Human Resource Management Practices and Employee Engagement

This assignment delves into the realm of Human Resource Management (HRM) and its profound impact on employee engagement. It discusses the importance of HRM practices, such as strategic HR, performance management, and organizational agility, in enhancing productivity and competitiveness. The assignment draws from various academic sources, including books and articles, to provide a comprehensive understanding of the topic. It highlights the significance of empowering employees, building self-efficacy, and fostering a positive work environment. The assignment also touches upon the role of HR functions in achieving organization agility and performance.

HUMAN RESOURCES
MANAGEMENT

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
TASK 1- (LO 1)...............................................................................................................................1
a.) Explanation on purpose of HR function and its importance in organisation....................1
b.) Explaining Strength and weakness of current selection method.......................................2
c.) Evaluation of two potential improvements which enhance selection process in entity....3
TASK 2 (LO 4)................................................................................................................................4
A.) Person specification for the job role of receptionist.........................................................4
b.) Discussion on advantages and disadvantages of the current methods to advertise the job in
organisation............................................................................................................................5
b.) Recommendations regarding where the job could be advert for the role of receptionist. 6
TASK 3 (LO 2)................................................................................................................................7
a.) Evaluation of benefits of graduate training and internships to both organisation and
employees...............................................................................................................................7
b.) Identification of flexible working arrangement and its benefits to both organisation and
employees...............................................................................................................................8
c.) Evaluation of Microsoft work to motivate its workers through designing of job role....10
TASK 4 (LO 3)..............................................................................................................................11
a.) Explanation of the term employee engagement and its importance................................11
b.) Critically evaluating key approaches for engaging workers which discussed in the Summit
and the importance of such approaches to improve communication at the workplace........13
c.) Identifying key elements of UK employment legislation which influence HR decision 14
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................15
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................16

INTRODUCTION
Human resource management is considered as strategic approach which is used by
effective administration of particular organisation in order to achieve business goals and
competitive advantage of entities. Thus, the management has to play vital role which is through
HR planning and performance (Wright, 2018). In this report, purpose and function of HR
function will be evaluate where current problems will also be explained with strength and
weakness of current selection method. Further, person specification will be created for the job
role of receptionist. Moreover, in this report term employment engagement and its importance
will be discussed in context of Microsoft organisation where key approaches for engaging
workers and key element of UK employment legislation will also be explained.
TASK 1- (LO 1)
a.) Explanation on purpose of HR function and its importance in organisation
Purpose of HR function is to coordinate with the employees of organisation in order to
achieve organisational objectives and to meet its future goals. Their main role is to satisfy needs
and wants of the employee so that employee satisfaction will get maintained. In 'Say it with
chocolate' organisation, current issue is regarding high employment turnover and the quality of
some items was not that effective as it was (Cascio, 2015). Thus, to solve such problems,
following are the function which HR manager will have to play in this organisation.
Aligning human resources and business goals:
HR officers are considered as asset for an organisation which work to oversee leadership
and culture. Main work of HR officer is to develop proper vision and mission of work among
employees and to communicate it properly to people so that they have full knowledge about
work which needs to develop for achieving business goals.
Re-engineering organisation process:
Another function of HR manager is to monitor the performance of organisational process.
If it is found by them that such process is not appropriate in terms of business objectives then it
is responsibility of HR officer to re-design such process.
Listening and responding to employees for maintaining job satisfaction:
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In order to solve employment turnover in organisation, purpose of HR is to listen and
solve employees needs and wants. By complying with labor laws and another laws HR officer
will able to solve issue in 'say it with chocolate' organisation.
Staffing and training:
Another function of HR manager is to provide timely training to staff which motivates
them to increase skill which required in improving their work. Training helps employees to
develop skill which required in completing new organisational culture. It is also true that
employee looking for opportunities which provides industrial growth. Thus, HR has to provide
professional development possibility for employees of the organisation (Bratton and Gold,
2017).
