Desicritics Category: BizTech: Jobs

WorkExp.Com Goes Offline - The Whisper Board for Bad News

Aaman Lamba — Sat, 7 Mar 2009 00:17:55 EST

People have an innate need to share information about things that are important to them in their every day lives. There is also an insatiable curiosity about one's jobs, friends, and family. This explains, in part, why the most heavily trafficked stories online are often the kind that deal with sensational topics. While Dr. Vijay Mallya might be the flavor du jour, a more persistent trend these days is the state of the economy, and more specifically, jobs. Job losses are rising globally, engendering a rising sense of uncertainty.

The need to know, in part, if one's job was relatively safe, is typically fulfilled by asking around. As the saying goes, "If your neighbor loses his job, it's a recession. If you lose your job, it's a depression." The Internet helps drive the dissemination of the state of affairs, and one website, WorkExp, found itself dealing with a surge in traffic from nervous Indians. The site was originally set up with the objective of sharing work experiences, equally positive and negative, but as with the bear market, trafficking in bad news soon overwhelmed the slim sliver of good news. Everything from layoffs to bad managers became grist for the mill, and the site became a must-check site. It even found itself being blocked in various company networks, understandably so, from the perspective of the HR departments as nothing was spared by the anonymous commenters/posters. It became a safety valve, in part, for the stressed employee, serving to reinforce, negatively, his feelings about his company. The Alexa Rank, a poor enough measure as it might be, indicates an occasional surge of attention, such as when the Satyam fiasco broke out.

As leading HR blogger, Gautam Ghosh, put it when he encountered the site:

Today I came across WorkExp , which is primarily a blog consisting of submitted posts by Indian techies about their organizations.

So as a HR person are you ready for the flipside and downside of this kind of transparency. Yes, it'll be messy and not easy to deal with. But this is going to be the new pub where people will share stories, only difference being it will be archived and search-able for posterity.

Unfortunately, this transparency or the 'pub culture' appears to have been contrary to the owner's expectations. They took all content offline, promising a redesign, and declaring they were disappointed with the negativity that had violated the site's founding principles. They posted the following:

This site was started with a view of helping people learn and share experiences, but sadly in its current state it has been reduced to a board where only stones are thrown. Except for one from CTS & one from Bharthi Airtel, NOONE shared their positive experiences :( Which was indeed very sad for the editorial team back here! We are re-designing this site and will be back soon!

But Guys! As much as it is your right to complain and share your bad experience it is also your responsibility in a way to tell what good your company has done for you!

We are over for now! But not out yet!

The retirement of the site will no doubt lead to the disappointment of many vicarious thrill-seekers, but the stance of the editors is to be commended, as they put principles before traffic. Even so, they could have gone with the flow, and become the Yelp.com for the job-hungry. Perhaps a clone will spring up soon enough, one that will satisfy the need to crib about your manager, your company, your work experiences.

Should Mental Illnesses Be Disclosed To Employers?

Vinod Joseph — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 05:53:21 EST

It was widely reported in various British newspapers yesterday that the Cheltenham Borough Council is to sue its former Managing Director Christine Laird for having “misrepresented and misstated” her fitness for employment on an application form. Cheltenham Borough Council’s suit for a million pounds accuses Christine Laird of "fraudulent or negligent misrepresentation" in concealing her depressive illness in her job application and the fact she had been taking anti-depressants for several years. Part of the job application involved filling up a medical questionnaire and (I’m guessing here) most probably Christine failed to tick the box for mental illness.

Christine Laird started to work for the Cheltenham borough council in February 2002. She held her job until 2005. Four months after Christine started her new job, the Liberal Democrats captured power. Andrew McKinlay, a Liberal Democrat became the Head of the Council. Apparently Christine and Andrew never got along. Christine’s tenure was marked by a series of bitter disputes with the Council and Andrew McKinlay, with allegations and counter-allegations of inappropriate, unhelpful, obstructive and bullying conduct. While employed by the Council, Christine Laird filed 25 official complaints with the Standards Board for England, of which only one was upheld. From June 2004 until the time she left the job in 2005, Christine was absent on full pay on account of ‘stress’.

Now the Council is seeking over a million pounds in damages from Christine for not having disclosed her medical details. The damages claimed includes a projected cost of £450,000 to the Council on account of Laird's ill-health pension entitlement, £96,000 towards legal costs on account of previous court proceedings, and £175,000 for cover while she was off sick.

The issue which interests me greatly is this: Should job applicants be forced to disclose details of their mental illnesses on job application forms? Let’s assume that Christine Laird is being sued solely because the Council woke up one morning (after she had quit) and found out that she was suffering from depression while working for the Council and even earlier. Let’s suppose that the animosity between Christine and Andrew McKinlay has not influenced the Council’s decision to sue her and claim a million pounds in damages.

It is accepted that lying on one’s CV is a ground for termination if discovered. However, do applicants also have a duty to disclose every detail that an employer may want to know? If one were to say that job applicants who are facing a broken marriage should disclose it on their resumes, one would be met with howls of laughter, notwithstanding the fact that a broken marriage can be as much disruptive to doing one’s job as depression is.

I do believe there is some merit in the argument that applicants should disclose all details that may have an impact on their job performance. The flip side on this is that, anyone who discloses an existing mental ailment is very unlikely to be hired, irrespective of whether the illness is serious or not.

Depression apparently affects approximately 19 million Americans, or 9.5% of the US population in any given one-year period. Depression is called the common cold’ of mental illness since so many people suffer from it. Various famous personalities such as Abraham Lincoln have suffered from depression, though to be honest, most of the famous ones who suffered from depression have been writers and artists, callings where a mental imbalance may not cause as much harm as it would to a bureaucrat or a doctor or an engineer. Obsessive-compulsive disorder or OCD is another mental illness that is very common. Apparently it is the fourth most common mental disorder and 2% of the world’s population suffers from it.

I would argue that until society starts to accept mental illness as just another ailment, the mentally ill should be allowed to conceal their illness provided they have been advised by a qualified doctor that they are capable for holding a regular job. If not, so many mentally ill people with minor ailments will be at risk of not getting suitable employment if they are honest in their applications. If they are dishonest and things don’t work out for them at work (for reasons which may not be linked to their illness) and their employer gets to know of the employee’s illness, the employer will be able to claim damages from them.

California is Becoming the Pakistan of the USA

Dr Bhaskar Dasgupta — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 02:49:11 EST

I read on a hedge fund report which said that California is the Pakistan of USA, the idea being that it is becoming seriously economically mismanaged and is in danger of imploding. This comparison with a country is not too far fetched, whatever you say. You hear statement after statement that California, if an independent country, would be the 6th or 8th biggest country in the world in terms of economic metrics. Since then, I have been keeping an eye on that state.

But this state is peculiarly badly governed. Its brand of democracy, the demographics of the state, the high reliance on income taxes, the way the political parties have carved up the state with the constituency units, all combine to make it a fascinatingly amazing place. Because of the fact that the boundaries of the electoral seats are carved out in such a way that they appeal to the extremist wings of the two political parties, the idea of appealing to the centre and doing bi-partisan work is strangely missing. Consequently, the parties are not willing to compromise. Add the "proposition" business and what you end up with is a stream of dollars which are tied ruthlessly to single spending streams. And let us not forget the public sector which is, simultaneously pathetic in terms of efficiency and horribly expensive.

