03-06-2013, 04:54 PM
PROJECT REPORT ON PERFORMANCE APPRAISAL SYSTEM AT TATA MOTORS
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TATA MOTORS
INTRODUCTION
Tata Motors Limited is India's largest automobile company, with consolidated revenues of INR 1,65,654 crores (USD 32.5 billion) in 2011-12. It is the leader in commercial vehicles in each segment, and among the top three in passenger vehicles with winning products in the compact, midsize car and utility vehicle segments. It is the world's fourth largest truck and bus manufacturer.
The Tata Motors Group’s over 55,000 a employees are guided by the vision to be ''best in the manner in which we operate, best in the products we deliver, and best in our value system and ethics.''
Established in 1945, Tata Motors' presence indeed cuts across the length and breadth of India. Over 7.5 million Tata vehicles ply on Indian roads, since the first rolled out in 1954. The company's manufacturing base in India is spread across Jamshedpur (Jharkhand), Pune (Maharashtra), Lucknow (Uttar Pradesh), Pantnagar (Uttarakhand), Sanand (Gujarat) and Dharwad (Karnataka). Following a strategic alliance with Fiat in 2005, it has set up an industrial joint venture with Fiat Group Automobiles at Ranjangaon (Maharashtra) to produce both Fiat and Tata cars and Fiat power trains. The company's dealership, sales, services and spare parts network comprises over 3,500 touch points.
TATA MOTORS Brand History
Indian manufacturers Tata Motors have quite the history under their belt, starting with the company's foundation in 1945 as a locomotive producer. Tata Motors is just one part of the business group Tata, formerly known as TELCO (Tata Engineering and Locomotive Company), which also has several other ventures, including a steel making plant and even a tea producing company.
Tata got into the motoring business in 1954 when it starting producing heavy trucks in a joint venture with Daimler-Benz AG. So, in 1960 the first truck rolled out of the factory's door in Pune, India, a copy of a German Daimler truck. Tata starting exporting heavy-duty trucks but for the local market, they had to come up with lighter versions because of the infrastructure of the country. The first LCV (Light Commercial Vehicle) model, the Tata 407, began production in 1986.
At the beginning of the 90s, the company sought to evolve and expand into the car market, and it began a collaboration with Cummins Engine Company to produce more efficient diesel engines. Their first car was the Tata Indica, a model that enjoyed an unexpected success both in India and on other European markets, despite the fact that car-analysts gave it bad reviews.
The Indica won people over with it's low fuel consumption and powerful engine. It was so successful that Rover began selling it in the UK under the name of CityRover. The second generation of Indica, the V2, was even more successful.
Indica's major success gave Tata Motors the financial power to take over Daewoo Motors in 2004, in a effort to take their brand more international exposure. Other surprising acquisitions by the Tata Group include Jaguar and Land Rover as of March 26th, 2008 for a net 2 billion US dollars. Lately, Tata has made known its aggressiveness when it comes to gaining exposure and acquiring new brands.
Tata Motors' financial power comes from the fact that its labor costs amount to only 9% of the profit, a reason for which many other car producers, including Volvo decided to move operations to India. Another important factor in Tata's success is the fact that the group holds several machine tools and metal producing plants, further reducing production costs.
Apart from this, Tata does not lack the innovative spirit, bringing to the world the compressed air car (OneCAT) and the the cheapest model ever produced, introduced at the 2008 Geneva auto show, the Tata Nano, a car which will set you back some $2.500. Also, Tata has expressed their wish to come up with a car made 100% out of plastic, in an effort to fight rising costs for metal production.
INTRODUCTION TO HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT
Human Resource (or personnel) management, in the sense of getting things done through people, is an essential part of every manager’s responsibility, but many organizations find it advantageous to establish a specialist division to provide an expert service dedicated to ensuring that the human resource function is performed efficiently.
“People are our most valuable asset” is a cliché, which no member of any senior management team would disagree with. Yet, the reality for many organizations is that their people remain undervalued, under trained and underutilized.
The market place for talented, skilled people is competitive and expensive. Taking on new staff can be disruptive to existing employees. Also, it takes time to develop ‘cultural awareness’, product / process / organization knowledge and experience for new staff members.
METHODS OF PERFORMANCE APPRAISAL
The foregoing list of major program pitfalls represents a formidable challenge, even considering the available battery of appraisal techniques. But attempting to avoid these pitfalls by doing away with appraisals themselves is like trying to solve the problems of life by committing suicide. The more logical task is to identify those appraisal practices that are (a) most likely to achieve a particular objective and (b) least vulnerable to the obstacles already discussed.
Before relating the specific techniques to the goals of performance appraisal stated at the outset of the article, I shall briefly review each, taking them more or less in an order of increasing complexity.
The best-known techniques will be treated most briefly.
ESSAY APPRAISAL
In its simplest form, this technique asks the rater to write a paragraph or more covering an individual's strengths, weaknesses, potential, and so on. In most selection situations, particularly those involving professional, sales, or managerial positions, essay appraisals from former employers, teachers, or associates carry significant weight.
GRAPHIC RATING SCALE
This technique may not yield the depth of an essay appraisal, but it is more consistent and reliable. Typically, a graphic scale assesses a person on the quality and quantity of his work (is he outstanding, above average, average, or unsatisfactory?) and on a variety of other factors that vary with the job but usually include personal traits like reliability and cooperation. It may also include specific performance items like oral and written communication.
FIELD REVIEW
The field review is one of several techniques for doing this. A member of the personnel or central administrative staff meets with small groups of raters from each supervisory unit and goes over each employee's rating with them to (a) identify areas of inter-rater disagreement, (b) help the group arrive at a consensus, and © determine that each rater conceives the standards similarly.
FORCED-CHOICE RATING
Like the field review, this technique was developed to reduce bias and establish objective standards of comparison between individuals, but it does not involve the intervention of a third party.
MANAGEMENT BY OBJECTIVES
To avoid, or to deal with, the feeling that they are being judged by unfairly high standards, employees in some organizations are being asked to set - or help set - their own performance goals. Within the past five or six years, MBO has become something of a fad and is so familiar to most managers that I will not dwell on it here.