Emerald Emerging Markets Case Studies

Workplace discipline for an employee’s resilience at Indian bank

Lata Bajpai Singh, Anita Singh,
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To cite this document:
Lata Bajpai Singh, Anita Singh, (2018) "Workplace discipline for an employee’s resilience at Indian bank", Emerald Emerging
Markets Case Studies, Vol. 8 Issue: 3, pp.1-25, https://doi.org/10.1108/EEMCS-08-2016-0179
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 Workplace discipline for an employee’s
resilience at Indian bank
Lata Bajpai Singh and Anita Singh

Introduction Lata Bajpai Singh is

Professor at the
The Sales Manager, Mr Kapil Bhatia, was perplexed with the day-to-day happenings at his
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Department of Rural
office. He wanted to speak to someone who could understand the trauma he had Management, Babasaheb
experienced in the previous 10-15 days. Kapil went to the Branch Head and found him Bhimrao Ambedkar
busy with routine matters, so he was kept waiting. He felt uneasy and went to the waiting University, Lucknow,
area where he sat quietly. He was so much involved in his own thoughts that he paid no India. Anita Singh is
attention to his colleague who, by that time understood Kapil’s state of mind. Kapil was a Professor at the Institute
transparent and open person and anyone could have sensed his uneasiness. of Management Studies,
Ghaziabad, India.
Kapil was worried about the reputation of his team among other colleagues because of the
nuisance created by Neelam, a sales executive who used to be a star performer, in terms
of getting business from customers, and she was good at cross-selling financial products.
Her job profile included sourcing customers for current and savings accounts, persuading
them to maintain balances in their accounts. Apart from that, she was also responsible for
cross sales of products to customers that included mutual funds, insurance schemes and
loans. She also received maximum financial incentives for her performance in the last two
quarters of the year. However, a sudden change in her behavior had been observed, for,
in the previous 2-3 months, she had been quite rude to everyone in the workplace. She was
difficult to handle regarding the cases of arguments she had had with her colleagues in the
office. The other staff members at the branch found her rude and unprofessional when
dealing with customers in day-to-day matters. A few days back, Neelam had threatened
bank officials that she would end her life due to conflicts and arguments in the workplace,
and she mentioned that she was being mentally harassed by her colleagues so that it was
very difficult for her to work in that environment.
The dynamics of the banking industry had been changing rapidly, due to the cut-throat
competition that was witnessed by all. Recently, 22 different microfinancing companies had
been awarded licenses to become a small-finance, banking organizations by the regulatory
bodies in India, which had led to tough competition in the marketplace. The sales team had
also had to face the impacts of the changing market. Earlier the cross-selling of financial
products had been done by the different sales forces of the respective subsidiaries;
however, due to emerging trends in the market, the sales staff experienced a period of job
enlargement. For sustenance, IBFC Bank strived to undertake more business development, Disclaimer: This case is written
achieve better visibility in the market, and aspired to become the preferred choice of solely for educational
purposes and is not intended
customers. In such a situation, the issues created by Neelam were distracting the bank’s to represent successful or
unsuccessful managerial
team members from achieving their goals. It was difficult for the sales team to handle the decision-making. The authors
customers, who had initially been handled by Neelam, due to her disruptive behavior. The may have disguised names;
financial and other
customers were unwilling to continue their relationships with the company, which was a recognisable information to
challenge for the entire team. protect confidentiality.

