Human Resource Management in Sainsburys

Human Resource
Management

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
TASK 1............................................................................................................................................1
P1. Purpose and functions of HRM, applicable to workforce planning and resourcing an
organisation..................................................................................................................................1
P2. Strengths and weaknesses of different approaches to recruitment and selection..................3
P3. Benefits of different HRM practices within an organisation for both the employer and
employee......................................................................................................................................6
P4. Effectiveness of different HRM practices in terms of raising organisational profit and
productivity..................................................................................................................................7
TASK 2............................................................................................................................................8
P5. Importance of employee relations in respect to influencing HRM decision-making............8
P6. Key elements of employment legislation and the impact it has upon HRM decision making
......................................................................................................................................................9
P7. Application of HRM practices in a work-related context......................................................9
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................10
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................12

INTRODUCTION
Human resource management are approaches for managing people at workplace so that
business can gain competitive advantage (Bach and Edward, 2013). It involves various methods
to maximise performances of employees along with developing effectiveness of an organisation.
Department of human resource is responsible for ensuring benefits of staff members, recruiting,
selection, training, development, managing people and controlling their activities, compensation
and many more. To understand human resource management practices, Sainsburys is selected.
The chosen company is largest supermarket chain which has its headquarters located at Holborn,
London, United kingdom since 1869. This report includes purpose and functions of HRM which
are applicable to workforce planning as well as resourcing an organisation, strengths and
weaknesses of different approaches to recruitment and selection, benefits of different HRM
practices for both the employer and employee along with effectiveness of different HRM
practices in terms of raising organisational profit and productivity. It further discusses about
importance of employee relations for influencing decision-making, key elements of employment
legislation and the impact it has upon HRM decision making, application of HRM practices in a
work-related context.
TASK 1
P1. Purpose and functions of HRM, applicable to workforce planning and resourcing an
organisation.
Human resource management is a strategic process which involves procurement,
development along with maintenance of human resources at workplace (Bakker and Demerouti,
2014). It is concerned with achievement of organisational objectives as well as goals in efficient
and effective manner.
Workforce planning is an ongoing process used for alignment of priorities with essential
requirements of enterprises with its workforce in order to meet regulatory, production, legislative
as well as services and objectives of business. It is concerned with placing right personnel with
right competencies at right place and on right time period. Managers should appoint right people
are those who are characterised as motivation, capabilities to perform the job. Right skills can be
said as abilities and knowledge. Right time is something to happen at predetermined appropriate
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period. Under workforce planning, all such aspects are considered to complete the task at right
time by right person as per right skills or competencies.
Purpose:
Purpose of human resource management is to manage various needs of staff members
related to financial till legal matters. It also serves the purpose of increasing organisational
productivity by utilising potentiality as well as capabilities of workforce within the organisation.
Its main objective is to recruit, select, develop, manage and retain key resources by coordinating
operations between employees and organisation as well as contributing towards potentiality of
company. In context to Sainsburys, Human resource manager manages and encourages
employees to perform with efficiency in order to attain objectives as well as maintaining
sustainability within business.
Functions:
Various functions of human resource management are as follows:
Operative function: Operative function includes tasks which are entrusted to personnel
department. Such functions are concerned with development, integration, employment,
development, maintenance of employees of company (Bratton and Gold, 2017). Purpose of this
function at Sainsburys is to plan day to day operations along with short term strategies. The
operative functions at selected business are as follows:
Employment: It is involves employing as well as securing people who possess required
level necessary for attaining organisational goals. It encompasses functions related to job
analysis, placement, internal mobility and so on of employees.
Development: Development of existing employees along with new personnels is very
necessary as to cope up with changing scenarios. Managers are responsible for providing training
and development programmes to employees for enhancing skills and knowledge to get effective
results.
