IT boom — boon or bane?
N. GOPALAKRISHNAN
"A SOFTWARE professional commits suicide," "A young couple, both software engineers file for divorce," "Attrition rate and burnout rate are increasing day-by-day in the IT Industry." News items like these are becoming increasingly common in our daily newspapers. Yet, no one, including the IT professionals' associations or the governmental industrial health or mental health authorities, seems to bat an eyelid. Why?
If there is one thing that has struck me as curious in my almost half-a-century-old career as a medical practitioner, it is the markedly negative way in which we respond to certain illnesses characterised as "social ills."
First, it was the panic about drug abuse. I still remember the shrill writings of the 1970s and 80s that prophesied dire consequences. Young people were targeted and their parents thoroughly chided. The response was not concern or self-examination, but revulsion and stigma. This went on until the sensational story-makers seized upon something to scream louder about — AIDS. There, thankfully some concerted effort is beginning to be made, though much harm has already been done. The latest candidate, as everyone knows, is the problem of `employee burnout.'
Now, what is special about these illnesses that they turn out to be such media space grabbers? I think they have been so worrying because all the three directly affect the performing potential of our labour force. With fertility decline in full swing in many parts of the country our young people are truly our major resource. The way we have overreacted to these `epidemics' probably reflects our intense unconscious insecurity regarding this important asset, our skilled labour force. With the IT sector booming in the country, these fears have become particularly acute.
Common tendency
A common tendency is to say that attrition and worker burnout are part of the cost we have to pay for development in the era of globalisation. As a psychiatrist of long experience, I would call this the `ostrich response.' By adopting this posture, we are sacrificing long-term gains and not-so-readily renewable resource for narrow, short-term goals. We just cannot afford to let talented people die or turn invalid, or end up as mental and social wrecks.
Mental health professionals in this country have been trying to alert both the authorities and the public about the need to treat psychiatric and psychological care on a par with other sorts of medical care, for a very long time now. They have not received much attention. We do have a situation in which it would be suicidal to ignore this demand.
The least we could do is to equip young people mentally to meet the challenges of this generation. Especially for the IT industry, I feel that it is necessary that the employers must take the first step. Human resource managers who are aware of the returns that a motivated and energised workforce brings should take the lead in devising means by which employees can shed accumulated stress.
It is true that companies do offer a variety of solutions — yoga classes, exercise, meditation, flexi time, and telecommuting. But they cannot be substitutes for professional mental health counselling and care, especially when stress-related problems have already set in. Such counselling needs to be necessarily third party, precisely because many employees may find it delicate to reveal their personal problems to in-house people. I do feel that a proactive decision by major players in the IT industry regarding the provision of professional mental health care for employees will definitely have a salutary effect on the general acceptability of mental health care in the country as a whole.
The issue of access to professional mental health care for IT employees (and of other industrial sectors as well) is not merely the employees' or the companies' issue. Indeed this is one area in which the state ought to step in, as part of its responsibility to maintain the viability of the IT industry in the long run.
aashiana@eth.net
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