Case Study - 1
Mr. Ramchandran is the Chief Executive of ABC Limited Recently, it was decided by the Board ot Directors that it would be profitable fot the corporation to set up a separate Marketing Department. Mr. Ramchandran has been directed to pick up a person who he feels is capable of heading the departrnenl. and then puting this person in charge of getting the department on its feet. After considering a number of good men Mr. Ramchandran has narrowed the field down to two possible choices : Rajesh Mehta and Pramod Kumar.
Rajesh Mehta has a good track record with the company. He was hired eight years ago, and through the years he has shown a good deal of drive and initiative in all of his endeavours. He is an aggressive young man, and has received the nickname of 'go-getter' in his department. Although Mehta seems to be more concerned at times with ends rather than means, ‘he is very efficient and is considered a good leader by those who work under him. As one worker stated. "Although he can get rough with you at times, you always know where you stand with him, and when you have done a good job, he lets you know it." Mehta is also credited with accepting full responsibility, in all cases, and making quick decisions when action is called for.
Pramod Kumar has been with the company for eleven years. He is well liked by all in his department and his work is first rate. Kumar's leadership style differs from Mehta's in that Kumar is not as aggressive and quick to act as Mehta. Before Kumar makes a decision, he generally consults others who he feels can contribute further information on a given subject. This often includes those who work under him.
Those who work under Kumar consider him a good leader, and state that the atmosphere of participation produced by Kumar really encourages their utmost individual output while on the job. This can be seen by the production increase which soon occurred when Kumar became the head of his work force.
Questions:-
(a) If you were Mr. Ramchandran whom would you select as the head of the Marketing Deptt.? Why?
(b) Will you give any weigh tage to the length of service in the organization? Why?
Case Study- 2
Raghav Chemicals Ltd. has planned for computerization of nearly 50 per cent of the production operations and control. Ii has taken care of all resources in the computerization plan including human resources- The present inventory of human resources and future requirements of the production department were specified as given hereunder.
|
Category of Human
Resources
|
Present
inventory
|
Requirements after
Computerization
|
Surplus
|
|
Chemical engineers
(Operation)
|
15
|
8
|
7
|
|
Chemical engineers
(Maintenance and control)
|
10
|
6
|
4
|
|
Mechanical engineers
(Maintenance)
|
2
|
2
|
0
|
|
Supervisors
|
10
|
2
|
8
|
|
Operators
|
30
|
10
|
20
|
|
Quality controllers
|
5
|
1
|
4
|
|
|
72
|
29
|
43
|
The human resource planners suggested the redeployment of chemical engineers in their newly started sister concern, i.e., Laxman Paper Mills Ltd., and retrench surplus of employees of all other categories. They also recommended to the management that there was no need for further recruitment or for any other action plan.
The computerization was over by the end of 1998. When the management wanted to start the production on the newly computerized process, it was shocked to note that not many employees in the production department were suitable to the new jobs and the information supplied by the human resource planners in this regard did not match with the reality.
Questions:
a) Identify the problem in this case.
b) To what extent are the human resource planners responsible for the present state of affairs?
c) What should the management do now to deal with the problem taking into account both the short-term and long term perspective?
Case Study - 3
Vishal Industries Ltd., is a medium sized engineering factory employing 250 employees. The Factory Manager advised the Personnel Manager of the company to select a right man to fill up the vacancy of a "Time-Keeper". The Personnel Manager inserted an advertisement for this post in prominent local newspapers and received a large number of applications although specific job description and job requirements were embodied in the advertisement. After preliminary screening of applications, the Personnel Manager selected only 6 applications out of 197 and sent them "Application Blank" for collecting their detailed information. On receipt of Applications and on further scrutiny, it was observed that two candidates were age-bared, although they had a good experience at their credit and one candidate had a suspicious personal life. The Personnel Manager therefore selected only 3 candidates and sent them call-letters for a personal interview on a stipulated date.
Only two candidates out of three appeared for the interview before the Interview Panel consisting of three interviewers. The panel had therefore to take a decision on selection, either of Mr. Tukaram Patil or Mr. Girish Mahajan. The personal traits and merits of these two candidates are as follows:
Mr. Tukaram Patil, a young man of 30 years, has worked for a year in the Time Office of a reputed company. He is an exceptionally sociable, amicable individual who enjoys mixing with employees. His verbal skills are average. But he has a good degree of hardness. He can sit late in office and prepare payrolls of employees and complete the checking of paysheets a day before the actual date of payment. He does not demand extra remuneration or over-time for sitting late hours in office. He is a good sportsman also and has worked as a secretary of a sports club. A glaring weakness as revealed during the interview is that Mr. Patil's memorv is not strong and he may forget a task assigned to him. But he is straight forward and frankly accepts his limitations.
