Human Resource Management Practices

The provided document is an extensive compilation of human resource management (HRM) practices, covering a wide range of topics related to the field. It includes references to various books, articles, and research papers that provide insights into HRM practices and their impact on organizational performance. The document is likely intended for students or professionals in the field of HRM who want to deepen their understanding of HRM practices and their application in real-world scenarios.

RUNNING HEAD: HRM Assignment 0
best buy
HRM Assignment

HRM Assignment 1
Executive summary
Best Buy is a larger retailer of consumer electronics and working so effectively that it is used
as an example of strategic management in other companies. This report deals with one of
the human resource management strategy which is used in the case study known as ROWE
(Results Only Work Environment). The employees have expressed their comfort by applying
ROWE. The company is benefitted by adapting new style of working. The report includes
range of organisational stakeholders and environmental factors influencing Best Buy. These
environmental factors can reduce the impact of ROWE. SHRM theories and selection
methods are discussed with HR manager. The strategic reward approaches are also
suggested to the manager of Best Buy.

HRM Assignment 2
Contents
Executive summary................................................................................................................ 1
Introduction............................................................................................................................ 3
Range of organisational stakeholders....................................................................................3
Environmental factors influencing Best Buy............................................................................3
Economic............................................................................................................................ 3
Social.................................................................................................................................. 4
Technology......................................................................................................................... 5
SHRM theories....................................................................................................................... 5
Selection methods ensuring most appropriate candidates.....................................................5
Interviews........................................................................................................................... 6
Judgement through realistic situation..................................................................................6
General mental ability.........................................................................................................6
Strategic reward approaches to retain key employees...........................................................7
Flexible working hours........................................................................................................7
Environment for development and training..........................................................................7
Appropriate rewards and benefits.......................................................................................7
Conclusion............................................................................................................................. 8
References............................................................................................................................. 9

HRM Assignment 3
Introduction
Best buy is a leading American company in providing technology products, services and
technology. Now it’s merchandise is expanded into gadgets such as DVDs, video games,
software and household appliances such as hair dryer, washing machine and refrigerator.
The head quarter of the company is located in USA. It is the largest retailer of U.S.
consumer electronics retail industry. Best Buy gained importance from it’s first music store in
1966. The annual sales of company have reached to 40 billion dollars in 2012 and it
continuously keeps on increasing as long as people are relied on technology. The company
is seeking for proficient human resource management, one of which is ROWE (Results Only
work Environment). In this system, employees are not restricted to work in formal working
hours. They can complete tasks by their own anywhere. They do not have need to go out for
work. To develop effective plans, SHRM (Strategic Human Resource Management) advice
is given to HR managers to analyse interest of organisational stakeholders and
environmental factors that would impact Best Buy (Rauch & Hatak, 2016).
Range of organisational stakeholders
Stakeholders are persons who have interest in company. They are affected by the
performance of company. The stakeholders of Best buy are government, employees,
customers and shareholders. The government is performing well due to the large
contribution made by company in the form of funds. The part of the profits of company is
deducted in the form of various taxes by government. The smooth functioning of company
leads to the good performance of government (Banfield, Kay & Royles, 2018). The
customers heavily rely on the performance of company. It harms interest of customers if the
performance of company goes wrong. Best Buy has a wide global network with great
number of suppliers and creditors. These parties will face difficulties if the company runs into
trouble. The internal stakeholders of company are employees and stakeholders. The bonus
and incentives depend on the productivity of employees. The factors related to the lives of
employees are controlled by managers. The shareholder who influences by financial
performance of company puts money with the aim of making profit (Kontoghiorghes, 2016).
They lose the amount of capital when results do not live up to the amount of expectation.
Sometimes they even have to sacrifice own money to pay liabilities of company.

