Industrial Relations Management Interview Questions & Answers

Question 1. What Is Industrial Relation?

Answer :

Industrial relations are a multidisciplinary field that studies the employment relationship. Industrial relations are increasingly being called employment relations because of the importance of non-industrial employment relationships.

Question 2. What Is Lay-off?

Answer :

Lay-off is a measure or compromising device to cope with the temporary inability of an employer to offer employment to a workman and to keep the industrial establishment in operation so that the worker need not fall back upon strike and the employer need not resort to closure or lockout.
A situation in which there is a temporary shortage of work and the employees are told there is no work for them but that management intends to recall them when work is again available.

Question 3. What Is Subsistence Allowance?

Answer :

Where the workman is suspended by pending investigation or employer pending investigation or inquiry into complaints or charges of the misconduct against him, the workman shall be paid the subsistence allowance equal to 50% of wages for first 90 days of suspension and 75 % of wages for remaining period till completion of disciplinary proceedings.

Question 4. Define Morale?

Answer :

The feeling of confidence and optimism with respect to problems or task is termed as Morale.

Question 5. What Is Gratuity?

Answer :

Gratuity is a kind of benefit like the provident fund or pension. It is regarded as a legitimate claim which workmen can make and which in a proper case can give rise to an industrial dispute. Gratuity paid is intended to help the workmen after the retirement whether the retirement benefit is the result of the rules of the superannuation or of physical disability.
It is a reward for good, efficient and faithful service rendered for a fairly substantial period and it is not paid to the employee gratuitously or merely as a matter of bonus but for long and meritorious award.

Formula of GRATUITY:

Last drawn wages * No. of years * 15 days
----------------------------------------------------------
26 days in a month

Question 6. Define Trade Unions? (which Are Registered Under The Trade Union Act 1926)

Answer :

Trade Unions are voluntary organizations of employees or employers formed to promote and protect their interest through collective action.

Question 7. Define Wage Under Minimum Wages Act?

Answer :

Wages means all remuneration capable of being expressed in terms of money. It includes house rent allowance but does not include:

• Value of house accommodation, supply of light, water, medical attendance
• Value of other amenity provided, if excluded by Govt. order
• Contribution to pension fund or Provident fund or Insurance
• Traveling allowance
• Special allowances incurred by the nature of employment
• Gratuity payable on discharge.

Question 8. What Is Organizational Development?

Answer :

• Organizational development is a complex strategy intended to change the beliefs, attitudes, values, and structures of organizations so that they can better adapt to new technologies, markets, challenges.
• OD is achieved through interventions in the organization’s “Processes” using behavioral science knowledge.
• OD involves organizational reflection, system improvement, planning, and self analysis.

Question 9. Who Is Change Agent?

Answer :

Change agent is a behavioral scientist who knows how to get people in organization involved in solving their own problems. His main strength is his comprehensive knowledge of human behavior, supported by a number of intervention techniques. Change agent is expertise in behavioral sciences and in the intervention technology of OD.

Question 10. What Is Attribution?

Answer :

Attribution refers simply to how people explain the cause of another’s or their own behavior. It is the process by which people draw conclusions about the factors that influence, or make sense of, one another’s behavior.

Question 11. What Are Fringe Benefits?

Answer :

These are monetary benefits provided to employees. They include the benefit of:

• Provident fund,
• Gratuity
• Medical care
• Hospitalization payment
• Accident relief
• Health and Group insurance
• Subsidized canteen facilities
• Recreational facilities
• Provision of uniforms to employees.

Question 12. What Is Employee Engagement?

Answer :

• Employee Engagement is variously known as Employee Ownership, Employee Motivation, employee Involvement, Commitment, Loyalty, etc.
• Employee Engagement is a barometer that determines the association of a person with the organization. It is about creating the passion among associates to do things beyond what is expected from him.
• A successful employee engagement strategy help create a community at the workplace and not just a workplace. When employees are effectively or positively engaged with their organization, they form an emotional connection with the company.

Question 13. What Is Adjudication?

Answer :

Adjudication means a mandatory settlement of an industrial dispute by a Labour court or a tribunal. Generally, the government refers a dispute for adjudication depending on the failure of conciliation proceedings.
Section 10 of the Industrial Dispute Act 1947, provides for reference of a dispute to Labour court or tribunal. The Act also lays down rules regarding the composition and powers of Labour courts and tribunal.

Question 14. What Is The Definition Of Worker Under The Factories Act 1948?

Answer :

Worker means a person who is employed directly or through any agency including contractor with or without the knowledge of principal employer, whether for remuneration or not, but he must be employed in any manufacturing process, or in cleaning any part of the machinery or premises used for a manufacturing process, or in any other kind of work incidental to, or connected with, the manufacturing process or the subject of the manufacturing process. 

