Job Design and Employees Motivation
All in a day's work
Employee empowerment is the latest buzzword in business and a variety of Tata companies are working overtime to place their people in the driver's seat
The crowd holds its collective breath as Pakistan speedster Shoaib Akhtar prepares to strike. But the batsman, B Muthuraman, is unperturbed. The delivery is sent flying into the stands. The cheers get louder as the Tata Steel managing director raises his bat in triumph.
Not real life, but an inspirational film. "It's a part of our Vision 2007 campaign," explains Niroop Mahanty, vice president (HRM), Tata Steel. Adds BN Sarangi, chief, HR/IR, Tata Steel, "The idea was to motivate employees to accomplish the impossible, like hit a six off Shoaib Akhtar." Or achieve EVA (economic value add) positive status by 2007.
The buzz in Jamshedpur is palpable. Tata Steel is not looking at incremental improvement, but a quantum jump in performance. Unlike its previous attempts, Vision 2007 is not a top-down initiative. More than 8,000 inputs from shop-floor workers and managers, contributed in articulating the future course for the lowest-cost producer of steel in the world. Tata Steel's human resources (HR) department further cascaded the knowledge to all of the company's 40,000 employees.
Assimilation of the vision was of paramount importance. Tata Steel organised one-day workshops called 'Lakshya 2007— Ek Chunauti' where employees were encouraged to write down their main responsibilities. These were then aligned with the departmental, divisional and company's key performance indices and, finally, with the vision. This innovative approach has garnered tremendous support from employees. Says Suman Biswas, Improvement Group, Tata Steel: "The employees felt important as they were made an integral element of the vision. Our commitment is total."
Tata Steel has been inundated with scores of ideas and suggestions generated at its employee workshops. It is setting up a centre to implement and
Employee empowerment is the latest buzzword in business and a variety of Tata companies are working overtime to place their people in the driver's seat
The crowd holds its collective breath as Pakistan speedster Shoaib Akhtar prepares to strike. But the batsman, B Muthuraman, is unperturbed. The delivery is sent flying into the stands. The cheers get louder as the Tata Steel managing director raises his bat in triumph.
Not real life, but an inspirational film. "It's a part of our Vision 2007 campaign," explains Niroop Mahanty, vice president (HRM), Tata Steel. Adds BN Sarangi, chief, HR/IR, Tata Steel, "The idea was to motivate employees to accomplish the impossible, like hit a six off Shoaib Akhtar." Or achieve EVA (economic value add) positive status by 2007.
The buzz in Jamshedpur is palpable. Tata Steel is not looking at incremental improvement, but a quantum jump in performance. Unlike its previous attempts, Vision 2007 is not a top-down initiative. More than 8,000 inputs from shop-floor workers and managers, contributed in articulating the future course for the lowest-cost producer of steel in the world. Tata Steel's human resources (HR) department further cascaded the knowledge to all of the company's 40,000 employees.
Assimilation of the vision was of paramount importance. Tata Steel organised one-day workshops called 'Lakshya 2007— Ek Chunauti' where employees were encouraged to write down their main responsibilities. These were then aligned with the departmental, divisional and company's key performance indices and, finally, with the vision. This innovative approach has garnered tremendous support from employees. Says Suman Biswas, Improvement Group, Tata Steel: "The employees felt important as they were made an integral element of the vision. Our commitment is total."
Tata Steel has been inundated with scores of ideas and suggestions generated at its employee workshops. It is setting up a centre to implement and