Assessment of HRM Practices in Human Resource Management

Assessment of H&M’s approach to workforce planning, recruitment and selection, development and training, performance management and reward systems 5 B. Evaluating organisation’s approach to maintain an effective employee relations and employee engagement to comment upon the adoption of flexible organisation and flexible working practice and ‘employer of choice 7 C. The main objective of firm is to lead the change in fashion and renewable industry by utilizing its size and scale and by being equal and fair among its customers and increase their loyalty towards

HUMAN RESOURCE
MANAGEMENT

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
Task 1...............................................................................................................................................3
A. purpose and function of HRM practices in H&M..................................................................3
B. Recruitment and selection approaches of H&M and its strengths and weakness...................4
Task 2...............................................................................................................................................5
A. Assessment of H&M’s approach to workforce planning, recruitment and selection,
development and training, performance management and reward systems................................5
B. Evaluating organisation’s approach to maintain an effective employee relations and
employee engagement to comment upon the adoption of flexible organisation and flexible
working practice and ‘employer of choice..................................................................................7
C. Identifying and evaluating key areas of employment legislation within which H&M must
work.............................................................................................................................................9
Application of HRM practices.....................................................................................................9
Task 3.............................................................................................................................................10
1. Design of job description-.....................................................................................................10
Person specification for new role-.............................................................................................10
2. Interview preparatory notes...................................................................................................11
Selection criteria........................................................................................................................11
Interview decision sheet............................................................................................................11
3. A job offer..............................................................................................................................11
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................11
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................12

INTRODUCTION
Human resources management is an approach for effectively manage the worker of
organisations. So that they will be able to help company in achieving competitive advantages in
the market. human resources department in organisation is designed to improve the performance
of employees and for achieving strategic objectives of employers. present study is based on
H&M retail company. It is known for its fast-fashion clothing product. The business provide
cloth for men, women, children and teenagers (Waiganjo, 2014). Study will explain the purpose
and various functions of HRM that applies for manpower planning of H&M. Furthermore, it will
describe the several approaches of recruitment and selection of business and its strength and
weakness. in addition, report will critically evaluate the various approaches and effectiveness of
employee relations and flexible working practices adopted by employer. Assignment will also
do assessment of different approaches to workforce planning, recruitment and selection, training
and development and performance and rewards system of organisation.
Task 1
A. purpose and function of HRM practices in H&M
H&M is a retail multinational company. It is known for its fast-fashion clothing product.
Firm provide clothes for men, women, children, and teenagers. it operates its activities around
the globe in 62 countries and run 4500 stores. The company has a strong presence on various
social media platforms.
The main objective of firm is to lead the change in fashion and renewable industry by
utilizing its size and scale and by being equal and fair among its customers and increase their
loyalty towards business. the entity wants to offer its product in a sustainable manner and also
create sustainable choices availability, attractive and wants to sell clothes at an affordable price
to consumers (Al Ariss, Cascio and Paauwe, 2014). organisation of this size and scale has a great
opportunities and responsibility to lead modifications and creating industry more sustainable
fashion and design. The important purpose of its offering at fashion fans all around the globe.
they are focusing more on quality and creating sustainability in the existing target market as well
as new market of other countries.
Human resource management (HRM) plays an essential role in increasing performance of
employees up to the highest level of efficiency. it is concerned managing staff performance from
recruitment until their retirement. HRM performs crucial function in H&M firm. It assists in
3

