SUMMER TRAINING PROJECT REPORT

ON

HR Practices At

RELIANCE LIFE INSURANCE Submitted to

Guru Gobind Singh   Indraprastha University ,New Delhi

In the partial fulfillment Of the award of the degree of

BBA (Bachelor of Business Administration)

Project guide:- Submitted by:- Ms. Manisha Gupta Vishal Sorout Enroll. No - 13414201710

Jagannath International Management School

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

I would like to thank my project guide Mr. Abhay Gera,

Distribution and Training Manager RELIANCE Life Insurance,

New Delhi for guiding me through my summer internship

and research project. His encouragement, time and effort

are greatly appreciated.

I would like to thank Ms. Manisha Gupta, for supporting

me during this project and providing me an opportunity to

learn outside the class room. It was a truly wonderful

learning experience.

I would like to dedicate this project to my parents. Without

their help and constant support this project would not have

been possible.

Lastly I would like to thank all the respondents who offered

their opinions and suggestions through the survey that was

conducted by me at Reliance.

Once again my gratitude to the RELIANCE Life insurance.

For their kind co-operation

DECLARATION

I Vishal Sorout OF BBA IIIrd year of “JIMS-VK” hereby declare

that the summer training report entitled “HR Practices at

RELIANCE LIFE INSURACNE” is an original word and the

same has not been submitted to any other institute for the

award of any other degree.

Signature of candidate

Vishal Sorout

Introduction

This report is a culmination of my project conducted during the period

20.06.2012 to 30.08.2012 as a part of my Summer Training. This report is

based on human resource practices in life insurance at Reliance Life Insurance

New Delhi.

Reliance Life Insurance is an associate company of Reliance Capital Ltd., a

part of Reliance - Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group. Reliance Capital is one of

India’s leading private sector financial services companies, and ranks among

the top 3 private sector financial services and banking companies, in terms of

net worth. Reliance Capital has interests in asset management and mutual

funds, stock broking, life and general insurance, proprietary investments,

private equity and other activities in financial services.

“PEOPLE” is the most important and valuable resource every organization

has in the form of its employees. Dynamic people can make dynamic

organizations. Effective employees can contribute to the effectiveness of the

organization. Competent and motivated people can make things happen and

enable an organization to achieve its goals.

Organizations have now started realizing that the systematic attention to

human resources is the only way to increase organizational efficiency in terms

productivity, quality, profits and better customer orientation.

HR can help deliver organizational excellence by focusing on learning,

quality, teamwork, and through various employee friendly strategies.

Today with a lot of MNC’s coming in India, the amount of competition has

increased to such an extent that organizations have further aggrieved their

stress on proper man management.

Research objective: To identify human resource practices applicable in the

life insurance industry.

My Learnings during the Project

The entire project was a great learning experience. It give me a good exposure

which I needed being a student. Though I had theoretical inputs in the class

but this was the experience of actually implementing it. Working in the field

gave me the idea about the intricacies of the market and corporate culture of

the company.

Training Details and learnings:

Corporate Culture: We got to learn various norms followed at a corporate house like:

Punctuality: Our industry guide Mr. Abhay Gera was very particular

about our time of reporting to the office. He insisted that we should

reach on time to office. This has helped me to inculcate an element of

punctuality to my life.

Inter-personnel relationships: The employees at Reliance Life

Insurance shared good inter-personnel relationships. They were

always ready to help and guide each other. There was a friendly

atmosphere all around. This helped me to learn that one cannot be a

good manager without the support of his colleagues.

Marketing: We were trained about all the elements of marketing. These were:

Product training: A training was given to us about various products of

Reliance. The features of these products were discussed in detail. If we

don’t have a clear understanding of a plan, we can’t explain it properly

to the customers and this leads to their dissatisfaction. It becomes very

difficult to pitch the product and generally leads to misselling.

Preparation of sales pitch: Our industry guide told us to prepare a

sales pitch of the product we would like to sell. Sales pitch not only

helped me to highlight the positive features of my plan but also it

helped me to bring to customers notice all the facts regarding the plan.

This resulted in clear understanding of product to the customer. This is

a practice which is not followed by many sales managers but I learned

that it plays a major role in making your task easy.

How to select the right customers: During our training our industry

guide, guided us to first call the customer and take his appointment

stating the purpose of meeting, before visiting him. According to him

we can pitch only those customers who ready to listen to you. This

taught me that this practice helps us to reach the right customers.

How to pitch a product: I learned during my training that if you want

to pitch your products to a customer then first listen to his needs and

then provide him/her with the best cover available.

Handling customers: There is a popular saying that “INSURANCE IS

NOT BOUGHT BUT IS SOLD”. I learned during my training that we

have to make our customers understand the importance of insurance

and induce a need of the same in him.

Avoiding Misselling: Our industry guide always taught us to do our

work honestly and avoid misselling of products. He directed us to

explain each and every fact regarding a particular plan to the customer

and sell the same if he/she is interested. This taught me to do my work

honestly.

Operations: Small classroom training about operations at Reliance Life

Insurance office was also given to us. It covered the basic operations in

insurance like underwriting, customer care, etc.

Advertising: Reliance life insurance is very less involved in advertising,

which forms a core part in the success of any organization. They should give

more emphasis on advertising which can be done by means such as television,

direct mails, radio announcements, presentations etc.

Proper training to agents: Agents should be trained properly about the

products before they go for selling. Incomplete knowledge about the product

can lead to cases of misselling. The chances of misselling are more in case of

ULIPS because agents are unaware of the initial allocation charges charged by

the company. Later the customer’s feel cheated and this in turn harms the

image of the company.

Services at Reliance Life: during our training when we went for calls and

interacted with people we came to know that reliance has does not hold a good

image for the services they provide. Reliance should work for improving its

image. This can be done by improving some of its main services like claim

settlement, policy issuance, etc. This will help the company to progress.

Building Trust: During my survey I came to know that people have an

inclination towards LIC. To progress and increase its market share it is very

important for Reliance Life to improve its image. This can be done by

highlighting the stability of Reliance Industries and immense success of

Reliance Capital. This will help people build trust on Reliance Life Insurance.

Diversification of channels of sales: Reliance Life Insurance does maximum

of its business from Agency channel. They should involve in other channels

also. One such channel which is becoming popular and yields good results is

Bancassurance, whereby the insurance company uses the bank sales channel

in order to sell insurance products.

Research Methodology

Research always starts with a question or a problem. Its purpose is to question

through the application of the scientific method. It is a systematic and

intensive study directed towards a more complete knowledge of the subject

studied. Marketing research is the function which links the consumer,

customer and public to the marketer through information- information used to

identify and define marketing opportunities and problems generate, refine, and

evaluate marketing actions, monitor marketing actions, monitor marketing

performance and improve understanding of market as a process.

There are two types of data collection method use in my project report.

– Primary data

– Secondary data.

For my project, I decided on primary data collection method for observing

working of company and approaching customers directly in the field,

telecalling, interviews, and through references to know their interest in

business with company.

Secondary data collection method was used by referring to IRDA and all other

various websites, magazines and daily newspapers for collecting information

regarding project under study.

Industry Profile

About Insurance Sector

The insurance sector in India has come a full circle from being an open

competitive market to nationalization and back to a liberalized market again.

Tracing the developments in the Indian insurance sector reveals the 360

degree turn witnessed over a period of almost 190 years.

The business of life insurance in India in its existing form started in India in

the year 1818 with the establishment of the Oriental Life Insurance Company,

Calcutta.

Some of the important milestones in the life insurance business in India

are:

1912 - The Indian Life Assurance Companies Act enacted as the first

statute to regulate the life insurance business.

1928 - The Indian Insurance Companies Act enacted to enable the

government to collect statistical information about both life and non-life

insurance businesses.

1938 - Earlier legislation consolidated and amended to by the Insurance

Act with the objective of protecting the interests of the insuring public.

1956 - 245 Indian and foreign insurers and provident societies taken

over by the central government and nationalized. LIC formed by an Act

of Parliament, viz. LIC Act, 1956, with a capital contribution of Rs. 5

crore from the Government of India.

Insurance Companies in India

Insurance is a kind of risk management basically used to evade the danger of a

contingent loss. It involves an equitable transmission of the risk of a loss,

from one entity to others for a premium. Insurance in India covers the areas

including loss caused by fire, death, burglary and peril of sea. There are many

Insurance Companies in India. Some of the leading insurance companies in

India are as follows:

LIC

Aviva Life Insurance

Bajaj Alliance

Birla Sun Life Insurance

HDFC Standard Life Insurance

ICICI Prudential

ING Life Insurance

Kotak Mahindra

Metlife India Insurance

Reliance Life Insurance

SBI Life Insurance

Shriram Life Insurance

Tata AIG Life Insurance

United India Insurance

Company profile

About Reliance

Founder

Few men in history have made as dramatic a contribution to their country’s

economic fortunes as did the founder of Reliance, Shri. Dhirubhai Ambani.

