ASSIGNMENT 1st

Human Resource Management (527)

Human Resource Management (527)

Submitted to:

Kanwar .M. Anwar

Submitted by:

Kashif Ali Khan

(0333-8442583)

Roll.NO : 508195371

Semester: Autumn 2008

MBA 2nd

ALLAMA IQBAL OPEN UNIVERSITY ISLAMABAD

 QUESTION NO-1

Describe the new HR manager proficiencies. Why there is a need to know your employee
law?

ANS:

As HR Manager today is a challenging task, and requires several proficiencies. One study
found four categories of proficiencies; HR proficiencies, business proficiencies, leadership
proficiencies, and learning proficiencies. HR proficiencies represent traditional knowledge and
skills in areas such as employee selection, training, and compensation. Business proficiencies
reflect the new role of HR professionals in creating profitable enterprises that several customers
effectively.

Thus, today’s HR managers need to be familiar with how companies operate, including
strategic planning, marketing production and finance. They must be able to participate in a
management team that formulates plans for how the company will respond to competitive
pressures. Today’s HR manager must be able to speak the CFO’s language by measuring and
explaining HR activities in terms managers understands, such as return on investment, playback
period, and cost per unit of service.

HR manager also require leadership proficiencies. For example, they need the ability to
work with ad lead management groups, and to drive the changes required, for instance, t
implement new world class employee screening and training systems. Finally, because the
competitive landscape is changing so quickly and new technologies are being continually
introduced, the HR manager needs learning proficiencies. He or she affecting the profession.

The fact that top management does understand the strategic benefits of a well designed
HR program will make the HR manager’s job somewhat easier. Studies show that top
management and chief financial officer recognize the critical role human resource management
can play in achieving a company’s strategic goals.
Know Your Employment Law

A growing web of HR related laws effects virtually every HR decision the HR or line
manager makes. Equal employment laws set guidelines regarding how the company writes its
recruiting ads, what questions its job interviewers ask, and how it selects candidates for training
programs or evaluates its managers.

Occupational safety and health laws mandate strict guidelines regarding safety practices
at work. Labor laws lay out, among other things, what the supervisor can and cannot say and do
when the union comes calling t organize the company’s employees. As on employment lawyer
sums up, “the use of such terms as probationary period, permanent employee, merit increases,
white collar annual salary in a job offer, and personality problems on the termination from now
causes serious exposure to a lawsuit.

Consider some examples. We discharge a worker for excessive absenteeism, but her
excessive absenteeism was caused by a work related injury. The employee sues the company,
saying that you actually fired her for filing a workers Compensation claim.

Your company may have t show in court that you did not fire the employee in retaliating for
filing the claim, but for absenteeism. As another example, your company’s vice president of
marketing dated one of his female marketing managers for several months. He subsequently tells
her that if she doesn’t start dating him again, she still sues for sexual harassment.

The law says she ha a legitimate case, even though she got her promotion. The vice president
created a sexually hostile environment by suggesting she may have to return the favor if he
promoted her.
 QUESTION NO-2

How HR can become competitive advantage to any organization? Also describe various
types of strategic plan?

ANS: -

In order to have an effective competitive strategy, the company must have one or more
competitive advantages, factors that allow an organization to differentiate its product or service.
Wal-Mart builds its low cost leader strategy on the dual competitive advantages of a satellite –
based inventory and distribution system, and on employment policies that help it to achieve
extraordinarily low employment cost.

Southwest Airlines achieves low cost leader status through employment policies that
produce a highly motivated and flexible workforce. Its work force is its competitive advantage-
Larger airlines like Delta, faced with union rules and restrictive work rules and salary structures
find it hard to compete with Southwest, whose employees eagerly rush to turn around an air line
in a fraction of the time it takes a Delta team. Every successful company has one or more
competitive advantages around which it builds its competitive strategy.

The competitive advantage can take many forms. For a pharmaceuticals company, it may
be the quality of its research team, its patents. For a Web site like ebay, It may be a proprietary
software system. Many years ago, Wal-Mart’s satellite-based distribution system was so
revolutionary that it was probably the firm’s predominate competitive advantage.

