What I read last year or am reading now….

I think I have some very peculiar reading habits. I am aware that almost every book lover thinks so, but that does not deter me from saying it.

I read two or three books simultaneously. Reading Marathi books, however ‘un-corporatish’ it may sound, gives me greater pleasure than reading anything in English. The reasons, in my opinion, are that Marathi is my mother tongue, so I am able to relate well to everything that is written, and secondly, I can read Marathi books with great speed, almost double the rate of reading English books.

I used to read books lying down in my bed earlier, but for at least two decades I read it sitting on table like a student doing his home work. I still look up dictionary, while reading English books, to understand every unfamiliar word. And then often look up ‘Use The Right Word’ – a Readers’ Digest Publication. Dictionary and ‘Use The ….’ have been old companions. These words and phrases are underlined. So also some statements that appeal to me.

I was a voracious reader while in school, but that habit was lost when I moved to college because the medium of instruction changed from Marathi to English and I found it difficult to follow stories and novels. My ‘sanyas’ from reading continued till somebody presented me a collection of stories by Somerset Maugham. I read those and discovered that I could follow this foreign language. I enjoyed reading Somerset Maugham. From there I moved on to PG Wodehouse. Then there was no looking back.

Of late I enjoy reading biographies. I must have read over forty biographies by now. Perhaps more but not less. I used to note down the books I read, and at the end of the year I used to take a stock of what I read during the year. I have not been doing it now, but it is a good habit that helps you understand your natural choice dictated by your own life’s dilemmas; for I think every book comes in your hands when its time has come! It comes with a purpose. This is one of my favourite theories, untested of course, but it has been endorsed by many!

I am going to write about some books which I have read in the last year, 2009. I do not intend to write a review, I will reproduce a paragraph that in my opinion generate some interest in your mind in case you have not read the book.

Look up this blog again tomorrow....
Vivek

Good Bye 2009!

This has been a very memorable year for me, it meant breaking free, and growing again.

Retirement has been a great thing to happen to me because I have now time to do what I always wanted to do. I wonder why didn’t I opt for it ten years ago, life would have been so different and wonderful.

A visit to South Africa, a chance meeting with some people of Indian origin who have come up in society the hard way, a meeting with Dr. Ali Bacher, and another with Hilton Ratcliff, an astronomer of repute [See my post] made the visit memorable. There was so much to learn from them!

Starting the second career has not been very difficult. So many well wishers and friends were calling up asking me to do something for them.

Working for underprivileged children [See my post] is gradually catching momentum, though I must confess this is a new area for me and I am literally groping and searching for ideas. Who is inspiring whom? The truth is that I feel inspired by the under-privileged children. They are fighting big odds, without complaints and have remained cheerful. The students seem to be like sponge, they absorb anything in the form of knowledge that comes their way. I am relearning this lost sensitivity from them. Enjoyable it is.

And I have had an opportunity to work with Unique Features on a Water Management project; Asian Paints and Unique Features will be distributing a booklet to students at Nagpur on Jan 7 in their effort to create awareness about water scarcity and related issues like Rain water harvesting. I feel happy that I have contributed to this effort. Working on Social Responsibility project has its pleasures, but more than that I have enjoyed my discussions with Anand Awadhani and Dhanashree Bedekar of Unique Features. It is amazing to see their social awareness, perspectives on many issues, and their work. Very inspiring.

And after a big tussle, I could buy an apartment. It is getting done up and I intend to shift there soon. I will have a small room exclusively for myself there, with a small library, table, laptop and printer. An office for myself! Feels great!! It overlooks a green field from 12th floor.

My dream is to visit Norway and travel by sea to London. Don’t ask ‘why’! These are childhood dreams, there is no reason. Hopefully I will be able to save enough for trips to fulfill those dreams and make it happen in 2011.

Quite a lot to do. I have indeed a long ‘To Do’ list and I do not want to go to the land “from where no one returns” without finishing it. That means one must live a life which is disciplined and well organized.

