Description
Talent Management in Manufacturing Sector (Steel Industry) in recessionary times.
Individual Dynamics and Leadership
Assignment: Talent Engagement Practices in a recessionary period Industry: Manufacturing Sector (Steel Industry)
Contents
1. Introduction 2. Project Overview 3. Review of Literature 4. Statement of Objectives of study 5. Method of Study
6. Analysis and discussion of findings 7. Conclusion and recommendations
1. INTRODUCTION Globalization is now well entrenched and with the tough phase of recession left behind, the key issue that arises is whether corporate leaders and employees alike can lead and work effectively in this emerging reality. The various concepts pertaining to organizational behaviour deal with the three determinants of behaviour in an organization i.e. individuals, group, structure and these are necessary for the prediction and understanding of organization events, adopt more accurate theories of reality and influence organizational events. The organization's base rests on management's philosophy, values, vision and goals. This in turn drives the organizational culture which is composed of the formal organization, informal organization, and the social environment. The culture determines the type of leadership, communication, and group dynamics within the organization. The workers perceive this as the quality of work life which directs their degree of motivation. The final outcomes are performance, individual satisfaction, and personal growth and development. All these elements combine to build the model or framework that the organization operates upon. These concepts need to be applied to improve behaviour in organizations so that the individuals, groups and organizations can achieve their goals. Managers are challenged to find new ways to motivate and coordinate employees to ensure that their goals are aligned with the organization. Though it traces its roots back to Max Weber and earlier, organizational studies is generally considered to have begun as an academic discipline with the advent of scientific management in the 1890s, with Taylorism representing the peak of this movement. Proponents of scientific management held that rationalizing the organization with precise sets of instructions and time-motion studies would lead to increased productivity. Studies of different compensation systems were carried out. After the First World War, the focus of organizational studies shifted to analysis of how human factors and psychology affected organizations, a transformation propelled by the identification of the Hawthorne Effect. This Human Relations Movement focused on teams, motivation, and the actualization of the goals of individuals within organizations. The Second World War further shifted the field, as the invention of large-scale logistics and operations research led to a renewed interest in rationalist approaches to the study of organizations. Interest grew in theory and methods native to the sciences, including systems theory, the study of organizations with a complexity theory perspective and complexity strategy. The study of these concepts is becoming more important in the global economy as people with diverse backgrounds and cultural values have to work together effectively and efficiently. 2. PROJECT OVERVIEW All organizations are interested in the talent engagement of the employees working for them. Just like investment is the “engine for economic growth”, employees are the engine for the success of organizations. Thus it is imperative to look into the aspect of how organizations engage the pool of talent present. Employee retention is a proactive function of the organizations to retain their employees because loss of productive employees results in loss of productivity, customer dissatisfaction and increased cost of replacement. A company can prosper if its employees love to work in that company. It can ensure high employee morale if it maintains the following four factors a) Person-Job Fit and Person-Organisation Fit : Three ways to achieve this are :
i)
ii)
iii)
To select candidates whose existing competencies best fit the job requirements. To provide training to employees so that they can develop the required skills and knowledge. To redesign the jobs so that employees are given only tasks within their capabilities.
Person organization fit refers to the degree of value congruence between the employee and his/her organization. b) Motivation Motivation refers to the forces within a person that affect his/her direction, intensity and persistence of voluntary behaviour in the workplace. Motivation is important for the organisations because motivated employees are willing to exert a particular level of effort (intensity) for a certain amount of time (persistence) toward a particular goal(direction). It is one of the four essential drivers of individual behaviour and performance. This statement is also confirmed from MARS model.
c) Work Life Balance
Work life balance refers to minimizing conflict between work and non-work demands. In the contemporary world, work life balance has become one of the most important factors in employment relationship. Probably the main reason is that increasing working hours have made people demand more work life balance. Also, two income families put more demand on both partners to provide time for household duties. Younger employees tend to view the workplace as a community where they spend a large part of their lives, so many expect more social fulfilment and fun.
d) Performance practices within organizations:
It refers to the technology for managing behaviour and results, the two critical elements of what is known as performance. It requires that systems, processes and structures are arranged carefully according to the laws of behaviour to support the necessary direction, skills, resources, and motivation people need to do a job well, whether at the executive level or at the shop floor, in all types of industries and across all kinds of business drivers of success (e.g., merger/acquisitions, managing culture during rapid change, strategic initiatives turned into solid implementations, ensuring safe practices while meeting objectives, reducing waste, and so on).
3. REVIEW OF LITERATURE
i) HRM Review, March 2009 - Resurrection of the Indian Workforce by Ms. Shruti Murthy,
Faculty Member (HR), MES College of Engineering Kuttippuram, Kerala In this article, she has beautifully explained how trends are changing post recession thus making HR managers develop innovative strategies to keep the employees motivated to work and prevent them from leaving organisation. “The growth of an organization is mainly affected by the lack of workforce and as such, we have to adopt an innovative approach to recruitment practices. To combat ahead of the competition in this world of recession and uncertainty, organizations have to introduce innovative HR strategies. They should use meticulous analytical tools with leadership from the top and develop a method for sustainable improvement. These practices must improve the organizational values and help in developing free products or services at a minimum cost.” She has also discussed that HR mangers should focus their attention on Policies, Motivation, Relations, Acting as change agents, Quality consciousness. In brief, today’s HR trends demand the HR managers to treat people as resources, reward them equitably and integrate their aspirations with corporate goals through suitable HR policies.
