Swami & Agarwal - Journal of Management Sciences and Technology, 3 (3), June - 2016

ISSN -2347-5005

CASE STUDY

Maximizing Results From Employee Engagement (Airtel)

Akhil Swami Surabhi Agarwal
Professor, Amity Business School Student, Amity Business School
NOIDA, India NOIDA, India
akhilswami@gmail.com

BACKGROUND

Bharti Enterprise was founded in 1976 by Sunil Bharti Mittal, and the company has risen from a
bicycle manufacturer to one of the largest Indian conglomerate, having diversified industrial
units. . The group presently has world class businesses in telecom, insurance, retail, real estate, IT
business and food distribution. Across all companies of the Bharti Group, highly effective
partnerships are common factor and visible thread.

Bharti Airtel, An leading Indian telecommunications company, is the flagship company of the
group. It is one of the leading telecom operators, not only in India but across the globe, with over
287 million subscribers. Airtel has operations in 20 countries and has presence in South Asia
and Africa, and the company offers services like -2G, 3G and 4G wireless services, activities
like mobile commerce, fixed line services, DSL broadband, IPTV, DTH, high speed enterprise
services including national & international long distance services to carriers. Launched in Delhi
in 1995, Airtel expanded at a breathless pace in these 20 years of its existence. Airtel has
emerged as one of the top four wireless operators in the world, in a short span of 23 years.
Analysts claim that Airtel has displayed remarkable capacity to scale up year on year and
executed its plans with high energy, and the integrated momentum has been exhibited.

With the process oriented organizational culture, Airtel has been able to achieve success and
retain top position in a very competitive industry like Telecom. It expanded its customer base
through organic growth and number of strategic mergers and acquisitions were engineered by the
company for expanding its base. . With the growth of the business, there was increase in
complexity of the process. As a result a separate vertical, -Supply Chain Management- was set up
to take care of the logistics. At Airtel Centre, Supply Chain Management department dealt with
the planning/ development, of better service delivery to customers, inventory management,
purchasing of materials and negotiations. The department employed 95 employees headed by Mr.
Sanjay Sachdeva at Airtel Centre.
 Swami & Agarwal - Journal of Management Sciences and Technology, 3 (3), June - 2016
ISSN -2347-5005

Airtel follows ambitious growth strategy. In order to achieve this objective, the company carries
out restructuring and re-engineering of its strategic business units at regular intervals. As the
macro-environment is very dynamic and the requirements/needs change fast, functioning of the
company and the requirement of the environment, realignment is addressed by the company by
these restructuring and reengineering exercises. In a further strategic move, Bharti plans the
merger of its four companies - Bharti BT Internet Ltd., Bharti BT V-SAT and Bharti Broadband
Services and their holding company Bharti Telespatiale Ltd. into a single company - Bharti
Broadband Networks Ltd. This decision was taken to create a common platform for developing
an integrated business solution for the Bharti customers in different market segments. It will help
enhance consumer value. Consequently, with this new strategic vision of re-structuring and
mergers, Bharti decides to take over the stake of British Telecom in Bharti - BT Internet Ltd., and
also in Bharti BT Ltd. (V-SAT Services).

This extensive growth strategy demands a highly committed workforce at Airtel which is capable
of contributing to its success and achieves the desired results. The management of the company
not only aims at setting a tough target but also beating the set goals and the message is passed on
at all levels. Thus Airtel SCM head recognized that employee engagement was a key to
achieving their growth strategy and also their desire to be widely known as a great place to work.

Employee Engagement is defined as ‘an outcome, measured or seen as a result of people being
committed to something or someone in the business – a very best effort that is willingly given.’
Engaged employees enthusiastically advocate pride and support for the organization's values and
goals.

Mercer defines “engagement” as ‘a state of mind in which employees feel a vested interest in the
company’s success and are both willing and motivated to perform to levels that exceed the stated
job requirements. It is the result of employees feeling about his/her work experience – the
organization, its leaders, the work and the work environment’.

CATEGORIES OF ENGAGEMENTS
A. Engaged Employees- These are employees who are inclined to know the management
expectations from their role so that they can not only meet the expectations exceed them. They
are curious about the vision/mission/goals of the company and their place in the hierarchy and try
to align their working/performance with the goals and objectives of the management and the
company. They work with passion and they drive innovation and move their organization
forward, and in the process they also move forward..
 Swami & Agarwal - Journal of Management Sciences and Technology, 3 (3), June - 2016
ISSN -2347-5005

