UGC NET/JRF EXAM, June-2020 Labour and Social Welfare

Important Legislations: Indian labour legislations can be classified into different types such as regulative, protective, compensation related, social security and welfare based. These varied kinds of legislations are listed below:

(i) With regard to regulative labour legislations: Their aim is to regulate and help establish cordial relations between employers and employees by providing the means, methods and mechanics of settling industrial disputes.

These include (a) The Trade Unions Act, 1956; (b) Industrial Disputes Act, 1947; (c) State laws on industrial relations and (d) Industrial Employment (Standing Orders) Act, 1946. Of these laws, we will learn more about the Industrial Disputes Act in the ensuing pages because of its importance in the industrial relations scenario in the country.

(ii) The protective labour legislations: The primary objective of these is to ensure creation of labour standards, and the improved working conditions for labour include, inter alia, the following Acts: (a) Factories Act, 1948; (b) The Plantations Labour. Act, 1951; (c) The Mines Act, 1952; (d) The Water Transport Workers Act, 1961: (e) The Shops And Establishments Act, 1948 and the (f) BDMC Cigar Workers Act, 1966.

(iii) Compensation-related labour legislations: These lay down the methods and manner of wage payments and also the minimum wages for various categories of workers include the following: (a) The Payment of Wages Act, 1936; (b) The Minimum Wages Act, 1948: (c) The Payment of Bonus Act, 1965 and (d) The Equal Remuneration Act, 1976.

(iv) Social Security labour legislations: These intend to provide workers social security benefits and include (a) The Workmen's Compensation Act, 1923; (b) The Employees' State Insurance Act, 1948; (c) The Coal Mines PF Act, 1948: (d) The Employees Provident Fund and Miscellaneous Provisions Act, 1952; (e) The Maternity Benefit Act, 1961 and (f) Payment of Gratuity Act, 1972.

(v) Welfare labour legislations: These aimed at promoting the overall welfare of the workers and improving their living conditions include: (a) Limestone and Dolomite Mines Labour Welfare Fund Act, 1972; (b) The Mica Mines Welfare Fund Act, 1946: (c) The Iron Ore Mines, Manganese Ore Mines and Chrome Ore Mines Labour Welfare Fund Act, 1976; (d) The Cinė Workers Welfare Fund Act, 1981; (e) State govemment legislations for welfare funds and (f) Beedi Workers Welfare Fund Act, 1976.

Alternation Ranking Method: Ranking employees from best to worst on a trait or traits is another option. Since it is usually easier to distinguish between the worst and best employees, an alternation ranking method is most popular. First, list all subordinates to be rated, and then cross out the names of any not known well enough to rank.

Then the employee who is the highest on the performance dimension being measured and the one who is the lowest. Then choose the next highest and the next lowest, alternating between highest and lowest until all employees have been ranked.

Career management is the process of enabling employees to better understand and develop their skills and interests and use them for the benefit of the organisation and self. Specifically, career management activities include offering career development initiatives, providing realistic career-oriented appraisals and posting open jobs.

We focus on development and management of careers in the section, the emphasis being more on development-oriented activities. Career development benefits both employees as well as organisations, as properly developed employees are better equipped to add value to themselves and to the company.

Contingency Approach: It is concerned with the analysis of interaction of specific organizations with their external environment and the adoption of structure to meet the requirements of the situation.

This approach suggests that there is no one best way to handle any of the management problems and there is no best organizational structure to suit all situations.

(i) Contingency approach is an improvement over the systems and other approaches. It suggests that managerial actions and organizational design must be appropriate to the given situation.

(ii) Contingency approach is action-oriented as it is directed towards the application of systems concepts and the knowledge gained from other approaches. Contingency views are ultimately directed toward suggesting organizational designs and managerial actions most appropriate for specific situations.

(iii) Managerial action is contingent upon external environment. There is no one best approach for all situations. What a manager does depends upon a given situation and there is an active interrelationship between the variables in a situation and the managerial action.

Contingency theory attempts to analyse and understand inter-relationships with a view towards taking the specific managerial actions necessary to deal with the issue. This approach is both analytical and situational with the purpose of developing a practical answer to the question at hand.

One of the best-known techniques for facilitating creativity was developed by Alex F. Osborn, who has been called the father of brainstorming. Brainstorming is a process for generating creative ideas and solutions through intensive and unrestrictive group discussion.

Every participant is encouraged to think aloud and suggest as many ideas as possible. Brainstorming is a great way to gather people together to help throw out some great ideas to help find new ways of solving problems.

Brainstorming creates new ideas, solves problems, motivates and develops teams. Brainstorming motivates because it involves members of a team in bigger management issues, and it gets a team working together. However, brainstorming is not simply a random activity.

The purpose of this approach is to improve problem solving by finding new and unusual solutions. In the brainstorming session, a multiplication of ideas is sought. Brainstorming needs to be structured and it follows brainstorming rules. The rules are as follows.

1. No ideas are ever criticized.
2. The more radical the ideas, the better.
3. The quantity of idea production is stressed.
4. The improvement of ideas by others is encouraged.

Brainstorming is a technique that can be used in almost any situation where solutions to problem and new ideas arc required and can be used with a small or large group of people. Brainstorming is a relatively simple and cheap way of generating ideas.

Use of brainstorming can bring excellent results in improving the organization, performance, and developing the team Interactive. Brainstorming is both verbal and written and can also be combined to take advantage to the best features of each approach.

Process of brainstorming: The process of brainstorming consists of the following.

1. Define and agree the objective.
2. Brainstorm ideas and suggestions having agreed a time limit.
3. Categorize/condense/combine/refine.
4. Assess/analyze effects or results.

Transactional leadership places emphasis on the extrinsic relationship between leaders and followers. It examines the mutual benefit from an exchange-based relationship with the leader offering certain things, such as resources or rewards in return of others, such as the followers' commitment or acceptance of the leader's authority.

Transactional leaders guide or motivate their followers in the direction of established goals by clarifying role and task requirements. In fine we can say that transactional leaders:

• get normal people to complete routine job successfully.
• clarify the needs of business and break them down into manageable objectives.
• evaluate the needs of staff and reward accordingly.
• are very effective for improving and maintaining performance.
• determine the abilities of staff and delegates accordingly.

Empowerment is giving employees responsibility and authority to make decisions. For quality management programmes to work, it is generally conceded that employees must be empowered so that they are willing to inno-vate and act on their own in an atmosphere of trust and respect.

Five of W.Е. Deming's 14 points for quality improvement relate to employee empowerment. Empowerment requires employee education and training, and participation in goal setting.

The advantages of empowerment include more attention to product quality and the ability to fix quality problems quickly, increased respect and trust among employees, lower absenteeism and higher productivity, more satisfying work, less conflict with management, and fewer middle managers.

However, empowerment can also have some negative aspects. Employees may abuse the power given to them; empowerment may provide too much responsibility for some employees; it may create conflicts with middle management;

it will require additional training for employees and managers that can be costly; group work, which often is an integral part of empowerment, can be timeconsuming; and some employees may not make good decisions.