recruiting and selecting new qualified and skilled applicants that helps in reducing the cost by
eliminating the number of under qualified individuals, removes incompetence’s, unmotivated
employees (Reynolds, 2017). The main objective of this recruiting process is to increase the
competency and inner motivation of existing staff and attracts new talented candidates. HRM
helps in providing intensive orientation to staff by communicating their job roles and
responsibilities and provide various ways to fulfil short-term and long-term targets of firm
through conducting employee orientation program.
It assists in managing healthy relationships between employees and employer of entity.
Good relations among individuals will lead to the success of organisation. It also plays a function
of providing training and development for the improvement of present and long-term
performance of people by enhancing their capabilities through giving them knowledge and
developing their skills in specific area (Armstrong and Taylor, 2014). HRM is responsible for
providing good working conditions so this will increase the satisfaction of workers regarding
their working environment and will able to perform efficiently in order to achieve individual as
well as organizational goals and objectives.
B. Recruitment and selection approaches of H&M and its strengths and weakness
The recruitment process includes inviting applications for different vacant job positions
and hiring talented employees and influencing them to apply for various vacancies in company.
Identifying and recruiting new skilled and qualified applicants for gaining competitive advantage
in market is a very challenging task for H&M manager and HR professionals in organisation
(Ojokuku, Sajuyigbe and Ogunwoye, 2014). the manger must have adequate knowledge of
writing job description and skills to attract competent candidates by using appropriate selection
method and confidence in order to perform the whole end to end recruitment and selection
process.
Company use systematic approach for performing recruitment and selection process. it
brings stability in the operational activities and also provides strong foundation to the entity
(Bamberger, Meshoulam and Biron, 2014). The business has also adopted new practices of
recruiting individuals like online recruitment, headhunting and hiring applicants through various
job portals. That assist firm in employing competent person and increasing the competitive
position in throat-cut competitive environment. by enhancing demand and value of concern.
4

Systematic process of recruitment helps in stress-free selection of most talented
applicants in business. it requires following document such as job description, job advertisement
and specification and interview checklist. This process assists recruiters in getting variety of
information’s for fulfilling various vacant place in firm. employee can get a chance to improve
their performance if they do not perform well in particular process of hiring and also helps
applicants in monitoring their growth with the organisation (Marchington, 2016). systematic
selection process also assists in revealing and exploring the interpersonal attribute of applicants
that will require to perform particular job role and utilize those traits in order to achieve business
goals. it helps in reducing turnover rate by selecting the candidates for attributes according to
their jobs. so that they will remain within the firm for longer duration. The employer can filter
out the most unneeded applications and can identify the highly required candidates by
performing the various process of screening.
The process of recruiting the selecting candidates through job portals involves time,
resources and money. the employer needs to take subscription of different job portals that
includes a huge cost. Inviting various quality and beneficial applications for several job
vacancies has become a very challenging task for the entity due to enhanced competition in the
market environment (Clark and et.al., 2016). Systematic process of recruitment involves the
contribution of senior management, HR department and various other departments that
sometimes may remove their concentration to follow goals of business and gets fragmented. This
process considers smallest detail in selection process and even a single mistake of HR
department can lead to selection of wrong applicants that will ultimately make the whole
recruitment process unsuccessful.
Task 2
A. Assessment of H&M’s approach to workforce planning, recruitment and selection,
development and training, performance management and reward systems
This is especially in regard to create an effective workforce planning, for which, systematic
approach is being followed by H&M. This assists them in forecasting risks and finding the right
number of skilled and talented candidate at the right time. it helps in identifying the supply and
demand of critical capabilities and job roles under various scenarios of business (Cooke, Saini
and Wang, 2014). It identifies and address the gap between current workforce availability and
skills required in future. It provides various possible solutions for lost revenues due to having
5

slow operations and solution when company spend money on hiring wrong applicants due to lack
of preparation.
Business can approach recruiting applicants with proactive and reactive attitude and can
source new skilled and qualified candidate before opening of new job position. The process of
Systematic recruitment and selection policy starts with the appropriate job description (JD). job
description must contain all the information relating to job profile that also include job role,
salary and responsibilities of person (Gupta and Shaw, 2014). All the required skills for
performing job roles must be accurately compiled in order to find an ideal applicant. it involves
development of strategic job posting for available vacancy that helps in getting most demanded
candidates for available job role. systematic interview process provides interested applicants that
can meet the requirement of specific job profile.
The firm can prioritize its goals and objectives by utilizing systematic approach to
training and development. This kind of training is formal training provided to the new
employees. Training help individuals in acquiring knowledge and methods to adopt the interest
of business and develop an ability to perform different competent job role. the employer first
determines the training needs through proper analysation of organisational goals and objectives
(Donate and Guadamillas, 2015). then collected input during the process of goal analysation is
utilized to develop instructional strategies and to make learning objectives. then firm produce
and identify the material requirement for conducting training sessions. After the development
phase the organisation finally conduct the training program by integrating research and data
collected by analysation. throughout the process of training and development proper evaluation
is conducted by testing knowledge and abilities of employees for determining the value of whole
session.
A strategic approach is being used by H&M to performance management, which is a
process of systematically determining and checking the effectiveness of current and future
computer system for achieving the objective of alternative performance. It assists in
understanding the existing market environment and defining suitable goals for analysation
(Deery and Jago, 2015). Firm understand various kind of available data through software and
hardware and through program analysers. It involves utilization four modelling techniques to
measure the performance such as benchmarking, linear projection, simulation, analytical
6

