Analysis Of Personal Experience In The Workplace

I had an experience back in India, when I was doing my graduation as a pharmacy student in Swami Vivekananda college of pharmacy, Punjab, India. It was all good until, my new principal joined our college. She had duality in her nature, Eventually, I and my classmate found that she was corruptive, double faced and of quite dominating nature. I and my college mates were victim of harassment from her. Even other faculty and lab attendants were also victim of her rude behavior and mistakes. So, organizational culture of college was negative at that time. She deprived the autonomy of instructors and students as well. But not the least, our pharmaceutical labs were so prone to accidents due to ignorance of safety equipment, because she was corruptive, she used to put most of money into her own pocket. Which had led one of the lab attendants to almost vision blindness. Moreover, our college management and principal tried to cheat us by making money from ‘Pradhan Mantri Kaushal yojana” an initiative toward empowering undergraduate students. The scheme was for benefit of students, but they were trying to get signature on consent of no obligation of transferring money from students account to college’s account (their own account). I and my classmates refused to sign the consent. We had quite few issues with our principal after that. We were like enemy to each other. Furthermore, she interfered during our final exams by forcefully picking us out of our examination room and ordered to sat in her office to write the exam paper in front of her. Finally, other faculty and student stood along with us and entire college peers had strike peacefully in front of administrative building for student welfare and safety. Due to consequences, they had to terminate her from principal’s post.

Effects on the workplace

There was not any single event. Firstly, I would like to shed some light on workplace hazard in the chemical lab. There were corrosive, inflammable and dangerous acids kept in the lab, where accident happened with lab attendant by sudden fire in storage room where chemicals were placed on shelves. Unfortunately, there was a fire extinguisher but was not working. It was outdated. The flames from acid burned his facial skin and frontal lobe of brain. This incident put him on the hospital bed at least for couple of months. After this event every single person was in shock and uncertainty. It could have happened with anyone, anytime. Secondly, how the management and our principal were working together, indulging in corruption by depriving our rights and cheating students on Pradhan Mantri Kaushal yojana scheme really demotivated us. Moreover, we had few issues with principal due to her ignorance on safety equipment and discrimination by her in our final examination. The outcome was that we were deflected from our goal of getting higher percentage marks.

Psychologically, we were tired and stressed due to her behavior and unethical deeds. In fact, my whole college faculty and peers had negative feeling which impacted our study.

Employee rights

There was lot of problems within college. Voilation of rights of Employees as well as students were so common there. There is list below.

Firstly, faculty of college except our principal has no right to teach student and work on other stuff related to studies with autonomy. They had to follow principal no matter it was right or wrong. She was so harsh, sometimes I have seen her misbehaving with instructors. Secondly, there was discrimination with me and my friends, because we used to raise question on her corruptive deeds and scams. Once we had given final exam in her office because she forced us to do so whereas, Other students had given paper in examination room. Lastly, worst thing was safety and safety measures which were almost negligible there.

Lab attendants were risking their life due to insufficient safety equipment. A lab attendant had an accident in chemical storage room. His face was burned by flames caused by sulphuric acid. He had almost lost his eyes. Fortunately, he recovered after 2 months.

Recommendations

In my opinion there was lack of communication between board of members and management. So, they need to indulge in regular conversation with management.

Management and principal of college was so much corruptive, they were not only cheating with student and college staff but also to board members and owner of college. To cope with that problem, they should need to appoint anti-corruption team of professionals and some policies regarding it. Moreover, they should need to take feedback from students on regular intervals, may be every month. Furthermore, safety was a huge concern. College authorities should ensure safety in workplace chemical labs. They should review on safety budget and need to bring new safety instruments.

Finally, they should appoint a principal who can lead students by an example or as role model instead of somebody who just try to dominate colleagues and students.

Incident recurrence

After our strike management was stunned. They never expected that. So, they had terminated our college principal from her post due to the pressure. Board members jumped into the matter because whole the matter was quite serious. College’s reputation was on stake. Then they applied firm policies. Some changes were made in management committee. I studied 1 year more after these events. Which was better than ever before. I have not seen any discrimination or safety issue again during my graduation.

Conclusion

I have learnt some few things after this kind of incident in my life is that leadership is a key of success in an organization. A leader should be aware of every aspect related to workplace ethics, safety parameters, interpersonal relation and how to handle circumstances. On the other hand, human resources management should follow ethics and they should choose candidates carefully according to not only their education but also on basis of good quality in leadership, interpersonal relationship and ability to manage organizational culture in workplace with collaboration and collective efforts to achieve desired goals.