Employee Retention Strategies in the IT Industry

This assignment delves into the crucial topic of employee retention strategies within the dynamic IT industry. It examines various approaches companies utilize to retain their valuable talent, analyzing factors such as motivation, training, and development programs. The assignment also highlights the unique challenges faced by IT organizations in retaining skilled employees and explores effective solutions to address these concerns.

HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT
STUDENT NAME:
STUDENT ID:
PROFESSOR NAME:
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Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................3
PART 1 – Recruitment and Selection........................................................................................3
Task 1 – Knowledge (LO 1).......................................................................................................3
a) Explaining the aim of workforce planning and the role of the HR manager with regards
workforce planning and resourcing for Woodhill College........................................................3
b) Explaining the weakness and strength of different approaches to recruitment and selection4
Task 2 – Application (LO 4)......................................................................................................5
a) Creating a job advertisement for English professor in Woodhill College.............................6
b) Identifying suitable platforms to place the advertisement.....................................................6
c) Preparing a job specification and person specification for the English Professor.................7
PART 2 – Employee performance, development and reward....................................................7
Task 3 (LO 2).............................................................................................................................7
a) Explaining the difference between training and development...............................................7
b) Explaining how changes in the customer expectations affected Tesco and its need to train
staffs...........................................................................................................................................8
c) Describe the methods of training of Tesco............................................................................8
d) Explaining the process of identifying training needs.............................................................9
e) Evaluating the advantages of Tesco and the employees in organising a training programme
....................................................................................................................................................9
f) Indicating the extent to which you think the training has achieved a Return on Investment
..................................................................................................................................................10
g) Suggesting the approaches to flexibility that Tesco can utilise to expand the business......11
PART 3 - Employment relationship.........................................................................................11
Task 4 (LO 3)...........................................................................................................................11
a) Analysing the importance of maintaining good employee relationship and evaluating its
impact on the HR decisions of ITV..........................................................................................11
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b) Identifying the key elements in the employment legislation and explaining its impact on
ITV’s HR decision...................................................................................................................13
Conclusion................................................................................................................................14
Reference list............................................................................................................................15
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Introduction
Over the time, as the competitiveness among the organisations is increasing, the requirement
of human resource department is developing at the same time. Apart from handling the basic
duties related to recruitment and selection, the human resource department is responsible for
developing the employee performance and handle every segment of employee relations. The
following discussion will look into the role and responsibilities of human resource
management in different work sectors.
PART 1 – Recruitment and Selection
Task 1 – Knowledge (LO 1)
a) Explaining the aim of workforce planning and the role of the HR
manager with regards workforce planning and resourcing for Woodhill
College
HR manager plays a vital role in the development of workforce planning and builds several
kinds of strategies for its successful growth in the society. According to Ash et al. (2013,
p.94), HR manager is the key important element for the organisation as it recruits and hires
well-skilled and well-trained employees to the company. Employees are the backbone of an
organisation, so it is the HR manager responsibility to hire efficient workers in the education
institute like Woodhill. HR manager builds several strategies for selecting and recruiting the
employees and management such as it gives job vacancy advertisement in internet,
newspaper, magazine and putting hoardings in the street.
It is essential for an Hr manager to make freshers and job seekers aware about the job
vacancy in the company; hence, it is through the process of marketing strategies. The main
purpose or aim of HR manager for workforce planning of Woodhill College is to fulfil its
goal and target as soon as possible. The goal of this organisation is to fulfil the crisis of
employee deficiency in the company. As stated by Van den Brink et al. (2010, p.1460),
deficiencies of the staff and employee will hamper the growth, stability and progress of the
organisation. It is through the HR manager company will be available to achieve its goal
successfully and reach to its success. HR manager selection process helps the company to get
optimistic, well-qualified, well-deserved, knowledgeable, well-trained and well-skilled
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workers; even the HR department provide essential training to the workers for an
organisation success.
The resources plan of HR manager is quite vast and influential for an institute like Woodhills
college, it is the mainly HR manager responsibility and role to recruit efficient worker in the
company, for fulfilling this criterion an HR manager follows important rule and policy before
selecting and recruiting the workers. HR manager works under the law and policy of the
government it follows some of the important acts like equality act of 2010, sex discrimination
act, racism act amended in 2010 and norms of ethical values before selecting and recruiting
the candidate for an organisation. HR manager has to select its employee without any biases,
partiality, discrimination and racism, any kind of discrimination based on religion, culture,
tradition, caste, creed, colour, ethnicity and gender should be strictly avoided by an HR
manager (Rees and Rumbles, 2010, p.170).
