Strategic Human Resource Management Question Bank

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Dnyansagar Institute of Management & Research

Baner-Balewadi, Pune - 411045
www.dimr.in

M.B.A. (Semester - IV) 2011-2012
Question bank for
(Subject 406) Strategic Human Resource Management
Chapter 1-:
1) Define Strategic Human Resource Management? What are the main points of difference
between SHRM and human resource strategies?
2) Should organization view human resources from an investment perspective? Discuss the
factors that determine the extent to which an organization is investment oriented in its
management of human resources.
3) Identify and discuss the different bases for classifying HR Strategies. How can HR Strategies
help an organization to create competitive advantage?
4) Describe the Indian perspective on SHRM. How it is different from the western view of
SHRM?
5) Describe the factors that have led to changes in the nature of employment relationship in the
contemporary business environment. Identify the major differences between the traditional
employer-employee relationship and the new employer-employee relationship. What strategies
can be used by HR managers for generating employee commitment to the firm in the new
employment relationship? Give examples of organizations you know of that are using some of
these strategies.
Chapter 2-
1) Identify major trends in business environment and explain how these trends have influenced
HRM practices.
2) What are the most important demographic, societal, and workforce trends affecting HRM
today?
3) Why is it important for the HR manager to be strategic business partner? What other roles are
HR managers expected to Pl ay in the knowledge economy.

4) Describe the impact of technology on the world of work. Has technology changed HRM? If it
has, in what way?
5) What is virtual HR? What are the benefits and pitfalls of HR outsourcing? What are the
criteria that firms can use for determining which HR activities should or should not be
outsourced?

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6) Assume you are the general manager (HR) of a reputed multinational heavy engineering firm
with operations in several countries. A no. of senior and experienced employees of that firm is
nearing retirement. Though there is a pool of young and talented employees, the firm is likely to
experience a shortage of employees ready to assume leadership roles after the retirement of
senior employees. The near retiree provides a lot of value addition to the firm. In addition, the
success of the firm is largely due to the respect and reputation that the senior employee of the
firm enjoys in the industry globally. As a general manager (HR),
Persuade the top management of the importance of age diversity in attaining competitive
advantage, and
Suggest age diversity initiative and activities that may be adopted by the firm.

Chapter 3-
1) Describe the methods that can be used by a firm for forecasting human resource supply. What
is the importance of succession planning in managing internal human resource supply?
2) Discuss how the in the internet has changed the way companies recruit? Enumrate the
advantages and disadvantages of e-recruitment.
3) Explain the competency based approach to selection. Why has this approach gained
importance in the current business environment?
4) Why is it important to link work-life initiatives with the overall HR and business strategy of
the firm? How do work life initiatives benefit the organization as well as the individual
employee? Give examples.
5) Discuss the main types of formal work life initiatives that organizations can provide to their
employess.Describe work-life initiatives of some organizations that you are familiar with.
Chapter 4-
1) Diagrammatically explain the four phases of the training process. Why is it important to align
training & development programmes with the goals and strategies of the organization?
2) Why has diversity training become an important component of corporate training
programmes? What are the benefits of diversity training?
3) Why is it important to evaluate training programmes? How can training & development
programmers be evaluated for results and effectiveness?

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4) Why is training a critical strategic issue for organizations? What purposes are served by
training & development programmes?
5) Why the competency based approach is being increasingly used any organizations for
management development, and what advantages this approach has over the traditional
management development methods.
6) What do you understand by the term diversity? Which groups of employees constitute a
diverse workforce? What initiatives can a firm adopt to attract and retain a diverse workforce?
Enumerate the reasons that firms adopt diversity initiative. Give examples of diversity initiative
of some firms you are familiar with. Do you think diversity is a double-edged sword? Why?
Chapter5-
1) Explain meaning of Key Result Area (KRA). Design KRA for R manager.
!) "hat is high performan#e $or% system& 'ro(i)e se(eral spe#ifi# examples of the elements in a high
performan#e $or% system.
*) "hat are the )ifferent sour#es of appraisal information& Dis#uss the pros an) #ons of ea#h sour#e.
4) Dis#uss a)(antages of #ompeten#y +ase) performan#e management o(er tra)itional appraisals.
,n)er $hat #on)itions are #ompeten#y +ase) performan#e management system most appropriate&
5) "hat are the #hara#teristi#s of an effe#ti(e performan#e management system& "hat ma-or pro+lems
are inherent in most performan#e management systems&

Chapter 6-
1) What are the basic components of a compensation and reward system? What innovations have
organizations introduced in each of these components because of an increasingly competitive
business environment?
2) What is incentive pay? Distinguish between individual incentives; team based incentives, and
organizational incentives?
3) Under what circumstances is it appropriate to link individual payment to team performance?
What are the advantages and disadvantages of team based rewards?
4)Recognition is the most reliable of all rewards critically examine the statement. Identify two
or three ways organizations commonly use to recognize and reward employees through non
financial means.

