Case Study on Microsoft Assignment

HUMAN RESOURCE
MANAGEMENT

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
TASK 1............................................................................................................................................1
A. HR function and its importance:.............................................................................................1
b. Strength and weakness of selection methods:.........................................................................3
c. Improvement made in selection process:.................................................................................4
TASK 2............................................................................................................................................5
a Vacancy for receptionist in CHOCOLATE PRESENCE COMPANY:...................................5
b. Benefits and limitations of advertising jobs............................................................................7
c. Different job adverts and their reasons to use..........................................................................8
TASK 3............................................................................................................................................9
TASK 3............................................................................................................................................9
a. Evaluation of benefits of graduate training scheme and internships for Organisation and
employee......................................................................................................................................9
b. Identify the Microsoft's flexible working arrangement for the staff and evaluate the benefits
of those to both Microsoft and employee..................................................................................10
c. Evaluate how Microsoft motivates its employee's through the way......................................11
TASK 4..........................................................................................................................................12
a. Employee engagement:..........................................................................................................12
b. Approaches discussed in summit:..........................................................................................13
c. UK employment legislation...................................................................................................14
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................15
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................16

INTRODUCTION
Human resource management can be defined as management of most valuable assets of
company that is human capital. It does recruitment, selection, training, development etc. Present
study is based on Microsoft. Microsoft is an American company headquarters in Redmond,
Washington (Berman and et.al., 2019). Founded on April 4,1975, its founders are Bill Gates and
Paul Allen. Chocolates Presence company is a chocolate manufacturing company sales its
chocolates globally. Report will explain the working of Microsoft company in field of HRM that
explains the purpose and scope. How company takes in the process of recruitment and selection.
Its advantages and disadvantages in Microsoft. It will explain the employee engagement.
Importance of employee engagement in Microsoft. UK employee legislation. It will prepare
person specification for receptionist. Advantages and disadvantages of job advertisement will be
explained.
TASK 1
A. HR function and its importance:
The purpose of human resource department is majorly to manage needs of staff numbers
of organisations. In maximizing the efficiency of an organisation, human resource helps in
handling financial to legal matters. In an organisation like chocolate presence, HR department
plays a major role in development and growth of the business. HR department performs number
of functions like recruitment, selection, staffing needs, performance appraisal and compensation
to employees (Bratton and Gold, 2017).
Recruitment: Recruitment is being done by HR department. Purpose of proper
recruitment is to recruit those people who can work efficiently and effectively in interest to
chocolate presence growth and development. Recruitment is beneficial or important for the
company because it helps the firm in getting talented staff those who can contribute well in
raising sales of company.
Reward management: Reward management is the function where the employee is being
motivated by giving rewards at the time of efficient production in chocolate presence. This is the
way by which chocolate presence keep motivating their employees by rewards (Brewster and
et.al., 2016). It is important in order to retain skilled people in business for longer duration
because it encourage workers and make them positive towards the brand.
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Performance management: performance management is a process being managed by
the HR department, purpose of performance management is to create a work environment or
setting in which people are enabled to perform to the best of their abilities. It is important in
order to promote the right person and analysing issues in persons so that training sessions can be
organised accordingly.
Training: Training and development is being done by HR department, Purpose of giving
training to employees is to raise their capabilities so that they perform better in organisation. This
helps the employees to adapt according to the organisations culture and give their best with
maximum potential towards its development. It is important in gaining competitive advantage
and skilled people will be able to perform in chocolate presence globally (Brewster, 2017).
In order to make a business successful, HR has to take such decision which are helpful
for the growth of the organisation. HR establishes relationship between employees of an
organisation, which results and proper coordination and efficient work performance by the
employees. HR planning is important to the organisation as it develops all the strategies for
matching the skills and size of workforce organisational needs. Chocolate presence needs to
understand the importance of HR in an organisation (Cascio, 2015).
