MB0043-HUMAN RESOURCES MANAGENT Assignment-1 Q1.What are the functions that HR attempts to fulfill in any organization? Ans.

The Functions that HR attempts to fulfill in any organization are as follows: 1. Human resource planning Estimating the need for resources in order achieve the desired business results. HR plans can be both short term/immediate as well as long term/strategic. The HR team partners with the line managers to understand the business goals and targets for the year and together plan the HR needs in order to meet the goals. 2. Acquisition of Human Resources Staffing the organization with the right mix of skills and competencies at the right time. It also includes HR initiatives like promotions and internal job posting to fulfill this requirement for human resources. Staffing teams in organization are usually separate group of specialists who work closely with the line managers to understand the skills and competencies needed for the job and engage together to elect the best talent for the open position. 3. Training and employee development Focuses in managing training activities to upgrade skills and knowledge as well as soft skills like the ream building and leadership. The training team is again a group of HR specialist who proposes the training program and consults with the line managers to ensure that the program achieves the desired outcomes. 4. Building performance management systems Focuses on the right processes to set goals for performance as individual / teams and related measurement methods. This is core HR activity and is supported by the Hr generalist.

5. Rewards systems Establishing appropriate compensation systems and reward mechanism that would reward the desired outcome and results in accordance with the cooperate values. The again forms a part of HR generalists tasks. Hoe employees progress in a organization how they are paid w.r.t internal and external market factors, what employee benefits are offered are some aspects that this function redresses. 6. Human resources information systems That would that would take care of operational transactions form the time an employee exits, like personal files, compensation administration, payroll, benefits administration and issuing letters and testimonials. That task is supported by as separate HR operation team who acts as an Hr helpdesk and provides information to the employee/managers.

Q.2 Discuss the cultural dimension of Indian work force? A.2 Cultural Dimension of Indian Work Force: The foundation for understanding the unique work practices at a country level can be best is understood by first understanding the culture aspects of the countrys workforce. The pioneering work done by Dutch Scientist, Geert Hofstede is a useful tool in understanding the cultural differences used to differentiate countries. He identified five cultural dimensions around which counties have been clustered. The dimensions are: power distance, uncertainly avoidance, individualism, masculinity and long term orientation. Geert Hofstede dimension are based on research conducted among over 1000 IBM employees working globally. While their continued to be other studies like the GLOBE (Global leadership and organizational behavior Effectiveness) project and trompenaars framework, hofstedes model is most popular. Power Distance Power distance is the extent to which less powerful members of institutions and organizations accept that power is distributed unequally. Countries in which people blindly obey of superior have high power distance.

High power distance countries have norms, values and beliefs that support: In equally is good; everyone has a place; some are high, some are low. Most people should be dependent on a leader, The powerful are entitled to privileges, and The powerful should yield the power

India score 77 on power distance , indicating high power distance as a result of theinequalities both at the level of society as well as the at the workplace. Indian organization typically have hierarchical structures, policies yield power and subordination is acceptable. The dimension of high power distance at the workplace can be best understood as: People dislike work and try to avoid it. Managers believe that they must adopt theory X leadership style, that is, they must be authoritarian, and force workers to perform and need to supervise their subordinated closely. Organizational structure and systems tend to match the assumption regarding leadership and motivation Decision making is centralized. Those at the top make most of the decision. Organization tends to have tall structures. They will have a large proportion of supervisory personal and The people at the lower level often will have low job qualifications Such structure s encourages and promotes inequality between people at different levels.

Uncertainty Avoidance Uncertainty avoidance is the extent to which people feel threatened by ambiguous situation, and have created beliefs and institutions that try to avoid these India scores 40 indicating low to average uncertainly avoidance characterizes. Countries with low to average uncertainly avoidance have people who are more willing to accept that risks are associated with the unknown, and that life must go on in spite of this. Specifically, high uncertainly avoidance countries are characterized by norms, values and beliefs which accept that:

Conflict should not be avoided. Deviant people and ideas should be tolerated , Laws are not very important and need not necessarily be followed, Experts and authorities are not always correct and consensus is not important.

