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Although these circles are generally management Inspired. Worker membership Is voluntary. In these circles Managers and workers of a particular shop or department together identify, study and provide solutions to specific problems. Here too, workers do participate in a wide range of issues affecting their task performance. Since both these forums limit themselves to their work stations, they do not involve themselves beyond the realm of their own shop. Neither of these forums deals with Issues going beyond production or product quality.
It Is therefore best to call the autonomous work groups and Quality Circles as employee involvement programs rather than as structures allowing worker’s participation in Management. Quality circle is not a forum for wage negotiations, grievance settlement or discussion of welfare measures. They should initially concern about matters like wastage of materials, housekeeping problems, space shortage, cleanliness problems, delays, hold-ups, Inadequate training, Inadequate Job Instructions, quality, productivity, energy consumption, material handling, environmental problems, safety etc.
Objectives of Quality circles 1 . To improve quality, productivity, safety and cost reduction. 2. To offer opportunities to the employees to use their wisdom and creativity. 3. To develop team spirit, cohesive culture among different levels and section of the workers. 4. To Improve self and mutual development including leadership quality 5. To fulfill the self esteem and motivational needs of the employees 6. To improve the life of the employees. Benefits of Quality circle 1 . Through the forums of quality circle, the age old problem of industries putting industry. . A growing organization can always undertake difficult and challenging assignments for its growth and profit with the active help of the capable work force. 3. With more and more experience gained by the employees they undertake more challenging projects as cost reduction, material handling, quality improvement, preventing wastage, improving inspection and test methods, preventing accidents, improving design and process etc. 4. Cost reduction 5. Increased productivity 6. Improved quality 7. Better communication 8. Better house keeping 9.
Increased team work 10. Smooth team work 11. Better mutual trust 12. Greater sense of belonging 13. Increased safety 14. Better human relations. Salient features of Quality Circles 1. To make Quality circle a voluntary work. 2. To promote cohesive work group. 3. To choose those projects for which necessary expertise is available. 4. Working of Quality circles needs constant valuation for improved performance. 5. For the operation of Quality circle regular education and training are essential. 6. The gains of Quality circle are to be published. 7.
Quality circle gains should be taken as rewards rather than expecting financial rewards. 8. To ensure the involvement up to middle level. MOB is potentially a powerful philosophy of managing in an effective way for personalizing the evaluation process. It seeks to minimize external controls and maximize internal motivation through Joint goal setting between the Manager and the subordinates and increasing the subordinates own control of his work. It strongly reinforces the importance of allowing the subordinate to participate actively in the decisions that affect him directly.
Benefits of MOB program (1) MOB helps and increases employee motivation because it relates overall goals to the individual’s goals and helps to increase an employee’s understanding of where the Organization is and where it is heading. 2) Managers are more likely to compete with themselves than with other Managers. This kind of evaluation can reduce internal conflicts that often arise when Managers compete with each other to obtain scarce resources. (3) MOB results in a “means ends” chain. Management at succeeding lower levels in the organization establishes targets which are integrated with those at the next higher level.
Thus, it can help insure that everyone’s activity is ultimately aimed towards the Organization’s goals. (4) MOB reduces role conflict and ambiguity:- Role conflict exists when a person is faced with conflicting demands from woo or more supervisors; and role ambiguity exists when a person is uncertain as to how he will be evaluated or what he has to achieve. Since MOB aims at providing clear targets and their order or priority, it reduces both these situations. (5) MOB provides more objective appraisal criteria.
The targets that emerge from the MOB process provide a sound set of criteria for evaluating the Manager’s performance. (6) MOB forces and aids in planning:- By forcing top management to establish a strategy and goals for the entire organization; and by requiring other Managers to set their targets and plan how to reach them. 7) MOB identifies problems better and early:- Frequent performance review sessions make this possible. (8) MOB identifies performance deficiencies and enables the Management and the employees to set individualized self-improvement goals and thus proves effective in training and development of people. 9) MOB helps the individual Manager to develop personal leadership especially the skills of listening, planning, counseling, motivating and evaluating. This approach to managing instills a personal commitment to respond positively to the Organization’s major concerns as well as to the development of human aspects. Such a Manager has a greater chance to move ahead within the Management hierarchy than the non MOB type. Mac. Gregory observes that MOB in most cases does some good without costing much.
He points out, “Under proper conditions, participation and consultative management provide encouragement to people to direct their creative energies towards organization objectives, give them some voice in decisions which affect them and provide sufficient opportunities for satisfaction of social, egoistic and self-fulfillment needs”. Five areas of activity: 1 . Demand Forecasting 2. Supply Forecasting 3. Determining Human Resource Requirements . Action Planning 5. Monitoring and Control Though these activities are listed separately, they are interrelated and often overlap.
The purpose, methods and techniques of these five activities are briefly discussed here. The ‘Long-Range’ could be 5 years, while 10 to 15 years span could be used for a perspective plan. Long-Range plans must be made on the basis of various trends in the economy and in the labor market, and on long-term trends in the production. Long-Range plans are general rather than specific, flexible rather than rigid. Nevertheless, a plan can be extremely useful in identifying factors and trends that deed to be reckoned with the early warning on possible problems.
The long lead time provides the opportunity and resilience to meet exigencies and make necessary adjustments. More complete plans can be had as time slowly brings the long-range into short-range. The first step in the HARP Process is the establishment of a planning horizon. One should know the period for which the plan will apply. Then, the specific corporate objectives and strategies should be clear. Based on these, estimates or projections methods. The difference between the estimates of demand for and supply of human resources is often referred to as the HARP strategy I. To formulate plans for closing such gaps- perhaps by recruitment and training. (If the demand is positive I. E. , demand exceeds supply) or by planned redundancy (If the gap is negative). Refers to the estimation of the future need for Human Resources in the context of corporate and functional plans and forecasts of future activity levels of the organization. Demand for Human Resources in an organization should be based on annual budgets and corporate plan, translated into activity levels, for each function and department. In a manufacturing concern, the starting point is the sales forecast and targets.
Based on these, production plans are prepared specifying the numbers and types of product to be made over a specific period. Then the number of people, skill levels, etc. , to accomplish the sales and production targets are estimated. The human resources requirement for a given level of operations vary in the same organization over different points of time or among organizations depending upon the production technologies, process, make or buy decisions etc. The plans refer to expected changes in production or manpower levels arising from changes in working methods or procedures, automation or mechanization.
These could be mentioned as a crude percentage increase in productivity which could be used to adjust the required man hours for a given level of output. Alternatively, specific cases where the manning for a machine or section or office could be increased or decreased could be identified. Every organization will have two major sources of supply of human resources: Internal and External. In unionized firm, up to certain Job levels agreements may determine the ratio of internal and external sources of supply. Also, as shown in the figure manpower flows in and out of an organization due to a variety of reasons.
Policies affecting each of these aspects need to be reviewed regularly to assess their possible effects on human resource supplies. 3. Determining Human Resources Requirements Human resource requirements are determined by relating the supply to the demand forecasts and identifying deficits or surpluses of human resources that will exist in the future. Table shows Performa of how demand and supply forecasts can be scheduled over a period of 5 years. The reconciliation of demand and supply forecasts gives the numbers of people to be recruited or made redundant as the case may be. This forms the basis for the action program for HARP.