Human Resource Management: A Comprehensive Guide to HRM Practices

This comprehensive guide explores the fundamental principles and practices of Human Resource Management (HRM). It delves into the purpose and functions of HRM, examining its application in workforce planning and resourcing. The guide analyzes different approaches to recruitment and selection, highlighting their strengths and weaknesses. It further investigates the benefits of various HRM practices for both employers and employees, evaluating their effectiveness in boosting organizational profit and productivity. The importance of employee relations in influencing HRM decision-making is also explored, along with a detailed analysis of key elements of employment legislation and their impact on HRM practices. Finally, the guide provides real-world examples to illustrate the application of HRM practices in a work-related context.

E179 DIANA FILIPESCU BUSINESS HUMAN RESOURCES
MANAGEMENT
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Table of Contents
Introduction........................................................................................................................3
LO 1...................................................................................................................................4
P1 Explain the purpose and the functions of HRM, applicable to workforce planning and
resourcing an organization................................................................................................4
P2 Explain the strengths and weaknesses of different approaches to recruitment and
selection.............................................................................................................................5
LO 2...................................................................................................................................9
P3 Explain the benefits of different HRM practices within an organization for both the
employer and employee....................................................................................................9
P4 Evaluate the effectiveness of different HRM practices in terms of raising
organizational profit and productivity...............................................................................10
P5 Analyze the importance of employee relations in respect to influencing HRM
decision-making...............................................................................................................12
P6 Identify the key elements of employment legislation and the impact it has upon HRM
decision- making..............................................................................................................13
P7.....................................................................................................................................14
References.......................................................................................................................21
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Introduction
Human Resource Management can be defined as a strategic approach towards the
basic purpose of hiring and selecting employees. It is basically a recognized term
devised for the management of people within a particular organization. Therefore, the
basic function of the management is to look after several policies which include
recruitment, promotion, training, compensations, selections and many more. However,
the chosen company here is Marks & Spencer through which the policies, functions,
strategies and several departments of Human Resource Management will be defined. It
is only through the Human Resource Management, that the company is reaching to the
heights and achieving heights which in turns benefit both the employers as well as the
employees.
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LO 1.
P1 Explain the purpose and the functions of HRM, applicable to workforce
planning and resourcing an organization.
The basic purpose of Human Resource Management of Marks & Spencer is as follows:
It primarily focuses on sharing internal sources and related knowledge within the
company. The “Employee Champion” aims to administer that all the employees can
communicate with the HR team and provide them with adequate resources as per the
company budget so that the working system does not lack behind (Brewster, 2017). It
views that all the payroll services, allocation of resources, monitoring the attendance
and keeping track of employee’s work which all fall under the transactional activities are
done efficiently.
Recruitment of well skilled people is needed so that it fosters high performance with
accuracy. It will also approach innovative ideas to create a bigger segment of the
business in future. The HR engage with the employees from the very first day of their
job so that they are committed towards their work ,understand the fundamental logics
and no deficiency in development and training takes place .Without proper training
neither can the employee perform the work nor the company can profit. High work
performance demands long time training and clear understanding of the work.
Maintaining of transparent relationship so that the data shared between the company
and the employees are secured (Cannon and Hillebrandt, 2016). Also at the same time
there is a trust developed which results in connection of emotions and company’s
success. This strong bond between them brings about unity in the entire company.
Excellence is achieved on the basis of many factors out of which trust and loyalty
stands most high.
Reward System – Marks & Spencer is a company which despite being in losses since
2018 does appreciate its employees for their service and also rewards them for their
appreciating service which is termed as ‘bonus’ (Stevenson and Cole,2018) . Workforce
planning _ Marks & Spencer being a largest retail company with more than 450
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workplaces tries to maintain a healthy workforce planning .It considers this function to
be the key for maintaining a healthy atmosphere amongst the employees .This
concludes that Marks and Spencer gives emphasis on rewarding the employees for
their work because this will help them get motivation and strength to work more
efficiently.
