Employee Relations at North Delhi Power Ltd. (NDPL) North Delhi Power Ltd.

One of the three electricity distribution companies took over the Delhi Vidyut Board (DVB). As the AT&C losses of DVB had reached 53%, the main aim of the takeover was to reduce these losses. NDPL began by identifying the various problems of DVB that were persistent over the years. The problems were inadequate training, power theft, wrong meter readings, high corruption, trade union problems etc. NDPL supported Delhi State Electricity Workers Union (DSEWU). Their vision was to become most preferred and admired energy company. Under Anil Sardana s, CEO of NDPL, leadership several HR initiatives were kicked off for the employees and union workers. Some of them are performance management, need base training, innovative welfare measures, proactive grievance redressal and installation of Joint interaction forum (JIF). The first step was reorganizing and downsizing. Introduced an attractive VRS scheme, where 1794 employees sought retirement. They hired 600 new employees under the NDPL employee scheme, replaced the personnel department with its HR department. Introduction of computers, massive renovation programmes for the buildings in bad shape, air conditioning and provision of safe and hygienic conditions at workplace were the measures taken. A peer exchange program, where employees were sent to observe the working system of other countries. Under the meet the CEO scheme employees could meet the CEO to discuss grievances, other suggestion schemes were held regularly. Many employee welfare schemes were taken up. A Grievance Handling System was devised, where employees discussed work related grievances. Coming to the union issues, the main priority was to improve the working conditions. Management initiatives were taken up to provide suitable work atmosphere. They reimbursed money to the workers for uniforms. Promotions were another critical issue, pending time bound promotions were given immediately. The other issues of workers were nonsanction of leave applications, harassment to workers who were facing enquire for misconducts. But on the whole, union had cooperated with NDPL on many of the issues such as re-deployment of manpower, helping build work culture, cooperation in new designations, support in setting up of Joint Interaction forum (JIF) etc. Overall NDPL made a significant progress as it was able to solve majority of the problems. The AT&C losses reduced to 33.16% in 2005. According to John Dulop s model of industrial relations, characteristics of the work place and development of technology influence the industrial relations. Coming to NDPL, working conditions were improved, implementation of air conditioning, workers conditions were also improved, in all characteristic of the work place and technology were improved which strengthened the industrial relations. Product market affects the wage rates, NDPL recruited new members at the current market wage rates itself and also gave options to the DVP employees to shift to the current wage system. Power context says that style of management, whether dictatorial or participative will have an effect. Also type of hierarchy system plays a role. NDPL s top management was participative and not dictatorial. They also revived their hierarchical system, removed designations such as executive engineers , stenographers,

clerks and instead came up with managers, office associates. This further strengthened the industrial relations between the top management and the employees. The Labour and change essay tells about the flexibility the trade unions need to have in today s business. Labour flexibility is a important factor for strong industrial relations. In NDPL, one could see this flexibility in terms of the union agreeing with the top management in certain decisions. The essay also says that trade unions find it difficult to accept technology changes the employees would have many apprehensions about such changes. This reaction could be clearly seen in NDPL, when the DVB-scheme employees initially had resisted the computer system, even the senior officers were not happy at the large scale use of computers. The robust and shallow system of unions say that robust unions proactively participate in the organizations issues while the shallow systems remain non reactive. One could see that the union system at NDPL was proactive, regularly interacting with the top management.