HR Case Study - Nitish, a highly promising recruit, is finding it difficult to perform well in his job and is losing motivation

by akshita88 (student)

University Degree Business and Administrative studies

Case: Nitish @ Solutions Unlimited

Problem Statement

Short Term:

Nitish, a highly promising recruit, is finding it difficult to perform well in his job and is losing motivation due to certain hygiene factors. Also, existing interpersonal, role and goal conflicts have reduced organizational commitment and job satisfaction.

Long Term:

Due to the structural deficiencies and lack of proper processes within the company, Solutions Unlimited faces the risk of increasing attrition of its key employees, reduction of Organizational citizenship behavior, loss of morale, lack of strategic fit between the new recruits and the existing organizational value system leading to formation of subcultures within an otherwise organic cultured organization.

(Too long winding for a person to grasp the problem. It MUST be brief and to the point. How to improve the work environment is your short term problem How to improve the structure of the organization is your long term problem. Now, this is fine as the former fits well into the latter. But you must articulate it with parsimony in words.

SWOT Analysis for Solutions Unlimited:

Strengths

Young, dynamic, highly qualified managers in the organization
Well established parent organization headquartered in San Jose, with 40 offices in 12 countries
An informal work culture with a regular orientation program allowing new recruits to know the organization

Weaknesses

Lack of guideline policies hence leading to Goal conflicts Eg. Commitment from Venkant about paying for spouse travel which was later not accepted. Also a continual changing the pay package which should be specific to the goal and a new recruits qualification levels.
Lack of consistent organization culture i.e. not completely mechanistic or organic in the company
Organization lacks structure hence leading to Role conflicts Eg. Meena who is an Operations Head is handling HR division without a clear reporting head
Director roles of Finance and HR are vacant implying the lack of Role models for the respective departments

Opportunities

Head office appreciates the work for the divisions from India and France out of the existing 12 country divisions; hence viable chances of growth
Nitish was hired because the Indian division was planning to change their industry spread; hence the scope of career growth path for an employee is chalked out

(Hiring Nitish is not the opportunity. Opportunity led to hiring Nitish.

Threats

High attrition rate among top management which could hurt their business (What you can control is typically not a threat. Could be a weakness. This applies to pt 3 also.
Change domain for IT Consultancy to management consultants; high risk situation
Lack of more experienced employees; as was guaranteed to Nitish when he joined the company

PESTC Analysis

Political – not relevant

Economic – The events in the case unfold towards the end of 1999. The new millennium brings with it massive changes in the economic arena. There is hence tremendous pressure on organizations to adapt quickly. The software industry is passing through an unprecedented boom1, new opportunities are opening up around the world. The Indian economy is opening up more and more.

Social - not relevant

Technological – not relevant

Cultural – The parent company of Solutions Unlimited is based in the U.S. The informal work systems that the Indian subsidiary follows is probably modeled on ...

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PESTC Analysis

Political – not relevant

Social - not relevant

Technological – not relevant

Cultural – The parent company of Solutions Unlimited is based in the U.S. The informal work systems that the Indian subsidiary follows is probably modeled on the U.S company, but this may not be ideal for Indian conditions.

Symptoms

No specific target of recruiting more employees to meet the existing vacancies
High attrition rate with Mr. Khurana putting his papers and Mr. Kapoor being asked to resign
Sarcastic remarks passed by Mr. Alagu and Meena against Nitish when they were in the cafeteria; working with Mr. Manish Chawla on a Business Plan has lead to constant bickering
Communication barriers between Nitish, Meena and Venkat (eg: problems with the visa application process, reimbursement to travel and relocation expenses etc)
The fact that Nitish’s expertise was no longer necessary was conveyed to him after the whole team he was working with left for Korea. Later Nitish got to know that Meena could be lying.
No proper documentation for the offers and benefits provided by the organization to a new employee. Venkant never provided any written document guaranteeing coverage of spouse’s travel benefits. Nitish also never maintained a copy of the mail sent across to him(could be because it wasn’t prioritized)
Meena was shocked when she saw Nitish taking out his calculator and calculating his take home salary. Additionally offering below par salaries which need to be frequently revised.
Venkat and Meena were the only 2 people in the HR department, who were then reporting to Mr. Alagu. Mr. Alagu based his ideas about the new recruits on the feedback given to him by Meena, leading to barrage of insults and loud laughter delegated towards Nitish.

Can you take out general pattern or the diagnosis from the symptoms you mentioned? That is what is expected of a Leader-Manager.

