HR powers turn-around at Talcher thermal plant: Employee involvement helps to allay fears over restructuring

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper id to observe how imaginative human resource (HR) management has helped overcome resistance and improve performance following the takeover of the Talcher thermal power station in Odisha, India, by central government’s National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC).

Design/methodology/approach

Explores how a performance-management system, training and employee-involvement schemes have helped to reconcile the workforce to working practices designed to increase production and return the plant to profit.

Findings

This paper explains that HR is now run in a more codified and less capricious way.

Practical implications

This paper reveals that the plant, which now provides one of the cheapest sources of thermal power in India, is contributing to the overall wealth of the state in which it is situated.

Social implications

It examines, in particular, how employee involvement is helping calm workforce fears over restructuring.

Originality/value

It provides the inside story of the turn-around at an Indian power plant.

Citation

Kumar Sahoo, C. (2014), "HR powers turn-around at Talcher thermal plant: Employee involvement helps to allay fears over restructuring", Human Resource Management International Digest, Vol. 22 No. 4, pp. 16-18. https://doi.org/10.1108/HRMID-07-2014-0081