DOI 10.1108/EEMCS-08-2016-0179 VOL. 8 NO. 3 2018, pp. 1-25, © Emerald Publishing Limited, ISSN 2045-0621 EMERALD EMERGING MARKETS CASE STUDIES PAGE 1
 About the organization
The Indian Banking & Financial Corporation (IBFC) has been one of the well-known
commercial banks in the Indian market for more than 25 years, and it has spread across the
nation. It offers personalized banking and financial solutions to its clients. The bank has
made its presence felt in the market through its good network of branches and ATMs, which
are available across the length and breadth of the country. At present, it serves its
customers with 1,177 branches and 1,720 ATMs alongside its internet banking services.
The bank is preparing to raise its profile in the international market as well. It was set up in
1990 with a vision “To be one of the preferred hubs of banking and financial solutions”
among all the relevant stakeholders.
The bank was set up in 1990 as a regional-level banking organization; however, with the
passage of time, it entered the financial solution providers’ marketplace. In 1994, IBFC
merged with other regional banks, such as Integral Bank of India. Now, IBFC bank has its
headquarters in Mumbai and, today, it is backed by a robust business strategy, a
competent workforce and a cutting-edge information technology platform to deliver
performance in the market.
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Presently, the bank is offering a wide range of banking and financial services to corporate
and retail customers through a variety of delivery channels and through its group
companies. The bank has grown consistently to date with total assets of INR 2,521.32bn by
March 2015. The bank’s operation during the financial year ended March 31, 2015 had a
net worth of INR 892 crores.
The total numbers of employees at the bank was 10,365 as of March 31, 2016. The average
age of employees was 29 years. The bank has a young and energetic workforce along with
a cutting-edge core banking information technology platform, which enables them to offer
personalized banking and financial solutions to its clients. The previous year, the bank
reported business of INR 19.36 crores per employee and a net profit of INR 22.17 lakhs per
employee during the financial year 2014-2015. The bank also incurred expenses of INR
1,197 crores related to employee benefit schemes during the same financial year.

Functioning at the bank

Similarly to many other banking organizations, IBFC also deals with core banking and
financial services solutions. It employs bankers on its roll for core banking; however, it
sometimes relies on subsidiaries or outsourcing for other financial solutions, such as
offering credit cards, loans, insurance policies and so on. The companies also try to avoid
employing excess staff on its roll to avoid the liabilities created by mandatory compliances
and overhead expenses. The success of core banking in the market is measured by the
number of account holders with the bank and the credit maintained by them in their bank
accounts. The organizational structure of the employees at the bank is as shown in
Exhibit 1.
Every IBFC branch handles different operations in the fields of retail and corporate banking
and information about these is given in Exhibit 2.
Unlike some of organizations that outsource business development to others, IBFC takes
care of the process in-house. Business development is part of the operations of all IBFC
branches and the hierarchy of the team is given in Exhibit 3.
At IBFC Bank, the business development/sales teams function out of regional offices. The
regional sales managers (RSMs) report to the Executive Directors handling branch and
centralized business operations. The RSMs operate in regional offices of the bank, whereas
the Territory Sales Managers (TSMs) handle various branches in one location. The Sales
Managers operate in different branches and every Sales Manager has a team of six to eight
Sales Executives. These Sales Executives approach the customers that visit their banks

PAGE 2 EMERALD EMERGING MARKETS CASE STUDIES VOL. 8 NO. 3 2018

 about any financial service or they target customers one to one by offering the services
which are shown in Exhibit 4.

HR practices at IBFC
The company has a set of HR practices that have prevailed over a long period and all the
HR functions are operated from the head office and regional offices due to the availability
of HR staff in those locations. Though the company has well-defined HR policies and
procedures, the transfer of this HR information to the lowest levels of the corporate structure
has been a great challenge for IBFC.

Hiring
The hiring process at the company has been handled by the HR Department; however, the
hiring of sales employees has taken place at the RSM level. The RSMs have been
empowered to hire the required numbers of employees and the salaries offered to sales
staff have been set by RSMs. Thus, the recruitment and selection of salespeople have been
done at the RSM level, and only the formalities of recruitment have been handled by the HR
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Department.

Induction
The company has provided five days’ training for all the new starters in the Mumbai Head
Office except for sales professionals, as they have been expected to train on the job with
the Sales Managers.

Performance management system

The progress of individual sales executives is monitored by their Sales Managers, and the
performance of all the Sales Managers from different branches is monitored by the TSMs,
whereas the RSMs are responsible for monitoring the performance of the sales staff in their
regions. There is a minimum target of 35 accounts to be opened by each Sales Executive
every month that are expected to generate a value of INR 3.5 lakhs, whereas Sales
Managers have to get 300 accounts opened with a value of INR 3 crores to generate.
Success for TSMs is measured as a multiplier of the RSMs’ targets based on the number
of branches that are within a TSM’s territory.

