Human Resource Management Practices at Sainsbury's: A Comprehensive Analysis

This study delves into the human resource management practices employed by Sainsbury's, a leading UK supermarket chain. It examines the organization's approach to workforce planning, recruitment and selection, training and development, performance management, and reward systems. The analysis also evaluates Sainsbury's employee relations, employee engagement, flexible working practices, and its status as an 'employer of choice'. Furthermore, the study explores key areas of employment legislation within which Sainsbury's operates, including the Employment Rights Act, Equal Pay Act, Disability Discrimination Act, and others. Finally, the paper provides a brief evaluation of the process and rationale for conducting appropriate HR practices, including a job description and person specification template for a Marketing Manager position.

HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT
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Table of Contents
Introduction:...............................................................................................................................3
Task 1:........................................................................................................................................4
Task 2:........................................................................................................................................8
Task 3:......................................................................................................................................13
Conclusion:..............................................................................................................................19
References:...............................................................................................................................20
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Introduction:
Human resource management team of organization that treats the employees as the sole asset
The main functions of this department of the organization involves, recruiting productive and
efficient employees, training them in a way to polish their skills and providing them with
certain benefits that generates satisfied and loyal employees who would be willing to put in
their full effort for the growth of the organization.
Sainsbury is the chosen organization for study which is an UK based organization in the retail
sector chain that holds a market share of 16.9% in UK as per 2017 reports. It has about
181,900 employees working under the brand, and the organization fetches an annual revenue
of £26.224 billion.
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Task 1:
A. Provide an overview of the organisation and an explanation on the purpose and
functions of Human Resources Management in the organisation.
Sainsbury’s, the chosen organization of study, is a UK based supermarket chain functioning
in the retail sector of UK. The organization holds a market share of 16.9% and has about
181,900 employees working in the organization as per 2017 reports. The annual revenue
approximates upto £26.224 billion with an operating income of about £642 million. The
organization has about 1415 stores all over UK and its prime vision is to be the most reputed
retail sector organization in UK, both among the employees and the customers, which
contribute to the overall growth and development of the organization.
In order to fulfill its goals, the organization tries to cater to the needs and grievances of the
consumers and design stores that would assist the consumers in the fast-paced life and would
be aesthetically pleasing as well. In addition, the organization aims at providing its products
using multiple channels that would enable the customers to shop as per their convenience
(Rohwer and Topić, 2018). Food being the most important product of the company, the
organization ensures to offer high quality food products at the most affordable prices that
would enable it to stand out among the other food retail organizations. Moreover, with the
advent of Argos and Habitat the organization can now provide non-food products such as
electronic devices, toys for children, clothing and accessories to its consumers at affordable
prices.
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Figure: Human resource management
(Source: Created By author)
The major functions of the Human resource management team in this organization are as
follows:
 Recruitment and Hiring: One of the prime roles of the HRM team is to hire competent
employees by using and effective recruitment procedure. The HRM team must ensure that
recruited employees are qualified enough to perform their given task efficiently and with
full confidence (Brewster et al., 2016).
 Training and development: Another major role of the human resource management team
is to provide training to the hired candidates, in order to help them identify their skills and
utilize their knowledge to their full potential, that will help to maximize their
productivity, ultimately resulting in increased production capabilities of the company.
This in turn contributes to increased profit margins of the company.
 Performance appraisal and feedback: The human resource management team has the
responsibility of generating satisfied employees. For the purpose of the same, the HRM
team recognizes the sincere efforts of its employees by giving them certain rewards and
certificates, which encourages them to work harder, and keeps them motivated throughout
(Sun et al., 2016). Pay and benefits: In order to generate satisfied employees and build healthy employee
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relations, the employees must be given a satisfactory remuneration in accordance with
their quality of work and position in their organization (Albrecht et al., 2015). In addition,
they must also be given performance incentives and seasonal bonuses, for example
bonuses in the festive season. Labour relations: It is the responsibility of the HRM team to maintain healthy employee
relations by promoting a healthy work environment that allows free sharing of ideas and
information. This encourages a friendly bond among the employees and between the
employees and the management of the organization, resulting in innovation and
invention.
