MGT600 Report: Account Manager Role at HCL Technologies, Analysis

This report examines the role of an account manager at HCL Technologies, an Indian-based IT company with a global presence. The report is based on an interview with an account manager and explores various aspects of their job, including team management, ensuring company success, and addressing employee-related challenges. The account manager discusses strategies for managing employees, maintaining operational efficiency, and fostering a positive organizational culture. The report also addresses challenges such as lack of motivation, difficulties in hiring and firing, communication issues, organizational structure, and leadership deficiencies. The paper concludes that effective leadership, achieved through employee motivation and performance monitoring, is crucial for success and recommends appreciating employee efforts and fostering effective communication to manage workforce conflicts. The report provides insights into the manager's responsibilities, including decision-making, problem-solving, and planning, as well as the importance of motivation, evaluation, and addressing challenges related to organizational culture and conflict management. It also provides an overview of HCL Technologies, its operations, and the roles of managers within the company.

MANAGING PEOPLE AND ORGANISATION 1
MANAGING PEOPLE AND ORGANISATION: A CASE OF HCL TECHNOLOGIES
Name
Student ID
MGT 600
Institutional Affiliation

MANAGING PEOPLE AND ORGANISATION 2
Executive Summary
The main aim of the report was to examine the key roles of Account manager in HCL
Technologies Company. HCL Technologies is an Indian based company providing Information
Technology services and has expanded over 31 countries. The Accounts manager pointed out
many ways he manages his team and what he does to ensure the company is ranked among the
best globally. The manager also emphasizes that he really face a hard time in dealing with
employees and ensuring that the operations of the organization are going on efficiently and
according to expectations and requirements. In addition, the challenges faced by managers have
also been covered which range from lack of motivation, challenges in hiring and firing,
communication to employees, organizational structure and culture and poor leadership. The
paper concluded that good leadership provides better opportunities in the company and it is
achieved through employee motivation and progress monitoring. The paper also recommended
that managers should consider appreciating employees efforts and providing effective
communication that can manage workforce conflicts.

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Table of Content
Executive Summary.......................................................................................................................2
Introduction....................................................................................................................................4
Literature Review..........................................................................................................................4
Firm Background...........................................................................................................................6
Operations......................................................................................................................................6
What Managers Do........................................................................................................................6
Challenges Faced By Managers....................................................................................................8
Interesting Lessons Learned From the Experience....................................................................9
Conclusion and Recommendations............................................................................................10
References.....................................................................................................................................11
Appendix: Interview Script and Notes......................................................................................13

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Introduction
Over the past decades, managers have been important assets in organizations and had a
great influence on staff. They have a high influence on the way employees are committed to
achieving their goals, objectives, and mission of the organization. Depending on leadership
styles and behaviors some managers have achieved their targets and goals while others have
failed significantly to achieve their sets targets. Generally, depending on the nature of an
organization, managers have different roles and duties, which are mandated to conduct them.
Despite their own roles and duties, they had been mentors and supervisors of other employees
making sure they have assisted accordingly for them to accomplish their targets. However,
managers have faced many challenges in the workplace with some even opting to resign and start
their own companies and other resigning from their organization and start looking for a job
somewhere. Due to these interactions, role, and challenges facing managers in their workplace,
the report is aimed to find out what managers really do, what challenges they face and what is a
solution of the problems experienced in the organization. The report will further analyze the
responses of Account manager at HCL Technologies Company during an interview.
Literature Review
Employees in the organization require an effective guidance from their managers and
assurance of good leadership that makes them feel part of the company. The duties and
responsibilities of managers have been the reason why employees are rebelling against the
management operation while others adapt to change. Managers have faced these challenges
because of factors like poor leadership, poor motivation, and lack of managing conflicts within
the workforce effectively. Leadership in an organization has been linked with effective
performances. A research by Stanislavov and Ivanov (2014) indicated that just like we have
good managers that positively influence employees, bad leaders are also characterized by traits
like determinations, high energy, strong power for power and achievement, intelligence and
decisiveness. Furthermore, bad managers have sets of skills ranging from good decision makers
to good communicator. Moreover, many managers are failures because of their authoritative
leadership styles that result from increased communication gap with their workforces. A research
by Currie & Hill (2012) shown that managers play a key role in turnovers absenteeism by the

