Application of HRM models and theories to Morrison

This report discusses the application of various HRM models and theories to Morrison, a British retailing company. It covers Storey's Hard and Soft model, AMO theory by Purcell, Resource-based view, Harvard model, Fombrun model, national and corporate culture, organisational HR levers of competitive advantage, job design strategies, good HR practices during pandemic, and recommendations to the company.

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

which further help them to gain company’s objectives. The VRIO framework is explained
below-
1. Value- This component of this framework describe that the resource is valuable for the
company or not to achieve their aim.
2. Rarity- Here, companies try to adopt those resources which are rare from their
competitors and further help them to gain competitive advantage in market.
3. Inimitability- This component of this framework will define that the company will use
those resources which did not copied by their competitors (Donnelly and Johns, 2021).
Hence, this will provide uniqueness characteristics to the resources.
4. Organised- This component will describe that the resources are required to organise in a
proper manner within the organisation so that resources will be utilised properly at
correct place on correct time.
In context of Morrison, this model is used in following ways-
Resources Valuable Rare Inimitable Organized
Financial Resources Yes No No No
Distribution Network Yes Yes No No
Brand image Yes Yes Yes No
Human resources Yes Yes Yes Yes
This framework will describe that financial resources of Morrison are valuable for them but not
rare, inimitable and organised. Distribution network are valuable as well as rare for them but it is
not inimitable and organised which means their competitors can copy their distribution network.
Brand image is one of the most important resources for Morrison which is valuable for them,
rare as well as inimitable but it is not considered as organised. This describe that Morrison is
gaining good amount of profit from their brand image. At the end, human resources are
considered as most effective resource for the Morrison which is valuable, rare, inimitable as well
as organised.
Harvard model- This is the HRM model which consist of six factors which are mentioned
below-

1. Stakeholder’s interest- These are the groups which are having interest in the outcome of
the business such as employees, government, suppliers and many others. In context of
Morrison, their employees, suppliers and investors are their stakeholders who are having
best skills to make effective decisions for organisational growth.
2. Human resource management policies- These are the rules and regulations which is
implemented within an organisation and the employees are supposed to work with all
these regulations (Vincent and et. al., 2020). In context of Morrison, they are having
various HRM policies which help them to conduct their organisational tasks and activities
in a proper manner with full discipline.
3. Human resource outcome- These are the outcomes of the policies made by the
companies and it affected by employee retention, cost- effectiveness and many others.
4. Situational factors- these are the element of workforce, society, interest and many other
factors which impacts the HR practices of an organisation. In context of Morrison, their
working environment is one of the most common factors which impact their outcome.
5. Long term consequences- This element will describe that how a company is positioned
within its market and society and measure their employee’s wellbeing. Morrison is
having high brand image in market and society regarding their well being working
environment and providing better growth opportunities to them.
6. Feedback loop- This consists of asking a feedback from employees and analyse
improvement factors.
Warwick model- It is having 5 components which are mentioned below-
1. Outer context- These are the macro environment factors which influences the HR
policies of a company (Westerman and et. al., 2020). These factors are political factors,
economic factor and many others.
2. Inner context- It consist of all those micro environment factors which impacts HR
policies of a company such as organisational culture, relationship between employees and
many others.
3. Business strategy- These are the business strategies which are made by senior
management to achieve their business outcomes. It includes business objectives, overall
company strategy and many others.

4. HRM context- It consist of policies, roles, regulations and many others within the
organisation which impacted HR practices.
5. HRM content- It include specific policies, implementation, and system involve in HR.
In context of Morrison, this model can be used to balance the influences from outer and inner
context. For example, like handling political factors and inters employment relationship and
many others is first step in this model which is done by Morrison appropriately. After handling
these factors, company focus to make strategies to achieve their target such as they analyse the
skills and interest of their employees and try to assign them only those task which they can do
easily. The implementation of HRM feeds back influencing both outer and inner content through
feedbacks.
Fombrun model- This is the HR model which are having four elements which and their
interrelationship with each other (Roscoe and et. al., 2019). This model only focuses on four
factors and ignores other factors for development of organisation. Four factors in this model are
selection, appraisal, development and rewards. In context of Morrison, they select hire
employees on the basis of their skills and talents to complete the task of vacant job role.
Secondly, they appraise them for completing the task on time and then they provide development
opportunities to their employees by rewards such as monetary benefits and many others to
motivate employees to enhance their performance.
Task B
National and corporate culture
National culture is the group of people who have been bought up within a specific country. The
individuals in this culture share specific ideas that how the task should be done. The idea behind
the ways of completing any task is completely formed by the age of 12 to 14. On the other hand,
organisational culture defines a single way of performing any task by all employees of an
organisation (Yu and et. al., 2020). Here, employees from different nation will work within a
same organisation and follow similar rules and regulations to complete their task. National
culture consists of hiring employees from single nation and enjoys the ways of completing task
which is flexible for them. For example, an organisation in France will hire only French
employees who will communicate in their own language which is French. On the other hand, a
MNC in France which hire employees from all around the world and they maintain effective

