TeamLease: tabloid ‘facts’ about tech hubs
By Techgirl

TeamLease Services is one of India’s leading staffing companies which sources temporary and permanent employees for its 500 clients which include some in the IT, BPO and KPO sectors. Teamlease, which started in 2002, states in its website that it has a core team of 700 employees who have placed 50,000 employees in over 450 locations. Apart from good HR skills, it knows how to get media attention.

Teamlease certainly has learnt to play the publicity game.  After a recent survey of 8 cities (and tech hubs) - New Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Chennai, Kolkata, Ahmedabad, Hyderabad and Pune,   it released a report titled ‘Nothing Ethical about Ethics’.  Techgoss knows that there is nothing like a tabloid heading to grab eyeballs.

According to the Teamlease press release to the media, the survey had an Indian sample size of 401 belonging to top 500 companies.  Obviously not one person among 99 of the top 500 companies bothered to answer the survey.

401 people among the tens of millions who work in these cities gave enough masala to get Teamlease in the news.  Nearly 45 percent of workers don’t bat an eyelid while logging incorrect work times.  46.8 percent feel using office lines for personal long distance calls is okay.  55.7 fudge working expenses.  60 percent lied through their teeth to take leave.   Nearly 62 percent respondents would use hook or crook to get information about competitors.   63 percent are okay with doing personal work at office.

So far so good. 

Then the TeamLease survey of 401 people across 8 cities (with many techies) starts judging entire cities.  Kolkata and Delhi are the most ‘ethical and straightforward’.  (Perhaps Delhi with its politicians has good role models). Kolkata respondents said they had very high ethical standards while Ahmedabad was at the bottom with an ethics index of only 21.  It gets murkier with quotes like:  “Nearly 80% respondents from Hyderabad don't bat an eyelid while taking office stationery home. In agreement with them are Ahmedabad, Bangalore and Pune”.

The only quote that made complete sense to techgoss was the survey statement which said:  “Gossiping in the garb of ‘networking’ is the favourite pass time as nearly 60% respondents love to indulge in it and do not consider it unethical. Topping this list is Ahmedabad, Pune, Bangalore and Hyderabad with an average of around 70%”. Looks like the techgoss target audience.

The fact is that a sample survey of only 401 across 8 cities is too thin to give any meaningful results.  Tech hubs like Bangalore are so cosmopolitan and that there is a chance that half the respondents could be more different states.

At the end, this was a survey meant to get some free publicity for Teamlease and nothing more.  In February, 2008 they had released another ‘interesting’ survey to keep the journalists happy and get some free publicity.  The Feb survey by Teamlease of 425 people said: “87 per cent of the respondents were satisfied with their work-life balance and about 70 per cent felt that Indian organisations have flexible policies for employees that allow them to maintain work-life balance.”

If you believe that 87 percent of Indians are satisfied with work-life balance, you will believe that the recent nuclear vote was a conscience vote and no ‘inducements’ were involved.

Teamlease has many admirable skills like matching the right candidates with the right jobs.  Now they have to be credited with thinking up clever publicity stunts which would do Bollywood proud.  Publicity loving actress Mallika Sherawat can get some pointers from TeamLease.

Techgoss note:  Techgirl is a senior Tech journalist who reports on the IT, KPO and KPO Sectors for a leading media house.  In her spare time, she dabbles in satire in her blog
http://techgirltalk.blogspot.com/