CHAPTER I

1.1 Introduction:
Introduction of Human Resource Management
Human Resources is an evolving and dynamic field that challenges the ability
of even the most seasoned professional to keep abreast of policies, procedures, compliance
requirements, and best practices. Human resource management has become the central
concern of any organization either in public, private or co-operative sector. Human resources
play a vital role in the development of modern economics. In the changing economic
environment, HRM is assuming much greater importance than ever before. It is conceived to
be different from the traditional and conventional notion of personnel management. A
nation with an abundance of physical resources will not benefit itself unless human resources
make use of them. In fact, human resource is solely responsible for effective use of physical
and natural resource and for the transformation of traditional economics into modern and
industrial economics.
Meaning
Human resource management means employing people developing their
resource, utilizing, maintaining and compensating their services in tune with the job and
organizational requirement with a view to contribute to the organization, individual and the
society.
Definition
Human resource management is the central sub-system of an organization and
it permeates all types of functional management viz. production management marketing
management and financial management.
Michael J. Jucius defined personnel management as the field of management which has to
do with planning, organization, direction and controlling the functions of procuring,
developing, maintaining and utilizing a labor force, such that the:
Objectives for which the company is established are attained economically and
effectively.
Objectives of all levels of personnel are served to the highest possible degree, and
Objective of society are duly considered and served.


Human Resource Management is an active factor of production; all other factors are
capital, materials, building, plants and machinery etc., all these factors are meaningless if
capable persons are not available to work upon these factors to production. Human brain has
unlimited energy to think and act. The high efficiency food quality of work depends upon
capability of employees. The development of human resources refers to the upgrading of their
skills organizational development and prosperity. The present day business complex
environment is associated to mature and judicious man power supply and enhancing their
abilities for the benefits of the organization.
The HRD concept is new and is used in two terms. Macro, which refers to the
improvement in qualities and productivity of employees, and Micro level, refers to the
improvement in the quality of managers and employees so as to get higher level of
productivity and improvement is the quality of work.
The HRD is a continuous process which refers to develop effectiveness in a scientific way.
This is a program which is referred to accept all new changes without disturbance to
production. The HRD is related to all-around development of the employees working is an
organization.
Evolution of human resource management
The history of development of personnel management in India is comparatively of
recent origin. But Kautilya had dealt with some of the important aspects of human resources
management in his Arthasastra 400 B.C. Government in those days adopted the techniques
of HRM as suggested by Kautilya. In its modern sense it had developed only since
independence.
Though the importance of labor officers was recognized as early as 1929, the
appointment of welfare officer to solve labor and welfare problems gained momentum only
after the enactment of the factories Act of 1948. Section 49 of the Act required the
appointment of welfare officer in companies employing more than 500 workers. At the
beginning, government was concerned only with limited aspect of Indian laborers (regulation
of recruitment, forwarding and employment) sent to various British colonies in 1830.


Importance of human resources
The term human resource can also be explained in the sense that it is resource like any
natural resource. It does mean that the management can get and use the skill, knowledge, ability, etc.
Human resources are also regarded as human factor, human asset, human capital and the like. The terms
labor and manpower had been used widely, denoting mostly the physical abilities and capacities of
employees. The term personnel had been used widely in the recent past to denote persons employed in any
services. Thus, this term denotes the employee as a whole but it does not clearly denote various
components of human resource like skill, knowledge, value etc. People in any organization manifest
themselves, not only through individual come to work place; they come with not only technical skills,
knowledge etc. But also with their personal feeling, perception, desires, motives, attitude, values etc.
therefore, employee management in an organization does mean management of not only technical skills
but also other factors of the human resources.
Features of human resources management
Human resources management is concerned with employees both as individual and as a
group in attaining goals. It is also concerned with behavior, emotional and social
aspects of personnel.
It is concerned with the development of human resource i.e. knowledge, capacity, skills,
potentialities and attaining and achieving employees goals including job satisfaction.
Human resources management covers all levels (low, middle and top) and categories
(unskilled, skilled, technical, professional, clerical and managerial) of employees. It
covers both organized and unorganized employees.
It applies to the employees in all types of organization in the world (industry, trade,
service, commerce, economic, social, religious, political and government departments).
Thus, it is common in all types of organizations.
Human resources management is a continuous and never ending process.
It aims at attaining the goals of organization. Individual and society in an integrated
approach.
Organization goals may include survival growth and development in addition to
profitability, productivity, innovation, excellence etc.
Individual employees-goals consist, challenging works, pride, status, recognition,
opportunity for development etc.
Goals of the society include equal employment opportunity, protecting the
disadvantaged distribution of income of minimizing wage differentials, developing and
society in general by organizing development activities etc.
Human resources management is a responsibility of all line managers and a function of
staff managers and a function of staff managers in an organization.
It is concerned mostly with managing human resources at work.
Human resources management is the central sub-system of an organization and it
permeates all types of functional management, viz., production management, marketing
management and financial management.
Human resource management aims at securing unreserved cooperation from all
employees in order to attain predetermined goals.