Current issues and future plans for growth
Chocolate preference's HR has recruited staff on the basis of a test which includes
English comprehension and maths, which is not being used too much in an organisation like
chocolate preference. The organisation should recruit person having knowledge of food industry.
HR was not showing fairness towards the applicants and was recruiting them on the basis of
references and the test which results in unskilled employees for the organisation. References can
be considered up-to a level, but a recruitment must be basis on skills of the applicant, if the
applicant is having skills to work efficiently in the organisation then reference doesn't matter a
lot (Chelladurai and Kerwin, 2018). All the applicants were not treated equally in the test, so this
should be changed and each applicant should be given equal chance to prove himself that he is
perfect for the organisation. Chocolate preference should undertake these steps to overcome
problems like this.
Company is planning to hire people from external sources such as recruitment agencies
and website. This would be cost effective and would help in hiring most deserving candidate in
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the firm. Apart from this, Chocolate presence is planning to gives incentives and flexible
working hours in order to motivate people. This will help them in balancing personal and
professional life which will support in retaining staff in the business for longer duration and this
would be better for the firm for growing well in the future.
b. Strength and weakness of selection methods:
The selection method adopted by the chocolate presence was interview
Strength Weakness
In an interview method, any mistake made by
the applicant can be rectified easily at the time
as interviewer and interviewee physically
present before the interview board. In a
business, executives need to solve different
types of problems, to find out the actual
reasons behind any problem, interview method
is being preferred (Noe and et.al., 2015).
While it has some disadvantages too like in
case of the interview some confusion may be
arise in future as there are no evidence actually
that are being discussed in the interview.
Chocolate presence was having interviews in
an informal manner which leads to many
consequences (DeCenzo and et.al., 2016).
Interview should be in a formal way where the
competency and efficiency of the candidate can
be determined. In chocolate presence interview
was being done by biases of interviewer which
results in failure of selection of deserving
candidate. This inefficiency by an interviewer
leads to misleading results. The inequality
showed by the interviewer was the major issue
in selection of deserving candidate. It is a time
consuming method.
Another method which was adopted by chocolate presence was selection test method.
Strength Weakness
It helps in determining a candidate's ability to It has similar weakness like biasses towards the
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perform specific tasks. Selection test aims to
replicate actual job tasks or situations to
determine that, is the candidate has the skills,
experience and qualification to carry out the
organisations work responsibilities. Selection
test on English and Maths reduces operational
costs by aligning the right candidate for the job
(Reiche and et.al., 2016). Allowing for
informed decisions regarding training
opportunities, and are less likely to differ by
gender or race than other selection processes.
candidates by the people who are conducting
the test, this can falsify the results of the test
and it may also give unreliable results if used
by incompetent persons. This was a major issue
in the selection process which was conducted
previously by chocolate presence. The subjects
which were opted for the test , which were
maths and English comprehension were
somewhere different from the organisations
work as chocolate presence is an organisation
dealing in food products, so the subject of the
test should be from the food industry and
processing of the products being produced by
chocolate presence (Stewart and Brown, 2019).
c. Improvement made in selection process:
Selection process changes that are to made, should be implemented as soon as possible as
it is being noticed that the chocolate presence is facing a problem of high revenue and feedbacks
of the customers are too not acceptable. Chocolate presence should ensure that individuals
involved in the process of selection are trained, including test proctors, interviewer and
administrators. Training of an interviewer is to be done to ensure effective and consistency in
interviewing techniques (Wilton, 2016). Interviewer should not be bias with the candidates
appearing the interview, deserving candidates are to be selected who can work effectively as per
the chocolate presence requirements. Interview is a time consuming method of selection,
chocolate presence can use internal interview to save time.
In order to make stability of the employees, a tenure or a contract of one year should be
signed. This will improve the stability of the employees. With this there should be a quality
analyst who is going to take care of the products that are being produced are up-to the mark or
not (Sage.Reiche and et.al., 2016). This will help in improving the quality of the products which
will results in customer satisfaction that leads to increase in supply of products and increase in
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rate of profits. Candidates having skills to work efficiently with chocolate presence should be
selected and to be trained so that production can be increased with the best quality.
