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Solved Case Studies

Case Study 1:
XYZ Limited is a reputed multinational company. It considers selection as an event in
the total process of acquiring and developing managers. The company believes that the
selection process must be consistent with other events in the total process for it to be
effective. Hindustan lever has been one of the most favoured companies by the
prospective candidates for managerial position. The selection process of the company
can be broken into three steps: such as- Screening of application forms, preliminary
interview, and final selection.
Screening of Applications Forms :
In the first step the company usually receives a large number of applications for the
positions advertised or through campus interview. Thereafter such applications are
screened. Such applications usually contain brief information about the candidates. The
selected candidates are then required to fill in a detailed application form. This form is
quite elaborate and seeks factual information about the candidate and also about his
attitudes and personality. A more strict screening of applications is made in this step.
The company believes that to select a candidate it will not be enough to see the
application forms only which may not be very reliable measure to select or reject the
candidate. This calls for a brief preliminary interview to be held by company to get the
best talents. So such interviews are conducted to interview as many candidates as is
administratively possible.
Preliminary interview:
Preliminary interview is conducted for about ten to twenty minutes usually by one
manager. During this brief personal contract, some time is spent in discussing the
nature of the job, the future career possibility of the applicant and the company’s policy
in this regard. Often a second interview is conducted before the applicant is rejected or
selected for further consideration.
Final Selection:
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Final selection process is quite elaborate. This stage consists of two aspects-groups
discussion and final interview. Group discussion is conducted in two stages. In the first
group discussion, the chairman of the panel of selectors requests the group to select a
subject which can be economic, political, social educational or even a lighter subject.
The subject is decided by the group itself out of the various topics given to it. When the
topic is finalized, the members of the group discuss it. In the second group discussion,
a case is given. The case is distributed in advance. The evaluation of the group
discussion is done by a board consisting of the personnel director, the director of the
division in which the applicants have to be absorbed, a senior manager of the same
division, and a senior manager of other division. The board evaluates the candidates
along the following factors: Style of self introduction by the candidate, his general
knowledge and knowledge of his subject, clarity of thought and logic, lucidity of
expression, tolerance of others views, persuasiveness and leadership qualities. Each
selector is given a blank sheet to evaluate the candidates. He evaluates the candidates
individually.
After the group discussion, personal interview is conducted by the board. On the
completion of the individual interviews, the board members held discussion among
themselves and then arrive at a consensus.
Questions and Answers:
Q.1. What type of selection should be adopted by the company?
Ans : The Company should adopt a systematic and integrated selection process to
select the best possible candidates. Selection tests should be standardized and
unbiased methods of soliciting information about the prospective employees
should be employed.
Q.2. What is considered in time of screening the application forms?
Ans : The minimum qualifications prescribed to ascertain the eligibility of candidates
are to be considered at the time of screening the application form.
Q.3. What is the basic objective of the preliminary interview?
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Ans : The basic objective of the preliminary interview is to decide whether the
candidate is worthy of further consideration. So, preliminary interview is held for
short listing the candidates for further process of selection. Generally
organization receives applications from a large number of candidates. They all
meet the basic requirements of the job, but all cannot be called for the final
interview because it is a very time consuming process. So, the preliminary
interview is held to save lot of time and money.
Q.4. What should be the size of groups for final selection?
Ans : For the final selection, the size of the group should be limited to about six to ten
applications against one vacancy.
Q.5. Why is a case distributed in advance amongst the candidates in final
selection?
Ans : A case is distributed in advance among the candidates before the final selection,
so that the candidates can compose their thoughts, ideas about the case.
Q.6. What is the information on the basis of which the personal interview is
conducted?
Ans : Personal interview is conducted on the basic of the information supplied by the
candidates in their application form, which may be the applicant’s past
performance and attitudes, educational qualifications and experiences etc. as
revealed in the form.
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Case Study 2:
Wadhawan High Tech Ltd. is an internationally acclaimed company in the electronics
industry. The company employs a large no. of talented graduates from reputed
Engineering Colleges and offers them high salaries and perks compared to other
industries.
Recently, the company advertised for the post of an electronic expert. A large no. of
applications was received and Mr. Gangadhar an I.I.T. Chennai graduate was selected
