XUB MBA-Rural Management 2019-2021

MBA- UMG - 2019-2021

Marks : 40 Time : 2 hrs

HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT

END TERM EXAM

PLEASE DO ALL THE CASE ANALYSIS IN A WORD FILE (PLEASE DO

NOT CONVERT TO PDF) AND RETURN TO THE DEAN’S OFFICE AT THE
SPECIFIED TIME. PLEASE VERY CLEARLY MENTION YOUR NAME AND
ROLL NUMBER ON TOP OF THE PAPER

PLEASE NOTE - You are expected and required to ANALYSE the case
thoroughly and NOT just give brief short sentence answers to the questions. You
may state your analysis points in bullet points , but please explain your analysis and
not just single words.

I. Analyse the following case : (20 marks)

After a long search, a company located a new manager to replace the person who
left to join a competitor. This new manager was too gruff and landed up
antagonizing a whole lot of the staff. Also, not being from a similar industry, some
of the decisions made were wrong. Six months after joining, the Human Resources
Director met this new manager and gave him the feedback. He was totally shocked
and in fact said that he had taken a salary cut on joining and had been promised a
promotion in two months. He said that he knew he did not fit into the company
culture but that was bad luck for the company since they knew what they were
getting into. The company started wondering whether they should sack him and the
manager started wondering whether he should sue the company for misrepresenting
the job and not giving the promotion. And workers wondered what will happen if
he quits and the company again looks for a new person.

Questions :

 What is the detailed recruitment and selection procedure the company should have
followed to hire the new Manager

 Should applicants 'fit' the firm's culture along with his skill and background?

 Who should make the hiring decision?

 How can the company give applicants a realistic expectation so that new recruits
do not get disillusioned?
II . Analyse the following case : (20 marks)

Alok Tandon sat at his desk, looking over the performance appraisal form he had just completed
on Mahesh Gupta, one of his Sales Officers. Mahesh was on his way to Alok's office for their
annual review session. Alok dreaded these appraisal meetings, even when he did not have to
confront employees with negative feedback.

A couple of years before, Right Sales Corporation, which had experienced very rapid growth,
had decided to implement a formal appraisal system. All supervisors had been presented with
the appraisal form, which included five different sub-categories, in addition to an overall rating.
Supervisors were asked to rate employees on each dimension using a scale from 1 (unacceptable)
to 5 (exceptional). They were also advised to maintain a file on each employee into which they
could jot down notes on specific incidents of good or poor performance during the year to use as
'documentation' when completing the appraisal form. They were told they could only give an
overall rating of 1 to 5 if they had 'substantial' documentation to back it up. Alok had never
given one of these ratings because he was not diligent about recording specific incidents in the
employees' file and he believed it was just too time consuming to write up all of the
documentation necessary to justify such a rating. There were a couple of employees in his
department who deserved a five rating in Alok's opinion, but so far no one had complained about
the appraisal they received from Alok.

Mahesh was one of Alok’s ‘exceptional’ workers. Alok had three or four specific examples of
his exceptional performance in Mahesh's file, but looking over the form could not really identify
in which category they belong. "Oh, Well! " Alok said to himself “ I'll just give him 3s and 4s. I
don't have to justify those, and Mahesh has never complained before."

One of the categories was ' Analysing Work Materials.' Alok had never understood what that
meant or whether it was relevant for the job of Sales Officer. He had marked 3 (satisfactory) for
Mahesh, as he did on all the evaluations he did. He understood the meaning of the other
categories --Quality of Work, Improving work methods, and Relationships with co-workers -
although he was confused as to what 3 or a 4 indicated about each category.

Mahesh knocked on Alok's door and came in. Alok looked up and smiled.
"Hello Mahesh, sit down. Let's go through this thing so that we can get back to work, Ok."

Questions:
1. Does Alok feel comfortable giving Mahesh his performance appraisal feedback? What do you
think is the reason for it?

2.What problems do you see with the appraisal system Mahesh is using ?

3. What suggestions do you have for improving the performance appraisal system ? How should
have Alok given Mahesh his feedback?

4. What are Mahesh's likely reactions to being told by Alok that he scored 3s and 4s even though
he is one of Alok's exceptional workers