Author: S Ramesh Shankar

Born in Trichy, Tamil Nadu, India, I have been brought up in different parts of India. Graduate in chemistry and post graduate in personnel management and industrial relations. Have been a HR practitioner for 38 years in the industry and have experience in working in steel , automobiles, FMCG and engineering industry. Was head of HR for Siemens in South Asia based out of Mumbai till March 2019. Currently founded hrishti - joy forever, a social enterprise to give back to society and work as Chief Joy Officer.

The silence of the new workplace

New office

Man is a social animal. We realise it today more than anytime in our lives in the past. We are humans and we need to be socially connected to survive and grow. Loneliness can be killing and it can be the worst punishment for any person at home or at work.

If we recall all the days we are staying alone at home, we realise how difficult it is when we get back home from work. We cannot speak to the TV, laptop or the fridge. We yearn for people to be around us. It is then we realise the value of our family members, who are there for us all the time and surround us with warmth and good emotions, unconditionally without expecting anything in return.

Now, as we enter the new workplace after the lockdown, we realise that there are less people around at work. Further, they seem to be avoiding each other and hardly speak to one another. The scare of the virus is taking away our natural urge to interact with each other. What should we do in such a scary environ ?

We could have meetings around a table maintaining the physical distance, covering our faces with masks, sanitising our hands and still talking to each other. While we need to take all necessary precautions to prevent the virus from infecting us and we infecting others, we need not stop talking to people around us. If not anything else, we can smile at one another.

Here I would like to share a real life story to emphasise that if our intent is good and we want to help others no virus can attack us ever. One of my close friends is an orthopaedic surgeon. He was detected with cancer some years back and the oncologists had predicted that even after the best treatment he may not survive for long. This doctor apart from serving his patients volunteers his time training students, professionals and others on “how to live life ethically ?”. He has survived his cancer for many years now and has defied all predictions by his treating oncologists.

I am not for one saying that we can neglect the virus or the cancer, which may endanger our lives. I am only professing that if we continue to take precautions, we can still continue to relate to people and interact with them. If we cannot walk across to everyone at work, nothing prevents us from picking up the phone and enquiring someone’s well being. If our intent is good and we are there to help our customers, suppliers or employees or society at large, no virus can touch us. Our body will produce nature immunes to deal with any virus including Covid.

Having said that, a virus or cancer can attack any of us irrespective of all our precautions and good intentions. In that case, we have to go for treatment and deal with it like any other disease.

I would say the new workplace provides us a great opportunity to build on our strengths and get over our weaknesses. Our strength is relationships and we need to continue to thrive on it to get things done. Our limitation is our productivity as we tend to waste a lot of time in gossip or unnecessary interactions. This is a welcome change to get over those weaknesses and improve our productivity to compete with the best in the world.

A new office meeting room may look like the photo above. That may be the new normal and we need to adapt to it

I personally feel that if we build on our relationships and create the most productive workplace in the world, no country in the world will be able to compete with us.

Opportunity is knocking at our doors today. Let us grab it with both our hands.

S Ramesh Shankar

Role of HR post Covid crisis

Work from anywhere

What could be the role of HR in the post Covid scenario ? This is a question, which may be lurking in the minds of many people. I would state that HR could evolve their “Ten Commandments” post the Covid crisis is over and employees gradually trickle back to the workplace.

1. Job Security : In the post Covid scenario, most employees would be worried about their jobs. This would mean a lurking fear that their organisations would have lost revenue for more than a few months and this could result in job losses for many. So, the first duty of HR could be to make the CEO communicate to all employees how they plan to get over this crisis and assure employees at all levels that they would not lose their jobs.

2. New Workplace : The new workplace will have a new normal. It will not be the same place of work like in the past. Apart from physical sanitisation of everything, there would be silence and loneliness at the workplace. There is need to make people adapt to this new work environment through effective communication and counselling by the managers and leaders at all levels.

3. Cost optimisation : While HR leaders should try their best to save jobs, they could be the champions of cost reduction efforts in the organisation. They could engage with employees at all levels and enable formation of teams so that cost reduction is in everybody’s radar and the organisations are able to make up for the losses incurred by this pandemic.

4. Employee engagement : In the post Covid scenario, employee engagement actions become all the more critical. It is important to make employees adapt to the new workplace and at the same time realise that we need to continue to serve our customers, suppliers, employees, shareholders and all other stakeholders as we did before.

5. Work from anywhere : While the Covid crisis forced organisations and employees to adapt to the work from home option, it may be an opportunity for HR in organisations to enable employees to work from anywhere. This means no fixed workstations, laptops for everyone and they could work from any office or any place of their choice in the future.

6. Re-engineering processes : This is a great opportunity for HR to facilitate all the functions in the organisation to challenge all their existing processes and eliminate unwanted ones, simplify those needed and automate wherever possible. The shop-floor could also be digitised and automated so as to minimise human interface in routine operations and use employees for human value addition, which robots or machines cannot do like listening to and attending to customer grievances.

7. Rewrite the HR manual : Just like the Constitution of a nation gets amended from time to time based on the needs of the nation, this is a great opportunity in the history of the organisation to re-write its HR manual. It may be helpful to keep it simple, eliminate unnecessary bureaucracy and all paper work if possible.

