Hi all,

I heard of an interesting incident which happened in a BPO company, a friend works at :

This is a typical BPO company with most of the employee population bw the age group of 21-35 yrs; largely everyone working in graveyard shifts.

An unmarried woman employee has started looking visibly pregnant. HR calls her in for a discussion (and possible termination of employment) to get to the " bottom of the matter because it may impact the ' reputation' of the company". There are further talks of having disussions with her parents.

( rest assured, her performance / productivity at work has not been impacted, lest some ppl think the discussion may have been for that purpose)

Questions:

1. Is it the company's business if an employee gets pregnant out of wedlock?

2. Can the company's "reputation" really be impacted by such an incident?

3. Why should the company take matters to the employee's parents ? is she not legally an adult responsible for her own decisions ? and if she wants to involve her parents, its strictly her own personal decision?

4. Are we treating BPO employees more like teenagers who come daily into our 'schools/ colleges' ?

( I have also heard from friends that their BPO company HR has threatened to 'notify parents' if they are absent from work ...after it was discovered that some employees took a casual leave ( valid leave - not truancy) and went to some resort without telling their parents)

5. Should we be more considerate and respectful of employee's personal boundries? Is it not necessary to have clear boundries bw employee's personal and professional lives?
P.S - would appreciate if the discussion does not go into realms of 'morality' of the out-of-wedlock issue. this is not the forum to be social and moral crusaders and bash the poor woman for her life choices.

lets limit our views only to the HR/Company involvement angle of it.

regards,

eChoice Training

Hi ,

I personally think that company's "reputation" a has nothing to do with an employee getting pregnant out of wedlock. It is her problem or choice and the HR should not interfere in her personal matter as long as she has not asked for it. Also the BPO's need to grow up and treat their employees like employees and not like teenagers who come daily into our 'schools/ colleges'.

I have also experienced this when some companies including BPO's call me to inform me as I am the Placement head to tell me that my student has not turned up and has taken sick leave but is out on a picnic or he is romancing with somebody in the same office. I do not understand why I should be informed for all this once he has passed out from my college and is an adult responsible for his actions. At times they hold me responsible for such activities that i did not inform them that my ex student was involved with some girl. How on earth am i suppossed to know all this and why am i responsible ?

Regards,

Roger

To the best of my knowledge in the real HR philosophy, the person heading HR in any type of industry / BPO should play a role of Brahma, Vishnu and Maheshwar according to the real life situation. All the employees should respect him / her as equivalent to their parents / wellwishers and we should create such an environment where from every employee comes and discuss all the issues without having any hesitation.

It is high time to align ageold traditional values with the current professional and organizational values and ethics in to the corporate philosophy.

In today's globalized scenario, the bonding / relation ship between the employee and the organization, between the HR and the employee, seeming vanished. The only culture we have now is I am paying and you are working. Earlier we thought of loyalty and commitment and you can hardly expect any such commitment now. With the BPO boom now we are further spoiling our own culture keeping some or other barriers within or around us.

With this I am not trying to say that we should have to do a police job round the clock to see what is happening around us ? but still if some thing goes wrong at least we should have to come to their rescue first being humans ? There is nothing wrong in our trying to resolve, is there any issue with what ever the little help that we can, as an individual, as a team or as an organization, instead escaping staing many a reasons they are majors or minors ? This is not my responsibility ? etc., Who knows what is stored in the future for us.

I welcome any comments further.

With regards.

As an HR person, I feel that these kind of incidents should not be thought of as damaging reputation of an organisation.

The fact that employees are adult & mature enough to make important decisions pertaining their lives needs to be accepted & respected.

However, what I am concerned abt is, in such a case, will the company give the concerned female employee same benefits (like maternity leave), as it would have given under routine circumstance?

If not, even that can indirectly lead to her quitting the organisation.

Regards,

raghu

I do not think that the company can differentiate between married and unmarried women in this regard. The MATERNITY BENEFIT ACT, 1961 does not say that it applies only to married women.