Master of Business Administration- Semester I Subject Code MB0043 Subject Name Human Resource Management 4 Credits (Book ID:

D: B0909) Assignment Set- 1 (60 Marks) Note: Each question carries 10 Marks. Answer all the questions. Q.1 What are the functions that HR attempts to fulfill in any organization.[10 Marks] Ans;- The Functions that HR attempts to fulfill in any organization are as follows: 1. Human resource planning: Estimating the need for resources in order achieve the desired business results. HR plans can be both short term/immediate as well as long term/strategic. The HR team partners with the line managers to understand the business goals and targets for the year and together plan the HR needs in order to meet the goals. 2. Acquisition of Human Resources: Staffing the organization with the right mix of skills and competencies at the right time. It also includes HR initiatives like promotions and internal job posting to fulfill this requirement for human resources. Staffing teams in organization are usually separate group of specialists who work closely with the line managers to understand the skills and competencies needed for the job and engage together to elect the best talent for the open position. 3. Training and employee development : Focuses in managing training activities to upgrade skills and knowledge as well as soft skills like the ream building and leadership. The training team is again a group of HR specialist who proposes the training program and consults with the line managers to ensure that the program achieves the desired outcomes. 4. Building performance management systems : Focuses on the right processes to set goals for performance as individual / teams and related measurement methods. This is core HR activity and is supported by the Hr generalist. 5. Rewards systems : Establishing appropriate compensation systems and reward mechanism that would reward the desired outcome and results in accordance with the cooperate values. The again forms a part of HR generalists tasks. Hoe employees progress in a organization how they are paid w.r.t internal and external market factors, what employee benefits are offered are some aspects that this function redresses. 6. Human resources information systems : That would that would take care of operational transactions form the time an employee exits, like personal files, compensation administration, payroll, benefits administration and issuing letters and

testimonials. That task is supported by as separate HR operation team who acts as an Hr helpdesk and provides information to the employee/managers. Q.2 Discuss the cultural dimensions of Indian Work force. [10 Marks] Ans:- Cultural Dimension of Indian Work Force: The foundation for understanding the unique work practices at a country level can be best is understood by first understanding the culture aspects of the countrys workforce. The pioneering work done by Dutch Scientist, Geert Hofstede is a useful tool in understanding the cultural differences used to differentiate countries. He identified five cultural dimensions around which counties have been clustered. The dimensions are: power distance, uncertainly avoidance, individualism, masculinity and long term orientation. Geert Hofstede dimension are based on research conducted among over 1000 IBM employees working globally. While their continued to be other studies like the GLOBE (Global leadership and organizational behavior Effectiveness) project and trompenaars framework, hofstedes model is most popular. Power Distance Power distance is the extent to which less powerful members of institutions and organizations accept that power is distributed unequally. Countries in which people blindly obey of superior have high power distance. High power distance countries have norms, values and beliefs that support: In equally is good; everyone has a place; some are high, some are low. Most people should be dependent on a leader, The powerful are entitled to privileges, and The powerful should yield the power India score 77 on power distance , indicating high power distance as a result of the inequalities both at the level of society as well as the at the workplace. Indian organization typically have hierarchical structures, policies yield power and subordination is acceptable. The dimension of high power distance at the workplace can be best understood as: People dislike work and try to avoid it Managers believe that they must adopt theory X leadership style, that is, they must be authoritarian, and force workers to perform and need to supervise their subordinated closely. Organizational structure and systems tend to match the assumption regarding leadership and motivation Decision making is centralized. Those at the top make most of the decision. Organization tends to have tall structures. They will have a large proportion of supervisory personal and The people at the lower level often will have low job qualifications

Such structures encourages and promotes inequality between people at different levels. Uncertainty Avoidance Uncertainty avoidance is the extent to which people feel threatened by ambiguous situation, and have created beliefs and institutions that try to avoid these India scores 40 indicating low to average uncertainly avoidance characterizes. Countries with low to average uncertainly avoidance have people who are more willing to accept that risks are associated with the unknown, and that life must go on in spite of this Specifically, high uncertainly avoidance countries are characterized by norms, values and beliefs which accept that: Conflict should not be avoided Deviant people and ideas should be tolerated , Laws are not very important and need not necessarily be followed, Experts and authorities are not always correct and consensus is not important. Low uncertainty avoidance society such as ours have organization setting with less structuring of activities, fewer written rules, more risk taking by managers, higher labor turnover and more ambitious employees. Such an organization encourages employees to use their initiative and assume responsibility for their actions. Denmark and Great Britain are good examples of low uncertainty avoidance cultures. Germany, Japan and Spain typify high uncertainty avoidance societies. Individualism Individualism is the tendency of people to look after themselves and their family only. The opposite of this collectivism which refers to the tendency of people to belong to group and to look after other in exchange for loyalty India score 48 on individualism, indicating somewhat low scores, therefore tending towards a more collectistic society. Collectivist countries believe that: Ones identity is based on ones group membership, Group decision making is best and Group protect individuals in exchange for their loyalty to the group Organizations are collectivist societies tend to promote nepotism in selecting managers. In contrast, in individualism societies, favoritism shown to friends and relatives is considered to be unfair and even illegal. Further organizations in collectivist culture base promotions mostly on seniority and age, where as in individualist societies; they are based on ones performance. Finally in collectivist cultures, important decision are made by older and senior managers as opposed to individualist cultures, where decision making is an individuals responsibility. Individualism is common in the US, Canada, Australia, Denmark and Sweden. The people of India, Indonesia, and Pakistan & Number of South American countries exhibit collectivism.

