Human Resource Management - British Telecom

Human Resource
Management

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
TASK 1............................................................................................................................................1
P1 Purpose and functions of HRM applicable to workforce planning and resourcing in
enterprise.....................................................................................................................................1
P2 Strength and weaknesses of different approaches to recruitment and selection....................3
TASK 2............................................................................................................................................4
P3 Benefits of different HRM practices within the firm for employers and employee..............4
P4 Effectiveness of different HRM practices in order to raising organisational profit and
productivity.................................................................................................................................5
TASK 3............................................................................................................................................6
P5 Importance of employee relations which influence HRM decision-making.........................6
P6 Key elements of employment legislation which impact on the HRM decision-making ......8
TASK 4............................................................................................................................................8
P7 Application of HRM practices in work-related context ........................................................8
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................9
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................11

INTRODUCTION
HRM determines successful operations and functions to deal with different issues that are
related with compensation, hiring, performance management, organisation development, etc.
Furthermore, employee motivation, wellness, benefits, communication, etc. elements considered
promoting effective advantages (Ayanda, Lawal and Ben-Bernard, 2014).
Present study is based on British Telecom which is multinational telecommunication
holding company and headquarter exist in London, UK. There are several operations in all over
the 180 nations provided and it is the largest provider of fixed line, broadband and mobile
services in UK.
For gaining insight information of the present study, it covers purpose and functions of
HRM that are exists for workforce planning and resourcing in the organisation. Furthermore, it
includes benefits of different HRM practices in the firm that are exists for employers and
employee. Moreover, report helps to assess importance of employee relation that influence HRM
decision-making. At last, application of HRM practices identify that implement in work related
context.
TASK 1
P1 Purpose and functions of HRM applicable to workforce planning and resourcing in enterprise
Human resource management is the business function that assists to focus on people
aspects in the enterprise. It measures efficient management of several people in the BT group.
Furthermore, HRM is the term that used to describe formal system devised for management of
people in the enterprise. Responsibilities of human resource in the chosen organisation consider
in different areas such as staffing, employee compensation, benefits, etc. (Altenburger, Ait-Aissa
and de Aragão Umbuzeiro, 2015). As per the views of Flippo “Human Resource defined as
planning, organising, directing and controlling of procurement, development, compensation, etc.
In this regard, separation of HR consider for individual, organisational and societal objectives
that are accomplished in positive manner”.
Nature of HRM Part of management discipline: HRM of BT group is a part of management discipline. It
considered in management process and draw heavily from management concepts.
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 Universal experience: HRM applied as pervasive in nature. It implemented in all the
enterprises at each level of management in the business.
 Action oriented: HRM focuses attention on action so that BT group ignore on record
keeping, rules and procedures (Chand, 2018).
Scope of HRM Human resource planning: Human resource planning defines as the process in which the
chosen enterprise consider plan in process to assess number of vacant jobs. Job analysis and design: Another scope of human resource is job analysis which helps to
prepare advertisement and placed it in the newspapers.
 Recruitment and selection: As per the collected data, job analysis consider assessment of
information and it is published in newspapers.
Hard and soft HRM
Hard HRM: In this consideration, the chosen organisation treat their employees simply as a
useful source of enterprise. It creates strong link with corporate business planning about
resources and cost of them which incurred by BT group. Hence, they focus on hiring, moving
and firing. This approach helps on workforce planning to gain expected results but it is more cost
effective to take decisions that are quicker and focused. It gains relatively little attention to
accomplish needs of employees.
Features
 Short term changes in employee numbers Minimal communication from top to bottom
Soft HRM: Soft HRM consist as treating employees as most important resource in the enterprise
to attain competitive advantages. Each person treated as individual and their needs planned
accordingly. Therefore, they focus on needs of employees with their roles, rewards and
motivation. In the workforce planning of BT group, soft HRM consider touch feely to treated
nicely. Hence, competitive advantages can be gain in desired manner.
