Human Resource Management Report

This report examines the role of Human Resource Management (HRM) in Waitrose & Partners, a British supermarket chain. It analyzes key HR functions, including recruitment, selection, training, and employee relations, and their impact on business objectives. The report also discusses the significance of employee relations, the impact of employment legislation on HRM decision-making, and provides examples of HRM practices applied in a work-related context.

Human resource
management

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
TASK 1............................................................................................................................................1
P1 Function and purpose of HRM..........................................................................................1
P2 Strengths and weaknesses of various approaches of selection..........................................3
P3 Benefit of HRM practice to employee and employer.......................................................5
P4 Effectiveness of HRM practice in raising company's profit and productivity..................6
TASK 2............................................................................................................................................7
P5 Significance of employee relation in respect to influence on HRM decision making......7
P6 Main elements of employment legislation and their affect on decision making by HR . .8
P7 Examples of applying HRM practices in work related context........................................9
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................11
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................12

INTRODUCTION
The process of recruiting, training, motivating and retaining employees is known as
human resource management (Armstrong and Taylor, 2014). It also involve other activities like
taking decisions relating to compensation, appraise of employees etc. This assignment is based
on Waitrose & Partners which is a British supermarket chain. Around 52000 people are
employed in this company and their stores are present across Great Britain. This project will
explain the purpose and functions which is done by human resource wing. Their are various
approaches of recruitment and selection, strengths and weaknesses of these methods will be
evaluated. The contribution of HRM practices in context of profit and productivity will be
evaluated as well. The importance of employee relation will be considered along with
consideration of the employment legislation while formulating decision will be studied in this
report.
TASK 1
P1 Function and purpose of HRM
An organisation with quality workforce always possess a competitive edge over its rival
businesses. Employees are key resource of an enterprise and managing them in effective way is
essential for overall growth of company. Below are purposes of HRM:
Organisational purpose
Recruit best person for a Job – HR division exist in an organisation because they are
required to select most suitable candidates for vacant position. Waitrose understand that they
have to maintain proper balance between demand and supply of workforce. Hiring best person in
not the only purpose of HRM, they also predict future requirement of human resource and
attempt to fulfil accordingly.
Employee retention – High workers' turnover is a big issue for every corporation. HRM
use various strategies like attractive reward system, involving personnels in decision making etc.
for retaining talented employees (Bratton and Gold, 2017). Contribution of this factor is
important in workforce planning. Waitrose is working on developing a ''great workplace'' as it
can referred to as key purpose of human resource department.
Individual purpose
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Raise demands of employees – Human resource managers are appointed to key positions
so that they can represent workers and help in communicating their needs to management. HRM
help an individual in understanding and resolving issue of every employee.
Consultation – Getting opinions of workers not an easy task for a company who have a
large workforce. One of the most unpopular purpose of HRM is get suggestions from personnels
who are working at operational level. It also involve passing the instruction which are given by
management for whole organisation like rules relating to health and safety (Jackson, Schuler and
Jiang, 2014).
Function of HRM
Managerial function
Planning and Organisation - Forecasting demand and supply of employees is an
important work which human resource team have to carry out. Waitrose also want to expand
their business like of any other company and ascertaining appropriate requirement of workforce
is essential part of this process. After forecasting, their next job is to identify net shortage or
excess and make a plan accordingly. Organising involve various tasks like allotting functions to
individuals, delegation of authority and coordination of all the activities so that it leads to
improvement in business operations.
Directing and Controlling – Motivation is one factor which create different between
proper and poor execution of plans. Human resource team perform an important function i.e. to
motivate employees and show them right direction. Controlling is an activity which concentrate
on comparing actual results with planned one. Performance appraisal, personnel audits are
involved in this function that leads to identifying performance of employees and undertaking
measures to improve the same.
Operational function
Working condition and welfare – HRM is responsibility for providing appropriate
working environment to employees. Training can increase efficiency of workers up-to a limit, if
personnels like Supermarket assistant will get productive atmosphere and proper facility then
they can deliver better results.
Recruitment and selection – Selecting right pool of talent for the company is primary
function of HR team (Kehoe and Wright, 2013). This division of Waitrose understand that they
cannot attain set objectives until they select most suitable candidate for a job profile.