To integrate with laws and ethics:
HR manager is also responsible for maintaining proper ethical practises and comply with
laws and legislation so that proper work positive work environment gets developed. Non-
compliance of laws and regulations will result in the workplace which has unfair employment
practises and also unsafe working environment which create dissatisfaction among employees to
work in organisation.
b.) Explaining Strength and weakness of current selection method
Selection is a process whereby a firm choose specific kinds of tools in order to select
specific people from the applicants which they received in an appropriate legal environment.
Thus, strength and weakness of 'Stay it with chocolate' organisation is as follows-
Strength Weakness
 Right candidate have been selected by
proper assessment of employees on the
basis of their knowledge,
communication and analytical skill.
 Employees get selected through
integrity test where measurement is
developed on attitude of candidates.
 In order to determine their capabilities
for doing any work, ability test also
 Major weakness of selection method is
that there is no fairness in the test,
recruiter select candidates with bias
nature.
 There is lack of reliability in this
method where performance of the
candidate will not get measured.
 Recruiter's hire candidates without
communicating personally. Candidate
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have been conducted in selection
method.
will only hire through passing the test
because of which their capability in
making innovative chocolates did not
get identified (Brewster, Chung and
Sparrow, 2016).
c.) Evaluation of two potential improvements which enhance selection process in entity
In order to solve high employment turnover, Stay it with chocolate' organisation will able
to develop following two improvements in their selection process of the candidates. Such two
improvement are as follows-
Communicate a lot in interview process-
In order to get the right employee which has the potentiality in order to achieve
organisational objective then communicate to candidate a lot in their interview process. It is true
that communication is one of a key element in selection process of employee. There are different
kinds of people which are involved in the process of hiring and each one have to develop clear
communication with the candidate which helps them in analysing capability and ability of
candidate in order to complete specific work (Reilly and Williams, 2016).
Offer competitive salary for attracting business candidates-
Candidates gets more attracted if company provides a salary which satisfy their needs.
Thus, Stay it with chocolates company have to offer attractive salary which provided by its
competitors on similar positions. Qualified employee will not be interested in providing their
work to entity which will not offer competitive salary to them.
Adequate attention on interview process-
Recruiter of the entity must have to be adequate and to be willing in order to invite
several kinds of applicants in interview process. In such process figure out the potentiality of
candidate in order to fit into entity's culture. Use their answer as chance to measure their honesty,
genuineness and behaviour regarding work competition.
Thus, these are the ways by which Stay it with Chocolates organisation will able to hire
skilled employees by which the issue which currently running in entity will get solved (Worley
and Pillans, 2019). Through this way organisation will also able to improve their quality in
making chocolates.
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TASK 2 (LO 4)
A.) Person specification for the job role of receptionist
Job title Receptionist
Department/selection Administration
Report to Administration manager
Main purpose of the job  Person has to provide professional and pleasant
experience to clients who visits the site.
 Willingness to work with flexibility in context of
changing organisational requirements.
 Efficient to answer incoming telephone enquiries with
great communication skill.
 Ability to work effective under pressure
Key tasks  To manage couriers
 To meet and solve inquiry of the clients
 To keep the receptionist area neat
 To attend and answer organisational phone calls
 Maintaining availability of stocks as per the employee
requirements
 To distribute posts of the company
 To manage board meetings
 To conduct duty which assigned by higher authorities
 To answer customer service support
Responsible for equipments  He/she has to use IT facilities like telephone
switchboard.
 Must have to manage stock relates to stationary for
organisation employee
 Maintaining order of refreshments.
 Keep tracking employee presence and to allocate them
bags and attendance log.
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Required skills  Effective telephone skill
 verbal communication
 Microsoft office skills
 Professionalism
 Supply management
Budget which required in the job advertising of Receptionist is as follows-
Expenses Amount (£)
Advertisement in the newspaper 800
Advertisement on job portals 1200
Administrative expenses
Printing and mailing 750
Office supplies 280
Telephone expenses 300
Salary to staff 3500
Total expenses 6830
b.) Discussion on advantages and disadvantages of the current methods to advertise the job in
organisation
Chocolate presence employs method of posting jobs internally on the notice boards that
have its won merits and demerits.
