 "Developing work culture and right attitude for industrial growth")
From left to right: Kishore Malviya, Director, SMS Envirocare; Hakimuddin Ali, Chairman, CII Vidarbha region & Managing Director, Calderys India Refractories Ltd; Prakash Shesh, Management Consultant; Pradeep Khandelwal, President, Butibori Manufacturers Association, at Business Standard Smart Business in Nagpur on 8th January 2015, in association with Butibori Manufacturers’ Association.
Motivating workers and developing a positive work culture has become especially urgent for industries in the Nagpur belt to catch up with established industrial centres in Western Maharashtra. The challenge is more daunting given that most of the firms in the Nagpur region are small and medium scale enterprises with limited financial resources to buy employee dedication and loyalty. At a recent Business Standard Smart Business conference titled “Developing work culture and right attitude for industrial growth” at Butibori, Nagpur, in association with Butibori Manufacturers Association (BMA), this issue was discussed in detail.
Setting the tone for the discussion, the moderator cited studies and urged entrepreneurs and managers to force a sense of pride among workers. Numerous researches in Europe and United States have concluded that workers go beyond their brief to contribute if the work makes them proud and gives them a positive review in the community. Remuneration should also be designed in a way that the employees see their future in the company and get a share in the company’s upside.
The keynote speaker, Prakash Shesh, exhorted employers to explain their vision and long-term goals to their employees. He also asked the top management to drive innovation and invest in employee training in a big way. “The employer should be the role model for the employee,” he said.
Kishore Malviya, director of city-based environment engineering firm, SMS Envocare, presented the employee side of the narrative. He said that there is a huge gulf between what employers seek from their employee and what they themselves do. Employers need to discipline themselves and bring a professional attitude into the workplace, he said.
The chief guest of the evening, Hakimuddin Ali, managing director of Calderys India Refractories Ltd, asked SMEs to develop a formal framework that fosters productivity and innovation on the lines of what large companies such as Tata Steel do. “The top management has to create conditions that foster the right attitude among employees,” said Hakimmudin.
He warned that too much reliance on financial rewards will turn the enterprise into a greedy organisation inhibiting co-operation among employees and will foster unethical behaviour. He said that SMEs should hire the best people, give them the bandwidth to grow and then let them achieve the company’s targets without interference in their daily routine.