British Multination Retailer

Running Head: HUMAN RESOURCES 0
Human Resources
Student Details:

HUMAN RESOURCES 1
Activity-1
Overview
Marks and Spencer (M&S) is a British multination retailer which was founded in 1884; the
headquarters of the company is situated in Westminster, London. The company operates in
the retailer sector by offering a wide range of clothing options for its customers which
includes men, women and children. The company has hired around 78,597 employees in
order to manage its operations globally; M&S currently operates in 1,463 locations
(Sabanoglu, 2019).
HRM purpose and functions
The main purpose of the HR department of M&S is to make sure that right employee is
appointed at the right post. One of the key purposes of HRM to ensure workforce planning in
order to make sure that a company hires an adequate number of staff members to conduct its
operations. Without workforce planning, it becomes difficult for companies to determine how
many employees they require to perform organisational tasks and their qualifications and
skills requirements (Obeidat, 2012). M&S hires employees that are capable enough to deliver
high quality services to its customers which enable the company to create a positive brand
reputation. Some of the key HRM functions of M&S include planning, directing, organising,
controlling, training and development, recruitment, performance appraisal, and job designing
and analysing, and others. The company implements policies for attracting, recruiting and
selecting talented employees that work dedicatedly to achieve its goals (Ahammad, 2017).
The company hires employees from all across the globe and it attracts employees by using
different promotional methods such social media advertising, recruitment consultancies,
receiving online job applications on its website, walk-in interview and others. M&S has
introduced “Plan A” initiative for learning and development of its employees which is
targeted towards providing them equal career growth opportunities and enables them to
develop their competencies for further enhancement of their career (M&S, 2020). This
training program builds communication, leadership, management and customer engagement
skills of employees which are suitable for achieving business goals. Rewards and recognition
is also common at M&S for recognising employees based on their hard work and dedication
by providing them intrinsic and extrinsic rewards.

HUMAN RESOURCES 2
Strengths and Weaknesses
Different recruitment and selection approaches are used by M&S for screening its job
candidates and selecting them for particular positions. The company recruits employees from
both internal and external sources. For internal recruitment, it announces opening of job
position on staff notice board, monthly newsletter, spread it through word-of-mouth. The
advantage of this approach is that it is cost effective and it motivates employees. However, its
disadvantage is availability of limited number of candidates. For external recruitment, the
company promotes job vacancies through advertisement for example newspapers and job
consultancy agency (Zide, et al., 2014). It also has an online recruitment selection in which
candidates submit their CVs and they are screened by HR managers. Advantage of this
approach is availability of large number of job candidates; however, it is expensive and time
consuming process. For selection, the company uses personal interview approach in which
candidates go through different levels of interviews before they are selected. The final
decision is made by senior HR manager and candidates have to give various communications,
technical and psychological tests in these interviews (Kiyonaga & Egner, 2013). Advantage
of this approach is thorough evaluation of candidates and effective understanding of their
skills and knowledge; however, it is a time consuming process.