In 2023, Puthran & Associates, an all-women intellectual property law firm in India, was grappling with challenges in employee retention as women employees resigned or relocated due to family commitments. Elizabeth Puthran, the firm’s founder–partner, believed strongly in her founding policy decision that P&A be an all-women team of lawyers and attorneys. Yet with the increasing departures of its employees, the firm needed to balance maintaining a women-centric workplace with ensuring operational stability and growth. While Puthran’s authentic leadership style emphasized inclusivity and talent development, she needed to consider potential policy adjustments to improve retention and employee satisfaction.
Rhonda Klosler, chief operating officer at RSM Canada (RSM) is chairing a meeting to discuss post-COVID-19 pandemic work design. RSM has recognized that remote work offers employees greater flexibility and work satisfaction, while giving RSM the opportunity to recruit from remote locations. RSM would like to continue remote work. Focusing specifically on Generation Z, Klosler is seeking recommendations on the ideal work design. Specifically, how should remote and in-person work be balanced? How can RSM continue to build and maintain its company culture with employees who work remotely? What will a new approach to work mean for the other employee generational cohorts?
This case encapsulates the challenges faced by Jegan Damodaraswamy in extending the core competency of quality and customer service for the renowned Hotel Annapoorna, in Coimbatore, India. In addition, he had to figure out how to overcome the hurdles after his grandfather’s death and retain the organization’s legacy. Damodaraswamy was a third-generation entrepreneur who took over the business as chief executive officer in 2023. Since taking over, he has introduced many changes and instilled business ethics in the organization. The organization bloomed under his leadership. However, COVID-19 caused a slump in the organization. They were unable to employ a full staff, and sales plunged drastically. How would Annapoorna rebuild its brand and reposition itself? Would Damodaraswamy re-envision his grandfather’s aspirations and strengthen the brand value? Should he drive toward transforming the organization and redefining its vision? The case illustrates change management in an organization and the trade-off between expanding a sustainably profitable core competency and growth to its other verticals.
Bosch Automotive Product (Changsha) Ltd Co, is a leading automotive parts manufacturer, and a wholly-owned subsidiary of Bosch, a multinational engineering and technology company headquartered in Gerlingen, Germany. Since 2020, Bosch Changsha had accelerated its digital transformation through building an organizational culture that embraces digital innovation. By designing and implementing a portfolio of digital initiatives and programs, Bosch Changsha managed to establish a culture that embraces digital transformation and inspires employees to contribute to organizational change. Meanwhile, despite the significant success, the company also faced the question of how to continue leveraging culture to drive future digital transformation.
As she prepared for the Hershey Company Investor Day, CEO Michele Buck knew the importance of equity, diversity and inclusion (EDI); the importance of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) practices; and that EDI within corporate social responsibility (CSR) was key to Hershey’s valuable brand image, engaged employees, and effective business relationships. “Children’s wellbeing is at the heart of who we are as a company. This goes back to our founder, Milton S. Hershey, who cared deeply about children.” However, the company depended on cocoa beans from West Africa and had not yet honoured a 2001 industry-wide pledge to uproot child labour in global supply chains. Hershey was committed to improved practices but had not yet reached its goals. What if Hershey’s largest customer in its largest market decided to drop Hershey products? What if socially conscious institutional investors decided to sell their shares? How could the CEO avoid these disastrous scenarios and reassure both customers and investors?
In March 2023, the founders of the Strategic Human Resource Leadership Journey were reviewing the program’s great success across India since its launch in 2004. The initiative was intended to develop and prepare India’s HR leaders for the future. With a strategic business focus, it instilled enduring personal and professional transformations in the program’s participants. However, the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 induced unprecedented changes for the program and across the world. The result was a shift toward a mix of physical and digital offerings, referred to as a “phygital” context. The program’s architects recognized that there was a compelling need to modify the design of the initiative. In 2021–22, they offered a three-phase hybrid model that aimed to capture the best of both the physical and digital formats. However, participants lamented the lack of emotional connection and opportunities to develop deep relationships. How could the program leverage the new technology of the “phygital” world but sustain the emotional quality of the in-person residential format?
