In the first week of August, about 3,000 workers from the Nashik and Chakan plants of Mahindra & Mahindra had an unusual visitor: Sindhutai Sapkal. The 64-year-old social worker and activist, who has devoted her life to adopting and taking care of orphans, addressed workers at the plants on handling ups and downs in life.
In the cyclical template, this is a down period for the workers, and Mahindra wants to help them keep a sense of equilibrium. A month ago, they saw 1,000 contract workers who shared the shop floor with them lose their jobs. It’s the same story elsewhere in the sector, where car sales have fallen for eight straight months and heavy truck sales for 17 months, and about 2,500-3,000 contract jobs lost in the last quarter alone, including at Ashok Leyland, Maruti Suzuki and Tata Motors.
In this sector with a history of labour unrest and fault lines, auto companies are trying a host of things to keep employee morale up in these trying times. Cos Try to Talk Up Employees’ Morale
Initiatives range from communicating the state of business to talks by motivational speakers, from skilling programmes to community service initiatives, from reassigning new projects to rewards. According to PN Shah, chief executive-automotive division, M&M, such initiatives help both employees and the management. “With the Chakan unit having a lot of young workforce, it was essential to have such inspirational speakers to address hardships and ways to face such situations, and not get mentally disturbed,” he says. “Most workers are aware of the current situation and the external environment, and so it was much easier for them to understand any kind of management decisions.”
Acknowledging the diverse efforts by companies, DL Sachdev, national secretary of trade union AITUC, says only a return to normal production levels will put workers at ease. “Although companies are re-skilling workers or giving them multiple responsibilities, if the overall situation does not improve in the next two to three months, workers will start feeling the insecurity,” he says. The auto industry employs about 200,000 workers in manufacturing and auto components another 500,000. A senior executive of a leading automotive company, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, feels the challenge for companies is greater in managing their blue-collar workforce. “Employees at the lower level do not have the same kind of maturity,” he says. “Disgruntlement at the lower level may be more due to the sensitivity of a pay cut affecting their daily bread. Resentment or dissatisfaction at the lower levels could be higher.”
The way to deal with it, says Ashok Leyland Managing Director Vinod Dasari, is to be honest. “In tough times, one should be communicating with workers more,” he told ET. SY Siddiqui, CEO (administration), Maruti Suzuki, agrees.
Recently, in a first for Ashok Leyland, Dasari did a live webcast with all its 12,000 employees across 120 locations. He made a presentation originally shared with the company’s board of directors. It briefed workers on the macroeconomic environment, the company’s slowdown strategy and priorities, and its expectations from the employees. After the presentation, Dasari also fielded questions on job and salary cuts, and future plans.
He said the company may cut more jobs, with merit being the criteria, and that promotions and increments would be delayed by three months. Ashok Leyland has cut salaries by 5% since July and negotiated a productivity improvement of 15%. The company also recently launched its maiden employee awards, named after its chairman. “We did it for the first time,” says Dasari. “Many told us not to do it in the downturn.” He adds that the company is considering helping laid-off workers set up their own workshops, join company dealerships or become parts retailers for Ashok Leyland.
Elsewhere, according to Shah, M&M has been using the downtime to re-skill workers to handle different assembly operations or machines, and take up more responsibilities. Such sessions, which were earlier held quarterly, are now being held monthly. M&M has also increased employee training in quality control and material management. It is also engaging inspirational speakers. Besides Sindhutai, M&M invited external trainer Ramesh Deshpande to speak to workers on ways to conserve costs and be positive in life. According to Vilas Patankar, who works in the quality department at M&M’s Nashik plant, the 3,000 workers who attended Sindhutai’s session benefitted from it, and even donated Rs 3 lakh to her orphanages and trusts. “We were told to treat the company like a mother, and not desert her,” says Patankar.
According to Kuldeep Jangu, general secretary, Maruti Udyog Kamgar Union, there is a sense of insecurity, but the hope is that it will tide over quickly. “Training programmes and re-skilling are being regularly done (by Maruti),” he says. Adds Vishnu Newale, president of Tata Motors Union, “It’s always better to have a job than not have one. With competition peaking in the car market, it’s only prudent to re-skill and improve quality.”
Source: The Economics Times, By: LIJEE PHILIP & KETAN THAKKAR