Compensation and reward management

Ultimately, the compensations and rewards have been managed by RSMs. The RSMs used
to send the final numbers of the accounts created to be considered by the HR Department
while it prepared the salaries of sales staff. The team members used to get individual
incentives based on their performance related to the numbers of accounts they opened
every month and also on the basis of the amounts of money with which the accounts were
opened. Though there were rewards associated with the maintenance of the balance, a
certain level of emphasis was given to maintaining the balances in account for a minimum
period of three months’ duration. Thus, two types of performance-based incentives were
shared among the sales staff.

Employee relations and grievance handling

Though the employees at every branch used to be together at work, the sales teams had
their own understanding. Any kinds of grievance among the sales staff was handled at the
sales managerial level and, if required, at the TSM or RSM level. The HR professionals were
not much bothered by day-to-day dealings with the sales professionals because of the line
managerial skills of the TSMs and RSMs. The step-wise grievance settlement procedure at
IBFC Bank is given in Exhibit 5.

VOL. 8 NO. 3 2018 EMERALD EMERGING MARKETS CASE STUDIES PAGE 3

 Disciplinary inquiries
In the cases of any indiscipline due to misconduct in the workplace, disciplinary inquiries
are conducted at IBFC Bank. In such instances, any matter can be raised by anyone with
the departmental head and the details are reported to the relevant RSM or the Branch
Manager. If the matter is related to the sales team, then the RSM or the Branch Manager
refers the issue of indiscipline to the HR Department. Then, the HR Department forms an
investigation committee to conduct a disciplinary inquiry. The various steps taken during
disciplinary inquiries are given in Exhibit 6.

Case incident: an overview

There had been ample troubles in the sales team in the previous three months, and these
grievances were being especially felt when Mr Kapil Bhatia returned from a week-long
vacation. Kapil received an e-mail from the RSM to submit the business development report
for his team in the quarter ending October 31, 2016. While preparing the report he identified
that some deals, which had been in the pipeline at the final negotiation stage, did not
materialize as expected. His team had lost business totaling INR 37.8 crores. He
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immediately called a meeting of the sales staff to discuss the reasons for the poor business
performance and observed that the other team members took it casually. After being asked
why, they communicated that they had achieved their individual targets and that achieving
group targets was not their responsibility.
During the discussion, it was identified that the reason for the loss of business was
Neelam’s rude behavior, misconduct, heated discussions, use of abusive language toward
colleagues and negligence in attending to customers’ inquiries. The poor performance of
Neelam was reflected by way of her failure to perform the duties assigned to her. Her
disruptive behavior in the workplace and negative attitude toward her team members was
affecting the business performance and the climate at work. Kapil also realized that
Neelam’s behavior was adversely affecting the work culture in the office and, as a result,
others had started taking their own business leads casually. After an entire day’s
discussion and argument, in the evening, Kapil forwarded his request to the RSM to
terminate the services of Neelam as a sales executive. Kapil’s recommendations were
based upon the charges levied against her of creating an unnecessary nuisance in the
workplace, of filing false complaints against Kamlesh, another sales executive, of being
rude to colleagues and customers and of attending to the calls of consultants while seeking
a new job during working hours in the IBFC workplace.
Mr Sandeep Varshney, the Territory Sales Manager, received Kapil’s recommendation to
terminate Neelam’s employment and he immediately forwarded the e-mail for further
approval to Mr Pradeep Prasad, the RSM and Regional Manager HR (North). Later in the
evening, the recommendation was approved in consultation with the RSM and Regional
Manager HR (North).
During the entire decision-making process related to terminating Neelam from her job, she
was not asked about the matter by anyone. Kapil convinced the senior authorities of the
necessity of taking the extreme decision to terminate her employment. At the time, Neelam
was serving a probationary period and, as per the terms and conditions mentioned in her
employment offer letter (Exhibit 7), she was supposed to be given 7 days’ notice before
terminating her services, but no one thought to adhere to those terms.
As the hiring of sales executive was done by the Sales Manager under the supervision of
a TSM and with the approval of an RSM, most of the time employment-related matters were
confined to their considerations only. On the following day, Neelam reported to the office at
the usual time and sent official notification to the Sales Manager, the TSM and the RSM
about her intention to resign. On the same day, October 21, Neelam was served with a letter

