HRM REPORT

SAYANTAN DAS 1611348

FEBRUARY 2, 2017
The following insights were taken from an interview with Mrs. Rupa Kumari, who is presently
working as Senior Manager(Industrial Relationship) in TATA Steel, Jamshedpur. She has been a
Human Resource Professional for 16 years now and manages the Non OPR division which is
a Unionized division, comprised of workers, supervisors and officers. She describes her job as a
job full of new challenges everyday as every people is unique so is their problems. She has
worked along the different generations of workforce and have experienced the change first
hand, which she has discussed upon in the following part of the report.

So we started the discussion with her about the various aspects of an employees life cycle in
an organization. The first of it being the interview process. Her way of interviewing a candidate
is mostly not structured, apart form the initial few questions because she believes on building
upon the information the candidate provides. It paves a way for the candidate to lead the
interview in a way, which in turn makes the candidate confident while being in the interview and
you can experience his best for the evaluation. Though she also mentioned there are a fixed set
of behavioral questions which must be asked either in the end or at the beginning of the
interview, as gauging the personality match of the candidate with the organization is equally
important to technical expertise.

After the candidate is selected, they are put through two different kind of training-External by an
outsourced division for technical competence followed by internal training, which is more like a
mentoring session for grooming the recruit as per the office environment. The duration for the
external training is usually same for the entire batch of recruits but the internal mentoring
doesnt have a fixed duration since this is where the recruits start seeing the big picture and
their role in it. The external training is often offered via the best training institutes possible. Also
the organizations keeps updating the curriculum and conducts regular interviews while the
trainings are going on, to ensure the quality of the training isnt compromised on.

Moving on to appraisal process in TATA Steel, they tend to keep up with the recent trends and
they already upgraded to 360 degree feedback system where each employee have evaluate
their peers as well as immediate supervisors. There are various rating systems for officers,
workers but the goal setting process is same for all- the goals setting is usually done at the
beginning of the appraisal cycle and the goals are evaluated at the end of the cycle which is of
half year duration. For promotions the appraisal ratings along with the experience is counted but
there are also certain tests to be cleared for getting promoted to few ranks in the initial stages.
The logic for doing this in the initial stages is because of the triangular structure where in more
competition is there at the lower rungs due more number of employees in the same level.
Moving over to the employee welfare policies and how are they driven, the response was that,
though the policies are top driven, but the suggestions are welcome from every employee and
then the suggested one are acted upon by a panel assigned to check the feasibility and
impacts. So this brings to a very important aspect of employees being able to voice their opinion
and bring about a change in the work culture- one of the recent examples being the
implementation of work from in TATA Steel, where in the new joiners especially wanted the
provision of work from home option, so this matter was taken up by management and soon
implemented. A similar kind of initiative was taken by the authority as well where in following the
global trend and keeping the increase of women workforce in mind, the management decided to
relax the leave policy for women employees. In addition to that there was also an extension in
number of maternity leaves. So it was evident that it wasnt a fixed top down or bottom up
approach which mandated the formulation of policies, rather it was a combination of both, which
benefitted the organization as whole.

When asked about views on any work cultural difference between senior members to the new
recruits, she said that everyone in TATA follows the guidelines and post training they function in
a similar way. Though it is seen that the post 2010 joiners they prefer more office work and
reduce the efforts in shop floor, whereas it was seen earlier supervisors used to operate more
from shop floor rather than the office. Nowadays given the tech savvy nature of the recruits they
dont prefer to leave the desktop/laptop unless required, even though this doesnt hamper the
workflow or the production rate. Personality wise they tend to be more dynamic, risk taking and
always striving to do more. The working hours concept of 9-5, seems to fade away with this
generation, at the same time they do look for a bit more autonomy in their work style. One thing
that remains equal throughout generation has been the TATA code of conduct, which is like a
constitution for all TATA employees.

Related to the affinity with technology there is also the threat from automation, her views to this
was that automation is necessary and it helps in improving production rate, but yes it has the
cons of rendering a certain workforce skill less. To tackle this problem, they usually try to map
the employees of the division where automation took place to other divisions where some other
skills of them could be used. Few of the existing workforce are trained to learn the new
technology either in house or by specialized training institutes so that the transition in the
workforce is smooth enough. There are times when new recruits are also brought in the team,
who are already familiar to the technology. After all these efforts, there is also a provision where
if the employee feels he isnt happy with the new role or technology, he can ask for Early
Separation Scheme wherein he can leave the organization with many of the retiral benefits and
then join or do something outside of the organization. But as the HR team, they ensure there
are no layoffs resulting from automation or any such technological changes.

When asked about future of HR division or importance, she was quick to respond HR as a
division is here to stay and no amount of automation can replace the HR professionals, though
there are HR modules software available in market and outsourced HR teams, but still its
always beneficial to have in house HR since they are the ones who set the culture and the
keepers of the legacy of the organizations. TATA steel has moved to outsourcing of manual
labour in many other divisions, but kept the HR team intact. Not only that, they ensure and
encourage regular interaction session with HR team and employees as a practice, since they
never want their employees to remain unheard or unhappy. Their grievance mechanism also
ensures the same. The role of HR is even more important in Organizations where unions are
involved like this one. It is very much required to address all the grievances as early as possible,
because after certain point the union leaders get involved, which hampers the usual flow of the
work. Also HR as a division has to negotiate with the union leaders along with senior
management. Though these make the HR division really taxing, it also emphasizes the
importance of a great HR team.

On a concluding note, be it a multinational corporation or a public sector division, people

management is extremely difficult, as there are no fixed rulebook or guidelines to refer to. It is
up to the management professionals how well they handle the workforce. As per the insights we
got to know the employee policies needs to be dynamic and should be as holistic as possible,
also no matter how technology eases the job of a manager, we still need management to take
the decisions.