Audit Methodology: Interviews

Advantage is to capture primary concern of

stakeholder
Interviews make the assessment dynamic
Interview method is quick and adequate for a
comprehensive HRD Audit. Interviews of
CEO
Top Management
HR Head & HR Staff
Line Managers
Workmen, Field Staff & their Representatives

CEO & Top Mgt Interview Purpose

The purpose of interviewing senior
management is
It helps Auditor to know expectations of Mgt
Auditor explain scope & limitations of Audit
Ground work for getting co-operation of staff
and legitimise the exercise
Provides an opportunity to sow the seeds for
effective utilisation of audit results

Interview with CEO

Independent interview or Group Session

Group Session can be a Briefing session to explain
HRD Audit and its methodology
Audit Schedule
Know the expectations of CEO
Clarify expectations ,if any cannot be met
Questions asked are:What are documents giving idea of new plans,
diversifications, new products, new businesses?
What competency gaps do you see as existing in the staff at
present?
How are you proposing to develop new competencies?

Objectives of HR Head Interview

To understand current systems/ level of skills with HR staff ,
top mgt styles, & their congruence with HR philosophy
To plan out sampling and other details of study
To prepare a checklist of documents
To understand the internal customer framework of HR Dept
How time is spent by department
Swot analysis of HRD system
His perception of competencies of HR dept or line
managers, of unions and their involvement with HR related
issues

Sample Questions
How are strategies of HR & HR plans formulated? What its role in
stratgic planning?
What are strengths & weaknesses of System such as Performance
Appraisal, Counselling, Training, Career Dev, Succession Planning,
Job rotation, OD and team building interventions, worker dev,
culture building etc
How do you characterise the styles of top and Sr. Managers ? How
much conducive are they for developing a learning culture?
How line Managers play development role to Juniors?
Is there a separate budget for HRD?
Is there a well articulated HR philosophy and values
How are linkages betwn HR and Personnel Dept ? Is there a need
for further strengthening or differentiating the functions?

Interviews with Line Managers

Objectives are to understand their perception of HRD needs, current
status, expectations, competencies, comitment to HRD. Questions
What kind of HRD needs do you or your dept have?
What help do you get for culture building ?
What are HRD systems you are happy about
What are training needs?
What are your career growth needs? Are they being taken care of?
What skills or knowledge you require to perform better
What are areas where your HR can do better?
What is good about your HR systems Performance Appraisal, Counselling,
Training, Career Dev, Succession Planning, Job rotation, OD and team
building interventions, worker dev, culture building etc
What should HRD stop doing or do less?

Interview with Workers or their

Representatives
Objective would be to find current status of their dev
needs vis--vis business goals, motivation levels, good
practices of Mgt etc
What are strengths of this company?
What do you know about business plans and
opportunities of this company?
What do you know about business competition?
What motivates you? What can be done to improve
quality, save cost, make people happy to work with this
orgn?
What are your expectations from HR? what are your
suggestions for them to serve you better?

Group Interviews
Group interviews cover wide variety of areas
Wider participation of employees
Sr. Manager, leader, opinion makers individual
interviews preferred
Others in teams of 7 or 8
Cross functional groups
Preferably same level of hierarchy
Advantages of Group Interviews
1. Wider coverage of issues and therefore you may
not miss any significant issue

Group Interviews
2) Larger involvement of employees
3) Verification of data and significant points
4) Assessment of the intensity of feelings
associated with any issues or problems
5) Education of employees about their own
roles and responsibilities as line managers

Group Interview guidelines

Top Mgt
One hour duration of individual interview
One group briefing session by the top mgt
team to auditors bfr individual interviews
begin
Supervisory staff
Sample of 10% or 5 or 6 groups from diff
functions or work places

Group Interview guidelines

Managers
Individual interviews with heads of dept, divisions,
SBUs, Sections,
As a spl case individual interviews with managers with
strong +attitude or negative attitude
Group interviews with middle level managers upto 10
% or all if less than 100 managers in all working
Better to interview 100 to max 300 managers
Workmen
Relatively large group
5 to 10 groups may be interviewed.

Interview Questions
What in your view are strengths and weaknesses
as they exist today in relation to the following
components of HRD
1. Top Mgr commitment to HRD
2. Recrutiment of competent people into co
3. Retention of competent people
4. Identification of fast-track employees
5. Mentoring system
6. Training (in-house and outside)
7. Induction

Interview Questions
8. Career planning
9. Succession planning
10.Job rotation
11.Performance appraisal
12.Separations
13.Quality circles
14.Participative management
15.Shopfloor committees
16.Personnel policies

17.Communications
18.HRD Culture
19.HR Information system
20.Others
21.Sometimes group is administered a
Questionnaire and then group interviews are
conducted to gauge intensity of feelings and
to gain an in-depth understanding.