Managerial functions: It includes planning, organising, staffing, directing along with
controlling personnel’s at workplace for ensuring fulfilment of personal as well as organisational
goals. Purpose of managerial function at selected company is to focus towards short and midterm
strategies and taking decisions for operational tasks. Basic managerial functions are as discussed:
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Planning: Planning refers to deciding for the future in present time period. It involves
analysis of various programs related to determining vacancies, sources of recruitment and many
more.
Organising: When plans are formulated, organisational structure is developed by HR
manager to move ahead with further operations.
Staffing: It refers to placing right candidate with right capabilities at right time period.
Directing: Such function includes providing guidance’s as well as directions to perform
certain operations in effective manner to new or existing employees.
Controlling: It is used for monitoring actual performance and measuring it with desired
performance state and to implement strategies to overcome the deviations.
Advisory functions: Such functions provide strategic advice to management related to
any issues. Purpose of this function is to advise management for solving any problem which
affects personnel’s, procedures along with policies. HR manager of Sainsburys provides advices
to:
Top management: Advises are offered related to preparation of policies, strategies,
procedures as well as maintaining healthy relations with workforce (Bringezu and Bleischwitz,
2017).
Departmental heads: Personnel managers offers advices to different departmental issues
such as recruitment, selection, placement, job analysis, performance appraisal and so on.
P2. Strengths and weaknesses of different approaches to recruitment and selection.
Recruitment: It is a process of attracting, short-listing and determining suitable candidate
for specific job. Two sources of recruitment used by managers of selected organisation as
follows:
Internal sources: It refers to hiring people from existing employees within organisation.
Sources of internal recruitment are:
Transfer: Employees are transferred or shifted from one department to another or from
one job location to another having similar ranks and duties. Employees of Sainsburys are
transferred from one store to another at different locations where they perform similar nature of
work.
Strengths Weaknesses
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 Reduces monotony boredom from one
place (Chardine-Baumann and Botta-
Genoulaz, 2014).
 Improves satisfaction within
personnel’s
 Employees may not fit in new location.
 Transferring of experienced hands
affects productivity.
Promotions: Employees are promoted or moved towards upper level with more
responsibilities, reputation as well as prestige.
Strengths Weaknesses
 Boost employee morale.
 Employees are familiar with existing
rules, work culture along with
regulations of an organisation.
 Limits entry of fresh ideas into
business.
 Restrains the growth as well as
difficulty in attaining objectives with
higher efficiency.
External sources: It includes selecting or hiring suitable candidate from outside world.
Sources of external recruitment are as follows:
Press advertisements: Publicity of vacant posts along with details related to job in
relevance to job specification as well as job description are made available for general public
through such method.
Strengths Weaknesses
 It communicates recruitment messages
to mass public.
 Sends positive message related to firm
in marketplace.
 It consumes lot of time as it is a slow
process.
 No guarantee of success and involver
high cost in advertisement (DeCenzo,
Robbins and Verhulst, 2016).
Campus interviews: Organisations adopts such method to select students or fresh blood
from different educational institutions. It provides various opportunities for students to prove
themselves to get selected for eligible jobs.
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Strengths Weaknesses
 Wide choice of candidates is selected
for numerous job posts in less time
period.
 Saves efforts as well as time of
businesses.
 Adds various costs to organisational
bottom line.
 Experienced as well as skilled
candidates who have practical
exposures cannot take advantage of
such method.
Job analysis: It involves various procedures for identifying job content in terms of
relevant activities as well as attributes to perform specific job.
Strength: It provides information to determine employees who fit best for the job.
Weaknesses: It is a time consuming process (Foster, 2014).
Job description: It involves statements related to particular jobs. It encompasses duties,
responsibilities, working conditions and many more related to specific job.
Strengths: It provides detailed description of particular job.
Weaknesses: It discourages innovative ideas and fails to meet expectations of employees.
Selection: It includes various procedures to choose most suitable candidate for vacant
position at workplace. Process of selection at Sainsburys includes preliminary interviews,
receiving applications, screening applications, employment test, interviews, reference checking,
medical examination, final selection. Strengths and weaknesses of selection process are as
follows:
Strengths Weaknesses
 Suitable person for the post is selected.