ii) HRM Review, August 2009 - Employer Branding by M Vijaya Sunder (Assistant Manager,
MAS – Process Reengineering Section, TCS Chennai) and Viney K Thakkar(School of Business Management, Sri Sathya Sai University, Puttaparthi) This article throws light on the concept of Employer branding which includes employee branding in it and various steps to be taken to implement the same. “For any organization, its employees are its first market, as they are the ones who carry the image of the organization to the outside world, today, many organizations faces the problem of employee dissatisfaction leading to lowered productivity and high attrition rates.” – quoted from the article. The major benefits of organized employer branding include increased productivity and profitability, and increased employee retention. Employer branding also results in increased level of staff engagement, lower recruitment costs, employees recommending the workplace as a preferred place to work and employees committed to organization goals.
iii) “Making sense of motivational leadership: the trail from transformational leaders to
motivated followers.” - By Remus Ilies - Michigan State University, Timothy Judge - University of Florida, David Wagner - Michigan State University This paper tells us that transformational leadership is an important factor in employee motivation. The authors have presented a conceptual model of the influence of Transformational Leadership on follower’s motivated behaviour. According to this model, followers’ motivated behaviour is affected by Affective Influence Processes and Cognitive Influence Processes via Transformational leadership.
iv)
“Motivation, Productivity & Change Management” - By John D. Benson, MBA
This essay gives information regarding various motivation theories applicable in various situational contexts by managers. They have been categorized into three areas viz. Needs-based, process and reinforcement. An extract from the essay is as follows: “Productivity is closely related to motivation. For employees to be effective and efficient in their job tasks, having the technical knowledge and ability is not necessarily enough. The employee also needs the resources required to do the job. They need supportive management and leadership with a vision that is aligned with their own goals and objectives. Most importantly, an employee needs to be driven (or motivated) by some means to achieve high performance.”
v) “A Review of Employee Motivation Theories and their Implications for Employee Retention
within Organizations” - By Sunil Ramlall, Ph.D., University of St. Thomas, Minneapolis, MN The article provides a synthesis of employee motivation theories and offers an explanation of how employee motivation affects employee retention and other behaviours within organizations. The extract below explains how the employees should be groomed on a regular basis to meet the need of the hour in an ever changing environment: “The concept of human capital and knowledge management is that people possess skills, experience and knowledge, and therefore have economic value to organizations. These skills, knowledge and experience represent capital because they enhance productivity (Snell and Dean, 1992). Human capital theory postulates that some labour is more productive than other labour simply because more resources have been invested into the training of that labour, in the same manner that a machine that has had more resources invested into it is apt to be more productive (Mueller, 1982).”
vi)
“What Really Motivates People?
- By Jane Strickler
This article gives us the viewpoint of American managers. Managers follow the behaviourist strategy of offering rewards and punishments to motivate workers to work efficiently. This paper says that recognition and rewards are not necessarily an integral part of performance management, particularly when they create unhealthy competition, break down communication and create a sense of entitlement. The paper further says that employees are willing to do what will be rewarded and expect greater rewards when they deliver greater results, but ultimately no level of reward is enough. The purpose of work becomes a game and winning more becomes the point. The organisations should focus on creating conditions for motivating employees. Some of them are to become a values driven organisation and create a safe environment. The employees should be encouraged to do their best and be more responsible and accountable.
vii)
“The Dynamics of Motivation in New Organizational Forms” - By MARGIT OSTERLOH, JETTA FROST and BRUNO S. FREY
This paper provided the idea of the impact of the dynamics of motivation on new organizational forms that are suited to forge value-creating knowledge transfers in teams and between organizational units and functions. “Extrinsic motivation occurs when employees are able to satisfy their needs indirectly, most importantly through monetary compensation. Money as such does not provide direct utility but serves to acquire desired goods and services, an assumption which is basic to all economic analysis. Motivation is intrinsic if an activity is undertaken for the immediate satisfaction of one’s needs. Intrinsic motivation `is valued for its own sake and appears to be self sustained.
4. STATEMENT OF OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY •
The main objective was to understand the concept of talent engagement and relate it to the concepts being studied in the course ‘Individual Dynamics and Leadership’ in the present Trimester The company practices to ensure person-job fit and person-organisation fit. Understanding the employee motivation practices adopted by the companies Study the efforts being made by the company to provide a balance between work and life to the employees.
• •
•
The emphasis has been in finding out how the companies have applied practices to ensure person-job fit and person-organisation fit. The objective has also been to find out the steps taken by the workplace to motivate its employees, to what degree are the employees motivated, how much freedom they enjoy and how much job security they are assured of. The focus was also on whether the organisation had applied positive reinforcements in the form of bonus and other incentives for deserving workers or whether they have punished their employees through layoffs for decreased productivity especially during this period of recession. Work life balance prevalent in the organization has been studied in detail which helped us understanding as to how the workplaces align themselves with emerging workforce expectations.
5. METHOD OF STUDY Personal visits and telephonic interviews of the following managers were conducted to gain an insight into the company’s day-to-day operations •
•
Mr. Manish Kumar Gupta, Sr. Manager(M-F.P.), SAIL Mrs. S. Bhargavi, Manager, Corporate Finance, Tata Steel
The questions asked in our survey have been attached as an annexure. 6. ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION OF FINDINGS: A. SAIL STEEL
a) Person Job Fit and Person Organization Fit:
Recruitment (Ensuring hiring of the right person):
•
•
•
In SAIL recruitment is a centralized process thus all the executive cadre recruitment for Central Marketing organization (CMO) is handled at the headquarters in Kolkata. Non executive cadre are recruited at various regional offices. Certain educational and management skills are necessary to get appointed. Also the candidate has to go through a couple of interviews conducted by experts in the respective field for which the person has applied.
Training: SAIL has always held the training of its employees as a high priority, since inception. SAIL's training policy is based on the realization that the development of human resources is crucial to the success of the organization.
