RESEARCH PROPOSALS ON HUMAN RESOURCE RELATED TOPICS

Submitted by: Paridhi Dabriwal 0911363 5th sem BBM D

The research proposal topics are as follows :

I. II. III. IV. V. HR Administration Outsourcing: How HR Professionals Optimize the Core Activities. Role of Information technology in Human Resources Competency mapping and overall efficiency in various organizations. Turnover rate in various industries. Motivation and employee performance in various organizations.

Objective of the research

 To gain an insight into various issues pertaining in the hr field.  To result in a better understanding of various hr topics.  To do a descriptive research on various hr topics and make interpretations and highlight the facts pertaining in the respective area.  To sharpen my knowledge and skills  Gaining knowledge and understanding in the new hr topics and trends.

Type of research to be undertaken

 Descriptive research will be undertaken for the purpose of gathering data and making
interpretations as a descriptive study is a fact finding investigation with adequate interpretation.

Features of descriptive research

 It focuses on a particular aspect or dimensions of the phenomenon under

study.

 It is designed to gather descriptive information and it provides information for

formulating more sophisticated studies.

 Data can be collecting by adopting methods like questionnaire, interview,

observation, etc.

I.

HR Administration Outsourcing: How HR Professionals Optimize the Core Activities.

Background of the Study Human resource (HR) administration prescribes structures, policies and processes rather than outputs or outcomes. The fundamentals of HR administration center the core functions that include recruiting/hiring orientation, benefits administration, payroll administration and laws/policies compliances. As such, HR functions can directly or indirectly add value to the firm that could probably result in superior individual and organizational performance, reduced turnover and greater profitability. HR administration could be as tedious if not challenging to majority of the organizations. Considered to be non-value adding functions to organizations, still HR administration requires competence, expertise and diligence to handle. Modern organizations jump into the bandwagon of HR offshoring. The global trend nowadays is to outsource, or to establish onsite outsourcing, non-core HR activities, mostly HR functions, into vendors or service providers which are either generalists or specialists. The shift that the global HR management experience is from being tactical, administrative functions towards strategic and consultative. Why outsource? Answers to the question will generally direct to acquiring the competitive advantage. In gaining the speed and flexibility needed to compete in the global business environment, companies are obliged to reduce large capital expenditures on non-core functions and leave them to vendors. As such, the companies need not to invest capital in maintaining and upgrading their HR administration systems and infrastructure. Outsourcing non-core functions also frees the HR professionals to focus on more strategic, higher-value activities.

Statement of the Problem The problem that will be addressed is how outsourcing non-value activities can free up HR professionals to do more value-adding works. The basic services that organizations outsource include HR system administration such as overseeing organizational structure and staffing requirements and tracking department objectives, goals and strategies; recruiting, training and development for employees and managers and employee orientation programs and compensation and benefits management. How the process of outsourcing of these basic functions optimizes the strategic role of the HR professionals will be addressed as well. The study will answer the following: 1) How the outsourcing initiative can help the companies reduce costs and provide highquality products and services when HR staffs are freed to focus on strategic works? 2) How non-core functions outsourcing contribute in gaining access to outside and maximizing HR expertise for HR professionals? 3) How the outsourcing initiative contributes in achieving HR administration excellence?

Objectives The aim of the study is to explore the rationale behind optimization of HR professionals' strategic role through transferring the non-core HR functions to HR business process outsourcing firms. The following specific objectives will be addressed: 1) To investigate how HR administration outsourcing could result in improved organizational performance and greater profitability 2) To determine how HR administration outsourcing could deliver competitive advantage. 3) To analyse how HR administration outsourcing could contribute in optimizing strategic and higher-value activities. 4) To investigate how HR administration outsourcing could maximise the performance, competence and expertise of HR professionals

Research plan/ feasibility  Primary and secondary research will be conducted in the study.  In primary research, the study will survey HR professionals and staffs regarding the outsourcing endeavour.  A semi-structured questionnaire will be developed and it will be used as the survey tool for the study.  A secondary research will also be conducted in the study.  Sources in secondary research will include previous research reports, newspaper, magazine and journal content, organization statistics, etc.  Sometimes, secondary research is required in the preliminary stages of research to determine what is known already and what new data are required, or to inform research design.  In this paper, existing findings on journals and existing knowledge on books will be used as secondary research. The findings from the journals and books will be evaluated in the data analysis.  Interpretation will be conducted which can account as qualitative in nature.

