The tragic Maruti
incident has left the entire Business and specifically HR community shell-shocked.
Before I move on to present my analysis of the root cause of the issue, let me highlight
some of the most important contextual points relating to ‘before the strike’
situation:
·
There was clear lack of
satisfaction of basic needs for workers – no proper rest breaks, drinking
facilities far away from the manufacturing facilities etc.
·
The policies were not communicated
to the workers effectively
·
There was too much of micro
management by the senior management
·
There was extreme focus only on
productivity and efficiency
·
The workforce, including the
supervisors, was much younger as compared to that of Gurgaon plant
·
Decision making was highly centralized
So what could be
the root cause of such an outburst? Here is my point of view:
The senior
management focused enough on efficiency, but lost the ground when it came to
effectiveness; efficiency is about doing things right – the management tried
their best to ensure high productivity by putting tremendous pressure on
workers to do more and more in order to get the numbers. But effectiveness,
which according to me is more important than efficiency, is about doing the right
things – and that is where the management failed big time. The best that Maruti
should have done is to ensure ‘Effecticiency’ – i.e. doing right things in the
right way! Let me explain:
The Maruti incident
has reminded the business and HR community of the tremendous importance of
maintaining cordial industrial relations. This subject was getting buried under
the earth since quite long, and the HR community to a great extent kept losing
its focus on maintaining the right ‘human touch’ in order to connect
effectively with the workforce and therefore maintain peace, harmony, and
happiness to a great extent. The Maruti HR department must ensure ethical and
legally complaint decision making, as it is unjust to employ contract workers
for the same job done by permanent workers, just in order to save some cost. When
you try to save cost injudiciously, it costs you more in future.
It seems that the
HR head was seriously lacking the ability to play a proactive and balanced role
of true facilitator and collaborative decision maker, and had no knowledge or
network to gauge the distress and dissatisfaction among contract/permanent
workers. The HR head has to act as a fair middleman – who takes into account
the expectations of both the senior management and the bottom of the pyramid. HR
department must be armed with the arrows of ‘clear, complete, and effective
communication’ in the quiver, to ensure engagement of all stakeholders.
The outcome of the
negligence by senior management and the HR head is as follows:
·
Loss of a highly diligent and
professional HR general manager Avanish Dev
·
Tremendous financial loss
·
Loss of brand image
·
Loss of trust between
management and workers
·
Loss of market share
Also, the expectations
in terms of level of autonomy, acceptability and suitability of micro
management etc. are different in different countries. So outsourcing same
ideology and practices to a different country without deep understanding of the
different workforce and work dynamics is not the way to go.
In addition, the
management hired very young people probably with the prime motive of saving some
cost in the beginning. They did not consider various demographic related nuances
while hiring – different people have to be managed differently.
The Maruti fiasco
indeed reminds us of the fact that small nuances matter big time, and ensuring
effective communication and strategizing towards benefiting all stakeholders
fairly is at the deepest layer of the iceberg which should not be forgotten in
order to maintain peace, happiness, and respect in the long term. I hope
Industrial Relations as a subject gets the required attention and emphasis that
it deserves, in times to come.
In the past, the
need for labor unions came up due to unwarranted exploitation of workers by the
management, which unfortunately in a few decades because of politicization and
criminalization of trade unions seems to have turned vice versa as well. Many organizations
encourage labor unions to promote so called ‘collective bargaining’ – atleast that’s
what they say. But there are many organizations where there are no labor
unions, because such organizations care deeply for its people and ensure the
protection of their interests as a result of fair policies and practices. Such organizations
ensure happiness of all their stakeholders including their junior most hierarchy
of workers, and therefore happy people ensure happy numbers, automatically!
The problems
shall cease if the unions exist for constructive purposes, and the same goes as
well for the management. This will ensure peace, harmony, and happiness of the
organization, its people, and the community at large; as long as the ‘human
touch’ prevails.
