Learning the ABC of Office Etiquettes

Until I joined my first job, I always used to think that the phrase “Change is must” is meant to be applied only to older people. I felt strongly that older people resist change unlike their younger counterpart.

As a young man of 22, who just came out successfully from a professional qualification, I was just glad to be selected by a reputed company. All seemed great and I felt that am made for great things. It felt as if, my burdened and bonded life was now free to be lived. It was my first day in office and I was inducted by the HR department. There were few persons who have joined like me. We were told that we would undergo training for next 1 week after which we would be posted in one of the divisons.The first day was meant for introduction and joining formalities. We all were bubbling with enthusiasm and keen to kick start.

Next day we assembled at the training hall and were in for a surprise. We all were told that the week-long training is held to inform us about the Office Etiquettes, policies and procedures. We were told that it is important that an office moves as one. Towards this, uniformity and ethics are necessary. I mentally rejected all these restrictions, which were placed on us in terms of dress code, communicating effectively, arriving in time, greetings etc.The training sessions got over and we all left with relieved faces, looking forward to our work

I was chosen to work for finance division and introduced to 6 people, who were to be my juniors. Of these, the oldest employee was 55 years old followed by 3 middle aged persons and 2 employees in their 20’s. My immediate step was to call up the group and tell them that am going to be their boss and they would be reporting to me henceforth.

My cold attitude towards the older employees was received with a much colder response. The 55 year old employee started telling me that “my experience is more than your age” and I used to ridicule him for still being my junior. I started providing more independence to the younger staff that I considered would be more enthusiastic and energetic. I never heeded to advice of certain elder people in my office, who were very understanding and nice to me. I was very proud of running my office in my own style with flexi timing, putting more responsibility on younger employees, cold attitude towards older employee etc.

One day I was informed by my department head that my team had underperformed and many personal complaints are noted against me. I was asked to set things right in a month’s time. I came to understand that my cold treatment to the 55 year old employee has resulted in drop in performance as he was the most efficient of all

I recalled my training books on office etiquettes and discussed this issue over with some well-wishers. The first step I did, was to call up the 55 year old employee and apologized for my indifferent attitude towards him and promised to be a good boss henceforth. Second amend I brought into my work life was to arrive before time into office. This not only earned me respect from my juniors, it also allowed me to plan my day’s work, well in advance and review works of staff. This further led to control and efficiency. The third and most important amend I brought into was to greet each and every employee with a smile. When I left my office for career reasons after 1 year, I was taken for a treat by all my juniors and when they spoke about me highly, I really saw the importance of etiquettes.

From then on, I had learnt to analyze my shortcomings and realized that change is a continuous phenomenon which is applicable to each and every individual, in each different situation faced in your work life. One who learns to deal with it at the most appropriate time gets along successfully?

Role of HR Department in Retaining Employees

Come March/April and we hear that so and so employee left so and so company!

It seems that it is now becoming an accepted trend, more so March being the financial year end and appraisal time for employees. While the increasing employee turnover may seem high in specialized service sector like Information technology, Consulting etc it is not negligible in other industries.

Many onlookers may reject this trend but it keeps any HR department on its toes and could pose serious issue for any organization. It is sad to note that in most cases HR department acts as mere extension of the legal department of the company e.g., documenting the reasons for resignation, ensuring that there is no litigation with regard to settlement and notice period etc.

HR department assumes a significant independent role in an organization and should ensure that it arrest or reduce the trend of resignations.

Handhold new employee

A key role which needs to be played by HR department at the time a new employee joins is to ensure that he is provided with a brief introduction to company, people who matter, policies and procedures etc.A full day PowerPoint presentation is welcome suggestion. Sending a flower bouquet to a new employee immediately prior to his joining would mean a lot and act wonders.

Introduction to the work atmosphere

Mostly HR department send “intro-mail” followed by joining of employee and we do not hear any more. A nicer gesture would be to ensure that the employee is taken for a “personal introduction rounds” to each and every department and person.HR department should also ensure that employees are provided with his arms and ammunition such as computer, stationeries, other accessories, important telephone numbers, logins, etc, to get going on his day of joining in smooth coordination with the admin department.