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P2 Strengths and weaknesses of various approaches of selection
An organisation can find potential employees at different places, through various
methods and by using variety of approaches. An organisation has two options for at the time of
recruiting human resource, first is internal and second is external. Below is their explanation:
External source – When employees in company are hired from outside of the
organisation then it is considered as selection through use of external source. Campus placement,
Walk-ins, management consultants, e-recruitments are few examples of this approach.
Strengths and weaknesses of external recruitment is mentioned below for Waitrose:
Strengths
Better and more options – Options like campus placement and Walk-ins allow company
to get recruit candidates from wider pool of talent. They can easily get more qualified employees
at a decent cost if they go with options like recruitment from educational institutions (Purce,
2014). If enterprise will have more choice then there is a higher probability of hiring best person
for a job.
New talent in organisation – Freshers are important part of business corporations. New
employees bring more creativity in the firm and increase positive competition among workers.
Weaknesses
Expensive –Hiring through external source can cost huge amount of money to Waitrose.
Options like e-recruitments and Walk-ins require other expenses like advertising, screening etc.
When an organisation has to hire hundreds of workers on monthly basis then this burden of cost
create more problems for company.
Time consuming – Recruitment from outside of the corporation is always considered as a
time consuming process. For example, if company want to recruit candidates from e-recruitments
then they have follow a lengthy procedure. HR department first have to find potential applicants
on online job portal and inform them about job vacancy. After this, they have to ask them about
preferred time for interview and other formalities. It take lots of time to go through the complete
process.
Internal source – It means selecting employees for a job profile from present workforce.
Referrals and recommendations from workers are also involved in it. Promotion, transfer, call
back retired managers etc. are few examples of approach of hiring through internal sources.
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Strengths
Low recruitment cost – If Waitrose will fill a vacant position by promotion or demoting
their employee then it would not cost them any amount. In case of referrals, they can hire
referred person by paying nominal amount to present workers as a reward for helping HR
division.
Enhance employee's morale – Transfer to their preferred locations and promotion
motivate other employees for performing better (Buller and McEvoy, 2012). The transfers and
promotion of employees act as a motivation factors which persuade them to perform better
allocated tasks.
(Source: Meaning and concept of recruitment. 2013)
Weaknesses
Generate conflicts – If Waitrose will promote one person over others, who are on similar
position, may ask questions to their senior about why they are not getting career growth. This
may create big dispute among manager and key employees of the organisation and
simultaneously decrease morale of employees as well.
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Il
lustration 1: Meaning and concept of recruitment.

Limited choice – Less number of options is main disadvantage of internal source of
recruitment. When HR department of Waitrose have to hire potential workers from referrals or
promotions then they may fail to select best person for a job because current workforce has
limited talent and skills.
P3 Benefit of HRM practice to employee and employer
Human resource department was not considered as an important division earlier. . This
was happening because HR wing do not have any direct contribution in profits which are availed
by the company through their operations. But now, every organisation give due importance to
personnel team because it is beneficial for both company and employees. Below are its
advantages:
Benefits to employer
Fill vacant empty position with best possible candidate – Most important thing for an
organisation is to develop quality workforce. HRM assure that all the people who are entering
company should be fit considering the vacant position in the organisation. . Profit of Waitrose
will automatically go up when right candidates will start working in the enterprise and perform
their tasks ideally.
Manage conflicts – HR managers of the company, at different locations, concentrate on
reducing number of disputes among employees and between employer & workers (Gatewood,
Feild and Barrick, 2015). When conflicts does not take place at workplace then personnels can
easily focus on allotted work. It improves their efficiency and increase overall productivity of
company as there are no major disruption in the operations.
Develop positive culture – Developing a fair rewards system, organising fun activities in
office & at stores and coming up with ideas of flexible working practices are few tasks which
are carried out by HR division for constructing a positive organisational culture. Waitrose can
innovate new products and process, for attaining competitive advantage, if working atmosphere
of company is engaging and productive.
Benefits to employee
Enhance knowledge and skills – HRM play crucial role in organising training and
development programmes so that employee are able to develop themselves on personal and
professional grounds (Collings, Wood and Szamosi, 2018). At Waitrose, human resource team
evaluate performance of every employee and make training plan for them according to their
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appraisal. It assist workers in getting promotions by making them deserving candidate for senior
posts. Money is directly proportional to career growth.
