Chennai-based Carborundum Universal Limited (CUMI), part of the Murugappa Group, is working on a human resource (HR) structure in which there will be no temporary workers in the company in the next three years, according to a top official of the company.
“We are working on it now,” CUMI managing director K Srinivasan said in his keynote address at Tamil Nadu HR Summit 2012, organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) here on Thursday.
Speaking to reporters on the sidelines of the summit, he said the group would use several tools to bring down the number of temporary workers. The tools include flexible production, automation, rescaling of people, bringing in new skills by increased staffing like upgrading and retaining a part of these workers,changing layout of production facilities and increasing the potential of existing staff through skill development.
CUMI is into abrasives, ceramics, reactionaries and electrominerals.
“There is no magic bullet to reduce the number of temporary workers. One has to use several tools at a time to implement this,” Srinivasan said, adding temporary workers, in various forms, were present in almost all the industries and there was a strong sentiment across the industry to reduce them in their operations. The plans are to ensure more productivity while there would also be flexibility, he said.
The Murugappa Group has close to 35,000 employees and around 40 per cent of this comprise temporary workers.
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On the recent labour unrest in the country and the trends in HR management in companies, Mohan Pyare, secretary, state labour and employment department, said, “The current circumstances are giving signals that there is a need to change the present trend of running a factory by temporary workers. Some changes are needed and the corrections have to be done well in time.”
The industry is keen that the state government have an outsourcing policy to address the skilled labour requirement in a peaceful environment, said R Dinesh, chairman of CII Tamil Nadu, and joint managing director of TV Sundaram Iyengar and Sons Limited. CII has already submitted a representation to the government on the same.
It recently conducted a closed-door meeting with the trade union leaders, against the backdrop of the labour issues at the Maruti plant in Manesar, to take stock of the situation in the state.