B. Identify the organization’s approaches to recruitment and selection and explain the
strengths and weakness of the different approaches.
Recruitment is the process of identifying the most suitable candidate for a job position and
hiring the same in a cost effective manner that would help an organization to achieve its
mission. Hiring highly productive and competent employees for the organization is the major
role played by the Human Resource Management team of the company (Wilton, 2016). The
recruitment process can broadly be subdivided into two categories, namely internal
recruitment and external recruitment. Each of them has its own strengths, weaknesses, and
Sainsbury’s utilizes both these forms of recruitment in order to hire competent employees for
its organization.
Internal recruitment:
Internal recruitment is a process of hiring competent employees from the existing workforce
of the organization in order to fill up a vacant job position. The advantages of internal
recruitment are as follows:
 Sainsbury’s is an organization with a global presence with approximately 181,900
employees working under its banner, and this makes internal recruitment a very time
saving and cost effective strategy for the organization to hire employees.
 The training procedures become much easier with internal recruitment as the
organization is well aware of the strengths and weaknesses of the employee, and the
employee is well acquainted with the workflow and organizational culture in the
company.
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 Being familiar with the skills the employee possesses, the organization is better able
to assign its employees a suitable job role when the process of internal recruitment is
conducted.
However, some disadvantages of internal recruitment also exist which are as follows:
 Internal recruitment minimizes the chances of the organization to hire a more
talented and skilled individual, than that of what is present in the existing workforce.
 As new candidates are not hired, the chance of emergence of innovation and
invention reduces largely.
 Internal recruitment might result in conflicts between the chosen candidate for a job
position and the ones who are not selected.
 Moreover, since internal recruitment results in shifting of a candidate from one job
position to another, it creates vacancies, which needs to be filled by external
recruitment.
External recruitment:
External recruitment refers to the short listing and hiring of competent individuals from
outside the organization by conducting interviews and group discussions, who would be able
to add to the productivity of the organization and thus enable the company to fetch higher
profit margins and elevate its market position (Amankwah-Amoah et al., 2017). It has the
following advantages:
 It provides the organization with a vast ocean of skilled and productive individuals to
choose from and thereby it gives it the opportunity to choose the most suitable
candidate for a vacant or a new job position.
 The newly hired candidate would be usually more passionate and have the willingness
and interest to learn new things and dedicate themselves completely to the needs of
the organization and assist the company to work towards its mission
 The newly hired candidate brings with themselves new set of ideas that might result in
innovation, adding to the uniqueness of the organization and help the company to
sustain in the highly competitive market environment.
 The chances of conflicts among the employees are minimized along with elimination
of chances of creation of vacancies in the existing job positions.
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On the contrary, there are several disadvantages of external recruitment as well, which
are listed as follows:
 Such recruitment procedures, involve a much higher cost and is time consuming as
the organization needs to arrange for interviews and training programmes, which not
only requires financial resources but intellectual resources as well.
 In addition, a major investment is required for advertising for the recruitment
procedures to be held in order to attract suitable and competent employees for the
organization.
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Task 2:
A. Undertake an assessment of the organisation’s approach to workforce planning,
recruitment and selection, development and training, performance management and
reward systems
Sainsbury, a UK based company in the supermarket sector, sets an example for having a
excellent human resource management team. The prime function of the HRM team is to
generate satisfied employees who will be willing to dedicate themselves for the overall
growth and development of the organization. The organization has devised several
approaches to workforce planning, Recruitment and selection, Training and development, and
performance appraisal systems that would serve the purpose of generating a loyal workforce
for the organization.
Workforce planning: Maintaining a proper workflow in the organization and proper
workforce planning are the two major functions performed by the Human Resource
management team of every business organization. In Sainsbury’s a strategic human resource
management is adopted that focuses to make the employees the best version of themselves,
by assisting them in brushing up their skills and increasing their productivity (Cascio, 2018).
This will enable the organization to build a strong operational management and thereby help
it to sustain itself in the competitive market economy.
