Employment Relations Management at Mark & Spencer

The assignment emphasizes the significance of employment relation in retaining employees, boosting productivity, and driving business success. It recommends that Mark & Spencer management prioritize improving organizational norms and procedures to create an effective working environment. Additionally, it stresses the importance of employee voice and participation in decision-making processes and suggests that employees should speak up against unfair decisions or changes without their concern.

Strategic Human
Resource
Management

Table of Contents
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY.............................................................................................................1
TASK 1............................................................................................................................................2
INTRODUCTION:-....................................................................................................................2
MAIN BODY..............................................................................................................................2
RECOMMENDATION:-............................................................................................................6
CONCLUSION:-.........................................................................................................................7
REFERENCES...........................................................................................................................7
TASK 2............................................................................................................................................8
INTRODUCTION.......................................................................................................................8
MAIN BODY..............................................................................................................................8
RECOMMENDATION:...........................................................................................................10
CONCLUSION:-.......................................................................................................................10
REFERENCES:-.......................................................................................................................11

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
This report provide an detail description about the Strategic human resource management
which provides an framework to link organisational strategies which human resource activities.
This help in managing the performance of employees toward the achievement of organisational
goal which support in developing competitive edge within the market place. This report includes
various theories and model to support the importance of SHRM within an organisation. Current
report is divided into two part where first task describes about relation between business and
human resource strategy to support the concept of SHRM within an organisation. Apart from this
it describes about the HR practices for performance management.
In second task it explains about the importance of employment relation within an
organisation. It also describes about the role performed by the actors involve in employment
relation. From this report it has been found that, SHRM and employment relation plays a crucial
role in development and progress of an organisation. Both the factors support toward developing
an environment which foster employees to improve their performance and contribute toward its
success. It is recommended that each organisation whether public or private must treat its
employees fairly at workplace. So that employees can contribute at their best toward the
achievement of organisational objective.
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TASK 1
INTRODUCTION:-
Strategic human resource management refers to the process of connecting human
resource with strategic objectives for improving performance by developing a culture that foster
flexibility, innovation and competitive advantage. This task elaborates about the relation between
business strategy and human resource practices (Armstrong and Taylor, 2014). It also describes
about SHRM models and theoretical approaches that help an organisation to achieve competitive
advantage. Further it talks about performance management and HR practices linked with this
such as scheduling activities and tasks, monitoring performance, performance appraisal and
performance review/feedback.
MAIN BODY
Business strategy:- It refers to a firm's working plan that help in achieving its vision,
objectives and achieving competitive edge over competitors. Business strategies describes about
long term business planning that provides guidelines to perform actions.
Human resource strategy:- It refers to the process of creating long-term plan for
management and development of human resource working within the organisation (HR strategy,
2016). These strategies help in unifying and directing the behaviour as well as action of human
resource to promote overall development of employees in accordance with the requirement of
organisation.
Relation between business and human resource strategy:-
Business strategy and human resource strategies are inter-related, as overall strategy of an
organisation provides direction through which organisational goals can be achieve. On the other
hand human resource strategies help in managing the employees so that these goals can be
achieved effectively. HR managers mainly focuses on goals of business as they are related to
human resource policies and practices. Therefore, business strategy help in figuring out that how
manpower spread across the different department within an organisation. For instance, by
developing a proper relation between HR practices and organisational strategy, Mark & Spencer
will be able to determine the manpower required to perform a particular project. As management
and retention of employees help in improving the performance outcome after the implication of
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business strategy. Hence, relation between business strategy and HR practices will help in
achieving competitive advantage and in improvising performance outcome.
Coordination between business strategies and human resources practices help in
achieving higher success and growth within the marketplace. In order to align organisational
goal with employees performance, integration is crucial as it increases efficiency and relevance
of HRM within an organisation. Following are the types of integration
Vertical alignment:- It refers to the process of acquisition done by two companies that
are not working on same level in value chain but are operating their operations in upstream or
downstream activities in value chain (Hohenstein, Feisel and Hartmann, 2014). This help
company in spreading their activities across value chain and also provide the advantage of
sourcing the raw material for production when it involve in upstream acquisition. It help in
getting closer to customer when the acquisition is downstream. For instance, Mark & Spencer
can integrate vertically with other apparel companies which have flagship store and sell a wide
range of product that can get through regular retailer.
