CHAROTAR UNIVERSITY OF SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY

Master of Business Administration (MBA)

Semester

- III

University Examination 2010

- 11

MB 820 Strategic Human Resource Management

Date: 20/1212010,

Monday

Time: 10.30AM to

01.30PM

Maximum Marks: 70

Instructions:

1. This paper contains six questions. of which the last one is case analysis. 2. All questions are compulsory. 3. Each of the first questions will carry l0 marks and the iast case analysis will
carry 20 marks.

l. Liberalization has not only triggered changes in the rvhole economy, including the banking space, but has also thown up challeng_es for banks, in.general, and public sector banks. in particular. Wh'ether Ffuman Resource Managemeni (HRM), an imponant element in the business process evolutiorn post-liberalization, has been given a Slrategic telescopic focusis subjeCtio debrte. Q. Discuss.
2. The economic downtum during the recent past caused serious problems to most organizations. especially in the Il field. Horizon Technologies, a five-year old firm rvas laced with the most common problem - surplus manpower in their Fiaryana based unit. On the other hand they are pl:::',n:ng to open r nelv unit in NCR for a related ,ll,.,rrsifie..t_ nrnrtrcr The ron manasement called for a meeting to discuss ii?atelie,s to help the organization survive during turbulent times at their Haryana based unit and for lraming Human Resource Planning (HRP) strategies for the diversified unit at NCR. Q. What do you think might be the strategies that lvill help Horizon deal with issues at
Haryana and Gurgaon units?

3. In 1995, global networking major. Cisco, found that despite hiring an average of 1.000 people every three months during the year, thi: company still Ead nundreds of ' openings. The recruitment pressue !u{he4Ig94se4 !b9&Jl_qying_y.e3! rylren Clco -i0X -o?-melotal joUs hired more than 1,000 employ6es iviq;quarter - arouna gileratea through the Intemet in Silicon Valley. When Cisco's sales soared to $ 6.4 billion in fiscal 1997 and profits to $ 1.4 billion, (a 5370 increase over the previous year), the company had to double its r.vorkfbrce and at the same time hire the best people. The Cisco management realized that it had to adopt innovative measues to get the best people and remain the leader in the lntemet era. a.Q. Explain the different innovative recruitment methods that Cisco '"vould have adopted to meet its requirements.

4. Paradise Bank is a nationalized bank and has operations spread over India. The employees are satisfied as they feel that the management is.. -fair in terms of compensation. On the other hand. PLN Bank had a high turnover of employees. Even
1

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-though its compensation packages r'vere similar

employees lvere not happy. The HR manager Paresh at PLN bank found that the emplolee aporaisal at PLN was an exertise at annual affair as it was in Paradise. However, the perfbrmance aflp-raisal to map out future profitable strategies to be collectively Paradise Bank was an occasion pursued by e4ployees, while taking into consideration the organizational objectives of the firm. The Chief HR manager of Paradise Bank always made it a point to see that the appraisal system being implemented enjoyed the contidence and support of the employees. Q, List in detail, what could have been the main features of the performance appraisal system at Paradise Bank that made its employee satisfied and .

to those at

Paradise Banl..

committed.

5, General Motors Corporation, the world's largest automaker was founded in 1908 in Flint, Michigan of US. In 2006 GM was in a horrible tangle as the company lost $10.6 billion in the previous year (2005). To counter this GM had initially planned for organizational restructuring. As a part ol the organizational re$tructwing the company planned 30;000 job cuts and closing down of 12 plants by 2007. GM management declared af=fie beginning of 2006lts plan to reduce 30,0O0 blue-collar jobs by Jan.1, 2007. On Mondgy,4tb.IungllQ6 GM's management ann6unced that 35,000 workers luntarilyl' surpassing initial targets and had a$gqy opt* to leave the allowing the automaker to increase its targeted savings to US $8 billion annually by the end of 2006. The overwhelming response of the employ'ees for the accelerated separation plan surprised manv people, including GM's management. got overwhelming 6 Q. What could be the emp_loyee separation strategy used by GM that r response from the employees? f

