Human Resource Management (HRM): Basics

Human Resource Management (HRM): Useful definitions and concepts, role of HR in the firm.

Human Resources Management (HRM) refers to the practices related to recruiting and managing employees for a firm. it is also commonly referred to as Human Resources (HR).

A human resource information system (HRIS), also known at times as human resources management system (HRMS), is software that provides a centralized repository of all employee data that the human resource management (HRM) group or the HR department can access to complete important human resource (HR) processes.

Academic Questions on HRM

Recruitment/Selection questions / Case Study (Management, MBA)

Q. With the increasing use of technology in the Human Resources and the onset of the current pandemic, list and explain at least five changes that you have seen in the recruitment and selection function of your organization. *(These may be to do with sources of recruitment or the selection process or shift in skills expected, automation, or any other)

Q. With major companies declaring work from home policies for atleast a year, the training function has completely become online; also new training needs have arisen in the areas like, “Leading virtual teams”, “Facilitating Virtual Meetings”, etc. List atleast five benefits and five limitations of online training.

Q. ABC limited is a two year old start up dealing with providing call support services on behalf of various organisations to its customers. The support is provided in the areas of product use, installation, warranty and other services. The support staff receives trainings about handling various queries from the respective organisations and then they are provided with required hardware set ups at home to attend calls for assistance from their existing customers. Calls are recorded for monitoring and the organisations review these occasionally to check performance, other than this no performance review as such happens. ABC limited wants to set up a Performance Appraisal process in its organization in which employees’ performance should be rated by respective organisations and also by ABC limited.
a. In the given scenario what are the challenges in rating employee performance?
b. If you were asked to, how would you go about setting up a performance appraisal process at ABC Ltd?

Q. Explain why recruitment is said to be a positive process and selection a negative one. List and explain some of the recruitment methods in the digital age.

Q) The recruitment landscape has been changing rapidly. From newspapers, campus recruitments, trade unions and referrals to recruitment through social and professional networking platforms. What according to you are the advantages and limitations of using these modern methods for recruitment?

Q) Mazbooti Pvt Ltd is a civil engineering firm doing projects in buildings, roads, bridges, Flyovers etc. Recently they have bagged a lot of projects for which they require Graduate Trainee Engineers as well as Diploma Trainee Engineers in huge numbers. What could be the method of recruitment in such scenario? Discuss any two methods of recruitment for such high numbers also conclude by choosing the best method.

Q) Differentiate between recruitment and selection. List and explain some of the recruitment methods in the digital age.

Question: Define Job Specification. Create a job specification for the position of a tele caller for an E tailer.

Telemarketing Representative Job Duties:
Advises present or prospective customers by answering incoming calls on a rotating basis; operating telephone equipment, automatic dialing systems, and other telecommunications technologies.
Influences customers to buy or retain product or service by following a prepared script to give product reference information.
Documents transactions by completing forms and record logs.
Maintains database by entering, verifying, and backing up data.
Keeps equipment operational by following manufacturer’s instructions and established procedures; notifying team leader of needed repairs.
Maintains operations by following policies and procedures; reporting needed changes.
Maintains quality service by following organization standards.
Maintains technical knowledge by attending educational workshops; reviewing publications.
Contributes to team effort by accomplishing related results as needed.

Tele-caller Skills and Qualifications:
Persuasion, Telephone Sales, Customer Focus, Data Entry Skills, Selling to Customer Needs, Closing Skills, Telephone Skills, Organization, Energy Level, Persistence, Product Knowledge

Q. What is the difference between job design and job analysis? Why is it important for a manager to understand both concepts?
“Abhushan” is a Gems and Stones company which is in a rapid expansion mode. You have newly joined in as Head of HR. You realize that organization may need some restructuring with regards to job role and responsibility allocation. You need to explain the concept and importance of Job Analysis to the top management. Write down the concept and importance of job analysis and in conclusion mention any 2 methods in data collection process of job analysis.

Q) Pick up a service organization of your choice and state the roles and responsibilities of the service operations manager.

Academic Questions on Compensation, executive remuneration and employee benefits

Q) Accord Designing completed 4 years in the field of commercial interior projects. With a staff of 28 on various levels of experience, loyalty, job profiles, the company has handled and successfully completed some really large projects. In fact, the staff is like family and works together well. While, the company is known to be a good paymaster and is up to date with compliance as far as employees are concerned. There is still a very casual approach towards formality into appraisals, which leaves an undercurrent of jealousy among all. Jyoti joins as an HR consultant with a mission to get this ‘family culture’ into a more formal culture in the organization. As the first project, she wants to conduct a wage and salary administration. Please help Jyoti by discussing each step in the Salary and Wage administration process in detail.

