(This is the second part
of the three part discussion on the National BPO Employee's Register)
Our previous
article on the National Employee's BPO register focussed on the possibility of
the project being taken up as an e-Governance project.
Let us look at
another dimension of the project....The Impact of the Register on the
Employees.
While it is
fine to think that an employee who has committed a fraud in one BPO should not
be given an employment in any other BPO, and the register of BPO employees
will serve as the "Negative List" for this purpose, it is necessary to also
consider the legal, moral,social and political aspects of the suggestion.
Firstly, by
maintaining a negative list or a list where some adverse remarks about the
employees are maintained, the employee's future will be doomed for ever. Even
in the financial sector, there is a concept of "Financial Re Birth" through
"Insolvency Petition" and getting "discharged".
Even
murderers are getting released after serving a 14 year imprisonment. It is a
principle of criminal justice system that persons have to be reformed and
given an opportunity at rehabilitation. In such a scenario, it would be
anachronic to think that an employee misbehaviour should be held against him
for ever.
To think of the
proposed register as a "Negative List" from which employers will not recruit
persons is therefore not a wise proposition.
We must also
appreciate that a register which can affect the long term career of a person
can be abused to both extremes.
In one extreme,
a good samaritan will not file any adverse report on an employee since he does
not want to spoil the future of the person. he will be happy to say that
"Employee Resigned for Better Prospects" rather than saying "Employee
Dismissed for Suspected Fraudulent Behaviour".
In the other
extreme, false reports will be filed on the employee by the employer so that
the employee's future will be permanently damaged. Worst still, the employer
or any of its representatives may use threat or coercion to file an adverse
report on an employee and abuse him in other ways.
When even a
murder accused is considered "Innocent until proved guilty" and often this
argument continues until the Supreme Court decides on the appeal, condemning
an employee through a departmental enquiry process is untenable however good
the system may be.
The move to
keep the register as a "Negative List" or even a "Grey List" of "Possible
Tendency for Misconduct" is therefore a non starter.
We need to
therefore think of an alternative to the suggestion presently being discussed.
[For reasons of
propriety, I am refraining from discussing some of the other adverse prospects
of such a register in the social and political sectors.... Naavi]
(Comments
welcome)
Naavi
July 3, 2005
Related Article/Information:
National E-Employment Exchange Project
