Sparsh

Narayan Murthy still agrees that the worst day in his live was the day wen he had to let go Phaneesh Murthy, head (worldwide sales and marketing) and widely expected to succeed NRN, because of a sexual harassment litigation .If a love contract had been at place could this have been avoided? I don’t think so because this is exactly one of those circumstances that Sushma has pointed out, an instance where the parties ,if at all involved in some relationship, didn’t come out in the open with it.

There could be multiple such instances and if the HR starts keeping a tab on all such mundane things, the only people getting happy would be B-school grads because this would create demand for a lot of HR people. Then the day is not far when we would be having a dedicated department to keep an eye on who is dating whom, who broke up, what are the considerations for the organizations and what not.

Though it was the Company’s discretion however which way they wanted their HR function to move, what inherently went wrong out here was the way in which signing of this contract was made a criteria for the promotion .And also The GM HR categorically asks Pritam to sign the agreement first and read it later.A look at the contract and we can see how favourably tilted it is for the organization, it is totally left of to the discretion of Intermediaries Technologies to fire either or both of them if it finds their job efficacy not up to the mark, a subjective matter altogether. We all know when two parties come to a contract apprehensive and having no trust on one another the relationship is doomed from the start. So how can employee trust be retained when the HR policies, which are there to bridge this gap, play an equal part in this game of cat and mouse.

Sweta makes mention of ASHI at Infosys, which is great as long as people use it efficiently, but then a policy is as good as its interpretation. Pretty recently one of my project managers used the policy to harass my onsite lead just because he wasn’t playing to his beats. Though my lead somehow managed to salvage him, it is not exactly the case with everyone else. The interpretations vary from person to person and so do the reactions. There have been instances where people have got stern warnings from HR just for holding hands and why? Because someone found it offensive .While kissing could be considered PDA by some people, others take offence to activities like holding hands .The next thing we know companies coming up with contracts defining the exact acts which would constitute PDA.

As pointed out by AYAN, having contracts for each and everything on this planet doesn’t serve the purpose, what we need is a management which is permeable to employee feelings and gives them enough space and freedom to behave as mature adults. It is only when they know that the management and the company cares for them they tend to behave in a way which is beneficial to both. So the management can gain much by not being another brick in he wall, as said by Amit.

P.S: Has anyone heard of something called a Hate contract, for people who can’t stand the sight of each other but have to work together as a team.