Organizational Behavior Case Study: Challenges at Reliance Jio

This case study analyzes the organizational behavior of Reliance Jio, a major Indian telecom company, focusing on its controversial actions related to employee layoffs. The study begins with an introduction to Reliance Jio and its recent challenges, including a significant reduction in its workforce, both contractual and permanent, due to cost-cutting measures and declining operating margins. The problem is identified as the mass job cuts, which negatively impacted employee morale and the company's reputation, alongside ethical concerns about employee treatment. The study then explores various organizational behavior approaches, such as the human resource, contingency, productivity, and system approaches, to understand the problem's root causes. It proposes solutions that include a renewed focus on employees, the establishment of authentic communication channels, and the provision of job security to retain and motivate the remaining workforce. The conclusion emphasizes the importance of ethical practices and employee well-being in maintaining a positive organizational culture and achieving long-term business success. The case study highlights the need for companies to prioritize employee relations and ethical decision-making to avoid negative consequences and ensure sustainable growth.

Running Head: Organizational Behavior
Organizational Behavior
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Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................1
Problem of Reliance Company........................................................................................................1
Organizational Behavior approaches to problem............................................................................2
Best Solutions for Problem..............................................................................................................3
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................4
References........................................................................................................................................5

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Introduction
Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd is one of the famous mobile network operators, which is operated by
the well-known and reputed Indian company known as Reliance. It is totally owned by the
reliance industries, headquartered in Mumbai. Other than this, reliance Jio recent controversy
highlights about the sharp decline in the numbers of contracted employee, along with it some of
the permanent staff also faced strives to cost and improve the operating margins, which mainly
fall short from January to march. Hence, this is all because of the cost pressure led action.
Other than this, the company also faced major redundancies from the customers’ side, and other
sides were impacted such as supply chain area, Human resource, administrative and network
aspects and lot more. Automatically, managers also reduced their size of team, which majorly
affected the administration part, the supply chain, financial aspect and also the human resource.
Problem of Reliance Company
The major issue, which was faced by the Reliance Jio, was a huge number of cut off jobs, they
let go around 5000 staff members on the contractual pay roll. It was seen that despite the
aggressive growth of the Reliance Jio customers’ base, Ambani’s the head of the company led
telecom which has led to a significant numbers of its contractual staff owning to the falling
operations margins (Sengupta, 2019).
For this, company and its operator has further cut off the large number of its permanent
employees of around 5000 employees and further it also includes more than 500 permanent
workers. Other than this, the company also analyzed that there is a hike in expenses too by 8%,
which majorly affected the larger part of its workforce. Further, it should be noted that this type
of organizational behavior of the company is against their ethical obligation in the environment.
As mentioned above that the company has fired several permanent staff from the company as
well. The motive behind performing such action was to increase the profit margin of the
company. However, the company cannot hire employees when their work requirement and fire
them in the lean period. The permanent employees hold the right to stay with the company
(Ashnai, Henneberg, Naudé, & Francescucci, 2016).

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The action was regarded as no cost pressure-led action as the managers need to reduce the size of
the team of administration, finance, supply chain and human resource department. Aggressive
marketing techniques of Reliance Jio made the company to hire many employees on contract as
well as permanent basis. Soon after the strategy was accomplished the company started firing the
employees (Hock, Clauss, & Schulz, 2016). That acted as problem for the progress of the
company as this activity defamed the name of the company in the external environment reduced
efficiency of the several departments of the company as well. Reduction in the number of the
employees of the company increased the pressure on other employees of the department. Like,
the supply chain department of the organization requires making use of extensive human
resource management team so as effectively supply the products and services to the customers in
the environment. Elimination of employees reduced the quality of services provided to customers
in the environment (Namada, 2018).
Organizational Behavior approaches to problem
Organizational behavior refers to the relationship between the employees and employees of the
company. Positive organizational behavior of the company indicates that the people of company
are satisfied with the actions of the company and the business perform actions considering the
interest of all the stakeholders in the environment. However, in the given case of Reliance Jio
company, it should be noted that the organization is unable to achieve positive organizational
behavior because of the negative decisions of the company (Long, Newton, & Sievers, 2018).
Further, below mentioned are the approaches to organizational behavior that will help in
attaining appropriate solutions for the problem of the company:
Human Resource Approach: this approach focuses on the fact that people are the most important
resource of the company and all the functions of the business should revolve around the
employees of the company. These are the major people who contribute in the success of the
company so the organization should take care of them properly. This type of approach of OB
focuses on satisfying the employees so as to eventually increase the productivity of the company
(Wilson, 2017).
Contingency Approach: This type of approach of organizational behavior is called situational
approach under which actions are taken on the basis of the methods and premise. This type of