Recruitment and selection: Prior to the commencement of the recruitment procedure,
Sainsbury uses the company website to advertise their job vacancies. In order to apply for a
job position, the interested candidates must provide their personal information and
educational qualification in the company website (Shackleton, 2015). This is followed by
short-listing the suitable candidates and thereby hiring or selecting the most competent one
among them all. In Sainsbury’s the managers of the organization are highly involved in the
recruitment procedures along with the HRM team, which ensures that the most suitable
candidate is being selected for the job position.
Training and development: The training programmes provided by the HRM team of the
organization helps the employees to identify their strengths, polish their skills and enhance
their productivity, that will ultimately lead to increased production of the company and fetch
the company increased revenues.
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Performance management: The recent times necessitates the need for Sainsbury’s needs to
improve its performance management. It refers to improving the efficiency of the employees
so that the organization can achieve maximum productivity in the minimum possible time in
the most cost-effective manner. This will help the company to maximize its profit margins
and attain a better position in the market, which in turn results in overall growth and
development of the organization (Schuler and Jackson, 2017). In order to improve the
efficiency of the employees it is extremely important for the organization to keep its
employees motivated so that they are willing to put in their full effort for the organizations
growth.
Reward management: Reward management refers to recognising the employees for their
sincere efforts, by providing them with satisfactory pay, performance incentives and giving
them a healthy work environment that encourages a friendly bonding among the employees
and allows free exchange of ideas and information. In addition, Sainsbury’s undertakes
Corporate Social Responsibilities activities, which gives the employees a sense of fulfilment
as they feel they can make necessary contributions to the society.
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B. Evaluate the organization’s approach to and effectiveness of employee relations
and employee engagement, and comment on the adoption of flexible organisation and
flexible working practice and ‘employer of choice’.
The Human Resource Management team has the prime functions of generating satisfied
employees who would be loyal to the organization in the end and would make the
company’s growth and development its prime focus. Maintaining proper employee
relations and promoting a healthy work environment that allows free exchange of ideas
and information among the employees is a major function of the Human Resource
Management team.
The major theories that drive the employee relations and employee engagement in the
chosen organization is
Human relation theory: As per this theory, since the employees are the sole assets of the
organization, building and maintaining healthy bond among the employees and leads to
efficient workflow management, resulting in free exchange of ideas and information and
helps to prevent workplace conflicts and employee rivalry.
Theory of democratic leadership: According to this theory, the opinions of each and every
employee of the organization must be given equal importance, as each employee is a
representation of the potential customer and hearing to the employees’ voices makes the
decision-making process much more effective and brings in new innovation to the
organizations. These innovations serve to add to the organizations uniqueness and help it
to sustain in the increasing market competition (Chowhan et al., 2017).
Sainsbury’s follows both the theories to ensure proper workflow maintenance in the
organization and helps to promote a strong and healthy relationship among the employees,
which ultimately results in the growth and development of Sainsbury’s as a whole.
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C. Identify and evaluate the key areas of employment legislation within which the
organisation must work
In order to ensure a healthy bond among the employer and employees of the certain rules and
regulations must be followed in any business organization. Every organization needs to adopt
certain laws and incorporate certain regulations in the organization that would enable it to
retain it .highly productive, competent employees.
Some of them, which are used Sainsbury are listed as follows:
 Employment Rights Act, 1996: According to this act, the organization regulated to
maintain certain laws in the organization and maintain social relations. Moreover,the
act also deals with the issues like maternity leave, illegitimate dismissal, and
redundancy. It allows flexible working hours for the employees and such flexible
policies contribute to the organizations development (Koshan et al., 2016).
 Equal Pay Act, 1970: this act ensures that there is no discrimination in pay scale
based on gender (McLaughlin, 2018).
 Disability Discrimination Act, 1995 this law aims to give gives opportunities to the
disabled individuals or less fortunate strata of the society.
 Working time directive 1999: As per this law it is necessary for the employees to
work for fixed hours in the week. A minimum 48 hours working in a week is required
to fulfill by each employee.
 Race Relations Act, 1976: According to this law an organization should never
discriminate its employees based on race, religion, identity or color. This act prohibits
workplace discrimination.
 Sex Discrimination Act, 1975: As per the law gender should not be the basis of
discrimination among employees at. In addition, marital status of an individual must
not be considered as such discrimination might lead to sexual harassment (Milligan et
al., 2017).