Low uncertainty avoidance society such as ours have organization setting with less structuring of activities, fewer written rules, more risk taking by managers, higher labor turnover and more ambitious employees. Such an organization encourages employees to use their initiative and assume responsibility for their actions. Denmark and Great Britain are good examples of low uncertainty avoidance cultures. Germany, Japan and Spain typify high uncertainty avoidance societies. Individualism Individualism is the tendency of people to look after themselves and their family only. The opposite of this collectivism which refers to the tendency of people to belong to group and to look after other in exchange for loyalty India score 48 on individualism, indicating somewhat low scores, therefore tending towards a more collectistic society. Collectivist countries believe that: Ones identity is based on ones group membership, Group decision making is best and Group protect individuals in exchange for their loyalty to the group Organizations are collectivist societies tend to promote nepotism in selecting managers. In contrast, in individualism societies, favoritism shown to friends and relatives is considered to be unfair and even illegal. Further organizations in collectivist culture base promotions mostly on seniority and age, where as in individualist societies; they are based on ones performance. Finally in collectivist cultures, important decision are made by older and senior managers as opposed to individualist cultures, where decision making is an individuals responsibility. Individualism is common in the US, Canada, Australia, Denmark and Sweden. The people of India, Indonesia, and Pakistan & Number of South American countries exhibit collectivism.

Masculinity Masculinity refers to a situation in which the dominant values in a society are success, money and other material things. Hofstede measured this dimension on a continuum ranging from masculinity to femininity. India scores 56 tending to be closed to masculinity than femininity. In higher masculine societys, jobs are clearly defined by gender. There are mens jobs and womens jobs. Men usually choose jobs that are associated with short term employment before marriage. Q.3 Explains the need of human resource planning system? A.3 Human resource planning system is a mandatory part of every organizations annual planning process. Every organization that plans for its business goals for the year also plan how it will go about achieving them, and therein the planning for the human resources: 1. To carry on its work, each organization needs competent staff with the necessary qualification, skills, knowledge, work experience and aptitude of work. 2. Since employees exit and organization both naturally (as a result of superannuation) and unnaturally (as a result of resignation), there is an on-going need for hiring replacement staff to augment employee exit. Otherwise work would be impacted. 3. In order to meet for the more employees due to organizational growth and expansion, this is turn call for large quantities of the same goods and services as well as new goods. This growth could be rapid or gradual depending on the nature of the business, its competitors, its position in the market and the general economy. 4. Often organization might need to replace the nature of the present workforce as a result of its changing needs, therefore the need to hire new set of employees. To meet the challenges of the changed needs of technology/product/service innovation the existing employees need to be trained or new skills sets induced into the organization. 5. Manpower planning is also needed in order to identify an organizations need to reduce its workforce. In situation where the organization is faced with severe revenue and growth limitation it might need to plan well to manage how it will workforce. Options such as redeployment and outplacement can be planned for and executed properly.

Q.4 Elucidate the classification of wages in the Indian system? A.4 In India wages system is classified as follows: Minimum wages Fair Living Minimum wages A minimum wages has been defined by the committee as the wages which must provident only for the bare substance of life, but for the preservation of the efficacy of the worker. For this purpose minimum wages must provide for some measure of education, medical requirement and amenities. In other words, minimum wages should provide for sustenance for the workers family, for his efficiency, for the education of his family members, for their medical care, for their amenities. It is very difficult to determine the minimum wages because condition varies from place to place, industry to industry and from worker to worker. However, the principles for determining minimum wages were evolved by the government and have been incorporated in the minimum wages act,1948, the important principles being that minimum wages should provide not only for the bare sustenance of life but also for the preservation of the efficiency of the workers by the way of education, medical care and other amenities. Fair wage It is the wage which is above the minimum wage but below the living wage. The lower limit of the fair is obviously the minimum wage; the upper limit is set by the capacity of industry to pay. Between these two limits, the actual wages should depend on consideration of such factor as: The productivity of labor. The prevailing rates of wages in the same or neighboring localities. The level of the national income and its distribution. The place of industry in the economy.

