"To work or not to work, that is the question"
A mighty 20% of work force in
textile sector jobs in Pakistan come to work place with one major ambition in
mind which is "Am not going to work today while sitting in office".
There are a lot of reasons behind
the lack of interest in jobs, lazy attitude at work and lack of initiative
prevailing in people coming to work. People might not have the right aptitude
for work, they might lack basic job skills and their educational back ground
would not match to their job descriptions, they have been given a position as a
personal or political favor or they could not find proper job and landed in an
industry in which they are misfits by all means.
Textile sector by default
requires a lot of hard work and professionalism from people who are earning
their livelihood from it. As it is export oriented and production intensive
business, there is a great deal of emphasis on the adhering to product
development and production lead times. From a basic concept/design creation to
transforming that concept in to a physical product which can sell well in all
major markets across the globe, an extensive team effort is required to come up
to the expectation of buyers around the world in terms of product quality,
creativity, reliability, production lead times, logistics support and customer
care excellence.
Serving the textile sector for
the last 20 years in Pakistan with core competence in International sales and
marketing and operations management, I have seen that a lot of people (20% as
described above) are not inclined to give their 100% to their jobs for various
reasons and their self made justifications to not to work.
The reasons vary at different job
levels, some of the reasons are far from reasoning and at times very funny.
Let's review the few types : -
1. The sick and misery struck
lot:
These
are the ones born with almost every fatal disease one could imagine starting
from heart, kidneys, liver and lungs abnormalities. Every second week somebody
dies in their families. I have worked with few people who had to come up with
their grand dad and grandmother death news at least thrice every year. The most
strange and alarming fact is that their beloved ones either die on Friday or on
Monday to let them avail long weekend for mourning. The worst part is they have
really sick people in their family and they need off from work and need loans
to look after them. One of the production managers came with a loan and leave
application for his wife's critical surgery, two months later we came to know
that the guy is not married and went to Dubai with friends to party.
2. The Late Comers:
These
types are found at each and every level of management but with varying and
interesting lame excuses to be late. Some of the organizations have strict
timings supported by thumb scan and retinal scan attendance, so these cut
salary of all of their late comers as per their policy and you would find only
a hand few of people coming late despite having genuine problems at times. The
problem arises where the attendance is either manual or there is no deduction
of salary from late comers. Most of them have a car having starting trouble
almost every day, their children get sick every third day, they get sick every
third week and some of them have strange allergy issues which only occurs in
certain months of the year. Some of them
get their sons circumcised two times a year. The worst cases are people doing
their own business and job at the same time. Sometimes we get to know that a
guy is on family vacation without the family and after effects of travelling
cannot allow him to be in office on time in the morning and push them to leave
early as well.
3. The Field Team:
Textiles
mills not having their own printing or dyeing, have to rely on external
processing of fabric for which they need planning and execution managers,
quality control managers and quality auditors to ensure their goods are
printed/dyed/bleached as per their customer given specifications. These guys
stay in the field and spend less time in office and they have the liberty to go
to a mill direct without coming to office and here starts the game of lies and
funny excuses. Somebody will tell you on phone that am in a mill and discussing
designs with printing manager and yet you hear his son screaming and crying
aloud and at times the wife would ask when are you leaving to do the grocery.
Sometimes a guy would be asleep at home and yet his email would suggest am in a
mill getting a design printed in my presence. Most of these guys can do 2-3
jobs at the same time and if get caught would come up with funny excuses like
sudden family emergency, had to do this to look after orphans in the family and
long stories beyond your intellect and understanding. Only a hand full of
companies have managed to monitor presence of their team in the field through
GPS devices and hand held smart phones which pinpoints the exact location of
their employee in the field, rest are still trying to develop a monitoring
system via satellite GPS.
4. The Sales And Marketing Team:
The
blue eyed employees, the ones who would get you more business and would
contribute a lot to the overall growth of the company. They have extensive
in-land and abroad travelling as they meet customers, sourcing houses and
attend International Textile trade fairs. They have the highest salary and are
given the appropriate protocol and respect in the company. They hardly get
sick, they hardly need an excuse as they are visiting customers all the time
and this activity can cover their family vacations, they can rest if they want
to at their own and at times their girl friend's home. They can do personal
party in the name of customer entertainment. They can buy gifts for their wife
or girl friends and submit the bills as the gifts for customers. They need
luxury sedans to ride as they need to pick up customers and show them the mills
and marketing offices and similarly can use these cars for the dates as well.