Grievance Redressal

Unaddressed grievances bore seed into the mind and if not addressed in time grows into a huge tree of dissatisfaction. HR department generally never communicates with the employees once he has joined and leaves him high and dry to cop up on his own. The saying “Any relation which lacks attention leads to separation” aptly applies to HR-employee relation. A “feel at home” atmosphere should be in place whereby any employee grievance is followed by prompt response.

Continuous relation and seamless coordination

HR department should play an arterial role in any organization reaching out to each and every employee’s right from the top to bottom with an unbiased approach. Employee achievements should be regularly highlighted and important personal occasion should be gladly shared across the organization. HR department should conduct a regular employee surveys and soft skills training to assess the degree of employee grievance and provide adequate tonic.

HR department should work hand in hand with the line managers whom the employees are reporting to in terms of feeling the pulse of employees. An informal attitude from HR department is a most suitable way to reach out widely and would give them universal acceptance.

We note that most companies have a robust 3 way or 4 way appraisal system in place which ensures that an employee is evaluated on a independent manner with respects to his technical and soft skills from more than one resource. It is seen that even these processes fail to fully provide an effective result since the independency of appraisal is marred by influence of immediate supervisor and this process is more subjective.HR department should play important role during such appraisal by ensuring a more objective analysis of the whole process and presenting independent reports.

Learning from exit processes

Most of the resignations are not reversed since chances of bridging the gap become impossible.HR should ensure that necessary mechanism is in place to document reasons. HR jobs become more crucial since most employees may not register the complaints/grievance in the exit interview or forms fearing that doing so would affect his future career prospect such as relieving letter etc.Employees should be assured at the highest level about the independence, autonomy and unbiased approach of HR. Communication of an important action taken based on employee input may infact be a good tool to get back good employees.

Summary

The need of the hour for any company is to have a proactive and independent HR department which is not only neutral in its role but also ensures confidential atmosphere which allows the employee to frequently interact with them. HR department should not only coordinate with the employees whilst they join or leave but work seamlessly and continuously in shaping the roles of employees within an organization.

Autobiography of an Actor - Sivaji Ganesan

This book is a journey of Sivaji Ganesan, depicting various facets of his life and flowing with his early days unto his later years. The book starts with the brief of rich family lineage of the actor, set out in a background of pre-independence day. With a revolutionist father, who values the needs of the nation more than the family, his mother is left to fight for survival. The actor child definitely gets affected by this environment and through a "Therru_kuthu" which was a major way of funneling public opinion lands up in a drama troupe. He takes us through the various stages of his acting career, pre cinema and post cinema.
The days of his pre-cinema also coincides with the Dravidian movement, social movement and he comes under the shadow of great personalities. Even while showering his appreciation for the personalities and their thoughts the actor in him always raised high, from where he derived the meaning of living. This was evident also when he decided to stay put with acting and could not attend the last rites of his own brothers.
The days of his post cinema sees his meteoric rise as an actor par excellence. He narrates his close relation with the then contemporaries, who used him to achieve their political milieage.While he indicates that he was duped by people, he never blames a person in particular. He is also drawn into controversy and finds solace in the shadow of political leader"Kamaraj".He also touches on his family, favorite movies and co actors.
The book seems more to be an attempt from the near and dears of Sivaji convincing him to come out with an Autobiography. The book is written on a question and answer mode and author knows the actor well. A question and answer mode is very effective way and generates lots of audience interest.
The book attempts to note that Sivaji has always tried to avoid the various controversies which surrounded him. The fact that cinema was used as a medium by politicians in Tamilnadu to convey political message, an eminent actor like him was also not spared when he tried to stay aloof from him. This forced him to enter politics which he himself accepts as a bad attempt from his part. This book also shows his patriotic fervor. While he was moved by the likes of great atheist leader, Sivaji has summed up his God fearing nature. This book also portrays his generousness when he believes in something.
This book is a must read and will provide the readers with not only the growth of the south Indian cinema from its early days but also would provide the political climate of those days.

