Business Cases in Organisation Behaviour and HRM

This volume on business case studies on OB and HRM compiles cases and teaching notes that can be used for teaching, research, and practice in the Indian context and globally. It attempts to give readers perspectives on various critical dimensions of Organizational Behavior and Human Resource Management (OB and HRM) from the emerging economy perspective in the VUCA world.

Gujarat Gas Limited (GGL) is India’s most extensive city gas distribution (CGD) player. The company has been engaged in procuring and distributing natural gas since its establishment in 1980. The case talks about the journey of GGL, which, through several mergers and acquisitions, has achieved tremendous growth and success based on its strong culture, HR practices, and OD interventions. The company began as a joint venture, grew into a multinational organization, and then reversed its ownership to become a state-owned corporation. In all three phases, GGL has experimented with suitable HRD and OD interventions relevant to the different challenges at the time. During the third phase, Peeush, Upadhyay, the EVP and CHRO of Gujarat Gas Ltd. (GGL) lead the way in maintaining company culture and employee satisfaction despite the challenges of the reverse merger. Nevertheless, a large company such as GGL must continuously stay ahead of new arising concerns. At the close of the case, they are at the threshold, grappling with critical issues such as top and middle management talent loss, succession planning, safety, compliance, and continuous skill development. As a CHRO of a large group, Peeush wonders, “What next move should I plan to resolve the current issues? What should I do to strengthen the culture and enhance the company’s growth?”.

This case study traces the history of Professional Assistance for Development Action (PRADAN). PRADAN’s seminal idea is to attract and inspire educated youth to contribute to the development of India. Since the beginning, PRADAN has grown into a 400-strong organization of university-educated professionals reaching out to over a million families in India's poverty-stricken, rural hinterlands. This case study inspires readers to draw insights from PRADAN’s journey. Each section describes the nature of investment and energy mobilization that the organization deploys when faced with challenges. The reader can ponder over the ability of an organization to be proactive in anticipating the challenges it is likely to face in the future and its ability to adapt to ever-changing times.

The case describes the culture and HRM practices prevalent in Harrisons Malayalam Limited (HML), a company engaged in tea plantations in the Western Ghats of India, with a legacy stretching to two centuries. HML is owned by RPG Enterprises. In 2020, HML secured the fourth position among the Indian corporations in the Great Place to Work (GPW) survey. Surprisingly, this recognition of an excellent culture does not translate to good financials. The company has registered only a 7% growth in revenue in a decade and needs to be consistent in reporting profits. This case presents a classic paradoxical dilemma of the Sector Head, CEO, and Head of Human Resources to explore why happy workers are not making money. In summary, the case explores if “good culture” is an overstated phenomenon and whether HML is sustainable.

As a nationwide lockdown was announced, Singh, a senior official of one of India’s largest commercial enterprises, was concerned about the state of mind of employees who found themselves locked at home. The organisation set up Inter Divisional Virtual Teams (IDVTs), deploying storyboarding, a collaborative technique for engaging such employees. During the next 3 weeks, these teams proposed solutions to a few identified problems to an empowered committee. The Committee voiced apprehensions about the practicality of proposed solutions and the modus operandi of IDVTs. Singh was confused about whether the concerns were due to the way of working or lack of contributions of each member or unclear measures of success. He wanted to ascertain whether the intervention was a real success in employee engagement and collaboration in a virtual environment or were the concerns of the Committee true. As he perused team reports, he was pondering how to resolve the dilemma—including the thought of calling each member.

Compelled by a nationwide lockdown announced in March 2020 due to COVID-19, Cyient faced a sudden uncertain context, which magnified its existing complexity of engaging employees in Global Virtual Teams (GVTs). The case maps the ways in which Cyient was able to progress through the uncertain times alongside being innovative in engaging its workforce through several HR interventions.

This case study is based on the HRM and CSR practices of Paradeep Phosphates Ltd (PPL). PPL is a leading company located in the eastern coast of India with an annual turnover about INR 5,500 crores. With an employee strength of 947 employees and 1800 contract workers represented through five major unions, union-management strife was inevitable. PPL had a history of flash strikes even for minor issues such as registering biometric attendance, quality of food in the canteen, etc. However, in 2020 its effective management of union-management relationship was rewarded with the best practice award. The company has seen no loss of man-days due to labour strife and unrest since 2017! The case delves into HR practices that have led to better union-management relationships. This case study may be used to drive in and exemplify practices for inclusive growth. It can be used to discuss how business sustainability is ensured and enhanced through local community sustainability and support.

