VasuBansal_HRLP001_MarutiManesarCase

MARUTI MANESAR - CASE ANALYSIS

Globally, India has been accepted as a manufacturing base and a safe investment destination. Acts of violence, besides physically shedding blood and shutdowns, has tarnished the image of India, especially in view of the economic slowdown. It’s the responsibility of every Indian to ensure that incidents like Maruti Suzuki Manesar plant case are not repeated in future. We have to chart out a course to maintain cordial industrial relations and also ensure that nobody takes law into his hand.

The day 18^thJuly’12 has been unimaginable for most of us. We lost a HR professional to mindless workplace violence. The profession lost a person who stood at his post and gave up his life doing his duty. It’s not only the killing of a HR professional but the killing of a union worker, the critical injuries to scores of employees - Managers and Workers at Maruti. 

 The following points could be reasons for such violence:-

• Japanese always expected productivity without considering the emotions of manpower at workplace.
• Interpersonal relations at different levels were not conducive for healthy relations.
• Salary related issues including housing & healthcare were indecisive for a prolonged time.
• Revival of trust was required at all levels.
• Organizational structure & balance needs immediate attention.
• A seven-minute tea break and abusive supervisors

The justification for the violence at work place is due to social divide. But to equate that with what happened in Maruti is insane.

There is nothing wrong in expecting discipline & productivity from workers at workplace. Senior management should enforce rules & regulations to maintain workplace discipline & productivity. At the same time, if executives deny the workers dignity and respect and also equitable wage for similar jobs done, it is equally condemnable. Employing disproportionate workforce on contract, especially when it is core to the business is always questionable. The same applies to the denial of ownership to ensure the social security benefits and leaving it to contractors who have no scruples. We also cannot justify the 100 time wage multiple between the lowest paid and the CEO. All above points doesn’t justify crime & violence by any means at a workplace.

In conclusion, there could have been possible steps which could still resolve the problem in amicable way. The industry leaders, central trade unions and the labour department officials should sit together and work out a process for a work place which is just, fair, equitable and violence -free. The steps could be as under:-

•  Rebuilding of connection between India & Maruti:- A campaign to associate Maruti’s image with that of India will foster unity amongst all employees.
• Corporate Social Responsibility campaign of Maruti:-  Maruti traditional CSR campaign that undertakes fund raising for education & healthcare of labour families, which will prevent further support for planned violence.
• Video documentation of a Day in Life of a Maruti worker:- Due to conflicting reported versions of labour conditions at Maruti, Maruti should authorize a video documentary on improved work conditions at the plant.
•  Clarity on Haryana Government Inaction on Labour laws:- Demonstrate that the work policies at Maruti Manesar were in accordance with state labour policies.

Ritika Malik_HRLP 037_Industrial Relations_Dec 2012_Manesar Case

"THE MANESAR STORY"

Human beings have always been considered most important factors of production.  Since other factors can not speak or react against the treatment meted out to them by the Management, Government or the Society, human beings particularly Labour do react if not handled in time and with required passion and concern. Incident at Maruti – Manesar plant on 18 July 2012 led to brutal killing of Awanish Kumar Dev, Senior HR Manager, injuries to about 100 Managers, destruction of Company property and total loss of trust between workers and Management.

There is never single root cause of such unfortunate incidents and never one single party entirely responsible.  From the class discussion, I learnt that the main causes of the strike were compared to Gurgaon, younger worker and supervisor population at Manesar to cut costs, no shared culture at Manesar as existed in Gurgaon- extreme work focus vs. people focus, extreme focus of Japanese management on target achievement, poor understanding of a Union ‘s functioning among the young Associates, break in communication channels. The associates were unable to surface the issues, no uniform grievance redressal mechanism for Associates. I also consider the main cause to be the outdated labour laws alongwith inaction by the Government inspite of knowledge about violation of law by the Management regarding casual labour.  Present labour laws are not enough to fulfill aspirations of the labour under fast changing economic and social conditions.  Outdated laws governing labour have not only affected Maruti but labour unrest at several other manufacturing units like Rico Auto, HMSI, Sona Steering, Hero Honda, Bajaj, Denso and several other factories located in Haryana requires urgent changes in labour laws.

