Save your waters

 

One email from one of my erstwhile bosses and my KRAs changed all of a sudden. The email said “We have maximum attrition in the 0 – 3 months bucket and one of the action points decided on the weekly call is to enhance the Day-1 experience of the new-joiners”. This email changed the course of my work. While I was already doing my best to keep the new-joiners engaged I was absolutely clueless about what to do next for enhancing the Day-1 experience. I was almost on the verge of replying to my boss saying that now the only thing left is to perform a cabaret in front of the new-joiners on Day-1. Off-course having thought this, one flip side of Sachin doing a cabaret on Day-1 would be new-joiners resigning on Day-1 itself.

The new-joiners usually were getting too much bogged down by all the documentation and form-filling activities. The photocopying and form-filling activities sucked the energy out of them. They were confined to a chilling conference room feeling completely lost and doing some crazy writing work which they won’t have done for past few years. With excessive usage of mouse and keyboard these folks almost forget how to write on a paper holding a pen in hand. Even when they attempt writing their full name on the form it seemed like it’s a signature. It’s a day when all the new-joiners would feel they should have a personal secretary who would do the writing and preserving document activity. Another torture of Day-1 were those unwanted people entering the conference room trying to welcome them but eventually ended up invading their privacy. Especially when the reporting manager says a welcome to you, it seems more like ‘welcome to the jungle’ and when their fellow colleagues would come and meet them and then whisper amongst themselves it seemed more like ‘here is one more addition to the banana republic’.

Amidst all this chaos giving an excellent Day-1 experience was becoming challenging. While I was struggling to think what different can be done, I thought of reading few articles around this topic.

While I was trying to copy (rather get influenced), I came across a concept called Day Zero. The new age organisations were calling the new-joiners a day prior to the joining date to complete the joining formalities, form-filling and other mundane tasks so that on Day-1 when the employee actually joins they spend time on a premise tour, ice-breaking and understanding other role dynamics. A new HR concept got added to my general knowledge about HR and that was Day Zero, which meant start of a new journey.  

Now, after almost a decade.

A month ago, I came across this Day Zero term once again, this time in a completely different context. Breaking news that hit the TV channels was that Cape Town will be running out of water somewhere in July 2018. A city will run out of water, are you serious? Something which was a first of its kind news in my lifetime. How could a city run out of water? How are the people going to survive? Were the authorities sleeping all this while?

Just a couple of years ago, the situation could not have looked more different here. In 2014, the dams stood full after years of good rain. The following year, C40, a collection of cities focused on climate change worldwide, awarded Cape Town its "adaptation implementation" prize for its management of water.

Cape Town was described as one of the world’s top “green” cities, and the Democratic Alliance — the opposition party that controlled Cape Town since 2006 — took pride in its emphasis on sustainability and the environment.

The accolades recognized the city’s success in conserving water. Though the city’s population had swelled by 30 percent since the early 2000s, overall water consumption had remained flat. Many of the new arrivals settled in the city’s poor areas, which consume less water, and actually helped bring down per capita use.

The city’s water conservation measures — fixing leaks and old pipes; installing meters and adjusting tariffs — had a powerful impact. Maybe too powerful.

The city conserved so much water that it postponed looking for new sources.

For years, Cape Town had been warned that it needed to increase and diversify its water supply. Almost all of its water still came from six dams dependent on rainfall, a risky situation in an arid region with a changing climate. The dams, which were full only a few years ago, are now down to about 26 percent of capacity, officials say.

The city made mistakes. Last year, instead of focusing on “low-hanging fruit” like tapping into local aquifers, the city concentrated on building temporary desalination units, said Kevin Winter, a water expert at the University of Cape Town’s Future Water Institute.

End result been a City which featured in the top 10 ‘Green City’ in 2008 is counting every drop of water dispersed in 2018. A city surrounded by water all around is falling short of drinking water.

On water front, from abundance to the Day Zero status of the city, Cape Town situation seemed more like a life cycle of a human being. It made me realize the lot many Day Zero s that we may also be walking or galloping towards. Even we have too many waters that support our living and keep our lives Green e.g. health, work, relations, friendships, spirituality etc. We need to take a stock of where we are and how far is the Day Zero for our waters.

Even a person who suddenly gets a heart attack and dies was actually on a careless health journey which he / she was intentionally /unintentionally pursuing.

In the first context Day Zero embarked a start of a new journey however in the 2^nd context the same Day Zero marked the end of a beautiful journey. Any unpleasant ends bring in lot of anguish and pain. While we may lament the loss we conveniently forget the journey that led to this unpleasant destination. We don’t lose a game we just run out of time and opportunity. Take care of your waters until it’s still there.

I wish we all face Day Zero that is alpha and not omega.