Harrods Human Resource Management Case Study

Explore the case study of Harrods' Human Resource Management practices, including workforce planning, recruitment, employee relations, and legal considerations. Understand the impact of HRM on Harrods' productivity and profitability.

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HARRODS HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT

Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................................3
TASK 1..........................................................................................................................................................4
P1 THE PURPOSE AND THE FUNCTIONS OF HRM, APPLICABLE TO WORKFORCE PLANNING AND
RESOURCING IN HARRODS......................................................................................................................4
P2 THE STRENGTHS AND THE WEAKNESSES OF DIFFERENT APPROACHES TO RECRUITMENT AND
SELECTION USED BY HARRODS................................................................................................................7
TASK 2..........................................................................................................................................................9
P3 THE BENEFITS OF DIFFERENT HRM PRACTICES WITHIN HARRODS FOR BOTH THE EMPLOYERS AND
EMPLOYEES.............................................................................................................................................9
P4 EVALUATING THE EFFECTIVENESS OF DIFFERENT HRM PRACTICES IN TERMS OF RAISING HARRODS’
PROFIT AND PRODUCTIVITY..................................................................................................................11
TASK 3........................................................................................................................................................13
P5 ANALYSING THE IMPORTANCE OF EMPLOYEE RELATIONS IN HARRODS WITH RESPECT TO
INFLUENCING HRM DECISION-MAKING.................................................................................................13
P6 IDENTIFYING THE KEY ELEMENTS OF EMPLOYMENT LEGISLATION AND THE IMPACT IT HAS UPON
HRM DECISION-MAKING.......................................................................................................................14
TASK 4........................................................................................................................................................16
P7 ILLUSTRATING THE APPLICATION OF HRM PRACTICES IN A WORK-RELATED CONTEXT...................16
1. JOB SPECIFICATION........................................................................................................................17
2. CURRICULUM VITAE (CV)...............................................................................................................18
3. PREPARATORY NOTES FOR INTERVIEW.........................................................................................19
4. OFFER LETTER................................................................................................................................20
5. EVALUATION OF THE PROCESS AND THE RATIONALE FOR THE CONDUCTING OF HR PRACTICES. 21
CONCLUSION.............................................................................................................................................22
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................................23

INTRODUCTION
All the organizations divide their work into various parts. One of the most important divisions of
any organization is considered as human resource department. The work of human resource
department is to manage the human resource of the organization. The activity of the
management of the human resource is to take out the planning of human resource from one
end to another (Armstrong and Taylor, 2014). Harrods are in the intention of measuring the
human resource management and its functions.
Harrods is one of the most famous luxury department store based in London. Its business
activities are being held for years. The company has a number of 4000 employees in its
organization and an extra number of agency and concession employees of about 3500. Qatar
holdings acquired Harrods from Mohamed Al-Fayed in the year 2010. The novel holders of the
company are considered to be more dedicated to all of the employees.

TASK 1
P1 THE PURPOSE AND THE FUNCTIONS OF HRM, APPLICABLE TO WORKFORCE
PLANNING AND RESOURCING IN HARRODS
Definition of HRM
The term human resource management is used to describe that organization has formal
systems within they manage their people. There is a manager appointed in this department
known as human resource manager whose responsibility is to staff and recruit employees,
design and define their work to them and compensate and benefits them accordingly (Boxall
and Purcell, 2011). Harrods’ human resource management believe in maintaining employee
relationship in the organization. Developing employees and providing them suitable training
with the intention of getting highly effective work from the employees is the most important
function of HRM in Harrods. At Harrods, the human resource management is considered as the
procedure to utilise the available skilled workforce of the organization properly and maximising
their performance level in respect to the organization’s goals, objectives and aims (Beardwell
and Thompson, 2014). According to the 35th US president John F. Kennedy, “Our progress as a
nation can be no swifter than our progress in education. The human mind is our fundamental
resource.”
Purpose of HRM
The purpose of the human resource management of an organization is to enhance the
organization’s productivity by optimizing the performance of employees and increase their
effectiveness of doing work. The human resource management is considered as successful
when it creates a healthy bridge between the workforce and line management of the
organization (Bratton and Gold, 2012). The key functions of workforce management of an
organization such as Harrods are as follows:
 The main purpose of the HRM of the organization is to manage internal customers and
create an external relationship with them.

