Human Resource Management in Marks and Spencer

The assignment provided is a comprehensive report on human resource management in Marks and Spencer. It includes a job description for a marketing manager position, a candidate's CV, interview questions, and a job offer from Marks and Spencer to the candidate. The report concludes that human resource management plays a crucial role in maintaining effectiveness in an organization, handling workforce activities, and ensuring growth and development for business. Best HR practices should be adopted by organizations to achieve success.

Human Resource
Management

Table of Contents
INTRODCTION..............................................................................................................................1
TASK 1............................................................................................................................................1
P1 Purpose and functions of HRM applicable to workforce planning and resource...................1
P2 Strengths and Weaknesses of different approaches to recruitment and selection..................2
TASK 2............................................................................................................................................4
P3 Benefits of different HRM practices within an organisation..................................................4
P4 Evaluation of effectiveness of HRM practices with regards to raising profits and
productivity..................................................................................................................................5
TASK 3 ...........................................................................................................................................6
P5 Importance of employee relation in respect to influencing HRM decision making ..............6
P6 Finding the key elements of employee legislation and impacts they have HRM decision
making ........................................................................................................................................7
TASK 4............................................................................................................................................7
P7 application of human resource practices in work related context using examples.................7
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................10
REFRENCES.................................................................................................................................11

INTRODCTION
Human resource management is that area of management that deals with managing the
people resources in the organisation. Just like finance, marketing, IT Human resource is also one
of the department in companies that organises and maintain the activities related to employees.
There are different functions performed by this division which includes recruitment, selection,
training, development etc. From attracting to retaining the workforce all the tasks related to these
activities are performed by the HR mangers. The company which has been selected for the report
is Marks and Spencer. It is a retail company, founded in the year 1884 by Michael marks and
Thomas Spencer. The company operates in more than 50 countries and the main headquarters are
in London, UK. In the report, topics which has been covered are purpose and functions of HRM,
strengths and weaknesses of recruitment and selection, benefits of HRM practices and their
effectiveness. further an analysis is also made on the employment relation, the key elements of
employment legislation and application of HRM practices (Bakker and Demerouti, 2017).
TASK 1
P1 Purpose and functions of HRM applicable to workforce planning and resource
Being a newly appointed assistant human resource manager of marks and Spencer there
is requirement of producing employee induction manual, below are the tasks covered as per the
manual.
Company Overview: Marks and Spencer is well known retail company of UK, Michael
marks and Thomas Spencer founded this organisation in the year 1884. Its mission is to conquer
the markets worldwide and successfully complete the goals as the company is operating in
various countries. Though expansion in different areas of retail are its main strengths. As
organisation is planning to spend large sum of money in the recruiting new candidates in order to
improve the productivity in the operations. For this purpose Human resource department is
instructed to perform all the required duties. Strategic planning human resource is planning is
done which includes activities like hiring, training and management.
Workforce planning- This is concerned with estimating the requirement of workforce
within the organisation. Managers make plans to fulfil the vacant position by using internal or
external sources of recruitment.
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Human resource management- This aspect of management is concerned with
addressing and dealing with the issues related to employees in the organisation. Optimum
utilisation of people resources by systematically arranging the activities performed by them are
its main functions. The purpose and the functions of HRM within the context of organisation are
as follows:
Recruitment and selection- The main aim of human resource department is to acquire
the talented workforce in the organisation, thus recruitment and selection is one such function
that involves inviting the applicants from large number of people and selecting the most suitable
candidates out of them. These are associated with hiring and allotting the right people for the
right job. Marks and Spencer first analyses the staffing situations and then make plans about
what should be the mode of recruitment and selection process. It can be said that this is a part of
workforce planning.
Training and development- Under this function, the organisation fulfils it's purpose of
managing the potential of employees and enhancing the productivity of performance. This helps
in utilising the resources in an efficient manner by avoiding the unnecessary wastage (Barney,
2015). Marks and Spencer provides training to employees regarding management of stores,
relationship with customers and also on how to deal with uncertainties. The company organises
various seminars and events to develop the competencies of employees.
