Sujata Agrawal

Fresh winds are already blowing through offices, heralding the shape of things to come. In this comprehensive feature, Satish Pradhan, Group HR, paints the future workplace in macro strokes, while
S Padmanabhan, TCS, Dr Sangram Tambe, Tata Motors and Yogi Sriram, Indian Hotels, delineate the details

In the last few years, even as we were too busy to notice, some dramatic changes have permeated our lives. Up to about the mid-1990s, a factory used to grudgingly provide a telephone connection for workmen during the night, which they always felt was misused by union leaders and mischief mongers. Today the idea is laughable, with workmen carrying personal cell phones!

Telephones have become ubiquitous, and their use will only grow. From a time when a telephone at work or at home was a status symbol, to one in which people at every level of the staff hierarchy have mobile phones we have seen a major transformation. Computers have fallen in price to a level where, even for most workmen, it is about two months' pay. At most managers' homes, we can see children using PCs for work and play.

Meanwhile, air travel has become affordable, making it possible for most managers in the organised sector to fly on personal trips. (According to the Airports Authority of India, the number of people travelling by air in India rose 40 per cent last year, with the domestic sector registering 46 per cent growth!) Rail travel too has become relatively more affordable and comfortable. A surge of volume in the sale of vehicles for personal transportation seems to be round the corner.

Turning to the world of work, the days of strident unions and belligerent managements seem to have gone by — one seldom hears of significant strikes or lockouts anywhere in the country. What we do hear of now are lay-offs, retrenchments, 'voluntary retirements' and 'consequence management' for the sake of step improvements in corporate performance.

New careers and disciplines have bloomed, especially in the IT, retail and BPO sectors, targeting segments like the youth and even older people (housewives, for example). There is also far greater mobility of people across countries, with most large Indian business organisations having offices or operations outside India. In many Indian offices today we come across people from other countries - working there as employee, or consultant.

Workplaces have begun to look very different from the way they used to in the past — pastel colours, soft furnishings, open plans, piped music, attractive cafeterias, play and relaxation areas. In some BPO organisations, calendarised and hyped-up fun events run by a dedicated section of the HR department form part of the employee engagement and retention strategy.

Work teams are beginning to become diverse in terms of age, academic training and experience — and, yes, most heartening, in terms of gender as well. There is much greater openness to having people in their thirties in senior positions.

Increasingly, people in the same workplace have different relationships with the organisation they are working for - some are employees, others are consultants, and others are vendors' employees. Some of them are employed by a 'temping' organisation, while some work from home or only part-time. Many can come and go at different times of the day — times of their choosing.

Among employees, some get paid more than others in similar roles, based on how the organisation values their knowledge, skills, experience, networks, or potential.

Employees are increasingly opting for low retrials. Instead, they are taking charge of their financial planning, exploring avenues such as mutual funds and stock markets more aggressively. They are going for insurance policies with varied features that suit their risk mitigation needs. The workplace of the future will only accelerate these trends.

The interesting thing about the future is that a lot of it is already here. In seedling form, in the form of fringe movements, 'weirdos', and weak signals, the future is already around us. Not all seedlings will blossom, not all fringe movements will become mainstream, nor will all signals strengthen. The challenge for us is to know in advance which of these will in fact become significant realities in the future.

The shape of things to come
So, what sense can we make of the future? I think people will increasingly make three demands: choice, flexibility and autonomy, in all aspects of their lives, including work. The work place of the future will strive to provide these for individuals — and in the process, learn to cherish the values of commitment, consistency and co-existence.

Choice and commitment will have to go hand in hand — each can exist only when the other does. Similarly, the world seems to be becoming more tolerant of multiplicity of views and approaches, yet seeking greater predictability and consistency. There will be as much value placed on diversity and spontaneity as on achieving Six Sigma.

Finally, empowerment and autonomy, signalling freedom from supervision, are leading employees to learn to temper their behaviours to align efforts with those they work with.

The changing demographics the world over and especially in India will mean that the 'baby boomers' of today will find the 'gen X' and 'gen Y' presence in the workplace in significant numbers. From opportunities to save which preoccupied the baby boomers we are seeing the search for opportunities to spend amongst the emerging workforce. Malls and multiplexes are bringing weak signals of the future of the work place.