 Reduces labour turnover.
 Used for proper assessment of
candidates.
 Unreliable.
 Wrong usage.
 Fear of exposure.
Approaches of recruitment and selection process:
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Contemporary approach: Contemporary approaches are flexible and helps in
developing transparent as well as fair policies in procedures of recruitment and selection
(Harrison and Lock, 2017).
Strengths: They embraces variety of human resource practices along with recruitment
and selection procedures for selected organisation.
Weaknesses: They results in delay in decision making for recruiting and selecting
appropriate candidate for suitable job position.
Contingency approach: Such approach suggests application of appropriate management
theory in context to different situations in long term. These are dependent on environment as
well as circumstances prevailing at workplace.
Strengths: It helps Sainsburys to adopt methods suitable for recruitment and selection as
per their needs. It allows management to modify its roles as well as responsibilities in different
situations in order to ensure success.
Weaknesses: Such approach is reactive not proactive and it encompasses complex
empirical testing in selection procedures.
P3. Benefits of different HRM practices within an organisation for both the employer and
employee.
HRM practices are approaches for managing personnel’s in effective manner in order to
boost their performances. They play important role in achieving departmental objectives along
with enhancing productivity (Klingebiel and Rammer, 2014). Some of the HRM practices along
with benefits to employee and employer are the followings:
Training and development: Such practices include job skill training, professional
development, new employee orientation along with leadership training as well as development.
Various plans, programmes and procedures are implemented in order to train new employees and
developing skills of existing employees.
Benefits to employees: Through training and development practices helps employee to
learn new job skills, enhances productivity, makes employees expertise in particular job which
helps in achieving profitability, supports employees work towards achievement of goals,
develops key skills as well as increases value in organisation.
Benefits to employers: Training and development practices helps employers to solve
various issues within less time period and boosts their profitability by motivating employees to
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learn new things. They coordinate their activities with different departments and increases
productivity for company. Employers also learn new ways to manage people at workplace
through such practices.
Compensation and benefits: These practices are viewed together and present a view
related to the ways employer’s rewards employees at workplace. It provides a clear picture
related to employee wages, benefits, taxes and many more. They reveal formalized compensation
programs along with active management of performances.
Benefits to employees: Favourable compensation and benefits helps in boosting
productivity of employee towards achievement of objectives with maximum profitability. Such
practices benefits in providing flexible working options to employees and motivates to learn new
concepts.
Benefits to employers: By providing such practices, employers enjoy the benefits to
attract top talent, increases motivation as well as loyalty towards enterprise, stays for longer time
period, increases productivity along with profitability. If an employer gets compensation or
benefits by learning and development new skills, they becomes specialised through such
practices (Pedersen and Thibault, 2014).
P4. Effectiveness of different HRM practices in terms of raising organisational profit and
productivity.
HRM practices used by managers of Sainsburys are as described:
Performance appraisal: It is a systematic and continuous process which is used for
assessing individual employee performance as well as productivity in relevance to pre-
established criteria for attaining organisational objectives. It helps in performance evaluation,
employee appraisal, performance review, development discussion and providing feedbacks to
employees. It benefits by identifying areas for further development and influencing individual
performances to boost productivity and attaining profitability.
Career management: Such practice is a combination of factors related to psychological,
educational, economic, sociological and many more which shapes the career of an individual for
entire life span. It engages active management choice along with structured planning in relation
to professional careers. It benefits by growing skills as well as experience and provides
opportunities for development of an individual career to ensure higher productivity and boosting
profitability.
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Recruitment: Such practice is based on attracting suitable candidate for job position. It is
a process in which candidate is searched for prospective job position in time as well as cost
effective manner. This practice benefits to Sainsburys by attracting strong pool of candidates,
accurate qualification screenings, reduced turnover, strategic alignment with organisational
objectives which results in increasing productivity along with profitability.
