HR Practices in Aldi: Analysis and Recommendations

The study highlights the importance of Human Resource Management (HRM) practices in attracting, hiring, and retaining competent human resources in organisations. It was found that HRM plays a significant role in Aldi's success as a leading supermarket chain. The study also explores various HRM practices such as HR audit, ROI, and others, emphasizing their significance in modern business environments.

HUMAN RESOURCE
MANAGEMENT

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
LO 1.................................................................................................................................................3
P1 Purpose and scope of HRM in Aldi ......................................................................................3
P2 Strengths and weaknesses of different approaches to recruitment and selection...................4
LO 2.................................................................................................................................................5
P3 Benefits of different HRM practice in Aldi for employee and employer...............................5
P4 Evaluation of effectiveness of different HRM practices in terms of raising profit and
productivity in Aldi......................................................................................................................6
LO 3.................................................................................................................................................7
P5) Analyze the importance of employee relations in respect to influencing in HRM decision
making in ALDI...........................................................................................................................7
P6) Identify the key elements of employment legislations and its impact on HRM decision
making..........................................................................................................................................8
LO 4...............................................................................................................................................10
P7) Illustrate the application of HRM practices in workplace of ALDI....................................10
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................11
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................12

INTRODUCTION
In the previous years, human-resource management was focusing on personnel
management. With the passage of time, the role of human-resource management has transformed
from the personnel management to an associate in the enterprises. These partners are a major
connection between human resource and several business units. Apart from this perspective, to
become successful and progressive in the cut throat competition, there is need to gain more
detailed information about the e market and its contemporary trends (Giordano Manuti and de
Palma, 2016). The intent of this report is to revise effectiveness of human-resource function in
context of selected organisation Aldi which is leading grocery retail firm. The study is going to
cover purpose and functions of HRM. With this, it will also highlight significance of employee
relations in HRM decision-making. Apart from this, the key components of employment
legislation and its influence on HRM decision-making will be discussed.
LO 1
P1 Purpose and scope of HRM in Aldi
The scope of HRM is very huge and broad. It consists of all activities beginning from
human-resource planning till the employee quits the enterprise. According to it, the scope of
HRM comprises of acquisition, development, maintaining attrition and controlling human-
resource in Aldi. Functions of HRM in the mentioned retail company are elaborated below:
 Recruitment: This is the most basic function of HRM which is to pull, hire and retain
the talented and capable employees. There are several components of this function which
are basically designing of job description, interviews, giving proposals, negotiating pay-
scale etc.
 Professional development: This function is closely linked with training and
development function of HRM. This comprises of growth and progress in their career and
level of education (Mitra Tenhiälä and Shaw, 2016).
 Benefits and compensation: The HRM deals with adopting new and innovative methods
of providing benefits to staff in the firm. These can be in the form of work from home,
limber working hours, vacations and trips etc.
Purpose of human-resource management in Aldi:

 The primary purpose of HRM is to fill the firm adequately with talented and happy
workforce.
 The HR department of the organization has to align human-resource with the
organisational goals and objectives.
 Another purpose of HRM is to address and respond to employee's problems and issues to
maintain high job contentment level to further retain them in the organisation.
 With this, it assures that all employees do their jobs to promote goals of the cited
enterprise.
 It is also liable for taking complete benefit of abilities, skills of employees and filling the
right job positions with right employees (Shipton and et. al., 2016).
 Along with these purposes, one more aim of HRM is management of change and
transformation in the mentioned organisation.
 Apart from this, the main purpose of HRM is recruiting and selection, training as well as
development.
P2 Strengths and weaknesses of different approaches to recruitment and selection
The two different approaches of recruitment and selection for Aldi are discussed below:
Internal sources: The cited enterprise can take employee within itself only. If there is a vacant
position in the firm then it can be offered to a deserving and eligible employee who is already
working in the firm. These sources consist of promotions, transfers, demotion in special cases
(Chand, 2016 ). Strengths: This method saves time, it is cost effective and easy and reliable. The firm is
not required to provide induction training to candidate as he is familiar with the company,
working style etc. Weaknesses: It prevents fresh talent to enter into the enterprise. It is having constricted
scope as it is not possible to fill all vacant posts within the firm. Also the job position of
the employee who gets promotion or transfer, will again become vacant.
External sources: The cited organisation has to approach external sources for recruiting
personnel for higher positions when current employees are not suitable for those posts. It will
need more staff if its desires to expand its business. These sources include advertisement,
employment exchanges, recommendations of current employees etc.