Quality of Work Life
The term refers to the favourableness or unfavourableness of a total job environment
for people. QWL programs are another way in which organisations recognise their
responsibility to develop jobs and working conditions that are excellent for people as well
as for economic health of the organisation. The elements in a typical QWL program include
open communications, equitable reward systems, a concern for employee job security and
satisfying careers and participation in decision making. Many early QWL efforts focus on job
enrichment. In addition to improving the work system, QWL programs usually emphasize
development of employee skills, the reduction of occupational stress and the development of
more co-operative labour-management relations.
Vigorous Domestic and International competition drive organisations to be more
productive. Proactive managers and human resource departments respond to this challenge by
finding new ways to improve productivity. Some strategies rely heavily upon new capital
investment and technology. Others seek changes in employee relations practices.
Human resource departments are involved with efforts to improve productivity
through changes in employee relations. QWL means having good supervision, good working
conditions, good pay and benefits and an interesting, challenging and rewarding job. High
QWL is sought through an employee relations philosophy that encourages the use of QWL
efforts, which are systematic attempts by an organization to give workers greater
opportunities to affect their jobs and their contributions to the organizations overall
effectiveness. That is, a proactive human resource department finds ways to empower
employees so that they draw on their brains and wits, usually by getting the employees
more involved in the decision-making process.
A Rationale
Job specialisation and simplification were popular in the early part of this century.
employees were assigned narrow jobs and supported by a rigid hierarchy in the expectation
that efficiency would improve. The idea was to lower cost by using unskilled workers who
could be easily trained to do a small, repetitive part of each job.
Many difficulties developed from that classical job design, however. There was
excessive division of labor. Workers became socially isolated from their co-workers because
their highly specialized jobs weakened their community of interest in the whole product. De-
skilled workers lost pride in their work and became bored with their jobs. Higher-order
(social and growth) needs were left unsatisfied. The result was higher turnover and
absenteeism, declines in quality and alienated workers. Conflict often arose as workers
sought to improve their conditions and organizations failed to respond appropriately. The real
cause was that in many instances the job itself simply was not satisfying.
Forces For Change
A factor contributing to the problem was that the workers themselves were changing.
They became educated, more affluent (partly because of the effectiveness of classical job
design), and more independent. They began reaching for higher-order needs, something more
than merely earning their bread. Employers now had two reasons for re-designing jobs and
organisations for a better QWL:
Classical design originally gave inadequate attention to human needs.
The needs and aspirations of workers themselves were changing.

Humanised Work Through QWL
One option was to re-design jobs to have the attributes desired by people, and re-
design organisations to have the environment desired by the people. This approach seeks to
improve QWL. There is a need to give workers more of a challenge, more of a whole task,
more opportunity to use their ideas. Close attention to QWL provides a more humanised work
environment. It attempts to serve the higher-order needs of workers as well as their more
basic needs. It seeks to employ the higher skills of workers and to provide an environment
that encourages them to improve their skills. The idea is that human resources should be
developed and not simply used. Further, the work should not have excessively negative
conditions. It should not put workers under undue stress. It should not damage or degrade
their humanness. It should not be threatening or unduly dangerous. Finally, it should
contribute to, or at least leave unimpaired, workers abilities to perform in other life roles,
such as citizen, spouse and parent. That is, work should contribute to general social
advancement.
Job Enlargement vs. Job Enrichment
The modern interest in quality of work life was stimulated through efforts to change
the scope of peoples jobs in attempting to motivate them. Job scope has two dimensions
breadth and depth. Job breadth is the number of different tasks an individual is directly
responsible for. It ranges from very narrow (one task performed repetitively) to wide (several
tasks). Employees with narrow job breadth were sometimes given a wider variety of duties in
order to reduce their monotony; this process is called job enlargement. In order to perform
these additional duties, employees spend less time on each duty. Another approach to
changing job breadth is job rotation, which involves periodic assignment of an employee to
completely different sets of job activities. Job rotation is an effective way to develop multiple
skills in employees, which benefits the organisation while creating greater job interest and
career options for the employee.
Job enrichment takes a different approach by adding additional motivators to a job to
make it more rewarding. It was developed by Frederick Herzberg on the basis of his studies
indicating that the most effective way to motivate workers was by focusing on higher-order
needs. Job enrichment seeks to add depth to a job by giving workers more control,
responsibility and discretion over hoe their job is performed. The difference between
enlargement and enrichment is illustrated in the figure on the next page.
Difference between job enrichment and job enlargement

