Human Resource Management: A Comprehensive Review

This assignment provides a comprehensive review of human resource management, covering topics such as employee engagement initiatives, international human resource management, policy and practice in European human resource management, globalizing human resource management, green human resource management, and the influence of technology on future HRM. The assignment includes references to various sources such as books, journals, and online articles, providing a thorough understanding of HRM practices and policies.

Human Resource
Management

Table of Contents
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................3
TASK 1............................................................................................................................................3
a) Purpose of HRM functions and their importance in order to become employer of choice....3
b) Advantages and Disadvantages of current recruitment measures that is been taken within
the firm and compare it with other recruitment operations.........................................................5
TASK 2............................................................................................................................................7
a) Create a job description and person specification for the post of customer service assistant.7
b) Advertisement for the website of customer service assistant at Squire Gardens Centre........8
c) Recommend at least one other medium to place the appropriate vacancy with justification
to recommendations....................................................................................................................8
d) Provide questions for the candidate to the job role of customer service assistant and helping
in decision making process.........................................................................................................9
TASK 3..........................................................................................................................................10
a) Evaluate the benefits of Squire offering apprenticeship to both organisation and potential
apprentice..................................................................................................................................10
b) Provide the development opportunities available to employees...........................................11
c) Range of rewards and benefits for staff and its effect on employee retention......................11
TASK 4 .........................................................................................................................................12
a) What is meant by employee engagement and its importance in employee relationship at
Squire Garden Centre................................................................................................................12
b) Recommend ways of engaging workers within firm............................................................12
c) How UK's legislation impacts the decision making of HR department of Squire Gardens
Centre........................................................................................................................................13
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................14
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................15

INTRODUCTION
Human resource management is the approach that help in proper assessment of work
force within a firm. The HRM department of the firm looks after the effective handling of
various business operations that will assess the needs and recruitment process which are carried
out within the firm. It assists the firm to improve the performance of their workforce and lead the
organisation to enhance the quality of business operations undertaken within the firm. For the
present assessment, Squire garden Centre is been chosen. It is a family owned, medium level
horticulture organisation that operates in UK.
The present report will lay the emphasis on the purpose and importance of HR operations
and activities and will assess the advantages and disadvantages of the recruitment process or
operations undertaken by the firm. Besides this, a proper job description and personal
specification is been created along with proper advertisement for a job role. The benefits of
different HRM operations and importance of employee relation in decision making was
undertaken. Also, the key elements of employment laws and HRM practices related to work are
evaluated.
TASK 1
a) Purpose of HRM functions and their importance in order to become employer of choice
The Human resource operations plays a very crucial and important part in the growth and
development of the organisation. It assists the organisation to plan their business operations and
hence will lead the firm to improve quality of services and hence, guides HRM department of
Squire Garden Service to undertake suitable measures or operations within the firm for
maintaining its HR functions within the firm with much efficiency (Bainbridge and et.al., 2017).
The firm look after effective planning of their business operations and lead the selected
organisation to have a good profitability by increasing performance of their work force. There
are various HRM functionalities which are been taken in consideration by the medium level,
horticulture firm to improve the performance of the firm and assist it to become employer of the
choice for the potential candidates working within the firm. Some major HRM functionalities
that are been taken in context by an organisation with their importance is as follows:

 Job analysis and designing: It can be further termed as recruitment process. It will
involve the HR department of the medium level firm to carry out an evaluation or
assessment process regarding the job and generating vacancy within organisation to carry
out a specific operation within the firm (Stone and et.al., 2015). It will help the
organisation to identify its feasibility and effectiveness of an operations and requirement
of suitable manpower to manage it. The purpose of this function is evaluation of various
job applications have a good accessibility to different suitable candidates for the vacancy
within the firm. It is important for the firm because it supports look after HR functions
and handle any requirement of their clients or customers.
 Training: This is another attribute that is been carried out within the firm and hence, is
very important from the operational point of view. The main purpose is to improve the
skill set and knowledge of employees about the job. The HRM department of selected
horticulture enterprise looks after providing of effective trainings or guidance to
employee by using effective workshops and seminars. It will help the organisation to
have a high level of productivity and efficiency due to skilled labour and thus will lead
the firm to improve the quality of business actions to a higher level. Besides this, the
training by HR department of the firm will increase skill set and knowledge of a
candidate or recruit to fulfil their job role requirement.

