Case 1 Arihant Limited is a Rs. 500 crore company involved in manufacture of plastic furniture and related accessories.

Amar Shastri has joined Arihant Limited as Manager HR. Amar who has been spending considerable time understanding the processes and systems at Arihant Limited and studying existing reports, notices that wastages, reworking on orders and sales returns from customers are abnormally high. Most employees do not seem to follow standard operating procedures (SOPs) and some are not even aware of the existence of these SOPs. Amars observations are below :

None of the jobs have training manuals, although most have outdated job descriptions The training of new employees is mostly on-the-job. Usually the person leaving the company trains the new employee during the one or two week overlap period. Often if there is no overlap the new employee is trained to the extent possible by other employees in the department, who have occasionally filled in on the job in the past. Existing employees have often not been through even a single day of training in a financial year. The general feeling is that training is paid holiday for a privileged few at Arihant Limited Most employees have a couldnt care less attitude towards wastages and the related cost escalations.

Questions : Explain in detail what would you do to improve the training process at Arihant Limited ? Make sure you provide specific suggestions Suggest three innovative reward strategies that can be implemented at Arihant Limited, given their present scenario. Facts 1. 500 crore company which means that the companys scale of operations is huge and are financially well set. 2. Wastages and reworking are abnormally high due to which sales returns from the customer are also high. 3. Employees do not follow SOPs and some are not even aware of them. 4. Use of outdated training manuals and lack of seriousness of employees in training programs. 5. Careless attitude towards resources.

ANSWER 1 For this question I assume that there were no standard quality systems in place in the organization. By systems I mean quality tools like TQM, JIT are not implemented. In this growth oriented world of globalization every organization has to give importance to quality as there is a shift in the way business frame their objectives. Earlier it was Profit maximization as customers had no option to buy but consume what was being produced. But now the the focus is on quality as consumers if not happy have the luxury to shift to different products as they have the choice today. TQM stresses on the fact of doing things right the first time. Here there is lots of wastage of resources and rework is necessary which has hampered the quality of the end product thereby adding on to the cost. Appropriate training has to be provided to employees so that they are made aware of the advantages of TQM. This will help them cut costs drastically and adding quality at every process n ultimately the things are done and executed in an effective manner. 1. Arrange lectures by experts and professionals from management and other institutes. 2. Practical training to workers during factory hours. 3. Visits of workers/supervisors to other manufacturing units which have followed high quality standards in manufacturing. 4. Provision of Quality booklets to participants in order to create awareness about quality 5. Updating course contents of the training schedule so as to make it more effective, interesting and result oriented. 6. Apart from on the job training , company should arrange for off the job training programs such as case study, conferences and seminars, business games, video tapes, audio visual aids are extensively being used to train managers and subordinates. ANSWER 2 3 innovative reward strategies 1. Rewards should be given on the condition how many units are manufactures by the employee with minimal wastage and on optimum utilization of resources. He should be given recognition as to how well he responds to the training programs n how well he applies it in his day to day work. 2. As per F.W Taylors scientific management he should be rewarded for producing each extra unit in excess of the benchmark set by the company. Introduce the concept of profit sharing.

3. The employees who give the best suggestion for improvement in any aspect of management as well as the training programs should be given appropriate rewards.The employees achievements can be mentioned in the companies year book highlighting the ways hes overcome his problems and how to become an effective employee. Case - 2 Yashraj Limited is an FMCG company having the following product segments : Soaps, Toothpaste, Biscuits and Chocolates The company has a product based organization structure with an All-India presence. The organization has been doing reasonably well despite the economic slowdown. The company also plans to launch products in three neighbouring Asian Countries in the next one year. Rakesh Sharma, the HR Manager at Yashraj Limited is of the opinion that the organization is over-staffed and also that staff is not being optimally utilized. He has noticed that there seems to be lack of adequate communication between various product segment executives, with each working in compartments as against having a common vision. Rakesh suggests to the Managing Director that we should change the organization structure to being region based as against product based. This will considerably reduce the sales force at the organization ensuring that sales executives are responsible for the entire product line of the company at a region, as against being concerned with only a single product. Question : If you were to look at the above case from a Organization Development perspective, how would you suggest Rakesh Sharma proceed with implementing the change in organization structure ? Critically evaluate HRs role as a change agent in an organization. Facts : 1. An FMCG company with an all India presence. 2. Reaping profits despite worldwide recession. 3. Wants to expand business in the neighboring Asian countries. 4. Overstaffing, lack of communication. 5. Product- based organizational structure. 6. Departmentalization of functional departments of each products

Answer 1 As mentioned in the case the company has a product based organizational structure. Looking from an organization development viewpoint the case stressed on the fact to adopt region based organizational structure. The case highlights problems faced with product based organizational structure which are as follows: 1. Product- based organizational structure. As the company has market presence all over India in FMCG products the organizational hierarchy is very complex. The company has a significantly tall structure. To solve this problem the organization should adopt a mixture of region based and matrix structure. Region based organization structure means having strategic business units (SBUs) as per the market demand of the product. The advantages of such a structure are that it reduces cost considerably as you are close to the market/customers, and everything is managed efficiently. 2. Departmentalization of functional departments of each individual product line. There is lot of departmentalization as there functional departments for each and every individual product line for FMCG products. Earlier the departments could work in isolation. But today departments need to synchronize their efforts in order to achieve their goal. In order to solve this problem the region based organization is an apt solution as it becomes easier for the CEO to examine the performance of individual SBU and have a better understanding of their functioning. Analysis is important as hierarchy is reduced and the organization becomes a flat structured organization from a tall structure. 3. Overstaffing Once region based structure is adopted every product of the company has to function on its own and have their own policies regarding recruiting of sales force as per their requirements. Getting cheaper workforce is also an option when business units are in different geographic locations.

Answer 2 In the advent of globalization conducting business has become a challenging job. Change is inevitable. Change is a way of life. Change is a necessity as times have changed. And so with changes in business changes youre your attitude and approach towards the way business is conducted. No organization can make profits on its past laurels. It has to change as strategy which works in one situation may not work always in all situations. HR manager has to be constantly in sync with the changing environment as the external and internal environment affect the functioning of the organization. As its a globalised world theres a new concept which needs special attention i.e. work force diversity. Earlier u had your own country people working by your side. But still there were many cultural differences among us both. Today people from around the globe are working with you which makes adaptation even more difficult. The HR manager has make his employees adapt to people of different caste, creed, religion and tribe. Taking an example of Indian work force, they are lazy and the first people to resist change. Whereas Japanese are pioneers of adopting changes as it is an integral part of every organization. For South Koreans country comes first and the rest follows. In the above case if company adopts a region based organizational structure (SBUs) this will give them an advantage when they are going to launch products in neighboring Asian countries. There seeking strategic advantage assumes even more importance as it drastically cuts down costs. So before entering in a newer market having a firsthand experience in your own country is always an added advantage.