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5) Compare performance related pay, skill based pay, and competency based pay. What steps
should be followed in designing a competency based pay system? What steps should be followed
in designing a competency based pay system?
6) Do you think that compensation and reward strategy of a high technology firm will be
different from that of an emerging fast growth firm?Why?Enumerate your answer giving
examples from organizations you are familiar with
7) What is merit pay? How is it different from Variable-pay? What are the main advantages and
disadvantages of the following two forms of pay-for performance.1) one-off bonus payment and
2) salary increments linked to high performance? Which of the two, in your opinion has a higher
motivational value for an employee? Explain your answer with suitable examples.
Chapter .-
1) Why is it important to manage the process of employee separation?
2) Under what conditions might layoffs be advantageous to an employer?
3) What costs are associated with turnover? What benefits can be derived from turnover?
4) Discuss the ways an organization might attempt to retain its most valued employees
5) Suggest a strategy for the design and implementation of career management system by an
6) Do you agree with the statement Training is a solution to all performance problems? What
factors other than skill or knowledge deficiency may lead to a gap between expected
performance and actual performance of an employee? Within this context discuss the
significance of training needs assessment. Explain the three types of analyses involved in
conducting training needs assessment and give examples.
Chapter 8-
1) Define IHRM.Analyse the reasons for the rise in the importance of IHRM.
2) Identify the major environmental factors that an organization must consider when setting up
business operations in a foreign country.
3) Who is expatriate? What are the advantages and disadvantages of using expatriate managers
instead of host country nationals?
4)Why is it important to provide a comprehensive pre-departure training to an employee who is
going abroad on a foreign posting and to his/her family? Identify the major components of a pre-
departure training programme.

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5) What are the major componants of expatriate compensation? What factors have to be
considered in designing an international compensation package?
6) Visit two or three organizations. Conduct interview with HR manager and some other
employees of the firm to obtain the following information
Firms work life programmes
The reason for adoption of the work life programmes
How well these programmes are being utilized in each of these firms.
Did you notice Gap between the design of work life programs and implementation ,and
utilization
Are the employees satisfied with organizational support for their personal needs?
Prepare a report for class presentation.

A) CASE STUDY:

PARITY IS IT FAIR OR UNFAIR?

Mr. C.S. Sharma joined in 1970 in Indian Institute of Technology - a premier educational
institution in the country imparting higher-level education in technology. His job demands higher
level and latest knowledge, higher-level teaching skill, and other skills in introducing and
practicing different teaching methods and bringing coordination between the institute and
industry. The institute implemented the pay scales in 1976 recommended by the University
Grants Commission, which were at par with the pay scales of teachers in Universities and
Colleges. The demands of the jobs in Universities and Colleges are quite low compared to those

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of the Institute.

The pay of Mr. Sharma has been fixed at that level of Mr. Singh, who joined the Institute in 1974
as the University Grants Commission did not recommend any weightages for the teachers who
put up less than five years experience. Mr. Shastry was quite unhappy over the parity of salary
of the teachers of the institute with those of University teachers and college teachers on the one
hand and equalizing his pay with his junior Mr. Singh on the other hand.

The institute again revised the pay scales of the teachers in 1987 based on the pay scales
recommended by the University Grants Commission in 1986. University Grants Commission
again maintained parity in pay scales of Institute teachers, University teachers and College
teachers. The pay scale of Mr. Sharma was revised and it was fixed at Rs. 3,700, which was
equal to the pay of Mr. Singh, Mr. Kulkarni who joined the institute in 1984 and Mr. Prasad who
joined the Institute in 1986.

Mr. Sharma rushed to the chambers of the Director of the Indian Institute of Technology on 20th
July, 1988 and told him he was quitting the job in the institute and he was going to join
Government Degree College, Rajahmundry. He further said that he was going to get the same
salary in a small town. The Director was shocked after listening to Mr. Sharma.

QUESTIONS
1. Do you justify the decision made by Mr. Sharma?
2. Do you suggest any measures to stop Mr. Sharma from quitting the job?
3. Do you think that there is something wrong with the Institute pay practices and the University
Grants Commission's recommendations? If yes, what are they? Had do you rectify them?

(/) CASE STUDY:
Beachside hotel human capital dilemma

This is a case of two competing hotels, Sunrise Hotel and Beachside Hotel that are both located
in a medium sized, tourism based town in the Northeast U.S. The hotels are both competing for
the same set of guests, as well as the same set of potential employees. They are budget hotels,
right next door to each other, with 60 guest rooms each and a view of the beach. The occupancy
during peak season for the Sunrise Hotel is 98%, but during the winter months goes down to
65%. The Beachside Hotel has peak season occupancy of 90% and off peak occupancy of 50%.
Joe is the General Manager of Sunrise Hotel and has been in his current position for 5 years. He
has been with Sunrise Hotel for a total of 10 years. He worked his way up at Sunrise Hotel from
front desk agent to front desk supervisor, and finally to Assistant General Manager before he
became the General Manager. He does a good job of screening potential employees for his front
desk area of the hotel because he realizes the importance of that area of the hotel, especially in
tourist areas. He also has incentives set up for excellent performance of the front desk agents and
training and development programs designed to give everyone information that will help them do
their job better. There is a sense of teamwork at Sunrise Hotel and that helps everyone want to do

