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PLEASE TAKE NOTE

This assignment has to be submitted on-line. No hard copyor emailsubmission will be accepted.

The assignment policy of the University as stated in the Student Handbook should be observed. Students are

required to submit assignments for a course in accordance with the deadline as stated in Page 1. There is NO

EXTENSION permitted for TMA 2. Please plan your TMA 2 wisely to prevent late submission or penalty.

Student may appeal for late submission on the grounds of illness, accident, disability, bereavement or other

compassionate circumstances by sending the request to the Dean, Prof. Narne Venkata Narasimham,

narvevn@wou.edu.mybefore the due date. However, it is the discretion of the Dean to approve or reject the

appeal request for late submission.

It is the responsibility of the student to check that the assignment has been successfully submitted on the OAS.

The University cannot accept any responsibility for assignments that are not duly uploaded due to any technicalreason at the students end of the system. As a precautionary measure, the students are advised to keep a copy of

each assignment.

This is an individual assignment. No duplication of work will be tolerated. Any plagiarism orcollusion may result in disciplinary action.

Please be duly informed that this assignment constitutes 25% towards the grand total

marks for this course.

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1

INSTRUCTIONS:

a) Please answer ALL questions in TMA2. Submission is to be done online via OAS on or beforestipulated deadline (see cover page and page 2 of this document).

b) PleaseNOTE thatTurnitin submission is NOT the same as OAS submission. You DO NOTneed tosubmit your Turnitin Originality Report to OAS anymore. However, you are required to use Turnitin to

check the similarity index before your submit your TMA to OAS. Bear in mind that when you submityour TMA in Turnitin the second time and be informed that the system will usually take at least 24

hours to send you the report. So, please PLAN wisely your TMA submission in order to prevent

passing the deadline for submission.

c) For TMA submission, please attach(using Insert Object) your TMA and submit that through the

Online Assignment Submission (OAS) system. Make sure you check your WOU email after you havesubmitted your TMA. If there is a failure of submission or file corruptions you will immediately be

notified through your WOU email.

d) Your assignment will be assessed on the factual answer provided based on your reading and analysis ofvarious references related to this course. In addition, you should demonstrate a sound knowledge of the

topics covered in these units. Please use a proper referencing technique when needed. Consult the WOU

citation guidelines on the WOU Library webpage (click). This assessment covers topics you have learnt

in Unit 3, Unit 4 and Unit 5.

e) You are advised to adhereto the following technical. requirement, pertaining to your written answer: Font type: Arial orTimes New Roman

Font size: 12 point

Margin: left 1.2, right 1.0, top 1.0, bottom 1.0 Alignment: Justify orAlign Text Left

Spacing: 1.5 or2

Limit your paper to 20 pages (maximum)

f) Information on your cover page: Course code & title

Student name, ID and I/C No

Name of tutor

Class Code

Indication of TMA 2

g) Save your TMA by using the following guideline:_ _TMA.doc /docx

4HRM1_041080036_TMA2.doc OR 4HRM1_041080036_TMA2.docx

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PART A - SHORT ESSAY QUESTIONS

Question 1:(a) Briefly discuss the application of Lewins change process.

(10 marks)

(b) Define change agent in the context of Organisational Development (OD)process. Differentiate OD from the traditional approaches to organisationalchange.

(15 marks)

Question 2:(a) Explain the differences between competency-based pay plan and

traditional pay plan.(10 marks)

(b) Define broadbanding. If you are the decision maker (i.e. HR director,President, CEO, etc) in your organisation, do you think it is a good idea toreward employees based on broadbanding? Why or why not?

(15 marks)

Question 3:

(a) Describe two situations whereby employers have the right to takedisciplinary actions against employees.

(10 marks)

(b) What did the Employment Act 1955 tells about disciplinary action in aworkplace. Assuming you are the HR manager, recently you have come toknow that one of the employees is being insubordinate to his supervisor.Discuss the steps how would you verify and do about it if it is true.