MANAGING PEOPLE AND ORGANISATION 5
experience workforces. According to Goleman, Boyatzis & McKee (2013) “bad leadership is
equivalent to lack of relationship management competencies and self-management. Furthermore,
lack of good guidance and communication from managers have exacerbated potential problems
leading to employees feeling of no one listens to their concerns and the relationship that existed
between them and management may start deteriorating.
Motivation issues also experienced at HCL Technologies Company are determined by the
relationship that exists between the management and employees. The organization’s managers
must realize that employees are different. Some of the employees like continuing support and
feedback from their leaders while others prefer to work independently. Darcy et al. (2012) stated
that “employee one-size-fits-all approach does not work as some challenges may motivate on the
person and discourage other. Furthermore, some individual’s need high recognition and praise
for them to feel motivated even if their work mediocre while others do not need praises and
recognition for them to feel satisfied and motivated. According to Darcy et al., (2012) “people
are different and their skills need to be mastered in order to reward different people”. The
needful employees can be motivated through monetary rewards and also the manager must be
aware that motivation always depends on age, skills, and experience. Furthermore, not
motivating employees leads to departmental or inter-departmental conflicts especially in a
situation that employees do not believe in equality.
Workforce conflicts at HCL Technologies Company have positive and negative effects
on the organization. Occasionally, conflicts have led to improved results, better decision-making
and creativity since managers have the capabilities of managing the conflicts. However, when
the conflicts are high it decreases group cohesion and performances. Further research by Keashly
et al. (2011) has indicated that when conflicts are constructive it can result in improved
communication between employees and management hence allowing legitimate differences of
beliefs and interests. Furthermore, if managers are not well responsible, organizational culture
can be created when habits and beliefs of one group dominate the workplace norms. Therefore,
the manager’s failure of managing conflict can affect organizational bottom line impacting
organizational objective of serving customers. Generally, conflicts must occur in an organization
because different people have different behaviors, perceptions and personalities.

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Firm Background
HCL Technologies is an IT firm based in India and were started in 1976. The company
deals in various segments like IT hardware, remote infrastructure management, BPO services,
Enterprise and applications consulting and distribution and integration of technology and
telecom products R&D (Ramaswamy, 2009). After 42 years in service, the company has a huge
workforce of estimated 90,000 employees. It has expanded into 31 countries across the world
and has 505 foothills in India. Merging and expansion have generated the company high
revenues and helped it survive significant competition in the technology industry. The company
generates a revenue of $ 2.02 billion in India an approximately $4.3 billion globally.
Operations
What Managers Do
Managers at HCL Technologies have many responsibilities and duties to undertake every
day. Apart from being a team leader, managers are decision makers, problem solvers, coaches,
cheerleaders, organizers and planners. Consequently, the schedules of managers are jam-packed.
They often find little spare time on their calendars due to various activities they undertake
including strategy sessions, unexpected problems, being busy with employee meetings, solving
employee disputes, directing employees and monitoring organizational activities to ensure that
they are running smoothly. In general, the roles of managers are classified into decisional,
informational and interpersonal roles. Managers must have conceptual, human and technical
skills which result in performance that is desirable so as to be in a position of assisting the
employees in becoming more powerful.
Managers in all organizational and business activities get people together for the
accomplishment of desired objectives and goals by effectively and efficiently using available
resources (Papke-Shields, Beise & Quan, 2010). At HCL Technologies Company, the accounts
manager controls, leads, direct staff, organize and plan for all activities in relation with accounts
department. In addition, the manager invests his efforts for the purpose of accomplishing set
goals and objectives. According to Gibbons et al. (2010) Accounts and human resource
managers ensure that the resource for the best talent by deploying and manipulating natural,
technological, financial and human resources for the achievement of the organizational

