North South University

School of Business & Economics

Department of Masters of Business Administration

Course Name: Human Resource Management

(BUS 601-5)

FINAL EXAMINATION

Course Faculty

Dr. M. Nazmul Amin, PhD

Submitted By

Mohammad Mahamudul Hasan

ID: 1935147060

Section: 5
 Answer to the Question No: 1

a) What do you understand by training? Describe the pros and cons of employee
training.

Training:

The process of aiding employees to gain effectiveness in their present & future work

An organization’s planned efforts to help employees acquire job-related knowledge, skills,

abilities, & behaviors, with the goal of applying these on the job. (Most comprehensive
definition)

As a learning process whereby people acquire skills, concepts, attitudes or knowledge to aid on
the achievement of goals.

Training includes any efforts within the organization to teach, instruct, coach, develop
employees in technical skills, knowledge, principles, and techniques & to provide insight into &
attitudes towards the organization

Training is defined most basically as learning

Training is the act of increasing the knowledge & skill of an employee for doing a specific job

Example: Sukanto Barman is an Assistant Engineer (Chemical) in Unilever Limited’s Kalurghat

Plant. For Sukanto’s effectiveness in present & future work Unilever organizes different kind of
training programs. Falak Shikder is a management trainee in Pran Ltd. For Falak’s aid Pran is
supposed to provide training.

The foundation of training is SKOS (knowledge, skills, abilities & other requirements). From
there the organization moves to TNA (Training Need Analysis). Training Needs Analysis (TNA)
is the process in which the company identifies training and development needs of its employees
so that they can do their job effectively. It involves a complete analysis of training needs
required at various levels of the organization.
Pros and cons of employee training:

Let’s first discuss about the pros then we will move on to the cons:

a) Profitability:

Leads to improved profitability and/or more positive attitudes toward profits orientation. If the
organization trains employee it will minimize the wastage & spoils. It will help make the
company desired profit. The quality of the employees will be improved. It will also improve the
employee’s job related knowledge

b) Job knowledge:

Improves the job knowledge and skills at all levels of the organization. Proper training will also
improve the employee’s job related knowledge.

c) Morale of the workforce:

Training improves the morale of the workforce. It boosts the self-consciousness of the
employees. The employee will feel good to work in the organization. The employees will be
ethical.

d) Identifying with organizational goals:

Training helps people identify with organizational goals. The organizational goals are well
circulated & known among the trained employees. As a result they know how to achieve those
goals.

e) Creating a better corporate image:

Training helps create a better corporate image. The fortune 500 companies, the large ones & the
MNCs provide a robust training for this very purpose. Research finding says that, they generally
practice 100 hours of training per calendar year. It is religiously followed in Bangladesh both in
corporate & public sectors
 f) Improving the boss and subordinate relationship:

Training improves the relationship between boss and subordinate. When an employee is trained
with the desired set of skills he/she feels confident enough to open up, communicate & socialize
with everyone especially with the supervisors rather than lagging behind.

g) Learning from the trainee:

Through training the trainer also learn from the trainee. When the trainees share their day to day
personal experiences & reciprocates with each other various new information comes in focus.
The trainer can then include & use them in their training contents.

Now let’s focus on the cons of training and by all means those bellow discussed cons should be
avoided:

 Expensive & financial drain:

Training can be a financial drain on resources; expensive to operate. So when the training is
organized it can be expensive carrying expensive cost varying from the honorary of the trainer,
venue hiring cost, in case of in house training room hiring cost, food & lodging cost, cost of
providing training materials etc. By offering training a company can experience huge loss. For
example, ROBI sent 30 some employees to an offsite campus to learn new Technology for 7
days. After the training while taking evaluation feedback 3 distinct groups were farmed. The first
group was furious and angry as the training was irrelevant & didn’t cover any of the job
responsibilities. The 2nd group was frustrated, disappointed & depressed as they already knew the
training contents & the training was familiar with their job position. They thought the 7 days
were a waste of time & was better if they were provided leave in that time. The 3 rd group thought
that the training session were useful, relevant & excellent.

 Absence from jobs:

Training often takes people away from their job for varying periods of time. For example: Brac
Bank calls its employees from different branches of Dhaka, Barisal, Rajshahi, and Sylhet. So
their daily job responsibility in their work site is hampered due to this. The replacement can’t
perform like the regular employee.
  Leaving for a better job:

Training equips staff to leave for a better job. When the employee receives a new skill set which
he/she was unaware of he/she is ready to implement that in other sorts of personal development.
As a result an employee from Robi after training on AI becomes an expert & switches job to GP.