Q. DEVELOPERS Ltd. is a newly set up startup operating in education technology. Company is in the process of establishing a compensation system. You are hired as an HR Consultant for the same. Your first task is to recommend a pay structure for the employees working for the start up. What components will form a part of pay structure for this start up?

Q. WESTEROS Automobiles Ltd. is a leading two wheeler manufacturing company of India. The company is planning its international expansion in African continent. It has decided to start its operations in Nigeria. You are heading the HR Function in this new project and you are told by the company Directors to undertake a compensation survey in Nigeria so that important compensation can be made in the company. Discuss the process that you will follow to conduct compensation survey in Nigeria?

Q. INFOTECH is a well-known IT Company in India since 1995. Off late the company is facing a problem of high employee turnover. To address this issue, company is considering few employee retention strategies. In this background, answer the following:
a. Explain how will you convince the management to start the ESOPs?
b. Explain how will you convince management to start deferred pay outs?

Question: Please read the extract from the Remuneration Report of HSBC Holdings PLC for 2018.

The remuneration policy of HSBC Holdings PLC is designed to attract the best talent. The Group Remuneration Committee oversees the Group’s reward policy and its application to Group businesses. All members of the Committee are independent non-executive Directors of HSBC Holdings plc”.

Assume that HSBC wishes to hire your services as an executive compensation consultant. Your task is to write a report, which contains a rigorous analysis of relevant issues and a set of recommendations. HSBC is offering you a choice of assignment. You may answer one of the two questions below, or both of the questions.

The report must be 3,000 words in length irrespective of the number of questions you answer. Your report may include appendices that do not contribute towards the word count.

1. Examine contrasting claims in the managerial power approach and optimal contracting theory that pay-for-performance relations are broken. The notion of pay-for-performance continues to underpin arguments on how best to reform executive compensation arrangements. Explain how introduction of concepts, such as, malus and clawback, a greater use of debt and deferred compensation, and long-term incentives might be a step in the right direction.

2. Several countries have or are in the process of setting quotas for female participation on boards either by introducing new legislation or by companies’ voluntary adherence to best practice in codes of corporate governance. Evaluate this policy and in your answer, consider whether the outrage over CEO pay following financial crisis and corporate scandals be as severe if the CEOs were female i.e. would increasing the proportion of female executives improve firm performance via its effect on risk-taking?

Question: [MBA] Case Study: Compensation At W. L. Gore

W.L. Gore & Associates is a company well known for its GORE-TEX fabric for protective outerwear. In 2006, the company ranked fifth on Fortune’s list “100 Best Companies to Work For.” It was the eighth year in a row the firm had made the list. One of Gore’s hallmarks is innovation. Rather than job titles, bosses, and organization charts, Gore uses a team approach, with leaders, sponsors, and team members.

The goals of Gore’s compensation plan are internal fairness and external competitiveness. Gore uses two approaches to achieve these goals. The first is straightforward and typically used by companies: comparing pay at Gore with pay for comparable jobs at other companies. That takes care of the external competitiveness part. It is the internal competitiveness part that is different at Gore. The process works like this: Associates (co-workers) on the same team rank each other based on contributions to the company for the year. Team members can provide comments to support their rankings and identify strengths or areas for improvement of the associates they rank. This information is then used for determining raises.

Answer the following questions by applying the concepts learned in Chapter 10. Also, conduct literature reviews on the subject of discussion and use to support your case study answers:

Provide a critique of the compensation practices at Gore, indicating the pros and cons of each approach.
Do you think that Gore can achieve its goals of internal fairness and external competitiveness with the two approaches used?
Would you want to work for this company? Why or why not?

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Compensation At W. L. Gore

GORE-TEX is awarded as one of best companies for many time. The organizational structure is not based on traditional one with bosses, superior and inferiors etc. But there are team members, leaders and sponsors. Gore is achieving competitive to another ones that having higher pay structure and the process of workflow is different. Team members are involved on supporting their ranking and improving the ranks associated.

Compensation practices at Gore

Gore is implementing compensation plan of internal fairness and external fairness that means the compensation is kept fair enough and transparent within the company whereas the pay scale is higher than that of competing organizations. Associates of a team ranks each other’s based on their contribution. Other team member provides comments supporting ranking with identification of strength or improvement.

