MB0043 HRM BOOKidB0909 Solved Assignment Set-1

8/3/2019 MB0043 HRM BOOKidB0909 Solved Assignment Set-1

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ROLL NO.: 521150960

NAME : SANEHI RAM

Master of Business Administration-MBA Semester I

Subject Code MB0043

Subject Name Human Resource Management

4 Credits

(Book ID: B0909)

Assignment Set- 1 (60 Marks)

Q.1 : What are the functions that HR attempts to fulfill in any organization.

Ans:- The Functions that HR attempts to fulfill in any organization are as follows:

1. Human resource planning :- Estimating the need for resources in order achieve the

desired business results. HR plans can be both short term/immediate as well as long

term/strategic. The HR team partners with the line managers to understand the business

goals and targets for the year and together plan the HR needs in order to meet the goals.

2. Acquisition of Human Resources :- Staffing the organization with the right mix of skills

and competencies at the right time. It also includes HR initiatives like promotions and

internal job posting to fulfill this requirement for human resources. Staffing teams in

organization are usually separate group of specialists who work closely with the line

managers to understand the skills and competencies needed for the job and engage

together to elect the best talent for the open position.

3. Training and employee development: Focuses in managing training activities to

upgrade skills and knowledge as well as soft skills like the ream building and leadership. The

training team is again a group of HR specialist who proposes the training program and

consults with the line managers to ensure that the program achieves the desired outcomes.

4. Building performance management systems :- Focuses on the right processes to setgoals for performance as individual / teams and related measurement methods. This is core

HR activity and is supported by the Hr generalist.

5. Rewards systems :- Establishing appropriate compensation systems and reward

mechanism that would reward the desired outcome and results in accordance with the

cooperate values. The again forms a part of HR generalists tasks. Hoe employees progress

in a organization how they are paid w.r.t internal and external market factors, what employee

benefits are offered are some aspects that this function redresses.

6. Human resources information systems :- That would that would take care ofoperational transactions form the time an employee exits, like personal files, compensation


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administration, payroll, benefits administration and issuing letters and testimonials. That task

is supported by as separate HR operation team who acts as an Hr helpdesk and provides

information to the employee/managers.

Q.2 : Discuss the cultural dimensions of Indian Work force.

ANSWER:

Cultural dimension of the Indian workforce

The foundation for understanding the unique work practices at a country level can best be

understood by first understanding the cultural aspects of the countrys workforce. The

pioneering work done by Dutch scientist, Geert Hofstede is a useful tool in understanding

the cultural differences used to differentiate countries. He identified five cultural dimensions

around which countries have been clustered. The dimensions are: power distance,uncertainty avoidance, individualism, masculinity and long term orientation. Geert Hofstede

dimensions are based on research conducted among over 1000 IBM employees working

globally. While there continued to be other studies like the GLOBE (Global Leadership and

Organisational Behaviour Effectiveness) project and Trompenaars' Framework, Hofstedes

model is most popular.

Power Distance

Power distance is the extent to which less powerful members of institutions and

organisations accept that power is distributed unequally. Countries in which people blindly

obey the orders of superiors have high power distance.

High power distance countries have norms, values and beliefs that support:

Inequality is good; everyone has a place; some are high, some are low

Most people should be dependent on a leader,

The powerful are entitled to privileges, and

The powerful should yield their power.

India scores 77 on power distance, indicating high power distance as a result of the

inequalities both at the level of the society as well as the at the workplace. Indian

organizations typically have hierarchical structures, position yields power and subordination

is acceptable.

The dimension of high power distance at the workplace can be best understood as:

People dislike work and try to avoid it.

Managers believe that they must adopt Theory X leadership style, that is, they must be

authoritarian, and force workers to perform and need to supervise their subordinates closely.

Organisational structures and systems tend to match the assumption regarding leadership

and motivation

Decision making is centralised.

Those at the top make most of the decisions. Organisations tend to have tall structures.

They will have a large proportion of supervisory personnel, and

The people at the lower levels often will have low job qualifications

Such structures encourage and promote inequality between people at different levels.


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Uncertainty Avoidance

Uncertainty avoidance is the extent to which people feel threatened by ambiguous

situations, and have created beliefs and institutions that try to avoid these.

