ENUMERATION OF JOB CATEGORIES AND IDENTIFICATION OF THE CRITICAL JOB CATEGORIES IN THE PRODUCTION SEGMENT OF TIRUPUR KNITWEAR INDUSTRY WORKERS

Dr. RUPA GUNASEELAN Associate Professor, BSMED, Bharathiar University, Coimbatore – 45 E-Mail: [email protected]

ABSTRACT India, with a population of more than one billion and a workforce of 500 million, has maintained a remarkable gross domestic product (GDP) growth rate of around 9% during the last four years. The unprecedented economic growth accompanied by widespread urbanization along with foreign direct investment has fuelled a demand for skilled workers in India. A severe shortage of skills is apparent in the organized and unorganized sectors of the country’s economy. The textile and garment industries are considered as labour intensive industries, and the governments were supporting these industries with a view to overcome the problem of unemployment. However due to various reasons, the textile industry is gradually getting itself changed to a capital intensive industry. In the garment sector also, mechanization is taking place. Most of the employers report a shortage of labour perceived in recent times. Skill shortage occurs when there are not enough people available with the skills needed to do the jobs which need to be done. As manpower development needs to be paid attention especially by developing the knowledge and skills of work force, this research paper attempts to identify and rank the available job categories and also to identify the most critical job category. This would enable the identification of the target group to which the skill development programmes could be oriented. The production workers belonging to the lower stratum were identified for this research work. The machine operators were found to be more potent users of technical skills when compared to the other workers and hence are critical to production function of the firm. Key Terms Skill, Skill Profiling, Production, Job Categories, Internal Customer Relationship. Enumeration of Job Categories, Identification of the Critical Job Categories, Production Segment, Tirupur Knitwear Industry, Workers.

Enumeration Of Job Categories And Identification Of The Critical Job Categories In The Production Segment Of Tirupur Knitwear Industry Workers – Dr. Rupa Gunaseelan

indirect employment to 2.5 lakh people. There is a marked shortage of skilled manpower when compared to the rapid growth in production and exports of the cluster. The manpower development needs to be paid attention especially by developing the knowledge and skills of work force. For this the identification and ranking of job categories gains prominence. Hence this study was undertaken to identify and rank the available job categories and also to identify the most critical job category.

INTRODUCTION Defining skill A skill is knowledge of a work activity which requires the exercise of significant judgment that goes beyond the carrying out of simple job duties and is acquired through performance of an occupation which is above the unskilled level (requires more than 30 days to learn). It is practical and familiar knowledge of the principles and processes of an art, science or trade, combined with the ability to apply them in practice in a proper and approved manner. This includes activities like making precise measurements, reading blueprints, and setting up and operating complex machinery. A skill gives a person a special advantage over unskilled workers in the labour market.

SCOPE OF THE STUDY The lower strata of workers have been continuously excluded from any kind of development programmes. For manpower development programmes to be implemented, among these workers the target beneficiaries have to be identified. The beneficiaries would be those critical job categories whose performance is crucial to the production function.

Skills are not gained by doing unskilled jobs, and a person has no special advantage if he or she is skilled or semiskilled but can qualify only for an unskilled job because his or her skills cannot be used to any significant degree in other jobs. “Skill” means the ability to apply knowledge and use know-how to complete tasks and solve problems. In the context of the European Qualifications Framework, skills are described as cognitive (involving the use of logical, intuitive and creative thinking) or practical (involving manual dexterity and the use of methods, materials, tools and instruments).

OBJECTIVES   

 

NEED OF THE STUDY The Tirupur cluster offers direct employment to 3.5 lakh people and Namex International Journal of Management Research

To list down the available job categories. To rank the job categories based on general skill requirements. To identify the type of skills most frequently used in every job category. To identify the worker type based on skills used most frequently. To identify the critical job category that uses more of technical skills and is hence critical to production function.

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Enumeration Of Job Categories And Identification Of The Critical Job Categories In The Production Segment Of Tirupur Knitwear Industry Workers – Dr. Rupa Gunaseelan

Tews et al. (2008) examined the impact of two different on-the-job post training program supplements. The impact of these supplements was assessed across four different training conditions a) classroom training only, b) classroom training with self-coaching c) classroom training with upward feedback and d) classroom training with self-coaching and upward feedback. He concluded that both the supplements are useful extensions to formal classroom training for enhancing the interpersonal performance of the trainees.

