The Hindu Business Line : Helping execs cope with stress

"APART from work, what is driving everyone in India Inc is insecurity," says peak performance trainer, Mr Rakesh Dewan, who heads Star Academy, an institution that he has formed in association with Mr Jack Canfield, author of Chicken Soup for the Soul series.

Focussing on corporates in India for the past six months and taking one-to-one sessions with executives, Mr Dewan has noticed that globalisation and organisational transition are having adverse fall-out on the morale and psyche of employees.

While the older ones suffer from the fear of being outdated and dispensable, the younger ones, who are just two-three years into the job, are pressured beyond comprehension. "They are sacrificing a lot in their personal lives to stay relevant and find it difficult to maintain the balance between the personal and the professional," says Mr Dewan as he terms it the "treadmill phenomenon" - most of executives move from one three-month project to another, not sure what their next assignment will bring, success or the pink slip. He feels that it is this insecurity across the board that is compelling employees to turn to training and to spirituality.

And as Mr Dewan expresses the need for research to be done on the impact of such pressured living; that is exactly what a group of academicians are doing right now. Focussing on the UK, the US, India and a few other relevant countries are researchers Rhona Rapoport (Director, Institute of Family and Environmental Research, London), Suzan Lewis and Janet Smithson (Manchester Metropolitan University, UK), Richenda Gambles (research associate) and Dr Tripti Pande Desai who heads the Institute for Integrated Learning in Management (IILM), New Delhi.

They are in the process of developing working practices to support work-personal life integration and enhance organisational performance.

Their recent brainstorming in Delhi with corporate HR managers, industrial institutions and academicians about the situation in India, threw up a lot of questions and suggestions on how improvements could be brought about in `Work-Personal Life Integration' within organisations.

The brainstormers felt that the situation in each country was different, but the east and the west could learn from each other towards mutual benefit.

They all agreed that a key problem was greed, with every professional wanting a bigger car, more houses, more gadgets and the message this was giving out to children was not a very healthy one.

Besides, it was the reason for many a burnout among professionals.

It was observed that the ITES industry, though seen positively for the economy, would perhaps be responsible for pulling down the social fabric of the country.

Also, having students enter the work force very early may lead to earnings, but could cut out their interest to study further and become analytical, well-informed members of society.

In fact, the brainstormers put forward some suggestions for organisational change, hoping that these could make some difference.

They suggested that companies introduce flexitime and pursue HR policies that consider each individual; this would help more than pursuing generalised HR policies.

Job sharing should also be considered as it would solve the employment problem and not affect bottomlines.

Schools should also be made to recognise the `Work-Life Integration' problems of parents and come forward and help. So should companies.

These, however, were only pointers. The ongoing multi-country research will attempt concrete answers soon. And hopefully, concrete changes.

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Helping execs cope with stress