BBA302 – Human Resource Management

ASSIGNMENT

DRIVE	SUMMER 2015
PROGRAM	Bachelor of Business Administration- BBA
SEMESTER	3
SUBJECT CODE & NAME	BBA302 – Human Resource Management
BK ID	B1596
Credit & Marks	4 CREDITS & 60 MARKS

Note – Answer all questions. Kindly note that answers for 10 marks questions should beapproximately of 400 words. Each question is followed by evaluation scheme.

Q. 1. Explain the various emerging concepts of Human Resource Management(HRM)

Answer:The world is changing dramatically and is in the process of complete transformation. The impossible things of yesterdays have become possible today and the impossible things of today will become possible tomorrow that is why it is said that change is the only permanent aspect of nature. The concept of self sufficient nations is losing importance and the concept of ‘global village’ is emerging. Management of organizations is bound to cope up with the radical transformation by developing new techniques and practices in global perspective after carefully analyzing the real challenges being faced by the professional managers.

Because of the continuous changing socio-economic, technological and political conditions the modern day managers as behavioral /operational scientists in the organization come across the following challenges:

1.       Challenge of globalization.

2.       Challenge of information age.

3.       Challenge of quality revolution.

4.       Challenge of managing workforce diversity.

5.       Empowerment of workers.

6.       Development of work ethics and culture.

7.       Corporate reorganization.

The trends in human resource industry are dynamic in nature which contributes towards to achievement of organization goals. Over the years, highly skilled and knowledge based jobs have increased while low skilled jobs are decreasing. This calls for skill mapping through proper HRM initiatives.

Change is inevitable as said and that’s what Indian organizations are witnessing in management cultures, systems and working style. Alignment with global companies has forced Indian organization accept and incorporate change in every day life which makes role of HRM all the more important.

Some of the recent changes are as follows:

•        The policies of many companies have become people centric, traditionally the policies mainly focused on achievement of organizational goals showing negligence towards the human resource.

•        Attracting and retaining of human resource has become difficult as loyalty factor is losing its shine, today HR personnel have to motivate and design healthy career road map to make them stay in the company.

•        Human Resource Outsourcing is the new name in the industry to replace the redundant traditional HR department. Many HR outsourcing companies in India are already established and some are coming up to support increasing demand of corporate India.

•        With the increase of global job mobility, recruiting competent people is also increasingly becoming difficult, especially in India. Therefore organizations are also required to work out a retention strategy for the existing skilled manpower.

·         HR managers today are focusing on policies (trust, openness & equality), Motivation, Relations. Due to new trends in HR the manager should treat people as resources, reward them equitably and integrate their goals with that of the organizational goals through suitable HR policies.

Q. 2. What do you mean by Human Resource Planning? Explain the importance ofHuman Resource Planning

Answer:Human resource is the most important asset of an organisation. Human resources planning are the important managerial function. It ensures the right type of people, in the right number, at the right time and place, who are trained and motivated to do the right kind of work at the right time, there is generally a shortage of suitable persons.

The enterprise will estimate its manpower requirements and then find out the sources from which the needs will be met. If required manpower is not available then the work will suffer. Developing countries are suffering from the shortage of trained managers. Job opportunities are available in these countries but properly trained personnel are not available. These countries try to import trained skill from other countries.

In order to cope human resource requirements, an enterprise will have to plan in advance its needs and the sources. The terms human resource planning and manpower planning are generally used interchangeably. Human resource planning is not a substitute for manpower planning. Rather the latter is a part of the former i.e., manpower planning is integrated with human resource planning.

Importance of Human Resource Planning

1. Well Defined Objectives:Enterprise’s objectives and goals in its strategic planning and operating planning may form the objectives of human resource planning. Human resource needs are planned on the basis of company’s goals. Besides, human resource planning has its own objectives like developing human resources, updating technical expertise, career planning of individual executives and people, ensuring better commitment of people and so on.

2. Determining Human Resource Reeds:Human resource plan must incorporate the human resource needs of the enterprise. The thinking will have to be done in advance so that the persons are available at a time when they are required. For this purpose, an enterprise will have to undertake recruiting, selecting and training process also.

3. Keeping Manpower Inventory:It includes the inventory of present manpower in the organisation. The executive should know the persons who will be available to him for undertaking higher responsibilities in the near future.

4. Adjusting Demand and Supply:Manpower needs have to be planned well in advance as suitable persons are available in future. If sufficient persons will not be available in future then efforts should be .made to start recruitment process well in advance. The demand and supply of personnel should be planned in advance.

5. Creating Proper Work Environment:Besides estimating and employing personnel, human resource planning also ensures that working conditions are created. Employees should like to work in the organisation and they should get proper job satisfaction.