Today most companies have easy access to the same technologies, so technology itself is
rarely enough to set a firm apart. It’s usually the people and the management system that make
the difference. For example, an operations expert from Harvard University studied
manufacturing firms that installed special computer integrated manufacturing system to boost
efficiency and flexibility.
Conclusion:

All the data in my study point to one conclusion: operational flexibility is determine
primarily by a plant’s operators and the extent to which managers cultivate, measure, and
communicate with them. Equipment and computer integration are secondary.

Types of Strategic Planning:

Manager engage in three levels of strategic planning. At the company wide level, many
firms consist of several business for instance, pepsiCO includes Pepsi, , Frito-lay, and Pizza Hut.
PepsiCo there for needs a corporate level strategy. A company’s corporate – level strategy
identifies to portfolio of business that in total, comprise the company and the company and the
ways in which these business relate to each other, for example, diversification corporate strategy
implies that the firm will expand by adding new product lines. A vertical integration strategy
means th3e firm expands by, perhaps, producing its own raw materials or selling its products
direct. Consolidation reducing the company’s size – and geographic expansion for instance,
taking the business abroad are some other corporate strategy possibilities.

At the next level done each of these business needs a business level competitive strategy.
A competitive strategy identifies how to build and strengthen the business’s long term
competitive position in the market place. It identifies, for instance, how pizza Hut will compete
with Papa John’s or how Wal-Mart competes with target.

Companies try to achieve competitive advantages for each business they are in. we can
define competitive advantage as any factors that allow an organization to differentiate its product
or service from those of its competitors to increase market share.

Companies use several competitive strategies to achieve competitive advantage, one cost
leadership, means the enterpri9se aims to become the low cost leader in an industry. Wal-Mart is
a typical industry cost leader. It maintains its competitive advantage thr4ough its satellite based
distribution system, and in its early days by keeping store location costs to a minimum by
placing stores on low cost land outside small to medium sized towns.
 Differentiation is second example of a competitive strategy. In a differentiation strategy,
a firm seek to unique in its industry along dimensions that are widely valued by buyers. Thus
Volvo stresses the safety of its care, papa johan’s Pizza stresses fresh ingredients, Target sells
somewhat more upscale brands that Wal-Mart, ad Mercede-Benz emphasizes reliability and
quality. Like Mercedes-Binz, firms can usually charge a premium price if they successfully stage
a claim to being substantially different from competitors in some coveted way. Still other firms
choose to compete a focuser. they carve out a market niche (like Ferrari), and compete by
providing a product or service customers can get in no other way.

Finally, each individual business is composed of departments such as manufacturing

sales, and HR management. Functional strategies identify the basic courses of action that each
department will pursue in order to help the business attain its competitive goals. The firm’s
functional strategies should make sense in terms of its business / competitive strategy. Dells HR
strategy of putting its activities on the Web to support the parent firms low cost competitive
strategy is one example. The When you’re on your own feature illustrates a system you can use
to facilitate your planning efforts.

QUESTION NO-3

Discuss the nature of job analysis. How to design and conducting effective job interviews?

ANS: -

NATURE OF JOB ANALYSIS:

Organizations consist of positions they have to be staffed. Job analysis is the procedure
through which you determine the duties of these positions and the characteristics of the people to
hire for them. Job analysis produces information used for writing job descriptions (a list of what
the job entails) and job specifications (what kind of people to hire for the job).

The supervisor of HR specialist normally collects one or more of the following types of
information via the job analysis:
Work Activities:

First he or she collects information abo9ut the job’s actual work activities, such as
cleaning, selling, teaching or painting this list may also include how , why, and when the worker
performs each activity.

Human Behaviors:

The specialist may also collect information about human behaviors like sensing,
communicating, deciding, and writing. Included here would be information regarding job
demands such as lifting weights or walking long distances.

Machines, Tools, Equipment, and Work Aids:

This category includes information regarding tools used, materials processed, knowledge
dealt with or applied (such as finance or law), and services rendered (such as counseling or
repairing).

Performance Standards:

The employer may also want information about the job’s performance standards (in terms
of quantity or quality levels for each job duty, for instance). Management will use these
standards to appraise employees.

