HRM Assignment: Company Research & Analysis

On
TATA MOTORS

By:
Balaji (DM15213)
Gaurav Dutta (DM15219)
Gundeep Singh (DM15220)
Himanshu Dixit (DM15222)
Isha Gulati (DM15223)
Kala Akshay (DM15226)

Table of Contents

1. Company Overview. ............................................................................ 3

2. Human Resources Culture......4
3. Organization Structure.........5
4. HR Related Issues......6
5. Analysis......10
6. References.11

1. Company Overview:
Tata Motors Limited formerly known as TELCO (Tata Engineering and Locomotive Company) is an
Indian multinational automotive manufacturing
company
with
headquarters
in Mumbai,
Maharashtra, It is a subsidiary of the Tata Group. It produces variety of products include passenger
cars, trucks, buses and military vehicles. It is the world's 18th largest motor vehicle manufacturing
company, 4th largest truck manufacturer and 2nd largest bus manufacturer by volume.
Auto manufacturing and assembly plants of Tata Motors are situated at Pantnagar, Lucknow
Jamshedpur, Sanand, Dharwad and Pune in India, with foreign presence in South Africa, Thailand,
Argentina, and the United Kingdom. Research and development centres are in Pune, Jamshedpur,
Lucknow and Dharwad in India, with South Korea, Spain, and the United Kingdom as the foreign
centres. It has a bus manufacturing joint venture with Marcopolo S.A, a joint venture with Fiat in
India and a construction equipment manufacturing joint venture with Hitachi.
As a manufacturer of locomotives it was founded in 1945. In 1954, the company manufactured its first
commercial vehicle in collaboration with Daimler-Benz AG, which came to an end in 1969. Tata
Motors entered into the passenger vehicle market in 1991 with the launch of the Tata Sierra, thus
becoming the 1st Indian manufacturer to achieve the capability of developing a competitive
indigenous automobile. In 1998 launched the first fully indigenous Indian passenger car, the Indica.
In 2004, Tata Motors acquired the South Korean truck manufacturer Daewoo Commercial Vehicles
Company and the British premium car maker Jaguar Land Rover in 2008.
Tata Motors is listed on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE), the National Stock Exchange (NSE) and
the New York Stock Exchange. 2012 Fortune Global 500 had ranked Tata Motors at 314th position for
the world's biggest corporations.
Following are the list of products manufactured by TATA Motors:

1. Commercial vehicles

Tata Ace

Tata 407 Ex and Ex2

Tata Starbus

Tata Novus

Tata ACE and Tata 407 also come under the product category of Notable Vehicles.
2.

Passanger Vehicles

Tata Nano

Indica

Range Rover

3. Military vehicles

Tata LSV (Light Specialist Vehicle)

Tata LPT 709 E

4. Electric vehicles
Tata Motors has revealed electric versions of the Tata Indica passenger car and the Tata
Ace commercial vehicle, both of which run on lithium batteries.

Key Milestones:

TELCO was renamed as TATA Motors in 2003.

In 2004, Tata Motors acquires South Korean company Daewoo Commercial Vehicle.

In 2005, it launched the hugely successful Tata ACE.

Tata Motors enters into Joint Venture with Brazilian coach maker Marcopolo and with
Thailand company Thinburi in 2006.

Acquires Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) in 2008.

Launched Tata Nano in 2008, the cheapest car in the world today.