II.

Role of Information technology in Human Resources

Background of the Study The emergence of information technology sets another trend in the economy of production and the profitability scheme of business firms and corporations. The advantage sets by information technology primarily seen in the cyberspace in the likes of e-businesses and other forms or business marketing in the marketspace becomes the new rule in maintaining one's business organization and to gain competitive advantage and sustainable growth. Competitive advantage is a fundamental requirement for an organization if it is to survive in the long term. The reality is that few organizations achieve competitive advantage and even fewer sustain their advantages. Porter identifies three generic strategies for competitive advantage: low cost, differentiation, and sustainability. Information technology has been perceived as being a means to provide more efficient processes that would lead to lower cost products and services. Yet, the only barrier preventing all organizations from acquiring the same technology is the cost of acquisition. The usefulness of information technology are enormous and diverse, depending on the kind of products and goods a company is leveraging and producing. If in a case like manufacturing products, the usefulness of IT obviously to mass produce goods, highly qualified in just a few period of time. The IT in these industries is using software and other IT means in which to replace the manpower ability of mass production. In this way, IT generates multiple incomes for the firms compared to the human labor. Since, the primary task of a business organization is to generate profit; IT becomes a prominent tool to utilize. However, it has a significant impact to the human resource management since technology becomes a paragon of generating mass production, human resource no is less overridden by technology wherein manpower is less necessary than technology. On the other hand, the impact of the use of information technology on corporate performance and human resource management should be examined. In some studies made, there is no monopoly of information technology on the performance of a corporation. It can get over the human resources ability and power to gain greater production and profit for the company. Yet, it cannot be absolutely claimed that the corporate performance is solely produced by technology resources.

Problem Statement In order that this study will be directed towards its objectives and claim on the impact of IT to human resource the need to underline the problems are significant. Hence, this study seeks to answer the problem statements raised in here: 1. The significance of the IT and human resource management to corporate strategy. 2. The role of IT as a tool to generate corporate income. 3. The importance of human resource management in the operations of a corporation towards profit. 4. The role of IT and human resource management in fulfilling the corporate mission, objectives, and goals.

Objectives of the Study Although there are several studies which that touches the role and impact of IT to organizations and business market, and same time with human resource management, yet much of them did not bother to analyze and study the impact of IT to human resource. In fact, some studies bothered to present the impact of human resource to IT which is a different subject matter.  The objective of this study is to help HR practitioners, experts, and managers to look more deeply on the issue of the effects of IT to other organizational dimensions or structures of the company.  More than seeing the role of HR to IT, now, it must be a ripe time to see the effect of IT on the human resource structure and development.  This could also open up for more studies and excavate a more fertile ground to cultivate that would in future helps organizations to make a balance scorecard between human resource and technology

Research plan/feasibility  Primary and secondary research will be conducted in the study.  In primary research, the study will survey HR professionals and staffs regarding the impact of IT.  A semi-structured questionnaire will be developed and it will be used as the survey tool for the study.  A secondary research will also be conducted in the study.  Sources in secondary research will include previous research reports, newspaper, magazine and journal content, organization statistics, etc.  Sometimes, secondary research is required in the preliminary stages of research to determine what is known already and what new data are required, or to inform research design.  Interpretation will be conducted which can account as qualitative in nature.

III.

