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Submitted to : Prof. Shailja Karve

Submitted by:
Pulkit Bansal (PG-B, 104)
Lokesh Biyani (PG-B, 106)


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= „heme:

HRM problems in new emerging Indian Mobile Gaming Industry

= Sub „heme:

Problem 1: Managing different Time Zone imbalances

Problem 2: Improving Appraisal System

= |bjective:

To improve the operational effeiciency of a new office setup in Hyderabad .

= Prior Practices:

Less attention was given to communication of Appraisal process to employees. Also,

working was not done in different shifts.

= p roach/Methods:

We interviewed the Senior HR Generalist of the Company and then discussed the
potential proble ms given in the case. Also, the industry and company overview was
taken with the help of secondary data available.

= esults/Insights:

Employee engagement and employee feedback are powerful tool to reduce attrition
rate. Also, there is a need to minimize the time zone imbalances between countries.

= Im lications to Community/Industry:

The solution applies to all the industries where employees face challanges in
understanding the appraisal system. Also, it implies to all those companies who
cordinate with partners or clients across the globe.

= Îalue to the „heme: Np

= Keywords:

Mobile Gaming Industry, Time Shifts, Appraisal System, IT tools

Industry |verview

The fast growing Indian mobile gaming market has become the most sought after
destination for global mobile game developers and distributors. Massive untapped mobile
subscriber base along with increasing penetration of mobile games have infused
unmatchable growth in the industry, which comfortably bucked post recessionary effects
and brought revolutionary shifts in mobile value added services dynamics. According to a
study, the industry will sustain its skyrocketing growth performance in coming years also
with projected CAGR of 74.3% by 2013.

The opportunities for mobile gaming companies are enormous in India, which is bestowed
with large untapped consumer base and increasing affordability. Even today, of 100 mobile
subscribers, only 2 are the addressable mobile gamers. This, when compared with the
figures of Japan, the US, South Korea, and the UK shows a clear gap in mobile gamers
penetration and illustrate a vast growth opportunities for market players.

Com any |verview:- prts Electronic Inc. (pE)

Arts Electronic Inc. is the world's leading interactive entertainment software company. AE
develops, publishes, and distributes interactive software worldwide for video game systems,
personal computers, cellular handsets and the Internet. Founded and incorporated on May
28, 1982, the company is a pioneer of the early games industry.

AE Mobile, a division of AE, is the largest independent mobile game developer and publisher
in the world. They have offices in Los Angeles, Montreal, London, Tokyo, Hyderabad,
Honolulu, Bucharest and São Paulo.

Studio |verview:- pE Hyderabad

AE Mobile has one of its studios in Hyderabad, India. AE Hyderabad has several departments
like Development Finance, Human Resource, Production, Quality Assurance, Engineering,
Game Studio, Pogo, CTG, Flight which support worldwide operation s. AE Hyderabad has
employee strength of around 700 employees and Quality Assurance (QA) department
having 400 employees forms the major chunk of the work force. QA is the systematic
monitoring and evaluation of the various aspects of a project, service or facility to maximize
the probability that minimum standards of quality are being attained by the production
process. QA checks for the quality of the mobile Applications/ Games and report related
bugs for different mobile vendors based on different operat ing systems.

Manual testing is the most preferred method of checking the quality of the Mobile games.
Manual testing is the process of manually testing Mobile games for defects. It requires a
tester to play the role of an end user, and use most of all features of the application to
ensure correct behavior. To ensure completeness of testing, the tester often follows a
written test plan that leads them through a set of important test cases. For this profile the
preferred skill set required are good spoken and written communication skills, Ability to
work on different web based tools to submit games to different channels and Ability towork
on mobiles to check proper functionality of the game. For such kind of profile, college
freshers with good and average technical skills were the most suitable candidates. AE
Hyderabad became operational in December 2007 and needed workforce which it was able
to get in midst of Global recession.

The purpose of setting up studio in India was to outsource low technical jobs and reduce
operational cost. As the QA tester profile required least technical skills, experience and
responsibilities so the pay scale of a fresher tester was least in comparison to fresher͛s
joining any other department which required more technical skills w ith in AE. In fact the pay
scale was even less in comparison to the compensation offered by major Indian IT
companies like Infosys, TCS, and Wipro etc. Initially AE was able to attract fresh college
graduates due to global recession, less availability of j obs and it was able to leverage on the
job profile which was to play games and test them.

Problem 1: Managing different „ime Zone imbalances

After one year of operation AE Hyderabad became the major hub of Mobile QA testing
within AE and there was increase in the workforce of AE Hyderabad QA department where
as QA workforce in other worldwide studios was reduced. So now AE Hyderabad was
assigned work from across the globe, such as Asia Pacific, European, and North American. As
these regions operates at different time zone in comparison to India, so there was need to
have proper coordination with these studios irrespective of the time difference. Also more
testers were recruited for the future projects but there were space and infrastructure
constraints. Also number of computers was also less.

