Off late, we are observing humongous problems in recruitment. Getting resources, make them work, retain them, get them motivated. Let it be start-up, larger organization, situations are same everywhere. In this blog I will try to search answers and retrospect the root cause. All cannot be written in single blog. Hence, I will try to document it through few episodes.
No respect to work:
We have a gardener at home who comes in morning and feeds water to plants in the garden every day with a monthly contract. He takes weekly off on Friday. One of the week recently, he took a leave on Thursday for a medical checkup of his wife and was reluctant to adjust it with his weekly off on Friday (which was just the next day). But he continued to be absconding on the following Saturday and Sunday as well. Suddenly he appeared on Sunday afternoon to inform that tomm onwards he would continue as usual in the morning. The answer as justification of his absence during Saturday took my blood off. He said he did not turn up for the reason that he was not feeling to work on a Bengali new year’s day ( yes, the Saturday 15th April, 2017 was the kick off of Bengali new year 1424) in order to prevent his hard work during every day of the proceedings days of the year.
2nd incident was also took place today. Two aspiring drivers came to meet me today as was searching for a new regular driver. He expressed all his expectations like he needs INR 12K as monthly salary on 12hrs working for 6 days a week, more than 12hrs, per hrs overtime charge INR 40, in case some Sunday he needs to work, he will work on extra money as per prevailing Driver Center charges, He will be charging for Rs.3 per km for outstation travel where lodging/boarding etc will be extra on actual. His bonus will be one month’s salary during Puja. In final notes he concluded that the driving job is very tedious job where he has been on the field, staying all the day with the cab, very tiring for out stations, as he has to drive so long. What he tried to mean was even after so many troubles he was favoring myself by charging so little, rather he had accepted the hardworking, suffering for me only to help me.
There are enough examples like this and I can write several books now on similar real life examples ( I am actually documenting this in “Fools’ Walk” series of books along with my coauthor Pritam).
Both the examples above clearly indicates the vision of a job aspirant or an employee/worker towards a job which feeds him/her money for the survival. Unless you love it, think it is priority, feels from the heart it is important for your family, the result can never be best. The outcome will be percentage output; there will be always distance/unhappy feeling with the employer and in effect most of the times wicket falls.
lollipop Generation
The headline is being qued from one the senior fellow Entrepreneur. This is more applicable for the present generation youth. In present era, there is one or two kids in a nuclear family. Parents have always been protective, possessive and primitive. The social economic standing enforces for best schooling, branded cloth, gadgets, gaming console, and loads of extracurricular activities to have a bight future for the kids. But the too protective pampered environment makes them relaxed, less hard-working, less competent to handle real life situations, inclined towards struggle free life.
There were situations where people declined to visit Arunachal ( north-eastern state of india) since their parents did not approve them going that far and in a disturbed terrain like this ( I really do not know why and how Arunachal becomes a disturbed terrain). Even there have been instances where people preferred to resign instead of opting an out location travel to Baharampur (in the district of Murshidabad, West Bengal.).
You might have seen latest “Parle” advertisements where teacher called mother to complain about the child behavior in class. The mother was questioned incase if she was about the same and surprisingly she countered that even sir is unaware about the biscuits for parents and kid are manufactured by same biscuit company. Useless advertisement, but reveals true retrospection of the society where teacher can be further questioned in front of the student. That is reason even a teacher slaps a student in class for wrong behaviour, the same may lead to a police case, media story and personal life threat for the teacher outside school territory.
This philosophy getting started from grassroots stage, will surely impact future professional life as well.
Entrepreneurship :
Now a days buzz of Entrepreneurship is flowing almost everywhere. All colleges, universities, associations, government, even corporations are floating schemes, facilities, mentoring, funding, incubation to manufacture entrepreneurs to have self-sufficient independent youth to stand on their feet without any job. But unfortunately that does not happen. Entrepreneurship does not only about just popping out an idea, but to execute the idea, build teams, sell the product/services to customers and earn money, manage funds, handle statutory, legal etc. More precisely entrepreneurship is not about riding on someone else’s money without any struggle, hard work. Rather the reverse rosy picture is being hallucinated that entrepreneurship is about free-flowing life where you can earn a lot of glories, lime light, fame, name etc without much of struggle. And most of the people finally fail, but the mindset gets injected of a free-flowing, non-obligatory, hassle free, non-accountable lifestyle and in effect the youth do not get comfort to a job where they are answerable or bound by Kra/appraisal system.
