Name SUBHASISH MAJUMDAR

Subject Human Resource Management

Learning
SM STUDY CENTRE
Centre

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1. Mention and briefly explain different sources of recruitment.

The sources of employee’s recruitment can be classified into two types,

internal and external. Filing a job opening from within the firm has
advantages of stimulating preparation for possible transfer of promotion,
increasing the general level of morale, and providing more information
about job candidates through analysis of work histories within the
organisation. A job posting has number of advantages. From the view
point of employee, it provides flexibility and greater control over career
progress. The jobs posted on notice boards, group emails and publishing
in internal news papers. Internal applications often restricted to certain
employees, the guidelines for companies include:

– Good or better in most recent performance review

– Dependable attendance record
– Not under probationary sanction
– Having been in present position for at least one year

The personnel department acts as a clearing house in screening

applications that are unrealistic, preventing an excess number of bids by
a single employee and counselling unsuccessful employees in their
constant attempt to change their jobs.

Similarly the firm may go to external sources for recruitment of lower

entry jobs, for expansion, and positions whose specifications cannot be
met by the present personnel. The following external resources are
available for firms:

a) Advertising: There is a trend toward more selective recruitment in

advertising. This can be affected in at least two ways. First
advertisements can be placed in media read only by particular groups.
Secondly, more information about the company, the job, and the job
specification can be included in the ad to permit some self-screening.
b) Employment Agencies: Additional screening can be affected through
the utilization of employment agencies, both public and private. Today,
in contrast to their former unsavoury reputation, the public
employment agencies in several states are well-regarded, particularly
in the fields of unskilled semi-skilled and skilled operative jobs. In the

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 technical and professional areas, however, the private agencies tend to
specialize in a particular engineer.
c) Employee Referrals: Friends and relatives of present employees are
also a good source from which employees may be drawn. When the
labour market is very tight, large employers frequently offer their
employees bonus or prizes for any referrals that are hired and stay
with the company for a specific length of time. Some companies
maintain a register of former employees whose record was good to
contact them when there are new job openings for which they are
qualified. This method of recruitment, however, suffers from a serious
defect that it encourages nepotism, i.e. Persons of one’s community
or caste are employed, who may or may not be fit for the job.
d) Schools, colleges and professional institutions: These offer
opportunities for recruiting their students. They will also have separate
placement cell where the bio data and other particulars of the students
are available. The prospective employers can review credentials and
interview candidates for management trainees or probationers. This is
an excellent source of potential employees for entry-level positions in
the organisations.
e) Labour Unions: Firms which closed or union shops must look to the
union in their recruitment efforts. This has disadvantage of
monopolistic workforce.
f) Casual applicants: Unsolicited applications, both at the gate and
through the mail, constitute a much-used source of personnel. These
can be developed through attractive employment office facilities,
prompt and courteous reply to unsolicited letters.
g) Professional organisations or recruiting firms or executive
recruiters: Maintain complete records about employed executives.
These firms are looked upon as head hunters, raiders and pirates by
organizations may employ “executive search firms” to help them find
talent. These consulting firms recommend persons of high calibre for
managerial, marketing and production engineers’ posts.
h) Indoctrination seminars for colleges are arranged to discuss the
problem of companies and employees. Professors are invited to take
part of these seminars. Visits to plants are arranged so that professors
may be favourably impressed. They may speak well of a company and
help it in getting the required personnel.

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i) Unconsolidated applications: for positions in which large numbers
of candidates are not available from other sources, the companies may
gain keeping files of applications received from candidates who make
direct enquiries about the possible vacancies on their own, or may
send unsolicited applications. This would be helpful to firms for future
vacancies.
j) Nepotism: the hiring of relatives will be an inevitable component of
recruitment programmes in family-owned firms, such a policy does not
necessarily coincide with hiring on the basis of merit, but interest and
loyalty to the enterprise are offsetting advantages.
k) Leasing: to adjust to short term fluctuations in personnel needs, the
possibility of leasing personnel by the hour or day should be
considered. This principle has been particularly well developed in the
office administration field because they can avoid any obligation in
pensions, insurance and any other fringe benefits.
l) Voluntary Organisations: Such as private clubs, social organisations
might also provide employees – handicaps, widowed or married
women, old persons, retired hands etc. In response to advertisements.
m) Computer Data Banks: when a company desires a particular type of
employees, job specifications and requirements are fed to computers,
where they are matched against data stored in. This method is very
useful in identifying candidates for hard-t-fit positions which calls for
unusual combinations of skills.

