After Air India Sacked 125 Crew Members For Being Overweight, Fitness Becomes The New KRA!

National carrier Air India was recently in news for grounding 125 cabin crew members because they were found to be overweight. While looks and body weight clearly matter in aviation and hospitality sectors, the pressure to be in shape is pushing employees in the corporate world as well to shed the extra kilos.

Marthastewardess

Nitin Malkani, a 31-year-old HR professional in Delhi says that his boss motivated him to hit the gym two years ago when Malkani weighed 106 kg. "He told me that if I lose weight it will improve my career prospects," says Malkani who lost 25 kg over two years while working out at Snap Fitness gym in Saket. Being an HR executive he admits that looks (including body weight) of a potential employee matter just as much as his/her skill set.

Inmagine

Swetha Mikkili, who works with a software MNC in Hyderabad says losing 13 kilos in the past four months have helped her focus better at her job. Mikkili signed up for a weight-loss app, Healthifyme, in May. She finds that being fit and healthy has become almost mandatory in MNCs and people who are obese may risk losing out on career growth. "Lack of fitness is interpreted as a lack of discipline in corporate circles. A person who is not fit is deemed negligent. The idea being that 'if you can't take care of yourself, how will you take care of your work?'" says
Nirmala Menon, a senior HR consultant and CEO-Founder of Interweave, a professional diversity consultancy firm in Bengaluru. Menon's observations find validation in a recent study conducted by Wharton professor Maurice Schweitzer and Wharton doctoral candidate Emma E Levine. They ran a series of experiments which explored potential effects of weight bias at workplace. "What we found across our studies is that obesity serves as a proxy for low competence...People judge obese people to be less competent even when it's not the case," says Schweitzer in an online press release. Findings of the experiments were published in March in the journal Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes.
While people in India are not losing their jobs because of their body weight (as has been the case in very weight-conscious countries like the US) good health is increasingly being seen as an important criterion while hiring, especially for top leadership roles. "CEOs, VPs...they need to exude high level of energy and be role models for their teams. That's why you'll see most company heads are agile, they play a sport, they exercise regularly...," adds Menon. A 2009 study from Michigan State University found that only five percent of Fortune-1000 CEOs (of either gender) were obese, as opposed to about 37% of the population as a whole.

Loseappetite.org

Indian CEOs are taking up fitness, especially running, seriously and in the process are inspiring their teams to do the same. For example, Reliance Group chairman Anil Ambani's love for running is well-known and his team members too dedicatedly sign up for the Mumbai marathon. TCS chief N Chandrasekaran, another marathon enthusiast who has completed the New York and Berlin marathons, has inspired many in TCS to take up running.
Multinational offices also look out for the latest fitness trends. Nordic Walking, a new cardiovascular workout that's trending big time in Europe, is also catching up with MNCs in Delhi. Already five such companies have booked Swissfit ¡ª a Swiss corporate wellness programme that is bringing Nordic Walking to India later this year ¡ª to train their staff.
Philips India has tied up with Healthifyme to help its staff lose weight. Around 1,000 employees have already signed up for the programme. "We are seeing a hike in the number of corporate executives who are signing up for weight loss," says
Roshni Gilbert a CA-turned-fitness trainer with the app. Reebok Master Trainer Nisha Varma says that almost 20% of the crowd working out at big gym chains is because of professional reasons. "Everyone wants to look fit and young. These executives want to lose weight, gain muscle and they want to do it fast, they are impatient," says Mohd Aamir, fitness manager at Snap Fitness, Delhi. Even doctors and surgeons are lining up to get fit. He mentions a client who is a surgeon and has to conduct many surgeries in a day. "So he came to us to develop his core strength as he has to bend over an operating table for long hours. He is working out abs and muscles in the lower back," says Aamir. "A fit body also boosts self-confidence so our clients are able to perform better at their workplace," adds Manish Ruhail, a trainer with Fitness First, Delhi.

(Originally published in Times Of India)