They look very busy while they relax most of the times, all they need to do is
achieve sales targets and then no questions asked. Nobody questions them for
late arrival or earlier departure as it is understood that they are busy in
marketing activity. Rest of the departments teams (accounts, finance,
production, Human resource) simply hate them but the cant do anything about
stopping their luxuries as long as they keep company in profit.
5. The Production Team:
The
senior managers and department heads ensure their presence only when CEO is
around or has called up a meeting. They have fleet of managers in their team
and can afford to be away from their desk in the name of product development
and visiting dyes, pigments and chemical suppliers in the same connection. They
work with their own team from a cleaner to a senior manager and can always
blackmail the management to flee with their fleet/team if a lot of questions
are asked regarding their timely presence and quality of work. They often get
invitation from chemical suppliers for sponsored foreign training trips
(training includes how to party abroad at someone else's expense) and they
would like to attend all the world machinery fairs in that connection as well. For
stitching division, if work force is short, they would highlight a problem in
the fabric or an accessory to buy out time and they make every product making
so complicated so that they can easily do production as per their convenience
and make more margins in cost of production with the contractor hired by the
company. They have technical reasons to not to do a job or to delay it.
6. The Finance team:
They
are the eyes and ears of top management, they survive by converting every
investment in to an expense before the board of Directors. They are on time
most of the times and when they need to be away, they are having a meeting or
lunch or dinner with bankers. Their timely arrival is seen as an example and
their timely reporting can make or break careers as they have the art to make a
profitable deal in to a huge loss by just playing with numbers. All the other
teams including the marketing and sales, tries to be friends with them and do
not confront with them. They only work when CEO directly gives them a task for
routine matters, they have the necessary talent available in the team to let
them relax. They are the true example of a white collar job.
7. The Human Resource Team:
Unfortunately
they do not have a choice other than to be in office on time and leave on time
as well as they are supposed to monitor timings of everyone else in the
company. They can only be away to meet people in the name of head hunting and
visiting other factories within the same group. They are first ones to leave
the office as well and survive on reporting the timings and official activities
details plus activities after work of employees to the top management. The can
last long in any organization. Their supreme task is to delay the loan
applications, increments, bonuses with an excuse that company is not doing well
and company as a policy is not going to spend in these areas. They are having
the best lame excuses, they are the champs in this field!
8. The Purchase Team:
They
are not to be bound by timing policies, they need to visit Suppliers to monitor
work and times to collect their own commission as cash or cheque payment. They
can sleep at home, run their own company and sell goods to company at which
they do job. They manage their work well and can afford holidays any time they
wish. They can afford to have anything they need by ringing a supplier and
anything from a deep freezer to a mid-sized car can be delivered to their homes,
their holidays are planned by their suppliers and they have the golden excuse
to be in the field for days. They only work with their own developed suppliers
and hate recommendations. They can put a cover on their incompetence on not
enough resources given by accounts, shortage of goods in market, the supplier
which produces a certain item no longer exists, they delay purchases to the
last moment and suddenly arrange things at a much higher price than the market
norm and consider this act as a favor to the company.
9. The Administration Team:
They
are the miracle makers, their job is to make every task impossible first, then
come up with an idea to bribe somebody and then get the job done. They are
always on Holy Work of the company and can come late, be away on assigned
tasks, can some late and leave early and still be in good books of management. They
are the most un-organized department but have an excuse for this as well as
they always portray that they are over-loaded with work.
10. The Product Development Team:
They
are creative people and creative people need a lot of time to complete their
piece of art. They come in late and always have an excuse to be in the market
for research and development effort to see the prevailing trends. They take a
lot of time to complete a design creation and if their slow working is
questioned they would revert by saying "Creativity needs time and only a
designer can understand this" They never set a standard time to complete a
task, it can be completed whenever they wish to complete it. They have
technical excuses to justify the delay.
11. The Love Birds:
They
will either fall in love with one of the colleagues or somebody away from work which
pushes them to be away from office, or be busy at mobile or skype chats.
Whenever they get married, they tend to give more time to work :)
12. The Sports Lover:
They
will religiously watch cricket no matter what happens to their careers, on a
crucial match day, they will not work whatsoever!
The writer is a veteran in
Textile Industry in Pakistan in the field of International Sales and marketing
and in Operations Management. Currently serving as a Chief Operating Officer
for a major textile group.