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a good job. His guest satisfaction ratings for his hotel are overall excellent. On a rating scale of
110, his hotel averages a 9. The average length of tenure of his employees is 4 years, and his
current front desk supervisor was promoted from within, along with his Assistant General
Manager. Because of the small size of the hotel, Joe is actually involved with all of the hiring
decisions and helps to give training programs himself, along with his leadership team. The
employee turnover at the Sunrise Hotel is 25% overall and that is primarily when hourly
employees graduate high school or college and leave the Sunrise Hotel for a career somewhere
else.
Brian is the General Manager of the Beachside Hotel and deals with a very different situation.
Brian was brought in from another hotel in the same hotel group about 6 months ago. He was
told by his boss that he needed to fix this hotel so that it would start having better customer
satisfaction ratings and more return guests. Despite the fairly high occupancy noted during peak
seasons, the off peak season occupancy is only 50%. Also noted by his boss, the occupancy
should be as good as the Sunrise Hotel. Brian has been with his hotel group now for 2 years and
he came out of the accounting and finance department in his old hotel. He has a great
understanding of the numbers in the lodging industry, but has not been involved with the human
resource aspects of the job. The turnover of hourly employees at Beachside Hotel is 120% and
that means that Brian is constantly running the hotel shorthanded and with new employees.
The Beachside Hotel has been doing the hiring through a human resource practitioner in the
hotel that was put in the position because she really could not handle serving guests at the front
desk very well. Mary was promoted to human resources a year ago after she had one too many
altercations with the guests at the front desk.
The owner of the hotel wanted to make sure that she would not make any of the other guests
angry, so he promoted her to a human resources practitioner. Since that time, she has been busy
trying to keep up with hiring and she has had no time for training employees. Because she is so
busy, paychecks often come out to employees late, there are no policies written down for
employees to use as a guide for performance, customers are treated badly by new and poorly
trained employees, and the departments of the hotel do not communicate very effectively and
therefore everyone blames everyone else when things go wrong.
The average length of tenure of the front desk agents at the Beachside Hotel is 3 months and the
customer satisfaction rating at the Beachside is a 6 out of a 10 possible rating. Most of the front
desk agents that are hired come from other hotels in the area after they quit or are fired. Brian is
not involved in the hiring for the hotel at all, and does not get involved with training
and development. He spends most of his days looking at the financial reports for the hotel and
analyzing average daily rate, occupancy rates, and REVPAR. Brian knows that he has many
problems to deal with and so
he goes to the Sunrise Hotel to observe things over there for a while. He sees a happy crew and

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talks to Joe about how he is making that happen. Joe is happy to help, but wants Brian to go back
and observe his employees first and come up with ways that he specifically can help guide Brian.
0,E123451-
1) What systems should Brian implement in order to start changing the human capital practices
in the Beachside Hotel?
2) What could Brian learn from Joe in terms of the human capital aspects of running a hotel?

3). How could training and development programs be implemented in the Beachside Hotel in
order to help with turnover and occupancy rates at the hotel?

4) How could a return on investment perspective help or hurt the Beachside Hotel in trying to
compete with the Sunrise Hotel?
5) What other human resource initiatives could be undertaken by either the Sunrise Hotel or
Beachside Hotel in order to help with the overall performance of their respective
organizations?

(C)CASE STUDY:
India Insurance was a small and upcoming insurance company that was started as a joint venture
with Alliance Insurance, a US-based insurance company. India Insurance had a number of
functional departments. There were departments for almost everything-from making policies to
collecting
premiums. There was lack of communication and coordination between these departments.
Employee productivity was low, and turnover and absenteeism were high. Employees
complained that their jobs were boring and monotonous. The only reason for the workers to
continue on their jobs was the benefits offered by India Insurance. The company took good care
of its employees and offered a range of family, health and medical benefits. At this stage, the
company was planning to install an electronic data processing system for enhancing the
productivity and efficiency of its employees. The executive committee of the company appointed
Rajesh Katyal, the General Manager of the company, to study the feasibility of installing such a
system. The study was aimed at knowing what the workers wanted from their jobs, motivational
and hygiene factors at the workplace and whether installing an EDP system would really enhance
the productivity and efficiency of workers. In order to conduct the study, Katyal took the help of
an external Consultant. The Consultant remarked that installing such a system would require
overhauling of the company's present work system. During the course of their study, Katyal and

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the Consultant found that workers hardly had any attachment for their job. Some workers even
said that they suffered from burnout and were planning to give up their jobs at the earliest. After
a month, Katyal and the Consultant submitted a report to the executive committee.
The major recommendation made in the report was the following:
Overhaul the present functional structure and adapt a client-based structure. In the client-based
structure, each employee would be made responsible for handling transactions of a particular
client
at a time.
The efficiency of the employee should not suffer because of the change in structure.
In case of the EDP system, the cost-benefit analysis suggested that installation of such a system
would certainly increase the efficiency of workers, but, on the other hand the prohibitive cost of
the
system would have to be absorbed by decreasing the value of benefits offered by the company.
Managers in various functional departments were to be provided with cross-functional training
to
make them generalists.
QUESTIONS-
1) Comment on the recommendations given by the Consultant and Mr. Katyal. Were
they correct in their assessment?
2) How do you think workers will react if the EDP system is installed?
3) How can India Insurance improve coordination between its various departments?