Masculinity Masculinity refers to a situation in which the dominant values in a society are success, money and other material things. Hofstede measured this dimension on a continuum ranging from masculinity to femininity. India scores 56 tending to be clos

.3 Explain the need for Human Resource Planning system .[10 Marks] Answer:Need for Human Resource Planning Human Resource Planning is a mandatory part of every organizations annual planningprocess. Every organization that plans for its business goals for the year also plans for how it will go about achieving them, and therein the planning for the human resource:1. To carry on its work, each organization needs competent staff with the necessaryqualifications, skills, knowledge, work experience and aptitude for work.2. Since employees exit and organization both naturally (as a result of superannuation)and unnaturally (as a result of resignation), there is an on -going need for hiringreplacement staff to augment employee exit. Otherwise, work would be impacted.3. In order to meet the need for more employees due to organizational growth and expansion, this in turn calls for larger quantities of the same goods and services as wellas new goods. This growth could be rapid or gradual depending on the nature of thebusiness, its competitors, its position in the market and the general economy .4 Elucidate the classification of wages in the Indian System.[10 Marks] Answer:In India, wages are classified as below : a. Minimum wageb. Fair wage; andc. Living wage Minimum wage: A minimum wage has been defined by the Committee as "the wagewhich must provide not only for the bare sustenance of life, but for the preservation of the efficiency of the worker. For this purpose, the minimum wage must provide for somemeasure of education, medical requirements and amenities". In other words, a minimumwage should provide for the sustenance of the worker's family, for his efficiency, for theeducation of his family members, for their medical care and for some amenities. It isvery difficult to determine the minimum wage because conditions vary from place toplace, industry to industry and from worker to worker. However, the principles for determining minimum wages were evolved by the Government and have beenincorporated in the Minimum Wages Act, 1948, the important principle being thatminimum wages should provide not only for the bare sustenance of life but also for thepreservation of the efficiency of the workers by way of education, medical care and

Q.5 Ms. S. Sharma is the General manager HR of a private educational group. Sheis planning for the promotion policy for the faculty members. The norms are alsoruled by the government policy and criteria. Moreover the options to promote arelimited. Suggest Ms Sharma the alternative way to vertical promotion. What arethe challenges in implementing that option? [10 Marks] Answer:In Vertical Promotion, employees are promoted from one rank to the next higher rank inthe same department or division. This is based on the belief that this leads to effectiveutilization

of experience gained in the same department. It also gives an opportunity tothe employees to go up while increasing their specialization in their area of operation.However, it has got one disadvantage. The vacancies may be very few in a department.Me Sharma can promote Faculty member to a Professor, but In this Case a biggestchallenge for Me Sharma is, a Lecturer working in a particular Department may notb e c o m e a P r o f e s s o r o r t h e H e a d o f t h e D e p a r t m e n t u n l e s s h i s s u p e r i o r s die/retire/resign. This makes the person frustrated. Besides, this type of promotion limitsa person's contact with other departments and does not permit him to enhance hisknowledge/expertise with each year's experience.Because his experience would be one or two year's knowledge multiplied by 10 to 15years rotation. If he does not get his promotion at the right time since the room at thetop is limited he will also start disliking his job / organisation. As a result, he becomes Q.6 ABC is an organization that wants to revise the HR policies. Before doing thatit want to have some details about the following: What the emplyees think about the company? What do they think ,in the company is going well? What practices in the company they think are not doing well? Get the feedback on managerial effectiveness.Suggest the suitable method to collect the employee opinion and explain themethod. [10 Marks]Answer: The Survey Questionnaire Method can be suggested to company ABC tocollect the employee opinions about the factors which affect morale and their opinionabout the leadership. Morale or employee satisfaction surveys are generally conductedwith a view to: