MS-02 SOLVED ASSIGNMENT 2015

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Course Code

MS-02

Course Title

Management of Human Resources

Assignment Code :

MS-02/TMA/SEM-I/2015

Coverage

All Blocks

Note: Attempt all the questions and submit this assignment on or before 30th April, 2015 to
the coordinator of your study center.
1. Briefly explain the need for, types of, and the uses of various psychological tests in the
evaluation of candidates during the recruitment and selection process of an organization.
Explain with examples you have had in the organization you have been working in, or you
are familiar with. Briefly describe the organization and the context, you are referring to.
2. What is competency mapping? Briefly describe various methods involved in it. Explain the
competency approach to job analysis. Explain/reflect on the benefits of competency mapping
in organisational functioning and observance of various organisational processes, drawing
from the experience you have come across having worked in an organization. Briefly
describe the context and the organization you are referring to, to help understand your
answers.
3. Define and describe the role systems, distinguish between the position and the role in
a system. Explain the significance of role in person-system integration based on your
organisational experience or the ones you are aware of. Explain the role and significance of
person-system integration in determining effectiveness of the teams in an organisation.
Briefly describe the vital details of the organization and the situation to support you answers.
4. Discuss the dynamics and relationship between motivation and rewards. Critically evaluate
the role of financial reward systems and different types of employee benefits in improving
organisational performance. Explain with the help of the experience you have had in the
organisational situation/s, or the ones you are aware of. Briefly explain the organization and
the context you are referring to.