 Bad habits passed on:

When a training session is undertaken learning experience is passed on from down to bottom,
here to there. Suppose Unilever organizes a training session where hundreds of employees join &
interact among themselves. As a result, sometime apart from learning they also shares wrong &
bad informations or habits to others which is then cultivated by others also.

 Narrow experience:

Training provides narrow experience instead of a vast one in limited time frame. For example:
Square Pharmaceuticals organized a 7 days training session on Impact of COVID-19. Now in no
way these 7 days are sufficient enough for the employees to grasp the reality of COVID-19 fully.

b) Discuss two (2) specific training methods of human resource management with
example.

Training Methods:

In order to make the business successful, to ensure that no loss, wastage is incurred & render the
employees most effective certain training methods & approaches are needed to be applied. Those
generic methods are highly practiced & dominant throughout the world. The training methods
are as follows:
1. Classroom Instruction
2. Audiovisual Training
3. Computer-based Training
4. On-the-job Training (OJT)
5. Simulations
6. Business Games & Case studies
7. Behaviour Modeling
 8. Experiential Programs

Now let’s discuss & concentrate about the first 2:

1. Classroom Instruction:

Widely used in the workplace.

Major features:

Typical characteristics of classroom instruction as follows:

 Typically hire a trainer, a venue & invite maximum 30 employees in a classroom

environment.

 The trainer lectures the group, share real life examples, hand on experience, hold group
discussions, question and answer session.

 The trainer supplements lectures with slides, handouts, multimedia ,discussions, case
studies, question-and-answer sessions, & role playing

 Organizations with small number of employees i.e. 200/300 then classroom instruction is
suitable.

Advantages:

 Involving trainees enhances learning

 Least expensive & least time-consuming

 More effective with job-related examples & opportunities for hands-on learning

 Distance learning is more cost effective

Limitations & Disadvantages:

 Not suitable for organization with huge workforce i.e. one, two, three thousands
employees.
  Organization with large employees i.e. P&G (Procter & Gamble), Microsoft Inc. ,
Unilever Ltd. , Reckitt Benckiser, etc. those who have multiple locations, cross border
business for example P&G (Procter & Gamble) has business 170 countries; if they want
to train a specific issue to 7000 people this method wouldn’t work.

 Even single country based organization i.e. Noman Group, Zaber and Zubair with 60,000
employees, B&B with 40,000 employees try to teach a single or a string of issue to all of
its employees in a classroom environment that wouldn’t just work.

 Doesn’t give employee flexibility & independence to go through the course material
whenever they find convenient, suitable or even at their leisure.

2. Audiovisual Training:

Major features:

• Trainees can work independently using course material prepared on CDs & DVDs or in
workbooks

• Training available as Podcasts on portable devices such as Kindle, IPad, iPods & PDAs

Advantages:

 Suitable for organization with huge workforce i.e. one, two, three thousands
employees.

 Organization with large employees i.e. P&G (Procter & Gamble), Microsoft Inc. ,
Unilever Ltd. , Reckitt Benckiser, etc. those who have multiple locations, cross
border business for example P&G (Procter & Gamble) has business 170 countries; if
they want to train a specific issue to 7000 people this method is highly suitable.

 Even for single country based organization i.e. Noman Group, Zaber and Zubair with
60,000 employees, B&B with 40,000 employees can use this method efficiently.

 Presentation methods need not require trainees to attend a class

  Give employee flexibility & independence to go through the course material
whenever they find convenient, suitable or even at their leisure.

 Trainees can work independently using course material prepared on CDs & DVDs or
in workbooks

 Have some control over presentation (review, slow down, speed up the lesson)

 Give trainees a consistent presentation

Challenges, Limitations & Disadvantages:

 Ensure that the particular employee has the right device to play the training perfectly
without any issues.

 Ensure that the particular employee knows when & how to use the technology

 Ensure that the particular employee has internet connection.

 Ensure that the particular employee can obtain the necessary downloads from their
particular location & with their mobile device. For example: Employees in rural &
periphery areas like Chittagong, Karnafuli, Rangpur, Srimangal, Bagerhat has equal net
privilege to that of Dhaka based employee.

 Encourage collaboration & interaction among trainees

 Answer to the Question No: 2

a) What is employee development? What are the four approaches of employee

development?

Employee Development

Development is different from training. The combination of formal education, job experiences,
relationships, & assessment of personality & abilities to help employees prepare for the future of
their career. It is future oriented. It is not necessarily related to the employee’s current job.