Job Context:

Included here is information about such matters as physical working conditions, work
schedule, and the organizational and social context – for instance, the number of people with
whom the employee would normally interact. Information regarding incentives might also be
included here.
Human Requirements:

This includes information regarding the job’s human requirements, such as job related
knowledge or skills (education, training, work experience) and required personal attributes
(aptitudes, physical characteristics, personality, interests).

Interview:

Managers use three types of interview to collect job analysis data- individual interviews
which each employee, group interviews with rouges of employees who have the same job, and
supervisor interviews with one or more supervisors who know the job. They use group interview
when a large number of employees are performing similar or identical wor4k. Sine it can be a
quick a inexpensive way to gather information. As a rule, the workers immediate supervisor
attends the group session: if not, you can interview the supervisor separately to get that person’s
perspective on the job duties and responsibilities.

Pros and Cons:

The interview is probably the most widely used method for identifying a job’s duties and
responsibilities, and its wide use reflects its advantages. It’s relatively simple a quick way to
collect information, including information that might never appear on a written form. A skilled
interviewer can unearth important activities that occur only occasionally or informal contacts that
wouldn’t be obvious from the organization chart. The interview also provides an opportunity to
explain the needs for an functions of the job analysis. And the employee can vent frustrations
that might otherwise go unnoticed by management.

Typical Questions:

Despite their drawbacks, interviews are widely used. Some typical interview questions include.

• What is the job being performed?

• What are the major duties of your position? What exactly do you do?
• What Physical locations do you work in?
 • What are the ed8ucation, experience, skill, and (Where applicable) certification and
licensing requirements?
• In What activities do you participate?
• What are the job’s responsibilities and d7uties/
• What are the basic accountabilities or4 performance standards that typify your work?
• What are your responsibilities/ what are 5the environmental and working condition
involved.
• Are you exposed o any hazards or unusual working condition?
• May interviews follow structured or checklist formats. It includes a series of detailed
questions regarding matters like the general purpose of the job’ supervisory
responsibilities; job duties and education, experience and skills required. Of course,
structured lists are not just for interviewers. Job analysts who collect information by
personally observing the work or by using questionnaires – two methods explained below
can also used lists like these: -

Interview Guidelines:

Keep several things in mind when conducting a job analysis interview. First, the job
analyst and supervisor should work together to identify the workers who know the job best – and
preferably those she’ll be most objective in describing their dutie3s and responsibilities.

Second, quickly establish reppor5t with the interviewee. Know the person’s name, speak
in easily understood language, briefly review the interview’s purpose, and explain how the
person was chosen for the interview.

Third, follow a structured guide or checklist, one that lists questions and provides space
for answers. This ensures you’ll identify crucial questions ahead of time and that all interviewers
(if there’s more tan on) cover all the required questions. (However, also make sure to give the
worker some leeway in answering questions, and provide some open ended questions like, “was
there anything we didn’t cover with our questions?
 Fourth, when duties are not performed in a regular manner – Constance, when the
wor4ker doesn’t perform the same job over and over again many time a day – ask h work to list
his or her duties in order of importance and frequency of occurrence. This will ensure that you
don’t overlook crucial but infrequently performed activities – like a nurse’s occasional
emergency room duties.

Finally, after completing the interview, review a verify the data,. Specifically, review the
information with the wor4ker’s immediate supervisor and with the interviewee.

Questionnaires:

Having employees fill out questionnaires to describe their job- related duties and
responsibilities are another good way to obtain job analysis information.

You have to decide how structured the questionnaires should be and what questions to
include. Some questionnaires are very structured checklists. Each employee gets and inventory
of perhaps hundreds of specific duties or tasks (such as change and splice wire). He or she is
asked to indicate whether or not he or she performs each task and, if so, how much time is
normally spent on each. At the other extreme, the questionnaire can be open-ended and simply
ask t employee to describe the major duties of your job. In practice, the best questionnaire often
falls between these tow extremes.

