CASE STUDY 1

Strike at Omkara Tea Estate: Communicating

early 20’s was Mr Kulkarni’s private secretary
With Labour Union Leaders
(PA), and his establishment had about 25 people
Summary with most of whom work- ing as the clerical
This is a case study concerning a labor problem staff.
in a tea garden which led to a major crisis due to The tea estate had an annual turnover of about
the ineffective communication on the part of the 120 cr and was earning a decent profit after tax.
manager. The commu- nication barriers arose The management had to give out bonuses to its
because the people working there, spoke 5000 strong labour class dur- ing Durga Puja
different languages. The problem was further festival. The usual practice was to discuss the
fuelled by ego conflicts and poor persuasive bonus amount with the labour leader at the level
appeals. of the assistant manager. The assistant manager
would brief the amount to the manager who
Introduction would then discuss it with the top management.
In the Omkara Tea Estate in West Bengal, Mr The bonus would be distributed to the laborers
Madhur Kulkarni was the newly appointed well in advance of the puja festival to enable
Assistant Manager in place of Mr Gupta. Prior to them to purchase new clothes, household articles,
this, he reported to Mr Sharma who had been sweets, gifts, etc.
working as the manager at Omkara tea estate for Problem
the last 10 years. Ms Manjula Chatterjee, a young
Being new to the area, Mr Kulkarni had no
lady in her
knowledge of Bengali and the local dialects. The
labourers were unable to clearly understand what
he spoke because his Hindi
was also loaded with a strong Marathi accent. He
also had a habit of speaking at a fast pace and his
sentences were often left incomplete.
The manager Mr Sharma used to be too busy
with the top management, foreign clients, etc. ,
and had to travel extensively. While being at the
tea estate, he would be sur- rounded by other
managers from the various departments like
finance, marketing, and HR who would be busy
put- ting forth several issues. Being second-
in-command, Mr Kulkarni had to sit through
these meetings and take instructions from the
manager on the business.
As Durga Puja approached, the labour leaders
as a prac- tice started approaching the assistant
manager, who was simply too busy. The labour
leaders were noticing restless- ness in the labour
class and tried to get an appointment with
manager but he redirected them to Mr Kulkarni.
The assistant manager’s PA, Ms Chatterjee
tried to talk to Mr Kulkarni about the gravity of
the situation; due to her limited knowledge of
English and Hindi she could not make her boss
understand the gravity of the situation clearly.
Finally she managed to fix up a meeting
between the labour representatives and the
assistant manager. The meet- ing took place but
it was futile due to the language prob- lem, and
the aggressive communication style of the
assistant manager himself. This was
misunderstood by labourers think- ing that the
company wanted to avoid paying higher bonus
this time vis-a-vis its increased business and
profit.
The labor leaders tried several times to meet
the manager but he simply use to sent a message
saying that they would have to approach the
assistant manager and he would get the
information from him. The manager did later
speak to
him but the assistant manager presented him
with his side of the story.
Impact
The labourers got agitated due to delay in the
payment and called for a strike leading to a lot of
tension. The strike was a major one leading to a
halt in the tea leaves picking work. As the
management did not take any major steps to
address the issue, the labourers stopped the
manager’s car, forced him to get down and
manhandled him. The police was called in to
control the situation.
The senior management got worried as such a
situation had never happened at the tea estate.
The manager briefed the senior management over
the phone and explained to them the problem the
way the assistant manager had briefed him. There
was no copy of the labourers’ demands in his
posses- sion as it was filed by the PA of the
assistant manager as a routine piece of paper as
per his directions.
Finally the district magistrate and the
superintendent of the police had to intervene. A
joint meeting between the top management and
the labour leaders was fixed in the presence of
the district administration. The charter of the
demands was discussed and the management
agreed to release the bonus to the satisfaction of
the labourers. The labour leaders agreed to return
to work. Due to the strike, the tea estate lost a
business of about 30 cr which created a feeling of
distrust between the management and the
labourers.
Questions
1. What do you think was the root cause of the
problem?
2. How could this problem been avoided?
CASE STUDY 2
Communicating Change: Engaging the
Introduction
Employees
Expression Education was a major publishing
Summary company in India that had unmatched market
This case deals with the problem of the declining presence for several years. It was established in
sales of a regional magazine of a major 1994 and continued to expand its market across
publishing house due to the growing popularity the nation. The company published a daily
of the internet amongst its users. As a result, the national newspaper and several monthly and
top management have decided to go digital and fortnightly regional magazines. It was one of the
come up with a website that has online journals, pioneers of magazines for children in the age
articles, links to informational blogs, etc. But group of 8-14 years.
this shift requires hir- ing of more technical The company had its head office in Delhi and
people with expertise in the field of the digital regional offices in various cities. The top
media. Due to this, there are rumours of possible management used to head the main office and
downsizing in near future. The employees feel the regional managers looked after the
alienated from the company as they have no role proceedings of the regional offices. The
to play in company deci- sions and their view employees at regional office were supposed to
point is not being considered. Moreo- ver, email report to the regional man- ager who in turn
is the only medium of communication between reported to the head office. The organiza- tion
the employees and the top management, and did not follow a flat structure.
sometimes it fails to convey the emotions of both “Nandan-Kanan” was one of the regional
the sides. Due to mis- interpretation of the cues, magazines published in the city of Allahabad. Its
the employees react impulsively. circulation was limited to the state of Uttar
Pradesh. The magazine was a fortnightly
publication and was meant for children in the
age group
of 9-18 years. The magazine featured short
stories, general knowledge articles, sports
information, career advice, inter- views and life
changing moments of eminent personalities. The
magazine was a big success with around 45% of
the market share in its first year of launch. The
magazine was considered by the target
consumers as a rich pool of useful information
that was easily accessible.
