People at Work & Play

The extent to which cell phones are changing the world is eloquently captured in Sara Corbett’s recent article in the New York Times. Read ” Can The Cellphone Help End Global Poverty?” to gain insight into how the cell phone has and is changing the lives of millions of people all over the world- and in particular in the developing countries. A longish article but if you are interested in global trends of consumerism, here’s one article you can’t miss.

It speaks of the Jan Chipchase’s job-and a fascinating one at that. He is a ” human behaviour researcher” for Nokia and travels the world to find out what consumers and potential consumers would like to see in the Nokia phones. Reading about Chipchase’s travels and the extent of detail he goes into to find out his consumers’ needs makes you believe that Nokia- as their by line goes - is truly “Connecting People”

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Author, Susan Jacoby relates how on 9/11, she was walking home to her Upper East Side apartment. Overwhelmed and confused, she stopped at a bar. As she sipped her bloody mary, she quietly listened to two men, neatly dressed in suits. For a second she thought they were going to compare that day’s horrifying attack to the Japanese bombing in 1941 that blew America into World War II:

“This is just like Pearl Harbor,” one of the men said.

The other asked, “What is Pearl Harbor?”

“That was when the Vietnamese dropped bombs in a harbor, and it started the Vietnam War,” the first man replied.

At that moment, Ms. Jacoby said, “I decided to write this book.”

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Three items caught my attention as important trends in the world of business:

The US has lost 17,000 jobs in January 2008 says a report in the Washington Post. The nation shed jobs in January, the government reported yesterday, the first monthly loss since 2003, providing fresh evidence that the housing downturn and credit crisis have spread to the job market.

Microsoft has bid $ 44.6 billion to buy Yahoo. “The market is increasingly dominated by one player,” said Kevin R. Johnson, a Microsoft division president, referring to Google. “By combining assets of Microsoft and Yahoo, we can offer a more competitive choice for consumers, advertisers and publishers.”

Hyundai opened its second plant in India making the country its biggest foriegn manufacturing site. Hyundai is the second biggest carmaker in India.

For the first time, a business school in India features in the list of Top 20 business schools in the world. The list released by the Financial Times has the Indian School of Business at Hyderabad at Rank 20 amongst business schools in the world.

The top 10 in the listing:-

1. University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School
2. London Business School
3. Columbia Business School
4. Stanford University GSB
5. Harvard Business School
6. INSEAD
7. MIT Sloan
8. IE Business School
9. Universty of Chicago GSB
10. University of Cambridge, Judge

The FT ranking is calculated on the basis of 20 criteria covering specifics like career progress of graduates, diversity of the MBA experience, international mobility of alumni, ideas generation and research, etc.

Dean Rammohan Rao of ISB said, “This is a landmark event for the ISB. It sums up our single-minded goal to be recognised as a global centre of excellence in business education. This ranking is an important milestone in our journey to be an internationally top-ranked research-driven, and independent management institution that grooms leaders for the world.”

Drawn by the facility offered by the web and the diversity of products available on it, Indian netizens have emerged as the third biggest credit card users globally for online purchasing, says an article in the Times of India.

According to a global online survey conducted by leading research firm Nielsen, more than 85 per cent of internet users in the world are purchasing goods or services online, while credit card has emerged as the most famous payment method for such purchases.

As many as 84 per cent of online shoppers from India said they have used credit cards for such transactions, next only to 91 per cent in Turkey and 86 per cent in Ireland.

India shared the third position with the UAE, which also has 84 per cent of online buyers using a credit card.

“Shopping on the Internet with the ease of a credit card is especially appealing to consumers in emerging markets who simply cannot find or buy items they want in their retail trade. The Internet has opened up a whole new world of shopping for these consumers,” Nielsen’s US Customized Research Vice-President Bruce Paul said.

The survey found that credit cards are by far the most common method of payment for online purchases with 60 per cent of global online consumers having used their credit card for a recent online purchase. Among the various credit cards, more than half or about 53 per cent used a Visa card.

Globally, more than half of Internet users have made at least one purchase online in the past month.

Most popular purchased items over internet are books (41 per cent purchased in the past three months), followed by articles like clothing/accessories/shoes (36 per cent), videos / DVDs / games and airline tickets constituted about 24 per cent.

I recall eagerly looking forward to the latest issue of the Readers Digest. In this, the section I first looked at was called “Laughter-The Best Medicine”.

US researchers in a new study have shown that humour has many positive effects in different aspects of life. A study, conducted by Melissa B Wanzer, professor of communication studies at Canisius College in Buffalo, NY, has shown that humour helps medical professionals cope with difficult jobs.

In the study, the researcher also looked at the how humour affects the elderly and how it can increase communication in the workplace and in the classroom.

Wanzer, in her large-scale study, asked the med professionals how they provided care for terminally ill people and manage to come back to work each day. The health care experts replied that it was humour that made them do so.

