Tourism Chapter 17 – Human Resource Management-II

NIOS Class 12 Tourism Chapter 17 Solutions

INTEXT QUESTIONS 17.1

1. What is training? What are the objectives of the training department?

Ans: Training is defined as a continuous learning process in which an employee acquires knowledge, professional skills and improves attitude and behaviour.

2. What are the different methods you could use in training an employee?

Ans: There are different training methods like on-the-job training, off-the-job training role-playing seminars, lectures, audio-visual techniques, etc.

3. What are the key issues that should be addressed in the design, conduct, and evaluation of training programs?

Ans: The following are the key issues that need to be addressed while evaluating training programs

• (i) Place – Indoor/Outdoor
• (ii) Audio Visual Aids
• (iii) Relevant Training Material
• (iv) Facilities, schedule.

INTEXT QUESTIONS 17.2

1. Why is training needed in a tourism organisation?

Ans: The need for training arises because it results in an improvement in overall efficiency, productivity, quantity and quality of goods and services produced, economical use of resources, reduction in the cost of production, improved employee morale, loyalty, and job satisfaction, reduction in accidents, wastage, spoilage and damage to machines and equipment, reduction in absenteeism and labor turnover, reduction in supervisory burden, adopting employees to new work methods, improvement in personal growth and promotional prospectus of employees and improvement in customer care.

2. Enumerate four on-the-job training methods.

Ans: Four on-the-job methods of training are:

I. Training on the Job

II. Apprenticeship

III. Demonstration and examples

IV. Job rotation

3. What purposes does management development serve?

Ans: The purpose of management development is to ensure the availability of the required number of managers with the requisite skills to meet the present and anticipated future requirements of the tourism business, encourage managers to grow as persons and in their capacity to handle greater responsibility, improve the performance of managers at all levels and sustain the improved performance of managers throughout their careers.

4. Enlist five main methods of Management development.

Ans: The main methods of management development are:

• I. Case Study
• II. In-basket Exercises
• III. Management Games
• IV. Sensitivity Training
• V. Transactional Analysis

5. What is sensitivity training?

Ans: Sensitivity training is about making people understand themselves and others reasonably, which is done by developing social sensitivity and behaviour flexibility. It is the ability to behave suitably in the light of understanding.

6. What is the difference between training and development?

Ans: The basic difference between training and development is –

(i) Training helps to make the employees of a company more effective and efficient in their present roles and responsibilities. 

(ii) Development helps to improve the overall personality dimension of an employee to take up any future assignment, if any and be better equipped to handle the critical situation.

7. What does an in-basket exercise measure?

Ans: The in-basket exercise measures administrative skills that are critical for effective performance in supervisory and managerial jobs. The trainee gets hands-on experience in all the jobs of a manager.

INTEXT QUESTIONS 17.3

1. What constitutes workers’ compensation?

Ans: Compensation for the workers comprises basic pay, dearness allowance, house rent allowance, city compensatory allowance, annual statutory bonus, incentive bonus, leave travel allowance, provident fund, gratuity, group insurance schemes, pension fund, ESIS, accident and death compensation, leave with pay, education allowance, housing and medical benefits, paid holidays, etc.

2. What are the factors that determine the compensation package for employees?

Ans: In the tourism sector, the objectives of profitability, efficient service to the tourists, healthy relations with workers, less human resource turnover, better quality of work, and high worker motivation are the major considerations governing the compensation policy of a firm. In light of these objectives, management should give weightage to internal and external factors in designing the employee compensation package. Internal factors mainly include a proportion of labour cost to total cost, types of skills required, technological changes and their effect on job content, and individual productivity. External factors include the earning capacity and financial position, stability of business and prospects, conditions in the market, trade union policies and attitude, and prevailing wage levels in the adjoining area and similar industries.

3. How are workers paid?

Ans: Employees are compensated based on a time rate system, payment by results or based on various incentive plans. Under the time rate system, employees are simply paid a predetermined rate per week, or hour for the actual time worked. The basic rate for the job can be fixed by negotiations, by reference to local rates, or by job evaluation.

The actual earnings of the worker depend on the time he engages himself with the work given to him. Higher salary scales are provided for skilled, supervisory, and managerial grades. Under the piece rate system, the pay is related to the number of items a worker produces or the time he takes to do a certain amount of work.

