Photo Courtesy: Cliff

1) Why should coming to office be drudgery? Why can't it be fun for everyone?
2) Why can't we bring our family into office during working hours?
3) Why can't we work out of home when we feel like? (Telecommuting is 'green working' anyway.)
4) Why should we have working hours at all?
5) Why should we have a boss? Why should there be a supervisor?
6) Why can't everyone think like the owner of the organization?
7) Why should there be a guy standing next to the time card machine marking half a day absence when someone comes 15 minutes late? Why can't everyone just come regularly on time without being told?

I can go on and on asking questions. The only answer I can seem to think is people, particularly in India, are not disciplined. They can't see what needs to be done and get it done. Someone has to tell them, follow up with them, prod them, manage them, motivate them and in the bargain not speak one wrong word. If you have worked in Singapore you'll know how tough life is. I am so pissed off with both the employees and employers in India that I cannot tell you how hard it is to run an organization in this country. Any which way you turn, others are ready to manipulate the system. Such skewed sense of self-esteem I have seen only in this country.

I did write an article that I called 'Escape from Employment' some months ago urging organizations to start reforming their 'workplaces'. Read below when you have time.....

----

This article is about young people and their place, or lack of place, in modern offices. It is about institution and ‘workplace’, the attitudes, rules and regulations that define modern employees. It is about what their lives are and how the employers treat the employees. And it is about the many ways in which modern employment seems to me to be bad for most of those who are employed and how it should and might be changed.

For a long time it never occurred to me to question this institution called workplace. I had taken it for granted that offices have rules and that everyone must simply learn to obey them. There was a boss, who was always correct. You cannot question him or her – I have had both kinds although it didn’t seem to matter much. Barring one or two bosses in my career spanning over twenty five years no boss seemed to be willing to listen to any radical new ideas. Many were so busy talking that they didn’t have time to listen. When I rebelled, which I did quite often, I had either been asked to leave or it became so difficult that a separation was the obvious choice. Then there are subordinates and peers. Putting up with mediocrity wasn’t a virtue that I grew up with. Combine that with a bit of hot headedness; you get a picture of a ‘rebel’ employee, and that was me. I was average at times, typically brilliant at some opportunities, emotionally volatile at other occasions and impossibly unpredictable all the time. A part of me used to feel guilty at missing instances of glory and success. But, mostly, it was a case of misfit.

Now I have come to feel that the fact of being an ‘employee’, of being wholly subservient and dependent on the organization, of being seen by bosses as a mixture of expensive liability, slave and super-pet, does most young people more harm than good.

I propose instead that the rights, privileges, duties and responsibilities of an entrepreneur be made available to any employee, of whatever age, grade and level, who wants to make use of them. These would include, among others:

1. The right to equal treatment at the hands of rules. The right to be treated in any situation no worse than the entrepreneur would be.
2. The right to take decision as he deems fit for the purpose on hand without seeking permissions.
3. The right to take risks and be legally responsible for one’s actions.
4. The right to financial independence and responsibility. That is the right to buy or sell assets, to borrow money, establish credit, sign contracts etc.
5. The right to fix his compensation package and to earn his salaries in the way he wants.
6. The right to envision a future for the organization and to direct the institution in his visionary path.
7. The right to work at any time and from any place he wishes.
8. The right to choose his team to work with.
9. The right to find his customers.
10. The right to set his own rules at workplace.

The list is not in any particular order of importance. What some employees might feel most important others would find less so. I do not say, either, that these rights and duties should be tied into one package. If someone wants to assume any of them and not some other, he must feel free to pick and choose. However, some of these are tied to others. The right to take risk and be legally responsible for one’s actions would hardly have any meaning to any employee who did not also choose the right to financial independence and responsibility.

I am aware that no company is ready to throw open such rights to its employees. The changes I urge will not come about all at once. If they indeed come to exist, it will be as a process, a series of steps taken over a number of years. As long as we treat humans as employees they will continue to behave like workers. Then there is no point in us blaming them to be less responsible, less inventive, less accountable, less initiative taking, etc.

It is never easy to change established norms. I am sure that these suggestions will be a threat for many bosses. They are not yet ready to accept other employees as their equal. It is easy for the entrepreneur to treat all others in the office as subordinates. It keeps him in a state of power that gets his job done. No one can be optimistic about seeing the changes take place. We will never know how the future is going to be. This is my vision of the future. Therefore it is my responsibility to speak the truth as I see it. All I can say is that if we are going to build a responsible society where all members take charge of their lives we must see these changes happen. The act of living itself must make us more wise, responsible and competent.

Are these changes the final ones? Of course, not. I only know the present situation must change in which we recruit employees, induct them through a regimented process, set goals for them to work, monitor the performance, bracket performances according to buckets of grade, reward or reprimand, provide salaries according to some fixed pay scales, promote according to certain established norms must all go away. Such practices have enslaved human beings. The bond must be removed and complete freedom must be ushered in.

What I am proposing will happen in any country or place where people are not threatened for their existence and whose self-esteem is so high that they are confident about their financial and emotional security. It may not begin in India as a large portion of our society is still struggling to make their ends meet. For all I know, it may begin here as well. Times are changing. We cannot continue working in our old ways. Economic reforms alone are not enough to make the world a secure place. Workplace transformations must take place. We must not worry about the future. Let us begin to transform and be the change that we want to see in the world.

--
I Am New,
Krish Murali Eswar.