Human Resource Management Review

This assignment requires a review of academic literature on human resource management (HRM). It focuses on understanding core concepts such as high-performance HRM practices, the impact of HR on employee attitudes and behaviors, and the role of HR in achieving organizational goals. The assignment necessitates synthesizing insights from various sources like journal articles, textbooks, and online resources to demonstrate a comprehensive grasp of HRM principles and their practical implications.

HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
TASK 1............................................................................................................................................3
A. Difference between Personnel Management and Human Resource Management............3
B. Impact of legal and regulatory framework of UK on HRM function................................5
TASK 2............................................................................................................................................6
A. Explaining and assessing the roles of human resource planning in Vodafone, discussing the
stages of the planning process................................................................................................6
B. Analyzing the recruitment and selection process of Vodafone and assesing my contribution
as a deputy to the human resource manager...........................................................................8
TASK 3............................................................................................................................................9
A. Discussing motivational theories and assessing the link between motivational and reward.
................................................................................................................................................9
B. Assessing the effectiveness of the reward system and method to monitored and measured
the employee performance...................................................................................................10
TASK 4..........................................................................................................................................12
A. The causes of termination of employment with an organization and comparison of exit
procedure in another similar organization............................................................................12
B. The impact of legal and regulatory framework when arranging employment cessation.13
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................14
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................15

INTRODUCTION
Human Resource Management (HRM) is a branch of management which focuses mainly
on effective and proper utilisation of manpower in an organisation to achieve the desired goals
and objectives. Human resource is considered as an essential part of company that helps in
leading towards mutual goals. With the rise in time, HRM act as a key component of
management. In order to gain in-depth understanding of it, present report has been developed. In
this report, Vodafone has been opted to define its HRM activities (Hendry, 2012). It is one of the
world's largest telecom brands and communication providers that operate in 26 countries along
with partnership of over 55 networks. It has almost 101,443 employees, 19.5 million customers
in UK and around 444 million customers all over the world. This report states the difference
between personnel management and human resource management, process of recruiting
employees, rewarding employees to motivate & retain them, and also knowing the cessation of
employment.
TASK 1
A. Difference between Personnel Management and Human Resource Management
Human resource management is a broader concept of personnel management. It is
comparatively a newer version for managing the employees of the organisation where people are
considered as the essentiality of the business. It goes beyond the administrative tasks of
personnel management. There is a sealed difference between both types of management; same
have been enumerated below:
1. Being an expansion of general management, personnel management is a traditional
approach of managing people of an organisation. Whereas, Human resource
management is a modern approach of finding people's strength into the organisation.
2. HRM builds a team of employees in an organisation dealing with the enhancement of
personnel management skills. On contrary to which, personnel management mainly
focuses on dealing only with the employees, considering the employment laws like
payroll systems, etc (Armstrong and Taylor, 2014).
3. Personnel management is reactive, but HRM is anxious and enthusiastic in nature.
4. The main motive of HRM is to create a dynamic culture into the organisation, together
dealing with the management of the workforce, contributing to the entities success.
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However, the main target of personnel management is to deal with the administration of
people and employees.
5. Personnel management works on employee’s welfare, relationship with labour and
personnel administration, working less on training and development opportunities.
Contradictory to that, the main moto of HRM is to make more acquisitions by training,
developing, motivating and maintaining the human resources in the organisation.
6. Under HRM, the job is designed on the basis of team work, opposite to that, in Personnel
management; job is designed on the basis of labour division (Ulrich, 2013).
7. In Personnel management, personnel function is assumed for employee's satisfaction and
in HRM, administrative functions are meant for goal achievement.
8. HRM makes collective decisions, considering worker's participation, competitive
environment, etc. Decisions in Personnel management are only made by the top level
management as per the predetermined rules and regulations of the company.
9. Personnel management is a routine function, much focused on increasing production and
satisfying employees. Incompatible to that, HRM is a strategic function, focusing more
on the effectiveness, productivity etc.
10. Henceforth, Personnel management is free from the organisation. Where on the other
hand, HRM forms a fundamental part of the company (Bratton and Gold, 2012).
Personnel management exists to advise and assist the line managers in personnel matters.
Line manager of Vodafone is directly responsible for managing the individual employees
and teams, reporting their performance to the higher level of management. They are also been
referred as front line managers who holds the positions of team lead and supervisor roles. They
handle people with no supervisory responsibilities.
Work of line manager at Vodafone typically includes following:
 Day–to-day employee management,
 Managing operational cost of the company,
 Providing technical expertise,
 Division of work among the people,
 Monitoring work along with checking quality,
 Dealing with customers and clients, as and when required, and
 Measuring operational performance of the employees.
