RA Group Managing Change and Employee Identification PDF Case Study

W35240 RA GROUP: MANAGING CHANGE AND EMPLOYEE IDENTIFICATION Rahul Chandra Sheel and Akriti Verma wrote this case solely to provide material for class discussion. The authors do not intend to illustrate either effective or ineffective handling of a managerial situation. The authors may have disgui...

W35240 RA GROUP: MANAGING CHANGE AND EMPLOYEE IDENTIFICATION Rahul Chandra Sheel and Akriti Verma wrote this case solely to provide material for class discussion. The authors do not intend to illustrate either effective or ineffective handling of a managerial situation. The authors may have disguised certain names and other identifying information to protect confidentiality. This publication may not be transmitted, photocopied, digitized, or otherwise reproduced in any form or by any means without the permission of the copyright holder. Reproduction of this material is not covered under authorization by any reproduction rights organization. To order copies or request permission to reproduce materials, contact Ivey Publishing, Ivey Business School, Western University, London, Ontario, Canada, N6G 0N1; (t) 519.661.3208; (e) [email protected]; www.iveypublishing.ca. Our goal is to publish materials of the highest quality; submit any errata to [email protected]. i1v2e5y5pubs Copyright © 2024, Ivey Business School Foundation Version: 2024-02-21 As Anjali Sharma stepped into the office cafeteria, she saw a long queue of employees waiting to pick up their lunch. She scanned the room, but found most of the tables occupied, leaving no place available to have a quiet meal. It was turning out to be a hectic day so far, with multiple issues, and Sharma wished she could just get a corner by herself. She was quick to realize, however, that even if she waited for the next 15 minutes in the queue to pick up her lunch, the place still wouldn’t become any less crowded—just like most other days. She reminisced about the old days when the office cafeteria used to be a relaxing place to take a break or to hang out with colleagues to enjoy light conversation. Sharma took a deep breath as she assessed the situation, and ultimately walked out and headed to the nearest restaurant outside the office complex. While Sharma was at the restaurant, she reflected on how stressful the last six months had been since June 2019, when RA Group, the company she worked for, moved to a swanky new office building in Bengaluru, India. She also recalled her initial excitement at joining the organization after completing her engineering degree three years earlier. Sharma’s short stint so far at RA Group had been an enriching experience with many learning and growth opportunities. The company had also treated her well, providing some of the best perks according to the technology consulting industry standards. However, her experience with this company had drastically changed in the last six months. “I do not recognize this company anymore,” Sharma thought. She deliberated whether it was time to start searching for a new job and move to a different company. RA GROUP: BACKGROUND RA Group started in 1990 as a technology consulting firm. The company developed world-class technology solutions for clients in strategy design and implementation, and assisted them in creating back-end infrastructure for global service delivery, helping these clients visualize the bigger picture for their service operations. RA Group was known for its approach in understanding large clients and using innovation to drive productivity for the clients’ businesses. The company focused on large accounts and had a strategy of meeting service delivery with the highest level of quality. The group had 5,000 employees across 10 locations worldwide. It was headquartered in London and started operations in Bengaluru in 2003. RA Group had built a good presence in India and was known for uncompromisable delivery of quality solutions. Global and domestic competition in the technology consulting domain was rapidly increasing with the arrival of new players in an already-crowded market space. Many existing consulting companies were Page 2 W35240 diversifying into technology consulting. To get contracts, the new players would bid at prices that were much lower than accepted market rates. The consequence was intensive competition to retain old clients and, especially, get new ones. To survive, companies were inventing new business models and, in many cases, diversifying business segments. The software sector was encountering multiple challenges, with 40 per cent of companies facing the challenge of increasing cost and 20 per cent facing challenges due to high levels of attrition; 16 per cent of companies were grappling with further employability challenges.1 CHANGE AT RA GROUP On June 15, 2019, RA Group employees in India received an email from their chief executive officer notifying them that the company’s office would be relocated to a new, independent tenth-floor building in Whitefield Bengaluru within the next 30 days. Currently, the office was situated on the outskirts of Bengaluru on Mysore Road, requiring considerable travelling time for almost all employees. Shamra and some of her colleagues needed to travel 90 minutes each way to reach the office, but with the location change, that travel time would be reduced by half. The announcement of the new office location was accompanied by other key changes—the unveiling of a new logo, a new colour scheme, and a new employee slogan: “We can make it happen!” The new office was bright, and murals adorned the wall. It offered many relaxing common spaces, breakout areas, and a greater number of meeting rooms. Inspired by offices in many IT companies, however, it had foregone the concept of tall-walled cubicles in favour of an “open office” concept, where there were no partitions across desks. Instead, employees sat at desks situated in a large open area with their colleagues. The transition was planned in such a way as to reduce any inconvenience (during the move) to employees. Employees were shown photos of the new office to increase their interest in the new space. The transportation vendor, IT department, and overall administration did their best during