So when faced with a huge economic slowdown, the republicans are refusing to let the governor raise taxes while the democrats are refusing to cut spending. And the credit crunch means that trying to raise money from the markets is nearly impossible because the markets fear the state will not be able to honour its rapidly rising debt. Result? Deadlock. Let me quote some results of this stupid set of circumstances:

California’s state controller said he won’t make $3.7 billion of payments due next month, cutting off income-tax refunds and money for welfare programs amid a record budget shortfall battering the most-populous U.S. state

And from here,

To conserve cash, Schwarzenegger has ordered state offices shut for two days a month and all workers to take two days of unpaid leave each month. The impasse forced a state panel on Dec. 18 to halt funding for $3.8 billion of construction on schools, roads and other public works, a decision officials said might cost tens of thousands of jobs.

And here:

The governor also said he and lawmakers should go without pay for every day they fail to enact a budget past its due date.

(Which might not be such a bad idea).

Schwarzenegger, a multimillionaire, has declined his $212,179 a year salary since he was elected. Lawmakers each make at least $116,208 a year plus $162 per day per diem; legislative leaders make more depending upon their position.

So the bunch of girly men and manly women have effectively driven the state to near fiscal disaster. Some say that people get the leaders they deserve, but surely this isn't the case here? Not sure what is the future of this problem nor the solution, but I can see muchas problemo's in this fiscal train crash of a state.

What do the resident Californians think?

Technorati Tags: USA, Economics

Action Sociology: Human Rights with Sanitation

Somik Raha — Sat, 27 Dec 2008 16:34:43 EST

Ever since independence (and from a long time before that), people in India have been appalled with the abuse of the caste system, especially the poor treatment meted out to "untouchables." As usual, well-meaning people think they can change attitudes by passing laws. And so, India has The Protection of Civil Rights Act, 1955, which punishes the preaching and practice of untouchability. Needless to say, the act made little difference on the ground in terms of changing people's attitudes.

There is no dearth of angry activism on this issue in India and outside, and as is the nature of all angry activism, the message is so loud that people close their ears and ignore it. Meanwhile, India's politicians are more interested in maintaining the status quo and milking caste divisions for votes instead of working for the welfare of the "untouchables." In this hopeless scenario, one man is running a silent revolution with a lot of success.

This is the story of Bindeshwar Pathak, whose life transformed as a young man in the 60s, when he was told by the General Secretary of a Gandhian organization that it was Gandhi's unfinished work to remove the profession of manual scavenging from India and liberate the untouchables. The General Secretary told the young Pathak that he had to finish Gandhi's mission and added, "I see light in you." The young man had no clue what this meant, but he read a few books published by the WHO on sanitation, and decided to live in a scavenger's colony for two months to understand them and their problems. People thought he was crazy. He survived, and came back with an understanding that was different from any social activist in this field.

He felt that the discrimination of the untouchables was due to technical reasons. The untouchables, or manual scavengers of toilets, were considered dirty as they dealt with human excreta while cleaning "bucket toilets." Human excreta would be pulled out of such toilets into buckets and then, scavengers would carry buckets on their heads to a location for disposal. If there could be an alternate toilet designed to be self-cleaning, then it would be cheaper for the consumer as they wouldn't need to hire people to clean it. It would also eliminate the need for the scavenging profession.

Pathak started "Sulabh" (which means "easy") to address this. He came up with the two-pit pour-flush toilet which would work in the Indian context. One pit would be in use at a time. Once the pit was full, it would would be closed and the other would be in operation. Over a year, the first pit's contents would turn into manure and could be used as fertilizer in the field. Thus, there would be no need to scavenge and clean these toilets. Sulabh's toilet product turned out to be a great hit, with over a million pieces already sold. Sulabh then channeled their profits toward retraining the untouchables to enter mainstream society - as cooks, beauticians, electricians, etc. Today, Sulabh has a whole array of toilet products to suit your budget.

Pathak also felt strongly about the problem of open defecation. Unlike those who faulted the "Indian civic sense," he recognized that the problem was that we didn't have enough public toilets. This is also a question of human dignity, especially for women, as they would suppress the call of nature the whole day and only go very early in the morning or in the night. Even so, such trips would make them a target of sexual predators, snakebites, diseases due to defecating in unhygienic environs, etc., not to speak of the health problems that come from suppressing the call of nature the entire day. Again, this was a technical problem waiting to be solved. So, he started the first public toilet in (hold your breath) Arrah, Bihar, a state where people would rather travel on top of trains than buy tickets. Pathak believed people would pay for a clean toilet experience, and he was proved right. The people of Bihar paid and sustained the public toilets. Today, Sulabh has built over 5000 public toilets all over India, including the largest toilet in the world at Shirdi for pilgrims.

Not only do these toilets generate local employment, they also collect raw material for Sulabh's energy innovation - bio-gas and electricity production. You have to see it with your own eyes - yes, your excreta can now be used to produce cooking gas and electricity.

Pathakji also understood that he needed to help the children of the scavengers get the same opportunity as others. Sulabh uses its profits to run a school where children of the scavengers get free education, books and uniforms. They also eat together with children of other communities, and learn Sanskrit, a language they were earlier denied access to. The children in this school are taught all religions so they can celebrate all of India's traditions.

And the story does not end here. Sulabh also has a toilet museum which is now on the tourist maps of New Delhi. They have expanded to eco-sanitation projects that help with pisciculture, among other things. Throughout these projects, Pathakji continued his education to go on for a Phd and a D.Litt, and has coined a new term, "Action Sociology," which he advocates as a way to solve social problems.

Behind all of these efforts is a deep-rooted spirituality. Pathakji's day begins with the entire Sulabh community praying (they sing a universal prayer) and filling their hearts with positive vibrations. When I interviewed him, not once did I sense anger against society for discrimination of the untouchables. At the same time, there was no acceptance of the injustice. Like Krishnammal and Sandhya, and in a completely unique manner, Pathakji has transcended anger and hatred to make a difference, a big difference, through social entrepreneurship. He is indeed a bright light in India who has illuminated our conscience and given us great hope for the future.

You can meet him by going to the Palam Vihar (New Delhi) office of Sulabh International Social Service Organization (although he travels often, he is generally accessible). You can also meet the other heroes of Sulabh and see their toilet museum and a demonstration of bio-gas and electricity from human excreta in the same complex. There are several volunteering and internship opportunities with this organization, if you have the time.

And if you can't visit them, here is a film I made on Sulabh in 2006. I recommend watching it in full-screen mode (press the TV icon) and using headphones.

In case the full screen feature does not work below, you can watch it directly on Blip TV.

Errata: the film says Sulabh has built over 500 toilets, when in fact, the number is ab

Jet Airways Reverses Layoffs, Naresh Goyal Apologizes

Aaman Lamba — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 14:18:02 EDT

In another indication that capitalism as practiced in India is tempered by the socialist and democratic framework it operates in, Jet Airways founder and Chairman Naresh Goyal announced the company had reinstated all 1,900 employees who had been retrenched only yesterday. They would join duty on October 17th.