The general practice in industry is that workforce is divided in shifts and allocated different
working hours and geographical region. Working in shifts helps in proper distribution and
coordination of human resour ces and assets such as computers. Also, it helps in sharing of
technical assets and office space. Also the team working in a shift gets responsible for a
region, so this increases their accountability for the projects for the assigned region. But, the
problem with working in shifts is that employees are not keen to work in early morning or
late night shifts due to conveyance and change in life style problems.

p raisal Process

AE has an annual appraisal process in which review of the employee performance o f the last
year is done and proper feedback is given. According to the rating given by the supervisor
and the number of years of work experience, employees are given salary hike and
promotion. For annual appraisal process AE makes use of several internal A E IT tools such as
AE game plan, Hades, Time Sheet. As appraisal is an annual process supervisors make use of
these tools extensively to keep a track of an employee performance apart from their own
personal observation. These tools have a significant role in appraisal process as supervisor
may tend to forget activities that have been carried put in the past year. These tools and
their functionality are mentioned below

p



It is the primary tool for the appraisal process. Initially in the beginning of the annual year,
employees are supposed to set their target and goals in AE game plan for the coming year
and their plan of action to achieve their goals. AE game plan has features were employee
can update their status of their goals such as Complete, Incomplete, and On track. AE game
plan also provides feature where employee can raise request for feedback from other
supervisor of other departments with whom employee has worked. Usually employee set
their objectives in the month of April and they have to make sure their goals are in sync with
organization and team͛s objective. Through AE game plan any employee can see any other
employee goals and objectives including CEOs. In the next year during end of February
employee are asked to mention their achievement and how they contributed to the
organization and final status of their goals and objectives. Once employee has written down
achievements then they get locked and are forwarded to supervisor for review. Keeping in
mind the employees achievements, supervisor observation and with the help of reports
generated from other tools supervisor gives rating to employee which are as follows

= SAT- Significantly Above target

= AT- Above Target
= OT- On target
= BT- Below target
= SBT- Significantly below target

Then these ratings are forwarded to the manager and appraisal interview of employee
happens with Manager and supervisor. In this meeting the salary hike, promotion if any and
rating given to the employee are disclosed. If employee is not satisfied with any of the
results then he/she has the chance to put his/her point forward which is then discussed
with in the meeting. If the employee is able to justify that rating is not in sync with
performance then revised rating and salary hike is given to employee else no changes are
done in the result of appraisal system. This whole process takes around 2 months and the
change in the salary happens in the month of June. Also during the review period employee
can always monitor its current appraisal process status in AE game plan .

O 
: - This tool keeps a track of number and types of games an employee has worked on
and number bugs faced in a particular mobile handset. This tools contains the complete
information about the assigned work to an employee.
„ 
 : - This tool is to be used by employee daily. Employees are supposed to enter
their summary of daily activities in this tool and the time allocated to each activity.

Problem 2 : Im roving p raisal System

From the past two year the QA tester complained about the inappropr iate rating given by
the supervisors. Majority of the QA tester complained that they deserved at least AT (Above
Target) rating or promotion instead of OT (On Target) rating which was given to majority of
QA employee. So from year 2009 AE QA department experienced very high attrition rate
close to 40-45%. In few cases employee left the organization just a few days before the
salary appraisal was about to happen. This was unusual as most employees always preferred
to wait till salary appraisal before moving to other organization. This will help them to
negotiate for higher salary in other organization. But in AE, QA testers didn͛t expect a
significant salary hike and accepted job offers from other organizations. This showed that
QA testers didn͛t find appraisal process reliable. There was requirement of immediate
action to be taken to retain the QA tester workforce.

During the exit interview of the QA tester who were leaving the organization, feedback
process was conducted through which HRs came to know that Q A tester were unhappy with
the appraisal system as the ratings were not up to the expectations. So to check the
attrition rate management decided to dig into the issue. So the HRs conducted one to one
sessions with the existing AE QA testers and asked their feedback about the appraisal
process. As the more QA testers were interviewed management figured out some strange
facts which are mentioned below

= Most of the AE QA testers were unaware of the kind of performance expected by

organization at a specific rating
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= Most of the QA testers used to set their objectives in AE game plan without the
guidance of supervisor so their goals were never aligned to organization goals. Also
testers after setting their objectives in the beginning never used to update the status
of their objectives for rest of the period.
= QA tester never asked for the feedback from their supervisor after completion of any
project. Nor they showed any interest in inquiring about what was expected from
them to achieve excellence.
= QA tester never used to update their Time sheet so their supervisor was not able to
keep a track of their daily activities.
 = QA testers were not aware of the importance of Hades and Time Sheet in appraisal
process. They all were under the impression that AE game plan is only required for
appraisal process. So they never cared to update their completed games and mobile
handsets on these tools. As mentioned before AE has an annual appraisal process so
during the time of appraisal supervisors use to generate the reports form Hades and
time sheets and use to consider those reports while giving ratings.
= There was no quarterly or semi annually feedback given by supervisors to QA testers
about their performance.
= There was no proper training being given by the IT support department for AE game
plan.
= QA testers were not aware of unique feature of AE game plan- Additional Feedback
form (AFP) Feedback from employees of other department.
= QA testers were not aware that if the ratings or salary hike are not up to
expectations then they can always discuss the matter with the managers and if
management is satisfied then new rating and salary hike will be given in few days.
QA testers use to accept the rating and salary hike without raising their concerns

Contact Person:-

 





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