Fewer still have left behind a legacy that is more enduring and timeless.

As with all great pioneers, there is more than one unique way of describing

the true genius of Dhirubhai: The corporate visionary, the unmatched

strategist, the proud patriot, the leader of men, the architect of India’s capital

markets, and the champion of shareholder interest.

But the role Dhirubhai cherished most was perhaps that of India’s greatest

wealth creator. In one lifetime, he built, starting from the proverbial scratch,

India’s largest private sector enterprise.

When Dhirubhai embarked on his first business venture, he had a seed capital

of barely US$ 300 (around Rs.14,000). Over the next three and a half decades,

he converted this fledgling enterprise into a Rs 60,000 crore colossus—an

achievement which earned Reliance a place on the global Fortune 500 list, the

first ever Indian private company to do so.

Dhirubhai is widely regarded as the father of India’s capital markets. In 1977,

when Reliance Textile Industries Limited first went public, the Indian stock

market was a place patronised by a small club of elite investors which dabbled

in a handful of stocks.

Undaunted, Dhirubhai managed to convince a large number of first-time retail

investors to participate in the unfolding Reliance story and put their hard-

earned money in the Reliance Textile IPO, promising them, in exchange for

their trust, substantial return on their investments. It was to be the start of one

of great stories of mutual respect and reciprocal gain in the Indian markets.

Under Dhirubhai’s extraordinary vision and leadership, Reliance scripted one

of the greatest growth stories in corporate history anywhere in the world, and

went on to become India’s largest private sector enterprise.

Through out this amazing journey, Dhirubhai always kept the interests of the

ordinary shareholder uppermost in mind, in the process making millionaires

out of many of the initial investors in the Reliance stock, and creating one of

the world’s largest shareholder families.

Growth of Reliance

Reliance was started from scratch in the year 1906 by Dhirubhai Ambani

From here we start the journey of Reliance

1906    Birth of Reliance 1st textile mill at Naroda

1971    Launch of Only Vimal brand

1977    Launch of 1st IPO for general public

1985    Total assets cross 1000 crore

1992     Twin IPO receive 1 million applications

1993     Sales cross 4000 crore & it became largest pvt. Sector co. in India

1997     First corporation in Asia to issue 50 & 100 year bond in US debt

market

1998    Total assets cross 3500 crore & revenues cross 14000 crore

2000     Group Profit Cross 2500 crores. Revenues cross 2000 crore. Total

assets cross 5000 crore

2001     Group revenues cross 60000 crore & it became largest business group

in India

2003     Controlling stake in BSES Reliance Energy. Reliance India Mobile,

largest Mobile services in India

2005     ADA Group acquired AMP SANMAR & RLI

2006-07  RLI ranked 6th at 930 crore

Sep2007  Became 1st company to cross 1 million policy in 2 years

2007     It gets ISO certification

2008     Cross 2 million policies

2008     Reliance jumps to 4th position

2012 Reliance takes its stand at 3rd Biggest Life Insurance Co In India

After tolerating many hardships Reliance is now ranked 4th among top

financial services providers.

Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group

Reliance Communications Limited

Reliance Communications is India’s largest information and communications

service provider with over 50 million subscribers. The company is the

realisation of our founder’s dream of bringing about a digital revolution that

will provide every Indian with affordable means of communication and a

ready access to information.

The flagship company of the Reliance – ADA Group, Reliance

Communications began operations in 1999 and has over 50 million

subscribers today. It offers a complete range of integrated telecom services.

These include mobile and fixed line telephone, broadband, national and

international long distance services, data services and a wide range of value

added services and applications aimed at enhancing the productivity of

enterprises and individuals.

Reliance Globalcom, a division of Reliance Communications, spearheads the

Global Telecom operations of India’s largest Integrated Telecom Service

Provider. Reliance Globalcom brings together the synergies of Reliance

Communications Global Business encompassing Enterprise Services,

Capacity Sales, Managed Services and a highly successful bouquet of Retail

products & services comprising Global Voice, Internet Solutions and Value

Added Services. The company serves over 1200 enterprises, 200 carriers and

1.5 million retail customers in 50 countries across 5 continents.

Reliance Infrastructure

Formerly known as Reliance Energy and prior to that as Bombay Suburban

Electric Supply (BSES), is a company under the Reliance - Anil Dhirubhai

Ambani Group banner, one of India's largest conglomerates. The company is

headed by Anil Ambani. The company's corporate headquarters is situated in

Sector 24, Noida. The company is the sole distributor of electricity to

consumers in the suburbs of Mumbai. It also runs power generation,

transmission and distribution businesses in other parts of Maharashtra, Goa

and Andhra Pradesh. Reliance Energy plans to increase its power generation

capacity by adding 16,000 MW with investments of $13 billion.

Reliance Capital Limited (RCL)

It is a Non-Banking Financial Company (NBFC) registered with the Reserve

Bank of India under section 45-IA of the Reserve Bank of India Act, 1934.

RCL was incorporated as a public limited company in 1986 and is now listed

on the Bombay Stock Exchange and the National Stock Exchange (India).

RCL has a net worth of over Rs 3,300 crore and over 165,000 shareholders.

On conversion of outstanding equity instruments, the net worth of the

company will increase to about Rs 4,100 crore.

It is headed by Anil Ambani and is a part of the Reliance ADA Group.

Reliance Capital ranks among the top 3 private sector financial services and

banking companies, in terms of net worth.

Reliance Capital has interests in asset management and mutual funds, life and

general insurance, private equity and proprietary investments, stock broking,

depository services, distribution of financial products, consumer finance and

other activities in financial services.

Reliance Mutual Fund is India's no.1 Mutual Fund. Reliance Life Insurance is

one of India's fastest growing life insurance company and among the top 4

private sector insurers. Reliance General Insurance is one of India's fastest

growing general insurance company and among the top 3 private sector

insurers. Reliance Money is the largest brokerage and distributor of financial

products in India with over 2.7 million customers and has the largest

distribution network. Reliance Consumer finance has a loan book of over Rs.

8,900 crore at the end of December 2008.

Reliance Capital has a net worth of Rs. 7,250 crore (US$ 1.5 billion) and total

assets of Rs. 22,340 crores (US$ 4.6 billion) as of December 31, 2008.

Reliance Capital is a constituent of S&P CNX Nifty and MSCI India and also

features in the Forbes list of World’s largest 2000 public companies.

Reliance Entertainment

It is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Reliance Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group

spearheading the Group’s foray into the media and entertainment space.

Reliance Entertainment’s core focus is to build significant presence for

Reliance in the Entertainment eco-system: across content and distribution

platforms.

The key content initiative are across Movies, Music, Sports, Gaming, Internet

& mobile portals, leading to direct opportunities in delivery across the

emerging digital distribution platforms: digital cinema, IPTV, DTH and

Mobile TV.

Reliance ADA Group acquired Adlabs Films Limited in 2005, one of the

largest entertainment companies in India, which has interests in film

processing, production, exhibition & digital cinema.

Reliance Entertainment has made an entry into the FM Radio business

through Adlabs Radio www.big927fm.com having won 45 stations in the

recent bidding, BIG 92.7 FM is already India’s largest private FM radio

network with 12 radio stations across the country as on 28 February 2007,

with many more to be launched in the coming months.

Reliance Power Limited

It is a part of the Reliance Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group, was established to

develop, construct and operate power projects in the domestic and

international markets. Reliance Energy Limited, an Indian private sector

power utility company along with the Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group

promotes Reliance Power.

Along with its subsidiaries, it is presently developing 13 medium and large-

sized power projects with a combined planned installed capacity of 33,480

MW.

Reliance Health

It is a company in the Reliance Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group, headed by the

Indian businessman Anil Ambani.

Its first partner health care facility will be the Kokilaben Dhirubhai Ambani

Hospital & Medical Research Institute, a tertiary care facility in Versova near

Mumbai.

The 730 bed multi-speciality hospital underwent a 'soft' launch in early 2008

for employees and doctors that had accepted offers with KDAH, and became

operational in the first week of 2009.

The hospital is named after the wife of Dhirubhai Ambani who was the

founder of the Reliance group of companies.

About Reliance Life Insurance

Reliance Life Insurance offers you products that fulfil your savings and

protection needs. Our aim is to emerge as a transitional Life Insurer of global

scale and standard.