Mr. Goyal apologized to the employees and indicated that the move might have been a hasty decision, among a clutch of options considered for reducing costs. He said the decision to reinstate the employees had been his own, made without consulting anyone. He also stressed that the earlier decision to layoff employees had not been related to the proposed alliance with Vijay Mallya's Kingfisher Airlines. He said a joint Jet-Kingfisher Alliance Council had been set up to explore cost reduction options, including route rationalization and shared costs.

The layoffs had evoked negative reactions from various quarters, with the employees' union planning a Jet Airways boycott, and heated comments from Maharastrian politico Raj Thackeray. It had been followed by an announcement from Air India that 15,000 employees were being asked to proceed on 3-5 years leave without pay. The Indian airline industry had been grappling with the prospect of drastic shrinkage in travel arising out of high fuel costs and the general economic slowdown. The Indian government is being propositioned for a large bail-out package to avoid potential bankruptcies in the industry.

The emotional announcement by Mr. Goyal came as a surprise, and his frankness was in stark contrast to typical bland corporate announcements. The future of the industry and Jet Airways may still be uncertain, but there's no gainsaying that Mr. Goyal has won the hearts of his employees for now.

What Do You Do For A Living?

Deepti Lamba — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 05:57:43 EDT

So, what do you do for a living?

Ah!! you're a homemaker...

Yeah, that's the end of the conversation with me.

Back in Delhi when I bumped into an old school acquaintance I decided to tell the truth that I was a writer and quite a lot of my stuff was published. Where? Skin mags!!

The babe looked flustered and shocked and I was smug. It sounded better than stating a flaky - I am a homemaker

Recently I blurted out the truth in a more creative fashion - I am retired and since I am a woman of means I don't need to work. Thanks to my husband I am lucky enough to be able to devote time to my passion and my family.

The individual who asked me What do you do for a living? spluttered and was left speechless .

Most people are unable to earn money from their passion. Most people are unable to devote time to their passion. Come to think of it, a majority of people don't even know what they are good at. They work because they have to, not because they want to.

Few people are eager to go to work on a Monday morning. The few who do look forward to their work are generally self employed or enjoy great deal of autonomy at their work, others crib about their work environment , their bosses, colleagues and the list goes on.

All that is discussed after I am politely ignored for leading an 'idle life' and I find myself wondering time and again whether my 'stress free life' ( yeah, even I had a boss yelling at me at one point) isn't better than dealing with the egoistical bosses and bitchy colleagues.

When they compare their stressful lives with each others I remain quiet. My stress is different from theirs- I go sleepless at night because I write late into the night not because I have a presentation or assignment to finish. I get up at crack of dawn because I have tiffins to pack and chores to do and not because I have to drive from one end of the city to get another to work. Basically I am the mistress of my own time and of my mind.

Sure, I have to deal with people who think I am a lazy babe without an identity; some even called me a doormat. Doormat and me? Just because I don't get a pay cheque at the end of the month?

I'm already working but I don't have to prove my worth to anyone.

The way I see it- when I am on my death bed I am not going to regret that I didn't have a nine to five job but reminisce more about relationships gone sour or dreams left unfulfilled.

Related Article : What Do You Do By Mark

The Benefits of Joblessness

Dr Bhaskar Dasgupta — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 08:56:40 EDT

Now here's a surprise for you. I quote:

The proportion of 16- to 24-year-olds without a job is higher than when Labour came to power in spite of government efforts to reduce unemployment among the young.......blamed the rise on the failure to raise the skills of many youngsters. The New Deal scheme to reduce youth unemployment by providing training, subsidised employment and voluntary work had also failed to maintain its initial success.

What are the solutions? And this is where I disagree:

The OECD said policies such as raising the age to which youngsters must remain training to 18 needed “fine tuning”. It called for increased support for free nursery education; a three-month limit for 16- and 17-year-olds to find work with part-time learning, after which they must return to full-time education or training; more involvement for trade unions in development of apprenticeship schemes; and an expectation that youngsters working under New Deal stay in a job for at least 26 weeks.

See, this is an issue of taking a horse to water but cannot or being unable to make it drink. And here's the actual problem, and I further quote:

One in five youngsters who found work under New Deal held a job for less than 13 weeks, leading to “short employment spells with benefit dependency”.

What these gits do not understand is that for entry level jobs and basic jobs, the difference between the salary and benefits enjoyed is marginal, and in many cases, negative. So what's the point of me dressing up, going to work for a boss who treats me like a coprolite, doing soul destroying work and then ending up after working 10 hours with an amount which is lesser than what my friends earned by sitting at home smoking and drinking and bonking?

Benefit dependency is the issue, link the continued employment to the continued benefit and you will see that economic incentives do work. If you do not work, you do not get the money. And all the kings horses and men, like this whiney article, says, will not make humpty dumpty go back to work again.

Take a look at what Polly is celebrating. She is looking at an estate of 7300 people, and I quote: This vast estate, in much disrepair, had 7,300 residents but virtually no community life, voluntary or council-run. It did have crack houses, prostitution, rubbish tips and violent crime. It did have exceptional numbers of the old, the sick and single mothers.

This is the problem, it was the state's mistakes, the centralised planning, the benefit dependency, the bad public service delivery and the like which landed the estate of Clapham Park in this mess. So Polly is basically saying that the state mucked up, and then the state tried to fix it, and then it again failed. Erm. yes, obviously it will fail, you silly girl, because it was not done by the residents, but to and for the residents by people who never stayed in there. And she is asking for more public money to fix it, keep it going and worse of all, to extend it to other estates and counties where the state has spectacularly failed. Dont you think you should stand back and let the citizens do it themselves?

But here is the problem which goes back to the benefits issue. This state has made a vast swathe of the populace dependent upon benefits and is therefore unable to shift them off it. Take a look at this by-election coming up in Glasgow East. Trace the history of the constituency back and you will see that it has been managed by Labour going back to 1922. Ok? Now let me bring some interesting statistics to bear.

1. From the Spectator:

Nick Clegg drew gasps at a reception in Westminster by observing that there are parts of Glasgow where life expectancy is the same as the Gaza Strip and North Korea. If only this were so. Glasgow City, as a whole, has a male life expectancy of 71 years which is actually lower than the 72 years of both Gaza and Pyongyang. But this includes its lush suburbs. Those in the welfare ghettoes of Glasgow East can only dream of such longevity. The life expectancy of its sink estates is worth recording here. A boy born in Camlachie is expected to live to 64.5 — the same as in Uzbekistan. In Parkhead it is 62, the same as Bangladesh. Just outside its boundaries lies Dalmarnock where the figure is 58 — lower than Sudan, Cambodia or Ghana. The lowest is Carlton, where the figure of 54 is lower than even Gambia’s equivalent.

2. BBC:

Figures for unemployment are also higher, with the rate for men over 25 about 10%, rising to 25% for women.

This year, NHS statistics showed that the east end of Glasgow had Scotland's highest rate of alcohol-related hospital admissions.

3. Blog:

Look beneath the lies, damned lies and statistics, and factor in the number of people on incapacity benefits, and we discover that around 50% of the adult 'working' population is unemployed.