 Keeping the working environment of an organization safe and healthy for employees is
another purpose of HRM.
 Measuring the performance of employees in accordance with the desired results and is
the main principle of HRM.
 One of the important purposes of HRM is to manage the cultural difference in the
organization effectively aims (Beardwell and Thompson, 2014).
Functions of HRM
The functions of HRM of Harrods are divided into 5 major types which are discussed as follows:
Figure: Human resource management functions
[Source: https://www.keka.com/5-major-functions-human-resource-management/]
Recruitment and selection: Recruiting highly efficient workforce by appealing, viewing, and
choosing probable and competent candidates based on an objective criterion for an exacting
work.

Orientation: The process where HRM of the organizations helps novel employees of the
organization to adjust to an environment with work is considered as orientation.
Maintaining good working conditions: Maintaining good working conditions for employees is
the most important function aims (Beardwell and Thompson, 2014).
Managing employee relations: Managing highly effective relations with employees helps the
organization to work effectively.
Training and development: Providing high training and development to employees will help the
organization to increase the skills and knowledge of employees that will result in effective
output.
(Armstrong and Taylor, 2014)

P2 THE STRENGTHS AND THE WEAKNESSES OF DIFFERENT APPROACHES TO
RECRUITMENT AND SELECTION USED BY HARRODS
The human resource management of Harrods uses different approaches for recruiting and
selecting qualified candidates. These approaches along with its strengths and weaknesses are
explained as follows:
Internal Sourcing
The recruitment process of internal sourcing refers to advertising the novel vacated position in
the organization and the employees already working in the organization can apply for the post.
Many organizations such as Harrods are using this technique as there is no or very less need of
training required in this method. This process also helps the organizations to invest less or no
expenses for recruitment. It also helps the organizations with trustworthy employees but it
limits the organization in terms of the new skilled workforce (Brewster and Mayrhofer, 2012).
This method limits the management to select from a limited number of candidates.
External Sourcing
The recruitment process of external sourcing is done by the organization when the vacated
position cannot be filled with existing employees and there is a need for new employees for the
organization. This process requires tools such as trade journal announcements, newspaper and
pamphlets advertisements, job portals and boards, etc. This method limits the organizations
with respect to expenses as it is an expensive method and it does not guarantee high skilled
employees. The candidates applying for the job may be fresher or less experienced or
experienced with small business organizations (Brewster and Mayrhofer, 2012). The
technicality and speciality of the position allow the organization to recruit current employees in
the external sourcing. This method is so expensive that it limits the management to select from
applying candidates whether they are suitable or not.
Third-Party Sourcing
The third party sourcing is the process of recruitment that makes the organization use
placement agencies to find highly skilled candidates for the organization. It saves much time.

Placement agencies use best methods to find the best candidate. This method becomes very
expensive for the organizations as sometimes placement companies charge very high cost
(Brewster and Mayrhofer, 2012). The agencies offer flexible benefits packages to employees
that attract employees towards the company.
Interviewing/Pre-Selection
This process allows organizations to select from applying candidates and then again
interviewing them on a different basis. This method makes the organization to not focus only
on credentials of the candidate but also on other scenarios. This is the best process an
organization can adapt to recruit employees as it provides them with a highly skilled workforce
(Brewster and Mayrhofer, 2012). This process is so time-consuming for the organization as it
sometimes causes to the effectivity of the job.
Candidate Selection
The organizations use the interview notes in this process and compare the candidates with their
resume. This process allows organizations to select the candidates on the basis of the way they
answer the questions (Brewster and Mayrhofer, 2012). This can be effective and sometimes
also the meaningless process of recruitment for the organization.

