Resource and Talent Planning

This report discusses the present workforce trends, legal arrangements, worker market trends, job description, and individual specification in resource and talent planning. It focuses on Argos Ltd, a catalogue retailer headquartered in Buckinghamshire, England.

Resource and Talent
Planning

INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
TASK 1............................................................................................................................................3
P1. Evaluate present workforce trends which influence workforce planning and talent
management............................................................................................................................3
P2. Various legal arrangements on company which consider workforce planning...............4
TASK 2............................................................................................................................................5
P3. Present worker market trends and legal requirements which include anticipated skills with
an organisation........................................................................................................................5
TASK 3............................................................................................................................................7
P4. Illustration of job description and individual specification..............................................7
P5. Various applications of recruitment and selection...........................................................8
TASK 4............................................................................................................................................9
P7. Examine the stages of HR life-cycle within organization..............................................10
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................1

INTRODUCTION
Resource and talent planning can be referred to as the act of workforce planning and
management whereby new employees are recruited and given training to make them a part of the
company. The following report is based on Argos Ltd which is a catalogue retailer headquartered
within the confine of Buckinghamshire, England. The report includes labour trends along with
laws to be followed by the company. Further, it includes stages of HR lifecycle. In addition to
this, various method of recruiting and selecting candidates are covered.
TASK 1
P1. Evaluate present workforce trends which influence workforce planning and talent
management
There are various labour trends that can be leveraged by a company to facilitate effective
workforce planning and talent management. In this relation, the trends that can be explored by
Argos are discussed beneath. Besides this, labour plan can be defined as a systematic course of
action that is implemented for incorporation of changes in the strategies to meet the demands of
altered workplace scenario. Thus, the labour trends that impact over workforce planning as well
as talent management are discussed beneath:-
Ageing Population: Many countries have been undergoing increment in its base of
population. United Kingdom, Germany, United States and Japan have forecasted to hire thin
labour force in the time of next 15 years owing to the fast ageing population of the employees.
Thus, it may act as a recruitment challenge that can create difficulties in future context of time.
Industry: Presently, fourth industrial revolution offers a number of computerised jobs.
The store sales have over the course of time been replaced by streaming and moving services.
This implies a change in supplying channel.
Strategic approaches of Human Resource Management and its impact:
Strategic approach to HRM encompasses plans, action and policies for effectively
managing the workforce. It consists of processes like performance appraisal, job description,
creation of opportunities and selection procedure. The main intent hereby is to place the right
candidate at the right position on the right time. Such approaches tend to provide assistance to
Argos in carrying out effective workforce planning and talent management.
Human resource process and its impact in Economic composition:

The phenomenon of BREXIT has recently affected the economy of UK causing a
financial crisis. In this relation, it is important for Argos to take strategic measures through
which it can ensure its stability in such an instance. This will help the entity in acting as per the
industrial changes for hiring candidates suitable for the vacancy within the company.
P2. Various legal arrangements on company which consider workforce planning
Laws and legislation need to be followed by each and every organisation which is a part of the
economy. In this relation, there are some laws associated with workforce planning that are taken
into consideration by Argos to ensure not getting involved in legal adversities. Such laws are
discussed as follows:-
Employment Rights Act, 1996
This act tends to regulate the labour within the confines of UK by providing them with
certain rights. In this relation, Argos needs to ensure that they do not breach any of the
employees’ rights such as paid leave, redundancy and dismissal and so on.
Equality Act, 2010
This is a law that protects the employees from any kind of bias, prejudice or
discrimination done on any basis by making it mandatory for the organisation to treat every
employee in an equal and fair manner. Thus, Argos follows this law and treats all employees
working on same level of the organisation equally.
Health and Safety at Work Act, 1974
This act is laid down with an aim of ensuring health, wellness and safety of employees at
all times while at work premises. By providing a safe and healthy premise to employees, Argos
maintains its goodwill within the market.
Evaluation of worker demand and supply forecasting
Thus, workforce planning is acknowledged to include creation and maintenance of
potential labour pool for timely accomplishment of corporate goal. In this relation, it becomes
important for Argos to take into account the labour demand and thereby undertake measure to fill
the vacancy within the entity. As a result of this, entity can maintain a balance between labour
supply and demand, thereby assigning right job to appropriate candidate. Further, through
forecasting, entity can save unnecessary cost spent upon the selection of incompetent candidate.
This will aid the company in attaining growth and development.

