'No copyright on this idea'

How much do you trust your colleagues or employees? Entrepreneur Ravi Kiran has tried an innovative approach towards building trust and extending support in the workplace.

At his garment workshop in Frazer town in Bengaluru, Ravi has installed an 'open' safe box with money, accessible to all his team members to meet their emergency expenses.

"When people need money urgently they often take loan of Rs 1,000 or Rs 2,000, or even pawn off small jewellery items, since they don't feel comfortable asking for an advance," says Ravi.

The safe box system was designed to avoid this situation. It holds about Rs 5,000 in cash and the only rider for members borrowing money is that they return the amount as soon as possible, with an additional ten rupees.

"I told them I won't check when they take the money, for what they take the money, or even when they return it. They have to trust me as much as I trust them," says Ravi.

Ravi, a science graduate with a self-described "madness" for handloom, credits his mentor Santhosh Koulagi of the Janapada Seva Trust in Melkote for the idea.

It has been two years since Koulagi implemented the idea at the Janapada Seva Trust. He kept Rs 1,000 aside in a box because he saw that the women weavers never had any money in hand to meet unforeseen expenditure and there was always "an anxiety about asking people for money".

Koulagi calls the safe box "God's money" because "only God comes to help you when you need it the most".

A visitor to the Janapada Seva Trust, impressed by the system, donated Rs 10,000 to be kept in the box.

Koulagi says he had doubts about whether the system would run, but never once went to check on the money or how it was being used.

"After working together for 10 years, if you don't trust each other, then it is sad," he says.

After two years though, Koulagi says he was informed that the amount in the box had actually grown a bit, indicating that people were using the system as intended.

Ravi Kiran, who works with four other people at his shop in Frazer town, feels the system wouldn't work in a bigger organisation.

So far, he has encouraged a couple of his friends to implement the system at their own workplaces. He also put out a social media post with the hope that more people would implement it.

"In the garment and textile business, there are often a lot of fights over designs and copyrights. My intention of putting the post was that if you want to copy an idea, might as well copy this," he says.

As his post says: “There is no copyright on this idea. In fact, we trust you to copy.”