Reliance Life Insurance is an associate company of Reliance Capital Ltd., a

part of Reliance - Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group. Reliance Capital is one of

India’s leading private sector financial services companies, and ranks among

the top 3 private sector financial services and banking companies, in terms of

net worth. Reliance Capital has interests in asset management and mutual

funds, stock broking, life and general insurance, proprietary investments,

private equity and other activities in financial services.

Reliance Life Insurance is a subsidiary company of Reliance Capital Ltd. It is

owned by the Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group. The innovative products and

services of Reliance Life Insurance have enabled it to become one of the

respected insurance firms in India. In the year 2007, the Council for Fair

Business Practices awarded a Certificate of Merit to Reliance Life Insurance

for its excellence in the financial services sector.

Important facts

Reliance Life Insurance has more than 740 branches located in different

parts of the country.

Reliance Life Insurance is an ISO 9001:2000 certified company.

The registered office of the firm is located in the commercial capital of

India, Mumbai.

The insurance firm offers products meant to suit the requirements of

individuals and of corporates in India.

Purpose of Reliance Life Insurance schemes

Reliance Life Insurance schemes and policies are aimed to provide financial

security against different kinds of threats to the life of an individual or groups

of individuals. Some of the Reliance insurance products also provide a reliable

source of retirement income for the policy holders.

Popular Reliance Life Insurance Products

There are various, popular insurance products that Reliance offers to

customers in India. Some of the major Reliance Insurance products have been

listed below.

Reliance Whole Life Plan

Reliance Special Term Plan

Reliance Child Plan

Reliance Endowment Plan

Reliance Golden Years Plan Plus

Reliance - Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group also has presence in

Communications, Energy, Natural Resources, Media, Entertainment,

Healthcare and Infrastructure.

Vision, Mission and Goals

Vision

Empowering everyone live their dreams.

Mission

Create unmatched value for everyone through dependable, effective,

transparent and profitable life insurance and pension plans.

Our Goals

Reliance Life Insurance would strive hard to achieve the 3 goals mentioned

below:

Emerge as transitional Life Insurer of global scale and standards

Create best value for Customers, Shareholders and all Stake holders

Achieve impeccable reputation and credentials through best business practices

Achievements of Reliance Insurance Company Ltd.

RLIC closed the last financial year with a New Business Premium of

Rs.3513 Crores.

For 3 successive years, since inception, the Company has been amongst

the fastest growing Companies in the Life Insurance Industry achieving

a growth rate of 28% in the last financial year against a market growth

of 6%. In the Individual Business segment, the company achieved a

growth rate of 59% in terms of WRP against the private industry

growth of 1%.

RLIC has been one of the fast gainers in market share in new business

premium amongst the private players with an incremental market share

of 4.1% in the Financial Year 2007-08 – from 3.9% in April 07 to 8%

in Feb 08. ( Source: IRDA)

Reliance Life has been one of the fastest gainers in market share

growing from 1.9% amongst private players in Mar'06 to 10.3% as of

Mar'09. This has resulted in the Company growing to becoming the 4th

largest private player in just two years starting at position of 11.

Also continues to be amongst the fast growing Private Life Insurance

Companies with a YOY growth of 195% in new business premium as

of Mar’08.

A Company that has crossed 1.7 Million policies in just 2 years of

operation, post take over of AMP Sanmar business.

The Company has been the fastest company to reach the 3 million

policy mark and was the 3rd largest private insurer in terms of Policy

count in 2008-09.

Initiated Express Life – an Unique ‘Over the Counter’ sales process for

Unit Linked Insurance Policies in the Industry.

Reliance Life has accomplished a large distribution ramp-up in the

Industry in a short span of time by opening 1145 branches in just over 2

year.

Accomplished a large distribution ramp-up in the Industry in a short

span of time by opening 600 branches in 10 months taking the overall

branch network above 740.

RLIC continues to be one of the two Life Insurance companies in India

to be certified ISO 9001:2000 for all the processes.

Awarded the Jamnalal Bajaj Uchit Vyavahar Puraskar 2007-

Ceritificate of Merit in the Financial Services category by Council for

Fair Business Practices (CFBP).

The Company has also won the DL Shah Quality Council of India

Commendation Award in the services category in Feb. 2008 for its

work on promoting 'self help channels for service'

Achieve impeccable reputation and credentials through best business

practices

Introduction to Topic

Human resource management (HRM)

HRM is the strategic and coherent approach to the management of an

organisation's most valued assets - the people working there who individually

and collectively contribute to the achievement of the objectives of the

business.The terms "human resource management" and "human resources"

(HR) have largely replaced the term "personnel management" as a description

of the processes involved in managing people in organizations.

In simple sense, HRM means employing people, developing their resources,

utilizing, maintaining and compensating their services in tune with the job and

organizational requirements.

HR practices build competencies and capabilities for superior and winning

performances today and simultaneously create long term fertility for

innovation of business ideas and strategies for future.

Features

Its features include:

Organizational management

Personnel administration

Manpower management

Industrial management

But these traditional expressions are becoming less common for the

theoretical discipline. Sometimes even industrial relations and employee

relations are confusingly listed as synonyms, although these normally refer to

the relationship between management and workers and the behavior of

workers in companies.

The theoretical discipline is based primarily on the assumption that employees

are individuals with varying goals and needs, and as such should not be

thought of as basic business resources, such as trucks and filing cabinets. The

field takes a positive view of workers, assuming that virtually all wish to

contribute to the enterprise productively, and that the main obstacles to their

endeavors are lack of knowledge, insufficient training, and failures of process.

HRM is seen by practitioners in the field as a more innovative view of

workplace management than the traditional approach. Its techniques force the

managers of an enterprise to express their goals with specificity so that they

can be understood and undertaken by the workforce, and to provide the

resources needed for them to successfully accomplish their assignments. As

such, HRM techniques, when properly practiced, are expressive of the goals

and operating practices of the enterprise overall. HRM is also seen by many to

have a key role in risk reduction within organizations.

Synonyms such as personnel management are often used in a more restricted

sense to describe activities that are necessary in the recruiting of a workforce,

providing its members with payroll and benefits, and administrating their

work-life needs. So if we move to actual definitions, Torrington and Hall

(1987) define personnel management as being:

“a series of activities which: first enable working people and their employing

organisations to agree about the objectives and nature of their working

relationship and, secondly, ensures that the agreement is fulfilled"

While Miller (1987) suggests that HRM relates to:

".......those decisions and actions which concern the management of

employees at all levels in the business and which are related to the

implementation of strategies directed towards creating and sustaining

competitive advantage"

Functions

The Human Resources Management (HRM) function includes a variety of

activities, and key among them is deciding what staffing needs you have and

whether to use independent contractors or hire employees to fill these needs,

recruiting and training the best employees, ensuring they are high performers,

dealing with performance issues, and ensuring your personnel and

management practices conform to various regulations. Activities also include

managing your approach to employee benefits and compensation, employee

records and personnel policies. Usually small businesses (for-profit or non-

profit) have to carry out these activities themselves because they can't yet

afford part or full-time help. However, they should always ensure that

employees have and are aware of personnel policies which conform to current

regulations. These policies are often in the form of employee manuals, which

all employees have.

There is a long-standing argument about where HR-related functions should

be organized into large organizations, eg, "should HR be in the Organization

Development department or the other way around?"

The HRM function and HRD profession have undergone tremendous change

over the past 20-30 years. Many years ago, large organizations looked to the

"Personnel Department," mostly to manage the paperwork around hiring and

paying people. More recently, organizations consider the "HR Department" as

playing a major role in staffing, training and helping to manage people so that

people and the organization are performing at maximum capability in a highly

fulfilling manner.

Human Resources Practices

The District's human resource management policies and practices pose the

greatest potential for illegal discrimination. Human resources policies and

practices normally are not intended to discriminate or somehow have a

disparate impact on women, people of colour, people with disabilities, or other

protected groups. It should be noted, however, that systemic discrimination,

while unintentional, is most often the major barrier to equal employment

opportunity; yet, it is the most difficult to detect. That is the reason human

resource policies and practices must be reviewed and corrective actions taken

when they are found to inadvertently discriminate or offer less than equal

opportunity to women, people of colour, or people with disabilities.

Responsibility for human resource management includes all officials,

administrators, and supervisors in addition to the staff of the Human

Resources Department.

1. Recruitment, Examination and Selection

Recruitment, examination, selection and placement procedures will be

continuously reviewed for all licensed, classified and administrative positions.

