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"People: Plug and Play?" - An article by Saikat Chatterjee (Student 2015-17 Batch)


We often talk about Motivation, Engagement, Stress and Conflict Management. These are trending issues in HR today and if we look closely most of them have a negative origin. People are frustrated at work, switching jobs, actively disengaged, not motivated, not satisfied, highly stressed and the list continues. But why? Is it a new trend in the global workforce or is it something else? Is it really an individual issue or it has its root somewhere else? Why we don't look at the human inventory management practices at organizational,social and national level and critically analyze if the problem is with the parts or its usage? People are more flexible to fit in situations compared to assembly hardware but how far? Can our education system and training workshops really convert iron ores to pure gold? It is time to think about it. We talk about stepping outside of comfort zone and taking up new challenges. But we often ignore the fact that the motivation to take up new challenges (achievement need) and the commitment thereafter come from within (Intrinsic motivation) not from what the external environment wants out of us. Why don't we look again closely and find the great use of iron ores in a different set of activities (perhaps more useful than gold in some context).Why don't we stop making random experiments with our precious inventory and properly catalog them according to their best usage? Why don't we scan the seed and put it in right kind of soils to help it grow organically? We don't want the terms like stress, frustration, disengagement and conflict to be the trends in HR practices, HR starts with human and it will come first, always and every-time.

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