Human Resource Management Practices in Marks & Spencer

This report provides an in-depth analysis of the purpose and scope of Human Resource Management (HRM) within Marks & Spencer, a leading retail organization in the UK. It explores the key functions of HRM, including recruitment and selection, workforce planning, employee relations, and performance management. The report also examines the effectiveness of different HRM practices in terms of raising organizational profit and productivity, and analyzes internal and external factors that influence HRM decision-making, including employment legislation. Finally, the report illustrates the application of HRM practices in a work-related context using specific examples from Marks & Spencer.

Human Resources Management
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Table of Contents
Introduction........................................................................................................................3
LO1....................................................................................................................................4
P1.......................................................................................................................................4
P2.......................................................................................................................................5
LO2....................................................................................................................................6
P3.......................................................................................................................................6
P4.......................................................................................................................................7
LO3....................................................................................................................................7
P5.......................................................................................................................................7
P6.......................................................................................................................................8
LO4..................................................................................................................................11
P7.....................................................................................................................................11
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................15
Reference list...................................................................................................................16
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Introduction
The report includes brief analysis of various duties and responsibilities of human
resource managers. In an organization, HR managers have a definite purpose that need
to be fulfilled in order to fulfill organizational objectives and goals. The study consist of
various approach HR managers have towards employee recruitment and selection,
workforce planning, employee performance management and so on. A brief analysis of
several internal and external factors that directly or indirectly affect human resource
department decision making and also includes acts and legislations introduced by
government bodies for protecting the employees against various ill-treatment practices
at workplace. The chosen organization for the study is Marks & Spencer.
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LO1 Explain the purpose and scope of Human Resource Management in terms of
resourcing in your chosen organization with talent and skills appropriate to fulfill
business objectives.
P1 Explain the purpose and the functions of HRM, applicable to workforce
planning and resources in your chosen organization
The functions and purpose of the human resource management of Marks & Spencer is
explained below:
Selection and Recruitment
The human resource department of the company is responsible for selecting and
recruiting appropriate and suitable candidates for the different job positions of the
organization. Prior to beginning the recruitment process, the human resource manager
need to undergo a staffing plan and determine the number of employees that the
company requires. The estimation of the required employees depends upon the short
and long term objectives and the annual budget of the company. Selection and
recruitment is a significant part of the human resource management as it reduces the
risk of employing under qualified, unmotivated and incompetent candidates.
Managing Employee Relationship
Managing the employee relationship is considered one of the most vital functions of the
human resource management of the company. The human resource department of the
company can conduct different activities within the workplace in order to ensure healthy
communication and interaction between the employees at both professional and
personal level. This further facilitates the company to maintain a balance between the
employer and the employees (Bratton and Gold, 2017).
Retaining Good Working Condition
Another major function of the human resource management of the company is to
maintain a good working condition within the workplace. The human resource
department is responsible for providing a good and healthy working environment to the
employees in order to ensure that the employee feel comfortable and secure while
working within the organization. This further helps in motivating the employees, thus
reducing the amount of absenteeism and increasing the productivity and performance of
the employees.
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P2 Using examples from your chosen organization, explain the strengths and
weaknesses of different approaches to recruitment and selection
The human resource management of Marks & Spencer has adopted a number of
recruitment and selection approaches within its workplace. However, these approaches
have a number of advantages as well as disadvantages. The strengths of the different
approaches to recruitment and selection are as follows:
Managerial Involvement
The human resource department of Marks& Spencer involves all the managers of the
different departments while developing the parameters of recruiting new employees.
This helps the human resource management of the company to understand the present
and future requirements of the different departments. Furthermore, this helps the HR
department to design appropriate job descriptions concerning the educational
requirements and experience for the new job position, thus making the recruitment
process easier.
Company Growth
The selection and recruitment process of Marks & Spencer is created keeping in mind
the growth and development of the company. The human resource management
considers the details and niceties of the future employee requirements prior to
designing the job description of the required job position (Armstrong and Taylor, 2014).