Audit Methodology: Observation

Observation is a way to look at the things as they
exist.
Use of various senses
Drawing meanings to the things we see or hear
Evaluator may observe following: Physical facilities & living conditions
Meetings, discussions and other transactions
Celebrations/ events
Training including classrooms, library
Forms, formats, reports etc

Objective
To assess the current status of the physical facilities and
their organisation in the work as well as the living
environment and examine their motivational or demotivating value to employee satisfaction or productivity
Layout of factory & work environment
Layout of office and seating arrangement
Work condition and facilities
Record keeping and filing
House keeping, Toilets and their cleanliness/up keep
Canteen, school, educational facilities
Transportation and other conveniences
Sports, games and other facilities

Meetings, Discussions
Orgns use small group, task forces, committee
quality circles, open houses, in an effort to bring
change
Assumption is participation has a motivational
value and groups give greater value
The observation of a sample of such group can
help to ascertain the value addition, human
competency or motivational losses or gains due
to conduct and processess of meetings
Teamwork and meeting management is a skill

Observation of meetings

Meetings that can

Quality circles
Shop floor councils
Departmental meetings
Cross functional teams
Open houses and open
forum
Daily production meetings
Performance review
committee
Presentation by outsiders,
vendors etc

Specialised sessions
PA and counselling sessions
Conflict resolution sessions
Union negotiations or
meetings
Union or association
meetings
Training need identification
sessions
Communication meetings
by CEO

What they observe?

To evaluate the extent to which they are
serving purpose say performance
improvement
Some meetings provide information that is
essential to perform the job
Identity establishment meetings to allow
employees feel that they are part of co.
Following guidelines can help evaluation
process

What they observe?

Do people come adequately prepared for meeting

Is the agenda circulated well in advance
Are objectives clear to all?
Do people share their goals?
How well meeting coordinated?
How well meetings are being participated?
Is the leader of meeting sensitive to individual differences in participation? Does
he ensure equal participation by all?
Do people listen to each other
How conflicts are being handled?
Are people habituated only to speak and do not listen to each other!
Are there narrow depatmental loyalties hindering organisational problem solving?
Is problem solving resulting into clear action plans
Do such meetings add value or waste of time?
What critical competencies will make meetings more productive?

Celebrations & Events

Annual days and other celebrations
Cultural events
Special day like environment day founders day,
sports day etc
Opening ceremonies of new facilities, depts
Celebration of festivals
Birthday celebrations
Celebrations of accomplishments such as co
getting a trophy for safety, sports, Quizzes etc

What they observe?

Participation , eagerness and enthusiasm and
spirited participation
Organisational aspects : are there efforts made to
involve everyone?
Status differences in terms of participation ,
seating
Ceremonial roles of top mgt? do they indicate
respect for labour?
Is it helping people to get we feeling or is
causing a drift?

Training facility
Symbolic reflection of extent to which orgn values
systematic learning and competency building of
employees
Ambience of training facility
Training rooms
Library, books, its variety and facilities
Classrooms and classroom facility
Photocopying and fax machines
Audio visual aids, LCD, overhead projectors
Flip charts
Seating arrangements, chairs, cushion

HRD Audit Instruments

Questionnaires

HRD Auidt Questionnaire

No of questionnaires used for audit purpose
They measure various aspects of HRD and
provide inputs for HRD Score card
There are questionnaires to measure: HRD Systems and their effectiveness
Effective performance of various activities by HR
Dept
HRD competencies of HRD staff
HRD Styles & HRD Culture

Questionnaire
Questionnaire contains questions on : Career Systems, Manpower planning, recruitment,
potential appraisal, promotion, career planning & dev
Work Planning, role analysis, contextual
analysis,performance appraisal systems
Development Systems, learning system, Training
Questionnaire, worker development
Self renewal systems, role efficacy, OD, Action Oriented
research
HRD, HRD climate, top Mgt commitment, values in orgn,
Quality Orientation, rewards & recognition,
communication, empowerment
HRD function etc

