Octapac Culture To Promote Inclusiveness Management Essay
Manufacturing industry is witnessing the face-off between management and labour in recent times, to the extent of workmen indulging in violence at the workplace and attacking HR and top company executives. This grim employee relations scenario highlights the need for the Organizations to review the existing work climate and identify areas to improve and make it more inclusive for employees. The present study aims to explore extent of HRD climate prevalent in manufacturing organizations and suggest areas for improvement based on the perception of workers.
Methodology: Data collection is made from a sample size of 314 workmen of select manufacturing organizations by administering a standard HRD Climate questionnaire. The variables studied were, General HRD Climate, OCTAPAC Culture and HRD Mechanism. The data were analyzed using statistical tools like frequencies, mean, standard deviation, and ANOVA to understand the employee perceptions and make suggestions for making the organizational climate more inclusive.
Findings: The results indicate that there is a gap between desired and actual levels of OCTAPAC Culture. Organizations despite providing comparatively higher salaries and a host of welfare measures seem to be possessing average level of HRD Climate. Factors like: lack of top management initiative in identifying and developing employee potential, employees not taking the given feedback seriously and similar reasons contribute to this state of affairs and hence offers a lot of scope for improvement. This study reveals the fact that much more can be done by organizations for development of HRD Climate by top management’s further involvement in employee development, supervisors showing more concern and maturity in handling employees and guiding them, seniors mentoring juniors in career development and fine tuning HRD Mechanisms.
Originality/Value: The study reinforces the need for organizations to review its workplace climate based on the employee perceptions and strive for a culture that inculcates in workers the feeling of being a part of the organization. The findings of the study is based on the perception of workers and hence can be used by employers, HR practioners and scholars to know the current trends and further their understanding of HRD Climate existing in manufacturing organizations.
Key words: HRD Climate, OCTAPAC, Manufacturing, Workers, Management, Employee
NEED FOR ‘OCTAPAC’ CULTURE TO PROMOTE INCLUSIVENESS IN MANUFACTURING ORGANIZATIONS
Introduction
Today’s work place is very different and has evolved into a very complex phenomena comprising latest technology and machinery at one end and workmen belonging to different generations and diverse backgrounds at the other end. Managements on the other hand are finding it difficult to keep employees motivated to perform their roles effectively in spite of increased wage bills, safety norms and a host of other employee friendly measures. Added to this, Trade Unions with vested interests and political background have been expanding their control over workmen driving a wedge between them and the employers. As a result, across India the manufacturing industry is witnessing unprecedented incidents like the one recently happened in Maruthi Motors plant at Manesar.
Reacting to the recent violence at Maruti’s Manesar Plant, the National HRD Network executive committee has expressed its concern at the increasing frequency of such incidents in the recent past, be it at Pricol, or Madras Cements or Regency Ceramics or Honda Motorcycle, which clearly highlights the present turbulent situation witnessed in the manufacturing sector. Such incidents would have a severe impact on the brand equity of India, and also impact long-term competitiveness of Indian industry. With Employee Relations being an essential competence of the Human Resource portfolio, the NHRD Network strives to inculcate professional conduct, practices and processes, which foster industrial harmony and a culture of collaboration and mutuality. The Board resolved to further strengthen its efforts in this area by taking concrete and visible steps to help create a congenial industrial atmosphere and reinforce a climate of alignment and harmony, where differences if any are resolved through dialogue and within the established frameworks.
Assaults and other violent acts or threats that occur in or are related to the workplace and entail a substantial risk of physical or emotional harm to individuals or damage to company resources or capabilities. Workplace violence may involve employees, clients and vendors of the affected organization as well as those who do not have a relationship with the organization but who may know the intended victims.
The recent King’s State of HR Survey reveals that Employee engagement remains the primary HR challenge and Organizations are failing to deal with the primary sources of staff grievances and relations between staff and management are the largest driver of employee complaints. The nature of industrial relations is changing as evident from the recent workplace violence incidents. Hence there is an urgent need to develop a system that embraces all workers especially given India’s demographic profile and the need to maintain good relationship with the employees. The priority of every organization should be to avoid any dispute between union and management as early as possible and improve relations so as to ensure industrial peace and higher productivity.
