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?-****--CASE -STUDY--****-?

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Case: It was altogether a new environment for Mr. Adrian Holmes, in his second work assignment in Human Resources department as a Sr. Executive - HR (the first being an 'Officer-HR' for three years in a medium sized company) after completion of MBA in HR from a reputed B-School. The firm, Divine Dyestuff Private Limited (also an SME) he had joined lacked systems and people values. On the day he was interviewed, number of questions were asked by Finance Head, Mr. Dipesh Trivedi, a qualified CA. Since Mr. Adrian was selected after three rounds of interviews that too among a good lot of candidates, he felt happy and thought could be able to do and learn many things in his field of specialization. He was offered a meagre salary but was assured of a managerial position after successful completion of his probation of six months. Few days passed by and Mr. Adrian was doing things all alone with some help from the Administration Department. So it struck to his mind that it is now for him to do something to evolve systems that were learnt by him during his course of management studies. Luckily, he found he was reporting to one of the directors of the company named Mr. Keval Sarvaiya, who had agreed to support him in his endeavours. So Mr. Adrian took courage to initiate action positively. One day, as it was not too late, Mr. Adrian set out to visit the various departments and get self introduced among other employees. Some of the employees found it strange but Mr. Adrian continued. Then in the evening, he entered the cabin of Mr. Dipesh and informed him that he wanted to get introduced to the people in the organisation being an HR person. Mr. Dipesh ridiculed him and said there was no need of such a thing and that Mr. Adrian would be only wasting his time. However, Mr. Adrian was convinced and said that he would work to bring in some systems in the organization. On this note, the conversation began between the two: Dipesh: Well, Mr. Adrian what are you qualified as? Adrian: Sir, you know I have done my Masters in Personnel Management and Labour Welfare i.e. MPM & LW. Dipesh: Oh! That's an Arts Degree. (And he continued to further irritate him) But tell me what all things can you handle in HR? Adrian: Sir, I can look into the Time Functions (personnel clerical work), recruitment and selection, employee appraisal systems, payment of wages and salaries and so on. Dipesh: Mr. Adrian your Time Office Functions can be done by anybody and we have a XII pass doing it for us. Recruitment and Selection work can be done by any departmental head and so there is nothing great about it. The appraisal system (he continued saying) is so very simple and that only ticking of certain variable factors had to be done and that increment could be given just by overseeing the forms. Further, you see, our BCom graduates have been doing it since years. So I want to know what new things exactly you can do in this organization. Adrian: Sir, (almost lost) you have appointed me after three rounds of interviews amongst a numbers of candidates and you say that things are very simple and that HR functions can be handled by any person. Well sir, I can only assure you that I shall definitely add value to those functional areas and prove myself worthy of my position in the organization. After introducing himself to all employees, he set on his journey to begin a new way of life with faith in himself single handedly. Days passed by fast and Mr. Adrian had many things to handle. He found things tough and going about tougher. The only ray of hope he had was from one of the Directors, Mr. Keval Sarvaiya whom he reported and who seemed only ray of hope as he backed the ideas and suggestions of Mr. Adrian. The first and foremost challenge placed before him was to streamline payment of wages and salaries; portfolio which was handled by accounts was reluctantly given to him. The salaries were to be paid on the 10th of every month but were actually paid on different dates. So Mr. Adrian checked the wage and salary statements that were manually prepared by accounts personnel and found many errors besides cancellations and over corrections. He took to understand all the discrepancies and pay scales of all employees and started making proper calculations and succeeded to pay the same on the 7th of the subsequent month in his very first month of employment He called for some assistance for him in his work and with the permission of the Director, recruited Mr. Sandeep Chaudhary, a commerce graduate as HR Assistant, a fresher and put him on rigourous learning mode only to enable him resourceful in his day to day activities. In the second month, the wages and salaries of all were paid on the 1* of the month. The finance head had only to question as to why he was in such a hurry to pay wages and salaries so early when it could be conveniently paid on the 10th of every month. In the meanwhile, the payments that were through cheques made by accounts department would actually get credited on the 4h or 5th of the month in the employees' account as it would take time to get cheques realized. And so Mr. Adrian along with Mr. Sandeep and with the support of Director got in the touch with the IT section and worked on computerized calculation of wages and salaries. It worked well so much so that the HR department head with his fellow colleague could now work to pay salaries of employees on 27th of the month (i.e. four days in advance) and people could see credit amount in their pass books and withdraw money immediately as per their requirements. But the workers were paid on the 1" as they were paid cash. The financial head only complained about all these happenings but things did not fire back as Mr. Keval supported the right initiatives taken by Mr. Adrian. Over a period of few months, Mr. Adrian, after discussing the matter with his boss (i.e. Director) sought the help from accounts to work on the system of directly crediting the salaries to their individual accounts. This was appreciated by all and so the system was introduced. In the meanwhile, Mr. Adrian completed his probation successfully as people around seemed happy by this change and was promoted as Manager-HR. But he found that his salary was not matching his position and status in the orgnisation in comparison with other similar positions. Mr. Adrian did enjoy the work. He added two more employees to his department and continued to work. By now he had changed the face of HR working and took to improvise other functional areas of the department. He worked on the hierarchical structure of the organization and pay scales as normally given in the other organisations but as per industry level and this was well accepted by management on the whole as it was found that level of absenteeism and attrition rate had slashed down considerably. Adrian by now was quite sure he could develop the organizational culture and create a healthy environment across the organization. But he always kept his cool even while some cribbed about him and his work. The journey continued with his selfless service for four years with little growth monetarily. The employees in the HR department were all in proper sync to support all HR activities. The employee appraisal system was in place. There was induction process introduced. A HR manual was ready and was being followed. Exit interviews were conducted. ESI and PF records were set right (which were often attracting legal cases). Employee records were properly maintained; all to showcase to the management that a full-fledged department was functioning and that Mr. Adrian was instrumental in keeping everyone happy and satisfied. Mr. Adrian found everything good and wanted to embark on many other initiatives. But he resigned for better prospects. Questions: 1. What kind of journey did Mr. Adrian undergo? 2. How was he instrumental to the organization? 3. Why had he to resign when he was appreciated by all? 4. What suggestions would you make to the organization? 5. Describe the personality of Mr. Adrian