Strengths: Posting and communicating job vacancy internally provides better career
growth and opportunities to the existing employees. Such recruitment strategy helps in the
boosting the morale of the current employees and makes them feel important in the organisation.
Another advantage of this method is elimination of advertisement cost. No cost is incurred for
posting a job internally that helps the company in reducing its total operating costs for the period,
thereby raising the profitability by a noticeable amount (Cascio, 2015).
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Weaknesses: It rules out the probability of putting more deserving candidate on the
vacant post as no external communication of vacancy is made on a public platform. It leads to
the stagnation of creativity level in the organisation by not introducing fresh blood in the
company.
Posting of job on vacancy notice board outside organisation's gate:
This method recruitment employed by the company has following benefits and
limitations that are discussed below:
Advantages: The above mention method is less costly than any of the other kind of
advertising the job like posting the job vacancy in newspaper and job portals involves large
expenses. Visitors and the existing employees can recommend the HR department the potential
candidates from their social circle who are competent enough to perform the job role. These
activities help the HR in reducing their efforts of identifying and attracting desired candidates for
the specific job role in the company (Noe and et.al., 2017).
Disadvantages: There is high of possibility that people ignores such notices on the board
outside the organisation's gate. This method the restricts the opportunities of having pool of
talented people from which the most desired candidate can be chosen by the HR of Chocolate
Presence.
b.) Recommendations regarding where the job could be advert for the role of receptionist
Being a Human Resource Officer in the company, it is recommended that organisation
needs to advertise the vacancy of receptionist post in the newspaper, its official site and on the
other job websites rather than posing outside the organisation's gate. These methods would
provide the company a range of competent candidates from whom the best could be picked for
the required job role. However, there is an argument when considering these methods that
posting jobs on newspaper and websites costs too much but these cost can be recovered quickly
when right person is put to right job in the form of increased productivity and efficiency in
operations in total.
The recruitment strategy of positing job vacancy internally is very viable and profitable
in terms of higher employee satisfaction by providing opportunities for growth and development.
It helps in motivating employees when they see themselves growing in the company. The cost of
such job advert is very economical which save time, money and pull off excessive load from the
HR department of Chocolate Presence. Another aspect which is advantageous to company is that
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existing employees makes referrals of people they that helps in eliminating the necessity of
recruiting people from the very first stage that is searching right candidate for the job (Worley
and Pillans, 2019).
There have ben various elements which have been required for the post of receptionist in the
organisation such a having better communication practices, analysis of consumer requirements,
arranging the operational practices etc. however, these are the approaches which would be
effective in managing the operational satisfactorily. Moreover, there can be several ideas which
would be effective in motivating the workforce. It includes activities such as creation realistic
goals, providing employee recognition, implicating training and development program for
motivating the workforce accordingly. Along with this, analysing the performance of employees,
recording their efforts as well as rewarding them on their performed operations. It is one of the
motivating factor which would be effective in motivating the entire staff to undertake the
operational activities seriously.
TASK 3 (LO 2)
a.) Evaluation of benefits of graduate training and internships to both organisation and
employees
Graduate training program is the best way for developing a workforce which are fully
talented and will able to achieve the core values of companies their aims and objectives. This is
the program which provide benefits to both organisation and to employees (Noe and et.al., 2017).
Thus, advantages of graduate training in terms of employees is as follows-
More productive:
This is world which has rapid changing working cultures therefore, programs like this
will help employees to develop skills where they will able to become more productive and
quickly in order to achieve business objectives.
Elimination of skill gap:
Nowadays, entities wants more train graduates. It is because they want worker which has
skill to meet business objectives and to complete specific work. Thus, this training helps in
eliminating skill gap which employers are demanding more while recruiting in companies.
