Skills and training needs of frontline managers

International Journal of Marketing and Human Resource Management (IJMHRM), ISSN 0976 – 6421 (Print),
ISSN 0976 – 643X (Online), Volume 5, Issue 2, March-April (2014), pp. 10-25 © IAEME
10
SKILLS AND TRAINING NEEDS OF FRONTLINE MANAGERS AT INDIAN
POWER DISTRIBUTION COMPANIES – A PERSPECTIVE OF
ELECTRICITY CUSTOMERS
SURESH VISHWAKARMA
PhD Scholar, College of Management & Economics Studies,
University of Petroleum & Energy Studies, India
ALKA DWIVEDI
Assistant Professor, College of Management & Economics Studies,
University of Petroleum & Energy Studies, India
ABSTRACT
The present paper attempts to identify the perception of different categories of electricity
customers on the job performance and training requirements of frontline managers in the lately
formed power distribution companies. In order to study this phenomenon a questionnaire was
prepared and checked for its reliability and validity. 500 completed responses were collected from
DISCOMs’ customers at the response rate of 68%. Cronbach’s Alpha’ value of 0.965 in the pilot
study confirmed internal consistency (reliability) of data. Data Analysis reflected the index of
customers’ perception on 30 attributes associated with the performance and corresponding training
requirement of frontline managers. The results of the study can contribute in understanding
customers’ perception on various attributes associated with the performance and training needs of
frontline managers at power distribution companies (DISCOMs). Replication of the study in
different companies and regions can help in overcoming the culture specificity and customers’ bias
which may have affected the results of the study.
Key words: Electricity customers, frontline managers, power distribution companies, training, and
performance.
1. INTRODUCTION
Electricity supply has now become a basic necessity in everybody’s life. Its presence only
makes our daily routine easy and also ensures many modern life support systems. Even the slum
dwellers now expect to have electricity supply at least for some part of the day. Any unplanned,
unexpected, or prolonged outage of electricity supply now-a-days can lead to social unrest (Foss,
2012).
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MARKETING AND HUMAN
RESOURCE MANAGEMENT (IJMHRM)
ISSN 0976 – 6421 (Print)
ISSN 0976 – 643X (Online)
Volume 5, Issue 2, March – April (2014), pp. 10-25
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Frontline managers play a very significant role in the power distribution companies
(DISCOMs). They act as an inter-face between the customers / public and the company. Frontline
Managers in power distribution companies are the mainly field officers – Assistant Engineers and
Junior Engineers posted at Operation & Maintenance offices in the town, sub-urban, and rural area.
They interact with the public, authorities, and different categories of customers on almost daily basis.
Subsequent to the Northern and Eastern Grid failure in July 2012, Central Electricity Supply
Utility of Orissa CESU sources estimated that the undeclared load has gone up by around 20 per cent
in those past few days. "This is because hundreds of air-conditioners and air coolers were installed
by people to get respite from the scorching heat. However, very few people had actually announced
these additions," (Sahoo, 2012). The load demand of customers has increased considerably in the
past years. A considerable part of that is undeclared especially during peak winter and summer
seasons. The concern here is if all electricity customers are aware of declaring any additional load to
their installation before the utility provider. Have SEBs / DISCOMs educated them enough on the
duties and responsibilities of an electricity customer.
In the ongoing scenario, customers’ satisfaction is the key to success of any business. Steve
Jobs, CEO of Apple, once said, “It is our job to know what our customers want.” Electricity
customers cannot be left alone. They not only anticipate much better services but also expect
DISCOMs to understand how their needs have changed with the passage of time and how best their
reasonable expectations should be met.
Power sector reforms in most of the developing countries including India are still breezing
their implementation phase and the process are likely to continue till their aimed objectives is met.
Frontline managers are now assigned with the responsibilities of playing changed role as per their
redesigned jobs.
2. OBJECTIVES AND IMPORTANCE OF THE STUDY
The main objective of the study was to understand customers’ perception on various
attributes associated with the performance and training needs of frontline managers at DISCOMs. To
achieve the main objective, the following sub-objectives were set:
1. To get customers’ overall view on the performance and training requirements of frontline
managers.
2. To analyze customers’ perception on technical skills of frontline managers.
3. To analyze customers’ perception on commercial, managerial, public relations, and customer
care skills of frontline managers.
There are several areas related to work-performance of frontline managers demanding further
study and research. From a practical perspective, researchers intend to use the results of this study to
identify the various factors perceived by electricity customers that contribute to the performance of
frontline managers at the newly formed power distribution companies subsequent to reforms in the
Indian power sector.
3. LITERATURE REVIEW
The review of related literature leads to the assumption that customers’ perception on the
performance of DISCOMs’ frontline line managers differ on degree and scale along the different
variables which contribute to effective customer services.
Upon introducing reforms in the Indian power sector, the change management is successfully
ongoing. A sense of belongingness is being developed among the human capital (IGNOU, 2007).
Lately formed DISCOMs are trying to gain confidence of existing employees by assuring
employees-friendly policies. Management is stressing on promoting in-house training programmes
on quality, skills and technical management to focus on customer satisfaction. The management

12
however still faces the challenges of changing the mind-set of employees from the arrogance of
monopoly status to politeness in competitive business environment continue to be a great challenge
(IGNOU, 2007). More progressive personnel policies and employment conditions are being explored
to attract and retain highly skilled staff and providing incentives for constantly upgrading their skills.