Higher-order


Lower- order
Few Many

Job enrichment

Job enrichment and
enlargement

Routine job

Job enlargement
Number of tasks
(Focus on Breadth)
In the above figure we see that job enrichment focuses on satisfying higher-order
needs, while job enlargement concentrates on adding additional tasks to the workers job for
greater variety. The two approaches can even be blended, by both expanding the number of
tasks and adding more motivators, for a two-pronged attempt to improve QWL.
Job enrichment brings benefits, as shown in the below figure.
Benefits of job enrichment emerge in three areas














Its general result is a role enrichment that encourages growth and self-actualisation.
The job is built in such a way that intrinsic motivation is encouraged. Because motivation is
increased, performance should improve, thus providing both a more humanised and a more
productive job. Negative effects also tend to be reduced, such as turnover, absences,
grievances and idle time. In this manner both the worker and society benefit. The worker
JOB
ENRICHMENT
BENEFITS
Individual:
Growth
Self actualization
Job satisfaction

Organization:
Intrinsically motivated
employees
Better employee
performance
Less absenteeism
and turnover; fewer
grievances

Society:
Full use of
human
resources
More effective
organisations
performs better, experiences greater job satisfaction and becomes more self-actualised, thus
being able to participate in all life roles more effectively. Society benefits from the more
effectively functioning person as well as from better job performance.
Applying Job Enrichment
Viewed in terms of Herzbergs motivational factors, job enrichment occurs when the
work itself is more challenging, when achievement is encouraged, when there is opportunity
for growth and when responsibility, feedback and recognition are provided. However,
employees are the final judges of what enriches their jobs. All that management can do is
gather information about what tend to enrich jobs, try those changes in the job system and
then determine whether employees feel that enrichment has occurred.
In trying to build motivational factors, management also gives attention to
maintenance factors. It attempts to keep maintenance factors constant or higher as the
motivational factors are increased. If maintenance factors are allowed to decline during an
enrichment program, then employees may be less responsive to the enrichment program
because they are distracted by inadequate maintenance. The need for a systems approach in
job enrichment is satisfied by the practice of gain sharing.
Since hob enrichment must occur from each employees personal viewpoint, not all
employees will choose enriched jobs if they have an option. A contingency relationship exists
in terms of different job needs, and some employees prefer the simplicity and security of
more routine jobs.