modelling. Bench marking technique is useful for testing the impact of existing system, new
workload.
Reward systems plays yet another effective role in retaining the workers for a longer time
period in H&M. By which, they can refer retaining a talented set of employees at the workplace
and continue remarking them on the basis of their performance. It is referred to be one of the
most efficient method to improve the performance of the workers, if rated on its basis. This is on
considering the fact of rating employees in accordance to the work submitted by them and how
well it has met the stated objectives (Kramar, 2014). H&M is known to run an internal reward
system called as H&M’s incentive program. In which, they aim to reward their employees on the
basis of their every day’s commitment and long-term involvement in teamwork to meet out the
undertaken objectives of the enterprise. This gives an immense sense of appreciation and well
treatment to the employees that in turn assists them to feel gratified and attain productive
outcomes to enhance the overall profitability of the firm.
B. Evaluating organisation’s approach to maintain an effective employee relations and employee
engagement to comment upon the adoption of flexible organisation and flexible working
practice and ‘employer of choice
This is to evaluate the undertaken approach of H&M to maintain an effective relationship
among the employees. It is significant in terms of managing a healthy and cooperative affiliation
among the workers as a precondition for organisation’s success. A strong bonding among the
workers is required to attain higher productivity by together building a sense of satisfaction
among the workers (Nyberg and et.al., 2014). Employee relations is usually known to deal with
the aspects of solving the problems that are being faced by the workers and can be done within a
safe environment of work. This gradually leads to a more competent workforce consisting of
productive employees who have a great sense of motivation in them. A main agenda of all these
aspects is an improved level of sales.
This term has now replaced the industrial relations to define the association among the
employees as well as employers. After which, employee relations are being seen as an agenda of
focusing upon building a collective relationship among the individuals at the workplace
(Collings, Wood and Szamosi, 2018). This is along with a rising stress on assisting the line
managers to establish trust-based association with the workers. Such an affirmative environment
at H&M is apparent to lead into high levels of employee involvement with a greater sense of
7

commitment in them to get engaged in team work. It will further enhance the overall outcomes
of the business by together contributing into employee’s welfare.
H&M too refers it to be a vital perspective for continual generation of productive results at
the workplace. For which, it is headed towards a 5- step method to maintain an improved
relationship among their employees and employers (Reiche and et.al., 2016). It is however with a
prime motive of creating strong culture at the workplace considering the fact of working within a
better work environment, if the employees have healthier relationship with the management. The
foremost step includes asking the workers for input in terms of having a strong dialogue with
them and involve them in the process of decision making and build strategies.
Another is to communicate the company’s mission and vision to them on continual basis to
help them achieve desired results and create a sense of belonginess in them to work effectively
for the firm. After which, H&M must also refer recognising a job which is well done with
support of reward system (Bratton and Gold, 2017). Acknowledging an employee’s efforts is
proven to create a sense of gratitude in workers to help them get engaged in work. This will
together assist the workers in making open discussions with the management as a mean of
avoiding any conflicted situation. Considering all these aspects, H&M is known to encourage
work life balance by together offering several numbers of opportunities of career development to
the workers.
It is specially in context to provide them a flexible concept of working as a strategic tool to
acquire the business benefits related to it. This not only results in enhancing the performance of
employees but together results in improved productivity of H&M (Stavrou and Ierodiakonou,
2016). It is mainly on referring to the way in which flexible working is customised to meet the
needs of an employee and permit them to work in accordance to their suitability of time.
Although, it distinctly benefits the employees and employers. Herein, the employees can flexibly
meet their family requirements and get benefitted from less consumption of fuel costs with a
reduced time for commuting.
Other than this, an avoidance of traffic can lead to decrease the stress level of employees
travelling at rush hours. Lastly, the workers also get an increased sense of personal control over
their work schedule. The employers on other hand are benefitted from an increased morale in
their workers that in turn reduces their rate of absenteeism. A flexible working also helps them to
diminish the staff turnover and they can capably retain the valued staff members (Heathfield,
8