2. Human Resources Culture:

Tata Motors is a huge organisation with around 59,000 employees. Diversity is quiet high in
the organisation, since they come from various ethnicities and nationalities, so they have a
wide range of skill sets, knowledge and experience levels. This diversity facilitates debate,
dialogue and fresh perspectives, and ingrains a lateral thinking mind-set across the
organisation. Tata Motors believes in a progressive people culture and ensures a judicious mix of
people is maintained in the workforce. This is achieved through hiring multi-skilled people both from
within the automobile industry and from other sectors. In addition, a regular and consistent
recruitment programme at engineering and management institutes ensures a steady stream of high
quality people getting inducted to fuel the growth plans. They also have ongoing partnerships with
Industrial Training Institutes, besides self-owned professional training centres, to recruit shop-floor
workforce.
Tata Motors have a clearly defined HR strategy that is based on the premise that people drive annual
performance in a company and strengthen long-term organisational objectives. Various programmes
like mini-assessments and the Fast Track Selection Scheme (FTSS) helps in early talent spotting and
gives an opportunity to mature into leaders.
Enablers, such as the 'One Tata Motors' culture, leverage interdepartmental synergies. Thus, greater
opportunities to learn from and contribute to the organisation are created. Combined with a
rearticulated compensation philosophy and reworked variable pay plan, these initiatives ensure that
Tata Motors remains performance-oriented and talent-driven.
Jaguar Land Rover is recognised as a preferred employer in the UK. Increasing numbers of
International Service assignments have commenced to support global operations, and a new National
Sales Company has been established in China.
Tata Motors work hard to retain our talented staff, and during the year our employee turnover rate
remained low at 1.8% for the salaried population and 0.9% for the hourly population. Relationships
with employees and their representatives remain positive and constructive, with no strikes. The 201112 Employee Engagement Survey was extended to all hourly paid employees for the first time this
year, and employee satisfaction rates for salaried employees rose to an all-time high of 65%, from 57%
in the previous year. An extended working week was introduced, with 58% of salaried staff opting to
extend their working hours.

3. Organisational Structure of Tata Motors:

4. HR Related Issues:

i.

SINGUR- TATA NANO CONTROVERSY:

Background of the issue:

The main issue was the land acquisition of Nano factory of TATA MOTORS at Singur in
Hooghly district, West Bengal.

The government had acquired land from farmers and gave them compensation in return. But
there were many complaints that the compensations were not enough.

Main people involved:

Ravi Kant- MD, Tata motors

Ramesh Vishwakarma- Manufacturing head, Singur plant
M B Kulkarni- In charge of civil construction at Singur plant
Mamata Banerjee- Head of the Trinamul Congress Party in West Bengal

Details of the issue:

The State Government of West Bengal took over 997 acres of farmland for the building of
Nano factory of TATA MOTORS.
Land from about 13,000 landowners had been acquired for the plant but only about 2,200 of
them, with about 400 acres between them, refused to accept compensation.
In exchange, it gave compensation to the farmers which the farmers cited as inadequate.
Since the Singur land was the most fertile land in West Bengal, the farmers, supported by the
opposition party led by Mamata Banerjee started their agitation against the TATA Motors
proposed NANO plant.
The opposition parties took the help of 1894 land acquisition act under which the land can
only be used by the government for public projects and hence couldnt be given to TATA for
the construction of the Nano plant.
With increasing agitation levels and threats of physical violence, TATA stopped construction
of the plant form September 3, 2008 and officially decided to pull out of Singur on October 3,
2008.

Problems faced by the employees:

Many employees, coming in buses from Kolkata (40 km away) had faced problems in getting
access to the plant. The reason being the agitation outside the factory by the farmers which
led to the blockade of the national highway. Instead of one hour, it would take them three
hours to reach the plant.
Threats of physical violence.
Harassment by the farmers and the political activists.
On August 28, the agitators refused to let the employees leave the factory in the evening.
Only after the intervention of police, the employees were allowed to leave the facility.
Motivation levels were running low as the work was being hampered, the employees
harassed and the 600 odd ITI- trained local workers were sent to the RAMA KRISHNA
MISSION for training sessions as there was no work inside the plant.

Organizational decision(s):

On September 2, Tata Motors announced suspension of construction at Singur.

On October 3, it was officially announced that TATA MOTORS were moving out of Singur.

This decision was taken because the TATA Motorss top priority was the safety of its
employees.

Our Analysis:
Since it was much more like a political warfare between the ruling party CPI (M) and the
opposition led by Mamata Banerjee than the normal tussle between the organization and the labor
union, the decision taken by Ravi Kant (MD- TATA MOTORS) to move out of Singur was the only
viable option. If TATA would have continued with the construction, there would have been
heightened tension and maybe the farmers would resort to physical violence if the land wasnt
returned to them.

This decision helped in three ways:

Safety of employees
After moving out of Singur, TATA MOTORS set up plant in Sanand, Gujarat after making a
deal with Narendra Modi.
The farmers got their land back.

Current Status:

TATA Motors after getting out of Singur on October 3 made a deal with Narendra Modi for
the construction of the Nano plant in Sanand, outskirts of Ahmedabad on October 7 th.
Mamata Banerjee became the Chief Minister of West Bengal
The boundary wall of the factory is still guarded by police forces day and night.
The controversy which first started in 2006 still hasnt been resolved as both the partiesTATA Motors and the West Bengal Government, are battling it out in the courts.
While the legal battle rages on, the farmers, fed up with the long dragging issue and state of
suspension, just want the two parties to come to an agreement.

ii.