Q. 3. What do you mean by Recruitment? Explain the factors affecting Recruitment.

Answer:Recruitment refers to the overall process of attracting, selecting and appointing suitable candidates for jobs within an organization, either permanent or temporary. Recruitment can also refer to processes involved in choosing individuals for unpaid positions, such as voluntary roles or training programmes.  Recruitment may be undertaken in-house by managers, human resource generalists and/or recruitment specialists. Alternatively, parts of the process may be undertaken by either public-sector employment agencies, commercial recruitment agencies, or specialist search consultancies.  The use of internet-based services and computer technologies to support all aspects of recruitment activity and processes has become widespread.

Internal recruitment refers to the process of a candidate being selected from the existing workforce to take up a new job in the same organization, perhaps as a promotion, or to provide career development opportunity, or to meet a specific or urgent organizational need. Advantages of this approach include the organization's familiarity with the employee and their competencies (insofar as they are revealed in their current job), and their willingness to trust said employee.

Factors affecting Recruitment

There are a number of factors that affect recruitment.

1. Internal Factors:The internal factors also called endogenous factors are the factors within the organisation that affect recruiting personnel in the organisation. Some of these are mentioned here.

a.       Size of the Organisation:The size of an organisation affects the recruitment process. Experi­ence suggests that larger organisations find recruitment less problematic than organisations with smaller in size.

b.      Recruiting Policy:The recruiting policy of the organisation i.e., recruiting from internal sources (from own employees) and from external sources (from outside the organisation) also affects recruitment process.

c.       Image of Organisation:Image of organisation is another internal factor having its influence on the recruitment process of the organisation.

d.      Image of Job:Just as image of organisation affects recruitment so does the image of a job also. Better remuneration and working conditions are considered the characteristics of good image of a job.

2. External Factors:Like internal factors, there are some factors external to organisation which has their influence on recruitment process.

Some of these are given below:

a.       Demographic Factors:As demographic factors are intimately related to human beings, i.e., employees, these have profound influence on recruitment process.

b.      Labour Market:Labour market conditions i.e., supply and demand of labour is of particular importance in affecting recruitment process.

c.       Unemployment Situation:The rate unemployment is yet another external factor having its influence on the recruitment process.

d.      Labour Laws:There are several labour laws and regulations passed by the Central and State Governments that govern different types of employment.

e.      Legal Considerations:Another external factor is legal considerations with regard to employ­ment. Reservation of jobs for the scheduled castes, scheduled tribes, and other backward classes (OBCs) is the popular example of such legal consideration.

Q. 4. Suppose you have joined as an HR Manager in an organization and you are askedto improve the organization’s Induction process. What are the strategies you willconsider in order to improve the Induction process?

Answer:An induction programme is the process used within many businesses to welcome new employees to the company and prepare them for their new role.  Induction training should, according to TPI-theory, include development of theoretical and practical skills, but also meet interaction needs that exist among the new employees. An Induction Programme can also include the safety training delivered to contractors before they are permitted to enter a site or begin their work. It is usually focused on the particular safety issues of an organisation but will often include much of the general company information delivered to employees.

Strategies to Improve the Induction process:

Encourage research: While you would hope that anyone applying for a job at your company will have done a little of their own research, make sure you are prompting your new hires to do some pre-reading before they even get to their induction. If they already know the basics of your company history and such, this will save a lot of time during the induction, freeing up time to spend on information more directly relevant to the work they will be doing.

Don’t overwhelm them: Even though there may be an enormous amount of information that the new hires will need to know, overwhelming them will make it harder for them to get a good grasp on any of it. Make sure you cover just those points that are vital to the work of the new hires, and keep in mind that you will be able to continue their education as they get stuck into their new positions.

Allow plenty of time: You will want to get your new hires working as soon as possible, though not before they know everything they need to be able to start doing a great job straight away.

Do it in stages:An effective way to do your inductions is to carry them out in stages, as this way your new hires will be working sooner.

Get feedback: Ask those who have been through your induction process for feedback on what they liked and didn’t like, as well as how effectively they felt it prepared them for working in their position. This kind of input is invaluable and can allow you to tweak your induction process and have it play a more useful role.

Involve your current staff: Rather than just having management involved in the induction process, get a few of your more personable staff members involved as well.

Q. 5. Discuss the features of an Incentive plan. Explain the characteristics of an effective

Incentive System

Answer:Features of an incentive plan: An ideal incentive plan must possess the following features:

•        Simplicity - The plan should be simple to understand and operate. Who should be able to calculate their wages without any difficulty?