The research design involved was a communication survey study which was exploratory in nature and was statistically tested. This two staged design focussed on information collected through secondary data and experience surveys. The data collected from 308 executives of the Tirupur knitwear industry was recorded on nominal or categorical scale. The ordinal scale was used to rank the critical job categories. SAMPLING AND SAMPLING DESIGN

In the current study the population under consideration are the total number of units of Tirupur knitwear industry. There is no accurate record of the number of firms or units in the industry. The distinction between small and large enterprises is vague in Tirupur context. Several small firms have common ownership, giving a distorted impression of an industry composed solely of small and medium sized individual firms.

Carole (1992) gives insights into the attitudes of organisations towards training and development. It also suggests that the organisations peripheral activities are linked to organisational and individual goals, where training and development is considered to be the responsibility of line managers. Business schools could help remove this fragmented approach by building links between education and life.

The firms were selected from TEA reports. The listed numbers of firms were 689 out of which 345 were large and medium firms. Of these, 35 firms were selected by restricted random sampling by choosing firms having turnover of 4 crores and above. Firms with turnover less than 4 crores were small enterprises (AEPC, 2009). The total number of executives in these five firms was 1020. This formed the sampling frame out of which a sample of 308 executives was drawn by simple random sampling. 308 executives constituted the sample size.

James (2005) explains that both technical skills and soft skills were essential for a successful career. He further identified human relations as the first soft skill followed by effective communication, organisational culture and career management. Liam et al. (2007) also stressed on the importance of communication skills which helps one to get connected with other people. He also suggested that time spent in learning and development of the same could make a lasting difference. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATION Namex International Journal of Management Research

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Enumeration Of Job Categories And Identification Of The Critical Job Categories In The Production Segment Of Tirupur Knitwear Industry Workers – Dr. Rupa Gunaseelan

Speaking of workers involved in production the critical skills were more practical and to a certain extent cognitive in nature. The nature of skills of different categories of workers based on the extent of utility was listed. In general workers used both practical and cognitive skills. Practical skills were more technical than cognitive in nature. Cognitive skills included non-technical skills such as soft skills, basic skills, basic literacy skills and language skills.

listed as Supervisors, Foreman, Chief machine operators, other machine operators (roll-cutting, press-button, button-hole and button-stitch), Iron masters, Quality controllers, Helpers and Checkers who included the recorders, folders, packers and loaders. The chief machine operators included the Sewing machine operators (over-lock, flat-lock folding, flat-lock fusing, and bar-tack machine), Knitting machine operators, Cutting machine operators, Printing machine operators and Dyeing machine operators. The other machine operators were involved in performing roll cutting, press button, button hole and button stitch accessory operations.

The category of workers who were involved in using more of their technical skills was identified as their performance was considered critical for the effective functioning of the production unit as per the survey reports of the sample of executives of the knitwear industry of Tirupur. As the current work focussed on the job categories at the lower stratum, only those job categories pertaining to the lower worker level was considered. LISTING OF CATEGORIES

AVAILABLE

RANKING OF JOB CATEGORIES Ranking of the job categories was done (Table 1) to determine which job category required more specialised skills. This group included the various types of machine operators, ironing masters, quality controllers, checkers and helpers

JOB

This was also represented graphically in Chart 1 given below.

The different categories of workers identified in the production units were TABLE 1:

RANKING OF JOB CATEGORIES

Ranks Rank Of Knitting Machine Operators Rank Of Cutting Machine Operators Rank Of Printing Machine Operators Rank Of Dyeing Machine Operators Rank Of Sewing Machine Operators Rank Of Ironing Masters Rank Of Helpers (Folders, Packers And Loaders) Rank Of Checkers Rank Of Quality Controllers

CHART 1:

Mean rank 1.01 2.22 2.81 3.97 5.02 5.98 8.97 7.78 7.25

Overall rank 1 2 3 4 5 6 9 8 7

RANKING OF JOB CATEGORIES

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Enumeration Of Job Categories And Identification Of The Critical Job Categories In The Production Segment Of Tirupur Knitwear Industry Workers – Dr. Rupa Gunaseelan

specialised technical skills than the others. In other words the ranking indicated the order of technical skills required for the job categories considered, the nature of skills ranging from highest to lowest corresponding to the allotted ranks from 1 to 10 respectively.

