MASTER’S DEGREE PROGRAMME IN PSYCHOLOGY

(MAPC)

INTERNSHIP IN INDUSTRIAL AND ORGANISATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY (MPCE 035)

INTERNSHIP REPORT

Name of Learner : Anand Philip

Enrolment No : 168050533

Regional Centre : IGNOU Study Centre, Kaloor, Kerala

Study Centre Code : 14000

Year : 2019

Name of Organisation : V-Guard Industries Limited, Kochi, Kerala

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 Table of Contents
PROFILE OF THE ORGANISATION ................................................................................................. 1

ABOUT THE COMPANY ............................................................................................................... 1

VISION .............................................................................................................................................. 1

MISSION ........................................................................................................................................... 1

BOARD OF DIRECTORS................................................................................................................. 2

FINANCIAL PERFORMANCE (FY13 – FY18) .............................................................................. 2

PRODUCT SEGMENT PERFORMANCE ....................................................................................... 2

ORGANISATION CHART ................................................................................................................... 3

Finance & Accounts ........................................................................................................................... 4

Marketing Department ....................................................................................................................... 4

Supply Chain Department (SCM) ...................................................................................................... 5

R&D Electronics ................................................................................................................................ 5

Production Department ...................................................................................................................... 5

Electronics Division ....................................................................................................................... 5

Electro-Mechanical Division (EMD) ............................................................................................. 5

Mechanical & Electrical Division (MED) ..................................................................................... 5

Appliances Division ....................................................................................................................... 6

Wires & Cables Division (WCD) .................................................................................................. 6

Legal Department ............................................................................................................................... 6

 IT and Systems Department ............................................................................................................... 6

Brand & Communications (B&C) ..................................................................................................... 6

Customer Service ............................................................................................................................... 6

Strategy Team .................................................................................................................................... 6

Digital & Emerging Channels (D&EC) ............................................................................................. 7

HR DEPARTMENT IN V-GUARD ..................................................................................................... 8

OVERVIEW....................................................................................................................................... 8

CLASSIFICATION OF ACTIVITIES IN HR DEPARTMENT OF V-GUARD ............................. 9

TALENT ACQUISITION ............................................................................................................... 9

PAYROLL MANAGEMENT ....................................................................................................... 12

COMPLIANCE & TAXES............................................................................................................ 13

LEARNING AND DEVELOPMENT ........................................................................................... 14

PERFORMANCE DEVELOPMENT & APPRAISAL ................................................................ 15

PROFILE OF THE ORGANISATION

ABOUT THE COMPANY

V-Guard Industries Ltd is a major electrical appliances manufacturer in India, and the largest in
the state of Kerala with an annual turnover of ₹23.21 billion (US$340 million) in financial year
2017-18. The company manufactures voltage stabilizers, electrical cable, electric pumps, electric
motors, geysers, solar water heaters, air coolers and UPSs. It was founded in 1977 by Kochouseph
Chittilappilly as a small voltage stabilizer manufacturing unit.

Kochouseph Chittilappilly also founded other establishments held as subsidiaries such as V-Star
Creations, an Indian manufacturer of innerwear for men, women, and children, Veegaland
Developers, a real estate company and WonderLa, a chain of amusement parks in South India.

V-Guard is one of India’s consumer goods company with diversified product offerings.
Headquartered in city of Kochi, Kerala, the company now has over 500 distributors, 30,000
retailers, and branches across India. It’s listed with the NSE and BSE since 2008. Over the years
V-Guard has forayed into Electronics, Electrical and Consumer Durable segments.

VISION

Let us endeavour to make V-Guard a trusted household name.

MISSION

 To offer a range of products at affordable prices, which add to comfort of life through saving in
manual labour, time and energy or for entertainment.
 To make our products meet international quality standards and provide trouble free performance.
 To adopt designs, which support timely and efficient post sale service.
 To continuously innovate and add value to our products, if needed with technical collaboration.
 To continuously assess and improve customer care.

