Human Resource Management: Policies and Practices for Competitive Advantage

The report discusses the strategic approach of Human Resource Management for competitive advantage in organizations. It focuses on the policies and practices of Barclays Financial Services Company in the UK. It also explains the legal and technological factors affecting businesses in the UK.

Running head
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Human Resource Management 2
Executive summary
The report consists of different questions based on Human Resource Management policies and
practices which form the basis of the literature review. There is also a simple but comprehensive
conclusion followed by a list of references where the information was sourced.

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Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................4
LITERATURE REVIEW................................................................................................................5
Question one....................................................................................................................................5
Question 2........................................................................................................................................8
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................12
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................13

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INTRODUCTION
Human resource management is the branch in an organization that is responsible for the strategic
approach to ensure that the management works effectively, in a bid to aid the business to have a
competitive advantage. It is commonly known as the HRM or HR department and is responsible
for employee administration. A strategic approach in management is where the on organization
comes formulates and implements actions and decisions which are aimed in achieving the set
objectives of the organization and thus giving it a competitive edge over rivals. The key and
primary responsibilities of the Human Resource Management include; staffing and job analysis,
utilizing the workforce efficiently and to the maximum, workforce performance appraisal and
measurement, aid workers in developing professionally, maintaining the workforce and
implementation of reward systems for employees. By doing all this, it ensure smooth and
efficient running of the company and also cutting on costs thus gaining a competitive advantage
thus ensuring maximum profits. It should also be noted that the failure or success of any
organization heavily relies on their Human Resource Management.

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LITERATURE REVIEW
Question one
All organizations aim to be profitable and also have an edge over its competitors in order to
sustain and gain competitive advantage. In order to achieve this, companies have given strategic
attention in aligning human resources in a way that is meant to sub-serve this cause.
Organizations find it very hard when recruiting, developing, retaining the useful workforce
motivate in a fiercely competitive environment. The basis of this report is to establish how
Human Resource management aids a company deliver strategic effect thus contributing to
competitive advantage drawing an example in the United Kingdom.
For companies/organization to have a competitive edge, they rely on their Human resource
management to recruit the most qualified and competent employees, come with the most
efficient and effective training institutes and programs, and retention programs and incentives to
ensure they maintain their most productive and efficient workforce. In so doing, it ensures that
while competitors or rival firms struggle with maintaining their most productive workers, the
organization will be more focused on sales increment and more production ensuring efficiency
and more profitability. This will also ensure that the organization saves the heavy costs
associated with regular hiring and training to replace the high turnover of the efficient workforce.
Albrecht, et al, (2015).
The focus of the report will be based on the Barclays Financial Services Company which is a
Multinational Corporation with a global workforce of 150,000 and is headquartered in London.
The company is one of the oldest in Britain having being established in 1690. Jones, (2013). Its
product includes; retail banking, commercial banking, wealth management and investment
banking. The company has established a strong human resource management strategy for
competitive management given it many competitors in Britain such at the Royal Bank of
Scotland, the Standard Chartered Bank, Lloyd Banking Group among others. A strategic Human
Resource Management will ensure that the company has an advantage over its many competitors
thus remaining relevant and profitable. Capie and Webber, 2013). .
In the Barclays Financial Services Company, the human resource department is mandated with
the task of workforce recruitment and their job analysis, maximizing the workforce to their
capacity, measuring and appraising their performance in work, maintenance and development of
their workforce and also coming up with reward systems that are conditional in order to motivate
employee. Schuler and Jackson, (2014). In the Barclays organization, the human resource
department works closely with each of their business unit in a bid to aid them to stay ahead of
their rivals by retaining and also attracting the best workforce and also utilizing their talent
accordingly. This will ensure that the business customers and stakeholders are satisfied with the

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services offered thus creating an edge over rivals. Besides recruiting and retaining the best talent,
the human resource department in Barclays also ensures that there is a conducive working
relationship between workmates across the horizontal and vertical level and also monitors
closely their training programs. Triandis, (2018).
Barclays attributes its success via competitive advantage to their human resource management
and the mandate of the human resource management is as follow:
1. Job analysis and recruitment
Job analysis can be explained as the procedure that is adopted to gather information about the
responsibilities, duties, the needed skills, work environment and anticipated outcomes involved
in a particular job. On the other hand, recruitment involves the process of attracting, shortlisting
and appointing the most suitably placed people for a particular job in an organization either on a
temporary or permanent basis. McGraw, (2013). The human resource department is charged with
the task of job analysis so as to ensure that it recruits the most suitable personnel for the job
description ensuring that they are competent thus giving the organization a competitive edge.
Without the right personnel or having the wrong job description would lead compromising of the
services thus bringing about incompetency. This will thus enable other organizations that are
efficient to have a competitive advantage.
Barclays bank has a team of dedicated personnel who are charged with the task of recruitment
for their numerous positions in the organization. The team establishes the skills required for the
job at hand, the experience needed to perform efficiently in a given position, and also
anticipation of future trends in the industry. Also, in order to attract the most suitable candidates
available, they determine the most appropriate remuneration. The recruitment of candidates will
be screened against the job analysis to determine the most suitable candidate for the job in hand.
2. Organization, utilization and maintenance
Organization refers to a company’s arrangement of resources so as to enable it achieve its goals
and strategies. Organization is implemented in what is called an organization structure which is a
system that directs how certain activities will be conducted to achieve the company’s goals. This
includes the rules to follow and the and also the communication channel to be followed within
the different ranks. Robbins and Judge, (2014). Good communication enhances coordination in
the organization. Utilization involves how the human resource department effectively maximizes
the human and capital resources available in order to achieve the organization set goals. Okoye.
and Ezejiofor, (2013). Maintenance by the human resource refers to the activities they undertake
to ensure loyalty and commitment among the organization’s employees. It also entails the
maintaining the productive workforce. Marchington, et al (2016).
In order to maintain their workforce, the Barclays human resource department has frameworks
designed like the health and safety of the workforce. In maintaining the workforce by keeping

