HR DIARIES: CHAPTER 5: A CASELET OF ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOUR: Where did it go wrong?

It was January 2000.

Arham reported to the job at a very young age, after acquiring his MSW degree. He was just a fresher. The NGO, that he was a part of, was located into a remote village of Maharashtra. The NGO was funded by a big corporate, located in Mumbai. 

It was an NGO with a difference! The salary of the staff was well above industry average and it was paid on time. It was managed professionally, albeit, in a traditional manner as it was located in a village. The language of circular etc was Marathi. The size of the staff was 127, which included all the types of staff like administration, law, managers etc.

Arham was very enthusiastic to be a part of this NGO. He was a quick learner and started contributing to the work fast. He became instantly popular, not only with the staff, but the local community as well. His work received good feedback from all the stakeholders. He could mix with everyone too.

He had a friend, who was a journalist, living in Mumbai. Arhman was fond of reading and kept reading a lot of newspapers, magazines etc when he used to live in urban area. But he observed that other staff members were not that much inclined to read. It was because the village didn't get many publications as it was remotely located. He was also feeling thirsty to read English newspapers / magazines as vernacular newspapers could not satisfy his hunger of reading. As it was January 2000, smartphones were not available.

So he contacted his journalist friend if he could help. A friend in need is a friend indeed! He agreed to help Arham. In fact he shared a scheme of a magazine with Arham, under which, if 50 staff members subscribed to a magazine, 50% discount was to be offered! 

Arham saw this as a very good opportunity not only to satisfy his own thirst of reading, but also of other staff members. So he shared this idea over lunch with everyone. Many people came forward and handed over the amount of subscription to him. Arham was doing all these in good faith only. None doubted his honesty either.

Meanwhile, a new development took place. The magazine demanded that the subscription must be paid to from the bank account of the NGO as they offered the discount to NGO employees. So, in short, it was not possible to avail discount if the payment was made from the personal account of Arham (or anyone else). 

So, the matter went to the director of NGO. The accountant of the NGO shared the details of this scheme with the director, without naming Arham (The accountant had no ill-intentions either). The director, who believed in economy in everything, saw this as a wastage of money! According to him, rather than 70 employees subscribing to the magazine, only 20 should subscribe! Rest 50 can subscribe to other publications with the same money. And then these employees can exchange the issues of different publications among themselves. That way, all of them would be able to read more publications by spending the same amount of money. The director also sought to know why he was not made aware of this scheme right from the start. He had no idea that Arham was behind all this!

When Arham learnt this, he got afraid! It was his first professional test! He ran away to his home with the money collected for subscription (cash was collected). He had little idea what to do and how to face the director. 

Questions: 

1. What should Arham do? Did he do something wrong? 

2. What should the director do, once he learns, what Arhan had done?

3. What should have been done to avoid such a situation to occur, by the admin/HR department of the NGO?