ASSIGNMENTS

MU 0004
HUMAN RESOURCES AUDIT
Set I

1. Discuss the Key HR Elements and Resource .

Key HR Elements And Resources

This section will discuss key HR elements which affect businesses today. A
different topic will be featured monthly. Additionally, resources in HR will
be shared to help you solve business issues within your organization.

How to Retain Good Employees?

Did you know that it costs approximately 1.5 times an employee’s base
salary to re-hire and re-train for that position? Did you know it’s an even
higher expense for managerial positions?

Many companies and managers fail to remember that it costs more to

re-hire for an open position verses investing in retention programs for the
employee long term. Too many organizations are not pro-active in creating
retention programs that will help keep good employees.

Employees primarily quit their job for these reasons: They had a poor
manager or their position was not challenging enough. With management
coaching and advice on how to develop employees for the long term your
retention rate will increase. Many companies today are finding that the key
to an effective retention program is found in a strategy that includes an
employee’s personal ambition (i.e. recognition, career development) and the
aspirations they possess for their organizations.

How do you hire the best candidate for the job?

Here are a few questions to help determine if you have found the best
candidate for the job:

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 1. When answering interview questions did they provide work related
experience and exhibit skills that were directly applicable to the role?

2. If there were job gaps, do you know why?

3. Why did they leave their previous organizations?

4. Does the candidate fit into your company culture, team and exhibit
the same work values?

5. Interview for interpersonal and behavioral skills by asking open

ended questions such as:

– Tell me about a time when you worked on a team project and what
role you played.

– Give me an example of when you worked with a difficult person

and what you did to overcome the situation.

– Tell me about a time when you found a problem that wasn’t

obvious to the parties involved and how you handled the politics in
trying to solve the issue.

– Tell me about a time when you dealt with a conflict and what you
did to resolve it.

What you should focus on…

We focus on seven critical areas of human resource management:

• Management/Leadership Coaching
• Employee Training and Development\
• Performance Management
• Organizational Development
• Recruiting and Retention Programs
• Employee Handbooks and Compensation
• Employee Relations Counsel

Organizations that focus on these critical factors will create a positive and
productive environment for their employees in turn driving financial
performance and long-term success.

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2. Write a note on steps involved in competency mapping.

Competency Mapping is a process of identifying key competencies for an

organization and/or a job, and incorporating those competencies throughout
the various processes (i.e. job evaluation, training, recruitment) of the
organization. To ensure we are both on the same page, we would define a
competency as a behavior (i.e. communication, leadership) rather than a skill
or ability.

The steps involved in competency mapping with an end result of job

evaluation include the following:

1) Conduct a job analysis by asking incumbents to complete a position

information questionnaire (PIQ). This can be provided for incumbents to
complete, or you can conduct one-on-one interviews using the PIQ as a
guide. The primary goal is to gather from incumbents what they feel are
the key behaviors necessary to perform their respective jobs.

2) Using the results of the job analysis, you are ready to develop a
competency based job description. A sample of a competency based job
description generated from the PIQ was provided to this client. This was
developed after carefully analyzing the input from the represented group
of incumbents and converting it to standard competencies.

3) With a competency based job description, you are on your way to

begin mapping the competencies throughout your human resources
processes. The competencies of the respective job description become
your factors for assessment on the performance evaluation. Using
competencies will help guide you to perform more objective evaluations
based on displayed or not displayed behaviors.

4) Taking the competency mapping one step further, you can use the
results of your evaluation to identify in what competencies individuals
need additional development or training. This will help you focus your
training needs on the goals of the position and company and help your
employees develop toward the ultimate success of the organization.

To help you with the implementation of these steps and attached tools, we
would recommend you to consider reading the following materials. In

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addition, you may wish to email one of our clients that just went through this
process (contact information for this client was provided).

3. Write a note on the Performance management audit .

The Performance Management Audit:

How to manage and continuously improve performance in your

organization

Performance Management is an HR issue and responsibility, for it lies with

the HR department (even if it seems to be the job of individual line
managers, team leaders or a business improvement initiative.

