Forbes Marshall's HR Strategies and Practices - A Case Study

Introduction to Forbes Marshall

Forbes Marshall’s Hr Strategies And Practices- a Case Study

Established in 1925 by J. N. Marshall as a trading company, Forbes Marshall has over the years moved into building steam engineering and control instrumentation solutions for the process industry. Today, it collaborates with world technology leaders in its manufacturing operations and has a turnover of ` 750 Crores. The organisation employs over 1000 engineers and 2000 direct and indirect associates, which includes a multigenerational workforce of baby boomers, Gen X and Gen Y.

Ranked 11 in the Great Places to Work 2011 survey, Forbes Marshall is one of seven unionized organisations that feature in the top 50. Their Union involvement and engagement in talent development practices is unique in the manufacturing industry. In the same survey, it ranked second in the manufacturing and production industry, and in employee participation in corporate social responsibility activities. Forbes takes pride in its  family spirit, culture and employee trust, which it strongly believes has been the bed rock in making it an employer of choice in the talent market. 

A study of family-owned businesses by Boston Globe (2003) revealed that just 40 percent survive to the second generation, 12 percent to the third, and only four percent to the fourth. Forbes is one of the four percent family owned organisations in the fourth generation. This case study examines the distinctive people practices that place Forbes in a league of its own: 

A strong family spirit.  b) A values-driven culture at the base of their management processes c) Early adoption of sustainability initiatives d) Introduction of progressive people practices before they became 'best' practices, namely flexi-timing (especially in a manufacturing context), a retirees programme, affirmative steps for the inclusion of women in the workforce e) Taking clear and actionable measures for making people accountable to each other, including HR.

Two of the strongest pillars of their value system that help drive the above philosophy are:

The Forbes Marshall family spirit, which serves as the core of their culture. Some practices that breathe life into this 'spirit' are - supporting the education of employees' children, taking efforts to reunite divorced families, and a strong alumni network connect enticing many an ex-employee to rejoin. In an era where organisations make a strong distinction between work-life, personal-professional, this focus of integrating the two is a clear differentiator for the organisation.

Forbes Marshall's unique HR practices

The high accountability of both line managers and the HR team. HR in Forbes has consciously chosen not to be in a 'commanding' position, in favour of being a facilitator in all people-related decisions like where to hire, who to hire and what to deliver. The senior leadership and Line managers are expected to be equally responsible for taking ownership of all HR-related decisions and be involved in creating the people strategies. HR, on the other hand, is accountable for not only measuring employees, but also for the value they add to the business. This helps set the right expectations with the business and minimise deviations from expectations. In fact, HR issues are tracked via an Actions-Timelines-Status tracker. The tracker is sent to the Management team every quarter to update them on the issues resolved, and identify unresolved issues that require attention.

Three Pillars of HR Practice and Strategies  

The Forbes Marshall winning formula for Employee Engagement and HR Practice  rests on initiatives taken along three pillars: 
Employee Development 
Communication 
Corporate Social Responsibility initiatives

While some of these practices might be common to most organisations of today, what sets Forbes apart is their forward thinking in early adoption and the values-driven consistent approach in driving and implementing them

Employee Development 
a. Competency Mapping 
Forbes Marshall adopted a competency-based perspective to employee development. The first step in this process, undertaken by the HR team, was defining the competencies for the organisation. Based on the conviction that internal HR not only knows the organisation and its needs better than anyone else but also has the capability and competency to build a competency model, the Forbes HR team created their competency model in-house. A certification from TUV, a global certification body, validates that the competency model created by them does encapsulate the competencies of the organisation.

Managing Change with Unionised employees 

Rolling out the Competency Mapping exercise was far from easy. It was carried out at all levels, including the shop floor employees. HR spoke to the unionised members to get their views on the model, and the only response they received was that it would not work for them. Nevertheless, HR did not let up. It repeated the process interventions with the added communication that the intention was more to help employees grow than to benefit the organisation. After having sown the seed of 'need' for such an intervention, there were examples of people who underwent the competency mapping process and training needs identification and experienced enhanced responsibilities and career growth. These visible examples helped in 'selling' the case for the intervention. Employees' perception of Competency Mapping underwent a change and the initiative gained the trust of employees. The journey was painful, long, approximately five years, and received many brickbats. A slow and steady approach, however, ensured the successful adoption of the competency assessment system. 

The Forbes Marshall family spirit

By the time the second or the third competency evaluation was completed, HR realised that people had not picked up the skills for evaluation. The reasons could be inadequate training, uncleartraining objectives or even unsatisfactory handling of the subject by the trainer. To help the Managers get clarity on the competency evaluation, competency 'qualifiers' were put together. The qualifiers were statements of behavioural descriptors that would help make a clear assessment if the person was displaying thebehavioural standards for the relevant competencies. The Competency Based Assessment was applied to the Recruiting function too, where it brought business and HR on the same page, and helped standardise the competency-based entry-barrier for all potential recruits. Prior to this, Forbes managers and HR would frequently clash on recruitment decisions

b. Performance Management System
Vision and Value Analysis: In addition to the Technical and Behavioural competencies, which are common to any competency model, a third core competency, the ‘Vision & Values,’ was added. The performance appraisal has a specific section to track how each member of the company is living the values. Responses are analysed at the organisation and departmental levels. 

