The case of the indispensable employee

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Divya Bhagat never takes a day off. She's always available anytime "" everytime "" I call the customer care number of my cell phone provider.

If you think she sounds too good to be true, you're right "" Divya is the name assigned to the number I call; she's not a real person at all. "People" like Divya are now almost common-place in the service industry "" common identities that are adopted by customer-care attendants as and when required.

The advantages of such a strategy are obvious: the name on the service side of the telephone is always available for the customer, never falls sick, never takes a coffee break as anybody can fill the seat of the executive.

The biggest benefit for the company: customers will never hear, "That employee is no longer with the organisation."

So, is identity more important than the employee? What about key executives? How dispensable are they? "The loss of a key executive will always have an adverse impact on operations, momentum and morale. However, if the strategy and systems of a company are in place, it can certainly withstand the impact," says Sonal Agrawal, senior director of international executive search firm, Accord Group.

It's a little more difficult when the CEO or other top executive is synonymous with the organisation "" think Jack Welch and GE. "The personality should be a catalyst, rather than cover the organisation with his persona," says Purvi Sheth, vice president of HR consulting firm, Shilputsi Consultants. "Companies are built around businesses, not individuals."

And not middle managers, either. "At middle levels, the exit of a key manager has an impact, but it is usually restricted to his sphere of influence within the operations," says Agrawal.

Still, that's not to say that employees are completely replaceable. Ask most HR heads whether the job is more important or the individual, and you won't get a straight answer.

That's because while routine tasks can be outsourced, if an employee adds more value to the same task, his importance increases.

Then, experience counts: even employees performing mundane tasks know the history behind that job. So they can solve problems that a newcomer may not.

The Divya of last week certainly seemed to know more than the one I spoke with yesterday.