How will all this translate into the workplace? Here are a few vignettes of what we might see when we walk into a workplace of the future:

• Greater focus on skills and capability, which will bring greater stress on what a person brings to the table, rather than who he/she is or has been in the past.
• Redefinition of employee status. Talented people will be unwilling to sign on as employees — companies will have to maintain a fine balance between career planning and free agentship.
• A new work ethic. Focus on doing work that is enjoyable and meaningful to do.
• Multicultural workforce. Greater respect by individuals and organisations for individuality, local communities and natural surroundings.
• Diffusion of office space and work timings. You are likely to catch yourself messaging from home in the middle of the night to colleagues across the planet!
• End of steady jobs and fixed roles. We will see a transition from jobs-for-life to specific assignments. Markets will price assignments differentially meaning that people may move from higher paying to less pay assignments, while making other trade-offs.
• More teamwork. At the same time, more work will get done by teams, rather than by individuals. Greater interdependence in work processes and less stand-alone work. People may have greater autonomy in their own work but will have greater inter-linkage and inter-dependence with the work of others.
• Fewer meetings! Many face-to-face interactions will be replaced by face-to-screen interactions — screens that will be touch-sensitive, glare-free, with life-like pictures and sounds. Intuitive machine-man interfaces that can be operated by speech and tactile stimuli will become the vogue.
• Personalised work plans and performance goals, agreed with the superior, reviewed regularly, with a very serious focus on coaching along the way. This will be needed to ensure people get work they enjoy doing, and therefore stay on. This will also be necessary for the rapid grooming of talent that will become imperative.
• End of the age of superannuation, and in fact, an end to the phenomenon of specifying lower and upper age limits for roles.
• More socially useful productive work for CEO's. The challenge of social fracture as a consequence of economic and opportunity disparities will drive more recognition of the fact that 'islands' of prosperity and well being cannot exist amidst dis-enfranchisement, poverty and squalor. Many of the other forces will bring greater proximity of areas that could be ignored in the past like downtown neighbourhoods and sub-Saharan Africa or part of other societies. Greater involvement of business leaders in managing social issues — healthcare, insurance, quality of academic institutions, school syllabi, infrastructure creation and maintenance, etc.
• Stronger partnerships. Access to capabilities will be seen as more important than 'ownership' of assets — people, factories, etc. Organisations and individuals will come together for mutual benefit in diverse kinds of relationships, depending on the value that needs to be created at the moment. The whole concept of a 'workplace' may become redundant as where people work and the place where their payment comes from could be completely different.
• Greater demand for privacy and protection of the individual accompanied by greater need for information on the individual by government, corporate and service related systems — fears of 'Big Brother watching' will get heightened.
• The challenge for large corporations to create the small-organisation ethos will continue to seem daunting, despite the extensive use of communication technology. This will spur the emergence of an 'empowered middle manager' of a different kind, and corporate roles of coordination and enabling of a less intrusive and directive kind.
• Greater transparency and openness around business policies, including those related to employees. Greater courage to question them by one and all. Such courage will be encouraged due to its salutary effect on corporate intelligence. Employees will be far more aware and knowledgeable about business issues of the organisation they work for.
  All this could sound bewildering to some and exhilarating to others. To me the future has potency, challenge and, most fascinating of all, space for the eternal paradox of predictability and unpredictability. So welcome to our worst nightmare and our best dream all rolled into one! Welcome to the workplace of tomorrow.

The world is my office

S Padmanabhan, executive vice president and head, global human resources, TCS

Boundaries in the business world are increasingly dissolving. As companies move around the world setting up offices, service delivery centres and manufacturing hubs, there will be an even greater movement of people. And that is the big challenge going forward. The globalisation of the workforce will have a far-reaching impact on every aspect of human resources. Processes, policies and systems will have to evolve and change according to the region or country. But the biggest challenge we face is integrating this global workforce.

For the Tata Group, acquisitions have become a way of life and handling integration issues has become a critical function of HR departments. In international acquisitions, we have to deal with different nationalities, regulatory issues — and even the tensions of being acquired or merged. There are also many soft issues involved with integrating the management, the workforce, and business practices.