Therefore , Marks and Spencer tries to incorporate all these functions and purposes in
order to contribute to workforce planning .It is the first step towards resourcing an
organization .It can be stated in this manner, if the base level which is employment
sector is efficient and engaged ,then only an organization can be flexible and
resourceful .
P2 Explain the strengths and weaknesses of different approaches to recruitment
and selection.
Recruitment is the process of appointing employees on the basis their capacity, talent,
efficiency, sincerity and ability to learn new task within the allotted time limit.
Recruitment is basically done by the Human Resource department, or sometimes by the
employment agencies in the public sectors. Proper planning is required to be carried out
so that the recruitment process is done properly. It helps to compress the work pressure
by increasing manpower. There are two different approaches of recruitment in Marks
and Spencer .
(a) Internal Approach :
 The recruitment is done within the organization that is the recruiter appoints the
employees from within Marks and Spencer Company itself. The vacancies of
this company are filled up by the currently working employees who will be
reassigned for the new position and this is done by either giving them
promotion or internal transfer.
Strengths of Internal recruitment are as follows:
 It is cheaper and less time confusing: because the recruitment does not
include traveling to remote places and does not require allocation of any
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resources as the interview takes place at the company itself. It also does not
need much time and hence it is quicker. In today’s generation, time is one of
the main factor. We have enough jobs and employees but run lack of time, so
not only doing the recruitment is important but also within small amount of time.
As Marks and Spencer is one of the well known biggest company it has many
tasks which are way tougher and consumes a lot of time. Hence the
requirement should be faster to pay more attention and time to other works.
 The company knows what it is getting: as the recruitment is taking place
within the company, the recruiters of Marks and Spencer know about the
employees and how much capable, productive, loyal, dedicated, sincere and
hardworking they are. Hence the recruitment is more faster. It is short as they
do not need many processes to evaluate the workers.
 It can make you more attractive employer: It gives opportunity to the Marks
and Spencer staff to go ahead and get reassigned for newer posts. This new
post comprise of the more advanced jobs which give a great opportunity to
them. For example If someone is already expert in the field they are working in
then they can be expert in other fields too because integrity of a true worker
matters (Brewster, 2017). Also it provides scope for progress. They can self
evaluate themselves by getting into new work, new post. In this process talent
is also explored of the worker which was hidden.
Weaknesses of Internal Recruitment are as follows:
 It can cause conflict among the co-workers: As the recruitment takes place
within the company one employee getting selected and the other one not
creates jealousy and breaks the bond between two workers. Also it is said that
partiality takes place. The recruitment is questioned among the workers and
often not appreciated as they feel they were better than the one who got hired
for the other post. Other workers who were interested in applying end up
shocked and upset that their importance was not being appreciated.
 Respect can be an issue: The currently working employee who was lower in
post and got promotion may not get equal respect as compared to his co-
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workers. His new promotion may not give him more respect by his former co-
workers.
 Limiting your options: At the end of the day the company is loosing his own
employee as it is internal recruitment no new adding up of workers. The hiring
of employees for new post is creating loss of employees in the previous work
space.
b) External Approach:
This is the recruitment process where hiring of employees take place from external that
is outside the company. It requires many screening procedures as the company is
unaware of the employee’s talent and needs to evaluate thoroughly.
Strength of External Approach:
 Large pool of Applicants: Many employees apply for this and thus the
company has a variety of choice. It also provides a fresh outlook. This makes
the company grow more in terms of numbers as well as work efficiency
 Diversity in talent: The external selection process welcomes and introduces
large number of employees to the company which includes expert, experienced
and talented workers. This in turn will help the company to succeed more and
take up more works.
Weaknesses of External recruitment are as follows:
 Inefficiencies – One of the biggest weakness is that some recruiters spend
useless time in finding employees through search and recruiting tools which
turns out to be ineffective (Mellahi, 2017) .They also resort to other petty tactics
such as job fairs and exhibitions, recruiting tables in public places and also
resort to cold calls. However, the recruiters fail to understand that ineffective
applicants would only opt for these mediums as the efficient and talented ones
are working in best places.
