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MANAGING Road Kill The 'don't walk' sign is always on in the fast-track. You could be top dog today; history tomorrow. Manage your career well or you could well be ... By Paroma Roy Chowdhury Death don't have no mercy in this land.
Ask this CEO of a transnational automotive company. He was asked to identify a successor soon after he was hired-well before he could move his stuff into the room allotted to him-and still doesn't know where he is headed. Check with the CEO and the top brass of a now-extinct Chennai-based engineering corporate. The transnational decided to close down after 12 months of operations, leaving the team stranded. Question this former chief executive of a foreign bank. A rival bank acquired the Asian operations of his company. Expectedly, the merged entity had room for just one at the top and he had to move on. Corporate India is replete with stories such as these. Do you have a story to tell? If you do, tell it, and get on with life and work. If you don't, take care: forces beyond your control could erase your career-progression chart in less time than it takes to say rub. The career is well and truly dead. In a best-case scenario that could mean a less-fancy designation and a humbling set of perquisites. In a worst-case one, it could mean no job at all. That's a little strange. This still-in-diapers century has witnessed an explosion of opportunities. Dotcoms, health-care, media, entertainment, infotech, retail, consulting, insurance...the list of happening sectors is, literally, unending. Capital-never mind suddenly-coy veecees-is still there for the asking. And the greying first world has discovered that India is a great place to hire talent. Given these, life should have been one big party for the working man or woman. It isn't. If opportunities cut across borders, so do business decisions. In a chain-reaction a lot less subtle than the famed butterfly effect, a global merger or realignment could impact local operations and careers. When Pacific Rim bank ANZ Grindlays decided Asia wasn't really as hospitable as the Australian outback and sold its Asian operations to Standard Chartered, its entire senior management team was out in the job market in a trice. P. Dwarakanath, 51, the head of the hr function at SmithKline Beecham Consumer Healthcare (SBCH) admits that uncertainty is now a way of life. With merger talks on between parent SmithKline Beecham and Glaxo, and rumours flying around about the sale of sbch's beverage brands to Hindustan Lever, it is bound to be. ''We have to recognise that global business decisions can affect us irrevocably,'' he says.
Other companies face problems of a different kind. Yesterday's blue-chip ICI India is saddled with great people, but little business. And the p2p-bug has infected most employees in weaker dotcoms with fears about going down with a sinking ship. Insecurity, claims Arunav Bannerji, 45, the head of Arthur Andersen's hr practice, is here to stay: ''Secure and stable careers have ceased to exist across industries.'' That's putting it mildly. An accurate diagnosis would include such career-threatening terms as compressed horizons, scarcity of vertical growth opportunities, and environmental ambiguity. There's a solution (there always is). Not from the organisational perspective; companies have enough problems of their own without having to worry about the careers of the people who work for them. The answer, suggests Himanshu Jani, 48, Director, hr, Hewlett Packard subsidiary Agilent Industries, lies in individual initiative: ''Employees should be willing to take charge of their careers and manage risks.'' Doing that won't be easy. But there are ways to avoid becoming roadkill. The oldest trick in the world: performance. Those who perform have nothing to fear. Companies are loath to lose their star employees and will do anything in their powers to retain them. ICI India has exited businesses like fertilisers, agro-chemicals, and fibres in the wake of its parent's withdrawal from them. Most managers from these businesses have left, or have been asked to leave. And those who remain, stresses Daljit Singh, 47, Executive Director, hr, have to constantly prove themselves: ''People have to perform to retain their jobs; we have twice-a-year performance reviews.'' Performance also increases an employee's mobility. Thus, Haresh Chawla made a disastrous career shift to ABCL from HCL and was among the last ones to leave the company. He moved to times-FM, where in eight months he worked wonders with times Music, making it a Rs 8-crore brand in less than a year. His glittering performance record landed him the dream placement of CEO, CNBC India, in December, 1999. Hedging bets across industries. Variety is definitely in. A lifetime in one industry is out. Employees can, thus, lessen their career risk by being open to an industry-shift. Conversely, employees with experience across industries