Strategic Human Resource Management Questions and Answers

Answer: D

The belief described is that of the Placating Theory.

Among the theories of labour welfare, the placating (appeasement) theory holds that as workers organise and grow more demanding, employers provide welfare measures periodically to pacify them and keep peace in the workplace, much as one placates a demanding child.

The public relations theory sees welfare as a way to build a good image of the company with the public. The philanthropic theory rests on the employer's love of humanity, and the trusteeship theory on the idea that the employer holds the firm's resources in trust for the workers' benefit. None of them is about appeasing growing labour demands.

Answer: D

The practice is Job Banding.

Job banding, or broadbanding, collapses many narrowly defined jobs and pay grades into a few broad bands of related jobs. Employees can move across tasks and develop skills within a band, and the organisation gains flexibility and a flatter structure.

Job redesign changes the content of a single job, for example by enrichment or enlargement, rather than grouping jobs into categories. 'Job replacement' and 'job execution' are not terms for this practice.

Answer: B

This is the Primacy and Recency Effect.

In performance appraisal, the primacy effect is the rater's tendency to be swayed by what the employee did early in the review period, and the recency effect by what the employee did just before the review (printed 'behour' for behaviour). Either way, the rating does not reflect the whole period.

The halo effect is letting one outstanding trait colour the rating on all others, regardless of timing. The status effect is rating holders of higher-level jobs more favourably, and 'rater effect' is a general term for rater bias rather than this particular error.

Answer: C

It is a skill-based pay system.

In skill-based (or knowledge-based) pay, employees are paid for the range of jobs they can perform and the depth of their knowledge, not for the job they happen to be doing. Pay rises as workers master new skills, which encourages flexibility and learning.

A job-based pay system does the opposite, fixing pay by the job's value through job evaluation. Determining grades and pay review are steps within a pay structure, not systems that pay for the person's skills.

Answer: B

The system is Kirkpatrick's model.

Donald Kirkpatrick's four-level model evaluates training and management development programmes at increasing depth: reaction (how participants felt, printed 'response'), learning (what they learned), behaviour (whether they apply it on the job, printed 'performance'), and results (the effect on the organisation).

The Taylor system is scientific management, not an evaluation scheme. Werther and Davis (printed 'Devis') and Michael Armstrong wrote textbooks of human resource management, but the four-level evaluation model is Kirkpatrick's.

Answer: B

The answer is individual assessment.

In career development, an organisation assesses each employee individually, through appraisals, skills inventories, psychological tests and assessment centres, to find his or her strengths and weaknesses (spelt weeknesses in the paper). The results show where the person can grow and which development route or career path suits him or her.

Organisational assessment looks at the organisation's own needs and structure rather than an employee's. Gap analysis compares a present state with a desired one in general, and opportunity analysis looks for openings in the market or the firm; neither is the assessment of an individual employee's strengths and weaknesses.

Answer: B

A performance bonus is an extrinsic reward.

Extrinsic rewards are tangible rewards given to the employee by someone else, usually the organisation: pay, bonuses, promotions, benefits and recognition. A bonus paid for performance is a classic example.

Intrinsic rewards come from the work itself, such as a sense of achievement, challenge, autonomy and growth, and are not handed out by the organisation. 'Intrinsic wage payment' and 'extrinsic wage payment' are not standard categories; the established distinction is between intrinsic and extrinsic rewards.

Answer: D

The one outside the development function is identifying ways to motivate employees.

The development function of HRM has three dimensions: employee training (improving skills for the present job), management development (building the abilities of present and future managers) and career development (planning employees' long-term growth in the organisation).

Motivating employees belongs to a different function, the motivation or maintenance function, which covers job design, rewards and performance management. So it does not fall under development.

Answer: D

The weekly The Socialist was started by S.A. Dange.

Shripad Amrit Dange, later a founding leader of the Communist Party of India and of the AITUC's left wing, started The Socialist in Bombay in the early 1920s, one of the first communist journals in India. He was prosecuted in the Kanpur Bolshevik Conspiracy Case of 1924.

Muzaffar Ahmad was the communist pioneer of Bengal, associated with Langal and Ganavani. Lala Lajpat Rai was the first president of the AITUC in 1920, but not a socialist editor, and V.B. Karnik was a later trade unionist and writer.

Answer: D

Accidents are described in terms of frequency, severity and incidence.

Industrial safety is measured by rates: the frequency rate (number of lost-time accidents per million man-hours worked), the severity rate (man-days lost per million man-hours, showing how serious they were) and the incidence rate (accidents per thousand workers). These let accident records be compared across plants and years.

The other options mix categories of injury or disability (fatal, minor, partial, temporary, permanent) without forming the standard measures by which accidents are described.