TASK 2
P3. Present worker market trends and legal requirements which include anticipated skills with an
organisation
Human capital is regarded to be crucial for each and every company. It is essential for
every company such as Argos to carry out examination and analysis of workforce for inflating
skill set and knowledge base of the employees in a timely manner.
Methods of Job analysis
Interview Method: As per this, the HR manager of Argos can make enquiries to
candidates in relation to their expectation, work performance and issues being faced by
employees within the company.
Observation Method: Hereby, the HR manager needs to carry out observation and
analysis of performance of employees through the employment of effective tools and techniques
like critical incident technique, direct observation and work method analysis.
Questionnaire Method: Questionnaire is developed by the top management and sent to
employees in order to gain knowledge of their views and opinions upon certain aspects. Through
this, Argos is able to create an atmosphere whereby the employees can work by utilising their
full potential for the accomplishment of individual and corporate goal.
Methods of collecting data and information
Primary Method- In this type of method, information is collect first hand by the investigator.
This includes questionnaire, interview and survey for collection of information related to the
employees.
Secondary Method- This is a method whereby information is gained from published sources or
through the investigation already carried out by anyone else. It includes feedbacks, official
magazine, existent files and so on, that contain data related to employees.
Job Design
Also known as work design, it is associated with several methods, content and
development of relation among the job as peer individual, technological, social and
organisational requirements. Argos makes use of this method for increasing the job satisfaction
derived by the employees.

To identify skills and abilities of employees in context to succession planning
Succession planning can be referred to as the process whereby an entity examines
potential candidates for the purpose of fulfilment of job vacancies within the confines of the
company. Hereby, the experienced workers replace the retired and promoted ones. Therefore, it
becomes essential for Argos to carry out effective succession planning for increment of
organisational productivity level as a result of replacement of inefficient employees with the
efficient ones. In this relation, the skill set and knowledge base for talent management and
workforce planning are given beneath:-
Current Skills-
Communication skill:
Communication is central to each and every organisation running as a part of an
economy. In this relation, the HR manager needs to have sound communication skills in order to
set interaction with the employees. The HR manager needs of Argos need to have effective oral
and verbal communication skills for circulating or deriving important information to or from the
employees working within the company. This will facilitate the development of a premise
whereby the workforce can freely talk about the issues being faced by them. The absence of
communication skills may result in emergence of conflicts affecting the corporate productivity.
Anticipated Skills
Change management:
The progression of technology makes it crucial for the company to meet the changes taking place
in the business environment of a company. Therefore, it important for HR manager to create an
environment whereby employees can easily adopt changes within the confines of Argos.
Present skill Requirement in ASDA:
There are certain essential skill requirements according to the present scenario in ASDA. Such
there is requirement to develop conflict management and coordination skills for the purpose of
managing various activities that are assigned by the team leader. there is also Requirement to
ensure that there are proper conflict management scenario so that if any type of conflict occurs
while performing functions then it can be solved internally and does not affects the functioning
of organisation.

Anticipated skills:
There is Requirement that in the future period of time employee’s decision making skills. So that
they are able to make timely effective decision that are crucial for the working of organisation. In
ASDA there is following up of democratic and participative style of leadership that is helping
employees in increasing their level of participation and take part in making timely decisions.

