This document discusses the importance of understanding a company's workforce through periodic tracking studies. It proposes conducting a study to better understand employee attitudes, behaviors, and satisfaction levels in order to address labor problems. The study would identify areas needing improvement and monitor changes over time. This is important because labor shortages are causing unrest, safety issues, and lost productivity. Without independent data on employee perceptions, management relies on assumptions and biased information, missing early warning signs. A systematic study providing structured data on the workforce can help engage employees, reduce unrest, ensure safety, and increase productivity and profits.

1. Understand your workforce
A Tracking Study to mitigate Labour Problems by
understanding changes in attitude, behaviour and
satisfaction levels of the workforces.

2. Tracking Study to mitigate Labour Problems
• We propose an Exercise to better understand the
workforces.
• The exercise will be targeted towards providing relevant
information for eliminating labour problems.
• It will highlight the specific areas where some action is
required, to smoothen the relationship between
management and workforces.
• Periodic re-runs of the exercise will ensure monitoring of
improvements or changes over the time.
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3. Expected outcome . . .
The study will provide relevant information that can be
further used for :
• Employee engagement
• Ensure safe and disciplined working environment
• Reduce attrition at all levels
• Increase productivity
• Raise profitability
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4. Why is it important . . .
(to understand your workforce)
Labour is scare . . . courtesy MNREGA / Govt. Policies and the
present socio economic setup.
Following are the findings of a survey conducted by FICCI
between Aug – Sept 2011.
 90 % of industries across India have admitted facing
a labour shortage.
 89 % of the industrialists have affirmed having faced
major problems in completing clients’ orders due to
the shortage.
 82 % of industrialists have admitted that they have to raise wages in
excess of 10 % because of shortage of labour, while 16 % have
admitted to have raised wages between 5-10%.
Source : http://ficci.com/SEDocument/20165/FICCI_Labour_Survey.pdf
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5. Why is it important . . .
(to understand your workforce)
Labour disputes cause huge production loss
 As per a reply in the Lok Sabha by labour and welfare minister
Sh. Mallikarjun Kharge, the production loss due to labour unrest
and strikes during 2011, was three times higher than the 2010
figures.
As we see it, shortage of manpower has lead to an increase in
labour unrest. It has the potential to escalate problems in future.
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6. Why is it important . . .
(to understand your workforce)
Labor unrest cause serious safety and discipline issues.
 Sep. 22, 2008: Sh. Lalit Kishore Choudhary, MD
and CEO of an Italian MNC, Graziano
Trasmissioni, bludgeoned to death by a 200-
strong mob of dismissed workers.
 Nov. 14, 2010: In a similar incident, Sh. Joginder
Singh, AGM HR of Indo-Japanese company Allied
Nippon, was critically injured when senior staff
members and workers clashed within factory
premises. Case was registered against 26 known
and 350 unknown workers.

7. Why is it important . . .
(to understand your workforce)
Labor unrest cause serious safety and discipline issues.
• June 12, 2011 : Sanjay Kumar Singh, HR
Manager in Delphi Thermal Systems, was
attacked near Parasvanath Platinum.
• April 4, 2012 : The AGM (HR) of Honda
SIEL, Ravinder Singh, was attacked by
local criminals for not hiring their
candidates.
• April 7, 2012 : N.N.Shahji, HR Head of
CKD Japanese company, was roughed up
by miscreants after he sacked the
supervisor of his company.