<p align="justify">This case examines the diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) hiring- and retention-related challenges encountered by Amazon.com’s FAR1 location in Fargo, North Dakota, at the end of 2021. John Sabo, FAR1’s general manager and hiring team leader, had one main goal: to hire and train a diverse team of 1,446 Amazonians by the facility’s opening date in December 2021. However, there were many barriers to achieving this goal, including potential candidates’ negative perception of Amazon’s workplace environment due to its negative track record of employee safety and well-being, especially with regard to under-represented groups. To complicate matters, there was a limited supply of qualified, under-represented candidates in Fargo. Could Sabo and his team find a way to meet Amazon’s DEI goals while also ensuring adequate staffing? Were there solutions they had overlooked? Should they develop separate strategies for managers and employees? Further complicating the team’s decision, DEI initiatives were not universally embraced, and there were questions on the efficacy of DEI programs. The success of FAR1 and its potential to serve as a blueprint for future warehouse expansion hung in the balance.
In the era of artificial intelligence (AI), data and algorithms have been increasingly incorporated into organizations’ talent management in general and recruitment processes in particular. The case discusses the experience of the China-based technology giant Baidu Inc. (Baidu) during its implementation and incorporation of AI in its recruitment process. It introduces the new trend of intelligent recruitment, addressing the transformation toward it, its technical functions, and the operational model and value creation it enables. It also explores the challenges and future opportunities in the use of AI for talent management.
The Tata Group took over control of the loss-making state-owned Air India and the airlines it operated it operated from the Government of India on January 27, 2022. The Tata Group now faces financial performance issues and lags behind one of the leading aviation industry front-runners in India in terms of market share. The re-acquisition of Air India also brought about challenges of how to amalgamate three diverse cultures to make a single Tata Group culture, and how to inculcate the Tata Group’s values to turn Air India profitable. What should Air India do if employees are not integrated with Tata Group culture? Air India leadership is weighing its various options and pondering whether to integrate three airlines and become one of the prominent airlines in the country and the world, or operate them autonomously as economy or premium airlines without amalgamating the diverse cultures.
V-shesh Learning Services Private Limited (v-shesh), an enterprise recognized for its social impact, had been dedicated to promoting disability inclusion since its founding in 2009. Established by two college friends, v-shesh aimed to bridge the gap between persons with disabilities (PWD)/disadvantaged youth and organizations that viewed inclusion as an opportunity. The company’s very dynamic staff and robust processes and activities were dedicated to achieving its goals concerning the employment of PWD. Some of the challenges PWD faced included limited access to assistive technology, a lack of clarity regarding the specific interview processes employers had adopted for PWD, and negative attitudes and biases held by nondisabled individuals.
The case describes the journey of Associated Capsules Group World (ACG World) in implementing initiatives to bring about diversity and inclusion (D&I) within the organization. Nikita Panchal, global head of talent and organizational development at ACG World, was given the responsibility for improving D&I in 2020. She began with a vision of bringing about a change where inclusion would become the norm instead of a stand-alone activity. The case elaborates on ACG World’s D&I journey within a male-dominated manufacturing industry. It outlines the key initiatives that were implemented, which stemmed from the formation of five workstreams: community; capability building; processes and policies; associate life cycle; and communication. The case allows for a critical review of ACG World’s journey and considers ways to build a strong case for D&I to bring on board senior leaders.
The director of Yashashvi Rasayan Pvt. Ltd. (YRPL) was satisfied with the plant’s productivity for the financial year 2022–23. Part of the Yash Group, a reputable family-based chemical manufacturer in India since the 1950s, YRPL had exceeded the threshold capacity of 333 metric tons over the last four months, positively affecting the profit and loss statement. Despite this success, the director remained concerned about the safety culture and people-related issues within the organization. After a successful business transformation initiated two years ago, the director pondered whether the success was due to incremental improvement efforts or to the principles of organizational development (OD). He congratulated the leadership team and asked the head of leadership and OD to arrange a meeting with key stakeholders to discuss the next phase of transformation.
In October 2021, the founder and chief executive officer of Microsign Products Ltd. in Bhavnagar, Gujarat, India, was planning to expand the company, but wanted to ensure consistency for employees with disabilities. The company was planning to increase its list of products and expand its market by partnering with foreign companies. Despite his expansion plans, the founder wanted to continue his company’s mission to “Able the disabled.” He had been committed to social responsibility since launching the company in 1987 by hiring individuals with disabilities. He was now wondering if he needed new employee policies to support his vision of hiring people with disabilities into mainstream workplace positions and promote career growth for his employees. How would his expansion plans affect the company’s work culture? How could he be sure to retain the “family” workplace model he had always promoted?
