Human Resource Management

MBA, Semester II

Mini-Project, Group Based (Weight: 15%)

Based on the theme the group must conduct primary research. The group is expected to
submit a report and make presentation for the same.
Dates for Submission: Regular Class.
Submit hard as well as soft copy. Submission of Hard as well soft copy submission is
mandatory. There would be ZERO tolerance for plagiarism.

Group 1 - Understanding Human Resource Management

Conduct interviews of HR Managers/Senior Officers and ask following questions:
1. Please brief us about your organization details, vision, goals etc?
2. What is Human Resource Management?
3. What are duties and responsibilities of HR Manager?
4. How HR has changed in last few years?
5. Which proficiencies/skills are needed for becoming HR professional?
6. Which are different challenges for HR professionals today?

Group 2 - Understanding HR Role of Line Managers/Team Leaders

Conduct interviews of Line Managers and ask following questions:
1. Please brief us about your organization details, vision, goals etc?
2. As a line manager, what HR activities you are carrying out on regular/timely basis?
3. How is the experience of handling HR functions as Non-HR manager?
4. Do you face any problems while carrying out these tasks? How do you manage?
5. How important is having formal qualification in HR for handling HR functions effectively?

Group 3 Job Analysis and Design

1. Visit a hotel (Cambay, TGB, Pride etc)/ Theme Resort/ restaurant. Spend time in the front
office. Observe the front office staff at work and note down the activities they do. You would
need to observe the following:
a. Their activities
b. Their behavior
c. Human traits and abilities to perform the job
d. The roles they interact with e.g. attendants, housekeepers, etc.
e. Their working conditions e.g. they need to be standing most of the time
2. Thereafter interact with the role occupants you have observed and to verify the job analysis
information and complete your activity list for the respective roles. While interacting with
them also try to obtain information on how their job is connected to other jobs – one step
forward and one step backward.
3. Also make a note of the designations and the level distinctions of the front office staff.
4. You will find other role occupants also in the front office e.g. watchman, front office
manager, attendants. Observe them at work and note down their activities. Now using
framework of the text book, conduct a role analysis for these organizations. Discuss the
observations and differences in these two cases.

Group 4 – Job Analysis and Design in different sectors

1. Visit any organization (Non-IT) and interact with employees.
2. Prepare a job description for this role (refer Text Book). Follow the framework of Chapter
4. Thereafter prepare a job specification for this role.
3. Then interact with one of your fellow classmates/IT employee with experience in IT
Company (at least one year). Prepare a job description and specification for this role.
4. Compare the two roles focusing on the traditional jobs and the new role designs.
The report should include:
a. The job description of roles (IT and other).
b. The job specification for these roles.
c. Learning about job description, job specification

Group 5 - Study of training offered by Training Institutes

Visit any government/ private training institutes/ITIs to study:
a. The type of training programmes offered
b. The duration and fees of these programmes
c. The details about trainers
d. The target audience and how the programmes are designed
e. What is core competency of the institute?
Some Suggestions are: Ahmedabad Management Association, MICA, EDI- Gandhinagar and
any ITI II. Visit websites of Management Consultants in India. Study the training
programmes offered by them based on questions mentioned above. Summarize the learning.

Group 6 - Performance Review

Select three employees from different industries who have faced Performance Review with
their bosses/HR and ask the following questions:
1. Name, Designation, Organization, Experience, Job Responsibilities
2. How was the overall experience?
3. What was the focus of discussion: Behaviour, Performance or Personality?
4. How much was duration of review meeting? Who spoke most of the time: You or your
boss?
5. Was the discussion documented by organization?
6. Please share any critical incident during the review?
7. How was the output of performance review used in your organization?

Group 7- Job Evaluation

Carry out job evaluation exercise and prepare a pay hierarchy for the given roles at any
restaurant.
1. Take up the following roles at any organisation: Security guard; Supervisor; Canteen
Manager; Security Supervisor; Receptionist; Cashier or any other
2. Rank these jobs for the purpose of pay following the procedure given in the text book
3. You will need to specify the compensable factors and define them before ranking the jobs.
4. Your assignment is to:
a. Study the jobs and identify the compensable factors in these jobs;
b. Define the compensable factors and their levels; some compensable factors may be present
only in some roles. You may also find that the highest ranked job may still fall below the
highest level of some compensable factor.
c. Compare the jobs with each other based on these.
d. Then rank these jobs in a hierarchy.
The assignment will need to include the following:
a. The roles with their job descriptions (not more than three or four lines)
b. The compensable factors based upon your observations. Explain why these compensable
factors were identified.
c. The definition of these factors and their levels. You must have at least four levels for each.
d. Your ranking of the jobs based on the compensable factors. This point will be the
lengthiest portion of the assignment. Explain your decisions.

Group 8 – Compensation Management

Interact with employees from different organizations, different sectors that are not at the same
level and ask the following questions (you would like to interact with HR executive/manager
for gaining more insights for the same):
1. What is the organizational structure?
2. What is corporate and functional strategy?
3. What type of rewards you get? Give few examples.
4. What is the linkage between rewards and strategy?
5. How the ‘reward strategy’ has changed over years in your organization? Why?
6. What is the proportion of fixed and variable pay in their compensation?
7. What factors affect ‘Total Compensation’? Visit website of these organizations to get more
insights about the vision, strategy, structure, employee strategy etc.
8. What do you mean by ‘Pay for performance’?
9. How do you use this concept in your organization? Explain the rationale for using PFP.
10. Who decides the ‘pay’ in your organization? HR? Line Manager? Top Management? All?
How it is decided?
11. Are you using any Employee Recognition programme? Explain.
12. What role ‘employee recognition’ plays in motivating and retaining employees?

Group 9 - Industrial Relations and Trade Unions

Visit any manufacturing unit and meet the Personnel/HR Manager. If there is no
Personnel/HR Manager, meet the owner of the business and ask the following questions:
1. What are your duties and responsibilities?
2. Please explain policies related to health and safety of workers?
3. Which are different labour laws significant for your business? Explain few.
4. Do you face any problems while dealing with workers? Please narrate few incidents.
5. How do you deal with these problems?
6. Do you have ‘unions’? Have you faced any problems in recent past with union leaders?
7. Discuss few ‘people management strategies’ used by you?

Group 10 Managing Employee Exits and Separations

1. Interact with few HR managers, executives. Ask about the attrition rate and separations in
their organizations
2. Ask how they manage exits of star performers. How the HR processes are designed to
support exits
3. What are strategic implications of separation decisions?

Group 11
Interact with alumni of IBS who have spent at least one year in corporate after MBA. Select
employees from HR profile and ask the following questions:
1. Please share some of the memories as IBS HR student. Also share few memorable
moments from HR sessions at IBS.
2. What is your job profile? Which are other job profiles available for HR these days? How is
the job market for HR professionals?
3. Which competencies are needed for becoming a successful HR professional?
4. Does classroom knowledge help at workplace? How?
5. How is overall experience of working after MBA?
6. Please share some of the challenges faced and strategies adopted by you initially.

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