Thursday, April 29, 2010

HRD Audit

Concept, meaning and definition

- It examines and evaluates policies, procedures and practices to determine the effectiveness of HRD function in an organization.
- Human resource audits are potentially powerful tools in promoting wiser, more equitable use of human resources and more accurate human resource planning.
- To realize these goals, however, "users must be made aware of what information is contained in the inven¬tory, how to gain access to it, and how to interpret it" (Cascio, 1987, p. 223). Furthermore, current inventories must be maintained.


Objectives of HRD Audit

- To determine the effectiveness of management programmes.
- To analyze the factors involved in HRD and develop a statement of findings with recommendations for correcting deviation.
- To study the extent to which line managers have complied with HRD policies.
- To study the current manpower inventory and identify shortfall of excess.

Scope of HRD Audit
- The actual state.
- The congruence between the desired and the actual state.
- The alignment with the overall organizational strategy and goals.
- The compliance with the rules and regulations.
- Auditing HR practices, auditing HR professionals, auditing HR functions or department.


Importance of HRD Audit
- It helps to identify the changing training needs and development of new training modules for effective utilization of manpower due to technological changes.
- To keep pace with environmental changes.

Methods and techniques of HR Audit

- Attitudinal Survey.
- Data Interpretation.


Advantages of HR Audit

- To ensure effective utilization of HR.
- To comply with administrative regulations.
- To inculcates sense of confidence in management.
- To perform a due diligence review for various stakeholders.

Human Resource Information System

Concept, meaning and definition

- The composite of databases, computer applications and hardware and software that are used to collect/record, store, manage, deliver, present and manipulate data for human resources.

Objectives of HRIS

- Effective Planning and policy formulation.
- Monitoring and Evaluation: demand and supply imbalances.
- Providing inputs to strategic decisions.

Effectiveness of HRIS
- Adequacy of information.
- Specificity.
- Relevance.
- Comprehensiveness.
- Reliability.

Deficiencies of the Manual System
- High investment time.
- Accuracy.
- Fragmentation.
- Duplication.
- Difficulty of analysis.

Advantages of computerization

- Convenience.
- Integration.
- Multi user benefits.

Designing and Implementation of HRIS

- What information is available and what to be collected?
- To what use this information be presented.
- Who should have access to this information.
- When and how often this information is needed.

Human Resource actions

Concept, meaning and definition

- Hiring
- Training
- Career Management
- Retrenchments

- Action plans encourage changes in current personnel systems that facilitate organizational adaptation to the chang¬ing conditions of the external environment.
- They enable organizations to act preventively in regard to anticipated labor shortages, surpluses, funding difficulties, and changes in service demands.
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- Cascio (1987) identifies two components of action plans: perfor¬mance and career management.
o Performance management entails administration of organizational performance monitoring and ap¬praisal systems. It also involves consideration of reward structures, compensation and fringe benefits, and labor relations (Walker, 1980).
o Similarly, career management entails administration of individual careers. Existing policies and personnel systems, management de¬velopment activities, training and development opportunities, and individual career planning are considerations.
- Both performance and individual career management are key elements of personnel admin¬istration.
- However, a great deal of action planning includes the development and implementation of the subsequent stages of staff¬ing such as recruitment, selection, training, and development.
- Fi¬nally, affirmative action plans and similar regulatory considerations should be addressed during human resource planning.

Skill inventories

Concept, meaning and definition

- Information about individuals and their suitability for different jobs include name of the employee, skills, training, experience etc.

- Personnel and skill inventories are simply systems that are used periodically to gather employee information. The specific informa¬tion that is included in the inventory depends on organizational needs. Name, age, length of employment with the organization, education, experience, present position, performance level and past company achievements, and an assessment of future potential of each employee are typically included (Cascio, 1987; Werther & Davis, 1989).

- Data are generally collected directly from personnel on a regular basis in the form of a questionnaire. Information gener¬ated can then be recorded and accessed either manually or via computer.

- Information obtained from personnel inventories can be used in a number of ways. The data are commonly presented in one of three ways: in operational, regulatory, or analytical reports (Dukes, 1972).

o Operational reports are used in day to day personnel management; examples include seniority lists; training reports; job vacancies; turnover reports; lists of new hires, retirements, and promotions; and wage reports (Cascio, 1987).
o Regulatory reports are those required by agencies such as the EEOC.
o Analytical reports, less commonly used, include such information as number of employees subdivided by age, race, educational level, and organizational status. In addi¬tion, administrators may create replacement charts and summaries.

Census analysis

Concept, meaning and definition

- It requires three sets of data :
1. The number of employees at the beginning of the census.
2. The number of employees at the end of the census.
3. The number of leavers during the census period.

Cohort analysis

Concept, meaning and definition

- It means homogenous groups.
- At the end of each year the number of employees from the cohort who survive is calculated and expressed as a percentage of the total number of employees hired when cohort was formed.

Wastage analysis

Concept, meaning and definition

- It is an element of labour turnover
- It is severance from the organization, which includes voluntary retirement, normal retirement, resignations, deaths and dismissals.
- It decreases with the increase of length of service.
- It also decreases with increased skill exercise and age.

- In human services, turnover, or employee withdrawal behavior, has become a serious personnel problem.

- Turnover creates consider¬able costs for the organization, decreases productivity, disrupts worker relationships, and can increase waste and accidents.

- Thus turnover must be considered during human resource planning es¬pecially in regard to supply forecasting.

- Organizations must expect a certain amount of turnover, but they must also be able to calculate and evaluate their turnover rate.

- To calculate turnover rates, administrators must first define a "turn¬over." Discharges, retirements, and deaths may be areas that create problems in the definition. Once a definition is determined, however, data collection and calculation of turnover rates is relatively straight¬forward: Count the number of turnovers and then compare that number with the total number of employees. From this, a percentage rate is determined.

- Evaluation of turnover is a bit more complex. There are a number of ways to conduct turnover analysis;

o comparison studies are among the simplest.
o Administrators may want to compare the turnover rate in their organizations with that of other organizations, with data presented by government agencies or trade organizations, or with organizational objectives.
o Although these comparisons can be valuable, they provide little information in regard to the organization's indi¬vidual situation.
o Thus administrators might also want to compare the rate internally (Watts & White, 1988). Internal turnover comparisons often involve the dividing of em¬ployees who have left by a variety of factors: department, supervisor, performance level, length of employment, and career path (external hire or internal hire/promotion). The division of employees in this way can provide insight into the causes of turnover.
o Qualitative information to supplement the analysis can be obtained by job satisfaction surveys or exit interviews. Ultimately, solutions or pre¬ventative strategies can be sought.

Difference methods of Wastage Analysis

- Labour Turnover Index:- It indicates the number of leavers as percentage to average number of employees.
- Labour Turnover = Number of employees leaving/Average number of employees employed * 100.

Stability index

Concept, meaning and definition:
- Stability Index = number with more than 1 year service now / total employed 1 year ago * 100