Purpose and Function of HRM in Shiseido

This report discusses the purpose and function of HRM in Shiseido, a Japanese multinational company. It explores different approaches to recruitment and selection, highlighting their strengths and weaknesses. The report also examines the benefits of HRM practices for both employers and employees, as well as their effectiveness in raising organizational profit and productivity. The importance of employee relations and employment legislations is also discussed.

Human Resource
Management
1

Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................3
Task 1...............................................................................................................................................3
P1 Purpose and function of the HRM.........................................................................................3
P2 Strengths and weaknesses of different approaches to recruitment and selection..................5
Task 2...............................................................................................................................................6
P3 Benefits of different HRM practices for both employer and employee................................6
P4 Effectiveness of different HRM practices in raising organisational profit and productivity.8
Task 3...............................................................................................................................................8
P5 Importance of employee relations in influencing HRM decision-making.............................8
P6 Key elements of employment legislations and their impact upon HRM decision-making. . .9
Task 4.............................................................................................................................................10
P7 Illustration of application of HRM practices in a work-related context..............................10
Conclusion.....................................................................................................................................15
References .....................................................................................................................................16
2

Introduction
Human resource is that resource of an organisation which is responsible for managing all
other resources. Human resource management refers to management of human resource of an
organisation (Brewster, 2016). It involves functions such as recruitment, selection, orientation,
performance management, motivation, retention, etc. In other words, human resource
management refers to managing human resource from their entry to exit in the organisation.
This report is aimed at reviewing effectiveness of roles and functions of HR function within the
organisation. Organisation chosen for reviewing HR function is Shiseido. It is a Japanese
multinational company which offers personal care products such as skin care, hair care,
cosmetics and fragrances. It is headquartered at Tokyo in Japan. This report includes a discussion
on the purpose and functions of human resource (HR) management within the company. HR
managers undertakes various approaches to recruitment and selection, all of which have their
own pros and cons. Discussion of such approaches as well as benefits of HRM practices for both
employers and employees in the company are included in this report. Further, importance of
employment relations and employment legislations and their impact on the HR decision-making
is discussed in this report. In the final part, application of HRM functions in a work-related
context are discussed.
Task 1
P1 Purpose and function of the HRM
Shiseido company is the Japanese personal care company which includes hair care, skin
care and cosmetic products. Company was founded in 1872 and is one of the largest cosmetic
company in Japan. Human resources management refers to the set of practices that tells the
nature of work and regulates job relationship. HRM is the broad part of the organisation which is
related to people working in the company. The responsibility of human resources management is
to develop the skills of workers, motivate them, evaluate the performance of employees and hires
new talents for the company who can work towards the success of the organisation (Brewster,
Mayrhofer and Morley eds., 2016). The most important factors of Human resources management
is enrolment, employee remuneration and workers commitment. Shiseido is the successful
organisation which has a strong HRM department. They perform their functions effectively in
the organisation. Some of the functions of Human resources management are discussed below:
3

 Planning: Planning is making standards as what is to be done in the organisation. It is the
central function which is performed by the Human resource manager. Human resources
planning involves determining and assuring of the performance of the employees
working in the company. In Shiseido organisation HRM plays important role. Planning
in the Shiseido organisation is done in such a manner that it can considered all the factors
like social, political, technical and environmental.
 Recruitment: Recruitment is the another function which is performed by HRM in the
organisation (Cheng and Hackett, 2019). It is the process or hiring a candidate who is
suitable for the job position. Human resource make sure that the candidate can give this
better performance.
 Training and development: Training and development is the next function performed by
the Shiseido organisation. As it is the responsibility of the managers to give training to
the employees so that they can learn new skills and make them use in the organisation.
 Job analysis: It is the major component of HRM. It has a two components that is job
specifications and job description. The main duty of managers in Shiseido is that to
collect the data and measure detail information.
 Performance management: The mangers in Shiseido performs there functions very well.
Performance management is the evaluation of job performance, maintains the company's
standards.
Purpose of the HRM:
Human resource management purpose is to manage the performance of the company and
the employees both (Delery and Gupta, 2016). They concentrates on the internal sources of
competitive advantage. It focuses on the people or employees working in the organisation who
are working towards the success of the organisation. Purpose of HRM in Shiseido organisation
is that they create relationship with the employees and enhance the organisational performance.
Professional of HR focuses on the quantitative, calculative and strategic methods of managing
the Human resources management. HRM also do management of motivation, training and
development, communication and leadership between the employees and employers in the
company. This will helps the company in increasing its growth opportunities and profitability.
4