stand less chance of finding themselves at a dead-end than those without. Sumer Dutta, 37, the CEO of hr consulting firm Noble & Hewitt, says he looks only for people with experience across industries: ''If I am recruiting for an FMCG firm, I consciously widen the net beyond FMCG companies, in the hope that the manager will bring in fresh perspective and skills to the assignment.'' Adds Aadesh Goyal, 37, Executive Vice-President, Hughes Software Systems: ''Usually people who change, learn with every new assignment and are not necessarily unstable.'' The only caveat: like Jagdeep Khandpur, the head of hr at old-e major bilt, who left to join Bharti Televentures in 2000, people who switch industries to abate career risk will do well to move to a happening sector. Seeking out learning opportunities. Some companies help employees hone and refine their skills. Other don't believe in doing so. Those employees who manage to add value to their CVs-with or without their organisation's support-will discover that career threats pass them by quietly. This value addition could take the form of functional expertise in an area other than the employee's existing function. Or it could take the form of a working knowledge of an emerging area (like e-commerce). Indeed, most software jocks are highly mobile simply because they insist that every assignment be different from the previous one. Developing the right attitude. What's my designation? What's my role? Who do I report to? Where do I stand in the organisational hierarchy? These are just some of the questions that could ensure that a career comes to a quick and painful end. Preety Kumar, 38, the head of hr consulting firm Amrop, has a ready list of desired qualities in an employee: high energy, a mind-set attuned to problem solving, the ability to learn, the willingness to empower others and take risks, and the flexibility to move across functions and industries. ''Most 40-plus managers, despite their glittering career graphs, do not display this in interview situations,'' says Kumar. And that comes in the way of their careers. Courting growth, straight and lateral. An obsession with linear progression is a sure-fire recipe for disaster. Most companies boast lean, flat structures with little room at the top; there's enough room at the sides, though. And the better companies encourage lateral shifts. Citibank, for instance, sanctions these as long as the employee manages to get his or her immediate supervisor to agree to it. HSS waives even that supervisory approval, if the employee in question has been with the company for a period exceeding a year. Avers Nalin Miglani, 41, vice-president, hr, Coca-Cola: ''Lateral moves are part of our career development plans, but only if it is going to help the concerned employee and the company.'' Not surprisingly, it is easier for companies to find the room to accommodate someone who is willing to make a lateral move, than someone who is insistent on a vertical progression. Creating a safety net. Remember, this is India; thus, there is no social security net that can protect people who have lost their jobs. The smarter employees negotiate risk-premia in one form or another at the time of signing on-severance packages, sign-off bonuses, stock options, and small but significant things like retaining the company car, or staying on in the company-provided accommodation for a few months. Companies, claims Mahendra Swarup, 45, Executive Director, hr, PepsiCo India, are increasingly becoming willing to pay this premium: ''Careers today are far shorter and fraught with risks. Companies must offer risk management options in wealth-creation facilities to compensate, without thinking of market equity or internal parity.'' Looking for opportunities without. Life doesn't begin or end with the organisation; careers aren't necessarily linked to companies. There's a world of opportunities out there for anyone who is willing to be a portfolio worker and juggle several assignments across organisations. Companies too are increasingly becoming open to the idea of hiring super-specialists to work on a particular job. Those employees prepared to take the drastic step outside the corporate domain will never have to worry about career-risks. Resisting peer pressure. A career, like sexual-preference or religious denomination is a very personal thing. Employees, especially those in industries with high attrition rates like software leave because their peers are moving on. ''They feel insecure if they don't leave,'' explains Goyal of HSS. The result? These people move from one job to another, without really adding anything to their market value. And when things go bad, these employees are the first to be axed. If you do all this and still find the end of career staring you in the face for no fault of your own, blame it on bad karma. And go back and read the first line of this article again. |
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