USN No:

I Trimester EMBA Examinations – June 2021

Course Title: Human Resource Management Course Code: 18EPG101
Duration: 03 Hours Date: 05-06-2021
Time: 09:00 AM to 12:00 PM Max Marks: 100

Note: 1. All sections are compulsory

2. Draw neat diagrams wherever necessary
3. Use calculators wherever necessary

SECTION – A
(Short Answer – Answer any THREE Questions) 03x05=15 Marks

01
What Is Human Resource Management? (05Marks)
.
02
Briefly describe the concept of strategic human resource management. (05Marks)
.
03
Why is training needed? (05Marks)
.

04 What Is The Difference Between Recruitment And Selection and what are the
(05Marks)
. responsibilities of HR Generalist

SECTION – B
(Short Essay – Answer any FOUR Questions) 04x10=40 Marks

05
Explain the HRM roles in organization (10Marks)
.
06
Differentiate between performance appraisal and job evaluation. (10Marks)
.
07 What are the measures required for making workers participation in management
(10Marks)
. successful?
08
Discuss various applications of job analysis. (10Marks)
.
09
Discuss the importance of Human Resource Planning. (10Marks)
.

SECTION – C (Case Study)

(Answer all Questions) 03x15=45 Marks

Introducing performance management at Acme

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Acme Bakeries Ltd operates 135 bakeries throughout England, Scotland and Wales. It has been formed
fairly recently by the parent company, a long-established milling company, by the acquisition of bakery
firms, some quite large and powerful and with their own ways of managing their businesses. They are
grouped into six regions, each controlled by a regional director whose staff includes a regional sales
manager, a regional accountant and a regional production manager. One of the regions – the most
sophisticated one – has a regional HR manager. The bakeries employ on average 100 staff. Each of them is
run by a general manager whose team consists of a production manager, a sales manager, an accountant
and an engineer.
The group board consists of a chairman, a chief executive and directors of finance, marketing and
production. A senior management team consisting of the board and the six regional managers
coordinates the development and implementation of business strategy and deals with major group-wide
issues. A new chief executive has just been appointed from outside the industry and he has brought with
him his former group HR advisor as HR director. She too has had no experience of the bakery business.
A recent development encouraged by the chief executive as advised by the HR director has been to
appoint a regional HR manager in four of the five regions that did not have one. They are mainly
concerned with industrial relations (unions are recognized for both the production and sales staff in the
bakeries) and dealing with people management problems. Only one has had any experience in the
industry. The director of the fifth region didn’t see the point of the idea and has resisted it. The five
regional HR managers, with the encouragement of the HR director, are trying, with varying degrees of
success, to standardize HR policies and practices in their regions. Only two of the largest bakeries have an
HR manager.
The regions have a great deal of autonomy, and regional directors and senior regional staff often
resist proposals from the centre that do not fit in with their traditional way of doing things. They may
eventually have to conform but they often do so with bad grace. The prevailing management style in the
group is autocratic. The culture is aggressive and entrepreneurial. There are no women general managers
and only a few female departmental managers.
The HR director is concerned with national union negotiations, terms and conditions for senior
managers, and encouraging various learning and development activities in the regions and for the group.
However, she also has a brief to review HR policies and practices throughout the group. She has carried
out a survey with the help of the regional HR managers and established that with one exception (the
region that has had an HR manager for some time), there is not even a rudimentary appraisal scheme, let
alone a sophisticated performance management system. And the one example of an appraisal scheme is
pretty basic. It has also been made clear that there are some serious deficiencies amongst the bakery
general and departmental managers that need to be remedied by development programmes, the use of
capability procedures and, if the worst comes to the worst, dismissal. But there is no evidence to support
any actions that might be taken.
The conclusion the HR director came to was that a performance management system was
required for managers and other senior staff. This would tie in with the chief executive’s belief that it was
necessary to create a high-performance culture throughout the group. The HR director had no difficulty
in persuading him that she should go ahead and make recommendations to the senior management team
of which she had become a member.

10 Define the approach to performance management you would like to see developed. (15Marks)
.
Decide how you are going to undertake the development and implementation of the
11
performance management system, taking into account the context and (15Marks)
.
circumstances described above.
Make out the business case for the approach you propose to be presented to the
12
senior management team. (15Marks)
.

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