Education is Key to Development of India

For centuries the social order in India has instituted inequality among the people.Large majority of people were living in utter poverty, ignorance, and superstition and most of them had forgotten that they too were human beings and even had no desire to improve their lot. Like animals, they patiently suffered and bore without protest all the hardships, humiliations and neglect the society thrust on them. Education is key which can result in kindling the conscious of such people to set the realisation of the injustice and neglect to which they had been subjected for centuries and inspire them to rise and find their rightful place in the social order.While we have seen major strides in the improvement of education in India over the past few years which resulted in a great extent in bringing the downtrodden out of this situation, there still remains a long way to go.

The moot question which has been asked time and again is what extent of education is desirable.Before we start dwelling on this, one should understand what is education.In the golden words of Swami Vivekananda, "Education is the manifestation of the perfection already in man".He stated that all knowledge, spiritual and secular, is stored in the human mind, just as a huge banyan tree lies within a tiny seed. The function of the teacher is only to help that seed sprout and grow by offering suggestions. The relation between the teacher and the taught is therefore of utmost importance. There should be perfect understanding and mutual sympathy between Guru and Shisya.

Again the context of Guru here is not restricted to teachers or professors but to any person who helps in channelising the knowledge in right direction.One cannot say am educated and no more in need of a teacher. Education in real terms should drive away ignorance and assist one in differentiating between right and wrong doing.While knowledge leads to righteous action, often self and ego clouds even an educated mind.Hence humility should be observed at all times and learning should be a continuous process.


In summary any education which leads to virtues of humility and righteouness will always result in instituting justice and ultimately lead to development of country.If each and every corporate house in India accepts to educate one village, it can work wonders.I would like to end this article to appeal to each and every Indian to join hands with NGOs like IDF which are striving hard to assist the Government and India in realising its dream of education, health and development.I would request you to visit attached link and contribute your might in development of India.

http://indiandevelopmentfoundation.blogspot.com/2007/07/educate-child-enrich-your-life.html

Pranayama- Yoga of better Living

Pranayama is Sanskrit word and is derived from the combination of words "Prana - air or life force" and "Ayama- control mechanism".Pranayama,in its literal sense means control mechanism of the flow of the life force in and out of human body.Old Indian author Patanjali considered father of Yoga has placed lots of relevance of Pranayama in our living.The basic principle employed by Pranayama is that all living beings are given certain number of life breaths during his life cycle.Hence it is important that each and every being utilises his share of life breaths in the most sensible manner to live life longer.To give real life example one can see that the life span of a tortoise averages 200 years as compared to Dog which averages 10-15 years.One can easily see the reason is the duration of the each breath in case of tortoise and dog.Hindus also believed in doctrine of "Food for Thought". Foods were classified as a) Sat''vik b) Rajo''tamik c) Tamasik.The classification was purely on the grounds of the thoughts effected by intake of such food.While Satvik Food consisting mostly of Fruits, herbds and certain vegetables, Rajo''tamik consisted of Brinjal, Drumstick,etc which leads to carnal pleasures and Tamasik included meat and other varities.The Brahmin and others even today practice Pranayama on their daily routine.The 5 major challenges which are faced by human beings today are 1) Lack of good food due to side effects of of food cultivation techniques employed such as insecticides, pesticides etc and non availabilitu of natual food supplmenet 2) Lack of sufficient Sleep 3) Pollution and other hazardous External environment 4) Lack of Positive thoughts leading to low productivity 5)Lack of physical exercising.Pranayama is supposed to relieve stres related disorders, breathing relaed disorders such as asthma,and reducing signs of oxidative stress.It also improves life expectancy provided proper amends are made into food intake.Yoga teachers recommend that pranayama techniques shoule be practiced under the guidance of a trained teacher. This article is only meant to educate the belief behind Pranayama techniques and certain benefits which can be derived from there.