2. Write a note on guided and unguided interview.

Hitchcock (1989:79) lists nine types: structured interview, survey

interview, counselling interview, diary interview, life history interview,
ethnographic interview, informal/unstructured interview, and
conversations. Cohen & Manion (1994:273), however, prefers to group
interviews into four kinds, including the structured or guided
interview, the unstructured or unguided interview, the non-directive
interview, and the focused interview.
In-depth interviewing, also known as unstructured interviewing, is a type
of interview which researchers use to elicit information in order to achieve
a holistic understanding of the interviewee’s point of view or situation; it
can also be used to explore interesting areas for further investigation.
This type of interview involves asking informants open-ended questions,
and probing wherever necessary to obtain data deemed useful by the

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researcher. As in-depth interviewing often involves qualitative data, it is
also called qualitative interviewing. Patton (1987:113) suggests three
basic approaches to conducting interviewing:
One essential element of all interviews is the verbal interaction between
the interviewer/s and the interviewee/s. Hitchcock (1989:79) stresses
that ‘central to the interview is the issue of asking questions and this is
often achieved in qualitative research through conversational encounters.’
Consequently, it is important for the researchers to familiarise themselves
with questioning techniques before conducting interviews.
(i) The informal conversational interview
This type of interview resembles a chat, during which the informants may
sometimes forget that they are being interviewed. Most of the questions
asked will flow from the immediate context. Informal conversational
interviews are useful for exploring interesting topic/s for investigation and
are typical of ‘ongoing’ participant observation fieldwork.
(ii) The general interview guide approach (commonly called
guided interview)
When employing this approach for interviewing, a basic checklist is
prepared to make sure that all relevant topics are covered. The
interviewer is still free to explore, probe and ask questions deemed
interesting to the researcher. This type of interview approach is useful for
eliciting information about specific topics. For this reason, Wenden (1982)
formulated a checklist as a basis to interview her informants in a piece of
research leading towards her PhD studies. She (1982:39) considers that
the general interview guide approach is useful as it ‘allows for in-depth
probing while permitting the interviewer to keep the interview within the
parameters traced out by the aim of the study.’
(iii) The standardised open-ended interview (Unguided interview)
Researchers using this approach prepare a set of open-ended questions
which are carefully worded and arranged for the purpose of minimising
variation in the questions posed to the interviewees. In view of this, this
method is often preferred for collecting interviewing data when two or
more researchers are involved in the data collecting process. Although
this method provides less flexibility for questions than the other two
mentioned previously, probing is still possible, depending on the nature of
the interview and the skills of the interviewers (Patton 1987:112).
3. Discuss the techniques to motivate employees.

The motivation techniques may be divided into two parts [a] that is to be
done and [b] how and why what is done. The former are steps in

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motivation and the later are rules governing the steps. Both are
performed simultaneously. These are listed below:

a) Size up situation requiring motivation: The first step of motivation is

to make sure of motivational needs. Every employee needs
motivation; however, all people do not react exactly as the same way
to the same stimuli. Keeping this in mind executive shall size up how
much and what kind of motivation is needed.
b) Prepare a set of motivational tools: An executive from his personnel
experience should prepare a list of what devices are likely towork
with what type of people and under what circumstances.
c) Selecting and applying motivator: Proper application of motivational
plan is important. This involves selection of the appropriate
technique, method of application and the timing and location of
applications.
d) Follow up the results of applications: The last stage of motivation is
to follow-up the results of the application of the plan. The primary
objective is to ascertain if an employee has been motivated or not. If
not some other technique should be tried.