HRM Assignment 4
Environmental factors influencing Best Buy
PEST Analysis
Economic
There are no hidden economic conditions in U.S. and most of the operations of Best Buy are
in U.S. only. The company is affected by the economic slowdown and is facing challenges
related to consumers at various points of market. The fatal crisis happened four years ago
resulted in stable growth not speedy. The global demand for the products of Best Buy has
been increased by 3.1% in 2015 and 3.4% in 2016. There is opportunity for people to invest
and generate profits on national and international scale. The persons who have larger
budget shows interest in buying convenience goods, luxury goods and commodities which
they only like and do not actually need it. According to a survey conducted in California,
Circuit City is one of the main competitors of Best Buy. 60% customers revealed that they
came to buy electronic goods that they did not use actually. The customers who have
maintained better living standards have benefited the company in the past years (Storey,
2014).
The company faces change because of the gradual growth of market. It lowers price for
energy and commodities. If the company were producer of electronic goods, it could take
advantage of gradual growth with lower cost. It leads to lower price and helps in attaining
competitive strength in market (Jorgenson, Gollop & Fraumeni, 2016). Best Buy is the
biggest retailer in U.S. and lower prices of products can put burden on the profits of
company.
Social
The social factors discusses about value, belief and lifestyle of persons. Best Buy uses
customer centricity model to conduct activities of it’s business. It helps to understand
customer needs and behaviors. Now a days people are becoming more dependent on
technology and out of which big machines like cars, televisions, dish washers and small
machines like smartphones and laptops. The travellers can be hardly seen to read
newspapers instead they stick to the phones and surfs websites and social networks on the
subways. Children are more exposed to online material and uses electronic equipment at an
early age. The specialised products of company receive highest attention from old and new
customers. The company need to be sure about demand and focus on exploiting it’s
resources in production (Armstrong & Taylor, 2014).

HRM Assignment 5
The consumers are showing awareness on spending money whether it’s truly spent or not. It
is because some people do not stop when they have already purchased a product. People
tend to grow favour for brands that funds for charities and social events. Even if the
customers do not go to store to buy anything of that brand. If the companies generating
huge amount of profits do anything to increase number of customers and pay no notice to
society. They may end up being criticised and rejected. For instance, Vedan factories
illegally dumped wastage in Vietnam in the year 2005. The housewives immediately shifted
to Ajinomotto which has a better clean background.
Technology
Technology helps in assisting performance of Best Buy. It helped company to increase
number of orders by 35% in 2011. It was made possible only after internet began to work, as
the company received increased number of orders through internet. Technology made
promotion and marketing easier for Best Buy. The whole process from receiving order to
delivering products is done by computer (Stone, Deadrick, Lukaszewski & Johnson, 2015).
The company can put it’s database into a locked account online. It can save cost of
delivering renting warehouse. The customers can express their opinions by the online
feedback system available by Best Buy. The company receives hundreds of feedbacks
without conducting any interview or questionnaires.
SWOT Analysis
BestBuy.com is the sixth largest ecommerce website of U.S.SWOT analysis of Best Buy
shows how it survives with it’s competitors like Circuit City and Radio Shack.
Strength
Best Buy has good reputation which makes customer buy electronic goods in U.S.
The company has proved ability to maintain customer loyalty.
It has strong marketing expertise in the electronics sector.
The company has good relationship with popular brands like Apple. It became the second
store in U.S to sell Apple watches after Apple store.
There is growing market in U.S economy for consumer electronic goods such as smart
phones and video games.
Weakness
Best Buy keeps limited profit margin that is 1.92%.

HRM Assignment 6
It depends heavily on supplier credit. A large percentage of products in the company are not
paid immediately. The manufacturers get the cash only when the goods are sold. If the
products does not sell than the company has to pay after a specific period of time.
The company has higher operating expenses than the online retailers in the form of rent,
taxes, utilities and employee salaries which are supposed to meet each month.
The company depends more on the sale of luxury items such as video games. The demand
of such items can easily fall when the changes occur in economy.
Opportunities
Best Buy can generate attention of media by releasing new companies such as Apple,
Google and Samsung. The companies can freely do publicity of it’s products on Best Buy.
There is growing market for electronic products such as smart phones and video games.
The growing popularity of ecommerce and disappearance of competitors like Circuit City and
Radio Shack has made Best Buy major consumer electronic retailer.
The growing popularity of Black Friday sale creates publicity and increases interest of
consumers in electronic products.
Threats
Highest discount offered by online retailers creates threat for the company such as
Amazon.com and eBay.
Aggressive discounts offered by large retailers such as Walmart and Target on electronic
goods. These retailers are cutting price of company.
Youngsters prefer to shop online than to visit stores as it is believed that the online products
are cheaper.
Declining loyalty of customers is threat for the company as customers like to shop around
and visit number of stores to make a final decision.
Changes occurring in technology make some products obsolete such as tablets and
smartphones has replaced personal computer and laptops.