PAGE 4 EMERALD EMERGING MARKETS CASE STUDIES VOL. 8 NO. 3 2018

 relieving her of her duties with immediate effect; however, Neelam did not accept the letter
and went home.
On October 22, the next day, Neelam sent a grievance-cum-threatening letter by email,
protesting against her discharge and accusing Mr Kapil Bhatia of unfair treatment in the
workplace and warning that she would end her life. In the letter, she also apologized to
her ailing husband for not being there with him in the future because of the suicide she
was intending to commit. About six months previously, Neelam had shared with her
colleagues that her husband, Prateek, who was working for a renowned IT firm, was
suffering from cancer. She also took one month’s leave for the treatment of her husband
as she lived alone with him, and there was no one else in the family to take care of her
husband.
Immediately after receiving this threatening letter, the RSM informed the Branch Head
and the local police about the incident. Police officers rushed to Neelam’s house and
stopped her from taking the extreme step of ending her life or of doing any kind of
damage to herself. The officials from the police department counseled her and then
sent her to the branch office to sort out the matter. The Branch Head and RSM called
her in and heard her grievances. The Branch Head also arranged a counseling session
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for her because, though it was an emotive issue which was quite personal, it had had
an impact on the business performance and the professional climate of the
organization. The counseling was offered to assist Neelam to form a positive perception
of her situation and improve her attitude toward her work and the workplace.
Counseling enabled her to develop positive feelings. Furthermore, an independent
committee was formed comprised four members, of whom two were senior female
officers, to ensure that no gender biases were inherent in the committee. The committee
was asked to inquire about the facts behind the whole issue that had arisen. Neelam
was also informed that her termination was withheld till a further decision could be taken
based on the report submitted by the committee. Neelam thanked the bank for the
counseling session and the opportunity for her side of the story to be heard.

Steps taken by the independent committee

The committee undertook the following steps during its investigation into the matter:
 discussion of the matter for the understanding of the incidents in sequence;
 hearing of Neelam by the investigation committee on October 27;
 hearing of the members of the sales team on October 28; and
 analysis of the case and final observations of the committee members.

Statements by Ms Neelam Singh given on October 27

Neelam narrated the entirety of the incidents mentioned below:
On October 21, she was called in by the Branch Head and Kapil and was discharged of her
duties charged with dishonesty by the organization, with exhibiting rude behavior during
customer interactions, and with taking calls from placement agencies during working hours
while looking for a new job opportunity for herself. Then, she resigned with reluctance and
left the branch office at 3:00 p.m. on October 21.
During the proceedings, the committee inquired about her family background and she
informed them of her husband, Mr. Prateek Kumar, who was the only member of her family
living with her. She informed the committee that she got married two years before to Prateek
Kumar, who was working as a software engineer at a renowned IT firm. She also informed
the inquiry that Mr Kumar had been diagnosed with stage 2B stomach cancer in June 2015,
and he was hospitalized for the treatment. He was advised to take two months’ rest until

VOL. 8 NO. 3 2018 EMERALD EMERGING MARKETS CASE STUDIES PAGE 5

 August 2015, and afterward he resumed his duty at his company. At the time of the inquiry,
he was undergoing chemotherapy for the treatment of his illness. Neelam gave her
husband’s contact number as well.
She informed the committee that after resigning and leaving the job on October 21, 2015,
she neither shared any information with her husband at home nor with any other family
member on October 22, 2015. She wrote the letter to her organization regarding ending her
life. The e-mail was received at 12:47 p.m. on October 22, 2015, and immediately, as a
precautionary measure, local police were sent to her home to dissuade her from taking
extreme measures. The police reached her home, counseled her a bit and then sent her to
the branch office for further discussion about the dismissal. In the meantime, the
organization sent her an e-mail deferring her termination and announcing the formation of
an investigative committee for the redressal of her grievances. After that, Neelam came to
the office and met with the RSM and the Branch Head, who arranged for a counseling
session, and she felt better after that session. Neelam expressed grievances with the Sales
Department and also with Ms Kaustubhi Sehgal, the Assistant Manager for Customer
Relations on the following issues:
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 office politics in the Sales Department;

 leadership incompetence;
 distribution of sales inquiries among all staff; and
 conspiracies against her in the department.