TASK 2
P3 THE BENEFITS OF DIFFERENT HRM PRACTICES WITHIN HARRODS FOR
BOTH THE EMPLOYERS AND EMPLOYEES
The HRM practices are divided into the basic 9 elements and these elements along with their
benefits are discussed as follows:
Planning and assessment: This is the practice adopted by the organizations to forecast and
schedule the goals, plans, performance and training of the organization and then assessing the
performance of employees on the basis of planned schedule (Snape and Redman, 2010).
Individual and group improvement: The HRM practice termed as individual and group
development refers to the identification of the need for the development of skills and
knowledge of employees and fulfilling that needs. This helps the organization to gain
employees trust and increase the work productivity and efficiency (Meredith Belbin, 2011).
Career Planning: This practice makes the organization to help employees to learn potentials
and then match those with the future work. This will result in increased work satisfaction for
employees.
Hiring: The process of recruiting best employees for the vacant post will help the organization
to speed up the work process and efficiency of the work with highly efficient workforce (Snape
and Redman, 2010).
Paving the Career way: This process benefits the employers to know the qualifications of
employees and makes them more qualified related to work with the intention of making them
more career-oriented (Kaufman, 2010).

Succession Planning: The HRM practice of succession planning helps the employer to identify
the roles of employees, determining their performance level and requirements and planning to
assign the work for future (Snape and Redman, 2010).
Job Design: Determining the best methods to accomplish the work is the HRM practice that
helps employers to pre-design the solutions to particular problems.
Classification: Classifying employees according to their role and work helps the employers to
decide the appropriate salary range to be offered to the employees (Fong, et. al. 2011).
Compensation/Recognition/Other Rewards: Rewarding and compensating employees at times
helps the employers to gain trust and satisfaction from employees that will result in more
efficient work in future by employees (Kaufman, 2010).

P4 EVALUATING THE EFFECTIVENESS OF DIFFERENT HRM PRACTICES IN
TERMS OF RAISING HARRODS’ PROFIT AND PRODUCTIVITY
The HRM of Harrods performs many practices and functions as discussed above. These
practices play an important role in Harrods for increasing the profit and productivity of the
organization. The evaluation of these practices will help Harrods’ management to recognize the
market position of the company and its brand value in the UK market. This will benefit the
organization in terms of identifying the need for different factors to enhance the productivity
and profit for the organization (Fong, et. al. 2011). Many organizations use different models for
evaluating the HRM practices. The model used here is Hamblin’s Model of evaluation.
Figure: Hamblin’s Model of Evaluation
[Source: https://anjuthomasbims.wordpress.com/2015/12/14/training-evaluation/]
This model helped the management of Harrods to evaluate the effectiveness of different HRM
practices and its effectiveness in terms of profit and productivity for the organization. This
evaluation is discussed as follows:

 Effectiveness Of Praising The Employees’ Performance
It is considered as an HRM practice to appraise employees regarding their performance and
great work. The human resource managers of Harrods are most likely to praise their employees
by evaluating their work and improvement rate. This process makes employees to feel satisfied
towards their work and to trust more on the organization which will result in high effective
outputs for the company (Patel and Cardon, 2010). This process also helps the organization to
motivate employees to increase their work efficiency that will all return in the improved
performance of employees which will in return result in the increased productivity for the
organization. This whole process and increased productivity will make Harrods generate a high-
profit ratio.
 Effectiveness Of Motivating Employees
As discussed, praising the performance of employees is a type of indirect motivation, but apart
from this, there are many types of motivation direct and indirect both that an HR and
management of organization provides to employees. Harrods and its HR managers also provide
motivation such as internal and external motivation to employees. This motivation technique
helps the employees to increase their performance level by trusting more on the organizational
way of work (Patel and Cardon, 2010). This also makes them satisfied and secure regarding
their work and working environment which always return to the better work performance. The
better work performance affects the productivity of the organization in a positive way and this
effect results in the generation of high-profit ration for Harrods.