Training and development opportunity:
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This provides graduates to meet with real world scenario in order to handle day to day
business situations (Albrecht and et.al., 2015). This is the type of opportunity for them in order to
enhance their career growth with a good start. Through these activities, graduates attracted in
large companies which provide advantage in their employability.
Benefit to organisations:
Skilled employees:
Major benefit of this program to organisations is that they will get employees which have
the full knowledge regarding working environment. Nowadays, employer only want skilled
employee which have the efficiency in completing business related tasks.
Improve and Boost productivity:
Businesses which are looking for boosting their productivity as soon as possible as well
as to develop goods and services which is more valuable than through this program they get the
workers which have full knowledge regarding employment capability. Thus, this will help entity
in getting workers which have the more alternative options for completing organisational
objectives.
Thus, the graduate program which initiated by Microsoft organisation will help both
employees and organisation in terms of achieving organisational objectives. Employee will able
to achieve a good start in their career and entities will get the workers which have the knowledge
of conducting organisational tasks (Taylor, Doherty and McGraw, 2015).
b.) Identification of flexible working arrangement and its benefits to both organisation and
employees.
Recently, Microsoft has offered programs and policies which contribute in developing
positive work environment in organisations. Motive behind this development is to achieve better
work with the options of flexible opportunities and learning. This is the way which provides
management alternative solutions in order to meet business goals. Such flexible work
environment includes work in part-time, job share, work remotely, flexible working schedule and
work compressed weeks (Rothwell, Hohne and King, 2018). This is the way of developing
motivation among employees so that they will provide their best efforts for completing specific
projects of the organisation. According to this arrangement, each employee will given a laptop so
that he or she can work remotely. Each office must have touchdown spaces which used by
employees when they are travelling for any type of long commutes. This is the facility which
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provided with the satellite location where employee will able to reserve their space when they
needed for work related to firm scheduling. Distribution of technology in terms of virtual
hardware is also provided so that employees will able to access their work with any type of
device which is at any time.
Benefits to employees:
 There is a flexibility in meeting family needs, personal obligations and in real life
responsibilities conveniently. According to this employee will able to go parent teacher
meet conference, will able to take yoga class etc.
 Employees are allowed to work from home if they live in areas from where it takes more
than an hour to reach workplace.
 Employees will able to increase the feeling of personal control which over the work
environment. This is the way by which companies will able to provide entrepreneurial
spirit whereby allowing employees to determine own schedule and work environment. This will also help in reducing burden of employee during workload situations
(Brookfield, 2018).
Benefits to organisations:
 It will help employer in increasing employee morale, their engagement and the
commitment of work towards entities.
 This flexibility also helps in increasing ability to get the employees which have
outstanding skills in order to achieve organisational objectives.
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 It will also help organisation in getting the best work where employees are motivated for
achieving organisational objectives and to meet business needs.
 Flexible arrangements also helps in reducing staff turnover whereby employee will retain
for longer duration in order to provide the best service as possible.
c.) Evaluation of Microsoft work to motivate its workers through designing of job role
There are many ways through which Microsoft motivates its workers. Some of the
commitment and approaches are as follows-
Culture:
For Microsoft, one of the important drivers of their success is the work culture where the
aim of organisation is to develop a culture where all employees work with enthusiasm and will
provide mutual respect to each other (Empowering our employees, 2019). A belief has been
developed by entity where everyone will able to grow with their potentiality and also anyone can
change their mindset.
Training and development:
In order to support the positive and set mindset culture and to meet the learning needs of
employees around the world, Microsoft is offering a diverse range of leaning and development
opportunities for its employees. Motive of the company is to provide the right learning which is
at the right time. Opportunities in terms of development include: personalized views which is
through Microsoft learning and LinkedIn learning, classroom learning through learner boards,
stretch opportunities for the job advancement, frequent promotions, coaching through ongoing
manager connection etc.
Respect of human rights:
Microsoft company has a participation as a signatory to UN Global Compact where its
motive is to respect Global human rights and to respect the human rights covenants and
declarations.
