What do you mean by Human Resource Management?

Describe the
functions of Human Resource Management.
Human Resources Management involves all management decisions and practices that directly affect or
influence the people or Human resources who work for the organization - Fisher, Schoendfelt and Shaw
HRM functions can be broadly classified into the following two categories:
1. Managerial functions
2. Operative functions
Managerial functions of HR department
The managerial functions of HR department include the following:

Planning Future course of action; it also includes identifying human resource requirements
and forecasting personnel needs.
Organising Division of labour; assignment of responsibility is part of the organisations
functions.
Staffing It is the process of obtaining and maintaining capable and competent personnel in
various positions at all levels, i.e., manpower planning, recruitment, selection, placement
and induction.
Directing It is the process of directing all the available resources towards the common
organisational goals.
Controlling It is the measurement and rectification of activities to ensure that the events
conform to plans.

Operative functions They are the primary responsibilities, exclusively done by Human Resource
personnel. It refers to the routine activities of the HR department in any industry. It is focussed on all
the aspects of human workforce in an organisation starting with manpower planning to employee
separation. These can be classified into five broad areas, as Discuss below Procurement It involves attracting and employing individuals with suitable knowledge, skills,
experience, and aptitude necessary to perform various jobs.
Development It aims to train and develop employees to improve and update their knowledge and
skills in order to help them perform better.
Compensation It involves rewarding employees monetarily and through fringe benefits for their
contributions to the organisation.
Integration It deals with employees as a social group; it contributes to the organisation and enhances
group interaction and communication.
Maintenance It deals with maintaining employee safety and creating a sense of security among the
employees.

Discuss the elements of a Career Planning Programme. Explain some of

the benefits of a Career Planning program to an organization
There are four distinct elements of career planning programme:

Individual assessment and need analysis

Organisational assessment and opportunity analysis
Need opportunity alignment
Career counselling

Individual assessment and need analysis

Many people begin their careers without any formal assessment of their abilities, interests, career needs
and goals.This phenomenon of people entering their jobs, occupations and careers with little attention
to career planning and then feeling disengaged is known as career drift.
Organisational assessment and opportunity analysis

For an employees goals and aspirations to be fulfilled, a basic requirement is that the goals must be
realistic and achievable. They have to be realistic not only in terms of the employees own capabilities,
but also in terms of the organisations possibilities.
Need opportunity alignment
The organisation plays an important role in helping the employee make this alignment. The organisation
also has to make its own alignments to match the aspirations with the organisational opportunities.
Career counselling
This is the final stage of career planning. The supervisor as well as the HR department, has to counsel
the employee regarding the available opportunities, the employees aspirations and of course, his
competencies.
Following are the benefits of career planning to an organisation:
Ensures availability of resources for the future: HRP determines the changing requirements of an
organisation and career development helps in meeting the resource requirements.
Enhances organisational ability to attract and retain talent: An organisation that shows concern for the
employees future by providing them the best opportunities can attract and retain talented people.
Ensures growth opportunities for all: A comprehensive planning exercise by the organisation ensures
growth opportunities for all the employees.
Handles employee frustration: Todays workforce is more knowledgeable and has greater expectations.
They desire more responsibility and greater challenges. A good career development programme can
help in handling the expectations of the employees.
Career management: is the process of designing and implementing goals, plans and strategies that
enable HR professionals and managers to satisfy workforce needs and allow individuals to achieve their
career objectives.
Career anchors: It is attitudinal characteristics that guide people throughout their careers.
Autonomy/Independence: Desire to have freedom and not to be bossed over.
Security/Stability: Individuals who want to be free from any anxiety of uncertainty or insecurity prefer
to remain in the same kind of job and with the same employer.
Technical/Functional competence:-Those with a technical/functional competence exhibit a strong
inclination to develop something which they can call their own, e.g., engineers, scientists, technologists
etc.
General management: Have good planning, organising, managing and controlling skills. They have a
broader view of things and play a facilitating role.
Entrepreneurial creativity: Individuals with creativity as an anchor are more often successful as artists,
free lancers, entrepreneurs.

Service: Service as a career anchor drives individuals to take up jobs in not for profit service
organisations.
Pure challenge: People who just love to solve difficult problems.
Life-style: For some people, nothing is more important than enjoying life. They have a disinclination to
sacrifice life-style solely for career advancement.

What do you mean by HRIS? Explain the components of HRIS. Describe

the different applications of HRIS in Human Resource Management
HRIS refers to software packages that address HR needs with respect to planning, employee information
access and employer regulatory compliance. The HRIS is basically a database system developed to assist
HR in decision making and reporting. It is an IT enabled HR service available to the HR managers for data
analysis and to help in the decision making process. HRIS helps the HR managers to make an effective
decision by ensuring them an adequate and timely availability of all relevant information.
The Components of HRIS are as follow:
i.
ii.
iii.

Receiving inputs in the form of data from different sources.

Storing and processing data with the purpose of transforming them into meaningful information
Generating output in different forms, as required by the users.

Input
Input refers to all employee-related data. HR policies, procedures, corporate goals and information
about the statutory provisions entered into HRIS for conversion into the desired form of output.
Data processing
Data processing refers to the storing and processing of data by a computer with the help of the software
that issues instructions for processing.
Output
Output refers to the generation of reports in the form desired by the users. This is the final stage of an
HRIS process.
Different applications of an HRIS are as follow:

Applicant tracking system The purpose of this system is to give support to recruitment process
and to streamline the overall recruitment process.
Training and development system The purpose of a training and development system is to
help the employees gain new knowledge. HRIS facilitates workplace e-learning by the
employees as part of their training programme.
Compensation management system The compensation management system aims at
computing employee payments through an integrated payroll system. This compensation

system normally considers employee working hours, attendance and productivity for computing
the salary of the employees.
Performance management system It is to track employee performance reviews and due dates
for next reviews.
Manpower planning system The manpower planning system manages the employee inventory
and supports several HR activities.
Succession planning system The succession planning module brings the identified and selected
employees into the succession channel.
Grievance management system The grievance management assists the management in preempting employee grievance by analysing the nature, sources and frequency of earlier
grievances

Discuss the objectives of Discipline. Explain the Action penalties of

Discipline
The objectives of discipline are:

To ensure and enable employees to work in accordance with the rules and regulations of the
organisation.
To ensure that employees follow the organisational processes and procedures in spite of their
different personalities and behaviour.
To provide direction to the employees and fix responsibilities.
To improve organisational performance by improving the efficiency of each employee.
To maintain a sense of orderliness and confidence in the employees towards each other and
towards the management.
To maintain common feelings of trust and confidence in the employees towards each other and
towards the management.