Human Resource Management Practices at Aldi

The document provides an understanding of human resource management (HRM) practices at Aldi, a retailer operating across multiple countries. It delves into how HRM contributes to talent development and skill fulfillment within business functions. The report also touches upon legislations applicable to organisations for employee protection and wage payments. External factors such as competition, legislation, and employee relations are discussed, along with internal factors like organisational culture policies, structure, conflicts, vision, and mission.

HUMAN RESOURCE
MANAGEMENT

TABLE OF CONTENT
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
TASK 1............................................................................................................................................1
P 1 Functions and purpose of HRM in Workforce planning..................................................1
P 2 Strengths and weaknesses in recruitment and selection process......................................2
TASK 2............................................................................................................................................4
P 3 Benefits of HRM for both employee and employer.........................................................4
P 4 Effectiveness of HRM practices in raising organisational profits and productivity........4
TASK 3............................................................................................................................................6
P 5 Importance of Employee relations in respect to influence Human resource management
decision-making.....................................................................................................................6
P 6 Fundamental elements of employee legislation and its impact on Human resource
management............................................................................................................................7
P 7 Application of HRM practices in a work-related context................................................8
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................9
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................10

INTRODUCTION
Human resource management is process of maintaining people. It is universally followed
in every organisation to motivate, hire and maintain employees. Organisation not only contain
premises or machinery and for management of workforce it is crucial to follow HRM in the
company. Aim of HRM aims to haveis integrated decision-making and to consider all aspects of
employees consistent with HR decisions. HR decisions are very effective in provide the
customers with high quality products and services at affordable prices (Aswathappa, 2013).
HRM is not only restricted to business purposes it can be established in non-business units like
education or government department etc.
Aldi is an international supermarket company having discount chains across the world in
18 countries having approximately 10000 stores. Retailer deals in grocery serving different
nations like Australia, Austria, Netherlands, United-States. In order to manage number of
employees working for the organisation it has to maintain HR department regulating HRM in the
organisation. This report will give the deeper insight about HRM activities, it functions or
positive negative impact and its importance in retail sector.
TASK 1
P 1 Functions and purpose of HRM in Workforce planning.
Functions of Human Resource Management Flexibility: It helps to keep working conditions in accordance with Labour laws and
employment regulations. Flexible policies are followed by HR managers to maintain
healthy working environment for workers to keep them motivated and gain increased
productivity out of them. Both workforce planning and sourcing largely assists the
organisations like ALDI where they can opt for part- time workers to serve at the odd
times of the day when the working hours of permanent employees ends. This way, ALDI
can remain active for 24/7 and continually serve its consumers. Recruitment: It has responsibility for the appropriate recruitment and training of
employees by advertising for vacancy, hiring and interviewing candidates and setting a
training period. This is referred to be yet another vital function that plays a significant
role in workforce planning and sourcing of employees. Herein, ALDI can refer to select
efficient candidates in a well-planned manner where recruitment is itself referred to be a
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procedural approach consisting of several systematic processes to hire the most proficient
workforce. Departmentalisation: In Aldi there is departmentalisation of work that is key tool to
assist managers and higher authorities. Hence, keeping track of effectiveness of
employees in making the company more efficient and sets the chain of command (Kehoe
and et.al., 2013). Control: A very important function of HRM is to control the employees, it sets up there
working hours, remunerations, and tracks developments. This function largely assists the
organisations like ALDI in a smooth functioning of work where the employees are
required to operate with a mindful approach. A controlled prospect of work also helps in
avoiding any risks of unfavourable sourcing of employees.
 Compensation: To keep employees motivated the process of rewarding the elite
employees serves as a good moral booster to all workers as every employee gets
dedicated to work for any kind of appraisal in cash or kind, ultimately making his work
noticeable and boosting work standards of company and productivity.
 Another major function served by HRM is helping Aldi keep good international relations
and working smoothly across globe. It helps maintain decorum of offices and maintaining
relationships with their clients, customers and other corporate business representatives,
hence boosting the worth of its intangible assets.
