Comments on: Govindkaka’s Psychological Contract With Contract Workers

By: Abhishek Kulkarni

Abhishek Kulkarni — Sat, 05 May 2018 06:59:49 +0000

Hello Sir,

Thanks for sharing such a wonderful example. I appreciate Govindkaka’s way of doing business by keeping values and morale very high. It is indeed a wise and obvious decision to engage contractual employees in organisation to cope up with future uncertainties.

I think, this can be a very good case study to learn more about why ‘Fixed Term Contracts’ are reintroduced and extended to all industries now by Indian Government. This move is very much welcomed and supported by most of the Employers. At the same time a stiff resistance from Labour Unions is also seen.

From this perspective, few questions stroked into my mind: If SRK workers are unionized, what has been their role contribution in forming People policy at SRK? Can effective implementation of FTC abolish Contract system (Third party Contracts) from core area of organization?

I would like to study this case further..

Thanks again for your great work and contribution !

By: N Muralidharan

N Muralidharan — Sat, 14 Oct 2017 12:46:58 +0000

Dear VSP, As someone who has not been into Industrial Relations, your blogs on the subject of contract labour situation used to disturb me a lot even as an outsider( or may be because I am an outsider!). This blog is reassuring that a different approach is possible and of what effect at that!!
A very nice way to greet us with a positive blog for the festive season ahead. Happy Deepavali

By: C.L.Narayana

C.L.Narayana — Thu, 12 Oct 2017 05:05:14 +0000

Very interesting. Whether the employees are on contract or regular basis, it matters little so long as the employer-employee relationship is based on mutual trust. It is the employer who should create that mutual trust by his conduct. Frank and genuine concern of employer towards employees begets genuine love and commitment of employees.
One point which was not touched upon, but very relevant, is whether the employees are unionised.
Whether the same style could be adopted in regular manufacturingorganisations/industry.

By: Dr. Nirav Mandir

Dr. Nirav Mandir — Thu, 12 Oct 2017 04:50:41 +0000

Awesome Article…

By: Vivek Monteiro

Vivek Monteiro — Wed, 11 Oct 2017 18:10:42 +0000

Very interesting. Building trust with 4500 workers is astonishing indeed. I would like to study this further.

By: Vivek Patwardhan

Vivek Patwardhan — Wed, 11 Oct 2017 15:01:38 +0000

Debashish Roy of Colgate writes:
I have been reading all your blogs and find them insightful and a source of learning. Thanks for sharing this…..it makes me humble reading this kind of values and practices followed by Indian entrepreneurs without ever seeking glory for themselves. I always wonder why do we not include the blue collar employees in our definition of Talent and oft repeated Human Resources Development practices…..we seem to approach blue collar employees through the prism of IR and contracts that we have with them…..we dont do that for White Collar employees. Govindkaka’s Values and practices actually is a great study in Organisational Development…..it reminds me of Maverick by Riccardo Semmler the Brazilian entrepreneur of the 90s. Thanks for making Govindkaka visible.

By: Saptarshi

Saptarshi — Wed, 11 Oct 2017 11:16:17 +0000

Amazing story, why even try to question the applicability or possibility of imitation. There might be constraints of scale, industry type, but the simple story captured and narrated gives one hope that people dimensions would really not lose shine in the strategy of doing business and art of making money. As always thanks for sharing such pieces from the domain of ER, the domain of manufacturing setups

By: SHYAM SUNDAR K R

SHYAM SUNDAR K R — Wed, 11 Oct 2017 10:07:48 +0000

sir, thanks for this story. Akelof the Nobel Laureate imparted the important psychological contract concept called “reciprocal gift”. His theory was productivity will rise without setting standards if employers have trust in their workers and extend labour standards as “gifts” and workers will surely reciprocate in ways that are beneficial for the enterprise.

The implicit contract theory informs us that workers are conditioned to believe that during hard times (recessions) the employer will not dispense them unlike the neo-classical theory which justifies such dispensing based on cost theory.

the SRK employees apparently do not place much emphasis on the “nomenclature” as they enjoy employment security and other benefits same as the so-nomenclatured permanent workers. Though the business sense is that there is a suspicion in the minds of observers that the SRK may want to insure itself from future risks created by market forces by keeping them on contract basis! one crisis they have gloriously tackled. Will they tackle several other that may occur? that is the thinking that “Mind” asks. But SRK seems to be run more by norms than by intelligence. even for this short run story SRK deserves pats especially in the era of globalization wherein even worthy big players capitalised on the crises (2008 onwards to demontisation) to layoff workers!

Kudos to you sir, for your adventures and embracing institutional perspective in post-HR career

By: Anshu Mukherjee

Anshu Mukherjee — Wed, 11 Oct 2017 07:22:28 +0000

Wonderful practices on the ground; the challenge is in the mind-set of Business Leaders / HR professionals who need to understand that success can be through very basic things.
thank you for Sharing this .
regards,

Anshu Mukherjee

By: NS Iyer

NS Iyer — Wed, 11 Oct 2017 06:35:14 +0000

Very well written. Very experiential.
The only thought that crossed my mind was’why doesn’t SRK make others permanent too?’Though there can be several answers which many of us can guess, my thought is whether making them permanent would increase manifold the psychological contracting, and consequent bonding.