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strategy of OB is good for the given situation only as it might not show its effectiveness in
differential circumstances. Under this type of approach, the business makes use of different
approaches to different issues of organization and solution of one problem would not be relevant
to other problem as well (King, & Lawley, 2016).
Productivity Approach: productivity means that the effectiveness of the business against the
input used by the management. Higher the level of productivity shows greater the level of
efficiency in the environment. Under this type of OB approach, the business focuses on
increasing all the aspects that represent the numeric data like job satisfaction, employee turnover
etc. Thus, in this way, OB will focus on ways that will help the organization to improve
productivity (Bratton, 2015).
System Approach: This approach of OB looks at the organization as a united and powerful
system that is composed of interrelated parts. So, under this process, the management looks at
the organization as a complete unit and perform actions that initially change the quality of single
process and then rectify complete system of the organization (Singh, 2015).
These are the approaches of organizational behavior that helps the business to achieve
appropriate environment for the employees and increase productivity as well.
Best Solutions for Problem
The company Reliance Jio is struggling in the business environment because they have faced
difficulty in managing the organizational behavior with the employees of the company. Below
mentioned are the best proposed solution with the help of which Reliance Jio can eliminate their
issues as well:
Focus on Employees: the organization behavior changes when the business starts focusing on the
employees of the company than its profit and reserves. As discussed above that the employees
are biggest resource of the company that conducts almost all functions of Reliance Jio, so the
management should perform actions in the environment that satisfy the interest of the employees
in the environment. This will eventually improve the relationship of employer and employee as
well. The top level authority of Reliance Jio should perform activities that increase the
satisfaction level of the customers in the environment. This activity will increase the bond of the

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customers with the company and will influence them to work so as to increase productivity
(Taghian, D’Souza, & Polonsky, 2015).
Develop Authentic Communication Channel: secondly, the management of Reliance Jio should
make use of a solid platform to interact with the employees of the company. Even if the company
is focusing on firing the employees of the company, then also they should circulate this message
using an adequate platform so as to avoid negative comments. Further, the company should
provide adequate compensation to the permanent employees who were fired. It is not right on the
part of the organization to fire the permanent employees of the company without giving any
notice (Osland, Devine, & Turner, 2015).
Provide Security to Rest Employees: after such incidence, all the employees of the company
have become scared and are focusing on the risk in their jobs and security issues as well. So, the
organization should aim to provide security to the employees on paper. They should form certain
clauses so that if in future such situation appears then the jobs of the employees are not at stake.
In this way, the organization would also be able to manage the brand reputation by satisfying the
employees in the business environment. Satisfied employees will also convert the dissatisfied
customers into satisfied ones (Miner, 2015).
Conclusion
Thus, in the limelight of above mentioned events, the fact should be noted that the paper
represented details about the company Reliance Jio. The case of the company Reliance Jio is
discussed in the paper where the company fired around 5000 employees of the company
altogether with the objective to cut cost and increase profits as well. Among these 5000
employees, 500 employees were permanent employees of the company. The paper detailed about
the case along with the analysis of approach to organizational behavior. Lastly, solutions are
provided to the company with the help of which they can easily eliminate the issues caused
through such decision and increase the productivity of the company as well.

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References
Ashnai, B., Henneberg, S. C., Naudé, P., & Francescucci, A. (2016). Inter-personal and inter-
organizational trust in business relationships: An attitude–behavior–outcome
model. Industrial Marketing Management, 52, 128-139.
Bratton, J. (2015). Introduction to work and organizational behaviour. Macmillan International
Higher Education.
Hock, M., Clauss, T., & Schulz, E. (2016). The impact of organizational culture on a firm's
capability to innovate the business model. R&d Management, 46(3), 433-450.
King, D., & Lawley, S. (2016). Organizational behaviour. Oxford University Press.
Long, S., Newton, J., & Sievers, B. (Eds.). (2018). Coaching in depth: The organizational role
analysis approach. Routledge.
Miner, J. B. (2015). Organizational behavior 4: From theory to practice. UK: Routledge.
Namada, J. M. (2018). Organizational learning and competitive advantage. In Handbook of
Research on Knowledge Management for Contemporary Business Environments (pp. 86-
104). IGI Global.
Osland, J., Devine, K., & Turner, M. (2015). Organizational behavior. Wiley Encyclopedia of
Management, 1-5.
Sengupta, D., (2019). Reliance Jio lets go of contractual staff [online]. Retrieved from <
https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/industry/telecom/telecom-news/reliance-jio-lets-
go-of-contractual-staff/articleshow/69551393.cms?from=mdr>
Singh, K. (2015). Organizational behaviour: Text and cases. Vikas Publishing House.
Taghian, M., D’Souza, C., & Polonsky, M. (2015). A stakeholder approach to corporate social
responsibility, reputation and business performance. Social Responsibility Journal, 11(2),
340-363.
Wilson, F. M. (2017). Organizational behaviour and gender. UK: Routledge.