Problem
With the advent of social media and increasing
rivalry from the online content, the sales of the
magazine plum- meted. Over the last three years,
the subscription and newsstand sales dwindled to
around 28% of the total market share. Facebook,
Twitter, LinkedIn had become the latest fad in
the market. When information was just a click
away, people were turning away from printed
media. For several years there had been virtually
no competition for “Nandan-Kanan” but
gradually, the consumer prefer- ences had
changed. Printed media was getting wiped out
and social media and internet were moving to
monopo- lize the market.
The employees of the regional office were
well aware of this market shift and the declining
sales. For the last few months there had been
rumours that the head office had decided to
completely stop the publication of “Nandan-
Kanan” and go digital. There was also a buzz
that the new hiring that was currently taking
place in the regional office was to bring in a new
wave of innovation and freshness in the digital
world to increase the revenue for the company.
The downsizing of older employees was also
“big news”.
The employees did not like what they were
hearing. They were also concerned with the
growth of the company and felt that a change was
inevitable in the wake of the market shift. But
what they did not understand was the logic
behind fir- ing experienced workers. The
employees were not a part of decision making and
their ideas and insights were also not welcomed
by the top management. The employees
demanded a face to face meeting with the top
management but their request was repeatedly
turned down. At the critical time when the job
insecurity was taking a toll on the attitude of the
employees, e-mail was the only means of
communication. Most of the mails were left
unanswered by the management.
The employees in turn vented out their anger
by speaking ill of the company in the media and
resorting to a strike. The candidates coming for
the interviews were not allowed to enter the
campus, and hence, the recruiting process came
to a standstill. Some of the aggressive employees
even resorted to vandalism in the campus.
Impact
This had a negative impact on the morale of the
employees and the image of the company in the
general. Even the new hires were demotivated by
such an activity. Apart from the loss of face in
media, the company also suffered a financial loss.
Questions
1. How do you think the management should
have han- dled the situation?
2. What tenets of communication should be
employed in times of change management?
CASE STUDY 3
Change of Guard: Thrusting Change on sion to the legacy of her forefathers. While she
Employees appreciated the work done by many of the
Summary employees who had devoted a major part of their
lives in the firm, she now wanted to give the firm
The case is about a family owned, manufacturing
a new direction. She strongly felt the importance
based business firm that recently saw its long-
of inducting fresh blood in the decision-making
time chairman suc- cumb to a chronic disease.
hierarchy. To achieve this goal, she promoted
The company was now headed by the only
junior employees and interns who were fresh
daughter of the late chairman who has returned
graduates, who had little experience but dollops
from US, armed with a MBA degree. Most of the
of enthusiasm.
employees of the firm are over 45, with at least
25% being over 55 years or more. The new Problem
chairman is interested in fresher perspec- tives
Shikha had appointed Mr Nathulal as her
and innovative ideas and wants a change of
deputy who was previously with the firm’s sales
guard at the workplace.
division. His aggressive mar- keting skills have
Introduction proved to be successful. Mr Nathulal now
Shikha Goyal was the newly elected chairman of called a board meeting where he proposed a
the manu- facturing firm XYZ Ltd., and has just new schedule for the on-going production
arrived from the US, completing her MBA process which would meet their targets well
degree. She had a vision for the well- known before time, thus leaving time for the firm to
manufacturing firm and wanted to add a new squeeze in few more orders. The original
dimen- schedule for the orders were for 12 months
which were now reduced to around six months
with the introduction of a new Enterprise
Management System, which was different from the one, fol- lowed by the company for a
long period of time.
The employees were now expected to work at least an hour more than what they usually
did with the possibility of extended weekends operations if deemed necessary to keep up
with backlog. The expectation was that, the employees would continue to give the same
effort as they have being giving in the past but now for an extended period of time.
Emphasis was given on written communication to all the employees concerned. In this
instance, replacing the more accepted verbal way of communication was preva- lent for
routine jobs. Strict actions could be taken against non-compliance with the newly proposed
working sched- ule and style. The other members of the board were a little taken aback by
the sudden changes in management style but choose not to comment at the moment.
Impact
Mr Nathulal was pleased that the motion got passed unop- posed and felt no further need to
reach out to the experienced people present in the board to solicit their opinions and view-
points on the proposed changes. While he was aware of a few glares and grunts directed in
his way every time he crossed some of the employees, he attributed it to temporary phe-
nomena due to a “slightly” increased workload.
But gradually he kept noticing lack of feedback and ideas from the older board members
and senior employees, and the manner in which they kept avoiding his gaze whenever he
saw any of them. The senior employees now expected a daily schedule to comply with
the new schedule and seemed disinterested in doing things other than what they were told
to, which they normally would be doing anyway before the new production plan was
implemented. Mr Nathulal glanced through the performance reports sent by each senior
employee over the last week or so and was surprised to see that the once ‘Golden Boy’ of
the company, Mr Natwarlal was lagging behind in sending his reports; even his produc-
tion schedule seemed to be skewed. He called Mr Natwarlal and gave him a terse and
belittling speech regarding the implications of not following the protocol. Within two
days of this incident he got the resignation letter of this once- prized employee.
Rumours were rife that many senior employees were now switching over to other
manufacturing firms, some even choose to work with the direct rivals in the focus mar-
kets. Also there was now a marked increase in the absentee list, accompanied with high
turnover.
Questions
1. How should the issue have been dealt with ideally?
2. What would you now advise?