Managers, workers favour new-age HR practices

Speakers from both industry and trade unions admitted that dramatic changes were needed to make industrial relations a part of the globalised, modern world.

The speakers were addressing students and faculty at XLRI's fifth national industrial relations conference (NIRC) in Jamshedpur with the theme, "Industrial Relations in the New Economy", organised by the Forum for Industrial Relations of XLRI.

Niroop Mohanty, vice-president of Tata Steel, said most of the challenges of the new economy could be overcome by knowing the worforce better as "the new economy is all about people. The narrow concepts about how to, and who is to, manage people has to be altered".

HR in today's world should exist only at the factory floor, he felt.

Vivek Patwardhan of Asian Paints said the biggest challenge was to develop a work ethic through a holistic approach, with the judiciary and government addressing only the larger issues.

"The courts have been adopting industry friendly practices for the past few years. The real enemy of workers is not management, but international competition," he said.

Ashok Mukherjee of TCS said people could be managed better by leveraging technology' as IT allowed routine time consuming tasks to be shifted online and gave HR more time to focus on nurturing of employees.

R N Misra, also of Tata Steel, analysed the legal system and the legal position on outsourcing.

"India is moving towards strategic outsourcing but the laws have a long way to go in this respect," he admitted.

C V Venkata Ratnam, director of IMI Delhi, said the rules of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) had forced the government to amend existing social welfare laws so that they looked like the laws existing in developed countries.

At a round table discussion on 'Unionisation in the new economy', Harbhajan Singh, vice-president of the Tata Worker's Union, admitted that new challenges faced the trade unions today.

Pabitra Chatterjee, general secretary of the American Express Employees Union, criticised job losses caused by VRS and public sector restructuring.