Development is about preparing for change in the form of new jobs, new responsibilities, or new
requirements.

Example: Mr. Anik Bhuyan, Graduate Trainee of Robi Marketing team is offered a course on
cybercrime. Though cybercrime is a specialty for IT executives but if Mr. Anik is offered the
post of MD, CEO of the company in future he must have knowledge about that particular skill
sets.

Approaches to Employee Development:

As discussed in the definition, to develop a business graduate, an engineer, a pharmacist
basically any new employee the combination of 4 tasks need to performed. Those are the
approaches to employee development. They are as follows:

 Formal education
 Job experiences
 Interpersonal Relationships
 Assessment
b) Describe two (2) approaches of employee development with example.

Formal education

The very 1st approach of the employment development approach. It means offering formal

education i.e. short or long-time courses to the employees by the organization in order to develop

their knowledge, skills & abilities for the future. In Bangladesh many organizations offer tuition

reimbursement program to the employees in order to develop them for future benefits. For

example, Banglalink, GP, Robi offers short courses offered by consultants or universities.

Companies like Unilever, BAT offers Executive MBA (EMBA) programs to the deserving high

performing employees. In abroad McDonalds offers illustrious high ranking courses to top

ranking 50 some employees to Ivy League universities like Harvard, Yale, Boston, etc.

Examples of Development Programs at General Electric:

Program Description Target Audience Courses

Executive Emphasis on strategic Senior Manager Development

Development thinking, leadership, cross- professionals & Global Business
Sequence functional integration, Executives Management
competing globally, identified as high- Executive Development
customer satisfaction potential

Core Development of functional Managers Corporate Entry Leadership

Leadership expertise, business Professional Development
Program excellence, management of New Manager Development
change Experienced Manager

Professional Emphasis on preparation New Employees Audit Staff

Development for specific career path Financial Management
Program Human Resources
Technical Leadership
Job Experiences:

Can an employee develop himself/herself overnight? The answer is no. Just like a baby needs 9
months to fully develop itself the newcomer employee needs a maturity period to develop
himself/herself into a full grown, well skilled, top tier, high ranked, well valued employee. And
this maturity comes through nothing other than job experiences. The combination of
relationships, problems, demands, tasks, & other features of an employee’s jobs result in overall
job experiences.

Process of development through job experiences

 Promotion:

When an employee is promoted from an entry level job to mid-level job to a managerial
responsibility he/she undergoes problems, demands, tasks, interpersonal relationship & solve,
overcome, undergo, perform them and in retrospect develops himself/herself.

Example: Mr. Asish the management trainee of Burger Paints is promoted to Area Manager
through rigorous development programs & initial success as a well-equipped management
trainee.’

 Job rotation:

Through job rotation an employee experiences various sets of tasks, problems, demands,
interpersonal relationship varying from management, finance, HR, marketing etc. As a result,
he/she develop himself/herself into a full grown, well skilled, top tier, high ranked, well valued
employee.

Example: Mr. Rakib of Beximco Pharmaceuticals first entered the company as a business
graduate in sales division. After 1 year of service he was transferred into finance department,
then into HR & later management. Now he is the DGM of the company’s management division.

 Enlargement of current job:

By enlarging the current job responsibility the company enables the employee to handle several
pressure, tasks, and problems & enhances the learning curve of the employee. As a result after 10
years if a senior position is vacant that employee is so developed & skilled that he becomes the
1st choice of the management.

Example: Mr. Baker of Prothom Alo was the reporter of sports section. After a few years, he
had to handle the responsibility of reporting for sports, technology, life style, entertainment,
international affairs simultaneously. Now he is the edior of Prothom Alo as he is so well
developed & knows the news industry thoroughly.

 Downward move:

Downward move is a maneuver the organization uses for a certain employee to become more
developed by rotation to a down the line job position.

Example: Unilever Bangladesh has appointed Kamran Bakr the new Chairman & Managing
Director. The appointment will be effective from the 1st of February, 2012. Kamran joined
Unilever Bangladesh in 1990. After working in a variety of roles encompassing Production,
Development, Industrial Relations as well as a short term assignment to Central Asia & Middle
East Regional Innovation Centre, he was appointed Technical Director in 1997. In 2002, as
Supply Chain Director, his role was expanded to include Planning, Procurement & Distribution
aspects of the business.

In January 2007, Kamran moved to Nepal as Managing Director, Unilever Nepal – becoming the
first Bangladeshi national to head a Unilever business. During his successful stint in Nepal, he
found opportunity in adversity, leading the team to double the business in 4 years; while growing
market shares across categories to become market leaders in all categories Unilever Nepal
operated in.

