Technical Interviews

In IT jobs or other technical jobs, the interview process involves a technical interview round.

In this subject matter expert on the technical subject interviews the candidate to evaluate his/her technical abilities to perform the job.

Q4. What benefits does an organization get out by setting up an academy?

Setting up an Academy Answer:

Organizations set up training academies where they provide a training course with/without certification in the area of their specialization to fresher candidates. Sometimes candidates with lesser experience are also considered. The candidates are charged fees for this course and are hired on successful completion of the course. The setting up of the academy involves answering the below mentioned questions:

 Why set up an academy?

 Who will do the training?

 Where will the training be conducted?

 How will it be conducted?

Benefits of setting up a Training Academy

By setting up an academy, an organization can get following benefits:

 Reduced Hiring Costs – As lesser number of employees will be hired by using consultants and more number of students will be hired from the training academy, the hiring cost is reduced. Also the organization generates revenue on every candidate trained.

 Reduced Training Cost – During the training period the candidates are not paid salary, so the cost of salaries paid during the training period is saved. The cost of salaries is a big component of training costs. For a BPO offering an average salary of INR 10,000 per month and a training duration of 2 months. Salary costs are INR 20,000 per employee during training. It may have hired 1000 employees last year and trained them and borne the cost of 2 Crores towards salaries during training. But by setting up an academy it saves on 2 crores in terms of salary costs.

 Reduced Training Period – Train to Hire process completely concentrates on training the new candidates, only the selected candidates are paid at the end of the training. As a large chunk of the training is conducted by the academy, the training period of the company reduces substantially. Their go-live time is the shortest.

 Improved Bench Strength – The organization has ready replacements available in case of employee turnover or any additional manpower required for expansion. The

academy always has excess people than what the organization requires. This gives the organization the flexibility to backfill at short notice and expands the business in the shortest possible time. The candidates ready in waiting to join the organization is called the bench strength.

 Now let us discuss the ‘Who’ and ‘Where’ part of the questions asked earlier.

‘Academy’ is the centre where the training would take place. The organization has to first decide whether the training will be conducted by the in-house trainers or it will be outsourced to vendors who have expertise in the required training subject.

Once this is decided, the organization identifies a place for the Training Academy where the training would take place. Training Academy is either situated in the existing part of the organization’s premises or a low cost area where the cost of land is relatively cheap.

Organizations set up the Training Academy in the existing premises because it saves them any additional cost and makes it easier to make resources available to the candidates.

Sometimes, the organization is reluctant to use its office space to avoid any administrative issues, maintain safety, and avoid information leakage about their products or schemes etc.

These issues may arise due to having candidates inside the premise, who are yet not the organization’s employees. Therefore, the Training Academy is set up outside the company premises. Other reasons for different premises are:

 Not enough space in the company premises

 Organization reluctant to have the Academy in their premises

 Training outsourced to a vendor

When the academy is to be set up in another location, then a low cost area is identified where the cost of land is relatively cheap. When the Train to Hire process is outsourced – fully or partly to a vendor, the centre could be provided or arranged for by the vendor. This saves the organization any administrative burdens. The other reason could be that the organization is looking at the academy as a separate business venture.

Q5. Describe the major approaches of talent development.

Answer:

Approaches to Talent Development

If we take a closer look at the practice of leadership development and the importance which global companies attach to it, we’ll find that there is a huge array of effective approaches and programs that are taken by the globally renowned companies. Over five hundred companies have taken part in this research. Every company completed an exhaustive questionnaire, which was analyzed and compared to other companies by the researchers. Research reveals that the approaches can be jotted down as bellow:

Strategy – What successful organizations do is a close examination of the programs and interventions needed to realize their company’s strategies, since there is a clear link between the strategy of the company and the strategy of leadership development.

Involvement – Talent development is paramount importance to the organization, and top

management is also actively involved in the development of future management. The managers also engage themselves frequently in active mentoring, coaching or training, and also share their own experiences with workers. Often the CEO plays a prominent, active role in training or action learning.

Ongoing Processes – The companies always give a thought about the ongoing, and recurring developmental processes instead of one-time initiatives. Undoubtedly talent management has a high priority in these organizations. A lot of attention is given towards identifying high potentials in the organization, determination of specific career paths for these high potentials, and coaching them.

Behavior – The behavior expected from workers in these organizations is a significant thing.

This is true in all aspects of the organization: performance management, promotion decisions, recruitment and selection and communication from the top of the organization.

Talent Pipeline – Talent development is the most critical mission in a company among other company processes. The best performing companies always see that the talent pipeline of the organization is always full.

Critical Objective – High potential talent present in any organization can prove as a strategic advantage and hence much stress is given on the development of this talent. The development of a robust talent pipeline is a critical objective for the organization’s top management.

Implementation – What most of the companies do for distinguishing themselves from others is making talent management a regular part of operational management. Managing talent is a task for which all the leaders of the company are responsible within the organization. This infrastructure is embedded in the daily leadership culture and Also, they are responsible for continuing the implementation of talent management in the organization managers develop the necessary competencies to be able execute talent management effectively.