P2 Strengths and weaknesses of different approaches to recruitment and selection
Recruitment process is an important function of the HR department as it ensures that right
talent is selected in the company who is able to build and be a part of result-driven team. An
organisation uses different approaches to recruit employees which can be both internal and
external for the company (Guerci and Carollo, 2016). Shiseido uses combination of both of them
for filling out vacancies depending on factors such as level of the position, costing involved,
level of familiarity with the organisation required, etc. Below mentioned are different internal
and external approaches of recruitment and selection used by Shiseido:
Internal recruitment
Internal recruitment refers to those recruitments in which job position is filled by
company internally within its workforce. Shiseido recruits internally through promotions,
transfers, rotations, temporary deputations, etc. Sometime, part-time employees are also made
permanent.
Strength – Internal recruitment and selection has various advantages like they are
quicker method to recruit and also, cost-effective. No outside person is coming so both the
employer and employee are not only familiar with each other and their working styles but also,
know strengths and weaknesses of each other. Promotions are good motivating tool as well and
opportunities for getting promoted not only develops competitive spirit amongst employees but
also helps company in retaining talent and reducing employee turnover.
Weakness – Internal recruitment and selection restricts the process of bringing fresh
talent in the company and in companies like Shiseido which operates in a highly competitive
environment, fresh talent means fresh ideas of sales, marketing, management, product
development, etc. which could have created competitive advantage for it but now lost. Moreover,
competition among employees can also give rise to conflicts in the company and resentment
amongst employees who wanted that position but couldn't have. Also, promotion of employee
creates vacancy for their earlier position which now needs to be filled.
External recruitment
External recruitment refers to those recruitments in which job position is filled by
suitable candidates external to the company (Järlström, Saru and Vanhala, 2018). It includes
methods such as walk-ins, direct interviews, psychological tests, campus placements, etc.
Shiseido uses direct interviews and walk-in interviews for recruiting lower level employees
5

while for middle and senior level employees, they advertise for the job role to hold screening and
selection process. They hold interview in three steps – general screening by HR either in-person
or phone call or online test. Then, a job specific group discussion round and interview with HR
managers and finally, with a general manager.
 Interview – It includes direct question-answer between interviewer and candidates. It
could be direct such as face-to-face in front or online through video calling or indirect
such as telephonic interview (Katou and Budhwar, 2015). It is a good method as it allows
direct assessment of the candidates by interviewer to check their suitability according to
the specified job however, it is time consuming process and when there are lots of
candidates, this method can result in delay in selection process.
 Group discussion – It is generally used for eliminating candidates. Candidates are divided
in groups and given a topic to discuss. HR managers checks the candidates' participation,
arguments, team skills, communication skills, influencing skills, etc. on the basis of
which they progress further for next round of selection process. It is beneficial as it
enables to assess multiple candidates at once to save time and cost but since this is not
job specific, this is unable to assess individual capabilities for specific jobs especially for
technical jobs. Therefore, it is used as part of selection process, not the final step.
Strengths – Biggest advantage and strength which external recruitment provides to the
company are bringing on-board new and fresh talent. It allows a large pool of applications in
which HR managers can select the best one. This develops a good combination of fresh talent
and experienced employees in the company.
Weaknesses – Its disadvantage is that it is a comparative longer process and therefore,
more time and cost consuming process as recruitment, selection, training, orientation, etc. all
incurs cost. Experts are required to assess right candidate required for the job yet it is not sure
that right candidate would be selected (Ramaprasad and et.al., 2017).
Task 2
P3 Benefits of different HRM practices for both employer and employee
Human resource practices are the effective for the organisation as it motivate the
employee towards the work which actually improve the company's performance. HRM practice
6

