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THE
NEW ECONOMY: FLIP SIDE
Forty
And Frantic
The digital
divide is catching up with those on the wrong side of technology-and age
By
Malini Goyal
At
43, Sanjeev Mirchandani is a changed man. His friends have given up on
him, his family dare not prod. Withdrawn, he walks into his Delhi office
every morning, clears his files and gets back home. A quiet existence,
a disciplined life. The younger lot in the office thinks twice before
approaching him, his colleagues are plain wary.
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Sanjeev
Rastogi, 50
Sanjeev Rastogi, an IIM passout, migrated to Canada but chose
to return. Rastogi was keen on landing a top slot in an insurance
venture. But he couldn't despite his impressive experience. "I
have given up now," he says. Today, he has taken up teaching
assignments and is firming up insurance consultancy deals. Rastogi
has no regrets. "One should accept reality and start preparing
for the future," he says. His advice: life after 40 will get
worse with corporates embracing hire-and-fire policy. So retrain,
develop alternative career plans to keep yourself engaged.
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Mirchandani
was not always like this. Old friends remember his pranks during his IIT
and IIM days. His former colleagues miss the energetic and fun-loving
man who used to spice up lunch breaks. With his networking skills and
government contacts, he was indispensable. That was 10 years ago. Winds
of change-liberalisation to be precise-took their toll. Forget about being
indispensable, the group's thrust on technology-driven areas has rendered
him a misfit.
Bad career
moves, trap of the 40s, or plain unlucky-Mirchandani is grappling with
some hard realities. Sidelined in his present job, he has now given up
on his search for a new job.
Mirchandani
isn't alone. There are many like him who have seen their well-laid plans
go awry. Hard-earned experience has become irrelevant. The uncertainties
have come just when they had started planning for retirement. This is
what they call the digital divide-when you are on the wrong side of age
and at the wrong end of technology.
Technology
has done wonders. It has also played havoc. Companies caught off-guard
are working overnight to get into shape. Restructuring, diversification,
lay-offs, VRS-anything to stay alive. But individuals are struggling-just
when it was time for them to cash in their experience they realise their
age has become a baggage.
"A
lot of our skills are not relevant today," says Vivek C. Pande, chief
executive (HR & Quality), Modi Rubber. Of his IIM batch of 120, not
more than 40 remain in the corporate sector. The reason is simple: most
of the over-40 executives have spent a large part of their formative professional
life in the pre-liberalisation era when the business environment was very
different. Take Pande himself. After his IIM degree he worked for Rallis
India and Escorts in sales before moving on to Onida. Getting licences
and working through the regulatory maze was a big learning experience.
"You have to keep reinventing yourself," he says. Today he is
involved with quality and training, areas totally unrelated to his experience.
Change of
business environment is one. The problem of ageing is another. Companies,
especially in the New Economy sectors, are changing their demographic
profiles in a bid to increase efficiencies. There are many companies like
ICICI which have brought down the average age of senior management from
46 to 42 years. Egon Zehnder, an hr consultancy firm, found that in the
past year, out of a sample of 800 candidates for business unit head positions
in New Economy industries, 65 per cent belonged to the 35-40 age group,
22 per cent to the 30-35 band, while the rest were in the 40-45 bracket.
Says Ronesh Puri, who heads placement firm Executive Access: "There
is a problem if you are not at the top by 40. After 50, finding a job
is impossible unless you bring special skills to the table."
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