out of nearly 150 candidates who appeared for an interview. Mr. Gangadhar requested
for an additional 1000 Rs. salary than what was offered because of same extraordinary
talents he possessed. The company agreed to it and Mr. Gangadhar was very happy to
join such a reputed company where he thought his qualities would serve the company
very well.
Mr. Gangadhar joined the company in January 2005 with great enthusiasm. He found
the job quite challenging and considered himself to work for company held in high
reputed by the electronics world. He found his seniors, colleagues and juniors quite
friendly and for nearly one year he found the work quite enjoyable and rewarding.
After nearly 13 months of his joining, he started learning many stories about the
company regarding senior-junior conflicts, high turnover among managers but he
decide to ignore all such issues and to concentrate on his work. He wanted to keep the
top management pleased with his diligent performance, commitment and dedication. He
expected to get good response from the management. However, his expectations were
soon belied.
The Management started overriding Mr. Gangadhar’s suggestions. He was no more
given any respect and was treated like other run-of-the mill workers. He was assigned
all kinds of interior tasks and was getting overloaded because he never complained of
long hours.
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However, one day, Mr. Gangadhar comes to the General Manager with his resignation
letter and a cheque for one month’s notice salary. The General Manager was surprised
because of this sudden decision of Mr. Gangadhar. He tried to convince Mr.
Gangadhar to withdraw his resignation. But Mr. Gangadhar persisted with his decision.
Finally, the General Manager accepted his resignation. The GM wanted to appoint a
committee to look into this matter but eventually he dropped the idea.
Questions and Answers:
Q.1. What prevented the GM from appointing a committee ?
Ans: The General Manager knew in his mind that the Company’s management was
responsible for Mr. Gangadhar’s frustration.
He has perhaps seen many talented individuals joining the company and leaving
of after sometime out of frustration. He knows that there are elements in the
factory that because of their relationship with top management are able to boss
over quiet, uncomplaining hardworking employees and there is little that can be
done about it. This is the case in many family owned enterprises where ment is
often surprised by psychophonts close to top management. Thus knowing that
appointing a committee is not going to solve such problems, the General
Manager must have dropped the idea of the committee.
Q.2. What is wrong with the recruitment policy of the Company ?
Ans: The Company does won’t to employ talented individuals but does not care about
retaining them. That seems to be the major problem in Wadhawan High Tech
Ltd.
There is no retention plan for such talented employees in this company.
Obviously Mr. Gangadhar felt that despite his hard work and dedication, his
performance is not appraised rightly by the management.
The company should create an atmosphere where talented employees feel like
continuing for many years. For this, the recruiting policy should aim at:
i) Putting the new employee at case.
ii) Helping him create an interest in the job and the company.
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iii) Indicating standards of performance and behaviour expected of him. Making
the employee feel that he is an important part of the company.
iv) Creating a feeling of social security.
v) Showing an employee that performance counts in this company.
Basically, Mr. Gangadhar felt that the company is using him as a work-horse
without really caring for his talents or his progress when a company recruits
people, it should also try to retain valuable employees and should not tell them
so out of frustration. This is where the recruitment policy of Wadhawan High
Tech went wrong.
Q.3. Why did Mr. Gangadhar’s resignation surprise the General Manager ?
Ans: Mr. Gangadhar was of the quiet, hardworking type. He did his job diligently and
carefully. He never complained and never made any display of dissatisfaction
with working condition in the unit.
He was amenable to whatever decisions the management had taken and
everyone thought he was going along fine in the company.
However, Mr. Gangadhar felt that he did not set the recognition due to him
and was just made an ordinary worker despite his talent and innovative attitude.
His frustration however never comes to the surface. Hence, when he suddenly
put forward his resignation, the General Manager was surprised. Further, Mr.
Gangadhar was so much distraught that he even offered one month’s notice pay
in order to leave the company immediately. This sudden expression of
frustration of Mr. Gangadhar surprised the General Manager.
Q.4. What needs to be done to improve retention of employees in this
company?
Ans: Every company should remember that each employee has some self-realisation
expectations apart from economic rewards for working in a company. A company
would do well of it adopts following policies in order to retain employees.
1) The company should have mechanisms that help employees develop their
potential for the next level of jobs.
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2) Employees regularly receive feedback about their potential for his/her jobs.
3) Company’s promoter policies should be well defined and shared with all
employees.
4) The appraised system should provide a frank discussion between the
employee and the management.
5) The company should use financial and non-financial rewards to recognise
achievements.
6) Rewards are always objectively determined.
7) The employees should feel a sense of justice and fairness in the company’s
policies.
8) Wadhwan High Tech would do well to adopt rush policies.

