Nature and Characteristics of Human Resource Management

Running head: HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT
HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author note

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Human Resource Management (HRM) is the process within the organisation through
which the dignity of the employees are maintained (Hendry 2012). Human resource management
acquires multiple assets such as employee’s ability. Talent, potential, skills, knowledge and the
attitude, values and approaches used by individuals of the organization. The HRM possesses
multidimensional prospect as nationally, it is the creative skills, ability, talent and aptitude
acquired by the population, whereas for the organization, it is the cumulative talent, knowledge
and skills of the employee working for the organization (Cascio 2018). The primary objective of
the human resource management is to develop better human relations within an organization and
for this purpose, different policies, and procedures and approaches so that the contribution of the
employees for the attainment of organizations success can be optimized (Armstrong and Taylor
2014). Therefore, the primary act of HRM within an organization is to maintain the human
relations within an organization and optimizing better results from the collaboration of those
human resources (Bratton and Gold 2017). In this assignment, the nature and characteristics of
HRM will be discussed with the process, tools and strategies of managing people within the
organization will be discusses. Further, with the help of a chosen organization that is Alde UK,
the current patterns and trends in human resources will be discussed. Further, a literature review
will be conducted to understand the effect of current human resource management approach used
by Alde to manage its human resources.
Nature and characteristics
Human Resource Management is generally misunderstood as the ultimate management
process, however, it should be understood that human resources are not the only one that is
important and responsible for an organization’s success (Bratton and Gold 2017). Human
resource management is process, that helps to manage and control the human as well as non-

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human assets of a company so that the cumulative inherent process of the organization can be
optimized (Brewster 2017). While analysing the nature and characteristics of the HRM, all these
features should be mentioned such as its inherent presence in the management system, pervasive
function, People cantered nature, continuous process. Further, its human relations basis,
functional areas and personal activity related functions should also be mentioned (Jiang et al.
2012).
HRM is an integral part of the management process and all the managers perform this
process so that they can extract best work from their employees (Briscoe, Tarique and Schuler
2012). Further, it is the pervasive function for all the managers and leaders as this responsibility
is very crucial for organizational performance. Further, this management can be applied in each
department such as production, financial and marketing management and each depart heads
should implement these practices depending on their level (Berman et al. 2012). Further, from
blue collar workers, to professionals, it is implemented on each type of workplace and employees
for resource management. Here it should be mentioned that the primary characteristics of HRM
is providing motivation and influence people within the organization (Chelladurai and Kerwin
2017). This is important as in organization, employees differ by their level of perception,
emotional content, needs and expectations. Hereby, through HRM, managers provide proper and
equal attention to these important factors so that they can deal with emergence of issues related
to these aspects of employees. Therefore, through these human relation skills, managers and
leaders build a relationship among employees for production, training, appraisal and promotional
purposes (Alfes et al. 2013).
People management strategies, procedures and tools

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While managing an organization, there are several tools, procedures and strategies that
are implemented by the leaders or managers so that a harmonious environment can be created
within the organization (Cascio 2014). The HRM strategies should be inclusive of four factors
such as organization, people, processes and systems. These are the HR related dimensions
depending on which tools and strategies to manage the human resources should be implemented
(Deery and Jago 2015).
According to Certo (2018), there are five main people management strategies and
processes that could be implemented within any organization. The first strategy is related to
recruitment and selection. The primary aspect of successful human resource management is
recruiting perfect and positive person in the process. It is important for the managers to predict
the positions that will be crucial for attaining success in future and then recruiting important
professionals in the position so that organizational growth can be planned and implemented
(Maital and Seshadri 2012). In this aspect, the knowledge, ability, skills and core competencies
of the personnel to be hired on the position is assessed. For example, conduction of interviews
should be done for proper and appropriate selection of personnel (Deery and Jago 2015).
Secondly, training and development should be strategy to manage employees within any
organization. As the employees are the primary asset of the organization, managers and leaders
should focus on continuous development for organizational development (Goetsch and Davis
2014). Further, as per the strategy, annual assessment should also be implemented to assess the
employee’s compatibility and capability within the process. Employee engagement is another
important aspect for understanding the level of satisfaction within the organization. The
managers generally conduct surveys and interviews to understand the satisfaction level of
employees however, bias is the prime hurdle in this process. Therefore, the leaders should be

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supportive and influence the employees to reveal truth instead of biased responses for the growth
of the organization. Further the fourth strategy for employee management is the performance
management skills (Maital and Seshadri 2012). It is the duty and responsibility of leaders and
managers to assess the performance of each employee so that employees who are weak or
lagging behind can be provided with enough opportunity for performance improvement and
achieve professional satisfaction for their personal and organizational growth (Deery and Jago
2015). Finally, the last step will be rewards and recognition. This is the most important strategy
for managing employee dissatisfaction and conflicts due to the lack of appreciation. Providing
rewards and recognising their achievements will help to boost their morale and they will push
their limits to achieve success for their and the organizational development (Goetsch and Davis
2014). Besides these procedures and strategies, there are several tools for employee management
such as employee training tools, employee performance assessing software, and employee health
and wellness programs and employee access tool so that the above-mentioned strategies can be
achieved without any hurdles in the employee management process (Certo 2018).
Organizational implications and contributions of HRM in practice
In this era of excessive competition and development, HRM has moved beyond from
personnel management, now much more focused on practices, and policies implementation of
which can increase employee retention and provide them with benefits so that they can become
satisfied with the working environment of the organization (Maital and Seshadri 2012).
Therefore, the above-mentioned strategies of HRM help to achieve sustainable competitive
advantage using strategic development. Further, these practices contribute in the organizational
practices and help to develop it for the growth of organization (Goetsch and Davis 2014).