Purpose of HRM Collaboration: The company that has so many outlets or stores in this case has to make
sure to maintain itself in high standards in efficiency. A skilled HR is who would help
you achieve this by giving the right plan of actions in the time of need, like the right
working strategies, direction to head in and forming right internal and external networks.
 Building Capacity: In a modern world where technology is taking over labour jobs and
even some skill-full jobs HRM management helps decide what jobs are worth the need of
employing people and which jobs are autonomous in nature (can be replaced by
machines). Choosing the right work force helps boost the effectiveness of management
and quick application of orders. Companies need to comply with labour laws and there
are different laws over different countries for labours, HRM will help keep track of these
laws so that there's a smooth working in every demographic location (Jabbour and et.al.,
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2013). Moreover, HRM works on meeting customer satisfactions which for Aldi is a high
priority and it has maintained it over the years, by keeping track of quality of service and
taking up the right business ventures.
P 2 Strengths and weaknesses in recruitment and selection process.
Recruitment is key process in human resource management and planning, intended to
prepare proposals, job designs and management of employees. There are two types of processes
company follow forin recruiting new employees either internal or external recruitments are
conducted. Internal recruitment offer chance to existing workforce to change their job position.
Company gives notice to its employees at first for any job vacancy available and external
recruiting is informed either by online websites or by advertisements. Permanent employees,
short-term employees or disabled employees are main source of internal recruitment. If list of
candidates is reviewed and no appropriate candidate is found internally then externally
advertisements are made to public.
 Strengths: Internal recruiting process has both strengths and weaknesses involved in it,
the strongest strength is faster decision-making. Such that the employees are directly
appointed it helps the managers to make quick decisions. Generally, this process is
followed for the purpose of job rotation in the organisation. It also saves the cost of
training to employees and time for induction. Promotion gives vacancies at previous
position.
◦ External recruitments have wider opportunities for experience and recruiting.
Externally recruited employees give challenges to existing employees. Sometimes
external applicants are better suited for the job. It brings new blood and creative ideas
in the organisation and provide with wider benefits (Kerzner, 2013.).
 Weaknesses: Internal recruitment does not bring any new ideas or skills to the
organisation, reduces the wider possibilities and forward-looking ideas. In such process it
is difficult to find perfect candidate for job offered. Moreover, external recruiting has also
weaknesses, it is the long process and time consuming, a lot of energy and employees are
required. Number of applicants apply for the vacancy and the managers are required to be
very conscious about the recruitment and selection process
◦ To find the best candidate to be recruited is not a very easy task in external
recruitment process. . Due to media related actions the process gets more expensive to
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the company. Manpower is required to make advertisements in different sector about
the job vacancy availability. Resulting huge amount of expenses, the company has to
bear. Candidates who are existing in the organisation can't fake their skills and
abilities but external applicants may fake themselves to get the job. Such that
management should have some selection process to be followed in to find out the real
skills in them.
Pros and cons both are present in the internal and external processes of recruitment. They
vary from situations and requirements for the job. However internal procedure for recruitment is
time saving and less resource consuming than external process of recruitment.
TASK 2
P 3 Benefits of HRM for both employee and employer
Benefits for employees: -
 Promoting positive behaviour- To achieve more success there has to be positive
working environment in Aldi. To keep the workforce more productive and happy the
HRM practices are more beneficial, it rewards and reinforces the employee behaviour.
 Development of Workforce: HRM practices add to company's intellectual assets by
encouraging and satisfying the employees. Successful organisation capitalizes on HRM's
positive effect in order to help employees in improving themselves. Knowledge and skills
of the workers provides competitive advantage to the organisation.
 Flexibility in Workplace: Today corporates want to retain employees, thus they provide
flexibility to the staff. Including work schedules, assignments, workers composition and
communication process.
 Motivation: Employers tend to engage and promote employees for effective working.