Literature review and the development of objectives
HRD CLIMATE
Human resource development climate is an integral part of organizational climate. It can be defined as perceptions the employee can have on the developmental environment of an organization. This developmental climate will have the following characteristics:
A tendency at all levels starting from top management to the lowest level to treat the people as the most important resource; Perception that developing the competencies in the employees is the job of every manager/supervisor; faith in the capability of employees to change and acquire new competencies at any stage of life; a tendency to be open in communications and discussions rather than being secretive (fairly free expression of feelings); encouraging risk-taking and experimentation; making efforts to help employees reorganize their strengths and weakness through feedback; a general climate of trust; a tendency on the part of employees to be generally helpful to each other and collaborate with each other; team spirit; tendency to discourage stereotypes and favoritism; supportive personnel policies; supportive human resource development practices including performance appraisal, training, reward management, potential development, job-rotation career planning etc. (Rao and Abraham, 1996).
HRD is the process of improving, moulding and changing skills, knowledge, creative abilities, aptitude, attitude, values, commitment, etc., based on present and future job and organizational requirements. HRD Climate is a measure of the perceptions about the prevailing nature of HRD (Rodrigues and Chincholkar, 2005).
Market-share, sales-turnover and profitability are lagging indicators of organizational performance. On the contrary, organizational climate is a leading indicator of organizational performance. Functional organizational climate leads to enhancement of personal, role and organizational effectiveness. Understanding the determinants of organizational climate is helpful in finding ways and means for strengthening the functional climate and de-emphasizing the dysfunctional climate (Srivastav, 2010).
HRD climate is an integral part of the organizational climate. It contributes to the overall health and self-renewing capabilities of the individuals, dyads and team of the entire organization. The top management of the company must emphasize on the quality of work life and welfare measures for employees, which can infuse in them the team spirit and sense of belongingness. Management of the organization must ensure healthy and friendly working climate and fine welfare measures for the employees at all levels (Khan and Tarab, 2012).
Organizational climate depends on the perception of the organizational members. Perception is influenced by the personality of the perceiver, his upbringing, education and experiential learning. Personal variables would therefore, qualify as some of the determinants of organizational climate (Srivastav, 2006).
HRD Climate is extremely important for the ultimate achievement of the business goals. It is a phenomenon experienced by employees and often referred to by expressions like ‘environment’, ‘atmosphere’ and so on. Climate at the individual level is a summary perception of the organization’s work environment that is descriptive rather than evaluative in nature, HRD climate has a definite impact on job satisfaction, attitude towards work and role efficacy which in turn gives impetus to the overall functioning of the institution (Balamurali and Pragadeeswaran, 2010).
A congenial HRD climate is essential for sharpening competencies as well as motivating employees to perform exceptionally (Mohanty et.al, 2012).
OCTAPAC CULTURE
Openness, confrontation, trust, autonomy, pro-activity, authenticity, and collaboration (OCTAPAC) culture is essential for facilitating HRD. Openness is present when employees feel free to discuss their ideas, activities, and feelings with each other. By confrontation, problems and issues are brought out into the open with a view to solving them rather than hiding them for fear of hurting or getting hurt. Trust is taking people at their face value and believing what they say. Autonomy is giving freedom to let people work independently with responsibility. Proactivity is encouraging employees to take initiative and risk. Authenticity is the tendency on the part of the people to do what they say. Collaboration is to accept interdependencies, to be helpful to each other, and work as teams (Rao and Abraham, 1986).
There is a need for conducive HRD climate which is a sum of perceptions of members about the organization and its HRD philosophy , systems and practices, prevalent in the form of values of openness, confrontation, trust, authenticity, proaction, autonomy, collaboration, experimentation (which are also called OCTAPACE elements). In the presence of these values, there exists harmony for the conduct of HRD practices, which are strategically evolved. HRD instruments if implemented properly should lead to OCTAPACE Culture, which in turn results in more competent, satisfied and committed people, thereby making the organization grow (Mufeed, 2006).