2018). Also, the customer service departments of H&M can work for extended hours. Moreover,
the employer’s ability is increased in terms of hiring outstanding workers as an image of
“employer of choice” developed for them due to a family- friendly schedules of flexible
working.
C. Identifying and evaluating key areas of employment legislation within which H&M must
work.
The term employment legislation includes employment protection measures of all types
such as protection measures, court rulings, collectively bargained conditions of employment or
customary practice (Armstrong and Taylor, 2014). Thus, key areas of employment legislation
within which H&M must work are as follows-
Age discrimination in employment Act 1967- this is US labour law that forbids discrimination
of employment against anyone at least 40 years of age in United states (Collings, Wood and
Szamosi, 2018). This act protects the employees and applicants on basis of age in hiring,
promotion, discharge, compensation or privileges of employment. This helps the elder age
employees by way of many facilities in H&M.
Disability act, 2016- in the whole world there are more than one billion people who are
suffering with physical and mental disabilities who has to overcome many challenges every day.
H&M must work with these rights so that it helps disabled people in ensuring that even they
have equal access to rights and opportunities like others. This will decrease the employee
retention in H&M.
Equal Pay Act, 2010- this law is set in terms of equality. This act protects both man and woman
in sex discrimination in pay rates and it has been applied almost to the situations where women
are paid less than man even for the similar jobs (Armstrong, 2014). Thus, H&M should adopt
this act so that itr may lead in increasing women employees and increase efficiency of business.
Minimum wage act, 1948- this act helps in fixing minimum rate of wages in certain
employments. Here, minimum wage is set to pay for both skilled and unskilled labour. H&M
must adopt this act to increase labour that results in high productivity.
Application of HRM practices.
HRM practices are that means through which personnel of human resource can develop
the leadership of staff (Bratton and Gold, 2017). This occurs with help of training and
motivational programs. Thus, practices of HRM are as follows-
9

Employment security- This is the first and best Practice. Here, H&M asks their employee to
commit and work in H&M and offer their ideas. Employees need security in return of this (Al-
Qudah and et.al., 2014). This type of security also benefits the cited company in retaining their
people.
Recruitment and selection- this practice is generally based on mission of organisation and its
culture. Recruitment practices underlie activities of recruiting and functions such as sponsoring
fairs and advertising job and vacancies to reach broad audience.
Training and development- this practice includes orientation of new employees, job skills
training, leadership, training and development. This helps in improving job skills of employees
in their current or present position. Training and development support H&M in succession
planning strategy by preparing leaders for future for more responsible nature (Reiche and et.al.,
2016).
Task 3
1. Design of job description-
Service manager are responsible in order to manage service level agreements with the
customers and providers (Kramar, 2014). They ensure about the satisfaction of customers’
requirements.
Person specification for new role-
Qualification and training
 They must have experience as a contact centre manager or some similar position.
 They must be degree level educated.
Experience
 they must have experience in service development and strategic management.
 They must also have strong experience in managing and responding to customers
feedback positively.
Knowledge
 They must have focus and self-motivated approach towards work.
 They must have ability of working well in teams, motivate and also develop staffs.
 They should have an ability to manage the change.
 They must also have excellent organisational and leadership skills and ability of problem
solving.
10

