Case Study

Alectek Shoes is a manufacturer of popular shoes in the country. It is one of the oldest footwear
manufacturers in India with a sizeable market share in the industry. It also exports considerable
portions of its premium segment products to overseas markets. This company has a strong
workforce of over 11,000 employees. It is engaged not only in manufacturing but also in
marketing operations through its own retail outlets.

Being an old company, most of its HR policies are conventional and empirical. Based on its
bitter experience in the past, the top management firmly believed that the candidates with a
revolving-door approach towards a job (changing jobs frequently) are less committed
employees and are prone to leave the organization early. The recruitment philosophy and policy
of this company clearly reflected this and, understandably, discriminated against those
candidates who changed their jobs frequently in the past. In fact, the HR people were instructed
to eliminate the applicants with a poor track record of jobs stability, irrespective of their levels
of skills and abilities. These candidates were eliminated by the HR department either by
rejecting their application at the scrutiny stage or by eliminating them in the very early phase
of the selection process. Since its compensation packages are the best in the industry, the
company had so far never faced any problem in finding the required number of people to fill
the job positions.

Recently, the company developed a huge manufacturing facility in a metropolitan city located
in southern India in order to double its production capacity. With this production expansion,
the company was looking to emerge as India's leading footwear player. As part of this
expansion plan. It decided to strengthen the manufacturing, sales and marketing division with
increased workforce. It decided to conduct a major recruitment drive for filling all the new
vacancies in addition to the routine ones. Obviously, the number of positions to be filled up in
the company just swelled. The company conducted an extensive advertisement campaign to
attract the best candidates for filling the available job positions.

The recruitment campaign evoked a good response in the sense that many prospective
candidates applied for the advertised positions. However, the scrutiny of these applications
revealed that a significant number of these candidates had poor job stability records as they
seemed to have worked in different companies for short tenures. But for this shortcoming, these
candidates were found to be suitable for the offered positions. Due to this unprecedented
situation, the company was now in a
quandary. If these candidates were eliminated, the company might not get a sufficient number
of candidates with the required skills for filling all the existing vacancies. In contrast, if they
were selected, the firm might not get a sufficient number of candidates with the required skills
for filling all the existing vacancies. In contrast, if they were selected, the firm might face
problems of unanticipated and untimely employee desertions and the resultant work
disturbances.

However, the HR manager was clear about how this situation ought to be handled. He
demanded drastic revisions in the HR policy to make it relevant for the existing labour market
scenario. First of all, he wanted some major alterations in the recruitment policy to enable the
organization to consider seriously and equitably the candidature of all the applicants,
irrespective of their past track record about job stability. Next, he insisted that the company
design and develop effective career development Programmes for the employees immediately
so that there were better career prospects available for them in the company itself. This should
also obviate their need for leaving the company to seek better prospects elsewhere, he averred.
Moreover, a good career plan would establish long-term relationships between the organization
and the employee through better employee commitment and motivation. He also insisted on
evolving plans for training these employees continuously as part of the skill enhancement
exercise. These measures, he believed, would bring down the chances of employee desertion
and associated problems.

However, the management did not buy his arguments. It raised serious doubts about the
efficacy of the HR manager's proposal. It actually feared that a better trained and skilled
employee would leave the organization early as there would be an increased demand for his
skills in the labour market. It also felt that it was difficult to thwart a habitual job deserter from
quitting the organization, however effective the career development programme may be. Thus,
the management insisted on maintaining the status quo in recruitment policy and asked the HR
manager to come up with more practical suggestions for solving the present problem.
Evidently, the HR manager was now frustrated with the orthodox approach of the management.

Questions for discussions and solutions:

1. What is your assessment of the whole situation in Alectek Shoes?

2. What is your opinion about the role of recruitment policy in the entire controversy?

3. If you are made the HR manager of Alectek Shoes, what would be your suggestion to
solve the problem?

4. What more can the company do in terms of career planning and development activities
of the firm vis-a-is the employee attritions, besides the HR manager's suggestion?