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Q1) What are the operative functions of Human Resource Management?
Ans:- Human resource management can be classified in to1- Managerial functions
2- Operative functions
Major operative functions are procurement, development, compensation, integration, and maintenance.
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•
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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.
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Compensation – It involves rewarding employees monetarily and through fringe benefits for their
contributions to the organisation.
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Integration – It deals with employees as a social group; it contributes to the organisation and
enhances group interaction and communication.
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Maintenance – It deals with maintaining employee safety and creating a sense of security among the
employees.
Q2) Differentiate between Personnel Management and Human Resource Management?
Ans:- The concepts of Personnel Management and Human Resource Management differ in terms of their
areas of focus. Personnel Management primarily focus on employee grievance and settling disputes.
Workforce is given importance only in terms of their productivity and achievement of organisational goals.
Human Resource Management, however focuses on the welfare of the employees and regard the workforce
as the most dynamic and important resource in an organisation.
1. Personnel management is workforce-centred. It is directed mainly at the employees of the organisation by
focusing on their recruitment, providing wages and salary, explaining the management’s goals and targets,
justifying the actions of the management etc. On the other hand, HRM is resource –centred. It is directed
mainly at management, by focusing on providing opportunities to employees for growth and development
through training and management development programmes, transferring more power and authority to the
workers, etc.
2. Personnel Management is basically an operational function. It gives a lot of importance to the day-to-day
administration of the workers. HRM, however, is strategic in nature. It focuses on enabling the organization
to gain sustained competitive advantage through strategic planning.
3. HRM is more proactive than Personnel Management. Personnel management focuses on employee
grievances and disputes expressed. They play a major role in addressing the problems after its occurrence.
Hence it is reactive. HRM focuses on providing a healthy work atmosphere looking into each and every
aspect of the workers.
They value the workers as a crucial resource and therefore take all measures to ensure the job satisfaction of
the employees. This is achieved by providing adequate opportunities for employees to learn and grow,
provide adequate promotional opportunities, conducting a fair performance appraisal etc.
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4. Personnel Management focuses on negotiation. It focuses on bargaining and negotiating between the
workers. HRM however focuses on facilitation. In HRM, the management go beyond the contracts and try to
retain the employees to the maximum.
5. Industrial conflicts and disputes are given a lot of importance in Personnel management.. HRM deemphasises conflicts. It believes that a certain level of conflict is essential for generation of new ideas and
new perspectives. At the same time HRM focuses on ensuring that conflicts are mostly prevented by
providing training such as sensitivity training, cross-cultural training, fair performance appraisal etc.
6. Personnel management uses job analysis and job evaluation for fixing the wages and salary of the
workers.. HRM provides for performance based pay, where the employees are paid based on their level of
performance. It also provides for fringe benefits that may not be monetary such as petrol allowance,
telephone allowance etc.
Q3) What are the major factors that affect Human Resource Planning?
Ans:- Several factors affect Human resource planning. These factors can be generally classified and divided
into external factors and internal factors.
a) External Factors
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Government guiding principles: The government of any country has certain principles that denote
its commitment towards the welfare of the workers.It could be based out of the labour policies or the
laws governing the industrial relations, reservation of jobs to the local people or certain sections of
the society such as scheduled caste or tribe.Any organisation that plans to recruit people must ensure
that they abide by these principles and reservations.
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Stage of Economic Development: Different stages of economic development such as traditional
stage, take-off stage, technological maturity and stage of mass consumption affects the level of
human resource development in a nation and thereby. This has a direct effect on the future supply of
human resources in the future in the country.
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Business environment: External business environmental factors such as changes in consumer
attitude, degree of competition etc., shape the quantity and quality of production. This influences the
future demand for human resources in terms of the skills and knowledge required of the employees.
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Level of technology: Level of technology too is a factor in determining the kind of human resource
required. Most technological advancement leads to lesser human efforts and more specialized
knowledge and therefore the human resource requirement reduces in number but increasing
considerably in terms of skill set.
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International factors: International factors such as global recession, global aversion to certain
products etc., too have immense influence on demand and supply of human resources in various
countries.
