Human Resource Management in Iceland Food Retail Company

This essay evaluates the HRM policies and procedures of Iceland Food Retail Company that have contributed to its success over the last 15 years. It discusses the implementation of motivational theories, training and development, pluralistic and unitary approaches, cost leadership, differentiation, and focus strategies. It also examines the legal and regulatory framework in the context of HRM and the impact of internal and external factors on HRM policies and practices in the UK.

Running head: HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGMENT
Human Resource Management

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Introduction
In this essay, Iceland food Retail Company is chosen for evaluating the HRM policies and
procedures. Iceland supermarket is a multinational chain of grocery together with general
merchandise. This essay elaborates the HRM procedures and policies that could support the
Iceland food retail company to provide strategic effects and contributing to competitive benefits
in the last 15 years.
Iceland Foods Ltd is a British supermarket chain that is established in wales with focus on
revenue of frozen foods such as prepared meals with vegetables. It also deals in non-frozen
grocery items like producing products, meat, dry and dairy goods. The corporation has about
2.2% share of the food market of UK. Iceland was initiated in the year of 1970 where Malcolm
Walker started their first store in England with his business partner Peter Hinchcliffe. There are
over 23000 employees within an organization. Iceland is one of fastest-growing as well as most
innovative retailers that could be recognized as one of the best corporations to work for in the
UK (Iceland, 2018).
HRM policies and processes that have contributed to organization success over the last 15
years
There are different HRM policies and procedures that have contributed towards the
organizational success over the last 15 years. Employee’s motivation is key HRM procedure
practiced by Iceland food Retail Company. It is implemented to motivate the workforces for
attaining the goal of the corporation. In such manner, Tesco practices some motivational theories
and strategies such as Maslow hierarchy of need theory, reward theory, and performance
evaluation. Maslow recommends that motivation is the result of the efforts of an individual to

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accomplish five basic requirements like physiological, safety, social, esteem and self-
actualization (Brewster, Chung, and Sparrow, 2016). According to Maslow, these requirements
can create internal pressure that may affect the behavior of a person.
Training and development are also practiced in the HRM department of Iceland food retail. By
practicing this methodical approach, Iceland has been entailing the training activities for ongoing
development in skills of workforces. Furthermore, the line manager of Iceland focuses on
developing training for improving the efficiency of workforces (Taylor, Doherty, and McGraw,
2015).
The pluralistic approach is key policies and process that have contributed to organization success
over the last 15 years. This approach recommends that there is over one source of power in the
association between business leaders and employees. Unions are a central part of a pluralistic
strategy that seeks a balance of power amid employees and leadership. This approach suggests
that conflict is unavoidable that can create complexity in innovation as well as the growth of the
company (Hutchinson, et. al., 2015). Meditation focuses on addressing an equilibrium amid
wants of employees and management. Learning is beneficial to comprehend the perspectives of
employees and it aids to decline the long-term conflicts. Because, management that rises up from
the ranks can be embraced by employees with unions (Armstrong and Taylor, 2014). These
leaders have experienced working condition at first-hand.
A unitary approach to organizational development is also used by the HR manager is Iceland.
This approach illustrates that a company should involve all stakeholders during organizational
development such as employees to make an agreement and provides the right direction in the
project. In this approach, Iceland food Retail Company can emphasize shared purpose as well as
vision. Any divergence from these goals and shared objectives is an outcome of poor

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management that is unable to inspire and clearly articulate what needs to take place. A strike is
considered destructive in this kind of approach because it declines the profitability of the
company and it may harm each individual. The company should treat their employees as a
business leader because it will lead to complete their overall aim and objectives (Patten and
Zhao, 2014).
Cost Leadership Strategy is also practiced in Iceland supermarket. Moreover, the organization
focuses on bulk on customers by making an effective pricing strategy. This pricing strategy is
beneficial while goods and services are standardized. The company can sell generic acceptable
goods at the lowest rates. They can decline costs to a corporation for reducing the price of the
customer without reducing profits. Iceland food Retail Company can sell its products at average
industry rates to earn maximum profits as compared to its competitors. It may also sell at below
industry rates and trying to make a profit by increasing the market share. Iceland company is a
good example of a company that is using a cost leadership strategy (Dodgson, 2018).
Differentiation strategy is used by a corporation to offer products and services with unique
qualities and added value to customers. This would lead to pulling the attention of customers
because they can set themselves apart from the rivalry. For succeeding in this approach, Iceland
food retail should have access to the leading scientific investigation. In this approach, the
company can focus on highly skilled, creative product development team, as well as company
reputation for innovation and quality, and strong sales with marketing team (Baker, 2014).
Focus strategy is used to emphasize on targeted customers, geographical fields, niche market,
and product line. The idea of using this strategy is to serve a limited set of a customer as
compared to the competitors who serve a higher range of consumers. This strategy works
effectively for Iceland food retail to engage in nationwide marketing and helps to get a