Definitely Management policy of employing casual workers and not according permanent status to those workers even after they work for number of years was the single most important reason leading to the unfortunate incident on 18 July 2012.  Further, Government of Haryana choose to overlook violation of law and continued to appease Management.  Even the principles of tripartite negotiations was given the go by.

Unions take welfare and other measures for all the workers.  Individual grievances, if considered relevant are also taken up by the Unions.  They try to reach a negotiated settlement which is then implemented by the management.  However, every individual has different aspirations and it is next to impossible for the management to negotiate with individuals.  Union representatives decide more important issues for general welfare of all the workers and then take up with the Management.  This leads to possibility of finding practical solution.  Likewise each industry and each company has peculiar working conditions and factors.  Representatives of external union, although experiences in negotiations, do not understand those peculiarities and try to convince Management to follow what is decided in other sectors.  This makes negotiations difficult for management and they they prefer to deal with internal Unions.

Companies which require workers with basic education level normally have strong internal Union.  Encouragement by the Management for dealing with the internal union also helps in forming strong union with which Management is comfortable to deal with.  Under these conditions strong internal union avoid outsider influence and are confident in looking after the interest of their members.   Inspite of this certain companies prefer external union as they have professional people who possess negotiation skills are unbiased and are aware of prevailing economic and social conditions of the economy as well as the Industries.  They are practical and understand limitations of the Management.  However, internal union may have representatives who are not educated and lack negotiation skills.  They may not understand difficulties faced by the company and many times they get swayed by sentiments and are generally biased because of their own limited experiences.  I feel if Union at Maruti – Manesar had involved more profession people for their negotiations situation would not have gone out of hand and this unfortunate and undesired incident would not have taken place.

There is increase in number of incidents involving  Labour and Management in the recent past.  Our leaders from the industry have probably forgotten that Labour is different from  Building and Machinery and cannot be ignored if they wish to prosper. We also need to amend outdated laws and bring them in line with changing economic and social conditions.  We can never overemphasize requirement of proper implementation of laws as there is no logical reason for Haryana Government to let Maruti continue employing so many casual labour for jobs which were permanent in nature.  Maruti also did not realize the consequences of their policy till this unfortunate incident and now have committed to employ permanent employees from the year 2013.  If applicable law was implemented earlier probably Awanish Kumar Deb would have been alive. 

SandeepRamadev_BLP040_Self Leadership_October 2012

The two day session has been reported in brief from my point of view

The session started with Anil Sir posing us question that made our minds and intellect go under retrospection. The questions touched upon the fact, How do we really take decisions, how do we come with choices. When we were still trying to put a structured way of answering it, Anil sir told us about an interesting framework for the decision making process gives as below.

·         Frame the most important question.

·         Collect meaningful and reliable information

·         Create creative and doable alternatives

·         Define logic for evaluation - risk and returns

·         Values and trade offs

·         What to do to implement it

As the session went by, the next topic of revelation was what lies at the heart of creativity. The discussion that followed was really an eye opener. Anil Sir questioned the way people are brought up and how creativity is killed at a very young age itself. The core of it is the education system.The education system tells what is right and wrong along but never tries to understand the reasoning behind it. When we enter this world, our minds are open like empty vessels, which we can fill with all kinds of knowledge and be as creative as possible. But while filling the knowledge, we also fill the layers of fear to condition our mind. Anil Sir ended this topic by beautifully explaining us about the 4 dimensions of creativity, namely:

·         Ideation of fluency

·         Originality of thinking

·         Associative fluency

·         Learning from analogy, Synaptics

It is at this point I came across the wonderful full form of LOVE , which is Loving Our Value Eternally.