Features
 Strong and regular two way communication
 Flatter organisational structures
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P2 Strength and weaknesses of different approaches to recruitment and selection
Recruitment and selection are two major elements of the organisation in which BT group
hire right people to perform right job. In this regard, following methods considers in the
organisation:
Recruitment (Internal method)
Internal method of recruitment in the chosen organisation determines to fill vacant job
with internal elements. When vacancy arises in the business, employees pay full attention with
different methods. BT Group consider internal method for recruitment in which they selected
transfers, promotion and present employees.
Strength Improve morale: When employees take higher post, morality of them increasing. It
assists to deal with expect promotion as they are getting higher post to carry more status
and pay (Reiche, Stahl and Oddou, 2016).
 No error in selection: When employees selected from inside, there is the least possibility
of errors in selection. Therefore, every business maintain complete records of employee
to judge in better manner.
Weaknesses Lack of creative thinking: When manager recruit from internal sources, there is lack of
creative thinking and ideas. As a result, it creates disadvantage for BT Group.
 Discourage capable people: It also discourages capable people who are outside the office
to join the concern (Bennett, Cramer and Lebel, 2015).
Selection (External method)
For the selection procedure, BT Group consider external method to look and fill the
vacancy from any suitable applicant outside the enterprise. In this consideration, the chosen
organisation has several options such as advertisement, employment exchange, school, colleges
and universities, factory gates, recommendations by existing employees, etc. These kinds of
person are needed to make expansion (Altenburger, Ait-Aissa and de Aragão Umbuzeiro, 2015).
Strength Availability of suitable persons: External sources helps to develop availability of suitable
persons from wide choice of alternatives. Large number of applications willingly join the
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enterprise. Therefore, it can be suitable as per the requirement of skills, training and
education.
 Bringing new ideas: External methods of selection assists to bringing new ideas from
outside sources. Therefore, it creates benefit to develop experience in other concern that
suggests from new things and methods (Marchington, Wilkinson and Kynighou, 2016).
Weaknesses Demoralisation: When new person join the organisation, present employees feel
demoralised because these position have gone to them. It can be heart burning among old
people (Ayanda, Lawal and Ben-Bernard, 2014).
 Lack of co-operation: Old staff may not co-operate with new employees so that they feel
that right snatched by them. This problem acute especially when person get higher
position.
TASK 2
P3 Benefits of different HRM practices within the firm for employers and employee
HRM practices within BT Group consider successful operations and functions that are
carried to attain more desired level efficiency. With the help of Flexible Working Conditions
employer and employee both gain benefits to gain profitability and productivity.
Benefit of flexible working conditions to employers Increased employee morale: With the help of flexible working conditions, employers get
experience to increase morality, engagement and commitment in the business. Therefore,
it assists to focus on maintain discipline in BT Group. When they developing option to
take flexibility, employees Reduce absenteeism and tardiness: Furthermore, employers of the chosen organisation
get benefit of reduce absenteeism of their employees. It increases profitability and
productivity to focus on the desired level efficiency (Armstrong and Taylor, 2014). In
order to get flexibility in work, each employee less absent so that it create benefit for
employer. Reduce turnover: Moreover, in the selected enterprise there are reduced turnover so that
employers have no require recruiting and select new people. As a result, it assists to focus
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on maintain effectiveness in systematic manner. With increasing efficiency and
effectiveness of flexibility, turnover also reduce in successful aspect. Recruit outstanding employees: Along with this, in BT Group flexible working conditions
helps to recruit outstanding employees. It assists to focus and maintain accomplishment
of goals and objectives. On the basis of working pattern of employees, they can easily
lead with appropriate working system at workplace (Bennett, Cramer and Lebel, 2015).
There are several options available to gain more significant advantages in the business.
