Mr.

Toppo had just graduated from Indian Institute of Management (IIM), Ahmedabad, and joined his family's small business, which employs 25 semi-skilled workers. After observing Toppo during the first week on the job his father called him in and said, "Toppo, I have had a chance to observe your working with the men and women for the past two days and although I hate to say something but I must. You are just too nice to people. I know they taught you human relations stuff at the IIM but it just does not work here. I remember when the Hawthorne Studies were first reported and everybody in the academic field got all excited about them, but believe me, there is more to managing people than just being nice to them".

Strategic Decision Making-A Case Study

AJ is a Program Manager in a Multinational Software Company. His company has operations across the globe. He travels extensively to meet customer demands and motivate his global team. He operate a huge budget that allows him to move his engineers to different locations across the globle for project execution and customer based trainings. There is a sudden recession in the economy and Management has cut budget to great extent and AJ's budget was no exception. His Training budget was reduced by 95% and was advised to operate with what he is left with. AJ has already scheduled his annual training calendar and finalised dates and identified engineers for each training programs. He discussed with his team at length and were able to cancel most of the trainings. One Customer based training seems to be unavoidable. AJ had already recruited this team of engineers for the new project. The project cost included this customer based training while planning. He also gave a commitment to all these new engineers that they will be on-site on customer based training for atleast one year and could join only if they have a valid passport. All the new engineers who joined AJ's team left their previous employer only because of the ON-SITE training assignment. This being a new project, it cannot be started without product training with the customer. The 5% left on the operations budget will not meet the cost of this training. The management has left AJ to decide what to do but said very clearly that he cannot utilize his budget to send his team on-site. Consider youself as AJ (Program Manager). What strategic decision would you take to retain the engineers morale, get them the training required, meet customer requirements and save the cost to Management?

Handling Problem Employee - A Case Study

Whether in the United States or India, all Management Professionals need to handle Problem employees everyday in their work life. Here is one case study for discussion. AJ has a problem employee BJ. BJ is a Project Leader and people manage a team of three engineers. Offlate he took lot of leaves and is now below minimum leave balance. Knowing that he cannot apply for any further leaves BJ is absenting himself from work. AJ is furstrated by BJ's action and attidude. There is a huge backlog of work to be completed and his team is suffering without their Project Leaders help and guidance. BJ also started a new habit of calling AJ befoe the business hours (7.00 AM) and leave a voice message at AJ's telephone saying he won't be coming for work. He does so because he was instructed by HR in the initial counselling to keep his Manager informed if he is not coming for work. Out of frustration AJ calls out his HR Manger and gives him details of BJ's leave, unauthorised absence and unprofessional way of informing him on absence. He also inform his HR Manager that BJ also influence his peers with his negative behaviour. AJ recommends BJ's immediate temination and request for immediate repalcement. He says that Team morale, Customer interaction and the Project is worst hit by BJ's behaviour and attitude. Consider yourself as HR Manager. What would be your approach to this situation?

Decision Making - A Case Study

Company Policies Maual is the Bible for all Management professionals that helps in decision making. But at times the policy itself becomes a problem for them. Here is a case that will make you think. AJ & Co is a tier 1 supplier for the automotive industry. Their knowledge bank is CAE and CAD. The company's financial bank has a tie-up to provide car loans to its employees on easy monthly installments. The company has a auto loan policy which says that employee who completes 5 years of continious employment are eligible for car loan from their banker and the company will provide Rs 50,000 as incentive towards down payment. Being an automotive company the policy makers thought it would be good that all their loyal employees drive a car. In the year 1990, AJ & Co. recruited 100 freshers from college due to the sudden development in their business and industry. In the year 1994 the company is not doing much of business and balance sheet is not that appreciative. In the midst of doing too many crises management activities the top executives failed to revise the auto loan policy. Among the 100 freshers who were recruited in 1990, 30 had resigned for various reasons. Among the remaining 70 employees 20 of them applied for the auto loan in the year 1995 as they have completed 5 years. These 20 engineers have different joining dates and 10 of them who completed 5 years service at early dates in 1995 got their car loan application approved and got their 50K check as incentive towards down payment. The remaining 10 applications are not approved due to shortage of funds. The situation is that the compnay is not financially sound during the fical year 1994-95. The demand for CAE and CAD engineers are still great in the market. The company has already invested a lot on these engineers and cannot afford to loose them after 5 years. Moreover the company has already approved the incentive for some of their colleagues. How will you as the VP Operations satisfy the demands of these 10 engineer's auto loan application and what will you do to the auto loan policy?