communication with common language that in English and create their own common culture to
perform their objectives. Both national and organisational culture plays an important role in
management of staff members within an organisation. In context of Morrison, they build
effective strategies to manage their organisational as well as national culture. For example, they
allow their employees to communicate well with each other and share their issues openly in the
organisation so that the senior management will take effective steps to mitigate the issues.
Secondly, to maintain their organisational culture, they treat their employees fair and equally and
they avoid discriminating them on the basis of their skin colour, position, gender and few other
factors.
Task C
Organisational HR levers of competitive advantage
There are various HR levers for an organisation which help the company to gain competitive
advantage within the industry. Few of the organisational HR levers are mentioned below-
Human Resource Planning- This is the process where company plan about how much
employees they need for what kind of jobs and what procedure they will follow to hire new
talents (Mendy and Rahman, 2019). In context of Morrison, they are having a different
department for these activities which consist of making plans regarding organisational activities
for its benefit. Morrison recognizes their needs and requirement first and then decides which
kind of skills and talents are compulsory contained by candidate to perform that job. All HR
rules and regulations are made at this stage. This stage also helps to mitigate the risk by
analysing current business environment. Effective planning will help Morrison to gain
competitive advantage in their market. This is essential for them to analyse their competitor’s
strategies and build some good strategies in this process to face competitiveness within their
industry.
Recruitment- This is the process where companies attract the candidates to apply for the
vacant job within the company and get selected by their knowledge and skills (Tomcikova,
Svetozarovova and Coculova, 2021). In context of Morrison, they recruit those employees who
become successful in clearing all interviews and prove their skills and talents in front of
management team. Morrison hires employees after checking their skills practically. For example,
they ask their new joiners to serve a probation period where their skills are tested for a short

period of time like 1 month or 2 month and in case employee perform well in this period then he
is considered as permanent employee of the organisation and given a employee identity. This
will help them to gain competitive advantage because when they focus to hire skilled and
talented employees and retain them for longer period of time then they will perform better for the
organisation and their good performance will help them to gain develop their organisational
reputation.
Learning and development- This is the process where companies provide training to
their employees to enhance their skills and talents. In context of Morrison, their employees get
training to use their new technology as well as their existing system to perform well for the
company. training will not only help the company to enhance their employee’s performance but
it also help to motivate employees and help them to gain confidence to perform their task in
more effective manner. It will help the company to gain competitive advantage by enhancing
employee’s skills so that their employees will provide better services to their customers and help
the company to gain customer’s satisfaction.
Reward management- This is the process where companies provide reward to their
good working employees to motivate them (Leslie, 2019). Here, Morrison’s first step is to
measure their employee’s performance in a fair and loyal manner and then recognize which
employees is working better to gain organisational objective and further help the company to
develop their productivity and profitability. Providing reward to good working employees help
the company to motivate their existing employees to perform better and also help to gain market
reputation by becoming that company which value their employees. Hence, developing
employee’s motivation will further help the company to gain competitive environment within
their industry by enhancing their employee’s performance and developing brand recognition.
Task D
Job design strategies
Job design is the process where companies analyse the requirement of job like what all
resources are required to perform the job, which kind of skilled employees require to perform the
job, what roles and responsibilities are required to perform the job and many others (Ngoc Su
and et. al., 2021). There are few job design strategies which must follow by Morrison and these
strategies are mentioned below-

Job rotation- Here, employees are moved from one job position to another to reduce the
boredom at workplace. In context of Morrison, they can perform their job rotation appropriately
for their employees and this can also help them to develop the skills and talents of their
employees by handling other roles and responsibilities of other position in job rotation.
Job enlargement- This is the process where organisation increases the number of task for
their employees to perform well with the main aim to improve work efficiency (Fraij, 2021). In
context of Morrison, they must increase the task but not rapidly, they are required to increase the
task for employees at a slow speed and they must make sure that they will include another task
for employee’s job when they are able to perform the previous task appropriately.
Flexible work schedule- This is the strategy where companies allow their employees to
choose their own working schedule which is flexible for them and it includes working
compressed hours, following flexitime and working remotely. In context of Morrison, they must
allow their employees flexible working schedule like work from home, or any other flexible
working type. This can help the company to gain high satisfaction of employees which will
further help them to retain their employees for longer period of time.
Task E
Good HR practices during pandemic
1. Focusing on the health of employees- Health includes both physical health as well as
mental health. It is a good HR practice by HR manger during COVID pandemic. In
context of Morrison, their HR mangers must organise few health maintain programs for
their employees like Yoga sessions, meditation sessions and many others. Allowing
employees for the compensation of their gym expenses can be best for the company.
2. Follow all legal rules and regulations- It is also essential for HR manger of chosen
organisation to follow all legal rules and regulations within their organisation (Mwita,
2020). In case government regulated the rule of 50% attendance at workplace than it is
the responsibility of HR manager that they must check that their 50% will come to office
and rest 50% will work from home. They are also required to make sure that the
employees who are coming to office must sit at distance and must weak mask within the
office.

