WORKING IN THE IT INDUSTRY

People who live by the sword, die by it. So if the company wants to attract people because its shares are going up and it can say that we are giving you Rs.10 or $ 10, and down the line after a few years it increases ten times and is worth Rs.100 or $ 100, then the company also has to understand that if the 100 becomes10 again, then there is a problem. So hopefully if all the people keep on pushing the envelope of the business, then it will not see a downfall and ESOP will work out to the employee's advantage.

ESOP has lost its sheen - No; Dot com's have lost their sheen, Yes. There were ESOP's earlier without dot com's. So how can we equate the two? It is about options and the stock market, when the stock market is booming, dotcom or not, it is good. The fall of the dotcom was huge in the First Fall of the Dotcom. It was because a lot of money was going around with people thinking let us put up a good portal and we will get money. They did not care what they sold and how they sold. The first generation of dotcom's have crashed and it is a good thing. People will learn from it. The VC's have become more careful in who they dole out the money to and are focussing much more on the revenue stream now than they were earlier. Again, it is not that everything is black and white. Some dotcom's have been very good and have done well. Like any fad, a lot of people moved in and some people had a good business model or the first mover advantage. Remember the money is still in circulation. All the ads that were given, that money is with the ad agencies. The money spent for interior decoration is with the interior decorators. It has only gone from someone to someone else.

I believe that if anything has changed is that a far number of young people have started working and a large number of women have started working. I am talking again about the IT sector. There is an age shift, gender shift and a psychological shift in terms of whatever you call it - the Generation X. People want more choice, freedom and don't want the welfare system to be too paternalistic. So all these will dictate what kind of things will work. Again, look at the other institutions and organisations. Start with the army, they have what is possibly the best welfare schemes that any organisation can ever dream about. Look at the Railways - you have clubs, schools, wive's forum... everything is there in the township. Right from the road to the bulb everything is provided by the Railways, if you are living in their quarters. The same is true of the large industries. Look at TISCO as an example. The whole township belongs to them. Even the grass growing on the roadside, there is somebody to look after it, not just today but for the last 50 years. That was the need of that kind of economy and that kind of workforce. Now people are much more mobile today. So if I am doing a medical welfare scheme, it must be one that benefits them, something that is as mobile as they are. I can't open a hospital. So I tie-up with various hospitals. Again, what I do is not because I like it. There is a need and I fulfil it.

Obviously if your average employee age is 22, you think of having bowling and go-karting as benefits that you give. But if your average employee age is 42, I would be looking at homes or communities, I would have possibly invested there. If I do this for a bunch of 22 year-old people, it would not make any sense. The approach that I would incorporate for welfare depends on these factors - age, mobility, gender and choice.

The primary difference vis-à-vis the Indian subcontinent and Europe would be in the manner that they look at relationships. There the focus is much more on what needs to be done currently on a single job-specific issue and they would do it.  Here a lot of other things come into consideration. Yes, there are job-specific issues also, but if it means that it would hinder or enhance a relationship, that also is taken into account.

Also, in the Indian subcontinent, we are not very protective about our weekends and holidays and we let work move into our non-work areas and vice versa.  The division is not very clear-cut as it is found in Europe. 

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