Maruti Suzuki Limited considered as one of the most reputed
and respected company leading the Indian Auto Industry has recently been in the
limelight for all the wrong reasons. As an HR student I could very well relate
the various issues that had become a dominant factor for unrest in the Manesar
plant and the consecutive strikes that occurred with three in 2011 and the most
recent one in July 2012.
I was quite surprised to study that how such a big
organization with its management practices rooting down to the best HR practices
(Japanese) known to the world failed to do justice to innumerable problems
faced by the workers. India being a progressive economy tolerates ill treatment
of its workers and does not enforce a strong law and order against the same. Adding
on to it is the greed for profit, unprofessional approach of the management and
no concern for the labour class. I would like to address the issues in the
context of:-
1)
Unprofessionalism –Despite repeated strikes at
Manesar plant the labour class was not given any comfort but the senior management
got promoted irrespective of their unprofessional behaviour. The question to be
asked is whether the HR people are mature enough to be a true professional. As
HR people they never did anything to motivate their workers who were just left
behind to come to work for their livelihood and this resulted in the
accumulated anguish. There was ego clashes amongst the management and the
worker class and thus it lead to unsupportive and negative working conditions.
2)
In the event of such strikes , instead of
understanding the reasons for such anguish the higher management hired top
consultants from world over to solve their burning issues; and what lead was
that they did not have the expertise to understand the problems at this level.
The consultants were in favour of the
contract labourers working in any number and advised not to encourage
unionization of labours at MSL.
Ensuring ethical and legally compliant
decision making along with fairness in the management approach would create a
win-win situation for both the parties was never observed. The MSL management did
not cater to the needs of the workers in terms of the urgent requirement of
humane working condition or increasing the low wages.
3)
Loss of trust:-all the three strikes lead to
complete lack of trust wherein the management failed to keep up to the promises
and never adopted the path of two way communication to resolve the conflicts
that were pertaining. The HR people were involved in activities like 360 degree
feedback, assessment Centre, psychometric tests etc. but none of them thought
of understanding the basic demands which would have motivated them to perform
irrespective of all odds.
4)
Defence Mechanism:-The Company never accepted
the fact that it did not provide safety for its employees and hence did not
take any action against its managers. Not only this the basic humane conditions
for the workers were not catered to and this has been completely ignored.
5)
No proper channel for grievance redressal was in place and the workers were harassed with continuous
increase in work pressure. Despite understand the reasons for the unrest
amongst the worker class no step was taken to improvise the processes and the
working conditions in the factory.
6)
Bonds were signed by the worker class for Good
conduct even though this was not required as a part of the job duties of the HR
managers.
7)
Demographics- Hiring people from all sections of
society create a diverse workforce and enforces motivation amongst the
workforce and not any conspiration against the management. They hired in bulk
workers aged between 20-25 mostly from nearby areas which resulted in aggressive
approach towards the management. The workers faced tremendous inequity in terms
of the wages that were being paid both internally as well as externally and
also lack of job security.
8)
Lack of autonomy and empowerment in the hands of
the Indian Management along with the dominating nature of the Japanese
management led to issues of conflict between the Indian Managers and the
Japanese Senior Management and often did not treat them right .The Indian
management could have played a crucial role in understanding the core issues
faced by the young workforce and if communicated the same to the Japanese
management would have led to some sensible solutions for the Manesar Plant.
I would like to collate my thoughts on this
learning incident of Industrial Relations and its importance to today’s
Business and to the HR fraternity especially that all the mishaps led to few negative
outcomes like the brand image of Maruti getting tarnished constantly due to
regular strikes and improper management at Manesar Plant, Lack of trust between
management and the workers which lead to accumulated frustration and the outburst
of the violence at the plant, Financial Loss despite the claim that even if MSL
was shut down for days it would not encounter any monetary losses which was
evident from its loss in the market share and last but not the least loss of
life of an experienced professional in the capacity of Avanish Dev.
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