Managing: Sultans Of Swing

MANAGING
Sultans Of Swing

Quiz-and theatre-clubs are passé in India Inc. Rock bands and rowing teams are in.

By Vinod Mahanta

Satyam Infoway's rowing team practices for two hours a day under the watchful eyes of a company-sponsored coach.

It's a Friday evening at one of Bangalore's most happening hip-hop dives, TGIF. The place is cramped with the weekend party crowd; everyone's downing ultimates, generous servings of cocktails that come in huge goblets; and the music never stops. Ah, the music-this evening it's a live band that seems caught in engineering-school limbo. You know the kind; earnest sorts who think the world of Floyd, Dire Straits, and The Doors. And yes, they do play Hotel C. The crowd doesn't seem to mind. What it can hear over the infernal din, it actually likes. And so, the band keeps playing on...

Only this isn't a jug band scratching around to earn a few bucks while waiting for that big gig. The band members are all under 25-that explains their repertoire-and they are all stock option holding employees of city-and Seattle-based, Talisma.

Lead singer Veeda is a code jock, lead guitarist Oscar is a marketing manager, and the others are either from the customer relations or the hr function of the company. They're not at TGIF for the money; they do it for sheer fun.

Saturday morning, at the hallowed and slightly malodorous premises of the Madras Boat Club, a few hundred kilometres away from where the previous evenings revelers at TGIF are in phase II of their sleep cycle, a team of seven men and two women are really pulling their oars.

The rowers are all Satyam Infoway employees; they meet at the club every morning at 6.30 for two hours of training under the watchful eyes of a company-sponsored coach. Last year, the team came fourth in the annual Merchants and Bankers Winter Regatta held by the club.

Quiz- and theatre-clubs are passé in India Inc. Rock bands, rock climbing clubs and rowing teams are in, and it is happening first in India's dot- and code-coms. Bangalore's most famous software denizen, Infosys, has a band too. But Algorythms-that's its name-restricts its appearances to campus, maybe a function of the magnitude of audience it can attract on campus, a possible 4,500.

Members of the adventure club at Hughes Software's Gurgaon HQ are laying claim to the peculiar distinction of being part of the first all software engineer expedition to scale the Friendship Peak (height: 18,200 feet) in the Himalayas.

Companies have good reason to foster these activities. ''There's a need for people to get out of their cubicles and 'play' together as a team, in much the same way they work'', says Hema Ravichandar, Senior Vice-President (hr), at Infosys.

In new-e hr-lingo, it's all about high-touch and bonding. ''The camaraderie is great,'' gushes Kiruba Shankar, a project manager at Satyam who is part of the rowing team. ''And since we have to strategise the same as we do at work, it reflects the work culture.'' There's more: Shankar believes a sport like rowing helps build networks, like the one he has managed to build with other corporate teams that row at the club.

All of this fits in with the broad demographic profile of the employees at the tech-companies listed above. ''More than 75 per cent of our staff is single'', explains Aadesh Goyal, the head of hr at Hughes Software. ''They have little to do outside work. But they have a lot of energy and desire in them and it is up to us to channelise this.'' Besides, given the kind of hours they keep, most 24x7 professionals (they could belong to a range of professions from investment banking to market research to web-designing), find it difficult to find friends outside work.

It isn't all one-way though. For employees, these activities serve as avenues to prolong the campus-trip, the best years of their lives. Ever wonder why every tech company worth its name, including the big-daddy of them all at Redmond chooses to call its facility a campus?

"These activities help us let off steam,'' chuckles Suma Subramaniam, Infosys' keyboard player. The reference may be to the head-banging genre of music generally popular with techies, but she's not telling.

Most old world companies do have recreational facilities for their employees, especially in out-of-the-way locations where factories are invariably located. And execs getting together for a round of tennis, or golf isn't all that rare.

What sets the rowers and the crooners (not to forget the mountaineers) apart is the sheer passion with which they approach the issue of fun. And what's new is the uncommon pastimes they pick on: parasailing, rock climbing, white water rafting and other such activities.

To raise every quibbler's favourite question, doesn't all this take a toll on work. Goyal of HSS claims it does the opposite. ''These activities increase energy. The members of our rock band are among the most productive of our employees; they're role models.'' Sid Vicious, they may not be, but they're having fun. Labour liberates...

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