Hindustan Chemicals Ltd Case Study - Management Assignment Help

Assignment Task

Read the cases given below carefully and answer the questions accordingly.

Case 1: Recruitment and Promotion Policies*
XYZ Limited is a public sector undertaking with staff strength of around 1,200 including 300 officers. As per the recruitment policy of the company, most employees join as trainees and after successful completion of training, are absorbed at the lowest intake level. Thus, in the case of workers, most start as Technician/Operator Trainees, and officers, as Management Trainees. The company expects the higher posts to be filled by promotions and therefore, as far as possible, direct recruitment to higher positions is avoided. Only when there is an urgent requirement of a person to fill a higher post and no candidates from within the organisation are eligible, is an open advertisement released. In 1982, the company urgently needed one Junior Engineer (Instrumentation) to take charge of one of its plants. At that time, the company had four Junior Engineers (JEs) in position who had joined as Management Trainees in 1980 and had been regularised in 1981. Immediately above them was an Assistant Engineer, who in turn reported to the Project Manager. The company released an advertisement for the post of JE, seeking applications from those with at least two years’ experience in the field. One Mr. Ramesh Chaudhari, who had four years’ experience in a private concern applied and was selected. He found the terms of appointment lucrative and joined the company in May 1982. As four JEs were already working in the company, Chaudhari became the Junior-most JE as per the promotion policy of the company; the four JEs would become eligible for promotion to the post of ‘Assistant Engineer’ in 1985 (on completion of four years’ service) and Chaudhari in 1986. In July 1983, the Assistant Engineer left his job and hence, the company decided to fill the vacancy by direct recruitment. In the advertisement it was stipulated that the applicants should have a minimum of five years’ experience. Chaudhari met the specification since he had four years previous experience plus one year in XYZ Ltd. Therefore, he applied for the post through proper channel. The company decided to call the eligible candidates for interview. Accordingly, Chaudhari was also called along with the external candidates. He performed exceedingly well in the interview and was found suitable for the post. The General Manager (GM), who was chairman of the selection committee, congratulated Chaudhari and told him that he had been selected. However, the GM changed his mind subsequently and asked the Personnel Officer not to issue the appointment letter to Chaudhari. He gave the following reasons to revert his decision:

1. Mr. Chaudhari would get a higher post after completion of just over one year’s service in the organisation as against the normal requirement of four years.
2. When Mr. Chaudhari joined, he was junior to the four JEs by about one year. If he was offered the higher post, he would suddenly become their boss. This would demoralise the JEs—in fact they had already decided to seek jobs elsewhere if Chaudhari became Assistant Engineer. The GM was convinced that he could not afford to lose four JEs and therefore, he chose to disappoint Chaudhari.

Questions:
1. If Chaudhari had been an external candidate, would he have got the job? As an internal candidate, did he deserve to be treated in a different fashion?
2. Did the management make a mistake in calling Chaudhari for an interview and selecting him, when he was “too junior” in the organisation?
3. Are there any drawbacks in the recruitment/promotion policies of the company? If yes, elaborate them.

Case 2: Hindustan Chemicals Ltd
The Hindustan Chemicals Ltd (HCL) is a public sector firm engaged in petrochemical business. It employs about 1,600 most of whom are well-qualified, fairly young (average age 32) and typically have an urban background. HCL has retained one reputed consulting and training organization each to impart training in supervisory skills for their junior managers, human resource management programme with emphasis on organization analysis and behaviour modification skills for middle managers and advanced management programs for senior managers. HCL wanted to train all managerial employees over a period of 12 to 15 months in batches of 20 per month at junior and middle levels and 20 senior managers in once every two months. IAM, a renowned management institute was assigned the responsibility to cover middle managers. A couple of months after the start of the training intervention, the top management learnt of a growing tendency on the part of some of the employees on night shift to sleep while on duty. Since it was a tightly manned petro-chemical complex, any negligence or dereliction of duty in certain critical areas could be potentially hazardous and extremely risky. Therefore, the Director (Personnel) and a couple of members of the top management team went around the plant one night, without any prior information to the plant people about their visit. They caught red handed, four persons sleeping on duty, recorded evidence and proceeded with taking steps to initiate disciplinary action the following day. When the charge sheets were being prepared, trade union leaders descended on the scene persuaded the top management to be lenient, as an exception in this case, to the concerned persons. The union leaders also assured that they would advise their members not to sleep while on duty. In the interest of maintaining good industrial relations, the top management did not pursue the cases. This gesture on the part of the top management was perceived as a sign of their weakness by the officers’ association and its members. They protested to top management whether they (the latter) would be equally considerate in cases involving them (the managers). The workers felt that so long as there is no problem in the plant, management would be considerate enough. With the result, the incidence of sleeping on night duty began to grow. Top management became alarmed. The Personnel Department was asked to advise all line managers, particularly shift in-charges in night duty to keep a vigil on those who have a tendency to sleep and report cases of persons who are found guilty of sleeping on duty. The circular did not register any impact on the middle and junior managers. Instead, they derisively laughed and ignored the circulars. They also felt that “the top management’s perception of industrial relations dynamics at the plant is very different from that of junior and middle level managers.” Seeing no improvement in the situation, the top management asked IAM to include a module on Handling Indiscipline with role play sessions on ‘How to conduct Domestic Enquiry’. The Programme Coordinator readily agreed to the suggestion because he felt that in doing so he was making it tailor-made to the needs of the organization. When the module was first offered to the fifth batch of middle managers, the participants wondered why this subject was additionally introduced. They wanted to know why it did not form an integral part of the programme from the beginning itself and whether the need for including the topic was felt by their colleagues who attended the programme in the previous batches or by the top management. When they learnt that it was at the latter’s instance, they stoutly protested in chorus and said, “We know the importance of Discipline. In fact, with growing violence our physical security is often threatened due to sabotage, violence and vandalism by a handful of unruly elements. Discipline, therefore, is not merely an organization need, but also a personal need for us, whereas for the top management it is a bargainable aspect of shop-floor industrial relations. What we need is not training but proof that top management means what it says. We demand that the top management supports and sustains the actions we initiate in maintaining discipline. We will be able to have confidence in top management if it shows us the way by first initiating actions on the cases they themselves have booked.” Such restiveness affected the receptivity in what was on the agenda in the training schedule for that afternoon. But the trainees became intensely involved the following day when they were doing the organization analysis in small groups. Most participants wondered what happened to the suggestion their predecessors made while presenting the finding of their group discussions on organization analysis before some members of the top management team on the last day of every programme held so far. One participant asked: our colleagues gave their feedback to the top management. We understand the latter agreed on most points. But we see no evidence of follow-up of any kind.” A second one argued with the programme coordinator, “Why are you asking us to give vent to our feelings? Do you realize that our top management is merely using you and the other faculty as a buffer?” A third one queried, “You quoted Kurt Lewin on the first day and observed that behaviour is a function of personality and situation. Now tell us whether top management merely wants to change our personality but does not want to change the situation. We do not know whether discussion on aspects concerning their personality should remain a taboo since projection will not help us.”
 

Questions:
1. Discuss the key issues involved in the case.
2. Identify the lessons for developing training strategies.
3. What remedial measures would you suggest in this case?

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