Tuesday, May 09, 2006

Is it possible....?!?!

I will directly go to the topic without trying to monotonously explain why I haven't been writing since past few months... Sometime back I read the books 'Maverick!' and 'Seven Day Weekend' by Ricardo Semler Jr. For those who don't know Ricardo Semler, he is the CEO of Semco corporation, Brazil.

So what has he done that makes me take out a snippet from my 'seemingly precious' time and write this blog. Here is the answer: He is the man behind 'The world's first industrially democratic company'. Yes that's right, the word is 'industrial democracy', under which an employee is given freedom to decide his or her work, salary, work-timings, vacations and even manager. Sounds impossible isn't it!! And if this setup was remotely possible, one might think that the company who does this would go bankrupt in a jiffy! Semler and his team of mavericks have made this possible. Everyone working at Semco has the freedom to choose all the items I listed above. And the company has shown tremendous organic growth since last 10 Years. And if you go by the statistics, since last five years, the average employees attrition rate of the company has been less than one percent! Something that most of the companies cannot even dream about...People at Semco know how to maintain the work-life balance, chose their career paths and integrate all this with Semco's vision.

I can write loads of stuff about Semco, how it was formed and how does it sustain the industrial democracy model, but that would be like taking a detour from the main topic. I would request each one of you to grab a copy of the book (start with Maverick, followed by Seven-day weekend).

Would leave you with a question...Is this kind of setup possible in an Indian Company...???? Can this be something more than only a dream...