 Strengths: This approach encourages young blood with innovative and creative ideas to
come in the firm. It provides broader scope for selection as there are huge numbers of
appropriate candidates who come for the process of selection. With these sources, there
are less possibilities of biasness, partiality etc.
 Weaknesses: This method is very expensive as advertisement, examinations, interviews
has to be arranged by the firm. This method consumes much time and resources as the
selection procedures are long (Khatri Gupta and Varma, 2016). Further, it is not helpful
in developing loyalty and trust in the present employees. Also there are chances that the
existing employees quit the cited company when outsiders are offered higher job
position.
LO 2
P3 Benefits of different HRM practice in Aldi for employee and employer
HRM practices are significant in achieving organisational goals and in improving
productivity. These practices include employee recruitment and selection, perquisites,
performance appraisals, employee engagement and empowerment etc. the benefits which these
practice provide to employees and employers are as follows:
Advantages for employers:
1. Aids in decision-making procedure: The HRM practices help employers to take decision
in terms of activities carried out in business related to policies, processes, guidelines
formed by the cited organisation.
2. Assure long relations: The practices of human-resource management supports in
maintaining relationship between employee and employer. This can be done through
decreasing discrimination and favouritism in the firm which fosters healthy and long term
relationships (Dean Lee and et. al., 2016).
3. Attracting new talent: When the HR practices are effective in the mentioned company,
then it will naturally attract fresh and competent employees.
Advantages for employees:
1. Overall development and growth: The HR practices include training and development,
education and learning for the employees. This helps the employees in gaining new skills,
knowledge. This further aids them in developing their professional careers.

2. Equal opportunity: The human-resource management practises provide equivalent
opportunities to every employee of the stated retail company. Fair and just practices helps
the firm to treats its employees in equal manner. This in turn in beneficial for the
employees.
3. Performance management: The HRM practices includes performance management
which assesses the performance of the employees. This helps them in acknowledging
what they are doing and how should they improve. They are able to identify their weak
areas and then work on it (El Dirani Jamali and Harwood, 2016).
P4 Evaluation of effectiveness of different HRM practices in terms of raising profit and
productivity in Aldi
Some of the new and creative HRM practices such as problem solving teams, task force
teams, employment security, flexible job tasks and activities, training employees for various job
positions, new way of providing perquisites etc. are being adopted in Aldi. These new practices
reaps high level of productivity and performance of employees. The appropriate utilisation of
these practices grows the production, satisfaction level of employees.
To evaluate the effectiveness of HRM practices in the mentioned company the firm does
not have to measure it as per non specific or non quantifiable or soft evaluations. There are
several tools and techniques through which the cited retail firm can assess the effectiveness of
HRM practices which it is practising. One of the effective tool is HR audit. It is a primary tool
used by many firms to examine their effectiveness and efficiency (Gibson, 2006 ). HR audits
have several purposes and yields various outcomes. The HR audit makes inferences related to the
extent to which the cited firm complies with legal needs. With this in concludes the degree to
which the services of HR department are user friendly. It also deals with disputes, reasons behind
them and their influences on the company. With these, it draws interpretations linked to the
extent to which key competencies have been determined and stated along with the degree to
which recruitment, selection and attrition procedures depict the core competence of the stated
firm. Further, HR audit covers the degree to which firm's current organisational development
initiatives such as training sessions, achieving its current and coming human capital requirements
(El Dirani Jamali and Harwood, 2016). Apart from these, other measurement techniques and
tools of evaluating the effectiveness of HRM practices are return on investments, cost benefit