Horizontal integration:- It refers to the acquisition between the companies that are
working on the same level of value chain within their business. Horizontal integration is very
essential when a company want to achieve economies of scale as the same activities or products
can be manufacture at large scale with the help of this integration. For instance, Mark & Spencer
can merge with other retailers like ASDA or ALDI, as these belongs to same category. So this
merger will help in expanding their business at large scale.
Strategical human resource management:-
SHRM refers to the practices of human resource department that assists in attracting,
developing, rewarding and retaining employees for providing benefit to both employees and
organisation. HR department which involves SHRM practices do not work independently rather
they tries to interact with other department for determining their goals and formulated strategies
for aligning the goals of individual with organisational goals. SHRM support the goal of rest of
organisation by utilizing and integrating skills of human resource to make other departments
stronger and effective (Ahmed and et. al., 2016). Matching model of SHRM will prove to be
helpful to Regional Business Innovation and Skills department, as this model defines how HRM
Practices must be performed to support organisational strategy.
Matching model of SHRM:-
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This model shows the relation between organisational strategy and HRM practices as
well as define how HR activities must be designed to support overall strategies of organisation.
This model is divided into two parts where, first part describe about integration of HR strategies
and second part will depict about HR cycle. Matching model provides a framework that help in
determining how the HRM policies derived from mission and strategy of organisation which
further affected by micro environmental factors (Bratton and Gold, 2017). It also depict how
functions like selection, appraisal, reward and development are integrated to produce required
performance of employees.
Main objective of strategic human resource management is to ensure that HR department
of organisation is fully integrated into strategic planning so that the HRM policies can be
accepted and utilized by line manager in their day to day operations. Main theoretical approaches
of SHRM are divide into three categories, which are as explained below:
 Universalistic approach:- This approach state that there is a group of some best HRM
practices and their adaptation will help in generating positive result regardless of any
critical situation that may be faced by an organisation (Approaches to SHRM, 2018).
Universalistic approach describes that best practices in relation with HR issues like
recruitment, selection, training & development and employees motivation are equally
reliable to every company despite of varied aspect used within an organisation.
 Contingency or best fit approach:- Best fit approaches is disagree with the
universalistic theoretical approach and state that presence of universal prescriptions to
HR issue doesn't leads to promotive better performance. But in order to improve the
performance of an organisation, integration between the HR policies and organisational
policies are required.
 Resource based view:- It is a mixture of strategic theories which seek to identify the
resources that assists firm in sustaining competitive advantage (Albrecht and et. al.,
2015). These resources are bundle of tangible and intangible assets, which includes
organisational process, employment of skilled personnels, machineries, brand name,
information & knowledge etc.
Performance Management:-
It refers to an ongoing process between employees and their managers which provides
feedback, accountability and documentation for improving the performance outcome.
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Performance management is a very crucial function of human resource department as it help
aligning the skill and talent of employees with organisational goals (Cardy and Leonard, 2014).
This function involves set of activities that are planned by HR manager for ensuring high
performance or making sure that each business operation should performed effectively.
Following points describes about the set of activities performed by human resource department:
 Scheduling activities and tasks:- HR manager schedules the activities to be performed,
time taken by them and employees which are liable to perform these task. It help in
providing the information related to task to be performed by each employee which in
reduces the chance of misunderstanding among them related to work. By using this HR
practices Mark & Spencer will be able to manage and minimize its operational time as
each individual know about the span of time in which they have to finish their work. So it
help in improving the performance and accomplishing the task on time. Apart from this
it may also have negative impact over the activities of an organisation as it will create
dependability among employees (Mone and London, 2018). It will also leads to delay in
operations as after creating schedule, activities are performed according to it which
sometimes may avoid the task which is required to perform urgently.
 Monitoring performance:- A HR officer also observes their employees while they are
working to identify their level of performance as well as areas of improvement. By
identifying these factors HR manager arrange proper training through which employees
can improve their skill that further assists in improving the performance. On the other
hand manager also guide their employees different methods to adopt for performing their
task more effectively. By involving this HR practice, Mark & Spencer can improve the
performance of employees as they get regular guidelines over their work. Hence chance
of error get reduced which in turn will enhance the productivity level. But on the other
hand, it may have negative impact as regular intervention of senior may disrupt the work
of employees or they may get irritated or frustrated.