Through HR resource process the workers get the good working condition, their fundamental
rights are maintained, flexible working hours are provided, they get skilled training,
compensation, sick and maternity leaves, any conflict or issues occurs for an employee it is
HR manager duty to solve it immediately. Furtmueller et al. (2011, p.245) mentioned that the
employees, as well as the company, gets massive and important help though the role and
resources of HR manager. It is an HR manager role and responsibility to verifies all the
qualification and personal detail of the employee before hiring in the company. An HR
manager of the company conducts the final round of the interview and it is totally in its hand
to recruit the employee the communication skill of an employee plays a vital role in the
recruitment process of HR. It is essential for HR of Woodhill College to play its role and
responsibility properly and uses its resources efficiently.
b) Explaining the weakness and strength of different approaches to
recruitment and selection
The recruitment and selection process of the employees comprises of two aspect its strength
and weakness. According to Hays and Singer (2012, p.31), companies gets several kinds of
benefits through recruitment and selection process of an HR manager, manager plays an
integral part for an organisation growth, success and stability in the society. The importance
of strengths to the different approaches of the selection and recruitment process are as follow,
it is through HR manager strategies the company goal and targets are achieved. The
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companies as Woodhill College get efficient, talented, smart, energetic, well skilled, good
communication skill and well-qualified candidates for its company. Workers are the pillar for
an organisation without its hard work and efficient talent organisation will not be able to
achieve its goal and success in the society.
The company, as well as employees, get several benefits and advantages through the different
approaches to the recruitment and selection process. As stated by Salas et al. (2012, p.75),
good working conditions are provided by the company, scope of promotion and incentive is
high, flexible working hours, skilled training free of cost is also provided to the employees,
funds, compensation, holidays, sick and maternity leaves provided and most important an
employee cannot be terminated without discussion with HR manager. Any kind of disparities
or conflict occurs between the employee manager takes instant action to resolve it.
Several kinds of weakness are clearly noticed in the recruitment and selection process
through its different approaches; this creates negative impact on the performance of HR
manager and hampers the workflow. The weakness of the selection and recruitment through
different approaches has many aspects some of them are as follows many times it has been
found that the employee does not submit their original documents and lie about their personal
and qualification detail. In that case, the company recruits inefficient worker as a result
workflow of the organisation is hampered and entire blame of workers not performing well is
put on HR manager head. Marketing strategy for recruiting and selecting process is
considerably expensive and time consuming most of the time it has been seen right candidate
does not response properly and lots of time is wasted for searching right candidates on right
time (Saks and Burke, 2012, p.120).
Searching online candidates create quite stress to the Hr department for selecting the
candidates, most of the time workers does not response or does not come for an interview,
does not receive phone calls from the recruiters and sometimes speak rudely with the
recruiters also. Therefore, these are the important strengths and weakness of selecting and
recruiting process through different approaches. An HR manager of Woodhill College must
look after all these criteria for its fulfilling the goal of it college.
Task 2 – Application (LO 4)
As Woodhill College has experienced a major staff turnover, it is looking for hiring efficient
teaching assistant. The college requires an English professor at the college. The major skills
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required for the English professor for Woodhill College include reading efficiency, speech
clarity, active listening skills and critical thinking ability. The professor needs to guide and
assist the students with learning strategies. Identifying the complicated problems student face
in their daily lessons and resolving those effectively is another criteria for the English
professor. The professor needs to have the assessment ability for monitoring the performance
of the students and assessing them based on their skills. The professor needs to foster
creativity and innovation among the literature students for making them competent to deliver
better perspectives on the lessons they are learning.
a) Creating a job advertisement for English professor in Woodhill College
Senior English Professor, Woodhill College
We are looking for a qualified and innovative English professor to join the faculty at our
reputed college.
Skills Required:
 Enthusiastic and hardworking
 Excellent command over the subject
 Understanding of the curriculum and activities of college
Experience Required:
 Must be involved in teaching for 2-4 years
Required Education:
 Post graduate degree or Research Scholar
Please respond by submitting your resume along with a cover letter by responding in
theadvertisement published in jobs.ac.uk.
