Management training at TAS and Indian Hotels includes a slice-of-life experience of rural living and community labour

Megha Vidyarthi would go to Mumbai's biggest slum each morning and, guided by the traditional potters who ply their trade there, spend her day trying her hand at making clay pots. In Jaipur, Naveen D'Souza learned the finer points of creating lac bangles from Avaz Mohammed, a master craftsman. Dimple Sahram and Sthirata Adhikari worked at a loom in Nashik, picking up the art of weaving Paithani sarees from Thakur Pravin Vasant, a handloom weaver. These are not, as you may think, budding artisans learning traditional crafts. Rather, they are young management trainees from Indian Hotels who recently underwent a training programme with a difference.

As part of their programme, the management trainees had to live for about 20 days in a community of artisans and craftsmen, learning their skill, understanding the needs of the community at large and identifying areas in which the company could help. Indian Hotels works in tandem with Paramparik Karigar, a non-governmental organisation that promotes traditional Indian arts and crafts, to identify artisans and craftsmen who live around its properties.

Making managers undergo training in traditional arts and crafts, often in backward rural areas, when they are going to spend the rest of their lives working in swank urban offices might seem a contradiction in terms. But at Indian Hotels and TAS, the Tata Group's in-house management and administrative service, this kind of training is essential. Future managers are exposed and sensitised to the country's larger realities. The objective is to widen their range of knowledge and change their attitudes. This little spell of rural grooming helps them appreciate the Tata Group's leadership practices and core values.

Indian Hotels: Into the hinterland
To inculcate a culture of responsibility in its employees, Indian Hotels chose to start from the roots. "The education of the trainees at our institute in Aurangabad is for the five-star hospitality industry, but they must also learn to deal with the community," says Bernard Martyris, senior vice president (human resources). "Social responsibility must become a way of life for them."

At the end of their training, these budding managers have to make a presentation to senior company executives, detailing the needs of the community they were attached to and offering solutions for the artisans there. Mr Vidyarthi along with some other trainees did a stint with Zakharia Ismail, a terracotta potter who makes small lamps and pots for festivals. Mr Ismail lives in Kumbharwada (kumbhar is the Marathi word for potter), in Dharavi, which is home to some 2,000 families of traditional potters.

"It was a complete eye opener to a world of managing life on the bare minimum," says Mr Vidyarthi, currently an assistant manager at the Taj Wellington Mews in Mumbai. "We grew to admire the potters who create these products, not just for their livelihood but to ensure that their art does not die."

Mr D'Souza, now with the Taj Palace, Delhi, stayed for two weeks with Mr Mohammed, an award-winning craftsman who belongs to a community called Manihars. They live in Amer near Jaipur, and make bangles and other decorative items from lac. Mr Mohammad has been practising this craft since 1968 and has shown his wares in exhibitions in India and abroad.

Mr D'Souza was initially apprehensive about the living conditions, but he soon grew close to the Mohammed family. "I feel fortunate to have spent time with them," he says. "I learned the craft and also about their community. There are very few companies that give you this kind of opportunity."

The general experience of the trainees shows that the needs of such communities are the same all over: better living conditions, lower raw-material costs, storage space and training in new techniques. Their most vital need was for creating awareness about their products and for marketing support. It is in this area that Indian Hotels feels it can help. Products could be displayed in a hotel lobby or used to decorate rooms that require an 'Indian' theme. This has already been done in the lobby of the Rambagh Palace Hotel in Jaipur. Also, the trainees, who usually work in the front office, can promote the crafts to interested foreign guests.

It's been an enriching experience for the trainees. While the trainees grow to learn about Indian ways and art forms from the artisans, they can, in turn, help the latter with their know-how. "On the one hand, we get an understanding of Indian culture and, on the other, we help them in small ways," says Mr Vidyarthi. "It's a two-way learning process."

Training fanTAStic
Every year, TAS handpicks young graduates from leading business schools as management trainees. Among the best and the brightest, they take up managerial positions within the Tata Group. Once considered to be the private-sector equivalent of the Indian Administrative Service, TAS — formerly known as Tata Administrative Service — was the brainchild of J. R. D. Tata, the late chairman of the Tata Group. Set up in the 1960s, it was restructured in 2002 to meet the challenges of the changing business scenario.

TAS recruits must undergo a meticulous one-year grooming process, including a 20-day rural community development assignment, before they start working with any group company. In the beginning trainees wonder alike and aloud whether a rural stint really fits into their scheme of things. By the end, however, most have changed their minds. "One has to experience it to be able to appreciate its value," says Anika Gupta of the TAS 2004 batch. Ms Gupta did her rural training stint at Babrala, Uttar Pradesh, where Tata Chemicals has its fertiliser facility.

The training has come to mean different things to different people. "It was an education by itself," says Ms Gupta. Maneesh Mittal, of the same batch, adds another dimension: "The rural assignment was the one project in the entire year that brought out the importance of interpersonal skills for success," he says. "It gave me a new perspective about the concept of 'work' in the corporate sector."

Ravikiran Ravulaparthi from the 2003 batch did his rural community development stint at the Pragati Poultry Project in Jamshedpur, a TAS initiative to help tribal communities generate income through poultry farming in a networked environment. The feasibility study for the project was done a few years earlier by TAS probationers.

Living with the villagers, Mr Ravulaparthi was responsible for implementing the project with a plan and timeline. Since it was aimed at improving the life of the tribal communities, the programme targeted mainly women's self-help groups, many of whose members were below the poverty line. Poor and illiterate they may have been, but they were full of infectious enthusiasm and indomitable spirit. "We actually got more out of working with them than we contributed," he says. "It is thrilling to be in touch with ground realities; one needs to reconnect every now and then."

The opportunity to touch base with the realities of the rural world exposes the trainees to one of the most endearing facets of the Tata Group - its community initiatives. The programme widens their thinking and the rural experience helps develop empathy for the poor.

Ms Gupta sums up her experience thus: "It is an amalgamation of two basic objectives: to connect with the people of the villages at an emotional level and to make business sense of an absolutely different and challenging environment. The real learning was bringing both these objectives into synergy, so that the company and the community are able to benefit each other."

Uploaded in March 2005