3. Provide compensation for COVID positive employees- It is also a good HR practices if
chosen company will allow the compensation of all those employees who get impacted
by corona virus. They must pay their hospital and medical charges and allow them
appropriate leave for recovery.
Task F
Recommendations to the company
1. It is recommended to Morrison Company that they must follow all COVID protocols and
legal regulations within their company.
2. It is also recommended to the Morrison that they must allow their workers to work
according to their flexible working shift.
3. It is also recommended to the Morrison that they must focus on their recruitment
practices and must hire experienced employees within the company by taking few stages
of interviews and providing a mentor to the new selected employees to assist them.
Asking report of new joiner from mentor will help the company to analyse whether the
new joiner is suitable for the job role or not. This will help them to retain talented
employees within their organisation and achieve their organisational performance.
Conclusion
From the above information it is concluded that there are various HR theories which can
be implemented within an organisation to analyse their performance of managing employees and
other essential resources. There are various HR levers of organisation which help them to gain
competitive advantage and few of the levers are recruitment, reward management, HRP and
many others. It is also concluded that job design will help the organisation to satisfy their
employees by providing various facilities like job rotation, flexible working conditions and many
others. It is essential for a company to follow few good HR practices during pandemic which
further help their organisation to gain the trust of their employees and retain their most talented
workers for longer period of time.

References
Books and Journals
Connelly, C.E. and et. al., 2021. Working in the digitized economy: HRM theory &
practice. Human Resource Management Review, 31(1), p.100762.
Donnelly, R. and Johns, J., 2021. Recontextualising remote working and its HRM in the digital
economy: An integrated framework for theory and practice. The International Journal
of Human Resource Management, 32(1), pp.84-105.
Fraij, J., 2021. E-HRM to overcome HRM challenges in the pandemic. SEA–Practical
Application of Science, 9(25), pp.41-49.
Leslie, L.M., 2019. Diversity initiative effectiveness: A typological theory of unintended
consequences. Academy of Management Review, 44(3), pp.538-563.
Mayrhofer, W., Gooderham, P.N. and Brewster, C., 2019. Context and HRM: theory, evidence,
and proposals. International Studies of Management & Organization, 49(4), pp.355-
371.
Mendy, J. and Rahman, M., 2019. Application of human resource management's universal
model: An examination of people versus institutions as barriers of internationalization
for SMEs in a small developing country. Thunderbird International Business
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Mwita, K.M., 2020. Effects of corona virus pandemic (covid-19) on selected human resource
management practices in Tanzania. East African Journal of Social and Applied Sciences
(EAJ-SAS), 2(2), pp.1-10.
Ngoc Su, D. and et. al., 2021. Enhancing resilience in the Covid-19 crisis: lessons from human
resource management practices in Vietnam. Current Issues in Tourism, 24(22),
pp.3189-3205.
Roscoe, S. and et. al., 2019. Green human resource management and the enablers of green
organisational culture: Enhancing a firm's environmental performance for sustainable
development. Business Strategy and the Environment, 28(5), pp.737-749.
Tomcikova, L., Svetozarovova, N. and Coculova, J., 2021. Challenges and priorities in talent
management during the global pandemic caused by COVID–19.

Vincent, S. and et. al., 2020. Situating human resource management in the political economy:
Multilevel theorising and opportunities for kaleidoscopic imagination. Human Resource
Management Journal, 30(4), pp.461-477.
Westerman, J.W. and et. al., 2020. Sustainable human resource management and the triple
bottom line: Multi-stakeholder strategies, concepts, and engagement. Human Resource
Management Review, 30(3), p.100742.
Wolff, M. and Burrows, H., 2021. Planning for virtual interviews: residency recruitment during a
pandemic. Academic pediatrics, 21(1), pp.24-31.
Yu, W. and et. al., 2020. Green human resource management and environmental cooperation: An
ability-motivation-opportunity and contingency perspective. International Journal of
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Online-
WM MORRISON SUPERMARKETS MISSION, VISION & VALUES, 2022, [Online].
Available Through:
<https://www.comparably.com/companies/wm-morrison-supermarkets/>
Number of Morrisons stores in the United Kingdom from financial year 2009/2010 to
2020/2021, 2022. [Online]. Available Through:
<https://www.statista.com/statistics/382340/morrisons-number-of-stores-united-kingdom-uk/>