One of the forgotten legacies of the Father of the Indian nation, Mahatma Gandhi, was the talisman he gave to the masses. It goes,

I will give you a talisman. Whenever you are in doubt, or when the self becomes too much with you, apply the following test. Recall the face of the poorest and the weakest man [woman] whom you may have seen, and ask yourself, if the step you contemplate is going to be of any use to him [her]. Will he [she] gain anything by it? Will it restore him [her] to a control over his [her] own life and destiny? In other words, will it lead to swaraj [freedom] for the hungry and spiritually starving millions?
Then you will find your doubts and your self melt away.

But like Gandhi’s other ideals of peace & non-violence, has the talisman also faded away in the information age? Let me try and translate this talisman today for the corporate world.

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In the first part of this study(Read Part I), the focus was on compensation and performance review practices that lead to frustration in employees.

In this part, I will take a look at peer & colleague factors, attention paid to an employee and work assigned to analyze the effects these factors can have on employee morale, and how minor issues can be major factors in build-up of frustration.

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A job of as a software engineer is one of the most sought after jobs in India today. A major number of engineering college graduates are sucked into software companies, where they are offered high pay packages and various bonuses and incentives. Yet, most of India’s software engineer community is frustrated today. This post attempts to look at the frustration of this community of people that writes most of the source code which powers a lot of software around the world.
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