•
Training of New Entrants -Management Trainees (Administration), Junior Manager (Finance), Senior Operative Trainees etc. The training periods of these categories vary between 3 months to 3 years. For trainees in CMO, training is around 12 months. Training of Executives - Need based general management, Action Leadership Training for up gradation etc. are conducted at Management Training Institute at Ranchi. These programmes are of short duration of 1 to 4 weeks where eminent guest faculty and specialists are also invited to share their experiences. The job of a CMO is dealing with people and hence from time to time they are given interim training on their people skills also Training of Non-executives - Training in basic skills is organized by the respective offices as per the organisational needs and developmental needs of employees. Manpower Development - Looking at the short term and long term developmental needs of manpower; a number of in-house programmes are conducted in each Unit/Plant Training Institutes and at the Management Training Institute, Ranchi.
•
•
•
•
Continuous efforts are being made to train the manpower through on the job training with the help of the seniors.
b) Motivation:
i) Self Motivation
• •
Employees are very highly internally motivated. There have a sense of belongingness with the firm. They see SAIL as their family. This element is missing in private firms. People with SAIL have been working there for the past 20 to 25 years. Self Motivation is the driving force behind SAIL. Both Executives and Non-executives have a sense of responsibility and apart from a few, all are very hardworking.
ii) Bonus • Scheme of awarding employees in every quarter also acts as a motivation technique. Every Quarter only 2 to 3 people get awarded bonuses.
iii) Trust in the Company
• •
SAIL does not believe in the hire and fire policy. It provides a lot of independence to employees working with them. E.g. Certain parameters are given within which they have to operate but within that they can get the work done in whatever way they like. Company trusts the employee and thus it results in the employee trusting the company. Job Security ensures that people can stop worrying about their jobs and give 100% to their work. Career Path is clearly defined and that also acts as a motivating factor.
•
iv) Tackling the Problem of Attrition:
Every year lot of steel experts are lured away by private firms such as Arcelor Mittal giving them better pay. •
• •
Pay is not the solution to tackle such a problem as being a PSU the pay scales are not in their hand. However, high performers are given more responsibility oriented jobs. For e.g. out of two people at the same cadre the high performer being made the regional manager and the other person given some less important job in the same rank. Also, most of the people who t are working with other competitors are retired employees
c) Work Life Balance: i) Stress: •
Lot of stress is placed on the executive cadre
• •
There is no transparency in Career growth with respect to transfers (transfers can happen after every 2 to 3 years to other offices of CMO if the performance has been excellent or even if the performance is average) so that also adds to stress level. For Non executive Cadres there is no direct responsibility, thus a lot less stress is on them.
ii) Stress busters: •
•
Managers take initiative to organize get-togethers from time to time. There is no clear directive in SAIL guidelines regarding the same.
? ANALYSIS: They have a sense of belongingness with the firm. They see SAIL as their family. This point coincides directly with Maslow’s hierarchy theory. The theory explains “need for belongingness” as one of the primary needs of any person which is the need to interact with people in SAIL Company, people form long term relationships that instils a sense of belongingness in the organisation thus enabling very less attrition rate. Also the “drive to bond” is very evident here where the employees develop mutual caring commitments with others. The drive to bond motivates the employees to cooperate with each other thus leading directly to the success of SAIL steel. Employees maintain a “social identity” by identifying themselves as a part of the SAIL group they seem to have developed an emotional attachment with the company. When the employers of the company begin to trust the employees, it definitely creates an environment of mutual trust in the company. Staff members work harder for managers they like and respect. In addition to the evident interpersonal skills of being approachable, friendly, and polite, the managers of SAIL ensure that they behave in a manner that will engender trust and admiration. Managers act with integrity and transparency which inspires SAIL employees to work harder.
B. TATA STEEL
i) PERSON JOB FIT:
TATA steel ensures that the right employees are allocated to the right job. The company recruits people for technology and strategy to research, marketing, medical and aviation. The company has a rigorous selection procedure. The employees are taken for roles directly related to their academic background. Fresher candidates are selected for initial procedure and then interviewed rigorously to ensure that they fit the role the job offers. The company, to ensure that they hire right, consider the responsibilities involved and the specifications required for the position. For senior roles, the company prefers to recruit people with a minimum of 15 years experience thus guaranteeing vast experience for the competency required
ii) PERSON ORGANIZATION FIT:
During the interview a huge amount of emphasis is placed on ethics and being a TATA company, TATA steel strictly adheres to the TATA CODE OF CONDUCT. The employees are given scenarios and are asked to react to the situation. This helps the company recruit people who are values oriented and who follow highest degree of ethics. An ethics counsellor is present in the organization and the employees can take counselling for any decision and the right/wrong implications of the decisions. Videos, programmes are conducted regularly to drive the values that form a rich part of the TATA heritage. Apart from the whistle blower policy, the company also rewards the employees in public for reporting any shortcomings or process improvements in the company.
