NOOR US SUBHA

20191-26628
SUBMITTED TO: MISS BILQEES GHANI
Case Study - Talent Management in Small Organization
Akshay Sales Corporation is a partnership firm established in the year 1994 at Surat, Gujarat. The
founder and the CEO of this firm is Mr. Amar Patel. This firm is the distributor, wholesaler, and supplier
of all types of wood working, laminate pressing, shoes PU adhesive, and SR rubber adhesive for foam
and flooring and mattress. Akshay is one of the top five performers in this type of business out of about
50 Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in its region of operations. Being an experienced firm, it also
enjoys good competitive edge over others in business. The average turnover of this partnership firm is
Rs. 24 crores, whereas the strength of its workforce is 348 employees, including clerical, supervisory,
and managerial categories. Akshay is well known for achieving customer satisfaction, ensuring timely
delivery, innovating new designs, and honoring commitment to buyers. However, the critical and thorny
issue of this firm is the talent management and retention. The human resource management system of
Akshay is very much traditional and similar to any typical Indian SME. This firm does not have a specific
manager or officer with HR responsibility. Most basic HRM functions such as recruitment and salary
fixation are done by the line managers either by themselves or in consultation with the CEO of the firm.
In recruitment, it seeks professional competencies among the potential candidates and also offers
competitive pay packages. In most cases, the promotion is given to the employees based on the
assessment and recommendation of the line managers. As regards the talent management, the major
problem for Akshay is in retaining the talented people with the firm for longer duration. This problem
persists despite the abundant availability of skilled people in labor market. Akshay offers financial
incentives to employees at highly competitive rates as a retention device but without much success. The
firm has no record of conducting any form of formal skill training for its employees. This is because the
CEO of the firm Mr. Amar Patel strongly believes that employee training can only worsen the problem of
talent retention as the well-trained employee is more likely to leave the firm-seeking greener pastures.
Consequently, this firm ruled out training as a solution to the problem of high attrition. In Akshay, the
attrition related issues remain untamed and continue to affect the plans and future growth prospects of
the firm. During temporary recession, it was decided to lay off the people to lessen the wages cost
resulting in to draining out the talent people. Remained only were average performers. After recovering
from recession, when managers reached out to sacked people offer them to rejoin, it came out as a
shocking surprise to the management that most of them refused to rejoin on some pretext or the other.
Now the problem before the, managers and CEO is to employ not only the good people but also to
retain them. The organization suffered business as started getting complaints about poor logistics and
quality of products. In all likelihood, this issue may worsen in coming times as the competitors may
adopt aggressive style with using their ex- workers’ knowledge about the important business
information of Akshay Sales corporation. CEO has asked the managers to come forward with a blueprint
to address the problem.
Questions.
1. What is your assessment of the whole situation in Akshay Sales Corporation from HR
perspective?
Although Akshay Sales Corporation is one of the reputed organization that serves as a
distributor and supplier of wood working, rubber adhesive as well as laminate pressing,
there is a lack of proper talent management and difficulty in retaining competent
individuals. The company is following a traditional or as we say conventional Human
resource management system which causes some acute issues ultimately resulting to
 bigger problems as there are no proper or defined responsibilities assigned for the HR
managers. They have no professional HR team to supervise the functions and plan out
activities in case of any uncertainty. The line managers have been assigned with the task
of salary fixation as well as these line managers are responsible to recruit people. The
organization lacks a proper HR management and HR related strategies that ultimately
affects the management of talent within the organization. This has resulted in a high
turnover rate of employees and has caused to reduce the productivity acutely within the
organization. They are basically failing to retain the employees since they are just
focusing on the monetary benefits whilst no training is provided to the employees as the
employers believe that when the employees will develop skills they will switch towards
better opportunities. Moreover, there is a lack of feedback and performance evaluation
that affects the retention rate adversely and the appraisals were done mainly on what
the managers have evaluated and recommended to the CEO about employees.
In a nutshell, we can say that:
 Lack of proper recruitment process (done by line managers).
 Traditional HRM is being followed instead of implementing strategic HRM. No
profession HR managers to supervise the tasks of recruitment.
 No training provided (as a fear of high opportunity sought by employees).
 High turnover rate is a result of conventional HRM and focusing on just monetary
benefits.
 Inability to retain the talented and competent personnel for longer duration
since there is no integrated HR policies maintained.

Despite of having a reputed position and 348 employees there was a high turnover rate in the
organization.

2. According to you what specific steps are to be taken by Akshay to tackle the problem of rising
attrition rate?
Following are some of the steps that the organization can take in order to control this rising
attrition rate:
 They can recruit HR managers and HR officers with relevant experience and competency
levels instead of depending upon line managers.
 They can implement different talent management programs at all organizational levels
so that they can develop and motivate their employees that ultimately results in a high
retention rate.
 The need to introduce different training programs for their employees. They have a fear
that training programs might allow their employees that they search out for newer and
better opportunities and would leave their organization. However, these training
programs would serve as a competitive edge for the firm.
 Moreover, they can leave the conventional HR policies and implement strategic HR
policies in order to align their business and functional strategies with the company
objectives as well as to achieve long-term company goals, deal with uncertain dynamic
situations and meet the goals of the organization in an efficient manner.
 They can come up with recognition and reward programs to motivate the employees
intrinsically and retain them as they find value in the origination.
 Training strategies and policies with proper feedback should be implemented.
 The HR Director should be able to make judgments that are beneficial to the company.
HR should have autonomy and be responsible for reporting to the CEO directly.
Empowering HR to function independently, as if it were a business department, would
reduce the risk of bias in its decisions, leading in a more efficient system.