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them satisfied, the organization is thus assured of maximum productivity by its workforce. It has
also established an efficient communication system that ensures the organization works in a
manner that is unified thus creating a common mission and cooperation among employees. The
communication channel involves a way of handling grievances such as theft or sexual
harassment allegations. Barclays has a policy that endeavors to negate all forms of discrimination
based on, gender or sexual, disability and ethnicity.
3. Performance appraisal
Performance appraisal is the process that involves the evaluation and documenting the report of
the assessed employee performance and productivity in relation to the organizations set
objectives. Performance appraisal is quite crucial as it helps identification of areas that need
improvement thus giving the company a competitive advantage. For the areas that are identified
as needing improvement, the company may carry out a survey to determine the reason behind it
and remedies such as training or addition of remuneration to motivate the workforce may be
employed.
The human resource department in Barclays bank job performance by its employees and then
gives the employees a report on their performance both negative and positive. The bank carries
out the performance appraisal annually. Performance appraisal is very crucial as it is used to
determine promotions and salary increment. Good performance is rewarded thus motivating the
employees while negative performance may lead to disciplinary measures such as dismissal thus
keeping the employees on their toes. All this aids in helping the organization have a competitive
advantage in that performance will be of the highest standards.
4. Reward system
This involves requite both intrinsic and extrinsic that a company gives to its employees for good
performance. The rewards are not part of the employees’ salary and may either be monetary or
non-monetary and are geared towards motivating the employees. The rewards are aligned the
targeted goals of the organization where if an employee achieves a given goal they are rewarded.
Shields, et al, (2015). Intrinsic rewards are meant to give individuals personal satisfaction and
include acknowledgment and feedback. On the other hand, extrinsic rewards are those that are
concrete and they include bonuses, gifts, raises and promotions. Dysvik and Kuvaas, (2013).
The human resource department in Barclays is responsible for managing the reward system. It is
quite important for the human resource department of Barclays bank to come up with a
mechanism that will give their employees specific rewards for their past achievement and also
rewarding their future high performance with incentives. The reward system also formulates the
necessary disciplinary measures to be undertaken within the work force to address the various
specific problems. The reward system creates a systematic way that helps the organization to
achieve its objectives by motivating the employees to provide good performance.

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5. Employee development and training
Employee training is a program that is geared towards aiding employees in learning certain skills
and knowledge in order to improve their performance in their current roles and is a short-term
project normally to 6 months. Employee development on the other hand is aims at growing of the
employees’ performance for future roles and is normally a continuing project. Jehanzeb and
Bashir, (2013).
In Barclays, the human resource department has the mandate of identifying the training needs of
its employees. Once the needs are identified, the human resource department comes up with the
most suitable development programs tailored to cater for those needs. It provides orientation
programs for new employees to help them understand their roles ad also adapt to the policies and
objectives if the company. It also provides ambitious education .programs to help the existing
work force learn and adapt new and future trends especially given how the banking industry
changes rapidly, for example, new software in the Barclays Digital Wing. This ensures
employees are up to date and also ensure that they are able to meet the company’s objectives
nullifying any advantage other rivals may have in future and current trends.
Question 2
Internal environment is that which constitutes of a company’s strengths and weakness while the
external environment are outside factors that affect a business and include social, competition,
legal, technological changes, political and economic.
1. Legal factors
Legal factors affecting businesses are legislations set by a government to regulate business
practices. Organizations are obliged to comply the regulations as they are mandatory. Kelsen,
(2017). The United Kingdom has passed various laws to regulate organizations and they are as
follows. Acharya, Baghai, and Subramanian, (2013).
a. Statutory increases to maternity / paternity pay and sickness
In 2013, the United Kingdom government declared that there should be an increment in
paternity, maternity pay and sickness leave. The government increased paternity and maternity
pay from £135.45 to £136.78 a week. However, I order to qualify for the paternal and maternal
pay, individuals should be earning at least £109.00 a week up from £107.00 a week in 6th of
April 2013. For the sick pay, it increased to £86.70 in 6th April 2013 to £85.85. Also, in order to
qualify for this payment should earn at least £109.00 a week.
b. Unfair dismissal

