People power: The impact of emerging human values

Corporates in search of developing the cutting edge have experienced that it is the knowledge worker who has to be developed, trained and retained to survive in the wake of the opening up of the Indian economy, says Kesho Prasad The emerging values of humanism and humanisation coupled with the burgeoning focus on creativity, the autonomy, which people are acquiring progressively and the focus of supply and demand have forced CEOs to acknowledge people power. Moreover, peoples expectation is fast changing and they cannot be taken for granted. They have the motivation to work and are to be treated different from other resources. As such, the conventional approach of Personnel Management to people treating them as a resource, as unnecessary evils who can only be motivated through fear, punishment, money or comfort has undergone a sea change. Knowledge is the only meaningful resource today, said Peter F Drucker. An organisation is run through many resources like material, money, machines, land, building,capital, etc, and access to them is no longer limited. As access to people the most vital resource, is limited, they dictate the market forces of supply and demand, as they are knowledge workers. People being the most fragile, sensitive resources are also costly to maintain. An expenditure on them is an investment, for, this resource accelerates in values whereas the other resources depreciate over a period of time. Hence, the need to give greater importance to them. Being aware of their importance to the corporates in India, which is emerging as a mighty industrial order of the East, the new entrants to organisations look upon employment as an opportunity to test their knowledge and apply the same to the work situation. The CEO of Core Health Care opines that todays professionals have been much more demanding than their predecessors. These professionals have the potential to determine their own performance. The emerging trends of the new paradigm of business involving open market operations in the labour market, viz, free competition, total quality movement, mergers as well as alliances of Indian companies with known cash-rich MNCs, have prompted obliging CEOs to give special importance to people. Meeting the challenges of the business and trade with opening up of the Indian economy to the world and acquiring a higher share of the market is no longer an easy task. Corporates in the search for developing the cutting edge have experienced that it is the knowledge worker who has to be developed, trained and retained. The earlier view that the cost of labour in the country being comparatively low, cheap labour is an asset for Indian companies no longer holds good. Today skilled and trained labour is a costly factor of production. Indian companies need managers knowledge-workers who can bring knowledge and expertise into the business. The three strengths needed today for corporates to be effective, one, being innovative in market, two, developing originality of service and three, a deep understanding of needs of the customer, can be acquired through knowledge and that is the people.

According to the CEO of Mastek, real value addition is knowledge. We are moving towards a knowledgebased society. Management of the knowledge worker therefore is crucial. Organisations with vision to be world class entrepreneurs have to nurture knowledge workers, feels the CEO of Glaxo. This is absolutely necessary for two reasons namely, that the human resource has the potential to create competitive edge for the organisation but is it is a scarce resource. Further, significance is being attached to people since today it is the only resource which corporates are unable to transfer freely across national boundaries, which is a matter of necessity in todays business. Therefore, those corporates who operate as boundarlyless information, technology and capital, is an indication of how to do away with the old concepts of business at home. Thus these corporates are able to train and develop people of one nation to take up positions in the newly set up operations anywhere in the world. Success of such boundaryless corporates entirely depends upon the availability of local top class intellectual capital that which has accentuated the value of people and as such acquisition of the right talent has turned out to be crucial. Human beings, being the makers of knowledge juggernaut according to the CEO of Ester Industries, due to their expert knowledge will be able to deal with the diverse nature of functions of the entire corporate activities, leading to customer satisfaction. Earlier, this role was played by the corporates chief strategist, ie, the CEO and his top management team. This is the changing role of the knowledge worker. Since we know that contemporary CEOs prime concern of late is for customer satisfaction both internal and external customers, satisfying customers needs is an act, which involves leveraging knowledge of the organisations potential to provide satisfaction to the customer. This is to be done through the people who are the fountainhead of knowledge. Increasing importance of people therefore is due to the ever-increasing demands of the customers. All corporate strengths depend upon the people, according to CEO of Godrej Soaps. Thus, it is the people who have the knowledge and can develop the competitive edge of any organisation. People thus are the centre piece of all organisational activities. This can be seen in Fig 3.1. People are also being valued more since they are the fountainhead of all winning concepts. New products are created by intensive and extensive planned research and development. Developing successful products is the product of knowledge deployed as a core competence of the corporate. In manufacturing operations too, the role of people is most vital due to use of high precision, high-tech equipment and machinery in shops. Today induction of CNC/NC machines and automation has revolutionised the industry and led to reduction in use of manpower. Individuals are to operate as part of an effective team and their contribution is crucial to the performance of the entire group/section. As such, success of a manufacturing organisation will depend not merely on its use of updated sophisticated technology but also what may be called the intrinsic way the people use the technology optimally and purposefully.

In the field of marketing, organisations are covering the clone products with layers of unique service in an effort to introduce novel and attractive types of customer satisfaction. But, the quality of the service component which is crucial for generating customer value is contingent upon the individual persons ability to deliver the same. Hence the need for a knowledge worker who has the capability to perform in the present day situation, is underlined. The organisations focus on customer satisfaction is further reinforced by the marketing professionals emphasis on developing a healthy relationship between the buyer and the organisation by offering different services. While service has progressively become the hallmark in the global economy, people are the more being looked upon as the most vital instrument for providing satisfaction to the customer.