We are DYING in EMIs

Yes,  we all know about paying EMI but what we are ignorant about is,  we all are also drying in EMI.

As per the recent ASSOCHEM survey, due to demanding schedules, high-stress levels and performance-linked perquisites in private sectors, nearly 85% of employees in private sectors are afflicted to lifestyle, chronic diseases and acute ailment, according to a recent survey conducted on the occasion of ‘World Health day’.

We human beings are not compatible to cope up with fast moving technologies and severe competition. Bill Gates writes about Business @ The speed of thought, but we are also dying at the speed of thought while doing at the speed of thought. Continue Reading....

Today's Organisations - Horses on Steroids

Present models of ONLY ROI driven businesses are not sustainable.  CFO of Narayana Hrudayalaya today quoted in ET- CD, " kind of returns PE players are asking is not possible in healthcare industry." 

Yes healthcare industry is not only PROFIT driven but PEOPLE driven. Number of people impacted while making some profit to take care of future investments. Mere ROI focus is not sustainable nor desirable.

Why only healthcare ? Every industry today is in severe cut throat competition. Ethical conduct is replaced by END only matters,  Q on Q and ROI, ROCE kind of performance matrix. 

Balance Scorecard approach by some of the corporate is welcome step but how much it has helped in stress reduction and happiness enhancement is a  matter of research. 

These PEs and their insatiable appetite for ROI is deciding ROI benchmarks world over.  

Huge ROI will drive happiness for a few at the cost of unhappiness and stress for many. 

Today's organisations are like Horses on steroids in race course. 

Huge bonus and extravagant packages at the top level makes the organisation look like a race course. Bets on the houses are so huge that they have to run and run and win at all cost. 

Fortunately horses run only in race course but ROI hungry Shareholders & CEOs run all across the society. Examples of Ranbaxys and Satyams and many more unearthed are the products of such rush for crazy ROIs.   

Capitalist Trap we are all in !!

During last week I had two conversations about the PEOPLE in organisations.

One of the new recruits of public sector bank told me that before joining public sector bank he was with the largest private sector bank.  On my asking why did he left  ? he responded  - It was highly stressed organisation. From Peon to CEO all are living in high stress.

Work culture in Public sector is relaxed in  a way. They employ more people , less efficient and these are less ROCE enterprises.

Same day I had an occasion to meet someone very senior in public sector general insurance company. Officer told me – yes we want to make change and want to make organisation customer centric but you know we are public sector company and people mindset is a major issue.

Job is mostly secured, union support, high employment ratio, pay scale is relatively less but work culture is also relaxed,  mostly corruption on higher scale, listed but suffers low PE.

Private sector companies less job security, high pay scale, high work related stress, low employment ratio so higher work pressure , corruption , hmm, well little less,  listed entities so huge performance pressure.

Companies in both sectors are competing with each other.

Inefficiency, low ROCE vs highly efficient and high ROCE , low pressure vs high pressure, high employment vs lean employment.

Which one is better ?

Do we want more efficiency , better ROCE and therefore high stress and pain or we want more employment, less stress &  therefore  more happiness ?

What do we really need ? In the name of privatization and capitalism,  humanity is lost somewhere.

My vote is for the man who switched to public sector job leaving highly paid private sector job.  People in public sector can be trained for efficiency  , attitude and customer centricity  but we cant train and convince capitalist for lesser ROCE for better happiness at large.

For sustainability of humanity private sector MUST learn and take some clue from public sector.

What do you think? Are we in a big trap of a few capitalists ?

CSR Drama Vs Unhappy Employees

Yesterday got news of one more premature death (heart attack) at the age of sub 30.  That reminded me of my 2011 blog We all are dying in EMI - Courtesy Job Related Stress . The deceased was working in forex dealing room. Probably one of the most stressful jobs. 

Forget the nature of job, all jobs have become stressful , huge demand on human being at work place. Why? Cuz Finance professionals have taken over the performance matrix. Only and only finance matrix is considered to evaluate the success of the entity.   At the cost of mass stress and unhappiness , handful of the shareholders are enjoying fruits of success. Our models and matrix have become unsustainable. Forget environment and community, people working for the organisation are facing biggest threat. 