Past research studies done by Solkhe and Chaudhary (2011), Saxena and Tiwari, (2009), Hyde.et.al., (2008), Benjamin, (2011), Srimannarayana, (2009), Mohanty.et.al., (2012) and Benjamin (2012) reveal that the congenial OCTAPACE culture is extremely important for promoting the organizational effectiveness and good Governance.
Employees have attitudes or viewpoints about many aspects of their jobs, their careers, and their organizations. Greater insights on the relationship between employee attitudes and business performance will assist HR professionals as they strive to enhance the essential people side of the business in a highly competitive, global arena. Employee surveys, used effectively, can be catalysts for improving employee attitudes and producing organizational change (Saari and Judge, 2004).
Keeping in view the paramount importance of managing people at work places effectively, the present study focused on the need for promoting favourable OCTAPACE culture in manufacturing organizations. Towards this objective and based on the literature review the following dimensions of HRD Climate have been taken for this study: 1. General climate, 2. OCTAPAC culture, 3. HRD mechanisms.
RESEARCH QUESTIONS
1. What is the level of HRD climate prevailing in manufacturing organizations?
2. What is the level of top management support for HRD in the select organizations?
3. How are the manufacturing organizations faring in terms of OCTAPAC Culture?
4. To what extent are HRD Mechanisms effective in these organizations?
5 Do demographic factors influence perceptions of employees on HRD climate in these organizations?
Methodology
This study is descriptive in nature. Based on the literature review and keeping in view the topic selected for study namely HRD Climate, manufacturing industry was considered appropriate. Accordingly, a representative sample of five companies in Hosur-Bangalore region was selected for study. The selection of the manufacturing units for study was based on the criteria that the particular unit is in existence for atleast 20 years having a well established HR Department with reasonable HR Policies. Confirmed employees in the workmen cadre with a minimum of 5 years experience in the select companies were considered for study. Satisfying the above guidelines, there were about 4000 employees in five select companies and targeting 10 per cent as sample size, about 400 questionnaires were circulated. With the best of the efforts only 314 questionnaires could be obtained completely filled. Keeping in view the profile of the respondents, the type of questionnaires to be filled and the time involved for the select method of data collection, the response obtained is fairly reasonable.
Personal interview method was considered as an appropriate option for this study. The data collection took place in the period April to July 2012. Data collected was then and there checked for completion of details and wherever required additional information was requested and recorded. The collected information was processed through SPSS package and the following tools namely Mean, Standard Deviation and Co-efficient of Variation for selected variables were employed to assess the degree of representation and variation
This present study has been done by administering the Questionnaire developed by Rao and Abraham (1986). Human Resource Development (HRD) Climate is a concept proposed by Rao and Abraham (1986) to explain the environment provided by organizations for the learning and development of its employees. The HRD climate survey questionnaire was developed by T.V. Rao and E. Abraham at the XLRI Center for HRD. This includes items both on the policies and practices for HRD in an organization. This instrument is developed to measure the HRD Climate consisting of 38 items by dividing them into three categories i.e., the first category is General Climate, second one is OCTAPAC Culture the third category is HRD mechanism such as training, performance appraisal, potential appraisal, organization development, feedback, and performance coaching, career planning, rewards, employee welfare, quality of work life and human resource information systems.
The essence of the HRD climate can be well gauged from the amount of importance that is given to the development of OCTAPAC culture in the Organization. T. V. Rao introduced the concept of OCTAPAC culture as a good progressive way of building organizations. Udai Pareek and T.V. Rao pioneered the concept of HR Culture and propounded the OCTAPAC Culture comprising seven factors namely, Openness, Confrontation, Trust, Autonomy, Pro-activity, Authenticity and Collaboration. An E for Empowerment and Experimentation was later added and it became OCTAPACE.
Openness: The spontaneous expression of feelings and thoughts, giving and receiving feedback are the outcomes of openness.
Confrontation: It is defined as facing rather than shying away from problems. Deeper analysis of interpersonal problem is also confrontation.
Trust: It is defined as maintaining the confidentiality of information provided by others and not misusing it.
