Ques:-Barriers to communication? Explain Any four Barriers?

Ans:-

Barriers:- Here are many reasons why interpersonal communications may fail. In many
communications, the message (what is said) may not be received exactly the way the sender
intended. It is, therefore, important that the communicator seeks feedback to check that their
message is clearly understood.

The skills of Active Listening, Clarification and Reflection may help but the skilled
communicator also needs to be aware of the barriers to effective communication and how to
avoid or overcome them.
There are many barriers to communication and these may occur at any stage in the
communication process. Barriers may lead to your message becoming distorted and you
therefore risk wasting both time and/or money by causing confusion and misunderstanding.
Effective communication involves overcoming these barriers and conveying a clear and concise
message.

1. Physical Barriers: this has to do with poor or outdated equipment used during
communications, background noise, poor lighting, temperatures that are too hot or too cold.

2. Attitudes: emotions like anger or sadness can taint objectivity. Also being extremely nervous,
having a personal agenda or needing to be right no matter what can make communications less
than effective. This is also known as Emotional Noise.

3. Language: this can seem like an easy one, but even people speaking the same language can
have difficulty understanding each other if they are from different generations or from different
regions of the same country. Slang, professional jargon and regional colloquialisms can even hurt
communicators with the best intentions.

4. Lack of Common Experience: its a great idea to use examples or stories to explain a point
that is being discussed. However, if the speaker and the audience cannot relate to these examples
because they do not have the same knowledge or have not shared the same experiences then this
tool will be ineffective.
Ques:- Name the two categories of oral communication? Explain them?

Ans:-
Oral communication implies communication through mouth. It includes individuals conversing
with each other, be it direct conversation or telephonic conversation. Speeches, presentations,
discussions are all forms of oral communication. Oral communication is generally recommended
when the communication matter is of temporary kind or where a direct interaction is required.
Face to face communication (meetings, lectures, conferences, interviews, etc.) is significant so as
to build a rapport and trust.

1. One-on-One Speaking (Student-Student or Student-Teacher): Can range from moments

punctuating a lecture, where students are asked to discuss or explain some question or problem
with the person next to them, to formal student conferences with their instructor.

2. Small-Group or Team-Based Oral Work: Smaller-scale settings for discussion, deliberation,

and problem solving. Appropriate for both large lectures and smaller classes and allows levels of
participation not possible in larger groups.
 PAPER-2

Question:- What is human resource management? Discuss the scope & functions of HRM?

Ans:-

Human Resource Management: Meaning, Objectives, Scope and Functions

Meaning:

Before we define HRM, it seems pertinent to first define the term human resources. In common
parlance, human resources means the people. However, different management experts have
defined human resources differently. For example, Michael J. Jucius has defined human
resources as a whole consisting of inter-related, inter-dependent and interacting physiological,
psychological, sociological and ethical components.

According to Leon C. Megginson From the national point of view human resources are
knowledge, skills, creative abilities, talents, and attitudes obtained in the population; whereas
from the view-point of the individual enterprise, they represent the total of the inherent abilities,
acquired knowledge and skills as exemplified in the talents and aptitude of its employees.

Sumantra Ghosal considers human resources as human capital. He classifies human capita into
three categories-intellectual capitals, social capital and emotional capital. Intellectual capital
consists of specialized knowledge, tacit knowledge and skills, cognitive complexity, and learning
capacity.

Social capital is made up of network of relationships, sociability, and trustworthiness Emotional

capital consists of self-confidence, ambition and courage, risk-bearing ability, and resilience.
Now it is clear from above definitions that human resources refer to the qualitative and
quantitative aspects of employees working in an organisation.

In simple words, HRM is a process of making the efficient and effective use of human resources
so that the set goals are achieved. Let us also consider some important definitions of HRM.

According to Flippo Personnel management, or say, human resource management is the

planning, organising, directing and controlling of the procurement development compensation
integration, 4intenance, and separation of human resources to the end that individual,
organisational and social objectives are accomplished.:

The National Institute of Personnel Management (NIPM) of India has defined human
resource/personnel management as that part of management which is concerned with people at
work and with their relationship within an enterprise. Its aim is to bring together and develop
into an effective organisation of the men and women who make up an enterprise and having
regard for the well-being of the individuals and of working groups, to enable them to make their
best contribution to its success.

According to Decenzo and Robbins HRM is concerned with the people dimension in
management. Since every organisation is made up of people, acquiring their services, developing
their skills, motivating them to higher levels of performance and ensuring that they continue to
maintain their commitment to the organisation are essential to achieving organisational
objectives. This is true, regardless of the type of organisation-government, business, education,
health, recreation, or social action.

