Retirement age debate - Sachin's presence added more than it subtracted from the team: Manish Sabharwal

Interview with chairman and co-founder of Teamlease Services

Sachin Tendulkar's last match has been an emotion-packed event for Indians. But even as the 'Master Blaster' took a bow before cheering crowds, the debate continued: should he have retired earlier? As a human resource, had Tendulkar outlived his utility for Indian cricket? In an interview with M Saraswathy, Manish Sabharwal, chairman and co-founder of Teamlease Services, examines the timing of the cricketer's retirement from an HR expert's perspective. Edited excerpts:

Do you think Tendulkar overstayed his term? If not, why?

I think the biggest test of whether you have overstayed is when people are asking 'why' rather than 'why not'. In Tendulkar's case people are mostly asking 'why'.

Should the Board of Control for Cricket in India have nudged him to retire? Or was he critical as a motivator for the team?

I don't think that is the role of BCCI, particularly in this case. A team needs many skills but it needs the right balance of energy and experience. You can view experience as making people old, but it also makes them wiser and more dangerous because they have seen all the movies before. His [Tendulkar's] presence on the team so far has added more than it subtracted.

In the corporate world, is staying too long (beyond the tenure) considered a bane or a boon?

I think there is a time for everything. But great corporate performance calls for a special balance of energy and experience, enthusiasm and wisdom and taking action after thinking. As an entrepreneur, one of the biggest challenges is getting the transition right. Convert a high energy startup into a structured institution too early and you take away its birthright. But do that too late and you will take away its destiny. Getting transition right in sports and business is not the solving of a sum but the painting of a picture - it's more art than science.

Would the need for an individual to retire from a company's perspective be different for the top management and the middle management?

The top management is obviously more dangerous and more impactful for any company. It is obviously going to be difficult to replace CEOs like Aditya Puri, but I think of many CEOs whose companies would be better off if they handed over the keys. The middle management is more tricky. Many companies are extending the retirement age because a lot of institutional memory is lost when the middle management is lost and sometimes it is worth keeping experienced people as long as you can.

With younger talent coming into the Indian employment market, will there be a scenario of early retirement in industries? Or does the lack of a proper, organised talent pipeline lead to older workforce staying back?

The demographic dividend means that 1,000,000 youngsters will enter the labour force every month for the next twenty years. But this does not mean that companies will have to be managed differently or their people supply-chain models should change. I think the lack of skills among the youth has clearly extended the tenure of many experienced people - particular in manufacturing because the IT companies vacuumed up all the engineering talent in the last two decades. But things are starting to balance out and companies will find the right balance of the young and old, based on their industries, growth rates, customers, and plans.

Is there any ideal age for retirement? Or does it depend on the sector and the individual?

Age is mostly a state of mind and the retirement age depends on many factors related to the overall economy (confident in the future), sector (growth), company (strategy) and individual (personal plans). If there is any sector that a retirement age should be enforced on, it is politics.