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Outsourcing: Availability of outsourcing services with necessary knowledge, skills and capabilities
of people reduces the dependency on Human resource planning and vice-versa.
b) Internal Factors
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Company policies and strategies: Company’s policies and strategies relating to expansion,
diversification, alliances, etc., mould the human resource demand in terms of quality and quantity.
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•
Human resource policies: Human resource policies of the company regarding quality of human
resources, compensation level, and quality of work life, etc., influences human resource plan.
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Job Analysis: Fundamentally, human resource plan is based on job analysis which identifies the
tasks, duties and responsibilities of a particular job and helps in putting the right candidate with right
competencies in right job.
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Time Horizons: Companies with stable competitive environment can plan for long term whereas the
firms with unstable competitive environment can plan only for short-term range.
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Type and quality of information: Any planning process needs qualitative and accurate information.
This is more so with human resource plan. It requires empirical and descriptive information about
existing employees and future requirements.
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Company’s Production and Operations Policy: Company’s policy regarding how much to
produce and how much to buy from outside to prepare a final product influences the number and
kind of people required.
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Trade Unions: Influence of trade unions regarding number of working hours per week, recruitment
sources, etc., affect the human resource planning.
Q4) Explain the process of carrying out of job analysis in organizations?
Ans:- To have an effective and accurate process of analysing a particular job helps the managers to ensure
that they hire the best quality employees,measure their performance on realistic standards and also provide
training and development programmes to increase the output based on factual measurements.
The process are explained belowi) Purpose of job analysis: Any process is futile unless its purpose is specified. Before collecting data, the
HR managers should know why the data is needed and what is to be done with it. The purpose, therefore,
has to be very clear.
ii) Selection of job analyst: The next step is to decide who will do job analysis. There are two options some companies prefer to hire job analysis consultants from outside and get the reports from them. Others
offer this task to their HR department and provide them training about how to conduct the process.
iii) Collection of background information: Data can be collected through various reliable and valid
techniques. Data is usually collected on job activities, employee behaviors, relationship of one job with
other, working conditions and human traits and abilities needed to perform the job etc.
iv) Selection of representative position: To save time and to remove complications it is best to select one
representative position from the pool of positions to analyse them. For example, assume that there are five
positions of an Associate Professor in the Department of Management Studies. In this case we select one
representative from the similar position as described above and do the job analysis.
v) Collection of job analysis data: This step involves the actual analysis of job by collecting information
on job features, required employee behaviour and human requirements.
vi) Developing job description and job specification: The last stage of job analysis is to develop a job
description and job specification. A job description is a written statement that describes the activities and
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responsibilities of the job, functions and duties, working conditions and safety and hazard. A job
specification summarises the personal qualities, traits, skills, qualifications, experience and background
required for getting the job done. In short, while job description is work oriented, job specification is
worker-oriented.
Q5) What are the types of recruitment?
Ans:- There are two types of recruitment process as given below1- Internal recruitment
Internal recruitment requires identifying people already working in the organisation to fill up vacancies.
When organisations prefer internal recruitment, it puts a positive impact on loyalty, morale and motivation
of the employee. When an organization prefers internal recruitment, each time there is a vacancy in the
organization existing employees may be promoted, transferred, upgraded to fulfill that vacancy. Any retired
employee, dependent of any deceased employee or retrenched employee also comes under internal sources.
Methods used for internal recruitment are:
a-. Promotions: Promotion is one of the methods of recruitment in any organisation. Here, the employee is
moved from a lower or junior level to the higher level in the organisation. Thus, a change takes place in
responsibilities, status, duties and value of the employees. For example, for the post of manager in the
production department in an automobile company, all the assistant managers of the production department
will be scrutinised and the most qualified among them would be shortlisted for the post. This is the reason
why in organisations like Tata group and Birla, star performers are given an opportunity of growth.
b- Transfers: Here, the employee is moved from one job to another. It can be a movement of job in the
same level of organisational structure also, with or without change in salary. In transfer working
environment, duties and responsibilities changes. Transfer is very motivational for the internal candidates
because it gives the employees satisfaction of taking up more responsibilities. Young executives of the
organization are motivated to take the risks involved in transfers.
c- Job posting: Job posting is an internal method under which the job is advertised on the notice board or
bulletin board, electronic media etc. of the company. It provides opportunities to the highly qualified
employees within the organisation to apply for the upper level jobs.
d-. Employee referrals: Employee referral has become a very popular way of recruiting people. In this
method, current employees of the companies are encouraged to recommend the name of their friends
working in another organisation for the future vacancy. Some organisations follow incentive based
employee referral programs. After following all the steps of screening if anybody’s recommendation is
offered a job, then the company offers reward to that particular employee.