For more information, visit our official website www.curro.co.za/gauteng/woodhill-college
or call us in [phone].
b) Identifying suitable platforms to place the advertisement
Apart from different job websites, the most suitable platform for placing this advertisement is
all the local newspapers and magazines of the region. Considering the impact of digital
platforms in today’s time, posting this advertisement in different blogs of the reputed
educators and academicians will be a highly effective option. Other than this, social
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networking websites such as Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook will be an ideal platform for
placing this advertisement to catch the maximum attention of the teaching professionals.
c) Preparing a job specification and person specification for the English
Professor
Job Specification: The candidate must be able to teach courses related to English language,
linguistics, literature and comparative literature. The teacher needs to moderate the classroom
discussions more efficiently, prepare the required course material, prepare and deliver the
lectures to both undergraduate and graduate students. Moreover, the professor needs to
maintain the attendance record. Planning, evaluating and revising the curriculums along with
the course content needs to be done in the supervision of the professor.
Person specification: The candidates must be creative, alert and flexible for working under
complex situations. Moreover, they should have planning and team building efficiency. The
candidates must have strong communication skills. On the personal level, the candidates must
be patient and consistent. Among the special skills, the candidates need to have supervisory
skills and stress management skills.
PART 2 – Employee performance, development and reward
Task 3 (LO 2)
a) Explaining the difference between training and development
Human resource management has two major operational areas that include providing training
to the employees and ensuring overall development. The department aims to improve the
productivity of the employees in all the sectors of an organisation. According to Olexova
(2014, p.96), training gradually develops the skills and knowledge of the employees, helping
them to grow as a better performer. On the other hand, development is a process under which
the entire workforce of the organisation grows and ensures the productivity elevation of the
organisation at the same time. In the case of Tesco, both the training and development is
required to retain the existing employees.
However, the newly appointed HR department of the company needs to consider the basic
differences between training and development process. As per Phillips and Phillips (2016,
p.56), the training is considered as a learning process that enables the employees to grow
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their skills and knowledge, whereas development can be regarded as an educational process
that looks at the overall growth of the employees. Training is a short-term process, while
development is needed for long-term impact. Development is a more career-oriented process,
while training is job-oriented. The prime objective of development is to prepare the
employees for future growth, whereas training aims to improve the performances of the
employees. Training is related specific jobs, whereas development process encompasses the
improvement of overall knowledge of the employees.
b) Explaining how changes in the customer expectations affected Tesco and
its need to train staffs
As Tesco has grown as one of the biggest retail outlets in the United Kingdom over the time,
the customer expectations have also developed at the same time. Tesco has already
diversified its business and expanded from its primary products like grocery to insurance and
banking services, telephone equipment, electrical goods and more. The concept of ‘one stop
shopping’ of Tesco has become quite successful in catering to the customer needs. However,
as the new product lines have also included, Tesco needed more qualified and skilled
employees to meet the customer expectations at every level of their service. In order to satisfy
the customers with better service quality and describing them about the new product lines,
employee training became the mandatory option for Tesco.
Other than this, when an organisation goes for geographic expansion, the choices and
preferences for services become diversified automatically (Albert et al. 2010, p.316). In order
to understand and cater to the need along with the expectations of the customers, Tesco
needed to train its employees and infuse the understanding of the demand structure more
prominently. Moreover, they needed to train their employees regarding how to approach the
customers with the new product range Tesco has incorporated in all their stores.
c) Describe the methods of training of Tesco
Training needs to be a systematic approach that can enable the organisations to make the
employees more proficient and competent over the time. According to Hays and Singer
(2012, p.65), organisations need to prepare strong strategies that will keep the employees
prepared to highlight their best results in difficult times. Following the traditional yet
advanced approach of training, Tesco has started two different training processes that include
both on-the-job and off-the-job training. In order to carry out the off-the-job training, Tesco
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made the employees attend several training courses conducted by professionals and experts
within as well as outside the organisation.
Among the on-the-job training methods, shadowing is the most significant approach where
the existing employees in specific job roles help the trainees to understand the work process
(Teece, 2010, p.173). Apart from shadowing, Tesco has also incorporated coaching and
mentoring methods where the employees with high designations advise and train the trainees
to combat the problems related to the job and motivate them to find out the solutions by
themselves. Job rotation is another training process that helps the employees to fulfil the
required job targets by changing their positions.
d) Explaining the process of identifying training needs
The general process of identifying the requirements of the training is set based on the
organisational objectives. In the case of Tesco, as the organisation is on the verge of
expanding its business, understanding the diversification approaches is the prime
organisational objective in the present state. In order to achieve the business targets, it is
essential for the organisation to segregate the training needs between the in-store and off-
store employees. In the case of in-store employees, the basic organisational demand is to
make them competent enough to understand the customer needs of the new stores.
