PEOPLE MANAGEMENT IN ENTREPRENEURIAL FIRMS

NAME- Dhruvil Shah/ ROLL NO. B009/ CLASS- MBA E & FB

Case One –
A commuter airline operates between Mumbai, Ahmedabad, Chandigarh, New Delhi,
Kolkata and Bangalore. It caters to first class passengers, with comfortable seating and
other extras. The workforce is pilots and flight attendants and support personnel. The
company is providing a service that is available elsewhere and often cheaper, so customer
service is a key to maintaining sales and profits. The flight attendants are in the midst of
contract negotiations and things are not going well. How will you maintain the morale of
the flight attendants? Suggest any two techniques for motivating them. (10 marks)
So summarizing this case we get to know that a commuter airline operates in multiple cities and
it focuses on first class passengers. The workforce is pilots and flight attendants and support
personnel’s and the service that the company is providing is not different from other competitors
and that is available elsewhere and also cheaper so the company’s main part to maintain sales
and profits is providing customer service. The flight attendants are themselves in negotiations for
the contracts as they can easily switch it over to other competitors. Thus to keep the flight
attendants as they are an integral part of providing quality services to our customers I would try
to boost their morale.
So in this case I would do the following to boost the morale of the flight attendants –
I would want to know and would try to fulfill my flight attendants needs- I would want to
know what the actual problems they are facing and also their needs like monetary needs, feeling
of accomplishments etc. It’s difficult for the staff to share it directly but I would treat them not as
my employee but as a part of my family.
I would give them autonomy and empowerment- Giving them flexibility to do their own work
and not putting many limitations on the work and allow them to do it their own ways. When you
empower flight attendants , you grant them a level of autonomy to act more entrepreneurial in
their tasks. They can make more decisions for the best interest of the company and when they are
given responsibility and accountability they will feel they are a part of a big thing which in turn
will boost their morale
I would encourage them to promote work-life balance in their life- Focusing not only on
their skills to serve better as we need that to maintain our profits and sales I would help them
with health sessions, sessions what they want, create workshops like yoga session etc.. and also
encourage them to travel and explaining the meaning of life outside work to boost their morale.
I would create a pay, recognition and benefit structure – this would help flight attendants that
work dedicatedly to earn more based on the work and will also provide recognition like Best
Flight Attendant of the month will get an added bonus and certain benefits.
At times of pandemic like Covid 19- I would allow the flight attendants to provide feedbacks
on what we can do to better our services once travels open and also encourage virtual bonding
sessions, health checkups for free, increase flexibility and also help them in case of some
personal crisis. This will create a sense of belonging and boost morale.
I would want to create a positive culture/ atmosphere at the work place- This is one of the
most important points as a positive environment is the one which helps the airline as well as the
flight attendants grow. A happening place is the one where flight attendants would want to
work even if the competitor is paying a little extra salary as compared to us.
Praises and motivation- If any flight attendant works dedicatedly then he must be praised in
front of other attendants so that other attendants get motivated to work harder.
Feeling of accomplishment- I will assign the flight attendants with work that give them this
feeling of accomplishment and this will help them to deliver again and again.
Career Level and promotions- I would want all my flight attendants to grow not in terms of
monetary only but also in terms of their careers and other life goals they want to accomplish.
This isn’t so much a motivator as it is a potential indicator of personal motivation.
Working in Teams-Working in teams can be a very powerful motivator, since people have
social affiliation needs and hope to be a team player. They want to feel as if they are contributing
something to the team and feel more invested in the team’s success.
Others-
 Ask for feedbacks
 Celebrating small occasions as well as successes
 Giving Substantial bonuses and leaves
 Participation and involvement
 Finding ways to give back to the community etc..
Two techniques for motivating the flight attendants are –
Employee inputs and feedbacks- Regularly survey flight attendants for their satisfaction.
Conduct anonymous polls to show flight attendants that you care about their opinions and value
their input. Ask for suggestions of ways that you can improve working conditions. You also have
to take action after getting the results of your poll back. This will show flight attendants that you
truly value their opinion, want them to be happy in their positions and will take the steps
necessary to make that happen. It will show that you are loyal to them just as you want them to
be loyal to you, which will go a long way towards motivating them to perform at their best.
Also knowing their satisfaction levels by conducting feedbacks on regular basis will help the
airlines know how the flight attendants are actually feeling.
Offering an incentive program- By Creating an incentive program that rewards employees for
consistently working hard—separate from celebrating milestones or successes. Implementing
non-financial incentives like extra vacation days, compressed work weeks or a choice of parking
spots. The incentive program doesn’t even have to be connected to performance. For example, it
could be used to encourage your team to participate in training programs, the flight attendants
having the most rates on feedbacks by customers will get bonuses.