Inference: Knitting machine operators were ranked as the first job category using specialised skills. This was followed by the Cutting, Printing, Dyeing, Sewing, and Ironing masters. Rank 9 was allotted to the Checkers and Rank 10 to Quality Controllers.

FRIEDMAN’S TEST A particular job category is more critical if it required the use of specialised skills. As knitting machine operators were ranked one, it showed that the particular job category involved the utilisation of TABLE 2

Friedman’s test was conducted to check for any significant difference between the mean ranks based on their skill levels (Table 2).

TEST STATISTICS

N Chi-Square df Asymp. Sig.

308 2425.311 8 0.000

than 0.05 (5% level of significance) the null hypothesis is rejected.

A Friedman Test Null Hypothesis (H0):

Inference There is no significant difference between the mean ranks based on their skills. Since significance value was less

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Enumeration Of Job Categories And Identification Of The Critical Job Categories In The Production Segment Of Tirupur Knitwear Industry Workers – Dr. Rupa Gunaseelan

There is a significant difference between the mean ranks of the various operator categories based on their skills. KOLMOGOROV-

ONE-SAMPLE KOLMOGOROV-SMIRNOV TEST

CATEGORIES OF CRITICAL SKILLS

N

Mean S.D. 164 526.71 770.672 308 129.53 111.685 119 82.84 60.540 47 157.23 110.821 308 1009.84 1049.709 308 69.46 57.805

Most Extreme Differences

Abs. 0.250 0.141 0.151 0.163 0.180 0.153

Pos. 0.234 0.141 0.151 0.163 0.164 0.153

Neg. -.250 -.131 -.108 -.104 -.180 -.126

KolmogorovSmirnov Z Asymp. Sig. (2-Tailed)

TABLE 3:

Normal Parameters

ONE-SAMPLE SMIRNOV TEST

This test was used to find if there is a difference between the means and ranks of factors contributing to categories of skills. This is shown below (Table 3).

No. Of Knitting Machine Operators (A) 3.202 No. Of Cutting Machine Operators (A) 2.477 No. Of Printing Machine Operators (A) 1.646 No. Of Dyeing Machine Operators (A) 1.121 No. Of Sewing Machine Operators (A) 3.165 No. Of Ironing Masters (A) 2.679 No. Of Helpers (Folders, Packers And 308 406.18 393.718 0.172 0.172 -.164 3.021 Loaders) Available No. Of Checkers (A) 307 53.64 50.215 0.190 0.190 -.152 3.323 No. Of Quality Controllers (A) 308 31.74 30.414 0.182 0.182 -.161 3.187 No. Of Knitting Machine Operators (R) 164 562.61 785.138 0.240 0.225 -.240 3.073 No. Of Cutting Machine Operators (R) 308 165.98 149.056 0.149 0.149 -.140 2.608 No. Of Printing Machine Operators (R) 119 111.09 87.294 0.132 0.132 -.123 1.436 No. Of Dyeing Machine Operators (R) 47 176.21 120.683 0.154 0.154 -.098 1.053 No. Of Sewing Machine Operators (R) 308 1198.16 1168.339 0.166 0.158 -.166 2.906 No. Of Ironing Masters (R) 308 88.16 71.686 0.154 0.154 -.122 2.705 No. Of Helpers (Folders, Packers And 308 462.32 450.713 0.166 0.166 -.163 2.907 Loaders) Required No. Of Checkers (R) 308 65.47 67.248 0.185 0.185 -.173 3.247 No. Of Quality Controllers (R) 308 36.31 33.405 0.168 0.168 -.149 2.952 A - Denotes Available R - Denotes Required Pos. – Positive Neg. - Negative a Test distribution is Normal. b Calculated from data.

.000 .000 .000 .000 .000 .032 .218 .000 .000 .000 .000 .000

normal distribution is rejected. There is a difference between the mean ranks of factors or indicator variables contributing to different categories of skills indicating that the ranking was based on difference in skills used.

Null Hypothesis (H0): There is no significant difference between mean ranks of factors or indicator variables contributing to different categories of skills.