Selection test should be conducted as per the skills' requirement in chocolate presence.
English and maths are not to be concentrated too much as a subject in selection test. Subjects
consisting of food industry knowledge must be included in the selection test. No biasses should
be done in the selection test, each candidate should be treated equally (Employee engagement,
2017).
TASK 2
a Vacancy for receptionist in CHOCOLATE PRESENCE COMPANY:
CHOCOLATE PRESENCE COMPANY need a member in their company who can
manage their front office tasks as receptionist. In Chocolate Presence company the receptionist
will represent their company with politeness to customers and visitors and should leave a great
impression on them (Bratton and Gold, 2017).
JOB TITLE RECEPTIONIST
REPORTS TO HR
ROLES AND RESPONSIBILITIES Manage front desk task
QUALIFICATION Graduate in any stream
JOB PROFILE RECEPTIONIST/FRONT OFFICE
DESK
DATE: 8/07/2019
ESSENTIAL DESIRABLE MET
EXPERIENCE LEVEL
REQUIRED
AL LEAST 1 YEAR
Yes
More than 1 year
expedience will be
considered more.
PERSONAL
CHARACTERISTICS AND
Yes Pleasing personality will
be given more preference.
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CONDUCT.
 Good communication skill.
 Well versed with English.
 Respectable attitude
towards guests.
 Skill to maintain task and
work as multitask-er.
 Ensure safety and security.
ROLES AND
RESPONSIBILITIES
 To attend guest.
 Guide visitors.
 Maintain receptionist
areas.
 Attend call on daily basis
and provide them
information.
 Check mails, update office
expenses and perform
clerical task.
Yes
To perform other task as
well which are not
mentioned related to front
office desk work.
PROFILE QUALIFICATION
REQUIRED
Graduation
Post Graduation
Knowledge of computer
MS Office
Yes
Graduation from any field.
Masters in receptionist
will be given more
preference.
b. Benefits and limitations of advertising jobs
Internal job advertisement
Benefits from internal job advertisement : Limitation from internal job advertisement:
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Chocolate Presence company has advantage to
recruit internally within organization which will
be cheaper for the company (DeCenzo and et.al.,
2016). And the existing employee will have
chance to get promotion which will motivate
them. Employee capabilities are also known by
the company.
Company can not get fresh talent. The company
will create new vacancy and it may demotivate
the employee present within Chocolate Presence
company for not appointing them (Noe and
et.al.,2017).
External job advertising
Benefits to external job advertising : By posting
job on noticeboard at entrance of
Chocolate Presence the company will able
to get more candidate suitable for the
profile and will able to get right person for
right profile. Job posting through
noticeboard is available for 24 hours and
anyone from anywhere can contact and it
makes easy to apply and it will not cost
more to the company (Sage.Reiche and
et.al., 2016). By advertisement through
noticeboard the candidate knows the
requirement of the company. Noticeboard
helps company to spell the application to
people around the chocolate Presence area
and also helps in company marketing by
providing email the company ensure the
responses from candidates.
Limitation from external job advertisement:
Chocolates Presence company receives more
unwanted applications through noticeboard
which does not even matches with the job profile
of Chocolate Presence company. Through
noticeboard posting of job does not make sure of
vacancy filling quicker (Berman and et.al.,
2019). External job posting gives rise of
application from all over places as people from
other part of country also apply with the help of
information spell out through noticeboard.
Chocolate presence company has to make its
recruitment profile very attractive so that
candidate gets attracted to the profile and the
company will receive more and more
applications. Mails given on noticeboard to
contact with company for job to take interview
online which does not help Chocolate Presence
company to know properly about candidate.
External recruitment also increase the chance of
recruiting the candidate which are not skilful for
the profile which are need in person to work with
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that profile (Cascio, 2015).
c. Different job adverts and their reasons to use
 ONLINE ADVERTISING: Chocolate Presence could use online advertisement through
different websites or digital marketing which attract job seekers from whole world.