 National Minimum Wage Act, 1998: As per this act, Different countries have
differences in wage percentage of the employees in accordance with the cost of living.
 Employment Relations Act, 1999: According to this act in any organization, there is
an existence of trade unions that serve to improve communication between the
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employer and the employees and it is the sole responsibility of the employees to select
representatives who can address their grievances.
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Task 3:
Conduct a brief evaluation of the process and the rationale for conducting appropriate
HR practices
Introduction:
The evaluation plan of HR manager, which includes the job description and personal
information, has been made in this task. The rationale focuses on the interview process
conducting effective HR practices.
Rationale:
The HRM of Sainsbury has conducted the interview by the help of its HR department. Firstly,
the company advertised about the job vacancy with its requirements in the company website.
The selection procedure of applicants has been done based interview and group discussion.
CV verification of the applicant has been followed by an interview session. Every Round of
selection has been conducted ethically. The first round saw an aptitude test conducted the HR
mangers followed by a group discussion. Finally, the deserving candidate was called to attend
the final interview. On matching the qualifications of the candidate with the job roles, the
HRM managers of Sainsbury finally hired the applicant as Human resource assistant.
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Job description
Job Title
 Marketing manager
Main Purpose and Scope of the Job
Marketing managers conduct market research and thereby analyze several marketing
strategies and identify the best-suited one for the organization. They are responsible
for designing advertisements, promotional strategies and thus improve marketing
procedures. Recording the results of marketing and sales department and conveying
the same to the seniors and other departments are among the other major roles of the
marketing manager.
Position in Organisation
Reports To: Chef Executive
Responsible For: Subordinate team
Budget Responsibilities:
 To monitor the performance of the company in the sales and marketing
department by comparing with previous records.
 Analysis of the current trends in the market, pricing prevalent in the market,
demographic records and all other data influencing marketing strategies.
Duties and Key Responsibilities
 Monitor the performance of the company in the sales front Analysis of the current trends in the market Prices prevalent in the market Training the marketing team in order increase sales percentage
General Responsibilities
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 Assessment of the proposed marketing plan.
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Person specification template
Criteria
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SKILLS AND ABILITIES
 Budgeting
 Organising
A marketing manager must possess the following qualities:
 Fixing proper marketing budget
 Organizational leadership
 strong communication skills
 Must be able to maintain healthy customer and
employee relations
 Must hold a masters/bachelors degree in marketing,
business or a similar field.
 Must be a fluent and motivating public speaker.
EXPERIENCE
Master Degree holder in
Marketing department
 Qualified in mass communication and public
relation
 Minimum 5 Years Experience in marketing
KNOWLEDGE
 Knowledge about
marketing and public
relation
 Clear idea about
marketing techniques
 Good written communication skills
 Clear idea about usage of technical terms
PERSONAL
ATTRIBUTES AND
OTHER
REQUIREMENTS
 Leadership
 Interpersonal
communication
Collaborative performances
Table 1: Person specification template
(Source : Created by learner)
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1. A job offer to the selected candidate.
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Preparatory notes
Candidate 1
Can create a business plan and help in branding and marketing
 Fluency in English
 Public and motivational speaking skills
 Efficient and productive
 Good interpersonal skills
 Strong management background
 Experienced
Candidate 2
Aware of social media and its uses
 Digital marketing
 E-commerce
 Good communication skills
 Manage well Google Analytics and Buffer
 Good management skills
Candidate 3
Microsoft publisher
 Microsoft word, Excel and Office
 Expert in handling the social networking sites
 Manage well Google Analytics and Buffer
 Efficient in using cloud technology
 Exceptional creative talent and public speaking skills
 Good communication skills
Selection criteria
 Good management skills
 Experience
 Good communications skills
 Skills to deal with people
 Sales experience

Conclusion:
The study helped understand the different functions performed by the Human Resource
Management and how these influence both organization and the employee. The different
processes such as internal recruitment and External recruitment have been assessed. The
various implications that employee relations have on the HRM decision-making and the
legislations driving the HRM practices have been extensively studied in this assignment.
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