During the proceedings, the committee explicitly asked her to share her viewpoints which
related to the aforementioned charges against others in the organization.
She started her narration by quoting an incident when the team members wanted to
celebrate Kapil’s birthday, and she did not like to be the part of the celebrations. During the
conversation, she had some arguments with Kamlesh for which she forwarded a written
complaint to the Branch Head without including her departmental head, Kapil, in the loop.
On that occasion, the Branch Head counseled both of them and the matter was resolved,
however, others started avoiding her in the office.
She mentioned that Kapil never used to take her complaints against Kamlesh seriously,
took all the matters very lightly and kept on asking Kamlesh to mend his ways
politely.
During the discussion, she mentioned that the bone of contention was about leads
generated during “Canopy’, a sales promotion event organized fortnightly by the Sales
Department. She had problems with the biased distribution of customer inquiries. Though
she mentioned that she had been given access to the database of prospective customers,
however, other members had to generate the database by themselves. About her
performance, she said that in the first quarter of the financial year she had converted 59
customers (preferred) that were government accounts of very high value in terms of credit
in those accounts, however, the incentive distribution was improper. She also mentioned
about the incentive regarding one of her high-value customers (a government account with
a cash deposit above 10 crores) that was given by Kapil to Aparna, a sales executive on
the same team, as he was biased towards Aparna.
She said that Kausthubhi used to give more telephonic/physical inquiries to Aparna rather
than to her. She also said that initially she used to trust Aparna in the workplace and, even
though she was very close to Aparna, later she stopped talking to all the members in the
department regarding the distribution of customer inquiries and their handling in the
anticipation of something wrong occurring in the future.

PAGE 6 EMERALD EMERGING MARKETS CASE STUDIES VOL. 8 NO. 3 2018

 Statements by members of the sales department and Ms Kaushtubhi Sehgal on
October 28, 2015
The empowered investigation committee interacted with the members of the Sales
Department and Ms Kaushtubhi Sehgal individually to seek their opinions concerning the
charges brought by Neelam:
 office politics in the Sales Department;
 leadership incompetence;
 distribution of customer inquiries among all staff; and
 conspiracies against her in the department.

Statement by Mr Kapil Bhatia

Kapil gave his statements and justification against all the charges as follows.
Kapil informed the committee that on October 21, Neelam accepted in front of the Branch
Head and the RSM that she had attended to the calls of placement agencies regarding new
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job opportunities from competitor banking firms. Kapil also informed the committee that he
had overheard that Neelam negotiated over the phone and demanded a salary of
INR 35,000 per month for a post at a Saket office, as she was not comfortable with traveling
to their distant office at Gurgaon.
He informed the committee that there was no conspiracy against Neelam and no politics
against her; on the contrary, when her husband was diagnosed with cancer, the entire
department was supportive of her and, when she was crying over the matter, the staff
members consoled her and gifted her with a coffee mug to cheer her up.
He said that there was a very healthy environment in the office; however, Neelam was creating a
disturbance there. She stopped talking to others and she used very abusive language against other
staff. The comments she made used to be very personal and were directed toward willing
misfortunes on the family members of colleagues, including the small kids of other department
workers. That, of course, had hurt the feelings of the other members of the department and, thus,
they had become uncomfortable working with Neelam. Kapil also testified that Neelam was also
served oral warnings several times by him for using abusive language. Kapil informed the
committee that Neelam was rude to customers and others and, regarding this, she was warned to
mend her ways. Neelam once commented, “This organization is the worst organization I have
worked with.” She spoke ill of the organization and asked some customers, “Why did you open an
account here? This organization is not meant for you.”
Kapil informed the committee about the professional performance of Neelam. She was
given the data of prospective customers in the Vasundhara and Vaishali areas of the
Ghaziabad district for calling purposes, but she made no effort to convert the prospective
customers into clients of the bank.
He reported that he was out of the office from October 5, 2015 to October 17, 2015, and
before that Neelam had only four entries in the enterprise resource planning (ERP) system
to her credit. However, when Kapil returned on October 18, 2015, Neelam had generated
14 inquiries to her credit, which he believed were probably generated by using special
features of her ERP login ID through which she could access the overall data, which only
Kapil was authorized to do. It was assumed that she must have claimed inquiries generated
by other team members as her own.