Scott Anthony, author of The Little Black Book Of Innovation: How It Works, How to Do It,
states in his article “3 Ways To Predict What Consumers Want Before They Know It”, that a careful
study of current and potential customers can often highlight the workarounds that customers create to
make up for the limits of existing solutions. Going deep into these compensating behaviours can help
to uncover innovation opportunities. Spending time with the customers, watching for the
workarounds, and exploring non-consumption helps in highlighting exciting innovation opportunities
(Anthony, 2012)
The key findings of the survey conducted among the electricity consumers of Maharashtra
State Electricity Distribution Company Limited (MSEDCL) / Mahavitaran by Marketing and
Development Research Associates (MDRA) in 2012 to assess the level of awareness of consumer’s
rights and consumer grievance redressal mechanism revealed that mere 1% of the electricity
customers are aware of Electricity Act and Electricity Consumer’s Rights. Almost 75% of the
electricity consumers had faced the problems related to their electricity connection. They also had a
high proportion of complaints related to inflated / excess billing, voltage fluctuation and interruption/
failure/ disconnection of electric supply. Majority of the electricity consumers did not receive the
complaint number after registration of their complaints. Less than 50% of the complainants were
satisfied with the resolution of their complaints by MSEDCL staff.
A postgraduate student of a Noida based management institution in India has stated in his
summer training report on “Market Research on Consumers Expectations from Power Distribution
Companies in Delhi” that the asset of any organization is its customer base so it is very important to
realize the marketing effectiveness in satisfying consumers’ needs and wants as the profit of any
company depending on a deeper understanding of consumers’ behaviour. The lately formed
DISCOMs had never faced these issues in the past since erstwhile State Electricity Boards were
operating in the monopolistic scenario. In the changing scenario, competitive markets have emerged
and the consumers now have choice to change their service providers. Under such situation, only the
more competitive player would remain in the race. (Bhatia, 2010)
An article in McKinsey Quarterly journal points out insufficient training as the reason for low
manager performance. Its authors believe that most companies don't offer adequate training to their
frontline managers or structure their roles to create the most value. Aggravating the problem, senior
leaders are often unaware of the issues that hinder frontline performance (McGurk, Smet and Vinson,
2010) The article underlines insufficient training as a contributing factor for impeded performance of
managers and alarms organization’s senior leaders to be aware of frontline’s needs. The scenario at
the power distribution companies is more or less similar.
A paper titled “Introducing Electric Power into a Multidisciplinary Curriculum for Network
Industries” (Ilic, Apt, Khosla, Lave, Morgan and Talukdar 2003) states that engineers of future will
have to be able to do everything that engineers do today – and much more. They will have to design,
build and operate generators, transmission & distribution lines, manage the networks for reliable
operations, and do all this safely and with security against attack designed in from the outset. They
will have to do this within an environment which is much less friendly and forgiving than the
environment which their predecessors faced. In addition, each decision on new capacity and
operations will have to be made with a view to its costs and expected revenues.
A study on Satisfaction & Preferences of Electricity Consumers was conducted by pManifold
(2011) in nine districts of central India. The major factors included were power quality & reliability,
customer service, meter, billing & payment and communication etc. The findings revealed that until
now very little effort has been made to objectively understand and consider the voice of the customer
while making efforts to improve the utility's services and performance. Most respondents opined that

13
they are expecting a lot to be done before they are satisfied with the utility services. The study
concluded that immediately attending to the customer's key areas of dissatisfaction would result in
quick wins for the utility and allow for building up a positive perception within the minds of all
stakeholders (including customer, opinion leaders, employees etc) and make them ready for bigger
changes.
The intense literature review was also supported with the inferences drawn from interactive
conversations with DISCOMs’ frontline managers and their superiors.
4. METHODOLOGY OF RESEARCH
The study started with intense literature review of work done on manpower training in power
sector before and after the power sector reforms in India. Due to limited research done in training in
general and performance management in particular, only few papers were available in public
domain. Variables were extracted from the published literature on customers’ expectation from
utility companies and their perception on DISCOMs’ frontline managers. Discussions were
undertaken with the different categories of electricity customers. Based upon the review of literature
and discussions with the customers, a list of 32 statements was screened out. Most of the statements
were related on technical, commercial, managerial, customer care, and public relations skills of
frontline managers.
This study was based on primary data gathered with the help of a questionnaire comprising
two sections. Section A collected demographic details of respondents. It also recorded the
satisfaction level of respondents with the performance and training requirements of DISCOMs’
frontline managers on a scale of 1 – 10. Section B had 32 scale items on customers’ perception on
the technical, commercial, managerial, customer care, and public relations skills of frontline
managers. First 2 items questioned change in customer’s electricity consumption and expectation
from DISCOM in the past years. The responses were collected on a five point Likert Scale where 1
represented ‘Strongly Disagree’, 2 represented ‘Disagree’, 3= ‘Undecided’, 4= ‘Agree’ and 5=
‘Strongly Agree’.
The questionnaire designed for customers’ group was mailed / distributed to almost 800
customers of lately formed DISCOMs. Even though electricity customers’ population is infinite, the
study was concentrated in two states in central India where DISCOMs are operational for more than
5 years. Since electricity customers have infinite population, a sample size of 500 customers was
considered as a close replica of large customer base as per the published tables. Total 543 customers
responded after continual follow up by emails and phone calls. The response rate was approx. 68%.