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The United Kingdom passed a law that stipulates that individuals who are dismissed unfairly will
be compensated one year’s salary from the existing £74,200. This regulates that the HRM in that
they should follow the right protocol while dismissing employees.
c. Parental leave
As of 8th March 2013, the human resource department is required to give their employees an 18
week parental leave up from 13 weeks. It is important that the human resources department
update their handbooks and any other documents so that employees are aware of the changes to
the law.
d. PAYE information
Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs (HMRC) introduced requirement that will give-time
information being part of PAYE. HMRC is a non-ministerial department in the UK that is
mandated with tax collection. The requirement states that the Human Resource department
should provide their PAYE returns to Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs. The real time
information submitted should include any deductions including National Insurance
Contributions, the amount paid and Income Tax and also the leaving and starting date where
applicable. Revenue, (2014).
2. Technological factors
Technology by the human resource management can be defined software and its corresponding
hardware for automating the human resources function in organizations. The services to be
automated include remuneration and payroll, management and talent acquisition, performance
management, and workforce analysis and benefits administration. Bailey, et al (2018). The
Human Resource Departments have changed the delivery of their policies in the following ways:
a. Recruitment
Amongst the most crucial responsibilities of the Human Resource is recruitment.
 Sourcing - Nowadays, majority of people are members of social media group. The Human
resource management uses this to profile the candidate’s user data in a bid to give insight on
the candidate’s personality, aspirations, career and personal goal without conducting any
interview. El Ouirdi, et al (2016).
 Screening – Given the large number of candidates who apply for a given job, then the
number of resumes is also high and cumbersome to look into all of them. However, Human
Resource departments have adopted intelligent technology that is capable of screening the
resumes to identify unique specifications given the job available. Nikolaou, (2014).
 Pre-selection – In the elimination stage, many human resource departments have adopted the
online psychometric assessment of similar personality traits. The technology is meant to
come up with candidates with the most suitable attitudes and values. Some examples of these

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technologies include the Thomas Profiling and the Myers Briggs Type Indicator. Bond,
Lloyd and Guenole, (2013).
 Selection – Majority of organizations are now turning to technology to probe interviews. The
smart technology changes the next question with regards to a candidate’s response. This
ensures the answers are not predetermined thus selecting the most suitable candidate for the
job. Stone, et al (2013).
b. Data storage
Organizations have adopted the Human resource management system that is a form of
technology/software that is used by the Human Resource department to store data. The data
stored include payroll information, recruitment processes, employee attendance and performance
among other employee and business data. Unlike in the past where data was stored in files, the
Human Resource has turned to software such as the Cloud for data storage making it easy to
retrieve and also saves on office space. Yang and Jia, (2013).
c. Competitive factors
Competitors are business rivals and if rivals have a competitive advantage then, this would lead
the downfall of a company. Thus, action taken by competitors changes the practices and policies
made by the Human resource management. Organization therefore review actions by competitors
such as salary and wage increment, training, gender composition, benefits to employees and
other support programs to employees and come with action to synchronize them with rivals and
eliminate the advantage or create an advantage of their own based on the same. This ensures the
employees are satisfied and thus improve their productivity.
d. Economic changes
Economic change is when the economic system structure shifts and is an external influence
which plays a major role in how the Human Resource department formulates its policies and
practices. Van den Berg, (2016). Putting into consideration both current and the anticipated
future economic changes, the human resource department may changes its policies and practices
which include hiring, remuneration structure among others. For example, during a boom
economic, the Human Resource Department may decide to hire more employees while during
the slump period, the department may decide to lay off some workers or cut on compensation in
order to remain profitable. Schaal, (2017).
e. Organization Culture
These are the beliefs, assumptions and core values that are common by an organization’s
members. This simply involves what the company stands for and believes in. As such, the
Human Resource Management formulates policies and practices that give their employees a
sense of direction, the code of conduct in terms of attitudes and behavior so as to be in line with
an organization’s culture. However, factors such an organization’s traditions, history and past

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practices may induce resistance to changes in policies and practices among the employees and
stakeholders thus forcing the human resource to compromise some of their policies and practices.
Hogan and Coote, (2014).

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CONCLUSION
The Human Resource is responsible for giving a company competitive advantage over rival
firms. Thus the Human Resource Management is crucial to ensure that a business remains
relevant and profitable by wading off unfair competition from rivals. Human resource practices
and policies are affected by both internal and external factors as highlighted in the answer.
Different factors have different impacts on the policies and practices. On the other hand, it
should be noted that different organizations have different reactions in the formulation of their
practices and policies for the various factors involved. Also, when changing the policies and
practices, the Human Resource Department has to have consultation with stakeholders and this
may slow down decision making due to resistance by stakeholders or board members. However,
this ensure there is democracy and inclusivity in formulation of policies and practices.

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