Case: 01
A Trading Assistant’s Job
Based on the view of what is happening in Fortunate Financial Services Limited (FFSL). Robin Singh, the branch manager of the Delhi office, concluded that one of the first things he had to attend involved developing job descriptions for his one-line trading assistants. The daily turnover of the FFSL’s Branch in the Connaught circus area has been going up steadily in recent times, thanks to the stock market boom in January 2000; it has reached an all-time high of 7 crores. To in cash the opportunities presented by the boom, FFSL had recruited 5 additional assistants – all young graduates with over two years of experience in stock market operations taking the total number of assistants to 12. Two supervisors have also been appointed about six months back to oversee trading arrangements and back-office operations. The branch allows trading in stock belonging to BSE, NSE, and DSE. Each assistant had to look after the requirement of more than clients on daily basis. In recent times, FFSL face a number of problems on settlement day.
Major steps are taken to sustain the rise and fall of Stock Prices:
Clients exceeded their limit with active cooperation from trading assistants/ Supervisors.
Clients issued checks which bounced back later on.
Shares certificates were not handed over in time or delivery slips not handed in over in
cases of dematerialized stocks.
Clients simply disappeared for a while, whenever they took a long position in a particular
scrip – only to surface when the price is up.
The problem discussed with the Management:
Clearly define the roles and responsibilities of trading assistants and supervisors.
Assess the net worth of a client carefully before enrolling him as a member. Set trading
limits clearly and circulate this to assistants daily.
On the settlement, day asks the clients to pay or square up.
Collect amounts from clients on a daily basis whenever they exceeded limits.
Make the entire group responsible, whenever they allowed clients to exceed limits.
Questions:
Q1). What should be the formal and final form of the trading assistant’s job description?
Q2). Is it advisable to specify rules and regulations in the body of the job descriptions or
should these be kept separately?
Q3). How would you have conducted the job analysis in the above case?
EXPERT ANSWER
Answer 1
The formal and final form that contains the job description of the training assistant should contain:
1. Details of their roles and what are the operational time.
2. The salary they will be getting from the company.
3. Annual leaves they can have and all things they will be getting in the job.
Answer 2
Rules and regulations should not be kept in the body of the job description as keeping rules and regulations in the job description makes it more lengthy and deviates the employee from the actual job role. During the job description, only the job roles should be specified and all things that need to be done by the employee should be specified.
Rules and regulations should be handed over to the employee as a separate thing and not along with the job description.
Answer 3
I would have conducted the job analysis in the above case in the following way:
1. I would have looked for the position vacant and clearly defined their job role as to what they need to do.
2. I would have discussed the job role with the ongoing team and tried to find out their issues.
3. I would take strict action against the employee who allowed the client to exceed the limit rather than punishing the entire group.