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There are two primary reasons for this shift in the HRM practice, first due to the high
level of competency of human resources due to advanced training and processing, thus providing
the employees with the opportunity to polish their abilities and perform for the development of
organization (Armstrong and Taylor 2014). Second reason is the increase in the remuneration is
the reason the employees are being able to involve themselves in their work for the benefit of the
organization. Therefore, using HR system, the managers and leadership are being able to add
significant value to the process and can support the organization’s goal by achieving those (Alfes
et al. 2013). Further the parts of HRM such as talent management, performance management,
and knowledge management affects the organizational process positively and enhance their
speed of achieving their targets. It provides a practical justification for the organizations HR
related policies related to human capital management, learning and developmental approaches
and provides the employees with ability to achieve their targets (Deery and Jago 2015).
Current patterns and trends
Alde is an international organization, having specialization in retailing, grocery products
ranging from whole grain bread to ready meals. Specialised ranges include gluten free products
and they even have recipes for healthy pretentious products. The company was founded back in
1913 by he mother of Karl and Theo Albrecht. The organization has a past history of losing its
aim from its objectives and witnessed several years of failure, however, since then it has
implemented a strategy which is retaining its employees as their strategic human resource
management (Kaufman 2015). This approach has provided the leaders of Alde with a second
opportunity to overcome the downfall and achieve success. To achieve this, the company has
used different strategic human resource management related practices to appeal skilled
employees in their process. Alde is destined to maximize the hard work of its employees by

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capitalising their skills. The company identifies human resource as a dynamic component for
overall competitiveness as this resource is the driving force of the organization for their
developmental strategy (Jinjin 2013). The HR Alde Inc. also focuses on the primary aspects of
strategic human resource managementsuch as recruitment and selection, diversity and equal
employment opportunity, employee benefit and compensation strategies, and training
development, career opportunity, employee appreciation and recognition so that the workers
within the organization can be satisfied and can contribute to the growth of the international
brand (Hurd 2012).
Within this diversity, employee benefit program and the career opportunity are the
special aspects of the Alde Inc. Alde is the organization that provides working opportunity to
people, regardless of their race, gender, ethnicity, age and disability and it has been proved by
several examples, when they have offered a job to 10 year old kid to 67 year old mown just
based on their talents and ability (Donaghey et al. 2014). Further, their HRM strategies and the
recruitment policy of Alde Inc. are centred on suitability of the person to fit the organizational
culture rather than the level of skills and experience. Further, it gives the employees with the
opportunity to bring improvement in their skills even though working for the organization. It
provides a chance for training and development, much needed for employees who take time to
absorb the process within them. Employees are reinvigorated to acquire the job. As well, the
company provides on-the job training to allow employees to develop their skills on the job
(Wright and Ulrich 2017).
Strengths and shortcomings of HRM strategies of Alde
Like other HRM strategies implemented by different organization, the multidimensional
HRM of Alde also involves different strengths and shortcomings. The top three strengths of

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Alde’s HRM process are its training, development, and reward recognition and recruitment or
selection procedure (Hurd 2012). For recruitment purpose, the company relies on pirates raiding
of talents in the market and after that, the managers (Wright and Ulrich 2017) recruit only
employees who possess the capability to fit the organization’s environment and process. The
reward and recognition are biggest motivation for employees working in Alde Inc. as the
workers are provided with biggest responsibilities such as leaders thereby provide them with
tremendous promotion in their career. Thirdly, the organization do not withdraws employees
who are unable to achieve their target rather they provide those employees with a second chance
to share their knowledge and achieve personal as well as professional success. However, besides
these strengths, there are few limitations of HRM process of Alde (Bondarouk and Brewster
2016). Despite of training and development opportunities, the higher authority do not provide
moral support to the employees and hence, they tend to lose their self-esteemed and are only
motivation that hampers their capability to reinforce improvement. Further, there are
developmental program however, those developmental plans are incomplete and are confined to
the process, the employee is associated to hence, the overall knowledge still lacked by the
employee that affect the future performances (Donaghey et al. 2014).
While concluding, it should be mentioned that HRM is the process that helps the
organization to determine a fair and good relationship with its employees so that they can
effectively contribute to organization’s success. Managers and leaders generally focus on
policies and systems so that the need of organization and its actual asset that is the employees
can be optimized. In this process, the roles and responsibilities of HRM employees were
discussed. Further, the nature and characteristics of HRJM was mentioned with the strategies and
tools the manager uses to optimize employee demands. Furthermore, with the help of HRM of

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Alde Inc., the current trends of HRM policies and its strengths and weaknesses for Alde inc.
were discussed.

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