TASK 3
P5 ANALYSING THE IMPORTANCE OF EMPLOYEE RELATIONS IN HARRODS
WITH RESPECT TO INFLUENCING HRM DECISION-MAKING
People working together in an organization required to talk and discuss things with each other.
It is very important for them to work together and be comfortable with each other to achieve a
common goal. The importance of employee relations if Harrods are discussed as follows:
 There are times when individuals are not able to make decisions alone on various issues.
They all need some supervision from their team members and superiors. It is possible
that sometimes team members provide solutions and ideas to some specific problems
which one missed out. One cannot always find where he goes wrong on his own. There
is always a need for people who can act as a supporter and correct the issues (Yang, et.
al. 2011).
 Employee relations in Harrods are maintained by sharing the work. Employees at
Harrods consider the ease of working while the work is shared. Dividing the
responsibility has made the employees eager to work (Karanges, et. al. 2015).
 Healthy employer and employee relations make the working organization as a family.
Harrods is considered as a family to its employees. This helps the HR of the organization
to make their employees work effectively with a positive attitude (Sparrow and Cooper,
2012).
 Healthy employee relationship makes the employee trust to the management and this
also motivates and encourages him to work effectively to achieve desired goals
(Karanges, et. al. 2015).
 The most beneficial thing an organization receives is that there is less absenteeism it
faces because of good employee relations. Harrods is known for high availability of
workforce all the time (Yang, et. al. 2011).

 Healthy employee relationship is equivalent to healthy and safe working environment.
This discourages the conflicts in the organizations and increases the safety at working
place.

P6 IDENTIFYING THE KEY ELEMENTS OF EMPLOYMENT LEGISLATION AND
THE IMPACT IT HAS ON HRM DECISION-MAKING
Harrods adopt the legal and regulatory framework to improve the activities of human resource
and to reduce the negative impacts in the organization. The functions of Harrods as an
organization such as Recruitment, selection, Planning, rewards, processing of salary, proper
working environment, terms, conditions, rules, regulations, etc. should be done according to
the legislation and framework designed by the government. The focus of human resource
management should be situated on the establishment of equality among employees. Harrods is
known for its non-discrimination (Skedinger, 2010). The equality in the organization can be
established by providing equal opportunities to employees regardless of their caste, colour,
religion, creed, gender, etc. In context to Harrods, the legal and regulatory issues are focused
on the ethical standards. Harrods may face some legal problems if it does not follow the
guidelines properly. A legal act designed by a government known as Equality act 2010 is
considered by Harrods which is based on the non-discrimination among the employees. Other
than this, some special considerations regarding the factors such as privacy, ethical policies, and
intellectual property rights should be considered by the organization to guarantee acquiescence
for the lawful and rigid agreement for the business.
Harrods recruit employees by considering the employee's contract with them. This contract is
designed for Harrods management and employees by considering the legal and regulatory
frameworks. There are some situations where this contract is terminated and this termination
is based on some legal and regulatory framework and both the parties are liable to follow this
rules and framework or the other party is free to take any legal action. One example can be
taken as the organization is free to terminate employees in the form of economic dismissal if
and only if there are some economic failures suffered by the organization and it is not able to
handle such a huge workforce (Shields, et. al. 2015).
Some of the guidelines to be followed by Harrods in case of economic dismissal are as follows:

 If company dismiss the employee on the basis of economic dismissal, the company is
liable to pay the amount equivalent to 30 days of work to employees.
 Companies also sign a contract according to the legal and regulatory framework may
also consider a condition where the company pays the amount equal to the work of 1
month to the employees working from 1 year and pays the amount equals to the work
of 2 months to the employees working for more than 1 year.
Apart from these legal framework rules, Harrods also follows some basic lawful acts also knows
as companies act and these acts are as follows:
 Equality act
 Employees provident fund act
 The maternity benefit act
 Health and safety at workplace