IDENTIFICATION OF WORKER TYPE BASED ON MOST FREQUENTLY USED SKILL TYPE

Inference: Since the asymptotic significance value (0.000) is less than 0.05 (5% level of significance), the null hypothesis of Namex International Journal of Management Research

0.000 .000 .009 .162 .000 .000

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Enumeration Of Job Categories And Identification Of The Critical Job Categories In The Production Segment Of Tirupur Knitwear Industry Workers – Dr. Rupa Gunaseelan

Further investigations were done to identify the skill type most frequently used by the different categories of workers. The results are shown in the table below (Table 4). For the purpose of identifying the worker type, the executive sample population interviewed set two criteria for identifying the critical worker category whose contribution was vital to the production function of the firm. I. Nature of skills used most frequently by the worker. TABLE 5

Categories of Workers

Supervisors Foreman Chief Machine Operators Accessory Machine Operators Quality controllers Iron masters Helpers Checkers

II. Identifying those skills which require a minimum of 30 days training for their acquisition. It was reasoned that a worker category could be identified as critical if it satisfied the above two criteria. This meant that the critical worker category would have to use more of technical skills in addition to non-technical skills, the procurement of which required at least a minimum of 30 days.

IDENTIFICATION OF WORKER TYPE BASED ON MOST FREQUENTLY USED SKILL TYPE % of Skill Type Used Most Frequently as Reported by the Executives

Skills Requiring A Minimum of 30 Days Training

Worker Type Based on Nature of Skills Used Most Frequently

Total No. of Executives Interviewed

Technical

Non-Technical

3.58 9.1

96.42 90.90

Yes Yes

Non-technical Non-technical

308 308

94.48

5.52

Yes

Technical

308

49.35

50.65

No

Non-technical

308

2.6 83.44 2.93 1.3

97.40 16.56 97.07 98.7

Yes Yes No No

Non-technical Technical Non-technical Non-technical

308 308 308 308

found to be technical workers who performance is critical to the production function of a firm. The other job categories used more of non-technical skills.

Inference: The chief machine operators were found to use more of the technical skills (94.48%) which also required a minimum of 30 days for procurement. Hence they are found to be the most critical job category in the production unit. This was followed by the iron masters who also used more of technical skills (83.44), which also required a minimum of 30 days for procurement. These two categories of workers are Namex International Journal of Management Research

CONCLUSION The machine operator category which includes the chief machine operators and the other accessory machine operators identified as the most critical job category used more of technical skills 45

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Enumeration Of Job Categories And Identification Of The Critical Job Categories In The Production Segment Of Tirupur Knitwear Industry Workers – Dr. Rupa Gunaseelan

WEB REFERENCES

crucial to the production firm. Hence skill development programmes could be targeted to this category of workers in order to effectively meet the manpower development needs of the industry.

1. Official website of “Tirupur Exporters Association”, www.teaindia.org 2. Official website of “Apparel Export Promotion Council”, www.aepcindia.com 3. Official website of “Apparel Training and Design Centre”, www.atdcindia.co.in 4. Official website of “Ministry of Small and Medium Enterprises” www.msme.foundation.org, www.msme.gov.in 5. Official website of “Infrastructure Leasing and Financial Services” www.ilfsindia.com 6. Official website of “Director General of Employment and Training”, www.dget.nic.in 7. Official website of “Ministry of Labour, Government of India”, www.labour.nic.in 8. Office of Textile Commission URL: http://www.txcindia.com 9. Textiles Committee of India, Ministry of Textiles, Government of India. URL: http://www.textilescommittee.nic.in/ npca 10. Development Commissioner (SSI), Ministry of Small Scale Industries URL: http://www.smallindustryindia.com/ pacity.htm

REFERENCES 1. AEPC (2009). “Indian Apparel Clusters – An Assessment”. Published By Apparel Export Promotion Council – Edition 2009. 2. Tews, Michael J; Tracey, and J Bruce. “An Empirical Examination of Post Training On-The- Job Supplements for Enhancing the Effectiveness of Interpersonal Skills Training”. Personnel Psychology (Summer 2008) 61.2: pp 375-401. 3. Osterweil, Carole. “Using Why, What And How To Help Managers Learn”. Management Development Review, (1992): 5.1 pp 30. 4. Wellington, James K. “Soft Skills” of Success. Vital speeches of the Day 7 (2005) 1-20: pp 628-634. 5. Dewhurst, Sue; Fitzpatric, and Liam. “Bringing out the Excellent Communicator in Managers”. Strategic Communication Management (Aug/Sep 2007): pp 20-23. 6. IIED (International Institute for Environment and Development) April (2000). Nick Robins and Sarah Roberts (ed): The Reality Of Sustainable Trade.

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