4. Spectator again:

When you look at Scotland on any statistical dataset, it is one big horror story. Welfarism, health deprivation, drugs, drink – there are reams of data about what a socioeconomic nightmare the country is.

5. Financial Times:

Male life expectancy is 63, which is 14 years below the UK average. Unemployment runs at 25 per cent and about 40 per cent of the constituents live on benefits. About 40 per cent of the children live in workless households. Sadly, "household" is not always the most appropriate term. The teenage pregnancy rate is 40 per cent above the national average.

And this is from a city which, and I quote: Yet just a few generations ago Glasgow was the greatest industrial city of the British empire. At one time it produced half the world's ships and a third of its railway locomotives. It could be argued that many people in the UK enjoyed a prosperity that was in part built on the gargantuan efforts of industrial Glasgow.

6. The Times: male life expectancy is 14 years below the national average, 38% of constituents are welfare-dependent, 46% live in social housing, 60% of households have no access to a car, and deaths from heart disease among the under 75s are 83% above the national average.

Now yes, I agree that you cannot be up all the time, just look at Detroit, but hey, look at California, it reinvented it. And it did not do it by handing out benefits by the ton. The problem is that people are now accustomed to living by the state. So now why would you be surprised that the people will keep on voting Labour? As the quote goes, a government which promises to rob peter to pay Paul will always count on the support of Paul.

If you want to get people employed and productive members of the staff, you need to help them but just like pain killers, do not make them addicted to it, otherwise you will end up with estates like Clapham or Glasgow East. (Incidentally, the SNP and the Labour party are both the same, whosoever wins in this by election will do sweet sod all. Here's a prediction, 5 years time and the statistics will be worse! and I am very happy to be proven wrong).

Technorati Tags: Unemployment, United Kingdom, Welfare, Scotland

Book Review: One Night @ The Call Center

heartcrossings — Tue, 1 Jul 2008 11:50:01 EDT

By when you make it to page twenty of Chetan Bhagat’s One Night @ The Call Center, you see a Bollywood screenplay pretty much writing itself. Had I been more Bollywood-savvy I would have figured the entire cast - a younger Rahul Bose seems perfect for Sam, the narrator. I don’t say this is a demeaning way at all. In the right directorial hands, this is a story ripe for being Bollywood-ized.

The material is fully ready waiting merely a couple of item numbers to be shoe horned at the right spots. There is love, sex, heroes, villains, vamps, God (though God knows why) and a long suffering Indian wife who catches her husband cheating on her even as she slaves to make the perfect Badam Milk for his mother. Plot elements are borrowed from sources on cyberspace and elsewhere – probably a natural thing for something that has Bollywood stamped all over it.

Though the God element in the prologue was intriguing, I did not get the point in the end - especially in the epilogue. Other than that the story is quite readable actually – just like some Bollywood flicks are entertaining and watchable. Some of the stereotypes about the average American customer calling 800 numbers are rather lame - but then that is the nature of most stereotypes.

At any rate, Bhagat warns the reader very early not to expect a work of Naipaul or Rushdie. That is a very useful disclaimer as it turns out. Talk about excellent reader expectation management. Whether or not Bhagat is a writer, he is a salesman par excellence. Reading the Wikipedia entry confirms my first instinct : Bollywood has been quick to snap up the rights.

The World Congress of Information Technology 2008, Malaysia

Dr Bhaskar Dasgupta — Fri, 6 Jun 2008 13:28:10 EDT

I had the honour of attending and speaking at the WCIT 2008 conference in Malaysia and here are some rather disjointed notes that I had while listening to the speakers. I tried to clean it up, but again, apologies for not being able to make this very professional indeed.

Monday

The conference center is big! And I got lost in the exhibition hall. Quite an impressive setup. So then finally managed to extricate myself from poking into the guts of various exciting electronics bits, went looking to find the plenary hall, and found myself sitting in the hall looking at an ant hill of activity. I could not imagine how on earth will they manage to fit 3200 people and assorted volunteers and managers into this hall but they sure did.

Typically, there was the media scrum when a Prime Minister arrives....We were welcomed by 40 children welcoming us in 40 languages representing 90 odd countries here, but the language used through out the conference is English. Curious, no? the prevalence of English in the world?

He also said that UK and South Korea are behind Malaysia in the World Competitiveness Index, and I can well believe it. Although checking the Global Competitiveness Report here seems like the results are different. Perhaps he is talking about this report. Anyway, mere quibbling. And now the PM has left and literally the front 1/4th of the hall has emptied! Some more speeches about WITSA.

Then Dr. Craig Bennett, Chairman of Intel, started talking about how we have a billion people on the Internet and now we have to get the next billion on the Internet as well. He said that four factors are important for knowledge based economic development

Physical access to technology
connection to internet and connectivity
content targeted at local population
education on how to use the tool

He said that a well educated teacher is the magic and not the PC in the classroom. He showed a video about a Nigerian school which has embraced technology but said technology again is not really the only answer.

He talked about taking a holistic viewpoint, what's the point of giving a $200 PC while the monthly connectivity costs are $250 per month in many countries, 100kb monthly cost in Japan is 6 cents, 50 cents in USA and more than 80 dollars in Sub-Saharan Africa. Now you can get an idea how tough it will be to get these people on the intranet or to roll out the broadband revolution to them (more about the exception being that of India later on).

He talked about how Pakistan is being used as an example of pushing broadband and network connectivity out into the sticks. 60mm dollars is the budget, rolling out in untouched areas in Pakistan, he invited a Pakistani chap to the stage who is the CEO of the public company which is helping to push this (didn't catch the name). Connectivity is a challenge. Satellite is way too expensive. Fiber is the only way. Rolling out fiber is tough, so tehsils where its not remunerative for private companies, this company gives money and offers seed capital, it helps to improve the business case for the private firm. This was a good step. The Pakistani chap said that Govt should not be involved that much in this business, put power to public private consortiums or just private firms, give them a stake in the business and then it will work. But I am not holding my breath, I want to know whether connectivity actually helps or would more investment in say better teacher training help?

He video conferenced a doctor from Brazil into us, how location differences for patients versus diagnostics versus doctors versus care had disappeared, and this tele-medicine actually is helping far more people than medicine and doctors were previously. Then there was some corporate stuff with some kids brought on stage and it ended. It was a bit too slick and the questions with the kids was too obvious and that left a bit of a bad taste in my mouth. Such a senior chap shouldn't need such kind of gimmicks to play around with such an important topic, we are all adults, you don't have to take us to be children or idiots to play that game.

I was a bit impressed with what he had to say, but what he had to say was crucial (leave aside all the silly posturing and even more silly marketing of Intel stuff). His point was, throwing money at technology and expecting better performance from students was wrong, the idea is to teach the teachers to be better, that will provide better results than thousands of PC's and laptops.

Nothing much to note for the next few sessions. The post lunch session for the Ministerial panel was a bit interesting. Mainly because you could see how various governments approached this entire idea of information technology. You know what was the most disappointing? It was the Philippines MP. She came across as a complete Neanderthal, saying that in many parts of her constituency, there is no electricity power anyway, forget about PC's, and it was a whine. The Philippines government should really have thought that through. The Malaysian government minister and other ministers were smart, they obviously were pushing their countries and with due reason, telling us, the corporate folks, what we wanted to hear..., but Philippines? Pathetic. She is a blot on that country's face.