Helping and Hindering Analysis: Two questions are asked of every employee on naming helping and hindering factors in their performance. Through an analysis of the responses received organisation-wide, the helping factors are tallied with the scores on the engagement surveys to assess whether there are any deviations. Hindering factors are broken down into three categories, depending on whether they fall under the direct control of: Manager ,and Individual, HR Senior Leadership

The actions under respective heads are taken up by HR, and are followed up for closure with the leadership. In addition to the usual Performance Appraisal and the Personal Development Plan (PDP) discussion, everybody has to rate their Annual Review process, and their experience of the PDP discussion. Based on the average review feedback from all team members for the appraising manager, a rating on a scale of Red-Amber-Green is given; followed by a personal discussion with HR for all those managers rated Red and Amber. This tallies back with RedAmber-Green ratings of the Vision and Values Analysis.HR takes up areas falling in Red with the manager in order to decide the course corrections and follow-up actions. There are times when HR has to take tough decisions like moving out a people manager. As much as HR is responsible to make employees accountable for their actions, it is only fair the same is expected of the function as well. HR needs to get at least 70-80 percent 'Green' ratings by employees in the Annual Review process. This is an input on the HR score in the Balanced Scorecard and adds to the People Perspective score for every manager

High accountability of line managers and HR team

c. Learning and Development Initiatives
Like most other organisations, L&D inputs are based on competency mapping and the Annual Review process. Awareness of competencies and understanding the benefits of competency development made it a meaningful exercise for employees and accelerated their learning. Realising that there were not many takers for the traditional classroom mode of learning - and at the time 70 percent of the programmes were classroom-based – HR reversed the trend and currently offers just 30 to 35 percent of learning via classrooms. The rest is provided on-the-job or in places where people learn outside the organisation. This helps make learning more interesting, and is a key factor in making Forbes Marshall a learning ground for entry- to senior-level employees. The entire core HR team, including L&D, underwent an Instructional Design certification course, to develop the capability for inhouse program development, which also included behavioural training.

Vendor management is crucial to ensure the quality of training. Every faculty, internal or external, is evaluated on the delivery of the training, and a score of less than 80 percent more than twice in a row leads to the faculty being dropped off the list. The same standards apply to training agencies that serve Forbes Marshall, and this is part of the service level agreements with the agencies. On the other hand, if a faculty secures a feedback score of more than 80 percent for one full year of the programme, then 10 percent of the contract value of the programme is given as an incentive. Internal trainers are also suitably recognised and incentivised for their efforts: they receive a 'Thank You' letter from the senior leadership and the L&D function, as well as a gift voucher for a substantial amount as a reward. This contributes to fostering a strong spirit of learning and knowledge sharing in the organisation.

Role transition programme: All  employees who have been promoted, transferred or rotated on the job must go through a three month transition programme, to assist them in smoothly moving into their new role and responsibilities

Communication
An engagement survey report of the organisation revealed a lack of internal communication. Hence, channels of communication for the demographically diverse employee base were built up. At first, internet and computer access was offered to all shop floor employees. Vernacular versions, mostly in Marathi were provided - for the benefit of shop floor workers - articles on the intranet, and also the Annual Review process and the Vision & Values Analysis were also translated into local languages. As a direct consequence, employee understanding of the feedback increased.

Three pillars of HR practice and strategies

True to its spirit of maintaining accountability and transparency in all its actions, Forbes has established multiple channels of feedback, including employee engagement surveys, employee satisfaction surveys, customer satisfaction surveys covering HR aspects as well, 360° Feedback, the Vision & Values analysis, the Helping & Hindering factors analysis, HR Associate survey and the Great Place to Work®feedback.

Corporate Social Responsibility
Forbes was one of the first few organisations to set up a CSR cell in 1979 and offer 'flexible timings' for employees when the term was hardly known. These two initiatives set them apart in the manufacturing sector, very early on. 

The organisation has its own CSR cell - Forbes Foundation, a public-private partnership with various communities, local government bodies and NGOs for its activities. A planned approach is taken for zeroing in on issues on which it can have a significant impact by doing a thorough Needs Analysis, as opposed to taking an intuitive call. For instance, a study indicated that children were in need of sex education - many state governments, including Maharashtra, do not allow sex education; Forbes worked with schools to provide them information on HIV, responsible behaviour and gender sensitisation - to cater to this need. 

While Forbes Foundation has many channels that impact various sections of the society, women and children are the key beneficiaries of their support activities. 

Support to Women's Self Help Groups over the past twelve years has empowered them to take up issues with municipal corporations and local government bodies on the community's behalf. 

All children, who approach the Foundation, have to necessarily go through formal education, and Forbes supports this by way of providing textbooks, funding libraries, offering local community leaders' homes as 'study centres' to children who do not have a study environment at home. 

Inspired by Dr. Reddy's LABS (Livelihood Advanced Business School), Forbes has a LABS of its own which is centred around creating livelihood for youth by providing them with vocational skills training; 90 percent of the youth that come to this programme have been able to secure a job.

Other Exciting HR Programmes. Forbes Marshall has the following 

Retirees programme - a successful initiative for the past 17 years, all retiring employees are invited with their spouses to a one-day programme. After an address by the Chairman, sessions are taken by a nutritionist, a dietician, a financial advisor, a yoga expert, and other health and wellness experts and NGO organisations to help employees transition into life after retirement. 

Annual day celebrations - besides celebrating birthdays, marriages, newborns, the Annual day celebration is the largest platform where employees, including alumni, and their families are invited. Long service awards are given to employees with tenures of 21, 35, 30, 35 years. Every year about 50 people are recognised across these categories. 

Gender inclusion - Forbes has consistently maintained a 20 percent ratio of female employees for the past 20 years. [The female worker representation in the organised sector employees is 19 percent (2006 figures) and 16 percent in the organized manufacturing sector]. 

Alumni connect - the alumni network is included in the mailing list for internal newsletters. They are also invited with their families to the Annual Day celebrations.