The Hindu Business Line : <I>Steering right the back-seat drivers </I>

The last time your foreign customer came visiting, did you notice your shop-floor supervisor, a diploma holder in mechanical engineering, falter for words in English while explaining a point of view? Did you come across another person with a similar background, who was not able to communicate the details of an ISO procedure to an auditor? These are the back-seat drivers, present in large numbers in most manufacturing organisations, who are technically sound, and more importantly have a keen understanding of the workmen psyche. The only short-coming of these back-seat drivers is they are woefully under-exposed to the larger world. Promotees from the worker cadre would find the going tougher still in the changing world, where as organisations formulated complicated strategies to survive in a more complex global business environment.

For the back-seat drivers though repositories of accumulated knowledge, it is the challenge of communication; often, left playing the second-fiddle to graduate engineers merely fluent in English.

The back-seat drivers are the real assets for the organisation, and must be trained in communication skills, both written and spoken, especially in English. They must also encouraged to acquire higher qualifications from premier institutions.. Organisations need to put in place to bring such people into the mainstream. Such employees are always willing to learn and grow.

Helping them absorb new ideas from the smart and result-oriented graduate engineers, and even giving them an opportunity to be under the care of trained mentors are some of the creative ways of building confidence in these back-seat drivers.

Nobody is a backseat driver as a matter of choice. But management can make winners out of them.

It is the management that must take the lead. The initiatives by the individuals will follow, and can be sustained through Human Resource initiatives.

A. B. Sivakumar

More Stories on : Human Resources | Impressions

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