On a weekend getaway in Mahabaleshwar to get away from the heat of May, an interesting conversation happened with Dr Kiran Datar, veteran Delhi academic administrator and an advisor to the National Knowledge Commission.
When she was the Principal of Miranda House in the nineties, she was faced with the problem of young first year students coming to class in dishevelled clothing and inappropriate jewellery because of some ragging experiences with their seniors.
Reluctant to come down with a heavy hand and risk getting the students’ backs up against authority, Dr Datar called a tea meeting with all the resident students of the college and walked into the room dressed in layers of mismatched clothing and garish jewellery.
The peals of laughter soon melted into a realisation of the key message the wise principal was giving the girls and the delinquencies were never repeated.
In today’s context in the IT and particularly the BPO industry, many people who have been managers in more traditional sectors are quick to pass judgement on the wild ways of youth and jump to the conclusion that this mobile and irreverent workforce cannot be tamed and should either be chastised or tolerated so that the essential work of the organisation does not suffer for the few months or sometimes even weeks when they arrive in their shifts to work in contact centers around the country.
Are we forgetting sometimes that these youngsters in their teens or early twenties are not dissimilar to the college students that many of us have in our own families and will respond to positive stimuli and an attempt to engage in the same way as any of our young family members would?
The net impact of this "us versus them" approach to managing very young people in BPOs has often led to a mental detachment which causes a rebellion against authority and sometimes even a callous disregard for one’s own well being in an effort to prove a point — to the organisation, the family, society and indeed even themselves.
While it would be too facile to argue that some of the tragic rape and murder incidents in Bangalore and Pune could have been caused by this internal sense of rebellion, there is no doubt that a more inclusive approach and an effort to empathise with the inner seething of young minds and hearts could mitigate some of the risks associated with stressful shift jobs, which are going to continue and expand as the industry realises its potential of being what many people believe could be the "back office of the world".
There are extreme comments and statements too which all of us who have the future of the industry at heart should be on guard against. The recent study by a reputed mental health institution alleges that a significant percentage of young people involved in BPO organisations suffer from mental trauma and depression and would have us believe that it is this industry that is causing the breakdown of well being in thousands of young people.
If one peels the onion a little, the questionnaire used to elicit responses and the conclusions drawn from limited data would seem to fly in the face of research rigour that is needed before such conclusions are drawn and widely publicised by the scandal hungry news hounds but the larger point is that unless a climate of participation and mutual trust is created, every piece of wood will be used as a stick to beat the industry.
The point of this essay is not to say that our Human Resource teams are not doing their jobs — on the contrary I was heartened to hear a very competent young HR person from one of the banking captive centres talk about how effectively they had separated the recruitment function from the challenge of employee engagement and multiple initiatives are in place at firm and industry level to engage early and keep young people motivated through the stresses and strains of their progress in the BPO sector.
It is clearly a time for all of us to set aside our own prejudices and perceptions and walk the floor to engage with our young folk. As the IT and BPO sector grows from two million to eight million associates which the NASSCOM-AT Kearney research has shown to be the potential in the next ten years, let there be "no child left behind" in the journey to success.
Dr Ganesh Natarajan is Chairman of NASSCOM and Global Vice Chairman and CEO of Zensar Technologies.
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