HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT-2001 Attempt five questions.

100 marks All questions carry equal marks Answers should be in sufficient detail with case examples. __________________________________________________________ _____________________________________ Q1. What steps should be a Human Resource Managers take t o m a k e a c h a n g e management programme successful? And 1. Management is said to be an agent of change. In order to make a change management programme successful the HR Manager has to implement the following steps: 1. Participation of Employees: Before introducing any change the employees should be consulted and the purpose of change should be made known to them. Sufficient time should be given for discussing the pros and cons to the employees. 2. Planning for Change: The change should be planned by the Management. Employees should get an opportunity for planning and installing the change. This will help the group affected to accept and understand the need for change. 3. Protecting Employees Interest: M a n a g e me n t s h o u ld e n s u r e t h a t e mp l o ye e s a r e protected from economic loss, loss in status or personal dignity. 4. Group Dynamics: G r o u p d y n a m i c s r e f e r s t o t h e e v e r c h a n g i n g i n t e r a c t i o n s a n d adjustments in the mutual perceptions and relationships among members of the groups. S u c h a s s o c i a t i o n s a r e p o w e r f u l i n s t r u me n t s wh i c h f a c i l i t a t e s o r i n h i b i t a d a p t a t i o n t o change. The management has to positively articulate such groups. 5. Ca u t i o u s a n d S l o w I n t r o d u c t i o n : T h e H R m a n a g e r s h o u l d c a u t i o u s l y a n d s l o w l y introduce change. He should not suddenly and abruptly introduce change. He must aim bring about awareness of change and construct an attitude of welcoming change. Change mu s t b e i n t r o d u c e d i n s e q u e n t i a l p a r t s , t h e r e s u l t s mu s t b e r e v i e w e d a n d r e q u i r e d adjustments have to be if required.

6. Positive Motion: T h e HR M a n a g e r s h o u l d u s e t h e p o l i c y o f p o s i t i v e mo t i v a t i o n t o c o u n t e r a c t n e g a t i v e r e s i s t a nc e . P r o p e r t r a i n i n g a n d t e c h n i c a l k n o wl e d g e s h o u l d b e imparted to the employees. The leadership style would be supportive and human oriented. 7. Sharing the Benefits of Change: Any changes whether technical, social or economic will least resisted by the employees if the management permits the employees to share the benefits which will arise out of change. 8. Training and Development: Based on the change the job should be redesigned. Management should train the employees before hand and prepare the employees to invite change. Normally trained and developed employees will not resist change. They would feel empowered with their enriched skills and knowledge. 9. Ca r e e r Pl a n n i n g a n d De v e l o p me n t : T h e H R M a n a g e r s h o u l d p l a n c a r e e r s o f employees, move them to higher levels and develop them. 10. Organisation Development: HR Manager should also look into the psychological and behavioral areas of the employee with a view to achieve organizational effectiveness. Employees with enriched behavior welcome change.

Q2. What are the special problems faced in an Indian company to make the Human Resource Management function more successful? Ans 2. Indian Companies basically face two factors viz Internal and External that pose problem in the smooth functioning of HRM function. External Factors. 1. Government policies: Policies of the government like labour policy, industrial relations policy, policy towards reserving certain jobs for certain communities.

2. Level of Economic Development: Level of economic development determines the level of HRD in the country and thereby the supply of human resources in the future in the country. 3. Business Environment: External business environmental factors influence the volume and mix of production thereby the future demand for human resources. 4. Information Technology: Technology has made an amazing shift in the way to conduct business. These shifts include business process re-engineering, supply chain management etc. It also reduces obsolete machinery and traditional human resources. However in latter stages it eliminates many categories of labour and reduces existing human resources. 5. Level of Technology: Le v e l o f t e c h n o l o g y d e t e r mi n e s t h e k i n d o f h u ma n r e s o u r c e s required. 6. International factors: International factors like the demand for and supply of human resources in various countries. Internal factors: 1. Company Strategies: C o m p a n y p o l i c i e s a n d s t r a t e g i e s r e l a t i n g t o e x p a n s i o n , diversification, alliances etc. determine the human resources demand in terms of quality and quantity. 2. Human Resource Policies: Hu ma n r e s o u r c e p o l i c i e s o f t h e c o mp a n y r e g a r d i n g quality of human resources, compensation level, quality of work life etc. 3. Job Analysis: F u n d a me n t a l l y h uma n r e s o u r c e s p l a n i s b a s e d o n j o b a n a l ys i s , J o b description and job specification. 4. Time Horizons: Companies in an unstable competitive environment can plan for only s h o r t t e r n r a n g e . Th e y h a v e t o f a c e n e w c o mp e t i t o r s . R a p i d c h a n g e , i n s o c i o a n d economic conditions. Small organization size, poor management practices. Unstable product/service demand patterns. 2

