A post COVID change in attitudes

Every year, a number of engineering school graduates join management trainee programs at various Indian companies. While the quality of the program varies there are some elements that are similar. There is an emphasis on getting one’s hands dirty. That means rolling up one’s sleeves, participating in the weekly maintenance activities and learning how to clean the grime off the machines. It also involves standing at work-stations and learning how to do repetitive activities. Organisations with a manufacturing and sales muscle offer the starry eyed graduates the chance to ride pillion (or even cycle) with the top sales distributors and visit shops to take orders for atta, soaps, detergents, cigarettes etc.

The objective of this program is to enable future boardroom honchos understand the following:

1. How businesses really operated and the gap that exists between theory and practice

2. Understand that an individual with a lesser educational qualification can learn how to operate million dollar machines/processes on the basis of grit, experience and native intelligence (or a sales executive who understands the pulse of the business can deliver a better top line than a veteran MBA)

3. Empathise the boredom that accumulates when a human being is engaged in repetitive work and the associated impact on human behaviour and motivation

4. Dignity of human labor

5. Reflect on (1) to (4) to drive innovations

The two month lockdown in India would have resulted in its vast middle class appreciating the leverage and value that is created by their domestic helps. I happened to come across a tweet somewhere which mentioned how mops were selling like hot cakes because the traditional method of wiping floors were deemed high effort. I hope that this lockdown serves as our very own trainee stint and results in improvements in wages, benefits and working conditions for the didis/kakas/maushis when they return. And hopefully it enables us to recognise them as service professionals who deserve gratitude and respect.