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objectives and goals. Since an organization is generally viewed as a system, the act of
management can be defined as the actions of humans employed for the facilitation of all
activities aimed at producing outcomes that are useful from a system. Therefore, managers
ensure that they first manage themselves since it is a pre-requisite to managing other people.
Furthermore, accounts Manager at HCL Technologies Company is given various powers and
responsibilities that assist in making decisions for the financial management activities taking
place in the organization.
Primarily, HCL Technologies Company’s accounts manager is responsible for the
satisfaction of the organization’s stakeholders. Furthermore, when the manager notices the
overall financial performances are not in accordance with management standards, he provides
employment opportunities that are rewarding to employees, ensuring the creation of quality and
fair price products for customers and makes sure shareholders profits are increased. In addition,
the manager also has a mandate of keeping the faith of donors. Furthermore, the accounts
manager communicates to employees frequently and motivate them to work hard for the success
of the organization. The manager also ensures that he create a team through pay decision,
promotion and placement and further maintain communication with the team which is an
integrating function of managers.
By planning, HCL accounts manager ensure that he decides what needs to be done in
future, how it is to be done and generating action plans. According to Devesa, Laguna &
Palacios (2010), planning results in a high degree of satisfaction if the resources are available.
Therefore, the manager plans include developing of strategies, goals and schedules that are
required for an organization to carry its future business success and ensures the customers are
satisfied.
By organizing, the manager ensures that he optimize the use of available resources
required to enable the carrying out of organizational plans successfully. In collaboration with the
organization’s human resource managers, the account manager ensures that the staffing of the
organization is appropriate through the screening, recruiting and hiring individuals for the jobs
that best match their knowledge and abilities (Hwang & Ng, 2013). The organizing makes sure
the HCL accounts manager have competent and organized employees who are keen to details.

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Furthermore, directing and leading employees ensures that in a particular situation, the manager
has determined what is to be done and get people to handle the tasks. Moreover, the manager
monitors and controls by ensuring that he check the progress of organizational activities to
ensure that all tasks are being handled according to ensure the smooth running of the
organizational financial activities.
However, since motivation is a basic management function, HCL Technologies
Company’s accounts manager has the responsibility of motivating their team for the effective
working of employees. Motivation is an important function of management since, without
motivation, employees will be discouraged to work hard in contributing to other functions of the
organization. Moreover, undertake the role of evaluation by assessing and reviewing the success
of the plan, goal and the allocation of the employees and resources through the use of reliable
and solid measures. Accounts Managers at HCL Technologies Company perform additional
activities as assigned from time to time by the managing director or CEO of the organization.
Generally, the duties and responsibilities of accounts managers are diverse and only depend on
the size of the organization, its goals and objectives and reasons for its existence. The
development of employees through training and supervision is also a critical aspect in the
managers’ responsibilities since employees are recognized as a vital tool of organization.
Challenges Faced By Managers
Generally, Managers face various challenges while executing their duties. According to
Benjamin & O'Reilly (2011), some challenges arise from the organization’s cultural beliefs.
Organizational culture refers to the way things are done in the organization and could be used as
a way of finding out the behavior of people in a complex setting. Organizational culture can be
the experience and perception of people or abstract within a setting that is organized. Further
research by Aishah, Kamarazaly, Mbachu & Phipps (2013) shows that the culture of a certain
group of people is the way of thinking, practices, customs and set beliefs which people share
with one another through working and being together. HCL Technologies Company’s accounts
manager face a challenge in managing cultural change in a company which depends on how the
culture which exists is strong and the weight of the change which has been proposed. In addition,
the manager also faces challenges of changing jobs, especially when moving from the private to