Resolve issues – Workforce of big organisations such as Waitrose face various kind of
difficulties. It can be among employees or with management. Human resource department
attempts to listen and resolve these problems. They have proper knowledge of company's policy
and they use it for minimising confusions and dispute in the enterprise.
Information resource – Whenever workers have some query regarding leaves, incentive
schemes, compensation benefits etc. then they contact HR division of the company. One can
argue that it is secondary work or not too important for employees but in reality, if employees do
not have knowledge about these basic things then they cannot concentrate on their work.
P4 Effectiveness of HRM practice in raising company's profit and productivity
Managing human resource is always considered as a challenging task because thinking
and perception of every person differs from each other. HRM practice may not have any direct
connection with revenue of company but they have ability to make a huge impact on profit of
firm (Kokt, 2015). Below is evaluation of the effectiveness of HRM practices:
Performance appraisal – Assessing work done by employees is an important part of
human resource wing. They help workers of Waitrose in identifying their strengths and
weaknesses so that they can work in both areas. Training and development sessions play
significant role in developing quality workforce. When company find needs of skill development
in employees and train them accordingly then it increases workers as well as organisational
productivity. More efficiency means additional profit to the enterprise as the cost of production
will decline significantly. Performance appraisal is no doubt an effective HRM practice.
Career management – Human resource department is responsible for finding best person
for key jobs like Chief financial office, head of operations, Specialist Supermarket Assistant etc.
HR team provide right advice to few employees, who have ability to reach new height, so they
can be retained in the organisation for a longer duration and occupy vacant position (Aladwan,
Bhanugopan and D'Netto, 2015). Providing right guidance and counselling employee relating to
their future choices can motivate them and simultaneously improves the quality of the work
which is being done by them. For instance: Improvement in the quality of customer service
will enhance satisfaction level of higher number of people which will result in repetition of sales.
This HRM practice is beneficial for Waitrose.
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Work-life balance – Human being cannot work like machine, they need regular holidays,
friendly environment and other facilities like flexible working hours to function ideally.
Personnel department of Waitrose provide sufficient number of leaves to their employees so they
can spend sometime with their friends and family. Regular breaks keep workers mind fresh and
make a positive impact on their productivity. Friendly working culture promotes innovation
which is now considered as key factor for enhancing profit. Work-life balance is comparatively
new practice and it is continuously getting popular because of its high effectiveness.
TASK 2
P5 Significance of employee relation in respect to influence on HRM decision making
The connection between organisation and its workers base is basically know as employee
relation. Although, it is a broad term and cover lot of areas like resolving disputes, retaining
personnels etc. The stature of employee relations shared directly impact profit and productivity
of whole organisation. Trade unions are losing their significance in this era because human
resource department is doing most of the work which was initially carried out by trade unions.
Waitrose do not have trade unions because HR team of company is solving all the issues
personnels. Below is importance of employee relation:
Increase loyalty – Human resource division is responsible for managing low workers
turnover rate. The prime reason behind people leaving an organisation is that they do not see
their future bright in the enterprise and trust between employer and workforce isn't in a good
state. Employee relation boost loyalty among workers by satisfying basic demands of personnels
like better facilities at workplace, pleasant work environment etc. HR team have to formulate
decisions regarding number of new recruitments for upcoming time (Shen and Benson, 2016).
Advantages of employee relation like increase loyalty help human resource team in getting better
estimation about demand and supply of workers. It assist HR wing in making right decisions.
Enhance productivity – An important part of employee relation is related to involving
workers in the process of decision making. Significant calls like what training should be given to
personnel, targets for every individual etc. are taken with the consent of employees (Wilton,
2016). This motivate them to perform better and increase their productivity as their opinions are
being heard by the management. It is essential for attaining organisational as well as own targets.
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HR is accountable for training and development of workers and they have to arrange training
programmes for them. Employee relations influence HRM decision making in positive way. If
productivity of workforce will go up then the demand of human resource will go down in
Waitrose. This will reduce workload of whole HR team.
Minimise conflicts – Better communication is essential element of employee relation.
Counselling, giving more rights to personnels reduce cases of misunderstanding between
workers and employers can be referred as some of incremental steps to reduce conflicts in the
organisation. Resolving disputes include making important calls and employee relations save HR
team of Waitrose from taking tough decision. Work of human resource team increases when
number of conflicts in the organisation is more because they are bridge between both sides.