TASK 3
P4. Illustration of job description and individual specification
Person Specification for the post of a marketing manager
Individual Specification
Post: Marketing manager
Department: Marketing
Attributes Essential Desirable
Experience & Qualification  Graduation with
specialisation in
marketing
 Experience of 1 year in
field of marketing.
 More than one year
experience as
marketing manager
 Having adequate
experience of handling
and leading teams
Skills or knowledge Strong researching, predicting
and analytical skills
Basic software skills and
knowledge
Individual Specification
Post: Accountant
Department: Accounting
Attributes Essential Desirable
Experience & Qualification Individual with the degree of
Chartered accountant in Wales
and England along with the
Having experience in
department of accounting with
4 years in addition with

experience of maximum 3
years in a reputated accounting
firm.
certified membership.
Skills or knowledge Important to have analytical
and presentation skill.
Essential to posses basic set of
knowledge related to
accounting and MS-Excel.
Job Description
Job Details
Post: Accountant
Company: Argos Ltd.
Job Purpose
Record maintenance of daily transaction and further report the same to head office. Along with
this responsibility to conduct internal audit as to evaluate errors and omissions
Responsibilities and roles
 Efficient determination of misappropriate of funds, guide to mismanagement and
internal control
 Evaluation of organisation financial positions along with latest prevailing trends in
forecasts for budget
Job Description
Company: Argos Ltd.
Job Details
Post: Marketing manager

Company: Argos Ltd.
Job Purpose
To promote company along with its services and products effectively in order to ensure long-
term sustainability in respective industrial segment.
Roles & Responsibilities
 Development of strategies related to promotion of organisation along with its services
and products.
 Development of ideas related to marketing campaigns with the help of innovative ideas
and techniques.
 To formulate attractive and valuable content for organisation blog and website in order
to influence attention of large talent groups.
 Develop strategic relationship of organisation with industry players, partners, agencies,
employees, customers, vendors in order to facilitate organisational growth.
P5. Various applications of recruitment and selection
There different type of selection approaches of internal and external recruitment through
which HR manager of Argos select suitable employees
Internal Recruitment:
This mode of recruitment and selection aid HR manager of respective organisation to provide
significant job opportunity to employees those who are already working in entity, they further
get selected for a suitable post through written examination that are further being followed by
group discussion and interview (Alexander, 2018). This benefits entity to save their unnecessary
cost and time.
Internal sources of recruitment:
Promotion:
It is the method where internal sources of recruitment can be used when employee can be
promoted according to their highest kills for the higher position of organisation. In ASDA that
can be used when employees have to be motivated and there are competent employees to possess
higher amount of skills and can deal with high responsibilities & duties.
External Recruitment:

In this method HR manager of Argos hire suitable candidates from outside of organisation. In
this appropriate recruitment and selection process is being undertaken as to attract and invite
candidates who are having innovative skills, talent, specialisation and experience.
 Interview: With the help of this method HR manager ask certain set of questions to
individual. It includes different type of question that is being during asked by HR
manager through which candidate get selected from certain job positioning (Oseghale and
et. al., 2018). In entity this method is undertaking in order to evaluate confidence and
analytical skills of selected candidates.
 Written Test: It is most essential external recruitment selection method through which
Argos examine efficiency, performance and intelligence of the candidates who have
applied for a certain job role. In there is technical, maths and reasoning question is being
asked.
TASK 4
P6. Examine various stages of HR life-cycle
There is different type of stages in HR lifecycle, HR of respective entity conduct their operations
with the assistance of this systematic approach in order to provide better workplace environment
to their workers.
Selection and Recruitment:
In this function of HR life cycle HR manager engage in the process of collecting resume
and CV of candidates those who have applied for the job role (Pandita and Ray, 2018). They are
attracted with the medium of advertisement; interview and GD. With the help of this HR can
effectively higher potential candidates for vacant job position.
In this stage human resource managers in ASDA identifying all the sources of
recruitment and then selection of candidates will start after there has been proper scrutiny of the
competent candidates and the relevant candidates will be rejected at this particular stage.
Orientation:
In this HR manager made effective strategies and planning in order to provide significant
opportunities to employees by evaluating their personal and professional aspects of each and
every employee and further accomplish them by offering effective training and development

