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.

Family as a social institution

 

I have been a student of sociology for many years now. I have always wondered why “family” as a social institution is breaking down in India like the west.

While it is a great idea to ape the west for all the good things they have, vis a vis the east, it may not be a good idea to learn how to degenerate social institutions like family from anyone.

Family is the basic unit of society. It is built around parents and children. Historically, in India, the joint family was prevalent where multiple generations lived together. This ensured that the seniors acted like mentors for the juniors and there was social support all around every individual.

Joint families have given way to nuclear families today and nuclear families are gradually but surely leading to live in partners and family as an institution , is breaking down.

I remember my childhood where I would always dream of growing up, settling down in life and my parents staying with me and giving an opportunity for me to take care of them , for all that they did for me. However, this remained a dream , as my parents died at an young age.

Today with the world as the market place for talent, it has led to individuals migrating and settling, in different parts of the world. This has led to parents staying back in India and taking care of themselves. Even in India, with children working in different parts of the country, parents stay on their own , in their home turf.

While we can neither blame the children nor the parents, family as an institution has indeed broken down. I shudder to even imagine , my parents living in an old age home. But today it is a reality. Children put their parents in old age homes since they are not able to be with them due to physical reasons but have the financial capacity to sponsor their stays.

Parents have accepted this reality but emotionally break down as they have only walls and furniture for their company in old age homes. It is indeed a vicious circle and may be difficult to find an optimal solution.

Just like the pandemic ensured that we find the right balance between work and life, it may be time to rethink our priorities in life. We need to think if taking care of our family and seniors at home is important or only climbing up personal career ladder , at all costs. If there is a conflict on either of these, which one would you choose?

I am not sure if we have the answer to all the difficult questions of life. However, on reflection, I believe that at every stage of life, we have a choice and it is upto us to define and redefine our priorities in life. We may go wrong at times and it is ok. But, reimagining and reviewing our priorities in life ,from time to time ,may help us be on track.

It may be time to think of returning to the joint family system of our forefathers where multiple generations lived together and provided a social security net within the family. Even with multiple family members working, there was always someone in the family to look for emotional bond.

I do not have any solutions to this social problem because every family may have a different challenge to handle. But I do think that we have a lot to learn from our forefathers.

Time to think ?

S Ramesh Shankar

20th May 2022.

 

Customer orientation

I always wondered if being customer oriented is a difficult thing. I was travelling in a flight recently. We had pre-ordered our snacks. When my wife requested the flight attendant to exchange her pre-ordered Upma for some other snack, she was rude to state that it has been pre-booked and cannot be changed.

I then recalled the research I had done on “Customer orientation” during my corporate career and I realised that being customer oriented does not need complex things to be remembered. It is just having a positive attitude, being empathetic to the customer and keeping up your commitments. It is as simple as that.

It does not depend on the product or service you are offering. You may be dealing with any product or service. It is your ability to being positive in your attitude, putting yourself in the shoes of the customer’s shoes and understanding their issues and then keeping your word. That’s all we need to be customer oriented.

Let me analyse how this behaviour of the air hostess could have been customer oriented. When my wife requested her to exchange her snack, she could have understood the reasons why my wife asking for the same. Then she should could been empathetic and understood the pain of the customer. After that she could have checked with her seniors if needed and exchanged her Upma with another snack of equivalent value. This would have not only satisfied a hungry customer but delighted her and airline would have not lost a penny.

After she refused to exchange the Upma for a snack, my wife requested for some tea, which also got delivered after two reminders. This shows you have not keep your word although you promised the customer that you will serve tea and hand over the Upma box. You did neither.

I have a met a lot of employees dealing with customers day in and night out. I have done workshops with thousands of customer facing employees and listened to their stories. When I analysed the same, I found that customer orientation is not dependant on the product or service we offer. It all depends on the attitude we have towards our customer.

Customer orientation is all about “Attitude”, “Empathy” & “Commitment”. Our ability to instil the positive attitude in our employees, making employees empathetic by feeling the pain of the customer and then living up to the commitments they make without fail every single time.

Now I wonder as to why organisations cannot be customer oriented when it is so simple. I realise that the simplest things in life are the most complex and hence may be we are not able to instil these values in our employees and ensure that they consistently follow them.

We need to believe that retaining customers is more important then winning new customers. It is like retaining employees is more important than recruiting new employees when they leave organisations.

Let me summarise that “Customer-Orientation” is as simple as “AEC” ( Attitude, Empathy & Commitment) and let us not complicate it any further.

Let us start being customer oriented today. It is true for individuals as much as organisations.

S Ramesh Shankar

23rd May 2022

Marriage as a social institution

Marriage is the legal partnership between two individuals and accepted by society as a social institution. Both men and women study, grow, work and then look for partners in their lives. Some find them in their study place while others at the workplace. Parents find partners for those who are not able to find a partner for themselves.

Marriage is an equal partnership and built on mutual respect and love. It grows with age and ability to adapt to each other. Some marriages last their lifetime while others break over time ,due to lack of compatibility.

In the past ,partners stayed with each other and sacrificed their personal preferences for the larger good of the family and the children. This could have created a lot of hardship to either of the partners but they lived with these challenges. Today divorce is not a dirty word in our society and this is good. Incompatible partners are not forced to stay with one another for life ,even if they did not enjoy being with each other every day.

If we look back at marriage as a social institution ,especially in India, we realise that it has been a binding factor in the family. If we leave out those incompatible ones, who sacrificed their lives for their children’ sake, it has by and large been the glue ,between partners.

I sometimes wonder how some marriages last a life time and not others. If I look at my own marriage, I realise it has to be based on mutual trust and respect. We come from different families, social and academic backgrounds. It is our ability to learn and adapt which makes a marriage click.

Conflicts in marriage are an integral part. We start with a honey moon phase when everything looks hunky dory. Then as the family expands ,children arrive and responsibilities increase, there is bound to be difference of opinions and conflicts between all partners. It is not presence of conflicts which worry me , but the lack of patience and adaptability to deal with these conflicts.

In my view, it is better to separate and lead peaceful and happy lives rather than keep fighting every day and make life miserable for self and others ,in the process. Sometimes the flimsy reasons for divorce make me believe that we need marriage counsellors and family counsellors like in the west ,since joint families and seniors in the family do not play this role of mediation any more.

Family as an institution has already degenerated and in the future, marriage as a social institution ,may not exist in the current form. Over the last decade I have seen that one in three marriages that I have attended ,has failed. This is a scary statistic and I am not proud of it.

We have to prepare ourselves to live in a society where family and marriage are no longer sacrosanct social institutions. We may get new types of partnerships and also new types of families ,which may be different than the past definitions ,we are familiar with.

May be time to redefine “marriage” as a social institution and get ready to live in this new world.

S Ramesh Shankar

28th May 2022