Pros

This approach is more participatory as team members are involved directly on raking team members
Process is clear and transparent because all information is open to each member of team
Evaluation by co-workers will give relevant information that ranking done by strangers out of that team
Cons

There might be chance of influencing each other for better ranking
Compensation scheme open to each other might cause unhealthy competition between employees such that they wish to show more quantitative tasks rather than qualitative
Each team member being responsible for ranking might misuse the concept to influence each other
Possibility of achieving its goals

Gore is implementing its goal of internal fairness and external competitiveness that is unique on contemporary market. To achieve this company is implementing payment that is competitive on market and team members evaluated based on contributions. The approach of cross evaluation is likely to achieve internal fairness to some extent because evaluation is not done by single. Evaluation done by person out of the team might not know everything about them. Moreover payment of comparatively good will not let labor retention. Team member provide comments supporting ranking to identify strength and weakness for improvement.

Likelihood of joining the company

As stated on given case the company is making comparatively good impression on customers, the structure is fair enough. Each members being responsible for cross evaluation will make feeling of belonging. What I like about that company is lack of traditional bosses and staffs hierarchy. Everyone in the company are equally respected and provided chance to evaluate team members. Thus uniqueness of participation and fairness makes me interested on joining that company.

Conclusion

Not all companies treat employees equally and provide participatory respect. Gore is healthy internally with fair competition and transparency on evaluation where as it is excellent on comparing to other firms too, that led to make this company one of the best eight times.

Question: Living wage or the comparable worth issue

Spend some time researching either the living wage or the comparable worth issue and prepare a minimum of 100 words posting summary indicating whether you support the idea. Justify your position by citing and referencing the research you examined.

Although comparable worth and living wage are both regular issues on labor world and are equally important. From the research I found concept of living wage is more prevailing and comparable worth comes on second. What to compare and seek for if the wage level is not sufficient to achieve quality of life. An article from owner and CEO of Ice Cream company claims living wage is not for benefit of employees only but it should be justifiable on behalf of company nature too (Neitzel, 2014).

Questions on Performance Management System (Management MBA question / case study)

Q. You are the HR Manager of Furniturewala.com The company did not have a Performance Management system and has just introduced annual performance appraisals. Employees have started writing their goals for the year. You are an HR executive at Furniturewala.com. Using the concept of SMART goals, you are to prepare: 2 goals for the year for a Sales Executive in the company. 2 goals for the year for a Furniture Designer in the company. Q. You are an HR Executive at LiveLife Telecon which is a start-up organization founded one year ago. The organization started with 25 employees a year ago and today has 100 employees across locations. LiveLife Telecon has commenced with the Graphic Rating Scale method for Performance Appraisal. Design an Appraisal Form using the Graphic Rating Scale. Q. Bharat Logistics is a 5 year old company that caters to logistics solutions for e-commerce companies like Amazon, etc. Bharat Logistics looks after home delivery of items ordered online by customers on e-commerce websites. In COVID times, the role of Delivery Executive is crucial. a. How would you motivate the Delivery Executive during COVID times when safety is a priority? b. Prepare an incentive scheme for Delivery Executives to improve monthly home deliveries Q) Aarti is the Team Leader at Neel Industries which specializes in plastic products. Aarti has 8 team members. Recently 3 of her team members resigned at the same time and during the exit interview process each of her team members complained to Ashish (General Manager) about Aarti’s style of management. Aarti has been described by them as autocratic who dictates instructions and does not listen to her team members. They also described her as rude in her behavior. Ashish has called Aarti for a counselling session. Assume you are Ashish, explain how you would conduct the counselling session and ensure a successful interaction. Q) Define Performance Appraisal. Why do you think is 360/ 720 degree appraisal method gaining a wide acceptance? Cite relevant examples from the industry. Q) Kadambari Enterprises, which is a family managed business in the area of food manufacturing (Indian Snacks) has grown over the years. The business turnover has now become 500 crore. The organisation never had a concept of performance appraisal, the employees were given raise based on their seniority and relationship with the management. Sneha the new heir of Kadambari Enterprises wants to change the entire outlook and bring in the latest Performance Management System to bring parity and justice for the employees. You have been selected as the head HR and have been asked to present the benefits of appraisal and best PMS for Kadambari Enterprise.