Authenticity: Congruence should be there in what one feels, says and does.
Proaction: It means taking the initiative, preplanning and taking preventive actions.
Autonomy: It means using and giving freedom to plan and act in one’s own sphere.
Collaboration: Collaboration is giving help to others and asking for help, and working together.
Experimenting: This means using and encouraging innovative approaches to solve problems, encouraging creativity, and taking a fresh look at things.
OCTAPAC culture is essential for facilitating human resource development. Openness is present when employees feel free to discuss their ideas, activities and feelings with each other. Confrontation involves bringing problems and issues into the limelight with a view to solving them, rather than hiding them for fear of hurting or getting hurt. Trust is taking people at face value and believing them. Autonomy is the freedom to allow people to work independently with responsibility. Productivity is encouraging employees to take initiative and risks. Authenticity is the tendency of interdependencies, to be helpful to each other and work as teams. Collaboration is required so the employees can cope up with the changes and upcoming trends in an organization.
Analysis and Discussion
The results of the analysis of the data collected are presented hereunder, with regard to HRD climate dimensions, OCTAPAC culture and HRD mechanisms.
HRD CLIMATE ON SELECTED DIMENSIONS: The results of the analysis are presented in Table-1
Table-1 Prevalence of the HRD climate on the selected dimensions
Category/Dimensions
Mean
Std. Deviation
GENERAL HRD CLIMATE
3.32
0.60
OCTAPAC CULTURE
3.30
0.63
HRD MECHANISMS
3.26
0.63
OVERALL HRD CLIMATE
3.29
0.61
The category wise mean scores presented above with mean score of around 3.3 indicates a moderate tendency on all three dimensions. Since the questionnaire used 5 point scale, Scores around 3.3 indicate the existence of a just above average degree of HRD Climate. Hence, the overall HRD Climate mean score of 3.29 and the standard deviation of the same at 1.05 reveals that the HRD Climate in the select organizations is just average and there is huge scope for improvement. Hence the organizations should take the perception of employees about HRD Climate seriously and strive to fill the gap since there is huge scope for improvement.
GENERAL HRD CLIMATE: To assess General HRD Climate, 11 questions in the survey instrument were asked and the employees’ perceptions pertaining to these 11 items are presented in Table-2. It shows the mean and standard deviation corresponding to general climate prevailing in the organization.
Table-2 Prevalence of General HRD Climate
Item
Mean
Std. Deviation
Q1.The top management of this organization goes out of its way to make sure that employees enjoy their work.
3.56
.910
q2.The top management believes that human resources are an extremely important resource and that the have to be treated more humanly.
3.40
1.029
q3.Development of the subordinates is seen as an Important part of their job by the managers/officers
3.51
.947
q4. The personnel policies in this organization facilitate employee development.
3.31
1.143
q5. The top management is willing to invest a considerable part of their time and other resources to ensure the development of employees.
3.24
1.052
q6. Senior officers/executives in-this organisation take active interest in their juniors and help them learn their job.
3.20
1.048
q7.People lacking competence in doing their jobs are helped to acquire competence rather than being left unattended.
3.33
.914
q8.Managers in this organisation believe that employee behaviour can be changed and people can be developed at any stage of their life.
3.44
1.044
q11.The psychological climate in this organisation is very conducive for any employee interested in developing himself by acquiring new knowledge and skills.
3.38
1.024
q13.The top management of this organisation makes efforts to identify and utilise the potential of the employees.
3.05
1.053
q36.The organisation’s future plans are made known to the managerial staff to help them develop their juniors and prepare them for future.
3.22
1.049
OVERALL GENERAL HRD CLIMATE
3.32
1.019
The overall General HRD Climate mean score of 3.32 with standard deviation of 1.01 indicate a very average status of affairs. Most of the items have shown a just average response varying between 3.05 and 3.56. General HRD Climate is an indicator of top management’s belief in HRD and commitment to its development by investing time and other required resources. While the top management is taking efforts to make sure that employees enjoy their work, they are not doing enough to utilize the full potential of their employees. The top management’s belief in HRD and their willingness to invest resources for development is reasonable as perceived by the employees. The employees also feel that the psychological climate and personnel policies provide them some opportunity for development. The seniors’ interest towards development of juniors and their willingness to help them is just visible and not very high.
