The Business Enterprise by Brisk Corporate Services P Ltd

Happy @ work?

6.1

National Employee Satisfaction Index

The 1st TBE Employee Satisfaction Survey

Wacky world

The top weird jobs from across the globe Crucial conversations Making it work!

Emotional Quotient Survival of the smartest

Team Business Management Group CEO Kalyan Kumar G. Managing Editor Aamir Rahman Editorial Deputy Editor Catherine Gilon Design Art Director | Designer Varalakshmi M.| Matha-ul-Ameen Subscriptions Senior Manager | Manager Karthick G.K. +91 98848 76175 | Suresh A.R. +91 99945 61100 Advertisement Media Sales Manager - Chennai Suresh Kumar G. +91 93817 91788 Support Media Coordinator Mubarac Nisha Board of Advisors G Vamshidhar Kaushik Tiwari Tatwamasi Dixit A.R. Santhanakrishnan Madhav Das N. Srikrishna Anusha Kannan Dinesh Kumar Agarwal R. Vinod Madhavan Kutty M.S. Raghava Rao

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At Pen Point

.............................................................................. Friends, I would like to begin this note by thanking the Almighty for the success of our first edition. I would also like to thank on behalf of The Business Enterprise, every single soul, who has showered it with support, feedback, wishes and prayers. For the next few editions, I would like to brag about all the unique features of our magazine, be it substantially big or insignificantly small. For this edition, it would be the ‘6 Es’, our six sections. If you have not taken notice of them, kindly allow me to introduce them to you now. Enlighten: For business ‘gyan’ and more Entertain: Your dose of corporate infotainment Exclusive: Cover story of the month Envision: Your corporate occult Evolve: All that’s new and fresh Engage: The 100% interactive section All our content themes begin with the letter ‘E’ and the thought behind this was to add some freshness to the contents page and to enhance the recall of our logo in the reader’s mind. The theme for this issue is Employee Satisfaction. We have done a national survey to find out what makes an employee happy and productive. We also have discussed important issues that determine an employee’s satisfaction such as role clarity, performance management system and rewards. We hope it helps you find the elusive happy employee. As for the employees, may you find peace in the company of others who are equally frustrated at work (Page 61). Have fun. Read. Reflect. Respond. God Speed!

Aamir Rahman Managing Editor

Inside-Out ENLIGHTEN

11 India at a glance 12 Steering tough talk 16 Emotions at work 20 Seed of hope 23 Crossing the LOC 26 Looms of Doom 28 Are you ready? 32 Do you have a plan? 34 Trendsetters 36 Happy employee - a myth?

ENVISION 64 Numerology

EXCLUSIVE

EVOLVE

38 In pursuit of happiness, at work! 44 Acting the part 46 And the winner is.. 48 The Ex Factor 50 Lessons from Corporate America

66 Lap of luxury 69 Show-stopper 70 Yours sincerely

ENGAGE 50

ENTERTAIN 52 Just another day at work 54 The Hoysala heritage 57 Mission adventure 60 Biz buzz 62 Venting virtually

73 Xchange 74 Crib corner 76 Punching bag 78 Your next step 80 60 seconds 82 IronE

NLIGHTEN

India at a Glance A glimpse of India’s economic indices. GDP (in percentage) GDP - India (Value - in USD billion)

Currency USD GBP EUR JPY CNY

2008 - 09 2009 - 2010 7.4 9.1 1160 1296

GDP Growth Rate Sectors Agriculture, Forestry & Fishing Mining and Quarrying Manufacturing Manufacturing Construction Trade, Hotel, Transport & Communication Financing, Insurance, Real Estate & Bus Service Community, Social & Personal Services Total GDP (in INR, Ten Million)

2009 - 2010 % Contribution 1,004,594 17% 145,532 2% 931,101 16% 92,743 2% 488,345 8% 1,436,650 24% 952,309 16% 817,058 14% 5,868,332

India GDP Annual Growth Rate 2007 - 08 2008 - 09 2009 -10

GDP Growth Rate (in %) 9.2 6.7 7.4

GDP Growth Rate (in %)

0 2007 - 08

2008 - 09

2009 -10

NIFTY 6400 6200 6000 5800 5600 5400 5200 5000

Months India Inﬂation Rate (in %) Jan-10 16.22 Feb-10 14.86 Mar-10 14.86 Apr-10 13.33 May-10 13.91 Jun-10 13.73 Jul-10 11.25 Aug-10 9.88 Sep-10 9.82 Oct-10 9.7 Nov-10 8.33 Dec-10 8.43 Jan-11 9.47

Indices SENSEX NIFTY

NIFTY

SENSEX

India Interest Rates (in %) 6 5

• Incubation

• Transformation

Jan 31 2011 Trends 19920 42950 1383 440.95 107.25 114.05 1244 118.35 1346.6 1357.9 1287.2 1035 12756 2730 5531 341 3506.5 113.7 197.7 4086

Months India Interest Rates (in %) Jan-10 3.25 Feb-10 3.25 Mar-10 3.38 Apr-10 3.63 May-10 3.75 Jun-10 3.75 Jul-10 4.08 Aug-10 4.5 Sep-10 5 Oct-10 5 Nov-10 5.25 Dec-10 5.25 Jan-11 5.5

4 3 2 1

India Interest Rates (in %)

Jan-11

Oct-10

Dec-10

Nov-10

Jul-10

Sep-10

Jun-10

Aug-10

Apr-10

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Jan-10

31-Jan-11 Trends 8,894.58 12,064.01 5,995.67 13,526.03 3,366.20 6,236.88 6,371.10 16,115.67 9,481.91 2,744.20 8,706.88 2,228.72 3,733.58

Commodities Gold Silver Tin Copper Zinc Aluminium Nickel Lead Cardamom Wheat Barley Maize Turmeric Sugar Sesame Seed Almond Jute Gasoline Natural Gas Crude Oil

SENSEX 21000 20000 19000 18000 17000

31-Jan-11 Trends 18327.76 5505.9

Sector Indices Auto BANKEX Consumer Durables Capital Goods FMCG Health Care IT Metal Oil & Gas Power PSU Realty TECK

31-Jan-11 Trends 46.79 74.2005 63.6962 0.5702 7.1078

Feb-10

| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |

India Inﬂation Rate (in %) 18 16 14 12 10 8 6 4 2 0

• ERP Implementation

India Inﬂation Rate (in %)

Sector

FDI from April - November 2010 USD million % to total inﬂows

Service Sector (ﬁnancial & non-ﬁnancial) Computer Software & Hardware Telecommunications (radio paging, cellular mobile, basic telephone services) Housing & Real Estate Construction Activities (including roads & highways) Power Automobile Industry Metallurgical Industries Petroleum & Natural Gas Chemicals (other than fertilizers)

2596

574

1093 999

8 8

834 984 533 960 529 271

7 5 4 3 3 2

“What you are, to what you want.” www.beeconadvisors.com

11 Mar 2011 | The Business Enterprise

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9 to 6

Steering the

ToughTalk Fight or flight mode is definitely the easy way out of a tough situation but having a skillful dialogue could help not only to sort issues out, but to strengthen relations as well. It’s all about skills “Ouch! That was pretty close, he would have killed himself,” said I, as a streak of panic ran through me and I was pushing my left foot hard as though pressing the brake pedal. Ram, who was driving the car, seemed to be least perturbed. Trying to justify my apparent panic, I persisted, “these damned bikers should be shot pointblank.”

“Calm down Bharath, if you have to drive on these roads, you’ve to get used to all these.” He seemed to be making an oblique reference to my driving phobia. He continued, “And you know, the biker, who just squeezed through the gap, would not even have felt the risk you are so disturbed about.” “Do you mean he is in such a hurry to be blind to the risks he goes through?” I asked, in

a slightly-offended tone. “No, he is confident of his driving and does not see any risk in the way he does it. His confidence comes from his skills,” I also heard the unsaid part, “and mine from mine.”

Fight or Flight: How did I miss it? This is something I keep talking about in my trainings: Lack of skills lead to poor attitude and vice versa. I am also conscious that it is my lack of driving skills that is at the root of my grumbling about the road traffic or parking space. I thought I should not miss this moment to talk about a specific behavioral skill I had wanted Ram to develop. I broached the subject cautiously.

“Yes, I agree with you Ram. We are generally averse to doing things, which we do not know or in which we lack skills.” “For instance?” he asked in a puzzled tone. “I hate driving because I’m no good at it and it shows in my attitude. I blame a lot of things outside me to avoid driving and when I am forced to do it, I get into the primitive ‘fight or flight’ instinct. And now I realise the best way or rather the only way is to get behind the wheel. I mean practice.”

to avoid, we could probably trace it back to the lack of skills at their root.”

to tackle is to talk it out rather than sulking about it to your friends.”

He seemed to be more mindful of his driving now, obviously not wanting to give a re-

“But here you see it is not only your skills that count, but your boss’ skills too. If he is not able to take the feedback, then you have had it.”

Whenever you find yourself stuck with another person or situation, it is a sure sign of a crucial conversation waiting to happen.

“Yes, of course, that is true with any skill we want to develop” said he on the expected lines. “So, if we look at certain things we tend

sponse. But he was intently listening. “If you have a YASNOR boss (Yelling At Subordinate For No Obvious Reasons), the best way

“But, so is the case with driving. When you are sure of your skills, you’re confident of handling those of the other person too. If you know to steer the talk, you don’t have to bother about what the other person lacks.”

I continued, “Avoiding something may temporarily work Ram, since we may pretend to remain unaffected. But it could erupt one day and make us get into a

13 13 The Business Enterprise | Mar 2011

Mar 2011 | The Business Enterprise

NLIGHTEN during these times will have a tremendous effect on a relationship, or on a company. Unfortunately, studies show that when the conversation matters the most, people do the worst.

Dialoguing skill: The authors of the book discovered that most people resort to one or the other end of a scale with violence at one end and silence at the other, or what we term as the primitive ‘fight or flight’ mode. Flight in today’s world becomes silence or absence; fight becomes yelling, screaming, pushing and other forms of violence (ref box item). The worst communicators when faced with a crucial conversation run from it or escape mentally. Good communicators either sugarcoat their opinions or ramrod them. The best communicators, however, resolve the problem through dialogue. sort of unexpected violent behaviour. I have seen people putting in their papers at the drop of a hat. When you look a little deeper, the ‘drop of a hat’ would have been just a flimsy excuse for the real reasons that have accumulated over time.” If we learn the finer way of handling these tough conversations, be it in personal or in professional relationships, we may not need to operate from the ‘flight or fight’ extremes or ‘silent or violent’ modes, as Karry Patterson et al have termed in their book ‘Crucial Conversations’.

Why do we get stuck? Whenever you find yourself stuck with another person or situation, it is a sure sign of a crucial conversation waiting to happen. The conversations turn crucial particularly when there are opposing viewpoints, strong emotions and high stakes. Be it talking to your boss about your annual hike or discussing with your wife about her obsession of buying gold, there are certainly polar-opposite views and high stakes and no doubt, emotions run high when these issues are taken up. Because it is tough to talk these things out, we either tend to avoid them or mess them up when we try to handle. Though people tend to handle routine business communication effectively, when it comes to crucial conversations, things bog down, go haywire, yet such conversations have incredible potential. How people conduct themselves 14 The Business Enterprise | Mar 2011

What people need to learn is how to dialogue when a crucial conversation is imminent. Dialogue is defined as the ‘free flow of meaning’. Each person in a crucial conversation comes with a bucket of presumptions, assumptions, opinions, and facts. Ideally, each is allowed to dump his/her bucket into a ‘pool of shared meaning’ from which synergy and resolution will emerge. And remember, ‘dialoguing’ cannot be mastered in a day and has to be learnt by doing like you learnt to maneuver your car through traffic-laden roads. The book ‘Crucial Conversations’ can at best, serve as a manual for steering your talk. Next time, when you are stuck in a situation, probably there is a crucial conversation waiting to happen. For Further Reading: Crucial Coversations - Tools for Talking When Stakes are High by Kerry Patterson, Joseph Grenny, Ron McMillan, Al Switzler –Tata Mcgraw Hill Bharath Gopalan

The writer is a Learning & Development professional and presently steers the L&D practice at Madras Cements. He holds Master Degrees in Psychology and Human Resource Management.

Repeated patterns of futile behaviour At the first sign of a conversation going bad, we tend to adopt fight or flight — more commonly, experienced as moving into silence or violence. Silence and violence surface through three respective behaviours for each. Silence is any action taken to withhold information from the pool of meaning. It ranges from playing verbal games to avoiding a person entirely. It occurs via masking, avoiding, and/or withdrawing. • Masking consists of understating or selectively showing our true opinions. Sarcasm, sugarcoating, and couching are some ways we mask our meaning. • Avoiding involves staying completely away from sensitive subjects. We talkbut without addressing the issues that are uncomfortable or upsetting. • Withdrawing happens when we pull out of communication altogether. We lose even the possibility of dialogue by steering clear of those who might raise difficult subjects. In some cases we go so far as to withdraw from a team or a project or to transfer others in order to avoid dealing with them. Violence can be any action taken to compel others toward your point of view. It occurs via controlling, labeling, and/or attacking. • Controlling is coercing others through how we share our views or drive the conversation itself. It includes cutting others off, overstating our opinions, speaking in absolutes, forcefully changing the subject, or using directive questions to control the conversation. • Labeling is putting a label on people or ideas so we can dismiss them under a general stereotype or category. • Attacking is the stage of violence where we’ve given up on convincing others and have adopted a goal of punishing them personally. We resort to abusive tactics such as belittling, name-calling, and threatening.

NLIGHTEN

Emotions at work

IQ gets you hired, but EQ gets you promoted. So say the head honchos and the HR managers of the corporate kingdom.

Q , Emotional Quotient, is a measure of a person’s emotional intelligence. Let us decode this phrase and get a better understanding of its importance in the professional sphere and how it impacts leadership. Darwin’s work on the importance of emotional expression for survival and adaptation is the earliest reference to this concept. As early as the 1900s, researchers were redefining the word intelligence, (which only took into consideration cognitive aspects such as memory and problem solving) to recognise and include non-cognitive aspects like emotions.

What is EQ? A person’s awareness of his/her own feelings and emotional triggers, those of others around him/her and the ability to respond appropriately to them, based on what the situation and social norm requires rather than what personal emotions dictate. It is about knowing when and how to express emotion in any situation, and equally importantly, about recognising emotional triggers and controlling them. EQ at Work Dr. Manoj Samal, an independent learning consultant and trainer in London who was earlier a research scientist with the Govt. of India shares his insight on why emotional in-

telligence plays a key role in today’s corporate world, “During my training and mentoring of people varying from school children to corporate executives, I have noticed that people who succeed the most are those with a higher EQ than an IQ. Primarily because emotion is no longer the poor cousin of intellect in today’s world where ‘team play’ is a prerequisite for success. To be an effective team player, one has to understand and manage effectively emotions of oneself as well as those of others. Moreover, the root cause of motivation to succeed in any task lies in emotion, not in intellect.”

EQ at work can be perceived from three dimensions: Nature of the job: The service industry holds EQ at work in high esteem. Irrespective of the situation, a certain decorum and emotional stability is mandatory in this job profile. Managing feelings and handling stress are important for success. Company morale: Consideration of co-workers, avoidance of conflicts through constructive problem solving methods are all morale-building initiatives that lead to stability. Every company, in any industry or vertical needs these qualities in their employees.

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Interpersonal relationships: Higher the EQ better the interpersonal relationships between employees and also between employers and employees. People with higher EQs are more popular and liked, more likely to be made team leaders since they display sensitivity and effectiveness in handling eclectic people and situations.

measured: Self-awareness:Awarenessof one’sown emotions and the ability to recognise their impact.

Why do you need to develop your EQ? The workplace has become more dynamic, more demanding and certainly more fastpaced. The smallest edge you have over your colleague makes a world of difference. Your cognitive, emotional, and physical resources become increasingly important.

Social awareness: Ability to sense and understand others’ emotions and expression of the same within social norms.