Core Dimensions: A Job Characteristics Approach
How can jobs be enriched? And how does job enrichment produce its desired
outcomes? J. Richard Hackman and Greg Oldham have developed a job characteristics
approach to job enrichment that identifies five core dimensions skill variety, task identity,
task significance, autonomy and feedback. Ideally, a job must have all five dimensions to be
fully enriched. If one dimension is perceived to be missing, workers are psychologically
deprived and motivation may be reduced.
In one instance a manufacturer set up production in two different ways. Employees
were allowed to choose between work on a standard assembly line and at a bench where
they individually assembled the entire product. In the beginning few employees chose
to work at the enriched jobs, but gradually about half the workers chose them the more
routine assembly operation seemed to fit the needs of the other half.
The core dimensions affect an employees psychological state, which tends to
improve performance, satisfaction and quality of work and to reduce turnover and
absenteeism. Their effect on quantity of work is less dependable. Many managerial and
white-collar jobs, as well as blue-collar jobs, often are deficient in some core dimensions.
Although there are large individual differences in how employees react to core dimensions,
the typical employee finds them to be basic for internal motivation. The dimensions and their
effects are shown in the following figure and discussed in greater detail here.
The Human Resource Departments Role
The role of human resource department in QWL efforts varies widely. In some
organisations, top management appoints an executive to ensure that QWL and productivity
efforts occur throughout the organisation. In most cases, these executives have a small staff
and must rely on the human resource department for help with employee training,
communications, attitude survey feedback, and similar assistance. In other organisations, the
department is responsible for initiating and directing the firms QWL and productivity
efforts.
Perhaps the most crucial role of the department is winning the support of key
managers. Management support particularly top management support appears to be an
almost universal prerequisite for successful QWL programs. By substantiating employee
satisfaction and bottom-line benefits, which range from lower absenteeism and turnover to
higher productivity and fewer accidents, the department can help convince doubting
managers. Sometimes documentation of QWL can result from studies of performance before
and after a QWL effort. Without documentation of these results, top management might not
have continued its strong support.
THE OBJECTIVE OF THE STUDY:
1. To understand the extent to which the Quality of work Life provided by Visakhapatnam
steel plant, towards their employees.
2. To find how organization is responsible for working conditions leading to comfortable
work life
3. To know the level of awareness of employee about the various facilities provided to them.
4. To study how the Quality of work Life facilities provided help in increasing the
productivity and job satisfaction.
5. To learn how employees are feeling that QUALITY OF WORK LIFE enhances
motivation and commitment.
METHODOLOGY
This chapter discusses in detail the methodology followed for the study. It firstly discusses
the methods that have been employed for data collection.
Data collection is of two types namely: (a) Primary data (b) Secondary data
Secondly it details the sample, the size, the type and finally gives justifications.
DATA COLLECTION:
Adequate and relevant data is essential for any meaningful research. It forms the basis of the
study by supporting the analysis.
For any research, the two types of data are necessary:
1. Primary sources
2. Secondary source

PRIMARY SOURCES:
The primary source of data is applied for getting the required and relevant information
directly from the department Heads and in the course of discussion with Executives, the
following are the data collected through primary sources:
a) Type of Retention measures provided in Visakhapatnam Steel Plant/RINL.
b) Refreshment courses conducted in the technical Institute.
c) About the course covered through discussions with the employee and through
questionnaires.
SECONDARY SOURCES:
The secondary source of data was collected through records and files from the Administrative
Building of VSP. And the institutional Guide gave me the remaining necessary information
and the staff relating to Administration gave me all the necessary information to complete the
study.



SAMPLE
A sample was required for the study because the number of employees at the steel plant was
over 17000. it is very difficult to consider the whole universe; therefore, a representative
sample was selected.
SIZE
A sample of 50 employees has been selected. Although it looks to be a small sample,
keeping in view the large number of employees, it was to be limited due to time constraint (4
weeks).Even then, the sample size is not considered to be small. It is enough to draw
conclusions.
TYPE
I have selected stratified random selection technique. I felt that this was the only technique
that provided me with a representative sample. Since the employees from all levels (strata)
namely the top level, the middle level, and the lower level; are beneficiaries to the welfare
schemes, the sample includes employees from all these levels. Only random sampling
technique provides with this opportunity. At the strata level employees have been chosen at
random to avoid any similarity or bias.

STATISTICAL TECHNIQUES TO BE USED :
Collection and collation of required information.
Apply simple statistical techniques such as mean, percentages, etc.

LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY :
As the Managers of the organization are busy with their work schedule, it was
difficult to collect detailed data.
Time was the major constraint as the mentioned period was not enough to collect the
data, in detail.
Survey was done with the sample size of 50, as the employees of the Company work
in shifts and as they are busy with their schedule. Some were unable to understand the
language in the questionnaire as such, they felt difficulty to answer
The sample size chosen is covered only a small portion of the whole population
of STEEL PLANT.
1. The sample size chosen is covered only a small portion of the whole population of
STEEL PLANT.
2. The study is confined to limited period i.e. four weeks.
3. Accuracy of the study is purely based on the information as given by the respondents.
4. Data collected cannot be asserted to the free from cores, as the sample size restricted to
the employees.