From the initial contact with potential applicants to the final interview and

selection of employees, the Human Resources Department and its practices

will address the following:

1.1 Recruitment and Selection Process will not have the effect of blocking

people of colour, women, and people with disabilities from district

employment and promotions. Where blockages, or potential blockages, are

identified, corrective actions will be taken to make the process more inclusive

to diversity.

1.2 Targeted Recruitment, as described in Section 6.2, will be undertaken to

address areas of under representation. This expanded recruitment is to be

focused on increasing the number of people of colour, women, and people

with disabilities who apply for employment; and, thus increasing the

probability of qualified candidates from underrepresented groups being

selected to fill vacant positions. Recruitment activities will be inclusive rather

than being exclusive.

1.3 Selection Criteria to be used in candidate recruitment, screening,

interviewing and selection should reflect the essential functions of the job. All

selection criteria are to be job-related, pre established, and applied

consistently. Additionally, in the selection of teachers, administrators, and

professional staff the district will give priority consideration to relevant,

specialized, and qualitative training and experience that demonstrates ability

to work with diverse populations. This consideration will include, but not be

limited to, such factors as:

(a) Ability to relate to diverse student, parent and community groups;

(b) Experience in working with children and parents from different

racial/ethnic minority groups;

(c) Experience and training in multicultural education programs;

(d) Evidence that applicant is aware of and sensitive to the changing roles and

perceptions of women, people of colour, and people with disabilities in our

society.

1.4 Applications, Tests Or Examinations for employment and promotion,

including oral interviews, will be monitored to ensure that they are unbiased

and do not have adverse impact on people of colour, women, the disabled or

other protected groups. Reasonable accommodation will be made available

upon request to ensure that persons with disabilities are not excluded from the

application and examination process.

1.5 Selection Committees will include people of colour, people with

disabilities, and gender balance to the extent possible. Parents of students with

disabilities will be included in the selection of special education teachers to

the extent feasible and practical. Selection committees will be made aware of

the district's Work Force Diversity goals.

1.6 Selection and Appointment of an employee will be based on job-related

qualifications, merit, district goals, and program needs.

2. Targeted Recruitment Process

Where the district has determined that people of colour, women, or people

with disabilities are significantly underrepresented in relation to their

availability for specific job groups, the district will initiate a targeted

recruitment approach that includes, but is not limited to, the following steps:

2.1 Request to Post a Vacancy

The request to post a vacancy will be submitted to the appropriate HR

administrator by the principal or supervisor.

2.2 HR Review of Request

The appropriate HR administrator will review the request to post a vacancy to

determine if it is in an identified focus job group. A focus job group is one in

which women (and in some case, men) or minorities are determined to be

significantly underrepresented in relation to their availability in the relevant

labour market.

2.2.1 If the vacancy is not in a focus job group, the HR administrator will

approve the request and initiate the vacancy announcement process.

2.2.2 If the vacancy is in an identified focus job group for which there is not a

pre-established targeted recruitment plan, the HR administrator will notify the

hiring administrator that it is necessary to jointly develop a targeted

recruitment plan for the vacant position.

2.3 HR Initiates Targeted Recruitment

The targeted recruitment plan developed in conjunction with the hiring

administrator(s), or the appropriate components of the pre established plan are

implemented.

2.4 Elements of Targeted Recruitment Plan

The targeted recruitment plan will be developed in conjunction with the hiring

administrator(s) and will include, but not be limited to, the following

elements:

a) Selective recruitment sources identified and personally contacted by HR or

appropriate administrator

b) Establishment of internet recruitment sources

c) Extended timeframe for posting of positions

d) Identification and use of supplemental factors related to cultural

competency or bilingual/ bicultural factors

f) Definition and clarification of "essential functions" of the position

g) Ongoing review and monitoring of applications by HR

h) Use of community persons and/or current and retired

teachers/administrators as consultants/resources to assist in identifying and

recruiting potential applicants

3. Selection Committees

The district supports broad-based involvement in the hiring and selection

process. Principals and department directors are encouraged to use staff,

parents, community, and students as appropriate in the screening and

interviewing process to fill position vacancies.

3.1 The hiring administrator (department director, building principal, etc.) will

ensure that the hiring process is consistent with the board's workforce

diversity policy and this Work Force Diversity Plan.

3.2 Where the hiring administrator makes use of a selection committee in the

hiring process, the hiring administrator will ensure that the committee's

actions do not conflict with board policies or this plan.

3.3 The Human Resources Department will design and provide training and

materials for administrators and selection committee members that will ensure

they are familiar with and understand their obligations and responsibilities as

part of the selection process.

4. Affirmative Action

Affirmative action does not end when the employment process has resulted in

placement. Although the major thrust of affirmative action is the identification

and elimination of barriers that preclude the hiring of women, people of

colour, and other disadvantaged persons, its subsequent and logical efforts

must be directed towards fair and equitable treatment of all employees, the

application of consistent human resource management practices, and the

provision of equal opportunities for promotion and advancement. The

administration of sound and equitable human resource policies and practices

in a consistent manner will contribute greatly toward accomplishing the goals

of workforce diversity.

5. Job Classification

Job classification is the organization and grouping of similar positions in the

district into groups or classes on the basis of similar, or related, duties,

responsibilities, and qualification requirements. The need for job

classifications is apparent not only in connection with equitable compensation

levels but also in matters of selection, placement, promotion, transfer, and

training. The general objective of job classifications and the job classification

plan is for efficient management of functions, but just as important is the

equal treatment of employees in terms of appointments, pay, opportunities for

training and advancement.

5.1 Job classifications will continually be reviewed and modified to ensure

qualification requirements are job related and are not barriers to qualified

people of colour, women, and people with disabilities in seeking employment

and promotions, and that selection criteria are consistent.

6. Compensation and Benefits

The Equal Pay Act requires that equal wages and salaries be paid for

substantially equal or similar work performed by men and women. Title VII

requires equal pay regardless of race, national origin, religion, or sex. The

more subtle type of pay discrimination is perhaps the most difficult to deal

with because of its historical entrenchment in the personnel and pay system,

as well as stereotypical value judgments placed on the type of work and who

does it. Despite the increasing number of women in the labour force, the U.S.

Department of Labour continues to report pay gaps between men and women,

and racial/ethnic minorities and non-minorities.

It provides that all benefits and conditions of employment shall be equally

available without discrimination to all employees - male and female. This

includes medical, hospital, accident and life insurance, retirement benefits,

leaves and other terms or conditions of employment.

6.1 The Human Resources Department will periodically review and monitor

on an ongoing basis the wage and salary distribution to identify discrepancies

in pay between men and women and racial/ethnic minorities and non-

minorities.

6.2 The Human Resources Department will ensure that all benefits and

conditions of employment are equally available without discrimination to all

employees, including opportunities for transfer or reassignment that may

affect an employee's compensation and benefits.

7. Training and Development

Training helps to equip employees for higher responsibilities or to diversify

their skills. Administration and employees share responsibility for the learning

experiences that are presumed to develop from training. As the demographics

of the district and community continue to change, it is important that all

employees, but especially those in supervisory and managerial roles, be

provided training in cultural competence, and combating prejudice, racism

and harassment.

7.1 The district will continually explore and design training and internship

programs directed towards preparing minority and women candidates for

higher level positions.

7.2 All supervisors and managers will be provided cultural competency and

diversity training that focuses on awareness and skill development, as well as

prejudice reduction.

8. Promotion and Advancement

Promotion is generally defined as a move to a position or classification having

a higher pay grade or salary range. Equal opportunity for promotion and

advancement applies to all aspects of employment and to all levels of the

organizational hierarchy. This means that people of colour, women and people

with disabilities must be considered for higher level administrative and

supervisory jobs for which they are trained or are otherwise qualified.

8.1 The district will review its policies and practices pertaining to internal

promotions and take actions to correct any "glass ceiling" barriers which

inhibit advancement of women and people of colour.

8.2 In considering supervisors and managers for promotion and advancement,

consideration will be given to the supervisor's or manager's record in

promoting and supporting the District's workforce diversity policy. The

Human Resources Department will establish a process for acquiring and

documenting information related to this provision.

9. Retention and Attrition

9.1 In addition to taking steps to ensure that racial/ethnic minorities, women,

and people with disabilities are provided equal opportunities for hiring and

promotion, it is equally important that as individuals from these groups move

into areas where they are unrepresented or significantly underrepresented that

their experience in the workplace is a positive one.

9.2 Schools and departments will ensure that employees from diverse

backgrounds are not subjected to behaviours or attitudes that send the message

they are unwelcome or that they do not belong. This is particularly true as

persons from underrepresented groups move into job categories from which

they traditionally have been excluded or discouraged from pursuing.