VELLAI THERAI- Real LIfe of Actors behind the Reel

"Velli Therai" is a production of Prakash Raj promoted Duet Films.The movie depicts the real life of the stars of the "reel cinema". The Film revolves around 2 major charactes "Kannaiyan" and "Saravanan". Kannaiyan has been struggling to get into Tamil cinema for past 16 years and looking for a big break.He does not believe in small roles.His only aim in life is to make to the heigts in the film industry.Everybody is aware of this behaviour of Kannaiyan and always keep a distance from him.Saravanan on the other hand represents the young generations of directors who believes that film making is an art and acting is representation of the human behavious.In a film industry where scripts are written for hero, he wants the audience to get their rightful due.He has also been serving as assistant director and being in the field for last 10 years. He has been working hard to direct his own story which he has treasured for years.The film potrays how actors behind the scene struggle for a small role and then earn their living by other means.Mythili is an upcoming actress and is in love with Saravanan. We see the flip side of her life where she is ill treated by her brother for his material gain.We see various turn of events when Kannaiyan steals the script of Saravanan and registers it in his own name and gets a big ticket into cinema world as "Dilipkant".Unaware of this Saravanan tries to meet him to no avail.To his surprise he notes that his script is being used by Kannaiyan but he could not do much about this. On the one hand, we see that Saravanan is dejected but does not give up and other side Kanniayan is touching success after success.During this time Mythili is forced to marry Saravanan due to difficult circumstances from her brother and she is content to leave her illustrious career for his sake.Life shows a bitter side for them when Saravanan is rejected on grounds of being a celebrity''s husband.To make it easy Mythili walks out of his life and he is left moaning.Her prayers are answered and he is given a chance by a producer to do a film with Dilipkant(Kannaiyan). With kinds words from producer Saravanan decides to work with Kannaiyan by giving up his ego and submitting to the indulgenece of Dilipkant .Meantime Kannaiyan tries to sore the relations between Saravanan and Mythili by using her brother.When his plan do not work as expected he enexpectedly walks out of shooting when the movie is in final stage.He denies acting if Saravanan is going to direct the movie any further.The climax remains the most unexpected which was never witnessed earlier.Saravanan with the help of producer cerates a real life situation involving Kannaiyan and shoots the climax. The film is a huge succes.Kannaiyan accepts Saravanan''s talent and Mythili Saravanan reconcile.

As expected the role of Kannaiyan was superbly played by Prakash Raj, Prithviraj has once again proved his acting prowess and choice of movie, Gopika also did a good job. There were nice comedies from various other actors. The movie would appeal to anybody and is a welcome change at a time when too much of commercial cinemas are floating with sex and violence.Full marks to Mozhi team san Jyotika and we look forward to more and more good films.

Social Responsibility

"Social Responsibility" is a word which we keep hearing these days.What does this mean? Social Responsibility is an obligation towards your fellow living being who co-exist with you. It is a feeling which should prick when your growth is not matched with the growth of those around you. The question one often asks himself how can i contribute to the society at large as an single individual.It is often people say the large government machineries and legal system are available to take care of all- "Why me?".Whilst some may argue that i have tried to do this much and it did not yield result.Today when we look at our country only a hand few of us are privelged and brought up in a secured atmosphere.We take it for granted that this is a right provided to you by birth.Our country has a constitution which aims at providing equal growth oppurtunity to all.Politics have always been won post independence on the questions of inquality.The politicians have realised the inquality is a necessary tool to woo vote banks. Hence equality remains only in writing.Every literate person who is reading this article would say that we have heard enough of these but what should we do. To that my answer it that while ourGovernment iniatives projects, provide funds but same lack implementattion and overrun resulting in delay and the issue is worsened with dwindling of funds.However there are many NGOs which are working selflessly towards the social cause by acting as a link between the Government and people.Who are these NGOs, how are they working. If you look at them they are creation of people who felt they have social responsibility.When they can, why can''t other.

