War of Wits Indeed

One of the major events of Ensemble 2008 was “War of the Wits” - a Human Resources based competition which was a joint organization effort by Sapphire (Student’s Association for Personnel Management, Human Relations and Industrial Relations) and Fireax (Forum for Industrial Relations at XLRI). The event turned out to be a stimulating assortment of challenging situations bound together by the constraints of time, money and most importantly human resources. Participating teams were tested over six rounds on their knowledge of HR, planning, decision making, and negotiation skills in a dynamic environment. With XLRI enjoying its reputation as the premier B school for HR in the Asia Pacific Region, the event was designed to be the best HR event of the region.

Major interest was shown from students across all B schools across the country. However, only 5 teams made it to the final round, from MDI Gurgaon, XIM Bhubaneshwar, V G Somaiya, Kharagpur, and two teams from XLRI itself. Different events were judged by eminent professors from the field of law, organizational behavior, and human resources. The event was kicked off by Swati Jena, Secretary, Sapphire and AVIK Ghosh, Secretary, Fireax and began with the collective bargaining situation and the HR/IR quiz. The collective bargaining round was based on real life cases relating to compensation, individual disputes, and recruitment of workers in which each team had to negotiate, once as the management and once as the union. Following the collective bargaining and quiz round, teams were also tested through a diversity case study and a debate which focused on major issues in the field of human resources.

The final round was a simulated exercise in which teams had to recruit “worker” according to a pre decided budget for production of a certain “product”. Students of XLRI volunteered for the final round and made up categories of unskilled, skilled and contract workers. The round was based on real life and teams also experienced strikes and slow downs which caused loss in “production.”

The event was conducted in partnership with ITC, who also were the exclusive sponsor. The final results were based on the scores of each team in each round. At the end of almost six grilling hours, one of the teams from XLRI were adjudged the final winner, and were followed closely behind by the team from V G Somaiya. However, each of the events had individual prizes as well and therefore, each team earned a certain amount. The total prize money was around 80000 INR.

The event was a grand success which also enjoyed a high degree of audience participation. It contributed a long way in making Ensemble 2008 a grand success.

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