Answer
1. Briefly explain the need for, types of, and the uses of various psychological tests in the
evaluation of candidates during the recruitment and selection process of an organization.
Explain with examples you have had in the organization you have been working in, or you
are familiar with. Briefly describe the organization and the context, you are referring to.
Ans.: According to R.D. Gatewood and H.S. Field, employee selection is the "process of
collecting and evaluating information about an individual in order to extend an offer of
employment." Employee selection is part of the overall staffing process of the organization,
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which also includes human resource (HR) planning, recruitment, and retention activities. By
doing human resource planning, the organization projects its likely demand for personnel
with particular knowledge, skills, and abilities (KSAs), and compares that to the anticipated
availability of such personnel in the internal or external labor markets. During the recruitment
phase of staffing, the organization attempts to establish contact with potential job applicants
by job postings within the organization, advertising to attract external applicants, employee
referrals, and many other methods, depending on the type of organization and the nature of
the job in question. Employee selection begins when a pool of applicants is generated by the
organization's recruitment efforts. During the employee selection process, a firm decides
which of the recruited candidates will be offered a position.
Effective employee selection is a critical component of a successful organization. How
employees perform their jobs is a major factor in determining how successful an organization
will be. Job performance is essentially determined by the ability of an individual to do a
particular job and the effort the individual is willing to put forth in performing the job.
Through effective selection, the organization can maximize the probability that its new
employees will have the necessary KSAs to do the jobs they were hired to do. Thus,
employee selection is one of the two major ways (along with orientation and training) to
make sure that new employees have the abilities required to do their jobs. It also provides the
base for other HR practicessuch as effective job design, goal setting, and compensation
that motivate workers to exert the effort needed to do their jobs effectively, according to
Gatewood and Field.
Job applicants differ along many dimensions, such as educational and work experience,
personality characteristics, and innate ability and motivation levels. The logic of employee
selection begins with the assumption that at least some of these individual differences are
relevant to a person's suitability for a particular job. Thus, in employee selection the
organization must (1) determine the relevant individual differences (KSAs) needed to do the
job and (2) identify and utilize selection methods that will reliably and validly assess the
extent to which job applicants possess the needed KSAs. The organization must achieve these
tasks in a way that does not illegally discriminate against any job applicants on the basis of
race, color, religion, sex, national origin, disability, or veteran's status.
Employee selection is itself a process consisting of several important stages, as shown in
Exhibit 1. Since the organization must determine the individual KSAs needed to perform a
job, the selection process begins with job analysis, which is the systematic study of the
content of jobs in an organization. Effective job analysis tells the organization what people
occupying particular jobs "do" in the course of performing their jobs. It also helps the
organization determine the major duties and responsibilities of the job, as well as aspects of
the job that are of minor or tangential importance to job performance. The job analysis often
results in a document called the job description, which is a comprehensive document that
details the duties, responsibilities, and tasks that make up a job. Because job analysis can be
complex, time-consuming, and expensive, standardized job descriptions have been developed
that can be adapted to thousands of jobs in organizations across the world. Two examples of
such databases are the U.S. government's Standard Occupational Classification (SOC), which
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has information on at least 821 occupations, and the Occupational Information Network,
which is also known as O*NET. O*NET provides job descriptions for thousands of jobs.
A typical selection process consists of the following steps: completed job application, initial
screening, testing, indepth selection interview, physical examination, and job offer (French,
1982). In general, extension organizations in developing countries use a simple knowledge
test and a brief interview to select extension personnel. By using the above method, it is
impossible to discriminate an effective candidate from an ineffective candidate, because
selecting extension personnel demands thorough, indepth testing of cognitive and
noncognitive abilities.
Testing cognitive ability includes a knowledge test, a skill or ability test, and an aptitude test.
A noncognitive test is a measure of behavioural dimensions which are important for fieldlevel extension personnel, including concern for and commitment to rural people, empathy,
problem-solving orientation, high motivation to influence and educate farmers, ability to
work under unsupervised and difficult village conditions, patience and persistence, and team
spirit. A good example of selecting village-level extension workers on the basis of
behavioural characteristics is provided by the extension project of Allahabad Agricultural
Institute (Bathgate, 1956). In response to an advertisement for 27 posts of village guides, 700
to 800 candidates had applied. The final selection procedure consisted of five days of testing
skills and attitudes in actual village situations. The test included testing attitudes towards
menial tasks like cleaning a cattle shed or digging a compost pit. The candidates' responses to
emergency situations were also tested by dropping them into isolated villages.
The assessment centre approach, originally used during World War II, can be used to select
extension staff. In this approach, an organization develops its internal resources for assessing
new staff. The candidates to be recruited go through a number of simulation exercises, and an
expert assesses their behaviour. The techniques used are a psychological test, role play, inbasket exercise, group discussion, projective test, knowledge test, and interviews.
2. What is competency mapping? Briefly describe various methods involved in it. Explain the
competency approach to job analysis. Explain/reflect on the benefits of competency mapping
in organisational functioning and observance of various organisational processes, drawing
from the experience you have come across having worked in an organization. Briefly
describe the context and the organization you are referring to, to help understand your
answers.
Ans.: Competency mapping is the process of identification of the competencies required to
perform successfully a given job/role/a set of tasks at a given point of time. It consists of
breaking a given role or job into its constituent tasks or activities and identifying the
competencies (technical, managerial, behavioral, conceptual knowledge, attitudes, skills, etc.)
needed to perform the same successfully.
Competency mapping is used as the basis for any competency assessment that can be done at
a later stage. (Competency assessment is the assessment of the extent to which a given
individual or a set of individuals possess these competencies required by a given role or set of
roles or levels of roles.). The output of a comprehensive competency mapping of key
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positions is a role directory with required competencies. Competency mapping is a way of