with benefits like job evaluation, cross training, incentive based which improve the employee's
performance in the organisation. Human resource management are the activities which are
beneficial for the both employer and employee of the Shiseido company.
Training and development: This is the process which help the employees to develop the
skills and knowledge (Rana and Malik, 2016). Training is very important aspect in the Shiseido
company, as to regulate the personal skin care products is very difficult for the employees
without having the proper knowledge of the products. The activities of HRM, identify the
workers ability and potential of their working capacity in the specified organisation. In order to
increase the performance of the company the worker of the respected company are well trained
and have up to date with the technologies in the market.
 Benefits for employees: With the help of training and development process the employee
of the Shiseido are able to gather the information which are relevant to the companies
nature and culture. With the help of training they can easily develop their skills and
increase their ability to work in the specified organisation.
 Benefits for employers: Employer of the Shiseido company get the various benefits by
training and development. As in the period of training of the employees, they get the
benefit to understand the performance of the individual employee.
Motivation: motivation in the process where an activity is described which enable the
confidence nature and boost up the performance of the employee and employer at the same time
within an organisation (Richards and Sang, 2019). Human resource management make an
execution of the different representative in a better way to get the desired objective of the
company. There are the various way by which an employer and employee get motivated.
Shiseido company use the different prizes and offers which can provide the advantage of the
employee. Again there are various benefits which are provided by the Shiseido company in order
to increase their performance. They are describe below:
 Benefits for employees: Human resource management activities help the employee to
increase the motivation in order to complete the task on time and achieve the desired goal
of the company. With the help of these activities an employee must get the opportunities
to increase their effectiveness and achieve the set targets within the chosen company. At
the same time provide the different type of help to the employee will motivate the
employee automatically in order to increase effectiveness.
7

 Benefits for employers: motivation technique help the employer of the Shiseido
company, in order to get the ease to enhance the business process. A motivated employee
of the company will provide the various benefit and make the contribution in order to
achieve the target of the company. By monitoring the performance this work in done
easily by the company's employer.
P4 Effectiveness of different HRM practices in raising organisational profit and productivity
Human resource managers of an organisation indulges in several different practises with
an aim to improve relations of employees with the organisation (Shah, 2019). Improved relations
of the company with its employees helps them in increasing their productivity level which
indirectly helps company in raising their organisational profit. HR managers of Shiseido
company indulges in several differentiated HR practise with an aim that they are able to create
such working conditions that enable their employees to live a prosperous and affluent life
(Employment and labor, 2020).
Company provides wages on the basis of abilities and results and even promotes
overlooking seniority and personal background. Abilities are evaluated on the basis of the rules
for handling evaluations. It is aimed at increasing satisfaction level of employees and such
efforts on the part of the employers increase productivity of the employees. Company has
developed systems and measures that support employees to create a balance between their work
and personal life. Also, they are provided with other measures such as housing support,
consolation payment system, welfare plan, health promotion, etc. They have also been provided
corporate pension plan to support their life planning management.
All such efforts benefit both employees and companies. Employees feel rewarded and
motivated which increases their commitment to the company and increases their productivity as
well as creativity level. They produce and innovate the process with renewed vigour which helps
company increase their profitability level. It also reduces employee turnover. Reduced employee
turnover cost helps company enhance their profitability level.
Task 3
P5 Importance of employee relations in influencing HRM decision-making
Employment relations refers to the efforts to develop and maintain a positive relation
between employers and employees. It is a two way effort. It is effort on the part of the employers
8

to manage employee performance and on the part of the employees, it is a responsibility to
perform well to achieve targets of the company (Shen 2016). Below mentioned are the
importance of employee relations for the Shiseido company:
 Helps in conflict management – Employee relations efforts creates a positive
atmosphere in the company which helps in reducing conflicts among employer and
employees as well as between employees. Shiseido company HR has developed a code of
conduct which states clearly the roles and responsibilities and power and authorities of
the employees. This way they are able to create situations which have lesser conflicts.
 Increases work productivity – When employees feel that they are being looked after
well, they feel motivated and motivated employees perform better and have better work
productivity. Shiseido HR has developed process for employee performance management
as well as they actively engage in taking feedbacks, motivating them which helps them
perform better.
 Reduces employee turnover – Employee turnover causes time loss as well as increase
cost to the company. Due to the efforts of HR department for maintaining employee
relations in Shiseido, employees are happier, more productive and feel committed to the
company. This has reduced employee turnover of the company and the related cost such
as full and final compensation to the employee, recruitment process cost of the new
employee, training and orientation cost. Other than cost, HR has to make renewed
relations and efforts with new employees, which are saved by the efforts on the
employment relations.
P6 Key elements of employment legislations and their impact upon HRM decision-making
All the activities that human resource department of company pursues are subjected to
certain legal guidelines and legislations (Tung, 2016). Below mentioned are certain employment
legislations:
Employment Rights Act, 1996 – This law specifies all the rights that employers are
supposed to be providing to employees. Shiseido enters into a written contract with all its
employees which contains all the employment conditions such as wages, roles and
responsibilities, working hours, holidays, etc. It is not demoted against employees without giving
them a reasonable opportunity of being heard.
9