The next wireless broadband session made me go to sleep. Pure and simple, those two Romanian scientists, bright as they were, made me doze off specially when they started talking about antenna design, and specially after that excellent lunch.

Woke up to an excellent presentation by Professor Takenaka. He talked about how he was made the Minister for Finance in Japan by a certain Lionheart PM of Japan. Fascinating tale of how he took on the entrenched might of bureaucrats and financial institutions and won. And I well believe him, given some down sides, generally that time was brilliant, it still shows that even in a consensual driven society such as Japan, you can still have mavericks who hire mavericks who really make a huge difference! Brilliant fellow. Unfortunately he was not allowed to fulfill his destiny and do all that he wanted to do but there you go, he literally broke the back of the Japanese economic stalemate. I was personally quite impressed but I suspect that quite a lot were not as he was talking more about economics and finance than IT. The IT piece came way afterwards, a little bit and as an after thought.

Then we had Bill Gates in a hologram talking about Microsoft and then Dr. Zhang also, not very clear about what, was flagging badly by that time.... and then we went off back to the hotel, did some more emails and then some calls back home and then off to dinner, again, dinner was brilliant, and pigged out and came back and went to snore, i mean sleep.

Tuesday

The day started with perhaps one of the most interesting panel discussions I have ever attended. It was to do with how to produce innovation and creativity and what can be done to enhance it. These were the people there.

- Arnold Gay, Anchor, CNBC - Moderator
- Kamil Othman, Vice President, Multimedia Development Corporation
- Fritz Attaway, Executive Vice President, Motion Picture Association of America
- Terry Thoren, Chief Executive Officer, Rocket Fish Studios

You cannot get a better collection of people talking about the most creative of industries, motion pictures and a very educational and interesting debate happened. Terry said that the world is changing, Malaysia has twin towers now while USA no longer has it. Who knows what's going to happen in the future? He has severe distaste for politics but great admiration for tech, people, process, creativity, etc

Kamil went into deep details on how to build an innovative industry? Animation in Malaysia. Disappointing take up, long way to go, to make a Walt Disney, you need to start with one million children drawing in grade 8. You cannot create a flash laboratory, shove people in there and wait on the other side of the Lab waiting for Toy Story or Cinderella to drop out of the other side. It has to be started from the very basic levels, people cannot look down on the arts which they do at this moment.

Monetisation of opportunities and content is a challenge, how do you do it? look around you, all countries are pushing people to get educated and into the knowledge sciences, but not all people are thus inclined. Many people simply do not like mathematics or technology. Some people want to study arts, or paint or simply do not have the mathematical skills. What do you do to them? Those who want to write poems? How does he get paid? or fed?

There were conversations around how to create a movie or animated film, quite interesting to see how Hollywood and Silicon Valley literally took decades to develop, you cannot do that just by throwing technology at it. Quite thought provoking indeed. Perhaps one could question whether it is possible to force people to become creative? Or can you just provide the infrastructure and let them get on with it? or is it just let people be, and trust in them to come up with the goods?

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The next session had more ministers but I was quite interested and taken by A Raja, Minister of Communications and Information Technology, India. I have to admit, I was quite cynical at first knowing about Indian politicians, but was very impressed to see what he had to say about it all, how they are powering ahead with the licence's, what mistakes they made, how the process of governance is happening, who gets to approve what? and so on and so forth. Pretty good and well, I will think that what he is saying is right, because I have experienced the mobile phone revolution in India.

As usual, it has to be different. Rest of the world goes through scientific revolution, industrial revolution, then wars then dial up then broadband and mobile, India starts off with revolutions in 3000 years BC, then has fun, then goes into decline, then starts off with a revolution in Y2K and then the next revolution is mobile and mobile internet and mobile commerce is bigger now, how strange and unique... Very curious, loads to think about there. The technology trajectories of these two countries, based upon what Dr. Jiren of China said, are so different. One wonders what will happen in the future.

Incidentally, there was a gentleman from Saudi Arabia who made me think of the previous session. He spoke on about how much money has been pumped into the industry in Saudi Arabia, the emergence of knowledge cities, and the like. Not impressed at all. Not at all impressed. Setting up a knowledge city and throwing money at it does not solve the problem of creativity or having knowledge industries. For that, you need to have creativity at the school level. They have to inquire and challenge everything. Can you imagine something like that happening in Saudi Arabia? Which is the reason why I couldn't take it any more and went outside to grab a coffee. Perhaps the organisers should have kept coffee on tap, this was crazy, they dont want the participants to keep awake? dont they know we drink coffee by the gallon?

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The next topic was rather dry, Dr. Mobius talked about where the next hotspots will be. And I lost my notes on this lecture so this part is a bit vague. I remember him showing loads of graphs about where and when returns are made. It was an asset management view, so was a bit dry. Still, was a bit interesting, specially around the returns of the various sectors in the Asian economy. That is much that I remember... if and when I get my hands on his slide deck, and have time to read it again, will comment...

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For the next session, I went to the "Asia, the destination of choice for Shared Services and Outsourcing" session.

- Dato’ Narayanan Kanan, Senior Vice-President, Multimedia Development Corporation – Moderator
- Michael F. Corbett, Chairman of the International Association of Outsourcing Professionals
- Dr Ganesh Natarajan, Chairman, NASSCOM
- David Wong, Chairman, Outsourcing Malaysia
- Stephen Braim, Vice President Governmental Programs, IBM Asia Pacific

Very interesting, Michael spoke about the impact of the US elections on international outsourcing. I was, frankly a bit puzzled by that kind of emphasis. For two reasons. The first aspect is that the actual number of jobs which are dependent upon the classical aspect of outsourcing is reducing, and the second aspect is, did he really think that the elections will make a tiny bit of difference? Obviously yes, but I am rather disappointed that it was more American rather than International. Also, I was a bit saddened that there was no discussions about international aspects, taxation, technology which allows remote working, etc.

But overall, it was quite interesting, there was discussion about education and how that will help in various countries. What Malaysia is trying to do. What the IBM view was from the perspective of government initiatives and education and so on and so forth. But also, I was a bit disappointed that most people's perspective was the next 8 - 12 months, not more. Still, lets go to lunch, was feeling quite hungry now.

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Over lunch, we had a speech by Dr. Rowe, where he was talking about how the worlds of virtual reality and real life reality meet and how they work together. Quite an interesting topic and he spoke quite a lot about his own personal experiences and the like. But not much about real life applications. I then sent him an email afterwards, and this is what I said to him.

At ABN AMRO, we used Second Life to actually recruit, it was very challenging and interesting but it ultimately failed because of lack of regulatory frameworks. Ended up with 5.5 FTE dedicated to Second Life but then scaled back.
We also used a virtual world to help mentoring. Such as when we have just 2 IT employees in Uzbekistan, then how do I get the junior chap mentored? So we setup a virtual world where mentors and mentee's can congregate in a persistent state across the world. This helps in knowledge capture and better employee retention.
My friend from BP is using a virtual world to track every employee in complex and potentially dangerous plants. This location tracking and graphical display of every employee is used for fire, safety, evacuation and training purposes.

