Human Resource Management Practices

The provided document is a comprehensive compilation of research papers and articles related to human resource management (HRM). It includes studies on HRM practices in various industries, such as sports and recreation, and explores the impact of high-performance work systems on organizational performance. The document also touches upon topics like talent management, strategic knowledge management, and the importance of a standard employment relationship in social care. With a focus on globalizing human resource management, the compilation provides insights into the latest trends and challenges in HRM.

Human Resources
Management

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
TASK 1............................................................................................................................................1
P1. Explain the purpose and functions of HRM in workforce planning................................1
P2 Strengths and weaknesses of approaches to recruitment and selection............................2
TASK 2............................................................................................................................................4
P3 Benefits of HRM practices for employer and employee...................................................4
P4 Effectiveness of various HRM practices for raising profit and productivity....................5
TASK 3............................................................................................................................................7
P5 Employee relations in decision making............................................................................7
P6 Elements of employment legislations and decision making.............................................8
TASK 4............................................................................................................................................9
P7 HRM practices in an enterprise and its application..........................................................9
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................12
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................13

INTRODUCTION
Human Resource Management (HRM) is a series of formal practices that include
activities like hiring, recruiting and assigning employees with their tasks. Every organisation
requires HR team that helps in organising employees in a way to attain desired goals and
objectives. Employees are valuable resources to every company, therefore, it is crucial to guide
them with rightful measures (Batt and Colvin, 2011). Tesco is a British multinational brand that
deals in groceries and retail. It holds third position worldwide in terms of profit earned. Business
of Tesco is diversified and so is its workforce. In under mentioned report, various functions of
HRM along with their purposes are discussed. Detail study of different HRM practices is
measured through analysis of its strengths and weaknesses that are beneficial for an organisation.
Further, effectiveness of human resource practices is studied in order to determine the manner
that can benefit company in terms of profit and productivity.
TASK 1
P1. Explain the purpose and functions of HRM in workforce planning
Employees are considered as human capital to an organisation as they contribute to
revenue generation in terms of services they act upon. HRM mainly works upon effective
utilisation of individuals they have appointed, minimisation of risk and maximum return on
investment. Long-term services by employee are on priority of management team to maintain
positive and productive work environment. HRM has numerous purpose in workforce planning
starting form recruiting right person for respective job to retirement of rightful employee
(Berman and et. al., 2012). These purposes are achieved using HRM functions that focus upon
encouraging employees to involve efficiency in their tasks. Tesco is known for organising its
diverse workforce into a single unit that share same purpose. Basically, two approaches are there
for HRM which is used by Tesco. They are as follows:
 Hard HRM- Here, activities performed are quite rigid in nature i.e. needs and
requirements are analysed thoroughly and then actions are performed. Every individual
working in an organisation is targeted as resource upon which management rely to have
maximum utilization. These practices are strongly connected with business planning
such as what resources are needed, how to get them, what actions are to be performed,
etc.
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 Soft HRM- Here, employees are treated more as asset than just being resources. Needs
and requirements of business are analysed along with business demand. It mainly
focuses upon employee's role, reward, motivation, etc.
Functions of HRM
Purpose of HRM is achieved with the help of various functions such as recruitment and
selection process, compensation management, payroll management, training and development of
employees, etc. Detail study of these functions is given below: Compensation management- Compensation management deals with monetary benefits
that are given to employees in order to increase their motivation and work efficiency.
Payroll system must be fair and must benefit individual according to its productiveness. Training and developing- It is vital tool that improves employee’s career growth along
with its productiveness (Boxall and Purcell, 2011). Major aim of training and
development program is to polish employees’ skills and knowledge as well as improve
their work performance. Successful training not only increases production rate but also
minimises cost as it produces efficient workers. While organising T&D program, HRM
must focus upon features such as proper interaction, feedbacks and effective
communication to attain success.
 Recruitment and selection- Recruitment is a process of hiring candidates required for a
job. It is one of the major function of HRM, hence efficiency is an essential element
required in this function. This is because every-time a wrong candidate is selected, it is
considered as monetary loss to the company. Tesco implements its recruitment and
selection strategy in a way that attracts rightful candidate with preferable qualifications
and skills for the job. Having skilled worker increases competitive edge and provide
growth to business.
P2 Strengths and weaknesses of approaches to recruitment and selection
While performing recruitment, specific considerations are to be made in order to increase
significance level of the process (Bratton and Gold, 2012). It must include activities such as
drawing attention of candidate by providing rightful advertisement, short-listing individuals that
are fit for vacant position and appointing final candidate to its position as per skills. This
function must be implemented effectively as it plays vital role in organisation planning.
