Indian Institute of Management Kashipur

People Management in
Organisation
Star Network Group Ltd

SUBMITTED TO:
Prof. A V Raman

GROUP 15
DEEPAK RAJ (MBA20291)
HAREB KALLANGODAN (MBA20266)
MAZOOD RAHMAN (MBA20295)
NITYA NAYAR (MBA20181)
SUMIT KUMAR (MBA20271)
 TABLE OF CONTENTS

ABOUT COMPANY...……………………………………………………………………….2
ORGANISATIONAL STRUCTURE……………………………………………………….3
RECRUITMENTS……………………………………………………………………………4
RECOMMENDATIONS………………………………………………………………6
TRAININGS AND DEVELOPMENT…..…………………………………………………..7
RECOMMENDATIONS………………………………………………………………8
PERFORMANCE AND APPRAISALS…………………………………………………….10
RECOMMENDATIONS……………………………………………………………...11
MANAGING RESOURCES.………….……………………………………………………..11
ROLE OF ANALYTICS.……………………………………………………………………..13
RECOMMENDATIONS……………………………………………………………...15
PAIN POINTS…………………………………………………………………………………14
RECOMMENDATIONS……………………………………………………………...16
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS..………………………………………………………….....17

1
About Company

SUN Group is an Indian media conglomerate, based in Chennai, founded by Kalanithi Maran in

1992. The group has many business operations in Publishing, Broadcasting, Radio, Film, Cable

television and Sports franchising. The group has seven main business divisions:

Television

SUN TV Networks is one of the largest TV networks in Asia and represents a major

portion of the group’s business. SUN Group currently owns and operates 32 TV channels across

Indian languages – Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam and Bengali.

DTH and Cable provider

Sun Direct is a DTH service provider established in 2008.Sun direct is the fourth largest

DTH service provider in India.

Radio

The group owns 70 FM radio stations across India broadcasting under the names Red

FM,[3] Suryan FM, Magic FM 106.4.

Newspapers and Magazines

SUN Group owns two daily newspapers and five magazines in Tamil. The group owns

magazines Kungumam, Kumguma Chimizh, Kungumam Thozhi, Aanmigam,Mutharam and

Vannathirai.

Film production

Sun Pictures is a film production and distribution company established in 2000. It produced the

TV film Siragugal and Rajnikanth starrer Endhiran. It has distributed more than 20 Tamil films

starting from Kadhalil Vizhunthen.

2
OTT Platform

Sun NXT is a global online audio/video streaming platform owned and operated by Sun TV

Network.

Sports

The Sun group currently owns the IPL franchise Sunrisers Hyderabad based in the city of

Hyderabad.

Organisational Structure of SUN Group

The Sun group is a large organisation with many different product offerings and business

divisions. The group’s business has a large presence in India and across the globe. The group

was founded by Kalanithi Maran in 1992. He currently acts as the Executive chairman of the

group. SUN Group’s SUN TV Network is listed in the Indian stock market. While listed as a

public company, the group still operates as a family business with many family members acting

as executive directors in the board of directors.

With many products and divisions, the group follows a product-based hierarchical structure.

Most of the group’s product offerings are in the media/entertainment industry and hence the

organisational structure followed is a hybrid between functional and divisional groupings.

Following a hybrid structure, the group follows a dotted-line reporting structure across the

organisation. A dotted-line reporting structure is one in which an employee reports to multiple

managers. The Human Resources administration also follows a dual reporting procedure in

which reports are submitted to the Managing Directors of each division and the chairman of the

group.

3
Sun Group’s employees can be categorised into a three-level structure:

Junior level: The Junior level constitutes the bottom layer of the three-level structure. The layer

includes employees ranking from Executives, Senior Executives and Assistant managers.

Mid-level: The Mid-level includes employees ranking from Managers, Senior managers, General

managers, and Senior General managers.

Senior level: The Senior-level includes senior positions like Vice-President, Senior Vice-

President, and Executive level VPs.

Above the three level structure lies key executives including Chief Financial Officer(CFO),

Chief Operating Officer(COO), Chief Technical Officer(CTO) and Company Secretary and

Compliance Officer.

The group follows a reporting system in which employees report to managers on a weekly,

monthly and quarterly basis.