2- External recruitment
To overcome the problems of internal recruitment, organisations go for external recruitment. In a dynamic
environment a fast growing company can have high demand for technical, skilled and experienced people
with new ideas and excellence. This method of recruitment is economical in a way that it eliminates the cost
of training by recruiting skilled people.
.
Methods used for external recruitment are:
a. Campus recruitment: When students are recruited from their colleges by companies and firms, it is
known as campus recruitment. Every college has its own placement centres. Recruiters visit these colleges
and pick up students having requisite skills. The first round of screening is done within the campus. visit
colleges to find their employees. They also sponsor programs conducted in the campus with a motive to earn
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goodwill in the job market. The placement centres help in locating applicants and providing resumes to the
organisations.
b-. Advertisements: Advertisements include all types of mass media such as newspaper, television,
professional and technical journals etc. Programs like employment show on News 24, Rozgar on
Doordarshan etc. are means of advertising for recruitment. In modern era these mediums have become very
useful. They give a brief description of the jobs. Newspaper is easily available and it is a popular way of
advertising of a job. The Times of India has a supplement, ‘Times Ascent’, that advertises employment
opportunities all over India and abroad. Organisations can easily target a specific geographic area with the
help of newspaper. Some organisations due to various reasons use blind-box advertisement where the
identity of the organisation is not disclosed.
c. Private employment search firms: These are organisations specialised in employment related services
and the render services to the corporate world for a fee. They provide services to both recruiter and
candidates. They have many contacts. They screen job seekers and send only the most qualified candidates
to the employer for their screening.
d- Employment exchanges: According to Employment Exchange Act 1959, companies, while filling the
vacancies are expected to consider unemployed youth enrolled in employment exchanges. These
employment exchanges are created all over India to help youths, disabled people, ex-military men,
physically handicapped etc. in getting employment. It covers all establishments in public sector and nonagriculture based private establishments who employee 25 and more employees.
e. Gate hiring: Gate hiring is generally applicable at blue collar employee, where they offer their services
on a daily basis. Job seekers present themselves near the gate of the factory and get employment for that
particular day.
f-. Contractors: They are agents who provide the required skilled candidates to the firms as per their
requirements. This is generally done for temporary posts.
g- Unsolicited applicants/walk-ins: Unsolicited applicants are the one who apply for the job directly. These
are walk-in interviews where anyone with the required qualifications can walk into the organisation, without
prior appointment and attend the screening interview. This is used for vacancies that are not too technical
and skilled.
h-. E-Recruitment: Recruitment through the Internet is called e-recruitment. www.monster.com,
www.timesjobs.com, www naukri.com, www.headhunters.com etc. are some of the online recruiting
websites. They are the fast and effective means of submitting your resume using internet. Recruiters view
the resumes online, screen it and shortlist the candidates according to the requirement of the companies and
prepare the database.
i-. Blogs, social networking and professional web-sites: Recently, organisations check into the profiles of
candidates in social networking web-sites and also view their blogs to decide on the knowledge and
competencies of the candidates and shortlist them. Professional websites such as www.linkedin.com also
provide opportunities to know the professional details of the candidates and also opinions about them
through the references.
Q6) Suppose you are the HR Manager of a bank. Explain the process of selection that you
would follow in order to select probationary officers?