For the first time, this audit brings together all the issues involved in
performance management and sets out a clear system for analyzing,
reviewing and improving them.

• If your organization does not already use performance management

formally, you will find a simple framework for introducing
appropriate performance management systems and making them
work.
• If it does use performance management techniques, you will find the
tools to review and evaluate existing procedures – and make them
work better.

At each step there are suggested questions, draft questionnaires, policy

checklists and project planning guidelines to help you review:

• General principles and practices

• The way you define and agree your expectations of teams and
individual staff
• Methods of planning performance
• Methods of measuring and reviewing performance (performance
reviews and feedback, performance measures and documentation)
• The way you relate pay to performance (including analysis of the
techniques available)
• Training and development in relation to performance management

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Run this audit and get a clear picture of the strengths and weaknesses of
performance management in your organization. Then identify and
implement improvements, and measure the results.

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 ASSIGNMENTS
MU 0004
HUMAN RESOURCES AUDIT
Set II

1. Explain in detail the audit process.

Conducting Human Resources Audit:

Employment law is an ever-changing field. Your policies and procedures

must change with the laws if you hope to avoid litigation. Employers are
aware that one of the best ways to avoid employee lawsuits is to have a
comprehensive policy manual. That’s good advice, but it’s not enough. You
must regularly conduct an employment law / human resources audit to make
sure that your policies reflect changes in employment laws.

Preliminary Steps :

There are two issues that must be considered before implementing an

employment law audit:

• When should the audit take place?

• By whom should it be conducted?

Since your organization already utilizes a variety of employment-related

practices and procedures, the audit should be conducted as soon as possible,
if you have never audited such procedures before. After the initial audit,
follow-up audits should be conducted yearly. When putting together an audit
team, include either in-house or outside legal counsel, a representative from
Human Resources, and any other individuals needed to represent a cross-
section of staff functions. All team members should be warned ahead of time
regarding the handling of confidential information.

Goals of the Audit :

The review process should provide answers to several important questions

regarding the application of your company’s policies. The audit’s goals are
to determine whether your policies are being applied consistently, whether

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they are the norm for your industry and geographic location, and whether
they are consistently communicated to all employees. The audit should also
provide insight as to which individuals are responsible for the
implementation and enforcement of policies. Finally, it should distinguish
between policies that are applicable to nonunion employees, and the terms
and conditions of employment for employees who are represented by a
labour organization.

Areas to Audit :

Most lawsuits can be traced to four distinct stages of the employment

relationship: hiring, employee evaluation, employee discipline or
termination, and post-employment. Therefore, your self-audit should target
these areas. Sample audit questions from each of these four areas appear on
the following pages. In addition to these four areas, your employment audit
should also target state regulations. Here are a few examples.

1. Review all your labour contract provisions for their impact on

employees with disabilities.

2. Review all job specifications for hiring and placement of employees.

3. Review all employment applications for illegal questions dealing

with employees.

4. Review and prepare all current job descriptions setting forth essential
job elements.

5. Review current facilities to ensure accessibility for individuals with

disabilities.

6. Review all pre-employment tests.

2. Discuss the key elements of HR Scorecard.

The HR Scorecard is built around a series of examples and a process that

helps managers to do this work in their own firms – designing an HR
architecture that relentlessly emphasizes and reinforces the implementation
of the firm’s strategy.

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The HR Scorecard has five key elements:

• The first element is what we called Workforce Success. It asks: Has

the workforce accomplished the key strategic objectives for the
business?
• The second element is called Right HR Costs. It asks: Is our total
investment in the workforce (not just the HR function) appropriate
(not just minimized)?
• The third element we describe as Right Types of HR Alignment. It
asks: Are our HR practices aligned with the business strategy and
differentiated across positions, where appropriate?
• The fourth element is Right HR Practices. It asks: Have we designed
and implemented world class HR management policies and practices
throughout the business?
• The fifth element is Right HR Professionals. It asks: Do our HR
professionals have the skills they need to design and implement a
world-class HR management system?