Wanzer has also found humour to be beneficial in other areas as well.

“If employees view their managers as humour-oriented, they also view them as more effective. Employees also reported higher job satisfaction when they worked for someone who was more humour-oriented and used humour effectively and appropriately,” Wanzer said. The researchers found that humour is an effective way to cope with on-the-job stress - again, when used appropriately.

In another study, Wanzer found that aging adults who used humour more frequently reported greater coping efficacy, which led to greater life satisfaction. Wanzer’s research also shows that students report learning more from teachers who use humour effectively.

“Regardless of the content, humour seems to be beneficial and productive. It helps to get the point across in about in almost any situation,” Wanzer said.

The study has been published in multiple journals, including Communication Quarterly , Communication Research Reports , Communication Education , Health Communication and Journal of Health Communication .

So, enjoy your sense of humour and laugh as much and as often as you can. It will do you good, it can’t do you any harm and even if it does- what the heck, you would had the last laugh!

Amazing! Quite amazing!!

“Made in Mumbai, Wanted by the World” in the Hindustan Times speaks of a toffee- sized cardiac monitor developed at the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay (now called Mumbai). While the tiny computer that can store a week’s electrocardiogram (ECG) data awaits a manufacturer, it is already in demand.

The demand for a user-friendly cardiac monitor is urgent in India, where, as top cardiologist Devi Shetty puts it, ‘heart disease is like an epidemic.’ “Indians are genetically 3 times more vulnerable to heart attacks than Europeans,’’ Dr Shetty, chairman, Narayana Hrudayalaya, told HT from Bangalore. “The average age of my patients in India is 45 years. Fathers bring their young sons for bypass grafting.”

Indians and South Asians are prone to a first heart attack at age 53, and the World Health Organisation estimates that 60 per cent of the world’s cardiac patients could be Indians by 2010.

When a user feels uneasy, he can press a locket button to ‘mark’ that data so a doctor can later scrutinise marked segments and check the heart’s activity before the irregularity. Connected to a cell phone, the locket can be programmed to send SMS containing marked data to a doctor. Software in the locket forwards the data to the mobile, which sends the SMS.

This project at IIT, Bombay’s Microelectronics Dept. is funded by Tata Consultancy Services.

It is heart warming ( no pun intended) to see such path breaking innovations taking place in our country.

Undoubtedly, we in India have gained immensely from the benefits flowing from a booming economy. What is worrying is a socio-economic fallout. Some of our more traditional bastions like marriage are coming under immense pressure, especially amongst the youth. Divorces are becoming far too common in the growing metros.

In the old days, divorces in India were a rarity. A few families had some one who had lived abroad and was divorced. This was put down as an aberration and seen as one of the perils of living abroad by our elders. It was believed that such things happened only in the West.

I was dismayed to see “Divorce Fever Grips City” in today’s Times of India

It is as if an epidemic is sweeping through the city! Apparently, a city like Pune in India is seeing as many as 240 cases of divorce per month in 2007 ! If it is any comfort, the report says the figure was 150 cases per month in 2006.

Every day, young, well-educated and well-earning men and women, refusing to see a permanent future with each other, are resorting to the law.

Many social, psychological, economic and cultural reasons are cited by couples while applying for a divorce. Lack of compatibility, interfering in-laws, cruelty, domestic violence and irregular communication were the causes of the split.

It is sad that the most typical reason for couples in the age bracket of 25 to 35 was lack of proper communication between them.

“Due to hectic work hours, couples are not able to invest enough time in each other. Unfortunately, they try to analyse their personal lives from the professional point of view. Such an attitude is very common among couples working in information technology (IT) companies,” says advocate Abhay Apte. He stated that on an average, six or seven divorce petitions were filed every day last year.

Significantly, most couples applied for a divorce within 2-3 years of marriage. Interference by the families of both spouses has also been cited as the most common reason. “It has been observed that spouses prefer to talk about personal issues not with each other but with their respective families. This creates a communication void between them which results in misunderstandings. Also, parents can’t easily let go of their authority over their children. They are in the habit of interfering in the couple’s day-to-day activities,” explains advocate Neelima Atre.

I feel (I have done no research on this) the main reasons are:

1. Young people rushing into marriage in a dreamy state without understanding all that is involved
2. Marriages taking place under parental pressure in which the couple have been left with no choice
3. Newly found wealth and a new life style putting pressure on the couple as they think they are expected to behave in ways which do not come to them naturally
4. Economic independence making the woman more bold to walk out of an unsatisfactory marriage
5. Work-life balance issues adding pressure with one or the other partners not willing to compromise on their work priorities or careers.

I hope parents and young people take more care in deciding about marriage. I hope they make better and more considered choices. Rushing into a marriage without thinking through issues and being fully ready is the surest reason for having to rush out of it too.

Interesting article in the Economic Times about designations/titles. Do they keep employees in good humour? The article says that while the debate on monetary versus job satisfaction as an engagement tool rages on, India Inc, has discovered a novel way not just to keep its flock together, but happy too.