8. Productivity : While many of us may not realise that India still has one of the lowest labour costs in the world but our productivity is not on par with the best in the world. This reset post Covid gives us an opportunity to rejig our productivity levels at the shop floor, in our offices and also in all our processes with suppliers and customers. For eg. is it possible for all employees to deal with all HR processes through their mobile phones and eliminate all paper work in the future.

9. Digitalisation : The ability to go digital in all aspects of work is a real possibility in the new workplace. Sales can happen online and service can be remotely handled. This means manufacturing can be digitilalised and automated and so can be all other processes. If banks can provide all their services through digital means so can all other organisations and this is the best time to transition and go digital, wherever feasible.

10. Employee Health & Safety : This crisis provides the best opportunity for organisations to rewrite its health and safety standards. It is not only physical health but mental and emotional health and wellness, which will get tested post this crisis. So , it is the best time for organisations to prepare for similar unknown crises in the future.

While I may not have listed down all possible things, which HR leaders could do post this crisis, I have focussed on the most important and called them the “Ten commandments for HR”.

Do let me know if I have missed out anything ? You can make your own “Ten commandments for HR” based on the needs of your own organisation.

S Ramesh Shankar

12th May 2020

Addiction or de-addiction – choice is ours always ?

All the liquor shops were closed across the country during the lockdown and the lovers of the spirit had a difficult time.  They had stocked enough but it was not good enough as they could not anticipate the two extensions.  This may be equally true for the smokers.  While I am told that both alcohol and cigarettes were available in the black market but it was almost unaffordable for the common man.

The question I ask myself as to why people get addicted to alcohol or cigarettes ?  Being a teetotaller and a non smoker, some may wonder whether I am competent to write on this subject. Luckily for me there are many in my family and friends’ circles who swear by alcohol and the cigarette.  My wife has been a counsellor in a de-addiction centre at the beginning of her career.

I would like to reflect on why people get addicted to alcohol, cigarettes or drugs ?  It is not that people who are born in families addicted to any of these only fall victims to this addiction.  It is common people coming from all walks of life who fall prey to this disease called addiction.

We all go through crests and troughs in life.  Some of us are able to cope with it while others get stressed out.  It may be for reasons beyond their control or their ability to bear the stress.  It is not easy to deal with stresses of life at different stages.  As an adolescent, one tends to be rebellious and wants to prove to the world how one is different and can stand out in society.

As we grow up as adults, we are ashamed to share our stress with anyone and thus find it difficult to cope with it.  In today’s world, where joint families have paved their way to nuclear families and neighbourhoods are no longer a wall of social support, it the the individual alienation in society which is the root cause of the problem.  While we have become comfortable to go to a doctor to discuss all our medical issues, it is still a stigma to go to a psychiatrist or a counsellor to discuss about our stresses and strains in life.

In today’s digital world, human connections are diminishing.  We do not even know our neighbours leave alone distant friends or relatives.  We do not live in joint families and hence do not have parents, elders, uncles or aunts to share our agonies.  The virtual world is a make believe world and we do not realise it unless reality strikes us hard.  We are proud to think that we have hundreds of friends on social media but realise that there is nobody around us when we get admitted to a hospital to attend to us.

It is in this state of mind, we believe that alcohol, cigarettes or drugs can cure us of depression.  We imagine that a drink in the weekend or a smoke at the end of a stressful day will relive us of all pains in life.  This may be psychologically true for the individual concerned but the reality is different.  The best of alcohol or cigarettes or drugs do not have any magic properties to help us get over our miseries in life.  We take time to realise that we are the creators of own miseries in life.

It is our attitude to life and living, which can make a difference.  The day we realise that we do not need spirits to lift us up in life, we can bring a change.  All of us go through similar trials and tribulations in life.  While some of us are able to cope with it, others succumb to the addiction of these artificial support systems.  The spirit, cigarette or drug is like a ventilator to a patient in distress.  The day the patient realises that their life is over the day the ventilator plug is pulled out is the day, they are willing to fight back in lie.

The day we are willing to give up any form of addiction in life is the day we realise that we are the makers of own destiny.  No force on earth can make us happy or sad in any situation.  No stress in life can make us crumble like ashes.  It is our attitude to life, which makes all the difference.  The day anyone realises the harmful effects of any addiction is the beginning of their journey to freedom from addiciton.

I am not trying to be a moralist here.  I have nothing against people drinking or smoking.  What I am against is the belief that drinking or smoking can cure us of all our stresses in life.  It never can.  It is our ability to face a crisis head on and deal with it, which will make all the difference to our lives.  It is like a smoker can give up smoking one day in a fraction of a second when they decide they want. to.  On the other hand, a smoker who pledges to give up slowly and gradually ends up smoking all his life.

It can be addiction to coffee or tea as in the photo above and not necessarily cigarettes or alcohol.

So, it is upto us to decide what we want to be.  Every human being is capable of dealing with their own stresses and strains in life.  It is upto us to wake up one morning and say that ” I am in control of myself and I can lead a life of my own”.  It is then addiction can transform into de-addiction.

The day to start is today and the time is now.

Why delay ?

S Ramesh Shankar

6th May 2020