Recruitments at Sun Group

Since there are multiple business units within Sun Group, each of these units has its own
recruitment methodologies and processes since their requirements are different. Hence, for now,
we will focus our review on the recruitment strategy of Sun TV Network in detail.
At Sun TV Network, the television media wing of Sun Group, the recruitment process followed
is different for the various hierarchical levels mentioned in the organization structure. The path
followed for recruiting Junior and Middle level employees is different from that for Senior level
and Executive level employees. Let us look at each of these in detail.
Junior & Middle level
For recruitment of Junior and Middle level employees, Sun TV Network focuses on public
channels and job portals. The public channels include services offered by online recruitment
platforms like Naukari, LinkedIn etc. The organization also has a dedicated Job portal through

4
 which candidates are notified about the job openings. This would facilitate direct application
process of the interested individuals.
The applicants may also choose to simply fill in and upload their CVs on the job portal, in case
they did not find suitable openings from among those listed in the job portal. A special team
from the HR department will then scrutinize the applications before preparing the final shortlists.
Senior Management level
For filling senior management roles and vacancies, the organization has alliance with two
independent agencies specialized in the recruitment services. This strategy is mainly adopted to
take care of two important aspects as mentioned below:
1. Maintaining confidentiality: Since media is highly competitive in terms of labour availability
and retention, Sun TV Network does not use public channels to notify and invite applications for
its senior management level positions. By including an independent agency, Sun TV Network
will be able to maintain anonymity which in a way helps in hiding key information regarding the
skills and competencies required for the role. This information may be leveraged by its
competitors for refining their own recruitment processes.
2. Hire the best in the industry: Being an independent agency that is specialized in recruitment,
they would be having access to individuals and candidates with differentiated skillsets which
Sun TV Network might not be able to access on their own. Hence, the organization could gain
access to a wide variety of potential applicants who would be matching very closely with the job
specifications. This ensures that they have access to the best talents in the industry for all major
roles and thereby gain an upper hand in the highly competitive labour market that the firm is
operating in.

Once the CVs are received from the external agency, the internal HR team at Sun TV Network
carefully evaluate them one by one to find the right fitting individuals for the role. These
handpicked candidates are then invited for the final selection process at Sun TV Network.
Once the initial resume screening is over, there would be a brief telephonic interview with the
candidate so as to get more information that might not have been readily deductible from the
resume that the candidate had posted. This is also done in order to narrow down the pool of
candidates to be shortlisted for the final round of interviews.
In the personality testing round, the candidates would assess on some very important qualities
that any member of a creative organization should possess – spot thinking, situation-based

5
questions, inventiveness, eye contact etc. These is a key stage in the selection process where
considerable elimination occurs.
According to Mr. Kannan, most of the job roles that the organization offers can be broadly
categorized as either creativity-oriented or support roles. This is usually the case with almost all
media houses. The creativity-oriented roles focus on developing and publishing content that
would be attention grabbing in order to entice the end users or viewers.
It is important that the organization has a clear upper hand in the industry when it comes to
identifying and employing people to this role. This is especially true for certain niche and
specialized roles which are usually hard to come by. To capture these talents, the organization
maintains close ties with some trusted consultants who have access to such talents.
The company would also enter into negotiations with such talents in order to ensure that they
join the team at Sun TV Network. The organization usually has a well-defined bandwidth
structure when it comes to compensation. However, in cases like these wherein the organization
is looking towards hiring special talents, they would consider offering compensation outside this
bandwidth.
One other important point that the Senior Vice President (HR) highlighted on was that most of
the junior level roles at Sun TV Network were reserved for freshers. This is because the
organization strongly believes that it can adequately train and develop these budding minds from
the ground up, so as to bring out the best in them.
While speaking to Mr. Kannan, he also touched upon some aspects of recruitment followed at
one of his former employers, Eicher Motors. At Eicher, the HR team made sure that a certain
percentage of intakes in a year were from premier institutes in the country like XLRI, IIMs, IITs
etc. Eicher also maintains well researched documentation regarding the career path for these new
recruits and also predictions regarding attrition amongst the new recruits in the coming year.
These studies in turn helps the organization plan its recruitment strategy for the upcoming year.

Our Recommendations

• According to our understanding through the interaction with Mr. Kannan, the organization
offered very less flexibility in terms of work conditions, holidays etc. This approach needs
to be changed especially at current times were flexibility and adaptability is key to winning
hearts of employees.

