Boys must be raised with equal care and employers must factor in the social responsibilites of male employees
India is passing through an extraordinary time. It is good that women’s problems are being addressed and worked upon. Women’s security is now, quite rightly, seen as the responsibility of everyone. Women’s confinement for child-bearing is a noble and exclusive feminine contribution to human race. Most of them have a natural inclination to be supportive as a part of this natural motherly instincts.
This is not to deny the possibility of exception. Equally, women are human and, therefore, susceptible to all the frailties of human beings. They have also all the strengths which go with being human.
Men have the same story. The crucial difference is biological that comes from motherhood. Men also have all the frailties and strengths of being human. Both men and women cohabitate in a society. Hence the context of the society becomes crucial. The Society consists of certain values, resources, methods of work and more.
There is such a thing as the psychology of being a male. A man has, perhaps, to contend with numbers and groups far more often than the women. The concern is that, whereas womanhood requires a certain type of an infrastructure, so does manhood.
There is a common case for taking care of men and women, as much as the girl and the boy child. Just as the girl child needs to be protected against certain types of vagaries, so does the boy child. In the present scenario, where there is increasing recognition of the needs of the girl child, there is sometimes not the same kind of recognition for the needs of boy child. In the interest of a balanced child growth, this situation needs urgent attention.
The malformation of a male child needs as much care as any malformation. There is no case for a gender bias. The architecture of child rearing needs this correction. If not corrected, it spills into the work place.
All organisations — manufacturing, service, education, health and whatever else — require fully functioning, healthy bodied and emotionally sound personnel. The damage which a malformed employee can inflict on an organisation has not even been begun to be assessed.
A malformed employee will be a bad subordinate, a bad boss, a bad team player and one can take it as far as ones wishes. The disruption which such a person causes hasn’t even begun to be recognised, let alone be measured and analysed. It is little wonder then that so many organisations have so many human problems.
Further, all work organisations are imbedded in a social context. Just as one cannot run faster than the train one is in, so also one cannot be more productive than the society in one which is embedded.
Much of the character of the society will influence the functioning of the organisation. It will influence the supply chain dimension, it will influence the marketing and distribution dimensions, and above all, it will strongly influence the culture of the job by bringing into the workplace the culture of the society.
This is a recognised truth of organisational life. This view is subscribed to by those who know that there is a need to have organisations designed to be in sync with society. Management institutions and consultants who do not appreciate this context will find it difficult either to make an impact or to be effective.
If the society is by and large rooted around family networks of obligations, it is difficult to conceive of an employee in a work situation, as if he has no collective obligations. Illustratively in a society where they are severely moth-eaten health care systems, the responsibility of all the elderly in the family will devolve upon the earning and more youthful members of the family.
Pretending that this problem does not exist or does not need to be accounted for or is not in keeping with modern culture of work organisation, is bound to create severely convoluted situations.
Put simply, organisations have to be designed in a manner that allows for work ethics to factor in social norms and realities. Interestingly, this will also impact the organisational models of decision-making as well.