TASK 4
P7 ILLUSTRATING THE APPLICATION OF HRM PRACTICES IN A WORK-
RELATED CONTEXT
Harrods’ human resource management perform various HRM practices to make the
organization achieve its objective successfully. These practices as follows:
 Recruitment And Selection
The most important practice of HRM of any organization is to recruit and select the best
candidate for the organization. This recruiting and selecting are done according to the
requirements of the organization.
 Training And Development
After the process of recruitment and selection, the management is liable to provide proper
training to employees to related work and develop their skills with respect to organization’s
objectives.
In context to Harrods’ the application of these practices are described as follows:

1. JOB SPECIFICATION
Harrods' job specification regarding the post of human resource executive is as follows:
ASSOCIATION HARRODS
Position Human Resource Executive
Job type Full Time
Work Experience Minimum 5 years
Skills required High managing virtues
headship virtues
Good Communication Skills
Qualifications’ experience Knowledge of handling on role problems
Experience in solving organizational conflicts
Handling diverse workforce
Educational qualifications Marketing or MBA degree
Management diploma

2. CURRICULUM VITAE (CV)
XYZ
Contact: +00 9999999999
Email: [e-mail]
153, East Road
Central London, UK
Career Objective: To pursue a developing career with the intention of growing and utilising the
skills for my personal as well as organizational growth.
Skill-Set:
Adaptive to changing environment
Passionate
Quick learner
Education:
Graduate in MBA
Experience:
Experience of 2 years as sales executive at Primark
Experience of 4 years of managing executive at ADA
I hereby declare that the above-mentioned information is correct up to my knowledge and
I bear the responsibility for the correctness of the above-mentioned particulars.

3. PREPARATORY NOTES FOR INTERVIEW
The documentation related to the interviews’ preparatory notes are as follows:
o Deciding the time duration for interview
o Conveying the profile of job and company’s details
o Taking the feedbacks form candidates related to interview
The criteria's to be considered by the HR manager of Harrods to select the candidate for the
position of human resource executive are:
o Education
o Qualification
o Work experience
o Managing skills
o Body language
o Perception towards problems

4. OFFER LETTER
JOB OFFER LETTER
14/01/2018
Miss MNP
Central London, UK
Dear Applicant,
Harrods is glad to notify you that the organization is offering you the position of “Human
resource executive” in one of our UK branch. We hope that you will make use of all your
experience and skill set to develop the organization. The salary discussed at the time of
interview is the final salary offered. Kindly, respond to the offer letter within 4 days of receiving
the letter. The contract on the website regarding any queries or problems.
Regards,
QPR
HR Manager
Harrods

5. EVALUATION OF THE PROCESS AND THE RATIONALE FOR THE CONDUCTING OF
HR PRACTICES
There are varieties of difficulties faced by the organization and management while performing
the suitable functions and practices of Human resource within the organization. In context to
Harrods, the HR faces many problems while planning the strategies, recruiting and selecting
employees, motivating and appraising employees, maintain employee relation, solving the
conflicts in the workplace, providing training to employees, etc. Therefore it is considered to be
very important for the organization to conduct appropriate rationale.

CONCLUSION
The above report is based on the case study of Harrods and its human resource management.
The survey taken from the employees of the organization resulted in the highly satisfied
workforce and also made the organization know about the places it lacked to satisfy its
employees. The company is benefited from this report by evaluating the internal as well as
external factors affecting the organization and its employees' work. This report will help the
human resource management of the company in various aspects related to techniques and
approaches for recruiting employees, HRM function and practices and legal and regulatory
framework adopted by the company. These functions, practices, approaches and legalities will
help the company to satisfy their employees and improve their performance in terms of
effectiveness and productivity.

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