Out of the 543 responses received, 43 were incomplete hence were rejected. Finally 500 complete
responses were included in the study.
The data gathered were analyzed with actual counts, percentages, correlations, standard
deviations, factor analysis, variance, and mean scores. Actual counts and percentages were used to
assess the frequency and percentage extent of certain variables related to general and background
information. Correlations were used to assess the relationships of age of respondents and their
satisfaction with frontline managers’ skills and training needs. Standard deviations were calculated to
understand the variations in data collected through responses. Factor analysis was used to reduce the
data collected on the four-point scale for further analysis. Means were helpful in explaining the
extent of customers’ agreement or disagreement on the technical, commercial, managerial, customer
care, and public relations skills of DISCOMs’ frontline managers. Reliability of the data collected
was also calculated by applying the Cronbach Alpha. Alpha value of the scale of 30 variables was
calculated that was as high as 0.965.

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5. SAMPLE AND DATA COLLECTION
Questionnaires were distributed and responses from invited from customers at different
categories of customers. No preference whatsoever to any particular category of customers was given
to ensure an overall and fair perception of customers’ population.
Pilot study was carried out on 53 (around 10%) complete questionnaires to test the feasibility.
Cronbach’s Alpha value for the 32 variables in Section B of 53 questionnaires was 0.965. Values of
Cronbach’s alpha range from 0 to 1.00 with those close to 1.00 indicate high consistency. Acceptable
Cronbach's alpha values range from 0.70 to 0.95 (Tavakol & Dennick, 2011). High-stakes
standardized tests should have internal consistency coefficients of minimum 0.90 (Wells & Wollack,
2003). The Cronbach Alpha determined for the study was therefore acceptable confirming internal
consistency (reliability) of data for this group.
6. DATA ANALYSIS
Demographic information of 500 Customers who completely responded to the questionnaire
is tabulated in Table 1
Table 1: Demographic Profile
Sr. Variable N=500 Percentage
I Category
Domestic 332 66.4
Commercial 98 19.6
Industrial 25 5
Agriculture 28 5.6
Others 17 3.4
II Age of Respondent
20 – 30 106 21.2
31 – 40 149 29.8
41 – 50 130 26
Above 51 115 23
III Gender
Male 459 91.8
Female 41 8.2
IV Education level
Below Graduate 57 11.4
Graduate 272 54.4
Master and above 171 34.2
Testing of hypothesis on customers’ responses was carried out assuming values for null and
alternate hypothesis. The responses were collected on a five point Likert Scale where 1 represented
‘Strongly Disagree’, 2 represented ‘Disagree’, 3= ‘Undecided’, 4= ‘Agree’ and 5= ‘Strongly Agree’.
The mean response of 4 points and greater was an indicative of customers’ full agreement on the
statement. However the mean response lesser than 4 indicates that a part of the customers’
population did not agree with the respective statement. An assumed mean value of ≥ 4 (Agree) was
therefore considered for the responses to test the null hypothesis H0.
Null hypothesis H0: µ ≥ 4
Alternative hypothesis H1: < 4

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With the null hypothesis H0: µ ≥ 4, the critical region is in the left tail. With a left-tail area of
0.05 the critical value is z = – 1.645. The critical value is used to set up the critical region.
As mentioned earlier, the first two statements in the questionnaire questioned change in customer’s
electricity consumption and expectations from DISCOM in the last few years. Their responses were
separately analyzed. The corresponding values of t for the remaining 30 variables calculated using
SPSS is lower than – 1.645 (Table 2) which are in the left of the critical value. Hence, the test
statistic is in the rejection region, which means that the null hypothesis is rejected. Since the null
hypothesis is rejected, the alternate hypothesis is supported confirming that the mean response is less
than 4 and a large number of customers do not agree with many statements. FLMs are the Frontline
Managers including Junior Engineers, Assistant Engineers, and Assistant Executive Engineers at
DISCOMs.
Table 2: One-Sample Statistics
Sr. Question(s) N Mean SD Std. Error
Mean
t
1 Frontline Managers (FLMs) at the DISCOM’s office in your area
understand your needs and expectations.
500 2.97 1.189 .053 -19.408
2 FLMs adequately advise you on your electrical installation and any
shortcomings in that.
500 2.65 1.234 .055 -24.464
3 FLMs adequately educate you on the safety issues related to your
installation.
500 2.68 1.244 .056 -23.687
4 FLMs adequately advise you on energy efficiency measures in your
installations.
500 2.72 1.260 .056 -22.678
5 FLMs adequately advise and educate you on the different
categories and slabs of electricity tariffs in-force.
500 2.92 1.335 .060 -18.025
6 FLMs adequately advise and educate you on the responsibilities of
electricity customers.
500 2.72 1.310 .059 -21.786
7 FLMs adequately advise and educate you on the penalties for
indulging in theft of electricity.
500 2.89 1.402 .063 -17.770
8 FLMs adequately educate you on the disadvantages of having low
power factor in your installation
500 2.69 1.333 .060 -22.000
9 FLMs adequately educate you on the disadvantages of having
unbalanced load in your installation
500 2.73 1.439 .064 -19.795
10 FLMs adequately educate you on the benefits of using energy
efficient appliances in your installation.
500 2.62 1.359 .061 -22.644
11 FLMs explain the role of Bureau of Energy Efficiency and other
Government’s initiatives to help customers.