Benefit of flexible working conditions for employees Flexibility helps to meet family needs: In order to get flexibility working conditions,
employees have benefit that personal obligations and life responsibilities conveniently. In
BT Group flexible schedule helps to develop more significant advantages to do their
personal work. Reduce consumption of employee commuting time and fuel costs: In several areas, time
and fuel costs is very high (Marchington, Wilkinson and Kynighou, 2016). Therefore,
when employees get benefit of flexibility working conditions, it assists to save time costs
as well. It assists to focus on the desired level efficiency. Avoids traffic and stresses: Flexibility also create benefit for employees to avoid traffic
and stresses. Therefore, it is important to faster communication that assists to focus on the
desired level efficiency. It assists to reduce stresses from employee's mind (The
Advantages and Disadvantages of Flexible Work Schedules, 2018).
 Increase feeling of personal control: Furthermore, flexibility also assists to increase
personal control from them. As a result, employers of BT Group allow employees to
determines their own schedule and work environment. It increases more desired level
results in systematic manner. Entrepreneurial spirit also successfully develop that is good
for different people in the business (Armstrong and Taylor, 2014).
P4 Effectiveness of different HRM practices in order to raising organisational profit and
productivity
Flexible working conditions create several benefits in BT Group to develop their
significant advantages. In this regard, employees get arrive at different time as per their
convenience. Therefore, it increases their working pattern to develop more significant
advantages at workplace. It is structured form of part-time work so that it is the best perspective
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and share information about the tasks and issues. Main goal to design flexible working hours is
consider arrangements to make sure that appropriate arrangements in the whole work can be
done in successful way. With this regard, following elements considered that assists to develop
effectiveness and raising organisational profits and productivity:
 High level of contact encouraging with two way flow of communication between
management and distance workers and their other colleagues. It is useful to develop
productivity with appropriate communication. It assists to focus on motivation, team-
building, performance management and introduce changes in successful work (Head and
Alford, 2015).
 Furthermore, flexibility working conditions also assists to determine clear policies on
hours of work. It can be challenging for BT Group but employee morale assists to
develop more profits and revenue in systematic manner. It assists to focus on the
gathering information that aids to understand and reduce stress level. This kind of
situations requires following HR policies with clear discussion (Altenburger, Ait-Aissa
and de Aragão Umbuzeiro, 2015).
 Be clear with staff members, it is essential to track with appropriate hourly rate for each
employee. With the help of track appropriate information, actual hourly rate for each
employee can be measure that helps to gain more profitability. It is useful to understand
and reduce level of stress among employees.
 Flexible working conditions also cost effective and efficiency so that it assists to deal
with extended operating hours that helps to meet with innovative results in BT Group. As
a result, it helps to produce desired level of results at workplace with less cost (Ayanda,
Lawal and Ben-Bernard, 2014).
TASK 3
P5 Importance of employee relations which influence HRM decision-making
Employee relationship consider positive aspects which influence HRM decision-making.
It considers several employees and employer of BT Group who take important part in it. Each
person of the department create certain relationship with other people. They all are required talk
with each other and share ideas with happiness and sorrows. An individual cannot work
individual so that group performance can be develop in successful manner (Bennett, Cramer and
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Lebel, 2015). In following context, importance of employee relations develop which influence to
take HRM decision-making in the chosen business: To take decisions together: Employee relations can be build successfully to take
decisions together. In this regard, HRM decisions of BT Group influence which create
relationship with different people in productive manner. It creates opportunities to know
each other in the business environment for successful manner (Nieves and Segarra-
Ciprés, 2015). As a result, it influences HRM decision-making to ensure that several
group activities are being organised at workplace to bring several people together at a
common platform. Work becomes easy when it shared among several people: Furthermore, in the chosen
business it also assists to share work among several people which create positive
communication. As a result, it increases relationship which successfully build to expand
several ideas and opinion to develop creative results. Responsibilities must be assigned
and divided among several people to accomplish tasks (Wright, Coff and Moliterno,
2014). Therefore, HRM decisions of the BT Group influence in respect to make easier
work. As a result, it assists to focus on maintain work better. Organisation becomes happy to work when several employees work together as a
family: With the help of employee relationship, it can be stated that better results can be
deliver in BT Group. This is because, all people work together as family which is
important consideration to expect and move for better work (Jennings and Stadler,
2015). Discourage conflicts and fights among individual: Furthermore healthy employee
relations helps to discourage conflicts and fights among several individual. People tends
to finding fault among each other so that relationship can be successful build through
concentrate on work and strive hard to perform better (Johnson and Szamosi, 2018). They
all are start treating each other to perform better in BT Group with compromise each
other.