Have you ever wondered why, if your day starts badly at home (maybe an argument with your spouse), you are in a bad mood at work too? That is your EI at work. Once you make yourself aware of the emotional triggers and response, chances of handling and expressing it more appropriately improve. Scientists refer to this ability of stopping to analyze and honestly recognising an emotion (anger, jealousy, embarrassment) as a ‘metamood’. Let’s look at a more structured method, as laid out in Emotional Intelligence (1995), a best selling book authored by Daniel Goleman. In this book Goleman describes emotional intelligence as the wide array of competencies and skills that drive leadership performance. Since the publication of this book, emotional intelligence has become a prominent buzzword in the corporate world. The book outlines four main constructs upon which EQ is

Self-management: Control over one’s emotions and impulses while adapting to changing circumstances to bring about the desired positive outcome.

Relationship management: Inspire, influence, and facilitate development even while managing conflict. Goleman put forth the idea that individuals are born with a general emotional intelligence that in turn determines their potential for learning emotional competencies. EQ can be learnt and developed so that it becomes a tool, a skill set. Development of these four pillars of emotional intelligence results in a higher EQ at work. A combined higher EQ of an organisation results in better individual performance, team performance and overall organisational productivity, which in turn benefit the bottom line.

Are you a leader? Some roles, especially as you climb higher up the corporate ladder, require a higher EQ. Leadership roles, management level roles and particularly customer-centric roles place a high premium on a strong EQ. Handling difficult situations and difficult people maintaining one’s own equilibrium and controlling volatile situations with the right attitude and the right words

is the true mark of a leader. It is also reflective of his or her high EQ. The true test for a leader is when he has to solve a complex business problem involving multiple stakeholders, right from customers to vendors, and bring out intense, divergent, and at times, conflicting perspectives during discussions. Clearly, the outcome is better when the EQ of all the stakeholders is very high. Hence, it becomes all the more important to assess this perspective of EQ during a selection process. R. Satish Chandra, AVP – Operations Support, Microland says, “A true leader will not expect the world to be perfect, he will just find a perfect way to work around the imperfect (corporate) world.”

Assessment of EQ Different models have resulted in the development of various instruments for the assessment of EQ. While the measures itself may overlap, all models look into very different constructs. Bar-On’s EQ-I , has been around for over a decade. An EQ-I conducted in 2000 analyzed the scores of over seventy-seven hundred administrations of the Emotion Quotient Inventory (EQ-I). Results: men and women did not differ on the total EI. Women scored higher on people skills like empathy, interpersonal relationships and social responsibility. Men scored higher on adaptability, assertiveness, stress tolerance and impulse control.

assess aspects that are considered important because they provide an insight and a comparative feedback on a person’s relative strengths and weaknesses as against others in the same organisation or within a similar role. Also, the discrepancy between how others perceive a person as against his or her own self-perceptions. The most obvious and easily recognisable emotional skills are empathy, graciousness, compassion – all nonverbal, which by the way account for 90% of our emotional communication. Harvard psychologist Robert Rosenthal developed the PONS test (Profile of Nonverbal Sensitivity) to measure people’s ability to read all emotional cues. Today, there are specialist companies that create specific and customised psychometric tests for companies. These tests have their foundations in the existing tests discussed above. So specialised is this niche field, that the companies also analyse and assess the results. The findings are then handed back to the company interview panel. These tests have become an integral part of the recruitment process as they provide important and deeper insights about the person and also his or her suitability for a specific role. So next time you find someone annoying you, resist that urge to shout or snap, work towards being a more emotionally aware person. It sure will do the magic for you. Sheetal Chhabria

The multi-rater or 360-degree survey instruments are designed to measure emotional intelligence at the workplace. They

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Mar 2011 | The Business Enterprise

NLIGHTEN DEAs INC

Seed of hope Here’s a ‘for profit’ organisation that specialises in impact solutions for a better world.

ADD, Making A Difference Differently, offers sustainable solutions for both companies seeking to fulfill corporate responsibility and NGOs wanting to organise themselves.

Started by two alumni of IIT Delhi, one of them currently spearheading the organisation, MADD came about rather as a matter of course. “I have had experience working with several NGOs and was working with Developmental Alternatives before this. That is when I realised there was a need for organised and professional management in the sector. A lot of corporate social projects and non-governmental organisations function with very little structure and do not focus on becoming self-sustainable. We provide strategies to combat that,” explains founder Harpreet Singh. For over two years now, MADD has been working with both companies and NGOs on sustainable models. “We work on a grassroot level. Sometimes we do field work, visit the sites and make sure everything’s going as planned. At other times, we just chart out the model for the client. It depends on their need,” says Singh, adding that currently about thirty percent of their work is in the corporate social responsibility sector, and that it is the way ahead, as it has better reach and involves more lasting partnerships. MADD also boasts of a young, bright team and a network of partner organisations that help them attend to the grassroot levels easier. “The idea is to minimise wastage, provide effective management solutions and create a more productive and long-lasting shelf life for these projects that affect the life of many, socially,” says Singh, “when we started, it was quite a bit of a rough road. But now, things are definitely picking up with more people realising the need for organisation even in the social sector.” To know more about MADD, check out their website at www.madd.co.in. Krithika Sukumar

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LOC

Crossing the

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‘Customer is God, and the most important element in any business’ – From top business gurus to posters on a kiosk shop agree to it. Nevertheless, we often find ourselves sometimes caught in the quagmire of a killing dilemma – where to draw the line, at what cost and what would be the repercussions if we do so... Our writer Ram Kumar Ramaswamy talks to top employees in the BPO sector who give us perspectives, observed pitfalls in the industry that is resulted by over-pleasing the customer, and above all, say it quite clearly where to draw the line.

23 Mar 2011 | The Business Enterprise

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lease the customer, come what may! Don’t be rude, never swear or hit back when the customer does, be patient, answer every query, hit the target, and over shoot, if you must. Be diligent, attend every call, remember your geography, timeline and above everything else, your accent!- These are what any trainee call center employee knows by-heart when he/she completes a week in any call center. The burgeoning BPOs have changed the way customer care worked. A deeper look into the nuances of working as a customer care agent – 24*7. Talking to us after his shift with a popular Bengaluru-based BPO at 8AM, Ganesh Raghavendra tells us a lot in a thorough American accent interspersed with lengthy yawns, which is understandable as his ‘night’ was slowly drawing the curtains. “I think I have completely changed into an American! Yeah, that’s what it is. The job is well rewarding alright, but sometimes I feel that there are so many things we miss. We have bent too much to customers’ needs and the bent ‘broke’ very long ago, and we haven’t realised it yet”. When asked to list them down, Ganesh feels that the industry has become exploitative and authoritative at the same time. Though it is so, he

Always be firm in your approach and balanced in your reaction.

feels that not just the industry drivers are responsible for them. It is more a problem of people’s ignorance and unassertive nature. Ganesh says, only in the Indian BPO industry do we see Diwali as a working day and Halloween to be a mass celebration of sorts. The employees are slowly but surely drawn into a make-belief world of Americanism and over-stressed lifestyle that is making deep dents into their lives. “Talk to any crowd, you will find them in a world of their own,” he says. Anish Vangirappu from Hyderabad gets a little heated up when we link up the words call-centre and exploitation. “Do you think that our industry alone undergoes stress and the others are sitting in the park? Come on! The only difference between us and other sectors is the time difference in our work. That too is changing. Nowadays the industry is abuzz with 24 by 7 continuous support for any product and service. That calls for everybody in the loop to work around the clock, not just we, call centre guys” says Anish. He feels that the perception outside that call-centre workers are overstressed and live in an imaginary land of Americanism is unwarranted. “We are all as Indian as everyone else. Remember that, we are respected well wherever we go, we get our bucks with dignity a n d

get to be the changing face of Indian corporate service sector.”

holidays, wake up in the morning and do not sleep excessively. Indulge in your hobbies and travel, learn a new thing or take up cycling or jogging.”

Gurgaon is known for being one of the leading cities of Indian BPO industry. Gunjan He continues, “Next is emotional health, Sinha works in a reputed BPO as Manager, Corporate Policy. “Of course, I agree that the one most of us ignore, taking it is as a part there were certain accusations regarding poli- of work life. It is not! When a customer shouts cies in the media some years ago. The main back at you, do not do a mirroring act! Do not difference is that there are two kinds of poli- ever degrade yourself by shouting back, swearcies: One is that which is laid by the customer: ing aloud or showing your frustration in any form. Take a twomFor example, Dell inute break. Do or HP Computers only what you are gives us a certain Every emotion has assigned, and nothset of guidelines. to be dealt in its own ing more. Smile Also, the company sincerely when you as such draws out pattern. Remember do any job. It may its policy of work that you are not entitled not make the job hours, number of calls to be taken etc. to be at the receiver's easy, but it will definitely give you Sometimes, or more end of discriminatory the right attitude often it happens to for success. You are be the company and abusive talks. not anybody’s slave, policy that stresses the employee more! Make the person on the nobody’s master. But you are everyIn short, the cliother end understand body’s friend! This ent wanted X, the the limits. is the right attitude company makes to succeed in any the workers deliver industry.” X+1, and thereby cashing on the excess. Now, I can tell you so Kavita Grewal from Bengaluru gives us her confidently that all such anomalies have been sorted out. Most mainline companies only share of advice that comes from years of exwant the employees to deliver what is needed, perience, “I think the Western customer is and nothing more. The smaller companies very scrupulous about getting every penny’s may, in some cases try too hard to climb the worth that he/she gives for any service. This ladder. But once found to be faulty, the com- brings in a tendency in them to misbehave, or pany is in risk of losing their license and con- perhaps behave rudely, trying to intimidate the calling executive into submission. What I tracts.” explains Gunjan. learnt to do, and subsequently, the advice that Rajesh Srinivasan, a management consultant I give my trainees is that: and motivational speaker has a few points to teach the new entrant into the BPO industry, • Never ever give space for regional or racial “When you join the industry, treat the job as abuse. an earning avenue, a proving ground for your • Never let the customer get personal on any potential and as a stepping stone in your ca- argument. reer. All these are only possible when your • Never lose your cool and shout back. health is just right: physical health, mental • Always be firm in your approach and balhealth and emotional health are all vital. You anced in your reaction. get nothing by stressing too much by ignorRajiv Reddy who hails from a small town ing your body. It is not so alien anymore to work in the nights. One just needs to get some found the BPO sector exciting and took it up proper sleep, punctual diet - refraining from as his career in 2002. Eight years of being in ill habits such as smoking or excess caffeine to the sector and working across a range of serstay awake. Next comes mental health – On vices and shifts in both Hyderabad and Chen-

nai has taught him immensely. Now a team lead and motivator at his concern, Rajiv feels that there are several misconceptions among insiders in the sector that need to be changed. “First of all, understand the rules of business conversation, learn the tricks for successfully handling customers who talk with several emotions in their mind - Anger, impatience, frustration, puzzlement and so on... Every emotion has to be dealt with in its own pattern. Remember that you are not entitled to be at the receiver’s end of several discriminatory and abusive outbursts. Make the person on the other end understand the limits. Be an example to lead it through.” Rajiv feels that the attitude shift towards assuming the American accent deliberately would only make it sound funny and this may lead to the caller not taking him/her seriously. Instead, a perfectly neutral accent with moderate punctuation is totally acceptable in most cases. Accent and attitude comes only second. Expertise and sincerity comes first. So, that calls for a change in mentality in the professionals who join the sector. When Kavita is asked what the ways to disarm aggressive callers are, she tells us that there are so many techniques to do that. First, let the customer understand that he/she is listened to. This would mostly halve the anger down. Secondly, switch to an assertive and firm tone rather than an authoritative and repelling tone. Thirdly, when you encounter unacceptable talk, make it clear that it is not going to clear the situation, and could only lead to further trouble. Whatever be it, thank the caller before hanging up. Rajesh Srinivasan puts it across beautifully: “Believe it or not, there is still a servile attitude in Indians somewhere in the heart when it comes to services business. This is the reason why many youngsters in the BPO industry who come to direct contact with the English speaking world, think of going that extra mile in meeting customer’s expectations. But how do you know that, exceeding expectations brings fortune?! In most cases, it shows incompetence and does nothing. So, know what to do, how to do it and do only that much” Ramkumar Ramaswamy

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Looms of Doom

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Going back to figure 3 what is striking is the volatility in the growth in exports. Surely the exporters must have got used to this and would have taken care of the same. Looking at the exchange between the rupee versus the US dollar, one finds times of appreciation of the rupee and times of depreciation of the rupee in the last ten years. Most of the companies do make attempts at hedging and forward cover to minimise risk. The above picture clearly shows that all is not rosy with the 8000 odd manufactures, some

Rupees (crores)

0 1991

1992

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-10

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20082

2009 0092

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-20

565 555

Fig 2

The town of Tirupur which now houses more than a million people, has been growing at a rate of 30% per annum, in fact, it has been termed as the fastest growing urban city in South India. The 2008 recession was

a black swan event, unpredicted and came as a shock to the growing industry. It will be worthwhile to unearth some questions or problems bogging both the industry and the people of Tirupur. The exports from the region of Tirupur are shown in figure 1. It has been increasing steadily since liberalization but there are years when exports have dipped other than in 2008 when there was a major decrease in exports. Figure 2 traces the suicide rates of Tirupur district for last four years. A look at figure 3 shows growth in exports and portrays how volatile exports have been over the last four years. In some sense, one wonders whether these exporters knew how to handle this unpredictability. The negative growth in 2002 is almost as much as in 2008. How did the exporters handle the situation then? What was the situation of the workers then as compared to today when indebtedness and suicides seem more common? Or is it just short term memory, like always sensationalised when the topic is hot, only to get buried when the idea is cold?

526

491 Suicide rate

he ‘cotton’ city of South India, the hub of Knitwear exports has been in the limelight for the wrong reasons, lately. Dogged by suicides at the rate of 40 to 50 per month since 2009, Tirupur seems to be in a tizzy. Most analysts have blamed the recurring suicides on the famous recession of 2008. Both USA and Europe - major destinations for the garments from Tirupur have seen a dip in imports.

Fig 3

It is said to be the knitwear capital of India but suicide rate continues to soar high in Tirupur district as 565 persons committed suicide in 2010 (calendar year) as against the 491 suicides reported in 2009. Did the recession in Washington change the lives of the workers in Tirupur?

2007

2008

2009 Year

2010

small and medium scale, others very large and professional. Recently, as many as 25,000 jobs were cut and many workers had a pay cut of about 20%. Many reasons were attributed to this. The UPA government allowed unlimited export of yarn. This steeply increased the price of yarn, an input to these factories. Another reason for cutting down jobs was the rationalisation of the manufacturing process in these industries. Many of these industries started using more skilled labour. This is also probably in response to the going hi-tech due to environmental constraints. Most of the daily workers/contract workers in the factories of Tirupur are migrants. They are brought by agents and know very little about the town. In their eagerness to work they agree to almost anything initially. This is denied by companies but the problem seems to persist. Additionally, it is well known, rather well-documented and reported that the daily wage earners are working long hours, in poor conditions and often cannot attend to their health. When a health calamity strikes one person the whole family falls into the vicious circle of penury and the quagmire of poverty which is carried out for generations,

the only release in sight being suicide! Tirupur is not the first, what about the farmers from Andhra Pradesh, who commit suicide year after year or Vidrarbha? The problem is deep-rooted and we do not even seem to be scratching the surface. The industrial town Tirupur boasts of a literacy of about 76%, much above the state and country average. Can we blame the suicides on the poor wages, bad working conditions or extended working hours? Or can we say they attempted suicide for being packed off from work? Of course no employer has any right to offer anything but dignified labour, but one pertinent question to ask is did the worker know his rights and the choices available? In this lies exploitation by the ‘capitalist’ as we would love to label him. Every attempt at the literacy program has failed to address this issue. What is the point in providing 100 ‘mandays’ of work riddled in corruption or food security that is not edible when most people are illiterate to make choices and understand their rights? Here lies the problem that’s not economic but sociological

Lakshmi Kumar

27 27 The Business Enterprise | Mar 2011

Mar 2011 | The Business Enterprise

NLIGHTEN you find—or make—opportunities to weave them into your answers.