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the public sector. For example, managers who work in the private sector are highly focused on
accounting and profits to shareholders have power and authority attached and decision making is
simplified which is not the case in the public sector. To minimize the challenges, managers make
sure that they recruit people who will best fit into the organizational culture by questioning them
to know their awareness of what is good for the company.
Accounts Manager at HCL Technologies Company also face challenges posed by
organizational structure, culture and design which has sometimes led to employee conflict due to
confusion on who should report to who. Additionally, the manager has also faced a hard time
sorting and managing issues between employees that have sometimes been hectic. Generally,
poor motivation from the manager’s superiors has sometimes demoralized the managers which
may have resulted to some of them losing interest in working for the organization and have tried
to seek better employers who treat them fairly. Poor leadership from the top management has a
negative effect on business operations in all organizations and may affect other managers and
employees. Moreover, firing employees has been a challenge to the most manager, as it has
become a confusing decision to make since the organization may lose committed employee
because of minor mistakes. Furthermore, it is hard to break the bad news to employees who have
served in the company for many years.
Interesting Lessons Learned From the Experience
Interacting with the accounts manager from HCL Technologies enabled me to realize that
being a good manager does not require a lot of experience as having leadership qualities and a
positive attitude. In addition, I realized that management is a hard task which requires
knowledge, passion, dedication and perseverance in order to excel in the field. Furthermore, I
also learned that some managers in different organizations lack leadership skills although they
serve in the management positions of companies. Moreover, I learned that being committed and
having a good working relationship with employees can be good at making the work of
managers easier.
The manager also highlighted that the reason behind human resource managers indulging
in a sophisticated and lengthy selection process is because selecting a good candidate is not easy
since knowing the best candidate to select is an essential component. I also learned that the high

MANAGING PEOPLE AND ORGANISATION 10
compensation of managers matches the kind of jobs which they do since some managers are
even overworked. When processes fail in the organization or when deadlines are not met,
managers are answerable. Therefore, it leaves managers with the sole responsibility of having the
fate of the organization in their hands. If they fail, the organization fails hence the interest of
shareholders depends on the effectiveness of the management.
Conclusion and Recommendations
The paper concludes that HCL account’s manager faces several challenges posed by
changes in organizational culture, structure and functionality. The way the manager leads and
engages employees has adverse effects on the organization. If the manager leads the organization
with a high degree of competency, the employee’s morale is boosted and they contribute
significantly hence increasing customer delivery and customer satisfaction. In order to make sure
employees are motivated the manager has been offering good compensation and reward benefits.
Benefits like sick leaves, bonuses and good salaries have retained skilled employees in the
organization. Poor leadership and unaddressed issues if not managed appropriately may lead to
an influence on the level of employee’s motivation. Furthermore, the lack of managing
employees appropriately leads to workforce conflicts. The poor leadership arises because of
employees not being properly directed to meet organizational goals. Lack of motivation on an
employee results to decrease in employee productivity. Lack of appropriate management
conflicts leads to low morale especially when employees believe there are inequalities among the
workgroup. Therefore, managers should have a mindset of focusing on developing and
empowering employees so that they can achieve the goals they have set. The main goal of every
organization is to maximize profits to shareholders that are achieved through the integration of
strong leadership with information and informal communication. Therefore, employees should
frequently communicate with managers and learn new trends from them.