OCTAPAC CULTURE: Analysis of responses related to OCTAPAC (Openness, confrontation, trust, autonomy, pro-activity, authenticity, and collaboration) culture are presented in Table-3.
Table-3 Prevalence of OCTAPAC culture
Item
Mean
Std. Deviation
q9. People in this organisation are helpful to each other.
3.39
1.099
q10. Employees in this organisation are very informal and do not hesitate to discuss their Personal problems with their supervisors.
3.22
1.129
q13. The top management of this organisation makes efforts to identify and utilise the potential of the employees.
3.05
1.053
q18. People in this organisation do not have any fixed mental impressions about each other.
3.25
1.029
q19. Employees are encouraged to experiment with new methods and try our creative ideas.
3.58
1.058
q20. When any employee makes a mistake his supervisors treat it with understanding and help him to learn from such mistakes rather than punishing him or discouraging him.
3.17
1.011
q22.When behaviour feedback is given to employees they take it seriously and use it for development
3.06
1.003
q23. Employees in this organisation take pains to find out their strengths and weaknesses from their supervising officer or colleagues.
3.27
1.073
q24. When employees are sponsored for training, they take it seriously and try to learn from the programmes they attended.
3.56
1.048
q25.Employees returning from training programmes are given opportunities to try out what they have learnt
3.24
1.111
q27. People trust each other in this organisation.
3.48
1.067
q28. Employees are not afraid to express or discus their feelings with their superiors.
3.22
1.189
q29. Employees are not afraid to express or discuss their feelings with their subordinates.
3.40
1.000
q30. Employees are encouraged to take initiative and do things on their own without having to wait for instructions from supervisors.
3.41
1.105
q31.Delegation of authority to encourage juniors to develop handling higher responsibilities is quite common in this organisation.
3.34
1.134
q32.When seniors delegate authority to juniors, the juniors use it as an opportunity for development
3.32
1.100
q33. Team spirit is of high order in this organization.
3.40
1.193
q34.When problems arise people discuss these problems openly and try to solve them rather than keep accusing each other behind the back
3.18
1.056
q36. The organisation’s future plans are made known to the managerial staff to help them develop their juniors and prepare them for future.
3.22
1.049
OCTAPAC CULTURE
3.30
1.079
The overall OCTAPAC culture mean score of 3.30 with standard deviation of 1.07 indicate average level of OCTOPAC culture. Looking in detail at the various items of OCTOPAC Culture, the scores vary between 3.05 and 3.58. While encouragement for innovation and creativity comes first, employees’ seriousness to learn from training comes close second and top managements efforts in identifying, utilizing the potential of employees and giving feedback for their development comes last.
INDIVIDUAL DIMENSIONS OF OCTAPAC CULTURE: Among the seven dimensions of OCTAPAC Culture, as far as this study is concerned, Autonomy scores the highest followed by proactivity, collaboration, trust and authenticity. Openness and confrontation both score at the same level and are at the lowest level.
OPENNESS
In the present study, the mean scores of four items of Openness vary between 3.22 and 3.40, with an overall average of 3.27 indicating a medium level of openness existing. The employees’ willingness to share their feelings among themselves and subordinates seems to be greater than that of their sharing with superiors. Hence there is a need for improving the superior sub-ordinate relationships which takes care of most of the day to day problems.
CONFRONTATION
The mean scores of the four items concerning confrontation between 3.18 to 3.40 with the overall score of 3.27 indicate the existence of average confrontational climate. While open discussion and problem solving environment scores the lowest, employees sharing the feelings with their subordinates scores the highest. .
TRUST
Observation of mean scores of three items of trust that ranges between 3.17 to 3.48 and the overall score of 3.33 highlights the fact a climate of trust exists to a reasonable level although not very high. While the employees trust in each other scores high, the support from supervisors in needy situations seems to be low.