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There's always a direct relationship between the Personnel HR and a line manager.
B. Impact of legal and regulatory framework of UK on HRM function
There are number of environmental factors, easily and quickly influencing the HRM
which consists of both external and internal factors, especially affecting the personnel and line
managers into an organisation like Vodafone (Storey, 2014). Primarily, changes in external
factors leads to a profound impact on the HRM.
Some major points of external factors are-
 Innovation in technology- Rapid growth in technology and innovations are taking place
all over the world. As a result of which, there is lot more requirement of technical people.
Hence, the procurement of technically sound and abled people is mandatory to match the
current scenario (Budhwar and Debrah, 2013).
 Economic Factors- It directly influences the financial health of the organisation. During
favourable economic condition, creating new programs with expanding the existing
programs are often likely, whereas, under unfavourable situation, shrinkage of some
programs is necessary.
 Labour Union- It acts as employee's organisations that assemble the strength to match
today industrialisation growth where they look to bargain with management over the
terms and conditions of employment for their members.
 Legal Factors- These are the factors, according to which the stated company needs to
manage its employees. It refers to certain laws enacted by the government where the
government of the respective state acts as a custodian of industrial and economic
activities (Nickson, 2013).
Some important Laws, enacted after the rise of HRM are:
1. Factory Act- This law was enacted in the early 1830's of UK, in which the
government concluded certain laws to be followed by each and every organisation where the
main focus was on controlling of child labour. In it, the HR of the company strictly needs to
follow certain rules in employing children:
a.) HR cannot hire children below 9 years.
b.) Division of work hours was made mandatory as per the age of employee, where
children ageing 9-13 years can work maximum for 9 hours and children from 14-18 years
of age can work up to 12 hours a day.
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2. Maternity Benefit Act- This act aims at regulating the women employment in the
organisation. HR is entitled to provide 16 weeks of fully paid maternity leaves to the
women working in the company (Hoque, 2013). At the same time, the HR is also liable to
arrange recruitments and training of new employees to join at the place of that woman.
3. Equality Act- This act protects people from discrimination at the workplace, banning
the racism, sex, and disability discrimination from the organization. Due to which, the
HR of the organization needs to follow the equality rules by providing opportunities to one and
all, unbiased of making distinction into the company and motivate others for the same (Riley,
2014).
4. Minimum Wage Act- As per this act, HR of the company needs to fix the pay of
employees according to their age and number of working hours. It has a both positive and
negative impact on the organisation. The positive points are majorly for the workers as it fulfills
their basic human rights, promoting the pay equity. Whereas, the HR and respective
company face difficulty of uneven allotment of wages and outsourcing, etc.
TASK 2
A. Explaining and assessing the roles of human resource planning in Vodafone, discussing the
stages of the planning process
Human resource planning is an extensive part of human resource department. This
department is responsible for supporting everything from systematic payroll of existing
employees to hiring of new employees. The main objective of human resource planning in
Vodafone is to have an exact no of employees as per the organizational needs, and most
importantly with matching amount of skills to fulfill the predetermined goals and objectives.
A few significant roles of human resource planning in Vodafone are as stated below-
1. Ensuring proper and timely supply of workers in the organization (Flamholtz, 2012).
2. Ensuring correct utilization of the existing employees in the company.
3. Forecasting the future manpower requirement, both in terms of number and type, by
assuring that enough no of skilled people are available to provide a continued smooth
operation.
4. It is always important to cope up with the changes linked to some of the external
atmospheric factors like technological enhancement, political, socio culture or even
economic forces (Renwick, Redman and Maguire, 2013).
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5. Recruitment of talented personnel is a crucial part in order to hire the most capable and
deserving candidate to fill the vacant job position.
6. Human resource planning is responsible for the development of human resource by
identifying the skill requirements of different work levels and arranging various training
and development programs to impart the required ability in employee to efficiently and
effectively perform the assigned task (Kehoe and Wright, 2013).
To perform the above mentioned roles and responsibilities in Vodafone, the HR needs to go
through some specific stages of planning-
 Assessing the human resources- It refers to the analysis of external and internal forces
of the organization, after which it becomes easier for the HR to determine the actual
strength of the company.
 Demand Forecasting- It is done by determining the future needs of the organization in
terms of quality and quantity, to achieve the required level of output. In this step, the
external sources are being measured by recruiting fresh candidates from outside.
 Supply Forecasting- It includes internal sources like promotions and transfers, etc. The
assessment in it is made among the employs, already working in the organization by
checking their work standard and comparing it to requirement of the job profile (Alfes
and et.al., 2013).