(C )CASE STUDY:
Cisco sources revealed that the company had a policy of attracting the top 10-15% people in
the networking industry. It believed that if it could get the best people in the industry and retain
them, it would remain the industry leader. According to Ciscos vision statement, Attracting,
growing and retaining great talent is critical for sustaining Ciscos competitive advantage. Thus,
effective recruitment was used as a powerful strategic weapon by the company. The company
began to use
Revolutionary techniques like the build-the-buzz strategy, which was centred on
The primary market for its products, i.e. the Internet.

Ciscos recruiting team identified the candidates whom they felt the company should hire, and
then figured out the way those potential candidates did their job hunting and designed hiring
processes to attract them to the company. Cisco recruiters targeted even passive job seekers
people who were happy and successful in their current jobs. Barbara Beck (Beck), Vice
President, Human Resources said, The top 10% are not typically found in the first round of

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layoffs from other companies, and they usually arent cruising through the want ads. Cisco
changed the way it posted advertisements in newspapers.

Instead of listing specific job openings, the company featured its Internet address in its ads and
invited prospective candidates to apply. This move helped Cisco to direct all job seekers to its
website where it could inexpensively post hundreds of openings and provide information
regarding them. It also advertised its website in cyberspace to reach candidates who surfed the
net from around the world. The company was thus able to monitor and measure its recruiting
programs through the number of visits to
Its site. Since most people visited Ciscos website from their jobs, the company could identify
their place of work.

Cisco worked towards removing some of the frustration associated with applying for jobs. The
company learned to attract happily employed people through focus groups. These focus groups
targeted senior engineers and marketing professionals in other companies and found out how
they spent their free time, the websites they visited and the how they felt about job hunting.
These insights helped the recruiters.

For example, it was found that most professionals like to watch movies in their free time,
websites on corporate cartoon Dilbert were extremely popular and most professionals hated job
hunting.
Cisco, thus, linked its website to the Dilbert web page (www.dilbert.com), which registered
around 2.5 million hits per day, mainly from engineers and Internet-savvy managers; it also
bought space on websites like Travel Quest (www.travelquest.com), a reservation service
provider. These steps turned Ciscos website into an extremely useful recruiting tool. The
website also offered features through which applicants could fill their resumes online or create
one with the help of Ciscos resume builder. In this way Cisco attracted active and passive job
seekers.

The focus groups exercise made Cisco realize that a candidate would approach the company if
he had been informed by a friend about better opportunities at Cisco. This led to the launch of
the friends program in April 1996. Cisco also reached out to potential applicants through a
variety of routes which were unusual in recruiting. It began frequenting art fairs, beer festivals
and certain annual events in which people from Silicon Valley participated. These places proved
to be very fruitful hunting venues as they attracted young achievers from various successful
InfoTech companies. Cisco recruiters mingled with the crowd collected business cards from
prospective candidates and spoke to them informally about their careers.
More than 1,000 Cisco employees volunteered for the Friends program, attracted by the referral
fee, which started at $ 500 and a lottery ticket for a free trip to Hawaii for each prospect they
befriended and who was ultimately hired. In this program, Cisco employees were matched up
with people who approached the company as prospects and who shared similar backgrounds and
skills. The Cisco employees then called the prospects to inform them in their own words about
life at the company.

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Cisco advertised the friends program in movie theatres in San Jose and received around 100 to
150 applications each week. By 1997, about one third of new recruitments were made through
the Friends program.

Cisco launched a tool called Profiler on the employment page of its website to accelerate and
standardize online resume submission. The Profiler asked applicants to provide educational and
Employment information through appropriate selections from pull-down menus. Cisco also
found that applicants and recruiters were not totally comfortable with, the time-consuming
recruiting process. To speed up the hiring process, Cisco hired in-house head-hunters to identify
qualified candidates for managers. After streamlining its recruitment policies, 1996, Cisco
conducted an employee
Survey to find out how the new recruits felt on their first day at work. The survey showed that
some new recruits felt lost on their first day - their phones did not work, their computers had no
software and if it did they had no idea how to use it. It was also found that most of the employees
did not get their email addresses for two weeks.
To address the above problems, Cisco launched Fast Start, employee orientation initiatives.
Cisco installed computer software, which tracked the hiring
Process and alerted the team about the new recruits arrival. As a result, every new
Recruit started with a fully functional workspace and a whole day of training in desktop tools.

