Managing: Couple-conundrum

MANAGING
Couple-conundrum

Companies that have great faith in their systems, and couples that insist they can keep work and life distinct believe there's no harm in partners working for the same company.

By Mily Chakrabarty

SUJAY NAIK & MANISHA KADAGATHUR, GlaxoSmithKline: different departments; so how does it matter?

Ignore the common surname, Mathai-one with a fair representation in the telephone book-and P.M. Mathai, the General Manager, Corporate Engineering Services and Jaya Mathai, the Senior Manager in-charge of National Medical Promotion are just two among the 200 odd people who work in GlaxoSmithKline's Gurgaon HQ. They greet each other when they meet in the corridors (of power), but there's nothing to show they are friends: Jaya has her own group of office-mates; so does P.M. Only, the two are more then friends; they're a couple.

Ajay and Anita Gupta share a surname because they are a couple and on the day fame, in the modest guise of a possible mention in this story, caught up with them, they weren't at work. Their 6-year old son was ill, and both parents had taken the day off to spend time with him. Ergo, the phone at the Gupta household is ringing off the hook. And irrespective of whether the call is for Ajay or Anita, the person at the other end of the line always asks to speak to the other before hanging up. These aren't well-meaning colleagues greeting their colleague's spouse; it's work. Ajay and Anita work for the same company, Hughes Software Systems. He is an assistant vice-president in the business development function, and she, the director, mobile networks.

Fine, the concept of couples in the workplace isn't new. But the attitude of companies to these 24-hour twosomes (they live together and work together) is.

KRITI & SANDIP WALIA,
The Oberoi, Delhi: at work everything is purely professional

Couples weren't always welcome at the workplace; in some companies, like Hindustan Lever and Electrolux, they still aren't. There's sound, if conventional, logic behind this. ''It may create a 'situation' in the department or the company,'' says Shantanu Banerjee who heads the hr function at Electrolux. Agrees Manjit Singh Lakhmana, Vice-President (Personnel), Bank of America: ''We do encourage couples to work together but it would be awkward if they are in the same function.''

Situation is an euphemism. What if a manager's manager is also his spouse? Or what if X, who heads a company's marketing department doesn't like the way y, who heads the manufacturing department treats z, who just happens to be married to X? And what about couples simply coming to work with loads of personal mental baggage? If your head is spinning, you know why some companies bailed out and decided that they would rather not have couples working for them.

Some couples too, prefer not to work for the same company. Santosh Desai, now the executive vice-president of McCann Erickson, and Vibha Desai, the head of O&M's Delhi office, met and got married while at FCB Ulka (then it was just Ulka). But once they moved up, they decided not to work for the same firm. ''It's comfortable not to work together at the same organisation, especially at the same level,'' says Santosh.

ANITA & AJAY GUPTA,
Hughes Software: when they move, they move together

The recent change in attitude can be attributed, in part, to the chronic insufficiency of talent. ''No company would like to lose talent just because someone has got married to a colleague,'' explains consultant Anita Ramachandran of Cerebrus Consultant. ''(Of course), this is more prevalent in the infotech industry where there is a (perennial) shortage of talent.'' It can be ascribed to the belief companies have in the ability of their systems and processes (manager-speak for how things work within organisations) to factor out personal preferences and biases. ''We do not have any problems with couples working for us,'' stresses Sujit Bakshi, Executive Vice-President (HRD), HCL Technologies: ''Our appraisal system is objective, and there is no scope for value judgement.'' And it can be credited to the faith couples have in their capacity to keep work and life distinct. ''The office is like a stage where we all don our professional faces; we can't project our personal lives there,'' says Kirti Walia, an Assistant Manager in-charge of training, at The Oberoi Centre for Learning and Development. Her husband Sandip works as Assistant Manager (Food & Beverages) at The Oberoi, Delhi.

P. Dwarkanath, the Head of HR at GSK, which has four couples working for it, agrees that several things could go wrong, but hastens to add that he and his company have never faced such a problem. That may well be because the husband and wife pairs at gsk work in different departments. And the high prevalence of couples in infotech companies begs the original question: what if the firm downsizes and both lose their jobs? Traditionalists believe all talk of professionalism and systems is merely an excuse for a company to backtrack on its earlier policy on couples. ''Total objectivity isn't possible when you are dealing with your spouse,'' says Banerjee of Electrolux. The jury will likely take some time over this one.

Issue Contents Write to us Subscription Syndication