That’s where the problem lies!
Vivek

[Also posted at Vivek-Uvaach]

Help me take a re-look

I started this blog on May 1, 2009 at the behest of Kavi. It is appropriate to mention that my other blog Vivek-Uvaach was also started on his encouragement.


I hesitated a lot before starting this HResonance blog. But I have had my share of surprises. Many of them pleasant ones. Thanks Kavi.

My friends expected me to write on Labour Laws and Industrial Relations, undoubtedly a subject of my interest and study. I have also written on other subjects with the learning from my experience.


May I request you, dear readers, to tell me whether this is a worthwhile exercise? Tell me your frank opinion, and also your expectations.
Wishing you a Happy New Year,


Vivek

Which Organisation Should I Join?

There are questions I dread. One of them is ‘Which organization should I join?’ Students [doing MBA] often ask me that question when the placements begin.

Their problem is real. The students want to have some rationale for making a choice. It is a different matter that very often the placement committee does not give you any choice at all; particularly if you have got a PPO – Pre-placement Offer. They get uncomfortable that the rules for making choice are not clear to them. They study for fifteen years that everything is ‘cause and effect’; when it comes to making the most important [and the first career decision] in life, they are unable to consider relevant factors that would guarantee a good job and career. I have always felt that our academic system teaches planning but not enough emphasis is placed on ‘exploring’. Ambiguity makes all uncomfortable, but more so to the young.

Girls often reconcile to the fact that their parents will ask them not to take up a job elsewhere except the city of their residence; and I think that is somewhat unfair to them, and unfortunate. But that settles the rule for her – ‘I will take up a job that requires me to work in Mumbai’ she says and automatically limits the choice. In a not-so-happy way the selection is to be made by her among few organisations.

There are in my opinion, two aspects that students must appreciate. Firstly, every employee experiences the organisation in a different way. Perhaps because they get different boss or relate differently to him/ her even if common. And secondly, growth and not money should be the criterion for freshers to select their employer. Working in a good organisation we tend to grow as a professional and as a person too. There are certain organisations where a person experiences growth, unlike others. This is akin to plants growing well in their natural habitat. A Christmas tree survives in Mumbai but blossoms in Himalayas. A coconut tree would not give highest yield in Himalayas but in Mumbai. So our search must be for our ‘natural habitat’.

There is, therefore, no alternative to exploring. We can find out how ex-employees have experienced an organisation and that could be a good thumb rule to go by.

But all said and done, we must appreciate that, like [arranged] marriages, the employee has to make his stint with an organisation rewarding and successful, it usually does not ’happen’ automatically. For students, for whom everything is decided by their institutes, that is quite a change and first demand for being proactive.

[First posted at Training Orbit]

Vivek

The Thane HR Seminar Report

The Seminar came to an end and with it our two months of herculean efforts!

It all started as a crazy idea. We at Thane HR Group thought of organising a seminar, emboldened by our success in organising lecture series for one year. The Thane HR Group is a group of a few HR Managers in the city of Thane who got together to organise such events free of cost for HR fraternity. The Group had no money so we had to find sponsors, and HR Chiefs in Voltas, Jupiter Hospital readily appreciated our efforts and offered to host the events. The initial success surprised us. We realised that there are nearly 400 HR professionals staying at Thane!

The initial target for registration was 150, but we had very few registrations. Thanks to some stupendous efforts by Alok Sheopurkar, Head HR of HDFC Mutual Fund, Anil Kshatriya and Vidya Patel of AK Placements, and Sharad Gangal, Head HR of HDFC Standard Life that more enrolments came in. To our surprise, the enrolments in the last three days were so much that we had to revise everything, finally landing with a tally of 275 participants.

