OD Interventions By PRISM™ At Ambuja Overseas

What is PRISM™ Philosophy?

Prism™ philosophy chalked by Anubha Maurya Walia founder of PRISM™ WORLD works on 5 parameters
which is consider as 5 pillars. As per her, today Organizations are continuously evolving, have different
participants and interest groups within and around the Organization. This doctrine is very much different from the
past perception of any intervention as a static or mechanistic activity to address challenges. PRISM™ Philosophy
raises the consciousness of participants, makes people aware of the gaps between reality and ideals, provides a
common language to articulate shared problems and difficulties, generates ideas for change. In such dynamic and
multifaceted approach, PRISM™ has proved to be an effective process for any O.D. intervention. Philosophy is
nothing but an acronym and pillars i.e.

P-PREPARE, R-RESPECT, I-IMPLEMENT, S-SHARE, M-MAINTAIN

“He who is best prepared can best serve his moment of inspiration.”
-Samuel Taylor Coleridge

 1st Pillar Prepare: Every single task from our daily routine to any specific, need advance preparation in
order to meet the expectation level and time frame. Hence Prism™ ensure that roadmap of the task or
the session which is to be deliver is chalked in advance as to deliver the programme on time as well as
without any hassle. PREPARE is used to analyze and assess in terms of leadership, motivation, employee
engagement (the independent variables) and Organization effectiveness (the dependent variable); and
design ODI program based on gaps identified.

 2nd Pillar Respect: Another important element in Prism™ Philosophy is Respect, which states that
mutual respect should always be there for each other i.e. respect for organization its ongoing policies,
respect for employees, respect for the mentor or consultant and vice versa. Its focus on determining the
relationship between these variables.

 3rd Pillar Implement: Prism™ give maximum importance to implementation as no matter how prepare
one is ultimately execution matters. The planned structure of any task is followed well while
implementing is matter of huge concern. We Implement the ODI programs for leadership, motivation,
employee engagement, and Organization effectiveness.

 4th Pillar Share: Sharing help to increase the knowledge it is very known fact and Prism™ 4th pillar
work on this concept, it is one of the unique and mandatory activity which one can found in any of
Prism™ session. Prism™ will always share the live example to boost the target audience, and even lay
emphasis that the learning from the session should be shared with other people of the Organization who
were not part of the session. This determines the differences between the pre- and post- ODI programs
in terms of the variables and needs to be shared with management.
  5th Pillar Maintain: One can be prepared well, learn well, shared well but until n unless the change that
was bring due to session is not maintain the entire effort become meaningless, so Prism™ lay emphasis
on maintaining the learning or outcome of any intervention.

1. OD Interventions By PRISM™ At Ambuja Overseas:

Before discussing the interventions will give a short introduction of the respective Organization.
ABOUT AMBUJA OVERSEASAmbuja Overseas: Company was established in 2005 in a DLF Industrial area,
Faridabad. Subsequently it has grown manifold! In 2008, company expanded from 20 to 200 machines with the
production capacity of 1200 pc/day. Today, Ambuja is confidently claimed to be one of the good manufacturers
of high quality fashion apparel. Ambuja is one of the most reliable manufacturers of readymade garments, scarves
and accessories. Committed to making fashionable and high quality woven and knitwear garments for women.
Working with some of the best names in the fashion Industry , including River Island, Monsoon, Dorothy Perking,
Mint velvet , and many more.
Ambuja Overseas was growing in all aspect be it internally in terms of employees or externally in terms of clients
and buyers.it was the phase when top management start facing challenges to manage all and this lead the
management to bring in HR Consultant.

Major Challenges:Conflict Management, Zero Employee engagement, Work culture, Premises, Work Life
Balance, Organization Hierarchy Structure not well define and various other small challenges.

2. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY & IMPLEMENTATION OF PRISM™

PHILOSOPHY:
Prism™ followed its philosophy of 5 pillar to overhaul the situation. Top management was approached first to
understand the challenges and then employees of Ambuja Overseas were approached to understand their view
point and challenges, after understanding the situation in depth a report was prepared as what OD Intervention is
required by the Organization keeping all challenges of the Organization in consideration. Prism™ followed its
philosophy of 5 pillar to overhaul the situation. Top management was approached first to understand the
challenges and then employees of Ambuja Overseas were approached to understand their view point and
challenges, after understanding the situation in depth a report was prepared as what OD Intervention is required
by the Organization keeping all challenges of the Organization in consideration. Getting it approved by Top
Management Prism™ Initiated the task . Task duration was 15 months. Under Prepare stage we assess and analyze
the current situation of the company and ensure that the issues of leadership, motivation, employee engagement,
and Organization effectiveness really needed to be addressed. Both quantitative and qualitative approaches were
used. The instruments for data collection included a questionnaire, focus group interviews, and observations.

The qualitative method included focus group interviews and observation with senior management & middle
management. The focus group interviews included 8 persons selected from each department on the basis of their
qualification and specific pre-determined criteria. As to observation, the researcher followed the observation
guideline. The data gathered was then analyzed using the content analysis technique.
The quantitative method consisted of a questionnaire. 52 respondents completed and returned the questionnaire.
They included managers and staff members from each department. At the post-ODI stage, the same questionnaire
was distributed to the same respondents as at the pre-ODI stage. The quantitative data were analyzed by paired t-
test, regression analysis, 2-tailed, 95% significant confidence level, and SPSS.

Following the philosophy of PRISM™ initiated interventions in following manner:

 P-Prepare: Ambuja Overseas Team size was around 50 people in the top, middle, and lower level
management and more than 800 people working as floor workers in 8 different departments. It was
challenging to approach each n every one so Diagnostic activity & Survey Feedback was initiated first
at Top level management covering the entire team as well as and same with middle and lower level
management. At worker level, random selected workers from each department were taken into
consideration. Finally, it was decided to take an ideal sample of 54 employees.
Diagnostic activity: This activity involves the collection of all the pertinent information about the state
of the Organization by looking into the operation’s records, meeting subordinate, observing and
interviewing. This could establish the current health of the Organization. The feedback collected is to
measure job satisfaction, supervisory style in short perceptions and attitudes to be analyzed.
First HR intervention reveals the exact picture of the Organization and data collected shows out of 52
people whom Prism™ approached apart from Top Management none of the employees is 100% satisfied
from the job, culture and leadership style followed at Ambuja. The first intervention made very much
necessary to bring in Survey Feedback as second OD intervention by Prism
Survey feedback: It is a tool that can provide this type of honest feedback to help leaders guide and direct
their teams. Initiated Survey feedback with aim to break the invisible wall that was present between the
employees of Ambuja and its Top Management. This was not easy task so Prism™ comes up with a
small activity.
Know Yourself: Activity was sharing feedback without knowing who said, it was as A piece of A4 sheet
was stick at the back of every employee of Ambuja (This activity exclude all workers) and everyone was
asked to randomly move to anyone and write his feedback for the person. And once everyone is done
everyone was asked to read their sheet if they wish they share the feedback. Prism™ advice everyone to
improve.
 R-Respect: Moving forward to next pillar i.e. Respect.
Process consultation: An Outside consultant to assist organization management for improvement and
enhancement. As an observer the consultant observes different aspects of concern area it may be
communication pattern, leadership style, conflict management process etc and finally provide his
guidance or advise as what can be improved and how. Three different meetings were designed for this
project those were (i) an overview meeting; (ii) an orientation meeting (iii) a meeting for redesigning the
reward system.

 I-Implement: After breaking the invisible wall and assigning the task to work on oneself and improve.
PRISM move forward and indulge in understanding the process & policies of Ambuja overseas, and start
suggesting top management to required changes wherever required, maintaining the Respect factor-
Implement: Moving ahead after analysis, survey and suggestion for changes bring time for implementing
those suggestion and changes. Qualitative Findings were that leadership, motivation, employee
engagement, and Organization effectiveness needed to be improved; a finding supported by the
qualitative analysis. Leadership skills were quite low as employees often failed to take initiatives had a
poor understanding of senior members thought. Employee engagement, the employees had a low level
of engagement and participation. Moreover, arguments always flared up there was a clear lack of
teamwork.
Sensitivity training: An unstructured group interaction with aim of bringing change in behavior is what
we refer as Sensitivity training. Such type of training help participants to express themselves their idea,
belief, perceptions etc. Sensitivity training actually helps in increasing the tolerance level, help in
building trust and improve listening skills. Change is very much oppose and not easily acceptable
anywhere, be it a small change or a big one, the actual reason for opposing change is that people don’t
want to move out from their comfort zone. Same was the situation at Ambuja, a small change is very
much criticized by its employees.
Overcoming this situation, sensitivity training brought in as next OD intervention by PRISM™. Finally,
3 out of 5 start accepting the changes and this ODI bring a tremendous change is the employee
engagement level in the Organization. People start expressing, participating and the environment
somehow becomes more positive with loyalty and trust.