 Performance appraisal:- This is also consider to be the most crucial function of human
resource manager. Performance appraisal refers to the process through which
performance of employees are systematically evaluated by HR manager for determining
the ability of an individual for their further growth. Under performance appraisal, HR
manager reward the employees who perform well. This help in encouraging other
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employees to improve their performance for gaining appraisals from higher management
in term of promotions, incentives (Van Dooren, Bouckaert and Halligan, 2015). By
adding this practices, Mark & Spencer can boost up the confidence of employees which
help in brining efficiency in their operations. Instead of this, performance appraisal may
also create disputes among employees. For instance, when two employees are working at
same position and perform similar task and if one of them get reward of its work then
another employee will get demotivated . This action of HR manager may create
misunderstanding between the two employees which may affects the performance of
another worker.
 Performance review/feedback:- HR manager regularly provide feedback to their
employees about their work and overall performance. This help in identifying the error
that affect their performance and areas which they are required to improve. Performance
feedback is beneficial for both employees as well as human resource department. As it
help employees in determining their level of development and improvement through the
year. By involving this activity in their HR practices, Mark & Spencer can identifying
the need of training to improve the performance as well as in deciding the job or task for
employees according to their skills. But apart from this, it may also have negative impact
over the performance of employees. As they may get demotivated after getting negative
feedback over their performance.
RECOMMENDATION:-
For designing an effective performance management system, Regional Business
Innovation and Skills department is recommended to use an effective plan which describe about
the activities to be performed. These activities must be scheduled according to their priority so
that each task could be perform in timely manner. Apart from this it is recommended that Mark
& Spencer must provide performance appraisal to their employees on time. Rewards are not be
bounded for annual basis only, it must be extended to workers according to their performance
and on monthly or quarterly basis.
Apart from this regular training must be provided to employees so that performance can
be improved which contribute toward positive outcome. Further it also assist employees in being
adaptable to changes that are anticipated within as well as outside the organisation. As it help in
dealing with future challenges and achieving competitive advantage.
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CONCLUSION:-
From the above given task it can summarized that strategic human resource management
is very essential part of an organisation as it focuses on linking the personal goals of employees
with overall organisational objective. This will further assists in managing the performance of
employees using various HR practices so that an organisation can achieve competitive
advantage and become able to deal with organisational changes.
REFERENCES
Ahmed, T. M., and et. al., 2016, May. Studying the effectiveness of application performance
management (APM) tools for detecting performance regressions for web applications:
an experience report. In Proceedings of the 13th International Conference on Mining
Software Repositories (pp. 1-12). ACM.
Albrecht, S. L., and et. al., 2015. Employee engagement, human resource management practices
and competitive advantage: An integrated approach. Journal of Organizational
Effectiveness: People and Performance. 2(1). pp.7-35.
Armstrong, M. and Taylor, S., 2014. Armstrong's handbook of human resource management
practice. Kogan Page Publishers.
Bratton, J. and Gold, J., 2017. Human resource management: theory and practice. Palgrave.
Cardy, R. and Leonard, B., 2014. Performance Management: Concepts, Skills and Exercises:
Concepts, Skills and Exercises. Routledge.
Hohenstein, N. O., Feisel, E. and Hartmann, E., 2014. Human resource management issues in
supply chain management research: a systematic literature review from 1998 to
2014. International Journal of Physical Distribution & Logistics Management. 44(6).
pp.434-463.
Mone, E. M. and London, M., 2018. Employee engagement through effective performance
management: A practical guide for managers. Routledge.
Van Dooren, W., Bouckaert, G. and Halligan, J., 2015. Performance management in the public
sector. Routledge.
Online
HR strategy. 2016. [Online] Available through <https://managementmania.com/en/hr-strategy-
human-resource-strategy>./
Approaches to SHRM. 2018. [Online] Available
through<https://research-methodology.net/approaches-to-shrm/>./
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TASK 2
INTRODUCTION
Employment relation refers to a legal agreement between employee and employer which
shows the terms & condition in which a person perform its duty within an organisation. It
describes about how an employer treat or behave with its workers at workplace (Jacoby, 2018)
(Kim and Bae, 2017). This task elaborates about the employment relations and various theories
related to it such as unitary and conflict. In addition to this it also describes about the role that an
actor plays within employment relation.
MAIN BODY
Employment relations :-
It refers to the study of regulation of employment relationship between employee as well
as employer. It describe about how a manager interact and treat their employees and vice versa.