 Performance management: Employee performances also assists to focus on maintain
effective relationship. It plays integral role to develop successful management system.
With the help of appraisal program, it can be stated that training supervisor and managers
can easily provide constructive feedback to staff members which assists to deliver
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positive relationship between several numbers of people (Paillé, Chen and Jin, 2014). As
a result, BT Group influence to do their better work in systematic manner.
P6 Key elements of employment legislation which impact on the HRM decision-making
In order to maintain HRM decision-making, employment standards are those which
determines in a law in effective consideration. With this regard, there are several perspectives
exists which influence to take decisions in BT Group. They are as follows: National Minimum Wage Act 1998: According to this act, manager of the chosen
organisation has role to provide minimum wages to all employees (Jackson, Schuler and
Jiang, 2014). As a result, it assists to take appropriate decisions that are not biased and
helpful to develop more significant advantages at workplace of BT Group. Data Protection Act 1998: As per this data protection act, manager of the chosen
organisation need to kept safety and security for personal information of all employees.
In this consideration, it is important to processing and movement of data that are required
to develop significant advantages in HRM activities of BT Group. It impacts positive on
the results because decision-making activities tends to consider appropriate working in
the organisation in successful way (Albrecht, Bakker and Saks, 2015).
 Disability discrimination act 2010: According to this, act, manager of the chosen
organisation need to reduce negative impact from the business operations. It assists to
develop substantial and long term development to perform functions as normal ability.
All people must be treated equally whether they are disabled or normal. It creates long
term impact on day to day activities of the chosen organisation (Reiche, Stahl and Oddou,
2016).
TASK 4
P7 Application of HRM practices in work-related context
Human resource functions carried successful operations and functions that significantly
different from HRM practices. Functions of BT Group comprises with transactional activities
that assists to handle in-house or easily outsourced functions. Practices are successful part of the
implementation of HR strategy which compromised systems in term of doing successful
business. There are several benefits gain with implementation of HRM practices in work related
context of the chosen business (Marchington, Wilkinson and Kynighou, 2016). Record keeping,
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payroll processing, etc. are main functions that assists to perform transactional functions that are
depends on the expertise activities. Different application of HRM practices can be develop in
following context: Recruitment and selection: HR recruitment and selection practices generally based on
the mission and workplace culture of the enterprise. For instance, employers recognise
value at workplace diversity which embrace with appropriate recruitment practices. It is
also designed to attract diverse applicants pool. In BT Group recruitment practices
underlie with several activities and functions that are sponsoring career fairs at different
universities, etc. (Brewster, Chung and Sparrow, 2016). Work-life balance: Implementation of flexible work conditions assists to schedule and
provide employees effective telecommunication options. With the help of training
supervisor signs spot of workplace stress that assists to suggest culture of the enterprise.
In BT Group, management of schedule logistic, modifying technology, etc. which can be
implemented to gain successful goals and objectives at workplace. (Collings, Wood and
Szamosi, 2018).
 Training and development: Training and development program is important application
of HRM in BT Group. It includes new employee orientation, job skills training,
leadership training and professional development. These activities improve current
position and equip them with skills and expertise for cross functional work. It assists to
increase succession planning strategy with preparing future leaders (Armstrong and
Taylor, 2014). Higher level of jobs and responsibilities successfully given which reflect
on promotion within practices.
