Career Dilemma

Industry : Manufacturing XYZ Ltd. has obtained a license for manufacturing state of the art machinery in India. The company is having a proven track record of three decades in marketing,sales, service and refurbishing of similar equipment imported from the collaborator. Situation:You, Mr. A, are a talented graduate techie selected by the company at campus interview, along with a couple of your colleagues, with the assurance of getting a chance to work on a new project. This may give you a training opportunity abroad. You are happy as work, money and status are at your door! You can give better days to your retired mother and father. Happening: You have joined after signing a bond. The HRD has given a one year training program comprising of three months each in four different departments. A week passes by and you and your colleagues find that the proposed project is yet to begin. You are required to work on nothing but recycling of old machines, from opening packages, dismantling, washing them in kerosene etc. etc. This work is a mismatch to your core competence. One fine day: During lunch break you meet Mr. B a post graduate techie , who happened to join that very day, obviously on a better pay packet. At tea-break Mr. B comes to meet you to bid good bye as he has resigned, because he finds the situation not suitable for his career. You are now shocked and worried. What do you do now?

Go to the top boss and discuss your fears. Keep quiet and wait till your bond period is over. Search for a better opportunity, this time get in depth information, break the bond and resign.

Case Study Questions 1.What would you do if you are Mr. A? 2.if you are the Managing Director of XYZ Ltd, how would you handle the situation?

The downfall of a promising employee

Industry : Retail Sumit Sethi was tired and dejected. His company's reputation and profits were at stake. Sumit had believed Gopal to be a promising employee; so he had recently promoted him to the top position in operations but Gopal's apathetic behaviour had now resulted in a major crisis for Reliable Couriers. Sumit was a bright student, topping his class in school. He always wanted to start his own business but unfortunately his father passed away in his last year of commerce graduation and Sumit was held back by family responsibilities. After his graduation he started his career as a Marketing Executive in a well known logistics company. His hard work, dedication and people skills led to quick promotions and within four years he rose to the position of Regional Manager. In the meantime he had taken good care of his family - his younger brother was now in a good engineering college and his only sister married and settled. Two years ago he saw a good business opportunity in courier services and started Reliable Courier. Besides Nationwide wide delivery services, Reliable Courier had same day intracity delivery services through bike messengers and scheduled pickup and delivery services for major clients . Sumeet had recruited Gopal Verma a fresh graduate from a low income family, as his assistant to manage routine office work. Sumit found Gopal hardworking and enthusiastic, showing keen interest in learning other aspects of the business . Sumit's business strategy was focused on institutional business and he impressed his corporate clients by excellent services . Reliable's core strength was its streamlined operations - the key person behind this was dynamic Chief Operations Manager Vineet Seth. Reliable had now become a well known player in Courier services and had grown from a staff of twenty to three hundred . All the old employees were rewarded with promotions and Gopal was made the Assistant Operations Manager. Last month Reliable had won a major contract of servicing 500 branches of Indian National Bank (INB). This was a critical project. It would double Reliable's profit this year and if serviced well could lead to similar contracts with other major banks. Things were moving satisfactorily but just then a personal urgency required Vineet Seth to move to Australia and so he resigned . This came at a time when Sumit was extremely busy planning a new premium service called Next Flight Out which could be a first in India for achieving same day deliveries across India for important packages. Sumit was continuously travelling to meet and workout a collaboration with a few airlines. Sumit promoted Gopal as Chief Operations Manager with a good raise and perks-Gopal had already worked as Assistant Manager Operations; Sumit also thought that instead of selecting an outside candidate for the top operations post , selecting Gopal would enthuse other employees as it supported the scope for good performers getting the top job. Soon after the promotion, Gopal began having personal problems including financial ones. Sumit asked his Accountant to give Gopal a personal loan which he could pay back in instalments from his salary. Gopal was also lax in the operations reporting and sometimes Sumit was unaware of his whereabouts. Gopal had cited personal problems when Sumit had asked him. Yesterday Sumit had received a complaint from the Head Office of INB that an urgent packet was still undelivered and that there were many instances in the last month of important packages not delivered on time and when contacted Gopal was not responding satisfactorily to their queries. Sumit was shocked but promised the INB officer that he would resolve their problems immediately. Sumit soon discovered that there were many other operations issues lying unattended . Sumit terminated Gopal's employment. As Sumit now tries to pacify his major client, he also wonders if he could have done anything earlier to help Gopal manage the responsibilities of his job and was it fair on his part to terminate someone who badly needed an income ?

Case Study Questions

1.Give three reasons for Gopal's failure as Chief Operations Manager? 2.If you were in Sumit's place how would you deal with Gopal?

Corporate culture
Industry : ITES and IT Hitech Corporation (Hitech) is a well known IT company based in Hyderabad , India. Hitech provides networking solutions to many Fortune 500 companies. Started in 1990 by two technology experts, Hitech currently has almost $40 million in annual revenue. When the founders started the company, they established as one basic value that working at Hitech should be enjoyable as well as profitable. That belief has helped create a company culture today that gives Hitech competitive advantages when recruiting and retaining talented workforce in the challenging labor market of IT. Because recruitment of talented employees to handle growth at Hitech is so crucial, , the HR unit has an aggressive employee referral program which pays employees up to $5,000 for referring new hires who stay with the firm.The HR unit prides itself on prompt feedback to potential employees. Other "fun" programs include-

Football, pool tables, volleyball courts, assorted video games, pianos, ping pong tables, and gyms that offer yoga and dance classes. Grassroots employee groups for all interests, like meditation, gourmet cooking and salsa dancing.. Healthy lunches and dinners for all staff at a variety of cafe Theme parties organised each month. Last month Hitech had its executives wearing animal costumes as part of a "jungle" party .

These fun initiatives have a more important business purpose-to demonstrate that people are important at Hitech. Is all this fun profitable? Hitech's answer is an unqualified yes. Over 40% of all Hitechs new employees come from the employee referral program. The firms cost to hire each new employee is about $5,000 less than the industry average. Even more important, those hired stay longer as indicated by its retention rate of 42 months compared to the industry average of 20 months. Also, employee turnover is about 6% annually which is significantly below the industry average. It is obvious that Hitech's approach to HR management is paying off, both in an enjoyable company culture and in contributing to organizational success.

Case Study Questions 1.What according to you could be the pros & cons of "fun at work" strategy used by an organisation ?

2.Employee referral is the best approach to recruitment .What is your view? 3.Why has "fun at work" been profitable at Hitech?