Case Two
A car manufacturer is designing a new car and deciding how much to spend on each part
of the car. Based on calculations, reducing the quality of safety measures will not
compromise the sales of the car. The manufacturer decides to reduce spending on air bags
and other safety measures even though a lower quality of safety will certainly increase
fatality in car accidents. Discuss this situation from the perspective of Business Ethics and
Reputation management. What repercussions will this decision have? How would you have
handled such a situation? (10 marks)
Summarizing the case we get to know that a car manufacturer who is planning on designing a
new car is deciding its costing on each parts and on companies calculations it shows that
spending less on safety measures will not affect the sales of the car! So the company decides on
low quality of airbags and also lowering other safety measures.
Before we begin, I am completely against this as the manufacturer might face a lot of problems
ahead by just this simple mistake as airbags are a very integral part of safety and a lot of buyers
today keep that as one of main reasons to buy a car as safety features are a must today seeing the
roads and also the large amounts of cars on road present today.
Since late 1990’s airbags have been added to almost all cars and even the government has
announced certain criteria’s to maintain a certain safety level in all cars. If the safety feature is
compromised then the sales will drastically drop and not only the car will face damages but also
the reputation of the company will be tremendously affected. The reputation will affected so
much that the company can even shut down in extreme cases.
For example, If there is a car brand like Audi or a BMW and their entirely known for their
quality, trust and status what they carry and if they compromise on any of the aspect mainly
safety then the customers will immediately switch to other brands and affect the brand reputation
of the company.
What is reputation management?
Brand reputation management is simply how a brand is viewed by everyone else. Basically the
practice of influencing one’s perceptions about an organization and its brands.
In today’s time reputation is so important that it’s famously said that it takes years to build a
reputation and seconds to break it! This means that degrading the safety measures is like
degrading the reputation of the company! Safety is required by all class people even the richest
and no one would want to compromise on this feature at all.
The point also arises that when the competitors get to know that the company has degraded its
quality on safety they will pounce to capture the market share and today they even advertise
other competitor product so smartly showing the mistakes of others and highlighting the good
about themselves.
So, this shows that maintaining reputation the most important factor for a company to survive
today as people just change the product or service if they don’t get what they demanded for! So
the decision to compromise on safety features and particularly airbags is a wrong decision and
could take the company from top to bottom in just a short period.
It’s not even ethical as you are compromising on someone’s life as well and that’s why all
manufacturers have to conduct tests today in order to sell their cars before it comes on roads.
Business ethics is the study of appropriate business policies and practices regarding potentially
controversial subjects including corporate governance, insider trading, bribery, discrimination,
corporate social responsibility, and fiduciary responsibilities.
The customers of the car could even put up a case on them and that could indirectly affect other
cars sales.
How would have I handled the situation?
Definitely I would not have compromised on the safety features of a car as I myself would give
first preference to safety while purchasing a car, instead we should have bought new safety
features in the car which could attract more customers and increase our sales exponentially. And
even I would have planned on reducing the cost of other less relevant feature which will not
affect the sales that much. .

Thank you!!!