Office – Office: Performance Evaluation

There are only a handful of activities that every HR team is passionate about. Performance evaluation is one such rabid activity.

The lame corporate employee thinks of this no differently than a pay per use toilet – You pay (in this case fill up numerous similar looking forms) and get relief (promotion/ increment/ bonus). In many cases, you realize the toiler is far too dirty and decide to hold in the relief. Corporate life is no different – those who cannot navigate through the maze of office politics do not get any relief, sorry promotion/ increment/ bonus.

However, the HR professional sees this exercise as no different from organizing and attending a an elite Carnatic music show. The pre-event buzz is created by handing out pamphlets, offering refresher courses and ensuring that the employee knows the last day for submitting completed forms.

As the show begins, HR makes itself inaccessible. Those junior HR team members who are available on their mobile phones are chided for being upstarts (much like the septuagenarians "Shhhh"-ing the 20-something making remarks about the Tambura being out of tune).

Once the completed forms are submitted to the HR team, there is a freeze on activity, much like how it is when Aruna Sairam or Hariharan take their singing to the next stage. A month or two later – results are announced. Some get relief, many don't. Questions are asked and a debate ensues akin to one that goes on the lines of "Who showed better ragam tanam pallavi – Santhanagopal or Gurucharan?" ensues.

Predictably, there is no conclusion to such debates. Performance evaluation is subjective, says the HR. "It depends on which peer group you were put in an evaluated against. Ratings are relative to the peer group. If you are unhappy, please take it up with your HR relationship manager." Spoken like a true rasika without any conclusive opinion!

Needless to say, the HR relationship manager shows little more than sympathy for your situation urging that you escalate any unfairness to the HR Committee (incidentally no one knows who are the members of this committee, much like the committee that chooses which artists will feature in the Kutcheri season). Like all mail boxes, you receive no response from the committee.

Before long truth dawns – Nothing can be done. And like the faithful rasika who doesn't get tickets to the Kutcheri season, you look forward to the next season and hope you get lucky.

Office– Office: Leave

If you ever had a boss went red when he/she saw anything more than 2 days leave approval, then you need to read this. 

A recent survey revealed that Singaporeans can't take time off from work due to professional pressures. My better half says this is true for India as well. Look around your office and you will seldom find well rested, genuinely enthusiastic, straight talking, non-bitching colleagues. The reason – No leave.  A colleague in the HR department says the company pays people for all the leave they are eligible to encash and apparently it is a very significant amount.

Not availing leave impacts physical and mental health, does not make business sense, and is not cool. Why then do bosses hate to give or take leave?

It stems from the fact that traditionally, taking leave made you a sissy. Don't you remember that "Weak" kid in school who kept taking leave due to ill health? (Never mind that he joined IIT and then Harvard and now lives in a funky mansion in Silicon Valley with a good looking wife and all rounder -kids).  What did your daddy say about that "hen-pecked" husband who took leave because he had to do the laundry and occasionally cooking too? (Never mind the scourge your daddy has is because he can't even make his own coffee leave alone iron his shirts). And that lady in the office, who keeps "making excuses" saying "I need time off to spend with my child?" What a joke! If she wanted to spend time, then why come to office? She's better off staying home permanently….

Leave is associated with being frivolous and unimpressively so.  Work shirker, lazy, incompetent, irresponsible, timid, are other adjectives associated with leave. No one wants a subordinate, or boss with such a reputation.

Conversely, if you want to build up a reputation in corporate India, you start with a "no leave or leave for good" policy. That way you are on top of the mind recall, even if it is a negative association (after all any publicity is good publicity).  The minute you start rejecting those 3 day leave applications, you become legendary.  When you cut short a 2 day leave, you become revered. When you scoff at that one day leave, your subordinate feels embarrassed. And when you raise your eye brows at that half a day leave, your subordinate ends up working overtime for a while week in penance.

The only instance where a longish leave is tolerated is when someone is either getting married or a parent has died or if you are having a baby (sadly, many men and many companies do not know what paternity is. One even asked me if that was a kind of law suit). That is promptly rewarded with increased work once you return. Little wonder then why most women do not come back post marriage or child birth and many men move jobs around the same time.

How to retain your sanity? But a smart phone and stay connected with the happening crowd. Put the ring tones on high volume during meetings and let the phone scream in glee. Keep a ready set of jokes on your browser and laugh/ cry/ weep aloud in your seat. When others look at you, put your head down in remorse.  Have your lunch in solitude and pretend to speak to yourself. Very soon the boss will conclude that you indeed deserve a leave.

Office- Office: The Great Indian Offsite

We love most things that come prefixed with "The Great Indian" starting with the rope trick (at least those who have seen it), followed by weddings, pomp and show of the popular kind (read Indian Idols and many other idles) and ending with the cricket team. The one exception is perhaps the Offsite.