This CSR drama must end and actual CSR must start from within. Within the organisation. Making their people & customer happy is the real CSR for every business. What is the fun of CSR when there is tax evasion , poor quality , mis-sell & pathetic people policies? 

Zapposs of the world and happiness officer like  Alexander Kjerulf of the world MUST spread like avalanche in the business world. We must have happiness matrix given equal if not more importance to finance matrix to measure success of the enterprise. 

We are talking about sustainable business practice, starting point is - happy employees & happy customers and not just shareholders.

3 Idiots - 2 for Our Enterprises Too

Wishing all my readers & their family a very joyous , HAPPY and grand Diwali. 

Time to celebrate , enjoy  & introspect too. 

While watching movie 3 Idiots (i have lost count now , how many times i have watched this movie) last night , I could find new meaning and relate it to our professional and corporate life. We now have 3 Idiots for students to fall back upon while getting excessive pressures from professors and parents, but we also have pressure cooker kind of situation in our professional and corporate life also & post studies we spend our rest of the life working for corporations. What about that??

Like students life , Marks and Numbers rule corporate life too. Sales Targets and Bottom-line numbers. This unlike students life we have to under go along with our family responsibilities. Companies declare better out look and better targets quarter after quarter. Top and Bottom-line counts , that's all. 

What it takes to achieve the numbers is hardly of any significance. Environment awareness is spreading somewhat but what about human side of it ? Who care about employee happiness?? Superior and out of the way Customer Experience ?  Better vendor relationship ? better social responsibilities ? better environmental concerns? 

We measure sales , profit, eva , ebitda, eps, roi and hence we focus on improving the same and our success is measured based on these numbers. No measurement of qualitative parameters to achieve quantitative numbers , hence not measured and hardly given any  importance. We need stress free corporations and enterprises. We need to change our enterprise success parameters. Something grossly wrong is going on unnoticed.

Chetan Bhagat, Raju Hirani or Aamir Khan, or someone else , who will wake up to these realities and make another 3 Idiots -2 ????

U are not DEAD , but are U Dying in EMI !!! Wake up and Wake yr Boss up

People are dying from job related stress. Actually dying or moving fast towards death 

with diseases like stress related diabetes, cardiac problem, high blood pressure etc. 

(DEAD: Raghu Pillai of Future grp, R Ravimohan of Reliance, ex CRISIL, Ranjan Das of SAP, Dewang Mehta - NASSCOM are the known examples & DYING : Most of us)

Unfortunately the pace at which economy (due to technology) wants us to react is so fast that human species will take time to adjust. Like the versions of the IT products we also need advance versions of  people who can take on the technology and can react and move at speed of thought. I am not talking abt development of technology but the speed at which things in the world happens due to sophistication of technology is the KILLER.

Technology is just a one part, problem with CAPITALIST society is that Capital is d only measurement of success.All our measurements of success surrounds CAPITAL. ROI, IRR, EBIDTA, EPS, ROCE, PBT , EVA and that's it. Failure or success is defined by these figures. PERIOD.   

  

Which company actually measures stress or happiness of the employees , suppliers (Quick deliveries and delayed payment) & customers on an on going basis and actually work towards improving the happiness and lowering the stress? No Annual Reports talks about people's happiness or customers happiness due to the existence of the enterprise.  People talks about triple bottom line (one each for Shareholders, Society and Environment).We have regulator like SEBI and minister like Jairam Ramesh so two of the three are looked after to some extent (environment reporting is negligible).  Society incl people (HR) and customer influenced by the Enterprise is invariably ignored. 

Companies in the US like Zapoos is one of the very few who has taken up HAPPINESS as an objective of their existence and they are working on delivering happiness not just to their customers but to people across the globe. 

Unless the focus changes things will not change. Unless  we care abt the people more than the shareholders  things will not change. Unless our annual reports are driven by people, customers and society at large than by Companies Act things will not change. Which company will wake up first??  Infosys did it once on governance and reporting transparency.  
Who will take the lead this time? Are we not extremely conditioned!!!