The first step would be to identify the larger cause which you would contribute.Today Health, Education and Development remains major concerns. In the words of an eminent humanitarian Dr.A.R.K.Pillai, President of Indian Development Foundation- "Life presents immense opportunities to advance self and others during the journey of life. Positive attitude is the key stone for all pursuits and we must plan and do things in pursuit of goals set by us. A large number of people suffer from poverty, ignorance, disease and adverse circumstances. Here lies an excellent opportunity to serve all those in distress and wipe out their tears. By doing so, we find God. Service to living beings is service to God.Knowledge holds the key for empowerment.We must progress by all means, but tune our minds to progress others as well. An educated and enlightened civil society is the best insurance against all odds. Our active interest can transform the world into a dream land. We can certainly win and sublimate our lives through this simple formula. Why postpone good things in life?"

THE SAGE OF KANCHI

His Holiness Shri Chandrashekarendra Saraswati Swamigal, the Sage of Kanchi is considered to be one of the greatest saints of India. To millions of devotees he was simply "Periyava" — the revered one or Maha-Periyava. "Periyava" in Tamil means a great person, and conveys endearment, reverence, and devotion. "Mahaswami" and "Paramacharya" are his other well-known appellations.Periyava was born on Sunday, 20 May 1894 under Anuradha star("Anusham Nakshatram"), according to the Hindu calendar, into a Kannadiga Smartha family in Villupuram, South Arcot District, Tamil Nadu. He was the second son of Sri Subramaniya Sastrigal, a District Education Officer. The child was named Swaminathan, after the family deity, Lord Swaminatha of Swamimalai, near Kumbakonam. As a child he was an exceptional student and excelled in several subjects.He has received a proficiency prize for the recitation of "Holy Bible" in the Christian Missionaries School he studied.During the childhood of the Acharya, his father consulted an astrologer, who upon studying the boy's horoscope is said to have been so stunned that he prostrated himself before the boy exclaiming that "One day the whole world will fall at his feet." During 1907, then presiding acharya (66th) of Kanchi Kamakoti Peetam attained Samadhi and instructed his disciple Lakshminathan, be installed as the 67th Peetathipathi. Lakshminathan happens to be the elder cousin of Swaminathan.Unaware of his huge responsibility which awaited him, swaminathan and his mother set out to attend the "Pattabhisegam" of his cousin and also to console the mother of Lakshminathan as he happended to be her only child.The boy later learnt that he was never to come back from kanchi.The 67th acharya developed a delirium and subsequently took samadhi after reigning for mere 7 days.Hence swaminathan was chosen as the 68th acharya and his Pattabhisegam was done on February 13, 1907.At the tender age of 13 years the boy was put under a herculean task. The young Acharya spent several years in the study of the scriptures and dharma shastras, and acquainted himself with his role as the Head of the Math.He soon gained the reverence and respect of the devotees and people around him. Maha-Periyava was the head of the Mutt for eighty-seven years. During this period, the Sri Kanchi Kamakoti Pitam acquired new strength as an institution that propagated Śankara's teachings. The devotion, fervour, and intensity with which the Paramacharya practiced what Śankara had taught are considered to be unparalleled by his devotees. Throughout his life, the focus of his concern and activities was rejuvenating Veda adhyayana, the Dharma Sasthras, and the age-old tradition, which had suffered decline. "Veda rakshanam" was his very life breath, and he referred to this in most of his talks.Remaining active throughout his life, the sage of Kanchi twice undertook pilgrimages on foot from Rameshwaram in the far south of the Indian peninsula to Benares in the North.Providing support through Veda Patashalas (schools teaching Vedic lore) through the Veda Rakshana Nidhi which he founded and honouring Vedic scholars, he reinvigorated Vedic studies in India. He organised regular sabhas ('conferences') which included discussions on arts and culture — these led to a renewed interest in Vedic religion, Dharma sasthras, and theSanskrit language. His long tenure as Pitadhipathi is considered by many to have been the Golden Era of the Kanchi Kamakoti Peetham.Periyava has been a guide to millions, always stressing the importance of a Guru in one's life. He has repeatedly preached about the importance of following the Dharmic path. His various discourses are available in a pack of six books called 'Deivathin Kural' (Voice of the Divine) which have been compiled by R. Ganapathi, a devotee of Periyava
His teachings are simple and easy to follow. He says "Shed egoism, Show love to others. Serve humanity. Have compassion for the poor and the needy, Service to humanity is the greatest religion". There are several instances of miracles, the happy fruits of which have been experienced by devotees. His aim was always to see a smile on the faces of the suffering.
He attained Mahasamadhi in 1994, when he was succeeded by His Holiness Sri Jayendra Saraswati. The above account is an attempt to give an introduction of Mahaswami and is meant to nurture more and more articles and comments on Periyava.