The seminar was inaugurated at the hands of Mr. Sandeep Nair, MD, Emersons Ltd. The seminar was addressed by Mr Visty Banaji – Executive Director & President (Group Corporate Affairs) at Godrej Industries Limited. I have always enjoyed Mr. Banaji’s presentations and interactions with him. His subtle humour makes conversations with him very enjoyable and he was at his witty best in making presentation. Mr. Bijay Sahoo President and Chief People Officer- Reliance Retail, spoke of his experience in Wipro and Reliance. He has had a unique advantage of working for three great leaders, Vivek Paul and Azim Premjee of Wipro, and Mukesh Ambani of Reliance. They approach the downturn issues differently, and show how to strike balance between business interests and People concerns. Dr. Krishnamurty, the Director of the Industrial Relations Institute of India, is respected for his just and fair approach to HR and IR issues. He is a unique consultant because he advises both Unions and Managements. Perhaps that gives him a perspective so different from others. His analysis was hard hitting, but clearly thought out. It is always a treat to hear him.

In the second half Captain Girish Kaushik, President National Aviators Guild also spoke on the strife between Management and the Union and explained their side of the story. His analogies were drawn from his daily experience of flying but nevertheless they conveyed his message very clearly. The importance of managing people with respect and dignity cannot be over-stated. When leadership of an organization acts out of fear they lose sight of this important imperative.

Mr Vikas Shirodkar Global Head Corporate HR for VVF Ltd. sharing his thoughts on HR role in these times and how business orientation will bring in a strategic dimension to the function. Vikas is perhaps the biggest crowd puller in HR fraternity. His soft spoken way, his humility coupled with excellent communication skills makes him the most sought after person as well as speaker.

The last session was a panel discussion chaired by Mr. Suresh Ogale, Head HR of Technova. The panelists were Ulhas Deshpande, Founder Director and CEO of IntelleCash, Dr. Aneeta Madhok, Director at Open Spaces Consulting Mumbai and me.

The seminar itself was sponsored by Accenture and co-sponsored by Voltas.

There was a surprise for me. The Thane HR Team [Anil Kshatriya of AK Placements, Sharad Gangal of HDFC Standard Life, Alok Sheopurkar of HDFC Mutual Fund, Sanjay Mandlik of Anchor [Panasonic Group], Suresh Ogale of Technova Imaging, Dr Prashant Karmalkar of Accenture, Dipak Gadekar of Voltas International, Anil Joshi of Dow Chemicals had ‘conspired’ to felicitate me, giving a standing ovation, for my contribution to HR function. It was undoubtedly one of the most memorable moments in my life. Sharad made a short speech befitting the occasion, and I found it difficult to fight back my tears.

Thanks, my friends, for giving me such unforgettable moments.

Vivek

Open Mind or Hole In The Head?

There are some statements that we make without realizing the damage they cause. [I must confess here that I too have made those, but recovered in time!].

‘My marks do not reflect my potential’ is a statement I made as a student so HE is punishing me by making me hear it from some of my students! When I joined the corporate world I graduated to even better one - ‘How can my boss appraise me?!’

Needless to say that these statements serve no purpose. The author of such statements is aware of the bungled up performance, but it is nice to hide it under a big statement that protects his self-image. Repeating it many times, people who make these statements start believing them to be true!

The problem does not stop there. What they prevent themselves from understanding is that the equation p = P – i is a very powerful equation with a deep meaning. Small p represents performance, capital P represents potential and i represents interference. The problem is that the make-believe statement prevents people from examining the interference, or the recurring patterns of thoughts and feelings that come in the way of delivering performance to the full potential.

For several years the Indian Cricket team failed to win matches, and lost those which had a win almost in their hands. Jana Novotna loses Wimbledon finals to Steffi Graf when she is all set to win it. Sharad Pawar, a great leader himself, fails to reach the heights of his mentor YB Chavan and has given up hopes of becoming India’s Prime Minister. Sehwag undoubtedly a great player, but he does not achieve the consistency of Sachin Tendulkar so the overall achievements fall miles short of the Little Master. Vilasrao Deshmukh, the Chief Minister of Maharashtra goes to Taj after 26/11 with film makers instead of reaching out to people. Why does this happen? The power of i [interference] is tremendous; it prevents you from giving your best.

When you say, however, that ‘My marks do not reflect my potential’ you prevent yourself from examining the ‘i’ [the recurring patterns of thoughts and feelings] that will keep interfering in your performance; what can be more destructive than that?

