Case Study: Importance of HR

In 2006, Vidyasagar Institute of Management (VIM) affiliated to Maharastra University was set up with a noble objective to impart business education. The governing bodies of this institute had already established its reputation in the field of Engineering, MCA, and other Post Graduate Diploma Course and unanimously decided to start a high standard business school and impart the business studies to its students based on the recent trends. Keeping in view, the excellent quality, they recruited faculties of high caliber and rich experience in the industrial arena. The governing bodies were very enthuse about getting such experienced talented professionals to join their growing institute and achieve their objective. They were successful in getting faculties who had studied in IIMs and had rich experience in teaching in other elite business school. Mr. Samuel was selected as the Director of VIM. Mr. Samuel was the man with vigor to achieve the best for the institute. He had strict discipline both in his life and for others too. He thought of pursuing his interest in business field and joined for MBA from Chandigarh University where he was adjudged as the best student and had got the opportunity to study in Canada from where he imbibed a lot of business learning through experiments. In his learning he understood that understanding human behaviour is very important for business and therefore did his Masters in Psychology too. Before joining the institute he submitted his Ph.D thesis relating to Stress and Performance and also worked in the position of Deputy General Manager in one of the enormous automobile industry in Chennai. To work with him he had three more faculties, First, Mr. John who had completed his M.Tech and later pursued to study for MBA in IIM and worked as an Electrical Engineer in ONGC, a known public sector undertaking in India. He was the person who felt comfortable in a very formal administrative set up. He joined the institute earlier than other faculties and was a helping hand in the administration work till Mr. Rajendran joined as the administrate staff of VIM. Second, Mr. Sunil Kumar, who after the completion of MA in Sociology took other post graduate diploma in the areas of HR and Business Administration. He was a person very keen in learning HR and practicing HR and was assertive enough to put forth his demands in a pleasing manner. He worked in elite management schools and had very rich exposure in the area of practical HR. He was an excellent HR personality who knew how to handle the situation in a tactful manner or in other words, he know how to take right actions at right time. Third, Ms. Geeta Dixit, who did her Masters in Psychology through distance education (IGNOU)and thereafter completed her MPhil (Industrial Psychology) from University of Madras. She was very particular about her rights and was very dedicated to her work. She was expertise in soft skill and SPSS field and was interested in developing the communication skills of the students. She worked as Lecturer in Akshay Institute of Management, Bangalore and had developed personality and communication skills package for MBA students and was successful to great extent in developing the skills in the students. Some of the students to be inducted in VIM were interviewed before the faculties were recruited but luckily Mr. John was their throughout the selection of all the students. A total of 9 batches with a maximum of 15 students and a minimum of 8 students were interviewed on a day. Mr. Samuel joined the recruitment process later on and was very particular that the students who are inducted to the management course should have the better communication skill and he used his psychology throughout the process. The allotted seats for VIM were 60 and management jointly selected around 52 students after going through the thorough screening. To provide the best to the students of VIM, the experienced faculties put forth fabulous ideas based on their experience with high caliber students and at the same time mentioning that these ideas will work out only when we have bright students. Before the commencement of the classes the Dean and the faculties

had talk on the subject allocation. The areas to be covered in the first year of MBA were Accounting, Computers, OB, Quantitative Methods, Managerial Economics, Business Communication, and Legal Methods. Except for Mr. John the rest of the faculties were interested in HR and they were adamant about their subjects. Hence VIM has to appoint guest faculty to teach important subjects such as Quantitative Methods, Managerial Economics, Accounting, and Computers. The appointed faculties had several discussions about the session to be carried out, once the students join the regular classes. Surprisingly, both Dean and Mr. John though aware of the fact that the institute is having majority of average intellectuals and only a few bright were talking about the rigorous timings of the classes and teach the subject in the manner that can be understandable by the bright students. The schedule was planned out without considering the potential of the students and the timing for the classes was fixed up, starting from 8.00 AM in the morning with the reading hour (reading business dailies to update with current trends in the industry) to 6.30 PM in the evening. The faculties were given the additional duties of mentoring the students in the area of communication development. Each faculty had a set of students and had the freedom to choose their own methodology of developing the communication skills in the students. 1. Will the management achieve success in its noble objective? 2. Was the role of Human Resource significant in VIM? 3. VIM could have avoided hiring external faculties, if faculty with MBA Degree was appointed. Discuss. 4. Was it essential for all the faculties to involve in the development of communication skills? 5. If you are in the position of the Director and had the three faculties with the same qualification as mentioned in the case, how would you use the available resources.