Cisco believed that its new recruitment philosophy should also be made a part of the overall
corporate culture. By late 1999, Ciscos job page was recording around 500,000 hits per month.
The company generated a stream of reports about who visited the site and fine-tuned its strategy
accordingly. By the time the new recruitment initiatives were established, Cisco, which was
hiring approximately 8,000 people a year, received 81% of the resumes were from the web.
Eventually, 66% of the new recruitments were from the candidates who had sent their resumes
through the Cisco website. It was also reported that about 45% of companys new recruits came
from the Amazing People Program.
Ciscos hiring cycle also came down to 45 days from 68 days. The recruitment costs in this
direct mode amounted to $6,556 per capita, which was around 40% below the industry average.
Referral rates at Cisco were twice the industry norm and that created a performance edge as most
recruits were qualified employees with vast experience. By 2001, referrals and the friends
program accounted for 50-60% of new employees. Most importantly, the retention rate at the
company had also increased. The employee turnover figure was 6.3% in 1999, a very low rate
compared to the industry norms, which varied from 18-28%.

According to company sources on average Cisco employees accessed the corporate e-HR site 16
times a day for information about job cuts. Analysts claimed that Ciscos innovative and
aggressive recruiting initiatives were to a large extent responsible for the companys expansion
at 40% per year and recruiting 250 employees every week despite the global dot-com slump.

QUESTIONS-
1) According to Ciscos vision statement, Attracting, growing and retaining great
Talent is critical for sustaining Ciscos competitive advantage. Analyse the various

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Recruitment strategies adopted by Cisco.
2) Cisco believed that its new recruitment philosophy should also be made a part of the
Overall corporate culture. Explain the various key aspects that are to be considered
In recruitment philosophy by companies like Cisco. Discuss how Cisco is benefitted
by adopting innovative recruitment philosophy.

M.B.A. (Semester - II) 2011-2012
Question bank for Subject 201 Human Resource Management

Chapter 1:
1) Define and discuss objectives of HRM.Discuss the changing role of Human resource in view
of changing social scenario.Explain with suitable examples.
2) Differntiate between Personnel Mgt. and Human resource Mgt.
3) Explain the duties and responsibilities of Human Resource Manager in changing economic
environment.
4) Why is it important for companies today to make their human resources into a competitive
advantage? Explain how HR can contribute to doing this.
5) What are five main things that you would do to recruit and retain a more diverse workforce?
6)Explain the strategic role of HRM in the organization for achieving it competitive
Advantage.

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7)How HR strategy can be linked to business strategy.
8)Explain the role of HR in sudden downsizing.
9)Design the structure of HR dept. and policy for new established Manufacturing unit near
Ranjhangaon.
Chapter 2-
1)Describe Recruitment and selection process and point out various resources
Of recruitment.
2) Explain the importance of man power planning.
3)Differntiatebetween recruitment& selection process.
4) Write a note on Succession Planning.
5) Explain recent trends in recruitment.
6)Design the best retention Strategy for IT Company which consist total 3500
Employees
7)Maxwell India ltd. is in urgent need of 25 Marketing executive for promoting their
New product. Design a recruitment and selection process which will help them to get
the best talent at the earliest.
8)Organization cannot prosper without sound recruitment selection process. Explain.
9)Why is it important to conduct preemployemnt background investigation?Outline how you
would go about doing so?
Chapter 3-
1) What do you understand by Performance Appraisal management system?
Elaborate any three methods of Performance Appraisal.
2) Explain the modern methods of performance appraisal.
3) Performance Appraisal is not merely for appraisal but is for accomplishment
4) and improvement of performance. Discuss
5) Explain in your own words how you would go about developing behaviorally anchored
rating scale.
6) Explain the problems to be avoided in appraising performance.

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7) How you would get the interviewee to talk during an appraisal Interview.
8)Which performance appraisal system will you prefer for a software company
and why?
Chapter 4-
1)Write a note on following-
a)Job Enlargement
b)Job enrichment
c) Job evaluation
2) Differentiate between Job Description and job specification.
3)There are several methods for collecting job analysis data-Questionnaire, the position analysis
questionnaire, and so on .Compare and contrast these methods, explaining what each is useful
for and listing the pros and cons of each.
4) Compare and contrast following methods of job evaluation-Ranking, classification, factor
comparison and point method.
5)Develop graphic rating scale for the following jobs:secretary,professor,director,assistant
operator.
Chapter 5-
1) Elaborate how the Training & Development activities in organization improve
organizations effectiveness.
2) Discuss different methods how the employees can be trained on the job.
3) Write a note on - ManagementDevelopement Program.
4) Explain why the evaluation of the training program is essential.
5) Design a training programme for newly promoted Managers and supervisor of an
Production plant.
6) Explain the factors contributed for effective training programmes.
7) Explain the steps involved in the training process.
8) What do you understand by placement? State the concept and objective of
Induction Programme.