Thus, HRM can be defined as a process of procuring, developing and maintaining competent
human resources in the organisation so that the goals of an organisation are achieved in an
effective and efficient manner. In short, HRM is an art of managing people at work in such a
manner that they give their best to the organisation for achieving its set goals.

Objectives:

The primary objective of HRM is to ensure the availability of right people for right jobs so as the
organisational goals are achieved effectively.

This primary objective can further be divided into the following sub-objectives:

1. To help the organisation to attain its goals effectively and efficiently by providing competent
and motivated employees.
2. To utilize the available human resources effectively.

3. To increase to the fullest the employees job satisfaction and self-actualisation.

4. To develop and maintain the quality of work life (QWL) which makes employment in the
organisation a desirable personal and social situation.

5. To help maintain ethical policies and behaviour inside and outside the organisation.

6. To establish and maintain cordial relations between employees and management.

7. To reconcile individual/group goals with organisational goals.

Scope of HRM:

The scope of HRM is, indeed, very vast and wide. It includes all activities starting from
manpower planning till employee leaves the organisation. Accordingly, the scope of HRM
consists of acquisition, development, maintenance/retention, and control of human resources in
the organisation (see figure 1.1). The same forms the subject matter of HRM. As the subsequent
pages unfold, all these are discussed, in detail, in seriatim.

The National Institute of personnel Management, Calcutta has specified the scope of HRM as
follows:

1. The Labour or Personnel Aspect:

This is concerned with manpower planning, recruitment, selection, placement, transfer,

promotion, training and development, lay-off and retrenchment, remuneration, incentives,
productivity, etc.

2. Welfare Aspect:
It deals with working conditions, and amenities such as canteen, creches, rest and lunch rooms,
housing, transport, medical assistance, education, health and safety, recreation facilities, etc.

3. Industrial Relations Aspects:

This covers union-management relations, joint consultation, collective bargaining, grievance and
disciplinary actions, settlement of disputes, etc.

Functions:

We have already defined HRM. The definition of HRM is based on what managers do. The
functions performed by managers are common to all organizations. For the convenience of study,
the function performed by the resource management can broadly be classified into two
categories, viz.

(1) Managerial functions, and

(2) Operative functions

These are discussed in turn.

(1) Managerial Functions:

Planning:

Planning is a predetermined course of actions. It is a process of determining the organisational

goals and formulation of policies and programmes for achieving them. Thus planning is future
oriented concerned with clearly charting out the desired direction of business activities in future.
Forecasting is one of the important elements in the planning process. Other functions of
managers depend on planning function.

Organising:
Organising is a process by which the structure and allocation of jobs are determined. Thus
organising involves giving each subordinate a specific task establishing departments, delegating
authority to subordinates, establishing channels of authority and communication, coordinating
the work of subordinates, and so on.

Functions of Human Resource Management:

Staffing:

TOs is a process by which managers select, train, promote and retire their subordinates This
involves deciding what type of people should be hired, recruiting prospective employees,
selecting employees, setting performance standard, compensating employees, evaluating
performance, counseling employees, training and developing employees.

Directing/Leading:

Directing is the process of activating group efforts to achieve the desired goals. It includes
activities like getting subordinates to get the job done, maintaining morale motivating
subordinates etc. for achieving the goals of the organisation.

Controlling:

It is the process of setting standards for performance, checking to see how actual performance
compares with these set standards, and taking corrective actions as needed.

(2) Operative Functions:

The operative, also called, service functions are those which are relevant to specific department.
These functions vary from department to department depending on the nature of the department
Viewed from this standpoint, the operative functions of HRM relate to ensuring right people for
right jobs at right times. These functions include procurement, development, compensation, and
maintenance functions of HRM.

A brief description of these follows:

Procurement:
It involves procuring the right kind of people in appropriate number to be placed in the
organisation. It consists of activities such as manpower planning, recruitment, selection
placement and induction or orientation of new employees.

Development:

This function involves activities meant to improve the knowledge, skills aptitudes and values of
employees so as to enable them to perform their jobs in a better manner in future. These
functions may comprise training to employees, executive training to develop managers,
organisation development to strike a better fit between organisational climate/culture and
employees.

Compensation:

Compensation function involves determination of wages and salaries matching with contribution
made by employees to organisational goals. In other words, this function ensures equitable and
fair remuneration for employees in the organisation. It consists of activities such as job
evaluation, wage and salary administration, bonus, incentives, etc.

Maintenance:

It is concerned with protecting and promoting employees while at work. For this purpose virus
benefits such as housing, medical, educational, transport facilities, etc. are provided to the
employees. Several social security measures such as provident fund, pension, gratuity, group
insurance, etc. are also arranged.