Whether structured or unstructured or unstructured, questionnaires have both pros and

cons. A questionnaire is a quick an efficient way to obtain information from a large number of
employees’ it’s less costly than interviewing hundreds of workers, for instance. However,
developing the qu3etionnairs and testing it (perhaps by making sure to workers under stands the
questions) can be expensive and time-consuming>

Observations:

Direct observation is especially useful when jobs consist mainly of observable physical
activities – assembly-line worker and accounting clerk are examples. On the other hand,
observation is usually not appropriate when the job entails a lot of mental activity (lawyer,
design engineer). Nor is it useful if the employee only6 occasionally engages in important
activities, such as a nurse who handles emergencies. And reactivity the worker’s changing what
he or she normally does because you are watching can also be a problem. Manager often we
direct observation and interviewing together. One approach is to observe the worker on the job
during a complete work cycle. The cycle is the time it takes to complete the job; it could be a
minute for a assembly-line worker or an hour, a day or longer for complex jobs)

QUESTION NO-4

What are various internal and external sources of candidates in organization? Describe
how to recruit a more diversified workforce.

ANS: -

Internal Sources of Candidates:

Recruiting may bring to mind employment agencies and classified ads, but current
employees are often the best source of candidates.

Filling open positions with inside candidates has many benefits. First, there’s really no
substitute for knowing a candidate’s strengths and weaknesses. It is often therefore safer to
promote employees from within, since you’re likely to have a more accurate view of the person’s
skills. Inside candidates may also be more committed to the company. Morale may rise if
employees see promotions as rewards for loyalty and competence. Inside candidates may also
required less orientation and training than outsiders.

However, hiring from within can also backfire. Employees who apply for jobs and don’t
get them may become discontented; telling unsuccessful applicants why they were rejected and
what remedial actions they might take to be more successful in the future is crucial. Many
employers requires managers to post job opening and interview all inside candidates. Yet the
manager often knows ahead of time exactly whom he or she wants to hire.
 Requiring the person to interview a stream of unsuspecting inside candidates can be
waste of time for all concerned. Inbreeding is another potential drawback. When all managers
come up through the ranks, they may have a tendency to maintain the status quo, when a new
direction is what’s required.

Finding Internal Candidates:

To be effective, promotion from within requires using job posting, personnel recor4ds,
and skills banks. Job posting means publicizing the open job to employees (often by literally
posting it on bulletin boards or internets) and listing the job’s attributes, like qualifications,
supervisor, work schedule, and pay rate.

Qualifications personnel inventory tools like those described earlier (such as

computerized skills banks) are also important. An examination of personnel records may reveal
employees who are working in jobs below their educational or skill levels. It may also reveal
persons who are potent ional for further training or who already have the right background for
the open job. Computerized records systems can help ensure that you consider qualified inside
candidates for the opening.

Rehiring:

Rehiring former employees has its pros and cons. On the plus side, former employees are
known quantities (more or less), and are already familiar with the company’s culture, style, and
ways of doing things. On the other hand, employees who were let go may return with less than
positive attitudes. And hiring former employees who left for greener pastures back into better
positions may signal your current employees than the best way to get ahead is to leave the firm.

In any event, there are several ways to reduce the change of adverse reactions. For
example after rehired employees have been back on the job for a certain period, credit them with
the years of service they had accumulated before they left. In addition, inquire (before rehiring
them) about what they did during the layoff and how they feel about returning to the firm; you
don’t want someone coming back who feels they’ve been mistreated, said one manager.
Succession Planning:

Forecasting the availability of inside executive candidates is particularly important in

succession planning, the outgoing process of systematically identifying, assessing, and
developing organizational leadership to enhance performance.

Succession planning entails three steps: identifying and analyzing key jobs, creating a
assessing candidates, and selecting those who will fill the key positions. First based on the firm’s
strategic goals, top management and HR identify what the company’s future key position needs
will be, and formulate job descriptions and specifications for them. Thus, plans to expand abroad
or to diversify the company’s product line may suggest bulking up the management talent in the
firm’s intentional division, or hiring a key executive to run a new product division. As one
succession planning expert says, A strategic business plan can only be realized when the right
people are at the right place and at the right times to do the right tings.

EXTERNAL SOURCES OF CANDIDATES:

Firms can’t always get all the employees they need from their current staff, and some
times they just don’t want to. We’ll look at the sources firms use to find outside candidates next.

Advertising

Everyone is familiar with employment ads, and most of us have probably responded to
one or more. While web-based recruiting is replacing help wanted ads to some extent, a quick
look at almost any paper or business or professional magazine will confirm that print ads are still
popular. To use help wanted ads successfully, employers have to address to issues: the
advertising medium and the ads construction.

