Answer:1

Manpower planning helps the IT organisation estimate how many employees are
needed to accomplish a particular project, and it helps eliminate excess employees
and make effective use of human resources to attain its goals.
However, there are some challenges and difficulties faced by HR in IT companies
related to manpower planning which are as follows:
❖ Vague & Ambitious HRP Objectives:
The IT industry is growing so fast in today's world. It needs a good HR team to
find qualified and trained people to accomplish its business projects, reduce
employee turnover and manage the onboarding process.
But unfortunately, many IT organisation does not consider or understand the
HR team's importance. They think the HR department only gives employees
salaries and bonuses.
Many IT organisation does not provide enough budget or resources for
training or career planning. They consider it not worth spending on these
activities. These internal factors affect HR planning and lead to ambiguity.
❖ Limited role of Top Management:
Suppose the top management does not focus on providing necessary
resources and shows no interest or considers the importance of
communicating with the HR team for manpower planning. In that case, the HR
team will have difficulty implementing the process. This will cause the
organisation to face a shortage of qualified and trained employees, which will
increase employee turnover and cause a loss of trust and loyalty.
❖ Lack Of HR planning:
Currently, the unemployment rate is becoming high and finding the top
technically qualified and skilled employees is becoming difficult.
If HR hires the wrong talent without planning or understanding the job roles
and specifications, the organisation will face a massive loss in time, money
and effort spent on the wrong talents.
The HR department is facing difficulties in planning, quickly appointing the
demanded talented employees and getting them onboard. They need strong
work support to find the right person and for onboarding purposes.
Because not only IT companies but also other organisations are demanding
and hunting for IT-qualified talents to digitise their operational work and
systems.
If HR does not plan and understand the purposes of hiring, the organisation
will face a shortage of suitable employees to complete their project work. This
can lead to considerable losses to the organisation.

❖ Ineffective Strategic Planning:

 If the top management in an IT organisation does not include the HR

department for strategic planning, the lack of communication will affect the
organisation’s to attain its goals.
The HR department plays a vital role in strategic planning. It is the backbone
of any organisation because they help find, train and develop employees to
attain their strategic objectives, especially in the IT industry.

❖ Retention Of Employees:
As the IT industry is expected to grow in the near future, it is essential to
retain, train and develop the skills of employees for both company and
employees to grow together.

These days, retaining good talent in the IT industry is difficult. This can be due
to poor management, increased working hours, increased employee turnover,
work overload and terminating employees without prior notice or proper
compensation and benefits, which has made the HR department stress out
about these in organisation culture.

The HR department is facing so many challenges in manpower planning in the

IT industry due to a lack of communication, lack of direction, lack of planning
and poor leadership from management. This has led to an increase in
employee turnover, workload and working hours which made many qualified
employees switch their careers and lose interest in the IT field.
Investing and implementing HR technology will help the organisation to
understand the employees' difficulties and improve and bring changes to the
organisation's culture and strategic plans.

Answer:2

❖ Performance appraisal is a process of analysing, measuring and tracking an

employee’s performance in an organisation.
❖ According to Dale Yoder, author of ‘Personal Management and Industrial
relations’, “ Performance appraisal includes all formal procedures used to
evaluate personalities and contributions and potentials of group members in a
working organisation. It is a continuous process to secure information
necessary for making correct and objective decisions on employees.”

● Importance Of Performance Appraisal:

❖ Performance appraisal helps to know more about the employees in their

organisation, their difficulties, strengths, preexisting skills and talents, which
will help the organisation to utilise those skills for attaining the goals.

 ❖ It helps the manager assess employees' performance against the

performance standard in their organisation, give feedback, and guide them to
improve and develop their skills.
❖ Performance appraisal helps the top management to promote their employees
to a higher position based on their performance.
❖ Constantly checking on the performance of employees will boost their
performance and motivates them to perform better. They will feel that even
the organisation cares about their employees and is helping them to learn and
develop their skills.
❖ This will result in gaining trust and loyalty and help them to retain the
employees in an organisation.
❖ Performance appraisal will help the management and employees break the
communication barrier, create a team bond, and work together to attain the
target. Thus, Performance appraisal helps the management to know and get
information about their employees. Getting feedback from their employees
and guiding them helps the organisation learn more about their difficulties and
make changes in their culture and strategic plans, which will benefit both the
organisations and employees to attain their goals.

