Grapevine during appraisals

The idea of this article came to my mind few minutes back. Whenever there is an appraisal time in any organizations, grapevine starts floating among the employees. But what is grapevine? In simple English, it means gossip spread by spoken communication. The originator of grapevine is mostly, unknown. But I feel sometimes, it is the management only who intentionally initiates grapevines within the organizations with some well planned and defined strategies.

Now days, in my team also, there are numerous grapevines. It might be because of the appraisal time that is there in my organization. But who cultivated them, no body knows. I am getting as many as grapevine news on daily basis from my sub-ordinates. Sometimes, I listen them carefully and sometimes I hear them only.

In one my previous organizations, where I worked, one of the greatest grapevines that I heard at the time of appraisal was that the financial position of the company is too bad (anyways it’s very general). But on top of it, there was a rumor spread across all the groups that the owner of the organization is selling his property to pay the compensations to all the existing employees. So how come, the salaries can be raised at this time. But after 2 months, the fog became clear and all the employees got a decent amount of increment.

There are some advantages of injecting grapevines among the employees by any organization’s management. Some of them are

• It is not expensive.
• It is rapid.
• It is multidirectional.
• If carefully cultivated, it is capable of resolving conflicts.
• It a very simple measure of public opinion.
• It serves as an outlet for anxieties, worries, and frustration.
• It promotes unity and solidarity.
• It is voluntary and unforced.

Universal law, if there are advantages, there must be disadvantages also. If the information from grapevine is blindly accepted, it may cause severe problems i.e.

• It may reveal some degree of error.
• It might be harmful in case it is baseless or imaginary.
• It leads to misunderstanding because of incomplete information.
• It may not be reliable, as nobody takes the responsibility of it.
• It can cause damage to the organization because of its excessive swiftness at times. I mean, baseless rumors that are not clarified in time, will be accepted as truth causing a negative impact.

But most of the organizations are very smartly using this technique. They are not ignoring information received through the grapevine. They are not using this channel to supplement the formal channel. Smart organizations identify but not threaten the main source of information. Smart HR management always tries to understand the human relationship involved in grapevine.

This year, the grapevine market is very hot. There are numerous rumors spread across the nations, organizations worldwide. This might be because of the global slowdown in the market. But organizations are making money like anything in this current scenario.

Recently, I attended a seminar organized by a very reputed Indian firm and lead by a very well known person. It was an eye opener for me where I came to know of how the organizations are cultivating the grapevines and reaping money like anything in the recent times.

This year, as per the global HR consultancies say, India Inc is expected to increase salaries up to eight percent with infrastructure and FMCG sector likely to see the maximum hikes.

IT and financial services may be the worst hit. IT sector may see an average salary increase of four per cent this year. Financial services and Information Technology sectors, which have been severely impacted by the global slowdown, are unlikely to see any considerable increases in wages this year.

Big IT Giants like HCL, Infosys and Adobe are going to freeze pay this year as the recession crimps sales. I don’t know if this is a grapevine or not.

-- Sanat Sharma

Earth Day vs. April Fools' Day

Yesterday, when I was driving for my office, I suffered a major traffic jam in which I spent 1 hour. My car was standing like a Chinese showpiece, moving nowhere else. I was looking around and had noticed that 90% of the car drivers are single in their respective cars. They all were suffering like anything, because each one of them had to reach their respective work places as early as possible. In the meantime, some car drivers, or I would say some smart car drivers, thought something different. They started reversing their cars to jump on to the parallel lane for other side traffic. Only few of them succeeded but most of them created a chaos on the road. The situation was so deadly that both the traffic lanes jammed like anything and no one could be able to move a single inch from their respective places. Very soon, the place converted into a battle field with full of pollution and hot words discussions.

Suddenly, I switched on my radio and I came to know from a RJ that today we are celebrating “EARTH DAY”, which means we have to save the earth. The situation was too comic for me. There were two totally different thought processes going on, inside my car and outside my car. I was shocked first and then laugh at what is happening.

“Earth Day”, celebrated on 22^nd April, is a day designed to inspire awareness and appreciation for the Earth's environment. It all started from US and is celebrated in many countries every year. In India, this is the first time; I came to know something like this. This is very mirthful fact that we all are celebrating Earth Day to protect and save the environment and all this started from a country that is primarily responsible for Earth devastation.

3P is the major source of unbalancing in the world’s environment. 3P means – Poverty, Population and Pollution. And human being is the main focus for 3P. Ironically, we all are talking, like a philosopher, to save the Earth but are doing nothing to achieve the same. Doing small things, while our day to day activities, will contribute a major chunk in this huge initiation of “SAVE THE EARTH”.

We all are aware of April Fools' Day, which is a day celebrated in many countries on April 1. The day is marked by the commission of frauds and other practical jokes of varying sophistication on friends, family members, enemies, and neighbors, or sending them on a fool's errand, the aim of which is to embarrass the gullible.

In my opinion, “Earth Day” and “April Fools' Day” should be celebrated on the same day. Why? Let me tell you.

We all are throwing jokes on other side on April Fools' Day. And since we all are throwing jokes on Earth on our day to day activities, at least we should club Earth Day with April Fools' Day.

If we have to save the earth, every day should be EARTH DAY not a April Fools' Day.

Balance between two things is important here –

· Development and Environment

· Technology and Ecology

So, “THINK GLOBALY AND ACT LOCALLY.”

-- Sanat Sharma

Voice of India – Elections 09

This is the first time; I am covering something totally different which I have covered in the past in my blog site.

Elections are going to happen in India in the coming months. And now days, newspaper is full of entertaining news about the verbal fights happening between the politicians. How these politicians are reacting and giving speech is totally ridiculous. One of our PM candidates is trying his best to call the counter party PM candidate to come up with an open discussion about the current red hot topics of the world. But the second party, a dull party, is trying to save himself saying that I am a good PM but not good in discussions.

One of the election manifestos of a party is saying that they will remove English and computers from the country, if they came into the power. I pray to God that this should not happen.

One of a Bollywood (Hindi Film Industry) superstar tried to become a MP candidate from a particular constituency. But court refused to do him so because of his excellent past terrorism experience. But now, that guy is behaving like a Joker in all the rallies of that party, saying whatever, which is totally senseless. Please note that this superstar is one of my favorite’s actors.

One of a Bollywood superstar is attending the political rallies to assemble more number of people in it. Now no one is interested about what the leader is saying but only in watching, touching and praising the superstar. And on top of it, that actor is behaving like a complete joker with no knowledge of why he came there. Only money speaks.

One of a national leader, a very strong, commented about the age of a particular party and said that the party is enough old not to rule the country. After that the comedy started. The so called "Old Party" top leaders started mentioning their ages saying that we are enough young. In the meanwhile, one leader said that we should throw all the old age politicians into the sea.

One of a leader said that he wants to run a road roller on to the chest of another leader. On the other side, one leader (Male) said to another leader (Female) that she is "Pathher ke Sanam" that means a "Hard Rocked Darling".

One of a leader said in a political rally that he will kill the counter party leader. Then suddenly, he reframed his words and said that he will politically kill her.

We all know that no party will get the sufficient majority to form a government in this election. After the election results, money game will start and the party with more money will form the government. I am thinking why I should vote if I already know that there will be a hang assembly coming up.

-- Sanat Sharma