When Preparing for Interviews… When preparing for interviews, ask yourself (and your colleagues; it helps to brainstorm with others) the following questions:

Handling media can be like a bouncer; it's tough but you can hit a six with the right focus!

• What is our 30-second elevator pitch? (You should be able to describe your company, or what you do and why you do it, in 30 seconds.) • Who do we want to speak to through the media? • What is our primary message about the company, our product(s), or service(s)? • What main impression do we want to make? • What attributes do we want to associate with our company, product, or service? • How do we demonstrate experience, trust, reliability, and other positive attributes?

re you seeking media attention? Have you sent out media releases to promote your company, product, service, or event? Are you attempting to use the media to reach potential customers, shareholders, sponsors, donors, or other stakeholders? If so, you need to be prepared for interviews. Even if you are not actively seeking media attention, you never know when a reporter might call. That’s why every business owner, executive, and spokesperson should be able to answer questions pertaining to positive and negative news. If you are not prepared for interviews, you may not convey the information you want to express, you may not correct false assumptions, or you may look as if you are hiding something—even if you are not. If you are prepared, you will be able to articulately and accurately reply to simple, complex, negative, or confrontational questions. You will be able to tell your story (or the story about your company, organisation, product, or service) in a newsworthy manner. Unless you are managing a crisis, you want to answer the reporter’s questions—at least those

you are authorised and qualified to answer— but you also want to weave your key messages into each answer.

The first principle When preparing for an interview with a reporter, keep the first principle of media interviews in mind: You cannot control the questions. You can control your answers. Preparing for interviews enables you to craft interesting and newsworthy messages, along with supporting points and related anecdotes, that you want to convey. Ironically, by controlling answers and delivering key messages you can influence the questions that the reporter asks, and in that way you can influence the direction the story takes. In other words, if you say something interesting, newsworthy, controversial (if you are so inclined), or unique, the reporter will—in most instances—ask follow-up questions. The hope is that some of what you say will make it into the story.

What's your story? Key messages are the core of your story— what you want to say about your business, organisation, product, service, charity, book, film, play, or whatever you are promoting. Once you have developed your key messages,

• Where do we sit within our industry in terms of innovation, market share, geographical reach, and other pertinent factors? • What is our Unique Selling Proposition or USP? (In other words, what differentiates you from your competition?) • What would we like to read or hear after the interview? • If we could write our own headline, what would it say? Write out the answers to these questions. Keep the answers short and focused—about 30 to 45 seconds per answer. Supplement the answers with a few anecdotes about your products, services, or customers that help demonstrate what you want to say. If possible, get permission to ‘drop the name’ of an established customer who has derived great benefits by working with you.

Weaving in your answers Answering the questions listed above will help you prepare for the interview. But once you are prepared, how do you weave in your answers while answering the questions the reporter asks you? If a journalist were writing an article about my media training services, I would expect the journalist to ask, “When did you start to conduct media training?” I could give a simple,

honest answer: “In 2000.” However, why wouldn’t I answer the question in the following manner: “As a freelance reporter, I found that business owners often felt intimidated by reporters. That made it difficult for them to answer difficult questions, or to tell their good news stories. So in 2000, I started to conduct media interview training to help entrepreneurs and executives prepare for media interviews.” I answered the question honestly—“in 2000.” Notice, however, that in less than 20 seconds I worked in the following:

If you are being interviewed because of your knowledge of a certain subject, answer the questions and work in your key messages about your company or organisation.

• My experience • A problem • A solution • My target audience These points are an integral part of my key messages. When I am being interviewed, I want to mention that people (entrepreneurs and executives, my target audience) have problems with media interviews, and that I offer a solution— media interview training. While I do not control the questions, my answer might spark questions that pertain more closely to the information I want to express. In other words, through my answer, I gave the reporter fuel for questions such as: “Why do you think business owners are intimidated by reporters?” or “How do people prepare for interviews?” If you are being interviewed because of your knowledge of a certain subject, answer the questions and work in your key messages about your company or organisation.

29 29 The Business Enterprise | Mar 2011

Mar 2011 | The Business Enterprise

NLIGHTEN Perhaps you are an IT security equipment manufacturer being interviewed by a journalist who writes for a computer reseller publication. The journalist will ask you questions that relate to the interests of the publication’s readers. So he might ask you something like: “Can you give me some background on your channel program?” (Channel programs are how manufacturers distribute goods to resellers or retailers.) This is something you could wax poetically on for 10 minutes or more. However, you need to distill the most important points of your channel message into a 30-second answer, like this: “Special-IT’s reseller program targets computer resellers working in the small and medium enterprise market. In addition to earning excellent margins on our proven security hardware and training programs, they can earn 20 to 30 points reselling Special-IT’s security audits. We have an in-depth online training program and offer our partners exclusivity in their geographic region.”

Embellish your key messages with anecdotes to add a humaninterest element to your message

If the reporter needs to know more about your channel program, he can follow up on any of the points—your target audience, your hardware products or training services, or your security audits—you made in that one answer. But what if the reporter only asks you questions about security issues and you sense that he is not going to ask you about your channel program? Then what? Keep the first principle of media interviews in mind: You cannot control the questions. You can control your answers. Say the reporter asks you something like this: “What type of companies are most at risk because they are not on top of their security game?” Reply to the question and work in aspects of your key message: “Small and medium enterprises often lack the in-house IT staff and knowledge to fully secure their networks and

Web servers. That’s why Special-IT’s reseller partner program targets computer resellers working in the small and medium enterprise market. In addition to excellent margins on reselling our education and training programs and our hardware, they can earn 20 to 35 points reselling Special-IT’s security audits, which helps small and medium companies determine just how at risk they might be.”

of business seriously injured someone, reporters will want to know the name of the injured person and the cause of the explosion.

sage. In addition, embellish your key messages with relevant statistics to add credibility to your message.

In response to, “Can you tell us what caused the explosion?” it is perfectly legitimate to say, “The Fire Marshall’s Office is investigating and they will release the results once their investigation is complete.”

For instance, if a journalist asks me how important media relations is to business. I would say, “Public relations generates 28% of sales inquiries, second only to advertising (38%), according to a study by Inquiry Handling Services in California.”

Notice how you answered the question about types of companies and related your security audits message to types of companies most at risk. In other words, your key message is also related to the question. Notice also how the key message answer includes the name of the company.

You might suspect what caused the explosion, but do not speculate. No matter how many times, or how many ways, reporters ask you about the cause of the explosion, simply repeat what you are authorised to say: “The Fire Marshall’s Office is investigating and they will release the results once their investigation is complete.”

A print reporter can and will use your company name in an article, even if you do not mention it. If you are being interviewed for a broadcast media, however, and don’t mention your company (organisation, book, film, play) name, the audience may not hear it. Sure, the reporter might mention it off the top of the interview and might repeat it at the end, but your audience can drift in and out. Let’s say you are being interviewed on the radio and a reporter asks, “What inspired you to write this book?” I call a question like that a “soft lob”—something you should hit out of the ballpark. Imagine you say something like: “I wrote the book after surviving at sea in a row boat for 90 days, living through three tornadoes, and living on nothing but rain drops and seaweed.” Good answer, but why wouldn’t you say: “I wrote Ninety Days in a Leaky Boat after surviving at sea in a row boat for 90 days, living through three tornadoes, and living on nothing but rain drops and seaweed.”

Exceptions to the rule There are, of course, exceptions to every rule. If you do not know the answer to a question, or if you are not authorised to answer a particular question, let the journalist know that you need time to find the answer or to find someone who can address the issue. Then find the answer or find someone who can address the issue! For instance, if an explosion at your place

The ‘ money’ question There may be some questions that pertain to your business that you would prefer not to answer. For instance, the money question. What if you are a privately held company and the journalist asks you about revenue, such as, “What was your company’s revenue last year?” You could say: “We are a privately-held company and we do not release annual revenue figures.” If you don’t reveal revenue figures, then you don’t have to reveal them. But you can answer that question in a more positive and constructive manner. Here are a couple of potential answers: • “As a privately-held company we don’t release revenue figures. However, we are profitable. Revenue has increased by double-digit figures over the last three years.” • “As a privately-held company we don’t reveal revenue figures. However, we are meeting our projections and are particularly excited about our prospects for next year because there has been increased demand in the [whatever] sector for our services.” You are not dodging the question. You are saying what you can say in a manner that answers the question and shines a positive light on your company.

Say it with a story Embellish your key messages with anecdotes to add a human-interest element to your mes-

Don’ t be negative. Stay positive! Notice how the two phrases above say the same thing. The first says it in a negative manner—“don’t be negative.” The second is positive. Some reporters like to ask negative questions. They often save them for the end of the interview when you are feeling relaxed because you think you have bonded with the reporter who has chuckled at a few of your witticisms. Don’t reply in a negative manner to negative questions. Stay calm. Reply in a positive manner, starting with a positive statement rather than repeating the negative question. Say, for instance, you are the president of Organic Pets, an organic gourmet pet food manufacturer. After what feels like a positive interview, the reporter asks, “Considering the state of hunger in the world, isn’t pet food— organic or otherwise—a waste, perhaps even a crime?” Your instinct might be to say: “No, making pet food is not a waste or a crime. It’s perfectly legal and moral. It’s not like cigarette manufacturing.” If you say that, you repeat the negative phrasing (“a waste or a crime”), sound defensive, and associate your product with one that has negative connotations (“cigarette manufacturing”). Your job is to be positive about your company and product when replying.

If your company has donated to a food bank or some other charity, you might want to weave that in: “People become very close to their pets. They want them to live healthy lives. Organic Pets produces food that helps dogs and cats live long, healthy lives. We also try hard to be solid corporate citizens and contribute funds to the local food bank each year. It’s our way of giving back to the community.” That is a positive answer. It is not defensive or personal and it weaves in your key messages.

Practice, Practice, Practice After you develop your key messages and anecdotes, practice, practice, practice. If possible, have someone conduct a mock interview and record or videotape your replies. Although it can be disconcerting to see yourself on tape, the best time to feel nervous is while you are rehearsing. You may still have butterflies before the interview, but that’s normal. I don’t know about you, but when it comes to media interviews, I’d rather be prepared and nervous than unprepared and nervous! Paul Lima

The writer is a freelance writer, media interview trainer, and author of several business writing books, including How to Write Media Releases to promote your business, organization, or event. Paul conducts media interview training to prepare business owners, executives, authors, and others for print and broadcast interviews. http://www.paullima.com.

What you want to do is answer in a positive manner, while staying focused on your business and messages. How about saying something like: “People become very close to their pets. They want them to live healthy lives. Organic Pets produces food that helps dogs and cats live long, healthy lives—at the cost of a regular pet food.”

31 31 The Business Enterprise | Mar 2011

Mar 2011 | The Business Enterprise

NLIGHTEN

Do you have a plan? Last month, we had looked at brewing great ideas and transforming them to reality. Well, your business plan is one step in that direction.

ou know where you stand, you know your destination, your business plan is just your road map. Most businessmen get into business with a gut feeling, it might work but then proper planning can help you avoid some major obstacles. A business plan need not necessarily be for the newbie, it should be a work in progress and evolve with your business, incorporating external financial climate as your business grows.

Why do you need one? • A business plan can help you know your own shortcomings – for ‘the devil lies in the detail’. • It can act as a good marketing material to get financial support. • It can help you set targets to measure up to. The seven steps The different elements that go into making of a good business plan are discussed in brief: • Executive Summary This is the most important part of the business plan; it gives an overview of your entire

plan, your company profile and history of other businesses. It should have the following elements: • Mission statement – it sets a common goal for the employees. • Details of the founders • Number of projected employees and branches to be established • Products and services rendered • Financial crux – current investors and funding needed • Future plans This summary should be crisp and clear and should be able to capture the essence of your business in a nutshell.

• Market Analysis This is again another important facet of your business plan. Market feasibility study has to be done before you begin any business. First, understand who your target audience are and then go about finding the gap in that segment. For any business, it is important to understand the big picture and the local market. For

Strategies

Core functions

Procurement

Storage

Retail

Support functions Marketing

e.g., if you are into jewellery retail, you need to understand the global scenario of the market and then you need to step into the field and understand it locally – the demand drivers in the sector, the purchasing power of your TG, the competition analysis, rental of the commercial land etc. Financial analysis is another parameter, wherein you need to consider your debts, equities, your breakeven target and one should always plan for a minimum 3-5 month working capital cushion (most people forget to work this out in advance).

• Company Profile Without being too descriptive, it should give the overall company structure and how all the functions fall into your business model. Enlist the needs of your target audience and justify the need for your organisation with that regard. • Business and organisation management This part discusses in detail about your core management team and the support functions that are needed. It gives the profiles of the key players and their roles in the organisation. The work force required is also projected.

Finance

Administration

IT Support

• Marketing & Sales Marketing is the way you woo your prospective client and this strategy has to be worked out in detail to break into the market. If you have a direct sales strategy, it too has to be planned to be carried out effectively. These two are the bloodline of your business and hence utmost care has to go into planning these strategies. • Services/Products This part should have detailed description of your products or services, its USPs, R&D details, if any and copyright/patent information of the same. • Finances and funding: This part should share your historical financial record of previous businesses and/ or your prospective financial data. Make sure you impress the readers with the correct information and realistic projections. Remember, one lie and your project will never see the light of the day. The funding part should precisely state the amount of funding needed and models of working out the same.

For customised corporate guidance on business incubation, business transformation and technology computing, contact anusha@theenterprisemagazine.com

33 The Business Enterprise | Mar 2011

Mar 2011 | The Business Enterprise

NLIGHTEN

rends In Vogue Pvt. Ltd., a group Company of CavinKare was founded in July 2002, as a professional personal styling and beauty solutions provider. For an industry that worked on a trial and error method, Trends in Vogue Pvt. Ltd created a revolution by giving its staff state-of-the-art training with hands-on experience through their Trends Academy. In fact, one could say that the company pioneered the concept of ‘Family Salons’ in India with its dedicated brands - LimeLite and Green Trends. With a team of professionals - highly qualified cosmetologists and hair care specialists and with the skill base of the CavinKare R&D team, Trends In Vogue offers a range of cosmetic treatments to their customers.

Trendsetters Trends In Vogue Pvt. Ltd recently received the World HRD Congress award for ‘HR practices for organisations whose turnover is below 50 crores’. An official report from them, on what makes them leaders, when it comes to Employee Satisfaction.

D Umasankar, Manager, HR & Training, Trends In Vogue Pvt. Ltd. takes pride in saying that though they belong to what is known as an unorganised sector, they do follow all statutory norms. He says when it comes to employees they make sure that every small grievance is noted. For e.g. they have medical insurance facilities so that even employees from North East, who find it difficult to avail ESI facilities, can benefit through this. He now briefs us on the different HR practices they follow to guarantee a happy employee. Feel at home We know that every employee joins the brand with certain expectations. After three months, we have a meeting with them to have an open discussion. Here, they can share their ideas and suggestions that can make the work environment better. We also listen to the grievances they have and address the same. If the employees have a problem discussing an issue with their immediate boss, this meeting gives them scope to voice it out directly to the management. The learning curve Being in the industry that is dependent on lifestyle, our employees need constant training on the latest trends. Every year, the training needs are identified and the employees are groomed accordingly. Hence, our SSPs (Salon Service Providers) do not have a passive or

Open environment Our company believes in having a transparent relationship with the employees, hence anyone can walk up to the HR or even the

exceptional service. We recognise star performers every month and put up their pictures in the salon. Every employee, at whichever level he works, is awarded directly by the top management, in front of a large audience. This gives a ‘feel good’ factor and makes them feel to be a part of our family.

top man in the company to discuss his/her ideas or issues. This is a win-win situation – our employees feel empowered and we in turn get new perspectives from the field. We grow together.

When the performance level is lesser than expected, we check whether it is because of the reduced footfalls or because of a person’s demotivation. A senior manager interferes and discusses it as and when the need arises.