Rules of motivating:

The motivation manager must be guided with some fundamental rules

which should be based on the following principles.

a. Self interest and motivation: Motivation is mainly built on selfishness.

Psychologically speaking, selfishness is a part and parcel of life. To
deny this is to build the theory on unrealistic foundation. To seek
some other basis of motivation would be to ignore the real nature of
man. The aim should be to learn more about selfishness.
b. Attainability: Motivation must be establish attainable goals. This does
not mean that the goal is realised at once. This may take years to
attain. But it must be within reach.

Eight ways to motivate plant employees: The following

recommendations are for improving the motivation of employees in the
routine jobs.

a. Provide assembly line employees with more than minimum training.

This would result in greater personnel involvement in the job.

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 b. Crate sub goals to measure accomplishment. A sense of completion
is important for motivation. They are likely to be more interested in
the work which will reduce monotony and mental fatigue.
c. Provide regular feedback on performance. Studies show that people
work better when they receive positive feedback.
d. Maintain a neat and orderly work area. If the foreman does not care
about housekeeping then employees may feel that they also need
not care about it and this attitude may affect quality of work.
e. Arrange work situations so that conversation between employees is
either easy or possible. Experience workers may to their job with
little attention to the task. Conversation my reduce monotony and
thus fatigue.
f. Increase the number of operations performed by one employee. This
can be done by simplification of manual operations. It offers several
advantages:
• The risk of errors reduced;
• Management can hire employees at lower wages;
• Training costs are minimised.
g. Structure jobs, so that workers can at least occasionally move about
the work area. Besides job rotation, there are other ways to provide
for physical movement like stetting employees secure their own
tools etc.
h. Explore ways to assign greater personnel responsibility. Increased
responsibility means greater self esteem and greater job
meaningfulness. One way to enlarge responsibility is to let the
employee inspect his own work.

2. Explain in detail the Disciplinary –Action Penalties.

Disciplinary-Action Penalties

There are varying penalties for first, second, and third offences of the
same rule. Among the penalties available in business are:

1. Oral reprimand
2. Written reprimand
3. Loss of privileges
4. Fines
5. Lay off

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 6. Demotion
7. Discharge

The penalties are listed in the general order of severity, from mild to
severe for most cases, an oral reprimand is sufficient to achieve the
desired result. The supervisor must know his or her personnel in
determining how to give a reprimand. For one person, a severe “chewing
out” may be necessary in order to get attention and co-operation;
another person may require only a casual mention of a deficiency. If the
offence is more serious, the reprimand may be put in written form.

Since a written reprimand is more permanent than an oral one, it is

considered a more severe penalty.

For such offences as tardiness or leaving work without permission, fines

or loss of various privileges can be used. The loss of privileges includes
such items as good job assignments, right to select machine or other
equipment, and freedom of movement about the workplace or company.

The more severe penalties of layoff, demotion, and discharge are usually
outside the grant of authority to the immediate supervisor. Disciplinary
layoffs can vary in severity from one to several days’ loss of work without
pay. The use of demotions as a penalty is highly questionable. If the
employee is properly qualified for the present assignment, he or she will
be improperly placed on a lower job. Discharge is the most severe penalty
that a business organization can give and constitutes “industrial capital
punishment”.

2. Explain the importance of Grievance Handling.

Importance if Grievance Handling

At one or the other stage of grievance procedure, the dispute must be

handled by some member of management. In the solution of a problem,
the greater burdens rest on management. The clearest opportunity for
settlement is found at the first stage, before the grievance has left the
jurisdiction of the supervisor. For this reason, many firms have
specifically trained their supervisors as to how to handle a grievance or a

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complaint properly. The following directions help in handling grievances
properly.