com

6. Ultimo Efficacy was doing pretty well and making good amount of money even in receHb- ,- 9ui rejessiort prt-rvirieci a great anci vaild excuse to many companies including Ultimo Efficacy to cut out even on the otherwise normal expenses of the corporation and get the emplolEes at various levels to work in highly constrained conditions. The idea \vas that they would easily accept such a thing under the hoax of
recession. So, the top management of the company issued a circular to each and every employee. The measures contained therein were addendum to the cost control that was already being exercised by the company through the customary layoff of employees practiced as a part of recession time rinral. A .:articular junior officer Simple Simpson in the company's purchase department got hyper after reading the circular. He decided to cont.ibr,t. his might to the laudabl! cffii-wide cosr control efforts.

It was summer time and the summer could be very

severe in region lvhere Ultimo Elficacy Inc's offices and factory were located. The company used to ppy-ide many_l;'. water coolers at diffr:rent locations in the offices and factory premises. Every year compiny Gia to replace the worn-"out rvater coolers with the new ones. The purchase requisitions lor replacement water coolers rvere made by the user departments and sent to purchase department. Simple Simpson in purchase department used to process the pr.rchase reqr-risitions ol lvater coolers, contact the rvater cooler manufacturers and buy them. Horvever. in vielv of the cost control measures, Simple Simpson suggested to the user depafiments that instead of water coolers they could buy earthen pots.
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User departments were too happy to go along with this proposal of Simple Simpson. If price of a water cooler r,vas equi,,alent of $350 to $400, price of an eafihen pot would be mere $1 or so. The proposal had tremendous potential of cost reduction. As per the lormal authority delegation chart ofthe company, a junior officer at Simple Simpson's level was not authorized to negotiate with the suppliers. Only his boss was authorized to do so. But Simple Simpson wanted to respond to the call of cost reduction of top management all by himself. After all it rvas his suggestion to buy eanhen pots in place of water coolers and save for company thousands of equivalent dollars. So, he decided to stick his neck out and decided to negotiate with the short listed supplier of earthen pots to get a still beuer deal from him. The maker ofthe earthen pots did not reduce the price further out agreed to give away 20 earthen pots over and above the 100 on the purchase order. The 120 earthen pots were received by Simple Simpson and he got them positioned inside Ultimo Efficacy Inc's premises. People liked the cool water of these earthen pots and employees at grass root levels appreciated the creative brains and elforts of Simple Simpson and the resultant enormous savings. Simple Simpson became a hero for the time being.

But his glory did not last long. The period during which these 120 earthen pots were purchased was the physical inventory checking period of the company as per its laid dorvn systems. A sharp young auditor did an audit on the earthen pots. He had the numbers on the earthen pots on the material requisition slip reading at 100 and the same 100 number was found on the purchase order. But despite physically counting a number of times the physical inventory ofeafihen pots came to 12il on every count. He counted them over and over again. F-inally he decided that the physical count did give him a figure of 120 earthen pots and he was not nrzrking any mistake in counting. As per him it was a serious ar:ilii discreoar':i.:.,'- irow the colnoan\/ could have more material than what vras oldered?'i'hat sirowed slack intemai controls. Therr after cloing a detailed research on the,:auses of this discrepancy, he ultimately stumbled on the fact that the discrepancy was the outcome of the negotiations carried out by Simple Simpson. And that was another serious violation of intemal controls since Simple Simpson had no business to negotiate with the suppiiers as per company's policies. The audit observations were forwarded to the top management of the company. Top management was not used to getting such solt ofaudit reports. Top management ofthe company felt terribly offended by such inrgularities committed by its employee and ordered an enquiry against Simple Simpson. He was wondering as to whal wrong did he do in saving such a lot of money for the conrpany- he did not commit a fraud, he did not commit a crime, he did not squander company's money, he did not take bribe- all he did was to take initiative and save money. And for this was he being pushed in ftont ofthe firing squad? Q. Analyze the above case lrom SHRM perspective.