the transition to make it as seamless as possible. Name plates, individual desk phones, and other items belonging to each employee were meticulously transferred to their desks in the new office before the employees moved in. Employees had no trouble getting to the new office the first time, as on the day of the transition, the company’s car service automatically dropped them at the new location. The change of offices was sold to employees as increasing productivity and providing a more “multinational” and “modern” feel to the office. However, employees who had worked at the old office considered the new office format an attack on their privacy. The employees were used to the snug cubicles of the old office, and the new arrangement meant that someone could be looking over their shoulders at any time. The new office space also became very noisy with so many people conversing at the same time. The new format also meant that personal discussions and sharing were not possible; anyone might overhear the conversation. Sharma and her colleagues believed the new office environment had become too distracting. She shared, “Sometimes, while working, you need to relax a bit or organize your thoughts when you are trying to solve a problem. With so many people visible in my line of sight and the noise around, it is difficult to focus. Moreover, when we are working and have to take a work-related call, it becomes difficult to talk freely.” An attractive incentive the RA Group offered was an individual car service. Bengaluru was infamous for its rude auto-rickshaw drivers and costly cab services; thus, this facility was a respite for RA Group employees, particularly during hours outside the typical workday. It also helped mitigate employees’ reluctance to work late into the night. However, after the change in office location, that service was converted to a shared service at fixed intervals. Sharma shared, 1 Changing landscape and emerging trends: Indian IT/ITeS Industry, PWC-CII, accessed Jan 05, 2024,https://www.pwc.in/assets/pdfs/industries/technology/indianit-itesindustry-changinglandscapeandemergingtrends.pdf Page 3 W35240 Earlier, when we were just a bunch of 100 to 150 people, we used to get private cabs for pick-up and drop. Coming to work and going home in a chauffeur-driven car gave a sense of pride. Things were still fine when the employee strength grew to 400 to 500. Occasionally, we had to share cabs with other people who lived on the same route while returning from office. But now, it has become a nuisance. You only get cabs at designated time slots. Moreover, the cabs are forcefully cramped with four people, some whose destinations may be nowhere close to yours. Even the morning pick-ups are delayed because multiple people on the same route are clubbed together. All this has taken away the feeling of being “coveted.” It feels like we are a bunch of corporate labourers. I wonder what they’ll do next. Dispense with the cabs and start a bus service? Ever since RA Group had started working in India, it had been very selective with recruitment. However, it increased the recruitment drive many-fold by diversifying the recruitment campuses. For example, for the role of business technology analyst (Sharma’s role), historically RA Group had strictly hired only from the top 20 engineering colleges of India. However, with the recent change, it was now opening its doors to many more colleges in the country. The number of employees in the spacious building increased by half with the new hires. The existing employees, who used to enjoy an identity of being part of an elite club, were disgruntled. Sharma said, “When I was in college, getting into RA [Group] was a huge feat. It was special. Nowadays, it’s become so easy. Anyone and everyone can make it to this place.” Sharma was told by her colleagues that the expansion strategy had also taken a toll on the quality of deliverables. The induction of new technology analysts had led to an imbalance in the ratio of technology analysts to technology consultants, who were there to guide the new recruits in the technology analyst role. Not only did this make the organization pyramid very bottom-heavy, it also led to struggles for technology consultants in managing so many technology analysts and reviewing their work for errors. Many new recruits were working on projects without supervision, and the process of allotment to a team was perceived as random. Earlier, RA Group had taken pride in the quality of its work and had a long-standing legacy of delivering the best quality to its clients. In fact, this was one of the major reasons why only 20 to 25 per cent of its clientele consisted of new organizations; the rest were companies that had been RA Group’s clients for more than a decade. Also, everything used to reached the client after thorough reviews at multiple levels, which resulted in impeccable project presentations, client reports, and other deliverables. In fact, just to emphasize the importance of quality in deliverables, project managers and senior leaders were often quoted as saying, “Even Six Sigma allowed 99.6 per cent quality, but RA Group did not allow anything short of 100 per cent.” The attrition rate in the last quarter was around 25 per cent, which was much higher than the industry standard of 15‒20 per cent. During the last sixth months, many technology analysts had left the organization. Employee engagement suffered, particularly among the old employees. However, some of Sharma’s colleagues who had joined the organization when she did were taking on new responsibilities amid the organization’s changing circumstances. They also did not seem to mind the crowded cafeteria as much as Sharma did. THE WAY AHEAD Sharma was becoming upset and losing patience with the changing circumstances at work. She tried to talk to Mr. Malkani, her boss, about the issues she was having at work, hoping he would help her. But Malkani was always busy, and when he finally spoke to her, he didn’t pay full attention to her worries and just told her to keep on working. Upset by this, Sharma went back to her desk, now even more determined to quit. She began searching for new jobs. But as she did, she couldn’t help but wonder if she was making the right decision.