According to Bock et al. (2012, p.281), the employees with a strong set of skills and
knowledge are more prone to resolve the workplace issues more promptly compared to the
management. In the case of Tesco, the employees are needed to train about the profiles of the
new customers from the new locations as based on that, they will be able to submit their
requirements for the inventory. Other than this, the training team of Tesco needs to identify
the knowledge gaps of the employees that are needed to be fulfilled in order to make the
employees competent to fulfil the development needs of the organisation. Moreover, the
employees are required to get the training of the diversified culture, approach and language of
the customers that will help them to improve their service quality in the new zone.
e) Evaluating the advantages of Tesco and the employees in organising a
training programme
According to Cardy and Lengnick-Hall (2011, p.215), structured and well-organised training
programme is considered the approaches and techniques utilised in order to improve the skills
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and potential of the employees. It is quite evident that a systematic approach to training is
reflected in the performance of the employees along with the prompt growth of the
organisation. In the case of Tesco, the organisation monitors the employee performance more
closely and evaluates their performance based on the performance feedback. In order to
derive optimum advantages of the structured training process, Tesco has put the employees in
different scenarios and provided them with necessary support that is required to perform the
tasks.
Both the employees and the organisation have derived enough advantages that helped them to
cater to the customer needs more proficiently. Moreover, the employees have achieved in-
depth knowledge regarding the professional approach for dealing with the customers. The
training provided by the experts enabled the employees to improve their efficiency level in
their existing job roles. As a result, the employees have received the required motivation of
retaining their jobs with the organisation. The ability of the employees to deal with crisis
utilising the knowledge and skills they get from structured training have made the
organisation more competent among the competitions. On the long run, the employees have
become the prime assets of Tesco as they learned to resolve the challenges.
f) Indicating the extent to which you think the training has achieved a
Return on Investment
Whether any specific training process has successfully achieved the return on investment or
not, is being assessed based on a few determinants. Direct cost, indirect cost, employee
efficiency, performance growth, received income; behavioural change and productivity are
some of the key determining factors that justify the success of any training process (Phillips,
2012, p.13). In the case of Tesco, the structured training programme has delivered positive
outcomes and ensured continuous growth in the company’s business.
Over the time, it has become quite evident that Tesco has achieved positive customer reaction
for their successful service quality in both in store as well as non-store business sectors. In
the current year, the total profit achieved by the organisation is over 3 billion pounds.
Moreover, in the United Kingdom, Tesco has established around 2,200 stores and created
small expresses of Tesco by breaking down their previous structure of hypermarket style.
Considering this statistical approach, it can be said that Tesco has successfully received their
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return on the investment. Their noticeable growth in business operations also justifies that the
training infrastructure has helped the organisation to fulfil its objectives successfully.
g) Suggesting the approaches to flexibility that Tesco can utilise to expand
the business
In order to expand the business, organisations are opting for several flexible approaches to
increase the benefit derived by the organisation. According to Sandhya and Kumar (2011,
p.1780), the continual success of a business is determined by various flexible approaches
adopted by the organisations for generating sustainable benefits to the employees. It is also
essential to adopt the flexibility approaches in a more sincere approach and push it beyond
the statutory minimum. In the case of Tesco, there are some flexibility approaches it can
introduce for retaining their employees and ensure successful expansion of their business.
Firstly, the adaptation of advanced technology is highly required to ensure the increased
productivity from the employees.
Moreover, it is required for Tesco to select its locations for business expansion more
prominently so that both the local employees and customer find it easy to make Tesco stores
their first preference. Blending with the diversified shopping habits of the customers and
offering the products based on the specific requirements will prove to be a flexible approach
for Tesco as well. Incorporating the newly generated societal values and considering the
constantly changing demographics are the other two major flexibility approaches that will
help Tesco to expand its business successfully. Retention of experienced employees,
encouraging the female employees, increasing the participation of the employees and
promoting the trainees to achieve the organisational objectives are the other options for
flexible approaches that will accelerate the organisational growth.
