LOOK AFTER YOUR MEN WELL

Management theorists have been groping on one critical issue of managing “men” effectively even today, some twelve decades after the first Management Degree was rolled out at Amos Tuck University of United States of America. In fact, it is management of men that effective management is all about. Therefore, the biggest question that still haunts the theoreticians and practitioners alike is how to do this, which is, managing men effectively, women included. In the aeons of history of management theory Fredrick Winslow Taylor is a name that finds mention as “the Father of Scientific Management”. Incidentally, the crux of his scientific management veered around just one question — how to motivate people for higher productivity. He of course had his own ideas that were based on economic rationality of human nature. He assumed that human beings were cold and calculative and their key concern always revolved around economic interests. Later theorists, particularly those led by psychologist Elton Mayo, found this idea unpalatable and they could prove this in their famous Hawthorne Studies, thus laying the foundations of Human Relations Movement. Theories galore since then have been propounded suggesting that more than economics it is the emotions that matter. And to whatever extent economics matters is also for emotional satisfaction. But this fact notwithstanding, most managers, somehow, still can’t distance themselves from Taylorism and it won’t be wrong to call them diehard Taylorists. However, these Taylorists seem to forget that human beings are more irrational than rational and nowadays even the cold and calculative science of economics realises this reality, calling this emerging science as “Behavioural Economics”. It was precisely for this reason that in the traditional Personnel Management literature one of the key operative functions of the personnel manager was Separation, the others being Procurement, Integration, Compensation, Development and Maintenance. Separation function was based on a basic premise that after using or rather exploiting the human resource to the greatest possible extent it is obligatory on the part of the employer to ensure that the retirement package takes care of the superannuating employee well. You have taken this all important human resource from the society and used it to your advantage and now it is your responsibility to ensure that they go back to the society in a decent and liveable condition. Is it not rather strange that organisations and enterprises that boast so much about corporate social responsibility do precious little for their own retiring employees? Charity begins at home. The unfortunate part is that even the governments that were once supposed to be model employers are now subscribing to the there-are-no-free-lunches philosophy and denying pensionary benefits to most of their employees on one pretext or another. Interestingly, there is a blue-eyed clan that enjoys this benefit making rules for itself different than those from others. Had there been no free lunches, families would not be rearing children. Rather than picking up cues from the Western value system, we need to learn from the Japanese ideals. Even our traditional Indian value system was quite rich and noble. Even in the Ramayana, there are indications as to how to treat people. Lord Rama, while advising his younger brother Shatrughana when the latter is going to fight demon Lavanasura, categorically states the importance of looking after his men well. This signal contribution to the modern HR philosophy cannot be overlooked, Western ideas notwithstanding.