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BOARD OF DIRECTORS

Name Designation
Mr. Kochouseph Chittilappilly Chairman
Mr. Cherian Punnose Vice Chairman
Mr. Mithun K Chittilappilly Managing Director
Mr. Ramachandran Venkataraman Director & Chief Operating Officer
Mr. C J George Director
Mr. Joshna Johnson Thomas Director
Mr. Ullas Kamath Director
Mr. A K Nair Director
Mrs. Radha Unni Director

FINANCIAL PERFORMANCE (FY13 – FY18)

PRODUCT SEGMENT PERFORMANCE

Segment Product Categories

Electronics Voltage stabilizers, UPS systems
Electricals House wiring cables, Pumps, Switchgears and Modular
switches
Consumer Durables Fans, Water heaters, Kitchen appliances and Air coolers

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ORGANISATION CHART

Zone 1

Marketing Zone 2

Supply Chain
Zone 3
Management

Wires & Cable

R&D Electronics
Division

Electro-Mechanical
Division

Mechanical &
Production
Electrical Division

Legal Electronics Divison

Director & COO
IT & Systems Appliances Division

Brand &
Communications

Customer Service
Chairman

Strategy

Managing Director Digital & Emerging

Channels

Human Resource

Commercial Team

Company Secretary
& Team

Sr. VP & CFO Costing Team

Internal Audit

Final Accounts

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 A brief about each department is given below.

 Finance & Accounts: This department is overseen by the CFO. There are many sub sections in the
department like

Commerce Team: This team is responsible for managing the accounts receivables and payable
with the channel partners across the branches. They coordinate the day to day commerce activities
with the respective branch commercial in-charges

Company Secretary: This team is responsible for all statutory compliances and other affairs
related to the Companies Act. V-Guard being a listed company, the Secretarial department is
responsible for communication with SEBI also.

Costing Team: Costing team handles the margin estimations. They are also the custodian of
Annual Operating Plans (AOP). AOP is the annual planning exercise in which the company
estimates the expected turnover, margins, costs, etc. It is done in a ‘bottom-up’ approach. The sale
offices will start estimation of sales for the full financial year. All other estimations are done based
on this sales figure; after being moderated by the top management

Internal Audit Team: Internal Audit team ensures the internal compliance of the company to the
IndAS standards. They take care of internal compliances in terms of submission of documents
while claiming expenses, taking quotations from multiple vendors before deciding on a purchase
and similar activities.

Final Accounts Team: Final Accounts team is responsible for clustering of general ledgers (GL)
and preparation of trial balance and the final accounts (Balance Sheet, P&L, etc.)

 Marketing Department: The Marketing Department of V-Guard is the largest department. It is

spread across 31 branch offices. The branches are divided into 3 zones. There are three Vice
Presidents in Marketing Department, responsible for each zone. There are regional managers and
branch heads reporting to vice presidents.

The branch manager has Product In-Charges (PIC) reporting to him and the sales executive report
to PICs. The sales executives take care of specific markets or districts. PIC is responsible for sales
generation of 1 or 2 specific products.

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 The major activity of the sales team is the manage the channel sales. Channel means the distribution
channel comprising of distributors, direct dealers and retailers.

 Supply Chain Department (SCM): SCM department is responsible for the overall supply chain
which starts from sourcing of raw material and ends at delivery of goods at the branch warehouses
and further at the distributor / direct dealer’s warehouse.

The following are the key sub-sections in SCM department.

Logistics Management: This team manages the movement finished goods from different factory
locations and between warehouses.

Supply Demand Planning: The monthly forecasting of demand and the coordination with the
supply side (production, sourcing) is done by this section.

Sourcing Team: Sourcing team manages the vendors. They evaluate the vendors, do the
onboarding and then further to that will be responsible for vendor development activities.

 R&D Electronics: This is the R&D department specific for developments in stabilizers. It is kept
as a separate department due to the extend of activities happening in the division. All other product
categories have R&D sections under the respective divisions itself.
 Production Department: Though the function is collectively called production department, it refers
to different technical division handling the product side. Product side include, development,
testing, and production of products.

There are 5 divisions in V-Guard.

Electronics Division: Electronics Division takes care of the production of electronic products like
Stabilizers and inverters. It also handles the battery production and sourcing.

