Because of these trends, often we refuse to see the other side of the coin. Employees take on a hardened approach because of their own bitter experiences. Lack of trust, it appears, is the main reason for the employees' reluctance to accept the management's proposals at face value.

Recently, I came across one such experience in my professional career. The organisation is 70-80 years old. It is a multinational company. The union has strong roots in the organisation, since the days of the freedom movement. This company introduced a suggestion scheme some two decadesback.

Once it happened that a suggestion given by a fitter came to be converted as an idea of a manager and the latter got accolades. The worker was given only a paltry sum for his suggestion. This came to the knowledge of many workers. Thereafter, the scheme failed to take off.

The company re-introduced the scheme two decades later. But, the response to the proposals were just as lukewarm as in the past. When questioned on this, both the union members and the experienced workers in the organisation said that they had lost faith in the scheme. Despite repeated communications at various forums in the organisation, the scheme could not be revived. This only goes to show how one's attitude can get hardened by circumstances.

In some cases, the workers out of their sheer fear and insecurity resist changes. Here is an example. A company that is 150 years-old, bought two new lathes from HMT and requested the local productivity council to study the productivity of the machine. But, when the council members cameto the organisation, the workers refused to operate the machines.

The management requested the union to help fix the work load on the new machines. The union did not help. So, the management had to suspend the two workmen which ended in a union strike that lasted four months. After the suspension was withdrawn, enquiry was conducted and both the workmen were dismissed from service on grounds of refusal to obey the lawful orders of the company.

When the workers were contacted separately, they expressed their fear that when once the norms were fixed for new machines, the management would buy additional lathes and 50 per cent of the workers in the department would be asked to leave. Their fears came true, 2-3 years later.

The company introduced a voluntary retirement scheme (VRS) that sent many out of the organisation. As a result, in that company, now when someone talks about productivity, there is initial resistance to such proposals.It is not only with workmen. Among management too, hardened attitudecomes out of experience. Here is an example of that.

The company in focus was celebrating the `Saraswathi Pooja', as was the case every year. That particular year, the LTS discussion was going on. The company took the posture on certain terms of agreement during discussion.

The management as usual arranged for Saraswathi Pooja celebrations. The workers boycotted the Pooja and behaved in an unruly way by breaking coconuts in the financial controller's cabin and throwing all pooja materials in his cabin. Due to this, even after the settlement, the management did not celebrate the Pooja in a major way for the next 10 years.

It was a Herculean task for the new personnel department to restart it. Whenever the department opened up the subject, the entire old team of managers would say that ``those workers won't deserve it''.

It is true that in today's environment one cannot live with a rigid attitude. Attitude has to undergo changes to suit the needs of society, the customers, the market and theproduct.

The most important question-How to change this attitude? Is it difficult? Should the management always pay a price for this change? If some one asks me, I can definitely say, ``Attitude can be changed. Workers are undergoing change, though many a times they are victims of the change. It is a time consuming process. It can come through sheer continuous education and training. It needs a lot of patience.

As the management is prepared to pay a price for new technology, at least a token price has to be paid for this change in attitude too, though it looked meaningless in its outward appearance. The price which is psychological, may be meagre, but has to be paid. Any change introduced through force will create negative impact and ruin the organisation. So continuous training, education and communication are the only methods that will bring about change in outlook and business practices. Successful organisations follow this and succeed continuously.

The writer is an HR professional