500 2.66 1.402 .063 -21.379
12 FLMs reflect creativity in their work in understanding and
resolving customers’ problems.
500 2.99 1.215 .054 -18.510
13 FLMs are equally commercial in their approach as they are
technical at work.
500 3.18 1.126 .050 -16.247
14 FLMs are capable of positively influencing you to be a loyal and
responsible customer of DISCOM.
500 2.87 1.452 .065 -17.373
15 FLMs have unbiased approach towards customers and show
genuine interest in them.
500 2.79 1.286 .058 -21.043
16 FLMs track your pending grievances / issues and follow up enough
to address them.
500 2.73 1.360 .061 -20.885
17 FLMs put effort to improve the lethargic attitude of their staff to
ensure quality services to you.
500 2.92 .963 .043 -25.076
18 FLMs are putting enough efforts to reduce supply outage in their
area.
500 3.23 1.076 .048 -16.039
19 FLMs are putting enough efforts to increase DISCOM’s revenue. 500 3.37 .905 .040 -15.460
20 Good communication and public relations skills are mandatory to
perform FLMs’ job at DISCOMs.
500 3.86 1.351 .060 -2.318
21 FLMs are cost conscious enough in their work and providing
services to customers.
500 2.97 1.242 .056 -18.509
22 FLMs possess enough skills to promptly resolve your services and
bills related grievances.
500 3.16 1.240 .055 -15.105
23 FLMs demonstrate trust and empathy in listening to your facts and
understand feelings.
500 3.04 1.248 .056 -17.270
24 FLMs are adequately motivated and professional to make
DISCOM progress and serve you better.
500 3.19 1.019 .046 -17.686

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25 FLMs are capable enough to identify customers’ issues and
conclude as much as possible from information available.
500 3.08 1.322 .059 -15.596
26 FLMs are capable to develop deep collaborative relations between
DISCOM and customers to create win-win situation.
500 3.10 1.047 .047 -19.221
27 FLMs are thorough and precise in approaching DISCOM’s work
and their personal activities?
500 3.14 .987 .044 -19.402
28 FLMs try to build DISCOM a customer friendly company with
good image in general public.
500 3.09 1.193 .053 -17.024
29 FLMs are sensitive in dealing with you and refrain from any kind
of unpleasing behaviour.
500 2.78 1.304 .058 -20.850
30 FLMs have team spirit and fellowship at their workplace to serve
you better.
500 3.18 1.094 .049 -16.681
The highest mean value of 3.86 in Table 2 for mandatory good communication and public
relations skills confirm that customers perceive this skill most important skill to perform frontline
managers’ job. Their perception on this attribute further supports one of the objectives of Ministry of
Power and USAID’s joint Distribution Reform, Upgrades and Management (DRUM) Project. The
mean values around 3 for 11 attributes further confirms that many customers are still undecided on
Frontline managers being equally commercial and technical in their approach, putting enough efforts
to reduce supply outage, increasing DISCOMs’ revenue, resolving services and bills related
grievances, having team spirit, developing collaborative relations between DISCOM and customers,
and few more attributes.
As discussed in the National Conference on Demand Side Management, 2012, DISCOMs’
frontline line managers should be able to educate customers on the benefits of using energy efficient
appliances in their installation. The lowest mean (2.62) however shows that customers do not
perceive this attribute as important. Also the lowest Standard Deviation 0.905 indicates that
customers are not much concerned if DISCOMs’ Frontline Managers are putting enough efforts to
increase company’s revenue”.
A high standard deviation shows that the data is widely spread. As seen in the Table 2, the
standard deviation of 1.4 and higher of the under-mentioned 4 attributes of frontline managers shows
that customers are somewhat dubious on these attributes.
i. FLMs adequately advise and educate on penalties for indulging in theft of electricity.
ii. FLMs adequately educate on the disadvantages of having unbalanced load in installation.
iii. FLMs educate on Bureau of Energy Efficiency and other Government’s initiatives to help
customers.
iv. FLMs are capable of positively influencing to be a loyal and responsible customer of DISCOM.
Factor analysis was then applied to summarize the original variables into a smaller set of
composite factors. This technique finds relationships or natural connections where variables are
maximally correlated with one another and minimally correlated with other variables and then
groups the variables accordingly. The analysis helped in data reduction by grouping scale items into
a few manageable factors and further development of scales to measure job satisfaction.
The first two statements in the Section B of questionnaire were not attributes but customers’
global perception on their changed electricity consumption and consequent expectations from
DISCOMs’ Frontline Managers. Responses to the first 2 statements were used to establish a general
observation about the customers’ population and its potential impact on DISCOMs operations and
frontline management. The remaining 30 statements (from Sr. 3 onwards) were considered for factor
analysis. The initial output from the analysis is a table of descriptive statistics for all the variables
under investigation. Typically the mean, standard deviation and number of respondents (N) who had
responded to the questionnaire are given.
Before proceeding for further factor analysis, appropriateness of factor analysis was assessed
by examining sampling adequacy through Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin (KMO) statistic. KMO and Bartlett’s
Test measure strength of relationship among the variables. The KMO measures the sample adequacy

17
which should be greater than 0.6 for a satisfactory factor analysis to proceed (Kaiser and Rice 1974).
If any pair has a value less than this, we consider dropping one of them from analysis. The off-
diagonal elements should all be very small (close to zero) in a good model. Looking at the Table 3,
the KMO measure is 0.874 which is very good.