Orientation- Another purpose of HRM is to ensure that new employees do not find any
sort of difficulties in understanding roles and responsibilities regarding performing a task. Marks
and Spencer conduct an induction programme so that employees find it easier to adjust in an
unknown environment. This functions clears the duties of job and relationship that position
shares with other.
Managing the employee relations- The purpose of this function of HRM is about
providing the peaceful and healthy working culture to the employees. HR managers of Marks
and Spencer organises various activities in order to bridge the gap between the employees and
employer which ensures that effective relationship is maintained in the organisation.
Implications of HRM purpose,scope and function:
HRM performs different function such as planning, organising, directing and controlling
the manpower requirements in the organisation. Implication of these practices are explained
below in detail. As Marks and Spencer is looking to recruit new employees therefore HR
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managers have to first analyse the manpower requirement by conducting workforce planing, later
in the organising the activities all the personal will be given instructions along with establishing
the chain of command. Through directing supervisors will direct the workforce through advices
and ensure that morale of employee remain intact. In order to save the organisation from
excessive expenditure and loss of resources controlling is performed by the managers. As the
purpose of HRM is to maintain the workforce thus the implication of this aspect is that
organisation's are able to maximise profits by ensuring qualitative workforce performs all the
tasks effectively. The scope of HRM includes recruitment, selection, training and development
orientation. Though there are positive impacts of this such as right on right job, improved skills
and increase morale of employees but wastage of resources during training and mistake in
choosing right medium of recruitment are some of the negative impacts.
P2 Strengths and Weaknesses of different approaches to recruitment and selection
Workforce planning: This is a process of analysing the needs of organisation in terms of
size, experience, types, skills and knowledge of workforce for the purpose of meeting goals. It
ensures that no hindrance occurs during the course of performing a business activity.
Recruitment - It refers to the process of attracting and hiring potential candidates for the
vacant position in the organisation. There are different objectives of recruitment which are as
follows
 To attract a pool of suitable candidates for vacant posts- For achieving this objective
managers choose external and internal sources of recruitment as per the need of the
organisation.
 To use a fair process and be able to demonstrate that this process was fair-
Managers constantly check the fairness of process by taking feedback from the line
managers as well as recruited employees.
 To ensure that all recruitment activities contribute to organisational goals and the
desired organisational image- Managers need to constantly update and review the
recruitment process to check the authenticity of sources in order to ensure goals are
achieved and the image of marks and Spencer remains intact.
To conduct recruitment activities in a cost effective and efficient manner. There are two
ways of recruitment and selection along with the strengths and weaknesses are explained below
in detail:
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Internal recruitment- As per this method recruitment is done internally by the
organisation. For filling the vacant position, existing workforce is hired. There are different
methods under this method through which existing employees are informed and selected for the
new or vacant jobs. Internal advertisement, referral and promotions are some of the examples but
Marks and Spencer mainly uses promotions which involves promoting an existing employee to
an upper position based on the performance (Cullen and Parboteeah, 2013).
Strengths:
 Saves time cost and money- This method is very feasible in terms of time, cost and
money as organisation does not have to spend too much time on planning how to hire
new candidates also it is cost effective in nature as they do not have to spend money by
giving advertisement on different platforms.
 More productivity- Existing employees requires less training and performs more
productively than new joiners.
Weaknesses:
 Gap in existing workforce- Promoting a worker from existing position to new one leaves
a vacant position behind thus this method is not considered by most of the organisation.
 Resentment in the workforce- When a fellow member of team gets promoted it creates a
sense of jealousy amongst the employees This can cause an unhealthy environment in the
workforce.
External recruitment- Under this method the organisations use external sources in order
to fill the empty posts. In involves giving an advertisement in the newspapers, job portals and
issuing pamphlets containing information about the qualifications and knowledge required to
perform the job along with using college placements and job agencies for recruitment purpose.
Strengths:
 Large pool of fresh talent- This allows management to acquire large and talented
applicants at one place.
 New ideas- New workforce are updated about the ongoing trends in the market which
helps in developing new ideas for the business.
Weaknesses:
 High cost- providing advertisements and hiring job agencies are costly affair thus small
organisation does not prefer this method.