Total rewards:
Microsoft company started and developed dynamic, sustainable and strategic programs
which generate trust among employees and also motivates them to provide the best work as
possible. Entity has the practises of providing and ensuring equitable pay for roles and to provide
the benefits which delight employees in their working.
Wellness and Safety:
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Microsoft has always been committed for supporting their employees well-being. Entity
has developed comprehensive benefits which provides a significant help where employee will
able to maximise physical, financial and social wellness. Safety has been provided to their
professional assess. Proper training has been provided in terms of hazard control to minimise the
risk opportunities.
Diversity and inclusion:
For Microsoft entity, Global Diversity and Inclusion is a type of program which fulfils a
core aspect whereby a positive culture has been developed in order to achieve organisational
objectives and business needs (Norby, 2018). Type of environment has been created by entity
where there has been an active participation of employees and each one provides their effective
contribution to strength the skill which required in achieving business mission.
These are the job role design which created by Microsoft to motivates its employees. The
result of such programs is that company will able to create richer work experience, stronger
ideas, more effective products and to get better customer experience.
TASK 4 (LO 3)
a.) Explanation of the term employee engagement and its importance
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Employee engagement is the type of key factor which is used for organisational
effectiveness, growth and for long term development. It is not the term for employee satisfaction,
it is the term which states type of emotional commitment the worker has to its entity and for its
goals. This is term by which entity will able to identify satisfaction level of workers from the
business strategies which are adopted by management.
When organisation's wants to improve satisfaction of employees changes does not need
to develop for increasing their performance, infect it is about the needs which they expect from
entity (Mone and London, 2018). For entity it is often hard to find what employee think and what
is their satisfaction level therefore, employee engagement is the factor which is the most
important tool for organisations.
Its importance for Microsoft are as follows-
For any entity, employee engagement is the most important tool in order to achieve
effective organisational objectives or to develop a reputation of the entity in the market. Thus,
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Illustration 1: Employee Engagement
(source: Employee Engagement- The Success of Your Business,
2019)

this tool is also important for the Microsoft company too. This is the tool which also provide
impact upon the profitability of the company. It is said that where employee are truly engaged,
such entity will able to improve its business operations and also able to satisfy customer needs,
sales volume and overall profitability. But sadly, it is found that employee retention in any entity
is too low. There are only one third employees in US which are engages for particular
organisation and across the worldwide there are only 15%.
Thus, to improve such retention, Microsoft has hosted the Employee Engagement
Summit, a free and online event. This is the event which brought leaders of different companies
to explore the topic employee engagement and to do open communication on this throughout the
world. In this event, director of the Microsoft that is Anton Andrews shares his views regarding
the best practises and lessons they learned to create a new work culture where employee feel
satisfied and remain loyal for entity.
b.) Critically evaluating key approaches for engaging workers which discussed in the Summit
and the importance of such approaches to improve communication at the workplace
The event has been conducted by Microsoft in order to retain employee for longer
duration. Main motive of coming together for driving culture, inclusion, employee engagement
in the form of Employee Engagement & Experience Summit is to build and sustain engaging
culture, leaders, worker and the brand (Carter and et.al., 2018). Main motive of this summit is to
focus on cutting edge research and to developing leading practises in real world perspective.
Another perspective of Microsoft company is to collectively build entity where proper
alinement's has been provided to workers regarding organisation mission and purpose.
There are large six companies which involved with Microsoft in order to held events
related to employee engagement, outlining their approach and success for engaging staff in
organisation. The discussion under summit has been conducted in the trends, challenges and
opportunities which influence employee experience. Further, discussion also conducted on
communication strategy which empower people to achieve more retention of employees.
According to the director of KFC, people only consider stories which are of real world.