MANAGING PEOPLE AND ORGANISATION 11
References
Aishah Kamarazaly M., Mbachu, J., & Phipps, R. (2013). Challenges faced by facilities
managers in the Australasian universities. Journal of facilities management, 11(2), 136-
151.
Benjamin, B., & O'Reilly, C. (2011). Becoming a leader: Early career challenges faced by MBA
graduates. Academy of Management Learning & Education, 10(3), 452-472.
Currie, E. J., & Hill, R. A. C. (2012). What are the reasons for high turnover in nursing? A
discussion of presumed causal factors and remedies. International Journal of Nursing
Studies, 49(9), 1180-1189.
Darcy, C., McCarthy, A., Hill, J., & Grady, G. (2012). Work-life balance: One size fits all? An
exploratory analysis of the differential effects of career stage. European Management
Journal, 30(2), 111-120.
Gibbons, R., Henderson, R., Repenning, N., Sterman, J., Differentials, P. P., & Do, W. D. M.
(2010). What do managers do? Suggestive evidence and potential theories about building
relationships. Handbook of Organizational Economics, Princeton University Press,
Princeton, NJ, forthcoming.
Goleman, D., Boyatzis, R. E., & McKee, A. (2013). Primal leadership: Unleashing the power of
emotional intelligence. Harvard Business Press.
Hwang, B. G., & Ng, W. J. (2013). Project management knowledge and skills for green
construction: Overcoming challenges. International Journal of Project Management,
31(2), 272-284.
Keashly, L., Nowell, B. L., Einarsen, S., Hoel, H., Zapf, D., & Cooper, C. (2011). Conflict,
conflict resolution, and bullying. Bullying and harassment in the workplace:
Developments in theory, research, and practice, 2, 423-445.
Papke-Shields, K. E., Beise, C., & Quan, J. (2010). Do project managers practice what they
preach, and does it matter to project success?. International journal of project
management, 28(7), 650-662.
Ramaswamy, V. (2009). Leading the transformation to co-creation of value. Strategy &
Leadership, 37(2), 32-37.

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Sonderegger, P., & Täube, F. (2010). Cluster life cycle and diaspora effects: Evidence from the
Indian IT cluster in Bangalore. Journal of International Management, 16(4), 383-397.
Stanislavov, I. and Ivanov, S., 2014. The role of leadership for shaping organizational culture
and building employee engagement in the Bulgarian gaming industry. Turizam:
međunarodni znanstveno-stručni časopis, 62(1), pp.19-40. DOI:
Devesa, M., Laguna, M., & Palacios, A. (2010). The role of motivation in visitor satisfaction:
Empirical evidence in rural tourism. Tourism Management, 31(4), 547-552. DOI:
doi.org/10.1016/j.tourman.2009.06.006

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Appendix: Interview Script and Notes
1. Which companies have you worked with before and what was your duties and
responsibility in those companies?
All right, in the past, I had worked for several companies outside the country. I have
worked with BHP as an assistant account manager and ANZ bank as a chief accountant.
MY duties and responsibility are ensuring my department have enough personnel to carry
out activities, hiring and recruiting staffs, preparing of budget and addressing any issues
that arise from my department.
2. How can you describe your job as a human resource manager?
I can say my job is very challenging sometimes I have to work under pressure to ensure
every information is keyed in our database. Although I cannot complain much since my
employees are supportive.
3. Is there anything that you can change in career path?
No. I cannot change anything although am planning to start part-time classes for my third
degree top gain more knowledge and recognitions during interviews.
4. What do you enjoy most in your current position?
The Good relationship that I have built with my employees and my employer. The position
is a bit challenging and therefore I learn new things always. In terms of resources, my
department has been allocated enough resources that have eased the operations.
5. What are the challenges that you face from both employees and organization?
Poor performance
Sometimes experienced and skilled employees leaving the company
Inadequate resources to run some activities
Poor leadership
Employees not motivated.
6. How do you see this company in the next 5 years?
The company will have grown significantly if other factors like macroeconomics will not
affect the market. The company market share will have increased significantly and many

MANAGING PEOPLE AND ORGANISATION 14
7. What are your long-term goals
to make sure all customers are satisfied
To Reduce the errors which are experienced in my department. These errors are like
misplacing and mishandling of document.
To makes sure the company shares increases by 5 percent
8. What trends have an impact on management practices over the next 5 years
The rise in competition has a negative impact on the company.
9. Do you want to be promoted for higher management positions?
I think the more am promoted, the tougher the challenges I will face. However am ready
for any promotion that might occur along.