(15 marks)

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PART B MINI CASE STUDY

Carefully read the news article below and then answer question 4 at the end ofthe article:

Is flextime the answer to talent retention?By Karina FooFriday, 02 March 2012 15:09

The Malaysian Reserve Flextime allows employees to manage their ownschedules by working remotely (anywhere and at anytime) as long as theyproduce their work or results on deadline.

Companies worldwide recognise that employees' happiness with new workplacemethods and positive reinforcements are critical for outstanding work productivity.

Some corporations are shifting away from the rigid and fixed nine to six at theoffice to a more friendly and flexible system for work hours. Flexible workinghours (or flextime) is an example and has been found to vastly improve staffmotivation, performance and productivity.

This significantly reduces stress levels and helps employees focus better on theirduties, says a report by Georgetown University in Washington DC.

Flextime is based on self-scheduling and it can significantly improve theindividuals health and quality of relationships, according to a review of ten

studies at Durham University in the UK. Having this sense of well-being is themain factor that contributes to the employees increased work performancequality, according to the report which surveyed more than 16,000 people whoworked on a flextime basis.

Flextime is an employers commitment to enhance employee welfare byimproving work/life balance and some companies use it to retain talented andvaluable staff.

It comes in various forms such as flexible working hours, compressed workweeks where staff work longer hours to have one off day during the week as well

as working from home a few days out of the week.

The labour force market survey reported that 12% of the workforce in Malaysiajob-hopped annually, where people resigned from their jobs within the first threeto six months of employment. The Malaysian Employers Federation (MEF) saidthat some companies are too restrictive on their staff, especially the youngerones, when it comes to the usage of social media and work hours.

When an employee is depressed, he leaves and the company could risk losingtalented employees. To prevent this, the MEF suggests that while companies canoffer competitive salary packages, they can also provide other incentives.

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Perhaps such companies can take a leaf out of the book from some globalcorporations in various industries. One of the employee incentives is flextime andthe companies that adopt this have reported that the quality and value of workoutput has significantly improved, together with positive feedback fromemployees.

These companies include Sun Microsystems, Best Buy Co, PNC FinancialServices Group, KPMG LLP and PricewaterhouseCoopers.

Sun Microsystems, for example, found that the employees who work from homeattain the highest marks of all employees when it comes to their performanceappraisals. Its Open Work programme is provided to 40% of its employeeswhere they work flexible hours and off-site. Employees in the programme had an

average growth of 34% in work productivity.

More than 65% of Best Buy employees participated in its Results-Only-Work-Environments. The self-dependence programme allows staff to complete theirwork at any location and time frame, as long as they achieve the set results andobjectives.

At PNC, nearly 25,000 of its employees work on some type of flexible workarrangement that includes job sharing, telecommuting and compressed workweeks. For the latter type of work system, it resulted in faster work output (workthat had usually taken two days to complete, can be done in one day), a big drop

in work absenteeism from 60 days to nine days per year and improved customerservice, resulting in the company saving an excess of US $100,000 (RM301,375)in turnover costs.

Despite these phenomenal returns from work time flexibilities, there are alsodownfalls where employees may feel disconnected and question their jobsecurity.

Sun Microsystems Open Work programme could be too flexible, which makessome staff uncomfortable about not showing up to work. Over the years, it slowlybegan to create trust and credibility issues between managers and their staff, an

employee explained.

Some employees can also feel estranged from their workplace, and soon losetheir identity and affinity with the company. An international informationtechnology company reported that the majority of its off-site staff (telecommuters)felt out of the loop as they experienced a lack of engagement that can preventthe development of good relationships at the workplace.

While many work flexibilities has indeed become more popular in recent times,corporations that practice it may soon need to regulate the degree of flexibility to

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avoid the manifestation of these unhealthy employee sentiments as well as toprevent exploitation.

Source: http://www.themalaysianreserve.com/main/sectorial/talent-a-human-capital/1297-is-flextime-the-answer-to-talent-retention

Question 4:

(a) Do you agree that flextimemay be the answer to talent retention as statedin this news article [especially to those younger working generations]?Why or why not?

(10 marks)

(b) If you are the HR manager of your organisation, do you think flextimeworkable in your organisation. Debate your views from both the pros andcons perspectives.

(15 marks)

--- End of TMA 2 Questions ---