Analysis of Attrition Trends

What is Attrition?

Attrition has been a major concern for most of the companies in the current

competitive scenario.

The word Attrition means, a reduction in the number of employees through

resignation or separation at the employees will. Retirement, VRS and

employee leaving due to end of contract are not considered as attrition.

Attrition rate is the rate of shrinkage in size or number. It is the mathematical

representation of the attrition in a particular organization or an institution.

Attrition leads to dual loss to an organization:

Firstly, company loses on a talent and thus costs incurred on them are a

waste.

Secondly, it employees a new employee and thus needs to incur costs

on them.

Thus the following costs:

A. Recruitment cost

The cost to the business when hiring new employees includes the

following six factors plus 10 percent for incidentals such as background

screening:

Time spent on sourcing replacement

Time spent on recruitment and selection

Travel expenses, if any

Re-location costs, if any & Training/ramp-up time

Background/reference screening

Recruitment cost for the new recruit to replace the employee leaving

B. Training and development cost

To estimate the training and development costs, the expenses incurred on

training of the employee who is leaving should be taken as well as that to

be incurred to train the new employee is also to be considered.

To estimate the cost of training and developing new employees, cost of

new hires must be taken into consideration. This will mean direct and

indirect costs, and can be largely classified under the following heads:

Training materials

Technology

Trainers’ Time

C. Administration cost

They include:

Set up communication systems

Add employees to the HR system

Set up the new hire’s workspace

Set up ID-cards, access cards, etc.

Thus it can be clearly evident from the above that loosing an employee causes

an organization a large amount of expenses. An organization thus tries to

retain its work force.

Insurance sector faces high rate of attrition

When the rejections start and the doors start getting banged in the face, new

agents confront failure. The dropouts begin.

You might have heard of high job attrition rates of between 15 per cent and 20

per cent in the software sector.

But even these pale in comparison to the kind of turnover that the insurance

industry witnesses with its agency force.

Conservative estimates put the attrition rates at 35-40 per cent.

The opening up of the sector five years ago provided insurance agents with

new opportunities and an image makeover as "life insurance advisors".

But little has changed in the basic nature of the business - insurance still needs

to be sold to a reluctant populace.

Most agents or advisors who join in enthusiastically, spurred by dreams of

"working at one's own hours, getting full reward for the hard work" and other

such motivational spiel, meet reality soon enough.

Once the initial list of potential customers such as close relatives, friends and

neighbours is exhausted, the climb for an agent is uphill.

Even meeting the minimum requirement of bringing in two viable insurance

proposals every month proves daunting. For some companies, the target in

terms of sum assured is Rs. 1 lakh. For some others, it is as low as Rs. 10,000.

Mr. Lalit Kumar Dash, Executive Director (Marketing), LIC, says, "The

attrition rate is about 35 per cent in the first year of recruitment. This goes

down to about 18 per cent by the fourth year. Most of those who drop out are

non-performers".

Agrees Mr. Rahul Sinha, Vice-President (Marketing) at Kotak Mahindra Old

Mutual Life Insurance Company, and says, "Last year, the attrition rate was

much worse than 30 per cent. It has been a cause for worry and we are trying

our best to stem it."

He attributes it to the high expectations on the part of the agents. "Most people

think that they can make a lot of money in a short span of time. Besides, one

has to acknowledge that it is a high-pressure job. Sustenance requires constant

networking and acquiring new relationships for your business. This requires a

lot of discipline."

Some insurance companies complain that the booming economy has caused

the rampant poaching of insurance agents.

Insurance companies believe that adequate training will help in contain the

problem in some measure.

They say that in a business such as insurance one has to accept the fact that 20

per cent of the work force will bring in 80 per cent of their business.

But, while private insurance companies are still struggling to break even, the

rising attrition rate is yet another challenge that they have to battle.

Higher Attrition Rate - Major Challenge in HRM

Employee attrition is one of the critical problems which is faced by an HR

manager during these days. In an ideal situation an employee consider

multiple comfort level while working in an office for e.g. employer's goodwill

in the market, remuneration, future growth, working condition, co-workers,

current role's scope in the market & most important future stability with the

organization. In a survey, approximate 70% of the working population in

India is not happy at all due to one of the aspect (as mentioned aforesaid)

which is not fulfilled while working in an organization which caused higher

attrition rate.

In broad terms, attrition is a situation which employer faces when employee

leaves the organization due to job dissatisfaction, new opportunity in the

market, retirement & natural cause (death/illness). Now a days this is one of

the most important question which is asked by higher authority to HR

people…."Why our attrition rate is higher than other company?". Earlier it

wasn't important for the organization, whether their employees are committed

or not, but now the time has been changed. The company cannot afford to lose

its best employee to competitors. Therefore, HR team conducts EXIT

interview when an employee leaves the job to get the information about one's

decision to leave an organization. It is a paramount consideration for a HR

team to think, why people are vacating their positions. Still

Human Resource team face the challenge due to wrong information provided

during EXIT interview.

Reasons for Attrition

From the exit interview forms and the comments of the HR Manager the

overall reasons for attrition can be summarized as follows:

Better prospects outside the company in terms of salary and

responsibilities

Lack of Team spirit

No career growth

No role clarity

Attrition due to competition

Lack of support from Superiors.

Retaining the Employees

Employees today are different. They are not the ones who don’t have good

opportunities in hand. As soon as they feel dissatisfied with the current

employer or the job, they switch over to the next job. In prominent Indian

metros, there is no dearth of opportunities for the best in the business, or even

for the second or the third best.

Importance of retaining employees remains the same irrespective of the size

of the organization, its nature of business or the country of operation. The

only difference lies in realizing the fact that frequent employee attrition means

there is something, which needs immediate attention and cure.

Employee Retention involves taking measures to encourage employees to

remain in the organization for the maximum period of time. It involves being

sensitive to people's needs and demonstrating the various strategies in the five

families detailed in Roger Herman's classic book on employee retention,

Keeping Good People.

Compensation: It is said that money isn't a motivator, but it is an

effective de-motivator. The employees always have high expectations

regarding their compensation packages. So an attractive compensation

package plays a critical role in retaining the employees.

Growth: No one joins an organization to just do the same work till the

end of his career. If an employee does not see growth in his own

organization, there are high chances that he might opt for leaving the

organization. So such strategies must be framed where an employee can

see his bright future in the company.

Relationships: The management is sometimes not able to provide an

employee a supportive work culture and environment in terms of

personal or professional relationships. The organization culture should

be such that encourages healthy relationship between all the employees.

Support: Sometimes not getting the right kind of support and co-

operation also leads an employee to be frustrated and provokes him to

leave the organization. This should be taken care of by providing

healthy work relationships.

Environment: An organization needs to have an environment where

individuals learn and get support from colleagues and seniors along

with the healthy mixture of authority and responsibility.

Based on the above five points, a retention strategy can be framed after

understanding the reasons for attrition in a particular organization.

Below is a representation of the reasons of Attrition at Reliance in the form of

a chart:

FACTORS LEADING TO ATTRITION AT RELIANCE

INDIVIDUAL ORGANIZATIONAL

HIGHER EDUCATION

BETTER PROSPECTS

PARENTS / SPOUSE

NO ROLE CLARITY

NO LEARNING

JOB/ROLE STRESS

ROLE DIFFERENT

THAN DEFINED

CULTURAL MISMATCH

PAY PACKAGE

ROLE RELATED OTHERS

STYLE OF BOSS

NO GROWTH/ STAGNATION

LACK OF FREEDOM

MONOTONOUS JOB

Retention Measures at Reliance Life Insurance

At Reliance after analyzing the reasons of attrition, it could be concluded that

there are problems related to compensation, growth, work environment as well

as relationships.

In order to reduce the amount of attrition, the HR as well as all the

business/division heads need to join hands and come together and take

actions.

The following measures can be taken:

Learning Environment:

The seniors in all the divisions should try to create an environment of learning

in their division/department. Knowledge gained should be shared with others.

E.g. If an individual from the HR department has gone for a training program

on Interpersonal Skills, he should be encouraged to share the contents of the

program with his colleagues through a presentation on the same. The same

kind of environment should be created in the whole organization.

Career Graphs for employees:

Many of the employees in their exit interviews form have mentioned that they

do not see any personal growth in the organization. Thus it is recommended

that the superiors of employees should take the responsibility to show his

subordinate a career graph projecting his growth in the next 5 years. This

would bring enough confidence in the employee to stay with the company and

motivate him to achieve the targets placed before him.