There is nothing like keeping one’s mind open. But people must learn the hard way, like me! People tolerate your nonsense because they are not interested in you and they are tactful. They smile as if approvingly, when you utter the big statement about your performance not reflecting potential, and some even would readily nod in agreement. That makes us happy! But beware of such people, and beware of your own attitude.

‘“Tact is the ability to tell a man he has an open mind when he has a hole in his head” somebody has said. Actually, ‘very well said’ I would say!

[Earlier posted at Training Orbit]

Vivek

Beyond The Call Of Duty

I received a mail which in all probability you must have received too. It is titled ‘Why Tatas are a respected name’ and talks about, among other things, the heroic acts of the employees at Taj on 26/11.

It points out that Thomas George, a captain, escorted 54 guests from a backdoor staircase and when he was going down last he was shot by the terrorists; people who exhibited courage included janitors, waiters, directors, artisans and captains – people at all levels. It is well known that Ratan Tata broke down in full public view and sobbed saying the company belongs to these people.

What makes people go beyond the call of their duty in industry? They were not part of army or police who are trained for such jobs or from whom such behaviour is expected, yet the Taj employees did it almost without exception. In some cases they put their lives in danger, which undoubtedly is the highest level of commitment.

The problem of HR managers is that they cannot promote this behaviour by ‘reward’ policies and mechanisms. In fact if they attempt to do it, they will make complete mess of it. If you are asked to donate blood for a noble cause, such as saving life of people injured in an accident, you will readily agree. But if you are told that whenever you donate blood you will receive a certain amount of money, will you do it?

In building an organisation like The Taj Hotel, we should encourage the making of a certain personal choice by an employee; and we have no control over it! If an employee does not make that choice he cannot be ‘punished’. So the carrot and stick technique will not work. And that pretty much complicates the matter us.

The way to encourage OCB [Organisational Citizenship Behaviour], the name given by research scientists, is to take care of ‘Organisational Justice’ or in simpler words, people’s perception of fairness within organisation. In other words, people must be heard, allowed to express themselves, they must be spoken to, and in a nutshell, they must be treated as valued human beings. Appears simple and easy! But in organisations which define ‘performance’ wrongly, and promote actively fierce competition within, and where ‘I am better than you’ is promoted and excessive emphasis is placed on monetary rewards, promoting OCB will remain an uphill task.

Tough job being HR manager, but whoever believed it was easy?

Vivek

Two Cases of Exit Policy: Canada and India

When will Government of India come out with the ‘Exit Policy’?
There has been so much talk about it. Who’s ‘Exit’? Obviously the Employers’. The Industrial Disputes Act does not permit a quick exit to employers, that is to say, they cannot close down a business at will. They have to seek permission of the Government; it was not easy to come by during the old days, things have not changed very much even today.

If the employer is not having the unfettered right to close down a business then will he be encouraged to commence a business at all? That is the question many economists and employers’ representatives are asking.

I present to you two cases that are reported in a matter of a week. One is decided by the Supreme Court of Canada while the other is decided by High Court of Allahabad. I will leave the conclusion to you.

Modi Textiles Case
Modi Textiles was running at 40% capacity. Union rivalry saw as many as twenty murders being committed by the employees and thirty incidents of assault. There was illegal strike by employees. The company proposed to close down the mills from 22nd March 1985. They applied for permission to close down but the State Government rejected their application. In the judgement delivered on Nov 13, 2009 the High Court of Allahabad held ‘....it is established that the State Government has not considered the matter in correct perspective and relevant material, evidence and documents have been ignored and further petitioner’s unit, which is lying closed since 1984 requires a fresh look by the State Government as stated in the body of the judgement......The order passed by the State Government is hereby set aside and the matter is remitted to the State Government for fresh consideration.....’ I would like to point out that the judgement comes full twenty five years after the closure!