 Matching Demand and Supply- It is the matching process to bring a balance between
demand and supply. This process solves the shortage and over-staffing of employees
which together gives knowledge about requirements and sources of HR.
 Action Plan- It is the final phase concerned with surplus and deficit of human resources.
This step is followed by control and evaluation of performance of HR, that whether the
HR planning matches its objectives and policies (Armstrong, 2014).
B. Analyzing the recruitment and selection process of Vodafone and assesing my contribution as
a deputy to the human resource manager
Recruitment is an inclusive process of attracting, selecting and appointing a right
candidate for the job in an organization. It could be either permanent or temporary depending
upon the need of the organization.
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However, Selection is the process of choosing a right candidate as per the best suited
profile, matching the skills required to perform the job. A selection process depends on the job
analysis, which ensures a valuable contribution to the organization (Buller and McEvoy, 2012).
Following stages elaborate the steps of recruitment and selection process in Vodafone-
1. Defining Requirements- It is the 1st stage, which further includes the description and
specification of task.
 Job description contains detail explanation about the roles and responsibilities of the
position. It refers to the available post.
 Job specification includes qualifications, required skills and experience of the candidate
to do the job. It refers to the person rather to that post (Jiang and et.al., 2012).
2. Attracting the potential employees- It includes making recruitment advertisement, which is
published either internally or externally. Under the posting of internal recruitment, email, notice
boards, staff magazines and newsletters are used and in case of external postings, newspapers,
magazines, job centers, placement agencies, or internet recruitment websites are considered as an
effective tools (Armstrong, 2014.).
3. Shortlisting the candidates- On the basis of above two steps, that is matching the job
requirements and received applications, right applicants are being shortlisted.
4. Final Job interview and tests- It consists of few assessment tests and rounds of interview to
check the ability of the candidates as per the desired job profile.
5. Final selection of candidate- Last and the crucial step of this process in Vodafone is to place
an appropriate candidate at an appropriate position, which clearly defines "right choice at right
place".
Being a Deputy HR manager at Vodafone, I am responsible in preparing the job
description and specification as per the need of the vacant position (Nyberg and et.al., 2014.).
Followed by an interview with the candidates and judging them on the basis of their skills and
abilities. After which, the suitable candidates are formally notified.
TASK 3
A. Discussing motivational theories and assessing the link between motivational and reward.
Motivation to the workers and employees requires creativity and an understanding of the
areas where employee performance exceeds company's expectations. It also addresses the areas
of improvement before they turn to major impacts to the company. Both the theories (i.e.
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Maslow's needs hierarchy and Herzberg two factor theory)convey the message that company's
human resource is valuable and should be optimally used by the management.
 Two Factor theory (Herzberg) – According to Herzberg two kinds of factors affect
motivation, and they do it in different ways which affects the Vodafone's business.
◦ Hygiene factors – These are the factors whose absence motivates, but whose presence
has no perceived effect. They are the things that when you take them away, people
become dissatisfied and act to get them back. They are like good working conditions,
pay benefits, incentives, company policies, etc. Company like Vodafone, should
create a good environment of business and pay as per the working of the employees
(Al Ariss, Cascio and Paauwe, 2014).
◦ Motivators – The opposite factors of the hygiene factors, whose presence motivates.
Their absence does not cause any particular dissatisfaction, it just fails to motivate the
employees of the company. In Vodafone, management supports the employees by
motivating them to work efficiently and effectively in order to attain their certain
needs (Pierce and Aguinis, 2013).
 Maslow's need hierarchy theory – This theory believed that businesses should motivate
employees by adopting a democratic approach to management and by improving the
nature and content of the actual job in order to rise the necessity of the definite needs
through certain methods. The methods are divided as per a person's needs, which are as
follows
◦ Self actualization needs – These needs are to be achieved by the motivators through
training and advancement for the position, growth/promotions, creativity
◦ Esteem needs – Rising the needs in an employee in its minds by recognition, building
high status, implying responsibilities (Henshaw, 2011).
◦ Belongings needs – The needs of the family & friends rises these needs of employee
of team build up, accuracy and participation.
◦ Safety – The management needs to achieve these needs through making a safer
environment for working and encourage job security in employees mind.
◦ Psychological needs – The basic needs of the employees to get the food, shelter and
clothes through base salary (Grimsley, 2016).
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The method which I would use as a deputy manager in human resource management of
Vodafone, to carry out job evaluation and determines pay. I would rank jobs according to
established criteria which includes job duties and responsibilities to assign pay grades to each
perspective in a company. Pay ranges depend upon definitions of minimum and maximum wages
that arise from the job evaluation method.