To create and maintain a satisfactory level of performance

To c o n t r i b u t e t o t h e e mp l o ye e g r o wt h a n d d e v e l o p me n t t h r o u g h t r a i n i n g , s e l f a n d management development programmes. Tata Power aims at employee development through performance appraisal. To help the superiors to have a proper understanding about their subordinates To guide the job changes with the help to continuous ranking. To facilitate fair and equitable compensation based on performance. To f a c i l i t a t e f o r t e s t i n g a n d v a l i d a t i n g s e l e c t i o n t e s t s , i n t e r v i e w t e c h n i q u e s t h r o ug h comparing their scores with performance appraisal ranks. To provide information for making decisions regarding lay-off, retrenchment etc. as in the case of Hyundai Engineering. Sources of Error in Performance Appraisal: 2. Rating Biases: It is a subjective measure of rating performance which is not verifiable by others and has the opportunity for bias. There rater biases include: a) The halo effect b) The error of central tendency c) The leniency and strictness biases d) Personal prejudice and e) The regency effect. A. Halo Effect: It is the tendency of the raters to depend excessively on the rating of o n e t r a i t o r b e h a v i o r a l c o n s i d e r a t i o n i n r a t i n g a l l o t h e r t r a i t s o r b e h a v i o r a l considerations. One way of minimizing the halo effect is appraising all employees by one trait before going to rate them on the basis of another trait.

B. The Error of Central Tendency: Some raters follow play safe policy in rating by rating all the employees around the middle point of the rating scale and they avoid rating the people at both the extremes scale. They follow play safe policy because of answerability to the management or lack of knowledge about the job and person he is rating or has least interest in the job. C. The Leniency and Strictness: the leniency bias crops when some raters have a tendency to be liberal in their rating by assigning higher rates consistently. Such ratings do not serve any purpose. Equally damaging is assigning consistently low rates. D. Personal Prejudice: If the rater dislikes any employee or any group, he may rate them at the lower end, which may distort the rating purpose and affect the career of these employees. E. The Regency Effect: The raters generally remember the recent actions of the e m p l o y e e a t t h e t i m e o f r a t i n g t h e m o n t h e b a s i s o f t h e s e r e c e n t a c t i o n s favorable or unfavorable-rather than on the whole activities. Difference between Performance Appraisal and Performance Management System. Performance Management System Perfomance apprisals Performance Appraisal is Performance Management System Organizational planning based performance of the employee is on potentialities of its human continuously m o n i t o r e d a n d sources. developed in tune with the organizational requirements Emphasis on Documentation: Emphasis is r e q u i r e d f o r g o a l s e t t i n g o f e mp l o ye e s a n d h u ma n recourses.

Other impotant proceses of a perfomance management system. The basic purpose is to find out how well the e m p l o y e e i s p e r f o r m i n g t h e j o b a n d t o establish a plan of improvement. Computer based management: N o w - a - d a ys s o f t w a r e i s a v a i l a b l e f o r i m p l e m e n t i n g t h e e n t i r e performance management process. I t i s n o t j o b evaluation. It refers to how someone is doing the a s s i g n e d j o b . J o b evaluation determines how much a job i s worth to the organization and therefore, what range of pay should be assigned to the job. Collaborative Performance Management: B o t h t h e M a n a g e r a n d t h e s u b o r d i n a t e s understand each other and both understand the organizational goals and requirements with a common and collaborative mind. It identifies training and development needs a n d e v a l u a t e s e f f e c t i v e n e s s o f t r a i n i n g a n d development programmes. C u s t o mi z e d P e r f o r ma n c e Ma n a g e me n t System: Organizations started adopting s e p a r a t e p e r f o r ma n c e a p p r a i s a l techniques a n d d e s i g n t h e s y s t e m f o r e a c h e m p l o y e e s e p a r a t e l y b a s e d o n e m p l o y e e s k i l l s , behavior and his job needs.

