Behind the glory - five times the salary his dad would have retired on perhaps - the relentless grind is getting worse for today's software professional. Long hours, maddening demands and draining deadlines are taking their toll, despite good HR practices by IT companies. Is India's most high-profile sector in not so good health?

FOR 31-year-old Harish, life begins and ends on Sundays. Rest of the week, he develops software applications for his company's US-based clients he has never seen.


An extended sleep, some TV, and lazing around in Mumbai's suburbs make the concept of weekend fun for this bachelor. For the next six days, he will get into his Nariman Point office by 9.30 a.m. — after an hour's train journey — and reach back his listless home when many would be watching Sex and the City.


He is not complaining though; he gets five times the salary his father had drawn when he retired. "But sometimes I feel I will soon break down and I can't take it anymore," Harish (name changed) confesses.


Many others in his profession are breaking down, by the way. The software and business process outsourcing (BPO) sectors are witnessing an increasing incidence of nervous breakdowns, back pain, hypertension and cervical spondylosis these days. So much so that Ayurveda companies and spiritual healers are now devising special packages for the IT industry.


Is India's most high-profile sector not in good `health'? Are our software professionals an exploited lot?


"Nobody works in a software firm for the customary eight hours. You put in an average of 10-12 hours a day," says one software engineer who doesn't want to be named. He too doesn't grudge his grinding work schedule.


"The culture of standing up and shouting simply doesn't exist in a software company," he says.


So take the workload in your stride, and find solace in the fat salary is the funda for people like him. Doesn't matter if you don't get time to spend it.


When it comes to BPO employees, well, life is a long spell of insomnia.


This is by no means to suggest that Indian software and BPO companies are money-minded sweatshops. The Indian IT industry has adopted perhaps the best HR practices and it does take care of its employees really well, besides paying fabulous salaries and other perks, which employees of other sectors envy. But it seems the inherent nature of the work, wherein project deadlines are sacrosanct, puts too much load on employees, even if they don't mind it. But problems crop up when your youthful exuberance wanes with each passing year. After all, life is not just about making money.


Companies are aware of this, but the cutthroat competition in the sector gives them no room to relax. On the one hand, companies compete with one another from their peer group to win an order. And on the other, they have to fight bigger firms that have more resources in hand.


When everything boils down to price, the lower you quote, the better your chances of winning a project. This means employees will have lesser time on hand to deliver.

In this article we shall be looking at how our attitude, and the attitude of those we seek to serve or to which we provide a service, can help or hinder our achievements.

I'm sure, like me, you have heard that "attitude is the essence of success". But whose attitude? Essentially in the financial services business, there are a number of parties involved. These can be summed up by identifying oneself as a ‘server’ or as one being served. For example, at the point of sale there is the client (being served) and the adviser (the server). In a training or supervisory situation the same roles apply. The trainer or supervisor is the server, and the delegate or trainee is the served.

Either party needs to control their own attitude. A negative attitude by either party can be very destructive. My own observations have led me to conclude that the person who is gripped by a negative attitude seeks to justify it, and such justification is seated in self-pity. Even when our own attitude is positive there is always someone who will try to drag us down to his or her level. An example of this would be where someone had a previously bad experience, or considered such requirements as a waste of time.

So, it is important to guard against being drawn into a destructive thought mode. Robert Schuller makes some valid points in his book, "Tough times never last but tough people do." In it he shows how to manage a problem positively. Why is it necessary to learn how to handle problems? - because everyone has them! The 'arriver' often has more problems than the 'striver'!! Great dreams of great dreamers are never fulfilled, they are transcended. Every problem has a limited time span. Every problem holds hidden opportunities. Every problem will change you. You won't be the same once the problem has been solved. You can choose what your problem will do to you. Although we can't control problems, we can control our reaction to them. If you can't resolve a problem, you can manage it. In the current climate of T&C requirements, can we afford to overlook the way that our attitude affects the process of preparing others to give financial advice?

There are a number of areas where improvements in attitude we make will have a beneficial effect on those we serve. Firstly, there is our appearance. A person who takes care and pride in their appearance is more likely to take care and pride in their work. It gives the right initial impression of one and helps others to feel confident in our presence.

Secondly, control. Creating an environment where others allow us to quickly and effectively move through the training or supervisory process. Being well organised and confident creates within the mind of others feelings of confidence and trust.

Thirdly, our conduct, where verbal consideration and courteous behaviour will be attractive to others.

Fourthly, motivation is important. A motivated person or group will become curious, involved, and hopefully imaginative enough to consider ideas and action. I can remember a time when someone challenged the need to ‘provide all these figures’ for a course he was on. I asked him to allow me to develop that part of the course and promised him that he would see that there was great value to him as he compared his activity figures with those of his colleagues. He accepted my ‘promise’ and when we came to that part of the programme, he became most interested, and in his own words learnt much that would enable him to improve his own performance.

Charlie Bell began his career flipping burgers at the Kingsford outlet of McDonald's in Sydney at a young age of just 15. He became Australia's youngest store manager by 19 and made it to the company's board of directors after 10 years. At 32, he was made the managing director of McDonald's Australia. In 2004 he was the first non American to be made the CEO of this America-based food chain. He left the company in May after being diagnosed with colorectal cancer which eventually ended his life in January 2005.
Bell is one amongst the numerous examples of people who have stuck to the same organisation and made it real big. This class stands apart from the rest of the crowd who are on a constant move and for whom change is synonymous with moving high. But is it so? Not in majority of the cases. If you study the successful career stories you will discover that the people who have made it to the top management levels in most of the organisations mostly are employees with a stable career history behind them.
At home in India, MS Banga did his BTech in mechanical engineering from Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi in 1975. From Delhi, he moved to Ahmedabad to study at the Indian Institute of Management . Soon after completing his MBA he joined HLL as a management trainee. He proved his worth and the company rewarded him amply by giving him three out of turn promotions through the late eighties.
He made it to the HLL board of directors at the age of 41.In November 1998, he moved to London for 16 months to work for Unilever UK. Here he learnt about the latest management trends and to familiarised himself with the various parts of the global Lever empire. It was like his grooming ground to make him competent enough to take over as the next chairman of Hindustan Lever. In 2000 he returned to India and took over as the CEO of HLL. A career in the same organisation, starting as a Management trainee and reaching the greatest height by becoming the CEO is an example how stability pays.
Job shifts, done mostly for short-term gains like earning more money and higher designations, can land you in a soup in a couple of years. Constant shifts can allow you to shoot high on these scales but then there is a limit till where you can go - what after that? On the other side, stability in career is still not extinct. There are people who still believe in dedicating their entire work life in same organisation and climbing the corporate ladder at a slow but steady pace.
What goes into the making of a stable employee? There are a number of factors responsible for it:
The right break: Getting that right break is the most essential factor. What exactly do we mean by this? It is that job which does justice to your education and your expectations. Individual tastes count here. For two different people with same educational qualification, the right break may vary. One person may like to work in a smaller organisation where he gets more of initial acclaim while another competent person may like to work in a bigger organisation and work out his way to gain popularity. If a person is able to bag a job in the place of his choice, he stays there. Else his search continues.