Managers apply HRM practices and outcome of this is that employees feel competent in
Aldi (Lengnick-Hall and et.al., 2013). Due to positive environment the workers feel
motivated and higher productivity can be achieved.
Benefits of Employer: -
 Qualified Employees: By practising HRM managers are able to recruit skilled and best
suited candidate for Aldi's workforce. Also, they are able to retain them for longer period
due to positive and motivation environment for staff.
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 Cost-saving: When employees are benefited it covers more risk at lesser costs and
improving Aldi's financial position. Company's financial burden is reduced due to higher
productivity from employees.
 Improved Productivity: Workforce feel contended in the decision-making as per HR
practices. Another reason for productivity increase is sense of security for themselves.
P 4 Effectiveness of HRM practices in raising organisational profits and productivity.
Aldi has accepted in its working fundamental that people are their key to success. As a
result of this there's an efficient system, an HRM practice that delivers industry – leading training
package. The motivational methods for the employees have been so beneficial and productive
because each person working for the company doesn't count simply as a number. This has been
achieved by introducing a better work culture, keeping positive attitude in employees, giving
rewards to better workers or performances, and implementing a can-do attitude among its
employees.
The HR team of Aldi has been doing a commendable performance for over the years, by
keeping the working conditions and work culture noticeably higher than other similar companies.
These efforts and practices have helped generate unspoken brand value appreciation and liking
among people. To cover it all up the business moves of Aldi have proven to be best in the
conditions, according to industry surveys Aldi's management and negotiation practices have been
exemplary.
Aldi as it is working in a tight market has to keep low operating costs. To achieve this
HRM plays an important role. To keep its prices low and maintain core competence Aldi's HR
managers makesde sure to keep the best employee practices and recruiting right people for the
right job are followed. Employees in Aldi work in small environment to maintain a feeling of
importance among them.
Aldi is pioneer in some HR techniques that helped them become a bigger brand. Given
the fact that a company's financial state can be determined by the state of its working
environment (Conway and et.al., 2013.). Company has recognizably high status among its
employees and all over the globe. A good company would depend on its employees for the
success of its strategies and Aldi has made this their prime interest.
The HR team is working hard to maintain a smooth chain of command from top to
bottom and horizontally. They have helped Aldi build some incredible international relations,
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work on new ventures, deliver excellent records of client satisfaction and start and excel in some
new business ventures. For the people at Aldi, it’s no secret that they are the weapon behind
Aldi's success and they speak of it freely. This has been possible due to efficient and effective
HR strategies and they're implementation.
Aldi has employed these HR techniques to recruit the best employees for the jobs, who
otherwise could have been a member of a rival company. To proceed ahead in market, Aldi has
worked on all of its pivotal areas of interest and it clearly made Aldi look and feel like a
company that it is which generates over 50 billion euros in turnover.
Hence, with the right time implementing the right HR techniques has helped Aldi sustain
itself in completion and excel wonderfully, reaching out and accessing the full effect of its
working capacity while maintaining its accordance to all labour laws and limiting to all
parameters adhered to a big international business.
HRM being an integral part of ALDI is known to make a huge contribution in its overall
growth and development and is thus known to adopt certain effective strategies that in turn helps
them to raise the level of profits and productivity over there. For this purpose, below specified
are some specific HRM practices that in turn helps them in attaining a rising level of profits in
the organisation where it together contributes in enhancing the productivity level of the workers.
 Training management- This is referred to be one of the most contributing factor
where it helps in ascertaining the actual training related needs of the employees. It
can be done with the help of an online performance management software where it
will in turn permit the management bodies of ALDI to determine the areas to be
improved by correctly allocating the training programs. By which, ALDI can easily
refer to enhance the work performance of its employees to a great extent.
 Regular feedback- This is stated to be yet another effective measure where ALDI can
hereby refer to take assistance of 360-degree review where they can capture the
inputs from all of its stakeholders. It will together help ALDI in carrying out an
anonymous assessment for empowering the workers to address the gap in their
performance while serving the customers and fulfil the same. This will in turn result
in an improved productivity of employees to earn greater number of profits.