Statement by Kamlesh
Kamlesh, in his justification, said that Neelam believed in operating a “divide and rule
policy” and also that she was not a team player. She shouted in the department about petty
issues and behaved unprofessionally toward others.

VOL. 8 NO. 3 2018 EMERALD EMERGING MARKETS CASE STUDIES PAGE 7

 Kamlesh informed the inquiry that they had had cordial relations with each other, but
Neelam used to be aggressive with others. He mentioned that Neelam was not happy with
the other members’ handling of customer inquiries. This was further aggravated after the
announcement of incentives for the performance of the Sales Department during the
second quarter, that is, July to September 2015, when her incentive was comparatively
lower than that of other members. He also felt that Neelam should not have been a part of
the incentive scheme as she was spoiling the working environment of the department.

Statement by Aparna
During the investigation, Aparna gave evidence that Neelam always had problems with
others. She also said that Neelam used abusive language and made personal comments
about others, which were quite disheartening.
Concerning the customer inquiries, she reported how the “rotation policy” for receiving
the leads generated through “Canopy” for prospective customers was followed by all the
members of the Sales Department. Apart from that, all the team members were aware of the
special feature of Neelam’s ERP login ID that allowed her to view the submitted customers
file; however, none of them had any problem with Neelam.
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Aparna informed the committee that though the system was not partial to anyone, Neelam
still used to comment that “We will work as the amount we get.” She informed the committee
that Neelam was rude about customer inquiries during Canopy activities.
There was one incident when Aparna and Neelam had clashed over an incentive claim,
which was related to the high-value, preferred customer account of Mr Mayank Rana.
During that problem, Kapil intervened and said that the person who had advised the
customer for the first time would be entitled to the incentives. Due to this, the incentive for
Mayank Rana (a prospect of Neelam’s) was credited to Aparna. Similarly, the incentives for
the account openings of three other customers of Aparna were credited to Neelam as she
had spoken to them first. In the end, Aparna said that, if Neelam should continue to work
according to the extant incentive system, she should be asked not to make any more
personal comments about her.

Statement by Mansi
Mansi informed the committee that she had joined the department recently on August 16,
2015, and she was putting in the effort to meet her targets. Though there had been no
personal clash between Neelam and Mansi regarding customer inquiries, there was a
possibility that this type of clash had occurred between other members of the department.
Mansi also stated that initially Aparna and Neelam were on very good terms with each
other, but later on they stopped communicating with each other. Mansi believed that
Neelam’s behavior toward other members of the department was not so good. She used to
pass personal comments and was rude to them. She further informed the inquiry that she
was not comfortable working with her in the department.

Statement by Ms Kaushtubhi Sehgal

Kaushtubhi presented her evidence regarding the sharing of prospective customer leads
with sales staff during her work as a customer handler. She said that if in case a customer
wanted to open any accounts for family members, friends or extended family relations, she
used to share their details, preferably with Kapil, and then he used to delegate the
prospects to a Sales Executive to complete the formalities.

Committee observations
After going through the entire proceedings, the observations of the committee members
with respect to Neelam were as follows:

PAGE 8 EMERALD EMERGING MARKETS CASE STUDIES VOL. 8 NO. 3 2018

 1. She did not take her departmental head into her confidence and bypassed him by
reporting directly to the Branch Head and RSM in certain matters.
2. She did not divulge the privileged password for the ERP given to her by Kapil the Sales
Manager; however, other members of the department never questioned it.
3. She misused official resources during office hours by negotiating with recruitment
consultants loudly, openly, and unprofessionally, and at the same time showed no
remorse for this.
4. She claimed incentives for three high-value, preferred customers but did not disclose
it, yet at the same time questioned the incentives given to Aparna, her fellow team
member, for one such other customer.
5. She did not believe in team spirit and isolated herself by not communicating with others
and by also not participating in departmental festivities.
6. She had a bad mouth and never respected her colleagues’ feelings, often using
abusive language and derogatory remarks.
7. She provided the contact details of her husband, Mr Prateek Kumar, which turned out
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to be a wrong number and the person on the other end identified himself as Mr
Mehboob. It raised certain doubts about her husband (who could never be contacted
by the committee members), about Neelam’s marital status, and even about the ailment
of her husband said to be suffering from cancer.
8. The committee members also came to know the following about Neelam from her fellow
departmental members and from Kaushtubhi:
 She was served oral warnings several times by Kapil.
 As per Kamlesh’s evidence, Neelam was spoiling the working environment.
 Aparna admitted she said, “We will work for the amount we get.”
 Aparna also said that if Neelam continued to work as part of the extant incentive
system, she should be told not to make any more personal comments about her.
 Mansi said that she could not work with Neelam in the same department.
As per Neelam’s personal file, the committee members found that she was still serving her
probation period (Exhibit 7) of one year, starting from January 11, 2015, and she had also
submitted an undertaking (Exhibit 8) signed on January 11, 2015, whereby she had agreed
to abide by Clause No. 4. (Clause No. 4: I hereby undertake to maintain at all times absolute
integrity and devotion to duty and also be honest and impartial in my official dealings.)

Management decision
Based on the inquiry and the committee’s report, ample evidence of noncompliance with
workplace policies, rules, or procedures was found; unacceptable behavior in the
workplace by Neelam was observed. Thus, it became necessary for the management to
take immediate action as it was having a negative impact on the working environment at the Keywords:
organization and affecting business performance. Further, it was difficult to continue with Employee attitudes,
Neelam’s services, as she had breached the trust of the team and shown a lack of integrity Employee behaviour,
and signs of emotional instability, which may have disturbed the conducive environment of Discipline,
the company. Overall, she was on a probation period and her performance was not Human resource
satisfactory so, on this pretext, management decided to terminate her employment. management

Further reading
Ghosh, P. and Nandan, S. (2015), Industrial Relations & Labour Laws, McGraw Hill Education.

VOL. 8 NO. 3 2018 EMERALD EMERGING MARKETS CASE STUDIES PAGE 9

 HDFC (2012), “HDFC bank, annual report 2012-2013”, Encouraging Sustainability Empowering Lives,
available at: www.hdfcbank.com/htdocs/common/pdf/corporate/HDFC-Bank-AnnualReport-2012-13.
pdf (accessed 31 July 2016).

HDFC (2013), “HDFC bank, annual report 2013-2014”, available at: www.hdfcbank.com/htdocs/
common/pdf/corporate/HDFC-AnnulaReport-2013-14.pdf (accessed 28 July 2016).
HDFC (2014a), “HDFC bank 38th annual report (2014-2015)”, available at: www.hdfc.com/sites/
default/files/HDFC%20Annual%20Report%202014-15.pdf (accessed 27 July 2016)..
HDFC (2014b), “HDFC bank annual report (2014-2015)”, Touch the Future Today, available at: www.
hdfcbank.com/htdocs/common/pdf/corporate/HDFC-Bank-Annual-Report-2014-15.pdf (accessed 3
July 2016).

HDFC (2015a), “HDFC bank, annual business responsibility report (2015-2016), available at: www.
hdfcbank.com/assets/pdf/Business-Responsibility-Report-2015-16.pdf (accessed 28 July 2016).
HDFC (2015b), “HDFC bank, annual report, do more with digital banking”, available at: www.hdfcbank.
com/assets/pdf/HDFC-Annual-Report-2015-16.pdf (accessed 28 July 2016).

ICICI Bank (2015), “Leadership in banking through technology”, 22nd Annual Report and Accounts,
available at: www.icicibank.com/managed-assets/docs/investor/annual-reports/2016/icici-bank-
annual-report-2015-2016.pdf (accessed 27 July 2016).
Downloaded by University of Louisiana at Lafayette At 10:10 12 October 2018 (PT)

ICICI Bank (2016), “Business responsibility report”, available at: www.icicibank.com/managed-assets/

docs/investor/annual-reports/2016/icici-bank-ltd-business-responsibility-report.pdf (accessed 27 July
2016).