India scores 40 indicating low to average uncertainty avoidance characteristics. Countries

with low uncertainty avoidance have people who are more willing to accept that risks are

associated with the unknown, and that life must go on in spite of this.Specifically, high uncertainty avoidance countries are characterised by norms, values, and

beliefs which accept that:

Conflict should not be avoided,

Deviant people and ideas should be tolerated,

Laws are not very important and need not necessarily be followed,

Experts and authorities are not always correct, and Consensus is not important

Low uncertainty avoidance societies such as ours have organization settings with less

structuring of activities, fewer written rules, more risktaking by managers, higher labour

turnover and more ambitious employees.

Such an organisation encourages employees to use their initiative and assume responsibilityfor their actions. Denmark and Great Britain are good examples of low uncertainty avoidance

cultures. Germany, Japan, and Spain typify high uncertainty avoidance societies

Individualism

Individualism is the tendency of people to look after themselves and their family only. The

opposite of this is collectivism which refers to the tendency of people to belong to groups

and to look after each other in exchange for loyalty. India scores 48 on Individualism,

indicating somewhat low scores, therefore tending towards a more collectivistic society.

Collectivist countries believe that:

One's identity is based on one's group membership,Group decision making is best, and

Groups protect individuals in exchange for their loyalty to the group.

Organizations in collectivist societies tend to promote nepotism in selecting managers. In

contrast, in individualistic societies, favoritism shown to friends and relatives is considered to

be unfair and even illegal. Further, organizations in collectivist cultures base promotions

mostly on seniority and age, whereas in individualist societies, they are based on one's

performance. Finally, in collectivist cultures, important decisions are made by older and

senior managers as opposed to individualist cultures, where decision making is an

individual's responsibility.

Individualism is common in the US, Canada, Australia, Denmark, and Sweden. The people

of India, Indonesia, Pakistan and a number of South American countries exhibit collectivism

Masculinity

Masculinity refers to a situation in which the dominant values in a society are success,

money and other material things. Hofstede measured this dimension on a continuum ranging

from masculinity to femininity. India scores 56 tending to be closed to masculinity than

felinity.

In highly masculine societies, jobs are clearly defined by gender. There are men's jobs and

women's jobs. Men usually choose jobs that are associated with long-term careers. Women

usually choose jobs that are associated with short-term employment, before marriage.


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Q. 3 : Explain the need for Human Resource Planning System.

ANSWER:

We will attempt to discuss in details the critical steps that are part of the HRP system.

A. Purpose of Human Resource Planning: Human Resource Planning fulfils individual as

well as organizational goals. What it essentially amounts to is striking a balance between

the future human resources needs and the future enterprise needs. And this is done with the

clear objective of maximizing the future return oninvestment in human resources. And this

objective may be laid down for a short-term (i.e.for one year).

B. Estimating/Forecasting the future Manpower Requirements: the first step in the process is

to arrive at the desired organizational structure at a given point in time. Mapping this

structure with the existing structure helps in identifying the gap in resources requirement.

The number and type of employees needed have to be determined. In addition to the

structure there are a number of external factors that affect this determination. They include

business forecasts, competitor strategy, expansion plans, product/skills mix changes,

profit/revenue growth projections, in addition to management philosophy and government

policies. This step also includes an analysis of the external labour/talent environment, its

demographics, demand/supply of the required talent, and cost considerations.

C. Auditing Human Resources: Once the future human resource needs are estimated, the

nextstep is to determine the present supply of manpower resources. This is done through

what is called Skills Inventory. A skills inventory contains data about each employees

skills, abilities, work preferences and other items of information which indicate his worth to

the company. Skills inventory are also referred to as competency dictionaries. This

information is usually retained as part of the performance management system with the HR

department. This step in the HRP system helps identify the existing profile of the manpower

and its efficiency. It helps highlight where the organization is vs. where it ought to be. The

step concludes with identifying clear gaps in the skills/ manpower mix required to meet the

upcoming business objectives.

D. Job Analysis: After having decided how many persons would be needed, it is necessary

to prepare a job analysis. The recorded details of training, skills, qualification, abilities,

experience and responsibilities, etc. as needed for a job are studied. Job analysis includes

the preparation of job descriptions and job specifications.

E. Developing a Human Resource Plan: This step refers t the development and

implementation of the human resource plan, which consists in finding out the sources of


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labour supply with a view to making an effective use of these sources.

Some important considerations at this point are:

Specific roles/disciplines being hired for, of them which roles are pivotal for the business

Competencies and capabilities needed

Manager vs. employee hiring Hire internally vs. External sourcing

Planning for new skills through training existing staff vs. hiring new teams

In case of surpluses, planning for redeployment/ reduction in workforce as required

Succession planning for key positions in the company

Q.4 : Elucidate the classification of wages in the Indian System.