B. Assessing the effectiveness of the reward system and method to monitored and measured the
employee performance
Rewards should be the third thing an organization works on, measurements should be the
second, clear articulation of desired outcomes should be the first. There is an increasing body
evidence that measuring and improving the effectiveness of reward practices has major potential
benefits for employers in our ever-more knowledge and service based economy (Healthfield,
2015). They identify a set of authoritative HR practices which are like the factors which
increases skills, charge/motivate/empower employees and improve the performance, all the three
factors can impact the reward and payments system of the Vodafone company.11. Attraction and retention – Research for job, choosing the job and turnover clearly shows
that the kind or level of rewards a company which offers influences who is attracted to
work for an organization and who would continue to work for the company. The
objective should be to design a reward system that is very effective at retaining the most
valuable employees (Alfes and et.al., 2013).12. Motivation of Performance – When certain specifiable conditions exist, reward systems
have been demonstrated to motivate performance. Important rewards are perceived to be
tied in a manner to encourage the performance of the employees. Organizations get the
kind of behavior that leads to the rewards their employee value.13. Skills and knowledge – In order of motivating performance, reward system also motivate
learning and development. The same motivational principles apply as individuals are
motivated to learn those changes which are rewarded. As per the Vodafone strategy to
reward the employees, a new approach of paying them i.e. the skill based pay, has been
developed to capitalize and overcome this point. It allows the organization to
strategically target the learning they want the employees to engage with (Nyberg and
et.al., 2014). This is in comparison to many jobs based systems which indirectly attain
this objective by increased pay and perquisites to obtain higher level jobs.
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14. Cost – Reward systems are often a significant cost factor to the company. Thus, it is
important to design the reward system to focus on the maintaining the operating cost and
the ability to pay the employees of the company. For Vodafone , it is reasonable
outcome of well designed pay system which might be an increased costs when the
company has the money to spend and a decrease costs when the company does not have
the money (Pierce and Aguinis, 2013).
Methods of monitoring and measuring the employee's performance are like monitoring
the sales reports, deadlines met, errors reports, accuracy reports, through plans & proposals, etc.
The methods of attaining the level are as follows:7. Observation – looking/observing at the performance/behavior of the employee during its
working hours. It can be either planned or sudden like observing during a presentation ,
in a meeting, etc.8. Report – in this the employees is responsible for evidencing their performance against the
objectives given by the employer.
9. Feedback – getting feedback from the people on the employee's performance. They could
be like
1. Customers
2. Suppliers
3. Team members
TASK 4
A. The causes of termination of employment with an organization and comparison of exit
procedure in another similar organization
Employment protection laws has laid certain situation which states the justified reasons
for any organization to terminate their employees. Other than those grounds, steps adopted by
hem are considered unfair or illegal. Some mentions fair means mentioned labor code and
employee legislation that is abided by Vodafone are:
Termination of contract
At the time of hiring a contract in signed stating the prescribed duration of serving. At the
termination of that time frame contract get lapsed and employee is redundant from job.
Retirement
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In the legislation an age is specified for retirement, after which an employee are granted
cessation from job on legal grounds. Employees are granted option to take early retirement in
case of justified grounds (Jiang and et.al., 2012).
Resignation
if it is from employee's end in order to avail better career opportunity or any ther reason,
termination is granted by Vodafone
Dismissal of code of practice
If an employee break the code of practice such as in his conduct, does not abide legal
norms or any other valid reason, vodafone adopts the process of cessation for that employee.
Comparing the process of exit procedure between vodafone and other similar
organization that is BT group. In both the companies methods adopted are similar o some
grounds.
 Both the companies abodes the laws stated in terms of employee termination (Buller and
McEvoy, 2012).
 Time period for providing notice by employer and employees with respect to termination
in vodafone is of 1 month whereas in BT group it is comparatively liberal that is of 15
days.
 Along with 1 month notice period before termination it also grants the opportunity for
clarification to employees if thy are fired on the grounds of dismissal of code of practice
whereas no such is allotment given by BT group.
 Claims granted by both the organization vodaone and BT group are similar in nature that
is providing pension benefits, various forms of insurances and severance pays (Al Ariss,
Cascio and Paauwe, 2014).
B. The impact of legal and regulatory framework when arranging employment cessation
Labor market is the significant part of a country economy. Various laws and regulations
are framed in he respects. One of the important segment in that is the employee protection. It the
set of rules laid down in order to process legal hiring and termination of employees. It is
practices by a mix of procedures needed to be adopted from both employer and employee's ends
and obligations made to protform of labor code and employment legislation (Bratton and Gold,
2012). Certain factors are required to kept in consideratect the political and institutional aspects
of employment. There is the stipulated ion at the time of termination. It includes occupational
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standards, the situation in which employee is getting terminated, formalities done before
termination such as sending advance notice, post procedures that are to be followed after
cessation and other related. Selected organization Vodafone abides the laws and regulations by
following it strictly to protect employees rights and maintain legality (Ulrich, 2013).