 Time and Expense - External Recruitment Procedure takes more time to be
done as first Curriculum Vitae’s are accepted and after that they are
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segregated, then called for recruitments. This task sometimes proves to be
laborious as well as cost and time consuming because Curriculum Vitae’s
would only be received when people would be aware about the job opening.
Therefore, in order to make people aware, advertisements are carried on which
is cost consuming
 Online job applying: Technology has both pros and cons .When recruitments
are carried one, people from all fields apply here .This leads to the possibility of
both skilled as well as unskilled people to apply for that particular job opening.
However, for the recruitment manager from the HRM ,selection process can be
laborious as segregation on the basis of expertise requirement can be time
consuming
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LO 2.
P3 Explain the benefits of different HRM practices within an organization for both
the employer and employee.
The benefits of HRM practices within Marks & Spencer are as follows:
Healthy Work Force Diversity –Marks & Spencer is a company where the atmosphere of
the work force is secular devoid of caste, creed ,gender and race differences which in
turn proves advantageous for the HRM .They have been able to maintain this only
because they believe in the punishment pattern .Any employee who shows any
difference of attitude portraying any of the divergence , gets liable to be either expelled
or suspended .However , sometimes the punishment can be imprisonment also .Thus ,if
the atmosphere is healthy ,employees get more time to establish themselves as well as
employer benefits the best as it does not have to solve petty problems (Mellahi, 2017).
 Appraisal Plans – This is one of the major benefits which Marks & Spencer
adopts to win the trust of its employees. If the employees are praised for their
work, they would be encouraged day by day. There are some employees who
due to appreciation and rewarding procedure think more about making the
company more successful instead of just focusing on their particular
tasks .Appraisal plans indirectly benefits the employer thereby maintaining a
healthy relationship between an employer as well as an employer .
 Recruitment and Selection – Marks and Spencer through online collection of
CV’s has adopted the best medium of recruitment because through this medium
an applicant does not have to fill ten different application and on the other hand ,
the recruiting employee does not have to take the interviews each time for new
job openings . This is in turn proves advantageous as it consumes less time and
cost (Mendenhall and et al., 2017) .
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P4 Evaluate the effectiveness of different HRM practices in terms of raising
organizational profit and productivity.
The different HRM practices are:
 Setting up both Mission and Vision
 Setting up a plan
 Manpower management
 Invigilating performance
 Training and Development
 Quality Development
Setting up the long-term (vision) and short-term (mission) goal is the first priority of an
HR manager. After assigning a team, a manager sets these goals to his team and briefs
them about the work that is to be done. The effectiveness of this practice leads to sound
knowledge amongst the team members who get to know what they are supposed to do
and can work on their assigned assignments.
Then comes the plan, where an HR manager discusses the plan with the team. The
discussion includes bullet point discussion on how to build the project keeping in mind
the requirement for the task assigned to them. This phase is the most necessary when
a development is next since every requirement along with the specifications and
limitations are to be sorted here and it should be checked along with others’ input that
shows how flawless the run could be for the developed output. Then comes the
implementation plan for the task assigned where it is articulated with the most practical
outlook from the members of the team and then a thorough run over by the team
members are done before going to the next step. Once all these plans are clarified and
cross checked, the HR then moves to the next step (Brewster, 2017).
Another very vital notation in this process is the manpower management. It is very
necessary for a HR manager to identify his team’s strengths and weaknesses and
assign project or work likewise. Manpower management talks about the process where
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a HR assigns rightful task to the rightful person based on their qualification and skill set
(Cannon and Hillebrandt, 2016).
Invigilating every member’s performance is necessary from the workflow point of
view. To maintain a healthy workflow and constant work process, a manager needs to
check his team’s work time to time and correspond to them as or when necessary.
Failure to this particular part may lead to work completion but incomplete or incorrect
which obviously would not suffice to the requirements.
Performance management should also be done within a regular interval to maintain
the workflow. Team members should also feel content about their work and that comes
only by listening from the HR manager. Rewards are an important part of performance
management since it works as the motivation for the employees and team members. At
the end of the day, the company’s resources should feel important in the company
(Cascio, 2018).
