Case Study

Sinha is a senior employee of S & S law Firm having its head office at Delhi and branches at all the major cities in the country. the managing partner of the firm asked sinha to head its southern branch at nBanglore. The firm has been quite successful since its inception in 1950s, but has witnessed high turnover among its younger staff in the last few years. The managing partner is convinced that the problem is not salary, because a recent survey indicated that the firm’s salary structure is competitive with that of other major firms. Driven by this incomprehension, the managing partner wants Sinha to find out the real reasons.

Having settled in Banglore, Sinha met the four senior managers to determine why the branch has had such a high attrition rate among the younger staff. Krishna, age 46, states that the younger staff lacks dedication and fails to appreciate the career opportunities provided by the firm. Gowda, age 52 says the younger employees are always complaining aboput the lack of meaningful feedback on their performance, and many have mentioned that they would lke to have a sponsor in the organization to assist with their development. Gowda further explains that the firm does provide performance rating to its staff and the previous manager had always maintained an open-door policy. Manohar, aged 39, says he has received complaints that training is not relevant and is generally dull. He explains that various persons in the firm who worked with training from time to time acted mainly on guidance from Delhi. Shobha, aged 35, says she believes that when the idea was mentioned to the manageing  partner in Delhi, it was totally rejected.

QUESTIONS:

1. Do you think that S & S Law firm needs an HR department? If yas, what should be its role?
2. How would you sell th eidea of HR department to the managing partner?
3. What type of organizational structure would you recommend?