Importance of Employee Relations in HRM Decision Making

Human Resource
Management

INTRODUCTION
Human resource management performs a vital part in every business. The task of human resource
management is to manage the employees of an organization strategically. Here strategic management concerns
with placing and positioning the work force in such a way that the goals of both the organization and an
employee get accomplished. Strategic placement benefits the organization in achieving its goal while also of
employee in reaching to its personal career goals (Armstrong and Taylor, 2020). The work of human resource
management is not only concerned with the hiring and recruitment of work force but also to maintain and retain
them in the organization. It is been said that hiring a new employee costs more to the company as compared to
retaining them into the organization. The report has taken an example of a company for referencing. The
company name is Marks and Spencer. It is a British company which is a multi national retailer. The company
sells clothing, home products and food products. It was introduced in 1884 and has truly opened around 1463
stores world wide.
This report undertakes the purpose and functions of HRM into an organization, explains about the
strengths and weaknesses of different approaches for recruitment and selection process. Apart from this the
report also covers the benefits of HRM for both the organization and employees.
TASK 1
P1 The objective and the role of HRM, applying to employee planning and resourcing a firm
HRM includes the people of the organization viewed as the assets and internalcustomers of the organization to
create employees’ job satisfaction and a healthy work environment to increase work efficiency and
effectiveness (Aswathappa, 2013). HRM aim is to:
Achieve organizational goals with the coordination among the people of the organization. Human Resources
Department of the Marks and Spencer helps employees to understand the culture of the organization and help
them adopt the same and in return, it helps the department to understand their needs and demands for example
union needs and engineering system.
To attract people to apply for job openings and to hire the right people suitable for jobs. It includes the
employee life cycle from attracting to hiring and then maintaining the workforce and their needs and
requirements and makes them stay in the organization and create a healthy workplace (Bamberger, Biron and
Meshoulam, 2014). Marks and Spencer HR department performs the same to attract the candidates.
To bridge the gap between human resources and business goals: Human Resource Management includes
diverse areas of psychology, technology, anthropology, management, statistical analysis. Understanding the
employee needs and listening to their problems and solving the same in order to maintain the job satisfaction of
the employees.

To initiate change, make the employees learn and understand the objective of the organization and adopt the
changes accordingly. It is the job of the human resource department of marks and Spencer Company to make
the employees unlearn and learn and make the changes as per the requirements. It also includes the hiring,
firing, transformation, job analysis, performance analysis, promotion, training, and development. There are
various labor laws and ethics which the human resource management needs to understand in order to avoid any
sort of conflict amongst the organization and employees.
To take care of the progress of the employee as well, their goals and objectives should also been fulfilled
along with the organizational goals. Human resource planning should be done accordingly (Berman and et. al.,
2019). Human Resource Planning of Marks and Spencer includes future planning and forecasting the
requirements of the organization in terms of the workforce, the type of people required, the process of hiring,
the medium of attraction of the candidates, conducting interview, taking decisions based on the strategy and
objectives of the organization.
P2 The qualities and weak points of various approaches to hiring and selection.
There are various approaches available with an organization for recruitment and selection purpose. And
they are-
Unsolicited resumes: There are many unsolicited resumes received by the organization. Unsolicited resumes
are the resumes which the company has not asked for. These resumes are received by the company irrespective
of their firm size. As marks and Spencer is a multinational retail company, it is known by majority of
population. The brand has an image and is a very large company (Bratton and Gold, 2017). The people send
their resumes to company in an image of big company with great name and fame. From those unsolicited
resumes company can search for the candidate they are looking for to occupy the vacant space. Larger the
company, larger would be the amount of unsolicited resumes received by the organization.
Strengths: The human resource department of Marks and Spencer does not have to incur costs in
searching and sending invitations to those applicants. The company can invite all these candidates who have
sent their resumes earlier to the company for job (Budhwar and Debrah, 2013). This approach saves the time
and money for human resource management.
Weaknesses: As huge amount of resumes are received by the company, it gets very much difficult for
them to search for the desirable candidates among the huge lot. Its method or approach tough saves costs for the
company but also is very time consuming for them.
Online Job Boards: Online job boards refer to the posting of jobs online. They are kind of want- ad by the
company. Both the companies whether they have strong brand or not apply for such approach. The employer
can do post about the vacant jobs on the board and can go through and selects the appropriate candidates which
the company thinks are well suited for the position.
Strengths: This approach taken by the Marks and Spencer is cost- effective. Only they need to post
about the vacant job requirement with the required details about the kind of candidates they are looking for.
Posting of jobs at online board is very much free of costs. Also a desired number of candidates apply at the
board thatalso fulfills the criteria mentioned by the company.
Weaknesses: The cons of this approach can be that the company may receive a high number of
applications for a particular job post. The human resource department has to go through that huge lot and selects
the desired candidates.