6
• Instead of just focusing on the typical interview process wherein you invite resumes and
shortlist for interviews, Sun TV should introduce and organize a flagship competition on an
annual basis, wherein eligible participants can compete in a real world setting to showcase
their skills and talents. The competition should also have an attractive prize component. This
coupled with the positive brand equity that the company holds, it definitely can gain access
to a wider job seeking audience.
• It has also been noted from our interaction with Mr. Kannan that there wasn’t any post-
recruitment or post-selection feedback gathered from the candidates who had applied for the
selection process. This is essential for the organization in order to optimize its recruitment
strategy. There should also be a two-way feedback system whereby the candidates also get
to know about their performance in the process and also improve on their weak areas.

Training & Development

Since Sun TV Network operates in a very creative industry, it usually hires talents from Visual
Communication and Mass Communications background. The newly hired candidates then
undergo a training and development program for a one-year period. This will be conducted by
current employees who have been working in similar roles within the organization. In addition
to classroom-based training, the new intakes will also be given some portion of the ongoing live
projects so that they develop hands on practical experience on the subject.
For the support level and management level employees, the evaluation would be done by the end
of the year after careful assessment throughout the year. But in the case of creativity-oriented
roles, even though the training and development phase extends to about one year, their
performance will be evaluated or reviewed every quarter.
Throughout the training period, each of the fresh intakes will be assigned a mentor whom they
can approach for any query or concern related to the job role or the organization in general. This
mentor would mostly be someone who have just passed the training phase sometime back.
Hence, they would be able to best understand the views and concerns of the new intakes from
their standpoint and relate it with their own past.
The evaluation is carried out by the immediate reporting manager in the organization who would
regularly monitor the performance over the one-year period. To ensure that the candidate is clear
with the expectations of the organization, the new joinees are briefed about the company’s goals
and objectives set for the year (which would be revised on a yearly basis). It is on the basis of

7
these objectives that the new hires are assigned tasks for completion, and which the reporting
managers would be using to evaluate the performance of the employee. This procedure would
make sure that the personal biases and recency effects are minimized to a great extent.
The evaluators would conduct reviews at the end of every quarter wherein they would share their
feedbacks with the candidates and also check with him or her regarding any issues or concerns
that they have regarding the work at the organization. The new recruits are then expected to take
up the key points in the feedback and work towards correcting or improving them in the next
review cycle. This is the evaluation process followed round the year.
In the final round of evaluation that happens at the end of the year, the performance is compared
with key tasks and expectations that were set at the start of year as mentioned previously, which
was based on the company objectives. The main intention of such a task setting criteria was to
align the individual goals of employees with the vision and goal of the company that was set by
the leadership.
The evaluation process also requires the evaluators, i.e., managers to elaborate on the key
strengths and skills that were displayed by the candidate during the training period. This is very
important from the organization point of view because the final and revised role assignment for
the candidate would be done on the basis of this evaluation. Hence, in this way, the recruits who
have successfully completed training would be assigned roles that would best fit or match the
strengths and skills that they possess.
The compensation package would also be arrived at based on this role assignment. This helps
the organization in such a way that it paves way for the best contributions to come in from each
of its employees. In this way, the recruits’ transition to becoming a permanent employee in the
organization. In the later stages they will be evaluated specifically for performance appraisal in
the organization based on preset KRAs (Key Responsibility Areas).

Our Recommendations

• As already mentioned in the recruitment section, the company displays less flexibility in
work conditions of its employees. This is going to adversely impact the employee morale in
the organization. Training and development initiatives needs to be more flexible and
accessible for all in the organization.
• Leverage technology to the greatest extent possible. This will also help to resolve the issue
of inflexibility to a great extent. Simulations and VR environments can be made use to

