ASSIGNMENT (SET-1)

Ques.1 What are the key human resource elements?

Ans. Key elements of human resource are as follows:

Payroll
Payroll is usually an essential element of any HR department, regardless of the
organization's size. HR duties related to payroll may include gathering of
employee information for payment and tax purposes, adjusting employee pay
for taxes and other withholding, and creating and issuing paychecks or direct
deposits. Even when issuing checks or creating direct deposits for employment
payment is outsourced or contracted, HR personnel are often responsible for
gathering this information and delivering it to the business contracted to
deliver employee payment.
Benefits
Administration of benefits is another key element of HR in most organizations.
Duties related to administration of benefits may include tracking vacation and
sick time, processing paperwork related to leave requests, and gathering and
processing employee information in relation to health insurance and
retirement benefits deliver employee payment.
Legal Compliance
For many employers, an invaluable element of human resources is the
responsibility of HR departments to keep the organization in compliance with
legislation that affects the workplace. HR departments are often responsible
for informing employees of the federal and state rights as related to
employment, such as the Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA), Occupational
Safety and Health Act (OSHA) regulations, Equal Opportunity Employment
legislation and other legislation that affects employees. HR departments are
also tasked with documentation related to employment legislation, including
processing employee claims.
 Personnel
Many duties related to personnel, including hiring, firing and performance
evaluation actions, are among the key elements of HR departments. HR
managers and/or employees are often involved in every step of an employee's
tenure with an organization, from processing and tracking documents related
to new hires, to employee performance evaluations, to employee disciplinary
procedures, and to the firing of employees. In many cases, HR is responsible
for keeping personnel files that document these employment actions.

Ques.2 What do you mean by Human Resource Accounting (HRA)? Discuss

the objectives and advantages of HRA.

Ans. HRA is a process of identifying and measuring data about human

resources and communicating this information to interested parties.
Flamhoitz has defined HRA as accounting for people as an organisational
resource. It involves measuring the costs incurred by organisations to recruit,
select, hire, train and develop human assets. It also involves measuring the
economic value of people to the organisation.

Objectives of HRA:

1. Provide cost value information about acquisition, development, allocation

and maintenance of human resources so as to achieve organisational goals in
an effective manner.

2. Enable management of the organisation to effectively monitor the use of

human resources.

3. Ascertain whether human assets are conserved, appreciated or depreciated

during a given period of time.

4. Assist in the development of effective management practices by classifying

the financial consequences of various practices followed by the organisation.
Advantages:
HRA is useful to organisations in more than one respect. It is clear from the
following advantages that it offers to organisations:

1. HRA provides useful information about the human capital in the

organisation. Such information enables the manager to take right decision, e.g.
choice between new recruitment and promotions, transfer and retention, and
retrenchment and retention.

2. It throws light on the strengths and weaknesses of the employees working in

the organisation. It facilitates management in recruitment planning, i.e.,
whether to hire/recruit people or not.

3. HRA also facilitates management to evaluate the effectiveness of HR policies

and practices. For example, high costs in training may warrant to look at the
returns over a period of time, expenses incurred in the additional recruitment
in respect of a particular category of employees may indicate the need for a
better compensation plan for them. Besides, HRA also provides feedback to a
manager even on his/her own performance.

4. It also provides valuable information for present as well as potential

investors to judge a company better on the value/strengths of the human
resources/assets utilized therein. If two companies are offering the same rate
of return on capital employed, for example, HRA by providing information on
their human resources can help the potential investors decide which one
company be picked up to make investment. This is because HRA is considered
as more accurate accounting method of ascertaining true and fair return on
the total resources employed in a firm.

Ques.3 what is Manpower Planning? Mention five essential elements/steps

of manpower planning.

Ans. Manpower Planning which is also called as Human Resource Planning

consists of putting right number of people, right kind of people at the right
place, right time, doing the right things for which they are suited for the
achievement of goals of the organization. Human Resource Planning has got an
important place in the arena of industrialization. Human Resource Planning has
to be a systems approach and is carried out in a set procedure.