 Performance management: This is the other essential attribute of the HRM that
improves quality of business operations and thus, guides HRM department of Squire
Garden Centre to identify the best employee and the individual with the need of
guidance. Its main purpose is to help the management to carry out the proper assessment
of employees skill and capabilities over particular job role. Thus, this can be said that
performance management is a vital operation of HR department of a firm.
 Compensation and benefits: This can be said as the sub part or result of performance
management operations. This help the firm to enhance the attention and efforts of the
individuals towards their job role within the selected enterprise. Besides this, its main
purpose is to encourage the employees to give out their best and increase the employee
satisfaction level, guiding the employees to have a good management of benefits caused
by operations, which assists in handling of HR operations and have an important role in
improving quality of services by Squire Garden Centre.
 Labour relations: The HR department of organisation look after proper management of
relations with different trade and labour unions in order to facilitate the smooth
functioning of the medium sized organisation. Its end function is to improve the
managements understanding towards the needs of their work force. Besides this, it is
important as it has a crucial role in resolving the conflicts that occurs at the workplace to
maintain productivity of the firm.
b) Advantages and Disadvantages of current recruitment measures that is been taken within the
firm and compare it with other recruitment operations
At present, in order to carry out the recruitment and selection processes which assists in
effective assessment of the job roles and qualifications of the applicants. For getting suitable
management of workforce and planning of operations which are been taken within the firm, at
present newspaper and website based recruitment process that will improve the quality of
services within the firm (Jabbour and de Sousa Jabbour, 2016). The desired applicants are
required to complete an application form and upload their CV on the site. These applications and
qualification of the potential employees are been evaluated within the firm by the management to
see that they meet their job specification. This measure has certain advantages and drawbacks
which will help the firm to identify its effectiveness and thus, will lead the firm to enhance its

accessibility to efficient and suitable employee's. Some major advantage and disadvantages to
this measure are:
Advantages: Disadvantages:
 It is a very cost effective and cheaper
medium of advertising for the job. It
will help the organisation to have a
financial advantage and reduce its
expenditure over the placing of a
proper job advertisement.
 The biggest drawback of this approach
is that it is comparatively in adequate
for providing the proper information
about the job. Especially, the
newspaper has the limited advertising
space which makes it restrictive to
deliver complete information about a
particular job role.
 The usage of website and local
newspaper for placing out the job
interview is also an effective medium
for reaching out to maximum number
of potential applicants (Wilton, 2016).
It will help the firm to get more and
more application for a particular job
role.
Besides this, different measures can be taken in consideration by the firm which will
improve the quality of recruitment and selection process within the firm. These measures can be
internal or external in nature and supports the proper improvement of job advertising measures.
It improves the business operations and thus supports planning of effective recruitment and
selection process within the firm using newspaper and website medium(Stone and et.al., 2015).
Other methods of recruitment
Internal recruitment: This is the process of selecting an employee from within or outside an
enterprise or a firm. This will help the organisation to improve the suitable measures and thus
will lead the firm to enhance the quality of work efficiency. Some major internal recruitment
approaches that can be taken within the firm are:

 Transfer: It is a process in which one candidate, who is capable to perform a specific job
responsibility. In this, a particular candidate is been sent to another office of the same
firm to manage the job roles to a greater extent and with more efficiency.
 Promotion: This is the increment in job responsibility that helps the individual or
employee to enhance their effectiveness and efficiency to perform a job role. The
promotion is the most popular way of internal recruitment which is both time and cost
effective.
 Reference: This will help in gaining the best candidate for the particular job role to fulfil
the requirements for a job. In this process, an existing employee within the firm will refer
another potential candidate for a job or vacancy in order to have the best candidate for a
job role.
External recruitment: It is the process which is been executed outside the organisation. This
will help the firm to enhance their performance. It is been opted in case, internal recruitment turn
out to be ineffective or inadequate. It is effective process when a firm wishes to have new ideas
or concepts. Some major external recruitment measures that are been undertaken are:
 Employment agencies: They are the 3rd party firms which have the portfolio of certain
eligible candidates in their data base and thus, recommend the most suitable candidate to
the firm as per a job role or qualification (Bainbridge and et.al., 2017).
 Open interview: This are also known as the walk-in interview measures which are been
taken in context by a firm like Squire gardens Centre to have a high number of suitable
and eligible candidates for a job role.
The comparison between internal and external recruitment process is:
Internal recruitment: External recruitment:
It is carried out within the firm and thus will
lead the firm save the cost spent on recruitment
and selection by the firm.
It is carried out outside the firm and thus will
improve the chances of innovation and getting
new ideas within the firm.
Assessment can be easily done and training
measures are rarely required.
As the recruited employee is new, training
measures are required to be taken to improve
performance.