Registering Chocolates Presence company on Job portal where job hunting and seeking
are easier for both of them. Chocolate Presence company advertise through online job
advertisement in order to get good receptionist, it will help company advertising expenses
cheaper and it also creates company marketing through job advertisement (Chelladurai
and Kerwin, 2018).
 SOCIAL MEDIA: Advertising through social media attract professionals and social
media is platform where millions of people visit sites and gets information of many other
job vacancy availability. Chocolate presence can advertise through social media where
the chance to get attract by candidate are more and it makes easier for the company to get
connected to candidate and helps to about him with full information and to know his
background so that person can work better as receptionist.
 NEWSPAPER: Newspaper is also good form for job advertisement as it has classified
section for job vacancy through this Chocolate Presence company could get candidates
easily. Chocolate Presence companies advertisement through newspaper provides
information to people through where ever the newspaper has been distributed in different
areas which benefits company to spell the information of vacancy of receptionist easily
(DeCenzo and et.al., 2016).
 REFERENCES: By asking for reference company saves its money for advertisement and
gets quicker candidate within its known network. Chocolate presence company can get
references through their employee who are currently working in company. As it makes
easier for the company to recruit receptionist by references as it makes easier to follow
the steps of recruitment process. Preference will be given from professional references.
 Mobile and browsing application: Another effective method for advertisement is through
mobile that is the Chocolate Presence company could call and get candidate who are
interested in receptionist job and another method is through browsing application where
the candidates register themselves to get connected to the companies that are providing
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jobs (Cascio, 2015). Chocolate Presence company can use this method as it is not costlier
for the company but it is required to make browsing application of Chocolates Presence
company so that candidate can easily get through it. App should be made in more
attractive way so that the candidates get attracted towards it and they can easily figure out
company profile with Chocolates Presence company application.
TASK 3
TASK 3
a. Evaluation of benefits of graduate training scheme and internships for Organisation and
employee.
Internship means a intern and trainee work in the Company in order to gain work
experience. Sometime its paid and sometime its not pay. Microsoft provide internship for the
trainee to gain experience in starting of the career.
Benefits of internship- (employee) gain hand on work experience which are not obtained in
class room setting. Which is a most important benefits of internship for a employee In addition to
learn specialize skills of particular and, team work and real life job experience for a trainee.
Internship help employee to find their carrier path in the Microsoft and help the workers to find
the job. Internship experience help the workers to find the job in the market. Internship program
help the employee to learn about the weakness and the strength of itself and Microsoft provides
the opportunity to overcome it (DeCenzo and et.al., 2016). At the time of internship trainee
surrounded by the professionals in the Microsoft which help to create a network of the
professional person's and this kind of network help the employee to find the in the Microsoft.
Microsoft provide internship which help him find future employees. In the time of the internship
Microsoft take the advantage of the low cost labour from the trainee. Microsoft also provides the
free internships which gives the free labour (Reiche and et.al., 2016). Internship program help
the Microsoft to improve the work environment, lighter workload of the employee. It improves
the leadership skills of the current employees of the Microsoft because they supervise the intern.
Intern comes with the new and fresh ideas which help the Microsoft company to apply the new
ideas for the business improvement. Internship program helps the Microsoft company to find
new talented employee for the employee which help them to grow in the market.
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b. Identify the Microsoft's flexible working arrangement for the staff and evaluate the benefits of
those to both Microsoft and employee.
Microsoft is the multinational technological company and there are thousand of employee
working their. Microsoft provide the same flexible working arrangement for the employees like
Telecommuting, Remote working, Customized working hours, part-time positions etc.
 Telecommuting:- telecommuting is also known as the work from home. Microsoft
provide this flexible working arrangement to the employees which gives them a choice to
work according its own environment and give time for work according its flexibility. This
working arrangement help for Microsoft to increase the productivity and the quality of
the work and also help the Microsoft to retain the employee in the company (Sage.Reiche
and et.al., 2016).