Health and safety at Work Act, 1974 – This law contains and instructs all the necessary
safety conditions that employers are required to maintain. Shiseido is a multinational company
and has a developed code of conduct to ensure safety of employees as well as to provide them a
stable working environment. There is a proper risk management plan in place and employees are
also provided necessary trainings so that no unfortunate incidents happen with them.
Minimum Wages Act, 1998 – This law contains provisions for minimum wages that
employers are required to provide to their employees. Schiseido operates in a competitive
environment and to retain its employees offers them competitive salary packages on the basis of
their abilities and results, much above the minim wages defined in the law.
Other than above-mentioned laws there are certain other laws as well which are
applicable to company such as related to equal pay, safety against discrimination and
harassment, etc. (Yabanci, 2019). Company complies with all the applicable laws as it is
committed to provide healthy working environment to the employees.
Task 4
P7 Illustration of application of HRM practices in a work-related context
Human resource department is entrusted with so many responsibilities within company
related to human resource management, one of which is recruitment and selection (Yong and
Mohd-Yusoff, 2016). This process starts with discovering the need of hiring for a particular post.
Then, a job specification is drawn, on the basis of which further processes of giving out
advertisement, taking interviews and selection of right candidate is carried out. This process ends
with orientation of new employee in the company and another function of HRM takes from here
which is employee management. Below mentioned is the illustration of recruitment related
processes for the post of assistant HR manager at Shiseido:
First step in a recruitment process is designing for job specification related to the job for
which the company is going to hire.
Job Specification:
Company: Shiseido
Address: The Adelphi, John Adam Street, London
Functional unit: Human Resources Department
Job title: Assistant HR Manager
10

Reporting authority: HR manager
Job Summary: All the activities related to trainings provided by the company
Roles and Responsibilities: Candidate would be required to:
 Assessing the requirements of various trainings
 Design training and orientation modules
 Developing budgets for them
 Overseeing compliance of training schedules
Qualification required:
 Graduation in management from a recognised college or university
 Minimum 2 years work experience in managing human resource
Skills required:
 Management skills
 Communication and negotiation skills
 Decision-making and conflict management skills
 Financial skills required for preparing budget
Based on the job specification, an advertisement is posted to invite suitable candidates for
the post. Company can post the advertisement in newspapers and also digitally on its website and
other social media websites such as LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, etc. to attract wide range of
right and suitable candidates.
VACANCY
Shiseido Company Limited is hiring for the post of ASSISTANT HR MANAGER at its office
at John Adams Street, London. Selected candidate would be required to design and oversee
training modules in the company.
Qualification required:
 Graduation in management from a recognised college or university
 Minimum 2 years work experience in managing human resource
Skills required:
 General Management skills
 Financial skills required for preparing budget
11

Time-scales
Inviting applications from applicants 10 - 15 January, 2021
Short listing of applications 16 - 20 January, 2021
Interview date 24 - 28 January, 2021
Based on the above job advertisement, company would be getting CVs of eligible and
interested candidates. Curriculum Vitae (CV) is a summarised report consisting of personal and
professional personality of the candidate. Sample CV is mentioned below:
Curriculum Vitae
Daniel Johnson
Address: 471, Green port street, London
Contact No.: 3458965232
E-mail: [e-mail]
OBJECTIVE: To work within an organisation which is able to utilise and develop my skills
and where I can make a valuable contribution in their processes.
Education:
 Masters in Business and administration, University of London
 Bachelors in Business and administration, University of London
Work Experience:
 6 months HR internship at Citibank
 1 year experience at Microsoft on the post of junior HR manager
 1 year experience at Vodafone HQ at the post of Assistant HR Manager (Training)
Skills possessed:
 Good managerial hard and soft skills
12

 Financial modelling
 Fluent computer and internet skills
Personal Data:
Gender: Male
Father's name: Roe Johnson
Marital Status: Single
Date of Birth: 15/08/1995
Languages known: English, Spanish, German
CVs of all the candidates are scrutinised in screening process to eliminate candidates.
Short-listed candidates are then called for further interview process.
Sample Interview Questions
Sample General questions
 Introduce yourself in 5 words
 Tell us about your strengths and weaknesses
 Why did you leave last company?
 Why Shiseida ?
 Narrate any incident from your life when you had encountered difficulties and how you
overcame it.
Sample Job specific questions
 What are few necessary trainings that company needs to provide to its employees?
 What are the different ways in which company can provide trainings to its employees?
 How to decide budget for the training process?
On the basis of results of interview process, a suitable candidate is selected on the basis
of their CV and interview performance, who is then offered a job offer. Job offer is a letter which
mentions all the specifications related to the job and offers selected candidate to join the
company. Below mentioned is sample offer letter:
Job Offer
13