 S-Share: Prism™ 4th Pillar lay emphasis on sharing because sharing help to achieve the target in the
better manner. Analysis of sample data signifies the substantial relationship between leadership,
motivation and employee engagement as well as organizational effectiveness with an adjusted R Square
value of 0.581 and a statistically significance level of 0.000This means that there is a significant positive
correlation between leadership, motivation, and employee engagement and Organization effectiveness,
the dependent variable.
Goal setting and planning: PRISM™ bring in the concept of considering employees as business partners
and sharing with them the goal of organization and making them feel worth. The Previous scenario was,
people feel they are given list of task to do and take it as a burden. Prism suggested top management to
actually bring the change in the way of communicating the task list. Instead of management forcing the
task list, Weekly meeting was set and each individual was asked to set his or her target for the week. This
actually brings a very positive approach among employees and the same task list which previously seems
as a burden to them, become something that they enjoy and feel good to perform and accomplish.

 M-Maintain: Bringing changes is then also somehow easy task but maintaining those changes is
something where major of organization flunk. Thus Prism™ Philosophy last pillar talk about
maintaining, considering it as one very essential element.
Team building & intergroup relationships: Changes that was brought in the organization by Prism need
to maintain by the organization, to initiate this another OD intervention was seeded i.e. Team building
& intergroup relationships because carrying forward and maintaining the change requires the entire
organization to work together. “Team building activities are designed to enhance the effectiveness and
satisfaction of individuals who work in groups in order to improve the effectiveness of the entire group.”
Talking about Intergroup relationships.” The interpersonal relationships within the team can be improved
by creating the environment which is open and trustworthy, where members can openly and freely
communicate their feelings and thoughts, where leadership evolves on the basis of respect and functional
excellence and where conflicts are resolved on the basis of mutual understanding.” Yes, this was very
much required at Ambuja Overseas an environment of trust, transparency and open communication.
Which PRISM™ finally able to achieve by its effort.
3. Conclusions :

OD intervention at Ambuja have had a beneficial impact on leadership, motivation, and employee engagement
and enhanced the Organization’s effectiveness. The findings show a post PRISM™ philosophy implementation
increment of the leadership mean value from 62.50 to 65.36 and motivation one from 51.25 to 58.90. That of
employee engagement increased from 42.85 to 43.98, and Organization effectiveness from 24.07 to 24.68.
In terms of individual performance, the track record indicates that late arrivals have dipped down by 21%. As for
departmental performance, the number of complaint letters decreased by 53%; from 18 in 2010 to 9 in 2011.
Employee happiness index increased by 34%. The analysis shows that two demographic data (age) had no impact
on any of the variables. However, two items, years of service and educational background, had an impact on
engagement. As this research is done only by studying and collecting information from a single organization of a
specific industry. So It may not be generalized to other Organizations in the same sector as different Organizations
might have different cultures, contexts, Organizational structures, rules and regulations. So, other similar studies
should be conducted in other companies in the same sector. The findings in this study may suggest some initiatives
to be applied to other Organizations. The training, coaching, and workshop, had a very positive impact on both
the employees and the company. Even though the interventions have had a positive impact on leadership,
motivation, employee engagement, and Organization effectiveness, more time is needed to get even better results.
Therefore, more programs on those topics should be implemented as they might be very helpful in enhancing
Organization effectiveness. Companies should therefore not limit their efforts to improve performance to one set
of interventions but look at them as an on-going process. Finally, several areas for future studies should be
considered. They include innovation, job satisfaction, and commitment.