Company get better working environment when there are lesser number of disagreements within
the organisational environment.
Reduce absenteeism – Problem of absenteeism decreases because of healthy employee
relations. It increases seriousness in workers and make an environment where personnels enjoy
their job. Workforce of Waitrose avoid frequent leaves because of friendly workplace and
productive environment. It ultimately reduces workload of employees and assist HR team in
decision making.
P6 Main elements of employment legislation and their affect on decision making by HR
Business organisations have to followed regulations and laws of particular nation where
they are operating their business. Waitrose is an old corporation and company understand that
they have follow the norm which are made by Government. Below are few acts and their impact
on decisions taken by HR wing:
Equality act 2010 – This act is basically codification of all the regulations relating to
anti-discrimination. It states that employer cannot discriminate on the basis of sex, race,
disability, age and religious belief. Waitrose has to consider provisions of this act at the time of
promoting or transferring an employee. It can influence decision of HR team according to
specific situation (Brewster, 2017). For example, personnel division of company may have to
promote a person and send him/her to other region. The job involve lots of travelling. Human
resource wing cannot ignore eligibility of a disable worker only because of his/her disability. In
this case, promoting an employee with some disability will increase overall cost of business as
company have to give him/her some other facilities like, a driver.
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Data protection act 1998 – The key focus on this law is to provide right of controlling
own information to every individual. HR team of Waitrose store personal data of every workers
like details of their family, address, phone number, email id etc. They cannot share it with
anyone, except in case of exemptions, otherwise company may get involve in legal trouble. With
increasing number of employees, storing and securing workers personal data is very difficult of
Waitrose. It add extra burden of cost on organisation's profit and contain high risk of leaking
confidential information.
National minimum wages act 1998 – According to this act, employer have to give offer
minimum amount of salary i.e. at-least 7.83 per hour for people aged 25 above and 7.38 per hour
for 21-24 age group. They have to offer them remuneration according to revised rates which are
applicable from 1 April, 2018. When an organisation follow all the regulation and pay salary to
working without breaking any law then it improves their image in industry and qualified
potential clients prefer to work in this type of organisation.
Health and safety at work act 1974 – Duties of employer, employees and persons in
general is defined in HSWA 1974. This law cover regulations and enforcement at workplace
which are mainly related to health, safety and welfare of employees (Rees and Smith, 2017). HR
team is involved in the decisions relating to health and safety of employees at workplace. They
may not want to spend much time on spreading awareness about health and safety but because of
this law, they have to work in different areas, like paste warning sign at risky location, maintain a
register regarding medical condition of every workers etc. Waitrose can save huge amount of
money, which they may have to give in the name of fine, if they follow all the provisions of this
act.
P7 Examples of applying HRM practices in work related context
Human resource play vital role in success of an organisation. Waitrose has faced issues
related to high work pressure and increasing employee turnover. The company is applying below
mentioned HRM practices:
Recruitment and selection – This is primary and most important task of HR team.
Human resource department of Waitrose check that whether an applicant has ability to work in a
team or not. Confidence is another skill which this division seek in potential employees. Every
organisation has their own culture and recruitment policy, Waitrose emphasis on these two skills.
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In order to correct right candidate, they focus on these areas besides technical knowledge
required for a job.
Employee satisfaction – Every employee has different expectations and their job
satisfaction depend on whether their needs and demands are getting fulfilled or not.
compensation, promotions, flexible working hours etc. are few things which workers expect
from company and if they get what they want then it means that organisation is assuring higher
employee satisfaction (Marchington, 2015). HR wing of Waitrose provide various facilities and
opportunities to workers in order to meet their demand and raise contentment level. Heavy
discount to personnels, helpful behaviour of managers etc. fulfil their expectations relating to
monetary benefits and growth opportunities.
Employee compensation – HR team have to decide salary and other remuneration of
every worker. At Waitrose, human resource department communicate incentive schemes, bonus
plans, stock options to employees. John Lewis partnership is parent company of Waitrose and it
is an employee owned retailer. Work of personnels wing enhances when workers have share in
organisation's profit. Company announced a bonus of 10% on the salary in 2016, this amount
was 15% in 2014 (John Lewis and Waitrose employees to receive 10% bonus, 2018). Although,
this decision was taken by management but personnels division's role was significant in the
whole process.