Steps in Manpower Planning

1. Analysing the current manpower inventory-Before a manager makes

forecast of future manpower, the current manpower status has to be
analysed. For this the following things have to be noted-
Type of organization
Number of departments
Number and quantity of such departments
Employees in these work units

Once these factors are registered by a manager, he goes for the future
forecasting.

2. Making future manpower forecasts- Once the factors affecting the

future manpower forecasts are known, planning can be done for the
future manpower requirements in several work units.

The Manpower forecasting techniques commonly employed by the

organizations are as follows:

i. Expert Forecasts: This includes informal decisions, formal expert

surveys and Delphi technique.
ii. Trend Analysis: Manpower needs can be projected through
extrapolation (projecting past trends), indexation (using base year
as basis), and statistical analysis (central tendency measure).
iii. Work Load Analysis: It is dependent upon the nature of work load
in a department, in a branch or in a division.
iv. Work Force Analysis: Whenever production and time period has
to be analysed, due allowances have to be made for getting net
manpower requirements.
v. Other methods: Several Mathematical models, with the aid of
computers are used to forecast manpower needs, like budget and
planning analysis, regression, new venture analysis.
 3. Developing employment programmes- Once the current inventory is
compared with future forecasts, the employment programmes can be
framed and developed accordingly, which will include recruitment,
selection procedures and placement plans.
4. Design training programmes- These will be based upon extent of
diversification, expansion plans, development programmes,etc. Training
programmes depend upon the extent of improvement in technology and
advancement to take place. It is also done to improve upon the skills,
capabilities, knowledge of the workers.

ASSIGNMENT (SET-2)

Ques.1 Discuss in details the Employee Exit Process.

Ans. The payroll changes are made accordingly as per the relieving date
decided, the software generates the receipt of resignation letter, along with a
no dues format, with employee name, roll no, dept. already pre-printed on the
no dues format.

Operational Responsibilities:

This is termed as basic housekeeping. Immediately before or on the date of

departure the employee looks into basic housekeeping issues. Here are
suggested examples:

IT Checklist:

Clean-up local hard drive Clean-up network drives (personal & work)
Let them know what to do with network job files
Return manuals and disks
Delete organization software from personal laptops or other home
computers
 Administration Checklist:

Return all Office KeysClear out the office desk, files; return all stationary
/supplies/ equipment to production; take all personal belongings
Return Credit Cards (if any)
Have address changed on letters, bills/forwarded at post office/ courier
Hand in all copies of reports, files, manuals etc.
File all work, or arrange with someone responsible for filing work file
when job is complete (do not leave any work files in office)

Signature of Employee who reviews the checklist: _

HR Checklist:

Leave forwarding address

Telephone Number
Facsimile (fax) Number
Mobile Number
Hand in all appropriate forms

Signature of Employee who reviews the checklist: _

Standardized Exit Survey:

This is documenting, "employee's general impressions," of the organization.

Employers document the employees' impressions of their work experience for
later use in improving the organization functionalities. Forward thinking HR
managers track the circumstances of employee exits as well as the outgoing
perceptions of those employees. This information offers valuable insights for
enhancing SOPs, employee incentive programs, organizational structure,
managerial approach etc. To ensure that basic employee exit information can
be evaluated reliably with statistical analysis, it must be collected in a
standardized format and procedure. There are companies that specialize in this
type of evaluation. Employee Exits should meet professional standards and
legal requirements.

Face-to-Face Exit Interview:

This is viewed as the "personal and professional closure." The employer and
employee accomplish proper closure with a face-to-face exit interview. An exit
interview is generally conducted by impartial persons such as an HR manager
or a senior leader of the organization. The idea is that employee should tend to
be more forthright than disagreeable. Some organizations engage a third party
to conduct such interviews and provide honest feedback.

The objective of an exit interview is to gather information to improve upon the

lacunae it may have in its working conditions so that it helps in retaining other
employees. A questionnaire includes common questions such as reasons for
leaving, job satisfaction level, frustrations and feedback concerning the
organization.