Special requirements
 they must have special requirement of having commitment to aims principles and policies
 they should also have commitment towards continual professional development.
2. Interview preparatory notes
The questions asked are as under
1. Tell me about a customer service policy that have been developed and implemented.
2. What have you done in order to improve work process in customer service division.
Selection criteria
The candidate is selected as per the previous experience and candidates must have
willingness in order to undertake further studies and professional development.
Interview decision sheet
1. The customer service policy is a written document that is followed by employees in order
to deal with customers those are not satisfied with the goods and services offered.
2. I have done further studies in service division and have also taken training for the same.
3. A job offer
H&M
Dear applicant,
H&M is exited to bring you on board as service manager and are just a few formalities away.
H&M is offering a full-time position for you.
Please indicate your agreement with terms and accept this offer by signing this agreement.
Sincerely, H&M
CONCLUSION
HRM being a vital practice in an organisation plays an integral role in handling and
managing the workforce. They are legally bound to formulate effective policies and procedures
to be followed at the workplace by all employed workers. Therefore, managing effective
relationship among the employers as well as employees is an utmost concerning agenda for HR
personnel’s. The above report has thus summarised such vital considerations of H&M in terms of
handling the workforce. For which, its adopted procedures of recruitment and selection has been
exemplified with other undertaken practices of HRM to manage the workers in the most efficient
manner.
11

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Al Ariss, A., Cascio, W.F. and Paauwe, J., 2014. Talent management: Current theories and
future research directions. Journal of World Business. (2). pp.173-179.
Al-Qudah, M.K.M. and et.al., 2014. The Effect of Human Resources Planning and Training and
Development on Organizational Performance in the Government Sector in Jordan.
International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences. (4). p.79.
Armstrong, M. and Taylor, S., 2014. Armstrong's handbook of human resource management
practice. Kogan Page Publishers.
Armstrong, P., 2014. Limits and possibilities for HRM in an age of management accountancy.
New Perspectives On Human Resource Management op. cit. at. pp.154-166.
Bamberger, P.A., Meshoulam, I. and Biron, M., 2014. Human resource strategy: Formulation,
implementation, and impact. Routledge.
Bratton, J. and Gold, J., 2017. Human resource management: theory and practice. Palgrave.
Clark, W.C. and et.al., 2016. Boundary work for sustainable development: Natural resource
management at the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research
(CGIAR). Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. (17). pp.4615-4622.
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.
Cooke, F.L., Saini, D.S. and Wang, J., 2014. Talent management in China and India: A
comparison of management perceptions and human resource practices. Journal of World
Business. (2). pp.225-235.
Deery, M. and Jago, L., 2015. Revisiting talent management, work-life balance and retention
strategies. International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management. (3). pp.453-
472.
Donate, M.J. and Guadamillas, F., 2015. An empirical study on the relationships between
knowledge management, knowledge-oriented human resource practices and innovation.
Knowledge management research & practice. (2). pp.134-148.
Gupta, N. and Shaw, J.D., 2014. Employee compensation: The neglected area of HRM research.
Human Resource Management Review. (1). pp.1-4.
12

Kramar, R., 2014. Beyond strategic human resource management: is sustainable human resource
management the next approach?. The International Journal of Human Resource
Management. (8). pp.1069-1089.
Marchington, M., 2016. Employee involvement. In Encyclopedia of Human Resource
Management. Edward Elgar Publishing Limited.
Nyberg, A.J. and et.al., 2014. Resource-based perspectives on unit-level human capital: A
review and integration. Journal of Management. (1). pp.316-346.
Ojokuku, R.M., Sajuyigbe, A.S. and Ogunwoye, A.B., 2014. Human resource management
practices and small scale business performance: Evidence from Osun state, south
western Nigeria. Journal of Emerging Trends in Economics and Management Sciences.
(7). p.1.
Reiche, B.S. and et.al., 2016. Readings and cases in international human resource management.
Taylor & Francis.
Reynolds, M., 2017. Organizing reflection. Routledge.
Stavrou, E. and Ierodiakonou, C., 2016. Entitlement to Work‐Life Balance Support:
Employee/Manager Perceptual Discrepancies and Their Effect on Outcomes. Human
Resource Management. (5). pp.845-869.
Waiganjo, E.W., 2014. Effect of competitive strategies on the relationship between strategic
human resource management and firm performance of Kenya’s corporate organizations.
Online
Heathfield, S. M., 2018. The advantages and disadvantages of flexible work schedules. [Online]
Available through: <https://www.thebalancecareers.com/advantages-and-disadvantages-
of-flexible-work-schedules-1917964 >
13

14

15

16

17

18