B. Not Engaged Employees – This category of employees concentrate on tasks assigned to them
by the management, rather than the goals and outcomes they are expected to accomplish, so they
are only followers and the alignment of the work performed by them and that of the organization
is not their concern They want to be told what to do just so they can do it and say they have
finished. They focus on accomplishing tasks vs. achieving an outcome. These Employees are
normally unhappy and feel their contributions are being overlooked, and their potential is not
being tapped because they are not in good books of the seniors and management, not realizing
that in today’s competitive world no boss will like to discourage an employee who otherwise is
contributing to the organizational goals. .
C. Actively Disengaged - They can be termed as “cave dwellers". They not only unhappy with
work environment and the management and the coworkers, they also exhibit unhappiness and
also spread unhappiness and negativity in the work environment. Every day, actively disengaged
workers undermine what their engaged coworker’s accomplishes. As in any organization, the
team work effort is required; these actively disengaged workers not only not contribute but also
reduce the team effectiveness and effectiveness of their coworkers. So, this category of workers
can be termed as destroyers of effectiveness of the organization. The actively disengaged
employees will also not accept change easily and thus will not be able to align with company
objectives

Fig 1. The three types of employees

 Swami & Agarwal - Journal of Management Sciences and Technology, 3 (3), June - 2016
ISSN -2347-5005

A decrease in engagement level will impact the customer service. Additionally, a workforce that
is not highly engaged will be resistant to change and will take longer for expected benefits to be
achieved.

THE PROBLEM

Since 2012, the turnover in Supply Chain Management function has been considerably rising.
Employee turnover measures the rate at which employees leave their employer, usually over a
one year time period. A high turnover rate has significant cost and performance implications
attached to it. It includes recruitment cost, loss of expertise and increased need for training new
employees. The management understood that the best way to retain the soul of the company is by
creating an informal atmosphere where decision making can be done in consultations and at the
same time keeping employees engaged. Therefore organization design and structure should be
continuously reviewed. It is important for any business organization to understand the category in
which employee falls so that engaged employees can perform and actively disengaged employees
are made ineffective in damaging the basic fabric and effectiveness of the organization.

Following this, Airtel decided to carry out its first comprehensive survey in 2013 to find out the
reasons behind high turnover. Thereafter employee survey became an integral part of Airtel’s
Human Resource Management Program. The survey results were used to focus on improving the
employee engagement and trust within SCM function. Ten key drivers were highlighted that lead
to employee engagement at -Supply Chain Management- function. These were:

1. Career Growth and Development

2. Communicate vision

3. Timely information about major developments and decisions

4. Learning and development

5. Appropriate recognition

6. Positive changes taking place as a result of previous surveys

7. People collaboration

8. Have training for performing job effectively

9. Timely and helpful feedback

10. Clear understanding of what is expected

 Swami & Agarwal - Journal of Management Sciences and Technology, 3 (3), June - 2016
ISSN -2347-5005

Other key challenges that resulted in high turnover within -Supply Chain Management- function
were:

 Other telecom companies competing for the talent pool and offering two or three
times more salary in order to recruit the best.
 The large number of different cultures existing in India that sometimes caused
tensions which hindered performance.
 A low sense of emotional attachment between employees and the companies.
 The concept of employee engagement and its important role in creating success was
understood by managers and leaders very late.

The researchers suggest that positive relationship between employers and employees led to better
customer services. Engaged employees are more inclined to stay with the organization, perform
twenty per cent better than their colleagues, and act as brand ambassadors of the organization.
Their positivity has significant impact on the performance of the organization, driving bottom-
line profit and enabling organizational agility and improved efficiency in driving change
initiatives. It enables individuals to invest themselves fully in their work, with increased self-
efficacy and a positive impact upon the employees’ health and well-being, which in turn evokes
increased employee support for the organization. When the employees understand their impact
and influence on customers, the business, and bottom line and beyond, they don't just become
engaged. They become empowered. And empowered employees are best ambassadors. Thus
company reputation increases and more importantly the competitive edge. Therefore a smart
engagement yields stronger business results.

Fig 2. Effective employee engagement

 Swami & Agarwal - Journal of Management Sciences and Technology, 3 (3), June - 2016
ISSN -2347-5005

Developing a culture supportive of engagement is still a challenge in many organizations. It is

important to understand that engagement is a two-way relationship between employer and
employee, the company is responsible for building a meaningful workplace, whereas the
employees have a responsibility for contributing to an engaging workplace. Organizations
therefore must seek to build cultures where people are not afraid to give upwards feedback and
have honest and open communication at all levels. Both the managers and HR have a key role in
enabling engagement. Certainly HR has the skills and tools to assist but it is the line managers
who need to know how to engage their people. HR therefore has transparent and fair policies and
systems which managers are committed to and trained in how to implement effectively.
Organizations need to communicate that outcome is more important than the mere output and if
all work in alignment with outcome, the results will be far better, not only for the employees but
for all stakeholders of the organization.

The consideration in employee engagement is that it is hard to ascertain how far companies
should go in the attempt to raise engagement in the organization. A cost-benefit analysis therefore
is a must. Improving levels of employee engagement does not have to be expensive; it just takes
some time and energy, but final benefits outweigh these costs.

QUESTIONS

1) How high turnover rate was effecting Airtel? What steps were taken by Airtel to cope up
with it?
2) What were the major problems faced by the SCM function by the company that made
engagement as a key for achieving growth?
3) Design and develop an Engagement Program for SCM function based on the factors
identified in the survey.