Table 3: KMO and Bartlett's Test
Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin Measure of Sampling Adequacy. .874
Bartlett's Test of Sphericity
Approx. Chi-Square 13822.425
df (Degrees of freedom) 435
Sig. (Significance) .000
Bartlett test results show that the values are significant and thus acceptable. It tests the null
hypothesis that the correlation matrix is an identity matrix. An identity matrix is a matrix in which all
of the diagonals are 1 and all off-diagonal elements are 0. We want to reject this null hypothesis. As
per the process of a factor analysis prescribed by Hair, Black, Babin, Anderson, and Tatham in their
book Multivariate Data Analysis (2006), a statistically significant Bartlett’s test of sphericity
(significant level < .05) confirms sufficient correlations among the variables to proceed. The degrees
of freedom (df) tells how many numbers in the grid are actually independent. The table also indicates
that significance level is less than .001, which is small enough to reject null hypothesis. Bartlett’s test
of sphericity in this study is therefore significant and thus acceptable.
Table 4 shows the correlation between age of customers and their perception towards FLMs’
technical skills, commercial skills and training requirement.
Table 4: Correlation between Customers’ age and their satisfaction with FLM’s skills
Age
Satisfaction with FLM’s
technical skills
Satisfaction with
FLM’s commercial
skills
FLMs’ need further
training
Age 1
technical skills.
-.032 1
commercial skills
-.068 .745**
1
FLMs’ need further
training
-.085 -.116**
-.038 1
**. Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed).
The negative correlation values confirm that senior group of customers and not much
satisfied with frontline managers’ technical and commercial skills. Moreover they strongly believe
that frontline managers need further training. The correlation of 0.745 between commercial and
technical skills confirms that customers of all age groups expect frontline managers to possess both
skills. The correlation values further indicate customers stressing training needs of frontline
managers more on commercial skills in comparison to technical skills. The items were then
subjected to Principal Component Analysis with Varimax rotation and Kaiser Normalization.
Eigenvalues are most commonly reported in factor analyses. They are calculated and used in
deciding how many factors to extract in the overall factor analysis. The factors having eigenvalues
greater than one were retained in this study.
In matrix algebra, under certain conditions, matrices can be diagonalized. Matrices are often
diagonalized in multivariate analyses. In that process, eigenvalues are used to consolidate the
variance (Brown, 2001). In factor analysis, eigenvalues are used to condense the variance in a
correlation matrix. "The factor with the largest eigenvalue has the most variance and so on, down to
factors with small or negative eigenvalues that are usually omitted from solutions" (Tabachnick and

18
Fidell, 1996). From the analyst's perspective, only variables with eigenvalues of 1.00 or higher are
traditionally considered worth analyzing. However, examining a scree plot, analyzing non-trivial
variance, and using a theory-based approach can provide overriding reasons for selecting other
numbers of factors (Gorsuch, 1983).
Table 5 shows all the factors extractable from the analysis along with their eigenvalues. The
percentage of variance attributable to each factor and the cumulative variance of the factor and the
previous factors are also included. It is noticed that the first factor accounts for 44.9% of the
variance, the second 12.7%. All the remaining factors are not significant. All the items had factor
loadings above 0.45 (Hair, Anderson, Tatham, & Black 1995) except the last variable – “FLMs have
team spirit and fellowship at their workplace to serve customers better.
Table 5: Total Variance Explained
Component Initial Eigenvalues Extraction Sums of Squared
Loadings
Rotation Sums of Squared
Loadings
Total % of
Variance
Cum. % Total % of
Variance
Cum. % Total % of
Variance
Cum. %
1 13.481 44.936 44.936 13.481 44.936 44.936 8.349 27.831 27.831
2 3.832 12.775 57.710 3.832 12.775 57.710 5.081 16.936 44.767
3 1.770 5.901 63.611 1.770 5.901 63.611 5.047 16.822 61.589
4 1.428 4.760 68.371 1.428 4.760 68.371 2.035 6.782 68.371
5 .955 3.182 71.553
6 .900 2.999 74.552
7 .756 2.521 77.074
8 .732 2.440 79.514
9 .616 2.054 81.568
10 .560 1.865 83.434
11 .491 1.638 85.071
12 .445 1.482 86.554
13 .407 1.358 87.912
14 .384 1.279 89.191
15 .372 1.241 90.432
16 .342 1.140 91.572
17 .318 1.062 92.634
18 .305 1.018 93.652
19 .272 .907 94.560
20 .247 .824 95.384
21 .241 .803 96.187
22 .201 .670 96.857
23 .192 .639 97.496
24 .165 .549 98.045
25 .146 .485 98.530
26 .121 .404 98.934
27 .116 .386 99.320
28 .096 .319 99.639
29 .067 .223 99.862
30 .041 .138 100.000
Extraction Method: Principal Component Analysis.
Table 6 of communalities shows how much of the variance in the variables has been
accounted for by the extracted factors.

19
Table 6: Communalities
Sr. Item Extraction
1 FLMs at the DISCOM’s office in your area understand your needs and expectations. .602
2 FLMs adequately advise you on your electrical installation and any shortcomings in that. .635
3 FLMs adequately educate you on the safety issues related to your installation. .686
4 FLMs adequately advise you on energy efficiency measures in your installations. .753
5 FLMs adequately advise and educate you on the different categories and slabs of electricity tariffs in-
force.