Question on HRIS: ‘WeCare’ is a pharmaceutical company which started some 10 years ago and has manufacturing plants at two places and regional offices across 20 metros in India. In the recent years, not only the complexity of operations increased but also managing the human resources. The company has approximately 800 employees working nationwide and they still seem to employ age old manual methods of HR reporting. For the ease of operations the Human Capital Manager now wants to propose implementing a HRIS at ‘WeCare’.</p>
a. What possible benefits of HRIS do you think the Human Capital Manager should communicate to the CEO for his approval? b. Once approved what process of implementation do you think should be followed?

Academic Questions on Training in HRM (Management, MBA Case Study)

Q. True Wanderer is a decade old leisure and travel company. As a part of the strategic decision to achieve its vision, it decides to conduct training for its call center and other staff selling over the counter products/offers. The company does a thorough research and decides to conduct trainings on the topic of ‘customer centricity’, realizing that giving importance to customers will be the only way to sustainable business. The company hires outside trainers to conducts training based on the outline created by the L&D department of the company. Almost 700 customer care executives and first line staff members are trained and after a year the company sees no effect on sales/ revenue.

a. What do you think is the reason behind failure of the above initiative?
b. Elaborate on the concept of training need analysis with reference to the above case.

Q) ABC is a reputed retail brand. It is into the business of apparel for men, women and kids. The brand has exclusive stores as well as counters in malls and departmental stores like Shoppers Stop, Central, etc. The front-line staff is regularly being trained on product knowledge, but no behavioral skills as such. Considering the steep targets set from April 2019, the training manager wants to start the behavioral trainings calendar.

a. How should he go about planning and executing this initiative?
b. What should be the topics on which the staff should be trained and what methods for each do you recommend?

Q) As per various researches it is reported that simulations are one of the most effective way of training. Discuss this statement with the help of strong supporting justifications and examples. Also conclude by suggesting any other form of training which can be considered to be as strong as simulations.

Q) ‘Speedcall’ is a five year old telecommunications company. As a part of the strategic management to achieve its vision, it decides to conduct training for its first line staff selling over the counter products.

The company does a thorough research and decides to conduct trainings on the topic of ‘customer centricity ’, realizing that giving importance to customers will be the only way to sustainable business. The company hires outside trainers to conducts training based on the outline created by the L&D department of the company.

Almost 500 first line staff members are trained and after a year the company sees no effect on sales/ revenue.

a. What do you think is the reason behind failure of the above initiative? . (5 Marks)

b. Elaborate on the concept of training need analysis with reference to the above case. (5 Marks)

Career Planning questions (Management / MBA)

Q) Kaira is working as an Assistant Manager –Marketing from past five years in an FMCG company. She is a very hard working and dedicated employee. Her performance has also been good consistently. She is one of the deserving employee who never got her fair share of success. From past five years she has not got a single promotion because of which she is contemplating to resign. She communicated the same to Mohit who is her reporting authority. Mohit apprises this to the top management and even gives cues that because of lack of career planning their organisation is in a verge of losing an important talent. Sanjay, the Operations Head on the other hand is totally against the idea of Career planning.

a. Mohit is asked to prepare a list of merits of Career planning. Help him prepare the same.
b. Sanjay opposes Mohit with his list of demerits on the career planning. Mention all the pros and cons of career planning and highlight who is right, Mohit or Sanjay?

Q) Differentiate between career planning and succession planning. Discuss one example from the Indian industry throwing light on the importance of succession planning.

Q) Sanskruti Ltd. is an apparel manufacturing company. Lately it was observed that the absenteeism as well as the employee turnover has increased tremendously. An external consulting firm was roped to understand the entire concern. The report presented by the consulting firm specified that the workers are dissatisfied with their job roles as well as they find no career planning and progression which is affecting the overall organisational productivity. Discuss the objectives as well as merits of career planning which can be included to make the employees happy and satisfied in Sanskruti Ltd.

Q) Sameera is a fresh MBA graduate and has joined as a Trainee- Talent Management in Fresoc Ltd. It is her first week at work and she is all geared up for some great learning. To her disappointment she is just handed over some brochures to read. After a fortnight she is assigned some task to work on. Sameera is really confused as she does not have any job clarity and work is being assigned to her randomly. The entire month after joining Fresoc Ltd has been a very demotivating as an outcome she resigned from her services.
a. Do you think that the induction of Sameera was wrong? Justify your answer
b. What could have been an ideal situation where young talent like Sameera would have been retained?