Though there are many benefits, there are some threats to performance
appraisal it is under such as follows:

❖ Conducting this performance appraisal is expensive as it has to be done for

every employee in the company. The employee will not show any care or
interest while getting feedback if the manager shows biases while evaluating
an employee’s performance.
❖ Employees may feel demotivated and dissatisfied if the managers evaluate
their performance with their colleagues, keep comparing with them, and do
not give feedback based on their performance.
❖ If the employee is really talented and working hard towards attaining the
target but if the performance appraisal standard is set on many vague and
unwanted criteria, the managers will be forced to find faults even if the
employees are doing well. This will make the employees lose motivation to
grow and improve.
❖ Sometimes the manager and even the employees show little interest in the
performance appraisal. They feel it is just a waste of time and does not feel
like giving proper feedback, which will result in poor performance
management.

Performance appraisal will be ineffective if managers lack leadership quality and do

not give proper feedback by understanding the difficulties faced by employees. If the
management is not ready to change the culture and strategic plans, these will affect
the performance of the employees and the organisation.

 Answer:3(a)

360-Degree Appraisal :

The 360-degree appraisal is an effective evaluating

system for measuring, tracking and evaluating the performance of an
employee.

➢ The performance appraisal of an employee in the system is analysed

and evaluated by taking feedback from all the people who work with
that employee, such as team members, reporting managers,
customers and other colleagues.
➢ This feedback helps the organisation leaders and the managers to get
a better understanding of that employee about their strengths and
weakness.
➢ This 360-degree appraisal method helps get detailed information,
which helps the organisation guide and motivate them to improve their
employees' skills and achieve their goals.

The reasons for the effectiveness of the 360-degree performance

appraisal method are:

➢ This type of appraisal gives a clear view and helps reduce biases
towards an employee, increasing team coordination and participation
and improving performance.
➢ 360-degree feedback helps the employee and the organisation leaders
to improve and develop their coordination.
➢ It helps the top leaders understand the performance and get feedback
from them if they are facing difficulties and make changes towards the
working environment.
➢ This performance appraisal helps the employee know and learn more
about his performance which will help him to adjust his behaviour and
perform better.
➢ This method is kept anonymous, which makes coworkers give honest
feedback to an employee which they might not be able to give him/her
personally.

Thus, 360-degree performance appraisal is considered valuable

feedback and an effective method for evaluating performance because
it is given by multiple stakeholders who work with them. This helps
motivate them to learn and focus on the areas where they have to

 improve and help them to understand their strength & weakness and
work on them to improve.

Answer:3(b)

The 360-degree method is used to understand and evaluate an employee's

performance from the feedback the management has received from their team
members, reporting managers and other colleagues in an organisation.

Though it is an effective way to evaluate performance, there are some difficulties

faced by an organisation, as mentioned below.

➔ This 360-degree appraisal method becomes ineffective and makes it difficult

for the management to assess the performance of the appraisal based on
their behaviour rather than their skills and performance.
➔ This appraisal method takes more time, so the coworkers may not give honest
feedback. They might give feedback based on their interest and emotions,
which may demotivate the employees, even if they had performed better.
➔ The competition between the employees may make them give negative
feedback about each other in the 360-degree appraisal method, which results
in losing team coordination.
➔ The negative feedback might not be taken well by the employees if they are
given a large number of suggestions to change their behaviour. They may
lose track and feel disappointed.
➔ The 360-degree appraisal method is unreliable because the feedback given
by their peers might be out f anxiousness or taking revenge on their superiors.

To overcome these difficulties, organisations have to follow specific steps:

➔ Before giving any feedback, the organisation has to give some time to assess
the data they have received, to understand the employees better and not to
jump to conclusions or assumptions and get feedback from customers and
other stakeholders.
➔ The management must make the employees understand the importance of
360-degree appraisal and give them enough time to complete it.
➔ The organisation has to give clear feedback to the employees and guide them
to improve their performance, which will help them to motivate and develop
their skills.

The organisation head has to engage and communicate with employees and has a
proper set-up before giving any feedback to the employee. Sometimes, they might
feel demotivated and take things personally, resulting in poor performance.