Earlier at TCS, foreign nationals formed less then one per cent of the workforce. With over 62,000 associates from 53 nationalities, the company is emerging as a true global firm with a diverse employee base. At the end of the year 2005-06 the number of non-Indian nationals working for TCS was 6.5 per cent of a total employee base of 62,832. Our biggest challenge is making non-Indians see TCS as their own company. We have found that the best way of assimilating them into TCS' culture is to have them work on projects together with our people both in India and outside.

While recruiting internationally, we need to respect the local legal norms, cultures and attitudes. That has been the learning at TCS. We need to understand what is relevant to people in different societies, and change our pitch to suit local contexts. For instance, Indians love to travel and work abroad, but in many other countries people like to work in their own city. So we need to focus on their roles and targets in TCS rather than the opportunity to work in different geographies.

Work-life balance
Today it is very fashionable to ask, "Do you have a work-life balance?" But this is a choice people have to make. A company cannot dictate or regulate it by switching off lights at 5 pm or ask employees to go on a picnic.

What companies can do is to foster a productive work environment within the working day. If employees need to work outside, then this should be facilitated through the internet and mobile phones.

I feel we should give more opportunities for people to work from home if they want to and make work more flexible. So it may not be necessary that the entire workforce of TCS comes to office every morning at the same time. Such an approach will also cut down on commuting time and enable employees to spend more time with their families. Work-sharing is another way in which couples, or any two people, share the work. All this would not mean less productivity but result in happier employees.

At TCS we are creating opportunities for employees' families to understand what is happening in the company. This gives them a sense of pride in the work that the spouse or parent is doing and makes them feel less neglected.

The issue of work-life balance is going to become even bigger in the future. We have to start looking at the work environment very differently from the way we do today.

In all this companies need to look at certain regulatory requirements in different countries. People should not lose out on benefits such as superannuation and gratuity because employment laws do not permit these for part-time employees. We will need to consider some structural changes in policies and people practices.

Attracting and retaining employees
Compensation has been, and will continue to be, the big driver in retaining people. But I feel the importance of money varies at different stages of life and in different roles that people play. Once people reach a minimum level of compensation, what matters to them are their aspirations — and this is where role planning and the work environment are critical.

Goals and targets need to be clear so that people can know what they are going to do and what they have achieved. These two rules have been in focus for the last 25 years of my life and they will continue to be important. It's also universally true that people join companies but work with bosses. And, equally true, people leave bosses; not a company.

What people will also look for is a comfort level that they have a good job to do in the company and that what they do matters to the company. A company needs to create a good employer brand, internally as well as externally, by ensuring that people have good jobs which make them feel proud of working for the organisation.

After that, depending on the demography and age of the person, companies need to add certain benefits that create a social status for the person, give him or her recognition outside the company. People want their place under the sky. Employees can be given opportunities to make presentations at international forums, or made members of academic institutes or industry associations. This will increase retention.

It is increasingly evident that people are reaching higher, faster. So where do you go when you approach the top? A company can take you only so far in your personal ambition and growth. After that the company should allow you to move to an internal or external company.

In this respect, the Tata Group has a phenomenal advantage. We have more than 90 companies, and there is good opportunity for mobility within the Group. Helping them to grow outside the Group is also good because if that process is well managed, you have a wider populace as a friend — because if the leader (in another company) is your friend, the others will align with the leader.

For the Group, the Tata brand will continue to be a magnet for people looking for a job. In the Indian ethos there is a certain value attached to the Tata brand. It was there when I joined TCS many years ago and it continues to be there today also. I am always proud to say I am a part of Tata.

HR in the future
Over the last five years, there has been an emergence of new career choices such as architecture, interior and fashion design, hotel management. These alternative career choices are going to increase vastly in the future and companies will have to adapt to such cultural changes.

At TCS, we will have to move beyond engineering colleges; become more accommodative and hire people from different streams such as physics, mathematics, biology, physical sciences, arts and literature, and learn to create teams that can harness these diverse capabilities.

