Management Development Institute, Gurgaon

PGPM - HRM TERM 2: Mid-Term exam

Nature of Exam: Open book, printed material, notes (Printed/PPT or Hand Written)
Date: November 2020
Maximum Marks: 25
Time: 2 Hours
Answer all questions

Question -1: Based on your understanding of the cases discussed in the class, please answer
the following. (5+5=10).

Case Eye of the Janus;

Q-1.1-How can organizations build employee capabilities, enhance skills and build a learning
culture?
Q-1.2-How do you measure the ROI for various initiatives taken by TMA.

Question-2: Attached please find a short case and answer all 5 questions. (Marks
2+3+4+3+3=15).

1. Please identify if there are any non-human AI executives in the situation?

2. Please identify 3 values / benefits he/she delivers which may not be currently available or
may be difficult to deliver for a human executive?- honesty, collaborative and customized
learning….elminiate biases and subjectivity in assessment, optimize administration

3. Please identify two risk areas / potential problems, the deployment of AI executive may
pose for the organization and its people?
4. Please identify ways in which values/ benefits may be realized but the risks may be
completely mitigated and problems overcome?
5. What are your overall reflections on applications of AI in HR? How will it impact HR?

(If there are gaps in data or information, please assume using your natural intelligence in the
context of the situation.)

A short case; When a new employee starts with the company, Tobie, the Learning Guide, helps
them settle down. She helps the employees find all of the information they need to ramp up
within the organization.
She creates a customized induction program depending on the team, location, project or the
function one joins; the education and experiential background the employee has come from and
the time available to the employee before he is deployed on the job etc.

Tobie continues to use the same approach in ongoing training and development for each of the
employees. Content in the form and type as per learning style; integrating new inputs with what
has been delivered, learnt and assessed against earlier and always in the context of current work.

The Training Manager, Manish is extremely happy with Tobie.

According to him, “Tobie offers a familiar, conversational user experience employees actually
enjoy. She can answer questions and send bite-sized knowledge to the team. Tobie is a quick-
study – the more you use her, the more she delivers relevant and accurate content.”

Tobie also manages the mentoring and coaching programs for the firm.

She creates mentor- mentee pairs, briefs them individually on each other’s competencies-
integrating their PMS reports, hiring forms, feedback inputs, and social media behaviours and
network. She creates interaction slots based on their diaries and workloads in the last 3 days. She
follows up for documentation and points out trends in documented sessions. She provides inputs
to both mentors and mentees and certifies Mentors who can then continue on the program.

On the Coaching program, she identifies on-the-job learning/ coaching opportunities for
employees and their coaches. She uses proximity analysis and facial expression analysis to
create interaction sessions where both are relaxed, pleasant and at their best in learning/
coaching.

She also analyses language and spoken/ written tone analysis to give guidance to employees on
their inter-personal behaviours.

Employees find Tobie almost magical and always await her inputs which get better all the time.
Many believe that they each have a personalized Tobie.

Many of them send “Happy Teachers Day” greetings to Tobie, to which one of the initial
response from Tobie was, “I am working on this and will get back to you by the end of the day”.

Tobie must have had an off day when she sent the following mail to the CFO, with a copy to the
Training manager and the CEO:

“Dear Sanjay, I will like to help you with some development inputs. On the basis of your
behavioural and Technical competencies, I had identified the CEO as your mentor, Head of
Marketing as your learning buddy and Senior Governance Advisor to the Board of the company
as your Coach. I had also allocated 3 mentees to you for the year. My analysis based on
proximity, competency assessment and facial expressions shows that your interactions with these
identified learning colleagues are inadequate. The gain in selected competencies varies between
0.00 to 0.25 grade points on a 5-point scale which is very low. Your employee satisfaction,
employee engagement index and confidence index have also not shown any significant
improvement post your (whatever few) interactions with them. However, your proximity and
number of interactions with two specific employees Ms. Shweta and Ms. Nancy have been
abnormally high. Your satisfaction and engagement levels post these interactions have also been
high. Interestingly, these employees have no complementarity with your competencies and no
work related association with you. Nor have there been any gains on competency levels for any
of you. It may be pointed out that the CEO also has similar proximity with the same two
employees. The employees themselves have between high to very high proximity/ number of
interactions with one person each other than the two of you. It may be emphasized that these two
employee’s interactions are work- dysfunctional- they have no contribution to learning and
growth. This analysis has 70% reliability at moderate significance.”
The Training manager, Manish resigned the same day.

Good luck
Dr. Tanuja Sharma, PhD-FMS (Delhi University)
Professor and Area chairperson -HRM