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Recruiting deserving employees in company enhances competitive advantage. To perform above
process, Tesco uses two approaches. They are as follows: Internal approach to recruitment- In this method, existing employees of a company are
given opportunity to enhance their abilities. One of the basic feature of internal
recruitment is fast decision making as manager is already aware of KSA (knowledge,
skills, abilities) of his existing employees (Brewster and Hegewisch, 2017). HR
examines skill set of every employee and gives a chance to fill higher job positions.
Recruitment decision is based upon potential that existing employees hold.
Strength: Aim for practising internal recruitment is time efficient. It is because decision
taken here is fast in comparison to other approaches. Also, it motivates employees to do better in
their jobs and provide positive working climate which boost employee morale. Again, this
approach saves cost of company because resources are not required to implement recruitment
program for outsiders.
Weakness: Change is avoided while practising internal recruitment which means
resisting innovation in company in terms of workforce. Also, it creates negative impact in work
environment as employees who do not get promoted develop sense of insecurity. Internal
recruitment requires unbiased decisions or it can create conflict in workplace. External approach to recruitment- In this method, external candidates can be
considered for recruitment process. Management team look out for new and young
brains to fulfil vacancy. External approach to recruitment is preferred most of the time.
Strength: Major strength of this practice is that it brings innovation and creativity to the
company. Employees recruited externally bring new techniques and skills with them. Also,
having new person in team increases diversity among group members.
Weakness: This process requires time and money both to operate. As new employees
require time to understand work culture as well, it decreases morale of existing subordinates.
Selection:
After recruitment, selection process starts where HR makes final decision for qualified
candidate and assigns him with respective job (Budhwar and Debrah, 2013). This provide
organisation with the rightful candidate. There are two approaches to selection, systematic and
unsystematic. Brief of these approaches is given below:
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 Systematic- Here, a series of steps is followed by HR manager to conclude final decision.
Every candidate gets evaluated on the basis of its skills and abilities. Last individual left
after completion of every step gets appointed for the job.
 Unsystematic- Here, random approach is made to selection process. For example,
recruiter selects random CV and does a comparison between skills possessed by
individual with those skills required for the job (Chelladurai and Kerwin, 2017). After
comparison, judgement is concluded which results in final selection of a candidate.
TASK 2
P3 Benefits of HRM practices for employer and employee.
HRM include HR planning, recruiting, selecting, compensation and T&D as their major
practices. Along with these primary activities there comes secondary activities such motivating
employees, maintaining work culture, etc. In Tesco, HRM mainly focuses upon two major
activities, that are discussed below:
 Monitoring employee performance- Every company requires commitment from their
workers in order to achieve success while acquiring its objectives. It is essential for every
employee to work well as a contribution to growth of company. Significance of having
competent workforce is that it provide competitive advantage to business. It is the duty of
HR manager to evaluate and examine every employee's performance on continuous basis
in order to ensure that workers are giving their performances in adequate manner.
Monitoring helps to overcome discrepancy and inconsistency of employees. Also, it
makes manager aware about present KSA (knowledge, skill, abilities) of staff members.
 Training and development programs- Manager can provide its subordinates with training
programs on continuous basis to polish their skills and knowledge. Training and
development programs help in enhancing creativity and abilities of employees which
strengthens their efficiency (Glover and et. al., 2011). In order to attain customer and
employee satisfaction as well, company must conduct T&D programs as per the needs of
employee.
The above mentioned practices have many advantages and it benefits both, employee
and employer, which can be understood by following points:
Benefits for employees:
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 Motivation- It helps to satisfy needs of an employee. Whenever a person gets associated
with an organisation he possess certain personal needs. Tesco put its primary focus upon
motivation of employees as it promotes job-satisfaction as it becomes employee's primary
concern. In some way, motivation also increases productivity as it fulfils the gap of an
individual's contribution, which depend upon two variables- employee's capacity to work
and employee's willingness to work. Hence, motivating employees benefits in numerous
ways.
 Training- HRM evaluate performance of employees and discover gap between desired
and actual skills. These gaps are fulfilled with the help of training programs (Guest,
2011). It not only improves skills of workers but also provide innovative ways for task
execution. Tesco organize regular training programs in order to rectify and eliminate
needs of its employees and increase their productivity level.
Benefits for employer:
 Enhance work culture- Working environment impacts every individual present in an
organisation. Peace and calm work culture is main preference in Tesco's working
environment as it is essential for smooth functioning. Therefore, HRM practices help in
enhancing culture of organisation by involving employees from multiple ethnicity. Fair
practices of compensation through HR managers maintain harmony in employee's
behaviour and perception. Happy and caring environment not only improves productivity
but it also gives employee satisfaction. HRM practices help in achieving collaboration of
employee at every levels which means things get done in fast manner.
 Improve decision making- Managerial decisions can become quite hectic in times.