The Wal-Mart Case [Canada]
The long-anticipated judgment of the Supreme Court of Canada in the Québec Wal-Mart case (Plourde v. Wal-Mart Canada Corp., 2009 SCC 54, along with its sister case, Desbiens v. Wal-Mart Canada Corp., 2009 SCC 55) was released on Friday, November 27, 2009. As expected, the judgment sheds significant light on a Québec employer's rights and obligations with respect to the closure of a business in a unionized context. On the positive side, the Supreme Court confirmed that a Québec employer cannot be forced to continue to operate its business — or to reopen its business — as a result of allegations of unfair labour practices, and held that particular recourses under the Québec Labour Code are unavailable to employees in a workplace closure situation......

......The [Supreme] Court held that, in the case of a permanent closure of a business, terminated employees cannot bring a claim against their employer under ss. 15 to 17 of the Labour Code alleging that they were dismissed because they exercised their rights under the Code, regardless of the motives for the closure. In taking this position, the Court maintained the principle established in I.A.T.S.E. Stage Local 56 v. Société de la Place des Arts de Montréal (2004 SCC 2) that an employer cannot be forced to stay in business, even if the closure is motivated by "socially reprehensible considerations". [Emphasis supplied]

What say you?
Canadian judgement is, in my opinion representing one extreme while Indian law represents another extreme. The solution lies somewhere in the middle. I have a reason to believe that many would readily appreciate this fact.

Will any political leader have the courage to say it and do something about it? Do we still expect foreign investors to feel encouraged to invest in businesses in our country?

Vivek

Why Me?

I have always been intrigued by the trainees’ dilemma.

When you nominate participants to behavioural training, the first question they ask is ‘why me’? If his/ her boss has nominated the participant for the program then ‘Does he consider this to be my weakness?’ is a question that the participant will not only not ask but take it as answered! Obviously in the affirmative!

If you are sending an employee’s nomination for an ISABS course, then this question comes up without fail, with greater force, unless the participant is an HR professional.

I have always felt that behavioural programs are like a glass of whisky; people want to enjoy it but they do not want others to know it.

For many managers training is equivalent to repairs to a car by a motor mechanic. That’s the real problem. If the boss notices a problem, he says “He needs training, [read: Ask trainer to fix it]”. There cannot be a more mechanical view of human beings than asking for training to address a behavioural problem.

This matter gets further complicated when the HR Manager does not realise the fallacy of this approach. He not only conducts training for the employee, which means he spends money, but he is at a loss to understand why they same manager complains of ineffectiveness of training. That often does not tally with the ratings given for training by participants.

Training does not result in change of behaviour. People do not become more assertive, manage time [or themselves] better, learn to manage conflicts effectively, develop stronger inter-personal equations when they leave the training room.

Learning people skills is akin to learning to operate software. One has to be alert, explore, check ‘handbook’, reflect on what works, and discuss with others to gain quicker understanding. I said ‘reflect on what works’ because we tend to use people skills with different levels of effectiveness with different people. And in different situations.

The trainer cannot go beyond placing the ‘software’ in our hands.

Pre-program discussions with participants give good understanding to a trainer about expectations of participants. The HR Manager would be more effective if [s]he has a discussion with the recommending manager before a nomination is accepted. This ensures that clear expectations are set before the training begins.

But exception proves the rule. If you nominate an employee for an ‘Out Bound Training’, nobody complains. There are perhaps no expectations of change in behaviour. In fact, you will notice enthusiasm. Being one with ‘nature’ is important. ‘Nature’ does the trick! Do you get me?

Vivek

Bhopal and World Trade Centre: What a contrast!

It is 25th anniversary of the Bhopal tragedy. One estimate says that over 50,000 people were affected or dead. The survivors are suffering the ill effects of the killer gas.

Twenty five years later people are complaining about inadequate compensation and it is not at all baseless claim. The Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister wants to make the site open to public as if it is a national monument! It will give them opportunity to snatch the limelight instead of solving suffering population’s problems.
What a sorry state of affairs!