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TASK 3
P 5 Importance of Employee relations in respect to influence Human resource management
decision-making.
Relationship the organisation shares with its employees is directly proportional to failure
or success of the organisation. There must be friendly relation among employees in Aldi
otherwise they would end up fighting. It is impossible to establish anything in organisation
without trust. To get best out of workforce it is important to trust them. It comes only when every
person is comfortable with each other (Becker and et.al., 2013).
1. HR relations are fundamental to binding workforce together: HR managers must
attempt certain actions in order to strengthen the bond between employees and to bring
them closer.
2. Engage employees in certain activities to give them opportunity to know each other:
Employee are so involved in their day-to-day operations they hardly get time to interact
with other staff. Sometimes they are not even aware of full names of their colleagues. HR
managers must ensure that actions are undertaken to bring employees on one platform at
same level. According to past HR practising experiences it has been found that if
employees are satisfied with their job, they remain happy and avoid fights with one
another. It creates sense of loyalty and trust in employees towards organisation and they
avoid wasting their time on unproductive things.
3. Organise Get Together in Workplace: Managers of Aldi can organise activities like
pot-lucks in the organisation at get together so that a friendly atmosphere can be created
among employees. It would lead to enthusiasm among employees and they would be able
to talk about things apart from their routine work.
4. A day should be earmarked to celebrate birth anniversary falling in a month: For
Example, those born in month of January should celebrate their birthday on last day of
the month, a formal mail be sent by HR to inviting all for celebration. It would let each
employee enjoy and have fun. Delegating the organisation's preparations would divide
employees in groups and would develop sense of excitement at workplace.
5. Common time for lunch: Each employee must not be seen at their workstations during
lunch time. Everyone Should come together at canteen to have meals, falling which their
half of the stress gets disappear on their own. Workers are able to share sorrows,
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displeasures and other problems that they face during their working hours. (Coccia and
et.al., 2013).
6. Give a warm and healthy welcome to new employee to organisation: An induction
programme that is conducted in the organisation at first day should be placed at
conference room or auditorium so that everyone is invited. New employee should be
asked to give introduction as well. So that it would help to make everyone known to new
employee been recruited to Aldi.
Employees are the biggest support to organisation, contributing new ideas to the
organisation thus increased productivity is achieved.
P 6 Fundamental elements of employee legislation and its impact on Human resource
management.
Apart from federal legislation, each nation has its own employment laws. Labour
relations, employee criminal records or record retention for employees are such laws affecting
operations of company are significant to Aldi. Though, small businesses are sometimes
exempted from federal laws depending upon their size. Accordingly, HR managers must be
knowledgeable in dynamic employment laws to reduce their liability in all aspects.
Accordingly, the firm may lose the competitive position and its productivity level in the
industry and such behaviour restricts the equal opportunities for all. The lLaw protects the
employees at workplace from such discrimination so that the environment is friendly and
productive for the workers and receive fair opportunity to grow. Sexual harassment or
harassment in employment are unlawful and punishable act.
Below are few acts that are applicable on Employers: Equality Act 2010: This law came into force on October 1, 2010 prohibits discrimination
towards employees on grounds of religion, sex, nationality, race or complexion.
Employees cannot be dismissed from work for any of these reasons (Guest, D.E., 2011).
Moreover, they can't be retaliated by employer for making charge of discrimination under
the Law. Equality Act can be replaced by Equal Pay Act, 2010, Disability Discrimination
Act 1995, Employment Equality (Religion or Belief) Regulations 2003 and Employment
Equality (Sexual Orientation) Regulations 2003 etc.
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 Wage and Hour: Many states have laws establishing minimum wage legislation, that
applier son employer to pay minimum wage to its employees. HR mangers should verify
regularly the accuracy of wages paid to employees. Child labour is prohibited worldwide,
governance in the given nation has established laws relating to extensive child labour.