Satisfy employees, delight customers Every month, we have a ‘customer delight’ and ‘Star Salon’ awards to motivate our employees to serve our customers better. We recognize those employees who go beyond satisfying customers and motivate them further. Eventually, we believe that when our employees are happy, our services go beyond the ordinary.

Other facilities We have lot of other facilities like marriage welfare fund, education loan, salary advance for our employees.

monotonous work style. There is always scope for learning and development here!

Automated performance measurement system We have an incentive system wherein the employee almost gets an amount equal to his salary component. The best part is all our incentive parameters are objective and are recorded online on a daily basis. The internal software called ‘salon trend’ captures the employee’s service or sales and deposits it in his/her account. And we have a performance review every month to measure the progession of performance. As all our parameters are measurable – an employee can easily voice out if he finds out any discrepancy. Then, these parameters are consolidated annually for awards, promotions etc. As there is no subjectivity in the records, there is literally no scope for bias.

Future plans This year, we at HR have promised to enable customer retention through enriching service excellence. Of course, our performance too will be measured objectively through the software.

Takeaways • An objective appraisal can make your feedback system transparent and hence stop any employee dissatisfaction. • Recognise every employee’s work at the management level to keep your employees motivated. Sometimes, awards can motivate better than financial incentives.

Rewards and coaching We know that it is important to keep our employees constantly motivated to deliver ‘that’

35 35 The Business Enterprise | Mar 2011

Mar 2011 | The Business Enterprise

NLIGHTEN

wise

Happy Employee -a myth?

volves around money, benefits, quality of life, position and power. They look so attractive that most people are forced to believe it to be the goal of their career. People end up choosing a job which they are not particularly happy with but one that pays well. Does the story of engineers doing an MBA sound familiar to you? The by-product of a career becomes the end purpose of the career and the desire is killed. And, in doing so, play is transformed into work. If people do not let these forces of immediate needs drive them, they can surely have a happy career.

P.S.: To make sure that employees really make the difference, it is most important that the goals of the organisation and that of the employee align with each other. Else, it will end up in work, work and more work! Adapting to organisation and people It is common to see that when someone joins an organisation, they shower all praises for the same and its management team. Then gradually he becomes indifferent to the same and takes it for granted. And finally he starts hating it. It is time to look for a new job!

eing healthy does not mean that one has never been sick. It means that one has healthier days than the days in which one has been sick. Similarly, a happy employee does not mean one who has never had any problems at work. It means their chances of having a fulfilling work day are higher. Happiness is an emotion and hence it’s a very personal thing. It is a state of mind. Different people will be happy (or otherwise) in different situations. Some of them are induced by the workplace and some by their personal circumstances. Therefore it is very difficult to generalise it for anyone – be it an employee or an entrepreneur.

So, how can an employee be happy? • By not working!

• By adapting to the organisation and its people • By aligning needs with goals Let us try to understand them better.

Not working! Everyone has a desire to achieve something in the given profession. They want to make a difference in a given way and want to make a living out of that. This is a great approach for a perfectly happy work life. Most people use the word ‘work’ to specify something that one has to do for making a living. But, when you do something you are passionate about, you are not working! You are doing it because it makes you happy. Unfortunately, on several occasions, the immediate need overpowers passion and the dream is lost. The fulfillment of immediate needs, which is mostly derived due to peer comparison is a great feeling. This mostly re-

So the question is: Has the person changed? Has the company changed? Neither of them may have changed. It is perception that has changed. Every organisation and human being looks great at the first instance, simply because everyone wants to present their best self. However, as the relationship grows, both learn more about each other. When the person is unable to take the new found perception of the organisation in stride, dissatisfaction grows.

No organisation is perfect. No human being is perfect. It is critical to adapt. Similarly, to be happy at work, one needs to see things holistically. When we look at things by stepping in someone else’s shoe, we understand things better and are able to adapt to the members of the organisation. Heartaches and frustration can be avoided, and meaningful discussions can be made by doing so.

Aligning goals with needs good organisation can manage the hierarchy of needs in the workplace. But how can we manage personal life? This question is more crucial as the demarcation between work life and personal life is rapidly fading in most organisations. I do not see this as a problem, because for a happy employee, work and personal life cannot be separated because they pursue work to satisfy their personal goals. Therefore it is not necessary to demarcate work and personal life. But it is critical that personal goals and needs are well aligned to the work life. It needs major functional change (and scalability) in the human resource management framework of companies. And the employee needs to have clear unbiased focus on personal and professional priorities.

This is easier said than done! So, the happy employee is a possibility. There are happy employees, but less in numbers. Even if companies desire, they cannot scale and customise the human resource framework to make majority of the employees happy. Also, it may not be possible for every employee to follow passion and adapt. Both factors put together make ‘happy employee’ a rare phenomenon, thus raising the question – ‘Is the existence of a happy employee a myth?’ Abhishek Rungta

The writer is Founder-CEO, Indus Net Technologies. Every month, he shares with us simple yet powerful business lessons. Reproduced with permission from the blog http://www.abhishekrungta.com. [With inputs from Mukul Gupta, Head of Operations – Indus Net Technologies]

37 37 The Business Enterprise | Mar 2011

Mar 2011 | The Business Enterprise

XCLUSIVE

In pursuit of

Happiness,

The Business Enterprise Employee Satisfaction Survey 2011 ventures to find what makes an employee choose a particular company and better still makes him stay put and happy.

he Business Enterprise did a nation-wide employee survey across 10 cities – Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Hyderabad, Bengaluru, Ahmedabad, Kolkatta, Cochin, Coimbatore and Pune covering nine major job sectors through email, telephonic and direct interviews. And here’s what India Inc. says about its work life!

“It is fun working for Radio Mirchi! I still remember the day I had joined work here, two guys came and informed me that I had to go for another HR round and they were apparently shocked that I hadn’t brought my papers with me. I was made to wait at the reception desk while they had a discussion about my prospec-

The Business Enterprise | Mar 2011

Industries Covered Telecom Media 4% 1%

IT/ITES 37%

Construction 5%

at work! tive career. Few anxious minutes later, another lady (my would-be team mate) invited me to the conference room, it was then, that I realised that I was officially ragged by my colleagues (Those fake HR executives). From day one, it’s been one enjoyable journey. We do not have a formal dress code, the company just expects us to be neatly dressed. The office atmosphere is very open and friendly. There are no doors or dividers for any cabin. Anyone can walk up to the managers for a discussion. And most of all, we have the freedom to take decisions at every level. It is finally nice to work in a place where there is no rigid hierarchy.” – Sethu Raman K, Account Manager – Sales, Radio Mirchi - Coimbatore “Getting back to work after my maternity break was a huge challenge for me. My company eased out the process by giving me flexible working hours and options to ‘work from home’ when required. If this hadn’t worked out, it would have been a huge setback for my career” – Archana Vijay, Private IT firm, Bengaluru When it comes to work life, the current generation seems to look beyond the stable and secure government jobs. More and more people are opting for companies that are fun and flexible and jobs that just let them be. So, what makes an employee take the first step? Are you the chosen one? Though brand value, designation, compensation and work culture are the main factors that make a person choose a particular company or job over another. Our study shows us an interesting pattern – the younger crowd, primarily fresh

Consulting 6% Financial Services 6% Retail 12%

Manufacturing 16%

ers, seem to have a higher preference for brand value (42%) over other factors. For a person who has minimal experience or no experience, it becomes a value-add to be in a brand that is well-established. Here, they get to learn from the leaders. Similar to how employees preferred government jobs for its stability and perks in the previous generation, youngsters today opt for big brands to give their career a jump start. Once this is done, the mid-career segment seems to choose jobs based on compensation or proposed designation. Towards the end of one’s career, the position offered (33%) and work culture takes priority (29%). While money and power plays a major role in choosing a particular job, it is debatable whether these factors can guarantee job satisfaction. HR personnel Reshmi Shinde from Bengaluru feels that it is often monotony that kills the joy in the job. Challenges that are tough and obtainable make work interesting and eventually sustain the employee’s interest at work. She adds that companies need to have a transparent feedback and appraisal system to ease out employee’s concerns. The next part of our survey delves deeper into this issue – working out an unbiased appraisal system.

Services 13%

Why employees choose a company Brand 35 to 45 Yrs 15% 31 to 35 Yrs 20%

Up to 25 Yrs 42%

26 to 30 Yrs 23%

Salary 35 to 45 Yrs 23%

Up to 25 Yrs 19%

31 to 35 Yrs 25%

26 to 30 Yrs 33%

Position

35 to 45 Yrs 33%

Up to 25Yrs 15 % 26 to 30 Yrs 21%

31 to 35 Yrs 31%

Work culture

35 to 45 Yrs 29% 31 to 35 Yrs 24%

Up to 25 Yrs 24% 26 to 30 Yrs 23%

Mar 2011 | The Business Enterprise

XCLUSIVE

Performance

management system O

ur company has this policy of giving the highest grade only to one person (out of around 45 employees in each team). So even if two people are equally good at work, only one gets the highest rating and hence qualifies for incentives reserved for that slab. And when it comes to awards, it is distributed in round-robin fashion to please all, so where can we get a just appraisal for our performance? – SK, Media agency, Bengaluru.

“Our appraisal system is simple, you please the boss, you get the rewards!” – Meena, Relocation Firm, Delhi If we observe the attrition rate of any company, it is normally higher around the appraisal period. As much as recognition can work for employee’s satisfaction, the lack of it could demotivate one into possibly leaving the job. While our survey observes that transparency in the appraisal system is mostly good except for in the manufacturing sector

67%

33%

Services Retail Media 40

• Train appraisers first

95%

IT/ITES

33%

67%

62%

38% 100%

50%

0% Agree

The Business Enterprise | Mar 2011

• Automate it - it saves money and resources and gives you an unbiased performance management process

77%

23%

Construction

• Link performance management with your training processes

80%

20%

Consulting

Manufacturing

• Document every observation

67%

33%

Financial Services

• Gather feedback from a number of sources – 360degrees, system records etc

95%

50% Disagree

Now, let’s look at some key parameters that can help you maintain a good performance evaluation system which does more than just distribute some incentives:

• Plan an ongoing process that measures performance

81%

19%

Shailendra Tripathi, VP, Strategy and Corporate Planning – Bright Autoplast, opines that it is possible to remove this bias to a certain level by bringing in three different feedback parameters instead of one – one that is totally dependent on measureable deliverables like attendance, sales targets etc, second one that is reported by peers, also known as the 360 degrees feedback and the third from the reporting manager. This way, we reduce the possibility of the appraiser’s bias.

• First, set goals effectively and communicate them

Transparency in Appraisal System - By Industry Telecom

(only 33%agree that there is transparency in manufacturing sector). Yet, 85% of the surveyed employees claim that the appraisal system is dependent on the appraiser. Now, the challenge every company faces is to remove this bias and to make it fool-proof.

100%

150%

Also, do check on our exclusive story on Trends In Vogue Pvt Ltd (page 34) which has an automated performance evaluation system in place!

Life after T

here was a time when working after six meant overtime and extra bonus. But those good old times have changed and if you pack your bags at six today, you might get curious glances. Except for banks and schools, a 9-6 work life is unheard of in the current corporate world. What has brought out this paradigm shift in the way we work?

In fact, 44% of the surveyed employees claim that they lack social life. No wonder that half of them seek a virtual social life at networking sites like Facebook, Orkut etc. Work-life balance is a major concern for India Inc and might eventually lead to a nightmarish attrition rate. So, how do we address this issue? Stating that work-life balance is a major criteria for job satisfication, JX Gregory, Management Consultant, Sagac Pvt Ltd says, “In some companies, bosses have this wrong paradigm that working long hours shows commitment. In our company, we make sure that employees leave at 5. 30 in the evening. We view the time spent in terms of the value added. We do not have the policy of encashing privilege leave. If you had worked six days, you definitely need the seventh day off. We all need to take regular breaks from work to do it properly and to lead a normal human life.” He adds, “We emphasize on smart work and not hard work.” While 82% of employees in Pune claim that they have a social life, only 33% of employees in Coimbatore agree that they have a social life after work. Overall North India seems to have better social life compared to their Southern counterparts. Giridharan who works for a private BPO firm in Chennai says that his work life has taken a toll on his health and happiness. He says,

six

office.” Our survey found that 15% of employees in South India have a problem reporting to female bosses while only 2% in North India have problem Gowri J, HR Manager, Chennai says, reporting to a female boss. Well, the “There are few ways by which companies can gender bias in corporate India has alinculcate a sense of balance between work and ready started dipping down, we only life in its employees. wish the percentage lowers further in • Have a fixed 8 hours working limit with suf- future. “I work anywhere between 9-12 hours a day. End of the day, I have time only to come back and sleep. I find it difficult to even talk to my roommates, leave alone visiting my parents in another town.”

ficient breaks in between.

• Have meditation, yoga or other relaxation techniques taught in office. • Corporate outings with families should be encouraged. • If somebody shows signs of a job burnout, give them a break!

Reporting to Female Boss 83%

Male Vs female bosses

No Problem

15%

North India South India

Shakeera S, Managing Consultant, Hyderabad says, “I will always vouch for a male boss. Because I feel that women tend to bring their home to

Existence of Social Life Pune Mumbai 41

Delhi Bangalore Hyderabad Chennai Calcutta Cochin Ahmedabad Coimbatore

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

Mar 2011 | The Business Enterprise

XCLUSIVE

Happy to N

ow, we take on the million-dollar question. How can we make an employee happy? Give him/her promotion, bonus or perhaps a paid leave. While, that might work, now let us look at what the employees have to say. The surveyed employees cited that ‘recognition for the word done’ and ‘respect’ followed by knowledge as the top reasons that give one job satisfaction. Financial incentives surprisingly dropped down to the third rank in the listing. In our exclusive this issue, we also take a look at how performance of your employees can be recognised and rewarded (page 46 ). Like a biased appraisal system, its offshoot- rewards system, often seems to be biased. Some companies decide to please all and do it the Round-Robin way. Does this in fact satisfy all? “No!” says Shailendra Tripathi, “Awards too should be given totally based on performance. When the deliverables are clear and can be measured, then there should be no problem in finding the right candidate. After all, an increase in salary can enthuse a person for only a single day but recognition when given on a public forum can boost that person’s image.” Unfortunately, most companies do not recognise the need to appreciate an able employee. Now, for the figures:

Recognition & Respect

Financial Incentives 42

Knowledge and Experience

The National Employee Satisfaction Index stands at 6.1.

Empowerment

Top 4 Job Satisfaction Factors The Business Enterprise | Mar 2011

While Delhi and Bengaluru boast of the highest satisfaction indices in the country, Coimbatore employees were the least satisfied of the lot (39%). 25 Factors ranging from basic facilities like clean restooms, PF, insurance, boss-peer relationships to a proper appraisal system were taken into account to work out this satisfaction survey. We found that while most companies scored well on factors like infrastructure, peer relationships, they lost out on process management.

work? The ‘not-so’ happy ending “I have worked in three MNCs and have never had a proper exit interview till date.” – Vidya Paramel, market analyst, Mumbai. When a person puts down his papers, many companies just let go of him without understanding the reason for his decision properly. Though some situations are unavoidable, an employee mostly quits his job due to grievances that could have been addressed. This is where a proper exit interview would have helped. Even if that particular person does not retain his job, we could get the crux of the issue he faced in the company and help resolve matters for the other employees. Though cities like Coimbatore, Mumbai and Pune individually cite work overload as a major reason for leaving job, the overall survey indicates insufficient compensation and lack of recognition as top reasons for people to leave a job. When you consider the factors age wise, it shows that youngsters tend to leave a job due to work overload and difficult bosses while for the senior employees, it’s mostly lack of recognition that pushes him to the edge. With over 35% of the total employees complaining about a bad relationship with their bosses, role clarity could play a major role in easing out work-relationship tensions. Do read our exclusive on how role clarity could disrupt or aid your team (page 44). Though you cannot ultimately please them all, we do find that the way your company deals with an ex-employee can determine your brand value in the market. Our exclusive on ‘The ex factor’ (page 48) tells you why and how exactly your ex-employees can break or build your brand. Our corporate world is not perfect, let’s just make it pleasant enough for the journey. Let’s create happy (working) hours!