** ** ** ** **

Let us look at what happened to 9/11 victims. Here is what The New York Times said on June 15, 2005 in their article ‘Calculating the Incalculable in the Aftermath of Sept. 11':
In "What Is Life Worth?" Mr. Feinberg offers a valuable first-person account of the 9/11 compensation fund and its workings. He makes clear, for the first time, exactly how peculiar the law governing the fund was, and the enormous difficulties, ethical and practical, that resulted from its ambiguous language and hastily written guidelines."Never before had a government offered individuals millions of dollars in tax-free compensation for a tragic loss," Mr. Feinberg writes. "And never before had government funds been so unregulated. There was no earmarked congressional appropriation limiting the size of awards or constraining my discretion. My budget was unlimited; the payouts would be determined only by my personal judgment and experience." In the end, Mr. Feinberg would award more than $7 billion to 5,560 victims and family members.The compensation fund was a strange blend of compassion and cold calculation. Washington's lawmakers wanted to express, in dollars, the nation's sense of outrage and grief. Thousands of innocent people had died on the front lines of a new war. But the government also wanted to head off an onslaught of personal injury lawsuits that could throw the airline industry into turmoil. The compensation fund was a giant bet, with public money, that most victims would forfeit their right to sue, and avoid the uncertainties of a court case, if offered the certainty of a reasonable award. It was up to Mr. Feinberg to make the bet pay off.It was not easy. Legal precedent offered little help because, as the book's subtitle suggests, there had never been anything quite like the 9/11 fund. Mr. Feinberg, in casting about for useful guideposts, consulted the Bible. At one point he talked things over with a prominent rabbi, who offered sage counsel: sometimes life offers no easy answers. The wording of the statute put Mr. Feinberg in an ethically difficult position. By law, he was required to calibrate awards according to the financial worth of the deceased victim. Unavoidably, the special master, in carrying out the law, would appear to be making morally repugnant distinctions, telling the wife of a fireman, for example, that her husband was worth less than a stockbroker.Mr. Feinberg created his own ethical difficulties, too. The fund, in his mind, should be "compassionate and generous but not profligate." Only those victims who received hospital treatment within 72 hours of the Sept. 11 attacks, and who received their injuries in the vicinity of the World Trade Center or the Pentagon, could apply for compensation. "If we permitted Jersey City residents who inhaled the dust and debris to be eligible, we could anticipate millions of additional cases," Mr. Feinberg writes.Spouses and children, but not parents, would be eligible for compensation. No money would be awarded for mental injury or emotional trauma. This, Mr. Feinberg says, was a tough call but a necessary one to head off a run on the United States Treasury. "I envisioned five million New Yorkers filing claims, as well as the millions of additional Americans and foreigners who watched the disaster unfold on television," he writes. Heroism, even when well documented, would not entitle anyone to extra money. "My goal was to minimize distinctions among claimants, not maximize them," Mr. Feinberg explains. "Heroism by all was presumed." Not surprisingly, Mr. Feinberg took a lot of heat (especially in New York), even though he accepted no pay for his work. Outraged family members attacked him in public meetings. "I spit on you and your children," a fireman's widow shouted at him at one meeting. Some accused him of administering a program of hush-money payments. The fund, in this view, was intended to head off lawsuits that might lead to embarrassing revelations about the government's failure to anticipate 9/11. A class-action lawsuit was filed by families of employees at Cantor Fitzgerald accusing Mr. Feinberg of arbitrarily shortchanging high-income victims. The suit was dismissed.
Some tough but quick actions are required of administrators and these were taken by Mr. Feinberg. We would like to see such things happen in India.

** ** ** **
PS: US Government created a fund for $ 7 Bn for paying compensation to victims/ their families in the 9/11 tragedy. Union Carbide paid peanuts just $ 470 Mn to victims of Bhopal tragedy! They were several times more in number!

Some lives are more important than others!!

Vivek

Workplace policies, HIV/ AIDS in Caribbean

This is released by ILO for public information and I am reproducing it to spread the message of the World AIDS Day. You may also like to see my previous post 'A Referencer on AIDS for HR Managers'.

PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad and Tobago (ILO Online) – “It is a good time to ‘come out’ and not be discriminated against,” says 35-year old David Soomarie, who is HIV positive.
David shares his first name with his father: “When anyone asks my father about me”, he says proudly: “Yes, that’s my son.” According to David, this shows that society in Trinidad and Tobago is becoming better informed, that “HIV has no face; it could be anyone”.
For Madhuri Supersad, an HIV/AIDS specialist at the ILO’s Sub-regional Office for the Caribbean in Port of Spain, “much has been accomplished by the ILO in the Caribbean by developing workplace policies and programmes to keep people living with HIV in jobs and to avoid them being discriminated against.”
As an institutional framework against stigma and discrimination in the workplace, the ILO developed Workplace Education Projects in five Caribbean countries – Belize, Barbados, Guyana, Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago, funded by the United States Department of Labor. The programmes involve governments, employers’ and workers’ organizations and ensure that the three partners sustain programmes beyond the ILO’s involvement.
As a follow-up to the ILO programme, the Ministry of Labour and Small and Micro Enterprise Development in Trinidad and Tobago launched a National Workplace Policy on HIV and AIDS on 14 April 2008 as “a critical step towards the reduction of HIV-related stigma and discrimination which contributes to the creation of an enabling environment for prevention, care and support.”
To sustain and institutionalize the new workplace policy in Trinidad and Tobago, more than 100 officers of the Ministry of Labour were trained to deal with HIV/AIDS issues, while members of non-governmental organizations (NGOs), representatives of employers’ and workers’ organizations, and nearly 200 workers received special training as peer educators.
Collective agreements increasingly contain HIV/AIDS clauses, more enterprises are providing insurance coverage for their workers living with HIV, and there is counseling on responsible sexual behaviours at the enterprise level. One company has even extended its internal education programme to young people leaving school and the general public.
“Notwithstanding the establishment of the policy and programmes, we know that deeper changes of behaviour take time, and make continuous prevention efforts necessary,” cautions Ms. Supersad.
In Guyana, the Ministry of Labour, Human Services and Social Security launched a National HIV/AIDS Workplace Policy on 30 March 2009 with the objective “to mitigate the impact of HIV/AIDS on the world of work. A total of 23 enterprises in Guyana have implemented HIV/AIDS workplace policies and programmes, while more and more of the larger enterprises are integrating HIV/AIDS issues into their occupational safety and health (OSH) programmes,” says Sean Wilson, the ILO HIV/AIDS National Project Coordinator in Guyana.
The Guyana Trade Union Congress succeeded with its demand to integrate HIV/AIDS issues into collective agreements with the country’s employers.
According to Mr. Wilson, the overall level of employment-related discrimination against persons living with or affected by HIV/AIDS has been reduced considerably. “An important contributing factor has been the involvement of persons living with HIV in the training.” says Mr. Wilson.
“We have made important strides which allow me and another person living with HIV to go weekly on a national television programme here in Trinidad and Tobago to inform people. I get a lot of encouraging feedback”, says David Soomarie.
“In my last job as a Communications Consultant, my boss and work colleagues knew my status and I felt very comfortable at the workplace” he adds. Mr. Soomarie has been living with HIV for 15 years now and while he has been severely ill at times, he has been consistently in good health since he received access to free anti-retroviral medication through a Government-sponsored programme.
But Mr. Soomarie does not want to convey the idea that people living with HIV/AIDS face a perfect world now. “Much has to be done and more enterprises should engage in education programmes at the workplace,” he says.
For Ansil Henry, who tested positive in 2003, life has been a roller coaster ride from that day of “complete frustration”, when a male nurse at a local hospital marked “HIV/AIDS” in red on his hospital card. Today, he is a counselor at an NGO support group, passing on his experiences with coping skills to others.
For Sophia Kisting, Director of the ILO Programme on HIV/AIDS and the World of Work, “it is important to maintain and extend progress in the fight against HIV/AIDS even in times of crisis. Our message is that access for all to prevention, treatment, care and support is a fundamental human right. The workplace has a vital role to play in the wider struggle to realize this right and control the epidemic”.
“Times of crisis should not lead to compromises, the right to work and retain employment for people living with HIV needs to be fully recognized,” she adds.