Living wages One which should enable the earner to provide for himself and his family not only therere essentials of food, clothing and shelter but a measure of frugal comfort, including education for his children, protection against ill-health, requirement of essential social needs and a measure of insurance against the more important misfortunes including old age in other words, a living wage was to provide for a standard of living that would ensure good health for the worker and his family as well as a measure of decency, comfort, education for his children and protection against misfortunate. Generally ascertaining wages and deciding who to pay what is a activity undertaken in the beginning when a organization is set up. There on it are annual reviews to make correction per the countrys economic and market/industry trends. The management considers the state of the labor market and takes into account of what he can afford to pay and the value of the worker to him. The workers willingness for employment at the rate offered implies that they agree to work at that rate; through they have had no part in fixing it. 1. Collective bargaining It is still in the initial stage in India. Although it is a desirable development in the relation between management and labor, it cannot be imposed upon either side by compulsion and should evaluate naturally from within. 2. Voluntary arbitration In voluntary arbitration, both parties agree to refer their dispute agreed arbitrator and his award becomes binding on the parties. 3. Wage Legislation Wages are fixed according to the law in some industries. The central government and state government may fix minimum wages under the minimum wages act 1948 for the industries. In which workers are exploited or too unorganized to protect their own interest. In order to advise them in the matter of fixing minimum wages, the government appoints minimum wages committees and the advisory boards. The committees and the advisory boards consist of equal number of workers and employers representative and also independent members whose number should not exceed one- third of the total number of members.

4. Conciliation The industrial dispute act 1947, provide for consideration in case of dispute between employee and worker. If an agreement is reached in the course of conciliation proceeding, it becomes binding on the parties and takes effects from the date agreed upon or from the date on which it is signed by the two parties. In case no agreement is reached, the conciliation officer sends a full report o the proceeding. On the receipt of the report, the govt. may decide to refer the case to industrial tribunal for award. 5. Adjudication Labor courts and industrial tribunal are set up under the industrial disputes act 1947. On studying the awards one gets the impression that the adjudication are attempting to justify their decision in social and ethical terms. At the same time, there is desire to satisfy both parties to dispute, and therefore. Economics factors such as capacity to pay, unemployment, profit, condition of the economy or welfare of the industry concerned, are given due prominence. 6. Wages Board The board is appointed by govt. and consist 7 members. 2 - Management 2- Labor 2 Independent member 1 Chairmen The board is expected to take into account the needs of the specific industry in a developing economy, the special feature of industry, the requirement of social justice and the necessity for adjusting wage differential in such a manner as to provide incentives to workers for advancing their skill. Its recommendation may be accepted by the govt. either completely or partly and may be statutorily imposed on the industry in question, or may be rejected.

Q.5. Ms. S.Sharma is the general manager HR of a private educational group. She is planning for the promotion policy for faculty members. The norm also rules by the government policy and criteria. Moreover the options to promote are limited. Suggest Ms. Sharma the alternative way to vertical promotion. What are the challenges in implementing the options? A.5 Individually perceived sequences of a attitude and behavior work related activities and experience over the span of a persons life. I normal parlance the term career has both an internal and external focus. An internal focus refers to the way an individual views his/her career and the external or objective focus and refers to the series of job position held by the individual. The dynamics of career development in an organizational context has two dimensions: How individuals plan and implement their own career goals, How organizations design and implement their career implement their career development programs.

Career planning is a deliberate attempt by an individual to become more aware of their skills, interest, values, opportunities and constraints. It require an individual thinking to identify career-related goals and establishing plans towards achieving those goals. often it is self driven process, which every professional appends some time to dwell on and discuss it with peers or superiors and frame it. It is also viewed from time to time that the individual looks for possible new carrier option. Having a career plan builds a commitment towards achieving it and is viewed as an excellent personal goal setting exercise for self motivation. Career management is considered to be an organizational process that involves preparing, implementing & monitoring career plans undertaken by n individual alone or within the organizational career system. Organizational establishing polices that provide for multiple career path options that an employee can choose from and pursue. This is supported with a lot of training and development activities that are agreed to with the managers and planned carefully and executed. A variety of career development activities and tools exists for use in organizations. HR managers should be familiar with these components bemuse the managers often serve as internal consultants responsible for designing the career development system. Some of the activities described are individuals career planning tools and other are commonly used for organizational career management. I general the most effective career development program will use both type of activities. Career development program are as follows:

1. Self assessment tools : These are usually technology enabled on line tools that form part of the performance appraisal system and allow the individual to identify areas of strength the best e.g career planning workbooks, career workshop etc. 2. Individual counseling: formally the process allows for individuals to discuss this as part of the performance management process with their immediate managers and share and take feedback with their immediate managers and share and take feedback on the appropriateness of the choices and how to go about pursuing it. Often managers recommend relevant other managers and leaders who the employee can link with to seek advice and support. Organizations also provide for formal mentoring programs to which an employee can enroll and sign up a mentor who can then provide the support and counseling on the best career option and how to go about it achieving it. 3. Information services: organization has establishing policies on what skills and experience that each job in the organization requires. Jobs with similar skills and experience are clubbed together to create parallel career paths. These are typically called career ladders or career paths and they help an employee to identify what his options are for future growth and identify the appropriate one based on his personal skills and capabilities/limitation. These career path would be supplemented with additional information on skills and experience that one must have for each role/job in there career path. It would also specify the particular qualification or special certification that the position demands. An employee aspiring to purpose a career option would need to dedicate time and efforts and the expenses towards acquiring the same. Large MNCs also encourage the reimbursement of these expenses as an annual fixed amount on successfully the exam / certification. The employee however needs to find the time and expend the efforts away from work. The actual move of the employee to the new role would however depend on the existence of the job vacancy in the role. Employee can also approach career resource / talent management centers supported by HR team for more information on how to plan careers and apply for new roles and job. 4. Initial employment programmed organization also run internship and apprenticeship programs wherein the individual aspiring to do a particular job can spend some time as a temporary employee to explore interest and skill fitment for the job/role.

5. Organization assessment programme: it can proactively establish formal process wherein an employee can volunteer to participate and understand himself/herself and his/her strengths. Through the use of assessment center organizations can help an employee identify areas for improvement and means of building those skills. So he can achieve his career plans. Certain organizations offer psychological testing instrument

which profile the employees strengths and roles and responsibility he/she will best fit into. 6. Development programs focus the efforts of the employee towards helping the employee to achieve his career goals. The assessment centers, job rotations program, in housing training, tuition refund plans, all prove effective tools to help the individual along.

Q.6 ABC is an organization that wants to revise the HR policies. Before doing that it wants to have some details about following: What the employees think about company? What do they think, in the company is going well? What practices in the company they think are not doing well? Get the feedback on managerial effectiveness.

Suggest the suitable method to collect the employee opinion and explain the method. Ans. Employee survey techniques have developed significantly over the past few years, with web based technologies it is easier and cheaper than ever to collect and manage data. In the past, any HR driven initiative was seen as tactical and of little real benefit to the organization as a whole. Now many enlightened organizations see HR and employee surveys as a powerful business improvement tool. Customers now have a greater range of choices than ever and are becoming increasingly better informed. This in turn means that many have very high expectations and, if they feel they are being short changed in any way, they take the initiative and switch their allegiance. This reduction in consumer loyalty can create difficulties in retaining existing customers, causing organizations to increase the amount they spend on engaging new customers. Consumer choice has also brought greater competitiveness to the market and in many situations it is difficult for an organization to differentiate itself from the competition in terms of production range, quality and price. As a result, the main differentiator for organizations has to be the quality of service that the customer receives. This may well result in people buying from you because they engage with specific individuals and the service/ attitude they offer. When was the last time you went out to a restaurant for a special meal? Regardless of the quality of the food and the price, if the service was poor, you forget how good the food was and you will probably not visit that restaurant again. Following on this same principle, there is a significant amount of survey demonstrating that employees have the greatest single impact on customer service. In the eyes of the customer, the employee they interact directly with is the face of that organization and heavily influences how they feel about the organization. It is vital for every interaction to be a positive one, not just for the customer, but for the employee as well. If the customer is happy, they spend more money, which naturally improves the organizations overall business performance. Likewise, higher employee satisfaction levels can come about as customer satisfaction and business performance levels increase because of the pride and kudos that come from working for a successful company. Research shows that the most successful organizations have satisfied, motivated, flexible, committed and well-trained employees who believe that they are able