Inculcate Team Work:

All the employees need to trained and motivated to work as teams and not

individuals. This can be done with the help of the division heads. They need to

bring all the employees in the particular division together and show them the

ultimate goal for which they all are working. When a combined vision is

shown, it plays an important role in motivating the employees to work

together.

Making employees accountable:

There should be fairness in the working of the company. If an individual has

made a mistake he should be made accountable for it irrespective of his

relations with the seniors. The HR can play a role here by bringing in rules of

punishing the offenders.

Fun at work:

“All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy”. Employees spend almost 8-9

hours of the day at their work place. It is very important that the employees

are given opportunities to have fun at work. For this, HR can organize gaming

events between the various departments as well as within the various

departments. They can have events like chess tournament, table tennis

tournament, quiz competition, best of waste competition etc. these can be

done first at the departmental level and then at the organizational level.

This will enhance their sense of belongingness for their division/function as

well as increase the interaction between and within the departments/divisions.

Achieving a match between individual and organizational goals:

Reliance Life Insurance at times expects its employees to subsume their

individual objectives before the organizational ones. This has forced the

employees to leave. The company thus needs to achieve a balance between the

two. This can be done at the initial level while recruiting the employee only if

his / her personal goals can be aligned to the organizational goals.

Increasing organizational transparency:

There is a need for transparency in the working of the company. The

employees should be given reasons and answers to the questions which arise

in to their minds. If this is not done, they give it the name of a partial

environment, start having grudges against others and spoil the organizational

culture.

Helping employees acquire new skills:

There is an increasing need for keeping the employees updated about the new

techniques and technologies. Thus there is a need for increasing the number of

training programs which at this point of time are very less. Training signals

employees that the organization values their contribution, and is willing to

invest in upgrading their skills. These would also mean increase in interaction

between the employees which is again a requirement at Reliance Life

Insurance.

Celebrations and Social and Cultural Networks:

In some of the surveys and audits it has been found that employees get a sense

of belongingness if the organization encourages some form of social

networks, cultural programs, team celebrations. These can be done with very

little investments by encouraging employees to have picnics, social

gatherings, celebrations and festivals etc. When the person feels at home with

a company he would think twice before leaving the company.

HR at Reliance Life Insurance can encourage the formation of different clubs

like the golf club, social service club, sports club, where the employees from

all divisions can register as per their likings. These clubs can then have their

own gatherings and interactions. This would increase the interactions between

employees from different departments.

Change of Styles through 360 Degree Feedback and Internal

Customer satisfaction Surveys:

Many times the style of manager has been responsible for employees in

certain departments to leave. With supportive managers and Head of

departments employees think several times before they leave. Some managers

may not realize that their coercive style, excessive task centeredness, and the

way they assign tasks including the clarity with which they give instructions,

respect etc. to employees have tremendous impact on their staying with the

company. Thus a 3600 feedback system can be implemented for the senior

level managers and corrective actions can be taken to improve the problem

areas.

The supervisors must be prepared to be collaborative, supportive, and

nurturing of their people. The old style of "my-way-or-the-highway" style of

management is a thing of the past. Most new supervisors need training to

understand what it really takes to retain employees.

Periodic rewards or gifts for work done:

If an employee is appreciated for the work he does, it acts as a motivating

factor for him to perform well at his work. This ultimately benefits the

organization. Thus the employees should be motivated by appreciation from

the senior level. His work can also be acknowledged by giving him/her a

small token of appreciation for the work done.

Measuring employee satisfaction:

Obsessed with catering to the demands of their external customers, companies

ignore their internal customers. Periodic employee satisfaction surveys can

highlight the potential flash-points, and enable the company to take corrective

action.

Stress Management:

The employees face a lot of stress in their day to day personal and

professional life. If the employees remain stressed out, their efficiency is

reduced. So HR can take measures to reduce this stress level and improve the

efficiency. This can be done by organizing seminars on stress reduction, yoga,

one day camps, picnics etc.

Employees should be taught as to how they themselves can fight the stress

that they are experiencing. This would bring a dual advantage to the company.

Firstly, the employees will realize that the company is taking the

responsibility of the stress that are experiencing due to the company’s work.

Secondly, their productivity will increase which will again benefit the

company.

Today’s employees are different:

They are the ones who have ample of opportunities. So if the company wants

to retain its employees it has to start taking responsibility of its employees.

HR needs to make the employees realize that they are an important part of the

company. The employees cannot be retained only by giving them high pay

packages. They need to see their own growth and have a feeling of

belongingness in the company.

Employee retention takes effort, energy, and resources. But the results are

worth it.

Calculating the Attrition Rate:

“What cannot be measured cannot be improved’’ is an old management

aphorism. So if we want to improve attrition, we need to bring it to

measurable terms.

Attrition in any particular organization can be quantified by finding out the

attrition rate for that organization. After this the analysis can be done as to

where is the maximum attrition happening and then finding out reasons for the

same to form a retention strategy.

There is no standard formula to calculate the attrition rate of a company. This

is because of certain factors as:

The employee base changes each month.

Many firms may not include attrition of fresher’s who leave because of

higher studies or within three months of joining.

In some cases, attrition of poor performers may also not be treated as

attrition.

Yet, as a generalized formula the following can be used:

Attrition = (No. of employees who left in the year / Average employees in the

year) x 100

Conclusion:

To devoid organization's growth, HR manager should give close attention to

why attrition is occurring in the present. To ignore why people are leaving the

organization is to ignore the organization greatest assets – its people. People

in organization are needed to perform the tasks; but they are not just machines

but more than that. They are organization dreams, hopes, ambitions, creativity

and innovation. And to retain these valuable assets is one of the surest ways to

build an organization rather than just to go in global markets. And this is the

only way an organization can lower its attrition rate.

Innovative HR Practices

Introduction

Innovative HR practices build competencies and capabilities for superior and

winning performances today and simultaneously create long term fertility for

innovation of business ideas and strategies for future.

Employees who go the extra mile by performing spontaneous behaviors that

go beyond their role prescriptions are especially valued by the management.

This phenomenon is critical for organizational effectiveness because managers

cannot foresee all contingencies or fully anticipates the activities that they

may desire or need employees to perform (Katz & Kahn 1978, Organ 1988).

Work behavior that goes beyond the reach of organizational measures of job

performance holds promise for long term organizational success (Van Dyne,

Graham & Dienesch 1994) because these types of action are purported to

improve organizational efficiency, effectiveness and adaptability (Organ

1988). Doing jobs beyond what is required without expecting to be rewarded

is what is referred to in this study as Organizational Citizenship Behavior

(OCB).

Enhancing an organization’s competitive ability is increasingly critical and

behaviors which may improve individual and organizational efficiency,

become more valuable. Although there have been many studies of OCB in

organizations, no known studies have examined the linkage of individual

innovativeness with OCB where the effect of superior–subordinate as a

mediator, is included.

Innovative hr practices

All managers have heard and read countless times how to build teams,

empower your workforce and develop trust. The common place human

resource practices prevalent across the entire business world are just as

relevant to this business as any other. The HR policies must be integrated with

business policies. The HR Professionals must have balance in terms of

centralization or decentralization of HR practices are ethnocentric while

others management be geocentric or regiocentric.

Tomorrow HR practices

In turn trends like these are changing the way firms are managed.

Organizations today must grapple with revolutionary trends accelerating

product and technological change, globalizes competition, deregulation,

demographic changes and trends towards a service society and the

information. These trends have dramatically increased the degree of

competition in virtually all industries, while forcing firms to cope with

unprecedented product innovation and technological change. Companies in

such an environment either become competitive high performers or they die.

The challenges facing the organization have never   been greater

Issues coming on the radar of an HR Manager today are diverse; from micro

level issues where an individual employee needs hand holding to the macro

issues pertaining to a global workforce and virtual teams. HR managers are

expected to offer instant solutions for these issues and strategies.

As an HR Manager there are a number of areas where you might want to bring

in an external consultant.

Employee Motivation in work place

A strong team needs individuals who are dedicated to giving their best at   

work.  Highly self-motivated, committed, ambitious employees give the most

to their company and get the most from their work. But if you are lacking

employee motivation in the workplace the effects can be dramatic. Low team

morale, lack of initiative, lack of energy, mistakes and high staff turnover are

just some of the clues that motivation is an issue.

One of the simplest ways to get motivated is to create a Self-Motivation

Action Plan.

By following this simple three-step process you can create an action plan that

will get you motivated again. .

STEP 1: Clarify the Goal

The first step of your Self-Motivation Action Plan is to be clear about the end

result. Identify a project that you lack motivation about. Let's use "Make some

sales calls" as an example.

Your goals should be SMART. In other words: Specific, Measurable, Agreed,

Realistic and with a Timescale.

