On April 15, 1998, a middle-aged Banerjee took the first steps on a new career path: on that day, surrounded by friends and family, he broke open a coconut to mark the opening of his own travel agency, financed by the VRS pay-off. As he smilingly accepted the congratulations of former Indal collegues, Banerjee finally felt calm: perhaps, there was life beyond retirement.

A VRS needn't always be a Very Rude Shock. Ask Indian Aluminium (Indal), which in a bid to make the trauma of employees who have opted for its VRS, as painless aspossible, decided to sweeten the pill: Indal hired the services of a counselling and placement agency to nurse employees through the VRS.

Says M Cariappa, chief executive, corporate communications: ``In our endeavour to strive for best work practices in implementing the VRS as a system, we have attempted to soften the parting and achieve a smooth transition. And the best option was to have someone who is an expert at counselling as far as outplacements are concerned.''

Adds A K Basu, general manager, employee relations: ``Indal enjoys the reputation of being a fair company among its employees and we tried to keep up the image by attempting something different which would help the staff.''The VRS was introduced in mid-February and was open till March 31, 1999. No sooner was the VRS announced that Indal brought in Management Links Pvt Ltd, a counselling agency run by C V Aiyyar, to put the save-morale scheme into place, starting with the Calcutta headquarters. Says Aiyyar: ``I began interacting with theemployees who came up for counselling.''

It was a difficult task, as most of the employees had completed 27 years of service and Indal was the first and only company they had worked with. ``As a counselling consultant, I tried to appraise them of the prevailing job market, besides the demanding nature of the work structure elsewhere,'' said Aiyyar. Apart from counselling, Aiyyar is now in the process of providing placement options, keeping in mind the inclinations and needs of the employees. Interestingly, women employees above 47 years of age were offered options linked to providing a social contribution to society and ``quite a few of them were willing to accept them,'' says Aiyyar. ``The whole concept of counselling was to mentally prepare them for the future. The sudden discontinuity in work was not an easily acceptable fact for employees who had remained loyal to a company over the years and got used to a definite kind of work,'' he said.

From counselling to careers
At Belur, where Indal'ssheet plant is located, the need for the employees to interface with the external environment was different. According to Basu, ``The Belur plant houses a different set of workers with different skills as compared to Calcutta, which is essentially a corporate office. Hence the needs and procedures for counselling at these two centres were entirely different.'' Belur was also a different story as the targets were greater and many of the workers hailed from rural and semi-urban areas. So there was an urgent need to address various suggestions for self-employment schemes. Indal therefore, went in for in-house counselling here.

Said CK Sur, welfare office at Belur: ``The company prepared a list of proposals pertaining to various schemes and provided guidance to target groups on self-employment and investment opportunities. Each of these schemes again had to be ratified by the Small Industries Service Institute.''

The schemes were tailor-made for the skills and capabilities of Belur employees. Therefore,typically, the schemes related to agri businesses like mushroom cultivation, cattle farming and poultry farming. Some of the service-oriented schemes included data processing and software development, desk top publishing, service centres for radio, TV and domestic appliances, tutorial homes and pathological laboratory, running autorickshaws etc. Others included selling readymade garments, manufacturing aluminium ingots, starting a studio, running a fast food vending kiosk etc.

Life beyond the VRS
The total number of people who took up the VRS was 575 -- which included the Calcutta HQ, and plants at Belur in West Bengal, Belgaum in Karnataka and Alupuram in Kerala. Some examples of happy placements? There is Panchanan Banerjee of course, who has set up a travel agency with his VRS money on April 15. Debyajyoti Bardhan has bought a second-hand car with which he intends to begin a car-hire business. The company also arranged for some interaction with the National Small Industries Corporation whichoffered enterprise-building program- mes and vocational training for workers with technical experience. The NSIC is currently conducting a 20-day workshop for Indal, starting April 19, with 92 employees in two batches for both ERB and vocational training.

After attending the workshop -- for which they will be paid Rs 60 a day -- the workers will submit their proposals to the NSIC, which will help them get exemptions for purchasing machines and also loans for starting up new businesses. The employee assistance cell of the NSIC will also help get the workers some marketing help in terms of scouting for clients, said Sur.

In fact, Indal even brought in tax consultants to disseminate information on tax-saving investments on the VRS packages. It's a wise company that takes care of its employees -- but as Indal has proved, it's an exemplary company that takes care of ex-employees too.