lies in handling anything and everything. If I’m hired in one department, I’m flexible enough to move to another and manage the work with same ease.

Interviewer: Oh, I see. You seem to be a multi talented person. How do you manage that?

Vishwas: Thank you Sir. I don’t do it myself; I get it done by people.

Interviewer: That’s great. How do you do that?

Vishwas: I diplomatically handle situations, politically deal with peers and flatter my superiors. I also crack idiotic jokes to grab attention and disclose internal plans of the company with subordinates to win their respect. I know all the tricks “To win friends and influence people.” That is all I can do.

Interviewer: Wonderful! Since we are a start-up, we are looking for such people who are flexible enough. As you have come through Mr. Arora’s reference, I don’t have to ask much.

He continues, “Initially, you will be joining as the Manager in Operations. If it doesn’t suit you, let us know and we can move you to Marketing. You have all the scope to try your luck and keep on experimenting. You can also be promoted as the Head of a department by next year, if you keep justifying your salary as you’ll be on a higher package than other Managers. Wish you all the best.”

Vishwas gets scandalized with the kind of proposal.

Vishwas:  Thank you Sir.

(To himself: What a bunch of fools, who’ll reward me for zero skills. That’s the benefit of being vocal. Thanks to such start ups. Who would want to quit such a company?)

Moral of the story:

• Don’t work, flatter.
• Have strong references, a strong resume is an outdated thing.
• Be friendly with important people at the top level like your immediate supervisor, HR or whoever will be of benefit. Hang out with them often.

Coming to the Deserving Ones

A Lebanese American essayist, scholar and statistician, whose work focuses on problems of randomness, probability and uncertainty.

Poor people; they slog day and night, but neither do they show off nor do they flatter their bosses thus, they lag behind. They silently mind their own businesses, do their tasks with utmost sincerity and dedication, and still lose the race in the corporate world that have undefined set of structure. They join the company with high hopes, feel as an integral part of the organization and later on they leave with utter dissatisfaction.

**Between the lines – All those genuinely working people, you are saluted. Keep up the good work as in the end it’s you who are the masters of knowledge and expertise. It’s better to be learned than being the slave of a few. Live with pride and dignity.

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Want to know the reasons for increase in attrition?

Increasing Attrition

Attrition woes are not new to the industry. What makes the attrition rate soar? Is it primarily for academic reasons, personal, financial or environmental? Or, there can be various strings attached.

Survey says that attrition happens because of the uniform dissatisfaction created among employees. This dissatisfaction may fall into any of the above mentioned categories or multiple categories. Surprisingly, despite of the increase in attrition and people switching industries or jobs frequently, are still hired at good positions with greater salaries. The quality of work is degrading. Professionalism, which was noticeable a decade back, is hard to find. People seek growth (monetary) more than anything. Did you just say stability? Who cares?

There’s a sudden drift from being professional towards keeping a casual attitude. People seem to be confident enough to get a new job without many efforts. And, who gives this confidence? Of course, the management, the organizations, the booming sectors.

There’s utter dissatisfaction, especially in the private sectors, among employees because the policies that existed ten years back does not prevail. Organizational policies are becoming meeker. Companies do not value employee. Nothing’s done in benefit of employees or to retain them. With such weak organizational policies even the deserving ones suffer big time. But, who cares?

The way people know they’ll get a new job if they leave one, the same way these private companies know there are always good candidates looking out for jobs. Moreover, again at the same salary package the company offered may be one year back.

Private companies were known to take excessive work and churn out all the labor that one can put. But, what are they giving in return? You get peanuts, with some butter at the time of appraisals, which are never on time and are postponed month on month. People slog, give their best, put all the efforts and time, just to prove their mettle and are disheartened to see what they get in the love letter from their supervisor, with all the convincing words and a good, well thought of or rehearsed lecture. Very convincingly, you are asked to wait for another appraisal cycle for some miracle to happen.

However, this is not it. There’s always a question that disturbs us and that is if the company is going through a rough patch or whatever holy shit was explained as a justification, then how some of those who hardly performed, but were good in interpersonal communication skills and were seen hovering around the bosses get a good hike and a promotion. Well, yeah!!!

Organizational behavior is changing drastically. Employers are not retaining as they know they can always have better at the same cost. If attrition is increasing, what measures are being taken to minimize it? Employees are asked to fill an exit form but, does anyone goes back and takes an action to eradicate the cause. Professionalism goes missing at the top level, and the same passes on to the bottom. Unfortunately, it’s not a good practice.

When some years back, only the deserved ones were seen moving up the ladder with the prefix Sr., today people aged 25-28 are becoming Directors, AVP, VP of the companies. With lesser experience of course the quality will deteriorate. And with lesser satisfaction, people will move on. Companies, wake up!!!