CONCLUSION
From the above report, it can be concluded that human resource management consider
important role in the business to get successful results and outcomes. In this regard, report
summarised about nature and scope of HRM that assists to meet with desired level efficiency and
effectiveness to develop significant advantages. Furthermore, it concluded about benefits of
different HRM practices and its benefits to employers and employees in the BT Group. In this
way, several benefits can be take place that assists to match capabilities of employees to tailoring
demand and requirement to develop more significant advantages. Moreover, application of HRM
practices in work related context to attain effectiveness in different areas of the world. At last,
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key elements of employee legislation has been explained that assists to meet with innovative
functioning at workplace in the chosen enterprise.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Albrecht, S.L., Bakker, A.B. and Saks, A.M., 2015. Employee engagement, human resource
management practices and competitive advantage: An integrated approach. Journal of
Organizational Effectiveness: People and Performance. 2(1). pp.7-35.
Altenburger, R., Ait-Aissa, S. and de Aragão Umbuzeiro, G., 2015. Future water quality
monitoring—adapting tools to deal with mixtures of pollutants in water resource
management. Science of the total environment. 512. pp.540-551.
Armstrong, M. and Taylor, S., 2014. Armstrong's handbook of human resource management
practice. Kogan Page Publishers.
Ayanda, A.M., Lawal, O.R. and Ben-Bernard, P., 2014. Effects of human resource management
practices on financial performance of banks. Transnational Journal of Science and
Technology. 4(2).
Bennett, E.M., Cramer, W. and Lebel, L., 2015. Linking biodiversity, ecosystem services, and
human well-being: three challenges for designing research for sustainability. Current
Opinion in Environmental Sustainability. 14. pp.76-85.
Brewster, C., Chung, C. and Sparrow, P., 2016. Globalizing human resource management.
Routledge.
Collings, D.G., Wood, G.T. and Szamosi, L.T., 2018. Human resource management: A critical
approach. In Human Resource Management (pp. 1-23). Routledge.
Head, B.W. and Alford, J., 2015. Wicked problems: Implications for public policy and
management. Administration & Society. 47(6). pp.711-739.
Jackson, S.E., Schuler, R.S. and Jiang, K., 2014. An aspirational framework for strategic human
resource management. The Academy of Management Annals. 8(1). pp.1-56.
Jennings, B. and Stadler, R., 2015. Resource management in clouds: Survey and research
challenges. Journal of Network and Systems Management. 23(3). pp.567-619.
Johnson, P. and Szamosi, L.T., 2018. HRM in changing organizational contexts. In Human
resource management (pp. 27-48). Routledge.
Marchington, M., Wilkinson, A. and Kynighou, A., 2016. Human resource management at
work. Kogan Page Publishers.
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Nieves, J. and Segarra-Ciprés, M., 2015. Management innovation in the hotel industry. Tourism
Management. 46. pp.51-58.
Paillé, P., Chen, Y. and Jin, J., 2014. The impact of human resource management on
environmental performance: An employee-level study. Journal of Business Ethics.
121(3). pp.451-466.
Reiche, B.S., Stahl, G.K. and Oddou, G.R. eds., 2016. Readings and cases in international
human resource management. Taylor & Francis.
Wright, P.M., Coff, R. and Moliterno, T.P., 2014. Strategic human capital: Crossing the great
divide. Journal of Management. 40(2). pp.353-370.
Online
Chand, S., 2018. Human Resource Management: it’s Meaning, Definition and Nature. [Online]
Available through: <http://www.yourarticlelibrary.com/essay/human-resource-
management-its-meaning-definition-and-nature/27989>.
The Advantages and Disadvantages of Flexible Work Schedules. 2018. [Online] Available
through: <https://www.thebalancecareers.com/advantages-and-disadvantages-of-
flexible-work-schedules-1917964>.
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