Kamran holds a Bachelor’s degree in Chemical Engineering from Bangladesh University of

Engineering & Technology, Dhaka as well as a MBA from McDonough School of Business,
Georgetown University, Washington DC. He also attended the Advanced Management Program
at INSEAD, Fontainebleau.
Kamran comes in place of Rakesh Mohan, who is now moving to Unilever Malaysia &
Singapore as Chairman & Managing Director.

 Transfer:

Transfer means to move an employee to another job position from the current one. It’s a useful
approach for job development.

Example: Pathao transfers Mr Sahin as the Marketing lead from Bangladesh chapter to Nepal
chapter. As a result he will become so well equipped that one day when Pathao will be a global
force he might be the CEO of the global company.

A company in a special case might temporarily assign to another organization to get job
experience. This happens a lot in the public sector where an employee of Rail & Highways
maybe assigned to Fisheries ministry.
 Answer to the Question No: 6

a) Development-related Challenges:

The organization offers several opportunities for the employees like formal education,
development programs, and transport facilities but still the employees generally experience some
ghastly challenges in the working environment. The challenges hinder developments. These
challenges are as follows:

The Glass Ceiling:

Circumstances resembling an invisible barrier that keep most women & minorities from attaining
the top jobs in organizations. It refers to situations where the advancement of qualified women
within the hierarchy of an organization is halted at a particular level because of discrimination,
most commonly sexism. This situation is referred to "ceiling" as there is a limitation, blocking
upward advancement, and "glass"(transparent) because the limitation is not immediately
apparent and is normally written and unofficial policy which is invisible in nature. (Islam &
Alam, 2017)

Knowledge work, ICT and work‐life balance policies are found to increase the temporal and
geographical flexibility of work. Such enhanced flexibility should facilitate women's
participation and advancement in work and therefore gender equality. However, all three trends
also have hidden gender consequences that significantly prevent women from participating and
advancing.

Women are strongly held back from continuing upward mobility at a certain level of the
occupational hierarchy. A research identified six perceptions of disparate treatment of women in
Bangladesh, (Bihagen & Ohls, 2006, UNDP, 1993). These are:

1. Negative attitude toward women by male colleagues,

2. Doubts of superior officers about the capabilities of women employees,

3. Superiority complexes of male colleagues,

4. Tendency of men to treat women in a gender-biased scenario,

5. Comments that men were more efficient than women

Example: There are hardly any women CEOs in the MNCs of Bangladesh. If we try to name the
few CEOs names like Swapna Bhoumik, Rupali Chowdhury will come back repeatedly as the
women in executive, leading & managerial position are so rare. But there are examples of
women breaking the glass ceiling are available. For example: Indra Nooyi became the first
woman CEO of PepsiCo in 2006. Under her leadership PepsiCo made the highest profit in its
history. Rokeya Afzal Rahman, the first women bank manager is an excellent example. Capt
Zannatul Ferdous broke the glass ceiling by becoming country's 1st female paratrooper. We can
also name Salma Khatun the 1st woman train driver in Bangladesh.

Succession Planning:

The process of identifying & tracking high-potential employees who will be able to fill top
management positions when they become vacant.

Example: At Dole Foods, the new president’s strategy involved improving financial
performance by reducing redundancies and centralizing certain activities, including succession
planning. Dole contracted with application system providers (ASPs) to handle things like payroll
management. For succession management, Dole chose software from Pilat NAI. The Pilat
system keeps all the data on its own servers for a monthly fee. Dole’s managers access the
program via the Web using a password.

They fill out online résumés for themselves, including career interests, and note special
considerations such as geographic restrictions. The managers also assess themselves on four
competencies. Once the manager provides his or her input, the program notifies that manager’s
boss, who assesses his or her subordinate and indicates whether the person is promotable. This
assessment and the online résumés then go automatically to the division head and the divisional
HR director. Dole’s senior vice president for human resources then uses the information to create
career development plans for each manager, including seminars and other programs

Dysfunctional Managers:

While working at an organization an employee has to work under supervisors. A manager is the
go to person for an employee. It takes high sets of skills to be a competent manager but it also
takes special characteristics to be a good one. A manager who is otherwise competent may
engage in some behaviors that make him or her ineffective or even ‘toxic’-someone who stifles
good ideas & drives away employees. The major characteristics of a toxic manager are as
follows:

 Insensitivity to others

 Inability to be a team player

 Arrogance

 Poor conflict management skills

 Inability to meet business objectives

 Inability to adapt to change

Example: Arman Khan is the manager of Unilever Bangladesh Gulshan head office. One day at
recess he goes to Sahinara Sultana’s office room & tell her that Ms. Anawara her colleague is a
scoundrel as she is propagating misinformation about Ms. Sultana & calling her the reason of
downfall of the marketing division which she is the head of. But the back biting doesn’t stop
there. Then Mr. Arman goes to Ms. Anwara & informs her what a looser & lazy Ms. Sultana had
just called her. As a result, a rift, mistrust is created between the two colleagues and next time
when they meet in the office bus they hardly look at each other & loathes with such disdain.
b) Errors in Appraisal:

While doing appraisal we may do several errors due to our perceptions & prejudice. Those
errors hinder our total performance appraisal process. So in order to get rid of them we must first
understand & identify those errors. Those types of rating errors are as follows:

Just-like-me

People often tend to give a higher evaluation to people they consider similar to themselves. Most
of us think of ourselves as effective, so if others are like us, they must be effective, too.
Research has demonstrated that this effect is strong

Example: Mr. Baki, the HR manager of GP favors Mr. Bari who is from the same hometown,
educational institutions, and family background as him. Though another employees such as Mr.
Hasan is more compatible with the job responsibility in case of rating Mr. Baki favors Bari to
Hasan.

Contrast effect

If the rater compares an individual, not against an objective standard, but against other
employees, contrast errors occur. Raters make distributional errors when they tend to use only
one part of a rating scale. Raters often let their opinion of one quality color their opinion of
others. So contrast error is the evaluation of a person’s characteristics that are affected by
comparisons with other people recently encountered who rank higher or lower on the same
characteristics.

Example: A movie called Children of Heavens & another movie Avatar is being compared in
front of Mr. Nayer the CEO of Yash Raj films. Mr Nayer suddenly says “Never follow an act
that has kids or animals in it.” Why? Audience love children and animals so much that you’ll
look bad in comparison. This example demonstrates how a contrast effect can distort
perceptions. We don’t evaluate a person in isolation. Our reaction is influenced by other persons
we have recently encountered.

First impression:
Research shows we form impressions of others within a tenth of a second, based on our first
glance. If these first impressions are negative, they tend to be more heavily weighted in the
interview than if that same information came out later. Most interviewers’ decisions change very
little after the first 4 or 5 minutes of an interview. As a result, information elicited early in the
interview carries greater weight than does information elicited later, and a “good applicant” is
probably characterized more by the absence of unfavorable characteristics than by the presence
of favorable ones.

Example: Mr Akmal, MD of Bashundhara Papers thinks highly of Ms. Ayesha as a problem

solver just because in her interview the first task asked of her to solve a problem was easily
solved with ingenious answer. Though later in a task she didn’t perform like before the
impression didn’t change.

Stereotypes or Stereotyping

When we judge someone on the basis of our perception of the group to which he or she belongs,
we are using the shortcut called stereotyping. We rely on generalizations every day because they
help us make decisions quickly; they are a means of simplifying a complex world. It’s less
difficult to deal with an unmanageable number of stimuli if we use heuristics or stereotypes.

Example: It does make sense to assume that Tajwar, the new employee from accounting of
Unilever, is going to know something about budgeting, or that Allice from finance will be able to
help you figure out a forecasting problem. The problem occurs, of course, when we generalize
inaccurately or too much. In organizations, we frequently hear comments that represent
stereotypes based on gender, age, race, religion, ethnicity, and even weight.

Halo effect

Drawing a general impression about an individual on the basis of a single characteristic

Example: Mr. Akbar supervisor of Mr. Monwar often rate him as an unfriendly employee lower
on all traits, rather than just on “gets along well with others.” Being aware of this problem is a
step toward avoiding it.
Horn effect

The horn effect is when you judge a person and attribute negative qualities to them based on one
known quality. For example, people tend to think that overweight people are lazy. This effect is
closely related to the halo effect, which is when you attribute positive qualities to a person
instead of negative ones.

The horn effect plays an important role in the hiring process. It could lead you to make
assumptions about a potential candidate and make decisions based on those assumptions. Thus, it
increases the chances that a company will rule out potentially ideal candidates and hire the
wrong people instead.

Example: Mr. Akbar supervisor of Mr. Monwar often rate him as an unfriendly employee lower
on all traits, rather than just on “gets along well with others.” Being aware of this problem is a
step toward avoiding it.