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ith talent proving to be as importantas capital in a crunch economy,

MSMEs in the country have to engage with several issues to ensure highlevels of employee satisfaction andengagement. At one MSME where thisWauthor conducted an employee satisfaction survey, while 97% of those surveyed said they were quite

satisfied with their working environment, results onsome key satisfaction drivers indicated a mixed trend.Specifically, employees reported mixed scores forfactors like:Personal and professional development:Personal and professional development:Personal and professional development:Personal and professional development:Personal and professional development: Only 60%of employees stated they had received some formaltraining after joining the organization. Apparently, sincea bulk of this population served the company fromvarious pockets across India, the task of bringing themall together for a program in any centralized location

 was proving to be a major concern. However, whenthis author spoke to 2 employees, one placed in Kolkataand the other at HQ, both seemed satisfied with theemphasis on employee training. Apparently theemployee in Kolkata had switched 2 jobs before joining the present one. Since the 2 previous MSMEs that he

 was with had no formal training programs for theiremployees, he found it rather fortuitous to haveundergone one training program in the last 2.5 yearsthat he had spent in the present company. For thesecond employee, being stationed at HQ afforded easy 

access to many training opportunities that wereconducted throughout the year.Opportunities to learn and grow:Opportunities to learn and grow:Opportunities to learn and grow:Opportunities to learn and grow:Opportunities to learn and grow: For 30-year oldSumanta Mitra, presently working as a Marketing Engineer with the firm, joining big brands like L&T,Schneider or ABB was out of the question. As a studentin a Diploma Engineering college, he knew very early that the big players would not consider diploma holderslike him. Naturally, the only choices available to him

 were MSMEs that had a brand name in the market.Interestingly, what drives his satisfaction quotient today is the terrific opportunity to learn and grow on a daily basis. The firm that he works for develops new products

every 6 months and that forces him to keep in touch with the latest technology and the competition. Otheremployees that were surveyed also voiced a similar

SUMEET VARGHESE

Pursuit of employee hap-piness in MSME

HR IN MSMES

sentiment. And though some of them found thatdiscussions over personal progress were quite limited,

each one found no dearth of opportunities to exploreand discover one's potentialLeadership capability and support:Leadership capability and support:Leadership capability and support:Leadership capability and support:Leadership capability and support: A majority of the employees that were surveyed said they had fullfaith in the leadership capabilities of the founder -their present MD. According to Aarif Patel, a 29 yearold Marketing Engineer who has been working for over6 years with the firm, the MD had a magnetic influenceover all those who interacted with him. Incidentally, inan organization where there are more than 600employees, the opportunities to interact with the MDare far and few. But thanks to a recently launchedtalent identification and development program, many 

employees found themselves rubbing shoulders withthe MD. These initiatives helped to reinforce employeefaith in top leadership.

Interestingly, many employees found theirimmediate bosses quite caring and supportive.However, not all bosses reported similar satisfactionscores. While some of those who were surveyed saidtheir bosses clarified job expectations at the outset,some found their leader's communication to be quiteambiguous and not at all effective, especially inconnection with clarity over day-to-day tasks. This isso because, some employees at this firm regularly endup multi-tasking or doing someone else's job, at times

 with little or no acknowledgement for their effort. As

one employee put it, "it is absolutely essential to betold at times that the occasional tasks we undertake isnot a regular part of the job and that we are stretching to meet such requirements."

For Sumanta Mitra, critical leadership supportcomes in the form of day-to-day boss inputs. Thoughhis boss sits at HQ, Sumanta and his team mates discusstheir daily plans over phone everyday in the morning and in the evening. Any information or resourcesupport that is required is discussed almost daily during these meetings. Infact, these group calls with the bossare further augmented by the regular local teammeetings that provide a platform to discuss market

problems and developments and arrive at a commonsolution.Inter-departmental cooperation:Inter-departmental cooperation:Inter-departmental cooperation:Inter-departmental cooperation:Inter-departmental cooperation: A critical area of 

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concern for most employees who were surveyed wasthe level of cooperation they received from otherdepartments. According to some employees, a criticalfactor aiding inter-departmental cooperation is boss

support. As one employee put it, "whereas it is easy togarner support from someone in another department who is at my level in the organizational hierarchy because of our personal rapport, it is extremely difficultto get the required resource or information in timefrom someone senior. This can be more frustrating if my boss is also unable to influence the same person.Consequently, this leads to an unending blame game."

Incidentally, as most of the employees whoparticipated in the survey had a customer-facing role,they strongly felt that a range of customer issues thathinged on inter and intra departmental support weredirectly responsible for both customer and employeedissatisfaction. For instance, challenges like not being able to give clear information to the customer due tonon-responsiveness or delayed responsiveness fromother departments, not having the authority tonegotiate terms with the customer in the absence of aclear decision matrix, or delayed resolution of customerissues, punctured employee confidence and morale.

On a positive note though, some employees declaredthat internal cooperation and support would pick upgradually as elaborate systems and procedures werebeing developed by the company to root out many inefficiencies.SSSSSalaralaralaralaralar y  y  y  y  y , pr, pr, pr, pr, promotions & incromotions & incromotions & incromotions & incromotions & increments:ements:ements:ements:ements: An all too criticalitem, not just for an SME but any large organization as

 well, Compensation & Benefits oftentimes proves to bethe proverbial Achilles Heel for any professionally runfirm. While most employees surveyed found salaries

 were not as competitive as they would like it to be they  were reasonably happy with the compensation and theincentives they got. Apparently, most employees hadmade the required adjustments in their expectationsgiven the fact that they were working for an MSME.However, some employees did point out disparities inthe incentive structure. Quite obviously they did notcompletely understand the factors directly impacting promotions and incentives. Thus while one employeereported receiving a 25% year-on-year raise, another

said he had received good bonuses that were directly linked to specific sales-related performance.Clearly, an MSME needs to work on several

employee satisfaction drivers at the same time in orderto boost overall employee engagement. While the aboveanalysis indicates there are 5 non-negotiable areas of employee satisfaction that may be critical for any MSME,there are likely to be many variances as to what really drives employee satisfaction across employeepopulations within the same firm or even between any two MSMEs in similar or different industries. Thisshould not however, be an excuse for not tracking key employee satisfaction indicators like the ones outlinedhere. At a time when employee satisfaction has beenfound to have a direct linkage with customer satisfaction,it is absolutely essential for top management at anMSME to keep themselves apprised of these factors on

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a regular basis. Obviously, this is easier said than done. What confuses and complicates such well-mindedefforts is the understanding that satisfaction is aconstantly moving target. However, the same can be

said of customer satisfaction. As customers continueto evolve their demands shift and accordingly theirsatisfaction levers evolve. Ironically, organizations spendmore management time and money on chasing thesedetails and only a fraction of that on understanding those internal customer issues that directly impactexternal customer satisfaction.