iii) MOTIVATION:
TATA steel has a legacy of being the most professionally managed company and this gives the employees a great sense of pride to be associated with the company. TATA steel lays enormous importance to motivating employees. TATA steel fully recognizes that that positive motivators work far better than negative ones; they have not laid off any staff even at times of recession and give incentive based compensation. The employees feel very safe and secure about their jobs. On the contrary there has been a recent pay hike and the employees have been given revised and enhanced wages along with bonuses. TATA steel handled recession by going for a complete revamp of its plans and used the FMCG model to sell steel. It also had access to a large pool of data on account of a robust ERP system. TATA steel also has a unique way of motivating the team where the employees are given good houses to live in and that strengthens the bond with the company. Also the company pays loyalty bonus to the employees who are there with the organisation for a long time. The organisation encourages job rotation thus ensuring lateral movements across the company if the employee wishes to do so. iv) JOB FREEDOM: Unlike MNC’s where the decision making is taken by the clients across the world, TATA steel differs here by being an Indian based company. Hence the company takes pride in that the decisions are taken at the higher level and the stake holders are at all times involved in the major decisions. There is a lot of freedom given to the employees to take decisions and there is a fair amount of decentralisation that happens in decision making. The employees when having to take important decisions feel responsible and find the job challenging and motivating thus leading to the very low attrition rate found in TATA steel. v) WORK LIFE BALANCE: The employers are encouraged to rate the employees based on the quality of the output delivered rather than the number of hours spent at work. Apart from the fixed hours that the employees have to stay in office, the employees can leave the office once the work allotted gets done. TATA steel also ensures all round development by encouraging the employees to participate in sports and cultural events. They have extensive tie ups with clubs for cricket, golf, horse riding, archery and flying. The company even sponsors outdoor expeditions and there are family picnics thus ensuring a proper mix of work and family.
7. CONCLUSION & LEARNINGS
After analysing the research papers, conducting interviews and studying from text books we came to the following conclusions: Person Job Fit & Person Organisation Fit In Ensuring a Person Job fit there is hardly a difference between what practices are followed by PSU (SAIL – Central marketing organisation)) or by a private firm (Tata Steel) or what is reported in the various research papers or books. All of them insist on having a stringent procedure to ensure that the right person get selected for the right position. In case of ensuring “Person organisation fit” there are differences between practices followed by SAIL and those by TATA. SAIL in its CMO does not have a thorough procedure to ensure that the person coming in will believe in the same values that SAIL stands for. Though they do try to sense whether the person will be able to fit it the organisation during the employment interviews but these are not detailed. Whereas TATA’s have a detailed and planned procedure for it,this shows that private players are giving lot of importance not only to have right kind of people for the jobs but also to having common individual and organisational goals. This policy followed by TATA’s is in line with what the latest journals or books regarding recruitment speak about. Training is considered a very important step in employee development in both SAIL and TATA as employees are trained for both technical and team skills. Motivation Motivation has gone a drastic change from past where money was considered the best and the only motivator. In present scenario though money still remains a motivator it has taken the back seat. Other factors like appreciation, job freedom, independence to try out new ways of accomplishing things, being employee sensitive and finally making the company as a big family, have become the key factors for motivation. SAIL and TATA both employ the above mentioned policies to keep their employees motivated. But one factor which stands out for both these companies but more for SAIL is self motivation. People have the drive within themselves to work for SAIL day and night that too with moderate pays according to the average industry pays. People have a sense of belongingness towards the company. They take pride in working for SAIL. Journals such as “A Review of Employee Motivation Theories and their Implications for Employee Retention within Organizations” also talk about the above mentioned ways to motivate employees. Work Life Balance & Attrition
•
This is one area which has become very important in the last decade or so. Stress levels have increased as competition has increased. Attrition is common with people moving from job after 2-3 years. So it has become vital for the companies to ensure that employee have enough time for personal life as well & also that they are not stressed out. TATA’s and SAIL both believe that its employees are its first market, as they are the ones who carry the image of the organization to the outside world. In today’s world where many organizations face the problem of employee dissatisfaction leading to lowered productivity and high attrition rates SAIL and TATA are one of the few with low attrition rates. SAIL and TATA both enjoy employee loyalty to the extent that SAIL has a majority of people with average work experience of 15 years approximately. The policy of not firing employees makes the employee trust the company and that in turn increases his productivity. But one area where SAIL lacks is ensuring work life balance. Unlike TATA’s which have a detailed plan including sports team building distress activities etc SAIL does not have a clear cut policy regarding the same. It needs to change with time and have a clearly defined policy for handling work life issues.
•
•
•
8. RECOMMENDATIONS As the world stands today, recovering from a major crisis, with the population increasing rapidly, unemployment issues not settling down, competition on its peak in various industries, the emphasis should be on highly motivated workforce to get the desired outcome. The aim of an organisation is to keep its vision in mind and work towards it, and one of the major factors contributing it is making its employees realise the vision and persist toward it. The changes in the circumstances and conditions often worry employees in one or the other way. The onus then lies on the HR mangers of the organisation to create policies and practices that help employees destress themselves and in turn motivate to work. The current recession which led to so many layoffs, has been one of the top worries of the employees working in the dynamic organisations. The relation between an organisation and employee defines the way company will perform in the future and earn profits. The higher management should take this seriously and come up with various practices which will prove beneficial to employee’s stay at the company viz. training and grooming programmes, organisation’s culture improvement via participatory programmes, etc. 9. REFERENCES
• • • •
http://www.sail.co.in/http://www.tatasteel.com/http://www.wikipdeia.org/ McShane. S, Glinow, M., & Sharma R. (2008). Organizational Behavior 4th edition. India, New Delhi: Tata McGraw Hill.
ANNEXURE 1 This is the sample questionnaire used for the study. Recruitment • How recruitment is organised? Whether it is a centralized process or not? • What are the skills required for selection? How do you ensure whether the applicant has the required skills or not? Training and Manpower Development • What types of training are being imparted to the workforce? • Is the training ‘need-based’ or general ? Motivation • What steps are the company taking to motivate its employees? • What benefits are being provided to the employees (bonus, annual leave, long service awards etc.)?
•
Is work environment encouraging and motivating?
Attrition • What is the current attrition rate? • What is the company doing to retain its employees? Work Life Balance • What is the stress level at various strata of the workforce? • What methods are implemented to reduce the stress levels of the employees? • What is more important for the leaders - quality of work done or quantity of work done?
doc_321109667.doc
Talent Management in Manufacturing Sector (Steel Industry) in recessionary times.