In August 2018, JK Paper Ltd., a market leader in India’s paper manufacturing industry, acquired the ailing Sirpur Paper Mills Limited, an 80-year-old company that had been declared insolvent. By September 2022, Sirpur Paper Mills Limited was reporting profit margins that were on par with its parent company. The management team was requesting approval from the parent company to double capacity in the writing and printing paper segment, with a proposed investment of US$125–130 million. The company has overcome several key challenges and had achieved some considerable operational improvements. However, the proposed investment would be a long-term commitment in a cyclical industry. There were also some difficulties in attracting and retaining talent in the industry and establishing relationships with key external stakeholders. JK Paper Ltd. had to decide whether to approve a strategic plan to expand and double the capacities of its new business unit in India’s paper manufacturing industry.
In August 2020, Sterlite Copper, a mining company in India, was shut down for good by the Madras High Court following a lengthy legal battle with the local Indian community, who accused the mine of environmental pollution. This verdict was a blow for Anil Agarwal, the executive chairman of the mine’s parent company, Vedanta Resources Limited (VRL), because the mine’s closing not only caused serious economic losses but also damaged VRL’s reputation around the world. Subsidiaries of VRL had successfully operated in Ireland and Australia—both developed economies—but had faced strong opposition in developing economies such as Zambia, Namibia, and India. Although VRL publicly advocated for corporate social responsibility and had received awards for its sustainability practices, the company continued to experience a lack of social consent from the local communities surrounding its operations in developing countries. Why was VRL failing in those countries despite its profitable operations? Were there cleaner and more efficient ways of extracting minerals to improve the company’s sustainability? Or were there other environmental, social, and governance factors that made mining difficult in developing economies?
Nihilent Limited (Nihilent), established in 2000, is an information technology (IT) services and consulting company based in Pune, India. Nihilent has been led by a charismatic and very creative leader who has been leading the go to market and client acquisition strategies through his design thinking workshops. Most work has been acquired based on his personal credibility. <br><br>How can the company sustain creative disruption through humanizing technology that the founder has so painstakingly built? Can the right leadership be found to carry the company vision forward? Can the government's policies and ecosystem help Nihilent gain competitive advantage?
In June 2023, a recruitment scandal confronted India’s largest information technology (IT) outsourcing company, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), which had been integral to the nation's economic growth since 1968. TCS faced allegations of bribery involving nearly ₹1,000 million. The full extent of the fraudulent activities remained uncertain, but there was speculation that commissions amounting to ₹1 billion (approximately US$13.3 million) had changed hands. While the organization took measures to fortify its system and reinforce its commitment to a zero-tolerance policy against breaches of its code of conduct, the company’s chief human resource officer and executive director faced the dilemma of making an appropriate recommendation to the board of directors regarding strategies that would prevent a recurrence of such events. He had to decide whether TCS’s human resource (HR) practices for tightening corporate governance were adequate or whether there were additional improvements and steps the company could consider implementing.
In September 2022, Balmer Lawrie & Co Ltd., a highly diversified Indian public-sector enterprise, was reviewing the outcomes of its mentorship program, which had been launched as a pilot initiative about a year earlier. The company had hired an external consultant to help design and speedily launch the first offering of the mentorship program, enrolling 25 mentor-mentee pairs. Now, it needed to refine the program, strengthen the measurement of its benefits, and plan a scaled-up rollout across the organization. The company aimed to make the mentorship initiative a long-term, self-sustaining program.
Montecarlo Limited (MCL), a 25-year-old infrastructure and construction company in India, had invested in building effective human resources (HR) processes and a better employee experience. While it was unconventional for companies in this industry, whose outlook generally favoured production and profitability, to focus on these issues, MCL had endeavoured to create not only an effective training function, but also a culture of learning and development that empowered its employees to become better professionals and individuals. Given the nature of the industry, such efforts posed challenges in understanding and implementation. In January 2021, the company’s senior vice-president of HR wondered both how this focus on employees would help MCL and whether the company should continue to invest in its people and in building a culture of learning. If it did continue, how could it adjust its training process to make the learning and development process more effective?