TASK 2
P5. Importance of employee relations in respect to influencing HRM decision-making
Employee relation refers to efforts of company to manage better relationship among
employees and employers. Firm with the better employee relation program gives the consistent
and fair treatment to all staff members so that they can be committed towards their job and also
loyal to business (Popescu, Comanescu and Sabie, 2016). Sainsburys use different strategies to
developing and improving the employee relations which are given below:
Involve team members- It is necessary that employees should feel indispensable and
necessary for company. They should be assigned the responsibilities on the basis of their
responsibilities and challenges. Management of Sainsbury should involve in decision making.
Communicate company mission and vision- Staff member want to be know about what
they working toward. They want to be understand how their particular role fit in with strategic
direction of firm. Sainsburys Management should be assure to interact vision, mission of form
and transparent regarding Sainsburys direction.
Decision making refers to process of making the choices through determining decision,
collecting information and also assessing the alternative resolutions. There are different steps
involved in HRM decision making mention below:
Preliminary evaluation- It is necessary to confirm early in process of decision making
that question is being asked is correct. It is necessary for the HR department to evaluate every
thing and then take effective decisions. It will help in develop the positive impact on employee
relation.
Identify stakeholders- It is not necessary that all stakeholders will play an active role in
process of decision making, but process should be include each stakeholder as important.
Stakeholders are involve in all decision making. It is helpful in develop the better relationship
with stakeholders and company.
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Develop alternative scenario- After decision team has reviewed, quantitative and
qualitative analysis surroundings status quo the scenario, they are regarded as alternative
scenario. Mainly, it is helpful in develop the decision criteria for each quantitative and qualitative
category.
Make effective decision- After establish the alternative scenario and specialised
information, team is ready to be discuss and make effective decision to best action course to take.
It is necessary that team should be comfortable from decisions and employees can feel
comfortable to work. Through this, they can be sustain for long period of time and also will be
loyal for firm. Through this, positive impact will be developed on employee relation.
P6. Key elements of employment legislation and the impact it has upon HRM decision making
Employment legislation refers to law that governs the employment within workplace. It
impacts employee, employer and the unions directly. Legislation passed through federal and
stated government needs both employee and employer top regulate their conduct in context to
other through imposing minimum standards. Government of United Kingdom developed some
legislation which need to be followed through Sainsbury company. Some UK legal and
regulatory framework mention below:
Sex discrimination- Sex Discrimination Act 1975 was an Act of Parliament of UK which
protected women and men from discrimination on grounds of sex (Purce, 2014). This act is
related to the employment, harassment, disposal of premises, training etc. Sainsbury should
follow this act and provide the equal opportunity to employees on the basis of Gender.
Equal pay- This act was mainly developed to prevent discrimination as context to
conditions and terms of employment among women and men. This act was for through
Parliament of United Kingdom that prohibit any unfavourable treatment among women and men
in context to pat of employment. This act is helpful in provide the equal pay opportunities to men
and women. If such act is not considered properly during payment of wages to workforce, it
affects the decision making at great extent.
Data protection act- The Data Protection Act 2018 controls how the personal information
is used through company, government and businesses. The government of United Kingdom
execute General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) which assures that information of
employees and customers should be used lawfully, transparently and fairly through Sainsbury
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company. It will be helpful in develop positive impact on the business in mind of customers. It
affects decision when information is not considered as per the requirements.
P7. Application of HRM practices in a work-related context
Recruitment and selection both are the necessary HRM practices as well as HR functions.
The recruitment refers to process of attracting, short-listing and also appointing the suitable
candidates for job within firm (Stocking, 2017). This process included in selecting people for the
unpaid roles. On the other hand, selection includes in selecting applicant’s suitable person to fill
post. Under this, HR select only that candidate who is suitable according to vacant job role.
