Case study VEDANDTA RESOURCES Ltd- GRAPPLING WITH NEW CHALLENGES

About Vedanta Aluminum Limited The case study is about the company Vedanta Aluminum ltd, which is situated in jharsuguda, orissa. The company was started in way back in 2005 with the annual production of 0.6 mtpa and from there on company has never looked backed and has been touching the new heights of profit every year and recently a new plant was commissioned which had an annual production of 1.6 mtpa, leading to total production of 2.2 mtpa and making it indias biggest aluminum plant.

Despite of the fact that it has been involved in so many controversies regarding land acquisition and exploitation of tribal people, and with such a high attrition rate, the company still managed to hold on to their profits and huge production. The reason for their profit is not employee satisfaction regarding their job but instead it has been employee exploitation especially those which are at the bottom of the pyramid of the organizational structure. The major reason for their exploitation is that Orissa is a poor state with very high poverty and almost 70 % of the population is jobless. So even if they get paid a meager sum of Rupees 5000 per month for working 12 hours a day in very harsh and inhuman condition, they

will be quite happy to do so. Since these people has seen worse of the worse conditions, so if they get paid for a bit of exploitation they quite readily except it, which actually shows that these contract labor have very high emotional stability (neuroticism). So Vedanta took the advantage of this situation and made sure that production did not hamper despite of high attrition rate, as a 70% of production is handled by these people.

Background of case study The main concentration of the case study has been that despite of such high profits, production and very high salary being paid to their employees, Vedanta has been facing very high attrition rate and recently from a batch of 60 odd G.E.T (graduate engineer trainee), who joined in june 2010, about 50 have given the resignation and this just happened within a span of just 8 months. Seeing such a high attrition rate the head H.R was in state of shock and immediately called on the meeting to discuss the matter. During this meeting beside HR people, the 10 G.E.T, who did not leave the job, were also called to throw some light as what were the reasons for their peers to leave the job. Various discussions were done on the parameters like: H.R policies and its impact on employees. How to promote friendly relation between new employees and H.R team so to solve their grievances then and there. issues related to working culture and environment, which was very harsh as temperature on the shopfloor was as high as 70C and with the hell lot of pollution due to gaseous fumes that came out during melting of aluminium. Various innovative strategies to counter mass exodus of employees various health issues and work related ailments like sleep disorder due to changing shifts, ear problems and chest related infections which was quite common.

Hierarchy Hierarchy that was taken into consideration while doing the root cause analysis was such that:-

H.O.D

P.M

P.M

P.M

S.I

T.I

S.I

T.I

S.I

T.I

G.E.T

G.E.T

G.E.T

G.E.T

G.E.T

G.E.T

G.E.T

G.E.T

G.E.T

G.T

C.L G.T C.L

H.O.D:- head of the department, P.M:- project manager, G.E.T:- graduate engineer engineer trainee, G.T:- graduate trainee, C.L:- contract labor, S.I:- shift incharge. Finding root cause of the problem On discussing the issue with 10 new G.E.T, the H.R team came to realize was that the whole problem was revolving around the project managers (P.M) and their

behavior towards G.E.T and employees at the bottom of the hierarchy (G.T and C.L). Obsessed with the target of production, the project manager used to force the G.E.T, G.T and C.L to work nonstop for 9 hours in the shift with the only break of lunch and that too cut short to 20 mins(which was actually 30 mins), in the harsh environment, having a temperature of 70 degree. Even the water breaks were not given which were quite important. At times P.M used to abuse verbally the G.T and C.L, thus making the work environment inhuman to work. At time people used to get faint because of improper intake of water and many G.E.T started facing the problem of ulcers, asthima and various other chest infections. Rather than escalating the issue to H.R employee, especially the G.E.T started leaving the job and out fear of getting bad remarks on their resignation letter, they did not inform any of the problem to H.R during their exit interview and hence the problem kept on lingering. But at last during one of the exit interview on of the employee quite openly admitted this fact that he left the job because he of all these problems( mentioned above), thus opening the eyes of H.R people and in turn take some corrective measures. Initiatives taken: The Head H.R asked all the 10 G.E.T to collect some evidences like video recording, clippings and pictures that actually proved that P.M was at fault and was using all these unfair means to get the work done. And finally when they got all the evidence they did not even took a single second to fire the two P.M who were at fault. It showed that Head H.R and its team was quite open to experiences and quite creative enough to tackle and handle this problem. a safety team was formed which made sure that all C.L and G.T were given proper water breaks and were provided the glucose during water breaks and also made sure that they were provided with safety equipments. regular interaction of G.E.T, G.T with the H.R team to discuss their grievances if any.