Second life and other virtual lives have become really challenging world and are throwing up some seriously challenging questions for us, again which have not been fully explored just yet.

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Unfortunately, I missed the next slot because we had to go and get powdered up for our session at 3. Not much to speak about in there, check out the slide deck. Also managed to miss out a large proportion of the next presentation from Dr. Pachauri because we were supposed to be in a room answering questions. But did manage to catch snippets of his talk. Quite interesting.

I had to take an office phone call so managed to miss out on the next one as well. So that was that. Nice dinner, watched a charity auction, observed some very nice and lovely looking ladies. This lady was standing 2 feet away from me. Very fragrant. Nice hair even.

Wednesday

This day was going to be challenging, specially since it was also the Champions League Final day.

The day started with me taking breakfast in the Trader Hotel Lounge, where I had been put up, its just next door to the KLCC so very convenient indeed. So took some pictures from the 34th floor lounge while having breakfast.

Here are the twin towers, at the base you can see the gigantic 6 story mall with two wings. It is absolutely stonkingly huge, that mall. Anyway, the twin towers, and the very well landscaped park around the buildings. The building on the left of the twin towers is the Mandarin Oriental where many other guests were also put up.

Then the day started with two debates on the future of the Internet. A deep discussion erupted over the net neutrality issue. To be honest, I have never really thought about it till I was forced to sit and listen to these two debates. Not that I have really firmed up my thoughts but the question is, who pays for the internet? It is my firm belief that nothing is free in this world, somebody will ultimately pay, either the taxpayer, stockholder, consumer, today you or tomorrow in the form of your child. Somebody has to pay. So this idea that the net is free is frankly stupid and more worryingly, it shows a childish view of the world.

Also, the idea that a communications network will or should be free is against human history. Do you think that the pigeon post was free to everybody? or the pony express allowed everybody to send stuff over? or how about the fact that letters still cost to send stuff to each other? Or the fact that we have public and private ownership over the postal system? Or the fact that we have regulations governing what can and cannot be sent over the posts? Or how about the fact that online classifieds are killing newspapers? Or how about the issue that emails are killing the postal system? So when we do not have any issues over that, why do we suddenly end up having an issue over the net neutrality aspect? Here is a good overview article. Very complicated matter, but I suspect it will end up like we have the health service. A Universal service provision which will provide some kind of a basic internet, which is slow and unreliable, while a paid for internet which is better and faster. Pretty much common compared to other industries, if you ask me.

Then there was a discussion about Silicon Valley, it started in 1940's, it took 10 years to know, 10 years to come, 20 years to investment, etc. etc. Takes a heck of a long time to start developing an industry. See what Taiwan did, took them decades to get to it but get to it they did. Now they are the champions, and almost every PC in the world has some Taiwanese components in it.

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Next session I had to miss, then popped into the Mexico session for a few just to realise that they were talking about near shoring. I mean, d'oh, get on with the programme, people are now in the 5th generation of out sourcing and we are still in the terminology of the 1st generation. Crikey! that made me so depressed that I went back to the room and started my calls. Also had a quick bite to eat in the room itself, couldn't’get out of the calls but went back to catch the next great debate.

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Not much to report on other than the fact that one of the guests (I told you, lost all my notes because my stupid My Documents folder decided that it wants to forget all about my previous history and start afresh to synch...). said that the adoption of energy efficiency standards by California means that the energy usage per citizen has now leveled off compared to other states. But if you think about it, the lesson from this is to start imposing energy standards more and more, get people challenged to be smarter about their energy usage. So while the usage will rise, but it will level off at some point!, interesting, no?

So I went looking for some data. What does this tell you? Well, it did make me go hmmmm. We are actually seeing a dip in the energy consumption per capita in North and South America, albeit from a relatively high level. Delving deeper into North America, Canada and Mexico are showing an increase while, very surprisingly, USA is dipping down and decreasing. How curious. 40 countries out of 134 countries actually showed a dip in energy consumption between 2000 and 2003. Some of them were obviously banana republics which were facing economic downturns such as Zimbabwe, or contractions such as Argentina, Ivory Coast, Bolivia, Eritrea, etc.

But what explains this reduction for countries as varied as Belgium, Brazil, Australia, Chile, Japan, New Zealand, Singapore, UAE, United Kingdom and USA? Can it be that despite increasing populations, their energy efficiency is improving? Dont take my word for it, check out the data. It is from the IEA even, so would be ok as well. Population information from the United Nations.

The next topic was the most interesting one, so I will put up another dedicated post for it. Came out to grab a coffee before going back in and saw that the sky was cloudy, the KL Tower was nearly hidden under clouds. Unfortunately, all the photographs with the top of the tower hidden did not come out, but hope you can make out the onion dome in the back being hazy in the mist.

One of the living legends of the internet age, Dr Vinton Cerf, Vice-president & Chief Internet Evangelists, Google, spoke on the topic of "Tracking the Internet into the 21st Century". This was the final presentation of the WCIT and the entire hall was absolutely crowded, people were standing on the aisles waiting to hear that great man.

He talked about the future of the internet. Said that the internet penetration around the world is strange. Asia, Middle East and Africa are bad or low or both. Only 20% of the world is connected. He used the World Population Reports from the UN about the 2300 figures and displayed them, some interesting rises and dips. I presume he is talking about this report. See the graph on page 19 of the report. High scenario shows a horrifying 36 billion people on the planet, with a medium one of less than 10 billion. Bloody interesting report but this is not the place to go into it.

He talked about how only 20% are connected to the internet and more will grow. Incidentally, I found it much easier to observe him up on the main screen rather than watch him on the far left. Which begs the question, if this was webcast, then I wouldn't have traveled to Malaysia.... (theoretical question...). Which made me go off into a different train of thought.

My facebook, orkut, myspace, etc. accounts are nothing but very primitive clones of myself. I cannot be everywhere, so my primitive clones operate on my behalf. Just like my email system does and my voicemail system does. As a matter of fact, my home is also a sort of a clone. It has an address which is independent of me. People can communicate with me on an asynchronous basis and I can get back to them whenever. So when people are writing something on my facebook wall, are they communicating with me? or with my clone?

Say I have an active Second Life account. Is that me or is that my clone? Or both? I feed those clones with information and they act/react based upon my preferences. So I can be in another place via my robot/clone and get back information to me when it is convenient to me. I do not have to be face to face with you to get information. You can email/voicemail me and I can pick it up at my convenience.

If I communicate with my son online in Second Life via both our avatars while we are both across the world, am I still his father? to what extent? How about love? Can I show my love to him? via that medium? How does he know that it is me? Or if I was seeing Dr. Cerf across the world on a webcast, how would I know it is him? Just because somebody said so? identity problems galore. Does this mean that more friends you have, more your identify is confirmed? Like an amazon or ebay seller, more positive recommendations, the better is the identity and better is the trust. What do I do when I am dealing with a financial institution? Curiously, microcredit or microfinance rests on this premise, it lends money to people on the basis of guarantors from their community. So a person has to be social and know people and be trusted by them in order to get money. Bit different from my neural network Kohonen map based credit scoring model, eh? But I digress.