We have had titles as diverse as Chief Evangelist or Chief Fun Officer in corporations. Cisco has a Chief Globalisation Officer and a Senior Manager, Diversity & Inclusion. IBM has a work-life integration leader. Sapient a Director of People Success. Other titles mentioned include Chief Brand Architect, Chief Privacy Officer, Chief Competitive Officer etc. At a senior level, I feel, these titles reflect the job holder’s role more clearly. But should this trend go down to all levels?

A senior executive is quoted as saying that titles gain more relevance, especially at the lower levels within organizations. “Designations like chief impression officer (for a receptionist) or a car manager (instead of a driver), are ways of showing respect to the positions and functions,” he says .“Such designations also act as motivators as roles like that of a receptionist are the ones that create the first and lasting impression for a company.

Two years ago, Chennai-based GRT hotel chain introduced the designation loss-prevention manager to lend more respectability and accountability to the security function.

I, for one, believe that treating people with professional respect counts for far more than the title especially at lower levels. In our country at least, leave alone the public at large, I am somewhat skeptical about their own family and friends – their immediate society- referring to receptionists as chief impression officers, security personnel as loss prevention managers or to drivers as car managers.

Are we putting creativity ahead of prudence? With tongue firmly in cheek, I ask, should we revamp all titles? Would we see the following changes?

• Lead Global Warming Arrester for Head Gardener
• Nutrition Provider in Chief for Head Cook
• Guide To The Top Level for Elevator Operator
• Chief Recycler for Janitor

Will some one in the People function responsible for churning out new titles be called a Positive Image Capturer?

Have fun. Make up your own list!

More seriously, I believe the way you treat people is far more important than what you call them. Titles sit lightly on the shoulders of senior executives who are extremely well compensated. For example, calling a retired Brigadier as Chief Loss Prevention Manager is fine by me. But calling a security guard Loss Prevention Executive when they are mostly on contract and likely to lose their own job at the drop of a hat?

I feel giving a seemingly glamorous title to some one whose challenge is to keep body and soul together is misplaced magnanimity.

What are your views?

If you are going nuts navigating the city traffic, here’s a solution you might like to try. Car pooling or ride sharing. It reduces your stress of driving as also has other benefits for you and your society at large. Car pooling benefits its members in many ways including saving money, saving fuel, reducing global warming and easing traffic.

The Indian Carpool Survey conducted by Indimoto gives interesting details about the demographic, social and economic profile of commuters who have adopted carpooling as a mode of commuting. Over 500 commuters who have used the internet (carpool listing/classified sites including Indimoto.com) to enter into carpool/rideshare arrangements across India since 2006 were surveyed.

The findings indicate that carpool as a concept has been embraced primarily by educated commuters from major metros with well paying jobs. This trend can be attributed to high internet penetration in the metros and greater awareness of carpools and its benefits amongst such individuals. Not surprisingly, it is more popular in cities where the traffic situation is the worst like Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore.

The maximum car-poolers belong to New Delhi (57 %) followed by Mumbai (23 %) and Bangalore (8 %).  Only 16 per cent of the car-poolers are female who however believe the concept to be relatively safe.  70 % of car-poolers are in the age group of 25-40 years (70 per cent). They form the most active working population and commute to work daily.

57 % of car-poolers are highly educated with most holding a post graduate qualification. 99 % of respondents carpool for an income generating activity and majority (84 per cent) are salaried employees.

It’s not that the car poolers surveyed were short of funds. 57 % earned over  Rs. 50,000 per month and 10 % upwards of Rs.100,000 per month. These are well paid private sector employees, car-pooling to their offices in various metros. Only 6 % of the car-poolers do not posses a private vehicle while 86 per cent own one or more cars and share driving responsibilities with fellow car-poolers.

As expected, majority of car-poolers commute over long distances each day, 84 % commute over 26 kilometres everyday with 17 % travelling over 76 kilometres on a daily commute. Despite this, 38 % car-poolers are able to keep their commuting costs below Rs. 3000 per month by carpooling.

Car-poolers say the primary accrued benefit is the reduction in CO2 emissions which helps them reduce their carbon footprint in the race to save the planet from global warming. 67 % cited this as the main benefit of carpools. Indeed highly environmentally conscious.

62 % appreciated the money saving opportunity through carpooling while 53 % were glad that they were reducing traffic on choked city streets. Saving of precious fuel was cited as another benefit by 41% of the car-poolers.

Contrary to popular belief that carpools are a social challenge, 38 % opted for it to increase social interaction with like minded commuters working or living in their vicinity. Reduction of stress due to driving/commuting alone encouraged 31 % cent of the respondents to carpool.

The benefits of car pooling are many. As far as I can see the biggest drawback is it cuts flexibility. You are on your own if you miss the bus…er, in this case the car !