HR POLICIES AND PRACTICES: THE REALITY – A CASE STUDY

Abstract

The competitive advantage that any organization enjoys is attibuted to its human capital. Retention of that resource is one of the major challenges faced by Human Resource (HR) Managers. This is generally accomplished through employee-friendly HR policies and practices. A major thrust is put on recruiting the best quality manpower, developing them through focused training programmes and motivating them with attractive financial packages, incentives, challenging tasks, etc. This paper showcases the inevitabile result of the absence and non-implementation of structured and fool-proof policies, i.e., the impact HR policies and practices have on employee turnover. The focus is on Campus Placement and recruitment of Management Trainees (MTs) as well as the experience of these MTs through the case of one such individual. This live case study is based on primary data - pre and post-placement interactions with the incumbent. The case is followed by the results of a questionnaire-based survey conducted on 50 non-HR emloyees with minimum 2 years of experience covering both servcice and manufacturing sectors, to get their feedback on how far HR policies are implemented. The overall scope of the study is limited as it covers the retention of only one position, i.e., Management Trainees taken in through campus placement.The practical implication of this original work is that though the survey has shown that the majority of the respondents have positive feedback regarding implementation of policies, HR cannot afford to have negatice perception even from one individual as it deals with the soft ‘S’ of the employees.