He talked about IPv6 (a network address for every device on this planet and then some, even some for your socks..), better search engines. He said something that I will come back to, he said that the monetisation and earning potential online will be less and the current business models will have to change.

He also talked about BIT rot, how on earth will you manage to open a Powerpoint 1997 file in Windows 3000? Forget about that old a problem, here is my problem. I wanted to dig out some research that I had done way back in 1990. I did not have the files here in London so had to wait till I got back to home and went to poked through my old cupboard. Besides the nostalgic kick, I finally found the floppy disks. 5 1/4 inch floppy disks to be precise. I have also operated the 8 inch floppy disk but well, the data that I had was in two formats, Lotus 1-2-3 and dbase. I remember sitting back on my haunches, looking at the dusty pile of floppies, and thinking back to those hours and days that I spent in typing in the financial data of the companies and did the basic analysis. Do you know, I even managed to calculate multiple regression on the damn things in there? Anyway, for all purposes, that data is now lost to me. I do not have a floppy drive anywhere near me, none of the 4 home pc's have it. I have an old laptop which has a floppy drive but it is 8 1/2 inch drive, not the older 5 1/4th inch drive. So I am stiffed.

Fast forward today. Financial institutions are supposed to keep data for up to 10 years. So your transactions and your records are supposed to be kept nicely and carefully within the firm for 10 years. Now the transactions are processed, on an average, via 10 odd applications. There can be many more depending upon the country and product but just think about it, 10 applications, multiple operating systems, multiple upgrades, multiple hardware requirements, multiple network systems, multiple servers, so many different types of technology stacks, and we have to maintain a record of this. Within 5 years, it becomes a major issue to keep up to date with technology, we are talking about 100's of years? No bloody way.

Museums are now struggling with electronic art. I could have taken those disks to a museum but they are also facing problems. Here's a great paper written in 2001 and the problem has become even worse now.

He also talked about the inter-planetary internet. That just blew my mind away but it needs much more thought before I can write more about it, its not fully comprehended yet. Anyway, he got a standing ovation at the end. I ran to attend his Q&A after getting distracted by an email, but still managed to get to the hall to ask him a question. I asked him, you have talked so much about what will happen in 2035 and 2300, the physical shape of the internet, the devices, the penetration rates, and and and. What do you think would be the value system, the monetary framework, the price formation or who will pay for it all? It was obvious that I had asked a wrong question immediately because it did not go anywhere fast. I did ask some follow up questions, but he is a great man, he had to rush off to meet somebody else.

This is my problem. I am supposed to think about what's going to happen in 5 years time in the financial world. This is what I am seeing currently. People who are in the 15-25 years of age category, the great unwashed herd who will be our future employees and customers, are not that well versed in value creation online. And why would they be? Look at what kids do online these days. He watches movies, plays songs, plays games, chats with people, participates in joint coding, and so on and so forth. Almost all of this is free or stolen. His email is free, his programming language is free, songs and movies are free, his video is from YouTube, his chatting is free via text and messenger, his voice is free over VoIP. So all these assets that these kids are using, they are all free at this moment.

So I am most certainly not surprised that they do not know the value of online assets. So when you ask them, how much are you worth? or how much will you work for? or how much do you wish to charge for your ideas? or how much funding will you need for your great online idea? no idea. And that is the issue that I am struggling with. In 5 or 10 years, the link between physical work, money and online assets will be inextricably broken. So how much would I pay a coder? How much would Microsoft pay a programmer when most online assets are free?

My son said something to me today that completely blew me away. He said that he will go create some online jewels and armour in World of Warcraft as birthday gifts for his friend who lives 5 houses down. No money, no nothing, just pure and simple virtual asset formation, entertainment and happiness increased but with no reference to money at all. Deeply worrying.

So to go back to Dr. Cerf, on what basis will anybody pay for a book in 2300? or a share in the company making Windows 3000? or the ability to write code? Or to create a powerpoint presentation? I do not have an answer, but I didn't get one either. I will be struggling with this as part of my job as well, but I am seriously not sure what the answer is. We saw some amazing valuation modeling during the internet boom. But they did put a value on an intangible asset, no? It was a bad value, but a value none the less. Also goes to the heart of what Mark to Market is all about. If this is all too philosophical, think about this, my son is happier getting a World of Warcraft spell rather than an intricately carved wooden box which I got for him.....Should I have gone to the local electronic fair in Kuala Lumpur and bought a user-id/password for him instead? How would I judge what is a fair amount to pay? I have no idea whatsoever. No reference points at all.

That brought me to the end of the conference. The last day, Thursday, was a trip to Cyberjaya and Putrajaya, the IT and administrative hubs of the country, but dont think that fits in here, so you can see some pictures here. I have also written another essay on my observations on Malaysia and that should be published soon as well. End of the day, fascinating indeed and perhaps it was appropriate that that brought my professional career stint with technology to an end, now its moving back into the front office. But technology will remain with me, either with my shareholder, customer or employees. Food for thought, will try to attend the next one in 2010 in Amsterdam.

Technorati Tags: Technology,Internet,Web 2.0

Attrition And New Recruits

Tanay Behera — Sun, 1 Jun 2008 10:26:44 EDT

Attrition is a growing concern for many the firms across various sectors in different corners of the world but today the pain is felt more in India. This bruise gets highlighted more in an Indian context because of the growing gap between the growing economy and the engines which are partners in this ride to deliver. Because of employee attrition few initiatives are put on the back burner. The HR managers are having a tough time locating a suitable replacement with required experience and ability, to fill up the vacancies created on account of exit of key employees.

The points that I mention here as to why employees, especially new joinees leave the firm, a little after the embryonic stage of their job career cycle are from what I have seen in the real world corporate dynamics, heard about experiences from friends and few from the learnings and readings from various articles, journals and blogposts. These points are mostly centered around those who have spent their time and energy in the industry (mostly IT/Tech/Tech Services/Engineering) from a range of one year to four years after their graduation from an engineering school or a technical institute. Even few of the points apply to those who don a much higher number of years experience hat. The points mentioned below are not in any order of significance or priority and is just a compendium of views.

1. Opportunities available: The present economy has opened up the doors of opportunities. If a person is skilled, smart and is an inventory of ideas, s/he is like an appetizing cake, waiting for the market to react. Present day progressive forward looking youth aspire to see their career advancement as well as improvement in his financial earnings in the shortest possible time. Demand for smart talent is always there, so when an individual doesn't find his/her present place of work to offer a hotfooting atmosphere, there are other avenues to explore may be in another firm, a start-up or a similar place.

Thanks to his own ambition, and to the Indian outsourcing boom, he escaped. He gained admission to the best engineering school in India, then landed a job that he could hardly have dreamed of as a child: writing software for Oracle, the U.S. technology giant.

"I fell in love," he said, recalling his first visit to Oracle's campus in Bangalore.

But Jain's zest eventually fizzled under the repetitive rigors of the Indian back office. So he did what a parade of burned-out functionaries in Bangalore have begun doing: He quit outsourcing to create his own start-up - in his case, designing cellphone software that blocks calls from telemarketers.

