Assignment on Human Resource Management in Kingfisher Plc

HUMAN RESOURCE
MANAGEMENT

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
TASK 1............................................................................................................................................3
1. Purpose and functions of HRM, applicable to workforce planning and resourcing in
Kingfisher....................................................................................................................................3
2. Strengths and weaknesses of different approaches of recruitment and selection used by
Kingfisher....................................................................................................................................4
TASK 2............................................................................................................................................6
3. Benefits of different HRM practices within Kingfisher for both the employer and employees
.....................................................................................................................................................6
4. Evaluation of the effectiveness of different HRM practices in terms of profit and
productivity..................................................................................................................................7
TASK 3............................................................................................................................................8
5. Analysis of the importance of employee relations in Kingfisher with respect to influencing
HRM decision making.................................................................................................................8
6. Identification of key elements of employee legislation and the impact it upon HRM decision
making.........................................................................................................................................9
TASK 4..........................................................................................................................................10
7. Illustrate the application of HRM practice in a work related context using specific examples
...................................................................................................................................................10
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................13
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................14

INTRODUCTION
Human resource management plays a significant role in managing employees and attaining
business growth and development within the economy. Employees are the integral part of every
business unit as these are the resources which can be efficiently developed and managed for
attaining the business objectives. Retail industry is a dynamic and most volatile industry of the
world. Changing trends and easy entry and exit of companies in the economy has extended the
market competition widely in the market. Brattonand Gold, 2012 stated in the research that
employees in a retail business unit are the face of the company which helps in attaining business
objectives and generating high demand and growth in the economy.
Kingfisher plc is British multinational unit success operating in different parts of the world.
The major sectors in which the company is effectively dealing includes DIY, electrical and general
merchandise. The company has employed more than 13000 people in 2900 stores operating in
different parts of the world. Organization has developed an effective online infrastructure in the
market as well which has helped the company in attaining high and valuable market demand. The
organization now seeks to restructure the business unit in order to create a significant and well
defined impact on business growth and development.
TASK 1
1. Purpose and functions of HRM, applicable to workforce planning and resourcing in Kingfisher
Human resource management is the process of managing and maintaining the resourceful
assets of an organization that best meets its requirement and serves the maximum benefit. It is a
wide concept whereby the HR manager is not only concerned with hiring and recruiting of
individual rather it aims to maintain, build and retain a strong workforce. There are varied models
which demonstrate the methods in which the HR manager can manage its workforce. This can be
analyzed from the hard and soft model of HRM. The hard model demonstrates about the the strict
and conservative way of dealing with the employees. In this method the employees are treated as
machinery and asked to work as slaves. While on the other hand, the soft model emphasizes on
treating the workforce of Kingfisher as assets and full focus is laid on their development programs
(Armstrong, and Taylor, 2014). Some of the purpose and functions of HRM system have been
enumerated underneath:
Functions of HRM:
 Workforce planning: The HR managers of the Kingfisher are concerned with determining
and analyzing the current workforce of the company so as to ascertain the accurate number
of candidates to be hired. This is successfully done by reviewing the current employees of

the company and matching the same to that of vacant jobs (Bloom and Van Reenen, 2011).
After analyzing the difference between the two, potential candidates can be hired.
 Reviewing and analyzing the labour market trends: Main role of the HR manager of the
said company is examining the current trends in the company regarding the employment
demands, future market trends that are inflation or deflationary situations. After analyzing it
completely necessary actions can be taken by the managers to hire or terminate the
employees to meet the organizational objectives (Bamberger, Biron and Meshoulam, 2014).
 Deciding the payroll structure: Determining the salary and wages are the crucial decisions
of any company. This is done by evaluating the job profile of each individual, amount of
work done and capacity of them and then reviewing the organizational profitability (Boxall
and Purcell, 2011). The HR managers of the Kingfisher provide adequate salary to its
employees to keep them satisfied.
 Recruitment and selection process: After the successful workforce planning and analyzing
the current market trends, the HR managers search for the appropriate candidates and
conducts an interview process to hire the same.
 Maintaining relationship with employees: Arranging periodic activities and engaging with
the employees, HR manager is successful in maintaining and retaining its employees
(Dessler, 2016).
Purpose of HRM
 The main purpose of and HR manager of any company is to ensure that every individual in
the organization works to attain the aims and objectives of the enterprise thereby aligning its
individual goals to it.
 Another imperative objective of the HR manager of the said company is to take the full
advantage of the capabilities of its workforce by placing them at appropriate job position
(CHUANG and Liao, 2010).
From the above discussion it can be analyzed that the both the purpose and functions of the
HRM differ from each other.
2. Strengths and weaknesses of different approaches of recruitment and selection used by
Kingfisher
Kingfisher PLC has used two kinds of sources for recruitment and selection of the
employees: internal and external sources. In the internal source, the best staff can be found within
the firm (Gruman and Saks, 2011). Under this concept, whenever a job vacancy arises in the