IDBI Bank (2014), “Annual report 2014-2015, catalyst for India’s growth: 50 years and beyond”,
available at: www.idbi.com/pdf/annualreport/IDBI-AR-2014-15.pdf (accessed 3 July 2016).

IDBI Bank (2015), “Annual report 2015-2016”, available at: www.idbi.com/pdf/annualreport/IDBI-Bank-

AR-2015-16.pdf (accessed 3 July 2016).
Labour.gov (2017), available at: https://labour.gov.in/sites/default/files/INDUSTRIALEMPLOYMENT
(STANDINGORDERS)1CENTRALRULES1946.pdf (accessed 18 January 2017).

Matterson, M.T. and Ivancevich, J.M. (1987), Controlling Stress in the Workplace: An Organizational
Guide, Jossey-Bass, San Franscisco, CA.

Parsuram, S. and Alutto, J.A. (1981), “An examination of organizational antecedents of stressors at
work”, Academy of Management Journal.

Salamon, M. (1997), Industrial Relations: Theory and Practice, 3rd ed., Prentice Hall Publications.

Sivarethinamohan, R. (2010), “Workplace discipline and counseling for employees’ resilience”,

Industrial Relations and Labour Welfare Text and Cases, PHI Learning, pp. 344-350.

Srivastava, S.C. (2012), Industrial Relations and Labour Laws, 6th ed., S. Chand (G/L) & Company.

Venkataratnam, C.S. (2006), “Grievance and discipline handling”. Industrial Relations, Oxford
University Press, Oxford, pp. 556-563.

PAGE 10 EMERALD EMERGING MARKETS CASE STUDIES VOL. 8 NO. 3 2018

 Exhibit 1. Organizational structure of IBFC bank

Figure E1
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Exhibit 2. Bank branch operation

Figure E2

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 Exhibit 3. Hierarchical structure of the business development team

Figure E3
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Exhibit 4. Types of accounts at IBFC bank

Figure E4

PAGE 12 EMERALD EMERGING MARKETS CASE STUDIES VOL. 8 NO. 3 2018

 Exhibit 5
Step 1: The aggrieved employee can convey their grievance to the immediate supervisor,
orally or through written application. Now, the concerned officer is responsible for taking
action within 48 hours.
Step 2: If the immediate supervisor is unable to provide any satisfactory solution to the
problem, then the matter is to be presented to the departmental head for settlement of the
grievance.
Step 3: The departmental head has to inquire into the matter further and conduct
counseling in coordination with the HR department if it is felt necessary.
Step 4: After Step 3, if the grievance remains unsolved, then the matter can be further
presented before the Grievance Settlement Committee specially formed of four to six
members, for the purpose of settlement of the grievance.
Step 5: The conclusions drawn by the Grievance Settlement Committee are to be
implemented by the concerned authorities.

Exhibit 6. Steps of disciplinary inquiry at IBFC bank

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Figure E5

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 Exhibit 7. Employment offer letter
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EMERALD EMERGING MARKETS CASE STUDIES
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Exhibit 8

VOL. 8 NO. 3 2018

 About the authors
Lata Bajpai Singh an Professor at the Department of Rural Management, Babasaheb
Bhimrao Ambedkar University, Lucknow, India. She holds the following degrees: PhD, MA
Sociology and MBA (HR). She possesses 15 years experience in academics including her
involvement with World Bank Project. Her areas of interest are talent management,
employee engagement, organizational behaviour, HRM, industrial relations, labour laws
and compensation management. Dr Lata Bajpai Singh is the corresponding author and can
be contacted at: drlatabajpai@gmail.com
Anita Singh is presently a Professor in the area of HR at the Institute of Management Studies
Ghaziabad, UP, India. She has PhD in the area of Management, EPHRM from IIM-Calcutta,
MBA and PMIR. She has published more than 65 articles in reputed journals and
international conference proceedings. She is an accomplished teacher, trainer and
consultant
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