Aims of an exit interview:

Provides an opportunity to "amicably" part with employees who are

unhappy or angry.
Provides a quick feedback about organization and how employees
should be managed.
Provides inputs to design better HR practices.
Provides inputs for designing better training processes.
Provides inputs for improving recruitment and induction processes.
It provides direct indications as to how to improve staff retention.
Sometimes it can help retaining employees.
It is a source of inputs for managing succession planning.

In exit interviews, the interviewer has to listen more than talk and provide time
and space to the employee to answer as they may be nervous. Ensure a
meeting room is blocked and no interruptions occur during the process. The
interviewer may reassure to the employee to speak up and not feel
threatened. He should interpret, reflect and understand what employee is
saying. The interviewer should resist from countering the employee. The idea
is to draw inputs and feedback.Exit interview process and questions may vary
depending on voluntary or involuntary attrition. Voluntary attrition is where
employee wishes to discontinue service with the organization but the
organization wants to retain such employees.

Involuntary attrition is where employee wishes to continue service, but the

organization does not want to retain such employees.
A proper closure in the exit interview, for both the organization and departing
employee encourages positive and professional ties between the two.

Ques.2 What are the benefits of setting up a training academy?

Ans. Organizations set up training academies where they provide a training

course with/without certification in the area of their specialization to fresher
candidates. Sometimes candidates with lesser experience are also considered.
The candidates are charged fees for this course and are hired on successful
completion of the course. The setting up of the academy involves answering
the below mentioned questions:
Why set up an academy?
Who will do the training?
Where will the training be conducted?
How will it be conducted?

Benefits of setting up a Training Academy

By setting up an academy, an organization can get following benefits:
(1) Reduced Hiring Costs As lesser number of employees will be hired by
using consultants and more number of students will be hired from the training
academy, the hiring cost is reduced. Also the organization generates revenue
on every candidate trained.
(2) Reduced Training Cost During the training period the candidates are not
paid salary, so the cost of salaries paid during the training period is saved. The
cost of salaries is a big component of training costs. For a BPO offering an
average salary of INR 10,000 per month and a training duration of 2 months.
Salary costs are INR 20,000 per employee during training. It may have hired
1000 employees last year and trained them and borne the cost of 2 Crores
towards salaries during training. But by setting up an academy it saves on 2
crores in terms of salary costs.
(3) Reduced Training Period Train to Hire process completely concentrates
on training the new candidates, only the selected candidates are paid at the
end of the training. As a large chunk of the training is conducted by the
academy, the training period of the company reduces substantially. Their go-
live time is the shortest.
(4) Improved Bench Strength The organization has ready replacements
available in case of employee turnover or any additional manpower required
for expansion. The academy always has excess people than what the
organization requires. This gives the organization the flexibility to backfill at
short notice and expands the business in the shortest possible time. The
candidates ready in waiting to join the organization is called the bench
strength.

The Who and Where part of the questions can be explained as follows:
Academy is the centre where the training would take place. The organization
has to first decide whether the training will be conducted by the in-house
trainers or it will be outsourced to vendors who have expertise in the required
training subject.

Once this is decided, the organization identifies a place for the Training
Academy where the training would take place. Training Academy is either
situated in the existing part of the organizations premises or a low cost area
where the cost of land is relatively cheap. Organizations set up the Training
Academy in the existing premises because it saves them any additional cost
and makes it easier to make resources available to the candidates.

Sometimes, the organization is reluctant to use its office space to avoid any
administrative issues, maintain safety, and avoid information leakage about
their products or schemes etc. These issues may arise due to having candidates
inside the premise, who are yet not the organizations employees. Therefore,
the Training Academy is set up outside the company premises.

Other reasons for different premises are:

(i) Not enough space in the company premieses
(ii) Organization reluctant to have the Academy in their premises
(iii) Training outsourced to a vendor

When the academy is to be set up in another location, then a low cost area is
identified where the cost of land is relatively cheap. When the Train to Hire
process is outsourced fully or partly to a vendor, the centre could be
provided or arranged for by the vendor. This saves the organization any
administrative burdens. The other reason could be that the organization is
looking at the academy as a separate business venture.

