Assignment

1) Define job analysis. Describe the steps in job analysis?

Job analysis refers to the process of systematically identifying, obtaining and recording all the facts
and details concerning the job through various methods. It encompasses gathering information
related to the knowledge, skills and abilities (KSA) which the job holder must have, to perform the
job satisfactorily.

Job analysis helps in placing the right person in the right job. For this purpose, the analyst must
identify the activities involved, tasks to be performed, the way tasks are accomplished and the
essential qualities possessed by the incumbent for the completion of the tasks effectively.

Strategic Choices: Firstly, an organisation needs to make strategic choices, concerning the job
analysis. These choices are related to:

Degree to which an employee is involved in the process.

Sources of collecting information.

When and How often analysis is conducted.

Level to which details are to be collected.

Orientation, i.e. past and future.

Collection of Information: In the next step data is gathered, which mainly deals with three aspects:

Type of data to be obtained: It focuses on the basic job needs

Person who collects the data: He/ She may be the job analyst, supervisor or incumbent.

Methods applied in collecting data: A number of techniques can be applied which may be an
interview, checklists, questionnaire, diary method, observation and so forth.

Process Information: Once the information is collected by the concerned individual, it is then
transformed in a way, so that it helps in job documentation.

Job Description: The processed data will result in job description which describes the entire job
profile to the management and the incumbent as well. It lists out the job title, duties,
responsibilities, tasks, activities, scope of work, objectives, authority limits, etc.

Job Specification: Job specification specifies all the employee qualifications, in the sense of physical,
mental, emotional and behavioural abilities.
2) Describe the factors that affect human resource strategy
formulation?

External Factors that Affect Human Resource Management

Government Regulations – With the introduction of new workplace compliance standards your
human resources department is constantly under pressure to stay within the law. These types of
regulations influence every process of the HR department, including hiring, training, compensation,
termination, and much more. Without adhering to such regulations, a company can be fined
extensively which if it was bad enough could cause the company to shut down.

Economic Conditions – One of the biggest external influences is the shape of the current economy.
Not only does it affect the talent pool, but it might affect your ability to hire anyone at all. One of the
biggest ways to prepare against is to not only know what’s happening in the world around you, but
also create a plan for when there is an economic downturn. All companies can make due in a bad
economy if they have a rainy-day fund or plan to combat the harsh environment.

Technological Advancements – This is considered an external influence because when new

technologies are introduced the HR department can start looking at how to downsize and look for
ways to save money. A job that used to take 2-4 people could be cut to one done by a single person.
Technology is revolutionizing the way we do business and not just from a consumer standpoint, but
from an internal cost-savings way.

Workforce Demographics – As an older generation retires and a new generation enters the
workforce the human resources department must look for ways to attract this new set of
candidates. They must hire in a different way and offer that work for this younger generation. At the
same time, they must offer a work environment contusive to how this generation works.

3) Briefly explain how and why companies can create

competitive advantage through people?
Competitive advantage comes from a host of things. One the one hand it could be the geographical
location of the resources. On the other it could be product quality. The key thing is that it should be
something that it not easily copied or competitors will quickly erode the differential. Mostly people
are at the heart of all differentials - whether directly delivering services or innovating technology.
The following are some additional examples.

Productivity

Productivity is the output available to the firm for one unit of input to the production (or delivery or
sales or whatever) system. Productivity depends on the tools and other physical resources and on
the skills and knowledge of the people employed.

Effectiveness

Management bring the strategy and policies of the firm to life. The result is that even where a multi-
site firm has common policies, the practices differ and one site excels whilst the other fails. We see
this in areas such as motor vehicle manufacture across Europe with management choosing to move
production from UK to Belgium or Spain. The foreign sites are more effective even though part of the
same group. Management effectiveness is a key competitive differential.

Innovation

Competitive advantage is not static. A firm can have it and lose it. Competitors don’t stand still.
Sustaining competitive advantage takes innovation: the constant flow of new ideas and the adoption
of those contributing to progress. People innovate and they do so in the right climate or
environment. It is for management to create that climate and to harness the ideas.

Quality

Quality is meeting the needs of customers. Quality services are those that meet expectation. Quality
goods are those that meet the advertised specification. Quality delights customers. Whilst quality
does come from methods and tools, it also flows from the people using the tools and following the
methods.

Service

In every sales scenario there is scope for service excellence. Service excellence is about enhancing
the user experience. It’s about making the customer feel good about their purchases and the buying
experience itself. Examples abound: keeping the site tidy when building an extension to a house,
giving advice when choosing clothes yielding a pleasing outcome, making a recommendation on a
menu that turns out to be to the customers liking and recommending alternative production
processes that save the customer money. Customers often see it as suppliers’ staff ‘going the extra
mile’ for them.

Market Price

In all cases, competitive advantage ensures that the desired selling price is under the market price,
ensuring that the firm's products sell. When comparing commodities such as clothes where the
market price is relatively low, staff performance can assure the volumes needed for economies of
scale. When comparing premium products such as high fashion, staff can make the buying
experience enjoyable causing customers to return thereby securing selling prices well above those of
competitors.