We were asked to understand our fears, via some questions where we had to rate ourselves on a scale of 5. The questions were

·         When you want do something new, how much fear of failure strikes you

·         To what extent, I am conscious of criticism i.e what others will say

·         To what extent I am concerned about ambiguity?

·         To what extent does lack of time and resources bother me?

·         How skeptical I am if I am required to do something new which requires me to be outdoors, in the wilderness, exposed to nature where my physical senses get challenged.

The session ended with understanding with the importance of conditioning the brain and ladder of inference where we were explained how our cognition, perceptions, and beliefs determine our actions.

             

The final session of self-leadership itself started by honoring the martyrs of India-China War of 1962.I was not aware of this deed by our soldiers and I was very moved by the incident.The Self Leadership session began with another question to BLP students, what was the origin of the courage, from where did it come and what was its essence.Few thoughts that came across the class was discovering the talent in you and it comes from passion. Courage also comes when you are selflessness , when you are given a higher cause.It was also an opportunity to take on big responsibilities. There was thins one  favorite quote, which drew applause from everyone in class. It was- “Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgment that something else is more important than fear”.

The topic later shifted to happiness. Anil sir shared a video of a monk named  Matthieu Ricard which who stressed on the fact that happiness doesn’t lie in the future or past but it lies by living in the present. He told that happiness is intrinsic can be attained by achieving inner peace, inner fulfillment, good relationship, thinking style and high self confidence. Meditation was the ideal way to attain happiness as it was a peaceful state of mind.

In the end, we learnt the concept of ‘Immunity X-ray’ which is a scientific way of overcoming your fear and bringing change in oneself. We were asked to think of facts where we wished we could change but did not give it a thought later.It stated about overcoming our grey areas, face the reality and overcome the mental blocks which were causing a hindrance to what we wanted to achieve.

Srinivas Venkataramanan_BLP022_Self Leadership_Oct 2012

15th October 2012

The class today started with an introduction of Upanishad which means student and teacher learning in the form of a dialog. We also discussed about an interesting program which comes on DD national, Upanishad Ganga. All though, I have not seen this program , after attending this class I am pretty keen on watching it

We were given a framework which involved a set of questions to determine our career path,

·         Define the frame by asking what the most important question to you is.

·         Collect meaningful and reliable information

·         Define several creative and doable alternatives

·         Define logic for evaluation which includes your risk and returns

·         Values and tradeoffs

·         Implementation

Then the entire class was involved in a few creative exercises. For eg, we were writing down various ways a pen and a holder can be used. This exercise really showed us ideas are born from out of the box thinking. After going through this 4 dimensions of creativity were explained which were

·         Ideation Fluency

·         Originality of thinking

·         Association thinking

·         Concord design

Then we were introduced to a new concept, Ladder of Influence. It explained to us how perceptions are created and also what is the real way of reaching at conclusions.

On the whole , this class had a huge impact on my thinking process and certainly I am hoping to use whatever I have learnt today in various decisions I am going to make in the future.

22nd October 2012

With the day being the 50^th anniversary of Sino – Indian war, it was apt that the class started with a discussion about the great sacrifices of Indian warriors to this country. An interesting quote which defined courage beautifully was shared,

“Courage is not the absence of fear , but to realize something else is more important than fear.”

We also did a group exercise, in each table we discussed a couple courageous acts which each one has done in his life. Discussion in our table was pretty interesting with diversity ranging from Kanyakumari to Kashmir.

Then we were introduced to a pretty interesting framework, Immunity framework. A framework which we can use to find out a few important habits which we want to change in ourselves and the ways to do the same.

This framework is the biggest take away for me from this class , and I really want to use this to change a few habits of mine which have been a hindrance to my growth .

Srinivas Venkataramanan_BLP022_Self Leadership_Sep 2012

Taking part in Chanakya business simulation game today was a great learning experience. But  the cruel part about good experiences are that they always come at an expense of something else . I had to miss one of the most important lectures scheduled for the week , Anil Sir’s Self Leadership class .

