Of Pride, Belongingness & Experience

Fresh out of college and yet not a placement in hand surely creates beads of perspiration on any freshers’ forehead. To add on to the pain if the market seems to be down and months go by awaiting even one single call, out of sheer desperation many freshers resort to a practice. Getting fake experience certificates made, talking of previous illustrious experiences.  The best part is it works for quite many in getting them their very first break and then they take their flights towards their dream companies. Yet there are some who get caught in random background verifications and are shown doors, bringing them back to square one.

So what is the point in getting fake certificates and starting a career like that? Students, job seekers have variety of answer ready for the occasion. Do the organizations who issue such certificates too? Can it be clubbed under a similar genre where social work belongs to? For many job seekers who avail this facility have a relative / family / friend working in an elite company by good standards and see it as a ticket to easy accessibility to the HR. So we have letter heads of Companies floating around the industry for people they’ve never known and remote chances they would ever.

So why is it that Organization’s think it’s not that great an issue to be worried about?

1.      To get rid of a pestering employee, who visits the HR department every alternate day inquiring about the status

2.      To oblige friends and colleagues at work, perhaps someday they too can help the HR in a situation

3.      It doesn’t matter as dozens come every quarter for the same

4.      To help a guy needy of kick starting a career

5.      It’s hardly a matter of time and the first companies are always forgotten as one moves up the ladder

AND why is it that Organizations should begin to worry of the prevailing practice?

1.      We believe in what we see, so the job seeker carrying a fake certificate ends up being a brand ambassador for the Organization

2.      Motifs, ID Cards, Logos, Letter heads, Mugs, T-shirts bearing Company punchlines have always been associated with a factor that generates pride and attachment to an Organization. So selling or dispatching the letter heads in the market is almost like diluting the value of it. Or atleast that is what I learnt in my Organization Structure, Process and Design paper at B-school.

3.      Lucky are those times when the job seeker may turn out to be gold, however if the person cannot rise to the occasion, imagine getting a ‘Continuous Excellency Certificate’ at previous employer and a barely scraping through at the next one. Will it really benefit the person in the long run?

4.       Question of ethics & responsibility to the society and coming years of innovative technology + resources

5.      Recruitment costs (to find a new replacement to the new hire for non-performance) and Training & Development costs (to polish the person) increase manifold

6.      A recognition certificate is something that motivates an employee to put in better and efficient efforts at the workplace. In fact I have seen employees cherishing the feel good factor that certificates bring, by placing it on their workstations religiously. The following year, there comes another to add on to the smile swelling of pride. Will these job seekers ever cherish the fake experience certificate with kind words written on it? Will it help to motivate them strive for their passion?

7.      Are we as Organizations really enabling the future workforce to bring out its best?

Similar is the case for Project / Summer Trainees where Organizations are reluctant to allow them do something useful and creative for 6 – 8 weeks, invest in them and tap their potential and believe the best way to get rid of them is by issuing a certificate.

Can Organizations vouch for their knowledge and expertise too?

Motivation Beyond Compensation

Compensation as always is a very touchy subject and people would prefer not to enter into a discussion on the same. Recent times of recession have brought out the worst fears among employees alive – packages dropping, being offered less on a hop, getting pink slipped. Though the last one is the extreme of the triggers that lead to depression, however money matters is something people are advised not to talk about, as one is said to be never satisfied.

Caught between the crossfire of a bad market, ever increasing costs and prices of everyday needs, the environment where to Company is located and the kind of culture that exists is a hapless employee who’s been serving for decades together putting in hard-work and sweat. At this time it would sound like a very unfair deal for the employee to be paid peanuts and he would always find lot many empathisers rooting for his cause. At manufacturing things get more vocal with a heavy presence of unions and local leaders.

But to understand from the organizations point of view the foundations that lay the structure of the compensation being offered is really important. Not all organizations can always tend towards operating to meet the demands of the market. Nor can they introduce a competitive compensation matrix that ends up becoming every one else’s envy. Climatic factors play a very important role in determining how many bands/levels can exist in the organization, can they go about partnering with consultancies to tap outside potential (resource), how best can they keep their employees happy yet never cross the line of being declared bankrupt, build the confidence among their employees despite a very poor pay.

And mind it building the confidence among employees is a really difficult task. Imagine extending your services for 3 decades at a stretch and today in the 21st century still drawing the same amount you did when you began. Back then the amount was a part of luxury, today it is pittance.

So then what is it that still keeps the employee motivated to be a part of the organization. Several factors can be seen to be held responsible for such behaviour – primarily being the tendency to stay close to family and home. Infact this is applicable not just to people who lead 3 decades of their lives associated with one company. Ask anybody and they would be trying to work out alternatives of getting the closest they can to home and taking care of aging parents/family. This may involve lots of tumultuous initial years of picking the right Organization, meanwhile justifying with qualifications, getting satisfied with salary benefits and also staying ahead or atleast in par with ever competing batchmates.

What I can comprehend as being another reason to such a behavioural aspect is – staying put at one place for ages may eventually kill the desire to learn new roles, experience new environment and yearning for more. So people, who have set into the system of monotonous defined task mode, continue going about it without further thought of improvement.

These employees now have a matured family, with kids grown up and most of them already begin to earn their own livelihood. This is the third factor I can see ingratiated in employees. Now that the nest (home) is more or less empty it hardly matters to them what is filling in their pockets.

Besides the inability of the Organization to better its pay structure over the years, despite highs and lows in their operations, workforce; makes employees believe that nothing better can happen in the times to come. So after coming to terms and accepting the organization as it is, there is still an interesting fact that works behind the scenes. Each individual knows the other all too well. Most of them live as neighbours in common societies and for any pain they have as a burden or for any joy to share there are 800 other individuals waiting to be a part of it. And in most cases after a certain stage of life, all that man wants from work, colleagues and employers is recognition, understanding and togetherness.