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competitive benefit. It entails emphasizing the cost leadership or differentiation at a smaller
scale. The idea is to develop the company to stand out within a particular market sector (Ellinger,
and Ellinger, 2014).
Moreover, HR planning is a key component of the HRM system. By using the planning phase,
Iceland is competent for gathering adequate data over the current HR of a company. It entails all
the provisions, competencies as well as desired human resources for accomplishing the desired
potential aspects and goals. This activity is necessary for Iceland to interact with the mutual
goals about business strategy during the wider HR of the corporation (Bailey, et. al., 2018).
Iceland food retail is an employee-centric corporation due to direct communication of customers
with its employees for accomplishing the requirement of customers. As a retail company, Tesco
is highly dependent on employees to accomplish the aim and objectives. Tesco ensures that the
workforces are managed in a way that they act effectively for attaining the goal of an
organization while achieving the goal of an individual (Rees, and Smith, 2017).
The legal and regulatory framework in the context of HRM
The performance of an individual relies on the fair treatment of employees within an
organization. This regulation emphasizes fair deals in some practices of HRM such as
recruitment, allotment, selection and role of the job. Moreover, fair treatment should be practiced
in every practice of HRM like nationality, gender and race in the system of payment (Donado‐
Godoy, et. al., 2015).
Through discrimination act, discrimination over entities could be restricted within an
organization. There are some elements of legislation that focuses on the practices of
discrimination. These acts consist of sex, disability and race act. Furthermore, sex discrimination
act 1975 focuses on discrimination regarding gender. Race discrimination act 1976 prohibited

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the activities of discrimination on considering race. Moreover, disability discrimination act 1995
is assessed and performs for disabled employees (Analoui, 2017).
According to European Working Time Directive law, Iceland food retail provided sufficient
holiday in each year. In addition, grievances associated with excessive working hour are
becoming a key issue that might generate illness, stress, and depression among employees. This
act can be forced with the intention of maintaining the health and safety of employees
(Windolph, Harms, and Schaltegger, 2014).
Through data protection act, employees have the authority to access the information in Iceland
supermarket. This act can oblige Iceland food retail to keep the data safe of an individual.
Iceland food retail analyses the performance of their employees by taking feedback through line
manager for store workforces. Furthermore, for the line managers, higher workforces give
feedback with respect to the company. The appropriate tool for assessing the performance of
employees is to evaluate the efficiency and effectiveness of employees within 4 months (Kurnia,
et. al., 2015). Another method that is relevant to scrutinize the employee’s performance is
continuous assessment, an online portal system, target-based mechanism, and direct monitoring
of all activities.
An effective reward system enables managers to motivate employees to act in a significant
manner. The reward system of Iceland defines different benefits for employees to perform their
jobs in a predetermined manner. These benefits can be in the form of progression, compensation,
business trips, relocating, and promotion according to a desire of employees. Iceland uses
effective rewards system that encourages the employees to perform with high efficiency. The
success of Iceland highly depends on the usefulness of the reward system that is applicable to an
organization (Singal, 2014).

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Iceland more focuses on operational as well as administrative activities that can help to retain the
existing workforces. A company can give the training to their employees rather than recruiting
contractors and more employees in the workplace. It can also make development in employees
and creates human resource planning like organizing workshops and events for workforces, and
education repayment (Samson, Daft, and Donnet, 2017).
Iceland food retail can make an effective organization for persuading the workforces. It should
also offer a clear description of the job, morale building activities, annual reviews and wellness
initiatives such as frequent communications among departments, contest, and outings. This
would lead to the success of the company (Bratton, and Gold, 2017).
In Iceland food Retail Company, HR manager should develop a different department such as
local fire department, Insurance Corporation, security professionals as well as employment
experts to make sure the legal needs for their employees. It has been entailing the federal labor
rules, creating an innocent and secures office space, warehouse, institution, and implements
corporation approaches and procedures as well as paying all required taxes and insurance
(Boella, 2017).
Employees can be terminated within an organization due to certain reasons like the elimination
of companies’ regulations and laws by employees for their individual interests. This may
negatively impact on organizational performance. In addition, unrelated organizational and
personal goals are creating the conflict among employees within an organization and
performance could be reduced by the employees. According to standard, non-performance of
employees may reduce the competencies and effectiveness of corporation. The unfavorable
business environment for a company like recession may reduce the sales of a company. The
unacceptable belief of employees may ruin the organizational image. Legislative orders are

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implemented to terminate the particular employees by the court of law. Moreover, personal
reasons for employees to left the organization are switching job, location change and marriage
(Govindan, et. al., 2016).
Iceland food retail company can use effective recruitment and selection procedure. It implements
recruitment concepts on a constant basis with the help of internal, external and some different
ways. These processes ensure that the company has acquired applications through all the
corresponding applicants. At the initial level, the company assesses internal resources for
attaining any profile existed at the workplace and then addresses external resourced by
shortlisting the CVs of candidates according to profile. Referral processes can also be involved
in an organization (Bouzon, Govindan, and Rodriguez, 2015).
Job evaluation is an essential element of human resource management because of containing
compensation regulations. Another factor that plays a vital role in compensating the employees is
focusing on the outside environment. This outside environment consists of business
circumstances at a particular time, economic environment of the country, the situation of
competitors in the industry as well as financial soundness of corporation. Iceland food retail
company involves all these factors while making a compensating decision (Chen, et. al., 2015).
Internal (Organisational) or External Environment factors have affected the delivery of
HRM policy and practice within the United Kingdom in the last 25 years
There are certain internal as well as external factors that have an impact on delivery on HRM
policies and practices within the United Kingdom in the last 25 years.
The Internal Environment
Organizational structure is a framework that helps to make relationship amid members and
position of the company. The need for organization structure is to lead the human resources