At the time of hiring a formal agreement is ratified by bot the parties that are employers
and employees in which all the clauses are mentioned related to occupational laws, rules and
regulations that are required to be followed by employees such as acting in faith and interest of
employees, rights given to both the ends and also the procedure needed to be followed by them.
Components and process followed in this respect is:
Notice period:
Both employer and employee are entitled to provide the notice period on cessation. It
should be as per the specified time according to the terms and conditions made in the formal
agreement made by them.
Reason of termination:
In the notice laid it is required to clearly stated the reason of termination with the valid
statement abiding the standards set in the national and international legislation of labor code.
Such as justifying reasons include conduct of employees, his capability, illegality and any other
substantial reason (Hendry, 2012). On the employer's end it should not be discriminated on the
grounds of gender, color, religious beliefs, medical disability and age.
Claim:
After the termination employees are entitled to certain kinds of payment with respect to
the terms and conditions signed by the parties concerned (Budhwar and Debrah, 2013).
Vodafone offers payments such as unemployment insurances, health insurances, pension
benefits, severance pay and other as per the law and designation they hold in the cited
organization Vodafone.
CONCLUSION
From the above report, it can be depicted that HR has very important role within the firm.
This is because, with the help of HR manager of only firm can meet the needs and demands of
the workers in an effective way. Furthermore, HR plays very strategic role in the process of
attaining the goals of enterprises.
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REFERENCES
Books and journals
Al Ariss, A., Cascio, W. F. and Paauwe, J., 2014. Talent management: Current theories and
future research directions. Journal of World Business. 49(2). pp.173-179.
Alfes, K. and et.al., 2013. The link between perceived human resource management practices,
Human Resource Management.2(1). pp.256-290.
Armstrong, M. and Taylor, S., 2014. Armstrong's handbook of human resource management
practice. Kogan Page Publishers.
Armstrong, P., 2014. Limits and possibilities for HRM in an age of management accountancy.
New Perspectives On Human Resource Management op. cit. at. pp.154-166.
Bratton, J. and Gold, J., 2012. Human resource management: theory and practice. Palgrave
Macmillan.
Budhwar, P. S. and Debrah, Y. A. eds., 2013. Human resource management in developing
countries. 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.
Flamholtz, E. G., 2012. Human resource accounting: Advances in concepts, methods and
applications. Springer Science & Business Media.
Hendry, C., 2012. Human resource management. Routledge.
Hoque, K., 2013. Human resource management in the hotel industry: Strategy, innovation and
performance. Routledge.
Jiang, K. and et.al., 2012. Clarifying the construct of human resource systems: Relating human
resource management to employee performance. Human Resource Management Review.
22(2). pp.73-85.
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.
Nickson, D., 2013. Human resource management for hospitality, tourism and events. Routledge.
Nyberg, A. J. and et.al., 2014. Resource-based perspectives on unit-level human capital a review
and integration. Journal of Management. 40(1). pp.316-346.
Pierce, J. R. and Aguinis, H., 2013. The too-much-of-a-good-thing effect in management.
Journal of Management. 39(2). pp.313-338.
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Renwick, D. W., Redman, T. and Maguire, S., 2013. Green human resource management: a
review and research agenda*. International Journal of Management Reviews. 15(1). pp.1-
14.
Riley, M., 2014. Human resource management in the hospitality and tourism industry.
Routledge.
Storey, J., 2014. New Perspectives on Human Resource Management (Routledge Revivals).
Routledge.
Ulrich, D., 2013. Human resource champions: The next agenda for adding value and delivering
results. Harvard Business Press.
Online
Grimsley, S., 2016. Human Resource Management: Definition, Objectives & Responsibilities
[Online]. Available through: <http://study.com/academy/lesson/human-resource-
management-definition-objectives-responsibilities.html>. (Accessed on 12 February
2016)
Healthfield, S.M., 2015. Definition of Human Resource Management. [Online]. Available
through:<http://humanresources.about.com/od/glossaryh/f/hr_management.htm>.
[Accessed on 12 February 2016].
Henshaw, J., 2011. Monitoring Performance against Performance Objectives. [Online].
Available through: <http://www.performanceobjectivesnow.com/blog/monitoring-
performance-against-performance-objectives/>. [Accessed on 12 February 2016].
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