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 Internal politics- The existing workforce usually takes time to accept new workforce thus
there might be issues within the organisation (Hawkins, 2017).
Selection: It refers to the process of choosing the most appropriate candidate out of many. There
are different methods of selection like interview, tests, online and manual screening. Marks and
Spencer uses aptitude tests approach the strengths and weakness of this are as follows:
Strengths
 Knowledge about subject can be analysed
 does not require extra time and money
Weaknesses
 Personality of candidate can not be determined
 Only few able to pass this test
Training and development- This area of HRM deals with providing training to the
workforce to ensure productivity in the organisation. Development of employees are concerned
with identifying the hidden competencies and improving them.
Performance management- Maintaining the effectiveness of business require managing
the performance level of workers, superiors of Marks and Spencer are instructed to guide the
employees under them and improve their performance (Wicker and Breuer, 2013).
Reward system- This is a system of rewarding the employees through bonus, hike or
awards based on their performance. Marks and Spencer ensures that employees gets recognition
for their work so that they will get motivated to perform even better.
Job analysis is the process of gathering together information about an existing job,
establishing the activities to be performed, the expected outcomes of tasks and the skills
required. Job analysis encompasses analysis and evaluation current jobs, Communication with
line managers and senior managers to discover what new set of skills and expertise need,
analysis of strategic plans and others strategic documents and analysis of competitors HRM
strategy.
PESTEL of HRM:
 Political: This HR department needed to introduce new HR policies with change in the
political structure like minimum wages.
 Economic: This factor causes impact on the budgets made by the HR department as they
have consider employment rate, income of people, inflation rates etc.
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 Social: As per this factor organisation have to consider the change in the patterns of
people expectations with regards to jobs. For example increasing demand for white collar
jobs.
 Technological: Managers introducing software in the recruitment process or for
maintaining the salaries of workforce are some of the examples that shows technology
affect the business in positive way.
 Environmental: This factor involves more staff engagement and change in the
perception of employees due to the availability of different digital sources.
TASK 2
P3 Benefits of different HRM practices within an organisation
In order to gain the competitive advantage different business entities opt for various
practices that increases the productivity of employees. This leads to effective achievement of
goals and objectives. Benefits of HRM practices are discussed below:
Payments benefits and rewards- It involves satisfying employees through monetary
measures. Marks and Spencer provides satisfactory compensation and rewards to their workers
which further motivates them to work hard. For example, if the salaries given by the organisation
is not sufficient enough for the workers they will not look forward to perform efficiently thus
maintaining rewards system is essential for the growth of the business. Thus the main benefits of
this practice is that it helps in increasing the job satisfaction and motivation level of employees.
Employee and labour relations- This practice benefits both employee and employer in a
way that if the relationship between these is effective, then growth of the organisation will not
get hampered. Workers can discuss their issues and problems with the employer and appropriate
solutions can be found at right time (Karatepe, 2013). For example, conflicting relations of
Marks and Spencer with trade unions resulted in shutting down of stores, this affected the
profitability of business. Various measures under this practice are then taken by the management
such as providing flexible working hours, pensions, lucrative packages etc. to further improve
the relations with employees. This will help in improving motivation level of employees and
enhancing performance and productivity of organisation.
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Flexible working: Marks and Spencer has adopted the practice of flexible working hour,
this involves giving appropriate time breaks to workers during work. This helps in increasing the
productivity of workforce as they are able to work more freshly and creatively.
Training and professional development: With this practice organisation ensure that
skills and competencies get improved. Additional and effective skills leads to growth of
employees as well as organisation.
P4 Evaluation of effectiveness of HRM practices with regards to raising profits and productivity
There are several good practices that an organisation should adopt in order to further raise
their profits and productivity. Some of these practices which are being used by the Marks and
Spencer as as follows:
 Providing security to employees- It is vital to adopt this practice, it involves providing
safe and healthy working environment to the employees. Using this practice is effective
as it leads to maximising the profits of organisation. For example Marks and Spencer
ensures that the workers are given safety with regards to the accidents and unfair
dismissal. This will generate commitment and loyalty amongst them which will lead to
reduction in employee turnovers and increasing the job satisfaction hence increased
productivity and profitability can be achieved.
