CASE ANALYSIS
People Management – Singhania & Partners

Group D1 Ankit Agarwal Kausik.R Meenu Rajpal Pramod Khandelwal Syed Reza Salis Naqvi

Objective of the Analysis
1. How can Singhania and Partners sustain the effectiveness of people management policies with increasing competition? I think the CEO is worried about what they pay rather than the HR policies per se. Be more specific

PESTC Analysis
 Political and Legal:
      Economic liberalization by the government of India. LPG (liberalization, privatization and globalization) by GOI gave a fillip to foreign investment and subsequently, legal services industry. Foreign law firms are not allowed to set shops in India or practice Indian law. Imminent liberalization of legal service industry which will increase competition. Law firms were prohibited to directly market their services. Legal system was very slow.

 Economic:       High growth market for legal services. Availability of highly skilled capital at competitive prices. Growth of LPO (legal process outsourcing) industry providing a boost to legal services. Huge market for legal services in the US accounting for 49% of the global industry. Arbitration opportunities in India provided a market for legal services. Growth in the IT and infrastructure sector giving a fillip to legal services.

 Social:
 Lack of educational and vocational opportunities for the people to develop their career in legal services industry.



Inclination of people to make out-of-court settlement due to extended nature of court cases.

 Technological:
   Use of efficient and state-of-the art system and processes to increase effectiveness of services to clients. Manual load on the people were reduced with new technological systems. Use of modern technology increased the effectiveness of their people and hence, productivity.  Cultural       Open door policy for the employees at all hierarchical levels. System of performance and reward was given prime importance. Transparent culture was practiced. Work-life balance was promoted which will find resonance with people. System of appropriate feedback and reward commensurate to their performance. In-sync with the changes taking place in the industry.

S.W.O.T Analysis
Legal Service Industry



Strength      High growth potential for the existing and potential players. Demand for customized services in legal industry. High growth of LPO sector due to high cost in western economies. Slow legal system ensured arbitration opportunities and thus, increasing the scope for legal services Liberalization and entry of multinationals increased the demand for legal services

 Weakness        Paucity of talent in the legal industry. High attrition rate. Lot of monotonous work that resulted in de-motivation of people towards their work. Increased competition for the challenging and high growth projects. Law firms were prohibited from directly marketing their services. Practice of Indian law restricted to Indian nationals. Prohibition of multinational firms to operate in Indian legal industry.

 Opportunities      Threats    China and Korea had liberalized their legal services industry. Shortage of skilled labour specializing in legal services. Increased competition will reduce the cost advantage. New domains like IT and infrastructure to provide a fillip and growth. Growth for legal services support in western economies. Huge market for legal services in US. Technological innovation will increase the scope for legal services.

Singhania and Partners



Strength      Highly people oriented. Promotes work-life balance at the workplace. People are appraised and rewarded on a continuous basis for their performance. Challenging and stimulating work environment for the employees. Open door policy and transparent culture.

         

Continuous feedback mechanisms for employees. Environment of growth and stress-free work culture. Good clientele and hence the ability to receive work through referrals. Strong commitment towards the client and producing quality work. ISO certification for the systems and processes. Knowledge of various cross-functional domains in legal parlance. Employee commitment towards the organization Continuous evaluation of potential legal service markets to increase firm’s standing. Organization culture was sociable. Efficient system and process to increase the effectiveness of the work.



Weakness    People were given free hand in their work and there was no supervision. Less inclination to capitalize the LPO market and as a result may lose out important clients and the other potential work from them. All the decisions for allocation for different projects were vetted by Mohotra.

 Opportunities       Threats    Paucity of skilled labour and thus poaching of employees by the competitors. Imminent entry of foreign law firms in India. Increased competition from existing law firms. Potential clients in the LPO sector and its huge growth potential. Growing market potential for the legal service industry in domains like mergers and acquisitions, technology transfers etc. Technological innovation increasing scope for legal services Growth in Infrastructure provides a fillip to legal services. People were loaded with too much work by the firms in legal service industry.

List of Factors
1. 3 R’s of effective Performance management system (PMS) a. Recruitment and selection. b. Reward c. Retention 2. Individual Motivation at Work. 3. Organizational Culture. 4. Commitment and job satisfaction. 5. Managing group and team work. 6. Personality and behavior at work. 7. Performance Management 8. Work environment.
Exceptionally well handled. Critical factors

Analysis of factors
1. 3 R’s of effective PMS:  Human resource is one of the competitive advantages for any organization. An effective people management system revolves round three R’s of recruitment, reward and retention. Understanding people in an organization is of prime importance for any successful organization.  Recruitment and Selection should be design in such a manner that employees who are skilled, hard-working and committed to the growth of the organization are selected. Further people should be judged on basis of culture fit and job fit. Recruitment procedures and expectations from employees should be clearly stated beforehand.  Rewarding people based on their performance helps in employee motivation and gives an impetus to work further with same zeal. Rewards and performance based compensation satisfies the Esteem needs of employees as mentioned by Maslow’s Hierarchy theory. Are they doing it. Evaluate. Mere theory does not make analysis. Using theory you have to say that it is adhered or violoated



Retention, of talented employees is an important aspect of people management. The work culture and environment should be shaped in such a manner that a stable work life balance is maintained. Challenging and stimulating cases in the expertise domain of the employee should be provided so as to keep him enthusiastic of work. Garnering effective employee participation in day to day work of organization gives a sense of loyalty and OCB in the employee, thereby feeling a part of the organization employee looks for long term relationship with the organization.