Individual Dynamics and Leadership
Assignment: Talent Engagement Practices in a recessionary period Industry: Manufacturing Sector (Steel Industry)
Contents
1. Introduction 2. Project Overview 3. Review of Literature 4. Statement of Objectives of study 5. Method of Study
6. Analysis and discussion of findings 7. Conclusion and recommendations
1. INTRODUCTION Globalization is now well entrenched and with the tough phase of recession left behind, the key issue that arises is whether corporate leaders and employees alike can lead and work effectively in this emerging reality. The various concepts pertaining to organizational behaviour deal with the three determinants of behaviour in an organization i.e. individuals, group, structure and these are necessary for the prediction and understanding of organization events, adopt more accurate theories of reality and influence organizational events. The organization's base rests on management's philosophy, values, vision and goals. This in turn drives the organizational culture which is composed of the formal organization, informal organization, and the social environment. The culture determines the type of leadership, communication, and group dynamics within the organization. The workers perceive this as the quality of work life which directs their degree of motivation. The final outcomes are performance, individual satisfaction, and personal growth and development. All these elements combine to build the model or framework that the organization operates upon. These concepts need to be applied to improve behaviour in organizations so that the individuals, groups and organizations can achieve their goals. Managers are challenged to find new ways to motivate and coordinate employees to ensure that their goals are aligned with the organization. Though it traces its roots back to Max Weber and earlier, organizational studies is generally considered to have begun as an academic discipline with the advent of scientific management in the 1890s, with Taylorism representing the peak of this movement. Proponents of scientific management held that rationalizing the organization with precise sets of instructions and time-motion studies would lead to increased productivity. Studies of different compensation systems were carried out. After the First World War, the focus of organizational studies shifted to analysis of how human factors and psychology affected organizations, a transformation propelled by the identification of the Hawthorne Effect. This Human Relations Movement focused on teams, motivation, and the actualization of the goals of individuals within organizations. The Second World War further shifted the field, as the invention of large-scale logistics and operations research led to a renewed interest in rationalist approaches to the study of organizations. Interest grew in theory and methods native to the sciences, including systems theory, the study of organizations with a complexity theory perspective and complexity strategy. The study of these concepts is becoming more important in the global economy as people with diverse backgrounds and cultural values have to work together effectively and efficiently. 2. PROJECT OVERVIEW All organizations are interested in the talent engagement of the employees working for them. Just like investment is the “engine for economic growth”, employees are the engine for the success of organizations. Thus it is imperative to look into the aspect of how organizations engage the pool of talent present. Employee retention is a proactive function of the organizations to retain their employees because loss of productive employees results in loss of productivity, customer dissatisfaction and increased cost of replacement. A company can prosper if its employees love to work in that company. It can ensure high employee morale if it maintains the following four factors a) Person-Job Fit and Person-Organisation Fit : Three ways to achieve this are :
i)
ii)
iii)
To select candidates whose existing competencies best fit the job requirements. To provide training to employees so that they can develop the required skills and knowledge. To redesign the jobs so that employees are given only tasks within their capabilities.
Person organization fit refers to the degree of value congruence between the employee and his/her organization. b) Motivation Motivation refers to the forces within a person that affect his/her direction, intensity and persistence of voluntary behaviour in the workplace. Motivation is important for the organisations because motivated employees are willing to exert a particular level of effort (intensity) for a certain amount of time (persistence) toward a particular goal(direction). It is one of the four essential drivers of individual behaviour and performance. This statement is also confirmed from MARS model.
c) Work Life Balance
Work life balance refers to minimizing conflict between work and non-work demands. In the contemporary world, work life balance has become one of the most important factors in employment relationship. Probably the main reason is that increasing working hours have made people demand more work life balance. Also, two income families put more demand on both partners to provide time for household duties. Younger employees tend to view the workplace as a community where they spend a large part of their lives, so many expect more social fulfilment and fun.
d) Performance practices within organizations:
It refers to the technology for managing behaviour and results, the two critical elements of what is known as performance. It requires that systems, processes and structures are arranged carefully according to the laws of behaviour to support the necessary direction, skills, resources, and motivation people need to do a job well, whether at the executive level or at the shop floor, in all types of industries and across all kinds of business drivers of success (e.g., merger/acquisitions, managing culture during rapid change, strategic initiatives turned into solid implementations, ensuring safe practices while meeting objectives, reducing waste, and so on).
3. REVIEW OF LITERATURE
i) HRM Review, March 2009 - Resurrection of the Indian Workforce by Ms. Shruti Murthy,
Faculty Member (HR), MES College of Engineering Kuttippuram, Kerala In this article, she has beautifully explained how trends are changing post recession thus making HR managers develop innovative strategies to keep the employees motivated to work and prevent them from leaving organisation. “The growth of an organization is mainly affected by the lack of workforce and as such, we have to adopt an innovative approach to recruitment practices. To combat ahead of the competition in this world of recession and uncertainty, organizations have to introduce innovative HR strategies. They should use meticulous analytical tools with leadership from the top and develop a method for sustainable improvement. These practices must improve the organizational values and help in developing free products or services at a minimum cost.” She has also discussed that HR mangers should focus their attention on Policies, Motivation, Relations, Acting as change agents, Quality consciousness. In brief, today’s HR trends demand the HR managers to treat people as resources, reward them equitably and integrate their aspirations with corporate goals through suitable HR policies.