Wages are related directly to the skill, effort, and results realised by respective employees. This method can be justifiably adopted when units of output are readily measurable; an explicit relation exists between employers’ efforts and the quantity of output; the job is scientifically standardized, the flow of work is regular and consistent and when breakdowns are the least; quality considerations are comparatively less significant than quantity targets; and it becomes inevitable to forecast accurately the labour costs per unit.

Often, wage incentives are used for the effective utilisation of manpower, which is the cheapest, quickest, and surest means of increasing productivity. Incentive plans envisage a basic rate usually on a time basis applicable to all workers and incentive rates payable to the more efficient among them as extra compensation for their meritorious performance in terms of time, costs, and quality. The incentive rates may take the form of a bonus or a premium.

Terminal Exercises

1. How would you determine the training needs of a tourism organisation? Contrast the values of on-the-job training with off-the-job training for tourism managers.

Ans: A training programme in a tourism organisation aims at serving the following specific objectives:

• To prepare employees for their jobs while on their first appointment, transfer or promotion.
• To keep the employees informed about the latest concepts, technology challenges and competition in the tourism sector. Also in additional changing job requirements.
• To prepare a line of competent officers to hold more responsible positions.

On-the-job Training Methods

• 1. Training on the Job: It is a method of learning by doing during regular working hours. Usually, a more experienced worker, a supervisor or a special training instructor is assigned the job of training the new worker, the ins and outs of the job.
• 2. Apprenticeship: Such apprenticeship programmes put the trainee under the guidance of a master worker. The method is appropriate for training in crafts, trades and technical areas, especially when proficiency in a job is the result of a relatively long training period, like that of a pattern designer, tourist coach driver.
• 3. Demonstration and Examples: Here, the trainer describes and demonstrates how to do certain work by performing the job himself, going through a step-by-step explanation of the why, how and what of the work he is doing. Demonstrations are often used in combination with lecturers, pictures, text materials, discussions, etc. 
• 4. Job Rotation: This method involves the employees being sent through different jobs, thereby providing them with a wider exposure to the workings of the organisation. It teaches the worker new skills by rotating from one job to another. 

Off-the-job training

The location of off-the- job training may be an organisation’s classroom, an outside place owned by the organisation, an educational institution or association, which is not part of the organisation. 

• 1. Lectures: Here, an expert gives a talk on a subject to a large audience on technical or special information of a complex nature. 
• 2. Role Playing: Trainees have to deal with hypothetical situations dealing with human interaction in a given situation, such as client grievance handling, etc. 
• 3. Vestibule Training: Under this method, new workers are trained for specific jobs on special machines or equipment in a separate room located on the site itself. An experienced workman is entrusted with the job of imparting training. It is often used for training bank tellers, inspectors, airline ticketing staff, etc.
• 4. Simulation: Simulations are used to provide trainees with physical equipment that resembles, to some degree, the equipment that is to be used on the job. 
• 5. Conferences and seminars: In this method, mutual problems are discussed, and participants pool their ideas and experiences in attempting to arrive at better methods of dealing with these problems. 
• 6. Case Discussion: Here, a real or a hypothetical business problem or a situation demanding a solution is presented to a group, and members are trained to identify the present problem. 
• 7. Programmed Instructions: This method involves a step -by- step series of bits of knowledge, each building upon what has gone before, and a mechanism for presenting the series and checking on the trainee’s knowledge.

2. Analyse the need for management development. Do you think the executive development programmes now followed in the Indian tourism industry are Adequate?

Ans: Management development must relate to all managers in the organisation. It must lead to the growth and development of the organisation. Its focus should be on future requirements rather than the present requirements. It must be dynamic, qualitative, rather than static replacement based on mechanical rotation. The main objectives of any management development programme are to:

• Assure the organisation of the availability of the required number of managers with the requisite skills to meet the present and anticipated future requirements of the tourism business.
• Encourage managers to grow as people and in their capacity to handle greater responsibility.
• Improve the performance of managers at all levels in their present-day jobs.
• Sustain improved performance of managers throughout their careers.

Indian tourism industry now mainly focuses on developing infrastructure. But it can fare better if focus can be given equally to human resources. There is a lack of a proper training process and skill development. But by giving more emphasis on these areas, the tourism industry can fare better. 

3. What constitutes compensation for workers? Which factors determine the pay packet of workers?

Ans: The basic wage, dearness allowance and annual bonus make up the bulk of average worker compensation. Some factors that determine the pay packet of workers are described below. 