HRM Assignment 7
SHRM theories
SHRM (Strategic Human Resource Management) includes organisational performance and
practices to manage labour efficiently. Such practices involve recruitment and retention. It
focuses on the methods to retain talents by incentives and rewards. SHRM theories include
two models known as Guest model and Compensation and rewards model.
Guest model was introduced by David Guest. It provides six aspects to readers to keep in
mind while analysing human resource strategies. These aspects are strategy, practice,
human resource outcomes, behaviour outcomes, performance outcomes and financial
outcomes. In the Compensation and Reward model remains same in past as today. The
rewards are considered important motivation to employees. These are equally important tool
for employers for an efficient management (Knies, Boselie, Gould-Williams & Vandenabeele,
2015).
The researches have different ways to define characteristics and processes of SHRM. It is a
human resource system works to create and maintain reliability within company. It puts more
stress on the value of group work than the individual value of each employee (Albrecht,
Bakker, Gruman, Macey & Saks, 2015). The strength, weakness, opportunities and threats
are listed before creating human resource strategy. The main purpose of strategic
management is to generate strong competitive advantage. For this, the activities of human
resource manager are focused to maximise strengths and minimise weakness (Andresen,
2015).
Selection methods ensuring most appropriate candidates
Interviews
It is never missing part of recruitment process. To judge performance of a candidate an
employer can directly raise questions in an interview. A person cannot hide true personality
by facing and sitting in front of human resource manager and staff. It is the ideal situation for
interviewers to judge true knowledge of candidates by their way of dressing and talking. The
commitment and professionalism of candidates cannot be judged in tests (Perlow & Kelly,
2014).
Candidates who are seeking to apply in high profile enterprises such as Microsoft and
Google can download the questions which are often asked from internet. Interviews have
become irreplaceable in the recruitment process (Sparrow, Brewster & Chung, 2016). .

HRM Assignment 8
Judgement through realistic situation
Interviews are useful in connecting parties through direct talk. It also provides an ideal
environment which helps to improve image of the applicant. However the working efficiency
of a candidate can only be judged by their behaviour in certain working situations and
interview lacks it.
According to this method the candidates are put in rapid situation which reflects real one in
reality. A person’s problem solving skill can only be represented only when he is put in a
realistic problem. The judges will also have consistent factor to consider before taking any
decision (Cascio, 2018).
General mental ability
The employers make use of specialised tests since knowledge and moralities are considered
requisite for any employee to work in the department he chooses. It is realised that
knowledge is not everything in good working performance (Gonzalez-Mulé, Mount & Oh,
2014). For instance, Bill Gates dropped Harvard to pursue his dream of generating software
for the computer. The software which every household can have it’s own in near future. He
did not obtain much specialised knowledge as other students. All graduates are not richer
and more successful than Bill Gates at present.
There are so many methods which are formulated and come under the form of tests but
questionnaire are considered more diversified and it can judge general abilities of
candidates. The GMA tests the mental ability of candidates which is related to every kind of
tasks in every kind of industry. The test can be taken within half an hour and consist of
familiar questions. The results depend on specified job and can be explained in many ways
(Kluemper, McLarty, Bishop & Sen, 2015).
Strategic reward approaches to retain key employees
Flexible working hours
The company has successfully applied flexible working hours approach and has received
positive response in attitude and productivity of employees. The employees feel comfortable
and stress-free when they are not bound to perform duty of 8 working hours. They can
choose to work whenever they feel like or has encouragement to do job as long as they can
meet goal (Sekaran & Bougie, 2016).
For instance after applying ROWE (Results Only Work Environment) in Netflix employees do
not count time spent in office as proxy for productivity. The employees are assigned proper

