UGC NET/JRF EXAM, JUNE-2025 Labour and Social Welfare

• He analysed each task into small elemental motions called therbligs, enabling managers to identify unnecessary movements and reduce worker fatigue.

• His studies focused on improving productivity by optimizing both the time taken and the motions used in performing work.

• Gilbreth's work deeply influenced early scientific management and laid the foundation for modern ergonomics and industrial engineering.

The Functions of the Executive was written by Chester Barnard in 1938. Chester I. Barnard, a noted management theorist and AT&T executive, published this landmark book describing the organization as a cooperative social system.

• He emphasized formal and informal communication, zone of indifference, authority acceptance theory, and the executive's role in maintaining organizational equilibrium. Barnard's work became foundational for behavioural and systems perspectives in management.

• The 1938 publication is still regarded as one of the most influential works in management theory.

This was the major finding of the Bank Wiring Observation Room experiment. The Bank Wiring Observation Room study (1924-1932) was part of the Hawthorne Studies conducted at Western Electric Company.

• It revealed the existence of informal group norms that controlled productivity levels.

• Workers informally agreed on a "fair day's work," and anyone producing more than this agreed level was discouraged or even punished by the group (e.g., ridicule, social
isolation).

• This demonstrated that social norms, not just financial incentives, heavily influence worker behaviour-an important discovery leading to the Human Relations Movement.

The Contingency Approach is also known as the If-then Approach. The Contingency Approach states that there is no single best way to manage; managerial actions depend on situational variables.

• It is called the If-then approach because it suggests: If a specific situation exists, then a specific managerial action is most appropriate.

• Factors such as environment, technology, size, and workforce characteristics determine the appropriate management strategy.

• This approach was shaped by theorists such as Fiedler, Lawrence & Lorsch, and Woodward.

This is what candidates do in Thematic Apperception Test (TAT). The TAT is a projective psychological test developed by Henry A. Murray and Christiana Morgan.

• It presents 8-20 ambiguous pictures or scenes to the subject.

• The candidate is asked to create a story describing what led to the scene, what is happening now, what the characters are thinking/feeling, and what will happen next.

• The test evaluates personality traits such as needs, motives, conflicts, and emotional functioning, especially the need for achievement (n-Ach), need for affiliation, and need for power.

• Used widely in organizational selection, clinical settings, and research to assess deepseated aspects of personality.

Recruitment Process Outsourcing (RPO) involves assigning an external expert agency to manage the recruitment function wholly or partly for specific categories of jobs.

• In RPO, a third-party service provider handles several recruitment functions such as sourcing, screening, interviewing, background checks, onboarding coordination, etc.

• Organizations use RPO to reduce hiring costs, improve quality of candidates, and ensure faster filling of vacancies.

• It is not limited to any single sourcing method; it uses multiple channels such as job portals, social media, referrals, campus hiring, databases, and professional networks.

• Many large companies globally and in India (e.g., Infosys, Wipro, banks) use RPO for volume hiring or specialized hiring.

An assessment centre is a comprehensive evaluation technique used to assess managerial potential through multiple standardized exercises.

Assessment centres include activities like group discussions, role plays, case studies, in-basket exercises, presentations, and psychometric tests.

Candidates are evaluated by trained assessors on competencies such as leadership, communication, problem-solving, decisionmaking, and interpersonal skills.

It is widely used for selecting managers, identifying high-potential employees, and planning promotions, especially in large organizations and public sector units.

The method provides a multi-dimensional, behavior-based judgement of managerial suitability.

Donald Trump's second-term policy actions included a Presidential Memorandum that removed DEI considerations from the U.S. Foreign Service, eliminating DEI as a basis for tenure, promotion and workplace evaluation. This memorandum, issued in March 2025, specifically targeted what the administration described as "discriminatory equity ideology," stating that recruitment and career advancement should return to strict merit-based criteria.

It directed the Department of State to eliminate DEI-based requirements from Foreign Service performance evaluations, hiring norms and training systems.

The policy was part of a larger federalwide initiative to dismantle DEI programmes across government institutions, arguing that identity-based policies constituted preferential treatment.

Because the U.S. Foreign Service works globally across embassies and consulates, this policy is seen as having a cascading effect on international workplaces, influencing both multinational discussions on DEI and global employment practices.

International organizations and partner governments were expected to reassess their DEI-related collaborations, given the shift in U.S. diplomatic and administrative posture.

This is not included in the three dimensions of IHRM defined by Peter J. Dowling and Denice E. Welch.

Their IHRM model includes three key dimensions:

Three HR activities: procurement, allocation, utilization.

Three categories of employees: parent-country nationals (PCNs), host-country nationals (HCNs), third-country nationals (TCNs).

Three national categories: the multinational's home country, the host country, and other countries.

The "Three Cs of HRM" (competence, commitment, culture) is part of other HR models but not of Dowling & Welch's IHRM framework.

Dave Ulrich proposed four major HR roles in his foundational model:

Strategic partner: aligning HR strategy with business goals.

Change agent: supporting and facilitating organizational change.

Administrative expert: ensuring efficiency in administrative processes (included in earlier models).

Employee champion: advocating employeе well-being and engagement.

None of Ulrich's HR roles include "multicultural teams"; that term relates to team composition, not HR functional roles. Ulrich's framework defines what HR professionals must do, not the types of teams they manage.