Traditionally,
most Indian corporate entities expected their managers to create and maintain
a suitable internal environment in which individual employees and junior officials
would feel sufficiently motivated to put in their best efforts on a continual
basis. Great corporate performance was expected to come out of significant and
notable contributions by the individual employees and frontline supervisors who
were to be assigned jobs which were based on their natural talents. If that was
not possible, then this shortcoming was to be overcome by personal guidance and
in-house training. HR managers also talked about job rotation, job enlargement
and job enrichment as much to fight employee boredom, as to avoid vested interest
from arising. Behavioral scientists were hired to counsel employees and to conduct
classroom `games' to create team spirit.
Top
management occasionally addressed these groups in conferences, shared their vision
and sought the commitment of the groups of employees by highlighting the risks
that competition posed to the company, which could be faced effectively only if
the work force put in more effort and rededicated themselves to the company objectives.
This seemed to work quite well, at least for some time, and then things used to
go back to normal in due course of time. In highly unionized organizations, however,
employees were always torn in between their loyalty to the corporate objectives
and those of the Union's and their leaders' personal agenda. Informal groups were,
therefore, frowned upon and tolerated under duress. Life seems to have done a
full-circle since then.
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