Another change that I foresee coming is in people's attitude towards employment. Concepts such as 'lifetime employment' and 'loyalty to one company' are unlikely to survive into the future. There will, of course, always be some people who will stay longer in one job because their aspirations are being met. But most will work for three to five years and move on when they see other opportunities.

Companies need to adopt the attitude that as long as a person enjoys working there, the company gets value from his work. This is the only 'contract' you can have with an employee.

You will also find many more employees going back to college after working for three to four years, rather than completing their education before taking up a job.

Globalisation has taught us how to deal with international customers; we are now learning how to deal with an international workforce. Very soon we will need to learn how to deal with an international boss — or bosses. You could have an American as a CEO, a head of sales from England and a head of production from China.

In training our future global managers, we will have to prepare them for all these eventualities. The global manager needs to (as my daughter says!) 'be cool'. I have always tried to understand what it means. I think it means 'to just take one day at a time, one step at a time, accept certain things, and go on'.

Global managers need to have an open mind. They need to be able to appreciate and respect cultural diversities. I guess that is what is meant by 'being cool'.

Uncharted roads, new drivers

Dr Sangram Tambe, VP, human resources, Tata Motors

Any attempt to predict the future has to begin with a close look at present trends and pick up early indicators of future change. If we look at India, what's new is the widespread adoption of the M&A route to growth, which means new markets, new environments. Also new is the many overseas companies now setting up their operations in India, thereby bringing talent back into the country.

These developments have thrown up many HR challenges, which give us a good indication of the uncharted future. Primary among them are the issues, challenges and problems of how to attract the right kind of people and then retain them.

Today, we see a marked preference for services jobs rather than those in manufacturing. Retaining people in operations has become even more difficult. The demand-supply situation has been so adverse this year in the auto industry that employee turnover has almost doubled.

Another trend that is likely to have repercussions on our future, is rising expectations of youngsters. They want rapid growth. They also expect the work environment to be open and non-hierarchical, which empowers rather then shackles them with rules and regulations. For a large organisation to have that kind of culture without sacrificing the benefits of systems and processes is a big challenge.

Whether it's an assembly-line worker or a sales person who sells in overseas markets — they need to understand, and fall in with, the new paradigm. In order to really internalise such thinking, we need to shape our knowledge management and our processes and policies to cater to international customers.

HR has to play a major role — of identifying competencies and skills required for international managers; creating different touch points for creating awareness and exposure; sending people for training programmes and international workshops.

Global attributes
According to me, there are three attributes of a global manager — core competency, cultural adjustment and functional knowledge.

Functional knowledge can be inculcated through exposure to different functions and training. Cultural adaptation, however, is a new problem that some people (and their families) may have to deal with. International research has shown that many expatriate assignments fail because the family is not able to adjust to a new culture and environment. We need to pay serious attention to this issue.

The competency issue is core. An international manager has to work in a less structured environment than he or she might be accustomed to in the domestic market, and must develop greater tolerance to ambiguity. Getting results in the world market takes time, and requires a lot of persistence or resilience. It can take a year or more to make the first sale.

International managers should be able to quickly network with others — because networking, even at the elementary level of obtaining vital information, speeds up marketing and sales processes. Linguistic skills definitely help. If you speak in the customer's language, he is happier; and you get a better grasp of what he wants.

Cultural conundrum
When you acquire a company overseas, one of the basic questions that must be answered is: what will and what will not be integrated? Cultural integration is one of the major problems, which has contributed to the failure of mergers, such as those of Nissan and Renault, and Daimler Chrysler.

At Tata Motors we have initiated a two-way, instead of a one-way, flow of people between our companies. Our philosophy is that if we acquire a company in Korea we would like it to be managed as a Korean company and therefore would not like to have our top executives here remote-controlling the company there. We may depute some Indian managers for some key roles there, but by and large we depend on the local managers.

We need to understand the spirit as well as letter of the laws in different countries in which we operate — whether they be related to social security, employment or unions. And we need to apply local laws, including wage regulations, to Indian expat managers in those countries.

Holistic HR
In the last decade, two kinds of shifts have happened in HR. One is the kind of people coming into HR, the other is the kind of things they do.