ANSWER:

The term compensation management, or alternatively, wage and salary administrationrevolves around designing and managing policies and methods of disbursing employeecompensation. Traditionally it includes such areas as job evaluation, maintenance of wagestructures, wage surveys, incentives administration, wage changes and adjustments,supplementary payouts, profit sharing, control of compensation costs, and other related payitems.

Salaried often implies a status distinction, because those who are on salary are generallywhite-collar, administrative, professional, and executive employees, whereas wage-earnersare designated as hourly, nonsupervisory, or blue-collar. Wage-earners in someorganizations do receive full wage if they are absent for such reasons as sickness, whereas

salaried employees, especially at the lower levels, often receive overtime pay when theywork over the standard work week.

Compensation/ salary systems are designed to ensure that employees are rewardedappropriately depending on what they do and the skills and knowledge (intellect) required fordoing a specific job. It must therefore provide for the following key factors in order to beeffective: The following factors may be helpful to raise the effectiveness of employees

Signal to the employee the major objectives of the organizations therefore it must link to the overall goals and objectives of the company. For example ifdoing a quality job is critical for the company its compensation system has to ensure that thisis adequately rewarded. On the other hand if a company values productivity and units

produced, the compensation system would be designed such that productivity is rewarded.

Attract and retain the talent an organization needs the need to benchmark salariesto the prevalent market standard for that job /skill so that the company is able to attract theright talent. If a enterprise pays a salary lower that what the market does for thatjob/responsibilities, the probability that suitable candidates would take the job offer and jointhe company. Even if they do join subsequently when they find that the market pays more forthat job they would quickly find a more remunerative job and leave the company.

Motivate employees to perform effectively as discussed at the outset, money is akey motivator and it often might be the only motivator for most employees, thereforeensuring that compensation is appropriately disbursed need to be taken care of whiledesigning the compensation system. Jobs in the brick and motor, production setups would


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focus on higher incentive policies that would motivate the employee to produce more whilethe base-salary would be low.

Create the type of culture the company seeks to engender compensation systems play a critical role as sponsors for the organizations culture. A

performance driven culture would build compensation policies that clearly and significantlyreward performance. A company that rewards loyalty would reward employees who staylonger in the company with significantly better incentive programs. Hence we see howcompensation systems are reflective of the organizations over all philosophy of what itsgoals and objectives are and how this can be linked to salary payout.

Q.5 : Ms. S. Sharma is the General Manager HR of a private educational group. She is

planning for the promotion policy for the faculty members. The norms are also ruled

by the government policy and criteria. Moreover the options to promote are limited.

Suggest Ms. Sharma the alternative way to vertical promotion. What are the

challenges in implementing that option?

ANSWER:

In Vertical Promotion, employees are promoted from one rank to the next higher rank in the

same department or division. This is based on the belief that this leads to effective utilization

of experience gained in the same department. It also gives an opportunity to the employees

to go up while increasing their specialization in their area of operation. However, it has got

one disadvantage. The vacancies may be very few in a department.

Ms Sharma can promote Faculty member to a Professor, but In this Case a biggest

challenge for Me Sharma is, a Lecturer working in a particular Department may not becomea Professor or the Head of the Department unless his superiors die/retire/resign. This makes

the person frustrated. Besides, this type of promotion limits a persons contact with other

departments and does not permit him to enhance his knowledge/expertise with each years

experience. Because his experience would be one or two years knowledge multiplied by 10

to 15 years rotation. If he does not get his promotion at the right time since the room at the

top is limited he will also start disliking his job / organization. As a result, he becomes

counter-productive.

As we can suggest to Ms. Sharma to consider the Horizontal promotions as an alternative

way to vertical promotion. Under this policy, an employee may be transferred from a positionin one department to a position of higher rank in another department or to the same rank in a

different department if the transfer gives him an opportunity to acquire greater knowledge

and wider experience. E.g. if a Senior Lecturer cannot get promotion in a particular

Department for obvious reasons, he may be transferred as Registrar of the University or as

Controller of Examinations or Director of Distance Education. However, there is one

difficulty. Unless the person is quite dynamic and intelligent, he may find the new assignment

a tough one and irksome. To some, it may be a cause for frustration.

