This Paper has 34 answerable questions with 0 answered.
| Roll No……… | |
| Time allowed : 3 hours | Maximum marks : 100 |
| Total number of questions : 8 | Total number of printed pages : 3 |
| PART—A (Answer Question No.1 which is compulsory and any two of the rest from this part.) |
| 1. | Attempt any four of the following : | |||||||||
| (i) | “Wages in an industry are determined by wage laws and industry‘s capacity to pay.” Discuss. | (0) | ||||||||
| (ii) | “Succession planning facilitates and ensures continuity in an organisation.” Explain. | (0) | ||||||||
| (iii) | Good Luck Ltd. is planning a scheme for participation of employees in the shareholding of the company through the Employees Stock Option Scheme (ESOS). What should be the salient features of such a plan ? | (0) | ||||||||
| (iv) | Grow Fast Ltd. has retained you as a Consultant (HR). The company assigned you the task of planning out a position analysis questionnaire (PAQ). Outline the steps you would take to prepare the questionnaire. | (0) | ||||||||
| (v) | A survey of Indian industries recently revealed that effective training was lacking in most of the organisations. Productivity and morale were at a discount. Employee turnover was abnormally high. In your opinion, what would have been the causes of such a trend ? | (0) | ||||||||
| (5 marks each) | ||||||||||
| 2. | (a) | “Training improves the skills of employees and enhances their capacity to cope with ever changing demands of work situation in an organisation.” Would it be wise to spend 2.5% of revenue on ‘employee training’ as is being done by Xerox Corporation, USA particularly when young technocrats believe in career jumping ? | (0) | |||||||
| (8 marks) | ||||||||||
| (b) | Explain any two of the following : | |||||||||
| (i) | Evaluation of training. | (0) | ||||||||
| (ii) | Case study. | (0) | ||||||||
| (iii) | Labour turnover index. | (0) | ||||||||
| (2 marks each) | ||||||||||
| (c) | State, with reasons in brief, whether the following statements are correct or incorrect : | |||||||||
| (i) | HRD climate is not the same as organisational climate. | (0) | ||||||||
| (ii) | Line managers are habitual complainants on human resources functions. | (0) | ||||||||
| (iii) | Morale and productivity move together like the east and west sides of an elevator. | (0) | ||||||||
| (1 mark each) | ||||||||||
| 3. | Write notes on any three of the following : | |||||||||
| (i) | Flexitime. | (0) | ||||||||
| (ii) | Significance of human resources audit. | (0) | ||||||||
| (iii) | Different wage differentials commonly found in organisations. | (0) | ||||||||
| (iv) | Impact of globalisation on human resources functions. | (0) | ||||||||
| (5 marks each) | ||||||||||
| 4. | You are an MBA from IIM, Ahmedabad, and are working as Secretary (Personnel) to the Executive Chairman (EC) of Xylophone Corporation – a US telecom giant with global operations. Yours is a professionalised HR management team committed to employees and customer care. When last year, your EC had to strain hard for devising a suitable merger MOU with Essery Telecom (India) on two main issues, you were pretty amused when the Indian company insisted upon inclusion of the following conditions in the MOU :
While talks progressed, the workers of Essery Telecom (India) went on strike because of subjective performance appraisal system and apprehended retrenchments due to computerisation. | |||||||||
| (i) | Whether Indian company’s terms be accepted in modified form to suit Xylophone Corporation’s ‘management by objectives’ (MBO) work culture ? | (0) | ||||||||
| (ii) | Would Xylophone Corporation’s existing system of computerised performance appraisal require modifications after taking over the Indian company ? What should be the draft proformae therefor ? | (0) | ||||||||
| (iii) | What measures would you suggest to convert prevailing poor work culture and unionism by workforce in Essery Telecom (India) into an opportunity for Xylophone Corporation ? | (0) | ||||||||
| (5 marks each) | ||||||||||
| PART—B (Answer Question No.5 which is compulsory and any two of the rest from this part.) |
| 5. | (a) | Recently, a government company in the automobile sector was allowed by the court to be closed down as it was not possible to continue with its business activity. Its workers were retrenched and retrenchment compensation was paid. The official liquidator wound–up the company under the court’s order. Two years later, the Parliament passed an Act floating another company. The new company took over the assets of earlier company as government had notified for acquisition of title, rights, and interests of earlier company. The workers of earlier company raised an industrial dispute seeking preference in employment in the newly floated company. The labour court decreed the workers’ claim under section 25H of the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947. The company is going in appeal against this order. Would it succeed ? Discuss with reference to case law, if any. | (0) | |||||||||
| (10 marks) | ||||||||||||
| (b) | State, with reasons in brief, whether the following statements are true or false : | |||||||||||
| (i) | An employee would cease to be a member of a trade union on termination of his employment. | (0) | ||||||||||
| (ii) | Minimum wages payable under the Minimum Wages Act, 1948 shall be paid in cash only. | (0) | ||||||||||
| (iii) | Under the Contract Labour (Regulation and Abolition) Act, 1970, the principal employer is under statutory obligation to absorb contract labour on abolition of contract labour system in the concerned establishment. | (0) | ||||||||||
| (iv) | Ex–gratia bonus is also a ‘bonus’ under the Payment of Bonus Act, 1965. | (0) | ||||||||||
| (v) | For an act of omission on the part of a worker, the employer can impose a fine of 5% of wages earned in a wage period under the Payment of Wages Act, 1936. | (0) | ||||||||||
| (2 marks each) | ||||||||||||
| 6. | (a) | The standing orders should relate to overall working conditions of a company‘s employees. Accordingly, Golden India Ltd., with registered office at New Delhi and factory at Mysore (Karnataka), submitted draft standing orders to the Certifying Officer at Mysore covering —
| ||||||||||
| (i) | Was the Certifying Officer’s action correct ? | (0) | ||||||||||
| (ii) | What are the matters to be specified in the standing orders ? | (0) | ||||||||||
| (iii) | How is Golden India Ltd.’s draft standing orders defective in respect of (I), (II) and (III) above ? | (0) | ||||||||||
| (4 marks each) | ||||||||||||
| (b) | Rosy Coach Ltd., a bus body manufacturing company, has in its employment 400 workers including 50 females at Mumbai. State the facilities required to be provided by the company as ‘welfare measures’ to its workers under the Factories Act, 1948. | (0) | ||||||||||
| (3 marks) | ||||||||||||
| 7. | (a) | “Most strikes are politically motivated.” Comment. | (0) | |||||||||
| (5 marks) | ||||||||||||
| (b) | In a decision, a High Court has emphasised that an industrial tribunal should adjudicate on matters specified in the Third Schedule of the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947. Mention the matters specified in the Third Schedule of the Act. | (0) | ||||||||||
| (5 marks) | ||||||||||||
| (c) | On the principle of ‘no work, no pay’, the management of Agile Ltd., Bangalore, decided to pay only half wages per month to those female employees who proceed on medical leave, while male workers were given full monthly wages under all circumstances. Is this step hit by the Equal Remuneration Act, 1976 or the Payment of Wages Act, 1936 ? Briefly explain citing relevant provisions of law ? | (0) | ||||||||||
| (5 marks) | ||||||||||||
| 8. | (a) | Is the ‘voluntary retirement scheme’ (VRS) a pre–requisite for making an organisation efficient ? Outline the arguments for and against VRS. | (0) | |||||||||
| (9 marks) | ||||||||||||
| (b) | What are the criticisms levelled against the adjudication method ? What are the qualities of a ‘conciliator’ in an industrial dispute ? | (0) | ||||||||||
| (6 marks) | ||||||||||||