Employee Happiness-Citywise 90% 80% 70% Ahmedabad

60%

Bangalore Calcutta

50%

Delhi-NCR 40%

Chennai Cochin

30%

Coimbatore Hyderabad

20%

Pune Mumbai

10% 0%

Why employees leave a company Lack of recognition upto 25 Yrs 6%

35 t0 45 Yrs 32%

26 to 30 Yrs 27%

Low Salary 35 t0 45 Yrs 25%

upto 25 Yrs 18%

31 to 35 Yrs 26%

31 to 35 Yrs 35%

26 to 30 Yrs 31%

Work Overload

Bad Boss 35 t0 45 Yrs 23% 31 to 35 Yrs 20%

upto 25 Yrs 37%

26 to 30 Yrs 20%

35 t0 45 Yrs 20% 31 to 35 Yrs 19%

upto 25 Yrs 39%

26 to 30 Yrs 22%

Mar 2011 | The Business Enterprise

XCLUSIVE

Acting the

Part

Do you know of one parameter that can go a long way in keeping an employee happy yet is often ignored? Role clarity. Without one, an employee feels like a blindfolded person lost in the corporate jungle.

hy am I here? What is my true purpose? These abstruse questions trigger the most profound thoughts in the simplest of beings. If however, they arise in your mind every time you enter your office, participate in project meetings or while you sip coffee over breaks, it probably is time you snapped out of self-evaluation mode and sought the higher power – your manager. What we just described is the most common affliction that workgroups suffer from – the lack of role clarity. Simply put, role clarity is when employees know exactly what is expected of them, the criteria which will be used to evaluate their performance and how they can prioritise their duties. It is a seemingly obvious factor that is often grossly overlooked and can throw highly talented teams off track. In a study published by The Academy of Marketing Science, research undertaken with 198 brand managers showed that role clarity was found to significantly affect job tension and job satisfaction. Role clarity is crucial to all activities that require teamwork. It plays a pivotal role in sports psychology and takes on an even more critical avatar as ‘situational awareness’ in the armed forces. Military command demands intense training in this discipline since soldiers deviating from their duties under the pressures of hostile conditions could cost lives on the battlefield. Clear role definition is not merely the concern of a single employee and his immediate superior. In order for a team to function as a well-oiled machine, every member in a project ought to be aware of his teammate’s goals as well.

Here is a simple team-building exercise that will help you determine if your team has role ambiguity issues. You’ll only need a sheaf of papers and some pencils. Have your team members and managers sit around a circle. • Supply your team members each with a piece

The Business Enterprise | Mar 2011

of paper and a pencil. • Have them write their names on top of the sheet and a detailed, bulleted list of the five most important tasks they think the team expects them to perform. • Fold the paper partly to cover the writing and pass it on to the member on the left. • Now write down the five most imMr. Kishore Kuportant activities mar, understands that you expect the role clarity in all its teammate on the complexities, having right to perform. worn several hats as Fold the paper once a lawyer, an ex-comagain and pass it to mando, an IPS officer, a British High the left. Commission adviser and currently the • Repeat this proVice-President of Marketing and Cuscess until you reach tomer Care at TVH India Private Ltd, a full circle. a premiere real estate company. He • Now have each says, “Defining a role is important but employee open out restrictions in the work environment his sheet and read must not be so watertight that they aloud his job exhinder the progress of an employee. pectations and what Outline responsibilities to match his others expect him to skill set and set the priorities ‘he’ wants perform. to achieve allowing him room to grow • If you happen to into a future leader of the organisation. hear major discordInitiative, conviction and boldness are ances, you have a vital for an employee and they can be role clarity problem nurtured only when the team is flexible on your hands. enough to accommodate them.” Different formulae work well with different teams. Larger organisations working with diverse teams need to structure and streamline work processes more closely. Generally, once job criteria and performance measures are defined and objectives are set, allow employees to map out their own paths to reach goals. And be sure to appreciate and reward them generously when targets are achieved. Shruthi Sankaravadivel

Mar 2011 | The Business Enterprise

XCLUSIVE

And the winner is…

Sometimes an ego boost works better than a fat pay check; a look into how to find your star employee and how to reward him/ her aptly…

any times after an appraisal you tend to hear employees say, “I don’t know what I did wrong to get such a poor rating.” Or someone else would say, “If these are the things they wanted, they could have told me earlier.” And some others would dismiss the whole exercise as, “It’s all politics.” So can we ever design a perfect performance evaluation system? The performance evaluation process has three parts – the appraiser (manager), the person being appraised and the system or process itself. Performance of an employee is generally assessed only during appraisals and this happens in most companies twice a year. A set of parameters are decided upon every year, targets are set and the manager checks whether the targets are met.

The system The problem with this system is that like in life, many things in work are not objective; many things are subjective (qualitative and not quantitative). How do you measure whether an individual is helping others? How do you measure innovation or creativity? How do you measure mentoring? And the other problem is that though certain things like number of defects are quantifiable, they are not measured many a times. And when measurable parameters are rated qualitatively, it leaves the employee wondering, “I thought I never had any defects but the manager says I performed my work decently with only a few defects.” It is mandatory that everything measurable should have the measurement process in place and everything qualitative needs to be based on the feedback received from colleagues and seniors.

The manager I’ve come across many appraisers who rate their employees without even getting feedback from The Business Enterprise | Mar 2011

other seniors who have worked with the employee being appraised. The appraisers need to be trained; else they can unknowingly wreck morale of employees. Some are ignorant while some are knowledgeable but lack faith in the system and choose to ignore the feedback process since it is time consuming. Appraisers, especially the first couple of times they do the process, need to be guided with some hand-holding. There is a saying, “Praise in public; criticise in private” attributed to Vince Lombardi (an American football coach who helped his team win 5 league championships). Sometimes even praising in private will suffice if the incident is something minor that can’t be shared in a large forum. It is important to inculcate the habit of praising in managers so that the trend continues. An employee who sees his manager praising will tend to do the same when he/she becomes a manager. You treat others the way you are treated!

The employee Though the manager is supposed to track the performance of individuals, the employee also has a key role to play. In a small company, it is easy for the person running the organisation to notice the star performer. But in large organisations it can get buried; after all managers are also human and might miss something. During appraisals, it is the employee’s responsibility to showcase their achievements. This needs to be done by employees whenever they feel they have done something other than the regular routine – maybe a new tool, an idea to improve a process etc. An organisation has to encourage employees to highlight their achievements. It also develops the employee’s presentation skills. The performance evaluation system should let the employee present their case before they are rated upon. I have seen instances where employees complain, “My manager had the rating with him

even before I presented.” In these situations, a reviewer might discover something that they forgot to take into account while rating the employee – and once the rating is decided, managers are reluctant to change the rating (changing it would acknowledge the fact that the manager didn’t do his/her part correctly the first time!)

Time period An official appraisal twice a year would be sufficient but intermediate feedback should be given at least once a quarter – it can help guide an employee on the right track and give signs of how things would turn up in the official appraisal. It would address the concern of employees having a shock in their appraisal because the intermediate feedback will tell them whether they are on the right track or not. Rewards A good rating in the appraisal might help the employee get a better bonus or higher figure in the variable part of their compensation. But is this enough to keep the employee happy? The appraisal is something confidential and not something that an employee goes around boasting about; and generally colleagues or other teams will not know the ratings – not even if the person was rated as the best.

Employees are hurt when they feel that the wrong person has been rewarded. It generally happens that the management thinks someone is a star performer and rewards them but at the ground level, most employees believe that it is someone else who should have got the award. It creates low employee morale not just in the individual who was denied but even among other employees and juniors since they get into the mindset, “That person did so much and was not recognised. What’s the point of me putting in that extra effort?” Using the feedback mechanism in determining awardees as well could help alleviate the problem to some extent. An HR manager once told me, “It is impossible for a performance management system to satisfy every employee.” But the system needs to be tuned regularly so that it can satisfy most of the employees if not all. Sethu Subramanian

This is where rewards come into the picture. In Maslow’s hierarchy of needs theory, recognition is identified as one of the human needs. When someone is announced as the star performer for the month, it gives the person a sense of accomplishment – the primary joy comes from the recognition and not the monetary reward. People from other teams read about their achievement, senior management gets a glimpse of the person and there is a feeling of self-confidence. But rewards can backfire as well in a number of ways. I’ve heard this comment from employees, “They give the award in a round-robin fashion!”. Companies have smaller awards for immediate recognition – but even these awards get delayed in the bureaucracy and the deserving get it late. Managers often complain that they can only reward people in a quarter because of budget constraints. This deflates employees; you can’t deny a deserving person a reward citing the reason as “no budget.” Budget allocation for awards need not be made at the organisation level rather it should be done at department level – it might help in better pooling and management of funds.

Mar 2011 | The Business Enterprise

XCLUSIVE

The Ex Factor W

hether it’s a romantic liaison gone awry or a business relationship that simply could not last, handling exes is an art that eludes the best of us. While most marriage counselors profess that ‘putting the past behind you’ is the best strategy for ex-lovers, multi-national and startup companies alike are now beginning to realise that handling their ex-employees is a whole different ball game. History has its fair sampling of lessons that testify to the significance of this issue. Be it the disgruntled WikiLeaks ex-employee who dished the dirt on the whistle-blowing website, or the ex-designers of Google taking their talents to rival search engine Cuil, the power of the ‘exes’ is undeniable. In the current economic climate, it is even more crucial that companies pay attention to their ex-workforce and corporate image. For, an image so carefully crafted by corporate policy, so closely monitored by top PR teams, is ultimately tested by what a majority of its ex-employees have to say about it. They are the most important spokespersons of your brand.

A justified end If there is an absolute necessity that an employee must be ‘let go’, ensure that it is done professionally, with full legal documentation and with all the benefits he is entitled to being fulfilled. Flexible corporate policy Be willing to give your ex-employees another chance if they happen to come back to you. Mr.Ajay Nanavati, Managing Director, 3M India, says it has always worked for him, “When employees come back, they’re more stable, since they’ve seen the other side of the coin and appreciate us a whole lot more.”

Here’s a checklist of actions that you could be taking to ensure that your ex-employee doesn’t become your worst nightmare:

The social sphere Everyone has an opportunity to make themselves heard on Facebook and Twitter. If your seemingly quiet ex-employee tweets his grievances about your company to his 5,613 Twitter followers, that will more likely go viral than a presentation painstakingly put together by your best PR team. Keep track of all media and watch what is being said about you and take action to hear out grievances.

An amicable farewell: A pleasant parting of ways is crucial to healthy future relationships with your ex-workforce. Have your most experienced HR team handle this delicate scenario for you or bring in a team of top consultants who specialise in such services.

A professional network Invest in a webpage for your alumni, giving them access to networking services and helping them stay in touch with you. This can be done at no cost through web portals like Ning, which allow you to custom create your

social networks. A case in point is McKinsey, fondly referred to as ‘The Firm’. It is an ace management consulting company with an international presence in 120 countries and boasts of an alumni network that is 23,000 strong. Formal alumni events held annually and a website dedicated to alumni networking and celebrating the culture of McKinsey have been an integral part of its silver reputation. The bottom line is nothing speaks as highly of your company as an employee who used to work for you and still holds you in high regards. Maintaining such relations is a challenge but it is well worth the effort. Here’s what Ajay Nanavati, Managing Director, 3M – India has to say about his ex-employees. “The Alumni of the 3M School of Management, as we call our ex-employees, are our well-wishers, ambassadors and our potential customers. We keep in touch through dynamic, informal networks and they have come to be our best spokespersons. They’re our champions.”

Shruthi Sankaravadivel

The Business Enterprise | Mar 2011

Mar 2011 | The Business Enterprise

XCLUSIVE

Seven principles that can change your workplace from ‘good’ to ‘great’

Lessons from

Corporate America

e all know that it is difficult to adapt to a new place, new culture, and new surroundings. But why do many have the ‘American Dream’? What is enticing in this nation? Is it the opportunities, work culture, lifestyle, savings or affordability? Answer is ‘all of above’. I am not saying that America is ‘the’ place to live. Obviously, there are good and bad things everywhere. Wise is the one who learns from the good elements and leaves the bad. This article is an attempt to learn from the work culture of some leading companies in the United State of America. • Leadership • Mentoring • Work environment • Career progression • Ethical principles • Social responsibility • Fringe benefits

Leadership Leaders can no longer lead solely based on positional power. They must be partners with their team. With this approach, leaders in many American companies were able to inspire, motivate, and energise their teams with clear vision and strategies towards a common goal. Investing in leadership development has been a top priority for many successful companies like 3M. Leaders at 3M provide the focus, power, and inspiration that have made 3M one of the most innovative enterprises in the world today. 3M recognised the powerful impact leaders have on the company’s ability to continue delivering innovative solutions.

Sam Walton, founder of Wal-Mart, describes his role as simply “picking good people and giving them maximum authority and responsibility.” In addition to Wal-Mart’s formal programs, they have a natural process in which leaders help develop each other. It is imperative to increase expectations of leaders, to mentor each other around the world, to influence greater collaboration, leading to higher performance and global success. Wal-Mart spends a whopping $ 50 million each year on leadership development. It is true that nurturing great leaders helps to steer to new heights aggressively.

Mentoring: A good mentorship program provides a platform to share goals and experiences with sole focus on mentee’s development. Mentoring is simply about striking up a confidential developmental relationship beThe Business Enterprise | Mar 2011

tween two people. Typically, mentoring involves learning from someone more experienced than you or who has knowledge to share – and whose skills, knowledge and personal insight can be tapped. It helps people develop and progress quickly, do their best work - and fulfill their potential as fast as possible. For example, at Deloitte, any new hire from college can choose anyone from Manager to Senior Partner as his mentor. Although the mentee need to drive the process, mentors at Deloitte do a fabulous job in acting as a sound board and in providing career guidance. People centric focus and level of involvement during the process makes Deloitte No.1 among Big 4 accounting firms.

Work environment: A significant emphasis is placed on maintaining a collaborative and inclusive work environment. Further, a flat hierarchy acts as a catalyst to maintain such an environment. These elements are foundation for building a culture of openness. This culture helped Adobe Systems to make it Top 100 companies to work for in 2009 (ranked # 11). Adobe implemented employee council to ensure free flow of ideas. Another beneficiary of implementing collaborat i v e work culture is Cisco systems (ranked # 6). At Cisco, employees find that they have more say in decision making. In nutshell, maintaining a collegial work environment is quintessential for organisations and individual progression.

Career progression: Effective career planning considers both organisation-centered and individual-centered perspectives. I think these two elements are well balanced in the American companies. This is especially evident in Big 4 accounting firms. At Deloitte, vision, mission and value statements set the tone and day to day activities of the organisation. Based on these, goals of the employees at each level are defined. These goals are organisation-centered. In addition to these goals, employees are encouraged to identify personal goals. Obviously, these goals should align with organisation’s goals or at the least, the employee is expected to explain to the leadership how these goals benefit the organisation. The result, employees take complete ownership of his career and put their best effort to achieve both mandatory and personal goals.

Ethical principles: In my experience while providing advisory services to American companies, I have observed that they strive to conduct business honourably, ethically, with the utmost professionalism, and in compliance with applicable laws. The ethical principles govern their daily business activities. Non-compliance of ethics is considered a serious offense and may also lead to termination of employment or services with the client. People believe that as long as one is compliant with ethics, they are protected by the leadership. Social responsibility: Commitment to give back to the community is another important factor that sets American companies apart from the crowd. It is not just famous philanthropists such as Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg, but employees of many companies feel socially responsible to contribute to

the community. For example, each year, tens of thousands of Deloitte employees across the country leave the office and head out into the community for a full day of volunteerism designed to help nonprofit organisations. This equates to $ 7 million every year. Further, Microsoft matches donations made by the employees for a noble cause. These actions instill social responsibility and create a culture of selflessness amongst the employees.