Acquiring and Retaining Talent, Problem of leadership

Background of the issue:

The industry is growing exponentially and so you need skills, skills in terms of operators,
even people on temporary roles. So starting from there to the more senior, more niche
kind of roles, are getting created every day. So, acquiring talent is going to be a huge
issue.
The fresh engineers they hired wanted to do things beyond engineering in some years
time and hence to retain them is a challenge itself.
The demographic mix of the industry is dramatically changing and leadership styles and
leadership approaches are still a bit brick and mortar.

Main People Involved:

Mr. Prabir Jha, Senior Vice President and Head- Human Resources at Tata Motors
Limited.
Young employees.
HR Managers responsible for recruitment.

Details of the Issue:

The issue that Tata Motors is facing is faced by the industry as a whole and not by Tata
Motors only. The automotive industry is facing a problem of skill gap.
This sector is not lucrative enough and people still see the automotive sector as a
manufacturing business.
Another issue being faced by Tata Motors is that once they recruit employees (Fresh
Engineers), these employees feel an urge to do something beyond engineering. And after
getting two to three years of work experience they tend to go for a Masters Degree or an
MBA.
Also there are not too many leaders at different levels. By leaders they mean the people
who come across as inspirational to the kind of teams that they are leading.

Organizational Decisions:

Over the last few years they have been visible on the campuses with Mindrover,
successful case-study contest for students across Indian B-schools.
They took this idea forward by introducing a similar engagement with students from top
engineering campuses this year where we invited them to provide solutions to technical
problems.
They also engaged with many of these campuses through clearly differentiated internship
programs, where they paired students with mentors or guides.

5. Analysis:
The problem of talent and leadership faced can be overcome by following these steps by the HR
Department of Tata Motors.

Determining the Cause:

Leaders can be affected by various factors like medical, marital, parental or financial problem that
might have developed in their life and which are beyond the workplace but interfere with their
performance. A record of poor work performance should be maintained. Also any specific complaints
and any notes made during the observation should be addressed. They should be explained about the
consequences if their behaviour ends up violating company policy or framework.Also the specific
skills that need improvement should be brought to light. They should come up with an employee
assistance program,and familiarise employees with what the programme offers, and also assure them
to maintain dignity, privacy and respect.

Evaluating Tasks:
Evaluating whether the employee is well equipped and aware of the role. For instance, advances in
technology can make the job complex for someone who is not too comfortable with changes in
technology. This might lead to excessive pressure and worry over what might go wrong with a
project. In such cases, talking to them about the challenges faced is a good option. This will help in
understanding what the biggest threats to success are for them. This leads to creation of a need to
focus on outcomes and solutions that the leader must create. Reminding them of their strengths and
motivations to help them gain confidence also seems like a good idea when they are already feeling
less confident.This can be dealt by helping them set detailed goals that include measurable goals and
reasonable deadlines. If required and if availability permits, providing additional resources or
manpower necessary to help the leader is also a very good option.

Creating a Better Follower:

A leadership approach called Situational Leadership, developed in the 1990s by Dr. Paul Hersey and
Dr. Kenneth Blanchard describes how to create more structure for an employee with poor leadership
skills. The employees boss, can help by providing guidance to the struggling leader. This will help
them conceptualize and get a better understanding of what to do and feel more confident and eager
to succeed. Likewise, a leader with low capability but an eagerness to succeed needs guidance and
instruction about the job itself. Showing them how to do their tasks until they understand enough to
take over and continue on their own.

Provide Ongoing Training:

Periodically enroll the employees and managers in business leadership training workshops and
courses. One option is to provide them with classroom, live online or worksite seminars and courses
in leadership skills. Also look into custom training courses, or provide educational webinars. They
should be monitored, mentored and rewarded when a budding leader applies their training within
the organization.

6. References:

http://tatamotors.com/investors/financials/67-ar-html/human_resources.html
http://twocircles.net/2012dec25/singur_six_years_later.html
http://www.peoplematters.in/article/2011/07/01/talent-acquisition/great-place-towork-institute-series-redefine-the-talent-catchment/1063
http://smallbusiness.chron.com/solve-poor-leadership-skill-problems-42032.html