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Understand your workforce
A Tracking Study to mitigate Labour Problems by understanding changes in attitude, behaviour and satisfaction levels of the workforces.
Tracking Study to mitigate Labour Problems
• We propose an Exercise to better understand the workforces.
• The exercise will be targeted towards providing relevant information for eliminating labour problems.
• It will highlight the specific areas where some action is required, to smoothen the relationship between management and workforces.
• Periodic re-runs of the exercise will ensure monitoring of improvements or changes over the time.
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Expected outcome . . .
The study will provide relevant information that can be further used for :
• Employee engagement
• Ensure safe and disciplined working environment
• Reduce attrition at all levels
• Increase productivity
• Raise profitability
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Why is it important . . .
Following are the findings of a survey conducted by FICCI between Aug – Sept 2011.
90 % of industries across India have admitted facing a labour shortage.
89 % of the industrialists have affirmed having faced major problems in completing clients’ orders due to the shortage.
Labour is scare . . . courtesy MNREGA / Govt. Policies and the present socio economic setup.
Source : http://ficci.com/SEDocument/20165/FICCI_Labour_Survey.pdf
(to understand your workforce)
82 % of industrialists have admitted that they have to raise wages in excess of 10 % because of shortage of labour, while 16 % have admitted to have raised wages between 5-10%.
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As per a reply in the Lok Sabha by labour and welfare minister Sh. Mallikarjun Kharge, the production loss due to labour unrest and strikes during 2011, was three times higher than the 2010 figures.
As we see it, shortage of manpower has lead to an increase in labour unrest. It has the potential to escalate problems in future.
Labour disputes cause huge production loss
Why is it important . . . (to understand your workforce)
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Sep. 22, 2008: Sh. Lalit Kishore Choudhary, MD and CEO of an Italian MNC, Graziano Trasmissioni, bludgeoned to death by a 200-strong mob of dismissed workers.
Nov. 14, 2010: In a similar incident, Sh. Joginder Singh, AGM HR of Indo-Japanese company Allied Nippon, was critically injured when senior staff members and workers clashed within factory premises. Case was registered against 26 known and 350 unknown workers.
Why is it important . . . (to understand your workforce)
Labor unrest cause serious safety and discipline issues.
• June 12, 2011 : Sanjay Kumar Singh, HR Manager in Delphi Thermal Systems, was attacked near Parasvanath Platinum.
• April 4, 2012 : The AGM (HR) of Honda SIEL, Ravinder Singh, was attacked by local criminals for not hiring their candidates.
• April 7, 2012 : N.N.Shahji, HR Head of CKD Japanese company, was roughed up by miscreants after he sacked the supervisor of his company.
Why is it important . . .
Labor unrest cause serious safety and discipline issues. (to understand your workforce)
Maruti Udyog alone suffered a loss in excess of `2500 Crores due to labour unrest during the year 2011.
Over 127 analysts, investors and fund managers participated in a conference call with Sonu Gujjar, president of Maruti Suzuki Employee Union, which was not recognised by the carmaker.
Why is it important . . . (to understand your workforce)
Labor unrest cause serious safety and discipline issues.
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Maruti / Suzuki had to pay `4.2 – 4.8 Crores to leades of its striking workers’ leaders.
Later July 2012 saw labour unrest reappear, and claim one life (Shri Awanish Kumar Dev, Plant GM HR) and left 90 officials injured, within factory premises.
Why is it important . . . (to understand your workforce)
Labor unrest cause serious safety and discipline issues.
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Even the largest of MNCs are not immune to these problems, Hyundai, Honda, Nokia, Bosch, Pricol are some of the leading names, that have faced major issues with labour forces during recent years.
One can easily conclude that better compensations and facilities alone are not sufficient to keep the labour problems at bay.
Why is it important . . . (to understand your workforce)
Sources : http://www.livemint.com/2012/07/18223855/One-killed-in-clash-at-Maruti.html?atype=tp http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2010-11-14/delhi/28267129_1_labour-union-contract-workers-factory http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2008-09-23/delhi/27930491_1_india-unit-graziano-trasmissioni-commercial-production http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/business/india-business/The-return-of-labour-unrest/articleshow/6216532.cms http://www.livemint.com/2011/11/08005315/Maruti8217s-deal-with-union.html http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2011-10-15/news/30283501_1_maruti-suzuki-employees-union-labour-unrest-sonu-gujjar
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• Affected Industries loose competitive edge to other companies where there are no labour problems.