Therefore, it is important to have record of all the activities that are going in a company
in order to perform unbiased and fair decisions (Hobfoll, 2011). These records are
essential to justify the context of who is to be given promotion, what should be the
appraisal, monetary benefits, etc. Hence, HRM supports manager to take right decisions
in due course of time.
P4 Effectiveness of various HRM practices for raising profit and productivity
Concept of HRM is all about employees management in the firm. It is responsibility of
manager to take correct decision in managing employee in internal business environment.
Infusing better management practice in organisational culture allow employee to contribute
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effectively in business activity. The HR manager is responsible for enhancing skills of their
employees, therefore he must understand that enhancing skills and knowledge of their employee
will ultimately help increasing core competence of company. For doing so they must ensure that
the manager must plan effective training and development programmes which will increase
potential of employee.
The manager is responsible for managing different practices both in internal and external
environment so that they can utilise resources effectively. For example, in TESCO managers
tend to monitor the financial budget which is required for training and development of
employees (López-Nicolás and Meroño-Cerdán, 2011). This estimation will help them to make
better planning for enterprise.
The manager must also make sure that their employees are able to keep their pace
according to competitive environment. For example, TESCO have adopted Artificial Intelligence
in their chain of retail network which help them in gaining competitive advantage in market.
The other feature of TESCO is understanding the capability and potential of their
employee. They have flexible working hours for their employee as that they get sufficient time
to rest which will later increase efficiency in their work. Organisation must also understand the
attitude and behaviour of their employees to improve coordination.
Apart form giving benefits to the employee they must also concentrate on the welfare of
their family. This will increase dedication of employees towards their tasks. Managers must
ensure that they give benefits to deserving employees also must formulate effective
compensation packages which can be monitory and non- monitory in nature. This increases the
potential of employees as well as infuse positive perception in their minds.
Managers must also make sure that continuous monitor of employees working should be
done so that they can make sure about the investment they have been done is giving positive
response (Messersmith and et. al., 2011). They must also include certain theoretical and practical
analytical tool for proper survey of potential and working ability of employees.
So it is being understood that better HRM practices will increase the effectiveness of the
employees hence it will increase the profitability and productivity of business.
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TASK 3
P5 Employee relations in decision making
Worker plays an effective role in decision making process of an organisation. No
company can grow without proper and dedicated contribution of their employees. For effective
planning collaboration between the employee and employer is very important. For example,
success and expansion of TESCO are majorly due to employees' goal orientation approach which
has helped organisation to plan better strategies.
It is being noted that better collaboration between employees reduces chances of clash and
disputes among them (Rubery and Urwin, 2011). On the other hand if manager is not able to
manage its employee, it will decrease the coordination which will drastically affect the decision
making process. To maintain good relation between employees TESCO must consider certain
factor which are as mentioned below:
 It is important for employees to treat their peer members in friendly and respectful way.
Creating a better coordination will decrease hesitation of learning new things and
generate innovative ideas.
 There should not be any discrimination between employees on the basis of caste, creed ,
race etc. hence evaluating all employee on same platform will increase trust and faith
towards their organisation.
 Involving workers, respecting their suggestions and encouraging them will generate
values and importance among them which will further increase their dedication towards
organisation.
 Company must make sure that they receive proper feedbacks of their subordinate which
will increase the bonding between top level management and their subordinate.
 Policy of job rotation is also also an effective tool in increasing efficiency of employees.
Here, employee will have to perform different job roles in organisation which will
enhance their skills and knowledge (Schuler, Jackson and Tarique, 2011). This job
rotation will make them multitasking which will ultimately boost their efficiency.
 Providing benefits to employee whether monitory or non monitory will boost their morale
and will create a competitive environment which will make their workforce productive in
nature.
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 Training employees and making them aware about new technology will improve ideas.
This will increase effectiveness of organisation in market place. For example, expansion
and growth of the retail outlets of TESCO must implement cloud computing in their
business activity so that they can easily monitor business process (Personal and
professional skills. 2017).
All these factors help in maintaining better coordination among employees. Hence, it will
increase decision making ability of the organisation.
P6 Elements of employment legislations and decision making
Employee legislation is a legal body which is used to protect the rights of employee in
workplace (Sparrow, Brewster and Chung, 2016). It has a legally defined structure which
manages role of employees and their managers and what behaviour they must adopt. There are
several other elements which must be consider while performing any decision making in the
business environment. For example, legislation of UK have defined minimum wage law for
employees which is to be followed by management. It is necessary for the enterprise to perform a
legalise recruitment process so that no conflict occur in place of business. Organisation must also
follow prescribed timing and routine which is being formulated by law. Some of the elements of
that cover this concept are as follows:
 Anti-discrimination act- This act is formulated for promoting equality amongst employee.
Law has stated that no employee in the workplace will be isolated on the basis of caste,
creed, gender, race etc. and they are free to complaint in legal bodies against these kind
of activities. Company must understand that discrimination activity will hamper the
progress and productivity in market.
