Iqra University North Nazimabad

Campus

Human Resource Management

Case Study Assignment 2

Humera Nadeem

Submitted To:
Syed Rehan Hussain

Case Study 1:
Fun at Work
Ans 1:

Pros and cons:

Pros and Cons Managers who can fun at themselves or difficult situations are often seen as more
approachable and in touch with the challenges faced by their teams. Fun also contributes to employees
self-esteem, cooperation, creative thinking, and job satisfaction; it reduces stress, enhances leadership,
and increases group cohesion. While higher status is important for many leadership roles, it can create
social distance that may be undesirable in other roles. Fun reduces social distance by identifying
similarities between people such as intelligence, needs, and values. There are also a few important areas
that must be recognized and avoided. One is overuse, particularly by managers and other leaders. Too
much fun can make it look like the manager is trying too hard to be everyones friend, or isnt
comfortable with his or her elevated status. Such a leader risks not being taken seriously. Another
potential pitfall is inappropriate or insensitive use of fun. This is most evident when members of the
audience, at which the fun is directed, are of a different demographic. The fun initiator must be aware of
the audiences composition because fun that is expressed at the expense of another person or group
alienates that person. Ethnic fun is detrimental to workplace harmony and should always be avoided.
Men and women use fun in the workplace for different motivations. Women share fun to build solidarity
while men use it to impress and emphasize similarities. Men and women should realize this when using
fun in the presence of the opposite gender to avoid negative outcomes. Gender-based fun is usually
aggressive and intended to degrade for the purpose of making the initiator feel superior. Aggressive or
malicious forms of fun must be prohibited. Since many of the problem areas are also considered socially
unacceptable, a good number of staff will likely have sufficiently developed self-filtering mechanisms to
avoid workplace conflict. By and large, the appropriate use of fun in the workplace represents another
avenue for management to improve staff relations, creativity, and morale while enhancing the bottom
line.

Ans 2: Structure of Employee-Referral Programs

An employee-referral program can be as simple as informally asking workers, "Do you know anyone
who can fill this job?" Unfortunately, such a simplistic approach generally elicits the equally off-the-cuff
response, I don't know off the top of my head." It is necessary to add some structure to an employeereferral program, communicate the benefits to employees, track the success of referred candidates,
reward successful referrals and discourage low-quality referrals.
Generally, successful employee-referral programs offer some kind of monetary bonus for referrals who
are hired and retained for a certain period of time (often 90 days). The reward amount should be
sufficient to motivate employees to make referrals but not so large that they offer referrals who are
unqualified for the positions.
To measure the effectiveness of an employee-referral program, it is important to track such metrics as
the cost of employee referrals versus other recruitment channels, performance and retention of employee
referrals, employee attitudes toward referral programs, and the percentage of new employees who are
hired via referrals.

Benefits of Employee-Referral Programs

One benefit of an employee-referral program is that it can provide the employer with a source of passive
candidates those workers who are not actively seeking new jobs. This not only expands the
employers pool of potential candidates but also tends to produce higher-quality candidates.
Employee-referral programs can replace more expensive recruitment channels such as newspaper
advertising, employment agencies, job fairs and so on.
Employee-referral programs are especially effective in the case of highly specialized positions that
might be difficult to fill through conventional channels. People tend to associate with others in their
professions, which gives them access to specialized or rare talent.
Pitfalls of Employee-Referral Programs
There are some aspects of employee-referral programs that can cause problems for a company. Some are
subtle, while others, like lawsuits, can literally slap a business in the face.
Overreliance on an employee-referral program can lead to underrepresentation of certain protected
groups in a companys job-applicant pool. This can add credence to charges of employment
discrimination from rejected candidates.
Overly restrictive bonus qualifications or excessive qualifications for employee referrals can lead to
disillusionment with an employee-referral program. Under such circumstances, an employee-referral
program may actually become a source of employee discontent.
Overall, the benefits of employee-referral programs decisively outweigh the potential pitfalls. A welldesigned and highly visible employee-referral program is a critical part of any companys recruitment
strategy.
Ans 3:
Yes it is profitable for hitech because those hired stay longer as indicated by its retention rate of 42
months compared to the industry average of 20 months. Also, employee turnover is about 6% annually.

Case Study 2:
Q.1: Is this a training or learning problem? What do you think?
The problem here is in training.
Q.2: What can Alok do to help Prakash?
People like Prakash need extra effort and time to get trained and different & simpler training techniques
which would make the concept simple & easily understandable. Alok may ask Prakash to highlight the
areas where he is not doing enough or having problems.
Q.3: What should be Aloks line of action for the next few weeks?
Prakash is a hardworking employee, and to this his slow learning approach may disappoint him and
make him inactive. Alok as a friend has to motivate him to his best and should help him to understand
this software MATRIX.