Page 288 - DCOM404_CORPORATE_LEGAL_FRAMEWORK

Unit 12: The Factories Act, 1948

"Don't. Flesh out the issues and keep them ready for me. Let me finish with our foreign
partners' visit this week"
"Should we have the meeting next week in that case?"
"No, go ahead. We can have a second meet next week."
One thing that had irked Arora all along was the fact that Patel seemed inadequately
concerned with HR problems. He was more concerned about what he called "strategic
issues".
By afternoon, Arora had got a confirmation to the meeting request sent out by Patel. The
committee would meet on Wednesday pre-lunch. ("Can't tackle HR post lunch," somebody
had wise-cracked in acknowledgement.)
Care Soft's Compensation Committee comprised, apart from Patel and Arora, the CFO
Narayan Shastri, coo Niranjan Roy, Director (Marketing) Utpal Sinha, a principal from the
consulting company that had drawn the new compensation structure Anurag Kesaria, and
an independent director, who was a chartered accountant by profession, and widely regarded
for his management wisdom – Raman Behl.
The agenda for the meeting had already been circulated the previous day. Therefore, all
the men were aware of the issues at hand.
"How widespread is the discontent, Nitin?" Coo Roy set the ball rolling.
"I have reason to believe that it is quite widespread," said Arora, "although only a handful
of people have taken it up with me so far."
"In that case, may be we are over-reacting," said Shastri. "We need to give the new system
more time. After all, it's just a year old."
"I don't think one can possibly over-react to such an issue," noted Behl. "The worst thing
that we can do now is to let the morale take a hit."
"I agree," said Arora.
"I couldn't agree more," added Sinha, Director of Marketing. "I just can't afford to lose any
of my men. And certainly not good men like Anil Mathur. I don't care if we have to pay
him more."
"That's not a good idea," pointed out Arora... "We cannot be seen as being selective in our
rewards. The whole idea behind variable pay was to motivate people across the board
with the promise of greater rewards for better performance. We cannot make changes
arbitrarily."
"Then, may be we didn't implement the new structure properly," bristled Sinha. "Or may be
we should simply revert to the old fixed system, which according to me worked just fine."

"You are right about poor implementation," consultant Kesaria said. "But it would be a
strategic mistake to bring back the old system. After all, the reasons why we introduced
variable pay still hold. The business environment is changing, and we cannot afford to
reward people based on the quaint notion of entitlement. Executives have to justify what
they earn."
"Besides," the Chief Financial Officer, Shastri, intervened, "variable pay is a great way to
control costs and improve productivity. Not to mention that such a system automatically
attracts high-calibre people."
"Yes, when the going is good in the market, there is no problem with variable pay," noted
Sinha. "But when the markets crash, like they have now, your profits shrink. Do you then
Contd...

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