analysis, break even analysis etc. With all these methods, the effectiveness of HRM practices can
be evaluated in an efficient manner.
LO 3
P5) Analyze the importance of employee relations in respect to influencing in HRM decision
making in ALDI
The significance of an employee has increases with the complexities increases in the
external business environment which lead an entity towards the deterioration (Armstrong and
Taylor, 2017). The burden of the business will be reduced by all the employees who manage the
work load by hiring candidates on various job roles to minimize the workload in order to achieve
higher amount of production. Human resource manager of an entity held responsible for
recruiting employees in order to uplift the current situations of the business in order to gain
competitive advantage.
The focus of the current project report is on explaining the importance of HRM aspects in
the current business of Aldi. This organization is regarded as an entity which deals in offering
supermarket retail chain all across the world with wide variety of goods. This multinational place
is attracting wide number of customers by providing unique quality and quantity of products
under the same roof (Korff, Biemann and Voelpel, 2017). The specialty of this organization is to
serve variety of needs and the expectations of different individuals in order to earn higher
amount of profit. The prices of each and every product are strategically developed in order steal
the interest of various customers as this is essential in order gather large number of audiences.
The stores of this retailer are spread all over the world to capture larger market by focusing on all
the customers rather than serving only local kinds of customers. Management of the organization
like Aldi requires HR manager who will manage all the business activities currently operated by
the owner. The business operations will be strengthened by emphasizing on the needs of various
employees working in the same entity. The relation among the employee and the employer will
be maintained by the HR manager who prepares policies and rules in favour of both the entity by
focusing on the overall business performance as they held liable for increasing the productivity
of the business.
The maintenance of the employee relation is essential with all the employees as HR
manager will directly interact with the employees in resolving the problems (Arthur, 2017). The

workplace will be resolved by the Human resource manager by amending rigid policies in order
to facilitate their personnel in focusing more on the work rather than workplace conflicts. The
motive if an entity is to satisfy their employees in order to stay for long tie in the organization.
Aldi will satisfy their existing personnel by fulfilling their expectations from the existing job as
this will help in protecting their personnel from being influenced by its competitors. The biggest
competitors of this entity are TESCO and Sainsbury which deals in grocery and supermarket
business sector. The higher salary package will transfer their employee’s interest towards another
business. The development of the salary package will be based on the capabilities of the
employee along with the salary provided by its rival member in order to retain the employee for
long time in the same organization.
Employee relation can be maintained in both positive and the negative aspects which
totally depend upon the current actions taken by the top management. The good decisions taken
by HR manager in favour of their employee’s and the organization will satisfy their clients. This
also leads an employee to support their firm in getting more projects in gaining higher
productivity (Walumbwa, Hartnell and Misati, 2017). There are various ways in which employee
relation set up by the manager of ALDI will affect their overall decisions which are given as
below:
Discipline- This factor is regarded as one of the important factor in the business as policies are
framed by an entity on order to create good source of discipline in the firm. The laziness and
frequently taking of leaves by an employee can be controlled by deducting salary of employee
for being late in the firm.
Grievance system-The workplace complaints can be resolved by setting proper system in which
an employee facing problem at the workplace will directly mail HR manager. The problems will
be rectified by the manger by framing policies for all the problems such as workload, peer
pressure.
P6) Identify the key elements of employment legislations and its impact on HRM decision
making
The major functions of Hr manger are go recruit employees from outside the business
premise in order to accomplish their desired aim and the targets (Maynard, Resick, Cunningham
and DiRenzo, 2017). The legal entity will intervene when an employee hired by the business as
their interest will be protected by the government. The salary provided by the business will

deserve as the government of United Kingdom has fixed minimum amount of salary to be given
to an individual. This minimum rate of wages should be followed by the business concern
operating in the UK as it is essential in order to accept the orders imposed by the government.
There are various aspects on which Human resource manager need to be observed before
providing any kind of job to particular individual. The important factors which should be
observed properly includes minimum wages, salary according to the capabilities of an
individual’s working hours prescribed as per the act is 8 hours. Hours exceeding the standard
hours of working are regarded as overtime for which an entity need to pay compensation to an
employee. There are various employment legislation which will affect the business performance
of Aldi is given as below:
Human rights act- The basic rights of an individual should be provided by an entity as this is
essential in order to comply with all the regulations framed by the legal environment. An
employee working in the firm of Aldi should be provided with all the facilities in order to retain
them for long time in the business. The unmerited biasness will not be involved in selecting
candidate as this increases discrimination among all the employees. The rights of all individuals
will be taken into consideration as this would help owner in order to present goo image in the
external business environment (Arthur, 2017). This act is important which needs to be observed
in order to give promotion to an individual on various factors such as good performance in the
job, getting good feedbacks from the clients. This will affect the business concern in making all
kinds of decisions in the firm related to the right of a person as wrong action taken by the
business will lead to discrimination. The decisions of the owner will be transparently reflected
their reason of making decision in an entity which can be either in the favour or unfavourable for
the employees working in the firm of Aldi.
Health and safety- The infrastructure of the office premises should be developed after taken into
considerations all kinds of health and safety measures. Proper ventilation facilities are provided
in order to offer comfortable working environment as suffocation will lead towards affecting
health of an individual. The selection of an individual will include health checkups of a person as
death of a person due to past disease will hamper the productivity but also poses allegation on
the firm for the death or injury to an employee (Korff, Biemann and Voelpel, 2017). HR
manager need to include health checkups report to be submitted by an individual along with their
CV. This will ensure the health of an individual in order to verify its compatibility for the current