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within an organization. It ensures the growth and development among employees. While a
corporation does not implement the organizational structure initially and never created
comprehensive organizational charts then, there may be chances of declining profitability. The
key benefits of human resources functions are to address the requirement of staffing. Iceland
food retailing can develop an organizational chart, framing the roles that would perform, and
ranking each position. It can also develop a description for a job with respect to each position to
attain the task. HR manager does not frighten to create the position for which they do not have
workforces and to leave out workforces who do not fit into the premium organizational chart.
After identification of redundancies and holes at the workplace, HR manager can make a better
plan to avoid it (Brunstein, 2016).
The company provides compensation to their employees for their work at the workplace. For
paying compensation, HR manager evaluates the structure of compensation by conducting a
survey associated with a location as well as industry-specific remuneration. This would be
beneficial for making a feasible compensation decision and positively impact the declining
employees turnover. It also helps in attracting potential workforces and retaining an existing one.
In Iceland, the HR manager makes sure that internal compensation is fair. For example,
proficient workforces with higher qualification employees get higher compensation as compared
with college graduates performing the same tasks (Behrangrad, 2015).
HR practices involve certain factors like training to their workforces before promoting them.
Furthermore, recruitment approaches depend on internal promotion in the workplace. It can also
assess retire employees hence replacement provisions could be made in time. For example,
Iceland food retail company can provide the appropriate training and development to encourage

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them towards an organization. HR manager also identifies the number of employees proficient
for retirement and also ensures the potential replacement (Marchington, et. al., 2016).
External factors
Political factor
Brexit impact on recruitment
The uncertainty is created by the UK because most of talented and professionals are leaving the
EU. It is identified that cautiousness among potential applicants is increased in the company’s
recruitment policies. HR manager might face difficulties in hiring senior and skilled workforce
as well as they may face difficulties in hiring operational workforces. When a company focuses
on employing migrants despite the Brexit decision, high amount of customers are prospecting
that they will hire EU migrants in the year 2017. It is alike with the proportion performing in the
year of 2016 (Brunstein, 2016).
How prevalent are hard-to-fill vacancies
The labor market is currently capable of accomplishing the needs of some companies towards the
demand for labor. In the UK, the unemployment rate is high and it has influenced different
individuals in such a nation. Iceland food retailing is struggling to fill their vacancies and it is
evaluated that there is lack of proficient skills and experience amid applicants. It is a key reason
for recruitment complexities. The experience of a vacancy in skills shortage can differ in
different sectors (Bratton and Gold, 2017).
Technological factors
Technology could be the imperative component in the food retailer as it directly impacts on their
performance. In the UK, more than 70% of people have used the internet while more than 50%
of consumers have subscribed it. Moreover, it is evaluated that online shopping growth has been

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increased years by years due to higher availability of the internet. Moreover, it is evaluated that
loyalty culture is used by Iceland like Iceland club card could enable to retain consumers for
long-term. It uses promotional tools and techniques to attract a huge number of consumers and
switching them from the products and services of market players (Samson, Daft, and Donnet,
2017). Moreover, it is evaluated that Iceland mobile app could only available for 4G phones
name iPhone. It is evaluated that Iceland app could help their users towards the nearby shop in
their located areas. Moreover, it is evaluated that online shopping could offer certain advantages
due to the higher reputation of internet implication between the localized UK. It is examined that
more than 73% of UK population could use broadband internet that could also majorly impact on
the success of App (Singal, 2014).
Economic factors
Consumer buying behavior could directly impact on the economic situation of the country. Thus,
it is evaluated that economic factor could be key elements for the Iceland Food retail. In 2008,
the country has suffered from the recession period that influences the overall performance of the
business as well as economic condition hence the government has taken steps towards the
interest rate for declining the unemployment rate and improve the country situation in the least
time and cost (Kurnia, et. al., 2015). It also leads to improve the confidence level of consumers
towards spending that could also be effective to get a reliable conclusion. If the interest level of
the government could be low then people could spend more and it could increase the demand for
consumers towards goods and services. In addition, it is examined that different product demand
could be imperative in improving the situation of the firm (Analoui, 2017).
Conclusion

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As per the above interpretation, it can be concluded that there are different HRM policies and
procedures that have contributed to the organizational success over the last 15 years. These
policies are employee’s motivation, legal and regulatory structure, the effectiveness of reward
systems, recruitment and selection process, employees centric, and training and development.
Another is the unitary approach, pluralistic approach, cost leadership strategy, differentiation
strategy, focus strategy. There are certain internal as well as external environmental factors that
have an impact on the delivery of HRM procedures within the UK in the last 25 years. These are
organizational structure, employee’s relation, and compensation. External factors could be
technological, economic and political factors.

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