Only by proper evaluation of the performances by the team members, can it be
identified that who or what is the weak link in this entire chain. It is the HR’s duty to
identify that and take proper action by training and developing the skills of the
employees that is necessary for the work or in which they are a little bit weak.
After the successful completion of all these steps, one by one, the HR finally gets the
product and accordingly checks the quality. If anyhow it feels to reach the upper mark,
the HR ensures that the work is done properly and keeping in mind the exact
requirements. While redoing the work, the HR if necessary can also incorporate some
new features or requirement in the product in order to fit-in the now aroused
requirements.
All these processes encapsulated as one determine a team’s credibility and skills in a
particular field. It also proves how efficient a HR is in his task and above all, ensures the
quality of the product they have worked upon.
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P5 Analyze the importance of employee relations in respect to influencing HRM
decision-making.
Employee relation refers to the relationship between a company and its employees.
There are several aspects that are to be followed by a company for the welfare of its
employees (Millward et al., 2014). Falling within the Human Resource Strategies,
employee relation states:
Pay benefits for the employees
Work life balance within the working schedules; and
Safe working conditions
Pay benefits should be clarified to an employee before the joining and payment should
follow certain norms and regulations.
Work life balance is a must, for which employees are to be allotted with proper leaves
and holidays. A company while hiring a person should also keep it in account that the
employee has a personal life too and that part has to be taken care of by the
organization itself.
Working place and condition should follow the minimum safety norms and it
should be checked by a government official as per the regulations. An employee cannot
be working somewhere unsafe that poses life threats for the person and this is another
point to be kept in account (Garcia et al., 2017).
Employees should be treated as the highest stakeholders of the company and are
equally affected by its success and failure. They are the ones who are involved with the
company financially and otherwise, thus it is an HR along with the company’s duty to
look after them.
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P6. Identify the key elements of employment legislation and the impact it has
upon HRM decision- making.
Employment law is a set of rules that has been articulated by the federal government
and state government jointly to protect the workers’ right while working in a company. A
company possessing more than one employee should have an employment rule in
order to provide proper rights to the employees. The Employment law also protects the
employer-employee relationship in a company. It is a clause included in the Civil Rights
Act of 1964 (Millward, 2018).
Other such types of acts are Fair Labor Standards Act 1938 that also ensures proper
well-defined hours for a person to work on a weekly or monthly basis. By incorporating
these laws and making them a fundamental to follow, the government has ensured that
people get to work properly within the time frame settled and has prevented the workers
from over timing or excess working. This law has also specified extra pay for extra
hours/works for the individuals.
The Equal Pay Act 1963 states that employees from all the possible genders are to be
hired irrespective of the sexual orientation and must be paid on equal stands based on
the work they are hired for. If a man and a woman are doing the same hours/work, they
are to be paid equally without any biases.
Marks and Spencer’s is one of the pioneers in this
Primarily these are the 3 most important laws incorporated now in the human resource
management sector in UK. By incorporating these ideas and further turning them into
law, the diversity of work in companies like Marks and Spencer has increased and work
culture has seen a renaissance. Work along with decision making has become more
effective and versatile and gender biases have decreased to a great extent. HRs now
feels encouraged to hire more women and transgender in their company.
This entire process has not just elevated the work environment in and outside Marks
and Spencer, but has also taken a huge social turnover globally. These 3 along with
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some other legislations of this type have a huge social, economical and corporate
impact.
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P7. Showing the application of HRM practices in a work-related context, using the
information you have or personally generated examples.