8
 provide a glimpse of the real-world practical situations and the evaluators can easily track
and monitor the reaction of employees in these situations.
• Another recommendation to the management will be to gather the preferences and options
of the new recruits right before they join the organization, instead of gauging their strengths
at the end of the training period. This is suggested because then the organization can
redesign and align the training and development modules in such a way that it will be
attractive to most of the intakes.
• The one other downfall of the current training and evaluation is the lack of importance
provided to collaboration. From what we understood from the review process, the
candidates are simply evaluated on their personal/individual contributions and skillsets.
Collaborative efforts and team spirit also need to be given due importance taking into
account the highly creative industry that the organization is operating in.
• The other noticeable flaw in the current training and development system is its emphasis on
one-way feedback. Focusing just on evaluating the candidates and providing them review
feedback is not going to bring a fruitful outcome. The organization also needs to invite
feedback from employees regarding whether certain tasks were challenging, whether there
were any inter personal conflicts etc. This will provide the organization with a chance to
review their training strategies and make any improvements or changes to the same.
• Look into the outside world while allocating tasks for the training and development period.
Television and media is a highly competitive industry and so it is important to understand
what is happening in the market so that they can easily recognize the changes in trend.
Hence based on our findings, we can allocate tasks based on the skills and developments
that we feel would be important in the future and so be prepared.
• Sun TV Network should also invest in developing a centralized database for keeping track
of skills, trainings and competencies possessed by its employees. This would help the
organization in two ways:
o Help identify employees who require training and assistance in certain key areas which may
be important for the organization in order to stay competitive.
o Help easily identify the employees who possess certain key skills for assisting in a particular
project or task of a different team.

9
Performance and appraisal

The Sun Network company followed performance evaluation through making an employee
evaluation parameter. The employee evaluation parameter of the company consists of a 5-pointer
scaling system i.e., the Likert scale evaluation.

The Weightage distribution of evaluation was made as 7:3, where 70% weightage was given to
the employees’ functional key responsibility area and 30% weightage was allocated to their team
dynamics and work behavior. The evaluation sheet was distributed and organized in such a way
to capture important aspects for review of an employee and the employees where ask to maintain
those aspects for performance review.
Each employee was handed over a sheet that consisted of the pre-determined responsibilities and
targets to be achieved in a particular period of time. Each and every employee had to fulfill his
or her targets before the end of the period and the respective manager would be evaluating them
on the parameters as described in the Employee evaluation parameter scale.
Appraisal was coordinately determined by the employees and their respective managers. At the
end of the period the employees were rated by the managers and through those rating and
meetings with employees the appraisal was then decided, while HR department only stepped in
case of any conflict in negotiation as the case was escalated to the HR department.

Pay System
The pay or salary system of the company did not have the concept of variable pay for junior level
employees. The pay for the junior level was fixed and did not attract any additional bonus.

10
 While variable pay concept was only introduced for positions over the middle management
position. The company also had concept of giving bonus or monetary benefits to employees in
or above middle level position.
Beside these monetary benefits, the company also provided its star performer other benefits like
foreign vacations and other tours.

Recommendations

We would like to recommend following points to the company in order to improve their
reviewing process. These recommendations have been made to enhance the review process by
making changes in the methods adopted by the company.

1. The company could use a 360-degree review process. The review should not only be done by the
reporting managers but through every stakeholder around the employee should be reviewing an
employee’s progress. This can help company to take all round review of an employee.
2. Company could adopt a balanced score card method for assigning and reviewing an employees
KRA sheet. Through this the company can maintain a proper and wholesome evaluation of
employees’ productivity for the organization.
3. Company can adopt a BARS method of evaluation rather than a 5-pointer system. The
employees could be evaluated on the basis of proper character they express for the KRAs
assigned to them. This can provide actual and proper ratings to an employee and can help the
person giving feedback to provide true ratings.
4. The company should also include low level management for incentive pays to increase
motivation and increase their retention rate. Currently, the company provides incentive pay
system for employees at and above middle level managers.

Managing Resources

The organization Sun Network which we targeted for our interview, we realized that they have
a very well-defined structure for managing their human resources. The process is designed for
every kind of employee whether it is about retaining the talents or providing compensation. Let
us look briefly in the process of the company.

