ASSIGNMENT 01/02

NAME REGISTRATION NUMBER LEARNING CENTRE LEARNING CENTRE CODE COURSE SUBJECT SEMESTER MODULE NUMBER DATE OF SUBMISSION MARKS AWARDED : MERCY. ELIZABETH. DSOUZA : 521124501 : MANIPAL INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY : 00952 : MBA HCS : HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT : 1ST SEMESTER : : 20TH DECEMBER, 2011 :

Q1. What are the functions that HR attempts to fulfill in any organization? [10]
The functions that HR attempts to fulfill in any organization are as follows: Human resource planning: estimating the need for resources in order to achieve the desirable 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 then together plan the HR needs in order to meet the goals. 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 promotion and internal job posting to fulfill this requirement of human resources. Staffing teams in organizations are usually a 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 select the best talent for the open positions. Training and employment development: focuses on managing training activities to upgrade skills and knowledge as well as soft skills like team building and leadership. The training team is again a group of HR specialists who propose the training program and consult with the line managers to ensure that the program achieves the desired outcome. Building performance management systems: focuses on the right processes to set goals for performance as individuals / teams and related measurement methods. This is a core HR activity and is supported by the HR generalist. Reward systems: establishing appropriate compensation systems and reward mechanisms that would reward the desired outcome and results in accordance with the corporate values. This again forms a part of the HR generalists tasks. How employees progress in an organization, how they are paid w.r.t internal and external market factors, what employee benefits are offered, are the few aspects that this function redresses.
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 Human resource information system: that would take care of the operational transactions from the time an employee joins till the time employee exits, like personal files, compensation administration, payroll, benefits administration and issuing letters and testimonials. This task is supported by HR operations team which acts as a HR help desk and provides information to the employees / managers.

Q2. Discuss the cultural dimensions of Indian work force. [10]

The foundation for understanding the unique work practices at the country level can best be understood by first understanding the cultural aspects of the countrys work force. The pioneering work done by Dutch scientists, Geert Hofstede is a useful and the most popular tool in understanding the cultural differences used in different countries.
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 the orders of the superiors have high power distance. High power distance countries have norms, values and beliefs that support: Inequality 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. The powerful should yield their power.

India scores 77 on power distance, indicating high power distance as a result of inequalities both in the society and work place. Indian organizations typically have hierarchical structures, position yields power and subordination is acceptable.

The dimensions of high power distance at work place 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 the force workers need to perform and supervise their subordinates closely. Organizational structures and systems tend to match the assumption regarding leadership and motivation. Decision making is centralized. Those at the top make most of the decisions. Organizations tend to have tall structures. They will have a large proportion of supervisory personnel. The people at the lower levels will often have low qualification. Such structures encourage and promote 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 which the institutions try to avoid. India scores 40 indicating low to average uncertainty avoidance characteristics. Countries with low score have people who are more willing to accept that risks are associated with the unknown, and that life must go on in spite of these situations. Specifically, high certainty 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 be followed necessarily. Experts and authorities are not always correct.

Law uncertainty avoidance societies such as ours have organization settings with less structuring of activities, fewer written rules, more risk taking by managers, higher labor turn over and more ambitious employees. Such an organization encourages employees to use their initiative and assume responsibility for their actions.
Individualism:

Individualism is the tendency of people to look after themselves and their family only. The opposite of this is collectivism which refers to the tendency of people to belong to groups and look after each other in exchange for loyalty. India scores 48 on individualism, indicating somewhat low score, therefore tending towards a more collectivistic society. Collectivist countries believe that: Ones identity is based on ones group membership. Group decision making is the best. Groups protect individuals in exchange to their loyalty to the group. Organizations in collectivist societies tend to promote nepotism in selecting managers. In contrast, in individualistic societies, favoritism shown to friends and relatives is considered to be unfair and even illegal. Further, organization in collectivist cultures base promotions on seniority and age, whereas in individualistic societies they are based on ones performance. Finally, in collectivists cultures, important decisions are made by older and senior managers as opposed to individualistic cultures, where decision making is an individuals responsibility.
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 score 56 tending to be closed to masculinity than femininity.

In highly masculine societies, jobs are clearly defined by gender. There are mens job and womens job that are associated with long term career. Women usually choose jobs that are associated with short term employment, before marriage.

Q3. Explain the need for Human Resource Planning System. [10]
Human resource planning is mandatory part of every organizations annual planning process. Every organization that plans for its business goals for the year also plans how it will go about achieving them, and there in the planning for the human resource: To carry on its work, each organization needs competent staff with the necessary qualifications, skills, knowledge, work experience and aptitude of work. Since employees exit and organization both naturally (as a result of superannuation) and unnaturally (as a result of resignation), there is an ongoing need for hiring replacement staff to augment employee exit. Otherwise, work would be impacted. In order to meet the need for more employees due to organizational growth and expansion, this in turn calls 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. Often organizations might need to replace the nature of the present work force as a result of changing needs, therefore the need to hire new set of employees. To meet the challenge of changed needs of technology / product / service innovation, the existing employees need to be trained and new skill sets need to be induced in the organization. Manpower planning is also needed in order to identify an organizations need to reduce its work force. In situation, where organization is faced with severe revenue and growth limitations it might need to plan well to

manage how it will reduce its workforce. Options such as redeployment can be planned for and executed properly.

