Wishing you a year filled with happiness, peace, and prosperity. Happy Tamil New Year!
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Showing posts with label chennai. Show all posts
Showing posts with label chennai. Show all posts
Sunday, April 14, 2024
Happy Tamil New Year
மகிழ்ச்சி, அமைதி மற்றும் செழிப்பு நிறைந்த ஆண்டாக அமைய வாழ்த்துக்கள். இனிய தமிழ் புத்தாண்டு வாழ்த்துக்கள்!
Sunday, September 25, 2022
From Darkness to (moon)Light - India's Services Sector in Need of Enlightenment
"A dreamer is one who can only find his way by moonlight, and his punishment is that he sees the dawn before the rest of the world." - Oscar Wilde
Very simply put, people taking up extra work other than their full-time job, which is traditionally expected to be 9 to 5, without informing their current employer, is called moonlighting.
Recently this whole discussion came to the fore in India when Wipro's chairman Rishad Premji tweeted "There is a lot of chatter about people moonlighting in the tech industry. This is cheating - plain and simple."
Following this, last week, Wipro also sacked 300 employees stating the same reason, further explaining that they also worked for Wipro's competitors. Following suit, TCS, Infosys and IBM have also warned their employees that moonlighting is unethical and will lead to disciplinary action or even termination.
However, Tech Mahindra CEO, C P Gurnani, recently said that it is required to change with the times and also said, "I welcome disruption in the ways we work".
India's Union minister of State for Skill Development and Entrepreneurship, Rajeev Chandrasekhar, yesterday joined this debate by tweeting in support of employees moonlighting if they wish to use their skills and time to expand their work, which will also help the country with talent deficit. He has strongly recommended companies to embrace this change and not to suppress talent & the very intention to innovate.
Satya Nadella, the CEO of Micrsoft, went one step further and coined a new term "Productivity Paranoia", which is companies feeling their employees are not being their productive best, leading to unwelcome activities such as spying on the employees. Microsoft firmly believes that employee surveillance is just wrong and in today's hybrid work models, to bridge the gap between what employers and employees want is of utmost importance. Employers should in fact be more concerned about employee burn-out as worktime and 'other' time have completely blurred following the imposed WFH culture due to the pandemic.
It is my opinion that people must have the freedom to work on what they want in their own time (i.e. time not paid for by an employer). Most companies do have 'Non-disclosure' agreements (NDAs) and ‘Non-compete’ clauses (NCCs) in work contracts which employees commit to, which should cover any ethical concerns. Employees on the other hand could avoid conscientiously working for a direct competitor and should definitely not engage in unethical practices which will only spoil it for everyone as seen in the case of Wipro.
Of concern, however, is in the loose definition of 'competitor'. Big conglomerates could even consider a start-up as competition and thus stop employees from utilising their private time to work pretty much anywhere within a sector which would otherwise benefit from access to their skills. This could be the primary reason for employees to leave other work undisclosed.
It should be deemed unethical for companies to have a blanket contract that prohibits employees from taking up any other paid work. Not only is this treatment of employees as bonded labour antediluvian, but it is also plain unconscionable and does not fit in a digitally mobile world, especially post COVID! Employees must stand up for their rights, including that of privacy, and reject such contracts. NDAs and NCCs, on the other hand, need to be rational and clearly articulate a company’s terms, which must be explained to prospective/current employees, giving them a fair chance to accept, come clean, or reject the terms. Such mechanism can help mitigate perceived threats of moonlighting and develop an atmosphere of trust in which employees are self-motivated to ensure ethical conduct and can feel safe disclosing their other commitments.
More than policies and policing, it is a company’s culture which will define whether moonlighting becomes a threat or an engine of positive transformation for both employer and the employee.
Friday, September 9, 2022
Tamil Nadu school events this summer!
Teaching – a calling which I have always been passionate about, and an important aspect of my academic and professional journey thus far – is central to fostering a cultivated society. And despite pandemic-induced disruptions and the proliferation of new modes of teaching, schools remain indispensable centres of vital interactions, knowledge exchange, and holistic learning that students carry with them all their lives.
This summer I had the privilege of being invited for two school events in Tamil Nadu, India.
As the guest of honour at a vision health camp for students at Government High School - Karunkuzhi, in Tamil Nadu's Kancheepuram district (an important seat of learning since time immemorial), I was delighted to have the opportunity to interact with students from grades 10 to 12.
My address, to have been delivered in the school auditorium, was instead - by delightful happenstance - conducted outdoors to accommodate the wider student body. Under the shade of beautiful trees and amidst the buzz of young minds, I engaged with them across a broad spectrum of topics including the process of education and pathways to learning, higher education in India and abroad, traditional and non-traditional career options, research and technology, and so much more.
What I really enjoyed were the interactions with various student groups and individuals who I found to be extremely bright, confident, and very well informed about regional, national, and international developments. During these discussions we spoke on pertinent aspects including social responsibility, women's health, substance abuse, and confronting socio-economic challenges. I was pleasantly delighted to hear of one student discussing in front of the whole audience her dreams of becoming a dancer. I was very happy to see her not shying away from discussing her question in public and was even more surprised to hear how she had already started making international enquiries to unlikely countries as far as South Korea! She knew of scholarship possibilities and was ready to go if she was lucky to get one!
In my interactions with the Headmistress and faculty, I commended them on their academia-related undertakings and also for effectively fulfilling a variety of administrative requirements that are being meticulously followed-up and assessed by the state government. While there is a huge scope of improvement in Government funded schools, I understood all the many challenges that the school administration and staff face and some of the steps they take to perform better.
It was also a privilege to be invited as an honoured guest of the Social Education and Rural Development (SERD) Trust, in Tamil Nadu’s Kancheepuram district, for their recent student outreach initiative supporting the National Securities Depository Limited’s (NSDL) nation-wide ‘Chalo, School Chale’ campaign. As part of this campaign, NSDL is providing under-privileged students with educational kits comprising essential items to supplement their learning.
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