Category: Personal

Creating a safe working place for Employees

Prasad AjinkyaLeave a comment

I read about the recent Julie Horvath issue which is out there on the internet, and thought that I might share some of my experiences on this topic.

In case if you are not familiar with the Julie Horvath issue, Google it, or simply head over to TechCrunch who gave Julie’s side of the story.

tl;dr – Julie was an employee at GitHub who quit after feeling threatened at work

GitHub have tried to clean things up with a sincere and apologetic reply to Julie. They have taken some prompt action and that’s what matters.

So what went wrong?

In the entire episode, Julie must have felt threatened at work. Imagine having to battle out on multiple fronts with multiple people … and apart from that handle work as well. The nausea an employee might feel with so much politicking going on is natural. Who would not quit?

One of the most basic requirements of an employee (keep this term in mind folks) implicitly wants, is to feel secure. Be it financially, physically and mentally. These are the very basic requirements, if these are threatened, then the employee is bound to quit. If I were to use Maslow’s hierarchy as a model, then these would be the hygiene factors.

In letting a non-employee (the founder’s wife) sit within the working premises next to Julie, the physical security was in question. The mental security was being questioned by the love lost colleague and the founder in question. Add to it the way the organization reacted with radio silence and hushed tones, the financial security was also put in question. The next move should have been obvious, perhaps the reaction of the organization might have been to incite this move. The GitHub blog update suggests other wise, but we will never know that shall we?

Personal Catharsis

The reason I chose to write about this matter, is because recently we had a similar situation at work. One of our earlier employees went through this insecurity … thanks to my behaviour. It took some time for me to reflect and talk to a few other founders to understand what drove this employee in question to leave … leave at such a short notice. Do I regret this, yes. Did we lose a good player, perhaps. Can this be avoided in the future, definitely.

It’s a lesson learned for me that employees are not to be treated as co-founders. You can cross certain boundaries with co-founders … those boundaries are a strict no-no with employees … even if these are the people who help you grow your organization.

Sometimes, the founder can go to extraneous lengths to retain employees … not because the organization cannot survive without them, but because of the achievements that individual can do if properly channelled. In doing so, lines are crossed … sometimes it helps in bonding the individual closer to the organization … almost like a trial by fire. Sometimes, it backfires … and even worse spreads like wildfire on social media.

In Julie’s own words, what the founder did was to retain her at the organization … however things escalated to such an extent that the very opposite happened. This is what would happen when you mix professional relationships with personal ones. In trying to build a personal relationship with your team, you sometimes cross the boundary. Most of the times it pays off.

So what should a founder do?

A start-up would always face this issue. In order to do greater things, the team has to work outside its zone of comfort … constantly. How then do you build this sense of security within the team?

One simple approach would be to not fraternize with the team. I have seen many a good start-up founders do that … and to good effect. Reduce the fraternization only during moments of celebration.

One of my clear learning from the past episode is work towards fostering a sense of security for the employees … so that means take all conflict discussions offline. Conflicts which endanger the sense of security should not be openly discussed.

What I am saying is to clearly have two separate levels of information parity. What are the things that you have tried at work and it has paid off?

PS – I don’t have all the answers, however I am learning as I journey on.

Happy New Year 2014

Prasad Ajinkya2 Comments

This post took some time to write, I wanted to post this much earlier … bygones.

As the world wakes up to a new year, it brings forth many opportunities to do great things … it ushers in a growth on the personal and hopefully the business front. Here’s looking at the past year and how it has panned out …

Goodbye Employment

After a decade of working in the senior management team for other businesses, I have finally launched a design and development company in Mumbai.

I have always been on the other side of the IT outsourcing business (where I represent the client). On almost all occasions (barring a few agencies), I felt that the quality of services provided were not justified for the charges. So instead of complaining, I decided to join the other side and sort things out for myself.
In the past couple of years, I had a few product ideas which never came to fruition as I was not spending enough time on them. With a services firm, I get to spend the weekends on those ideas and weekdays on sustaining these ideas. Of course this would not have been possible without the support of family, friends and even past organizations that I have worked with!
I am grateful for the opportunity that you have provided and thanks!!

The kids start school

Both Anasuya and Malhar will start schooling this year. The trials we had faced during admission had prepared for my son’s admission procedure, but it was not until the fee payment structure that was given out till we breathed a sigh of relief.
Surprising that parents face up this tension every year!!

Resolutions

Last year, I had resolved to do the following things –

  • Write more frequently on this blog – 67 posts last year
  • Stop writing about games and start writing about tech
  • Wake up early and start the day at 7am

Here is my report card for the 2nd resolution, I took the report from my blog’s Google Analytics account

Most_read_Categories

I managed to stick to these two resolutions, but failed miserably on the third. This year, the idea would be to keep working on the failed resolution.

As for the other resolutions, I frankly believe that a content driven approach even for a hobby can lead to tremendous fulfillment. I will keep writing about things that drive me and keep up the tempo. The last month has seen many ups and downs, and these keep taking me away from the writing, but as I write this post, I realize that the more I write, the easier it is to articulate my thoughts.

Here’s wishing you a Happy 2014!

Deep Pooja: The House Cleaning

Prasad AjinkyaLeave a comment

Please do not confuse this with Diwali, Deep Pooja is an esoteric ritual celebrated by Maharashtrians. This day also coincides with the gastronomic Gatari as well. As we all know what follows Gatari is a month of diet control (much like Lint for Christians or Ramzan for Muslims), where we try and avoid eating non-vegetarian food.

So why take this diet?

There are multiple reasons why this diet is part of annual ritual for many Maharashtrians.

  • It helps cleanse your system with a month of vegetarian diet
  • That one month coincides with the breeding season of the fish, thus giving nature time to replenish the resources that we consume in a year
  • It also gives you a reason to celebrate and eat, drink and be merry

This will go on till Ganesh Chaturthi, post which the month long fast is broken.

What is Deep Pooja?

Deep Pooja is the cue to the community to do house cleaning of all the lamps in the household. In the days before electricity, the light provided after sunset was using oil lamps. The bigger and richer the household, the more lamps they used. Deep Pooja was the day when all the lamps in the household were cleaned of all the grime and oil residue, and thanked by the household for providing them with light.

Of course, with every festival such as this, there is specific Pathare Prabhu cuisine such as Umbar.

So do we thank Electrical Switches and Tubelights now?

Nope. At this point of time, pragmatism kicks in. Yet, all the lamps in the household are cleaned and made ready for their use (Ganpati, Diwali). We are yet to start thanking Electricity and service providers (yes, when I thank Reliance, that’d be the day!!). However, we still do house cleaning during this time and that is what this day should represent.

Earth Day 2013

Prasad Ajinkya2 Comments

April 22nd, is Earth Day and you can see that in a beautiful interactive Weather Control Doodle on Google’s home page.

On Earth Day, I would expect people on different social media channels to do multiple idiotic things … such as switching off their electronic devices for an hour. Yes, and that would make a difference when the very social network you are posting on creates more pollution in an hour than what you would in a year!!

I consider myself as a capitalist, someone who loves to see the wheels of industry working and creating things from scratch. When these wheels end up destroying and defiling mother nature, I fall in a conflict of interest. To stop industry all together and work in restoring the world … or to keep destroying the environment and fuel the industry. It’s easy to give the politically correct answer – we need to save the planet, save the earth.

My question is why cannot they co-exist? It’s a foolish notion, but I think this can be done by Going Green. I don’t mean the Going Green which tech companies talk about … but more pragmatic and grass root level things. So apart from shutting down your computer and goofing off for one hour, what green activity are you going to do on Earth Day 2013?