 Remote working:- remote working is known as the employee is working from the
company but never comes in the office and work for the company from any part of the
world. Remote working helps the employee to balance the life and work according to
own ways. It is time and money saving in the employee. Microsoft provide the remote
working for the employee which help him to increase the productivity without adding
cost of the office and it helps the Microsoft to work with worldwide employees (Wilton,
2016). It helps employee in increasing their flexibikity and also creates loyalty of workers
 Customized working hours:- customize working hours are knows as the employees are
decided the working hours according to its own choice. Some people like to work in
morning and some like in evening so it helps the employees to work according to its own
time which they want. Microsoft provide the Customized working hours for employee's
which help them to retain the employee and improve the work efficiency (Chelladurai
and Kerwin, 2018).
 Part-time positions:- Many people want to not work for the full day and they work for
the part-time. Part-time positions help the employees to do other work in free time and
spend time with the family. Microsoft provides part-time positions for the employees
which is low payrolls costs for the company and they don't take other benefits of the
company.
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c. Evaluate how Microsoft motivates its employee's through the way
Microsoft always motivates its employee in regular basis to maintain the company's work
environment and it uses these strategies to motivate the employee.
 Physiological needs:- Microsoft take care of the Physiological needs like air, water and
company provide comfortable working condition, reasonable work hours and necessary
breaks to the employee. These things create a good atmosphere in the Microsoft and
motivate the employees for the work and they enjoy their own work. In this company
can design Job role according to basic needs of employees.
 Safety needs:- Microsoft provides the Personal security, financial security. Good health
benefits for the employee's and manager takes care of it. This kind of safety motivate the
employee's that company with them in any condition and then they work for the company
for the long time period (Noe and et.al., 2015). They can design job role by laying
emphasis on safety aspects of people.
 Social needs:- in the Microsoft the atmosphere is good for the employees. Company
provides the good working environment and also the employees are socialized with the
each other which help them to work and create a good environment in the company. They
need to design job role by laying emphasis on cultural and belief aspects of all people.
 Esteem needs:- Esteem are known as the self respect which they earn in the company.
Microsoft gives the respect to the employees and create the environment that all gives the
respect to the each other. These things help the employee to feels good, respectful and
motivated in the company and they give 100% for the company (Reiche and et.al., 2016).
In this job role can be design by putting right person on right job.
 Self actualization need:- self actualization are known as how capable are you for doing
something. Microsoft provide the work to the employee according to the capability and
also take care of it that the individual person is capable for that or not. It improves the
work efficiency of the employee.
These things Microsoft do for motivate the employees and take care of the needs of the
employees and provides the good facility which they need in the work and they feel motivated
and work for the company for the long time (Cascio, 2015).
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TASK 4
a. Employee engagement:
Employee relationship is a relationship between the employees and organisation. An
engaged worker defined as the one who is totally dedicated to their work and takes positive
action for the welfare of company. It helps to reduce the turnover of the company and
increase the productivity and profitability of the company. It provides growth, recognition
and clarity on workplace to the workers (Brewster, 2017).
Illustration 1: employee engagement
(source: Employee engagement,2017)
Importance of effective employee engagement:
Engagement is the important factor for the HR variables in number of organisations. It
helps to gain a competitive advantage by deliver a superior performance. Some advantages are
following:
Relationship with manager: Microsoft management maintain an open communication
with their employees and gaining their trusts, it is the best way to keep engaged employees. It
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helps to achieve huge success through feel them secure in the work environment and it leads to
better productivity and performance of the employees (Employee engagement, 2017).
Fair compensation: Microsoft employees are being paid as per their performance and on
basis of industry standard rate it is another way to keep them engaged. In the Microsoft if the
being paid more than his peer, it will be encouraged to preforms better and earn more. Having a
distinct guideline that links to pay to performance in a transparent can making an employee feels
that they receiving fair treatment.