 Diversity act – This act majorly focus on similarity and dissimilarity among individuals
in working environment. Different psychological factor will affect working of employees
such as collogues, family, education, geographical locations. This provide a better safety
to employees in the organisation (Storey, 2014).
 Data protection act- This act ensures that data which is being presented must be accurate
without any forgery. It must not misguide the customers and investors who tend to have
faith and invest in business of the enterprise. This data protection act will also prohibit
trespassing in business activities of organisation. It provide better trading practices in
market place as all information is secured by governmental law.
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 Equality act- This law states that employee must be equally treated and respected in
business. Every organisation must ensure that they give respect and values to their
employees which will positively influence working of their employees. In terms of
benefits, every employee must be judged on the basis of their working ability and
efficiency rather than any source or recommendation (Unger and et. al., 2011). This
activity will give opportunity to grow in business place based on their potential and
working ability.
 Health and safety act- Through this act company is liable to provide healthy environment
and safer workplace to its employees (Watson, 2011). This will provide risk free working
place to the employee, hence they are able to perform well and contribute more in the
progress of the enterprise.
For effective decision making organisation must consider all these legal aspects. These
legal factors will minimise unethical practice in management activities and will make better
coordination in business structure.
TASK 4
P7 HRM practices in an enterprise and its application
HRM manager used to conduct different activities from induction to settling conflicts.
Here is an example of activity performed by HR manager, the example indicate the whole
process of recruitment and selection as well.
Hotel receptionist training
Workshop title/ Training practices Date- Time-
Location Instructor
Candidates
Activity Time of activity Process Equipments required
Induction of
candidates
Training objectives
a)
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b)
Warming up
Contents and
necessary points
Job advertisement
Instructor require
Qualification /Eligibility
MBA/BBA in Human Resource Management from any recognised institution
To apply:
You are required to upload your application with CV and latest photograph on our websites
latest by 20 March 2018.
Email-id: www.tesco.com
Contact no.: 00006666878
Job specification
Qualification Master's Degree in Human Resource
Management.
Bachelor's degree in business or related field.
Experience Should have 1 year experience in HRM.
Area of expertise Should have better communication skills and
leadership skills.
Other qualities Good verbal and writing skills.
Basic computer skills.
Good interpersonal skills.
Interview Questions
 What are your strengths?
 What are your weaknesses?
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 Have you ever participated in any co- curricular activities?
 What strategies will you adopt while working in the organisation?
 What are your expectations from this organisation?
 Where do you want to see yourself in next 5 years? What will be your contribution in achieving organisational goal?
Person specification
Particulars Required criteria Learning and outcomes
Qualification and training Communicate with new
employees
Able to perform whole
induction process.
Experience Providing the best services to
customer
Able to handle pressure
effectively
Must have performed certain
induction process in training
sessions in college days
Skills and knowledge Attentive and better
communication skills
Developing and generating
innovative ideas
Personal characteristics Confident, leading, positive
behaviour
Ability to work in team
Developing certain skills and
traits to work in organisational
culture.
CV
Information of candidate
Name: Aleister Cook
Father's name: John Cook
Mother's name: Annie Cook
Mobile no,: 66992345545
Email id: [e-mail]
Key skills:
 Creativity
 Adequate information about Human Resources Management
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 Have advanced computer skills
 Working in team
 Better grasping ability
Experience:
 Goldman : Assistant to Retail Manager
 Schroedinger: Worked as a learn leader in retail store located at Durham
CONCLUSION
HRM acts as a critical function for an organisation by engaging its employees in right
direction that reaches to an end of desired goals and objectives. It starts with recruiting right
workforce, conducting worthwhile training programs, guiding and motivating employees and
effective implementation of compensation strategies. Systematic HR practices help in achieving
positive work environment that influence employee's performance. Tesco has proved its
strategies in terms of success rate which is measured frequently by its HR managers. Company
focuses on motivating employees as they believe that skills of employee contribute in achieving
objectives of business. It also provides personal development scheme to let every individual
grow, personally and professionally. Effective HRM in an organisation not only satisfy
employees but it also contributes a segment of benefits to its employer.
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REFERENCES
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countries. Routledge.
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human resource outcomes: An empirical study. International Journal of Production
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pp.1105.
Rubery, J. and Urwin, P., 2011. Bringing the employer back in: why social care needs a standard
employment relationship. Human Resource Management Journal. 21(2). pp.122-137.
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Sparrow, P., Brewster, C. and Chung, C., 2016. Globalizing human resource management.
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Online:
Personal and professional skills. 2017. [Online]. Available through:
<https://www.ukessays.com/essays/management/improvement-of-tesco-employees-
personal-and-professional-skills-management-essay.php>.
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