These measures are few of the effective approaches and are quite effective as compared
to the approaches used by Squire Gardens Centre in present. These are few of the effective
measures which can be adopted by the firm in order to get the best candidates in much effective
way. Some approaches are quite economic and hence helps in effective improvement of
recruitment and selection process within the firm. The external approaches are time and resource
consuming to a greater level and thus, will help in improving the core compatibility and
performance of an organisation like Squire Garden Centre.
TASK 2
a) Create a job description and person specification for the post of customer service assistant
Job Description
Job profile: Customer service assistant
Reports to: Administration manager
Job roles:
 Manage customer accounts and records
 Resolve the product or service related problem or query by a customer.
 Giving the best possible solution to any problem faced by a customer.
 Managing financial accounts and processes related to customers.
 Recommending the best products and services of firm to customers in order to have a
good satisfaction level.
 Collecting and analysing the products and service report.
Personal Specification
Attributes Relevant Criteria Essential/
Desirable
1 Skills & Abilities
 Good communication skills
 Should have a good presentation and time management
skills
 Must be able to make strong telephonic and email
contacts.
E

2
General &
Specialist
Knowledge
 Must be familiar to CRM system and other IT tools. E
3 Education &
Training
 Must have a high school degree or equivalent to graduate. E
4 Relevant
Experience
 Must have customer support experience D
5 Special
Requirements
 Able to multi task and prioritize the work or queries of
customers.
 Should have a good presentation and time management
skills
D
b) Advertisement for the website of customer service assistant at Squire Gardens Centre
Squire Gardens Centre
Vacancy Alert!!
Vacancy of Customer Service Assistance at the stores of Squire Gardens Centre.
Job role: Customer Service Assistant
Timing: 10 AM to 5 PM
Qualities required:
Should have good communication skills
Must be able to provide customer support experience of 2 years
Should be familiar to CRM system and other IT tools.
Have a good presentation and time management skills
Able to multi task and prioritize the work or queries of customers.
Must be able to make strong telephonic and email contacts.
Must have a high school degree or equivalent to graduate.

Must have good market knowledge and able to manage various conflicts.
Interested candidates can contact on the email id or telephone number.
APPLY NOW: Kindly upload your CV on the site prior to coming for interview
c) Recommend at least one other medium to place the appropriate vacancy with justification to
recommendations
Various measures can be undertaken for the placing of the job vacancy of customer
service assistant. The using of website and local newspaper for the placing of advertisement is a
good approach to connect with high number of candidates (Shen and Benson, 2016). However, it
has certain loopholes which are required to be mitigated by the HR management department of
the firm. Hence, the organisation can opt for other mediums of placing the job advertisements.
This will help the organisation to get the best candidate or potential employee for a particular job
role within the organisation. For this purpose, social media platform can be taken for the placing
of job advertisement that will help in proper management and getting the maximum number of
candidates for a particular job role (Nankervis and et.al., 2016).
The proper justification behind it is that as the social media platform is one of the widely
used medium of communication. This quality of public communication media makes it an ideal
choice of placing the job advertisement. Besides this, social media will also act as the best mode
of creating awareness among people and therefore will help HR manager of Squire Gardens
Centre to seek potential candidate. This will help the organisation to get access to the best
candidate to improve firm's performance. It will help the firm to meet the needs of its target
market i.e. flowers and plant-based services to sustain open work culture of Squire Garden
Centre.
d) Provide questions for the candidate to the job role of customer service assistant and helping in
decision making process
During the interview process, the questioning is a very vital part that helps the
organisation to improve the overall performance of organisation, by increasing the understanding
of HR department about skill set and behaviour of a potential candidate. (Beer, Boselie and
Brewster, 2015). It will help the interviewer to identify the core skills of a potential candidate