 Selective hiring- This practice of HRM ensures hiring right candidate for the right job as
the management might have to deal with issues afterwards if the recruiter had not paid
attention at the time of selecting the candidate. For example for the post of Finance
manager only those candidates should be selected that possess the analytical and
technical skills. Qualified candidate will help the organisation in identifying and selecting
the most appropriate alternative out of many as a result profits can be maximised (Keupp,
Palmié and Gassmann, 2012).
 Fair performance based compensation- Under this practice, employees should be fairly
compensated as by not adhering to this can lead to conflicts between the management and
employees. For example Marks and Spencer has build effective reward system in which
employees are given Monetary and Non monetary incentive after analysing their
performance. This helps in building morale of employees hence it will lead to incraesed
productivity. Thus it is important to encourage employees by compensating them on true
and fair manner.
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 Training relevant skills- This practice comprises of teaching the existing and new
employees about the skills required to perform a particular job. For example Marks and
Spencer provides relevant training using technologies to enhance the competencies of
employees. This helps in making workers becoming specialised in their job which leads
to increasing the productivity and profitability of business.
 Making information accessible- Ensuring the effective flow of communication in the
organisation is essential for the smooth running of business operations. Building effective
relations with workers by effectively establishing the communication channel will lead to
improvement in decision making. For example Marks and Spencer conducts meeting at
the end of the month and discussions are made, through this interaction important
information is delivered at the right time and quick decisions are taken this raises the
productivity and profitability of organisation.
TASK 3
P5 Importance of employee relation in respect to influencing HRM decision making
Improved relationship with the employees is beneficial for the long term survival of
business. Marks and Spencer consider this aspect essential for projecting a good image of the
organisation. There are different approaches of employee relations which are discussed below:
Human relation approach of employee relation- As per this approach, employees
should be considered as humans first, it states maintaining good relationship with workforce will
increase the commitment and loyalty. Marks and Spencer creates and ensures implementation of
HR policies made to protect the rights of the workers, this allows management of diverse
workforce. Effective relations between employer and employee will lead to effective
communication through which issues and grievances of employees can be found. For example,
For example, manager's in marks and Spencer share good bond with a team member who is
extremely talented but is thinking of leaving the organisation in hope of finding something
interesting and better. Thus appropriate measures can be taken by management to retain the
employee at right time. Importance of this aspect can be seen from the fact that managers can
also ensure that decisions taken by the Top management for the welfare of organisation are well
accepted by the workforce (Manvi and Shyam, 2014).
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Skill oriented job approach of employee engagement- Using this approach, the HR
mangers of Marks and Spencer puts employees on a job as per the skills and knowledge
possessed by them. The advantage of maintaining an effective relation with employees through
this approach is that employees becomes more participative and takes initiatives in the activities
of organisation as a result new ideas can be formulated. Another element of employee relation is
concerned with clearing the roles and responsibilities regarding task. If the workers are aware
about the requirements of performing a task, they will be more engaged in the organisation.
Employee engagement causes Lower absenteeism and turnover which benefits the management
by saving their time, cost and money that occurs due to conducting recruitment and selection.
With respect to the approaches mentioned above, the mangers have to take decisions
keeping in mind about the effect that they can cause on the relations with the employees (Wang,
Chen and Chen, 2012).
P6 Finding the key elements of employee legislation and impacts they have HRM decision
making
The legislative system of every country make laws to protect the rights of employees
working in the organisation. Each of them have to comply with the rules and regulation thus
HRM decision making of organisation are impacted through the implementation of these laws.
Marks and Spencer should consider following legislations:
Human rights act, 1998- As per this act, every employee working in the organisation
should be treated equally irrespective of the colour, gender, race or religion they belong to.
Marks and Spencer should protect the dignity of all the employees, it can have severe affect on
the decision making of HRM if not being followed as the organisation will loose respectful
position in the market. The main purpose of this legislation is give equal right to every citizen of
UK and live freely. (Ng, and Feldman, 2012).