.624
6 FLMs adequately advise and educate you on the responsibilities of electricity customers. .831
7 FLMs adequately advise and educate you on the penalties for indulging in theft of electricity. .561
8 FLMs adequately educate you on the disadvantages of having low power factor in your installation .612
9 FLMs adequately educate you on the disadvantages of having unbalanced load in your installation .636
10 FLMs adequately educate you on the benefits of using energy efficient appliances in your installation. .727
11 FLMs educate you on the role of Bureau of Energy Efficiency and other Government’s initiatives to
help customers.
.663
12 FLMs reflect creativity in their work in understanding and resolving customers’ problems. .702
13 FLMs are equally commercial in their approach as they are technical at work. .641
14 FLMs are capable of positively influencing you to be a loyal and responsible customer of DISCOM. .734
15 FLMs have unbiased approach towards customers and show genuine interest in them. .684
16 FLMs track your pending grievances / issues and follow up enough to address them. .723
17 FLMs put effort to improve the lethargic attitude of their staff to ensure quality services to you. .698
18 FLMs are putting enough efforts to reduce supply outage in their area. .700
19 FLMs are putting enough efforts to increase DISCOM’s revenue. .387
20 Good communication and public relations skills are mandatory to perform FLMs’ job at DISCOMs. .677
21 FLMs are cost conscious enough in their work and providing services to customers. .643
22 FLMs possess enough skills to promptly resolve your services and bills related grievances. .790
23 FLMs demonstrate trust and empathy in listening to your facts and understand feelings. .742
24 FLMs are adequately motivated and professional to make DISCOM progress and serve you better. .757
25 FLMs are capable enough to identify customers’ issues and conclude as much as possible from
information available.
.743
26 FLMs are capable to develop deep collaborative relations between DISCOM and customers to create
win-win situation.
.532
27 FLMs are thorough and precise in approaching DISCOM’s work and their personal activities? .717
28 FLMs try to build DISCOM a customer friendly company with good image in general public. .729
29 FLMs are sensitive in dealing with you and refrain from any kind of unpleasing behaviour. .790
30 FLMs have team spirit and fellowship at their workplace to serve you better. .788
As seen in the Table 6, Most of them are greater than 5 confirming that variance in the
variables have been largely accounted for by extracted factors. It further suggested that the data set is
appropriate (Stewart 1981). For instance over 83% of the variance in customers’ perception on FLMs
capabilities to adequately advise and educate them on the responsibilities of electricity customers is
accounted for while 38% of the variance in FLMs enough efforts to increase DISCOM’s revenue is
accounted for. The only variable with extraction value 0.387 (below 0.5) is inappropriate and
therefore rejected.
Rotated Component (Factor) Matrix was carried out. The idea of rotation is to reduce the
number factors on which the variables under investigations have high loading. Rotation does not
actually change anything but makes the interpretation of the analysis easier. The rotation of factors
converged in 6 iterations. As apparent from Table 7, eight variables are loaded on Educating
Customers, 11 variables are loaded on Customer Services, 8 variables are loaded on Management
Skills and only two variables are loaded on Commercial approach.
One variable – “frontline managers are putting enough effort to increase DISCOMs’ revenue”
has been suppressed since its loading was less than 5. Except this particular variable, all 29 variables
under the four components were further analyzed.

20
Table 7: Rotated Component Matrix
Sr. Variable / Attribute Component
1
Customer
Services
2
Mgmt.
skills
3
Educating
Customers
4
Comm.
Approach
1 FLMs at the DISCOM’s office in your area understand your needs and
expectations.
.763
2 FLMs adequately advise you on your electrical installation and any
shortcomings in that.
.780
3 FLMs adequately educate you on the safety issues related to your
installation.
.800
4 FLMs adequately advise you on energy efficiency measures in your
installations.
.835
5 FLMs adequately advise and educate you on different categories and slabs
of electricity tariffs in-force.
.766
6 FLMs adequately advise and educate you on the responsibilities of
electricity customers.
.896
7 FLMs adequately advise and educate you on the penalties for indulging in
theft of electricity.
.536
8 FLMs adequately educate you on the disadvantages of having low power
factor in your installation
.651
9 FLMs adequately educate you on the disadvantages of having unbalanced
load in your installation
.671
10 FLMs adequately educate you on the benefits of using energy efficient
appliances in your installation.
.689
11 FLMs explain the role of Bureau of Energy Efficiency and other
Government’s initiatives to help customers.
.582
12 FLMs reflect creativity in their work in understanding and resolving
customers’ problems.
.618
13 FLMs are equally commercial in their approach as they are technical at
work.
.603
14 FLMs are capable of positively influencing you to be a loyal and
responsible customer of DISCOM.
.756
15 FLMs have unbiased approach towards customers and show genuine
interest in them.
.739
16 FLMs track your pending grievances / issues and follow up enough to
address them.
.784
17 FLMs put effort to improve the lethargic attitude of their staff to ensure
quality services to you.
.762
18 FLMs are putting enough efforts to reduce supply outage in their area. .614 .528
19 FLMs are putting enough efforts to increase DISCOM’s revenue.
20 Good communication and public relations skills are mandatory to perform
FLMs’ job at DISCOMs.
.816
21 FLMs are cost conscious enough in their work and providing services to
customers.
.688
22 FLMs possess enough skills to promptly resolve your services and bills
related grievances.
.880
23 FLMs demonstrate trust and empathy in listening to your facts and
understand feelings.