assessing the strengths and weaknesses of a worker or organization. It's about identifying a
person's job skills and strengths in areas like teamwork, leadership, and decision-making.
Large organizations may use some form of this technique to understand how to best use each
worker or how to combine the strengths of different employees to produce the highest quality
work. Individuals may also find that this type of assessment can help them prepare for a
career change or advance in a specific job field.
Many competency mapping models break down strengths into two major areas: functional
and behavioral. Functional skills include all of the practical knowledge that a person needs to
perform a job. For instance, functional requirements for a secretary might include typing
ability, familiarity with computer systems and office machinery, and bookkeeping
knowledge. These skills are generally easy to measure through skill tests or task-specific
questions, and can help define whether a worker is capable of carrying out his or her basic
responsibilities.
Behavioral assessment is sometimes more difficult to quantify, and is the focus of most
competency studies. This type of analysis examines personal skills such as leadership, active
listening, teamwork, and morale. Crafting questions and tests that accurately identify
behavioral strengths and weaknesses can be difficult, because a worker may try to answer in a
way that makes him look his best rather than providing an honest response. This type of
testing is important for getting a complete picture of an individual's skill-set, however.
Questions might focus on how the person sets goals for himself, how he adapts to changing
situations, or how he deals with failure.
An analysis of a worker's past performance and work history can give the results of
competency mapping better context. If a worker scores poorly on leadership in tests, for
example, but has a long, documented history of being an excellent leader, it is possible that
the test did not measure this ability accurately. Considering testing scores in the light of real
performance helps create a balanced view of a worker's capabilities.
In large organizations, competency mapping models are often used to improve employee
performance, to help with hiring or promotion decisions, and to provide a critical look at the
current workforce. The process can be complicated, but typically begins with identifying
those competencies that are most important for a specific position. For example, if an
executive wants to internally promote a new manager, he might begin by listing the required
job skills and ideal behavioral traits needed for the position. From this list, he could create a
questionnaire that maps a candidate's competencies in the desired areas. After all the
candidates answer the questionnaire, the executive can then compare the results using the
competency scores to determine the best person for the promotion.
How the questions are worded can be critical to the overall usefulness of the process. Good
questions are generally very specific to the job and carefully worded to eliminate vague
answers. For instance, an ineffective question might ask "Are you good at time
management?" People may interpret the term "good" in many different ways, and may be
tempted to answer positively to make themselves appear to be better workers. A better
question might be "Do you finish projects before their deadlines most of the time?" Since this
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question can be verified by work history and allows a "yes" or "no" answer, it may provide
more useful information.
While this technique can be quite useful to large organizations, it does require thought, time,
and analysis, and some companies simply may not want to do the work involved. When
enough time is not put into preparing a questionnaire, the results may not be very useful.
Some companies choose to hire a external consulting team to handle the modeling, testing,
and analysis process for them.
This type of skill analysis can also backfire if the workplace does not respond to the results.
Companies that engage in competency mapping need to be prepared to make changes to take
advantage of the skills and abilities revealed in the assessment. This may mean that job
descriptions and responsibilities are changed or swapped, and departments are merged or split
as needed. Training and incentive programs may be needed to improve core skills for workers
who are struggling with performance issues. While these changes can cause initial confusion
and anxiety, actively responding to the results can often improve employee performance,
raise morale, and create a more efficient workplace.
Competency mapping can also be used to help those seeking employment show the specific
skills which would make them valuable to a potential employer. Many employers now
purposefully screen applicants for specific characteristics, so once a person knows her
strengths, she can emphasize them on an application or in an interview. A company may be
looking for someone who can be an effective team leader or who has demonstrated great
active listening skills, for example. Knowing that she has these strengths and being able to
discuss personal examples of them with prospective employers can give job-seekers a
competitive edge in the market.
Usually, a person will find that he or she has strong skills in five or six areas. Employees who
want to increase their worth may find that an area identified as a weakness is worth
developing. In other cases, the process may reveal that a person needs to find a new type of
work or a different work environment that is better suited to his or her abilities.
One potential limitation of personal testing is that individuals often have a few blind spots
regarding their own skills and personality. People tend to overestimate their abilities, which
can limit the usefulness of any test. They may also have difficulty accurately answering
questions that ask how others view them in the workplace. This gap between how a person
sees himself and what his skills really are can sometime make the results of self-testing
assessments questionable. For the most accurate results, test-takers must be prepared to
answer questions candidly and resist the temptation to overestimate their abilities.
3. Define and describe the role systems, distinguish between the position and the role in
a system. Explain the significance of role in person-system integration based on your
organisational experience or the ones you are aware of. Explain the role and significance of
person-system integration in determining effectiveness of the teams in an organisation.
Briefly describe the vital details of the organization and the situation to support you answers.
Ans.:

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4. Discuss the dynamics and relationship between motivation and rewards. Critically evaluate
the role of financial reward systems and different types of employee benefits in improving
organisational performance. Explain with the help of the experience you have had in the
organisational situation/s, or the ones you are aware of. Briefly explain the organization and
the context you are referring to.
Ans.: Motivation in simple words may be understood as the set of forces that cause people to behave
in certain ways. It is a process that starts with a physiological deficiency or need that activities
behaviour or a drive that is aimed at a goal or an incentive. The concept of motivation occupies a
central place in the discipline of Organizational Behaviour. It is a concept, which has received the
maximum attention from the academicians and researchers alike. Since a motivated employee is
highly productive and highly quality oriented, the managers are also interested the concept of
motivation.
Most people understand the concept of intrinsic satisfaction or intrinsic motivation, i.e. when an
activity is satisfying or pleasurable in and of itself. Naturally, these activities are things we like and
want to do. For most of us, intrinsically enjoyable activities are things like eating, resting, laughing,
playing games, winning, creating, seeing and hearing beautiful things and people, being held lovingly,
having sex, and so on. To do these things we don't need to be paid, applauded, cheered, thanked,
respected, or anything--commonly we do them for the good feelings we automatically and naturally
get from the activity. Intrinsic rewards also involve pleasurable internal feelings or thoughts, like
feeling proud or having a sense of mastery following studying hard and succeeding in a class.
Many, maybe most, activities are not intrinsically satisfying enough to get most of us to do them
consistently, so extrinsic motivation needs to be applied in the form of rewards (positive
reinforcements), incentives, or as a way to avoid some unpleasant condition ("negative reinforcement"
or punishment). Examples: You work doing an ordinary job for pay. You study for good grades or to
avoid failing or to prepare for a good future. You do housework to get a clean, organized house and/or
a spouse's appreciation or to avoid her/his disapproval. A teenager comes home from a date on time in
order to avoid being grounded. These are all activities that are commonly sustained by external pay
offs, not because you love working, studying, cleaning, and coming home early.
Money is understood to be powerful motivator for more than one reason. In the first place, money is
fundamental for completion of a task. The employee takes pay as the reward for his or her work, and
the employer views it as the price for using the services of the employee. Second, as a medium of
exchange. Third, money is one of the hygiene factors, and improving maintenance factors is the first
step in efforts directed towards motivation. Fourth, money also performs the function of a score card
by which employees assess the value that the organization places on their services and by which
employees can compare their values to others. Fifth, reinforcement and expectancy theories attest to
the value of money as a motivator. Sixth, money acts as a punctuation in ones life. It is an attention
getting and effect producing mechanism. Money, has therefore tremendous importance in influencing
employee behaviour. Seventh, money is easily vulnerable to manipulation. Finally, money will be a
powerful motivator for a person who is tense and anxious about lack o money. But behavioural
scientists think otherwise. They downgrade monetary rewards as a motivator. They prefer, instead,
other techniques such as challenging jobs, goals, participation in decision-making and other nonmonetary rewards for motivating employees.
The financial rewards are basically of three types:
Profit Sharing: Profit sharing could be on a macro basis or on a micro basis. The former relates to
the entire company as a whole and the latter to a particular section or group dealing with a particular
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activity and/or product. On a macro level, it would be difficult to identify and reward outstanding
performance. This is possible on a micro level by treating the particular activity as a cost and profit
center by itself. This is easier said than done, since overheads and other common services have to be
charged and this cannot be done completely objectively. The cost allocation in such cases is
somewhat arbitrary and the profit will therefore not be a true reflection of the performance of that
particular group or activity.
Job Evaluation: In case of job evaluation, the various component factors have to be isolated and
evaluated for purposes of inter-job comparison. Each factor is assigned a rating on the basis of a scale
agreed beforehand by the union and the management joint committee. The total rating for each job
then forms the basis of wage structure. However, there must be a base level, representing, in effect,
the 'minimum wage', depending on the nature of work and the geographical area. In some cases and in
some countries these are stipulated by law. A typical, though somewhat broad, list of job factors is as
follows:

working environment;
physical characteristics;
mental characteristics;
extent of responsibility;
training and experience.