The weakness of the different approaches to recruitment and selection are as follows:
Inducement of Competition
Marks & Spencer is presently not being able to keep up with the inducement that is
being offered by its competitors. The company loses out a number of potential
employees every year owing to its competitors who offers better salary, excellent
retirement packages and comprehensive health benefits and so forth. The human
resource management of the company is facing difficulties in managing the employee
turnover of the company as, thus making it an expensive affair. However, the human
resource department of the company is trying to meet the expectations of the
candidates in order to compete with its rival companies.
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LO2 Evaluate the effectiveness of the key elements of Human Resource
Management in an organization
P3 Explain how different HRM practices benefit the management and employees
of your chosen organization
The primary goal of HRM process is to hire employees for the organization, who are
responsible for fostering standard performance. Organizational performance can be
declined if employees are not supportive to maintain business standard. However, this
performance can get adverse impact if employees are not empowered properly. Due to
de-motivation and less level satisfaction can reduce the rate of productivity and profit
from both end (Karanges et al., 2015). In this case, Human resource mangers utilize
various theories to maintain sustainable environment with the workplace. These
theories are related to motivational approach.
Motivational approach
In the workplace, employees can face low motivation due to lack of proper attention and
leadership support. Often they can face operational problem due to lack of proper
knowledge on technological advancements. Often employees can not show maximized
effort due to lack of proper salary as per the experience. Therefore, motivational factors
are dependent on various altitudes. From Maslow’s hierarchy of needs theory, HRM
managers try to recognize their operational responsibilities.
Maslow’s Hierarchy of need theory
In the conception landscape, motivational theory comprised of five-tier approach. This is
a five-stage pyramid for dividing the developmental as well as scarcity needs. These
tiers are physiological needs, belongings, safety need, self esteem and actualization. In
the organizational context, these theories are applied to understand different
employee’s need (Heilman et al., 2015). It has been understood that money is not only
the basic resource for enhancing the employee performance, non monetary initiatives
are also important to keep them emotionally satisfied towards their work. Based on
these approaches, rewards management system is applied such as promotion or
incentive payment.
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P4 Evaluate the effectiveness of different HRM practices in your chosen
organization in terms of raising organizational profit and productivity
Marks & Spencer’s HR managers follows reward management system based on the
theoretical framework of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. They are providing regular
training to the employees for fostering positive business advancement at all level. In this
case, such training is supportive to reduce employee’s operational issue. Leaders are
also supportive to take care of employee’s performance issue and their other problems
to understand business vision (Jackson et al., 2014). In this case, HR mangers are
using proper system to measure employee performances. This system is incorporated
to resolve the issue on employee performance. Through proper measurement,
managers can pay approx remuneration based on experience level. On the other hand,
non monetary benefits also available in the company such as vacation policy,
entertainment initiatives for making the workers happy and motivated. Incentives are
also available for better performance. In addition, fair recruitment process in
incorporated for maintain the operational transparency in HRM management
LO3 Analyze internal and external factors that affect Human Resource
Management decision-making, including employment legislation
P5 Analyze the importance of employee relations in your chosen organization in
respect to influencing HRM decision-making
Relationship between employee and top management is essential for the functioning of
an organization. An organization with healthy and supportive working environment will
produce far better results and outcomes than an organization that has competitive
environment (Karanges et al., 2015). This is the most necessary requirement for
establishing good relations within an organization.
Managers in Mark & Spencer support and encourage employees to improve their style
of working and find better ways to accomplish task on time. Proper guidance and
support helps to complete tasks before deadlines, increasing their efficiency. Having
friendly relation with employees allows senior management to deal with problems and
issues troubling employee and prohibiting them to work at their optimum potential. This
allows HR managers of Mark & Spencer to tackle barriers and setbacks and become
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leading company in retail sector in UK. Marks & Spencer is one of the leading
companies in retail sector, having large operations and actions conducted every day,
therefore supervising such immense amount of activities requires consistent relation
and communication between various departments of organization (Mishra et al., 2014).
Relations between employee and management provide an opportunity for developing
and incorporating policies much efficiently. When everyone within an organization share
a common goal and objective, achieving organizational vision and mission becomes
easier and effective.