Analysis of data
Most imp use of Questionnaire is item-wise analysis of
data.
The percentage score on each item is calculated from the
item wise averages
Tabulate for each item the average score
The average score is converted into a percentage score
using the formulae Percentage Score=(item average-1) x 25
Benchmarking data available giving highest and lowest
score
Score above 75 percent indicate excellent orgn 60 or below
indicates scope for improvement and below 50 indicates
weakness areas

Dimension-wise Analysis
The dimension-wise average score can be obtained by
totalling the item averages on dimension and dividing
by number of item in that dimension.
Percentage Score=(dimension average-1) X25
Dimensions: HRD philosophy and liasion with top mgt,
creating dev motivation in line managers,
strengthening HRD climate through HRD system,
monitoring HRD implementation, inspiring Unions,
Human Process research, influencing personnel
policies, creating business linkages and integrating with
other systems and processes etc

Mapping the HRD Practices Profile

Questionnaire contains 102 activities
Objective is to assess degree to which these
activities are performed
Orgns with good HRD practices perform many
of these activities
It is hypothesised that Performing all these
102 activities well would be a characteristic of
world class orgn

HRD Climate Survey

Good HRD climate can be assessed on the basis of tendencies and
attributes: A tendency at all levels and top mgt to treat people as most imp resource
A perception that developing competencies in the employee is job of
every manager
Faith in capability of people to change and acquire new competencies at
any stage of life
A tendency to be open in communication
A tendency to encourage risk taking
A general climate of trust
A tendency on the part of employees to help each other and team spirit
Supportive personnel Policies
Development oriented appraisals, training, rewards, job rotation, career
planning and potential appraisals.

Trainning Effectiveness Questionnaire

Formal training should contribute to growth and
development of emp competencies
Motivation
Need based training
Well planned, monitored, and used
Both HR and line Managers are partners for such
training
Questionnaire measures effectiveness of training

Performance Planning, analysis and

Dev Questionnaire
Aims in assessing the extent to which the performance
appraisal system is HRD oriented
HRD oriented appraisal system promotes participative
planning of performance
Participative analysis so as to know factors facilitating
or hindering performance, performance review
discussion
Identification of development needs
Improved communication
Openness, mutuality and trust among appraiser and
appraisee.

Effective Counsellor Attitudes

Every line Manager should have counselling skills
They have to use it for performance discussion
These skills bring line managers closer to their
subordinates, and to their development
Listening and diagnostic skills
Empathy and faith in employees and their
competencies
+Attitude, self disclosure, receptivity to feedback

Leadership Beliefs Questionnaire

The effective management of Human resources
requires an understanding of capabilities of staff,
assigning them appropriate tasks
Maintaining their motivation levels
Structuring work so that people can derive
satisfaction from doing it,
Managers spend more than 50% time in
interacting with staff
Effectiveness of Manager depends upon both the
content of interaction and managers style

Benevolent, critical, development style

Benevolent supervisor
Protects subordinate, continually tells what they
should do or not do, comes to rescue,
Such supervisor caters to employee needs of
security and liked by staff
Effective as long as they physically present
Workers may experience lack of direction in their
absence
Supervisor tend to have dependents and do not
reinforce initiative taking behaviour of staff

Critical Supervisor
Critical approach
Little allowance to mistakes, low quality work,
individual peculiarties,
Good in finding mistakes, critisizing
subordinates, making them feel incompetent
Subordinates produce accptable work out of
fear
Employees dislike such supervisor

Developmental Supervisor
Confidence in subordinates
Helps them to set broad goas, allows them to
work on their own
Provide guidence only on request
Employees feel confident about their work
They feel free to work independently as well
interdependently with their colleagues
Competencies get developed well

Institutional supervisor
Closely related to Developmental supervisor
Involved in developing the dept or unit
Ensure growth and dev of their units and
subordinates by incorporating processes that
help people to give their best
People grow with organization
Supervisor have development style
Flexible in their use of styles

Characteristics of Institutional
Supervisor
They are ogn oriented and feel responsible for
building their orgn
Self disciplined and enjoy their work
Willing to sacrifice some of their self interest for
the welfare of orgn
Keen sense of justice
Low need for affiliation, a high need to influence
others for social or orgn goals
They have a disciplined or controlled way of
expressing their power needs

Implication of supervisory styles

No single supervisory style universally effective
Effectiveness depends upon employee and nature of
tasks among other factors
If a new employee does not know much about work
benevolent one is useful
Employees with low self discipline could be developed
best by critical supervisor but continuous critical
supervision is unlikely to be effective
Flexibility & perceptiveness about when to use each
style are useful attributes for leaders and supervisors
To enhance learning among employees developmental
philosophy is best