In case of managers, the factors are:

responsibility;
expertise;
human relations.

Merit Rating: Merit rating has been used as an indicator of performance. Each employee is rated,
typically as excellent, good, average or poor, in respect of the following abilities:

communication;
human relations, including leadership and motivation;
intelligence;
judgment;
knowledge.

The rating, unfortunately, tends to be carried out purely mechanically and it carries a heavy bias of the
rater who may be too lenient, may not be objective and may also have favorites or otherwise in the
group being rated.
I am familiar with Nesco Ltd. Nesco is a leading producer of gas in Italy. At Nesco the following are
used to improve organizational performance.
Financial Rewards: These rewards in organizations help employees to be more committed and
motivated to their job and working environment:

System rewards are automatically given to all employees for merely being members of their
organisation. System rewards can be defined as being the basic wage rates.
Individual rewards are given to employees based on the quality and quantity of their
performance. Performance related pay (PRP) is seen as an individual reward policy, where
pay is rewarded in relation to the volume of output. PRP can cause divisions amongst
workers, where employees become more worried about the fact that their colleagues are being
paid more than them.
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Growth rewards are received by employees for job innovation, learning and improvement.

The key to managing performance through rewards is linking the desired performance with the
appropriate reward.
Non-financial Rewards: In an ever more competitive environment, the aim of organizations must
now be to focus on increasing the added value of their employees. This is achieved, by encouraging
employees to increase their effort and performance higher than the average standards. This has been
carried out using employee appraisals and motivational methods.
Employers have become increasingly aware of the rich potential for good constructive ideas that exist
from the employees on the job experiences. One method for using this knowledge is through
suggestion schemes, these are becoming highly recognized, as they allow for improvements in all
areas of work. These schemes are very flexible and can be readily adapted to meet all kinds of
working conditions. Suggestion schemes can be seen as a means of increasing profit and worker
participation.
Suggestion schemes aim to improve employee attitudes by directing their attention to the positive and
progressive aspects of their jobs. This helps to boost employee morale and increase job satisfaction. It
can be identified that if an employee is unhappy in his/her job it reflects on a negative attitude on
his/her performance and also with other people.
Experience in many companies has shown low employee morale reflects on low productivity and
increasing costly errors. Suggestion schemes play a useful role in increasing and maintaining morale.
Another method which is not related to pay is the performance appraisal system. This method is used
as a means of raising individual performance and identifying development needs. Appraisal systems
today are becoming part of the management culture, where managers feel it necessary to appraise and
be appraised.
Self Rating, this is a form of appraisal where the employee takes a look at themselves, avoiding any
negative feedback from traditional appraisals. Self rating is an effective way of trying to get the
employee to look at what their roles are in relation to business needs. It is fair to state that employees
are not motivated by money alone. Paying different wage rates to employees doing the same jobs can
cause more problems than benefits.
There are other incentives to reward employees, other than financial such as appraisals. Appraisals
can prove to be an effective means for looking at human resources, as they allow us to:

Ensure that the abilities and energies of individuals are being used effectively.
Allow employers to identify better uses of individuals talents and experience.
Training needs can also be identified.
Future decision making as data of abilities can be kept on file for future reference.

Other examples of incentives/motivators include:

Team briefings - Management tell sub-ordinates what needs to be achieved, this opens up the
lines of communication, and makes everyone aware of what needs to be done.
Team buildings - Employees are taken on outings to pursue some systematic group exercises
led by a trainer or time spent on social activities. The logic is to enthuse a team working ethic.
Quality circles - Regular meeting sessions where a group of employees discuss quality related
issues.

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It can be said that if managers are to be successful, they must focus on strategies that improve the
overall performance of the business by using employees as a vital resource which needs to be nurtured
and not just developing and implementing control systems to fix short term problems.

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