Electro-Mechanical Division (EMD): EMD is responsible for the development and production of
products like pumps, fans etc.

Mechanical & Electrical Division (MED): MED manages the development and production of
water heaters

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Appliances Division: This division is responsible for the production of appliances like mixer
grinders, air coolers etc.

Wires & Cables Division (WCD): WCD is responsible for the manufacturing of house wiring
cables.

Legal Department: Legal department handles all the legal activities relevant for the company.
Some of the topics they handle are legal metrology, trademark law, shops & establishment act, etc.

They act as an internal consultant for all different departments in relation to their legal queries. The
department also has alliance with external law agencies for various types of activities.

IT and Systems Department: This department is responsible for the enablement of all IT related
activities. Some of them are developing and maintaining the employee portal, managing the SAP
ERP system running in the company, managing the hardware like laptops, printers, phones, etc.,
ensuring connectivity through video and audio conference, managing the server and ensuring data
security.

Brand & Communications (B&C): B&C department is responsible for the brand management
activities. Some of the activities done by the B&C department are consumer insight generation,
managing the advertisement campaigns, managing other brand related communications, media
buying, sourcing and deployment of brand merchandises like gifts, flex-boards, dummy product
pieces, etc. They interact with numerous external agencies to fulfil their job demands.

Customer Service: Customer Service department handles the complaint resolution of products
across India. V-Guard has an ASP model for service. ASP stands for authorized service partner.
V-Guard has an ASP in every 100 to 150 km circumference across India. When a complaint is
logged in the call Centre, it will be directed to the appropriate ASP which is near to the pin-code
from which the complaint was received.

Strategy Team: Strategy team works closely with the top management in various corporate
priorities. The key roles in which strategy team is active are Strategic Planning exercise, Mergers
& Acquisitions, Special Projects & Consultant initiatives, operational excellence initiatives.

Strategic planning activity is undertaken once in every 5 years to strategize the organizational
direction, but the strategic plan is revised every year for course corrections considering the very
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dynamic environment of business. M&A activities include exploration of options for attaining
inorganic growth through merger, acquisition, joint ventures, licensing etc.

Other than this, the strategy team undertakes special projects which are crucial for the corporate
goals like turnaround of product categories, organizational structural change related projects, etc.
It liaison with different consulting agencies for doing these projects.

Digital & Emerging Channels (D&EC): The D&EC department is a relatively new function in
V-Guard. This department focuses on revenue generation from new channels like e-commerce,
modern trade, and other new opportunities. Another role of this function is to focus on developing
digital capabilities for the organization. Digital capabilities mean capabilities in AI, Machine
Learning, process automation, digital content development, digital marketing, etc.

Human Resource Department: The HR department being the focus of this internship, is being
discussed in detail from the next page.

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 HR DEPARTMENT IN V-GUARD

OVERVIEW

V-Guard Human Resource (HR) department manages approximately 3000 (2500 on-roll and 500 off-
roll) employees.

The employees of V-Guard are spread across the following locations

- Headquarters in Kochi and extended Headquarters in Gurgaon

- 31 sale offices/branches across India and their attached warehouses
- 2 Warehouse hubs (Hyderabad & Gurgaon)
- 9 own manufacturing facilities and more than 40 SME units or vendors from which V-Guard
sources it’s products

The HR processes in the organization are centralized at Kochi. In key locations, an HR personnel is
deployed to coordinate the operations in a controlled manner. Factories and regions have HR SPOC
(single point of contact) deployed.

The largest workforce in V-Guard is in the marketing department with approximately 900 employees
managing the sales channel (distributors and direct dealers) of V-Guard across branches. To manage
this large sales organization, the geographies are split into 4 regions – North, East, West and South.
The HR operations in the Southern branches are managed directly from the Kochi Head Office (HO).
The SPOCs manage the HR operations in conjunction with HO at all other regions.

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 CLASSIFICATION OF ACTIVITIES IN HR DEPARTMENT OF V-GUARD

V-Guard as an organization is very structured in their HR operations. The roles are clearly defined,
and responsibilities are clearly assigned to sub-sections. The sub-sections are listed below.

1. Talent Acquisition
2. Pay-roll Management
3. Compliance & Taxes
4. Learning & Development (L&D)
5. Performance Development & Appraisal (PDA)
6. Industrial Relations

These activities are discussed in detail below, in this report.

TALENT ACQUISITION

V-Guard being a high growth company in the industry, talent acquisition is one of the most active
roles that HR play. The company have recruited more than 350 people in the last financial year.
Among them more than 50 were to the managerial grades. The right candidates to handle the ever-
emerging skill requirements is very crucial for the organization to reach its aspiration.

KEY ACTIVITIES

The following are the key activities undertaken by the talent acquisition team.

1. Annual Manpower Budgeting: The talent acquisition team leads the yearly manpower budgeting
exercise. Towards the beginning of a new fiscal year, the annual operating plan (AOP) is finalized
based on the company’s strategic objectives and top management directives. Once the AOP is
finalized, the head of departments (HoD) of all key functions are asked to assess and forecast their
manpower requirements for the years. It will be moderated by the top management and then will
be finalized for the year. Any new recruitments other than these finalized in the beginning of the
year will have to go through a special approval process involving the Management Committee
(MC). MC contains a few key directors and vice presidents of the company.

2. Recruitment: During the year, when the time arrives for the recruitment as per the annual
manpower budgeting, the respective manager who requires the subordinate will raise an intend for

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 the recruitment. The intend is raised in an application tracking system (ATS). In V-Guard, the ATS
provider is monster.com, and the ATS is called DelTech. It is also referred to as Monster TMS
(Talent Management System).

In the intend, there are different details the manager must populate about the desired candidate like
the work experience required, educational qualifications, salary range, etc. Most importantly, the
manager must clearly describe the job description (JD) of the specific job opening. Once the intend
is raised, it goes through an approval chain. After the necessary approvals are received, the talent
acquisition team posts the job opening in the company website, naukri.com and in linkedin.com.

The applications received against the job posting at different portals are collated. An MS Excel
summary of the applications is also downloaded in the case of naukri.com. The team filters the
candidates based on different key word. Prospective candidates are shortlisted, and their interviews
will be fixed with the managers or other panels. Once the interview is done, the manager has to
complete a rating form in the ATS. Candidates with the top ratings are shortlisted and next level
interviews and salary negotiations happen. The ATS will send an offer letter to the candidate. For
which the candidate should respond by accepting or rejecting the offer through a link in a webpage.

3. Onboarding of Candidates: Once the candidate has accepted the offer from the company, the
candidate is expected to join the assigned location on the joining date mentioned in the offer letter.
On this day, the onboarding process will commence and all the document submissions, proof of
qualifications, other statutory documents etc. are made. Background verification of each candidate
is done through an external agency to avoid intake of fraud candidates
The candidate must complete a psychometric test as part of the organizational policy to complete
a personality assessment test. The test is based on the DISC (Dominance, Influential, Steady,
Compliant) chart. This assessment will not be a decisive factor on the candidate’s onboarding into
the organization. It is more of a company policy.
A 3-day induction training is also given to the candidate as part of the onboarding to familiarize
him or her with the company policies, processes, etc.

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 CHALLENGES & SUGGESTED INTERVENTIONS

1. Poor Quality of Job Description (JD) while Requesting for New Manpower
Challenge: The job description outlined by the respective managers requesting for new manpower
requirements are of poor quality. Many a times the job description is very vague or doesn’t contain
the necessary information required to be communicated in a job advertisement.
This could result in receipt of application from candidates not apt for the actual job roll, leading to
loss of time and productivity of the recruitment team in searching for the right candidate in the
wrong pool.

Suggested Intervention:
Training can be given to different managers and leads on the essential content requirements and
the importance of having a structured & clear job description to attract the right candidate.
Another intervention is to develop a standard template which includes spaces for minimum content
required in the JD.

2. Reserve Candidates
Challenges: The present practice is that, the recruiting manager finds a suitable candidate and
proceed with the individual into further rounds of interview. Though some candidates are
shortlisted for interview, there is no concept of having reserve candidates to ensure that alternatives
are queued up even if the most preferred candidate fails to join the role. This is not a case across
organisation, but with some specific HoDs.