Recognition: Being recognized for contribution to the company's goal is one of the
essential factor that leads to effective employee-engagement. The management of Microsoft has
responsibility to provide reward or recognized their employees for good performance or
achieving their targets, it helps to encourage the employees and they feel that their hard work is
not going to nothing (Reiche and et.al., 2016).
b. Approaches discussed in summit:
There are many approaches discussed in summit to engaging workers like establish an
open communication, empowerment to achieve more efficient performance.
Through establishment of open communication between the employees of the
organisation and management leads everyone to be on same aspect, moving towards the same
diction and goals. Effective communication appears easy but it takes tons of efforts. Organisation
should routinely talk about the goals of company to their employees, it creates accountability for
both employees and management. When an organisation creates an open environment, it leads to
increases job satisfaction and reducing stress and develop loyalty and mutual respects, it
generates more productive work environment (Chelladurai and Kerwin, 20180.
Empowerment and Engagement has inverse relation, having a higher empowerment
means to higher employee-engagement, employees empowerment fuels to employee-
engagement. According to summit's statement Empowerment is the quality of workers to be
directly involves in and have persuasion on their activity. Employee empowerment providing
authority to workers to making decision about their job, means providing an authority to them to
decide goal, plan, values etc. Employee-empowerment has benefit to organisation in order to
retain staff in the firm for longer duration (Brewster, 2017).
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Through employee flexibility in working environment, it helps to attract the employees
and in retaining of talent. Many employees were trying to balance their work time and personal
time, by allowing them facility of work from home or working on different shifts may help them
to retained themselves very effective manner, it pulls employees toward the positive attitude
from work and staff which turns increases in productivity of employees and retention.
c. UK employment legislation
The leading aspects of UK employment legislation that are covered by the law are
contract of Working Time Regulations Act 1998, anti-discrimination and labour law etc.
Labour law 1996: UK labour law regulates relation between workers, trade unions and
employers. People at work in UK benefits from a minimum charter of employment rights, which
are majorly found in every act. This includes the right to minimum wage of £8.21 for over 25
years old under the national minimum wage act. Labour law act influenced decision of Hr of
Microsoft as now HR has to give rights to union leaders and they can present issues of
employees in front of higher authorities and management has to listen their views and have to
resolve it (Noe and et.al., 2015).
Anti-Discrimination Law 1975: UK employment equality law which legislates against
prejudice-based actions at the workplace. As per the UK employment equality law, it is unlawful
to discriminates against a person because they have one of the protected characteristics, which
are gender, age, disability, marriage and civil partnership. HR of the Microsoft has to ensure that
no discrimination is taking place. It has to make changes in their promotion and recruitment
decisions and have to ensure that all people get equal opportunities in the organisation (Stewart
and Brown, 2019).
In UK employment legislation there is law of Working Time Regulations Act 1998: In this
law, there is 28 holidays in year are entailed, 20 minutes breaks for each 6 hours are necessary.
And maximum 8 hours work on any given night. The law impact on decision of HR of Microsoft
as training decisions may get influenced because this now company has to make its workers
inform about working hours schedule so that they can manage their work accordingly and can
balance person and professional life.
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CONCLUSION
From the above study, it has been concluded about the purpose and scope of HRM and
about recruitment and selection and the application of HRM practices in imaginary scenario of
chocolate presence company. In such scenario there is an explanation on functions of HR and
strength and weakness of selection process with the example of particular company. In the next
task file discussed about pros and cons of job advertising, and evaluation of benefits on schemes
in organisation, and way of motivation used by Microsoft. In the end, discussion is about
employees’ engagement and empowerment. And UK employees’ legislation were discussed
above.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
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Publishers.
Brewster, C. 2017. Policy and practice in european human resource management: The Price
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Cascio, W. F. 2015. Managing human resources. McGraw-Hill.
Chelladurai, P. and Kerwin. 2018. Human resource management in sport and recreation. Human
Kinetics.
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Online
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