Challenges in Human Resource Management at Woolworths

Running head: HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT
HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT
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1HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT
Introduction
Human resource management (HRM) is adopted by a number of enterprises due to its
growing advantages and profits. Concurrently, various challenges and issues tend to emerge in
front of the human resource department while performing their responsibilities (Sultana 2014).
There has been mounting understanding that individuals are one of the company’s chief assets.
Every industrial sector comprises its own set of issues and challenges which obstruct growth and
further prevent organizations from attaining their prospective. The retail industry is no different
in this respect, faced with distinct HR issues that weigh on the entire sector and the majority of
brands within it (Cohen 2017). Terms related to process management, globalization and value
based management control the recent discourse of administration in retail organizations.
Retailing is identified as a major labour intensive industry sector. Consequently, organizations
are incessantly confronted to re-structure as well as use their configurations to develop high
efficiency. The essentiality for part-time staff due to extensive working hours and peaks
necessitates flexible framework in order to optimize labour processes. The following essay
evaluates two critical HRM challenges faced by Woolworths, one of the leading retailers in
Australia related to talent and workforce development and Compensation and SHRM
competency model to solve challenges.
Discussion
Retail organizations have been encountering unique challenges due to their need to
simultaneously accomplish customary goals of a business. Reports of Sultana (2014) have
revealed that the HR unit of Woolworths have been encountering critical challenges in a
workforce’s training and development programs. These challenges have emerged from ensuring

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the consistency of high performing individuals who tend to drive the organization to coaxing
success from the untapped prospective employees. On the other hand, increasing number of
customers in Australia is becoming highly demanding due to power attained by liberated
markets. According to Noe et al. (2017), Australian populace has developed substantial
knowledge and awareness of products they are purchasing due to increasing accessibility of
information. Furthermore, intensified competition has been forcing retailers like Woolworths to
provide improved quality products as well as services to their customers. Thus, to satisfy these
consumers and further offer supreme products and services, skills of workforces producing them
require to be continuously enhanced through effective training and development programme.
Continuous development of the employees’ skills is regarded as a vital requirement for
sustaining high standard efficiency (Shenge 2014).
Recently, Woolworths have been encountering a significant lack of management
reinforcement and support. According to Beer, Finnström and Schrader (2016), severe lack of
management encouragement and support has led participants to rarely implement highly
developed skills and information in the workplace. Majority of studies have revealed that two
most significant prospects for managerial input with newly recruited employees are before and
subsequent to the training sessions. However, in recent times, managers have been failing to
realize the power of their influence. As per the reports of Kum, Cowden and Karodia (2014),
large organizations like Woolworths with employee base of more than 10,000 employees have
spent substantial financial resources on employee training and increasing employee training
budgets over A$ 15 million. Such a disconnection of management influence has been impeding
organizations to choose right talent and skills. Furthermore, failure to prepare the environment
for transfer has been posing critical challenges to HR units of retail organizations.