Competency mapping and overall efficiency in various organizations

Introduction It has been a general observation that hard work, sincerity, knowledge, intelligence alone does not make a person a star performer in his/her profession. There are other factors that help an individual excel in his job. Good managers are generally aware about different qualities a person must possess to do a job effectively, and they make use of their knowledge to select and train their subordinates. Organisational psychologists have refined this understanding and converted it into a structural and formal process called Competency Mapping. It has emerged as one of the most powerful tools aiding the improvement for the HR professionals in finding the right employee for a job and development of the employed person in doing the assigned job effectively. Thus, Competency Mapping can be defined as a process through which one assesses and determines one's strengths as an individual worker and in some cases, as part of an organisation. Generally speaking, competency mapping examines two areas: emotional intelligence and strengths of the individual in areas like team structure, leadership and decision-making. Large organisations frequently employ some form of competency mapping to understand how to most effectively employ the competencies of strengths of workers. Competency-based HR is considered the best HR. In India, however, this process has gained force only during the last couple of years. Companies like Zensar Technologies and L&T InfoTech follow competency mapping. Other big companies like TCS, HCL Technologies, SBI, Idea Cellular, Exide Industries, Birla Cellulosic, etc. have got their employees trained in competency mapping course but it remains unclear if they strictly follow the line. Competency mapping tailored to an organisation is necessary to train, define and retain talent in a company. As a result of competency mapping, all the HR processes like talent induction, appraisals and training yield much better results.

Objectives of the study  To develop an insight into the recent trend in hr  In finding the right employee for a job and development of the employed person in doing the assigned job effectively.

Research plan/feasibility  The employee is asked to fill up a questionnaire that asks them what they are doing and what skills and abilities are needed to have to perform it well.  Having discovered the similarities in the questionnaires, a competency based job description is crafted and presented to the personnel department for their agreement and additions, if required.  The final step involves mapping of an employee's abilities to the benchmarks and deciding his future accordingly.

IV.

Turnover rate in various industries.

Background of the study Human resources are not only the drivers and principal value creators of the output of the knowledge industry, but they are also the intellectual capital or the 'infrastructure investment'. Therefore, attracting, training, retaining and motivating employees are the critical success determinants for any knowledge based organisation as high rate of employee turnover is expensive for the organization. Employee turnover takes places due to various factors like job dissatisfaction, pay related issue, lack of commitment, local market conditions, better opportunities outside, etc. It is necessary to find out strategies and to retain the employees. This research focuses on the causes and effects of turnover rate in various industries. This is because the turnover rates vary from industry to industry and the aim is to show an analysis of turnover rate in various industries.

Objectives  To understand the causes of turnover in various industry  To analysis turnover rate in various industries

Research plan/feasibility  Primary and secondary research will be conducted in the study.  In primary research, the study will survey HR professionals and staffs regarding the impact of employee turnover.  A semi-structured questionnaire will be developed and it will be used as the survey tool for the study.  A secondary research will also be conducted in the study.  Sources in secondary research will include previous research reports, newspaper, magazine and journal content, organization statistics, etc.  Interpretation will be conducted which can account as qualitative in nature.

V.

Motivation and employee performance in various organizations

Introduction A motivated worker is a productive worker. Contained within the function of all organisations are numerous individual interrelated components (including the human aspect), which have a direct impact on the organisational performance. It is widely recognised that the "human resource" is regarded as the most valuable resource an organisation has. However, this resource does not always receive the attention, respect and the financial recognition to develop, to allow the employees' full potential to be realised. The complex relationship between employee and employer has been studied from both a psychological and sociological aspect. The findings from both these fields of research have identified four main categories of theories on employees' motivation. (1) Economic needs of man, money is the motivator for example: Taylorism (2) Social man from the Hawthorne studies: (3) Self actualisation - this extended the results from the Hawthorne studies to include psychological issues: (4) The contingency approach - this identifies that individual motivation is influenced by a number of variables.

Background of the study As mentioned earlier, a motivated worker is a productive worker. Motivation leads to retention of employees also. Hence this research is conducted to find out different motivational factors offered by different organizations and to show an analysis on the link between motivation and employee performance.

Research plan/feasibility  Primary and secondary research will be conducted in the study.  In primary research, the study will survey HR professionals and staffs regarding the impact of good motivation.

 A semi-structured questionnaire will be developed and it will be used as the survey tool for the study.  A secondary research will also be conducted in the study.  Sources in secondary research will include previous research reports, newspaper, magazine and journal content, organization statistics, etc.  Interpretation will be conducted which can account as qualitative in nature