Some things have changed. Some things never will – not in this lifetime. I look at my face in the mirror of the guesthouse of my alma mater and try to discover the changes. I’ve just stepped out of the shower and am buttoning the black Polo shirt that has always been my favourite. The faded pair of Levis and black blazer complete the look. I shave and dab on some cologne. Like the scouts will tell you, ‘Be prepared’. Then I comb my hair and, looking at the strands of silver that have appeared of late around my sideburns, wonder idly if any girl would still find me attractive. After all, at age thirty five the girls on the MIJ campus will probably find me too old, unless I meet one of those who find older men sexy because they have grey sideburns.

The guesthouse is part of the new Executive Development Centre that the Management Institute of Jamshedpur is known for. It’s built like a five-star hotel, complete with a beautiful swimming pool and a poolside bar which has been featured in several issues of the Business Magnate.

As I bend down to tie my shoelaces, I try and think of one good reason why Father Hathaway allowed it to be built at all, but I can’t think of any. There is one thing I do know: I hate these alumni meetings.

‘You look just the same.’

‘I’d never have recognized you. You’ve gone totally bald.’

‘I’ve put on so much weight. The travel and eating out is killing me. So who did you marry?’

Ten years ago when I left the Management Institute of Jamshedpur as a freshly minted MBA, I never imagined that I would come back under these circumstances. I prayed during the train journey to Jamshedpur that I would not bump into a known face. God was kind. The AC chair car of Ispat Express was clearly not a popular choice with the alumni.

The knock on the door is discreet. I open the door and find a young lady smiling at me. She is wearing a formal skirt and jacket. Her shoulder-length hair has been shampooed and brushed till every strand is neatly in place.

‘Hi, I am Cauvita.’ She offers me a business card.

‘Hi. I’m Abbey.’ I look at the card. ‘President of the Students’ Association? Cool.’

‘That’s me. And here’s your welcome gift.’

I open the gift-wrapped photo frame and look at the collage of familiar faces. It brings back memories that
had begun to fade.

‘That’s Rusty. I hope he manages to come from Dubai. That’s Gur standing next to Neetika. They are married. Gur is bursting at the seams now. You wouldn’t recognize him. That’s Pappu… my roommate in the first year. We were in Room 208, which overlooks Daadu’s Dhaba. Pappu is the craziest roomie anybody could have. He sleeps more than any other human being on the planet. Still does.’

‘There were eight girls in your batch. How many of them got married to their batchmates?’

I sidestep the question and say, ‘Can we go and sit on the steps of the auditorium?’

‘Sure,’ she says. ‘I don’t mind.’

I lock the door behind me and we set off.

‘Is it still considered cool, going for a walk to the banks of the Subarnarekha?’

‘Oh, I love watching the sunset from there. And look, it’s a full moon night.’ She points to the Dalma mountain range in the distance.

I can’t stop the memories from taking over. ‘How is Daadu? Does he still play the flute? We used to get drunk at his dhaba. And his wife made such delicious jalebis.’

‘Niranjan runs the dhaba now; Daadu and Didima just supervise. During exam time, we can get cigarettes, coffee and sandwiches delivered to the hostel.’

I sit down on the steps of the auditorium and Cauvita settles down next to me. She’s an attractive young
woman. I light a cigarette and blow a smoke ring, which allows me to look at her without her knowledge.

‘Are you from Jampot?’

‘I worked for three years after engineering and then I decided to take up HR. I wanted to dispel the myth that engineers can’t do touchy-feely stuff.’

‘If you are looking for someone who is good at that, your search stops here!’ I smile at Cauvita, and she looks at me and giggles.

‘Are you looking forward to meeting your old classmates?’

‘Yes and no. Largely no, at this moment. It’s so predictable, you know. After the first five minutes of
bonhomie everyone gets down to competing with each other all over again. That’s what I hate.’

‘But you had such cool dudes in your batch. Alpana Rao was here last month to screen her latest film, Dark Knights. It won her an award in France. I believe she is making her next movie with Shahrukh Khan.’

‘Yeah, not everyone ended up in the corporate world like me. Arunesh Nanda – you know, the rock guitarist – is also from the batch of ’84,’ I say with unmistakable pride.

