1.

SANATH, THE PRODUCTION ASSISTANT

Ragama Industries (Pvt) Ltd. (RI) is a small manufacturing firm situated at Ragama. The total staff strength is bout 150 employees. The Management team has 40, including 20 supervisors. Being a small company, RI (Pvt) Ltd has had its own traditions, which made the work atmosphere congenial and informal. Although the hierarchical arrangements of formal organization were present, the culture of the organization was such that even senior managers respected senior workers who had been with RI for decades. The level of loyalty to the organization was visibly high and the employees displayed high morale and commitment. Staff turnover was very low and dismissals were unheard of. Whatever staff turnover there was, occurred at middle and supervisory levels. RI has 4 directors who are sons of the two founding partners of the company. They have all had good formal education but none of them were graduates or professionally qualified. Out of the 10 senior managers, only the Accountant and the Factory Manager had professional qualifications. The others were either family friends or relatives of the Directors. However, the 6 middle management positions were filled with technically qualified people who had diplomas or appropriate equivalent qualifications. Sanath came from a lower middle class family and had difficulties during his student days. His parents were very strict on him, as well as on each other. As a result, his childhood was a nightmare, with constant parental fighting, and no love or care. Both parents were strong characters, stubborn and never giving into each other. Poor Sanath was the victim of all these problems and grew up as an unwanted child. He always wondered whether he ever loved his parents, or any one for that matter. Sanath never had friends. He was an isolated student in his class. He always wanted to be independent and was determined to study and become a big man by whatever way. Sanath was methodical and worked with diligence. He worked hard and was seen working late. He developed a new documentation system for the production department. He did a time study and found that the idle time of labour was very high. He thought that with his knowledge he could improve productivity in the Production Department and improve his career at RI. The workers did not like Sanath. They found him to be an arrogant young man. They didnt like his constant observations with a stop watch in his hand and recording something with symbols unknown to them. Sanath was never of the friendly type. He disliked anybody trying to be friendly with him. Thus, hostility, mistrust and rejection were building around him. Sanath never cared about it.

One day, he called his supervisors and asked them to arrange a meeting with the production workers. The supervisors reluctantly arranged a meeting during working hours. Sanath was furious and scolded the supervisors and asked them to arrange the meeting during the lunch break. The meeting was arranged. Addressing the workers, he said that his studies showed that they were working only for about 4 hours a day and the rest of the time they were being non-productive, chatting and idling. He told them that he was a no nonsense person and they could not fool him the way that have been fooling the others. Before he could go further, pandemonium broke out and he was surrounded and assaulted. The supervisors and the Senior staff intervened and saved him from being thrown into an acid bath. A week later, Sanath came to RI to get a further weeks extension of his medical leave. He was promptly told by the Factory Manager that his services were no longer required and paid him one months salary in lieu of notice. Q1 a) b) Analyse the above situation and find out the reasons as to why Sanath was resented by the workers? Analyse Sanaths behavior with special focus on his personality and attitudes.