The following links would be useful- http://kamakoti.org/

Review of INDIA-A History

Anyone who does not have an inclination for history, would at the first hindsight reject this book, as just another book which stuff pages after pages about history of India starting from the age old human civilization, moving towards various dynasties, freedom struggle and then to present India. However one needs to also know the background of the author, who is a prolific writer and historian who is known for his fascination for South Asia and more particularly India. He has authored close to 20 novels and most of them are based on South Asia.
History of India has always been an area of interest for onlookers. While it is established that India is a nation in existence for time immemorial, there always hinges a doubt due to non availability of sufficient historic evidences. Hindus have always maintained a lot of secrecy about their texts and generations after generations have passed on the secrets of traditions in the most basic form which focused on oral communication rather than universally accepted written format. India being a spiritual country posed another problem in this regard. Hindu religion teaches that "Deeds are more important than the Doer". This was very evident when large scale engineering marvels did not carry the inscriptions of the details of the Kings of that time. They did however give a generic representation of the economy of the day in art form and mythological figures were given more representations. Another bottleneck was the diverse existence of mutli-cultural, mutli-location, multi-language people who hardly interacted except for few classes such as saints, nomads and businessmen. Of these while the saints never bothered about worldly happenings, the other 2 classes were not adept in expressing themselves always. This lead to a distorted and biased version of the history, which was influenced by the vibes of the rulers and kings of the day. India would always remain an unresolved story, due to lack of evidence, more and more literature is bound to come out to provide a link to events from day 1 to what it is today.

The author notes that during the last 2 centuries, Archaeology played an important role of a time machine which gave us glimpses of our old civilisation.It also played its part in India. The author narrates how the finding of old civilization like Harrapan brought acceptance for India until which time, the depicted picture was that it was land of maharaja bogged down by worst of social evil and place of Hindus whose sacred books do not make any sense. The findings of the Stupas-inscribings by King Asoka whereby he explained in detail the days of his rule was a major solace to India''s claim of ancientness.
The author employs an interrogative approach to incidents and at times outrightly rejects anything which does not make sense. While praising Indian’s engineering excellence he has also condemned the lack of unity. However his efforts to collect corroborative and authoritative evidence from likes of Archaeological Society of India, British Museum and likes are appreciated. The author has also employed the Max Muller theory of Aryan-Dravidian, which remains a controversial theory. However one could not have done better due to lack of a better theory. The author has done something which earlier books did not do so well. He has tried to create a bridge linking Mythological stories, substantiated wherever possible by Archeological findings, resultant being sequential events of India from the days of Manu to days to Gandhi.

This book is a must reading for historians and suggested reading for every Indian, tourists and anybody who wants to know more about India.

What is The Purpose?

When a man comes into this world, his smile makes everybody happy. As a child he cannot speak but everybody is willing to listen. Everybody follows his each and every action with curiosity but cannot understand him.

A child grows up to be a boy and slowly learns to get going with this world. Its action and thoughts are not more independent. A heavy impression is created by parents, elders and teachers with whom the boy mixes. He learns to say something while thinking something else.

The boy becomes a man as time passes by. Now he is neither selfless nor dependent. His true self is lost and he does not listen to him. He is busy racing against time to acquire all the worldly pleasures and has no time for looking at himself or his children.

Time wins and before he realizes it, the man is old. His children think that he is outdated and his grandchildren are too young to understand him. How much he wants to tell them all, the purpose of being in this world but nobody listens.He says to himself - It is too late - “What Is the Purpose"?