to personally contribute to the success of the organization; in turn they are more likely to be supportive of the organizations products, strategy and goals. The most successful organizations get the most from their employees because they consider them to their greatest asset and they are prepared to invest in them in the same way as they invest in technology, product/brand development and customer segmentation. This means considering employees as a key stakeholder group in the same way as customers, shareholders and other corporate investments. This leads to a critical need to understand and proactively manage the impact that any change will have on your employees in order to protect the investment made in them. In many cases your business is your people. One approach is to proactively use employee survey to understand what the key motivators and dissatisfies are for them. The critical link between employee satisfaction and organizational performance has been clearly established in many independent and academic studies, people practices were found to have a significant impact on improvements not only in employee satisfaction, but also in the organizations productivity and financial performance. Different Types of Employee Survey Programs Annual climate and employee satisfaction surveys are by far the most popular kind of employee survey activity. However, the following types of survey programs are also gaining in popularity: Combining employee and customer satisfaction studies. Procedure/policy evaluation. Alignment of employees behind new product development. Alignment of employees behind organizational rebranding and repositioning efforts. Managing employees through organizational change programs (e.g. merger, acquisition/downsizing, etc.). Internal customer service evaluations. Internal communications evaluations. Evaluation and design of different benefits schemes.

Defining Employee Survey Goals and Objectives : Before starting on a staff survey process, it is vital to define a set of objectives for the survey. Without these objectives, the survey program will lack focus and it will be difficult to raise enthusiasm for the survey among your key influencers and decisionmakers.

All employee survey programs need to be seen as a company-wide initiative that is driven by managers and employees from across the whole organization and not something that is solely initiated and managed just within HR. It is therefore vital that any defined objectives for a survey are business related. In this way, improvements resulting from the survey can be seen as improving customer service and overall business performance. Deciding on the Appropriate Survey Methodology : Defining objectives at the outset will help to determine the methodology because, to meet the desired objectives, you will need to consider the following: Are all employees affected and should all employees need to be involved? Will changes and improvement action be required at different levels across the organization? How will managers and employees be engaged in the improvement process? How will awareness of the survey, its results and improvements be raised and managed among employees? How will the progress of improvement actions be reviewed, monitored and communicated over time? Quantitative and qualitative research methods can both be highly effective in employee surveys. It is essential, though, to ensure that the correct methodology is used for the type of survey being conducted.

Quantitative research is most appropriate when: Large numbers of people need to be included, The survey needs to cover a large number of different subjects, It is important to have robust numerical data, You need to have measurable comparison data between different groups, You want to be able to compare performance against other external organizations, You want to identify correlation with other survey data (e.g. customer satisfaction data).

Face-to-face individual interviews and focus groups are the most common forms of qualitative techniques used in employee research. Employee satisfaction surveys are the most common form of quantitative research. There are occasions when both methodologies can be effectively combined. For example, in an employee satisfaction survey, you may decide to use focus groups before designing the survey in order to determine the survey content and/or pilot questionnaire. Then you may also want to use qualitative research after the survey data has been collected to better understand the meaning behind the quantitative results. Employee Satisfaction Surveys It is worthwhile examining employee satisfaction surveys in more detail given that they are the most popular type of employee survey. Census or Sample Having defined your survey objectives, the next thing to consider is whether there is a need to survey all employees (census) or just a subset of them (sample). Evidence overwhelmingly suggests that a census survey is most appropriate for employee satisfaction surveys. This is mainly due to the need to drive through improvement action planning at local levels which requires frontline managers to be provided with their own reports. By undertaking a sample survey, there may either be not enough responses to provide a report or the number of responses may represent too small a proportion of the whole employee population to be considered statistically robust. Communication Employee buy-in is critical to the success of the survey. If they believe that improvements will result from the survey, they are more likely to participate by completing it and will become actively involved in the follow-up improvement action planning process. This is another strong reason for a census approach rather than sample. Communication is critical to getting this employee buy-in, particularly at the outset of the program and we recommend developing a communications plan that covers the following stages: Pre Survey During the Survey Post Survey Between Surveys

When developing the plan, there is a need to consider the different messages that you want to give to the different audiences and what are the most appropriate communication channels for reaching those audiences. For example, it is important for first line managers and immediate supervisors to be positive role models for the survey so that when they interact with their staff, they demonstrate active encouragement of the survey, a commitment to administer it properly and to act on the results. This is important because employees are usually heavily influenced by their immediate supervisors or line managers. If they do not think that their manager/supervisor believes in the survey, then neither will they. The whole process is then derailed before it starts.