Shiseido Company Limited
The Adelphi, John Adam Street
London
31st January 2021
Daniel Johnson
471, Green port street
London, UK
Dear Daniel,
Congratulations, you have been selected for the post of the Assistant Human Resource
Manager at the company. Responsibilities and salary structure is mentioned below and other
terms and conditions will be discussed with HR Managers post your joining.
Main responsibilities of the specified designation are:
 Assessing the requirements of various trainings
 Design training and orientation modules
 Developing budgets for them
 Overseeing compliance of training schedules
Salary Structure:
 Monthly CTC: 5000 GBP
 Bonus: performance based
 Other benefits: housing allowance, city compensatory allowances, mobile bill
Company is excited at the prospect of having a talented and suitable employee like you on-
board and therefore, is pleased to offer you the position of Assistant Human Resource Manager.
We would like you to join us as soon as possible and once, you decide to join us, please report
at the above-mentioned company office to Human Resource Manager by 15th February 2021.
Sincerely,
Troy Park
Senior Human Resource Manager
Shiseido, London
14

Conclusion
Above report was based on assessment of effectiveness of human resource function in an
organisation. It was observed that purpose of human resource function is to manage the
performance employees and to develop the skills of workers, motivate them, evaluate the
performance of employees and hires new talents for the company who can work towards the
success of the organisation. It uses both internal and external approaches for filling out vacancies
depending on factors such as level of the position, costing involved, level of familiarity with the
organisation required, etc. Post completion of recruitment and selection process, another function
of HRM takes up which is employee management. It involves employee performance
management, employment retention, training and development, motivation, etc. All the activities
that employees perform influence decision-making of HR managers and all HR managers
undertakes activities that are aimed at increasing effectiveness and productivity of the employees
within the legislative scope company is subjected to.
15

References
Books and Journal
Brewster, C., 2016. Comparative HRM. In Encyclopedia of Human Resource Management.
Edward Elgar Publishing Limited.
Brewster, C., Mayrhofer, W. and Morley, M. eds., 2016. New challenges for European resource
management. Springer.
Cheng, M.M. and Hackett, R.D., 2019. A critical review of algorithms in HRM: Definition,
theory, and practice. Human Resource Management Review, p.100698.
Delery, J. and Gupta, N., 2016. Human resource management practices and organizational
effectiveness: internal fit matters. Journal of Organizational Effectiveness: People and
Performance.
Guerci, M. and Carollo, L., 2016. A paradox view on green human resource management:
Insights from the Italian context. The International Journal of Human Resource
Management. 27(2), pp.212-238.
Järlström, M., Saru, E. and Vanhala, S., 2018. Sustainable human resource management with
salience of stakeholders: A top management perspective. Journal of Business Ethics.
152(3), pp.703-724.
Katou, A.A. and Budhwar, P., 2015. Human resource management and organisational
productivity. Journal of Organizational Effectiveness: People and Performance.
Ramaprasad, B.S and et.al., 2017. Human resource management practices and organizational
commitment: A comprehensive review (2001-2016). Prabandhan: Indian Journal of
Management. 10(10), pp.7-23.
Rana, M.H. and Malik, M.S., 2016. Human resource management from an Islamic perspective: a
contemporary literature review. International Journal of Islamic and Middle Eastern
Finance and Management.
Richards, J. and Sang, K., 2019. Socially ir responsible human resource management?
Conceptualising HRM practice and philosophy in relation to in-work poverty in the
UK. The International Journal of Human Resource Management, pp.1-28.
Shah, M., 2019. Green human resource management: Development of a valid measurement
scale. Business Strategy and the Environment. 28(5). pp.771-785.
Shen, J., 2016. Principles and applications of multilevel modeling in human resource
management research. Human Resource Management. 55(6). pp.951-965.
Tung, R.L., 2016. New perspectives on human resource management in a global context. Journal
of World Business. 51(1). pp.142-152.
Yabanci, O., 2019. From human resource management to intelligent human resource
management: a conceptual perspective. Human-Intelligent Systems Integration. 1(2),
pp.101-109.
Yong, J.Y. and Mohd-Yusoff, Y., 2016. Studying the influence of strategic human resource
competencies on the adoption of green human resource management practices.
Industrial and Commercial Training.
Online
Employement and labor. 2020. [Online]. Available
through:<https://corp.shiseido.com/en/sustainability/labor/employment.html>
16