AUTONOMY
As far as this study is concerned, an overall mean score of 3.38 indicates that the employees are given a reasonable level of autonomy in their roles. The five items of autonomy possesses average mean scores between 3.24 and 3.58, with the opportunities for implementation of learned things scoring low and avenues for experimenting with new methods and creative methods scoring high. Delegation of authority to juniors, encouragement for individuals taking responsibilities and juniors using the provided autonomy scores in between.
PROACTIVITY
The three items covering proactivity has mean scores between 3.05 and 3.58. While encouragement for employees to experiment and innovate scored high, the top management’s efforts in utilizing the potential of employees scored low with opportunities for employees to do things on their own scoring in between. The overall mean score of 3.35 shows that the company is providing a climate which promotes proactivity although at an average level.
AUTHENTICITY
The overall mean score of 3.29 shows that authenticity is existing to a reasonable extent. While the employees are taking the opportunities for learning seriously, their seriousness towards accepting behaviour feedback scores low.
COLLABORATION
Analysing the mean scores of three items contributing to collaboration which varies between 3.22 and 3.40 and the overall mean score at 3.34, the collaboration among the workers and with their supervisors seems to be happening at satisfactory levels. Team spirit seems to be scoring better than helping nature among employees while seniors helping their juniors to take up future roles seem to be faring lesser.
HRD MECHANISMS: In case of HRD Mechanisms the overall mean stands at 3.26 with a standard deviation of 1.06 indicating average degree of implementation. While employee’s seriousness towards training scores highest, the seniors helping juniors in utilizing career opportunities scores low. Other mechanisms like: Performance Appraisal, rewards, mentoring, training, feedback etc., show average mean scores highlighting the fact that HRD mechanisms are just working right even though they are not creating very high impact.
IMPACT OF DEMOGRAPHIC VARIABLES ON HRD CLIMATE: The demographic variables namely, gender, qualification and income have been studied and presented in the Table-4.1 to Table-4.3.1
Table 4.1 GENDER ON HRD CLIMATE
Gender
N
Mean
Std. Deviation
Minimum
Maximum
Male
205
3.3461
.62860
1.30
4.47
Female
109
3.2522
.56350
1.30
4.26
Total
314
3.3139
.60779
1.30
4.47
Table-4.1.1 ANOVA
Sum of Squares
df
Mean Square
F
Sig.
Between Groups
0.620
1
.620
1.682
.196
Within Groups
114.265
310
.369
Total
114.885
311
Table-4.2 QUALIFICATION ON HRD CLIMATE
Qualification
N
Mean
Std. Deviation
Minimum
Maximum
SSLC
163
3.3280
.62992
1.30
4.47
ITI
113
3.2824
.58914
1.30
4.39
HSC
38
3.3797
.57490
2.03
4.32
Total
314
3.3179
.60796
1.30
4.47
Table-4.2.1 ANOVA
Sum of Squares
df
Mean Square
F
Sig.
Between Groups
.304
2
.152
.410
.664
Within Groups
115.384
311
.371
Total
115.688
313
Table-4.3 INCOME ON HRD CLIMATE
Monthly Income
N
Mean
Std. Deviation
Minimum
Maximum
< 20K
65
3.4622
.54713
2.03
4.45
21- 30 K
178
3.2783
.62039
1.30
4.47
> 31K
71
3.2850
.61756
1.30
4.39
Total
314
3.3179
.60796
1.30
4.47
Table-4.3.1 ANOVA
Sum of Squares
Df
Mean Square
F
Sig.
Between Groups
1.709
2
.854
2.331
.099
Within Groups
113.980
311
.366
Total
115.688
313
The analysis shows that none of the variables taken for study show significant values and hence it can be inferred that demographic factors like gender, qualification and income levels does not influence the perceptions of employees regarding HRD Climate.