Suggested Intervention: To have a systematic approach to rate and evaluate candidates, so that
there is always a set of reserve candidates who can join if the one preferred above him fails to.
Another intervention is to ensure or make it mandatory that atleast 3 to 5 candidates are taken
through the whole interview process and keeping an order of preference.

3. Getting Candidates for Factory Locations

Challenge: Finding good candidates for the factory locations is a challenge as the factories are in
remote locations from cities or places where the talent is settled. Locations are in Uttarakhand,
Himachal Pradesh, Sikkim, Tamilnadu, etc.

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Suggested Intervention: Provide flexible work arrangements and better remunerations for the
candidates is one option. Another alternative is to find good talent in and around these locations
and train & develop the candidates to meet the organisational requirements.

PAYROLL MANAGEMENT

Payroll management refers to the process of administration of a company’s employee’s financial

records. There are lot of sub activities under this section. All the payroll related activities start with
the employee getting onboarded into the organisation. During the onboarding process, the account
details of the employee is collected and is saved into the SAP HR module for all payroll activities.
Approximately 30 employees are added into the payroll system every month.

KEY ACTIVITIES

The key activities coming under the payroll management system are mentioned below.

Salary Processing: The core activity of the section is salary processing. The salary processing
activity starts after 20th of every month. The salaries are computed and the canteen payments,
penalties etc. are deducted from the salaries. Salary payment is automated in the system. The data
gets transferred to the bank with an approval from the finance team and the bank will auto credit
the salary into the respective bank accounts.

Personnel Administration: Maintaining and updating the records of employees is another activity
in this section. Documentation of service records, updating of bank information etc. come under
this category.

Time Office Management: Time office management involves the management of attendance. All
locations of the company, including factories, warehouses, sale offices and head office have
biometric punching systems.

Other activities include updation of salary components in the even of increment or promotions,
managing group medical insurance policy, etc.

CHALLENGES & SUGGESTED INTERVENTIONS

Redundant Data Entry

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Challenge: The same details of the employee must be recorded into multiple systems used by the
HR dept. like Digi Desk (onboarding app), internal employee portal and SAP HR module. This
increases the risk of error during data entry.

Suggested Intervention: System integration and data base management systems should be explored
to avoid redundant data entries.

COMPLIANCE & TAXES

This section of the HR department handles all the statutory requirements that the employer must
comply with. The key activities in this section are income tax deductions, provident funds,
employee state insurance corporation (ESIC), professional taxes, labour welfare funds and gratuity
management.

Income tax is deducted from the salary every month. Employees can provision for their eligible
deductions in the internal employee portal. At the end of the year, the employee must submit proof
of actual payments.

Provident fund contribution is also deducted from the employee’s salary every month. ESIC is the
insurance scheme provided by the government. Many lower cadre employees can reap benefits
from the scheme.

Professional tax is paid to the local administration (City Corporation, Municipality, etc.). It is
deducted from the employees every half yearly.

CHALLENGES & SUGGESTED INTERVENTIONS

Document Management of Proofs of Tax Exemption

Challenges: Each of the 2500 odd employees in the organization must submit their proofs of tax
exemption in order to validate their requests for tax exemptions. This is a tedious task for the
compliance management team.

Verifying the physical copies of proofs of each employee is a time-consuming task and chances of
error are high.

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Suggested Intervention: Addition of a module into the employee portal in which employees can
upload the relevant proofs against the respective tax exemption. Cam Scanner app was suggested
for scanning the documents which are in paper form. Training must be given to the employees for
uploading their proofs.

LEARNING AND DEVELOPMENT

Learning & Development (L&D) is responsible for all the HR training activities. The L&D is
relatively a new function in the HR department. Training is given to different target clusters of
employees like customer service technicians, sales team, leadership team, quality team etc. Soft
skills training, IT skills training etc. are also given above this.

The different types of training given to the employees are listed below.