Marks & Spencer has implemented various policies and changes in internal structure to
improve the effectiveness and efficiency (Raub, 2017). The company has focused
immensely to establish line of communication between functional areas of the
organization to improve sharing of data and information. Employee job satisfaction and
behavior of seniors towards subordinates is highly influencing towards employee
behavior, when employees are valued and respected within an organization they
automatically put more effort to increase their performance and aim at higher position in
the organization. The major role of HR managers is to conduct training programs and
sessions in order to improve the performance of employees and thereby improving their
abilities to deal with customers and provide better customer care service (Anitha, 2014).
HR managers monitor employee performance within the organization to find the skills
that employees are lacking and need attention for improvement.
P6 Identify the key elements of employment legislation and the impact it has upon
HRM decision-making in your chosen organization
Government of United Kingdom has developed various laws and legislations in order to
protect interests of employees and staff members working in corporate organizations.
They have implemented different laws for the welfare of the employees, and enforced
strict legislations to take necessary actions against any infringement. Different acts and
laws introduced by government are:
Equality Act, 2010 – This act enforced in 2010, protects individual form all sorts of
discrimination in the workplace and wider society (Hepple et al., 2010). This law
enforces that any discrimination based on race, religion, age, gender and so on will be
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treated as an illegal offence. Before introduction of this act there were various anti
discrimination acts enforced by government, but Equality act, 2010, replaced all of them
making the law easy to understand and implement (Fraser Butlin, 2011). The law has
created more awareness and helped in strengthening the protection against such
offence.
Human Rights Act, 1998- According to this act, all employees should be treated with
equality, fairness, and respect. It allows them to defend their rights and take necessary
actions against any organization in UK courts (Kavanagh, 2009). All private
organizations operating within the boundaries of United Kingdom are to obey this act,
even public organization like Government, police and local institutions are to treat
citizens and employees with fairness and dignity. Treating employees with dignity and
respect will be give a great boost to the confidence of employees and staff members.
This will also act as encouragement and motivation for employees giving them a sense
of job satisfaction. When employees feel that they are an integral part of an organization
and what they do, perform or create is valued, it highly influences the behavior of
employees and drives innovation and creativity among them.
Sex Discrimination Act, 1975- This act specifies that any sort of discrimination or
biasness among employees based on their gender is a punishable offence. This applies
to all organizations that operate within the boundaries of United Kingdom ( Wintemute,
2016). This prohibits any senior manager to indulge in any sort of biasness among
employees depending upon their gender. This allows employees to have equal and fair
chance within an organization to progress and achieve professional achievement.
Eliminating all sort of discrimination from organization allows all employees to work as a
team and accomplish organizational goals.
Health and Safety at Work Act, 1974- Health and safety at workplace is the most
necessary condition for any employee to chose to work in an organization. Local
authorities are responsible for enforcing and implementing the act (Hancock, 2015).
This act forces top management to pay attention to securing health, safety and welfare
of individual at work against any sort of risk to health in connection to the activities they
are involved at work. This law takes care of building regulations, certain emissions into
the atmosphere and providing employment medical service.
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LO4 Apply Human Resource Management practices in a work-related context
P7 Illustrate the application of HRM practices in a work-related context, using
specific examples from your chosen organization
Job Specification of Human Resource Assistant
The job profile of a human resource assistant is typically to manage and monitor
employees of the organization. The sole purpose of entire team is to maintain, develop
and update records of employees. The major responsibility of HRM department is to
hire new employees who will run the company in near future. The quality of employees,
their skill and knowledge and experience in past all need to be considered and
evaluated strictly in order to identify the best candidates among hundreds of applicants.
This is a huge duty that lies on the shoulders of HRM department and the future of the
entire organization depends upon their decision making power. Various duties of human
resource assistant are:
 Recruiting best candidates based on their merit and expertise
 Monitoring overall performance of team and individuals
 Conducting training programs
 Developing strong relations with employees
 Keeping records of employee data and maintaining it
 Developing reward and incentive management system for employees
Curriculum Vitae of the Interested Candidates
CV 1
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Curriculum Vitae
Andrew Stark
London
[e-mail]- 7890987123
Profile
I am passionate and a highly energetic person. My strengths are that I can face difficult
situations with calmness and confidence. I am highly skilled in managing teams and
individuals in an organization. I can multitask and work for long hours. I am a person
with friendly and amicable nature.