Leadership Programs – Leadership programs which have high added value for talent development are organized. Programs whose content is linked with organizational needs are chosen. These programs are fully integrated with other human resources processes namely, performance management, promotion policy, training and development, reward, succession and career planning.

Model for Achieving Excellence in Talent Development

Structure – Functional profiles, competency models, and describing paths for growth are the things companies should implement. Other than these a yearly performance management cycle with some achievable targets should be set and incentive structures, career- and succession planning are some things which form an integral part of the talent management system.

Selective Development – Most of the successful organizations carry on a close examination of which are the talent programs and interventions that will be necessary to

realize the company strategy.

Process – The total infrastructure for talent development should be such that it is a part of the day-to-day leadership culture. Coaching and training skills are to be developed by the managers who have an experience to execute talent management effectively.

Q6. Mr. Aravind works at K&D Company. Recently two fellow team members were shifted to another team and their work was handed over to him. This affected his performance and also left him dissatisfied. Finally, he forwarded his resignation letter to the HR Department. The HR Manager decided to conduct an exit interview with Mr.

Aravind. What questions do you think that the HR manager would want to ask Mr.Aravind?

Answer:

Possible Exit Interview Questions

 Tell me about how you decided to leave the organization?

 What could have been done early on to prevent this situation developing or lend a basis for you to stay with us?

 How do you feel about this organization?

 What extra responsibility or position would you have welcomed that you were not given?

 How could the organization have enabled you to make fuller use of your competency and potential?

 What training would you have liked or required that you did not get, and what effect did this have?

 How well do think your training and development requirements were evaluated and met?

 What do you say about communications within the organization and your department?

 What changes would you make towards the environment or “feel” of the organization?

 What changes or improvement could be made to the way that you were inducted for your role?

 What will you say about the way your performance was measured, and the feedback given for your performance results?

 What will you say about how you were motivated, and how that can be improved?

 Can you provide any unreasonable examples of policy, rules or instructions you have encountered here?

 What particularly is it about the other organization that makes you want to join them?

 What are they offering that we are not?

 (If appropriate) Can you be persuaded to renegotiate or discuss the possibility of staying?

 A proper closure in the exit interview, for both the organization and departing employee encourages positive and professional ties between the two.

MU0011 –Management and Organizational Development Assignment Set- 1

Q1. State the characteristics of organizational culture.

There are seven primary characteristics that every organization should cultivate in it. Let us look at each of them in detail.

1. Outcome Orientation

There are some organizations which pay more importance to results rather than processes.

The business model of any business is one which decides whether thrust should be on the outcome or on the processes. This defines the outcome orientation of the business.

2. Innovation and Risk Taking

Risk and returns are two things which always go hand in hand. It often happens that when you calculated risk somewhere, the chances of returns are higher. Same goes for innovation. You could either be a follower or a pioneer. Though pioneering brings risk with it, but at times it can also have a breakthrough outcome for the organization. Therefore innovation and risk taking are one of the main characteristics of organizational culture.

3. People Orientation

How much should the management focus on the people? Some organizations are famous for being employee oriented as they focus more on creating a better work environment for the employees while others treat employees no better than work machines.

4. Aggressiveness

When there is a fierce competition, only then aggressiveness is visible among the employees of an organization. For example, companies like Apple are known for their aggression and market dominating strategies.

5. Attention to Detail

The degree of attention of the employees to work is the key to the success of any business.

Attention to detail defines the amount of importance a company allots to accuracy and details in the workplace. The management defines the degree of attention to be given to details.

6. Stability

Organizations that have to deal with stabilizing operations and other needs are more focused on making themselves and their operations stable. The managements of these organizations are more inclined to ensuring stability of the company rather than looking at indiscriminate growth.

7. Team Orientation

Quite often, the nature of business also requires an organization to be team oriented.

Synergistic teams help give better results as compared to individual efforts. So, they lay more emphasis on synergy between different teams and in forming a well balanced team for

producing effective output.

Q2. Explain the life cycle of resistance to organizational change in detail.

Answer:

Resistance to Change

Adopting new innovations or new ideas and techniques involves altering human behavior, and the acceptance of change. There is a natural resistance to change for several reasons.

The reasons are as follows:

People Resist change:

 When the change threatens to modify established patterns of working relationships between people.

 When communication about the change–timetables, personnel, monies, etc. – has not been sufficient.

 When the benefits and rewards for making the change are not seen as adequate for the trouble involved.

 When the change threatens jobs, power or status in an organization.

 When the reason for the change is unclear. When there is ambiguity, whether it is about costs, equipment, jobs, it can trigger negative reactions among users.

 When the proposed users have not been consulted about the change, and it is offered to them as an accomplished fact. People like to know what’s going on, especially if their jobs may be affected. Informed workers tend to have higher levels of job satisfaction than uninformed workers.

On the other hand, if the innovation is introduced gradually so that people can adjust to the resulting then decision makers are more responsive to changes:

 If the innovation requires marginal rather than major changes in their views or lives.

 If they have a demonstrated need for the innovation.

 If the information presented coincides with their current values, beliefs, and attitudes

 If they perceive that the change will benefit them more than it will cost them.