ii) HRM Review, August 2009 - Employer Branding by M Vijaya Sunder (Assistant Manager,
MAS – Process Reengineering Section, TCS Chennai) and Viney K Thakkar(School of Business Management, Sri Sathya Sai University, Puttaparthi) This article throws light on the concept of Employer branding which includes employee branding in it and various steps to be taken to implement the same. “For any organization, its employees are its first market, as they are the ones who carry the image of the organization to the outside world, today, many organizations faces the problem of employee dissatisfaction leading to lowered productivity and high attrition rates.” – quoted from the article. The major benefits of organized employer branding include increased productivity and profitability, and increased employee retention. Employer branding also results in increased level of staff engagement, lower recruitment costs, employees recommending the workplace as a preferred place to work and employees committed to organization goals.
iii) “Making sense of motivational leadership: the trail from transformational leaders to
motivated followers.” - By Remus Ilies - Michigan State University, Timothy Judge - University of Florida, David Wagner - Michigan State University This paper tells us that transformational leadership is an important factor in employee motivation. The authors have presented a conceptual model of the influence of Transformational Leadership on follower’s motivated behaviour. According to this model, followers’ motivated behaviour is affected by Affective Influence Processes and Cognitive Influence Processes via Transformational leadership.
iv)
“Motivation, Productivity & Change Management” - By John D. Benson, MBA
This essay gives information regarding various motivation theories applicable in various situational contexts by managers. They have been categorized into three areas viz. Needs-based, process and reinforcement. An extract from the essay is as follows: “Productivity is closely related to motivation. For employees to be effective and efficient in their job tasks, having the technical knowledge and ability is not necessarily enough. The employee also needs the resources required to do the job. They need supportive management and leadership with a vision that is aligned with their own goals and objectives. Most importantly, an employee needs to be driven (or motivated) by some means to achieve high performance.”
v) “A Review of Employee Motivation Theories and their Implications for Employee Retention
within Organizations” - By Sunil Ramlall, Ph.D., University of St. Thomas, Minneapolis, MN The article provides a synthesis of employee motivation theories and offers an explanation of how employee motivation affects employee retention and other behaviours within organizations. The extract below explains how the employees should be groomed on a regular basis to meet the need of the hour in an ever changing environment: “The concept of human capital and knowledge management is that people possess skills, experience and knowledge, and therefore have economic value to organizations. These skills, knowledge and experience represent capital because they enhance productivity (Snell and Dean, 1992). Human capital theory postulates that some labour is more productive than other labour simply because more resources have been invested into the training of that labour, in the same manner that a machine that has had more resources invested into it is apt to be more productive (Mueller, 1982).”
vi)
“What Really Motivates People?
- By Jane Strickler
This article gives us the viewpoint of American managers. Managers follow the behaviourist strategy of offering rewards and punishments to motivate workers to work efficiently. This paper says that recognition and rewards are not necessarily an integral part of performance management, particularly when they create unhealthy competition, break down communication and create a sense of entitlement. The paper further says that employees are willing to do what will be rewarded and expect greater rewards when they deliver greater results, but ultimately no level of reward is enough. The purpose of work becomes a game and winning more becomes the point. The organisations should focus on creating conditions for motivating employees. Some of them are to become a values driven organisation and create a safe environment. The employees should be encouraged to do their best and be more responsible and accountable.
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“The Dynamics of Motivation in New Organizational Forms” - By MARGIT OSTERLOH, JETTA FROST and BRUNO S. FREY
This paper provided the idea of the impact of the dynamics of motivation on new organizational forms that are suited to forge value-creating knowledge transfers in teams and between organizational units and functions. “Extrinsic motivation occurs when employees are able to satisfy their needs indirectly, most importantly through monetary compensation. Money as such does not provide direct utility but serves to acquire desired goods and services, an assumption which is basic to all economic analysis. Motivation is intrinsic if an activity is undertaken for the immediate satisfaction of one’s needs. Intrinsic motivation `is valued for its own sake and appears to be self sustained.
4. STATEMENT OF OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY •
The main objective was to understand the concept of talent engagement and relate it to the concepts being studied in the course ‘Individual Dynamics and Leadership’ in the present Trimester The company practices to ensure person-job fit and person-organisation fit. Understanding the employee motivation practices adopted by the companies Study the efforts being made by the company to provide a balance between work and life to the employees.
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The emphasis has been in finding out how the companies have applied practices to ensure person-job fit and person-organisation fit. The objective has also been to find out the steps taken by the workplace to motivate its employees, to what degree are the employees motivated, how much freedom they enjoy and how much job security they are assured of. The focus was also on whether the organisation had applied positive reinforcements in the form of bonus and other incentives for deserving workers or whether they have punished their employees through layoffs for decreased productivity especially during this period of recession. Work life balance prevalent in the organization has been studied in detail which helped us understanding as to how the workplaces align themselves with emerging workforce expectations.
5. METHOD OF STUDY Personal visits and telephonic interviews of the following managers were conducted to gain an insight into the company’s day-to-day operations •
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Mr. Manish Kumar Gupta, Sr. Manager(M-F.P.), SAIL Mrs. S. Bhargavi, Manager, Corporate Finance, Tata Steel
The questions asked in our survey have been attached as an annexure. 6. ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION OF FINDINGS: A. SAIL STEEL
a) Person Job Fit and Person Organization Fit:
Recruitment (Ensuring hiring of the right person):
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In SAIL recruitment is a centralized process thus all the executive cadre recruitment for Central Marketing organization (CMO) is handled at the headquarters in Kolkata. Non executive cadre are recruited at various regional offices. Certain educational and management skills are necessary to get appointed. Also the candidate has to go through a couple of interviews conducted by experts in the respective field for which the person has applied.