Case Study 3:
ABC Ltd. belongs to the manufacturing sector. It has set a goal of becoming a world
class organization by the year 2010. The total number of employees is 1400 and the
company has fully automatic plant.
It has a Human Resource Development department which is decentralized to look into
the needs of specific departments. There are 21 officers in HRD department and their
average age is 45 years. The analysis of bio-data revealed that none of these officers
had any HRD related qualifications. Only a few had qualifications in Personnel
Management. Most officers had work experience in training and some had work
experience in quality circles, ISO 9000 and personnel administration. The self-
assessment of the officers in the competency’s checklist revealed that H.R. department
as whole was not adequately prepared to handle the following:
Potential appraisals, organization development and culture building career planning and
development job evaluation, H.R. information system and strategic planning.
Questions and Answers
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Q.1. Critically analyze the case and give suggestions to improve the working of
H.R.D. department.
Ans :
A) Suggested Analysis:
A careful analysis of the case reveals that the HRD department is not equipped with
competent officers to manage the various activities relating to human resource
development such as:
1) Potential appraisal.
2) Organizational development.
3) Organizational culture.
4) Career planning and development.
5) Job Evaluation.
6) HR Information System.
7) Strategic Planning.
(Note to students : Please write a paragraph each on the above – bringing out the
meaning and purpose of each of the above stated concepts in two or three sentences)
B) Suggestions to Improve the HRD Department :
1) The HRD
departme
nt must
have
competent
and
dedicated
personnel
to
manage
the
various
aspects of
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human
resource
developm
ent in the
organisati
on.
Therefore,
there
should be
proper
selection
of
competent
personnel
with the
requisite
qualificati
ons, i.e.,
postgradu
ate
degree or
diploma in
personnel/
HR
managem
ent from a
recognize
d
institution.
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2) There
should be
proper
training of
the
manageri
al
personnel
of the
HRD
departme
nt. Such
training
must be
provided
to:
a) Impart
knowl
edge
relatin
g to
human
resour
ces
develo
pment.
b) Devel
op the
right
attitud
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es to
perfor
m their
duties.
c) Devel
op
proper
skills
to
handle
their
tasks.
d) Devel
op
social
behavi
our to
get
along
with
the
person
nel of
the
organi
sation,
as well
as
outsid
ers.\
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3) Apart from proper selection and training, there should be also proper motivation
of the personnel of the HRD department, which would enable them to perform
their roles efficiently and effectively. For this purpose, there is a need to provide
proper monetary and non-monetary incentives.

What is strategic human resource management?

 Advance flexibility, innovation, and competitive advantage.

In order for strategic human resource management to be effective, human

Strategic HR involves looking at ways that human resources can make a direct
impact on a company’s growth. HR personnel need to adopt a strategic
approach to developing and retaining employees to meet the needs of the
company’s long-term plans.