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(Source: Contractor Training Compliance Coordinator – Northern Cape, 2018)
Training and development – With time, responsibility of HR department is increasing
and now they are accountable for assuring skill develop of human resource. Waitrose understand
that ''improvement'' need of every employee differ so they make different training plan for all the
workers. Personnels' development is directly connected to company's profit, an important part of
training session concentrate on achieving own objectives also. Another area where Waitrose are
applying this HRM practice is basically connected to their suppliers. They are running a
Postgraduate Professional Training Programme in the filed of ''food challenges for 21st Century''.
Lancaster University is supporting them in organising this course of study (Food Challenges for
the 21st Century, 2018).
CONCLUSION
From the above report, it can be concluded that HRM functions are directly connected to
human resource planning. HR team of an organisation always check that whether a candidate
will fit in the company or not. The human resource departments attempts to recruit most suitable
candidate for a vacant position in the organisation. Business enterprises adopt recruitment and
selection approach according to suitability. HRM provide various benefits to employees and
employers also. Its positive impact on organisational profit and productivity is beneficial for
company. Good employee relation support decisions which are taken by human resource
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I
llustration 2: Contractor Training Compliance Coordinator – Northern Cape.

management. Legislations impact work of personnel division by forcing them to make changes
in internal policies. But, there is no surety that affect will always be negative.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Aladwan, K., Bhanugopan, R. and D'Netto, B., 2015. The effects of human resource
management practices on employees’ organisational commitment. International journal
of organizational Analysis. 23(3). pp.472-492.
Armstrong, M. and Taylor, S., 2014. Armstrong's handbook of human resource management
practice. Kogan Page Publishers.
Bratton, J. and Gold, J., 2017. Human resource management: theory and practice. Palgrave.
Data Protection Act 1998
Brewster, C., 2017. The integration of human resource management and corporate strategy. In
Policy and practice in European human resource management (pp. 22-35). Routledge.
Buller, P. F. and McEvoy, G. M., 2012. Strategy, human resource management and performance:
Sharpening line of sight. Human resource management review. 22(1). pp.43-56.
Collings, D. G., Wood, G. T. and Szamosi, L. T., 2018. Human resource management: A critical
approach. In Human Resource Management (pp. 1-23). Routledge.
Gatewood, R., Feild, H.S. and Barrick, M., 2015. Human resource selection. Nelson Education.
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resource management. The Academy of Management Annals. 8(1). pp.1-56.
Kehoe, R.R. and Wright, P.M., 2013. The impact of high-performance human resource practices
on employees’ attitudes and behaviors. Journal of management. 39(2). pp.366-391.
Kokt, D., 2015. Human resources management. Hospitality Management: A practical
introduction, p.1.
Marchington, M., 2015. Human resource management (HRM): Too busy looking up to see
where it is going longer term?. Human Resource Management Review. 25(2). pp.176-
187.
Purce, J., 2014. The impact of corporate strategy on human resource management. New
Perspectives on Human Resource Management (Routledge Revivals). 67.
Rees, G. and Smith, P. eds., 2017. Strategic human resource management: An international
perspective. Sage.
Shen, J. and Benson, J., 2016. When CSR is a social norm: How socially responsible human
resource management affects employee work behavior. Journal of Management. 42(6)
pp.1723-1746.
Wilton, N., 2016. An introduction to human resource management. Sage.
Online
Contractor Training Compliance Coordinator – Northern Cape. 2018. [Online]. Available
through:<https://www.miningreview.com/contractor-training-compliance-coordinator-
northern-cape/>
Food Challenges for the 21st Century. 2018. [Online]. Available
through:<http://www.lancaster.ac.uk/lec/graduate-school/professional-training/food-
challenges-for-the-21st-century/>
John Lewis and Waitrose employees to receive 10% bonus. 2018. [Online]. Available
through:<https://www.employeebenefits.co.uk/issues/march-online-2016/john-lewis-
and-waitrose-employees-to-receive-10-bonus/>
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Meaning and concept of recruitment. 2013. [Online]. Available
through:<https://managementation.com/meaning-and-concept-of-recruitment/>
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