‘That’s meant to be the surprise of this evening. He is performing the songs from his latest album, Mood Swings. My friend from Bombay says she often sees him in Bandra. I believe he lives somewhere there. What was he like when he was here?’

‘He was always an amazing guitarist. His long hair made him look like a rock star even then. I remember
when he played Dylan, especially “Blowing in the Wind” – anyone would have said he gave Bob a run for his money. That’s according to Haathi. I believe he’s heard Dylan live, so he knows. Arre, you should hear him do Kishore Kumar. He is just amazing. I saw his photo in Stardust the other day. The fucker now wears an earring and that, too, in one ear.’

‘So which company did you join after leaving MIJ?’

‘Balwanpur Industries. I just wanted to be in Delhi, and those buggers were the only ones to offer me a job in a place that was close. After that I think I got lazy and never changed jobs. I loved being in the factory. And life in that township is amazing.’

‘The idea of living in a township is so romantic. I would love it.’

‘Come over and spend a weekend with me.’

‘Are you serious? I might take you up on it.’

‘Promise.’ I held out my hand and Cauvita put her rather cold hand in mine.

‘Maybe I should use this alumni meeting to ask if any of them wants to hire someone like me. I am available to be employed by the highest bidder.’

The moon is playing hide and seek in the clouds. I can hear someone checking the PA system.

‘1,2,3, mike testing hello… hello… mike testing…’

‘Who the hell is this Mike who goes around testing sound systems?’ I joke.

‘Is it true that the first ten years of work are the most eventful in anyone’s life?’ Cauvita’s question takes me by surprise. Mine certainly were. When I joined MIJ in 1982, I thought that Delhi University had prepared me for everything I needed to know. When I joined Balwanpur Industries on 1 June 1984, I thought MIJ had taught me all the skiils required to navigate corporate India and life in general. I was bloody wrong.

——————————

You can have MARRIED BUT AVAILABLE delivered by mail by ordering it from the Harper Collins site. You can get a signed copy if you order by 30 September 2008.

Download the cover of Married But Available

In a market where demand for talent far outstrips supply, the organizations continuously face the task of keeping the talent from being snared away by other employers. Over the last few years as India became the BPO (Business Process Outsourcing) capital of the world, a new breed of employees started to step into the office cubicle. They were the millennials. With their arrival a silent revolution was happening in the offices of people who had to manage these young employees with school degrees, ready to earn a few bucks to supplement their pocket money dramatically. These employees were initially not treated any differently than employees of another industry and vintage. The same command and control model that was in place was put to manage the young and the restless. Yet this was a different business model which clearly depended far more tangibly on “keeping the seats warm” because each seat translated into revenue. Attrition appeared on HR Managers’ scorecards. Each time a trained employee left, the impact showed up on the weekly bank statement of the corporation. Businesses were still learning.

In the next phase, the business model stabilized, competitors emerged and thus started the exodus of employees. The BPO industry also grew its own brand of Human Resources professionals. Staffing Managers were rebranded as Talent Acquisition managers. Talent was to be treated like a supply chain, they said. It was not uncommon to hire hundreds of people every week. The employee was king again. The media started doing stories about these young professionals who kept hours and accents like that of the client countries they supported. The frenetic pace led to burnouts and after a brief respite attrition again showed up as the single biggest challenge for all.

In stage three of the industry the focus shifted towards the keeping the employees engaged. It was not about hiring, it was about getting the employee engaged. Corporate honchos went crazy. People competed with wilder and wilder ideas to distract employees who had attention spans shorter than a wailing baby on an aeroplane. This is where we stopped thinking. As some Call Centers faced attrition as high as 110% in a year, there were more and more short term solutions. Instead of questioning the fundamentals, more short term fixes came up. From weekend beer bashes to pizza parties to dress as you please themes, all that was infantile was now possible to do in the office cubicle. But attrition was a beast that could eat all this and more and never burp.