Training: SAIL has always held the training of its employees as a high priority, since inception. SAIL's training policy is based on the realization that the development of human resources is crucial to the success of the organization.
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Training of New Entrants -Management Trainees (Administration), Junior Manager (Finance), Senior Operative Trainees etc. The training periods of these categories vary between 3 months to 3 years. For trainees in CMO, training is around 12 months. Training of Executives - Need based general management, Action Leadership Training for up gradation etc. are conducted at Management Training Institute at Ranchi. These programmes are of short duration of 1 to 4 weeks where eminent guest faculty and specialists are also invited to share their experiences. The job of a CMO is dealing with people and hence from time to time they are given interim training on their people skills also Training of Non-executives - Training in basic skills is organized by the respective offices as per the organisational needs and developmental needs of employees. Manpower Development - Looking at the short term and long term developmental needs of manpower; a number of in-house programmes are conducted in each Unit/Plant Training Institutes and at the Management Training Institute, Ranchi.
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Continuous efforts are being made to train the manpower through on the job training with the help of the seniors.
b) Motivation:
i) Self Motivation
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Employees are very highly internally motivated. There have a sense of belongingness with the firm. They see SAIL as their family. This element is missing in private firms. People with SAIL have been working there for the past 20 to 25 years. Self Motivation is the driving force behind SAIL. Both Executives and Non-executives have a sense of responsibility and apart from a few, all are very hardworking.
ii) Bonus • Scheme of awarding employees in every quarter also acts as a motivation technique. Every Quarter only 2 to 3 people get awarded bonuses.
iii) Trust in the Company
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SAIL does not believe in the hire and fire policy. It provides a lot of independence to employees working with them. E.g. Certain parameters are given within which they have to operate but within that they can get the work done in whatever way they like. Company trusts the employee and thus it results in the employee trusting the company. Job Security ensures that people can stop worrying about their jobs and give 100% to their work. Career Path is clearly defined and that also acts as a motivating factor.
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iv) Tackling the Problem of Attrition:
Every year lot of steel experts are lured away by private firms such as Arcelor Mittal giving them better pay. •
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Pay is not the solution to tackle such a problem as being a PSU the pay scales are not in their hand. However, high performers are given more responsibility oriented jobs. For e.g. out of two people at the same cadre the high performer being made the regional manager and the other person given some less important job in the same rank. Also, most of the people who t are working with other competitors are retired employees
c) Work Life Balance: i) Stress: •
Lot of stress is placed on the executive cadre
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There is no transparency in Career growth with respect to transfers (transfers can happen after every 2 to 3 years to other offices of CMO if the performance has been excellent or even if the performance is average) so that also adds to stress level. For Non executive Cadres there is no direct responsibility, thus a lot less stress is on them.
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Managers take initiative to organize get-togethers from time to time. There is no clear directive in SAIL guidelines regarding the same.
? ANALYSIS: They have a sense of belongingness with the firm. They see SAIL as their family. This point coincides directly with Maslow’s hierarchy theory. The theory explains “need for belongingness” as one of the primary needs of any person which is the need to interact with people in SAIL Company, people form long term relationships that instils a sense of belongingness in the organisation thus enabling very less attrition rate. Also the “drive to bond” is very evident here where the employees develop mutual caring commitments with others. The drive to bond motivates the employees to cooperate with each other thus leading directly to the success of SAIL steel. Employees maintain a “social identity” by identifying themselves as a part of the SAIL group they seem to have developed an emotional attachment with the company. When the employers of the company begin to trust the employees, it definitely creates an environment of mutual trust in the company. Staff members work harder for managers they like and respect. In addition to the evident interpersonal skills of being approachable, friendly, and polite, the managers of SAIL ensure that they behave in a manner that will engender trust and admiration. Managers act with integrity and transparency which inspires SAIL employees to work harder.
B. TATA STEEL
i) PERSON JOB FIT:
TATA steel ensures that the right employees are allocated to the right job. The company recruits people for technology and strategy to research, marketing, medical and aviation. The company has a rigorous selection procedure. The employees are taken for roles directly related to their academic background. Fresher candidates are selected for initial procedure and then interviewed rigorously to ensure that they fit the role the job offers. The company, to ensure that they hire right, consider the responsibilities involved and the specifications required for the position. For senior roles, the company prefers to recruit people with a minimum of 15 years experience thus guaranteeing vast experience for the competency required
ii) PERSON ORGANIZATION FIT:
During the interview a huge amount of emphasis is placed on ethics and being a TATA company, TATA steel strictly adheres to the TATA CODE OF CONDUCT. The employees are given scenarios and are asked to react to the situation. This helps the company recruit people who are values oriented and who follow highest degree of ethics. An ethics counsellor is present in the organization and the employees can take counselling for any decision and the right/wrong implications of the decisions. Videos, programmes are conducted regularly to drive the values that form a rich part of the TATA heritage. Apart from the whistle blower policy, the company also rewards the employees in public for reporting any shortcomings or process improvements in the company.