Chapter Summary

Firms trade to make profits. Not all firms are the same and not all firms can make above average
profits in their industry. Competitive advantage is said to exist where a firm can sustain above
average profits when compare to its competitors. This competitive advantage comes from both
physical and human resources though it is significantly easier to develop competitive advantage
through staff than to invest in new tools and process. In many instances’ investment in both to some
degree or other is essential.
4) Explain what Human Resource Management is and
discuss how it has changed with respect to the
environmental changes such as Globalization, Technological
Changes, and Changes in the nature of work and the
recession in the economy.
1. Work force Diversity:

Diversity has been defined as any attribute that humans are likely to use to tell themselves, that
person is different from me and, thus, includes such factors as race, sex, age, values, and cultural
norms. The Indian work force is characterized by such diversity that is deepening and spreading day
by day.

It is likely to be more diverse as women, minority- group members, and older workers flood the
work force. With the increasing number of women entering the work force due to a combination of
factors like women’s emancipation, economic needs, greater equality of sexes, education and so on,
additional pressures of managing a different set of problems at the work place have arisen. As such,
the number of women is on increase in all walks of life i.e., teachers, lawyers, doctors, engineers,
accountants, pilots, parliamentarians and so on.

However, increasing number of women in the work force has been necessitating the implementation
of more flexible work scheduling, child care facilities, maternity and now paternity leave also and
transfer to location of husband’s place of posting.

Also, as the work force ages, employers will have to grapple with greater health care costs and
higher pension contributions. On the whole, the increased diversity of work force will place
tremendous demands on the HR management function.

Further, creating unanimity from a diverse work force has also become a challenge for HR manager.
This is because, as several experts’ put it; diversity is marked by two fundamental and inconsistent
realities operating today with it. One is that organisations claim they seek to maximize diversity in
the work place, and maximize the capabilities of such a diverse work force.

The other is that traditional human resources system will not allow diversity, only similarity. These
experts emphasize that employers traditionally hire, appraise, and promote people who fit a
particular employer’s image of what employees should believe and act like. At the same time, there
is corresponding tendency to screen out those who do not fit.

2. Economic and Technological Change:

Along with time, several economic and technological changes have occurred that have altered
employment and occupational pattern. In India too, there is a perceptible shift in occupational
structure from agriculture to industry to services.

The New Economic Policy, 1991 has led to liberalization and globalization giving genesis to
multinational organisations with their multicultural dimensions having certain implications for HRM.
The implications of globalization for HRM are discussed subsequently. The Indian economy has
already become an open economy but it will be more so from April 2003 with the complete lifting of
quantitative restrictions (QRs) on imports in India.
Technology has become the hallmark of the modem organisations. As such, modem organisations
have become the technology-driven organisations. So, to say, men are replaced by machinery.
Manufacturing technology, for example, has changed to automation and robotization.

Manufacturing advances like these will eliminate many blue-collar jobs, replacing them with fewer
but more highly skilled jobs. Similar changes are taking place in office automation, where personal
computers, word processing, and management information system (MIS) continue to change the
nature of office work.

The explosive growth of information technology linked to the internet has ushered in many changes
throughout the organisation. One of the major changes led by information technology is that it has
hastened what experts call the “fall of hierarchy”, i.e., managers depend less and less on yesterday’s
“stick-to-the -chain-of-command approach,” to their organising function.

This is so because earlier it used to be, if one wanted information, one had to go up, over and down
through the organisation. Now, one just taps in. That’s what broke down the hierarchy. Stomachs,
now employees do not need to be present a definite work place.

Instead, they can work from their own places/ residences through the net. This has given genesis to
a new breed of organisations, called ‘virtual organisations.’ (VO).

3. Globalization:

The New Economic Policy, 1991 has, among other things, globalised the Indian economy. There has
been a growing tendency among business firms to extend their sales or manufacturing to new
markets aboard. The rate of globalization in the past few years in India has been nothing short of
phenomenal.

Globalization increases competition in the international business. Firms that formerly competed only
with local firms, now have to compete with foreign firms/competitors. Thus, the world has become a
global market where competition is a two-way street.

Globalization has given genesis to the multinational corporations (MNCs). The MNCs are
characterised by their cultural diversities, intensified competition, variations in business practices
and so on. As an international business expert puts it, ‘the bottom line is that the growing
integration of the world economy into a single, huge market place is increasing the intensity of
competition in a wide range of manufacturing and service industries.

Given these conditions, from tapping the global labour force to formulating selection, training and
compensation policies for expatriate employees have posed major challenges for HRM in the next
few years. This has underlined the need for studying and understanding HRM of multinational
organisations or international organisations separately.

4. Organisational Restructuring:

Organisational restructuring is used to make the organisation competitive. From this point of view,
mergers and acquisitions of firms have become common forms of restructuring to ensure
organisational competitiveness. The mega-mergers in the banking, telecommunications and
petroleum companies have been very visible in our country. Downsizing is yet another form of
organisational restructuring.

As a part of the organisational changes, many organisations have “rightsized” themselves by various
ways like eliminating layers of managers, closing facilities, merging with other organisations, or out
placing workers. There has been a practice to flatten organisations by removing several layers of
management and to improve productivity, quality, and service while also reducing costs. Whatever
be the form of restructuring, jobs are redesigned and people affected.

One of the challenges that HRM faces with organisational restructuring is dealing with the human
consequences of change. For example, the human cost associated with downsizing has been much
debated and discussed in the popular press. As such, HRM needs to focus on the changed scenario
uniquely and that is not so simple. Thus, management of HR activities has become crucial for HR
managers.

5. Changing Nature of Work:

Along with changes in technology and globalization, the nature of jobs and work has also changed.
For example, technological changes like introduction of fax machines, information technology, and
personal computers have allowed companies to relocate operations to locations with lower wages.
There is also a trend toward increased use of temporary or part-time workers in organisations.