8. Why is it important . . .
(to understand your workforce)
Labor unrest cause serious safety and discipline issues.
 Maruti Udyog alone suffered a loss in
excess of `2500 Crores due to labour
unrest during the year 2011.
 Over 127 analysts, investors and fund
managers participated in a conference
call with Sonu Gujjar, president of
Maruti Suzuki Employee Union, which
was not recognised by the carmaker.
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9. Why is it important . . .
(to understand your workforce)
Labor unrest cause serious safety and discipline issues.
 Maruti / Suzuki had to pay `4.2 – 4.8
Crores to leades of its striking
workers’ leaders.
 Later July 2012 saw labour unrest
reappear, and claim one life (Shri
Awanish Kumar Dev, Plant GM HR)
and left 90 officials injured, within
factory premises.
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10. Why is it important . . .
(to understand your workforce)
 Even the largest of MNCs are not immune to these problems,
Hyundai, Honda, Nokia, Bosch, Pricol are some of the leading
names, that have faced major issues with labour forces
during recent years.
One can easily conclude that better compensations and facilities
alone are not sufficient to keep the labour problems at bay.
Sources :
http://www.livemint.com/2012/07/18223855/One-killed-in-clash-at-Maruti.html?atype=tp
http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2010-11-14/delhi/28267129_1_labour-union-contract-workers-factory
http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2008-09-23/delhi/27930491_1_india-unit-graziano-trasmissioni-commercial-production
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/business/india-business/The-return-of-labour-unrest/articleshow/6216532.cms
http://www.livemint.com/2011/11/08005315/Maruti8217s-deal-with-union.html
http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2011-10-15/news/30283501_1_maruti-suzuki-employees-union-labour-unrest-sonu-gujjar
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11. Why is it important . . .
(to understand your workforce)
• Affected Industries loose competitive
edge to other companies where
there are no labour problems.
• There is a possibility of capital
erosion as investors prefer
companies that are free of labour
issues.
• It affects the reputation of the affected companies, as the
clients, financers, vendors and even employees tend to avoid
companies with labour unrest.
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12. Root causes of the problem
Communication gap between management and workforce
• Guess work in understanding the labour
forces.
• Management normally gets biased
information.
• Lack of skilled manpower to handle the
serious issues.
• Absence of independent and systematically
collected, structured information.
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13. Guess work in understanding labour forces.
• Decision takers and their representatives assume that they
know their workforces very well as they spend their days
and nights with them . . . . had this been true the “labour
problems” would have never occurred anywhere.
– Fact of the matter is, they do know their workforces for
sure, but not as well as they should.
• Understanding Human Behaviour is a quite challenging, all
of us have seen people going wrong while understanding
the same for their family members. Claiming to
understand workforces on the basis of one’s judgment is
perhaps too tall a claim.
– Correctly accessing labour forces’ behaviour is very
difficult.
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14. Early Warning Signals are ignored
as those are not backed by data.
• As there is no structured information, the early warning signals
are generally ignored by management.
• When systematically collected data point at a majorly negative
behaviour or gross dissatisfaction, it will be surely taken more
seriously by the stake holders.
Decisions taken on the basis of guess work / gut feelings
/ assumptions may go wrong and create
misunderstandings, which transform into much bigger
issues at a later stage.
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15. Management normally gets biased information.
• The information providers in this case are part of the management
team or middle level employee, as they are not independent from
the management the info provided is generally biased.
• Normally a middle management employee finds it difficult to say /
suggest anything that he thinks the management will not
appreciate . . . . . even if it is very important.
Many times the decisions influenced by such feedback are not in
the best interest of the company.
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16. Lack of skilled manpower
to handle the serious issues.
Quite a few companies lack skilled people at
different levels, to interact with the labour
forces with desired maturity and sensitivity.
Most companies lack a proper system to
access the capability of (and train) the junior
or middle level managers that directly interact
with the workers.
This creates unnecessary communication
gap, which later causes big issues.
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17. Absence of structured information
that is collected systematically and independently.
Most companies lack systematically collected unbiased information on
labour forces’ behaviour, attitude and satisfaction level.
Our believe is that such information can help in :
 Understanding labour forces
 Minimise the guess work involved
 Mitigate the communication gap
 Provide prior information on major dissatisfaction that can
lead to unrest
 Can assist in comparing satisfaction levels of different
sections of workforces
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18. Solution
Solution lies in eliminating communication
gap between management and the labour
forces.
Management should have access to the
systematically collected structured
information on manpower’s behaviour,
attitude and satisfaction level.
This information helps in bridging the gap
between management and labour forces.
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19. How it works . .
• Representatives of SKS interact with a few
people from workforces, staff and
management, and take note of the various
relevant issues.
• On the bases of identified issues they
design questionnaires for different stake
holders.
• These questionnaires are then administered by trained
interviewers on a one to one basis.
• The collected data is compiled and analysed very carefully.
• The analysed data is reported in a structured manner.
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20. Improvement Process – Committed Work Environment
Survey Employees for
opinions and
perceptions
Take Action and Analyse
Communicate Results
Results
Continuous Improvement
Process High Commitment
Work Environment
Communicate Communicate
Action Plans Findings
Set Priorities
& Action Plans
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21. The Report . .
May provide necessary data to implement strategies
that has the potential to :
– Improve employee engagement
– Minimize the chances of labour unrest
– Ensure better relations between labour,
supervisory staff and management
– Eliminate Communication gaps within
organisation
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22. The Report . . .
May provide necessary data to implement strategies
that has the potential to :
– Reduce attritions in a big way
– Ensure a much better working
environment
– Enhance Safety and discipline
– More effective implementation of
Reforms
– Raise productivity and profitability
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23. The Report . .
• May warn against a particular reform, that if
implemented can cause problems.
– Management may take a call to communicate the details
differently or fine-tune certain areas of the reform in order to
make it more acceptable.
• May indicate that a certain division or department is
scoring lower on certain important parameter /
parameters.
– Management can consider identifying reasons and training /
motivating the concerned teams / supervisors / officials to
sort this out, and bridge the gaps.
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24. Concluding Remarks
• Labour is scare, and it is going to remain so for a long time.
• Labour unrest cause serious safety and discipline issues.
• Labour issues waste lots of productive time and money
• Affected Companies loose credibility among clients, investors,
financers and even employees.
• It is difficult to understand workers without an independently
collected structured information on employees’ behaviour, attitude
and satisfaction.
• The Exercise may provide necessary information to
– Keep labour problems at bay
– Raise employee engagement
– Raise productivity and profitability
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25. Puneet Gulati
E-Mail : puneet.gulati@candidconsultants.net
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