Zerodha is a fast-growing India's leading brokerage firm, established in 2009. Mr. Nithin Kamath, the founder & CEO of Zerodha, started the firm with a straightforward idea to serve the traders better. Their business model was straightforward—low-cost and transparent brokerage service to customers. They neither spoke a lie nor made false promises and never made false excuses to their customers. The strategy would help them build trust in the minds of their customers. In the initial years, the first thousand customers were developed through cold calling and influencer marketing through trading forum discussions. It was tough to build a customer base because people questioned their credibility and did not show trust. With the time their business started growing, the company needed a good team. At Zerodha, people were hired based on their attitude, passion for learning, common sense, and skills. Most of the hiring has happened through references. In 2012, the company encountered its first competitor who proposed the same business model—low cost, transparency, customer-centricity. To differentiate themselves from competitors, Zerodha decided to build its online trading platform. In 2015, Kite was launched, which was developed to offer better trading solutions to traders in the market. The lost cost, transparent, and customer-centric business model rapidly helped the company scale up its customer base. Currently, the company has more than 1200 employees with a 19% market share at the end of 2020. The case concluded with the situation where Nithin has to prepare for upcoming board meetings scheduled on 18 March 2021, where he has to share the growth history of the company along with his plans ahead for the future to scale up Zerodha towards its potential, primarily focusing on the building competencies that will be needed to prepare for the future.

Luminous Power Technologies, a leading Indian player in power storage solutions, had seen rapid growth in a span of 5 years. The acquisition by Schneider Electric, infusion of talent both from parent organization and external market revealed capability gaps within the incumbent workforce. A higher management education program was envisaged to serve the dual need to bridge the capability gap and build a strong internal talent pipeline for a leadership role. It was expected to build capable leaders to take up higher up roles and feed the organization’s succession pipeline within the Luminous and Schneider entity. The L&D function piloted a year-long General Management Program (GMP) for 20 of its executives at the middle management level at a prestigious business school to enhance general management skills and broaden understanding of the different functional areas of business. The program consisted of several modules on Leadership, Business Communication, Business Strategy, and essentials of Finance, operations & marketing management. The L&D function had incurred a disproportionate spend on its overall budget to roll out this program. Participants for this prestigious course included a diverse audience of middle managers, all identified as high performing and having high potential for future growth.

While the program was widely appreciated, it constrained the resources of the L&D function to deliver a wide variety of programs catering to a large workforce, especially the dominant millennial cohort. Challenged to continue the program, the organization's dilemma was demonstrating the ROI of the GMP program and ensuring optimum use of L&D resources and budget to get wider coverage of the employee base.

The case discusses the influence and ability of L&D function to build the organizational capability, institutionalize culture change and understand resource allocation for larger capability building. Students will appreciate the avenues and challenges of ROI measurement in L&D. The case also provokes the systematic analysis around investing in capability building for the present or the future.

The case can be used in multiple ways to take valuable insights into the L&D and Talent Management domain in a multi-cultural, multi-generational heterogeneous capability environment. The purpose of the case is for students to debate the various approaches to building organizational capability and assess the effectiveness of multiple interventions that cater to different talent segments. The case also presents popular frameworks of training ROI, helps students apply it to the given context, and evaluates if desired outcomes were obtained. While the expectation from L&D is to demonstrate the ROI of its investments, the function also faces the dilemma of optimum resource allocation to ensure a socialistic approach to training. The specific learning objectives are as follows:

In September 2010, one employee of Rashtriya Chemicals and Fertilizers Limited, a Mumbai based Central Public Sector Enterprise met with a road accident and went into coma. It was feared that his leave reserves may soon dry up and he would be without salary for infinite period. This situation resulted in creation of the unique ‘Leave Bank’ scheme. During the next one decade of operation of this scheme, twelve employees got benefitted. However, sustaining this scheme emerged to be a cogent problem. The new generation did not see the relevance of long-term security benefits did not opt for it. On the other hand, veterans who were the major opinion leaders, did not want to opt for this scheme since they will be shortly retiring.

This case study illustrates the learning and development initiatives undertaken by Deoleo, a multinational olive oil processor in India, to cope with the changes due to COVID-19 induced lockdown. The lockdown measures necessitated the closure of all non-essential businesses and caused drastic changes in the functioning of businesses providing essential goods and services ultimately disrupting Deoleo’s sales and distribution operations in India. In order to ensure smooth sales and training of sales personnel a digital app called Safalta was launched. The app incorporated artificial intelligence (AI) and global positioning system (GPS) to aggregate the orders from each frontline staff on a daily basis and send it to the nearest distributor. To train the frontline staff, a video and basic training materials were developed and circulated through WhatsApp, thus helping Deoleo during the lockdown.

Careers in STEM professions offer significant opportunities for career growth whilst placing significant pressure on the professional. Drawing from the lived experiences of a women STEM professional, the incidents and the contexts presented are based on the true-life experiences of a software professional, Manjoti, who starts at the bottom rung and weaves her way upwards to leadership roles. It explores the journey to leadership whose climb to the top of the corporate ladder is both self-determined and replete with perseverance. The professional pursuits contrast with the personal sacrifices that she makes at each stage in her career. The consistent spiral of hard work and passion stimulated by a deep urge to constantly learn and excel, emerge as key ingredients for a successful STEM career.