Corporate life conundrum!

For most of the newbies corporate life is full of fretfulness. It is tough most of the time to figure out things – whether it is salutatory or valedictory. One of my cousin Saanvi lately joined a start-up company. She was thrilled on receiving an enticing job offer from a small sized creative industry, on the top of that she was more stunned with the role they extended in digital marketing segment. The news brought joy within the family members and relatives, I was truly glad seeing her succeed.

Coming from similar background, we understand each other very well. She never feels reluctant to share any of her problems or dilemmas. She precisely shared all incidents which really bothered her from the day one of her job, trusting me with a valuable suggestion.

Joining day was very confusing for her as she was unable to figure out anything, reason being totally in a different world. Though, she was in contentment seeing the cool working culture, amicable colleagues, flat-hierarchy corporate structure, this is in contradiction to her assumptions and what she heard all along about the corporate world, to her it felt like a picnic spot: free food, snacks, juice, coffee/tea etc. Some people were in shorts, while girls not being afraid of experimenting with their style quotient. She was in blissfulness considering that she had landed at the right place- her dream job. Finally she got a chance to demonstrate her credibility, now people would recognise her as self-dependent girl.

First day at work was very informative as she got to know many people from her department, then got a chance to learn about the company's formal guidelines, rules etc. Moreover, induction and meeting & getting day went well. It was a mix feel eagerness filled with edginess, somehow she sensed the epiphany. Gradually with time, she started getting acquainted to the organisation and its formal culture, befuddled sometimes although. They had a small team of 5 male and 3 female co-workers. It was effortless and easy initially but steadily her increasing deliverables got her involved more in the work, team and organisation. And in no time, it became hard for her to categorise what to follow or what not to follow – absolutely in a state of oblivious. Being a naive in the industry it was a struggling phase for her. Few things were in line with the company guidebook while others put her in enigmatic notion.

Despite having written mentioning of flexible official working hours, she was expected to come before her boss and leave only after her boss irrespective of her task completion status and prescribed working hours. If left early, she became a point of discussion which only fetched the stereotype thinking that female employees are not productive, they pursue job out of fashion only to gratify their self-esteem.

There are certain unwritten rules at work which indeed left her disgruntled, one of them being the leave consuetude. Although there are leave management systems which keeps track on your leaves and shows pending and availed leaves and clearly states that you are eligible to avail your balance in any manner. In contrast being eligible to consume your balance, practically your vacation or leave decision is entirely relies on your Manager. And you are not expected to take all leaves, if so you will fall under a category – you are least interested in job and learning. Taking frequent leaves can harm your attitude image.

Dress & makeup compliment: Being part of the creative industry, it was always expected to follow trends and behave like a fashionista. But in turn getting unwanted suggestions or feedback on her looks, dress or make-up made her feel suffocated. Vogue was kind of invisible competition among not only female employees but also male counterparts. Nevertheless her obstinate determination to focus on work avoiding all distractions yielded desired result. Within 5 months of her tenure she was asked to lead a small project due to her handwork and perseverance.

Out of respect when you mingle up with office workers: they start prying on you posing very personal question such as salary, age, relationship etc. which was totally against her philosophy to spread out her personal information with someone she hardly knows. At first it was very awkward for her to answer such questions, then when a time came where she did learn to answer in a subtle manner without having engaged in resentment. 

The brutal side of corporate life is that you are not expected to behave humanly (reflection of any human emotion would be considered as your weakness not strength). Are we humans designed this way? There are many articles, research papers on humanness at work, everywhere despite of all learning and practices we are still struggling with basic things such as work-life balance. Some say it is a myth, others believe it can be achieved one at a time. Our personal life directly influence our professional experience and vice-versa. We can't eliminate humane attributes totally and become a machine. And this humanness is the key distinctive critical characteristic which really helps in building a tremendous high performing team and fosters business result. 

There was that distressed instance which my sister narrated me with full angst, everywhere we can easily spot people who think they are very rational, but their brain is full of cliché and they are the believers of non-egalitarian society. The incident was like this, one of her male colleagues questioned her on salary and saving matter. Where he claimed women usually have less liabilities which means their salary directly goes to savings. Same colleague once said to her that she should be happy that she is getting equal package like her male colleagues. In fact he argued that she must not fight or negotiate about the appraisal and increment as she is unmarried- no responsibility as such in terms of family, and parents never keep hope on their daughter's salary. She could not stop herself challenging the stigma; she responded, “well you are right, I have no liabilities as no one is depending on my salary, it is also true that a big slice of my salary is going to my saving and investment accounts, still I deserve a good hike because salary is paid by looking our output of work not our requirement or liabilities. And if you have some time go through the company policies where it is clearly written company reserves the right of equal pay, and equal treatment to all its employees irrespective of caste, creed & gender’’.  

There are many challenges new employees face when they join their first company, sometimes they struggle to identify the unwritten rules of organisation, other times proving themselves beyond the stereotypes. I recently came across a relative of mine at a house party, who was mentioning how male managers feel discomfort mentoring young female employees as they fear people around them judging them. Some male managers believe doing a long hour meeting with your female colleagues will attract unnecessary criticism. My response was, why we create such impediments at work, if we can’t handle diversity and inclusion. We should not recruit diversified population only because of peer pressure (It is a market trend and other companies from the same industry are doing, we should do it) or bragging our robust cultural philosophy. There is not an iota of doubt we come across such narrow mind-set people who never help organisation to reach its zenith, and instead they contaminate the healthy environment. However, such issues ought to be reflected and resolved. 

To mitigate such challenges which is a hindrance in the way to achieve greatness, we can't take outsider help who understands nothing about the emotional health of organisation. Rather we should train or preach across the organisation level to bring such issues into the notice of the custodian of company culture – may be HR or a grievance committee. Being the part of organisation culture committee, they must protect work culture and enable amazing employee experience. There is no point in playing blame games over and again without a plausible panacea, as it is not going to do any good to the organisation or to the society. As a useful member of the community, we have responsibilities towards us as well as other's lives in our surroundings. People say if we are not doing good at least we should not do bad- it means doing nothing is acceptable, I never believe on this statement rather we should be accountable for things in our hand.

We as a responsible member of society, ought to take corrective measures rather than staying silent, to make our life purposeful or more meaningful. Here a spiritual leader comes to my mind, who dedicated himself encouraging and promoting a happy, peaceful society (human being and compassion) which will be worth living. May be we can't go that extreme to bring the drastic change, however small steps also helps in building a bridge, we all know the little squirrel story of Ramayana.