Question 15. What Is Job Enlargement?

Answer :

It means the expanding the tasks or duties assigned to a given task, or duties assigned to a given job.

Question 16. What Is Job Description?

Answer :

Job description involves listing of job title, tasks and responsibilities in a job. It defines continuing work assignment and a scope of responsibility that are sufficiently different from those of other jobs to warrant a specific title. Job description is broad statement of purpose, scope, duties and responsibilities of a particular job.

FORMAT OF JOB DESCRIPTION:

• Job Title
• Region/Location
• Department
• Reporting to (Operational and Managerial)
• Objective
• Principal duties and responsibilities.

Question 17. What Is Collective Bargaining?

Answer :

• Collective bargaining is a negotiation between an employer or group of employers and a group of working people to reach an agreement on working conditions.
• Collective Bargaining is a process of negotiation by collective action by a body of workers regarding their terms and conditions of service such as wage leave, norms of employment, gratuity, bonus and other benefits of the like nature.
• In the Bargaining process, the main actors are employees, employers and their associations.

Question 18. What Is Retrenchment?

Answer :

The Industrial dispute Act 1947 defines retrenchment as: The termination by the employer, of the service of the workman, for any reason, whatsoever, otherwise than as a punishment inflicted by way of disciplinary action but does not include voluntary retirement, compulsory retirement of the workman on reaching the age of superannuation or termination of service on the grounds of continued ill health.

Question 19. What Is The Procedure For Retrenchment?

Answer :

Under the Act for the purpose of the retrenchment it is required that the workman must have been employed for a period of not less than twelve months and that during those twelve months he had worked for not less two hundred and forty days.

The employer is required to prepare a list of all workman in the particular category from which retrenchment is contemplated, arranged according to the seniority of service in that category. A copy of the list shall be displayed on the notice board in a conspicuous place in the premises of the establishment, at least seven days before the actual date of retrenchment.

Question 20. What Is Charge Sheet?

Answer :

Charge sheet is a memorandum of charges. Statement of allegations of misconduct/ omission/ negligence.
No particular format prescribed for charge sheet in any labor enactment. The object is to give the employee exact idea of the misconduct committed by him so that he may get reasonable opportunity to defend.

Question 21. What Is Personality?

Answer :

• Personality is the dynamic organization within the individual of that psychophysical system that determines his unique adjustment to his environment.
• Personality usually refers to the distinctive patterns of behavior (Including thoughts and emotions) that characterize each individual’s adaptation to the situations of his or life.

Question 22. What Are Od Interventions?

Answer :

OD interventions are sets of structured activities in which selected organisational units (target groups or individuals) engage in a task or sequence of tasks with the goals of organisational improvement and individual development.

Question 23. What Is Organization?

Answer :

A consciously coordinated social unit composed of two or more people that functions on a relatively continuous basis to achieve a common goal or set of goals.

Question 24. What Should The Language Of Charge-sheet?

Answer :

Language which is very commonly understood.

Question 25. Can Alternate Terminology Be Used While Drafting Charge-sheet?

Answer :

No.

Question 26. What Is A Group?

Answer :

A group is a collection of people who interact with one another, accept rights and obligations as members and who share a common identity.

A group includes:

• Formal social structure
• Face to face interaction
• Two or more persons
• Common fate
• Interdependence
• Self-definition as group members
• Recognition by others.

Question 27. What Is Grievance?

Answer :

Grievance denotes any discontent or dissatisfaction, whether expressed or not and whether valid or not, arising out of anything, connected with the company that an employee thinks, believes or even feels, is unfair, unjust or inequitable.

Question 28. What Is Strategic Hrm?

Answer :

The optimum utilization of human resources to achieve the set goals and objectives in the business environment is termed as Strategic HRM.

Question 29. What Are The Objectives Of Ilo?

Answer :

• Full employment and rising of standard of living.
• Adequate protection for the life and health of the workers.
• The assurance of educational and Vocational opportunity.

Question 30. When Misconduct Occurs, What Is Immediate Responsibility Supervisor?

Answer :

The immediate responsibility supervisor is investigating the circumstances concerning the misconduct.

Question 31. When An Employee Accepts A Position With Another Federal Agency During The Rating Period, Must The Employee Receives A Summary Rating?

Answer :

Yes. If an employee transfers to another agency during the rating period, a summary rating must be prepared at the time of transfer.

Question 32. When A Pip Should Be Issued?

Answer :

A PIP should be issued when the employee’s performance falls to an unsatisfactory level in one or more critical element.