2. Individual Motivation at work:  Hertzberg’s two factor model states that individual motivation is shaped by external factors such as Hygiene, working conditions and environment at work. Above model supports the efficient People management policy at Singhania and Partner Comfort, Privacy, state of art facilities were taken care of.  Alderfer’s ERG Model emphasizes on existence, relatedness, and growth, wherein relatedness helps in satisfying social needs. A job which is intellectually stimulating if supported by sufficient learning and growth opportunities helps in satisfaction of self actualization needs.  Individual Motivation at work is also shaped in accordance to the Equity Theory. Employees at Singhania and Partners were aptly rewarded based on performance and thus, equity at work was promoted.

3. Organizational Culture :  Strong hierarchy, personalized relationships are features of a strong organizational culture which is an ingredient for strong people management policy. For instance there was open door culture at Singhania and Partners, top management was easily approachable and open to discussion.  Employees should be encouraged to focus the suitability of the values to organization’s survival and growth, rather than rigidly focusing on values as ends in themselves.



A sense of belongingness and relatedness, among employees ensures satisfaction at work and they feel they are an important part of the organization. At Singhania and Partners every lawyer got chance to present topics on diverse legal aspects during bi-weekly meetings.

 

Individuals differ in their values and skills, so the organizational culture should be such that every employee is treated accordingly. Team work and group management are an important factor for success of an organization. Group communication strengthens the bonding among employees and improves transparency within the organization. Singhania and Partners laid emphasis on employee satisfaction by organizing excursions and tours every year.

4. Performance Management :  Having an efficient performance management system is core to any successful people management policy. An Employee aptly rewarded for the work and effort generates positive affectivity which in turn results in optimism, enthusiasm, overall well being, job satisfaction etc.  Self efficacy and self esteem gets a boost due to effective performance management system.

Your factors are good, theoretical framework not too bad, but a little weak but you should say whether it is happening or not? Constraints  Ensure the competitiveness of Singhania and Partners in the legal services industry.  Singhania and Partners should be the best place to work in the legal service industry (rethink. Are they restricting your options in any way or should they be doing it anyway?

Options
1) Redesign the reward policy:

Owing to the global challenge Singhania and partner should look at redesigning their employee reward system if required. Current system was less stable as in the individuals who contributed and added values to the organization were rewarded with pay hikes and bonuses irrespective of their stay at the organization. This made an impact on equity belief of existing employees of the firm. Thus, the culture and environment within the organization became highly competitive. Advantages: o Redesigning reward policies helps in gaining a competitive edge in the market. o Generates interest of employees and keeps them motivated for long term association. Disadvantages: o May effect the company operation and capital structure. o People believe in equity theory, comparison within the industry among different firms may impact negatively o Requires complete change and overhauling of existing Hr practices and policies at corporate level. o Market conditions and culture may not be in accordance with the new system.

2) Implement new methods of employee motivation:

Employee motivation comes as an important aspect in having a high class people management system. The policies and procedures in the organization should be such that they could not be easily imitated by any other organization, be it in terms of work environment or compensation scheme, job nature etc. A periodic feedback system to evaluate managers and rate them, rating of HR practices within organization, feedback on Job satisfaction, work life balance imbues the feeling that organization is caring and the place is best place to work. Owing to such acts an employee is obliged to work hard diligently. Advantages:

o Employees become highly productive and efficient. o Overall success and profit of organization. o Motivated employee is a source of competitive advantages in legal service industry. Disadvantages: o Excessive experimenting may put limited resources of the organization under strain. o Motivation schemes if not equitably applied across the organization may result in de-motivation of other employees.

3) Retention schemes:

Retention policies and systems followed in an organization are core to the HR policies. Different firms follow different methods to retain talented and valued employees of the organization. Retention by giving shares of the companies, promotions, putting employees in areas of choice, giving enough freedom to voice out opinions and have a say in day to day working gives a feeling of Commitment and loyalty and hence helps in developing a long term relationship between employee and the organization. Advantages o Commitment towards the organization o Improved performance and productivity

Disadvantages o Put strain on the company’s balance sheet and resources. o People will be accustomed to such rewards every time and expectations may increase.

Recommended solution
The option that Singhania and partner should implement is to have a redesigned retention policy. Rewards should be paid based on consistency and not on single performance. This will help retain old employees who have consistently contributed to the organization. Award should also be constituted to reward employees based on years of service to the organization.

Action Plan
1. Compensation should be based on years of service e:g if you serve 2 years you will get a bonus of Rs50, 000 at the end of 3 years a sum of 80000 will be provided and so on. 2. Employees should feel a part of the organization and this could be ensured by having their say in the management and operations. 3. Evolve a feedback system where people could express their feelings and experiences of working with organization. 4. Retention could be also catered to by giving loans and stock options of the firm. People appreciate such good wills. 5. Opportunities could be given to employees for going abroad and gain experience of global legal domain to increase learning. 6. Give family tour trips to maintain work life balance. Is compensation the only issue?

References: 1. Asia Case Research Centre Case: People management the mantra for success.