3. Explain the five types of traits/factors.

A personality trait is assumed to be some enduring

characteristic that is relatively constant. This is opposed to the present
temperament of that person which is not necessarily a stable characteristic.
Consequently, trait theories are specifically focused on explaining the more
permanent personality characteristics that differentiate one individual from
another. For example, things like being; dependable, trustworthy, friendly,
cheerful, etc.

Modern personality theory is a relatively new field and really began in the
1920s. There have been many attempts to define personality traits and some
psychologists have developed models with hundreds of traits. Whilst others
believe that there are as few as three. In 1990, the psychologists Costa &
McCrae published details of a ‘5 trait’ model. This has received significant
support from other research and is now widely accepted among
psychologists. These 5 aspects of personality are referred to as the
5-factors or sometimes just ‘the Big 5′.

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Each of these 5 personality traits describes, relative to other people, the
frequency or intensity of a person’s feelings, thoughts, or behaviors.
Everyone possesses all 5 of these traits to a greater or lesser degree. For
example, two individuals could be described as ‘agreeable’ (agreeable
people value getting along with others). But there could be significant
variation in the degree to which they are both agreeable.

These 5 traits/factors are:

• Extraversion – How “energetic” one is:

People who score high on this factor like to work in cooperation with
others, are talkative, enthusiastic and seek excitement. People who score low
on this factor prefer to work alone, and can be perceived as cold, difficult to
understand, even a bit eccentric.

• Agreeableness – One’s level of orientation towards other people:

Those who score high on this factor are usually co-operative, can be
submissive, and are concerned with the well-being of others. People who
score low on this factor may be challenging, competitive, sometimes even
argumentative.

• Conscientiousness – How “structured” one is:

People who score high on this factor are usually productive and
disciplined and “single tasking”. People who score low on this factor are
often less structured, less productive, but can be more flexible, inventive,
and capable of multitasking.

• Neuroticism – Tendency to worry:

People who score low on this factor are usually calm, relaxed and rational.
They may sometimes be perceived as lazy and incapable of taking things
seriously. People who score high on this factor are alert, anxious, sometimes
worried.

• Openness to Experience – Tendency to be speculative and

imaginative:

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 People who score high on this factor are neophile and curious and
sometimes unrealistic. People who score low on this factor are down-to-
earth and practical and sometimes obstructive of change.

All 5 personality traits exist on a continuum rather than as attributes that a

person does or does not have. Each of these 5 traits is made up 6 facets,
which can be measured independently.

Personality Factor Facets

Friendliness
Gregariousness
Assertiveness
Extraversion Activity Level

Excitement-Seeking
Cheerfulness
Trust
Morality
Altruism
Agreeableness
Cooperation
Modesty
Sympathy
Self-Efficacy
Orderliness
Dutifulness
Conscientiousness
Achievement-Striving
Self-Discipline
Cautiousness

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 Anxiety
Anger
Depression
Neuroticism
Self-Consciousness
Immoderation
Vulnerability
Imagination
Artistic Interests

Openness to experience Emotionality

Adventurousness
Intellect
Liberalism

When thinking about personality traits it is important to ignore the positive

or negative associations that these words have in everyday language. For
example, Agreeableness is obviously advantageous for achieving and
maintaining popularity. Agreeable people are better liked than disagreeable
people. On the other hand, agreeableness is not useful in situations that
require tough or totally objective decisions. Disagreeable people can make
excellent scientists, critics, or soldiers.

It is quite possible to come up with slightly different definitions of the big 5

traits and to attach more importance to some of the facets than to others.
This is an area that lends itself to endless debate and keeps many academic
psychologists in work. As well as providing lively academic argument, it
also enables companies in the personality testing field to differentiate their
products from those of their competitors.

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