Q 8.Write short notes on any three of the following:a) Job Satisfaction b) Employee Morale e) Job Evaluation

) Job Analysis e) Employee Turnover ) H.R. Policies Ans 8a. Job Satisfaction: Job satisfaction refers to a persons feeling of satisfaction on the job, which acts as a motivation to work. It is not self-satisfaction, happiness or selfcontentment but satisfaction on the job. The term relates to the total relationship between an individual and the employer for which he is paid. Satisfaction does mean the simple feeling state accompanying the attainment of any goal; t h e e n d s t a t e i s f e e l i n g a c c o mp a n yi n g t h e a t t a i n me n t b y a n i mp u l s e o f i t s o b je c t i v e . J o b d is s a t i s f a c t i o n d o e s me a n a b s e n c e o f mo t i v a t i o n a t w o r k . R e s e a r c h w o r k e r s d i f f e r e n t l y described the factors contributing to job satisfaction and job dissatisfaction. Hoppock describes j o b s a t i s f a c t i o n as any combination of psychological, physiological and e n v i r o n m e n t circumstances that cause any person truthfully to say that I am satisfied with my job. Job satisfaction is defined as the pleasurable emotional state resulting from the appraisal of ones job as achieving or facilitating the achievement of ones job values . In contrast, job dissatisfaction is defined as the un -pleasurable emotional state resulting from the appraisal of ones job as frustrating or blocking the attainment of ones job values or as entailing disvalues.Ho we v e r , b o t h s a t i s f a c t i o n a n d d i s s a t i s f a c t i o n we r e s e e n a s a f u n c t i o n o f t h e p e r c e i v e d relationship between what one perceives it as offering one entailing. Ans 8b. Employee Morale: Morale is purely emotional. It is an attitude of an employee towards his job, his superior and his organisation. This may range from very high to very low. It is not a static thing but it changes depending on working conditions, superiors, fellow-workers, pay and so on. When a particular employee has a favorable attitude towards his work, he is said to have high morale. In the Organizational context, we usually talk of group morale as each person has an influence over the others morale. Ans 8c. Job Evaluation: Job evaluation deals with money and work. It determines the relative worth or money value of jobs. The International Labour Organisation defined job evaluation as an attempt to determine and compare demands which the normal performance of a particular job makes on normal workers without taking into account the

individual abilities or performance o f t h e w o r k e r s c o n c e r n e d . Wendell L. French defined job evaluation as a process o f determining the relative worth of the various job within the organisation, so that different wages may be paid to jobs of different worth. Job evaluation is defined as the overall activity of involving an orderly, systematic method and procedure of ranking, grading and weighing of jobs to determine the value of a specific job in relation to other jobs. British Institute of Management (1970) defined job evaluation as, the process of analyzing and assessing the content of jobs, in o r d e r t o p l a c e t h e m i n a n a c c e p t a b l e r a n k o r de r wh i c h c a n t h e n b e u s e d a s a b a s i s f o r r emuneration system. Job evaluation, therefore, is simply a technique designed to assist in the development of new pay structures by defining relatives between jobs on a consistent and systematic basis. Thus, job evaluation may be defined as a process of determining the relative worth of jobs, ranking and grading them by comparing the duties, responsibilities like skill, knowledge of a job with other jobs with a view to fix compensation payable to the concerned jobholder. Ans 8d. Job Analysis: Te U.S. Department of Labour defined job analysis as the process of determining by observation and study and reporting pertinent information relating to the nature of a specific job. It is the determination of the tasks which comprise the job and of the skills, knowledge abilities and responsibilities required of the worker of a successful performance and which differentiate one job from all others. Ans 8e. Employee Turnover: The movement of an employee, from one job to the other. Jobs themselves are not actually changed, only the employees are rotated among various jobs. An employee who works on a routine / respective job moves to and works on another job for some hours/days/months and backs up to the first job. This measure relieves the employee from b o r e d o m a n d mo n o t o n y, i mp r o v e s e mp l o ye e s s k i l l s r e g a r d i n g v a r i o u s jo b s , p r e p a r e s t h e competent employees and provides competitive advantage to the company. This measure also improves workers self-image and provides personal growth. However, frequent job rotations a r e n o t a d v i s a b l e i n vi e w o f t h e i r n e g a t i v e i mp a c t o n t h e o r g a n i s a t i o n a n d t h e employee. Ans 8f. H.R. Policies: Human resource policies are general statements that guide thinking and action in decision-making in an organisation. A HR policy is a plan of action, a set of

proposals and actions that act as a reference point for managers in their dealings with employees. HR policies c o n s t i t u t e g u i d e s t o a c t i o n . Th e y f u r n i s h t h e g e n e r a l s t a n d a r d s o r b a s e s o n w h i c h decisions are reached. Their genesis lies in an organizations values, philosophy, concept sand principles. Personnel guide the course of action intended to accomplish personnel objectives. A HR policy is a guideline for making wise decisions. It brings about stability in making decisions. A HR policy is a stance, often a choice made between two or more alternatives, such as the choice between promoting employees on than basis of merit versus promoting them on the basis of seniority. It covers the norms and guidelines for policies like safety, recruitment, wages etc.