Dear Aparna, I have appreciated two of the comments above and in Kolkata especially in a Marwadi-owned family set-up the initial business was based on trading and all of it was based on trust. Later on the culture was more about chalta-hai kind and people took their jobs for granted or else they had political clout to make their employers squirm. Given that there is a new govt in Bengal, things have not changed much. That attitude of taking things for granted has to be stopped. Now being a young girl in HR which is often not taken seriously, I am sharing with you a wicked way of putting those uncles on the hot seat. You will have to take boss into confidence. Find out how many of those 60 uncles are his pets. Then make a list of those who aren't and what they do. Then start hiring either full-time / interns for the same work they do. Pretend that the uncles will be eased out if they do not start working. This will do the job and keep them on their toes. Next wicked way, is to install CCTV. This is simpler. Keep the monitor in the bosses cabin. Everyone will work. Also you can install a biometric attendance monitor. I guarantee you that all the uncles in office will even forget the aunties back home as they will have lots to work on. :)

HR needs to be innovative and mischievous at times.

Saurav Das

Mumbai

From India, Mumbai
Hi Every one,

In my view, we should allow them to habituate for Boss free environment, reason being, Top management cannot sit and make the employees work all the time and ensure the deliverable, ignoring their strategic plans and actions to take forward the organization.

This situation is happening, Just because Boss is monitoring the floor totally, To avoid this ask your Boss to head the departments and deligate the work accordingly, Where the Department heads will be responsible for Work Moniterings and Deliverable, which actual make your boss free and to drive work force in exact way.

Even If you have concerns that this may not work out, My question is how many days your employees can sit idle or talk, one day/two days/three day/ or 4 days. I am sure, After those days they will get bored being idle and they only Start working all alone. Trust this will work out. Because, This has happened in my organization too :). Only thing is you should take little risk of trial and error method.

From India, Bangalore
Dear Aparna,
You need to be very careful even to suggest employee surveillance using CCTV, as it may make matters worsen. Please see Employee Surveillance - Your Privacy
I am no HR expert. As a HR person you do not have any direct authority over the 60 workers. I am sure there must be managers to whom the workers report at the HO and not all workers report directly to the owner/chairman. If that is the case, what are the managers doing and what are they paid for? I worked for a large organisation which was family owned. The company had in place weekly/monthly meetings at different levels to check productivity and customer complaints, etc. The minutes of the meetings were scrutinised and summary of any deviations and actions to be taken were sent to the Chairman's office.
As I mentioned before, unless you give details of the scenario, it is not easy to guide you in the absence of complete details.

From United Kingdom
My opinion is those who don't work when the manager is not in office -
Few points I think for the cause -
1. Those employees they don't have interest in what they are doing the current job. They have to engage / we have to give them the work those they are interest to do it, first they should love their job, they have to involve in the job..
2. Few of the employees for them achieving the target is very easy just because of they are excellent and very smart. We have to fix them high target / give an additional responsibility in which they are very interested or will give learning oppurtunities to them.
3. As Chadraprakash Said - Lack of Motivation, We have to motivate those people few of the times small monetary benefits helps them to engage fully.
Best of Luck..
Regards,
Panisha A S

From India, Bangalore
In India the CCTV is the de facto boss. Nobody cares about privacy and nobody knows about such policy either. It's as common as lamp posts in almost every street corner. You see CCTVs almost everywhere nowadays. Every office in Mumbai has one somewhere. The idea is to call it 'hidden camera' OR if you love your employees, then use a dummy. Do not connect the wires.
Tea business is something which is auction based and it leaves a lot of time for everyone. Get employees to cut down on office time. Make them leave office by 5pm daily. No later. So that pending work is there when boss is not around. Set deadlines. Ask them to explore. Get them involved in learning or community service. Ask them to generate reports which are at least 5 years old. Let your imagination run wild...

From India, Mumbai
Hi Aparna,
Whenever I have faced those kind of issues in past the thing that has always worked for me is "Divide and Rule"
Try getting couple of senior members on your side by motivating them for hike or promotion if they pull up their sleeves and a clear chance for them to lead the herd.
Of course my situation was little different as I was dealing with bunch of software engineers, you can try this out.
All the Best .
Cheers !!!!
Pallav Thakker.

From India, Mumbai
It's totally wrong concept. Ask your Chairman / Owner, has they are cultured in professional enterprenurship, fist of all they shall not maitained a status of fear or boss concept. In their absence people free of fear or retaliation,. Who is creating the atmosphere of "Fear:" Actual concept of Manager is - if subordinates is failing or finding difficult, then boss or Manager required to perform that job. If employee is perfect then, what is the use of the boss, or Manager. Chairman / owner, is not running the business, they considers that they are the King of their Kingdom, and all emplyoyees shall bow their Head, in front of them.
Human nature is that, every person always resist "Compuslsion". It is wrong that output is low when Chairman / owner is not in office, then how the business is running.


Hi Aparna,
Make a strict rules that each and every employees should maintain a daily work status book, which should include Date, Time and Activity done, From this will come to know individual work status and at the end of the week collect the pending works list , By this HR can judge each and every employee Contribution towards the organisation , such that it will help to rate every employee.

From India, Bangalore
Why people are not working when boss is out of office. The reasons could be :
A)Employees are working under strict control and performing their duties.
B) All the decisions are taken by the Boss and they have not empowered to take decision.
C) No criteria to measure the performance of employees

From India, Bahadurgarh
I completely agree with Chankdrakukalta's & k_shenbagarajans views. Also would add that if work is realted to fear and not responsibility, these situations are bound to arise.

There should be a mechanism to make people responsible for their work, Measure them & REWARD and RECOGNIZE the good and continous performers. This will not only be a motivation to the employees to work efficiently but also would promote a healthy competition between the employees. You can look at rewarding an employee for autmating a simple task or for not having any backlog of work etc.. You can give a letter of appreciation a small token & even Pin his photograph on the Display Board. For three consequitive appreciation you may look at sponsoring a lunch for his family at a good Restaurant. This will not only boost his morale to perform continuously but also would motivate him to stay competitive.

Just as a coin as two sides along with REWARD Program you should also a stick method to pull up the socks of the non performance, by introducing a PIP(performance improvement programme) & warning letters to maintain the balance.

Rajani Ingle

From India, Mumbai
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