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Chapter 6-
1)Compensation Management plays a vital role in various aspects of HRM.
Discuss.
2)Give in detail how a sound incentive schemes can be framed and
implemented in the organization.
3)"A pay packet alone is not adequate to attract and retain competent
employees." Elaborate the statement and discuss the related concepts.
4)Design an incentive schemes for an advertising company were employees
are given target oriented task
5)Why designing proper compensation is important? Which strategy will
you prefer For Designing compensation in an IT company? Why? Discuss
the different variables affecting design of compensation policies
6)You are HR consultant to a small business with about 40 employees.At the present times
the firm offers only five days of vacation,five paid holidays and legally mandated benefits
such as unemployment insurance payments.Develop a lsit of other benefits you believe it
should offer,along with your reasons for suggesting them
Chapter 7-
1)) Explain in detail the various methods used by organizations to separate their employees
2) Discuss how the managerial effectiveness can be improved through time
management and TQM .
3)What is Industrial Relation ? How collective bargaining helps in improving
industrial relations
4)Explain how employee satisfaction is related to retention of employee.
5)Explain the process of Grievance handling in manufacturing establishment and in IT
Company.
6)Explain the various steps involved in Collective bargaining and how it helps in building

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relationship between workers and management.
7)Explain how succession planning helps the organization in motivating the employees at
work.
Chapter 8-
Write note on the following-
1) You are applying for a job as a manager and are at the point of negotiating salary and benefits.
What questions would you ask your prospective employer concerning benefits? Describe the
benefit package you would try to negotiate for yourself.
a)Quality circles
b)TQM
c)Golden Handshake
d)Kaizen
e)Rating errors.

(A) Case Study
Mr. Ramchandran is the Chief Executive of ABC Limited Recently, it was decided by the Board
to Directors that it would be profitable fot the corporation to set up a separate Marketing
Department. Mr. Ramchandran has been directed to pick up a person who he feels is capable of
heading the departrnenl. And then putting this person in charge of getting the department on its
feet. After considering a number of good men Mr. Ramchandran has narrowed the field down to
two possible choices: Rajesh Mehta and Pramod Kumar.
Rajesh Mehta has a good track record with the company. He was hired eight years ago, and
through the years he has shown a good deal of drive and initiative in all of his endeavours. He is
an aggressive young man, and has received the nickname of 'go-getter' in his department.
Although Mehta seems to be more concerned at times with ends rather than means,'he is very
efficient and is considered a good leader by those who work under him. As one worker stated.
"Although he can get rough with you at times, you always know where you stand with him, and
When you have done a good job, he lets you know it." Mehta is also credited with accepting full
responsibility, in all cases, and making quick decisions when action is called for.

Pramod Kumar has been with the company for eleven years. He is well liked by all in his
Department and his work is first rate. Kumar's leadership style differs from Mehtas in that
Kumar is not as aggressive and quick to act as Mehta. Before Kumar makes a decision, he
Generally consults others who he feels can contribute further information on a given subject.
ThisOften includes those who work under him. Those who work under Kumar consider him a

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goodLeader, and state that the atmosphere of participation produced by Kumar really encourages
theirUtmost individual output while on the job. This can be seen by the production increase
whichSoon occurred when Kumar became the head of his work force.

Questions
(a) If you were Mr Ramchandran whom would you select as the head of the Marketing Deptt. ?
Why?
(b) Will you give any weightage to the length of service in the organization? Why?

(B) Case Study
Vishal Industries Ltd., is a medium sized engineering factory employing 250 employees. The
Factory Manager advised the Personnel Manager of the company to select a right man to fill
up the vacancy of a "Time-Keeper". The Personnel Manager inserted an advertisement for
this post in prominent local newspapers and received a large number of applications although
specific job
Description and job requirements were embodied in the advertisement. After preliminary
screening of applications, the Personnel Manager selected only 6 applications out of 197 and
sent them "Application Blank" for collecting their detailed information. On receipt of
Applications and on further scrutiny, it was observed that two candidates were age-bared,
although they had a good experience at their credit and one candidate had a suspicious
personal life. The Personnel Manager therefore selected only 3 candidates and sent them call-
letters for a personal interview on a stipulated date.

Only two candidates out of three appeared for the interview before the Interview Panel
consistingof three interviewers. The panel had therefore to take a decision on selection, either
of Mr.Tukaram Patil or Mr. Girish Mahajan. The personal traits and merits of these two
candidates areas follows:

Mr. Tukaram Patil, a young man of 30 years, has worked for a year in the Time Office of
areputed company. He is an exceptionally sociable, amicable individual who enjoys mixing
withemployees. His verbal skills are average. But he has a good degree of hardness. He can
sit late inoffice and prepare payrolls of employees and complete the checking of pay sheets a
day beforethe actual date of payment. He does not demand extra remuneration or over-time
for sitting latehours in office. He is a good sportsman also and has worked as a secretary of a
sports club. Aglaring weakness as revealed during the interview is that Mr. Patil's memory is
not strong and hemay forget a task assigned to him. But he is straight forward and frankly
accepts his limitations.

Mr. Girlsh Mahajan, is also a youth, aged 25, and has a good personality. above average

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Communication skills, but at times is "rough" in dealing with people. His clerical and
computational skills are excellent. He does not on his own mix with people or takes part in
extracurricular activities. He joined a textile mill as a clerk in the Time Office and was
promoted to the post of Assistant Time Keeper within a period of 5 years. He is against the
principle of sitting late in office. His sense of time keeping, punctuality is good and regular.
He feels that attendance of employees must be posted in the regular register on the same day
and pay sheets must be kept ready on 1st of every month and sent to A/c Department, for
checking before 3rd inst. Similarly, he prepares PF/ESI statements and returns in time and
submits the same to respective Government authorities in time. However, Mr. Girish
Mahajan is short tempered and at times he also had heated arguments with managerial
executives. He limits his existence to his working table and if anybody unconnected with the
rime-office work comes near his table, he loses his temper.
Questions:

(a) In terms of overall capabilities and job requirements, whom will you recommend out of
thetwo candidates, in your capacity as a Personnel Manager?