It is important to note that the managerial and operative functions of HRM are performed in
conjunction with each other in an organisation, be large or small organisations. Having discussed
the scope and functions of HRM, now it seems pertinent to delineate the HRM scenario in India.

Ques: HR Planning and HR Forecasting Techniques?

Ans: What is Human Resource Planning?

Human resource planning explicitly considers the levels and types of human resources necessary
to ensure the success of the companys strategic plan. It includes the estimation of how many
qualified people are necessary to carry out the assigned activities (personnel demand). How
many people will be available (internal supply). And what, if anything, must be done to ensure
that personnel supply equals personnel demand at the appropriate point in the future
(reconciliation process).

The Human Resource Planning Process

People, jobs, time, and money are the basic ingredients in any human resource planning process.
In its basic form, human resource planning involves forecasting personnel needs, assessing
personnel supply, and reconciling supply and demand through various personnel-related
programs.

A. Forecasting Human Resource Needs (Demand)

Human Resource Demand is the term used to describe the total human resource needs of an
organization for a given time period.

There are a number of factors affecting an organizations demand:

A. External factors: competition (foreign and domestic), the economic climate, laws and
regulatory bodies, and changes in technology.

B. Internal factors: budget constraints, production levels, new products and services, and
organization structure.

C. Another quantitative approach, linear regression analysis, may also be used to estimate the
human resources necessary at a future point in time, based on a business factor such as sales,
output, or services rendered. The previous information can help to find the relationship between
some business factors and the demand of employees. Then the statistical technique linear
regression can be used. (use the example in page 180-182 to illustrate).

D. There are lots of other methods which is used in human resource forecast such as Zero-Based
Forecastin, Bottom-Up Approach, etc.(if time permit, say sth. in book.

2. Forecast Human Resource Supply

 Human resource planner must consider both the external supply (employees available for hire in
the organizations geographic workforce) and the internal supply (the organizations current
employees) of personnel.

External supplies of personnel are important for two reasons. First, the normal attrition of
employees through voluntary turnover, retirement, illness, death, and discharge may require the
organization to look to employment agencies, colleges and universities, and other sources to
replenish lost personnel. Second, organizational growth and diversification creates the need to
use external sources to obtain additional numbers and types of employees.

The internal supply of personnel is influenced by changes that occur to employees over a period
of time as the result of training and development programs, promotion policies, and job-related
experiences that contribute to the shifting of personnel within the firm.

It is important for human resource planners to anticipate and pinpoint changes in personnel
supply. Various methods are available for doing this.

Although human resource planning is concerned with the having an adequate number of
employees to fill positions within the organization, it is equally concerned with providing the
right type of person for the job.

Another point must be mentioned is Human Resource Information Systems (HRIS). It provides a
means of collecting, summarizing and analyzing data germane to human resource management.
Information requirements associated with the personnel function are numerous. And personnel
reporting requirements of governmental legislation can be time-consuming, expensive, and
cumbersome endeavors without an HRIS.

Specific uses of an HRIS in assessing personnel supply include the following:

a. Examining the capability of current employees to fill projected vacancies within the
organization.

b. Pinpointing positions whose incumbents are expected to be promoted, retired, or laid off.

c. Delineating specific jobs or job classes that have unusually high rates of turnover, discharge,
absenteeism, and performance or discipline problems.

d. Examining the age, racial, and sexual composition of various jobs.

e. Anticipating recruitment, selection, training, and development needs to ensure the timely
placement of qualified persons in job vacancies.

C. Reconciliation of Human Resource Supply and Demand

Reconciling supply and demand is largely a matter of planning, timing, and use of various
personnel-related programs to achieve the desired results.

Forecasting techniques:
Forecasting is a systematic process of predicting demand and supply. Human resources
forecasting seeks to secure the necessary number and quality of employees for a business to
achieve strategic goals. Although forecasting techniques can be complex and full of statistical
calculations, a more practical approach is just as effective and less difficult for a small business
to implement. Demand and supply forecasting techniques use sales or production projections for
the coming year as well as quantitative and qualitative assessments. Quantitative assessments
identify how many and when, while qualitative assessments identify desired personal
qualities and role-related qualifications.

Trend Analysis:

Trend analysis is more appropriate for an existing business because it requires historical staffing
data to make future staffing predictions. This creates a relationship between past and future
staffing needs by linking the two using a performance or financial metric called an operational
index. A service business, for example, might base future staffing requirements on the number of
customers each customer service representative effectively handled in the past, while a retail
business might compare sales volume per sales employee.