Longevity in an organization is about doing everything that careers are about. It is about paying competitively, but the best and brightest people rarely stay or leave because of money. A move to another organization has a bigger paycheck as a by-product. Money is never the cause for losing high performing stars. Learning new skills, growing as a person and as a professional are all what helps to build great careers. Short term fixes such as great office parties, stunning cafe, gym, chocolates for your pet cat and the like will arrest attrition in the short term. Think long term and you will have to think of careers. Attractive career options are a good starting point. A great assignment that balances what the employee can contribute and simultaneously learn from, will draw in the stars. Once the employee has started on the first assignment the manager needs to start identifying a clearly agreed career path that builds for future roles through job rotation, projects, short term assignments etc. Finally retaining the employees who have been nurtured have to be retained thru reward and recognition. All this is hard work. For the manager and the HR function. This intense career planning approach cannot be done for everyone. This is however a great place to begin to retain your high potential employees or the top 10% performers. To address attrition in the middle of the bell curve we have to start trickling this process down even to those among the high performers – even those with limited potential if we want to retain them.

In summary, if you want to manage attrition, start by looking at the Performance Management system of your organization. Is every manager adequately trained to give candid feedback and also to coach the players in the team? After all free pizza cannot be the substitute for having a great career coach at work.

This has been a tough year. The targets were set a mile high and you have had to growl incessantly at your team. Morale is low. How do you keep them motivated? You walk to the window and sigh in disgust. It is tough being the big cheese. Headquarters will not let you splurge on anything. Those guys in the Finance department are straining at the leash to snap at your ankles if you make one false move. It is a moment of epiphany. You have something to throw to the boys in the trenches – yes, you can send them for training. Nothing like training to motivate the troops. It is a win win. In fact it is a win-win-win. Human Resources will love you for your dedication towards building a talent pipeline, Finance will not grudge you the investment and the team will salivate at the thought.

Training gives you a legitimate chance to act like a five year old again. It is the only place where you can ask for playdough, listen to stories and chuck candy bars at each other while your employer keeps picking up the salary tab. Ever noticed how the trainers automatically tend to have that patronizing tone while addressing a group of adults that can only technically not be classified as baby talk.  You need some specialist advice.

As soon as you drop a note to HR, they send one of those eager lads over to help you decide. He wants to know if you have done a Training Needs Analysis. What is the kid trying to tell you – that you don’t know what you need – that too in training? You give him one look that frees up his mindspace. He quietly complies by not value adding. Armed with a gazillion different brochures from Business Schools and trainers that can provide more variety than what a departmental store can offer. You flip through the set, smiling at your own cleverness. The trick is to choose something that everyone can be trained on. Finance for Non Finance comes to mind. Everyone needs to do it – including some of them in the Finance department itself. Didn’t they all go for it last year?  Fuggedit. Going through spreadsheets can be painful.  How about Marketing for Non-Marketing or Human Resources for Non Humans… naah… they don’t even offer these much needed training programs. Project Management would do everyone some good for sure. You can think of people who would need Advanced Project Management certification before they can consistently manage to reach the office in time. Hold the thought. They are holding it in a Business School at the back of beyond. Who wants to learn in the jungle? The corporate world is jungle enough, you say to yourself and chuckle as you thumb more brochures.

There is a program on Communication Skills. That’s a good one to send your team to. Can you think of even one person who does not need to improve his or her communication skills? They are holding it in the same darn hotel where you once stayed and reached the conclusion that they had a their housekeeping staff doubling up in the kitchen. Can’t go there. Communication skills … but bad food kills.

How about Team Building? Your mind recalls your neighbor coming back from a Team Building session with a limp. It was not team building but that mega bonding exercise that fractured his ankle he said. There are sadists who masquarade as trainers. You still remember the conversation with the broken man.

“It was a Team Building thingy we were forced to go for. Pretty freaked out stuff happens there. There’s like a river. We had to build our own raft and then cross the swimming pool to reach the food and drinks.” 

“Did you hurt yourself while building the raft?”

“No I broke my ankle while trying to eat the sandwich. You see, we were the last to crack this raft building thingy. It took us 6 hours to build the raft because no one could figure out how to stop water from flowing through the cracks in our raft. By the time our team crossed the pool, there was only one sandwich left between the six of us. Our team captain tripped me and got to the sandwich.”

It clearly could not be Team Building. I was not a raft builder. My team would suck at that stuff - I mean raft building and not team building. Could it be Leadership skills that you should go for with the boys? Your reasoning is perfect. When they join you fresh out of school, they need Leadership training. When they are stuck in Middle Management for years, the cure is not cod-liver oil. It is Leadership training, my friend. Even the old geezers in the corner office could use that stuff. the President of the country could benefit from Leadership training if only he could sit still for two days.  And you know what, even the venue is awesome? It is at your favorite beach resort. While the lads rough it out in the classroom, you could settle down by the beach sip a beer while adding a few more stars to your already fully grown leadership style. After all, the sea has so much to teach us, you argue with yourself and lose hopelessly. You cast your vote. Leadership it shall be for everyone this year.

