How To Solve This Issue

Dear Seniors,
I am here to post a silly issue but made it very complicated in our office. We are conducting carrom tournament for employees in our office. We have 2 types of coins, We told employees to use new coins for matches and old coins for practice.Now we are in end of the tournament (semifinal stage) Unfortunately 1 of the team used new coin for practice where opponent team found that and creating an issue. When we start investigating many people have played with new coin for practice secretly. Please suggest me how to solve this issue.
Note : My MD is the main person in creating this issue, Asking me to solve it since i am the only HR. I have been refused appraisal for 5 months, last month MD said he will revise my salary on march. I have a doubt that to avoid my appraisal he is making this issue. Please suggest me.

Dear,
Pls. don\'t blame the problem creators in this situation, think for the solution. It is not the head taking issue. AS long as you got the information of others also practicing with new coin either you can debar those who cheated or violated the instruction or give instruction to let all team practice with new coin for next round onward.
Biju

Hello,
To avoid such problems you can frame a rules and regulations for the events to happen and circulate it and get it signed by all teams. As one of my friend rightly suggested please use new coins for even practice. However my view is that the coins are not going to make any drastic change in the result of the tournament.
Also try to take ur top management person in the wight sense. They may be interested in knowing about your problem solving skills. Take this as an opportunity and work on it and find a solution that suits well in your situation. Try to get involve in the decisions and also take the opinion and guidance of the top management (a representative possibly) before circulating it to all.
Hope you will get a salary revision after this and long continue your service to the company.

For this silly question, you may suggest hard decisions from HR side to your M.D., in writing only.
Cancel Tournament on the basis of not playing game with the game spirit and violation of several rules.
Clear your actions to M.D. you have taken to prove this Mal practice.
You must document all the Mal practice, which will work in your favor in future for the long time.
You may prove that "What ever you are doing is just to save " company name and M.D. respect.
And lastly be strong.
Regards,
Manish Bali

First rule, check if there really Is a CONFLICT. Speak to the opposing team discretely if they have raised this issue. If they are serious, you need to be SEEN to be taking action. Award some penalty points or whatever other way to show that you are upholding the rules. But whatever you do, make sure the issue you make this as an example. Don\'t try to penalise every team.
This issue is trivial, but you might as well use this opportunity to improve your employee relations.
Humour is a good way. Handle this with a smile, not like a school teacher.

Dear Ebinezar,
The unfortunate part is with your order which says "we told employees to use new coins for matches and old coins for practice".If this was an order then one should have strictly implement it. you should have taken the consent of all the participating players on a piece of paper stipulating a clause therein that whosoever break the condition of the order shall be disqualify from the match.Since this was not done, now in my opinion,you have two option before you:-
(i) Cancel the entire match played till now & start fresh match,which I am sure will be difficult as the winning team was will not agree to it.or
(ii) Continue the match giving them benefit of doubt, as it was not possible for you to supervise the practice of teams as to which coin they are/were using.
(ii) Take a matured decision after taking into the account all the ground realities & stick to the same.
The second part of your query is subjective, hence no comment.
BS Kalsi
Member since Aug 2011

It is surprising that HR has to play its role in Carroms also. very funny.
pon

Greetings Ebinezer,

After reading through your post, I wish to state that no question/ situation is silly, every situation is challenging and it sparks of a brain storming session in this forum. The number of replies you have received is self explanatory.

I wish to state a simpler formula which in my opinion will take away the stress out of you.

Call all the participants and ask explain to them the situation without mentioning the team names or individual names. Then conduct a secret ballot as to whether the tournament has to be continued or not. Also tell them that if the ballot concludes that the tournament shall not be continued, then the revised schedule for the tournament shall be announced at a later date. Tell them the ballots will be counted transparently before them in the presence of an election officer nominated by them. The election officer's ballot is kept separately and if there is a tie it is used to take decisions either side. The election officer should be a person who will be able to convince the members participating in the tournament on the outcome. The onus of taking the tournament forward now rests on the participants.

If the ballot concludes that the tournament shall indeed continue, seek opinion from participants whether to impose any penalty or any such rules to take the tournament forward.

Before conducting the secret ballot exercise, discreetly, pass information through the grapevine that if such silly issues arise management may seriously consider hosting such tournaments. Do not pass information about the ballot exercise before hand as they will be prepared for a response ahead of your exercise. But it should not be evident that you made the comment.

I am sure better sense will prevail and I am confident that all participants will vote to continue the tournament without making a fuss about it.

Now it is a one point lesson, frame the rules of the tournaments in future and take it forward.

All the very best!

Regards

akpcencus: Advocate
Dear Ebinezar,
Who has framed carrom rules in your company?
Who is the leader for the contest?
Whether draft rules were given to both of the teams?
Whether both the teams have given their memorandum of consent for following rules?
Whether your boss has fixed any match fixing to test you?
Who is the grievance handling officer.
Before handling this issue, Try to identify, who is the cause for all these problems, try to detain him and make an enquiry.
Give a memo to both the teams and let them answer you queries, without which no issue arise at all.

Hi,
I can empathize with your situation. HR is most of the times pulled into issues of personal ego issues of staff. It is more of ego hassle than an actual hassle.
A simple thing like not making the new coins available for practice could have not lead into this issue altogether.
However, you can declare all the matches null due to violation of rules. Also twist it by mixing both the sets of coin.
Please try and make your boss understand there are bigger issues to solve than figuring who has practiced with new/old coin.