Benefits of setting up an academy for the organizations for the company,

managers, and employees are :-

FOR THE COMPANY

Reinforce corporate strategy, culture, and vision.
Establish expectations for performance excellence, resulting in a systematic
approach to professional development, improved job satisfaction, and better
employee retention.
Increase the effectiveness of training and professional development
programs by linking them to the success criteria (i.e., behavioral standards of
excellence).
Provide a common framework and language for discussing how to implement
and communicate key strategies.
Provide a common understanding of the scope and requirements of a specific
role.
Provide common, organization-wide standards for career levels that enable
employees to move across business boundaries.

FOR MANAGERS:
Identify performance criteria to improve the accuracy and ease of the hiring
and selection process.
 Provide more objective performance standards.
Clarify standards of excellence for easier communication of performance
expectations to direct reports.
Provide a clear foundation for dialogue to occur between the manager and
employee about performance, development, and career-related issues.

FOR EMPLOYEES:
Identify the success criteria (i.e., behavioural standards of performance
excellence) required to be successful in their role.
Support a more specific and objective assessment of their strengths and
specify targeted areas for professional development.
Provide development tools and methods for enhancing their skills.
Provide the basis for a more objective dialogue with their manager or team
about performance, development, and career related issues.

Ques.3 Write short notes on the following: a)Competency Mapping

b)Succession Planning

Ans.

a) It is a process designed to consistently measure and assess staff

performance as it relates to the expectations of the organization.
A competency map is made up of four areas of competence attributes:
1. Personal Attributes The characteristics which enable the employee to attract
others to well reasoned and logical points of view, to effectively communicate,
and to relate to others. These include:
Insight and Judgment
Integrity and Ethics
Continuous Personal Improvement
Commitment and Performance Stability
Interpersonal Orientation
 Project Management Skills
Innovative/Creative Thinking
Presenting/Speaking
Business Writing
Professional Demeanor
1. Leadership Qualities The skills that allow the employee to assume a
position of influence by assembling and leveraging a variety of resources that
address problems and opportunities throughout the organization. These
include:
Strategic Thinking and Planning
Facilitating
Negotiating and Persuading
Teamwork
Coaching and Empowerment
Problem Solving
Decision Making
Cross-Functional Perspective
2. Broad Business Perspective The body of knowledge that encompasses an
understanding of the organization and its industry. These include:
The Organization and Industry Knowledge
Internal and External Consulting
Business Relationships/Partnerships
Current and Emerging Management Practices
Best Practices
Risk Management
Mergers, Acquisitions and Strategic Alliances
Management Accounting
Organizational Systems and Processes
3. Functional Expertise The traditional technical skills that the employee
should possess and which form the basis for their unique ability to understand
an organization from a perspective that others cannot. For eg. A finance
professional should have knowledge in the following:
Financial Analysis
Treasury Management
 Cost Management
Human Resources
Taxation
Information Technology
Control Environment
Financial and Statutory Reporting and Accounting Principles
Internal Audit
Budgeting, Forecasting and Business Planning

b) Succession Planning: One of the types of career planning is succession

planning. Succession planning is a technique for identifying and developing
internal employees with the potential to fill important organizational positions.
Succession planning ensures the availability of experienced, skilled and
competent employees that are prepared to assume these roles as they
become available. Succession planning increases the progress of qualified
employees from individual contributors to managers and leaders. Thus:

It prepares present employees to undertake key roles

It develops talent and long-term growth of employees
It improves workforce capacities and performance of employee
It improves employee commitment and thus enables retention of
employees
It ensures its support to employees throughout their employment term
It meets the career development requirements of existing employees
It understands the increasing difficulty of recruiting employees
externally
It focuses on leadership continuity and improved knowledge sharing
It provides more efficiency in monitoring and tracking of employee
proficiency levels and skill gaps.