Benefits: Benefits are non-cash compensation provided to the employees in addition to their normal salary. The purpose of benefits is to enhance productivity and demonstrate a sense of ‘We care about you!’ amongst the employees. Google is a classic example. I would be surprised if anyone turns down an offer from Google because Google’s benefits are endless. In addition to medical benefit, Google’s campus hosts multitude of amenities such as state-of-the-art gym, pool, beach volleyball court, free food served by the best chefs, free servant maid services for top performers etc. It is no wonder that Google still attracts 777,000 applicants a year. Of course, it is hard to compete with Google on benefits, but below is a generic list of benefits/programs provided by many companies: • Ergonomics to adapt the workplace to a specific worker • Flexible working hours to accommodate personal needs • Telecommuting that enables employees to work from home • Health and wellness to provide free medical check-ups and vaccines • Child care programs with day care

Conclusion It is expected that in 2020, the average age of an Indian will be 29 years. I strongly believe that some or all of the common practices presented above will help India Inc. build world class companies with highly motivated work force. Some of the companies may have already implemented one or more of the above mentioned points. Let’s strive to create a positive work environment by implementing best practices not only from home but also from across the globe. Vamshi Guntha Vamshi Guntha is a Chartered Accountant, CISA, and CIA, with 12 years of experience in audit and advisory services. He is currently working as a Manager in Enterprise Risk Services group of Deloitte & Touche LLP, USA. He can be reached at vaguntha@deloitte.com. Mar 2011 | The Business Enterprise

NTERTAIN

work

Just another day At

Come Mondays and we drag ourselves to office; we crib and cry as we go about doing our job. Well, if you thought that taking those printouts and sealing some envelopes were odd, check our list of top weird jobs across the world. It’s going to change the way you work at work...

Beer tester Downing a mug of beer may be your cup of tea but as a beer tester you have got to taste and spit new flavours all day long, approving the best and saving the world from the rest.

Demolition guy

Gold recovery agent

Perhaps, one of the most cursed guys on earth. He/she gets to demolish buildings that don’t obey the laws of the land (or play by the rules of the ruling party).

These guys scour dead bodies for gold fillings in the teeth; they then melt the gold from them and then re-sell it to jewellers.

Stray dog catcher

Snake milker

This person is a saviour in disguise; he saves us from the stray dog menace. Though PETA may not exactly appreciate their nature of work, the rest will.

Hmm, this fellow gets to remove the venom from a snake’s fang. This venom is then collected and stored safely as an antidote for snake bite.

Golf ball Marshal Video game tester This may sound like fun but imagine for eight hours a day, five days a week, you need to play video games. Then, you get to repeat levels, games and characters, looking for any bugs or errors in the software. Still game?

The Business Enterprise | Mar 2011

Now this name sounds fancy, isn’t it? But the job is not. You need to get down on all fours and scour for balls all over the ground and then make them up all pretty to be resold to the golfers who lost them in the first place.

Diener If you faint at the sight of blood, this one is not for you. You get to deal with dead bodies the entire day. Yes, the person needs to prepare cadavers for the pathologist before autopsies are performed. Just one advantage, your clients will never complain!

Odour judge These men judge early morning breath or people infested with strong scents like garlic and then they rate the subject’s breath on a scale from one to nine. And then to test their product – a mouthwash or chewing gum, they smell the breath again and assign it a new rating.

Mar 2011 | The Business Enterprise

NTERTAIN

oysala

eritage

The attention to detail in every corner of the temple was so high that it took more than a hundred years for the sculptors to complete the structure.

One such temple is located in the small town of Belur that served as the first capital of the kingdom. As I wandered through the perfected shapes in stone inside the Chennakeshava Temple in Belur, I was amazed by the architect’s commitment to turn every inch of temple wall into finest work of art. The tall walls of the temple were covered with bass reliefs of every god of Hindu pantheon. The friezes below the reliefs told stories from the mythologies and displayed the power of Hoysala kings with great pride. Inside the temple, artists unleashed their imagination on every pillar to create unique patterns and designs on each one of them. Sculpted among these pillars was the statue of a danseuse whose bangles were chipped to rotate freely around her hands, a carving of Nandi barely larger than a chickpea and a pillar decorated with miniature gods and goddesses probably numbering more than a hundred. The attention to detail in every corner of the temple was so high that it took more than a hundred years for the sculptors to complete the structure. Well known among all the richly decorated sculptures in Belur are Madanikas bracket figures installed below the sunshades. The sensuous damsels are depicted in various moods and activities, like Shukabhashini talking to a parrot and Darapana Sundari adoring her own figure looking into a mirror. The kings who built the temple at Belur and many other places in the surrounding areas started as small chieftains who ruled parts of today’s southern Karnataka. The relative isolation of the terrain from power centers of those days allowed them to flourish and build a kingdom of their own, which eventually grew more powerful than all their neighbours. In their four hundred years of rule they not only worked to expand their boundaries far

The Business Enterprise | Mar 2011

Arun Bhat

The

early a thousand years ago, a bunch of brave men came together to fight their enemies and established a kingdom in the foothills of Western Ghats. They fought many wars and expanded their kingdom to become one of the prominent rulers in peninsular India. Called the Hoysalas, they were immortalised not for their bravery, but for their devotion to art and a spree of building temples that are now known for their fine carvings in stone.

and wide, but also spent generously to build more than a thousand temples. Nearly four hundred of them have survived even today. The region around Belur is dotted with these temples built by the Hoysalas. Not too far from Belur is Halebeedu, which served as the long time capital of the dynasty. The twin temples here are nearly twice as large as the one in Belur and took nearly double the time to construct. Taking a walk along the outer walls of the Hoysaleshwara Temple in Halebeedu, I was treated to a deluge of beauty in finely carved stone. Present along the outer wall were the finest engravings of images of gods and of stories from Indian mythology, all in the confines of a four feet high horizontal band. One such figure that awed me was of Lord Krishna lifting Govardhanagiri to protect Gokula from torrential rains. I saw the ecosystem of the hill come alive even in that little space on the wall. The architect had carved out in it, a forest full of trees, a monkey climbing a tree, a hunter aiming at a pig and a lion looking out from its cave. Rendered under the shelter of the hill were the subjects of Krishna – cows, his cowherd friends and other villagers. All these may not be apparent to a quick passer by, but as the guides explained these nuances to tourists, I saw people pausing to take a closer look and gasping with awe. Another similarly detailed section of the wall showed Ravana attempting to lift Kailasa Parvatha, the

expression of his face clearly showing his suffering under the weight of the mountain.Walking me along these marvels of art, my temple guide Uma, occasionally slipped in carefully practiced humorous quotes. Pointing at an image of a monkey pulling drapes of a lady, she winked and declared it as ‘monkey business’ and watched with delight as a short group of tourists burst out laughing at the remark. Being the capital of Hoysalas, Halebeedu is strewn with many structures carved in stone. South of Hoysaleshwara temple is the smaller Kedareshwara temple, which shares most of its architectural elements with its neighbour. While the former is buzzing with activity of tour groups and guides, Kedareshwara Temple has a deserted calm, allowing the visitor to exMar 2011 | The Business Enterprise

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plore at one’s own pace. On the way to Kedareshwara Temple is Bastihalli, a small hamlet that houses three Jain Temples dating back to the days of King Vishnuvardhana. The highlight of Parshwanatha Basadi, the largest of the three, is a mantapa with an array of thick perfectly cylindrical pillars. In another corner of Halebeedu are remains of the old city, littered with broken remains of carved rocks. It is an archaeological survey site that hosts the remains of three temples, of which only the pedestals and some friezes have survived. However, the carved mass of rocks littering the area around the temple is an evidence of the glorious days that the kingdom had once witnessed. Today, creepers have grown over the rocks that were once caressed by the hands of the sculptor. As I wandered around the Hoysala country, it is not just these landmark temples that caught my attention. Even as I drove from one place to another, I kept observing hero-stones spread along the countryside that had their own stories to tell. In the villages were anonymous temples with just one room but nevertheless filled with carvings of the same finesse as in the bigger temples. Every village in these parts had its own share of stories to tell. Discovered not far from Belur, at the village of Halmidi was the oldest inscription carved in Kannada script. Located at Angadi—a small village where the seeds of the kingdom were sown—were small temples dedicated to Shiva and Jain Teerthankaras that are perhaps more than a thousand year old.

According to sayings, Angadi is the place where Sala, the founder of Hoysala Kingdom, killed a tiger on instruction from his teacher. When a tiger entered Sudatta Muni’s class, the teacher asked his student Sala to strike the tiger. “Hoy, Sala,” ordered the guru, and Sala faced the tiger and killed it with bare hands. He went on to establish a kingdom later, which was named Hoysala. The image of a boy killing the tiger subsequently became the emblem of Hoysala Dynasty. It can be seen on the towers and entrances of many Hoysala Temples. After nearly four hundred years of rule, the strength of the Hoysala Dynasty weaned due to their infighting and attacks from the commanders of Delhi Sultanate. The rich land of Hoysalas was passed on to the hands of Vijayanagar Empire in the middle of fourteenth century. But contribution of Hoysala kings to the heritage of the region has survived even today, more than six hundred years after the end of the empire.

Mission Adventure You step into the office and find someone searching your desk frantically. ‘What’s wrong?’ you wonder, only to find your colleague smiling victoriously at a small scrap of paper he had found. Finally, it dawns on you; it’s the treasure hunt, of course!

Getting there Belur is 220km from Bangalore. Regular buses plying between Bangalore and Chikmanglur stop at Belur. Nearest train station is at Hassan, 38km away. The nearest airport is at Mangalore, though Bangalore International Airport is better connected with rest of the country. Halebeedu is a 20-minute drive from Belur. We reccomend Hoysala Village Resorts Arun Bhat

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oday, every other organisation is indulging in team-building activities. They have become an integral part of the HR policies. Be it orientation for new joinees or workshops for the existing employees, people everywhere try to connect with one another and organisations make it a point that they do so with positive attitude. It is very necessary to work as a team especially in the current scenario when any single step taken can construct/destruct your competitive edge. But in many organisations, there is still a gap when it comes to effective team-building. The reason being, lack of understanding the basic motive. For team-building is not about making everyone think in one direction but it’s about discovering the differences and aligning them to achieve one common goal. This heavy weighted statement is not for your board room, the simple meaning is, everyone may not like theme parties!

If you want to inculcate that ‘fun factor’ at work, go ahead and make that call. Companies do have their own concepts in organising such events and they may even be able to handle it all alone. But again, there is a chance that a small ingredient gets missed, so it is safer to opt for the Chef ’s special!! Such a special Chef is Greatwhite. It is an organisation which proves to be a guide for numerous activities. It includes rafting, camping, trekking, body surfing, expeditions, cliff jumping and what not!!

Fun intended! Often outdoor trips and team building activities end up merely as a trip to the park or a picnic. Greatwhite saves you from becoming a part of the ‘picnic’. Yes, some things are best left to professionals. Also, it gives you the opportunity to enjoy as much as others do while planning it. Greatwhite gives you freedom to purely enjoy as all other responsibilities are handled by them. Accomodation, transportation, facilitators are all a part of the package. Just give yourself some time ( say two nights and three days or two nights and one day, depending upon your schedule) and there, you’ll see adventure coming your way. Adventure without safety factor becomes The Business Enterprise | Mar 2011

void. So Greatwhite ensures that your safety comes first. Their facilitator Col Chandrashekhar Manda is an adventure enthusiast with over 14 expeditions (aero, aqua and terra) to his credit. In fact, he has trekked most parts of Himalayas and climbed peaks in Kumaon, Garhwal and higher Himalayan Region. With

Fun unlimited Greatwhite

Website: www.greatwhite.in/ www. hammerheads.in Contact: 0124-4144288/+919818656981/ 0124-4144588. Cost: Flexible for your group size/ pocket size. (By the way for the group size, we can say the more the merrier!!).

such an experienced lead, we surely are in safe hands.

Hammering heads Hammerheads (no, this is not some adventure sports) is the official brand of Greatwhite which offers team-building activities. Hammerheads offer customised training solutions (the term is for managers, for the rest, its ‘have fun your way’) which helps an individual to enhance his/her skills and also is beneficial for the whole team. Entire team gets to gel with and thus the lesson of ‘team work’ automatically gets inculcated. It may be said that the best way to learn things is the nursery way. You do and you learn and still you don’t feel the burden. Their corporate team-building activities are interactive, full of adventure and emphasise business applications. They ensure to make your event cheerful, memorable and most importantly - result oriented. Having enjoyable time with your teammates helps maintain the positive attitude to work that generates commitment and job satisfaction. Hammerheads programmes are flexible enough to address many different issues, but one thing they have in common is that they are all set within a

framework of fun and enjoyment. The highspirited members remind me of my school days where each day was fun. Remember those inventions that you would have made (either of rules or the game itself!). Adding newness to your daily regime gives you that enthusiasm to go to the same school or say your workplace every day. Gossiping over coffee tables may have been your favourite pass time but that need not necessarily help in building relations. You can still gossip as its our birth right but true success depends on far more qualitative relations. This needs to work not only within teams but also on how you have balanced your personal and professional relations. Their team-building activities help you strengthen your relations as a team and also help you resolve the areas of conflicts. In order to accommodate groups of all shapes, sizes and needs they have developed a large string of activities for fun, motivation, and energising, bonding or serious facilitation. This helps them to continuously provide extraordinary experiences and value to their customers. They offer half-day, full-day and multi-day team-building programs across India at the site of your choice – indoor or outdoor. Their innovative activities include pass de buck, leader’s den, human amoeba, spider drome etc. These are just the names and you cannot even imagine what fun would lie beneath. There are more to it like trusting team, raid the terrorist and meet the oracle, balloono-mania …….and lot more. The names may not always reveal what is inside- so experience it to believe it!

All of these activities help in increasing the co-ordination between various levels of management (both horizontally and vertically) and yes they give you a refreshing break from your work. So let’s unwrap those shoes as its time to fly high! Shruti Bhargava

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Biz buzz

There are brands galore around you but how much do you really know about them? Here’s a quick-fire round to tease your brains………….

1. What was CII earlier known as? 2. What does the sportswear brand Nike mean? 3. Taj Television Limited owns which 24-hours channel? 4. Which Nestle product borrowed its name from a Greek athlete? 5. Who said this, “Advertising is the most fun you can have with your clothes on.”? 6. What’s unique about Levi’s Red- Wire DLX jeans? 7. Which Hollywood studio did Coca-Cola own? 8. Which is the only Indian company that is among the top 5 manufacturers of leather footwear of the world? 9. Who said, “If it doesn’t sell, it isn’t creative.” 10. Which actress was Lux soap’s first brand ambassador? 11. ‘Life is One Incredible Journey’ is the baseline of which brand? 12. Where did Reliance founder Dhirubhai Ambani work as a gasstation attendant? 13. Which was the first bank to introduce ATMs in India?

14. Which was the first colour TVC in India? 15. Which is the first brand to get branding on trains in India? 16. How many icons are there in the new Unilever logo? 17. Who designed the famous ‘I love NY’ logo? 18. Who was the Director of Award winning ‘Happydent’ ad? 19. Whose slogan is ‘Finger licking good’? 20. Who created the famous ‘Hutch dog’ commercial?

Answers:

1. Confederation of Indian Industry 2. Victory. 3. Ten Sports 4. Milo 5. Jerry Della Femina 6. It’s the first i-Pod compatible jeans. 7. Columbia Pictures

8. Liberty Footwear 9. David Ogilvy 10. Leela Chitnis 11. Outlook Traveller 12. Aden, Yemen 13. HSBC 14. Bombay Dyeing in 1982

15. Pepsico’s Fritolays, Kurkure Masti exp 16. 25 17. Milton Glaser 18. Ram Madhwani 19. KFC 20. Mahesh V. and Rajeev Rao, Senior Creative Directors at Ogilvy & Mather, Mumbai. The Business Enterprise | Mar 2011

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Venting

Virtually

Twitters @MeetingBoy have become the hottest venting ground for the most frustrated, dejected and downright hilarious employees in cyberspace. It invites the unhappy working class to share their work gripes and the result is real life tweets that will have you giggling with glee. The following are some of our favourites: My boss loves to say “I believe in transparency.” It means he loves to share management gossip to look like a big shot. 62

Hallmark cards I’d like to see: “I’m so sorry your attempt to blame me for everything...”

