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HR Case Study
Home Solutions India Limited
Submitted By : Submitted To:
Bindu Rathore Prof. Sumit Gosh
PGCRM‐01,
IIM, Indore
CAF No: 60606080399
Hyderabad.
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HR Issues @HomeTown Case Study
H
ome Solutions Retail India Limited (HSRIL) is a subsidiary of Pantaloon Retail
(India) Limited, flagship company of the Future Group promoted by Mr. Kishore
Biyani. Home Solutions focuses on three verticals namely Consumer Electronics,
Furniture and Furnishings and Home Improvement. By building the business as a separate
legal entity, the strategy is to create focus and build relevant competencies. Home Solutions is
one of the largest categories of specialty retail worldwide.
Home Solutions Retail (India) Ltd launched ‘HomeTown’, India’s most comprehensive home
making and home improvement store, at Punjagutta, Hyderabad on September 07, 2007. It is
spread over an area of about 1, 83, 000 square feet (Built up), has over 90 live displays in the
exhibitions section consisting of 55 living room settings, 30 dining room settings, 25 kids room
settings, 30 bedroom settings, 22 kitchen settings and 26 bathroom settings offer consumers a
wide range of varieties to choose from.
HomeTown is characterized by an enormous staff and a large number of them are from
different back grounds because of the large size of the store and the product variety and
assortment it offers. It was a challenge for HR to bring to them on one single common platform.
HomeTown started recruiting in June, prior to 3 months of its launch in Hyderabad, so that it
was all empowered to serve its customers from day one.
Until a few months ago, the Home Town in organized retail industry had been attracting young
talent. However, faced with high levels of stress and the lack of a proper career plan, many
young professionals are leaving it .Low salaries, inadequate practical training, and bad work
conditions are the reasons for the high rate of attrition.
A very rose picture of Indian booming retail and a very fast growth plan at HomeTown, and the
Brand Image of Home Town helped in recruiting highly efficient young talent pool. After
selection of shortlisted clients for predefined Job Posts, they were provided Induction and
training in close room for 4‐6 weeks, through verbal presentation at Hyderabad. The Induction
and training further confirmed their job roles and the career growth path in Home Town. And
the workforce was all geared up to open the Megastore with much fanfare and publicity.
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HR Issues @HomeTown Case Study
The real problem started once, the customers stepped inside the store, there were many
activities inside the store and much work to be handled, which was not anticipated earlier, and
this required competent work force to take additional responsibilities or to create new posts in
the hierarchy to handle this additional work.
For example: The customer care executive was offered and trained for handling customer
issues. But once the store opened, it was required to distribute the promotion pamphlet in store
floors, and guide customers into different store categories. This work activity was really very
offending for customer care executives and they were not willing to do this work. To handle
this issue they created another post like “home guide” who can guide the customers in
Showroom and can also distribute the pamphlets in store. For this post few of the employees
from Customer care executive were shifted. Now there came the issue of hierarchy and growth
plan, since the home guide will be promoted to customer care executive after 6‐2 months of
satisfactory work performance.
So every employee felt like “Over promised by the HR and under delivered” in terms of
money and growth plan, and the lack of perfect job description and overlapping of work
profiles further added to confusion and to their job dissatisfaction.
Since the organized retail is in primitive stage in India, the HR was practically not able to
organize and fit it as per Indian standards. The Roles and responsibilities and jobs were
designed as per western and European standards, which did not suit here.
To boost the morale of sales person on floor, the HR initiated very good sales incentives,
planned as per store category. But the sales force was shifted from one category to other
category very frequently, whenever required, especially during weekends due to heavy
customer foot falls. Now there was a problem of incentive bifurcation for an employee when
he was shifted in another category.
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HR Issues @HomeTown Case Study
The Hierarchy level initially designed centrally did not match the hierarchy at store level, since
many posts and levels were created as and when required. The hierarchy level became too
long, which caused problem for flow of information and employee dissatisfaction. An
employee who was initially at level 3 was pushed to level 5 by creating level 4 in between, and
this caused inferiority complex and further de motivated them to perform.
So issues link job/role overlapping, incentive bifurcation, and hierarchy level led to employee
dissatisfaction and attrition.
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