That is also applicable for experienced ones. People are losing jobs every now and then. Few people are leaving jobs for bosses, salaries, exploitation by employers, adjustment with the culture, locational problems, office timings, salary disbursements delays and so many other things. But the very interesting things most of them, first leave jobs and then search for options (those who had not lost job). Then after some time when they fail to get any suitable jobs, these people jumps into business in a “Me Too” model. Finally, most of them either fail or spoil the market by low pricing, desperation of orders, quoting without understanding and so on.
Finally, market dynamics gradually get evolved and in effect expectations from the aspiring job seekers change, which does not fit in to industry needs. In effect, the gap gets prolonged between employer and employee expectations. And yes, end result yields retrenchment, resignation, leaving absconding etc disrupts business dynamics.
Choosing Job Options
In seven years of my business, I did not find much of people interested in field jobs be it technical or sales. Everyone expressed inability of hard work in hot humid sunny days, rainy season, out location travel etc.
In a campus interview, we had selected 7 diploma engineers, 3 in technical and 4 in sales. All of them joined and that time we had tried to implement full HR process. Initial 15 days were full in-house training, before they will be placed for production. But after induction process of 15 days, Once the field visits started, 4 Sales guy disappeared by 7 days. Out of 3 service guys 2 also vanished in 15 days for the reason of out-location travel (someone had to catch morning 6.30am train for a 4 hours journey on a site survey).
I have plenty full of incidents to explain the situation. During interview for experienced ones, I found the latest trend to leave jobs first and then search for jobs. In effect almost any aspiring job seekers having 3 to 6 months break in career graph.
One of my friends referred me to Prakash two months back. Prakash’s mother works as a cook in my friend’s home. Prakash born and brought up in Bihar, but stays now in kolkata. He comes with a very needy family background. During face-to-face discussions, I liked him and decided to offer him the job. I continued discussion with him about his notice period in the present job (he was working in a domestic call canter for last 8months). Interestingly it was revealed that he could join immediately as his notice period was about to be over by next couple of days. I was wondering why he left a job without getting a suitable change. However, he kept me further surprised by the fact that he was rather having a job in his bucket and he was about to join there by coming week. My curiosity took an interrogative tone “Why you are further evaluating a job with us then?”. He said he did not find the culture, atmosphere of that organization very fitting for him, rather the organization was seemed to him as very fishy (that he discovered from few of his friends who were already working there). “But why you resigned from your present job with this dilemma?” my curiosity continued. His answer was mind-boggling “Sir, I worked for so many days, thought of taking a break!”. My reply was instantaneous” What? You are working here only for 8 months, before that you took a 4 months break for your ear operation, Why you need a break again?”. He answered, “Sir, actually next month is my birthday. Thought of having party and other enjoyment in this month and then again search for a suitable job again”. I was speechless and please note neither a single line of discussion is cultivated nor a single iteration in the dialogue.
This section, I will finish with one more story, very latest (garden fresh).
After so many issues with work force, thought of discarding B Tech, diploma, MBA kind of resources and pursued a campus in government youth training where they teach very basics of computers for the people who could not succeed much in terms in their traditional career. Anyway after one such campus interview, selected one candidate for sales. He was good in communication, body language, attitude and approach. He had not problem in field visits. After selection in campus, we asked him to office next day for the final discussion. We further discussed about job scope, opportunities and off course explanations on field visits. But he was extremely positive and excited to join from the very next day. More interestingly, he posted a Facebook update post leaving office about excitement of getting a first job. But unfortunately he did neither join not intimated next day. Once we investigated through the Institute, we have been apprised that his parents did not approve a job for him where he had to spent time in field jobs in hot humid summer.
THIS IS NOT THE END OF IT, SO MANY OTHER FACTORS. WILL WRITE IN THE NEXT DAY.
(To be continued…..)