I’d like to get those organisers in Egypt to come to New York and orchestrate the ouster of my boss. Are they for hire?

People in other departments now respect us so little that they don’t even lie to us anymore.

I need to create a “you’re f@$%& kidding me” folder for my emails.

I could write a book. A book called Patronizing Personal Advice From Idiot Bosses.

You know it’s a bad sign when you’re in an 8AM Monday meeting and someone says “Not to throw anyone under the bus...”

If it’s so damn urgent, don’t send 3 more reply-alls to make me look bad. Just f*$&% call me!

I think our company motto is “anything worth doing is worth meeting about 50 times and then half-a$&#%”. ...And I say unto you that it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a manager to pass into Heaven. Hey, everybody! My boss is running a special on poorly thought-out, unworkable ideas today. The

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discount code is YESSIR.

I have a dream you won’t follow up every email with a call about the email and then a visit to my desk about the call and email. Never underestimate the stupidity of a client who thinks he knows everything. Is he replaceable? Only if there’s a 180-pound rock that can keep his chair in place.

Numerology

he easy way to find how you are going to fare in this new year is by taking the help of Numerology . In order to find predictions for this new year according to Numerology, all you have to do is to add your date of birth+month of birth to current year. For e.g. if your birth date is 25 March - all you need to do is add 25+03+current year. There you have got your numerology number!

Now, go ahead and read what the future holds for you! If your number is:

One

Something new is beginning; it’s like spring time for you with new happenings on your career front. Everything you t r y turns into gold, you get more opportunities, and you could also become a stakeholder in new ventures and become a winner. Getting contracts, defeating opponents in business, promotions, appraisals – everything will go in your favour.

On personnel front, a baby’s arrival or buying of home or even starting a new relationship or renewing marriage vows are all possible now! Guard against over-enthusiasm and unsafe risk taking.

An excellent period if you are CEO, entrepreneur businessman or decision makers. Lucky period for venture funding.

Two

Something which began last year needs to be stabilised. This is also the time to asses if you are on the right track, re-check your position and situation. The raise which you might get in this period or promotion which you get during this time could have a minor adjustment issue. You might have to take backseat and lay low on visibility side in office environments. Teamwork and cooperation will get highlighted in all your activities. Don’t rest on laurels of your previous years but plan ahead in a consistent manner. Avoid being scapegoats for others and don’t let a powerful person take advantage as you are likely to be more complacent during these times. Keep your mood swings in check. Excellent phase for professionals who are into

The Business Enterprise | Mar 2011

teaching, training and facilitating activities. It is also a good period for those behind the limelight like organisers, planners and coordinators .

three

Unpredictable times with finances, small profit can come in, internal transfers, horizontal movements are possible within the organisation. The ensuing month will be a strong period for networking and communication. It is the right time to increase knowledge, get into trainings and various social and professional groups. Good time to draft professional contracts and agreements. Guard against scattering of thoughts and resources, too many activities and too many people might distract you from your focus. You will have to manage and schedule your time with more efforts. Great time for people in advertising industry, media, telecom and those involved in network marketing.

Four

Best time to grow roots in your business, you will find yourself more focused and organised than the last year. If you are trying for any administrative job or managerial position, you are likely to achieve success. Good time to take responsibilities or do an expansion in your area of interest - be it career, hobby or business. Gains and favours from patrons are more likely. Guard against written and verbal misunderstandings. If you are signing papers, be extra careful with legal documents. Good time for lawyers, business owners, financiers and venture funders.

Five

You might travel more due to your official work or various trainings. Doing what you love in terms of hobbies and interests is a strong possibility. An official move or assignments to foreign lands is on cards. An excellent time to be footloose! The only negative aspect is overdoing things in terms of food, romance and activities - so guard against late nights, too much partying and temporary relationships. Also, take caution against theft while travelling. Good time for people in travel industry, event organizers and cultural associations.

Six

At last, peaceful office atmosphere is a strong possibility. You find yourself promoting team spirit and advocating winwin situations. Excellent time to collaborate with likeminded people and companies.Your dressing style is sharper and you take care of your official attire too. The right time to start colouring your greys and trying out new style and clothing. You are more receptive to suggestions and feedback. Guard against complacency and lethargy. Excellent time for people in food industry, theatre actors, artists and interior decorators.

Seven

Upgrading your skills and knowledge is what this year brings you. You want to increase your understanding about world, people and your subjects. Good time to introduce and participate in training programmes or to take up studies. The emphasis is on learning.

5 1

You can develop a relationship with people totally different from your own culture and country. You can meet your teacher or become a teacher or guide yourself. An interest in occult and esoteric science is a new development in your life. Try to remain grounded and stable with all the new developments.

Great time for teachers, mentors, guides, trainers, coaches and students.

Eight

After an introspective seven years, you now want to assert your new self which might create problems with your professional status-quos. You may get promoted with additional responsibilities or an adjustment may be needed to go ahead. Your focused approach will help you in your career. Right time to make long term financial plans. Be extra-careful in your professional communication. Good time for entrepreneurs, business people, especially those dealing in metals.

Nine

NVISION

What begins comes to an end and then begins again, this is the Universal Law. Thus, under this period of nine influences, you are into introspective mode. You try to unlearn and absorb new patterns and let go of the old. Terminations or professional partings are made easier under these influences. Your way and attitudes with reference to your work style is undergoing a major positive change. A crisis may awaken your inner strengths. Good year for politicians, spiritual leaders and actors.

Anjali Sinha Mar 2011 | The Business Enterprise

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Lap of lux ury Retirement need not bring nightmares anymore; it’s time for the sumptuous sixties.

he growing population of India – especially the senior citizens group – thanks to the improved medical facilities and increased life expectancy rate is a known reality. The slow death of joint families, leaving the elders and youngsters to fend for themselves, is a sad truth. These two facts, combined with the need to live independently after retirement, leave a large number of senior citizens looking to retire in comfort and freedom. Thus, there opens a huge market for developers and builders to look not just for business prospects but also as a means to serve

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the retired section of the society. While a few decades ago, retirement homes were attached with feelings of dread and an atmosphere of poverty, real estate developers have improvised on this concept by designing comfortable and secured retirement communities. “The real estate market had gone down considerably in 2007, leaving developers to shift their focus to niche categories,” said Ramesh Nair, Managing Director, West India, Jones Lang Lasalle Properties. As the retirees provided a defined target in terms of age and

required amenities, they became one of their foci. Hence grew the concept of luxurious retirement properties fondly called as ‘Comfort homes’, ‘Continuing Care Retirement Centre’ or ‘Assisted Living Communities’. An upgraded version of the old-age homes, these initially focused on the elite upper classes; but soon developers started targeting the middle and upper middle classes too. Ashiana Housing is one among them. Their Bhiwadi project in Rajasthan has 640 apartments spread over 15 acres, and is complete with residents. This has been well received making them confident to start similar projects in Jaipur (Rajasthan) and Lavasa (Pune). Phase I of the Jaipur project is fully constructed and has started accommodating residents in their apartments that vary from 12-26 lakhs depending on the area. The Lavasa project has started its construction. All of them titled ‘Ashiana Utsav’, they were initiated as a “dream project of the owner, Mr. Om Prakash Gupta to help the senior citizens lead a graceful and independent life in a community of their own,” according to Nivedita Raj, Executive Sales of the Utsav projects of Ashiana Housing. She adds, “Anyone above the age of 18 can buy a flat in this project even if the age limit for a person to stay here is 55 years,” – allowing youngsters to realise a secure and calm life after retirement. Apart from providing the basic necessities, unlike other such projects, they also give the residents the liberty to bring their unmarried daughter, widowed daughter or daughter-in-law to permanently stay with them. The senior citizen population is around 80 million today and is projected to double within a decade. And today’s working class is eventually going to contribute to the senior citizen population in large numbers by 2050. It is evident that a majority of them will want to shift to more peaceful and serene environments with medical care facilities available 24x7. A model necessarily influenced by similar colonies abroad, this trend is attracting more and more developers due to its huge profit margin and emerging target group. The realtors who initially aimed at high profile chartered accountants, lawyers, developers and bureaucrats are slowly shifting their attention

to retired government officers and professors who also need a relaxed environment to spend their retirement. As city properties are bagged by offices and residential blocks, they are forced to seek land outside the city for such a facility. This actually proves to be an advantage as they can provide clean, congestion-free and noise-free areas for the retirees. Another added advantage is the availability of land in abundance, permitting them to design without being cautious of the congestion of the city. This land can be sumptuously utilised for creating considerable sized lawns for the residents to move about. Healthcare is a priority The only fact to be aware of is the proximity of a multi-specialty hospital to the housing and the availability of the basic medical facilities in the premises. And most realtors insist on the same. “Retirees usually don’t persist on good climate or surroundings but insist on the provision of a good medical facility nearby,” said Mr. Nair. Impact Projects Private Limited, has solved the issue by tying up with Fortis Healthcare and is therefore able to provide basic medical facilities within the premises with the hospital being just 3.5km away. “The firm had always believed that it was necessary to form partnerships so that they can give a comprehensive set of services to their residents,” stated Jaiveer Singh, their Vice President. They have also tied up with Religare. Most of their units in Amritsar have already been sold and will be ready for occupation in a year; land has been bought in Himachal Pradesh for a similar project; and they are looking for land in Chandigarh and the NCR. Targeting the upper middle and middle classes, these 1,2,3 BHKs and penthouse units are all low-rise apartments ranging from 11-35 lakhs. They lease out the property for 20 years after which it reverts back to the company. Apart from the usual facilities, they also provide guest rooms for the visitors of the residents, yoga and meditation classes and indoor and outdoor sport facilities. Mr. Singh also opined that “the need for such projects is increasing as the Indian society has evolved and the seniors want themselves and their children to be independent.” This was evident as many of the retirees themselves

LTY SHOW

booked the apartments without financial aid from their children. Thus, it’s apparent that retirement housing is a lifestyle choice and in most cases, not the last option. Not only have the realtors improved the product but the mentality of the elders seem to have revolutionised too. While the yesteryears saw the abandonment of parents hitting the headlines, today it is the parents’ cautious decision to fend for themselves that surprise us. Before being plunged into sorrow due to neglect and desertion, they take the initiative and step back themselves. By investing in luxurious retirement properties, they are becoming self-sufficient once they retire. Gone are those days when elders wanted to spend time with their grandkids and children – taking care of them and playing a major role in their day-to-day decisions. They seem to covet the freedom and peace that is usually linked with life after 60. Many feel they are entitled to lead a life holding their heads high after retirement rather than running errands for the family. Many NRIs want to settle in their home country after retirement and are searching properties that match the lifestyle they are used to in foreign countries. For others with children settled in another part of the country, and in many cases, another part of the world, the move is a sensible one. Though they are offered to go and stay with them, many feel uncomfortable having to adjust to a whole new place or to impose. A retirement housing with the best facilities in their own city couldn’t have come at a better time. Their chil dren are also allowed to free themselves of the guilt of not caring for their parents as these provide better facilities than an old-age home but simultaneously are not a compromise to their lifestyle. Paranjape schemes started out focusing on such retirees. They were probably the initiators for such a concept as the construction of their luxurious apartments in Pune started in 2001. Called ‘Athashri’, they already have six projects to their credit, and are looking to set up more both in and out of the country. The properties are managed by a non-profit organization called ‘Athashri Foundation’ to ensure efficient functioning, including the Mar 2011 | The Business Enterprise

VOLVE Continuing Care Units that houses the physically challenged. Presently their apartments in Bangalore are available for Rs.2600/sq.ft.

These projects create a whole community of senior citizens which gives them the opportunity to connect with people their own age. They are able to form groups for various activities which build their social life. Such communities also help them to form an extended family that helps deal with the loss of a life partner and loneliness. This beats an independent house or an apartment in the city with no suitable community life. What’s more, they are provided with comforts that are not found at a normal apartment complex.

Facilities on call Food, on-call doctor, infirmary, laundry, housekeeping are some of the basic facilities available at any old age home. But adding to the list is the availability of a whole apartment or villa to themselves, manicured lawns, elders-friendly environment, hi-tech security, intercom facility, clubhouse and other recreational facilities that make this concept more appealing. Another attractive facility offered, and probably the most important one, is the services provided to pay their bills and fetch the basic groceries. What’s more, many such properties allow for trial stay with a fee, which enable the people to choose from the increas-

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VOLVE ing varying options they are presented with. While many such projects have surfaced only in the last few years, there are some which have been around for two decades now. One among them is the Naya Jyoti Model Seniors’ Home in Panaiyur on the outskirts Chennai. This has existed for over fifteen years and houses 42 rooms for anyone above 55 years of age. An organisation that has become famous by word-of-mouth, they house mostly retired artists, teachers, writers and government officials. Many of them have come here as they have NRI children, for medical assistance or because they felt that their houses in the city were not safe enough. Ms. S.Vembu, an 81year old retired headmistress, came here six months back, following her two sisters. “We feel very comfortable and safe. The food is good, rooms are big and the surroundings with the beach nearby are suitable for walking. We also have a driver who takes us to the city for appointments and errands.” She is also working from the home and is about to add a third book of poems to her credit.

Enjoying the twilight The lack of employment that bothered the retirees led to the decision to employ them within these communities itself. The Senior Citizen Resort, that has recently become the Senior Citizen Centre, has a Secretary, President and Treasurer amongst themselves. Lo-

cated on the East Coast Road, near the MGM amusement park in Chennai, the organisation has housed many residents who have retired from respectable positions since 1984. While in the beginning, it lent out the units for a deposit and monthly charges, the same have been given as owned properties to the residents four years back keeping their deposit as the selling price. Mr. Ramamoorthy, the presiding secretary stated that, “As you grow older, you would like to be independent. When we gave ownership rights, it was to make the residents feel responsible and the property becomes their investment.” Today, however, the single and double cottage units range between five to six lakhs and 10-12 lakhs respectively, and a monthly charge is taken for food, electricity and maintenance. Many of the residents accept that they have come here voluntarily to lead a tranquil and relaxed retirement. The Centre has recently tied up with Lifeline Hospital to open a 24 hour clinic within the premises that will also serve the locals. ‘Old is gold’ is a very famous saying, and probably best understood by realtors and property developers. While they can expect handsome returns, there is also the inner satisfaction of helping seniors to lead a peaceful retirement. Nandini Subramanian

Show-st

Audi unleashes the breathtaking Audi R8 5.2 FSI with high performance V10 engine in India

udi, the German luxury car manufacturer, announced the launch of the much awaited all new Audi R8 5.2 FSI for India, thereby strengthening its leadership position in the super sports car segment in January 2011. Propelled by a powerful V10 quattro engine and built using the lightweight Audi Space Frame (ASF) design, the new Audi R8 V10 goes from zero to 100 km/h in a mere 3.9 seconds, boasting of a top speed of 316 km/h. The Audi R8 5.2 FSI is priced at INR 1,32,49,000 (ex-showroom Maharashtra) , INR 1,35,00,000 (ex showroom Chennai) The new Audi R8 5.2 FSI is firmly rooted in Audi’s great motorsport tradition. The Audi R8 5.2 FSI will be available with a manual six-speed transmission or R tronic which enables the driver to change gears in an instant via rocker switches on the steering wheel. The quattro permanent all wheel drive technology used along with the ‘Launch Contro’ function, which is integrated with both types of transmission, helps maintain absolute stability and driving comfort while catapulting the car forward from a standing start to give owners a premium performance car experience.