From my interaction with my class mates, today’s class was an interactive one where in 2 important topics were covered:

·         Emotional Intelligence

·         Appreciative Inquiry

I am particularly interested in getting to know about Appreciative inquiry, it sounds interesting as it speaks about identifying the positives in everyone and working on the same instead of finding weaknesses .

I am certainly looking forward to apply and learn this framework in any of my future endeavours at SOIL.

Srinivas Venkataramanan_BLP022_Self Leadership_Sep 2012

" A Sachin Tendulkar straight drive past the bowler, A Kamal Hassan master piece, Ilayaraja music , roadside food along with my college friends back home, one of my leggies spinning past the batsman" these are some of the simple things that define happiness to me in life. I read a wonderful line from Professor VS Mahesh’s book,"Rate busters and workaholics were the kind of terms used to control those who relapsed into the habit of enjoying what they were doing, for “enjoyment of work” was henceforth to be treated on par with drugs and alcohol, as a bad habit to get into". I also feel these words come into one's life only when we forget the things which give happiness. Not many are blessed with a job which gives him happiness too. So to find some time away from work for things which provide you happiness, doing which will relieve you out of the stress and pressure of the corporate world.

This is where SOIL stands out from other B schools in India. It’s not just about learning Finance, Marketing or HR, it’s also about understanding yourself better, finding out where your interests lie in,  managing your time, learning important values which will not just make you a good MBA graduate but also a true leader. SOIL also enables us to experience the happiness that lie in contributing to the society in the form of SIP.  Certainly we will pass out of SOIL as someone who knows himself better, and so will be in a position to create happiness for himself and others around him.

My way of looking at success is in terms of happiness. If I am happy at the end of the today and go to bed with a smile, I count it as a successful day. If successful days cover up the majority of my life’s pie, then I can term my life a grand success!

Venkata Kalluri_BLP010_Self Leadership_October 2012

15th October 2012

Today we did start our day with an introduction of what Upanishad means. Upanishad is a dialogue between Students and teachers. We discussed the power of intellect, brain understanding and our own thinking process by a framework.

The framework is as follows,

·                     Define the frame by asking what is the most important question to you.

·                     Collect meaningful and reliable information

·                     Define several creative and doable alternatives

·                     Define logic for evaluation which includes your risk and returns

·                     Values and tradeoffs

·                     Implementation

Then we discussed about the career choices and did an exercise on Happiness by probing questions:

1) How do I find happiness in my job?

2) What is Happiness to me?

3) What inspires and motivates me?

4) What gives me personal satisfaction?

We performed an exercise on creativity and looked into aspects why we are low on creativity.

We looked into the factors which influence the creativity. They are:

1) Ideational Fluency

2) Original Thinking

3) Associational Fluency

4) Analogies Formulation.

Also discussed Ladder of Influence and my understanding about it is:

1) Our beliefs are the truth

2) Truth is Obvious

3) Our beliefs are based on real data

4) Data we select are real data and

5) We have all the data we need.

22nd October 2012

Lecture started with discussion of 50th anniversary of Sino-Indian war and we discussed what gave the warriors courage and then discussed what courage means to us. Here are few of my notes about Courage:

1) It is identification with the community

2) It comes from inside - cause for which you are fighting

3) It is Passion

4) It is our belief - God

5) It comes from selflessness - when one senses a higher cause

6) Discovering aspects which even self is not aware of

7) Extraordinary challenge

8) Being true to self

9) Deep love for some one or some purpose

10) It is not absence of fear but realization that something is primary for me

We saw a video, "Mathiew Ricard: The Habits of Happiness" and looked into what happiness is.

We also discussed Immunity X-ray at the end of the day and learnt about SMART (Safe Modest Actionable Research Test) test and how we can convert from

Unconciously Immune => Consciously Immune => Consciously Released => Unconsciously Released.