Fake Encounters November 11, 2005

The Times of India’s Bangalore edition had it on its front page a few days ago—Intel’s India operations had asked some of its people to leave for forging their leave travel allowance (LTA) claims. Intel refused to furnish details except that it affirmed its standards of integrity were sacrosanct. I can well presume what would have happened there. A few people would have made a seemingly innocent conclusion that if an employee fudged an LTA claim to deny the Income Tax department their dues, as long as such an act did not hurt the company’s cash flow or bottomline, there was nothing wrong with it. We all know when the concept of LTA as a tax-exempt perk came up, in New Delhi travel agents sprang up. For a small fee, they gave people fake receipts for travel not undertaken with which they could submit a claim. It is quite commonplace in some organizations for someone to claim airfare while they travel by train. What’s wrong with that? After all, some politicians and film stars, cricketers and businessmen and bureaucrats routinely falsify their income tax returns to save on taxes? Well, companies like Intel do not agree with that reasoning. To them, both the means and the ends must be justified when it comes to workplace ethics. Cut to MindTree. A young engineer applied for a job with us. He had a passable degree in engineering. But, he cleared our difficult-to-get-through entry test and started his work in right earnest. We found him to be as good as any other in the organization. Then the worst happened. When his past employment history was checked, it turned out that he had forged the salary certificate to show that the last salary drawn was Rs 20,000 a month whereas his real salary was Rs 9,000 per month. In reality, he did not have to do this because our salary fitment does not depend on it. We look at education, the skill and our internal equity and then decide the compensation based on a competence grid. We fired the man. This isn’t an isolated case. Last year, in MindTree alone, we had a dozen cases where people were asked to leave after a month or two of joining when employment verification raised traces of forgery. I understand that in larger Indian companies where intake is significantly more, the size of the problem is even greater. But if found out, the consequences are as severe. The question is, to what good use? Why do people do things that bring them humiliation? Well, in the first place, no one told them that it was wrong. The truth is that a new breed of Indian companies are here who place value on integrity compared to the past. In addition, thanks to globalization, we are seeing companies like Intel coming to India who make no compromise on the seemingly small violation of workplace ethics. Amartya Sen has called us an ‘argumentative nation’. On matters of workplace ethics, we can have particularly long arguments on what is right and what is wrong, who truly is at fault and dwell on the quantum of punishment. After all, should all these people have been warned and let off as against being shown the door? The truth is that companies like Accenture, IBM, Intel, Infosys, MindTree or Wipro and many others have no appetite for such discussion. Matters of integrity to them are always a black or white issue. The human eye is trained to distinguish between 108 shades of grey. The moment one gets sucked into analyzing the many different shades of grey, it becomes unending. So, to these organizations, white is white and black is black. You either play by the book or, you opt to stay out. It’s that simple. So, the next time your nephew asks you to arrange for a fake experience certificate, tell him it is not a good idea. If someone tells you that no one would notice if you claimed first class train fare but travelled by bus do not submit a false claim. If someone says, “but, everyone here does it,’’ ask yourself, how comfortable would you be to explain your conduct to your own child if she ever asked you if what you did was the right thing? The concept of workplace integrity is going to grow in importance. However, it is not about policing people’s behavior. It is about making conscious choices based on conviction about what is fair, transparent and above potential scrutiny. It is about closing one’s own eyes in a dark room and listening to the voice of conscience. Source : http://digvijayankoti.blogspot.in/2009/04/subroto-bagchi-speaks-all-articles-by.html