• 1. Productivity: Productivity represents the contribution of the workers towards increased output. 
• 2. Comparative Wages: Salaries paid by competing firms for a particular type, quantity and quality of work are compared and categorised and accordingly salary in a given firm is fixed around the comparative levels.
• 3. Individual needs: Salary is often fixed with a view to enabling the worker to meet his needs. The salary should be sufficient to sustain the worker and his family and give the worker adequate purchasing power to possess the goods and services essential to satisfy his needs. 
• 4. Cost of living: Changes in the cost of living determine the availability of real earnings to the workers to meet their needs. 
• 5. Ability to pay: Fair wages are linked to the ability of the organisation to pay. Subject to minimum subsistence and assured productivity, salary is to be increased as the organisation’s net profitability increases. 
• 6. Consumer demand and prosperity: The salary should be increased to step up demand for the goods and eventually to stimulate higher production and employment. But the impact of a higher salary is ignored. 
• 7. Labour legislation: The government often appoints wage boards to determine the wages in particular industries.
• 8. Other factors: In addition to the above factors, the salary of an employee is influenced by his or her job performance, the worth of the job in the organisation, wage settlements in the industry, supply and demand for labour, external equity, changing pressures in the market, etc.

4. Describe the merits and demerits of various methods of wage payment.

Ans: 

• Time Rate System: Under this system, the employees are simply paid a predetermined rate per week, or hour for the actual time they have worked.
• Merits
  • The payment on a time-honoured basis is the time-honoured method because of its simplicity and easy intelligibility to the personnel. 
  • Wage calculation and administration are easier. It provides a guaranteed minimum remuneration on the basis of the time for which they have worked, irrespective of the output turned out. 
  • Since there is no hurry in increasing the output, workers can focus on the quality of the product or service.
• Demerits
  • But the greatest drawback of this method is the lack of incentive for higher productivity. 
  • It does not make any distinction between meritorious and mediocre workers of a specified category and pays them uniform rates. 
  • Due to the absence of direct linkage between the output and the rate of wages of workers, time rate wages may not allow exceptional employees to earn as much as they might under other systems. 
  • There will also be uncertainty as to the possibility of producing enough to cover the elements of cost, including the labour costs.
• Payment by Results System: Under this system, the pay or part of the pay is related to the number of items a worker produces or the time he takes to do a certain amount of work.
• Merits
  • Merit, skill and talents are directly rewarded according to the results scored in the performance of the job. 
  • Output targets call is reached with ga reater degree of certainty by linking wage payments with the jobs completed by the workers. 
  • This method virtually eliminates the tendency of a go-slow policy on the part of workers because the slower the rate of production, the lower will be the wages accruing to them. 
  • Due to the linkage of wages to output, the need and responsibility of supervision would be reduced. 
• Demerits
  • Under the straight piece-wage plan, no minimum remuneration is guaranteed. Beginners and average workers will not be able to earn reasonable wages because of their inability to complete the work as fast as their experienced counterparts do. 
  • As workers are prone to step up quantity as much as possible to earn more wages, the quality of work is likely to be ignored. 
  • Piece rates cannot be adopted in new processes where production levels are not precisely assessed and determined. 
  • Since the capacities of workers widely differ, their earnings as per piece-rates also vary widely, causing dissatisfaction among them.
• Incentive Plans: Incentive plans envisage a basic rate usually on a time basis applicable to all workers and incentive rates payable to the more efficient among them as extra compensation for their meritorious performance in terms of time, costs and quality.
• Merits
  • Incentive means the rise in wages as per the increase in output per worker. The incentive rates may take the form of a bonus or premium. 
  • A few important incentive plans intended to include higher output, better quality and careful working on the part of the employees are the Halsey Plan, Rowan Plan, Taylor’s Differential Piece Wage Plan, Gantts Task and Bonus system, one hundred per cent premium plan, Merrick Multiple Piece rate plan, Emerson’s Efficiency Plan and Bedaux points Plan.
• Demerits
  • The only drawbacks of this plan are compromised low-quality work for incentives and unnecessary overwork for extra money by the employees.

Additional Study Materials

• NIOS Class 12 Tourism Syllabus Bifurcation
• NIOS Class 12 Tourism Sample Question Paper
• Chapter 16. Human Resource Management-I