job. The primary motive of an individual to select a candidate is to enhance their overall
productivity.
Employee compensation act- This act comes into existence in order to support all kinds of
needs and the expectations of an individual from the current job. The salary or wages enjoyed by
a candidate while working in an entity is to cater their variety of needs by ensuring its survival in
the same entity. The union leader working in the factories will supervises all the workers in the
factory as they held liable for protecting the interest of all the workers in the business. The Aldi
who is a supermarket owner needs to fulfil the demands of the union leader who poses pressure
on the owner in order to raises the current salary of the worker in the firm. The negative
reactions of the owner will leads towards the overall strike in the firm which hampers the overall
productivity of the firm and generates heavy amount of losses in the current firm.
LO 4
P7) Illustrate the application of HRM practices in workplace of ALDI
Unique skills of the Human resource manager are to handle large number of people under
the same premises of the business concern (Armstrong and Taylor, 2017). The recruitment and
selection of candidate is regarded as basic activities of HR manager in an entity. The line
manager work in alignment with the Hr manager in reducing their work load in handling humans
as their needs and the expectations are uncertain. The flexible working conditions will be
managed by the top management in accordance with the Human resource manager who analyses
the behaviour of employees. Policies and regulations are framed by HR manager of Aldi in order
to rectify the conflicts arising in the workplace by framing legislations and code of conducts.
This will be followed by all the members of the business by focusing on the primary aim of
achieving success and desired aims and the targets.
Efficiency of all employees working in the same entity will be enhanced by organizing
activities which helps in nurturing the current skills of all the employees (Korff, Biemann and
Voelpel, 2017). The contests of achieving specific targets in the firm will be organized in order
to competitive spirit among various members working in the organization to boost up the normal
speed of working. These activities will be created once in a month in order to prepare existing
employees to handle heavy pressures of the workloads created by the external changes takes
places in the firm.

Developing positive behaviour is another important approach which can be followed by
Aldi in their business in order to satisfy their large number of employees working in the existing
firm. The appreciation will be provided by the business owner by giving awards like employee of
the month to increase their self confidence. The recognition in front of the top management is
important for an employee in order to develop their good image in the eyes of the top
management and their seniors. Achieving this title a employee will work hard to enhance their
skills and achieve success.
Motivation is the direct weapon used by every leader on the firm is to motivate their
followers so is done by the HR manager (Walumbwa, Hartnell and Misati, 2017). The
motivation can be provided in different ways according to the demands of the specific situations.
The positive motivation can be offered by the manger of Aldi by allocating higher
responsibilities of handling customers in the supermarkets which will enhances their
interpersonal skills. This can be provided by promoting employee from one grade to another
grade and their photo will be publicly placed in the street hoardings, websites and social media
boost their confidence to work harder. Negative motivation can also be provided by the owner to
improve the performance of care free attitude workers who are load on the firm. The less
productive employees will be demoted and also will be fired from the firm to reduce the cost to
be imposed on unproductive employees.
Flexibility is another significant component in the firm which protects the interest of all
individuals towards the business of Aldi (Arthur, 2017). This can be created in the working hours
of an individual which improves overall performance of candidate. The employee should be able
to work in flexible working shifts whose compensation will be offered by the entity in return of
taking their services. The flexible options is used by the firm is essential as the changes takes
places in the external entity will directly affect the performance of the business. The
communication process will be completed by the HR manager by placing itself as a medium to
convince the employees in accepting changes takes places in the firm of Aldi.
CONCLUSION
The present is made for revising the effectiveness of HRM with references to leading top
retail firm Aldi. The study discussed about the role and function of HRM in the cited company. It
also evaluates the merits and demerits of different approaches of recruitment and selection
adopted by the mentioned firm. Further, it examines the effectiveness of HRM practices in the

organisation for which certain techniques are being taken such as HR audit, ROI etc. It has been
concluded from the study that human-resource are the most important pillars for Aldi and HRM
practices play a significant role in attracting, hiring and retaining competent human-resource in
the organisation.
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