Mr. Girlsh Mahajan, is also a youth, aged 25, and has a good personality. above average communication skills, but at times is "rough" in dealing with people. His clerical and computational skills are excellent. He does not on his own mix with
people or takes part in extracurricular activities. He joined a textile mill as a clerk in the Time Office and was promoted to the post of Assistant Time Keeper within a period of 5 years. He is against the principle of sitting late in office. His sense of time keeping, punctuality is good and regular. He feels that attendance of employees must be posted in the regular register on the same day and paysheets must be kept ready on 1st of every month and sent to A/c Department, for checking before 3rd inst. Similarly, he prepares PF/ESI statements and returns in time and submits the same to respective Government authorities in time. However, Mr.
Girish Mahajan is short tempered and at times he also had heated arguments with managerial executives. He limits his existence to his working table and if anybody unconnected with the rime-office work comes near his table, he loses his temper.
Questions:
(a) In terms of overall capabilities and job requirements, whom will you recommend out of the two candidates, in your capacity as a Personnel Manager?
(b) What are the criteria of your decision?
(c) In case the other two members of the interview Panel differ from your decision, how will you convince them?
(d) As a Manager HR, what will you do to improve the interpersonal relations in the organization?
Case Study-4 MANAGEMENT DEVELOPMENTS
Any efforts and inputs to improve current or future management performance by imparting knowledge, changing attitudes and enhancing skill is called management development. It is an in-house activity and includes co-acting, given professional inputs to increase knowledge and attempts to change attitudes and enhance managerial skills. The aim of such programmes is to improve the performance of the organization itself. The Management Development process consists of (1) Assessing the organizational needs (2) Appraising Manager's Performance (3) Developing Manager's performance by sustained efforts.
"DELTA PRODUCTS''
Delta Products is a company manufacturing under one shed number of products requiring for Housing and Building Construction Industry. The products include hardware like door knobs, hinges, lock, tower bolts, sanitary fittings and floor tiles. AII requirements of housing and building construction industry are manufactured in different departments at its Bhopal plant. The company wishes to produce and market top grade products. Mr. Chakravarty, the Director of Operations has been on foreign tour for over three months to see the manufacturing facilities at different
plants world over Mr Chakavarty's goal is to give to the industry, world class quality product at competitive rates and prices. His ambition is to make DELTA the class one producer in this activity in India. Mr. Chakravady is a highly qualified technocrat with excellent background at engineering, general and marketing management. He had however limited exposure to Human Resource Management. You are hired as Manager of Human Resources. The supporting team of highly qualified engineers, purchase managers and marketing managers are young and almost all of them are in the age group of 25 to 28 and very enthusiastic. They are excellent as individuals but lack the team spirit and work very hard to excel in their respective specialized knowledge. Many problems have come up for lack of communication, coordination, quality management and delivery schedules. The plant maintenance is below average. The inventories are high and the industrial relations poor as none of the managers had any exposure to this subject.
You are required to make a comprehensive Management Development Programme for Managers and Assistant Managers.
Questions:
a) How would you plan a programme for the young managers?
b) How will you test the existing level of their skills, attitudes and team spirit?
c) What methods of developmental training would you like to use and why?
B. Case Study - APPRAISING PERFORMANCE
All progressive companies have some formal or informal appraising systems for appraising the performance of their employees. Performance Appraisal is defined as any procedure that involves assessing employees' performance against set standards and, providing feedback to the employees assessed.
The aim is to motivate employees (a) to improve their performance (b) encourage for better performance above par.
The reasons for performance appraisal are (1) For salary decisions, rewards, promotion. {2) To review employee's work related behaviour with a view to correcting any deficiencies. Appraisal should be central to career planning process.
AMBER PHARMACEUTICALS
In a pharma company manufacturing and marking drugs and medicines, the research staff has developed a number of new products and formulations which are effective. But at the same time it has to meet severe competition from stalwarts with foreign collaboration. Mr. Shah, the Vice President Marketing has a very successful Pharma Marketing background. He has been with the company for the past 4 years.
Mr. Shah had made ambitious plans for capturing sizeable share of market in the Gujarat State. The company being medium sized, Mr. Shah had kept his marketing department and the marketing team lean and trim. The field sales staff was given aggressive targets and were virtually pushed to reach the respective targets. The field staff worked to their best abilities to compete their respective targets. Mr. Shah had himself been working hard almost 11- 12 hours a day.
There was no formal appraisal and reward system in the company. During last 5 years more than 60 Medical Representatives and the Area Supervisors had left the company due to unsatisfactory increments and promotions. Those who left the company were star workes. But Mr. Shah did not care for this high turnover. He was over confident that he would be able to hire freshers and also select candidates who were not happy with their remuneration in their respective company. Mr. Shah had never communicated to the field sales staff about their performance or reasons for not recognizing their outstanding performance in a few cases. There was on the whole a great dissatisfaction and good performers were leaving the company.
Questions:
(a) What do you perceive is the basic problem in 'AMBER'?
(b) What are the steps you will take serially to correct the situation?
(c) In the event of your suggesting a Performance Appraisal System.
(i) How will you decide a suitable system of appraisal?
(ii) Will your system include merit, rewards and promotions?