 Equality and Human Rights Commission: EHRC was established in October 1, 2007 for
equal opportunities among employees. It enforces equality on basis of disability, health,
age, religion, sex or transgender status with adherence to Human Rights Act, 1998.
P 7 Application of HRM practices in a work-related context.
For a big company like Aldi working in 18 countries and has 10,000 stores at least, HRM
is an integral part. To keep a big business structure that generates billions in profits an efficient
working system is to be put in place. Efficient means less input and maximum output. Aldi
employees the best people for post after they go through the interviews and required training.
Each employee is embedded with can do psychology and he is never just a number (Harzing and
et.al., 2010.). A company is judged by its parameters and Aldi has always excelled in them and
even gained recognition(s). Aldi keeps a sense of positivity in its employees who help maintain
the efficiency of Aldi because the company depends on its employees to meet the targets they set
up.
AldiOrganisation has made many international relations and clients which they have done
by hiring the right people as representatives and experienced in making connections. Effective
implication of HR and management techniques that helped the company to benefit in the difficult
market and sustain the good working conditions. Its stakeholders are the reason behind Aldi's
success and it’s no secret, it is told by employees to media (Kehoe and et.al., 2013.). Company
has made the happiness of its employees the most crucial factor in their core working
fundamental. Everyone loves to work in a successful company and the company is more than
willing to keep them by offering perks, bonuses and paid leaves. Aldi has succeeded in doing
business across continents by holding on to its high working standards of employees and
accepting and implementing the right working processes. This is how they never came up with
any noticeable management issues or worker dis satisfaction.
People look up to Aldi as a world class store and this has been made by the love of
people working in it. A proper HRM strategy is easy to be set in this company and they have
been using many strategies to boost their productivity (Huselid, and et.al., 2010). It shows easily
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as customer satisfaction is a prime concern for Aldi and they're enjoying every time they use an
Aldi store. Aldi has made the right business ventures and made the best use of opportunities
because they could as the managers and higher authorities were assured that the project could be
handled as Aldi never makes a compromise in quality. It doesn't do a mistake so that it won’t
have to make up for it thereby effecting the company's brand value and goodwill. The working
environment in Aldi shows the corporate giant it truly is. Employees work in small environments
to keep a feeling of importance amongst themselves.
Aldi has some big competition, which is obvious given the size of market and the
opportunities to grab (Jackson and et.al., 2014.). For facing these rivals Aldi keeps its workforce
strong and prime by employing the right people for the right posts, holding training periods
before final recruitments, advertising for vacancies and holding candidate's interviews.
This is on discoursing upon some contemporary practices of HRM where ALDI is also
known to apply the same and are as mentioned below- Flexibility- This is one of the most recent trend adopted by the HRM bodies where the
employees also appreciate this effort of the organisations like ALDI. It together helps the
organisations to motivate their workers and in turn expect an extraordinary performance
from them. Also, the turnover rate of employees can be easily decreased from this
approach. Job description and recruitment- It is referred to be yet another fruitful practice adopted
by the HRM bodies of ALDI where they can hereby choose to go through a systematic
selection of workers with a clear determination of their capabilities. Job description not
only clarifies the doubt of the workers regarding their job profiles but also gives a power
of comparing the same with that to the person specification of the applicants. It thereby
plays an important role in the overall process of recruitment where it also help the
employers to make a proper selection of the applicants who deserves positioning in a
profile suiting their abilities.
CONCLUSION
With this report human resource management practices can be deeply understood in
terms of Aldi a retailer in United-Kingdom dealing across various countries. Intent of HRM and
range in context of retail sector is explained to develop talent and skills in fulfilling business
functions appropriately. Legislations applicable to organisations for employee protection, wage
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payment are part of HR practices as well. Internally and externally HR practices are affected
Competition, legislation, employee relations are external factors that affects Aldi. Organisation
culture policies, structure, conflicts, organisational vision and mission are internal factors that
affects the company. Aldi is facing big competition and therefore has incorporated a
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