Today’s Worker Wants the Best Opportunities: Sequeira

India's economy continues to blaze away at 8 per cent. Both services and manufacturing sectors are seeing robust growth (10 per cent and 9 per cent, respectively) entailing an increasing number of people at the low end of the manufacturing tail. Since Indian companies are now a part of the global supply chain, they are being forced to streamline their systems to achieve higher productivity at lower cost in order to compete with global majors.

Inevitably, automation has become the order of the workplace, demanding workers who are skilled enough to handle sophisticated production tools. The Indian worker today is tech-savvy, better-educated and raring to move up the 'career growth' ladder. Ronald C. Sequeira , vice-president and head (HR), Tata Power Company Limited, spoke to BW's Feroz Ahmed on the profile of India's new labour.

In what ways has the new Indian worker changed over the past decade?

The biggest difference is in the aspirations of the worker. He wants to improve the quality of his life and seek the best available opportunities. He wants to increase his wealth, own vehicles and lead a better life. Earlier, they built a house when they were in their 50s, today they want to own a house in their 30s itself.

Today's workers are a lot more clear in what they want, displaying a greater level of maturity. They also show a great level of concentration towards their work. Their education levels are high.

What do you expect from the workers you hire now?

Today, we expect a high level of productivity and emphasise on multiple-skills. Since workers are aware about technology, they are already equipped with the requisite skills. They realise they have to be flexible as things change rapidly in today's world. Earlier, the technological change cycle used to span 20-25 years; today it happens in the wink of an eye. Hence, their adaptability to change must be good.

20 years ago, we used to employ people even with no qualifications. Today 100 per cent of our workers are professionally trained-the bare minimum that we expect is at least an ITI degree, diploma engineering or an apprentice from our own company.

Are your wages and working conditions influenced by the competition in the labour market?

Earlier, wages used to be determined by one's capacity to pay, irrespective of the competition. Today, there is a great emphasis on retaining labour. So there is a need to be paymasters.

Also, the expectations of the younger lot are greatly different from the earlier generations. They do not look at superannuation and other long-term benefits. They want all the goodies to be packed at the front end itself.

In the past, there was loyalty on both sides-employer and employees. That is no longer the case today. Moreover, people do not want the companies to dictate what they should own-for example, a two-wheeler for a worker, a Maruti 800 for an officer and a Mercedes Benz for a top management post.

Today's workers just want all the components included in their pay. They want to decide for themselves what they want in life.

Does your company take initiatives to upgrade skills of workers? Does it educate them beyond the immediate needs of their jobs?

Yes. We make a conscious effort to enhance workers' skills beyond their job requirements. We want our workers to be equipped with multiple skills. We also believe that that is the appropriate way of developing in-house managers.

Have these initiatives helped develop and retain workers?

Attrition among our blue-collared employees is not a big issue for us, although we spend a lot more time on development programmes today than in the past. These programmes comprise extensive training courses which are thoroughly assessed to understand how they help the worker. We also have feedback sessions to understand the opinion of the employee and know his needs.

We also work in rural areas where it is difficult to find talent. We work with the people there to make them employable. We teach them English, train them hands-on the job and impart computer skills.

In the coming decades, what do you think will be the biggest labour challenge for manufacturing companies?

The challenge for many Indian manufacturing companies in the future would concern the old and middle-level labour force. Retaining and re-training them could spike up the wage bill by leaps and bounds. Many companies would be happy to have high attrition as they will get cheap and fresh labour. These changes will have huge social implications.

Feroz Ahmed is Businessworld's senior assistant editor