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Thought an office cricket match or a rather generous entertainment allowance was enough of an HR initiative to get your work force going? If you are answer is yes, then you are probably safe. Because after Wipro and Azim Premji having been slapped with a suit by a woman who claims that the company’s alleged dating allowance caused her husband to leave her, it doesn’t look like a great idea to go beyond the regular HRA and other sundry HR initiatives.
Wipro has categorically denied the existence of this allowance, but it isn’t such an alient concept in many BPOs and IT firms. Primarily an American concept, the allowance exists basically to nurture interpersonal relationships and perhaps matrimony, in some cases.
“I think it’s absurd this woman has sued. But I really don’t see a problem in having such an allowance,” says Divya Thakur. She elaborates this by saying when an allowance is given to employees it given on the good faith that it will be used for the correct reason. “So if this is to encourage interpersonal skills, then I don’t see a problem in such an allowance at all,” she adds.
A dating allowance would ideally be meant for singles, but in this case it seemed to be given to a married man. “I have no clue about this allowance and am not sure Wipro has something like that. But having said that, in my own company I would not have such allowances. We’d rather use team-building exercises and other people-based HR initiatives to encourage employee interaction,” says Ashish Raheja, manageging director of K Raheja Universal, who incidentally was in the middle of a company cricket match.
However, HR companies don’t quite see the dating allowance taking off. “It came about in the US first and there it is ok to have something like because people start working and making choices very young and independently.
But in India, even today a lot of youngsters would rather go with a partner their parents choose for them,” says Narendran Jayakant, managing director of an head hunting and manpower resource firm. “These policies may work with a BPO kind of crowd but I doubt it will catch on in other place,” he adds.
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