iii) MOTIVATION:
TATA steel has a legacy of being the most professionally managed company and this gives the employees a great sense of pride to be associated with the company. TATA steel lays enormous importance to motivating employees. TATA steel fully recognizes that that positive motivators work far better than negative ones; they have not laid off any staff even at times of recession and give incentive based compensation. The employees feel very safe and secure about their jobs. On the contrary there has been a recent pay hike and the employees have been given revised and enhanced wages along with bonuses. TATA steel handled recession by going for a complete revamp of its plans and used the FMCG model to sell steel. It also had access to a large pool of data on account of a robust ERP system. TATA steel also has a unique way of motivating the team where the employees are given good houses to live in and that strengthens the bond with the company. Also the company pays loyalty bonus to the employees who are there with the organisation for a long time. The organisation encourages job rotation thus ensuring lateral movements across the company if the employee wishes to do so. iv) JOB FREEDOM: Unlike MNC’s where the decision making is taken by the clients across the world, TATA steel differs here by being an Indian based company. Hence the company takes pride in that the decisions are taken at the higher level and the stake holders are at all times involved in the major decisions. There is a lot of freedom given to the employees to take decisions and there is a fair amount of decentralisation that happens in decision making. The employees when having to take important decisions feel responsible and find the job challenging and motivating thus leading to the very low attrition rate found in TATA steel. v) WORK LIFE BALANCE: The employers are encouraged to rate the employees based on the quality of the output delivered rather than the number of hours spent at work. Apart from the fixed hours that the employees have to stay in office, the employees can leave the office once the work allotted gets done. TATA steel also ensures all round development by encouraging the employees to participate in sports and cultural events. They have extensive tie ups with clubs for cricket, golf, horse riding, archery and flying. The company even sponsors outdoor expeditions and there are family picnics thus ensuring a proper mix of work and family.
7. CONCLUSION & LEARNINGS
After analysing the research papers, conducting interviews and studying from text books we came to the following conclusions: Person Job Fit & Person Organisation Fit In Ensuring a Person Job fit there is hardly a difference between what practices are followed by PSU (SAIL – Central marketing organisation)) or by a private firm (Tata Steel) or what is reported in the various research papers or books. All of them insist on having a stringent procedure to ensure that the right person get selected for the right position. In case of ensuring “Person organisation fit” there are differences between practices followed by SAIL and those by TATA. SAIL in its CMO does not have a thorough procedure to ensure that the person coming in will believe in the same values that SAIL stands for. Though they do try to sense whether the person will be able to fit it the organisation during the employment interviews but these are not detailed. Whereas TATA’s have a detailed and planned procedure for it,this shows that private players are giving lot of importance not only to have right kind of people for the jobs but also to having common individual and organisational goals. This policy followed by TATA’s is in line with what the latest journals or books regarding recruitment speak about. Training is considered a very important step in employee development in both SAIL and TATA as employees are trained for both technical and team skills. Motivation Motivation has gone a drastic change from past where money was considered the best and the only motivator. In present scenario though money still remains a motivator it has taken the back seat. Other factors like appreciation, job freedom, independence to try out new ways of accomplishing things, being employee sensitive and finally making the company as a big family, have become the key factors for motivation. SAIL and TATA both employ the above mentioned policies to keep their employees motivated. But one factor which stands out for both these companies but more for SAIL is self motivation. People have the drive within themselves to work for SAIL day and night that too with moderate pays according to the average industry pays. People have a sense of belongingness towards the company. They take pride in working for SAIL. Journals such as “A Review of Employee Motivation Theories and their Implications for Employee Retention within Organizations” also talk about the above mentioned ways to motivate employees. Work Life Balance & Attrition
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This is one area which has become very important in the last decade or so. Stress levels have increased as competition has increased. Attrition is common with people moving from job after 2-3 years. So it has become vital for the companies to ensure that employee have enough time for personal life as well & also that they are not stressed out. TATA’s and SAIL both believe that its employees are its first market, as they are the ones who carry the image of the organization to the outside world. In today’s world where many organizations face the problem of employee dissatisfaction leading to lowered productivity and high attrition rates SAIL and TATA are one of the few with low attrition rates. SAIL and TATA both enjoy employee loyalty to the extent that SAIL has a majority of people with average work experience of 15 years approximately. The policy of not firing employees makes the employee trust the company and that in turn increases his productivity. But one area where SAIL lacks is ensuring work life balance. Unlike TATA’s which have a detailed plan including sports team building distress activities etc SAIL does not have a clear cut policy regarding the same. It needs to change with time and have a clearly defined policy for handling work life issues.
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8. RECOMMENDATIONS As the world stands today, recovering from a major crisis, with the population increasing rapidly, unemployment issues not settling down, competition on its peak in various industries, the emphasis should be on highly motivated workforce to get the desired outcome. The aim of an organisation is to keep its vision in mind and work towards it, and one of the major factors contributing it is making its employees realise the vision and persist toward it. The changes in the circumstances and conditions often worry employees in one or the other way. The onus then lies on the HR mangers of the organisation to create policies and practices that help employees destress themselves and in turn motivate to work. The current recession which led to so many layoffs, has been one of the top worries of the employees working in the dynamic organisations. The relation between an organisation and employee defines the way company will perform in the future and earn profits. The higher management should take this seriously and come up with various practices which will prove beneficial to employee’s stay at the company viz. training and grooming programmes, organisation’s culture improvement via participatory programmes, etc. 9. REFERENCES
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http://www.sail.co.in/http://www.tatasteel.com/http://www.wikipdeia.org/ McShane. S, Glinow, M., & Sharma R. (2008). Organizational Behavior 4th edition. India, New Delhi: Tata McGraw Hill.
ANNEXURE 1 This is the sample questionnaire used for the study. Recruitment • How recruitment is organised? Whether it is a centralized process or not? • What are the skills required for selection? How do you ensure whether the applicant has the required skills or not? Training and Manpower Development • What types of training are being imparted to the workforce? • Is the training ‘need-based’ or general ? Motivation • What steps are the company taking to motivate its employees? • What benefits are being provided to the employees (bonus, annual leave, long service awards etc.)?
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Is work environment encouraging and motivating?
Attrition • What is the current attrition rate? • What is the company doing to retain its employees? Work Life Balance • What is the stress level at various strata of the workforce? • What methods are implemented to reduce the stress levels of the employees? • What is more important for the leaders - quality of work done or quantity of work done?
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