MANAGERIAL IMPLICATIONS OF THIS STUDY
The objective of this study is to reiterate the need for a conducive HRD Climate in terms of OCTAPAC Culture in manufacturing industry in the context of several incidents of work place violence in the past few years which has threatened the image of the sector and already strained relationship between the top management and the union cadre employees. Of late, the face off between management and workers in the manufacturing industry highlight serious lack of trust, transparency and authenticity between the two. Hence this study on HRD Climate in carefully select sample of manufacturing companies serves as an indicator to understand the trends based on employee perceptions about three important components of HRD Climate namely general climate, OCTAPAC Culture and HRD Mechanisms.
Analysis of overall picture shows that only an average HRD Climate exists in these organizations leaving a huge scope for improvement. Category wise implementation of HRD mechanisms seems to be less prevalent while General HRD Climate is more prevalent and Octapac culture is in-between. Also, demographic variables like gender, age, qualification, experience and pay have very little impact in determining the HRD climate of the organizations covered under study. The perception of employees is uniform and does not vary much due to pay scales, experience, gender and qualification.
Detailed item wise analysis of the findings of the present study has the following implications for the top management and the shop floor supervisors of manufacturing organizations:
The top management has to concentrate more on proper identification and utilization of employee potential, providing scope for experimenting innovative ideas and extending a helping hand to the juniors in learning the job. The management should educate the supervisors and other management staff on the future plans of the organization so that they can develop the juniors accordingly.
There is an urgent need to promote the culture of openness where employees can freely discuss their problems whether personal or official with their supervisors and get help when needed. Supervisors must respond in a matured and understanding manner when employees commit mistakes by not victimizing them instead extending a helping hand and improving trust. They should provide employees with authentic feedback on their behaviour.
Employees should be prompted to voluntarily approach the supervisors to find out their strengths and weaknesses and strive for personal development accordingly. Employees should be given a sense of autonomy so that they grab the opportunities to shoulder higher responsibilities and prepare themselves for future roles in the organization.
This study highlights the need for more transparency and efficiency in HRD Mechanisms to allay fears of employees regarding bias in promotions, ensure appreciation from immediate bosses in case of good work by employees, gentle way of feedback to employees on their shortcomings, mentoring of juniors by seniors on career growth opportunities utilization and implementing employee welfare measures to an extent that employees can concentrate their full energies towards the organizational goals while at work.
TO SUM UP
The findings of the study highlight the existence of average HRD Climate in spite of reasonable pay, welfare schemes, training programmes and a host of other employee friendly initiatives that too in reputed companies. This study underlines the need for more involvement of top management’s time and other resources towards employee development, more transparent HRD mechanisms, an open climate which promotes communication and trust between workmen and superiors need to involve workmen more and more to make them strive for their own development and achievement of organizational goals.
The findings of the study are in line with the existing knowledge of HRD Climate and the present happenings of industrial unrest both of which advocate trust between top management and workmen for a congenial organizational climate. Further good rapport, belief in each other and open communication between the two is prescribed as essential for a harmonious climate where they can together strive for individual as well as organizational goals.
The findings also indicate certain positive trends like employees freely discussing among themselves to solve problems and taking training programes seriously for learning, The top management has to make use of them and supplement with required involvement and support. While there is belief in top management about the human resources in their organizations and believe they can be changed at any point of time, there is not enough efforts and action to replicate the same in practice.
This study reiterates the fact that much more can be done by organizations for development of HRD Climate by top management’s further involvement in employee development, supervisors showing more concern and maturity in handling employees and guiding them, seniors mentoring juniors in career development and fine tuning HRD Mechanisms.
The present study has certain limitations that offer scope for future research. This study has been based on perceptions of workmen of representative sample of companies in manufacturing organizations and hence may not be not applicable to other types of organizations. Further, the sample consisted only of workers cadre and further research may be conducted among top management, middle management and supervisory personnel. The data is based on individual opinion, which may bring in some bias. To improve the acceptability of the results, it needs to be extended to other sectors and also public limited companies.
The findings of the study is based on the perception of workers and hence can be used by employers, HR practioners and scholars to know the current trends and further their understanding of HRD Climate existing in manufacturing organizations. The study helps the organizations to know and focus on factors they need to address for improvement of HRD Climate. The study while reinforcing the findings of earlier studies also enriches the knowledge on the subject with additional findings and adding current trends.
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