HRM Assignment 9
time and deadline in which they have to achieve goals. They are given freedom to attain
goals in a way found suitable by them. It makes vacation policy irrelevant in an organisation.
Environment for development and training
The employees prefer to shift to the jobs from which they can learn and develop multiple
skills than the usual easy jobs. Other than the remuneration the employers should provide
such working environment to employees in which they can ask questions freely and can
receive the satisfactory response (Hill, Jones & Schilling, 2014).
For instance, the employees at Facebook shift to another department after gaining
experience in a certain field. They used to attain new knowledge and never get bored from
their jobs. Google is also well-known for deducting working hours to provide training session
because the company considers teaching to employees is better and profitable investment in
future (Marchington, Wilkinson, Donnelly & Kynighou, 2016).
Appropriate rewards and benefits
There are employees who work passionately irrespective of the amount they take back. It is
unquestionable that salary and benefits at work are sources of potent motivation to
employees. So, employees devote their health and time to work hard for their employees to
have a better life. Money is the tool that can help employees to complete their wishes
(Shields, et. al. 2015).
Some companies put emphasis on financial rewards than motivations. It causes employees
to create unfair plan to get as much as money possible. For instance, in 2010, a factory of a
shoes brand NYK in Ohio decided to practice a bonus scheme on the basis of production
volume as NYK was not able to meet demand at that time. At the end of same month, the
productions of shoes get doubled and the employees got substantial rewards. But only a
third of those volumes were qualified to sell in market as the employees rushed to reach
target without showing concern for quality. Hence, an appropriate reward system should be
made financially and non-financially based on the need of employees (Bratton & Gold,
2017).
The business results of Best Buy have been amazing. ROWE is good for Best Buy because
the persons following ROWE feels every day like Saturday.
The employees can have control on every single day.
There is no judgement on the time spend by employees. It reduces the workload of HR
manager.

HRM Assignment
10
HR manager do not have need to keep track of attendance of employees.
The company do not have need to prepare work schedules.
The employees do not have need to take permission for how and where to work. They can
do work when and where they want.
Conclusion
The reputation of Best Buy brand reminds of how human resource should be managed at
organisations. Despite having busy schedule the employees of Best Buy focus on their jobs
with positive attitude. It is the result after applying ROWE that employees can freely choose
when and where to work and how to complete task before deadline. However the company
need to orient it’s employees in training process because they hardly spend time in office
and lacks communication with staff and it may lead to differences and unfamiliarity. The
company can follow steps of technology companies like Google, Apple and Google. These
companies highlight the improvement of employees.

HRM Assignment
11
References
Albrecht, S. L., Bakker, A. B., Gruman, J. A., Macey, W. H., & Saks, A. M. (2015). Employee
engagement, human resource management practices and competitive advantage: An
integrated approach. Journal of Organizational Effectiveness: People and
Performance, 2(1), 7-35.
Andresen, M. (2015). Assessing the added Value of human resource management
practices. In Human Resource Management Practices (pp. 1-13). Springer, Cham.
Armstrong, M., & Taylor, S. (2014). Armstrong's handbook of human resource management
practice. Kogan Page Publishers.
Banfield, P., Kay, R., & Royles, D. (2018). Introduction to human resource management.
Oxford University Press.
Bratton, J., & Gold, J. (2017). Human resource management: theory and practice. Palgrave.
Cascio, W. (2018). Managing human resources. McGraw-Hill Education.
Gonzalez-Mulé, E., Mount, M. K., & Oh, I. S. (2014). A meta-analysis of the relationship
between general mental ability and nontask performance. Journal of Applied
Psychology, 99(6), 1222.
Hill, C. W., Jones, G. R., & Schilling, M. A. (2014). Strategic management: theory: an
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Jorgenson, D., Gollop, F. M., & Fraumeni, B. (2016). Productivity and US economic
growth (Vol. 169). Elsevier.
Kluemper, D. H., McLarty, B. D., Bishop, T. R., & Sen, A. (2015). Interviewee selection test
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extraversion: Relationships with structured behavioral and situational interview
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Knies, E., Boselie, P., Gould-Williams, J., & Vandenabeele, W. (2015). Special issue of
International Journal of Human Resource Management: Strategic human resource
management and public sector performance.
Kontoghiorghes, C. (2016). Linking high performance organizational culture and talent
management: satisfaction/motivation and organizational commitment as

HRM Assignment
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