However, for many, Horizontal promotion even if it is only a paper promotion is a challenge

since it allows them job rotation.


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Q.6 : ABC is an organization that wants to revise the HR policies. Before doing that it

wants to have some details about the following:

What the employees think about the company?

What do they think, in the company is going well?

What practices in the company they think are not doing well?

Get the feedback on managerial effectiveness.Suggest the suitable method to collect the employee opinion and explain the method.

ANSWER:

Employee survey techniques have developed significantly over the past few years, with web

based technologies it is easier and cheaper than ever to collect and manage data. In the

past, any HR driven initiative was seen as tactical and of little real benefit to the organization

as a whole. Now many enlightened organizations see HR and employee surveys as a

powerful business improvement tool.Customers now have a greater range of choices than ever and are becoming increasingly

better informed. This in turn means that many have very high expectations and, if they feel

they are being short changed in any way, they take the initiative and switch their allegiance.

This reduction in consumer loyalty can create difficulties in retaining existing customers,

causing organizations to increase the amount they spend on engaging new customers.

Consumer choice has also brought greater competitiveness to the market and in many

situations it is difficult for an organization to differentiate itself from the competition in terms

of production range, quality and price. As a result, the main differentiator for organizations

has to be the quality of service that the customer receives. It is vital for every interaction to

be a positive one, not just for the customer, but for the employee as well. If the customer ishappy, they spend more money, which naturally improves the organizations overall

business performance.

Different Types of Employee Survey Programs

Annual climate and employee satisfaction surveys are by far the most popular kind of

employee survey activity. However, the following types of survey programs are also gaining

in popularity:

Combining employee and customer satisfaction studies.

Procedure/policy evaluation.

Alignment of employees behind new product development.

Alignment of employees behind organizational rebranding and repositioning efforts.

Managing employees through organizational change programs (e.g. merger,

acquisition/downsizing, etc.).

Internal customer service evaluations.

Internal communications evaluations.

Defining Employee Survey Goals and Objectives

Before starting on a staff survey process, it is vital to define a set of objectives for the

survey. Without these objectives, the survey program will lack focus and it will be difficult to

raise enthusiasm for the survey among your key influencers and decision makers. All

employee survey programs need to be seen as a company-wide initiative that is driven by

managers and employees from across the whole organization and not something that is


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solely initiated and managed just within HR

Deciding on the Appropriate Survey Methodology.

Defining objectives at the outset will help to determine the methodology because, to meet

the desired objectives, you will need to consider the following:

Are all employees affected and should all employees need to be involved? Will changes and improvement action be required at different levels across the

organization?

How will managers and employees be engaged in the improvement process?

How will awareness of the survey, its results and improvements be raised and managed

among employees?

How will the progress of improvement actions be reviewed, monitored and communicated

over time?

Quantitative and qualitative research methods can both be highly effective in employee

surveys. It is essential, though, to ensure that the correct methodology is used for the type of

survey being conducted.Employee satisfaction surveys are the most common form of quantitative research. There

are occasions when both methodologies can be effectively combined. For example, in an

employee satisfaction survey, you may decide to use focus groups before designing the

survey in order to determine the survey content and/or pilot questionnaire.

Defining objectives at the outset will help to determine the methodology because, to meet

the desired objectives, you will need to consider the following:

Are all employees affected and should all employees need to be involved?

Will changes and improvement action be required at different levels across the

organization?

How will managers and employees be engaged in the improvement process?

How will awareness of the survey, its results and improvements be raised and managed

among employees?

How will the progress of improvement actions be reviewed, monitored and communicated

over time?

Quantitative and qualitative research methods can both be highly effective in employee

surveys. It is essential, though, to ensure that the correct methodology is used for the type of

survey being conducted.

Employee satisfaction surveys are the most common form of quantitative research. There

are occasions when both methodologies can be effectively combined. For example, in an

employee satisfaction survey, you may decide to use focus groups before designing thesurvey in order to determine the survey content and/or pilot questionnaire.

Employee Satisfaction Surveys It is worthwhile examining employee satisfaction surveys in

more detail given that they are the most popular type of employee survey.