a. Receive and define the nature of the dissatisfaction: The manner

and the attitude with which the supervisor receives the compliant of
grievance is important. The supervisor should assume that employee is
fair in presenting the compliant or grievance. Statements should not
be prejudged on the basis of past experience with this or other
employees. The supervisors who are task oriented, as contrasted with
people oriented, tended to experience a significantly greater number of
complaints being filed in their units.
b. Get the facts: In gathering facts, one quickly becomes are of the
importance of keeping proper records such as performance ratings,
attendance records and suggestions. The supervisor is wise to keep
records on each particular grievance. The supervisor posses and
exercise some skill in interview conference, and discussion.
c. Analyse and Divide: With the problem defined and the facts in hand,
the manager must now analyse and evaluate them, and then come to
some decision. There is usually more than one possible solution. The
manager must also be aware that the decision may constitute a
precedent within the department as well as the company.
d. Apply the Answer: through the solution decided upon by the
supervisor is adverse to the employees, some answer is better than
none. Employees dislike supervisors whowill take no stand, good or
bad. In the event of an appeal beyond this stage of procedure, the
manager must have the decision and the reasons for his decisions
should be properly recorded.
e. Follow up: The objective of the grievance handling procedure is to
resolve a disagreement between an employee and organisation.
Discussion and conference are important to this process. The purpose
is to determine whether the clash of interest has been resolved. If the
follow up reveals that the case has been handled unsatisfactorily or
that the wrong grievance has been processed, then redefinition of the
problem, further fact finding, analysis, solution and follow up are
required.

Among the common errors of management encountered in the processing

of grievances are:

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– Stopping too soon in the search of facts;
– Expressing management opinion prior to the time when all pertinent
facts have been discovered;
– Failing to maintain proper records;
– Resorting to execute orders instead of discussion and conference to
change minds; and
– Setting the wrong grievance- a mistake which may in turn produce a
second new grievance. Follow up is the step in the procedure that tells
us when a mistake in handling has been made.
2. Explain Managerial Grid in detail.

Robert Blake, an eminent behavioural scientist differentiated the leaders

on the basis of their concern to people and concern to task. He conducted
study on 500 managers. He puts it on a grid called Managerial Grid, as
follows:

HIG
H

1, 9,
9

9 9
C 8
o
n
c 7
er
n 6

5,5
e
d 5
fo
r 4
P
e 3
o

9,
2
pl

1,1
e
1
1
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 HIG
LOW H

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 Concerned for Results

The Managerial Grid Model [1964] is a behavioural leadership model

developed by Mr. R Blake. This model identifies 5 different leadership
styles based on the concern for people and the concern for task. The
optimal leadership in this model is based on theory Y.

As shown in the figure, the model is represented as a grid with concern

for work on X axis and the concern for people on Y axis; each axis ranges
from 1 [low] to 9 [high]. The five resulting leadership styles are as
follows:

i. The impoverished style [1, 1]. The indifferent Leader (Evade

and Elude)

In this style, managers have low concern for both people and work.
Managers use this style to avoid getting into trouble. The main concern
for the manager is not to be held responsible for any mistakes, which
results in less innovative decisions. A leader uses the delegate and
disappear style. They essentially allow their team to do whatever it
wishes and prefer to detach themselves from the team process by
allowing the team to suffer from a series of power struggles.

Features:

– Does only enough to preserve job and job seniority.

– Give little and enjoys little.
– Protects himself by not being noticed by others.

Implications:

– Tries to stay in the same post for a long time.

Examples of leader speak:

“I distance myself from taking active responsibility for results to avoid

getting entangled into problems.”

“If forced, I take a passive or supportive position”

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i. The country club style [1, 9]. The accommodating leader (Yield
and Comply)

This style has a high concern for people and a low concern for work.
Managers using this style pay much attention to the security and comfort
of the employees, in the hopes that this would increase performance. The
resulting atmosphere is usually friendly, but not necessarily that
productive.

This person uses predominantly reward power to maintain discipline to

encourage team to accomplish its goals. Conversely, they are almost
incapable of employing the more punitive coercive and legitimate powers.
This inability results from fear that using such power could jeopardise
relationships with the other team members.

Examples of Leader speak:

“I support results that establish and reinforce harmony”

“I generate enthusiasm by focussing on positive and pleasing aspects of

work”

ii. The produce or perish style [9, 1]. The controlling leader (Direct &
Dominate)

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