The function of the HR assistant is to observe the performances that are being carried
out by the employees within the organization. The foremost duty of the HR assistant is
to recognize the problems faced by the employees while carrying out the task. HR
assistant is the one accountable for any kind of mistakes done by the employees within
the organization. It is the duty of the HR assistant to recognize the skilled employees
and to make the organizational goal and objectives clear to the employees of the
organization to ensure that they do not have any doubts concerning the tasks assigned
to them. The duties carried out by the HR assistant are as follows:
 Recruiting and selecting the individuals as per the criteria
 Carrying out appropriate development and training programs
 Observing the activities of the employees
 To give incentives and rewards to the employees to make sure that they work
well and their work is appreciated
 Recording and documenting of the information of the employees
Elementary notes
 The elementary notes supplies the checklist that is to be maintained during the
interview
 The candidate must be given ease by greetings and light questions
 The candidates must not be judged based on their first impression as they will
be fresher applying for a new job and will not have proper professionalism
 The candidates should be given a proper description of the organization and
the job profile
 Positive approach must be taken while questioning the candidates
 Basic Questions must be asked on the concepts in Human resource
Management. They might comprise the process of recruitment and selection,
measures for training and development should be taken.
 At last the candidate must be given the opportunity to ask questions
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Interview Notes based on Selection Criteria
The criteria of selection is categorized in terms of Desirable and mandatory criteria. The
note is build up in table format that is mentioned below:
Mandatory Criteria Candidate 1 Candidate 2 Candidate 3
Educated to stage 3 have main
specialization in
HRM in stage 3
Have Film Study and
Mass
Communication.
have main
specialization in
HRM in stage 3
Quick logical mind
with the skill to reflect
tangentially and
creatively
display innovative
thinking skill
firm in thoughts
process
Is able to think out of
the box and build up
swift an efficient
solutions
Communication skill
equally in oral and in
writing
Sufficient
Communication
abilities orally as well
as a good listener.
excellent and rational
oral communication
abilities
Nicely versed in the
utilization of IT and is
capable of using
Office Tools
Is efficient to work
with Office
equipments.
Is efficient to work
with Office
equipments.
Is efficient to work
with Office
equipments.
Desirable Criteria Candidate 1 Candidate 2 Candidate 3
Knowledge on the
Concepts and
Labour Laws of HRM
Is talented to clarify
main concepts but
inadequate
knowledge on the
labour laws.
superior
understanding of
labour laws but lack
of rational knowledge
sufficient knowledge
on key HRM
Concepts as well as
labour laws.
Knowledge of main
problems in HRM
Has fundamental
knowledge of
probable HRM
problems in a
company
Has fundamental
knowledge of
probable HRM
problems in a
company
Has near to the
ground knowledge of
probable HRM
problems in a
company
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A job offer to the selected candidate
17
Offer Letter for HR Assistant
Marks & Spencer’s
London, UK
Mr. Michael Stevens
Address: 75 Stratton Street, East End, London, W2C 9DT, United Kingdom May 31,
2018
Dear Sir,
With mention to the interview dated on 25th May 2018 we are pleased to inform you
that you are selected for the position of HR Assistant in our Company.
Your joining date will be on 15th June 2018 based on the following terms and
conditions:
 You will be under probation for the first 6 months
 You will be entitled to a annual Cost to corporation of £18000 per month
during the probation period.
 You have to obey with the terms and conditions of Appointment beneath the
Employment Act 2008.
 You should consent to present the signed copy of identity proof, address
proof, degree certificate and two passport size photographs.
Please send us acknowledgement of this offer and also confirm you joining.
We look forward to a mutually rewarding professional relationship with you.

CV 3
Lucy Albertos
Contact number: 7896658955 E-mail Id: [e-mail]
Father: Mike Albertos
Mother: Diana Albertos
D.O.B.: 20/05/1992
Sex: Female Marital status: Single
Address: 50 Stratton Street, West End, London, W1J 8LQ, United Kingdom
Educational information
1. IQ IAM Level 3 Diploma in Mass communication from London School of Mass
Communication in the year 2014
2. IQ IAM Level 4 Public Relation management from Standford University in 2017
Work experience
Fresher
Interests in
Music, painting, sports
18
SIGNATURE
DATE:
PLACE:

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Michael Sobel
Contact number: 7822586955
E- mail ID: [e-mail]
Signature
Date of birth: 13/06/1993
Sex:MaleMarital status: Single
Father name: Dreake Sobel
Mother name: Raya Sobel
Address: A4, London WC2N 5DU, UK
DATE:
Education qualification
Work experience: Fresher
Hobbies and interests: Music, photography and travelling
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