(b) What are the criteria of your decision?

(c) In case the other two members of the interview Panel differ from your decision, how will you
convincethem?

(d) As a Manager HR, what will you do to improve the interpersonal relations in the
organization?

(C) Case Study
Pearl Engineering Company was a large heavy-engineering unit. It attached great importance
tothe recruitment and training of its senior supervisors. Apart from selecting them from within
theorganization, the company recruited, every. Alternate year, about ten young
engineeringgraduates and offered them training for a period of two years, before they were
appointed assenior supervisors. Such appointments were made to about 40 per cent of the
vacancies of seniorsupervisors that occurred in the organization. This was considered necessary
by management as aplanned programme of imparting vitality to the organization. Besides, many
of the old-timers,who had risen from the ranks, did not possess the necessary academic
background with the resultthat they could not keep pace with the technological changes.
Management also believed that inthe rapidly changing conditions of industry, a bank of
technically competent supervisors played apivotal role, besides serving as a pool from which to
select future departmental managers.

Engineering Graduates were selected from amongst those who applied in response to an all-
Indiaadvertisement. For the selection of one engineer, on an average, eight applicants were called
forinterview. A selection committee consisting of the General Manager, the Production Manager,
thePersonnel Manager and the Training Officer interviewed and selected the candidates.

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Theselection interview was preceded by a written test and only those who secured 40 per cent
marksqualified for interview.

The engineers thus selected had to undergo a two year intensive theoretical and practical
Training. A well-staffed and equipped Training Institute was directly responsible for the training
of the graduate engineers, besides training trade apprentices and operatives required by the
company. Lectures on theoretical subjects were given at the Training Institute and practical
training was imparted in all the works departments under the guidance of qualified and
experienced instructors. A few lectures by senior officers of the company were also arranged to
acquaint them with the company policies on different matters. During the last quarter of their
two-year training programme they were deputed to work fulltime to familiarize themselves with
the conditions in departments where they were to be absorbed eventually.
On successful completion of training, the graduate engineers were offered appointments,
Depending on their performance and aptitude as revealed during training. On placement in the
work departments, however, most of them faced some difficulty or the other.

According to management, some of the heads of departments, who were themselves not qualified
engineers, did not have sufficient confidence in these younger men. They preferred the
subordinates who came up from the ranks to hold positions of responsibility. A few discredited
them saying that it would take years before these youngsters could pick up the job. Besides,
some of the employees, whose promotional opportunities were adversely affected by the
placement of graduate engineers, tried their best to run down the latter as a class, sometimes
working on the group feelings of the workers. Some of the supervisors who were not graduate
engineers also spoke derisively of them as "the blue-eyed boys" of the organization.
Management knew that many of the graduate engineers were not utilized according to their
capacity or training, nor was any attempt made to test or develop their potentialities. They also
knew that many of the graduate engineers were, therefore, dissatisfied with their work life. Some
of them, who did not get equal promotional opportunities as their colleagues placed in other
departments, were looking for better jobs elsewhere.

On the other hand, according to management, the young graduate engineers were themselves
Partly responsible for the hostile attitude of others in the organization. Some of them failed to
appreciate that a newcomer invited hostility in the beginning and it took time before he
Was accepted as a member of the work-group. They did not realize that they would be fully
Productive only after gaining about five to seven years experience in the organization. A few
Thought that they belonged to a superior cadre and threw their weight around. They did not
bother to understand and appreciate the problems of the rank-and-file of employees who worked
under them.

In spite of these drawback, the General Manager of the company felt that these men were a set of
disciplined supervisors. They had a sense of pride in their profession, and with the extensive
training they had received, they would be able to take up any responsibleposition in the
organization in course of time.

The General Manager could not allow the situation to continue especially when it was a difficult
and costly process to recruit and train young engineering graduates of the requisite type and

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calibre. He knew that the prosperity of the company, to a large extent, depended on these young
men. In addition, a large number of lucrative employment opportunities were available to these
young engineers elsewhere and there was a systematic raid on them, He, therefore, called a
meeting of all heads of departments to review the situation.

Questions:
(i) Identify the issues related to manpower planning as evident in the case.

(ii) Discuss the strategies to tackle the percentage of internal promotion at the organizational
Level.
(iii)What type of additional training programmes should be imparted for direct entrants?

(iv) Suppose you are the head of the personnel division. What would be your suggestions in
the meeting?Which has been called by the General Manager?

(D) Case Study
Raghav Chemicals Ltd. has planned for computerization of nearly 50 per cent of the production
operations and control. Ii has taken care of all resources in the computerization plan including
human resources- The present inventory of human resources and future requirements of the
production department were specified as given hereunder.