Earlier, all HR involved was being close to the top boss, and sort out problems, mostly related to labour or union or external environment management. The HR manager's knowledge about overall business was very limited. Today's HR professionals are far more business savvy. That gives them better visibility and credibility in the enterprise.

Earlier, HR work was mostly related to compliance or minimum requirements. Today much of the work is done with an employee point of view, including development, and the management of culture and environment. It's more high-end work. Earlier we did a lot of administrative work; today we continue to do that, but are slowly moving into change management and strategy.

New definitions
Most companies, through different methods, are trying to create a sense of ownership and pride in the organisation. The definition of loyalty has undergone a change. Earlier, loyalty meant that a person joined and retired in the same organisation. Today I would say that a loyal employee is one who stays with me for four to five years, works diligently, gives results and contributes to the wealth creation of the company — till the last day that he is with the company. He must also leave in a non-acrimonious manner.

Today the world has become so small you never know when you will bump into each other again. So, whatever the period a person is with the company, both employee and company would like it to be in a productive relationship.

Last but not least, HR will have to help employees arrive at the proper work-life balance. Surveys have shown that work-life balance is a major issue in a global economy. Rapid technology changes are forcing people to run harder to stay in the same place, and with husband and wife both working, the pressure on the social side mounts. Many organisations have already started looking at flexitime as an option.

But talking about such an option is easier than implementing it. For example, where you have a large number of indirect and direct employees on the same shop floor, how do you manage an interface?

There are two ways one can look at flexitime. One way is to allow flexible timings. The second way involves another type of flexibility where an employee does not work for a fixed number of years but takes up interesting assignments in his or her area of specialisation, as and when they are available.

Both these options are increasingly being exercised. Both options will grow further in the future.

Does money matter?
People often talk of satisfaction and money on the same continuum. I personally feel that they are two different dimensions. Just because somebody has money does not necessarily mean he has job satisfaction — and vice-a-versa. Obviously, given a choice one would like to have both money and satisfaction. We often attach a certain value to job satisfaction when we make career or job choices. As income levels rise, people will increasingly give greater weight to job satisfaction in the money-job satisfaction trade-off.

In this context, the ethics and values of an organisation will also help tilt the balance in favour of companies and groups like the Tatas, which put a high premium on corporate governance.

Service with a smile

Yogi Sriram, senior VP, human resources, Indian Hotels

People are the soul of the hospitality industry. Their aim is to provide guests an experience that makes them want to come back repeatedly. As our guests travel more, they savour varied environments all over the world, and become savvier and more demanding; the services we offer will also have to become more sophisticated, innovative, personal and consistent. What this portends for the HR function is a strong focus on learning and development for operational excellence; delivering and surpassing brand service standards.

Our HR vision at the Taj, is visualised as a pyramid with three layers: leadership behaviour, organisation building and operational excellence.

The bottom layer is operational excellence. The initiatives taken in this area ensure that our basic HR processes are strong. This will continue to be an important part in the future but will be enhanced through technology.

The next layer is organisation building. This involves implementing initiatives relating to development, to high potential programmes such as the Taj Emerging Leader programme and initiatives that focus on the induction of new trainees. A critical issue facing the Taj is attrition of talent from gen Y. Our strategy is to constantly try to attract and retain potential consummate hoteliers.

The top layer of the pyramid is about coaching of the leadership team and focusing on well thought out initiatives to motivate and energise the work force. Our vision for the Taj is to create a culture where managers are responsible for motivating their people, in a fully automated environment; where line managers feel empowered and compelled to work on succession planning, career planning and appraisals.

This assumes great importance because I see the role of HR changing significantly in the future. While today it focuses on operational issues, it will migrate to serving the role of a strategic partner in the enterprise. This means delivering initiatives in the upper two layers of the pyramid, at the hotel HR department level. There will be a lot more emphasis in the coming years on serving the very aggressive growth plans of the Taj than about managing the here and now.