Built of aluminum in the Audi Space Frame design, this high performance automobile weighs a mere 210 kgs without compromising on handling, drive quality and safety standards. The exterior of the Audi R8 5.2 FSI is refreshed with newly designed sideblades to increase air intake and maximize performance. A very distinctive design highlight of the R8 V10 is the all-LED headlights as standard equipment. Completely hand-built with an extensive list of standard equipment, the Audi R8 5.2 FSI is customizable right down to the finest detail, giving performance car enthusiasts an absolutely premium experience. Precisely stitched interiors for leather packages add to the luxuriousness of the segment defining Audi R8 5.2 FSI. In 2010, Audi sold 3003 units, exceeding targets to achieve record growth of 81%. For 2011, Audi India will continue to expand its product lineup and deliver path breaking and award winning automobiles to customers in India. Audi India is also focused at strengthening its dealer network across India with the forth-

coming openings of showrooms in Delhi and Ludhiana. Last year, the company inaugurated showrooms in Mumbai, Kolkata, Jaipur and Bengaluru. The Audi model range in India includes Audi A4, Audi A6, Audi A8, Audi Q5, Audi Q7, Audi TT and the super sports car Audi R8. The entire Audi model range is available across the country: in Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Chandigarh, Chennai, Delhi, Gurgaon, Hyderabad, Jaipur, Kochi, Kolkata, Ludhiana, Mumbai West and Pune. Further developments include Surat, Mumbai South, Coimbatore, Indore and Lucknow.

Audi AG The Audi Group sold around 1,092,400 cars of the Audi brand in 2010. The company in 2009 posted revenue of € 29.8 billion and an operating profit of € 1.6 billion. Audi India’s countrywide vehicle sales for 2010 were 3,003 cars (81 percent growth). The production of the new Audi A1 has been running at the Brussels plant since May 2010. The company is active in more than 100 markets worldwide. (Courtesy: Audi Chennai & Audi Bengaluru)

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Yours Sincerely 70

Is the birthday of your boss around the corner? Give him/her something to remember you by. Here’s our countdown on the best bets for the busy heads. Giving gifts in at the workplace is an important trend in current professional scenario and has become a workplace etiquette. When chosen and used properly, the gifts can be more than just something put in a gift wrap. They can create a great working relationship between you and your boss, in a way helping you to advance in your job. So what can you gift your boss? A one way ticket to Iraq or anything that reflects personal vendetta is out of the question, regardless of how you feel about him or her. Gadgets can become one’s favourite and make wonderful gifts. Here’s a list on some options that you can get for your boss.

Watch out If your boss is a regular workout enthusiast or someone who likes data very much in everything he/she does, digital watches are the things to go for. Watches that can monitor the heart rate, calories burnt, stopwatch mode, memory capacity for data, multi function alarms and more can be great gifts. And a vibrant one from the regular boring quartz watches.

Some ‘myspace’ Data storage devices - Not just 4GB or 8GB USBs. Try the latest sleek, external hard disks that offer more than 1TB storage space. You can load them with movies, songs and pictures to give it a personal note.

Our picks What: Sony Walkman A-series Why: Ultra bright 2.8 inch OLED

In charge on the move Car gadget charger - nothing new in here but a resourceful option. Car gadget chargers are available in every size and shape. Chargers with multi-plug sockets, USB port, wireless and what not. They are a perfect choice for your boss to charge mobile phones (when he’s not blasting you or anyone else), mp3 players and more.

screen, digital noise cancellation, full Smaster digital amplifier, 31 hrs music, 9 hrs video playback, multi format support (MP3, AAC, WMA, AVC, MPEG-4, Linear PCM , JPEG, name it, you have it!). What: Philips PhotoFrame

SPH8008/10 Why: Imagen Pro-image enhancement

technology, 4:3 aspect ratio, RadiantColor, built-in battery, automatic slideshows and it’s green! What: Casio SGW200 Why: 31 time zones, running measure-

ment - distance, energy consumption, average pace and number of steps, stopwatch, data storage for workouts and laps.

Coffee Day Hear me out Portable speakers that can be coupled with your system, mobiles and players can get your boss satisfied and bring down the tensions. Wireless speakers that are both portable and with great audio quality are abundant in the market. Gift them and see your boss dancing, if not to your tunes, at least to your speakers.

An office without coffee is unimaginable. And with coffee makers, you can gift your boss the perfect coffee experience any time of the day. You would also be rewarded for making sure he/she doesn’t fall asleep during the working hours by gifting the coffee maker.

Music mantra

Smile please Digital photo frames are a great way to show your affection, to share and to keep the memories alive. Digital photo frames make for an ideal gift when it comes to a much personal choice. While most digital frames display only photos, some may support movie clips or load pictures from internet. Load them up with pictures of your boss with your team, company outings etc.

The Business Enterprise | Mar 2011

MP3 and Media players- Although now the need of mp3 players are scarce, thanks to the mobile phones and their competitive features, one cannot get the complete satisfaction of hearing music the way it is intended to be. MP3 players have a much longer battery life and are easier to operate. Apple’s iPod nano, iPod classic and iPod touch, Sony’s walkman series and others offer music and videos to take your mind off the work. Or make your boss take his/her mind off you.

You can make your own choice apart from these as you only can be the one to judge what your boss likes or dislikes. But just remember, it isn’t the size of the gift that matters, but the size of the heart that gives it. Bala Subramaniam N

Mar 2011 | The Business Enterprise

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Interested investors or VC firms may contact us at xchange@theenterprisemagazine.com with the client code mentioned in the subject line. Entrepreneurs seeking investment can also write in to the same id. Mar 2011 | The Business Enterprise

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RIB ORNER

Hi, I work for the Hotel industry. Within the first few months, I had built a strong rapport with clients and with my senior managers. Problem came up in the form of my immediate boss – she stopped every communication I had with my senior managers and stopped me from doing any resolution calls with clients. I am left to do all the paperwork for her (which I don’t get credit for). How do I get around this? - NM, Mumbai Q

Let me first congratulate you on your rapport building skills. For, this one skill will help you achieve what you want. While your rapport with your clients and senior managers are strong it is not the case with your immediate boss. So my invitation would be to work on building and strengthening your rapport with your boss which will eventually help you get what you want. Remember your boss is a human being and she could be feeling insecure or threatened because of your rapport building skills. Most important, keep it simple. Hi, everybody in my team has this issue with our Team Lead. He gives us certain instructions for the job and once it’s done, he goes back on his words and asks us to do it in a different fashion, insisting that’s what he asked in the first place. What do we do? -Suraj, Pune Q

Simple - can everybody in your team request your Team Lead to minute the instruction so then it goes on record. Re-check with him and the team if they have a clear understanding and then execute the job. Doing this leads to having an excellent team and also in saving a lot of time. My boss is generally a nice guy but he has an annoying habit. After whiling away the entire day, he starts work at 6PM and expects the rest of us (who have been working from 9 AM) to work with him on the project till midnight. He often asks us to work on Q

weekends even when it is not required. Is there a way out? - Priya, Bengaluru.

Hi Priya, You boss’s annoying habit is harming the company’s overall employee - employer relationship interests. People who recognise this habit would complain to HR manager and if it does not work out then they would switch jobs which is an assets loss. Your boss being an evening person is fine but not his employees. Please be assertive in expressing what you want. Do remember people who work long hours are less productive than people who stick to time. Hello Ramesh, I have a problem with the appraisal in my office. We find that everyone gets the same rating, despite putting in different efforts. What is the point in working hard, when somebody who just signs attendance everyday gets the same rating as you? Sajini Rajasekar, Chennai Q

Hi Sajini, when it comes down to appraisal what comes about evident with 90% of the employees in the corporate world is that they either grumble or remain a mute spectator to the ratings given. The best people like you who work hard do is, switch job. But that is not the solution because it could be no different in your next job. Companies have annual budget on which annual increments are worked out and based on this ratings are concluded. So do remember this is negotiation time and yes please ask for what you think is what you deserve. Support your work with evidence and I am sure you will be rewarded.

Ramesh Prasad is Life Coach & NLP Trainer with about 20 years of experience with the corporate world across various industries. You can reach him at onefluencer@theenterprisemagazine.com

The Business Enterprise | Mar 2011

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Brand-ish It is a timeless masterpiece! Name this product, give it a tag line and win exciting prizes. Winning entry for last issue: Mist - magic in a bottle

- Gowri Jayalakshmi, Chennai Other interesting entries include: Action - Bound to happen, Raji, Mumbai Breeze - The kiss of fresh air, Ramkumar, Hyderabad

Punching

bag We were never really surprised by the overwhelming response to this column. Still, thank you readers for sharing your frustration with us by sending in some really creative nicknames for your bosses. Here is our pick of the lot: Spam - VV, Bengaluru Candy pants - S K, Chennai Happy Feet - AR, Mumbai

The winner VV takes home a Tony & Guy gift voucher. Congratulations! * As said, we have refrained from using abusive entries.

Now that you have vented it out on your bosses, this month dish the dirt on your clients. Share with us a funny client episode and win a quirky corporate gift. Sample this: Client: My monitor has problems. CC agent: What is it, ma’am? Client: It’s blank. CC agent: Did you plug the power switch on? Client: You never told me that!!! CC agent: ???! Got an idea? Well, share it with us.

Mail your entries (within 30 words) to engage@thebusinessenterprise.com with ‘contest ‘in the subject line on or before March 15, 2011. The Business Enterprise | Mar 2011

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Your Next step Opportunity knocks every month

Banking, accounts, NBFS and Insurance FPC - Broker ESJOBS Delhi-NCR, 0-2 Years: Responsibilities include direct selling of life insurance products through broker channel. Candidate will have to explore customer database of assigned broker and will have to sell Life insurance products. Shine Job Id - 194966 Relationship Manager A client of axis consultancy Bangalore, 1-3 Year: Responsibilities include cross-Selling to existing customers, acquisition of new customers,provide solutions to the customers financial needs and deliver the desired revenue target numbers. Shine Job Id - 171446 Relationship Manager India Infoline Ltd Kolkata, 0-2 Years: Responsible for generating leads, client acquisition, selling demat/trading account,educating clients on services offered and market scenario, achieving monthly sales target. Shine Job Id - 197857 Associate Financial Services Manager A Client of TALENT GROWTH INTERNATIONAL Goa, 0-1 Years: Candidate required with willingness to work in (insurance/banking/financial services ) sales and ready to take targets. Shine Job Id - 228109

The Business Enterprise | Mar 2011

ITES, BPO, KPO, Collection and Recovery

IT(Software, Dotcom, Infra.Mgmt.& UI Design)

Finance Executive Clarity Consulting Delhi-NCR, 1-4 Years: Candidate will be primarily responsible for risk and control advisory services to external customers.Compliance with BPRS Methodology, work plans and activities. Shine Job Id - 240585

Data Analyst MaFoi Management Consultants Ltd Bangalore, 0-1 Years: Role includes transaction processing various oracle applications like installed base, contracts, order administration etc. Shine Job Id - 212466

Management Trainee-Production TNQ Books and Journals Chennai, 0-1 Year: Candidate should be able to handle live production of assigned projects immediately after the completion of training under appropriate supervision. Role also includes developing strong inter-personal relationships with everyone in the team. Shine Job Id - 198748

Direct Marketing Executive Testo Engineering Works Pvt Ltd Pune, 1-2 Year: Role includes dealing with current clients, market analysis, develop new clients, client calling, giving demo of software to client, marketing of various products of the company, co-ordinating with the software team. All sales related documentation & reporting etc. Shine Job Id - 233313

Team Leader / Team Manager Tru-itsolutions Mumbai-Thane, 1-3 Years: Required MBA, graduate or any degree with relevant experience in BPO. Should have good communication skills. Shine Job Id - 199705

Recruitment Services and Staffing Marketing Executive Global Consultant Delhi-NCR, 0-2 Years: Role includes generating new business by identifying potential clients, business development, client visits. Candidate with good communication, presentation and negotiation skills are required. Shine Job Id - 199062

Advertising, MR, Event and PR Management Associate - Corporate Sales Sohum Management Services Mumbai-Thane, 1-4 Years: Required a management graduate with excellent communication and presentation skills. Should be experienced in corporate selling, ad sales, event sales, sponsorships and concept selling. Shine Job Id - 200431

Healthcare and Pharma Project Manager Staffing Leaders Inc Delhi-NCR, 1-3 Years: “BE+MBA or MA+MBA or M.Sc + MBA to handle project management or planning and market analysis for vaccine and/or biopharmaceutical products experience in time and budget dependent operation management. Shine Job Id - 223941 Market Research Analyst Genuine Management Services Pvt Ltd Delhi-NCR, 0-2 Years: “Reponsibilities include creating written (primarily PPT) and oral presentations for client delivery, monitoring client deliverables for quality assurance,cross-tabulating syndicated research data sets and identifying key insights relevant to pharma or healthcare clients” Shine Job Id - 234707

Mar 2011 | The Business Enterprise

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60 Seconds It’s your take on food, shopping, movies, books and life!

SCAN ‘The Science of Kissing’ by Sheril Kirshenbaum is not exactly an eye-opener but yes, it does tell you a couple of things about how kissing had evolved with us and why some second dates never happen, and how the entire time, we smell and seek the ‘Major Histocompatibility Complex (MHC)’ to figure out a possible mate. It is a very a dry book for such a wet topic. It nevertheless dissects without mercy the seemingly most romantic action of any love affair. Read it to realise the know-how behind kissing but do not try to decode your partner’s genes while doing the act. Seriously, our body knows better (without research)! - Patrick Xavier, Finance firm, Delhi.

RATING

SHOP

SLURP

Wrong at National Market of Bangalore caters to the funky stuff any guy or girl would like to possess to carry off that high level of attitude. Their exhaustive collection of watches, funky show pieces, skull caps, ear studs, rings and scarves are bound to blow your mind. The store also caters to simply, yet elegant bags and purses our ladies would die for. Perfumes of numerous famous brands are also part of the exhaustive list of items at ‘Wrong’ and yes, which are sold out like hot potatoes. So readers, hurry up and grab your picks at Wrong to give yourself a personality makeover. You can never go ‘wrong’ with them! - Lydia, Software firm, Hyderabad.

Robusta, one of the most new and happening cafe and Sheesha joints of Chennai at Kilpauk attracts young office-goers. The air conditioned red and black ambience as well as the casual sit out is an added attraction. Young boys and girls are seen having a fantabulous time sipping on their coffee and binging on the junk but yummy food almost at any time of the day. Like all cafes not everything is hunky-dory. Though we often see customers cribbing about the bad taste of music the Café has, we need to give it to them for the brilliant service by their staff and all time valet service for four wheelers. One would not think twice to visit Robusta for the second and more times. - Namratha, Scope International, Chennai.

RATING

3.5

SCOOP It is that season of the year when you have all screens wooing you with rom-coms and true to that trend, this Valentine weekend had ‘no strings attached’! Emma (Natalie Portman) and Adam (Ashton Kutcher) are trying to work out a relationship that is purely physical. The first part is fast paced as they move in and out of bedrooms, hospital dorms and showers. But eventually cupid decides to strike the ‘friends with benefits’ and they slowly move towards the predictable happy ending. If you are out with a date and do not mind seeing some steam and some sentiments thrown in, this one is for you. - K Giridhar, Research Analyst, Bengaluru.

RATING

The Business Enterprise | Mar 2011

3.5

SNAP The sea beckons me but I have decided to laze instead. - Mohammed Shaharin, Hewlett Packard, Chennai.

RATING

Corporate employees can mail us crisp reviews at 60seconds@ theenterprisemagazine.com on or before March 20, 2011. For Please mention your full name, designation and company information for publication. Mar 2011 | The Business Enterprise

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IRON

In life or in business, there is always a touch of irony that plays subtly with everyday events. Here’s to the lighter side of life. You should either be good at the job or good at lying to be hired.

Looking at the system – Working, staring at the system – Pretending to work, smiling at your system – your GF/BF’s chat message has just popped in.

A person who’s willing to tell the boss what he thinks about him on the face – an ex-employee.

“ “ “ “ Marketing – selling something you wouldn’t buy in the first place

They spend 8 hours a day listening to people telling them how ***** their product is – Customer Care department.

Arun Ramkumar

The Business Enterprise | Mar 2011

R.Dis No: 982/10