Q4. Elucidate the classification of wages in the Indian system. [10]

In India, wages are classified as below:
Minimum wage:

A minimum wage has been defined by the committee as the wage which must provide not only for the bare sustenance of life, but for the preservation of the efficiency of the worker. For this purpose, the minimum wage must provide for some purpose of education, medical requirements and amenities. In other words, a minimum wage should provide the sustenance of the workers family, for his efficiency, for the education of family members, for their medical care and some amenities. It is very difficult to determine the minimum wage because conditions vary 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 has been incorporated in the Minimum Wages Act, 1948, the important principle 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 way of education, medical care and other amenities.
Fair wage:

According to the committee on Fair Wages, it is the wage which is above the minimum wage but below the living wage. The lower limit of the fair wage is obviously the minimum wage; the upper limit is set by the the capacity of the industry to pay. Between these two limits, the actual wages should depend on considerations of such factors 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.
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 The place of the industry in the economy.

Living wages:

The wage was recommended by the committee as a fair wage and as ultimate goal in a wage policy. It is defined a Living Wage as as one should enable the earner to provide for himself and his family not only the bare essentials of food, clothing and shelter but a measure of frugal comfort, including education for his children, protection against ill-health, requirements of essential social needs and a measure of insurance against the most important misfortunes including old age. In other words, a living wage was to provide for standard of living that would ensure good health for the worker and his family as well as of decency, comfort, education for his children and protection against misfortunes.

Q5. Ms. S.Sharma is the General Manager HR of private educational group. She is planning for the promotional policy for the faculty members. The norms are also ruled 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 that option? [10]
Horizontal promotions are considered an alternative to this by certain organizations. Under this policy, an employee may be transferred from a position in one department to a position in higher rank in another department or to the same rank in different or to the same rank in a different department if the transfer gives him an opportunity to acquire greater knowledge and wider experience. E.g.: If a senior Lecturer cannot get promotion in a particular department for obvious reasons, he may be transferred as Registrar of the University or as Controller of Examinations or Director of Distance Education. However, there is
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one difficulty, unless the person is dynamic and intelligent, he may find the new assignment a tough one and irksome. To some, it may be a cause of frustration. However, for many, horizontal promotions even if it is only a paper promotion, it is a challenge since it allows them job rotation. The next question to be answered is the type of man to be promoted. There is a natural tendency for an executive to select as his assistant one who has the same or similar abilities as his own. This may not result in most efficient combination. It is often observed that the assistant may imbibe the weaknesses of the boss. Promotion is a part of the general problem of selection. Promotion is also closely linked with training, post-training placement, development and incentives and transfer makes employees flexible.

Q6. ABC is an organization that wants to revise the HR policies. Before doing that it wants to have some details about the following: What employees think about the 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. [10]
The Survey Questionnaire Method:

This method is generally used to collect employee opinions about the factors which affect the morale and their opinion about leadership. Morale or employee satisfaction surveys are generally conducted in the view to: Finding out what the employees really think. Finding out what in the company, they think is working well and what is not. Solicit feedback on managerial effectiveness. Determining the clarity of company vision/objectives and the top management commitment to it. Finding out what the employees are most unhappy about. This questionnaire is usually scientifically developed instrument and well tested for validity and reliability. These include multiple choice, dichotomous (yes or no) and open ended questions. Conducting the Survey: Organizations often engage consultants from outside to conduct the entire survey. There are a lot of reasons to do this: Make the survey credible wherein the employees share correct feedback. As they are experts, they help determine the type of questions to be used depending on the objectives of the survey. The survey itself is carried out anonymously; the employee is not required to divulge his/her name and personal information. Analysis and generation of survey report is a specialized activity. In some cases, the companys representatives may give the employees questionnaires in stamped envelope, planning them to table and permitting the employees to get them if they wish to, or having a fellow employee distribute them. The stamped envelopes are frequently addressed to some management consultant or college professor who tabulates the results. The consultant then analyses the data to generate a number of reports. The reports can be generated for each department, for managers with more than 20 team members, for the company etc. the management usually shares the findings with all the employees, highlighting the strengths and the areas of improvement. Action plans for
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improvement are also shared so that the employees are aware of the managements commitment toward improving workplace morale and employment engagement. The survey is usually conducted once a year. The important part of this initiative is the action that is taken after the survey results come on. Each department head meets with his team mangers and they together analyze the report and the data for the department and identify areas of low scores. Brainstorming exercises then help identify what actions can improve employee morale in these areas. Sometimes action planning teams are formed from among the employees and they drive the action areas. For example if the report identifies that rewards and recognition is a concern area for the team, then the task force focuses on establishing ways and means to improve reward system and recognition methods. The task force would recommend a rhythm for quarterly or monthly reward and identify categories for reward (like quality, productivity, highest sales, customer appreciation). More and more reward systems encourage employee to nominate their peers rather than the manager identifying and giving awards away. All nominations are reviewed finally by a panel and the most deserving nominee is awarded. Organizations track survey score year on year. Most organizations tie the scores to managerial effectiveness and use it as a measure to assess managers for promotions, potential for future senior roles etc.

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