Use of reward system
Reward system is related with selection of kinds of rewards which to be used through
company. It is one of the effective way to enhance motivation level of employees. The main use
of reward system is to motivate workers towards attaining the strategic objectives which are set
through top management. There is a use of reward system in two different contexts such as white
collar and blue- collar labour. The Blue- Collar labours are motivated to enhance productivity of
business. Their main focus on maximise efficiency and productivity of business. The managers
of Sainsburys use rewards system to motivate them. On the other hand, white collar workers are
those which performed managerial and administrative work. With the help of reward system,
they will be motivated and focus on develop effective plan and policies to gain success.
Staffs motivated with reward system
The rewards system is helpful in enhance motivation level of employees. Motivated
workforce in Sainsburys company can be most necessary factor in success of business. It is
necessary that employee programs and reward require to ongoing to effective (Tyson, 2014). If
firm provide only sporadic reward then staff members frustrated rather instead of motivated.
Effective reward program can make improvement in productivity and enhance employee
retention.
Reward method is appropriate
Extrinsic reward is more effective for Sainsburys because it is in monetary terms such as
pay raises, benefits and bonuses. The main reason of use this reward method is that it can
influence groups and person and also their productivity level.
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CONCLUSION
From the above mentioned report it can be concluded that human resource management
plays important role in managing people at workplace and helps business to attain its objectives
in effective as well as efficient manner. Purpose of human resource management is to manage
needs of people and solving their issues for increasing organisational productivity. It plays
important function related top management, operative and advisory at organisation. Different
approaches of recruitment are internal sources as well as external sources. Approaches of
recruitment and selection process includes contemporary approach and contingency approach.
Different HRM practices includes training and development, compensation and benefits,
performance appraisal, career management, recruitment and many more. These all benefits
employer and employee at workplace to increase productivity and profitability. Employee
relations are important as they influence decision making of managers. Key elements of
employee legislation includes sex discrimination, equal pay, data protection act and have huge
impact on HRM decision making. HRM practices are applicable on different contexts related to
use of reward system, staffs motivated with reward system, reward method is appropriate.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals:
Bach, S. and Edward, M., 2013. Managing human resources. Routhledge.
Bakker, A. B. and Demerouti, E., 2014. Job demands–resources theory. Wellbeing: A complete
reference guide, pp.1-28.
Bratton, J. and Gold, J., 2017. Human resource management: theory and practice. Palgrave.
Bringezu, S. and Bleischwitz, R., 2017. Sustainable resource management: global trends,
visions and policies. Routledge.
Chardine-Baumann, E. and Botta-Genoulaz, V., 2014. A framework for sustainable performance
assessment of supply chain management practices. Computers & Industrial
Engineering. 76. pp.138-147.
DeCenzo, D. A., Robbins, S. P. and Verhulst, S. L., 2016. Fundamentals of Human Resource
Management, Binder Ready Version. John Wiley & Sons.
Foster, E. C., 2014. Human resource management. In Software Engineering (pp. 253-269).
Apress, Berkeley, CA.
Harrison, F. and Lock, D., 2017. Advanced project management: a structured approach.
Routledge.
Klingebiel, R. and Rammer, C., 2014. Resource allocation strategy for innovation portfolio
management. Strategic Management Journal. 35(2). pp.246-268.
Pedersen, P. M. and Thibault, L. eds., 2014. Contemporary sport management, 5E. Human
Kinetics.
Popescu, G. H., Comanescu, M. and Sabie, O. M., 2016. The role of human capital in the
knowledge-networked economy. Psychosociological Issues in Human Resource
Management.4(1). p.168.
Purce, J., 2014. The impact of corporate strategy on human resource management. New
Perspectives on Human Resource Management (Routledge Revivals).67.
Stocking, M. A., 2017. Assessing vegetative cover and management effects. In Soil erosion
research methods (pp. 211-234). Routledge.
Tyson, S., 2014. Essentials of human resource management. Routledge.
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