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Impact of liberalisation on the workforce

More than a decade after liberalisation of the Indian economy, Ajay Oberoi analyses has affected the workforce in the country

The liberalisation of the Indian economy started in 1991 with the governments attem decontrol the economy and open Indian markets to rest of the world. Its perceived or projected impact was certainly faster economic progress for the country. Its needs w debated and re-debated for long by everyone in the intelligentsia. All those who cons themselves as custodians of values, culture, and nationalism, voiced its likely impact those who considered themselves as saviours of the workforce, debated its impact on unemployment. For long, it remained an important topic at top B & E-schools for gro discussions. However, during this phase of debating pros and cons of liberalisation o thing, which I did not hear, was How will it impact the workforce?

Today, more than a decade after the start of liberalisation, this impact is being debate Visible outcomes

Accelerated movement of the workforce to so called new economy and geog dislocations. More choice/options (to save, spend, or store). Higher speed of change (products, people, or possibilities). Survival of the powerful (money, manipulation, muscle). Here the word pow has replaced the fittest. More hype about personalities, companies, desires, or even calamities. Higher degree of information.

Each one of these areas and visible outcomes has affected/impacted the workforce bo positively and adversely in areas of: Competency level

The old manual skill based worker dominance is changing to knowledge based work dominance. It is changing the whole process of supervision and governance. Further

redundancy of competency is increasing. Required skill sets change with changing technology. In order to remain current and employable workforce is constantly on th out for latest skill sets. As a result, their attention is divided in doing the job and acq new skills. This is leading to the demand for being associated with newer technologi unidirectional job rotations. This has also led to job-hopping at faster rate and lack o workforce with mature or high levels of competency.

At the same time, it is becoming a knowledge world today, more and more people ar becoming domain experts. Along with high competency levels in specific domains, t workforce today is extremely flexible and has phenomenal capacity to adapt or shift domain expertise. Outsourcing the most talked of and used phenomenon today has re from economies of volumes and domain expertise in specific areas.

The workforce today is more informed and is also well-versed with the latest trends technological value-adds, it is thereby in a position to provide better services and eff However, faster rate of technology adoption than assimilation has created a sharp div the competency base of haves and have-nots.

We are coming into an era where a specialist in a specialized field is transforming i generalist who is capable of performing specialist activity. Work habits

Changing work environment, personal demands and social fabrics are causing chang work habits. Further, the fear of losing a job amongst knowledge workers makes the more as individuals rather then teams. Availability of information through Net surfin making knowledge workers adopt cut and paste methodology rather then being genu creative.

Due to shorter service spans, the habit of managing the situation rather then managin with mid and long-term perspective is creeping in. Demand to prove fast or move employers due to high competition and cost pressures coupled with inadequate busin monitoring scenario (where overall enterprise management, strict process and legal c are still not mature) at times force the workforce to adopt shortcuts.

On the positive note, the cut and paste habits can be seen as habit of plug and play components. This enables the informed and intellectual workforce to produce innova creations.

In this intensely competitive era, the rat race for being the first mover has reached peak. This has created desire amongst the workforce to be more innovative than repe when it comes to their work. Habit of reinventing the wheel is disappearing

Research reports have revealed that this well informed and current in every respect workforce is able to don a mask and portray themselves in an extremely positive lig easily faking expertise and experiences at selection. This, at times, results in poor performance and is a great source of dismay for employers.

Todays workforce is ready to don the mantle of Entrepreneur and go all out for its Delegation and participative management with flatter organisational structures are be todays mantras to suit current work habits. Though this brand of entrepreneurship welcome, it comes coupled with increased levels of indiscipline and disrespect to organisational systems or procedures and policies. Psychological impact

Liberalisation has impacted longevity of business and product cycles adversely. This to quicker starting and winding up of businesses. Automa-tion has improved product and made many jobs redundant. Thus the workforce is under a constant threat of:

Loss of jobshigh rate of downsizing, right sizing; Faster rate of skill redundancy (increasing need of new skill sets); Hire and fire policies; Continuous struggle to prove ones worth; Transfer to new geographic locations; Negative changes in remuneration and benefits; Constantly changing peers, supervisors and subordinates (working with new people).

Even the stars of recent past are highly insecure and unsure of themselves. This all h rise to high degree of stress and stress related psychological disorders.

Liberalisation has resulted in a wholly new call centre industry that has opened its to the younger generation. Here employees and employers face a totally different set challenges.

These are the workplaces where employees name, speaking style and even manneris changed. I fear a unique phenomenon of split personality, which could even disturb t personal life.

Paradoxically todays comforts have come packaged with lot of mental stress levels, fatigue and short-term personal and professional relationships. The stability or secur factor in all aspects of life has tremendously deteriorated. Behaviour/attitude The strong emergence of individualism has opened the floodgate of organisation culture vs individual attitude conflict such as:

Personal goals vs organisational goals; Personal value base vs organisational value base; Participation vs hierarachy; Discipline vs flexibility; Self-confidence vs arrogance; Greed vs shared destiny; Authority vs accountability (rights vs duties); Leadership vs follower-ship; Delegation vs abdication; Change vs stability; Obedience vs self-respect; Short-term vs long-term;* Material benefit vs value loss.

I feel that we have tried to adopt the technology, processes and value systems of the western world without really rationally analysing their contrast/clash with our Indian culture, tradition and value base. As a result we are witnessing conflicting behaviours and attitudes at times. There are glaring differences between western corporate culture and our corporate ways of working which essentially originate from cultural variances. Some of the glaring differences can be enumerated as:

Productivity centric work culture vs people-centric work culture; Individualism vs collectivism; Process orientation vs personality orientation; Sam vs Sir; Result focus vs tasks/efforts focus.

These organisational culture differences have created manifold problems for essentially older workforce, the workforce, which we cannot wish away. This is causing cynicism in the older workforce. Personal attitudes also greatly affect the observable behaviour of an individual and this is clearly seen as: Impression management: Personality traits are overweighing character strength, how to hide feelings, how to manage conflict, how to win over others by projecting innovatively rather than factually, is the trend rather then simple straightforward competent employee. Packaging and marketing: The employee indulges heavily in promoting himself and blowing his own trumpet. Exaggeration of efforts at every juncture and demands for appreciation and remuneration for efforts rather than delivery outcomes are common. Talk the walk is overweighing Walk the talk. Justifying what ever

is being done and enumerating the same as just, fair and desirable is reaching the peak. Your walk becomes the talk if you can find supporters to talk your walk by hook or crook. To be continued Ajay Oberoi is the Senior Vice PresidentHuman Resources with Aptech. E-mail: ajayo@aptech.ac.in
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