Product Training for Customer Service Technicians: Training on the technical aspects and repair
of products are given at a regular basis to the customer service team. Different internal certification
programs are also done for skill updations of customer service technicians.

Selling Skills Training for Sales Employees: Sales team is given training on how to sell focusing
on the product features and aspects rather than just negotiating on weak reasoning. The training is
given in the native language of the sales executives.

Sales Forecast Training: Sales forecasting training is aimed at giving the sales team the awareness
on the impact of their forecasts on the margins and the effect of the product mix they are selling.
If they sell more of low margin products, the weighted average margin will fall overall, but if they
have a good mix of low and high margin products in their sales, the weighted average margin will
improve.

Six Sigma Certification: The Corporate Quality team is conducting Six Sigma training courses for
it’s managers in phases. L&D team is program managing the whole project.

Induction Training: Induction training is organised every month in batches for employees who
joined in the previous months. The induction training aims to help employees familiarize
themselves with the company environment. It also aims to help employees understand the basic
policies and processes followed in HR context.

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MS Office 365 Training: The company uses the Microsoft Office 365 licenses for all office
communication software it uses like Outlook, Word, PowerPoint, Excel, Access, Notes, Teams
and Skype for Business. Employees are given training in using these applications. Large scale
adoption of these applications will improve the efficiency of communication and productivity
levels.

Leadership Training Programs: Periodic training programs for different employees in the
leadership positions are also carried out. Leadership training program aims to enable the HoDs and
Managers in becoming better leaders in leading their teams and making decisions for the
betterment of the organization.

Other ad-hoc training programs are also conducted periodically. Like a training program on
presentation skills like ‘Presenting with a Purpose’ was conducted to help employees be more
meaningful while using presentations.

‘Hiring Smart’ is another training program designed for managers. This aims to sensitize managers
on how to hire the right candidates in a structured way. One key objective was to make managers
think in an objective way while interacting with the prospective candidates.

Company also sends out people for external training if the employee comes forward with a course
available outside. The reporting manager along with the HR head or L&D In-Charge will take a
call on whether the employee should be sent for the course considering the business case.

PERFORMANCE DEVELOPMENT & APPRAISAL

This section of HR department handles the appraisal system of the organization. V-Guard follows
an appraisal system with half yearly performance review. The detailed process will be discussed
below.

As part of the Strategic Planning process, the departmental balance score cards are prepared and
reviewed, annually. A brief about balance score card is given below. Further to this, we will discuss
how it is utilized in the organization.

Balance Score Card (BSC) is a strategic performance measurement model developed by Robert
Kaplan and David Norton. It helps in translating the organizations’ mission, vision and strategy

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into operational actions. BSC has 4 perspectives – Financial, Internal business processes,
Customer, Learning & Growth.

The HoD balance score card is cascaded down into the sub sections. Each employee is expected to
have minimum 1 KRA (Key Result Area) for each of the 4 BSC perspectives. Each KRA should
have a minimum of 1 KPI (Key Performance Indicator) with a Target for the indicator.

KRA

KPI

Target
+
Timeline

KRA are key result areas in which employee must focus. For eg: one employee in R&D division
might have value engineering or cost reduction as one result area. This employee will have multiple
KPI (key performance indicators) which will help in measuring the progress in this focus area. It
could be the total cost savings done in a product. Targets are set to measure whether the employee
have reached the set levels of expectations in each KPI. Weightage is also given for each KRA.

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The whole process of setting KRA, KPI and Targets are done in the beginning of the year in
consultation with their respective line mangers.

In the end of the year, the employee must fill in the achievement against the target and give a self-
rating. The manager will give his rating for the same. The weighted average score will give an
overall rating for the candidate for a fiscal year. HoD meetings are conducted to fix slabs for annual
increment.

This being the key roll of the PDA section, there are many associated activities done by the team.
Mapping of employees to respective roles and reviewers is one key activity the team does. This
enables in the proper review of BSC of the employees. The team is also the custodian of the PDA
portal. Talent Management Calendar is also managed by the PDA team. Every year, the team
releases a talent management calendar to the HoDs. The HoD will have a view on what all has to
be done at what period in context of the PDA.

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