and helps in a good decision making. Some effective questions that can be asked by a HR
executive during an interview process for the post of Customer Service Assistant are as follows:
 What do you know about our organisation and its work environment?
 Why do you want to work with us?
 Do you find yourself capable enough to manage diverse responsibilities associated with
these job roles?
 What skills makes you capable for this job profile?
Satisfactory answer to these questions will help the management of organisation to get
the best and most eligible candidate for the provided job role and helps in effective decision
making and enhance Squire garden Centre's functionality.
TASK 3
a) Evaluate the benefits of Squire offering apprenticeship to both organisation and potential
apprentice
Apprenticeship facility and opportunity that is been provided by Squire Garden Centre is
the effective approach that helps the selected organisation to get best and suitable candidate or
employee in the future. Squire Garden centre offers proper apprenticeship to the individuals to
work at its farms. It will help the applicants and potential workers top get a good on field
experience in horticulture. The selected firm provides the good opportunity to its apprentice by
improving their knowledge and skill set to work in the gardening and horticulture sector. It has
immense benefits and advantages for both applicants and the firm. Some of their advantageous
impacts on the both, apprentice and the selected garden firm are:
Benefits for apprentice:
 Improves knowledge and skill sets: As the horticulture department needs extensive
skills and knowledge about different plants and flowers, the apprenticeship by the firm
will help an individual to gain suitable knowledge and adopt proper skills sets to work in
the selected sector (Brewster and et.al., 2016).
 Gain an industrial exposure: The individuals joining as apprentice within the firm will
be provided with suitable and real time exposure about the gardening and horticulture
industry. This will help the firm to enhance their experience and help them to tackle
various situations in at the organisation.

Benefits for Squire Garden centre:
 Creates a platform to get skilled employees: the 2 years apprenticeship program by the
firm will help in improving skills and knowledge of an apprentice and will make him
eligible enough to perform the different job roles and duties in the firm or horticulture
sector (Albrecht and et.al., 2015). This will help the organisation to prepare suitable work
force that further works within the firm. This makes Squire Garden Centre as employer of
choice for their apprentice.
 Cost and resource effective measure: The apprenticeship measure which was provided
by Squire Garden Centre are cost and resource efficient approach by a firm which
support the organisation to prepare the potential of employee's in minimal cost and
application of resources. As the apprentice are been already trained, it will save the firms
valuable time and resources to train new recruits (Brewster, 2017).
b) Provide the development opportunities available to employees
The apprentice or professional training measure that is been carried out within the
organisation will be of great support to employee's and hence improves the work efficiency and
ability of the work force within Squire Garden Centre. This approach of having a good and
effective training or apprenticeship approach for the employees is as follows:
 Providing wages: The apprenticeship will help the apprentice or potential employees to
get suitable monetary help as per national minimal wage scheme.
 Increasing Knowledge: The apprenticeship process helps the organisation to increase
the knowledge and understanding of their employees related to horticulture and thus will
lead the individual to gain vast knowledge about gardening firm, customer expectation,
work culture while working. This will assist in effective planning of their training process
at work place.
 Versatility in skills and high-quality life: As the apprentice are significantly trained,
their skill sets will be increased and thus, they will have a good job opportunity within
Squire Garden Centre and other firms (Olson and et.al., 2018). This will improve the
performance of their work force and helps the firm to become employer of choice.

c) Range of rewards and benefits for staff and its effect on employee retention
A range of rewards and benefits are been accessible to the staff of Squire Garden Centre
that will help the organisation in having good employee retention (Reiche and et.al., 2016). Some
major benefits that are enjoyed by the workforce are:
 Overtime Pay: It is the additional amount that gets credited with the salary to in direct
boost employee's morale.
 Bonus: Proper bonuses are provided to the employees, on the basis of quarterly
performance in terms of completion of their targets and allotted projects.
 Holidays: This includes holidays of 5.6 weeks in a calendar year. It rises to 6.6 after the
service of 5 years.
 Child care vouchers: operated through a scheme in Fair Care, employees are been
exempted with taxes and save money for their child care (Brewster, Mayrhofer, and
Morley eds., 2016).
 Pensions: This are the benefits provided to the employees after their retirements and a
proper contribution is been made by the firm as per government norms.
All these measures will aid selected horticulture firm to gain their employees loyalty by
increasing their satisfaction level. This rewards and benefits will help the firm to retain their
work force and reduce the employee dropout rate. Consequently, the employee's motivation will
be consistent and this will help the company to retain them on basis of their personal
performance rate.
TASK 4
a) What is meant by employee engagement and its importance in employee relationship at Squire
Garden Centre
Definition: Employee engagement is an approach of having a qualitative and
quantitative nature of relationship between the work force and the firm.
Significance: It is important because the employeees needs motivation and
encouragement from their subordinates on regular order. Also, this will be crucial for supporting
the staff to put their best efforts. The following points also help in managing employees relation.

