How to introduce Indian personnel in the Italian Work environment
Introduce Indian personnel in the Italian Work environment
India is the biggest democracy in the world. Populated by 1.38 billion, which makes this state the second in terms of population after China. Its territory, extending from the snow-covered Himalayan heights to the tropical rain forests of the south. India has 28 states and 8 Union Territories.
This country has a big cultural heritage. It has 22 officially recognized languages, of which Hindi and English are the official ones. Aside from these, there are hundreds of other languages at a local level. Even religion is not the same across the country. 80% of the population practices Hinduism, 14% Islam, 2.3% Christianity and many minor religions.
Social structure
Instead, what is commonly spread across the whole country is social class structure, a caste system. Indians believe that there are four main categories. It are Brahmins (priests and teachers), Kshatriyas (warriors and rulers), Vaishyas (farmers, traders, and merchants) and the Shudras (labourers). There is also a fifth class even if it is outcaste, known as Dalits. It is composed by street sweepers and latrine cleaners.This social system is strongly related to Hindu. “Manusmriti”, the most important book on Hindu law, states “acknowledges and justifies the caste system as the basis of order and regularity of society”. Even if that system is now illegal, it is still part of their culture. Therefore it’s easy to understand the presence of a large power distance or inequality between the powerful and less powerful within Indian culture.
In the last decades, the Indian government pushed towards the education of scientific subjects, especially on informatics. Because of this policy, many Indians have outstanding knowledge and skills in programming. Attracting the attention of many companies that seek personnel in the IT sector by both hiring individuals or directly outsourcing the function. We wanted to better understand what kind of cultural issues a company can face in hiring personnel from India and how to overcome them. So we interviewed an informatics department’s team leader in a company that operates in the italian automotive sector.
Power distance as the biggest issue
In the first instance, Lorenzo confirms that Indian personnel has lot of skills. It is most efficient when you assign them specific tasks to follow as they will provide a well done work. However it is common in the informatic department to work in groups on different projects and softwares.
This is where the major problem of power distance arises. As he stresses that “Providing them single tasks is just a tool to break the ice, the hardest part comes when I introduce them into the group projects”. In his job flexibility is the most important thing. As in coding you can face many obstacles that require specific items and tools with an access key. “Most of the time, other team members proceed with their job and ask me for the keys based on what they need, the Indians don’t and they block themselves.”
He further explains that this block is due to the fact that Indians have huge respect for hierarchies to the point where they are afraid to ask something they need to proceed with the work as they fear repercussions or think that by doing so they are going to bother the “boss”.
“This is the most stressful and thorny problem”, says Lorenzo explaining further. “I have to coordinate my team with the others and it happens that for one hour I am communicating with other team leaders. When I come back and check on everybody’s work, I see that Indians are stuck. When I ask them what the problem is, the answer is always the same:’I do not have the access keys!’ And I have to repeat again that they can ask for it in my chat whenever they need something.”
Indian personnel: an example
Lorenzo highlights this simple example to explain how their attachment in receiving clear orders all the time and their absent initiative-taking force him to monitor them constantly asking if they need something. Of Course this is not sustainable in the long run as Lorenzo explains. “This can be fine for the first period, but they have to adapt to the environment as I will not be able to follow them all day and,at the same time, work on my tasks”.
To stress out even more the power distance effect, Lorenzo explains that he is has to follow them personally. Since, if he delegates a team member to do so, the latter will not be listened to as he is not the leader. This lack of confidence in pushing themselves out of their comfort zone is the main point that must be broken. In order to help them to adapt, cooperate with the teammates and achieve the best results. Because, as Lorenzo says, “Once they become comfortable with our way of operating, they are highly reliable and skilled workers who can reach outstanding results especially when they will be in charge of a team.
They can effectively mix their cultural heritage and what they learned here by being extremely responsible leaders able to get the most out of the team, without the risk of offending or mistreating the members because of cultural differences”.
Apart from the culture, the religion also shapes indian behaviour. Lorenzo shared an interesting point about how, as an example,a buddhist indian shares the same behaviour with hierarchies. But because of the religious teachings, he or she is faster in adapting for the sake of the group success, while more individualist persons require more time.
How to overcome power distance with Indian personnel
Lorenzo shared with us some tips to overcome the power distance problem. The main idea is about leveraging on their individualism. As, if you want to push them out of their comfort zone, you can allow them to get out of work earlier when they reach a specific amount of work to be done. Or, if it is possible, provide them with economical bonuses. These initiatives have proven to be really effective. Indians are really keen to achieve those kinds of objectives by being able to push themselves out of their boundaries and break some of their norms in order to get the prize.
Another tip that works both on the individual side and on the power distance one is to exploit their respect for power.
By cheering their work at the end of the projects, asking them opinion so that they begin to be more comfortable with the environment.
So they start to feel more entitled to have a stronger position. They break communication barriers since the team is showing that their knowledge and skill has been noticed and needed among the different activities.
Finally, the last tip regards the general interaction with them.
By paying attention in not talking about private things and political themes. They are quite confidential and it is better to let them choose the topics avoiding the risk of offending them.