At the Taj, HR is already becoming more oriented towards building the organisation for growth. It is creating a foundation for moving from strong people basics such as performance management systems and recruitment systems to focusing on talent acquisition and providing value in terms of preparing the organisation for change and working with the leadership teams as a coach. A priority for us is to increase the synergy between our HR, learning and development, and business excellence teams. This troika is for ideas, thoughts, initiatives and for our people to move seamlessly between these change catalysts.

Industry challenges
The biggest challenge for the hotel industry today is attracting and retaining talent. The reason: the hospitality sector is growing at a 'never before rate' and unfortunately the hotel industry has many competing career options for younger people. In fact, a career in the hospitality sector figures at the bottom of the heap for career choices, particularly at the B-schools.

The story is no different in the US. The toppers of hospitality MBA courses in top institutes prefer merchant banking and consultancy as a career. In India, the problem is more complicated because the entire service sector is growing rapidly, contributing nearly 52 per cent to the GDP growth. The opportunities available in competing sectors like real estate, retail, airlines and BPO services and other spaces pose a real challenge for us.

But I see this as a great opportunity for creativity in devising HR policies to stay ahead of competition and attract the talent that we require. There is a big opportunity because half of India's population is under 25 years of age. This is good news since gen Y is on the increase. Gen X has to learn to feel more energised in a culture that keeps us on our toes, with younger colleagues challenging the status quo or nibbling away at the ankles of those who follow outdated mindsets and are archaic in their patterns of thinking.

The long hours of work that is customary in the hospitality sector is a deterrent in an age where younger people are getting more conscious about work-life balance. And for some, working in a hotel may be less intellectually stimulating than working in a bank or an FMCG. But for people who value brands and style, who want to develop EQ and a social radar this is an exciting industry to work in.

At catering college campuses, Taj is reiterating the excitement of a career in hospitality. This is necessary even at hotel management institutes, where a sizable number are lured away into alternative career options. We are doing this by presenting our top managers as role models who have built a successful career as hoteliers.

We plan to reinforce the message to potential employees about the joy and excitement of working in the hospitality industry, particularly at the Taj which has an enormous brand pull. We plan to reposition careers in the Taj as opportunities where employees get to travel, meet interesting people, and experience the thrills of a job that keeps an individual active, personable, confident and smart!

Bending career and work paradigms
Work-life balance and joy at work are important value propositions for the current generation. They also look for quicker and smarter opportunities for monetary gains. They would probably plan their career so that by the age of 40, they have a house, a car and enough financial independence to think of an alternative career such as becoming entrepreneurs or self-employed professionals. This is happening even today to some extent but the tendency of zipped careers will increase in the years to come.

People are getting increasingly conscious about the personal space that they need for themselves and will look for jobs that give them space and time for their hobbies, community work or adventure sports.

And this is the real challenge that the hotel industry faces. The reality is that because this is a 24x7x365 industry, and a hotelier has to be on stage all the time, they get relatively less space and time for pursuing their personal life interests.

People say that this is the nature of the industry, and it is not likely to change. But the time has come to bend this paradigm. Can we create innovative work patterns and practices that can accommodate the aspirations of our employees while meeting the needs of our guests? Can we learn to work with more professional resources who are retained on contracts?

Perhaps we also need to hone our selection procedures so that we are better at identifying the kind of people we need — people who see joy at work and who have passion for delighting the guests.

Future perfect
The Taj is an exciting place to be in. It is a 105-year-old organisation steeped in great values and traditions. But to change, to keep up with the times is a must and preserving a rich heritage of patiently nurtured values while embracing the practical realities of a competitive world is an interesting enigma for the leadership team to deal with. And this balance is particularly important to achieve while the Taj expands into the international arena even while increasing domestic dominance.

We have great potential of leveraging the brand promise of the Taj as a preferred employer, because it is a great place to be in and to usher in the future.

	Ratan Tata: Vision of the future
	Dr JJ Irani: Towards a new dawn
	Alan Rosling: Business in a borderless world
	Prasad Menon: Rural vistas open out
	Praveen Kadle: Finance goes into overdrive
	Kishor Chaukar: Byte that reality
	S Ramadorai: Keep it simple
	Ravi Kant: Through the windshield
	Raymond Bickson: World Traveller 2015

Uploaded on August 28, 2006