2. Incorrect picture painted in campus placement talks: Many global firms work as different legal entities/operating units but under one global brand umbrella in India. To make things clear, let’s take a fictitious firm 'Desicritics Corp', which has under it many legal entities such as ' Desicritics R&D Center', ' Desicritics Software Services Center', ' Desicritics Consulting Team', ' Desicritics Technologies', etc. In most campus placements, ' Desicritics' would go as a single team for hiring but the offer letters are delivered by the different groups under its canopy. To a campus recruit, who is not aware of all these internal corporate crosswords everything appears to be the same. But after working in the industry for a year or two, when s/he realizes that s/he was offered a cozen pill, looking for opportunities elsewhere is the most pragmatic option.

3. Big names don’t matter much anymore: Today big brands in job market do not draw as much awe as it used to few years back. Big names are subtly occupying increasingly lower positions in a candidate's priority list. Individuals are perfectly fine working with small and mid tier firms because it's a known fact that sometimes the biggies cannot match the salaries offered by successful second-rung companies which functions to an extent on a start up blueprint. More so many big firms have even now withdrawn ESOPs, which were the main draw a few years ago. In contrast smaller companies are able to offer profit-sharing plans, interesting projects and more responsibility at an early stage in the candidate's career. This is like a ready made dish for a candidate working in a big firm shrouded with global policies, indefinite/infinite processes, layers of politics, and most important lack of visibility in a big crowd.

In just 3 short years, the world has changed. When I wrote this column for rediff.com in June 2004, it was still a big deal to join one of the Big Five. Except, perhaps at an IIT.

With the rising aspirations of fresh grads the same jobs have lost their sheen. The net has to be spread wider and wider, to tier 2 and tier 3 colleges, which would not be on the recruitment map at all a couple of years ago.

At a lesser known college it is a matter of pride that 'Infosys picked up 6 students'. The feeling is that of having 'arrived'.

But next year when 60 join, and then 100, the same 'we are being recruited like alu and pyaaz' feeling sets in.

Bottom line is: 'Aapne kaam se maatlab raakho, yeh big brand maain rakha kya hai'.

4. Company and personal goals clash: Many of the smart recruits in many local and global firms are hired through campus placements in engineering schools during the pre-final year days. Placement talks are like major brand shows and each of the hiring firms tries to outshine others in the fray by attractive presentations in diverse formats. Company goals and visions are put forward to candidates and these tastes like the best recipes to accelerate one's career. The message that is sent is: 'With the company's goals, all measures are taken for an employee's personal development also'. I am not denying the fact that there are companies who do orchestrate company's goals and employees' personal goals but the number is less. Come to the work place, the real world is not that hunky dory. This is completely out of phase, of WYWPIWYG assurance (what-you-were-promised-is-what-you-get). In short most of the cases of attrition thrive on the thread that firms place their priorities ahead of employees' goals, without understanding the employees' basic aspirations resulting in friction.

Although their HR depts claim that they have systems which ensure a smooth induction, training and deployment onto projects that isn't quite the case for everyone.

An interesting post related to this ishere.

5. Change in mindset, among individuals and society: Gone are the days, when one stuck to a job even though it was not satisfying, solely on grounds of monetary benefits. The present young generation wants money, no doubt about that, but it's just not money, it has to be enwrapped with stimulating job assignments and responsibilities that tickles one’s tastes. More often than not, the most heard verdict among individuals is.

Besides, they soon learn, the job is not really about programming at all... One such dude sums up the average IT career path on a Pagalguy forum:

There is not much of a ladder is S/W industry as such. For most life is quite typical. One or two years in a company. Then a chance to go onsite and see some money. Then back home. Another 2 years and then one becomes an analyst and after 5-6 years, a manager. And your engineering branch is the last thing that would matter here.

Even parents and family members, do not evaluate much when they realize that their children are not very happy with their professions and wish to pursue something that is completely out-of-the-box and divergent to their present occupations. These parents stand as pillars supporting their individuals realize their dreams. I know of few people who have left their regular 9 to 5 jobs in tech firms to work full-time for a NGO, to practice as a freelance photographer, to run a restaurant, etc. The attrition resulting from this is miniscule but it is happening these days. This case is more like pre-caution is better than cure. So when one realizes that s/he had boarded an in-correct ship that would never reach the destination s/he had sculpted in their mind, so better get down in the initial phase before it’s too late.

6. Higher studies plan: A sizeable number of campus recruits move to the U.S. or other countries to pursue higher studies and explore more attractive career opportunities after working in the industry for a year or two after their graduation. They form a small pool of the attrition camp. Few go abroad for their Masters degree, few for their PhDs and few others stretch their stay in India to apply later for an MBA program abroad later. It's not that foreign lands are the only destinations, these days many prefer to go for a Masters program in the IISc, IITs, NITs, or even BITS in the engineering and tech stream and to the coveted IIMs and other top ranked B-Schools after clearing the CAT in the domain of business management. Even ISB with its global tag in business education along with many other private schools in India partnered with other western schools of Business Management is an irresistible destination for many who wish to put their lives on a fast track road. Every year just before the admission season, many managers wait dumbfounded to see how many of the ambitious wickets would fall.

7. Manager-employee Relationship: A smart manager is one who can understand the aspirations of his/her employee and can harness the true capabilities and potentialities to the last drop, brusquely pointing the areas of improvement among the team members. Now that appears as a picturesque and cheeky definition never to be realized in reality because a greater chunk of IT related work in India is service and maintenance oriented, which in turn is purely dependent on margins and numbers. More often than ever, a manager can't do justice to both numbers and fulfilling aspirations and finds him/her self in a Catch-22 situation. For some inflammation or misunderstanding arising at work, involving the manager and employee, mostly the bosses chalk up the tension to a personality clash. There is a tendency, according to management experts, to think that personality is the cause of organizational discord rather than perhaps an effect of it.

Ben Dattner, an associate at Dattner Consulting executive coaching firm, believes that personality conflict might be a symptom of a larger organizational issue. "When I work with my clients, I often try to get them to see how it is not just a conflict between two people. I try to get them to see that it is also potentially a conflict between two visions, two agendas, two constituencies or two visions for the future."

The most applied remedy in this case by young employees is to nip off the problem at its root, just leave the job and find a job elsewhere that suits to one's personal liking in most aspects. Quite a number of exits happen in many firms because of the above mentioned reason.

8. Team one works for: Fresh out of engineering schools, many graduates have a swelled head for being a product from a top school in India. This is very much human and expected behavioral pattern that this crowd aspires to be a part of best of the available work/assignments in any organization in the initial days of his/her career. But since most of the IT industry in India is doused in services and maintenance layer of the entire business cycle as stated in Point. 7, easy to follow processes are defined to streamline the execution segment with élan and efficiency. After doing the same work in repetitive cycles, it's no rocket science and even a normal graduate can tackle that in the most cost effective way without necessitating the presence of smart engineers who demand higher pay checks for the same job.

This air of exclusivity and clannishness lingers in the minds of many for the initial few years. Unfortunately if they happen to belong to a team that is of a different clan/tribe than their's in many vistas, they connect with their friends and settle in zones that match their bandwidth. A sizeable number of exits in many firms fall under this category.

As I mentioned here, the points stated above are my personal views and are collected from various sources. This is definitely not intended on any organization, firm, group or for that matter anybody and everybody. This is an open post and would love to hear other diverse views, if you have any.