.636
24 FLMs are adequately motivated and professional to make DISCOM
progress and serve you better.
.799
25 FLMs are capable enough to identify customers’ issues and conclude as
much as possible from info available.
.809
26 FLMs are capable to develop deep collaborative relations between
DISCOM and customers.
.509
27 FLMs are thorough and precise in approaching DISCOM’s work and their
personal activities
.514 .534
28 FLMs try to build DISCOM a customer friendly company with good image
in general public.
.509 .532
29 FLMs are sensitive in dealing with you and refrain from any kind of
unpleasing behaviour.
.807
30 FLMs have team spirit and fellowship at their workplace to serve you
better.
.681
Extraction Method: Principal Component Analysis. Rotation Method: Varimax with Kaiser Normalization.
a. Rotation converged in 6 iterations.

21
7. INTERPRETATION
The results obtained clearly show that 4 major factors (Customer Services, Management
Skills, Educating Customers, and Commercial Approach) have been extracted out of the total 30
factors as shown in Table 8.
The factors having the Eigen value greater than 1 are considered together as 1 factor. After
analyzing the various factors, from Table 8 it can be easily depicted that these 4 factors contribute
68.371% of the total variables as 68.371% of the total variance is related to these factors.
Table 8: Major factors covering 30 attributes
Sr. Factor Attribute(s)
1 Customer
Services
1 FLMs adequately educate on disadvantages of unbalanced load.
2 FLMs adequately educate on benefits of using energy efficient appliances
3 FLMs reflect creativity in understanding & resolving customers’ problem
4 FLMs are equally commercial in their approach as they are technical.
5 FLMs are capable of positively influencing customers to be loyal and responsible.
6 FLMs have unbiased approach and show genuine interest in customers.
7 FLMs track pending grievances / issues and follow up enough to address.
8 FLMs are cost conscious enough in work and providing services.
9 FLMs possess enough skills to resolve services & bills related grievances
10 FLMs are capable to identify customers’ issues and conclude info.
11 FLMs are sensitive in dealing and refrain from unpleasing behaviour.
2 Management
Skills
1 FLMs explain role of Bureau of Energy Efficiency and other Government’s initiatives to help
customers.
2 FLMs improve staff’s lethargic attitude to ensure quality services.
3 FLMs are putting enough efforts to reduce supply outage in their area.
4 FLMs demonstrate trust & empathy in listening facts, understand feelings
5 FLMs are adequately motivated and professional to progress DISCOM.
6 FLMs are capable to develop collaborative relations between DISCOM.
7 FLMs try to build DISCOM customer friendly company with good image
8 FLMs have team spirit and fellowship at their workplace to serve better.
3 Educating
Customers
1 FLMs at nearest DISCOM’s office understand your needs & expectation
2 FLMs adequately advise on electrical installation and any shortcomings.
3 FLMs adequately educate you on safety issues of your installation.
4 FLMs adequately advise on energy efficiency measures in installations.
5 FLMs adequately advise and educate on categories and slabs of tariffs.
6 FLMs adequately advise and educate on customers’ responsibilities.
7 FLMs adequately advise and educate you on penalties for theft.
8 FLMs adequately educate you on the disadvantages of low power factor.
4 Commercial
Approach
1 Good communication and PR skills are mandatory to perform FLMs’ job.
2 FLMs are thorough and precise in approaching DISCOM’s work and personal work
In order to determine the relative importance of the 4 extracted factors, they were subjected to
regression analysis. For this Parsuraman, Zeithaml and Berry’s (1988) approach was followed in
which the customers’ overall score on training requirements of DISCOMs’ frontline managers was
considered as dependent variable and means of the 4 extracted factors were considered as
independent variables (multiple regression).
Table 9: Regression Analysis results for importance of extracted factors
Model Unstandardized
Coefficients
Standardized
Coefficients
t Sig. Order of
importance
(As per Beta
values)
B Std. Error Beta
1
(Constant) 5.170 .192 26.899 .000
Customer Services -.130 .063 -.162 -2.086 .037 1
Management Skills -.060 .074 -.062 -.808 .420 3
Educating Customers -.131 .053 -.114 -2.480 .013 2
Commercial Approach -.001 .041 -.001 -.031 .976 4
a. Dependent Variable: Customers believe that FLM need further training

22
Thus the average score of the different factors was regressed on the overall customers’
perception score of FLM’s training needs (included in Section A). The beta coefficients provided the
relative importance of factors. The factor with highest beta coefficient is considered to have the
maximum influence on customers’ perception on FLM’s training needs while the one with the
second highest beta coefficient stands second in terms of relative significance and so on. The results
of multiple regression analysis are summarized in the Table 9. The results in the Table 9 can be
expressed in the form of the regression equation:
CP = 5.17 – 0.162(CS) – 0.062 (MS) – 0.114 (EC) +.001 (CA)
The above equation shows that Customer Services outweigh other areas for training
requirement of frontline managers’ training. Training on Commercial Approach is the last in order of
importance at the same time is statistically insignificant. Strangely enough, the results of regression
show all factors are slight negatively correlated with customers’ perception on training needs of
frontline managers, which probably would be the consequence of a large number of variables.
8. DISCUSSION AND COMPARISON WITH RESULTS OF SIMILAR STUDIES
Reform in power sector, just being a decade old have reflected an immense need of
reorientation of work practices at the power companies. With the rapid changes in the power sector
and increasing customers’ need, updating of skills and competencies of DISCOMs’ frontline
managers becomes a key concern. Authors had anticipated from customers of all categories are likely
to opine that their electricity consumption and expectations from power distribution companies has
gone up in the recent years. The results of the study are quite up to their anticipation.