Causes for the Symptoms

Problems with the organization structure. Lack of a proper hierarchy leading to absence of specific targets to be achieved. Hence lacking a specific path to be followed by the HR department.
An organization culture should be uniform throughout the system. Since Nitish expected an organic culture he was open about his expectations. However the HR department seemed more mechanistic in its structure.
Key people missing from the hierarchy: The CEO of the company has access to the information of the organization through certain key people under him who constitute the top management; who are constantly being depended upon in the functioning of Solutions Unlimited, and if Mr. Kapoor also leave the company, as mentioned in the case, three out of four key people will be out of the top management, which is certainly not a good preposition for any company. Also shows an alarming increase in attrition rate of a company.
Lack of proper hierarchical mechanism(GOAL CONFLICT): In addition to the above issue, lack of proper hierarchy can result in serious effects on the company’s performance and the information blockage at a certain level can paralyze any company.
Lack of proper issue-resolution channel: There is no proper issue resolution channel that takes care of all issues that are raised by employees. Currently Mr. Alagu and Meena have a closed system which does not allow free flow of information.
Lack of Feedback Mechanism: There should be a proper feedback and appraisal channel which should be transparent. Having a three way review system (downward, peer and upward) does not facilitate the fact that an employee is given proper feedback and provided with consistent achievable targets.
Roles and responsibilities not clearly defined(ROLE CONFLICT): Meena who actually an Operations Officer is taking care of HR functionalities; Nitish being hired, does not have clear objective as in what is he doing there so far. No goals or teams have been set for him and his mentor Mr. Khurana too seems helpless in many situations.

Nitish`s Personality:

Nitish feels that he is an outgoing and friendly person and could not see any reason of somebody not interacting with him. This makes us conclude that he is myopic in the sense that he attributes all situations to himself and fails to see the external factors which affect the situation.
If see from the perspective of handling interpersonal conflicts, Nitish depicts the Manager’s style of being Avoiding displaying a low concern for self as well as for the other party.
Intrinsically motivated: Puts in utmost effort in the project with Mr. Kapoor in the Oracle Financial inventory management work; although he did not get any onsite opportunities from the same since his expertise was no longer required(as stated by Meena).
Slow to blend into the new work culture and realize the norms and trends followed by the HR department in the company. There is a clash of his values which could be realized earlier when he feels overwhelmed by the fast pace of the work requirements and shifting pressures.
High self esteem needs: he thought that the work done by him is special and expects others to appreciate his work. This might be because of his earlier profession as a consultant in a small consultancy where he was responsible for making business plans which requires greater degree of responsibility and authority on his part.

Meena`s Personality:

Vulnerable to negative emotions: Meena`s reaction when Nitish plainly rejected the package offered to him by her, and the perception that she got out of it about Nitish`s personality was very negative which gave rise to the domino effect that followed and the basis of their future relationship.
This led to an attribution error called Horn’s effect where people associate a certain individual based on the first error committed by the individual. It is probable that Meena did not expect such an open behavior with direct calculation of salary benefits by new recruits.
Lack of professionalism.

Decision Criteria

Cost Effectiveness
Should fit in with the value systems and objectives of the parent company of Solutions Unlimited
Time is an important factor as there is a risk of losing employees till the problems are sorted out.
The company is planning a major change in its business (to transform to a management consultancy) and any solutions proposed should not disrupt the change process.

Alternative Solutions:

As per our analysis of the case, we suggest that Nitish should discuss in detail about his present situation in the organization. As it is implied from the case, Nitish is a sensible person and would want to continue to work with the organization if the problems are resolved. Also, he still wishes to clarify the issues with Meena. Nitish should discuss about the entire situation how things started, he should admit his mistakes wherever he was wrong(use a Johari window perspective) so as to make the things less complicated and let Manish take an Integrating role in the conflict situation. The alternatives are:

Meeting for sorting out the issues:

Once Nitish will discuss the situation with Manish, Manish should arrange for a meeting with Meena and Alagu to discuss about their view-point. After this Manish should have another meeting with Nitish; lastly there should be a common meeting to resolve all the issues and maintain a healthy working environment.

Pro-activeness required at Nitish’s end:

Nitish didn’t cross verify the directions provided by Meena, and had also carelessly deleted Venkat’s email. He should verify any promises made and should take in written statements about any action plan from HR for future reference.

Assigning a proper reporting manager or mentor for Meena:

As we can see from the organization chart, Meena is the operations officer who is taking care of the entire HR related work, but there is no person in the HR department to whom Meena reports or is supposed to work under. Thus all the HR related decisions are taken by her. This means that Meena has a high chance of being prejudiced about her opinions. There should be a reporting manager to whom Meena should report/ consult before taking any decision so as to avoid any kind of miscommunication. In this way, she will also have a clear picture about her roles and responsibilities and targets to be achieved.

Institutionalize proper channels for resolving employee related issues.

There was no clear mechanism for employee grievance redressal that Nitish could turn to when he faced problems with the payment of severance amount, compensation for relocation expenses, project allocation, interpersonal problems with Meena etc. This led to the problems mounting up to a point where he started avoiding Meena and considered quitting the company. There should be concrete systems in all organizations to address employee issues.