Straight to the point: Do employees need frills at workplace?

Frills include a/c cabs, amphitheaters, a number of restrooms equipped with plasma televisions that most often play to empty seats, closed windows and blindfolds, conditioned air, artificial lighting, automated washrooms, etc.

Of late, a number of companies (including native and foreign) that have expanded to major cities in India have begun to provide such add-ons, if not all of them. In fact, employers seem to be vying with each other to provide better amenities to employees.

So, can workplace frills enable produce better output? The answer cannot be a definite yes or no. They can help retain employees for more time and make them come back to workplace the next day. But for how long is the immediate question.

It’s often seen that organizations with huge employee friendly infrastructure too have high attrition rates. This phenomenon is common in BPOs and back offices of multinational companies in India.

Does the nature of work too influence the kind of accessories? A mundane copy paste job many require employers to provide heavier add-ons than a dynamic job – not mentioned deliberately.

For most employees, it is the nature of their work and the accompanying pay check that matters than the aforementioned paraphernalia.

No doubt, good work and a decent pay combined with such frills is a deadly combination. Alas! It’s a very hard and singular combination, says my experience.

Frills may not add much value when other important components like organization culture, nature of work and employee management are poor, but certain frills can create huge void if ignored.

PS: Work, pay and frills are relative terms.

I have finally decided to stick to the 3-11pm shift for all the luxuries provided by my employer, of course for a price.

However, it's getting tougher and tougher at my workplace with hourly deliverables in place. I am unable to find time to talk to my colleagues. Agree that office is not a place for blabbering and chit chats, yet one should socialize in order to remain mentally stable. Moreover, you don't find colleagues at your home.

I am unable to meet my MBA mate who works in the same building but with a different employer despite heavy planning and the worse is yet to come: I don't have time to scan the office for good looking girls. Forgive me, I am unmarried.

On to a different platform, luckily there are a few souls who wish to socialize in the night hours despite heavy work. Of course, there are those eyeballs that are constantly in search for curious happenings around the office.

Amidst all these, I finish all my work and rush home at 11:00pm in the cab.

Dear children, I will now teach you how to destroy a start up company that is destined to do well, really well.

1. Never try to understand your business model. Don't get your basics right.

2. Have no goals and long-term strategies. Think only about short-term gains and quick money.

3. Never think about improving or stabilizing your existing products. Just ignore.

4. Start working on products that are related to your existing business but which require huge investment and manpower. This should be done even when you know that you don't have sufficient funds.

5. Bring in all your friends and relatives into the company without thinking of their relevance to the organization and their strategic fit (Don't forget to pay them well.).

6. Make it a habit to listen to them and believe them more than your older employees.

7. Fall for employees who are con men and swindlers and handover all your crucial data to them.

8. Conduct team meetings and listen patiently to all the business inputs given by the experienced employees. Sounding odd. Read it again, it says listen, just listen and only listen.

9. Don't try to put processes in place as they would make life easy for your employees and might prompt them to stay with the company for long.

10. Propagate that your company is growing, spend lakhs of rupees on hiring new people, put them under your wily friends as part of their probation, tease and torment them and finally throw them out of the organization. This will help you in securing negative publicity about the company quickly.

11. Ask dogs to carry loads and donkeys to bark.

12. Never speak to your employees when the company is not doing well. Instead, sack people mercilessly and still expect others to remain loyal to you.

So children, hope you have learnt a few vital tips on how to ruin a company's future. Now it's your turn to identify a few companies that have followed the above tips strictly and got the fruits.

Readers are welcome to post their tips for the children.

This is not the first time I am questioning myself, but this seems to be a serious one and has been bugging me for long. I am really not sure what I am doing with my current employer, except for editing a few articles and taking part in some mundane activities happening around me. Nothing is motivating me to go to work. Blame it on the absence of pretty girls or routine faces and work or anything you would like, I am looking out for something challenging and new.

Worst of all, I have been screaming at a few HR policies and personnel in the HR department. I have tried to be don the avatar of a silent spectator, but my belligerent nature doesn't let me live peacefully. After self introspection, I concluded that I need to get out of the place as soon as possible not only for my good but also for the good of the company and my colleagues.

Yesterday, it was the turn of my new home constructor to face the music. He woke me in the morning and with a disappointed tone started yelling over delay in the registration process. I tried to pacify him for a while, but again, as always, changed gears and retorted strongly. I felt bad for having done that, but that's how I have been behaving over the last few weeks.

More updates coming.