Ratio Analysis:

A new businesses, or one having less than five years of historical staffing data, often uses a ratio
analysis forecasting technique. Ratio analysis uses elements called causal factors that can be
linked to and help predict future staffing needs. A business might identify production or sales
volume as a causal factor and estimate, for example, that it needs one customer service
representative for every five clients or one production line worker for every 5,000 widgets. If
projections determine the business will handle 500 clients or produce 500,000 widgets over the
coming year, forecasting sets demand at 100 employees for each.
Supply Forecasting:

Supply forecasting techniques often start internally for human resources. Replacement charts are
a visual tool for identifying internal candidates available and qualified to fill demand estimations.
Replacement charts include both a hierarchical diagram and information relating to current
employee performance, education and an assessment of how ready the employee is to move into
upward or lateral position. External supply side forecasting typically involves a labor market
analysis that also considers hiring practice legislation to avoid the possibility of facing a
discrimination lawsuit. Market analysis information such as employment and wage trends is
available on The Society for Human Resource Management website, as well as national and state
labor information websites. Information on these sites can help businesses document the current
strengths and weaknesses of the workforce, define emerging employment trends and economic
opportunities and assist businesses in finding qualified workers.

Ques:-What is succession Planning and its Benefits?

Ans:- Succession Planning:

Succession and replacement planning involves preparing specific candidates (current employees)
to eventually succeed present job incumbents who expect to leave or be transferred, promoted, or
retired in the near future. The key to succession planning is to develop an accurate profile of the
requirements needed to fill the job (using job analysis information), select a candidate who
appears to meet the requirements of the job or who has the potential to become qualified for the
job, and take specific steps to prepare the candidate to fill the anticipated vacancy through
training and development programs.

Management Development Programs

In order to ensure that current employees have the special skills necessary to assume managerial
positions in the future, organizations have created programs to develop such skills. These
management development programs take advantage of a variety of training opportunities, both
internal and external to the company.

Internal Recruitment and Staffing

Organizations may wish to fill vacancies with current employees. Often a company will allow
any current employees to apply for a job opening elsewhere in the firm. These openings are
advertised within the organization and may be applied for by any employee who feels qualified.

External Recruitment and Staffing

Predicted human resource shortages can be filled by recruiting people from outside the firm to
apply and take positions within the company. Typically this allows the firm to take advantage of
large numbers of applicants in order to select the most well qualified.

Promotion Policies

Promotions typically create an opening at a lower level as the employee moves up to the higher
position. The qualified employees may be located through internal recruitment or selected from a
list of those considered ready by the company. Management development and skill training
programs can be coordinated with promotion policies to ensure that employees are prepared for
promotion.

Layoffs, Alternative Work Schedules, and Recruitment Policies:

Layoff, retirement policies, and the use of alternative work schedules all represent potential
means of reconciling personnel supply and demand.

Layoff and retirement policies are typically used to reduce the number of employees.

Alternative work schedules (flexitime, a 4-day, 40-hour week, part time work, overtime,
shortened workweeks) can increase the flexibility of the organization to meet temporary shifts in
personnel needs. Overtime can help the company avoid hiring additional employees, shortened
workweeks part time work, and other work schedules can help the company avoid layoffs.

Skill Training Programs:

Human demand and supply can be balanced by using skill training programs to prepare
employees to perform certain tasks or jobs. The use of it may partially or totally eliminate the
need to recruit new employees from outside.
Possible advantages of training current employees to fill new and more rewarding vacancies
include improved morale, reduced uncertainty regarding employee reliability and performance,
reduced turnover, and lower recruitment cost.

Temporary Workers, Contract Workers, and Employee Leasing:

The methods discussed previously all deal with individuals holding more or less permanent
positions with the company. There are alternative methods of reconciling personnel supply and
demand using individuals with only a temporary relationship with the firm. During periods of
high product or service demand, some organizations use temporary employees, the X-mas season
is an example.

Contract workers are used when special skills are needed on a limited basis or limited amount of
time.

Employee leasing is a relatively new human resource planning activity. Rather than hire workers
itself, a firm leases employees from a leasing company. The leasing company is responsible for
hiring, record keeping, disciplining, paying and terminating the employees. The company signs a
lease for a specific period of time, requiring the leasing firm to provide workers and perform
most personnel support activities for them. This allows the firm to reduce its personnel support
staff and avoid the many reporting responsibilities that accompany the hiring or termination.

Summary and Conclusion

In this part we discuss the following aspects of human resource planning.

* What is Human Resource Planning

* The process of human resource planning includes the forecasting of the demand and supply

* The techniques to forecast human resource

* The methods to reconcile personnel demand and supply

Effective human resource planning systematically predicts human resource needs and ensures
that the necessary adjustments in recruitment, selection, training, and other personnel functions
are made.