PART 3 - Employment relationship
Task 4 (LO 3)
a) Analysing the importance of maintaining good employee relationship
and evaluating its impact on the HR decisions of ITV
It is extremely necessary for an organisation to promote healthy employee relation for the
sake of sustaining the core organisational intact and effective. According to Carleton (2011,
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p.461), strong employee relation does not only help in the process of employee retention, but
it also ensures the organisational growth. Strong relationship and bonding among the
employees let them share the values and significantly promote their behaviour within the
workplace. The practices related to employee relationship increase the productivity of the
employees and provides deserved recognition to the employees. Moreover, the practices
involving employee relations helps the human resource department in developing the
organisational policies.
As per James and Mathew (2012, p.85), in order to make the employees competent in dealing
with complex organisational environments and outperform, the human resource department
of the organisations foster the employee relationship. The most common practices HRM
perform is related to the communication within the organisation. Downward communication
is the very first system the HRM incorporates to foster strong employee relation under which
the employer communicates with the employees. The upward communication, where the
direction is directed from employees to the employer, is the less practised employee relations
operation, whereas the horizontal communication, involving the employees of different levels
is the most effective communication process to strengthen employee relation.
ITV has adopted its own technique of maintaining an employee relation as their approach of
creating strong employee relation is related to the engagement of the employees. The
organisation follows a series of combined methods that include collective bargaining and
consultation with the elected representative of the employees. Moreover, the organisation
focuses on engaging the employees directly. As the success of the company has been quite
essential for the past success of the company, the HR tends to utilise direct communication
method for fostering employee engagement. ITV has used the intranet, popularly recognised
as Watercooler that provides online updates related to the organisational news on a daily
basis. Moreover, the company engages the employees who remain offline most of the times
by sending out weekly updates regarding the company.
The HR also enters collective consultation with the employee representatives as they generate
information regarding the overall workforce of the organisation (Bal et al. 2013, p.550). This
process enables the HR of ITV to get relevant information related to the level of changes
becoming effective because of the involvement of the employees. The HR has prepared 15
groups of consultation for different business purposes. On the other hand, ITV also utilises
the method of collective bargaining in order to involve the employees in new work practices.
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As a result, the company derives significant benefits related to change management and make
the employees feel respected.
The specific approach of the company helps the HR to follow a systematic pattern for
strengthening employee relations. At the first stage, the HRM delivers the proposals, grant
the feedbacks and responses from the employee representatives and takes necessary actions.
However, the collective bargaining approach does not ensure satisfactory engagement that is
prepared based on the responsibilities of the line managers, the HR policies and effective
horizontal communication process among the employees of ITV. Other than this, the absence
of negotiation process further complicates the actions that HR needs to take at some points
while dealing with critical employee issues.
b) Identifying the key elements in the employment legislation and
explaining its impact on ITV’s HR decision
Employers adopt several HR practices in order to ensure prolonged business growth and
strong employee retention. The regulations related to employment legislation have left
significant impact on the multiple levels of HR practices in ITV. Some of the major
employment legislations that have impact on the HR practices of ITV include Health and
Safety regulations, Agency Workers regulation and Time Directive Regulation. Moreover,
the Dismissal and Redundancy regulation is a significant legislation related to employment
that influences the HR practices in crisis (Markos and Sridevi, 2010, p.91).
However, the HR does not take account of these regulations in most of the cases, as they do
not count legislation as the key driver for carrying out the practices effectively. The
employers and human resource management that follow the legislations minutely to carry out
the functions related to staff management, employee retention and maintaining the morale,
often becomes confident (Teece, 2010, p.192). As ITV does not follow the employment
legislation minutely, the organisation often faces the fear of litigation. Moreover, as the HR
practices often fail to comply with the legislation because of its informal approach to HR
practices. In various cases, the HRM feels that informal practices can lead to strengthening
the relationships among the employees and successfully establishes managerial autonomy
(Carleton, 2011, p.465). Communication regarding the regulations and policies are highly
required for strengthening the formal culture within the organisation. However, the direct
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communication process taken up by ITV does not include the exchange of information
regarding legislation.
Conclusion
Based on the above discussion, it can be summarised that human resource management has
some fundamental contributions in carrying out the work process more efficiently. The
discussion has highlighted the functionalities of human resource management in different
organisations. Moreover, the discussion has focused on the three basic functionalities of
human resource management individually that include recruitment, selection, and employee
development and employee relationship.
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