Work Experience
Post Name of the Company Time period
Customer assistant Orienco - France 2010-2013
Assistant in customer care
service
Monoprix - Paris (75) 2013-2014
Team member Mamounia Lounge Mayfair -
London
2014-2016
Production assistant Joseph house - Reedham 2016-2017
Education
HND level 4-5 in business- university of London international programmes- April 2016 to
April 2018
IQ IAM Level 3 Diploma in Management – London south bank university- September 2015 to
March 2016
Diploma- South Thames college, London, UK
Skills
System savvy (skilled in working with computers, Ms-word, Ms-excel, graph and
charts), strong communication skills, well adapt with variety of languages such as
Spanish, Latin, and French.
Hobbies
 Listening music
 Playing video games
 Reading
 Cooking

CV 2
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Curriculum Vitae
Chris brown
London
[e-mail]- 7865456743
Profile
I am 23 years old and very confident about myself. I am punctual and take well care of
my responsibilities. I have outstanding organizational skills and ability to work with
different kinds of people. I have strong multi tasking skills and negotiation skills.
Work Experience
Manager at Sainsbury’s: from 2015-2017
Assistant manager at Big Bad Toys: from 2013-2015
Team leader at Locus Rags: from 2010-2012
Education
BA (HONS) Business Management, Newcastle College, UK
Masters in Business administration at University of Oxford, Oxford, UK
Skills
 Conflict management skills
 Organizational skills
 Performance management skills
Hobbies
 Bike riding
 Travelling to new and adventurous places
 Singing
 Freelancing

CV 3
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Curriculum Vitae
Laura Negru
13, Baker Avenue, Illinois IG5 13CF, UK
[e-mail]- 7890435698
Profile
I like to travel different countries and learn about different culture. This makes me
comfortable with different kinds of people and an effective team member. I have
experience of working as a manager in different organizations. I can successfully lead
team members, develop strategies and take actions. My experience allows me to
take wise decisions and business environment judgment.
Work Experience
Post Name of the company Time period
Assistant manager Walmart 2014-2015
Manager Virgin group 2015-2016
Manager Tesco 2016-2018
Education
Business BTEC HNC (level 4) - South Thames College from 2012-2013
Management Graduate Diploma- university of London international programmes –
from 2013-2014
Skills
 Strong communication skills
 Highly determined and cooperative
 Can work for long hours
 Able to adjust in different environment
 Different languages like French, Spanish and Russian
Hobbies
 Reading
 Writing journals

Conclusion
The assessment helped to understand the overall business aspect and different function
of Marks & Spencer. The study includes various laws and regulations that are enforced
by government institutions and bodies for the welfare of the employees. Health and
safety at work act, Equality act and human rights act are few to name. There were
various different acts in place, already introduced by the government to tackle the
situation of discrimination at workplace. However, equality act, combined all of them,
making it easy to execute and understand. At the last, the report includes job
specifications for human resource assistant and CV of three applicants. The study also
helped to understand the way human resource management can influence employee
behavior and performance. Different motivational theories and concepts related to
employee motivation and encouragement helped in understanding different strategies
applied by managers. Various approaches to recruitment and selection and their
respective strengths and weakness helped to understand the way HRM managers hire
or recruit new candidates.
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Reference list
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Karanges, E., Johnston, K., Beatson, A. and Lings, I., 2015. The influence of internal
communication on employee engagement
Kavanagh, A., 2009. Constitutional Review under the UK Human Rights Act. Cambridge
University Press.
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Raub, S., 2017. When employees walk the company talk: The importance of employee
involvement in corporate philanthropy. Human Resource Management, 56(5), pp.837-
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Wintemute, R., 2016. Goodbye EU Anti-Discrimination Law? Hello Repeal of the
Equality Act 2010?. King's Law Journal, 27(3), pp.387-397.
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