Thus, they took 'inside out' approach for developing employee trust. According to them engage
means to have a voice or to feel connected. According to the team of D'Souza the need of team
member engage with themselves and with each other too (Drever, 2018). They said trust your
people, develop a team spirit which helps in creating trust in your employees and they will
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provide their services for longer duration. He also has given two example, first feel connected
with your employees and provide a proper safety environment through appropriate
communication technique. He also provided funny safety video by which approximately help in
increasing 28% of safety incidents in their own organisation.
c.) Identifying key elements of UK employment legislation which influence HR decision
Key elements of UK employment legislation which influence HR decision are as follows-
Equality Act 2017:
It is the type of law which protects employees at the workplace from any kind
discrimination. It means nobody will able to treat unfairly to workers on the basis of age, race,
sex, gender, disability etc (Peterson, 2017). It also states the HR manager of the entity must have
to provide equal opportunity for everyone who seeks job. Thus, it is the responsibility of the HR
manager to comply with act and to monitor that nobody is facing any type of discrimination in
the workplace.
The Fair Labor standards act:
It is a law which governs minimum wages, overtime pay for employees who works for
more than 40 hours in a week. It also complies with child labour laws and with record keeping
requirements. This law affect the decision of HR manager where they have to provide equal and
overtime pay for employees who are providing their extra time to organisation.
Health and safety act:
This is the act which protects workers from any type of unsafe working environment.
This act ensures that proper safety measurement are provided to employees when they are
working in an organisation. The law affects the decision of the HR where it is their duty to
comply with such acts and guidelines to order engaging employee for longer period.
Recommendations:
It is being required by the professionals in relation with developing the adequate job
advertisement for the recruitment and selection of a receptionist. However, on which there must
proper detailed documentation regarding the required qualifications for the post of receptionist.
 There must be consideration of required qualification such as technical skills like data entry,
record keeping of the number of consumers visiting organisation.
 Skills relevant with proper communication practices as well as effective measurement of
operational analysis.
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CONCLUSION
From the above report it can be concluded that in order to run efficient business practises
human resource management of the organisation plays an important role. Thus, in this report
explanation has been provided on the purpose and function of HR manager where it is analysed
that for engaging employee, they have complied with effective selection process and have to
develop effective strategies which fulfil their expectations. Further, in this report importance of
graduate training programs has been evaluated in the context of Microsoft entity where it is
analysed that entity now getting more skilled employees who are the ready level for achieving
organisational objectives. Moreover, employee engagement importance is also been explained in
this assessment with summit report presented by Microsoft organisation.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Albrecht, S.L and et.al., 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.
Bratton, J. and Gold, J., 2017. Human resource management: theory and practice. Palgrave.
Brewster, C., Chung, C. and Sparrow, P., 2016. Globalizing human resource management.
Routledge.
Brookfield, S. ed., 2018. Training educators of adults: The theory and practice of graduate adult
education. Routledge.
Carter, W.R and et.al., 2018. The effects of employee engagement and self-efficacy on job
performance: a longitudinal field study. The international journal of human resource
management. 29(17). pp.2483-2502.
Cascio, W.F., 2015. Managing human resources. McGraw-Hill.
Mone, E.M. and London, M., 2018. Employee engagement through effective performance
management: A practical guide for managers. Routledge.
Noe, R.A and et.al., 2017. Human resource management: Gaining a competitive advantage. New
York, NY: McGraw-Hill Education.
Norby, S.M., 2018. Requirements for procedural skills in nephrology training programs: framing
the conversation. Clinical Journal of the American Society of Nephrology. 13(7). pp.1096-
1098.
Reilly, P. and Williams, T., 2016. Strategic HR: Building the capability to deliver. Routledge.
Rothwell, W.J., Hohne, C.K. and King, S.B., 2018. Human performance improvement: Building
practitioner performance. Routledge.
Taylor, T., Doherty, A. and McGraw, P., 2015. Managing people in sport organizations: A
strategic human resource management perspective. Routledge.
Worley, C. and Pillans, G., 2019. Organization Agility, Performance, and the Role of the HR
Function. In Überlebenselixier Agilität (pp. 121-142). Springer Gabler, Wiesbaden.
Wright, P., 2018. Fundamentals of human resource management. Management. 5. p.27.
Online
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