• There is a possibility of capital erosion as investors prefer companies that are free of labour issues.
Why is it important . . . (to understand your workforce)
• It affects the reputation of the affected companies, as the clients, financers, vendors and even employees tend to avoid companies with labour unrest.
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Root causes of the problem Communication gap between management and workforce
• Guess work in understanding the labour forces.
• Management normally gets biased information.
• Lack of skilled manpower to handle the serious issues.
• Absence of independent and systematically collected, structured information.
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Guess work in understanding labour forces.
• Decision takers and their representatives assume that they know their workforces very well as they spend their days and nights with them . . . . had this been true the “labour problems” would have never occurred anywhere. – Fact of the matter is, they do know their workforces for
sure, but not as well as they should.
• Understanding Human Behaviour is a quite challenging, all of us have seen people going wrong while understanding the same for their family members. Claiming to understand workforces on the basis of one’s judgment is perhaps too tall a claim. – Correctly accessing labour forces’ behaviour is very
difficult.
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• As there is no structured information, the early warning signals are generally ignored by management.
• When systematically collected data point at a majorly negative behaviour or gross dissatisfaction, it will be surely taken more seriously by the stake holders.
Decisions taken on the basis of guess work / gut feelings / assumptions may go wrong and create misunderstandings, which transform into much bigger issues at a later stage.
Early Warning Signals are ignored as those are not backed by data.
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Management normally gets biased information.
• The information providers in this case are part of the management team or middle level employee, as they are not independent from the management the info provided is generally biased.
• Normally a middle management employee finds it difficult to say / suggest anything that he thinks the management will not
appreciate . . . . . even if it is very important.
Many times the decisions influenced by such feedback are not in the best interest of the company.
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Lack of skilled manpower
Quite a few companies lack skilled people at different levels, to interact with the labour forces with desired maturity and sensitivity.
Most companies lack a proper system to access the capability of (and train) the junior or middle level managers that directly interact with the workers.
This creates unnecessary communication gap, which later causes big issues.
to handle the serious issues.
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Absence of structured information
Most companies lack systematically collected unbiased information on labour forces’ behaviour, attitude and satisfaction level.
Our believe is that such information can help in :
Understanding labour forces
Minimise the guess work involved
Mitigate the communication gap
Provide prior information on major dissatisfaction that can lead to unrest
Can assist in comparing satisfaction levels of different sections of workforces
that is collected systematically and independently.
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Solution
Solution lies in eliminating communication gap between management and the labour forces.
Management should have access to the systematically collected structured information on manpower’s behaviour, attitude and satisfaction level.
This information helps in bridging the gap between management and labour forces.
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How it works . .
• Representatives of SKS interact with a few
people from workforces, staff and
management, and take note of the various
relevant issues.
• On the bases of identified issues they
design questionnaires for different stake
holders.
• These questionnaires are then administered by trained
interviewers on a one to one basis.
• The collected data is compiled and analysed very carefully.
• The analysed data is reported in a structured manner.
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Improvement Process – Committed Work Environment
Survey Employees for opinions and perceptions
Analyse Results
Communicate Findings
Set Priorities & Action Plans
Communicate Action Plans
Take Action and Communicate
Results Continuous Improvement Process High Commitment
Work Environment
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The Report . .
– Improve employee engagement
– Minimize the chances of labour unrest
– Ensure better relations between labour, supervisory staff and management
– Eliminate Communication gaps within organisation
May provide necessary data to implement strategies that has the potential to :
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– Reduce attritions in a big way
– Ensure a much better working environment
– Enhance Safety and discipline
– More effective implementation of Reforms
– Raise productivity and profitability
The Report . . .
May provide necessary data to implement strategies that has the potential to :
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• May warn against a particular reform, that if implemented can cause problems.
– Management may take a call to communicate the details differently or fine-tune certain areas of the reform in order to make it more acceptable.
• May indicate that a certain division or department is scoring lower on certain important parameter / parameters.
– Management can consider identifying reasons and training / motivating the concerned teams / supervisors / officials to sort this out, and bridge the gaps.
The Report . .
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Concluding Remarks • Labour is scare, and it is going to remain so for a long time.
• Labour unrest cause serious safety and discipline issues.
• Labour issues waste lots of productive time and money
• Affected Companies loose credibility among clients, investors, financers and even employees.
• It is difficult to understand workers without an independently collected structured information on employees’ behaviour, attitude and satisfaction.
• The Exercise may provide necessary information to
– Keep labour problems at bay
– Raise employee engagement
– Raise productivity and profitability
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