My kids have known this always. My wife always sides with them. So she does too. I denied it for a long time and pretended to love it. But today I am announcing it. I do not understand rap.

“Rap is a way of life bro’. Wanna rap? You gotcha live like us – the ghetto clothes. You gotta dress right … like a gangsta. Give attitoood and you’ll get it.”, the guy offered me the first AHA experience about Rap. He should know. He was the young 20 something who was being interviewed as he stepped off his stretch limo. I had gone to drop off a hysterical gang of teenagers at this Rap Concert. (Is that an oxymoron?)

I did not like being addressed as a dawg or a gangsta -even if it came from HIM. My kids explained that I should be honoured that HE even looked at me while saying that stuff. There were so many drooling fans around. And of all people he looked at the “unkewlest of them all”. And being called a “gangsta” is a sign of being accepted even in High School, my daughter consoled me.

“If he is from the ghettos, why is he flashing the diamond ear-ring while stepping off a stretch limo?” I put a clincher.

“Oh DAD!! Don’t you understand anything?”:rotfl:

Kids are low on patience when explaining kewl stuff to parents. (yeah… it is not cool. “You are SO like 70’s, Dad”)

I put my apprehensions aside. If dressing right was part of the solution, so be it. So, for a while I pretended that I was hip just like those people – the “kewl dudes”. I started referring to my kids as gangsta. That was rough on my nerves. Try saying, “Hey Gangsta! Finished your homework? Get on the case dude. You got a TEST TOMORROW FOGOSSAKE!!”

I even wore appropriate attire. I wore loose pants and that’s not easy to maintain. I normally have the reverse problem – my pants suddenly become tight. Here was a twist. I had to buy pants that would be loose enough to hang around my derriere (look I know some French and it makes me sound classy). But that meant I had to also had to buy new boxers that would be on display for the world to see. My shopping list was becoming longer and leaving me poorer. I took one of those baggy shorts and tried wearing them. How could anyone call them shorts? They reached till my socks. They were unwieldy at that. I almost tripped over in the trial room itself trying to catch a sideways glance at myself in the mirror. Loose pants around my kneecaps gave me the necessary pizzazz and the oversized T shirt made me look like a novice mountaineer emerging out of the tent he tried to put up. I wore a bandana and dark glasses that were three sizes too big for me. Satisfied that I was now ready to listen to The Music, I stepped into the streets. Wearing those dark glasses in the evening was a mistake. A kind old lady who was my grandmother’s age held my hand firmly and walked me to the other side of the street. I kept protesting to say I was fine but she wouldn’t let go.

I reached home and switched on the channel that features these Rap artistes. I always thought you got to have the anorexic look to be featured in a music video. I mean that’s what it was like in our times. The skinny models would walk down the ramp swaying to some crazy music only they could hear. The left ankle carefully placed in front of the right foot before they switched places. But Rap videos featured folks who would win Obesity Contests. One lead singer was narrating his life story (presumably) in a monotonous monologue while the drummer was concentrating on practicing a basic beat on the jungle drums. From time to time the lead singer would draw out an imaginary outline of his underwear. He would trace the design around his groin keeping his thumb and index finger as far apart as possible from each other.

I did not get it. Never will. And that’s OK. I am relying on the great divide called the Generation Gap to prevent the beast from reaching my part of the jungle.

How can this get classified as music when you can never play any of these tunes on a musical instrument? If something is beyond the scope of an instrument is it music at all or is it poetry? After a while the effort was too much for me to figure out. I switched back to good old Beatles stuff. By the way The Beatles are kewl even in High School, says my kid. I guess I am too old to rap and roll and too young to try.

 During my last visit to Hyderabad, I caught up with Gautam Ghosh (popularly called GG) – the blogger. His blog has been featured in Business Blogs: A practical Guide written by William Ives and Amanda Watlington. His blog on HR and OD at http://gauteg.blogspot.com has been listed as the fourth among the top 25 blogs in the world by HRworld.com. You get the drift.