courses as to encourage them to perform better. After employee has been selected in the
organisation for the purpose of making employees feel comfortable there is an orientation
session in ASDA.
Career planning and performance management:
This stage acts as process related to evaluating potential employee’s performance in order
to replace them with those who have inefficient working (Thunnissen and et. al., 2013). It allows
entity to maximise their work productivity at a great extent.
After there has been a certain period of time for employee working in ASDA there are efforts
made to enhance and increase the present skill level of employees by planning their career
development opportunities.
Succession Planning:
It is the essential stages in HR life cycle in which are Argos HR manager is having
significant responsibility in which they are responsible to conduct the process of entry and exit of
an employee in order to increase organisational for force power.
There succession planning in ASDA there is responsibility of HR manager to plan all the
succession related opportunities in coming future period of time for their overall workforce.
Exit:
In this, HR manager of respective company offer better opportunities comparative to
other organisations in respective industrial segment. After there has been successful completion
of a tenure employees may willing switch to another job opportunity in ASDA. HR managers
must make efforts to reduce and minimize the employee turnover.
P7. Examine the stages of HR life-cycle within organization
In this HR manager of Argos conduct most important function of converting above-
mentioned stages into action in order to align all the stages in effective manner that further lead
entity to fulfil their company objectives.

First stage:
It is the initial stage in which human resource manager engage in the operation related to
formulating effective plan strategy and procedures for selection and recruitment process in order
to select skilled talented potential and effective candidates for the workforce.
Efforts are made by human Resource Department to latest strategy to identify the sources
from where competent individuals can be identified and made to apply for various available
vacancies.
Second stage:
It is the most important stage in which respective organisation HR has responsibility to
make each and every newly hired employee aware with the organisation objective, mission,
goals and objectives along with their role in work place of entertain (Tansley and et. al., 2013).
In addition to this respective entity HR manager also make sure that all the employees are
effectively aware with entity guidelines in order to accomplish their objectives for betterment of
organisation.
At the second stage in ASDA human resource managers plan a strategy to ensure that
employees are feeling comfortable and they are willing to make higher contribution.
Third Stage:
In this stage performance of employees are evaluated in an effective manner through
which HR manager develop planning in context with operating efficient development and
training courses to them in order to increase their skill and efficiency as to increase the
productivity for organisation profitability (Stredwick, 2013).
In the third stage ASDA, human resource department how to formulate strategy for the
purpose of organising training programs like on the job training or off the job training according
to suitability of employees.
Fourth Stage:
In fourth stage formulation of practices and policies are done in the favour of employees,
Along with this Argos manager also develop policies for retaining employees for long period of
time. In this they provide report and certification to employees as per according to their
performance. It help entity do to increase employee engagement in organisation and ensure their
loyalty in an effective way. In this stage, managers in ASDA will use motivation theory like

Maslow needs hierarchy theory for process of identifying the stage at which their employees are
present and according to it planning certain motivation strategies.
Last Stage:
It is the last stage of HR life cycle in which HR manager of Argos engage in the
operations relating to hold efficient database for their employees (Sparrow and et. al., 2015). It is
done to maintain information of employees in an effective manner that further help HR
individual to fulfil responsibility of their role in the time of termination and resignation as to ease
this process as save unnecessary wastage of time for both employees and entity.
In ASDA that they are having a database of the entire competent candidate in future if
there are some vacant positions and employees have left the organisation they can be approached
by offering them higher compensation
CONCLUSION
As per the above mentioned report it has been concluded that resource and talent planning is
an essential aspect that allow organisation to efficiently manage requirement of their workforce.
In this they also select and recruit potential, skilled and efficient candidates in order to increase
overall working productivity and accomplish company goals in a well-defined manner. In order
to maintain employees rights there are different type of legislation and laws through which HR
manager can protect right of every individual and can further provide them positive workplace
environment. In addition to this with the assistance of different job analysis method HR manager
evaluate performance of every employee and further provide them training and development
courses in order to maximize their performance through which entity enhance their market
stability and long-term sustainability.

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