Ans:- Interviews are one of the most important factors in the selection process because the recruiter and
hiring manager look at more than what the candidates can do for the organisation. They look for soft skills
the candidate may have in terms of team building, working in collaboration with other employees, taking
prompt decisions, motivating others to work. Recruiters also try to identify what the selected candidate can
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bring to the company that no other candidate can. The selection process should be designed in a manner
where the hiring managers are able to know the person in totality during this entire process. This is essential
because the company spends a lot while selecting people and even on their trainings. If wrong candidates are
selected, then the company will have to bear all the costs. Hence, this stage calls for careful selection of
those people whom the company can train, maintain and retain for long-term. Let us now have a detailed
look at each step of the process of selection:
i. Reception: Every organisation wants to create a favourable impression in order to attract the best
candidates to the organisation. Any applicant coming to the organisation is treated well so that they have a
positive impression about the organisation. Information about the current vacancies is provided to the
applicant and the appropriate application form is given to them to be filled up.
ii. Preliminary interview: When there are large numbers of applicants, organisations conduct a preliminary
interview. This is a very general and short interview. The recruiters aim at building good rapport with the
candidates in order to bring in a comfort level and to know about their background. Initial interviews are
used to eliminate those candidates who do not meet the minimum eligibility criteria laid down by the
organisation. It is essentially a sorting process with an objective of screening out undesirable or unqualified
applicants. The skills, academic and family background, competencies and interests of the candidate are
examined during preliminary interview. Initial interviews are less formal than the final interviews. The
candidates are given a brief up about the company and their job profile and also examined on how much the
candidate knows about the company. Preliminary interviews are also called ‘screening interviews’. Some of
the factors for elimination are inadequate years of experience, age, unexplained gaps in the employment
record, not possessing the exact education qualification, high salary expectations, location choice etc.
iii. Application blank: It is a traditional method used for collection of information from the applicant. This
form is designed in a way that it records the personal as well as professional details of the applicant. The
candidates are required to fill application blank which contains data record of the candidates such as details
about age, marital status, health conditions, educational qualifications, specialisation, special achievements,
experience, reason for leaving previous job, references etc.
iv. Selection tests: All shortlisted candidates are then called for employment tests. Different types of tests
are held depending on the nature of job and the type of company, such as aptitude test, intelligence test,
reasoning test, personality test etc. These tests are used to evaluate the capabilities of the applicant,
behaviour, special
qualities, potential to perform that job effectively etc. These tests should not be biased. Some of the tests
may be written on paper or taken online.
v. Selection interview: Interview is considered to be a formal, in-depth conversation conducted to evaluate
the applicant’s acceptability. These interviews are more important and huge emphasis is given to these
interviews. Interviews can be held for unskilled, skilled, managerial, technical, professionals etc. Thus, this
device can be used for all groups with slight modifications. Final interview calls for a twoway
communication as the interviewer comes to know about theapplicant and the applicant also gets information
about the company and the interviewer. In interviews, the interviewer asks questions to obtain information
that is not obtained through the tests. This also helps in evaluating the communication and cognitive skills of
the candidates. The ability to speak confidently and answer in a very simple and logical manner is also
assessed. Interviews may be formal and structured or informal and open ended questions. Sometimes
telephonic interviews are carried out, if the interviewer is at a different location. Stress interviews are also
common in organisations where the interviewer is seen to be rude or aggressive. This type of interview tries
to assess if candidates are able to control themselves even in the toughest situations. Informal interviews
such as lunch or dinner interviews are also carried out where the candidate’s etiquette and mannerisms are
also evaluated.
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vi. Medical examination: Most of the organisations undertake a medical examination of candidates before
finalising their selection. A general medical examination helps the organisation to know if the employee is
fit for work and whether there are any severe ailments that may impair their level of carrying out work.
Depending upon the nature of job, different medical tests are conducted on the candidates. For example, for
a job in the army, the candidates are asked to undergo a number of medical tests examining their eye sight,
height, weight, chest, lungs, blood pressure, heart etc. Organisations also check if the candidate is suffering
from any major illness that can impact the psychological wellbeing. This is done to decrease chances of
employee absenteeism
and occupational stress.
vii. Reference check: Most application forms include a section that requires prospective candidates to put
down names of a few references. References can be classified into - former employer, former customers,
business references, reputable persons etc. Such references are contacted to get a feedback on the person in
question including their behaviour, skills, conduct, character etc. This helps the employers get an overall
picture of the candidate.
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