11
 Since the media industry is very competitive and always ready to acquire employee who
can benefit the organization, Sun network aim to be on the top of the industry standards with the
talents. They always offer the pay one notch above the industry so that the talents are always
willing to work for the company and to devote by working hard.
For the freshers Sun network always perform a mass recruitment because they want that
the best young talents should join and work for them. While hiring if the HR team finds any
employee having some special talents then they always give them the priority. While taking
about the experienced guys who have the working experience in the industry they always look
back in their past compensation. The freshers are hired and then they are well trained and after
training them according to the company they hired employee are placed according to the
evaluation parameter.
When the Sun HR team finds a candidate, which does not suit their organization but have
a very advance and good knowledge they are considered as special talents and for them the
company has designed a special recruitment process. Which help them to understand the mindset
of the talent and how he can put his knowledge and increase the value of the organization.
There is a very smart strategy behind retaining an employee in Sun Network, they
conduct lot of non-monetary compensation like sending the employee with their family abroad
trips. It is one of the benefits which is mentioned by the CHRO. The employee who are star
performer are the future of the organization are very vulnerable and they can fly and join other
organization if they are offered more compensation, so the Sun organize a Cash Bounty War
which has the reward system and cash rewards are paid to the functional, divisional, & business
star. These people are awarded in front of all the employees in a year which give them inner
satisfaction, they are addressed as the future leaders which boost their respect within the
organization and the employee feel that they are very valuable to the organization. This is also a
kind of retention strategy which is used by Sun Network.
Since the star performers are very vulnerable the Sun Network has an outlay which is
especially for the star performers and the company use to spent that outlay especially on the star
performers doing this the company give them additional benefits apart from what they have been
promised during the hiring. The additional benefits are mostly liked by them and they are very
satisfied by this outlay.
Besides star performer there are underperformers so how they are treated in Sun Network
let us have an in-depth insight about the underperformers. In Sun Network there is a body which
is especially designed for monitoring and guiding the underperformers. The managers identify

12
the employee who are underperforming and then the manager report it to the body with the
duration from how long these employees are unable to perform their jobs. The body once get
notified about the underperformers they closely monitor and take session to understand the basic
problem which is standing in between the employee and his job. It can be anything like employee
facing emotional challenges or social challenges or it might be that employee is having lack of
skillset. The body identifies the problem associated with the employee and before dumping the
employee 1 year is provided to the employee so that he can collaborate with the body and discuss
the problems and the body help him to recover from that.
Suppose the body finds that the employee is having issues with the skill set then they will
help the employee to boost and increase his potential by working on his weakness and try to
excel in his skillset. Once the body finds that there is some improvement in the employee then
he is back to normal and body responsibilities are over but after spending 1 year on the employee
if there is no improvement then he is removed from the organization.
Lastly in front of the company there is always a dilemma on one thing which is very
difficult for the HR team to take a step. When there is a employee who has left the organization
and on the other hand the other new candidate having the skillset the question rises in front of
the organization what to choose Loyalty or Skill set. It has haunted the HR team for a long time,
but the Sun organization has found an alternative when there is such question or dilemma in front
of the team.
They always compare the old employee and the contribution of that employee in the
organization. Secondly the team wants a strong reason why the employee had left the
organization prior and what is the new motivation of the employee to again join the Sun Network
if the employee justifies everything and the team is convinced then he is hired again else the Sun
always invest its asset in hiring new talents.

Role of Analytics

According to the CHRO the media industry has not implemented the HR Analytics practices in
the sector. Although there are some organizations which are using it, but it has not been fully
implemented in the media industry.
Although there is a great use of the analytics in the media industry for running the operations and
their channels. The different stakeholders are getting aware of the capabilities of the HR
Analytics for improving the people performance and improving the hiring process. There are a

13
lot of seminar in which a lot of experts talk about the benefits of the HR analytics and its
practices. Since there is always a revolution when technology enters in anything, the process gets
improved the people job become a lot easier than before.
This is a new achievement in the industry which will help the teams to get hands on the best
talent which will directly improve the functioning of the organization and moreover in the Sun
Network there has been lot of discussion on implementing the practice by implementing HR
analytics in their hiring process but with every implementation of new technology there comes
an additional cost of training the employee or HR so that they can get handy with the technology
and fully utilize the practices and benefits the organization.

Recommendations:

From the above Managing resource part Sun Network should change its cash bounty war and
give recommendation to the employees who are working hard for the organization this will
remove the discrimination between the star and a middle level employee and it should be ensured
by Sun Network that publicly all the employees should be treated well without any bias.

Pain points

The pain points that we understood about HR in the industry is, firstly HR has always been
viewed through the lens of a department that exists to support the organisation. Hence, it has
always taken a backseat.
As the role of HR was to understand the requirements and develop their own process accordingly
to fulfil those requirements, it always acted as a follower that follows the pace set by others.
As per our talks with Kannan, we understood that initially in his career, he too was made
accustomed to this role but somewhere down the line, he started noticing a shift, where the HR
of the organisation were put in a position of the leader instead of the follower. He talks from his
perspective, the earlier vague impact the HR used to have on the revenues and profits of the
company gradually came to be quantized.
With the advent of HR analytics, managers started understanding and realizing the amount of
impact each HR policy had on the organisation of the whole. With the intelligence on their end,

14
now HR started being viewed from the lens of being a contributor towards the organisation rather
than a passive part.
HR managers were being looked as leaders for the organisation with their perspective carrying
weightage in the round table conferences and their team looking up to them as essential
stakeholders of the business.
Kannan viewed this as a pain point as he said that the role has yet to sink in across the industry,
Organisations are gradual in adapting to this shift and still few corners are being cut. Managers
in HR department have yet to fully get accustomed to the new point of view of their department
and start looking at their roles from a larger perspective.

Identify
Strategic HR
concerns

Research
Designs

Data
Management

Data
Analysis

Interpretation
and
Communicati
on

15
Recommendations

The recommendation from our understanding that we’d like to provide is that the HR managers
need to have a bird’s eye-view of their organisation. They need to leverage Analytics and have
an understanding of how different scenarios will have impact on their organisation. The need to
take a pro-active role in meetings and pitch their point of view as to which decisions would
benefit the company as per the provided constraints and requirements.
Another point that we realized from our interaction with Kannan was that the role of higher
management and the board of the company in the functioning of HR is essential. Many times,
the board and the higher management do not provide adequate space for the functioning of the
department. Many of the decision of HR are questioned and justifications are asked. These create
a stagnant environment within the department.
Our recommendation is that the innovative atmosphere within HR can be achieved and
maintained by providing the required time and space to provide best solutions. The board and
higher management need to place adequate trust with the HR managers and give them room to
explore solutions. In short, they need to provide more space and flexibility to the HR vertical in
their decision-making process.
As with the advent of the pandemic, the work environment has seen a drastic shift, hence,
traditional methods and orthodox processes are being observed to gradually be phased out. Under
such circumstances, it is even more essential for the organisations to maintain their indigenous
talents and attract necessary skill-set that enables them to compete in this dynamic working
environment.
Hence, it’s high time that the HR managers need be the trend setters which can be achieved by
enabling fresh ideas in the field. This can only be achieved through intelligent experimentation.
Hence, again the role of analytics in HR to measure the impact of decisions can be seen to become
essential.
Thus, in concluding note, the HR domain is not limited to the role of hiring and maintaining the
workforce, but has expanded over to taking active decisions to meet company objectives and
vision. Thus, the same should be understood by both the HR managers as well as the top
management of the organisation to allow them to help develop better.

16
Questions

Now, there was a question posed to us during our presentation – What was the recruitment
strategy that the organization followed?
In order to win over the competitive Television media market, it was necessary for Sun Network
Group to hire the best in the industry for captivating viewers and developing out of the box
content for them. Hence, TV medias like Sun TV was heavily investing on its Human Resources.
It kept most of its recruitments confidential even from its own employees.
To get access to the best talent pool, they approached experienced consultants for
recommendations. Sun TV also had a positive brand equity that was created and cultivated
through years of services and therefore was a dream employer for many job seekers out there.
To add to all these efforts by the organization to attract talent, they were open minded to
negotiations to the extent that they were willing to compromise on the pre-defined pay bands for
certain critical roles. These are some strategies that Sun TV uses in its recruitment process.

Who is the best person to define performance metrics? Is it the HR or the business person?
The best person for defining the KRAs are the business persons. Person who does the job
analysis and evaluation and respective managers, because they are the one who did the job
analysis assigned the employee his/her particular role and responsibilities. HR is the person
doing this job evaluation in most of the company and thus both HR and managers in together
should define the KRAs and the performance metrics. This will provide an all-round
performance metrics for an employee.

How are KRAs derived from goals?

Every organization is working on to achieve their set goals. To achieve these set goals they
divide their operations into KRAs that are then distributed among the employees according to
describe job analysis done by the managers.
Companies can use balance scorecard method to define different KRAs for different area
specialization employees.

17