The results of the study support one of the objectives of Ministry of Power and also match
with the results of many similar studies.
The results of this study are very much in line with those of pManifold’s study (2011) on
Satisfaction & Preferences of Electricity Consumers carried out in the same regions. Most
respondents (over 80%) from across different categories of customers including residential,
commercial, agriculture and industrial expressed their dissatisfaction on power quality & reliability,
customer service, meter, billing & payment and communication etc. Respondents gave most
importance to Customer Service, Power, Quality & Reliability and Company Image. The results of
this study are very much in line with those of pManifold’s study.
A study on “Importance of mutual relations on customer satisfaction in industries with no /
low direct contact with customers” (Ardabili, Daryani, Molaie, Rasooli and Kheiravar 2012)
revealed that creation of mutual relations between customers and electricity distribution company
could be of high prominence. Customers’ strong agreement on possessing good communication and
public relations skills as the most required skill to perform frontline managers’ job at DISCOMs
revealed in this study concurs with the findings of the above study.
A survey conducted by Marketing and Development Research Associates (MDRA) in
Maharashtra State included as many as 5 similar attributes its questionnaire. The views of customers
in Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh about DISCOMs’ frontline managers on educating them on
different categories and slabs of electricity tariffs in-force, understanding and resolving their
problems, tracking their pending grievances, reduce supply outage in their area, and promptly
resolving their services and bills related grievances collected in this study are alike with the views of
electricity customers in the above survey.
Such studies can help DISCOMs’ management in setting benchmarks for innovation, passion
towards learning, team player, and other soft skills while recruiting frontline managers. Frontline
managers being the key position holders should be able to work in line with DISCOMs’ values.
Apart from recruiting frontline manpower with the required technical base, the management need to
ensure that they must also have desire to learn and fit with DISCOMs’ values. A good balance
between technical skills and soft skills should be gauged at the recruiting stage itself. Management

23
can also explore possibilities of learning and developing skills in their frontline managers through
external resources as well as neighbouring DISCOMs.
9. CONCLUSIONS
This study gives an idea about how electricity customers perceives the performance level and
training requirements of frontline managers (Assistant Engineers and Junior Engineers) at the lately
formed power distribution companies. The study revealed that electricity customers expect
DISCOMs’ frontline managers to possess high customer care skills in addition to expertise in
technical and commercial areas. The customers believe that frontline managers need to be trained on
customer care and educating users on energy conservation, safety, and efficient usage of energy.
They should also keep customers’ informed of Government’s various initiatives for the benefit of
customers.
The performance of the frontline managers is subject to several variables both intrinsic and
extrinsic. Ensuring a conducive, cordial, and harmonious work environment to the frontline
managers contributes positively to their individual performance and virtually the overall
organizational performance and business results.
The study indicated that training requirement of DISCOMs’ frontline managers in Customer
Services outweigh other areas followed by training them in educating customers on different issues
related to their installation, consumption, safety, and billing. Training frontline managers in
management skills and developing commercial approach are also important areas for training them.
The results of the study are as good as the results of a simple gap analysis at frontline management
level. It gives an idea of customers’ perception on the current skill level of DISCOMs’ frontline
management, especially what functions do they need to perform that they are currently not able to
do.
The results of the study contribute to the DISCOMs’ policy makers in considering what key
values their frontline managers should portray, who all are now customers, how should they act and
respond to stake holders in-particular customers, what work ethics and habits are important, and what
key competencies do they want to see in their frontline management. A sound mixture of theory and
practical training will effectively develop their skill level.
The results obtained also helps in studying the dimensions of the redesigned jobs and the
anticipated competencies of frontline managers at the lately formed power distribution companies.
The study gives valuable information to the policy makers, management, and human resources wing
of the DISCOMs to review their policies in the light of the results obtained in this study. The results
of the study further contributes to the academics by giving supporting information on customers’
perception in the ongoing scenario on as many as 30 different attributes to further the research on
understanding what additional variables may also exist and how they can be remedied.
The results of the study confirm that various skills and attributes of the frontline managers
impact customer services at the power distribution companies. DISCOMs should therefore strive to
nurture and develop a suitable scenario in order to foster the performance of their frontline mangers
which will eventually become a source of companies’ improved customer services. Better
performance of their frontline managers will eventually result in improved customer satisfaction.
10. LIMITATIONS OF STUDY AND SCOPE FOR FUTURE RESEARCH
The major limitation of the study was the inability to cover customers from a bigger
geographical area to ensure an equal representation of different categories. Secondly, non many
published researches in the field were available. Reforms in power sector being a recent
phenomenon, not much research is done on customers’ perception on frontline managers’
performance.

24
Another limitation was that the data were collected from only two states in central India,
which could have been collected from more respondents in a wider area with cross cultural
extensions. A more elaborate study in a larger geographical region cross culturally on the subject will
definitely broaden the scope of improving the overall skill sets of frontline managers. The present
study in this direction necessitates a further detailed research on the theme. These responses
collected in this study itself can be of valuable importance for DISCOMs’ policy makers to train and
upgrade different skills of their frontline managers. Similar studies on customers’ perception about
DISCOMs may help in giving a more accurate picture.
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