National minimum wages act, 1998- This legislation was passed to ensure that
minimum wages are given to the workers. This affect the decision making HR mangers of
Marks and Spencer pay its workers as per the pay scale set by the government of UK. Following
these standards are necessary as the company might face legal charges and decisions have to be
taken to deal with them.
Employment relation act 1919- Under this act of government, regulations were made
which instructs that effective relations with the employees have to be made. Decision making of
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Marks and Spencer can be affected with respect to these legislation in way that managers might
have to change their decisions regarding introducing new technologies in the organisation if
workers does not agree to the new changes brought by the management.
Sex discrimination act 1975- This act is concerned with protecting the men and women
from the discrimination on the grounds of gender or martial status. Marks and Spencer took
decisions to cover the 12% gender pay gap after the claims were made on how the company is
not paying equally to female workforce. The organisation decided to continue to improve the
situation and increase the participation of women in the top management (Sex discrimination act
1975, 2018).
TASK 4
P7 application of human resource practices in work related context using examples
Job description: It explains the job to the candidate and helps the recruitment process by
providing a clear guide to all involved about the requirements of the job. The four basic elements
of the job description are the job title, the reporting structure, a statement of the purpose of the
post and a description of the major duties.
Job specification: This is document that comprises of all the information related to the
roles, responsibilities, skills, knowledge and experience that candidate must posses for a
particular job position (Pierce and Aguinis, 2013). Below is the job specification for the position
of marketing manger in Marks and Spencer:
Job Description of Marks and Spencer:
Company Marks and Spencer
Department Marketing
Job profile Marketing manager
Job location London, UK
Experience 3 years
Job summary Marks and Spencer is looking for the marketing manager who
can increase the customer base of the organisation. Applicants
should posses the effective knowledge on to deal with changing
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trends of market.
Skills required  Creative skills
 quick decision making
 Adaptability to complex situations
 strong communication skills
 Research
 leadership qualities
Roles and responsibility  Handling conflicting situation
 creating effective plan to increase the customer traffic
 taking actions to maintain the image of the organisation
Person specification- This document contains the complete information such as the
name, address, qualification and knowledge etc. Below is the C.V of an individual who is
applying for the vacant position of Marks and Spencer:
Name: Edward cullen
Address: Mayfair, London, United Kingdom
Contact number: 2358468
Job Experience: Working experience of 4 years as assistant marketer in Sainsburry
Specialization:
 Specialization in developing market research plans,
 Good knowledge of SEO and social media
 Knowledge of content writing and analytics
Skills:
 Ability to deal with unforeseen situations
 Impressive leadership and decision making skills.
 Ability to take initiative to perform different activities
 Effective communication and interpersonal skills
Qualification:
 Masters in business management from Stanford university.
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 B. Com from Standard University.
 Senior secondary from Barneck secondary school, England.
 Secondary from Barneck primary school, England.
Declaration: Hereby, I ensure that all details provided by me is valid.
Date: 19/08/2016
Place: United Kingdom
Interview questions:
 Introduce yourself
 Why should we hire you?
 What are your expectations from this job?
Justification: The candidates are judged on the basis of the skills, knowledge, experience
they have and whether they will be able to fulfil the requirement of job or not (Saks and Gruman,
2014).
Job Offer of Marks and Spencer to Edward Cullen
18th july 2019
Marks and Spencer
Mayfair, London, UK
Dear Ms. Edward Cullen
You will be pleased to hear that you have been selected for the post of marketing manager in the
Marks and Spencer. Your date of joining is 20th July 2019 and you will report to Mr Senior
Manager Arthur Stefen. The company will pay you £135000 and you are required to conduct
market research and developing strategies of increasing customer traffic.are looking forward to
see you.
Thanks & Regards
Human Resource Manager
Marks and Spencer
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CONCLUSION
From the above report it has been concluded that Human resource management plays a
huge role in maintaining the effectiveness in the organisation. It consist of handling the activities
regarding workforce such as recruitment, selection, training development and dissolution.
Another main responsibility of this department is to maintain healthy relationship with the
employees and following the laws made by the government to protect the rights of workers. In
order to ensure growth and development for the business organisation should adopt best HR
practices.
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REFRENCES
Books and journal
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