Reference no: EM132769219

Question

Prathamesh Steel (Pvt.) Ltd. founded 15 years before by Mr. A.M. Bapat was having booming time. At that time, Mr. Bapat, worked both in the office and in the factory and knew his men and they knew him. Production standard were always maintained and labour turnover was practically non-existing. As the business mushroomed, the number of employees has progressively increased. Thus, Mr. Bapat's greetings and conversation with his workers became less frequent. In fact, he had so many things to do, that he could no longer supervise the factory. Thus, he hired another man, Mr. Godse as a plant supervisor. As this time though the number of workers increased to about 500, labour turnover and absenteeism increased along with the labour cases. The only thing that decreased was productivity. In order to meet the situations, Mr. Bapat granted substantial increase in wages which were already high and made some arrangements for increment earnings based on merit rating on seniority. Yet labour turnover and absenteeism continue at a high rate. On investigation, it was found that the new plant supervisor lacked the patience and understanding which is necessary for dealing with the employees. When something was found wrong, he was scolding the employees but no attempt was made to find the case of faulty work. Meanwhile, labour unrest developed. The ,Worker began to complain about working on Saturdays and not having either time or facilities change from work clothes to original dresses after work, about toilet facilities etc. Some of the claims were' not found sufficiently justified or easy to meet. Mr. Bapat offered to workers as compensation, a new rise in wages with more liberty in allowing vacation time all of which the company could well afford.

Question 1. Were the steps taken by Mr. Bapat right?
Question 2. What do you think he should have done in order to improve the situation?