He is a networking junkie. At 1:54pm on 18 July 08 his Facebook page lists 992 people as his friends while on Orkut.com his friend count is an inconsistent 995. Clearly some of his friends from Facebook are avoiding him on Orkut. But then the list of his pals is fairly dynamic. By the time I shuttle between the two sites his friend count on Facebook is up by one. He is also on Twitter and  Plaxo (and these refer to networking sites and not medication). We got talking about the future of the world – of blogging.

AB:  You were one of the early adopters of this technology and then also chose to be a consultant in this area. Can people earn a living being bloggers or is it just fame that keeps bloggers going? What do you need to do to earn a living as a blogger?

GG: Heh, I don’t think too many people can earn a living just by blogging. Professional blogging is still in its early days in India, and being dependent only on ad revenues is only for the top bloggers like Amit Agarwal of Digital Inspiration fame But yes, being a blogger with decent traffic in a niche area has its benefits. I get books to review from US authors (like Pam Skillings, David Maister, Ford Harding) before they are released into the market – and that’s a big enough kick to keep me blogging Yeah, I am quite a nerd that way. Fame is a big component, and the influence you build in your niche.

 AB: Why do more people quit blogging after the first couple of posts? Where does one get ideas to blog about?

GG: I think blogging is like driving. If you start driving without knowing where you want to go – it can seem pointless. And you don’t. But if you start your car just because you love driving – and don’t care too much about where you want to go- then driving is wonderful. I guess most people quit because they start blogging because they have read about people like Amit earning tonnes of money by blogging. That’s the wrong approach. Blogging because you have something to say and with passion and conviction is still the best way. One gets ideas to blog about by reading and listening to what the community is buzzing about. For me that means following other business and HR related blogs, websites, google news, email listserves.
 
AB: Do group blogs survive more often because the burden of writing is not on one person?

GG: Group blogs need to have a consistent theme to survive. Because different people are blogging about a particular issue the reader gets to hear different perspectives and voices.
 
AB. Why haven’t corporate blogs taken off?

GG: Who wants to listen to corporatese masquerading as a conversation? Not me. I guess that’s why most corporate blogs don’t take off. They speak as if they are the only one’s speaking – which soon turns out to be true, as nobody listens to them after that Corporates don’t like losing control and having people disagreeing with them. Ergo, they can’t blog! Would a corporate blog have enough guts to link to the competition’s website and say what is happening in the industry? No. Because their lawyers and stock market friends would ask them to play safe. That’s why bloggers like us have readership. Corporate blogs by small companies who are unlisted companies are also much more interesting to follow.
 
AB. Besides throwing sheep, poking people and writing on their walls (all available on Facebook) – are there activities that people other than giggling teenagers can participate in? Give five things to do on a social networking site?

GG: Hey, even I like throwing sheep And I am a long way from being a giggly teenager.

On Facebook, I try to first define privacy settings well and then give different kinds of friends different privacy settings. So my family and close friends get to see my photo albums and others don’t. Same goes for my phone number and email id.

The other thing I do is update my status every 2-3 days. Let’s people know what’s on my mind and might induce them to connect with me. I could say that I would be in a city and invite people to connect with me offline too.

Use events well. My XLRI batch is planning a reunion next year and a friend has started an event on Facebook around it. All my friends get to know about it – and buzz builds with respect to the event. You ought to do it with your book release functions.

Messages – Using the message feature is ery helpful as it doesn’t clutter your inbox and yet you get to have a one to one conversation with people.

Some apps like Twitter and Friendfeed and Blog Networks on Facebook help you friends to keep updated with what you are upto – what have you blogged about etc.
 
Building pages can be a great way to build a buzz around your company/product etc
 
6. Finally – do you really have 992 friends (as your Facebook count shows)?

GG: Heh. In today’s world the word friend actually spans a gamut of relationships – from close real life friends to close virtual friends (people I have been in virtual touch over 7-8 years and yet never met – at most have had telephonic conversations with and I don’t see different from the first group) to real life acquaintances (ex-colleagues, people in my batch in college and PG with whom I’d hardly have more than an hour’s conversation in my whole life) to virtual acquaintances (people who read my blogs, follow me on twitter, or are on egroups)

Yeah, all these groups put together total about 992. Ooops by now that number is 995