Application of HRM models and theories to Morrison

Individual project

Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................3
Task A..............................................................................................................................................3
Application of HRM models and theories to the chosen organisation........................................3
Task B..............................................................................................................................................7
National and corporate culture.....................................................................................................7
Task C..............................................................................................................................................8
Organisational HR levers of competitive advantage...................................................................8
Task D..............................................................................................................................................9
Job design strategies....................................................................................................................9
Task E............................................................................................................................................10
Good HR practices during pandemic.........................................................................................10
Task F............................................................................................................................................11
Recommendations to the company............................................................................................11
Conclusion.....................................................................................................................................11
References......................................................................................................................................12
Online-...........................................................................................................................................13

Introduction
Human Resource Management is the concept where a manager manages the people within
organisation and other essential resources to achieve organisational target as well as to achieve
competitive advantage. There are few main roles in HR like talent management, compensation
and benefits, training and development and many others. Morrison is one of the most well known
British retailing companies which were founded in the year 1899 by William Morrison and it is
headquartered in Bradford, UK. The mission statement of the company states that the purpose of
Morrison is to guide the principles which further help the company to sharpen their approaches
and help the customers to gain high satisfaction from the company (WM MORRISON
SUPERMARKETS MISSION, VISION & VALUES, 2022). Vision of the chosen company is to
provide fresh food to the customers by their own farms and help the company to gain
competitive advantage. The main goal and objectives of the Morrison is to become more
competitive within their industry and offering good quality of food products to their customers at
lower prices. They are having 497 stores across Wales, England and Scotland with 110, 000 total
number of employees (Number of Morrisons stores in the United Kingdom from financial year
2009/2010 to 2020/2021, 2022).
Task A
Application of HRM models and theories to the chosen organisation
Storey's Hard and Soft model- This is the RM model which will describe the needs of Human
Resource Management within an organisation by two different ways-
1. Hard HRM- Here, corporate needs and wants are put first than employee’s needs
and wants. Employees are acquired, deployed and dispensed with corporate plan
demand. Here, the focus of HR manager is to gain as much as profit as possible
for the organisation and for this aim they treat their employees like a machine.
2. Soft HRM- Here, companies focus to retain their employees for longer period of
time and they believe that they can only gain competitive advantage with the help
of their employee’s performance (Wolff and Burrows, 2021). Hence, they work to
satisfy their employees so that they will work for organisational benefit. Here, HR

manager treat their employees politely and make them feel that they are asset of
organisation.
In context of Morrison, they follow Soft HRM because they treat their employees in a good
manner and try to retain their employees for longer period of time. They also focus to provide
various facilities to their employees like appropriate time for the break from work, life insurance,
and the employers are also focused to provide safety kit to those employees who are working
with machines and electric tools. Hence, all this concerns of Morrison toward their employees
emphasis that they are focusing to provide soft HRM to their employees and in return employees
work hard to achieve organisational goal and help them to gain high brand reputation in market.
AMO theory by Purcell- This theory suggests that there are three main factors which further
develop the productivity of employees which further help their organisation to achieve their
organisational goal (Mayrhofer, Gooderham and Brewster, 2019). The three factors are
mentioned below-
1. Increase the ability of employees
2. Motivate employees
3. Provide opportunities to contribute to the company
In context of Morrison, they provide effective training to their employees on regular basis which
will help them to enhance their abilities. Secondly, they also focus to provide all required
resources to them so that they will work effectively without facing any issue. For motivation,
they analyse the needs and requirement of employees and work to fulfil them. The chosen
company also ask for employee’s feedback and recognize the factors which will satisfy them
more to gain their trust. The managers in Morrison appreciate their good working employees and
conduct development programs on regular basis for the professional development of their good
working employees. There are various kinds of opportunities which Morrison provide to their
employees like growth opportunities, training programs to enhance their skill and talents and
various other opportunities. This will help the chosen company to achieve their organisational
goal by focusing on enhancing their employee’s performance.
Resource-based view- This is the HRM theory which focuses upon internal resources of an
organisation rather than analysing performance in terms of external factors (Connelly and et. al.,
2021). VRIO framework is used to analyse the performance of internal resources of a company