•        Acceptability - It should be acceptable to workers as well as the employer.

•        Flexibility - The incentive plan should be flexible to introduce nice changes.

•        Quality - The plan should ensure the quality of the output. Workers should be discouraged to speed up the work to earn more wages at the cost of quality.

•        Stability - The plan should give a stable earnings over a period of time, minimum but adequate wage must be ensured.

•        Wide coverage - It should cover the maximum number of workers. 1 direct as well as indirect worker should be covered.

•        No restriction on earnings - The plan should not have any restriction earnings of workers. They should be allowed to earn as much as they can.

•        Investigation and evaluation - The plan should be based on scientific investigation and evaluation to produce good result. Standard time should fix on the basis of time and motion study.

•        Increasing output and lowering cost of production - It should aim increasing output and lowering cost of production.

•        Motivating to earn more - The plan should motivate the workers increase their efficiency and earn more.

The success of an incentive plan depends on the mutual cooperation a understanding between employer and employees.

Explain the characteristics of an Effective Incentive system

1.       Simple to Understand:The plan must be simple, easy to understand and to operate. It should involve least clerical work.

2.       Just and Equitable:Just and equitable system will be successful. A worker should be awarded for the work done by him.

3.       Attraction for Workers:Incentive payments should be sufficient to attract workers for improving their performance.

4.       Attainable Standards:The standards fixed under incentive plans be attainable with some extra efforts.

5.       Conducive to Health:A scheme should not tempt workers to overstrain them.

6.       Willingness of Workers:The scheme should have willing support of workers.

7.       Clarity of Objectives:Management should be clear about the goals to be achieved from the incentive schemes, It should be properly communicated to the workers also.

8.       Incentive for Quantity and Quality:The scheme should provide incentive for both quality and quantity of production. It should preferably be based on Time Study basis.

9.       Standardization:It should provide basis for all incentive schemes.

10.   Worker’s Incentive Earnings:Workers should not suffer in his earnings for reasons like improper tooling or faulty materials, which are beyond his control.

11.   Intimation of Efficiency:Workers Employees should be intimated of their past efficiency immediately.

12.   Right to Change Standards:Management must have the right to change standards when new methods and equipment are introduced in the working system.

Q. 6. Write a short note on the following:

a)Employee Counselling: Employee counselling is a psychological health care intervention which can take many forms. Its aim is to assist both the employer and employee by intervening with an active problem-solving approach to tackling the problems at hand.

The costs to industry and commerce each year associated with employees’ poor psychological health are enormous. A significant proportion of the Gross National Product (GNP) of industrialized countries is lost each year through ill-health, particularly in respect of stress-related illness.

Employee counselling gives individuals a valuable opportunity to work through problems and stresses in a strictly confidential and supportive atmosphere.

Counselling provides access to several basic forms of helping: giving information, direct action, teaching and coaching, advocacy, and providing feedback and advice, for example.

Typically, counselling involves the individual employee meeting with a psychological adviser, usually on a one-on-one basis. It is not uncommon for the individual employee and counsellor to meet once or twice a week for several weeks. However, the number and frequency of meetings required will depend upon the nature of the perceived difficulty and the nature of the intervention needed.

The focus of counselling sessions is to encourage discussion of personal and work-related difficulties. This is often followed by the adoption of an active problem-solving approach to tackle the problems at hand.

The specific aims of employee counselling are to:

•        Explore and find the key sources of difficulty (this step may include the use of diagnostic self-report tests similar to those available on our public, free test site: Stress Tests - Real Tests Online .com).

•        Review the individual’s current strategies and styles of coping.

•        Implement methods of dealing with the perceived problem, thereby alleviating the issue. Often, this step may involve also improving interpersonal relations at work and/or improving personal performance.

•        Evaluate the effectiveness of the chosen strategies.

b)Selection: The human resources, or HR, selection process is important because of the production and performance value companies get by making good hires and the high costs of replacing employees following bad hires. These considerations are especially heightened for small businesses. HR has taken on a more strategic role in many early 21st century companies, with hiring and selection integral to that role.

Basics: The HR selection process is the strategically planned procedural approach developed by human resources professionals and implemented by organizations when recruiting, evaluating and hiring new employees.

Selection Criteria: One area of the selection process that is significant and sometimes under-valued is the development of screening tools. The ultimate goal of selection is to hire the candidate who is the best possible match for the job duties and the culture of the company.

Costs: Along with finding the best hire, cost efficiency and legal concerns are two main reasons why the HR selection process is so important.

Legal Concerns: The U.S. has become known as a litigious society, making protection against discrimination lawsuits for hiring processes critical. This is another reason to closely align selection tools and criteria with job expectations.