Pre Survey

During the Survey

Post Survey

Between Surveys

AN INTRODUCTION TO EMPLOYEE SURVEY TECHNIQUES

Planning for Employee Satisfaction Surveys

The following outlines some of the factors that should be communicated at each stage of the


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process:

Pre Survey

Objectives of the survey, rationale for the survey and how the results will be fed back

Use an independent, third-party agency for data collection and analysis

Timing of the data collection

Senior management commitment to the survey Importance of getting a good response rate so that all employee opinions are heard

Importance of participation

Methodology to be used

Assurance that the study will protect anonymity and preserve confidentiality

During the Survey

Reminder of the objectives and assurance that action will be taken

Assurance that individual surveys cannot be seen

Regular reminders and a notice of when the survey completion period will end

How the results will be acted upon

Update on current response rate

Reinforce the importance of participation

How employees can participate and what employees should do if having problems

accessing or completing the survey

Post Survey

Thank employees for participating and communicate how results will be shared

Final response rate (Companywide vs. Business Units/Divisions)

Detail on how employees should get involved in the improvement action planning process Local results and local improvement action planning

Provide top-level summary results

Reminder of the action planning process

Between Surveys

Highlight and recognize successful examples of action planning and progress made

Recognize the contributions of teams and individuals to the action planning process

Senior management endorsement and support of the final action plan/survey outcomes

Detailed plans for the next survey Highlight any areas where action cannot be taken and the reasons for this

Highlight the impact of action planning on customer service and business performance

Electronic and Web-Enabled

Increasingly, organizations are starting to move towards electronic methods of surveying

their employees and the most common method is hosting a web-enabled survey.

Questionnaire Design


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The design of the questionnaire is important as it can have as much influence over the

response rate as the method of completion.

The key incentive

In contrast to the weak influence of incentives, research shows that employees are more

likely to participate in an employee survey if they believe that the results will be acted upon.The golden rule of this type of survey is that, if you do not intend to act on the results, then

do not conduct the survey in the first place.

Results Analysis and Reporting

There are many different ways of analyzing, cutting and reporting results and each

organization has to decide individually on the best method for their needs.

IMPROVEMENT ACTION PLANNING

Background As noted earlier, the guiding principle of employee survey is that, if you are not

prepared to act on the results, then do not conduct the survey in the first place. You have

spent time and effort getting employees enthusiastic about the survey and they now have

high expectations that there will be improvement activity in which they will be involved.

Improvement action planning should be top down process where the priorities for the

organization are identified, communicated and acted upon at the senior management level.

Then moving down to Divisional and Unit levels, local teams should identify and tackle the

things that they have direct control over and escalate anything else back upwards.

Prioritizing Improvement Actions Prioritization of improvement actions should be taken under

consideration. Some organizations struggle with improvement action planning because they

try to tackle far too many improvement actions at once and start spreading the valuable

resources they have too thinly over too many actions. Our recommendation is that not more

than three to four improvement actions should be tackled at one time and that further actions

should not be pursued until at least one of the existing actions has been fully completed.The specific components of the plan should be as follows:

1. Area for improvement: What is the problem? What impact is it having on employees and

customers? What is causing the problem?

2. What Needs to Happen: Specify the specific improvement action that is required to

address the problem.

3. How It Will Happen: Specify the process and activities required as part of the

improvement action.

4. Timelines: It is important to have a target date for completing the delivery of the action.

This sets the focus that any target delivery date is realistic and achievable and it may be

stretched if not met.

5. Action Owner: It is important for one person to be allocated ownership for the action. This

does not necessarily mean that this person is solely responsible for the delivery of the

action, but they are responsible for ensuring that the delivery does actually happen.

Ownership for actions should be spread around the team so that no one person is

overburdened.

6. Resources: Specify and determine what individual resources are required such as

personnel, money, materials or support from other parts of the organization.

7. Improvement Targets: It is important to be able to determine whether improvementactions are having the desired effect by setting improvement targets. The survey can be


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used as a source for this by pulling out appropriate questions and setting targets for

improving the results to these questions in the next survey.

8. Method of Measurement: List the data sources that will provide the information needed for

improvement targets.

9. Review Dates: Specify all of the dates when the improvement action will be reviewed.

10. Review of Progress: This step should be completed after each review to outline theprogress made against the action.

11. Completion Date: The date when the action was finally completed.

12. Impact: Completed after the action has finally been delivered to define the impact and

difference that the improvement action has made to employees, customers and the business

overall.

Reviewing the Action Plan

Regular review of the action plan is perhaps the most important element of the improvement

action planning process because it ensures that the momentum is being maintained,

enables progess to be tracked and identifies any barriers that may exist.

MB0043 HRM BOOKidB0909 Solved Assignment Set-1

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