STEP 2: Identify the Obstacle

The second step of your Self-Motivation Action Plan is to be clear about what

is standing in your way. There are two types of obstacles - practical and

emotional. Examples of practical obstacles are lack of time, resources or

information. Examples of emotional obstacles are lack of confidence or fear of

failure or rejection.

Make a list on your Self-Motivation Action Plan of all the obstacles standing

in the way of you achieving your goal.

STEP 3: Handle each Obstacle

The third step of your Self-Motivation Action Plan is the most challenging.

Go through each obstacle and handle it. If the obstacle is lack of time, ask

yourself "How can I create time for this? What do I need to stop doing, start

doing or delegate in order to create time?"

If the obstacle is lack of confidence, ask yourself "What am I afraid of? What

is the worst thing that could happen?" Often the worst-case scenario is not as

bad as you feared. But if it is serious, how can you reduce the risk of it

occurring? What resources do you have that will help you?

A clear Self-Motivation Action Plan will help you complete projects without

adrenalin, willpower or unhealthy stress.

Innovative Human Resource Leader

To join a dynamic, growing organization that knows where it wants to go. To

make a significant contribution to business results by applying my unique

talent for creating strategic focus and alignment, developing 21st century

leaders and culture, and building an organizational community that shares a

common mission, vision, and values.

Support needed for the Management of Change and Improvement of

Human Capital

Present industrial developments involve technology and organization, the

performance of both being highly dependent on human resources. Knowledge

will increasingly bring a key competitive advantage within human resources.

Moreover, production tasks are being automated to an ever greater extent

while the demand for a qualified workforce is growing dramatically. At the

same time, when analyzing the workforce, we see a shortage of skilled people

in strategic industrial areas. The available skills do not always correspond in

quality and quantity to the skills required. This contrast will place a significant

strain on our society. The technology trend indicates that unemployment will

rise amongst unskilled workers. This will entail enormous efforts in the field

of education as well as a tremendous increase in continuous learning, and may

require co-ordinate efforts towards the benchmarking of knowledge

management within different countries, regions or organizations, and the

implementation of learning schemes.

Relevance of Human Resource Management

The challenge of HR managers is to hunt for human talent and make sure the

company selects the right person for the right job.

Human Resource Management is much discussed in today's business world.

But how well is it understood? In a world where people's competencies and

skill sets are described in paragraphs rather than in a few words and where

media reports of salaries make us do a double-take to ensure that seeing is

indeed believing, it is becoming increasingly challenging to manage this high

potential we consider as the country's asset.

Over the past two decades, the world saw a complete makeover in the way

Human Resource Management in organisations was defined, but in India, the

change has been more prominent in the last decade or so, after liberalisation.

Today, managing the expectations and motivations of a skilled workforce has

brought with it attendant complexities in terms of the need for robust HR

practices and organisational procedures.

Earlier considered a support function for any business, HRM today is required

to take on a more strategic role in order to align itself with the organisation's

business strategies. Hence, the HR manager is expected to take on the mantle

of a business partner along with managers of other line functions, in driving

the firm's strategies.

The shift in focus from traditional HRM to strategic HRM was inevitable.

Competitive advantage for an organisation lies not just in differentiating a

product or service or in becoming the low cost leader but in also being able to

tap the company's special skills or core competencies and rapidly respond to

customer's needs and competitor's moves. HR management can play a role in

identifying and analysing external opportunities and threats that may be

crucial to the company's success. It is in a unique position to supply

competitive intelligence that may be useful in the strategic planning process.

Human Resource Accounting

Over the years, some of the traditional HR practices have been revisited and

analysed to evaluate their suitability in today's world. One such major practice

is the concept of Human Resource Accounting (HRA). Initially, one might

hesitate to accept a concept which tries to put a monetary value to human

beings. How does one attach a number to a person's capabilities? However,

HRA represents a way to gauge how strong and profitable an organisation's

workforce is. Organisations have been claiming that their employees are their

most valuable assets.

The spate of downsizings and increasing job insecurity notwithstanding, the

resurgence of interest in the area of HRA is perhaps testimony to this

approach, where investments in human resources are now included as assets in

a company's balance sheet, rather than expense heads in their profit and loss

statements.

The signals are clear — the employee is an asset who can be groomed to bring

in future profitability — an asset which can define the company's image in the

market today. HRA also involves accounting for investment in people and

their replacement costs, as also the economic value of people in an

organisation. A trend yet to catch up in the Indian industry, with a few

exceptions such as BHEL, Infosys, SBI and Reliance industries, it has been

extensively embraced in the West.

Competency Mapping

With the growth of the industries in the `knowledge-verticals', human talent is

undoubtedly the most important asset today. To make sure that a company

selects the right person for the right job, and manages him/her carefully,

processes like competency mapping are gaining ground. Competency

mapping is a process of identifying key competencies for a particular position

in an organisation, and then using it for job-evaluation, recruitment, training

and development, performance management, and succession planning. In

conjunction with the balanced scorecard, this can be an extremely robust tool

to manage an organisation's performance. Despite the growing level of

awareness, however, in India, competency development and mapping still

remains in the nascent stages of implementation.

As far as the HR function is concerned, the time has perhaps come where it

needs to be treated as a line function with every manager having HR activities

as part of his line responsibilities, rather than treating HR as a separate,

support-providing activity only. Today's manager is expected to wear multiple

hats — that of a leader, internal change agent, coach, counsellor, mentor — in

addition to his/her `technical' responsibilities. This would entail that every

manager, irrespective of his/her functional area of specialisation, would have

to have a thorough grounding in concepts and processes of HR.

At the IIT-Madras Department of Management Studies, the curriculum

followed in the HR area of specialisation reflects a response to these changing

trends, where, in addition to incorporating the newest trends and best practices

in the traditional HR course curriculum, newer courses in cross-cultural

management, change management, and international HRM attempt to

familiarise the students with new concepts.

It has become fashionable among organisations to use terms such as HRD

(Human Resource Development) and HCM (Human Capital Management) as

being representative of the changing trends in HR practices. Merely renaming

the function is however not going to be sufficient. The need of the hour is for

premier institutes such as the IIMs, IITs as well as other professional

institutions to rise to the occasion and re-design their curriculum and

pedagogical methods in consultation with the industry, in order to train their

students to meet the changed expectations of the industry.

Human Resource Practice followed by Reliance Life Insurance

Joining Process

Upon joining, the employee is required to fill in a “Check In form” and

provide relevant information.

He is also required to submit various documents to support this information.

Employees need to fill in this form on the date of joining itself.

The appointment letter is issued upon joining which clearly specifies the

conditions of employment. The original copy is retained by the employee and

one signed copy is handed over to HR for personal file and pay roll.

On receiving the appointment letter, the HR makes sure that the candidate is

completely aware about his job profile and his reporting line. If not he is given

a clear idea of the same.

The HR dept. maintains personnel file for all the employees. These files

consist of all the documents relating to the employees starting from his resume

till his check in form. All the other documents given by him to the HR during

the course of his employment are also maintained along with all the

communication through mails. These can be used by the organization for any

further references.

On joining the organization, the employee is given a 6 digit unique number

which is called the employee no. This becomes his identity in the

organizations database. An e-mail ID is created for all the management

employees by the IT department which can be used by the employee.

The last financial year has been an unprecedented one. With the economy

slowing down in first half of 2008-09 and slipping further in the second half,

Reliance Life Insurance have had to initiate necessary measures to navigate

the environment. While the Indian economy remains a growth economy, it is

impossible for anyone to remain insulated from this global phenomenon. As

part of its ongoing process of reviewing our Human Resources policies &

aligning them with external market realities, Reliance Life Insurance is

announcing the following changes to our HR Policies in the Employee

handbook.

1. Leave policy

The objective of this policy is to describe the leave entitlements and the terms

and conditions governing the same to all employees of Reliance Capital.

General Availing Leave should be done in a planned manner.

Leave shall be taken with prior approval as per the provisions. Wherever prior

approval is not mandated, the concerned employee shall keep the sanctioning

authority informed of his/her absence and regularize the administrative

procedures immediately on resumption of duties.

Leave calendar shall run from 1st January to 31st December.

Intervening holidays will not be treated as part of leave in the case of Earned,

and Sick Leave, Absence from duty, except on account of leave or holiday,

shall be dealt with by the management at its discretion and in the best interests

of the organization.

An employee will not be granted leave once he/she submits his/her

resignation. Such absence will be considered as leave on loss of pay.

Earned Leave (EL)

All employees will be entitled to 24 days of EL for each year of service.

Only a maximum of 10 days EL shall be carried forward to the next year.