Any company that employs more than 1,000 people is looking for ways to squander away some portion of the capital gains. Or that is the impression the employee gets when hit with the word Offsite.

"The vaguer, the better" is the universally accepted formula for developing an offsite agenda. The venue is a pseudo-exotic location (the much visited Goas, Pondicherrys, Keralas, and Uttaranchals should ring a bell) with a free blowing booze permit. The journey to reach the venue, touted as an "experience to foster bonding", is often by bus or train – hardly the sort of break your bones deserve after the daily criss-crossing of potholed and traffic filled roads leading from your home to office. Most people end up sleeping on each other's shoulders or sharing the plastic bag for a good post meal throw up. Perhaps that is also sharing at an unconscious level.

The horrors at the venue are usually proportionate to the budget allocated per person. Of course, even chartered accountants can mess up budgeting so it is usually left to a foundling in the Marketing department. Not to be outdone, the HR department usually grabs the running of the hourly program at the offsite. This is what it looks like:

- Drama (attempts at generating a few laughs – either on a stage or through a game)

- Booze (to relax after the drama)

- Grief (effect of the clarity after booze gets into your system)

- More drama (Revelations pertaining to performance – of any kind you may imagine)

- More booze (To help digest the various scenes enacting around you)

- Much more grief (As the real entertainment kicks, either the bar shuts down citing new permit rules or HR decides to join in)

- Boozing till you are hauled up back into the bus with your belongings (Yes 36 hours has passed and you also cheered "Hic! Hic! Hurray")

It is therefore no surprise that the ladies in white, the ageing superstars, the social butterflies and those who prefer Earl Grey usually do not show up for the Offsite. The budget is not conducive to help them bond with the rest. The average employee is average at everything – bonding and boozing included – and most likely to snore before any superlatives kick in. So who truly benefits? My bet is the HR. Hic!

Office-Office: Hypocrisy

(Picture source: www.dilbert.com)

The first few months spent as a new corporate employee are very insightful.

You realize how full of B.S. the induction program was – except for the info on the cafeteria and loo breaks. (Hail companies that don’t have an induction program! You hit the shit immediately). You see your real position (or the lack of it) in the organization, when you compare yourself to the boss. The best way to illustrate this is through the experiences of the mustachioed young man (M) and the ageing super star (ASS). Of course, we will throw in our favorite character Super Boss too, wherever appropriate.

1. ASS comes to work at 8:00 am (official work hours being 9:30 am) and leaves at 3:00 pm citing “client meeting” reasons. M comes at 9:00 am and is not expected to leave.

2. ASS can delegate work to M, the vice versa will be short of harakiri.

3. ASS drinks tea brought in by a butler, curses its “inferior” quality but empties the cup. M has to shove his way to the café. See several pairs of similarly tired eyes stare momentarily at him, grab the mild coffee and stand listlessly under the fan, only to realize the coffee is long over. Talk about taking a break!

4. ASS gives M files to review. M reviews them and makes recommendations. ASS shares recommendations without credit to M. When Super Boss shoots down a few recommendations, ASS remains silent. Post call, gives M a tongue lashing calling him a “useless joker” among other things and quietly asks for an explanation to the recommendations that got shot down. At the next meeting with the Board of Directors, Super Boss makes the same recommendations he shot down. ASS’ mouth is gaping like that of a gold fish. This is what you call reeking in hypocrisy.

5. M is asked to handle a client interaction. ASS pokes his nose into it and goofs up. Predictably ASS denies any involvement during a damage control Q&A session. M is severely reprimanded. A fortnight later ASS handles initiative and again goofs up. Media gleefully runs rampage adding spice to the story. No questions asked at office.

6. M and ASS go for an event together. ASS ends up entertaining some guests with tea and snacks. He leaves brusquely asking M if he can pay the bill. M, taken aback, does so, forgetting to collect the bill copy. Net result – M is poorer by Rs 1,250 as re-imbursements can be claimed only by “Senior level people”.

7. M is overworked and has started admitting that to himself and a few colleagues. ASS thrusts more work on him saying “he can do it!” (did I tell you ASS is a Nike Fan?). M tries to live up to the challenge, but fails. Fighting rage, ASS tells him “I will do it!” and asks him to leave the cabin. 30 minutes later ASS is frantically calling M asking him to how to change slides. Everyone knows who did it.

As for the mother of all hypocrisies, consider this – The HR chaps disappear after the induction program only to reappear when one has handed in one’s resignation. What’s worse, they hand one an exit interview questionnaire to complete with a section on “Rate your relations with the HR manager.”