Category of Human
Resources
Present
inventory
Requirements after
Computerisation
Surplus
Chemical engineers
(Operation)
15 8 7
Chemical engineers
(Maintenance and
control)
10 6 4
Mechanical engineers
(Maintenance)
2 2 0
Supervisors 10 2 8
Operators 30 10 20
Quality controllers 5 1 4

The human resource planners suggested the redeployment of chemical engineers in their newly
started sister concern, i.e., Laxman Paper Mills Ltd., and retrench surplus of employ yees of all
other categories. They also recommended to the management that there was no need for further
recruitment or for any other action plan.

The computerization was over by the end of 1998. When the management wanted to start the
production on the newly computerized process, it was shocked to note that not many employees
in the production department were suitable to the new jobs and the information supplied by the
human resource planners in this regard did not match with the reality.

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Questions:

a) Identify the problem in this case.

b) To what extent are the human resource planners responsible for the present state of?
Affairs?

c) What should the management do now to deal with the problem taking into account both
theshort-term and long term perspective?

(E) Case Study

In 2006, Infosys Technologies Limited was one of Indias biggest IT companies and provided IT
services, solutions, and consultation globally. In 2005 it had earned revenues of US$1.6 bn and
had over 49,000 employees worldwide. The dynamic nature of the software and IT industry
required its workforce to upgrade frequently in technology and skills. Companies were focusing
on continuous training and development of their employees, which also helped in the reduction
of attrition rate.
Providing extensive training to the new recruits or freshers as the Infoscions called them was
typical of Infosys. Every new recruit underwent approximately three mo nths of training before
they were made billable to clients.

The American Society for Training and Development (ASTD) rated Infosys as the worlds best
in employee training and development and conferredExcellence in Practice
Awardcontinuouslyfo r three consecutive years 2002, 2003 and 2004. The award was conferred
for itsGlobal Business Foundation SchoolInfosys spent about out US$5,000 on training each
recruit. After the new recruits joined Infosys, they were taken to Infosys U for a14.5 week
training program. At Infosys U, the freshers were welcomed in Infosys by NR Narayana Murthy
through an audio visual presentation. The initial days of the training program, freshers filled
forms and learned the values that drove Infosys. During the entire training program, new recruits
were trained to work on programs of different technical applications. The state training rooms
equipped with the latest technologies offered the recruits a world class work atmosphere. The
library had online database of Infosys case studies to help the recruits.

The trainers generally imparted training in hard skills through lectures on the
concepts and theory for a few hours and then allowed the recruits to work independently and
build their own applications for the rest of the day. While the training program focused mainly
on technical skills, the freshers were also trained in soft skills. There were separate
rooms and faculties for soft skill training. Training was imparted on global etiquette,
comportment, importance of body language, public speaking, improving interpersonal
communication and team-building. Some of the methods included, asking the freshers to
perform skits, going through severalwhat-ifscenarios and to practice smiling in front of the
mirror.

The residential program was necessary as according to NR Narayana Murthy who is of the view

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that: If we want to train themvery efficiently, make them efficient and effective in their work
as quickly as possible, we have to create an environment where
there is tremendous focus on learning, where there is an opportunity to work in a collaborative
environment even beyond officehours, where there is opportunity to seek out to faculty members
on issues at all odd hours and make sure they learn whatever is
needed quickly and efficiently.

The campus provided best of food to offer at an affordable price. Among other options, the
campus had the retail outlet of the pizza chainDomino'sPizzawhere both western and Indian
varieties of pizzas were available.To facilitate all-round development the center had
anEmployee Care Center.

The employee care center offered recreationalfacilities such as a gymnasium, a swimming pool,
Jacuzzi, bowling alley and a meditation hall. It also had an internationalcricket ground and a
multipurpose ground with a six -lane synthetic track, which housed basketball, volleyball,
squash, and tenniscourts. The camp us also housed an auditorium, which had a seating capacity
of 1,300 people and three multiplex theatres with acapacity of 150 seats each.

The freshers had to work for eight hours every day and at the end of the training program, the
freshershad to pass two comprehensive exams before proceeding further. About 1 % to 2%
failed in the exams. On this NR NarayanMurthy says: my belief is that the first 14 weeks must
be the toughest. By this we can ascertain who among our new trainees can
actually scale up to our expectations and who can't. IIM Ahmedabad is the same. If you can pass
the first semester, the rest is easy.Once we know that these people can go through a tough yet
rewarding experience, there is a lot of learning, a sense of fulfillment
for the youngsters, and the job becomes easier for them. InfosysU also served as the opportunity
to interact with Infoscionsworking in countries other than India.
In 2006, Infosys U has the capacity to train over 4,000 freshers at a time and has expansion
plans of increasing the capacity to10,00 0 by 20 07.

Questions:

1)In the context of the caselet, explain the steps taken by Infosys in training its new recruits.

2)What are the various training methods used by Infosys? Explain the common simulation
methods that are usually used in training.

3)The choice of training methods for a particular program depends, first of all, on a series of
various comparisons. Elaborate.

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