Articles - Jobnet Jobs Magazine - The Indian work ethos

The herd instinct is so deeply entrenched in us that we always look for some one to follow. Our shepherds come in various avatars- daddies, schoolteachers, yuppies, best friends, gurus, neighbours etc.

No doubt there is a practical goodness about being a follower. When things backfire we have the luxury of blaming it on someone - like our ruling political party, our parents , the lousy economy, unfair competition, the Americans ... and we continue to remain untainted.

The moment our babies learn to walk and get toilet trained we don’t waste a moment in getting them into a system. The one that promises to herd us into a direction that leads to what we believe is greener pastures. First, it is the playschool which gives an education on how to play. Then it is the schooling system that gives an education on how not to play. Main stream schooling becomes a serious business of tutorials and achievement of good scholastic marks. The Indian scholastic system is wonderful in its ability to produce conformists who join the workforce. It may perhaps be a great asset for employers to have employees who only ‘Do’ but never think (great for bosses), but for the individual it remains questionable.

Conformity results in the problem that the Indian professional faces, which is an inability to adapt to the demands of change. And worse, an inability to face the demands of our extremely volatile job - market.

We are focused on a system of education which is supposed to lead us to getting a job. But nobody actually goes beyond a point to reassess their value in context of the job market realities. Golden promises? Much of it is excluded from reality.

I have come across Engineers with good work experience aspiring for a job in a foreign country, who can’t converse in English, so how do they expect to communicate? I regularly meet fresh MBA’s who expect to get hired as managers with salaries of CEO’s. I also know quite a few senior professionals who refuse to study advanced professional courses (because it is not needed at their age), and then complain about these new fangled kids who take over.

This inability to take charge and harness change to one’s advantage is sadly lacking in the majority of Indian professionals. The ability to change course, to admit mistakes in career choices or even to simply reassess tried and tested job market related methodologies is alien for the majority.

Get a job, keep a job, save and retire, no longer rings true as reality. All those years of fuss – what did it amount to? Jobs are not for keeps, job hunting methods are changing by the minute, and our educational systems do not create much enthusiasm in the global job market. So what is the new formula that can be followed?

Can we think? After so many years of habit of compromise and conformity the quality of our thinking becomes questionable.

There seems to be a new viral in the air. Jobs are no longer about getting them. For quite a few years with the march of time our prized jobs for engineers, doctors, chartered accountants, IT professionals etc has undergone so much redefinition n the job market, that we hardly know what sense to make of the flotsam and jetsam of the wreckage. Suddenly looking back the system of reaching ones destination or following a methodology of education looks meaningless.

The Indian work ethos reflects a kaleidoscope in interesting manifestations. This means, in plain English, that the virus mutates and decides to have babies!!

If you do not get into a government job, then the next best thing you can do is to get yourself into a multinational company.

Multinational companies have brought their own work ethos. They work on the percentage of customers who don’t complain. If that happens to be a larger percentage than those who complain, then they survive and become successful. The sheer volume of our population is statistically favorable to this.

But, the Indian professional working for a multinational is a little confused on this. What exactly is his responsibility towards his work?

Customer care in our country has taken new dimensions. On the one hand, an employee is derided for the government servant’s attitude of wearing bureaucratic blinkers, corruption and indifference to customer care and, on the other hand, taking any initiative about the concerns of even a single individual would result in being statically incorrect for your organization. To improve efficiency in any organization that works on this statistical module must ensure that the employees are not allowed any individual initiative in customer care.

What does it do for an employee? It dehumanizes him. A condition that is familiar to us from kindergarten.

So we must be honest and not advocate that fantasy that all job satisfaction comes from working for great companies and fantastic salary packets. It comes for most of us in our sense of achievement and that is instinctively linked to customer happiness. We also want to believe that the job we do makes a difference in this world, we like to put a signature on what is important.

But the herd instinct is so ingrained in us that we would rather deny the need for self expression in our jobs than do anything about it.

We can even justify it by quoting the Vedas - Dehumanism leads to cosmic evolution. Our Vedas talked about being one with Brahamaan. If you become part of a whole then there is less effort. And even better, when you become the pie you get more than just a piece of it.

Pretty heady stuff! But translated into nitty gritties, it means that most Indians agree that, if every one possessed the talent for individual self expression, then there would be chaos. So, as a matter of policy, Indians have system of collective compromise which makes them socially polite and individually invisible… and comfortable.

With the result we have an intriguing ambiguity about us. Years back, my son’s Diwali school function I attended for kindergarten students, ended with a speech by the school principal about the evils of child labour in the firecracker industry, and how the school was advocating the ban of crackers and fireworks at home and in school. The talk ended with on a cheerful note – We request parents to step outside for tea and snacks and “a few” firecrackers.

Ambiguities are the hall mark of the Indian. If he evades income tax then he says, “look at that Politician, compared to him I just hid a little”. Or,” look at that other guy how come you never catch him for unauthorized construction , mine is just a tiny balcony.”

Ambiguity, with its resultant fallout of mediocrity, will have repercussions. How will we be capable of quality service? Because, ultimately, the survival of any organization depends not on being ranked and rated or about being big or even number one, but on its ability to maintain a quality of service it promises to its customer -- not just till the day after tomorrow, but for ever. This trend in India of commitment to a customer becoming delegated as a responsibility to the customer care department is shortsighted. When the survival of any organization depends on the value of service to a customer this does not amount to practical wisdom either.

If companies continue to offer to their employees a support for their ambiguity, by giving a freedom from commitment to customers by either limiting their customer interaction or by removing it, it will continue to breed in people an indifference to work quality and an escapist attitude that says all jobs can be changed when the going gets too tough.

I think that every Indian jobseeker needs to follow the maxim – Dig a well before you are thirsty. However seductive, herdism that results in an inability to shape our work ethos positively, tends to backfire on us.

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