Media:

The selection of the best medium be it the local paper, the Wall street journal, TV, or the
Internet – depends on the positions for which you’re recruiting. For example, the local
newspaper is usually the best source for blue collar help, clerical employees, and lower level
administrative employee. On the other hand, if you’re recruiting for workers with special skills-
such as furniture finishers- you’d probably want to advertise in the Carolinas or Georgia, even if
your plant is in ?Tennessee. the point is to target your ads where they’ll reach your prospective
employees.

For specialized employees, you can advertised in trade and professional journals like
American Psychologist, Sales Management, Chemical Engineering, Electronics News, Travel
Trade, and Women’s Wear Daily. Help wanted ads in papers like the wall street journal and
international herald Tribune can be good sources of middle or senior management personal.

Constructing the AD:

Experience advertisers use a four point guide called AIDA (Attention, interest, desire,
and action) to construct ads. You must, of course, attract attention to the ad, or readers may just
miss or ignore it. An ad from one paper’s classified section. Why does this ad attract attention?
The word excellence” certainly helps. Employers usually advertise key positions in separate
display ads.

Develop interest in the job. You can create interest by the nature of the job itself, with
lines such as outstanding opportunities for advancement. You can also use other aspects of the
job, such as its location, to create interest.

Create desire by spotlighting the job’s interest factors with words such as travel or
challenge. Keep your target audience in mind. For example, having a graduate school nearby
may appeal to engineers and professional people.

Finally, make sure the ad prompts action with a statement like “call today, or please
forward your resume.

Employment Advertising’s Effectiveness:

It does pay for employers to formulate marketing campaigns aimed at making themselves
more attractive to potential recruits. A recent study sheds some light on how to do this. The
researchers surveyed 133 students who were graduating with bachelors or master’s degrees in
engineering. For there students, specific job – related advertising was significantly related to
their perceptions of the company and of the job opportunities there. The results suggest that
employer’s sho8uld try to create positive impressions of their companies through their job
postings, Web sites, and other means.

Building word of mouth reputation is also important. In their job search, these new
graduate engineers relied most heavily on information about the company from other people. As
the researchers conclude, “from a practical standpoint, the results indicate that expanding and
capitalizing on word – of-mouth endorsements will [power] a highly effective and economical
method for increasing applicant [inquiries].

QUESTION NO-5

Why appraise HR performance? Describe major steps in apprising HR performance with

examples?

ANS: - Why Appraise Performance:

There are several reasons to appraise subordinates performance:

First, Appraisals play, or should play, an integral role in the employer’s performance
management process; it does little good to translate the employer’s strategic goals into
specific employee’s goals and the train the employees, if you don’t periodically review
your employees performance.

Second, the appraisal lets the boss and subordinate develop a plan for correcting any deficiencies
the appraisal might have unearthed, and to reinforce the things the subordinate does
correctly.

Third, appraisals should serve a useful carrier planning purpose by providing the opportunity to
review the employee’s career plans in light of his or her exhibited strengths and
weaknesses.
Fourth, And the last but not least, the appraisal almost always effects the employer’s salary raise
and promotional decision

STEPS IN APPRAISING PERFORMANCE:

The performance appraisal process itself contains three steps:

1. Define the job,

2. Appraise performance,
3. Provide feed back.

1- Define The Job.

Defining the job means making sure that you and your subordinate agree on his or her
duties and job standards.

2- Appraising Performance:

Appraising performance means comparing your subordinate’s actual performance to the

standards that have been set; this usually involves some type of rating form.

3- Feed Back:

Performance appraisal usually requires one or more feedback sessions. The manager
generally conducts the appraisal itself with the aid of a predetermined and formal method like
one or more of those described in the section. The two basic considerations in designing the
actual appraisal tool are what to measure and how to measure it. For example, in terms of what to
measure, we may measure the employee’s performance. In teams of generic dimensions such as
quality, quantity, and timeliness of work. Or, we may measure performance with respect to
developing one’s competencies (as in the ability to use java), or achieving one’s goals. In terms
of how to measure it, you will see that there are various methodologies, including graphic rating
scales, the alternation ranking method, and MBO.