 It helps in improving the commitment and job loyalty and encourage the work force to
put more and more efforts towards the job. An engaged employee has a positive attitude
towards the firm and its job (Brewster, Chung and Sparrow, 2016).
 At a medium level enterprise like Squire garden Centre, the need of employee
engagement can't be denied. This play a very crucial role in regaining the work force and
improve their satisfaction level. For example, Employee engagement of Squire garden
Centre is focused on involvement of senior management with employee which helps in
deriving employees’ interest towards particular job role.
 This is done by involving workers in decision making process or conducting informal
training sessions.
 The importance it plays is that it improves the employee relationship at Squire
garden Centre because as in a medium level firm, the work force is limited so their
engagement and coordination is required to meet customers’ needs and demands
(Chelladurai and Kerwin, 2017).
 As the firm operates in horticulture sector, this will help the firm to improve the
operations of organisation and thus, will lead the firm to improve the quality of products
and services that they offer to their customers. A good employee relation on interpersonal
level will help in improving team bonding and improves firm's performance.
b) Recommend ways of engaging workers within firm
The management of Squire Garden Centre, looking at its medium level operational
functionality, will undertake various employee engagement measures which will improve their
performance and enhance the employee relation within the firm (What is Employee
Engagement?, 2019). Some major activities that will help the firm to improve the employee
contentment level within the organisation are as follows:
 Involving the employees in business planning: This is the most innovative measure that
can be taken in consideration by the firm to improve employee’s engagement within the
firm. It will provide the employees with and sense of belonging and increase the
transparency on the operational level within a firm (Bailey and et.al., 2018).
 Creating knowledge sharing system: Various apprentice and employees working within
the firm with varied skill set and knowledge, their intercommunication is important. As
the employees will be interrelated, they will be exchanging their knowledge and

information and thus, will lead them to come up with new ideas and products (Gallez,
2018).
 Encouragement: Being medium level enterprise, Squire Garden Centre should work on
employee motivation to enhgage them. This helps to improve their skill set. This will also
improve their loyalty, productivity and contentment level.
c) How UK's legislation impacts the decision making of HR department of Squire Gardens
Centre
In UK, there are vivid employment laws and operations related to human resource. Squire
Garden Centre will look after the proper assessment of these measures which impacts the
appropriate decision making by the firm. Some legal obligations that are required to be taken in
context are:
 Contact Law: It is a pursuant of Employment Rights Act, 1996. It includes the legal
management of job roles, titles, pay intervals, location of workplace, working hours,
training and development approaches, holidays and pension entitlement with details of
probationary period (Brewster and Hegewisch, 2017). This will help in resolving any sort
of conflict between employees and Squire Gardens Centre. The HR department of
selected enterprise will decide its employment contracts accordingly.
 Wages and Hours: entitled under National minimum wage Act of 1998, this will help in
gaining minimum wages up to £6. 19 per hour for an employee or apprentice over the
age of 21, under National minimum wage regulation. Also, the firm cannot make its
employees to work for more than 48 hours a week except the overtime as per the
employment contract decided by the HR management of firm (Minze, 2017).
 Discrimination: As per the Equality Act 2010 and 3 major European Union Directives,
discrimination or harassment on the basis of gender, nationality, colour, age, religion,
sexual orientation and ethnicity. HR department of selected firm will select the
candidates accordingly on the basis of its policies.
 Redundancies and retirement: As per the Trade Union and Labour Relations
Consolidation Act, 2013, minimum 90 days of consultation period is required to provide
by the firm (Bratton and Gold, 2017). In case of retirement, as per defined contribution
pension plan and government criteria, the HR department of firm will contribute to
provide pension to employee after retirement.

CONCLUSION
From the report and assessment performed, this can be summarised that the HR
management of the selected firm has worked in more effective way. Here, the purpose and
importance of the HR functionalities has been evaluated. The description of recruitment and
selection process undertaken by the firm indicates its feasibility in compare to other methods or
recruiting employees. Also, the job description and person specification are been taken by the
firm for customer service assistant where job advertisement is also outlined. Also, the interview
questions and their impact on decision making by HR department of firm is been evaluated. The
benefits of apprenticeship and development opportunities for the firm is been analysed and
influence lead by various employment engagement and the UK's employment legislation is been
assessed for helping the HR department in proper decision making.

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
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