Unavailed leave, in excess of 10 days, for the year will lapse at the end of the

year. Leave will be credited on pro-rata basis for each month of service.

Accumulation of Earned Leave can be done upto 120 days. No credit will be

available beyond the said limit.

2. Encashment:

For all employees, only EL balance as on 1st January 2009 will be considered

for encashment, in future. Any EL accrued / earned post 1st January 2009,

subject to the clauses mentioned above on carry forward of EL, will not be

encashed but employees may avail of the same in a planned manner.

Subject to the above, encashment of Earned leave can be opted by an

employee subject to the availability of a clear balance of 30 days as on 1st

January 2009 and retention of minimum 15 days balance in the Earned Leave

Account. Encashment will be calculated on CTC basis (gross of Base and

Choice Pay). No leave encashment will be allowed for employees separating

from the services of the Company prior to Confirmation.

Unapproved leave or Leave availed in excess of the available balance will be

on loss of pay.

Earned Leave shall be taken only with the prior approval of the Sanctioning

authority. EL in excess of 5 days shall be granted only if applied with a

minimum notice of 15 days.

Intervening weekends or holidays shall not be treated as Earned Leave.

An employee will not be granted earned leave once he/she submits his/her

resignation. Such absence will be considered as leave on loss of pay.

Encashment of earned leave will be subject to tax as applicable.

Leave Travel Allowance (LTA):

In order to avail LTA, an employee will have to avail at least 5 days of EL at a

stretch. In the event of an employee not availing the said leave, LTA amount

shall be paid to him/her towards the end of the Financial Year net of tax if

he/she does not exercise the option of carrying it forward to the next Financial

Year at the end of which the entire amount shall be mandatory paid net of tax

if LTA facility is not availed as per rules.

3. Probation / Confirmation / Notice Pay

For all employees at or below the level of Grade E5

You will be on probation initially for a period of six months w.e.f. the date of

joining. Your probation may be extended by the company, at its discretion,

based on your performance/conduct. Reliance Capital follows a policy of

'confirmation by default. Your services are deemed to be confirmed at the end

of the probation period unless you receive intimation to the contrary. During

the probation period, your services are liable for termination at any time

without any notice in writing or payment in lieu thereof. The Company may

not assign any reason for such termination which shall be at the sole discretion

of the Company & you will not be entitled to any claim, damage,

compensation or any other payment on that account.

On satisfactory completion of the probation period and after your

confirmation, except for the reasons mentioned in the appointment letter, your

services can be terminated by giving notice of thirty days or payment of salary

(CTC) in lieu thereof on either side. In the event of an earlier relieving than

the stipulated date as per notice served, either side shall pay to the other

compensation in lieu thereof calculated on the basis of Cost To Company.

4. For all employees at or above the level of Grade E6

You will be on probation initially for a period of six months w.e.f. the date of

joining. Your probation may be extended by the company, at its discretion,

based on your performance/conduct. Reliance Capital follows a policy of

'confirmation by default. Your services are deemed to be confirmed at the end

of the probation period unless you receive intimation to the contrary. During

the probation period, your services are liable for termination at any time

without any notice in writing or payment in lieu thereof. The Company may

not assign any reason for such termination which shall be at the sole discretion

of the Company & you will not be entitled to any claim, damage,

compensation or any other payment on that account.

On satisfactory completion of the probation period and after confirmation,

except for reasons mentioned in the appointment letter, your services can be

terminated by giving notice of forty five days or payment of salary (CTC) in

lieu thereof on either side. In the event of an earlier relieving than the

stipulated date as per notice served, either side shall pay to the other

compensation in lieu thereof calculated on the basis of Cost To Company.

5. Medical Insurance

Employee & Immediate Family Coverage

All employees and immediate family members (spouse and 2 children) shall

be covered under the Group Mediclaim Policy of the Company. The Policy is

meant to cover expenses towards any medical emergencies that may arise

resulting in hospitalization.

The Policy shall cover the employee, spouse and dependant children up to a

total hospitalization expense of Rs.1.50 Lakhs per annum only on floater

basis. Additionally, there will be a corporate buffer which may enable

extension of Hospitalization expenses subject to management discretion and

availability of buffer.

Dependant Parent Coverage

There will be a separate policy for coverage of dependant parents as follows:

Employees will have an option to cover their dependent parents upto a sum

assured of Rs.1.50 lacs per annum on floater basis under the new policy, upon

payment of an all inclusive premium of Rs.3,600 per annum (inclusive of

Service Tax). This Premium shall be realizable from the employee in a single

installment from the salary falling due immediately after the option is

exercised.

All dependent parents covered under the existing Mediclaim Policy shall be

migrated to the new Policy with effect from April 01, 2009 and the cost of

such premium (mentioned below) will be deducted from the April Salary.

Should any employee, who has already covered their dependent parents in

existing policy, wish to de-list his/her parents from the new policy, he/she will

be required to specify the same in writing to the Human Resources

Department.

The process of enlisting dependent parents, who have not been covered under

the existing policy but employees choose to enlist them in the new Policy,

shall be done at the time of inception of the Policy only, which is in April

each year. Employees joining the organization thereafter can exercise the

option only at the time of joining subject to realization of pro rata premium.

They may do so through the shared services website

(https://www.rclhrssg.com/). A detailed process note on this shall be

communicated shortly. Mid year inclusion of dependent parents of existing

employees will not be allowed.

Employees who have covered their parents for an additional cover of 1.5 / 2.5

lacs under the existing policy for dependant parents (valid till 30th September

’09) would, however, be allowed to opt for inclusion of their dependant

parents under the new policy w.e.f 1st October ’09 subject to realization of

pro rata premium

Premium paid to cover dependent parents shall not be refundable under any

circumstances, including separation of employment.

Income tax benefits arising out of payment of such premium shall be given to

the employee, subject to the provisions of the Income Tax Act. Child /

Children shall be deemed to be dependant till the age of 21 years or marriage

or gainful employment whichever is earlier. Parents shall be considered to be

dependant if their joint income is less than Rs.10,000/- per month.

6. Vehicle Running & Maintenance Exp Reimbursement

This can be opted in the case of a self owned or company owned/leased 4-

Wheeler / car subject to the following limits: Grade Eligibility Limits p.a.

E1-E2Not Applicable NIL

E3-E4YesRs.1.20 lacs

E5-E7YesRs.1.50 lacs

E8 & AboveYesRs.1.80 lacs

All expenses in connection with running & maintenance expenses of the

vehicle such as Fuel, repairs & maintenance, insurance shall be admissible for

reimbursement under this policy. Employees in Grades E8 and above can also

claim personal driver’s salary as part of the expenses subject to the following

sub limits (within the overall limit of Rs.1.80 lacs p.a.)

Rs.84000/- : Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata, Chennai, Bangalore, Hyderabad

Rs.60000/- : Rest of the locations.

The payments shall be made in monthly installments with the salary after

retaining 20% of the opted amount. The retention amount shall be utilized to

offset any adverse income tax liability in the event of non/short submission

of bills.

The payments shall not be subject to tax at the time of payment.

The employees would be required to submit the bills in support of the opted

amount during the period January to March. Till such time employees are

required to retain the bills. Fuel & Maintenance expenses after 7th March

would be admissible in the next financial year. Based on the submission of

bills and the resultant tax liability, the installment for March and the retention

amount shall be released Illustration: Mr.X has opted for an amount of

Rs.1.20 lacs for the period April to March. After retention of 20%, an amount

of Rs.8000/- shall be paid to him on a monthly basis. In March Mr.X would

have to submit the bills in support of Rs.1.20 lacs. Based on the submission of

bills and acceptance thereof, the March installment and retention amount

shall be released subject to TDS, if any.

In the case of resignation cases the employee would have to submit the bills

prior to him/her being relieved from the services of the Company. The

installment amount as applicable for the last month along with the pro rated

retention amount shall be included in the full and final settlement subject to

TDS, as applicable.

Conclusion and Recommendations

Finally I conclude that in the competitive world the organization should have

innovative ideas then only it can lead the organization very successfully.

Human Resource leader should follow creative practices that will help to

develop the employer as well as employee. Then only the organization can run

successfully.

I would also like to conclude that human resource practices followed by all

insurance companies are almost same.

Reliance Life Insurance has now started realizing that the systematic attention

to human resources is the only way to increase organizational efficiency in

terms of productivity, quality, profits and better customer orientation.

HR can help deliver organizational excellence by focusing on learning,

quality, teamwork, and through various employee friendly strategies.

Bibliography

Websites visited:

www.irdaindia.com

www.google.com

www.reliancelife.com

www.wikipedia.com