By using employee relation theories a company can develop an understanding related to these
regulation will help them in positioning responsibilities to better lead their workplace
(Employment Relationship, 2018.). It also assists workers in maintaining an environment of
equality, where their issues will be heard and proper actions well be taken. Following are the
theories of Employment relation:
 Unitary theory:- The unitary perspective vies an organisation as a single authority or
loyalty structure. Unitary theory state that an organisation must have single body of
authority which manages all the decision related to business. These leaders ensures to
develop worker loyalty at workplace. They create unified goals to inspire employees to
work hard. Though, business which employees this theory are good at motivating
employees and aligning their work toward certain goal. For instance, by applying this
theory Mark & Spencer can centralized their actions which help them in bringing
coordination and avoids the conflict related to authority. But this theory is being
criticized by trade union as employees have no power while managers have all the
authority.
 Conflict theory:- This theory view an organisation as union of sectional group in which
employees are different in term of their value, interest and objectives. Conflict theory
state that employees posses different aspirations from that of management which is the
main cause of conflict. According to this theory conflicts are inevitable, functional and
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normal situation within organisation that may be solve by compromising and collective
bargaining. Under this type of environment decisions are taken by group efforts and
mutual understanding. By applying this theory Mark & Spencer can delegate authority
among employees which help in completing task quickly, as employees doesn't have to
wait for taking permission of higher authority (McBride, Hebson and Holgate, 2015).
But apart from this major drawback of applying this theory is increase in conflicts or
clash of interest among employees.
Roles of the actors within the Employment Relationship
Employment relation describes about the interaction between any of the actor which are
of three types i.e. employees, employer and state. These all work together within an organisation
with some set of rules to develop better relationship and understanding. Role of each actor in
term of employment relationship can be better understood by following points:
 Management/employer:- The main role of employer is to recruit workers, assign them
tasks and remunerate for the work performed by them (Rousseau, 2015). Employer must
ensure that work is assigned according to the capabilities of worker so that they can
perform their duties effectively which will be beneficial for both employee as well as
employer. Apart from this they are also liable to inform about any changes to their
member in industrial relations, offer advice and train on industrial issues.
 Employees/union:- Unions are the associations of workers that seeks to improve the
social being of their members as well as ensures that workers will receive their salary on
time (Mishra, Boynton and Mishra, 2014). On the other hand employees are responsible
to improve the terms & conditions of their employment by exchanging view with
management and voice their grievances.
 Government:- The role of state government is to influence and regulate the industrial
relation by formulating rules, laws, agreement, award of court etc. Apart from this role of
government is to hear the grievances that employees have and provide proper judgement
by involving labour and tribunal court.
These all are the actors which are involve in the employment relationship concept,
contribution and coordination of which help in building up a healthy relation between employer
and employee. The nature of work as well as employment relationship are changing continuously
which has improved the scenario of employee and employer relation up to a great extent. As
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earlier, employees are more humiliated and exploited in workplace. They are forced to work
more and are not remunerated as per their work performed (changing nature of employee
relations, 2017.). This environment lead to the development of trade union which promote
healthy and fair environment for employees to work. Further various rules and legislations are
formed for protecting the right of employees and trade union ensures that these laws must be
followed by employer (Geppert, Williams and Wortmann, 2015). Therefore, trade union works
in favour of employees to provide them secure and healthy working environment where they can
work effectively and are fairly remunerated.
RECOMMENDATION:
Employees are consider as an asset of the company which contribute toward the success
of an organisation so they must be treated fairly and equally. This will help in developing job
satisfaction among them which support in improving the productivity. As health employment
relation is the key to employment retention, higher productivity and organisational success.
Therefore, it is recommended to Mark & Spencer that management must identify the need of
employees and must try to improve their organisational norms and procedures. This help in
creating such a working environment that foster employees to work effectively for achieving
organisational goals.
Apart from this employees participation and employee voice also plays a crucial role in
improving the employment relations within an organisation. As active participation of employees
within decision making process and other activities which will help in conveying the employees
will regarding current process to higher authority. In addition to this employees of Mark &
Spencer must also speak up whenever they are forced to perform some action which they are not
want to do. Apart from this they also speak up over every unfair decision or at changes that are
implement without their concern. This help in improving the relation between employee as well
as employer. Further it also help in improving the working condition of other employees working
in Mark & Spencer.
CONCLUSION:-
From the above task it can concluded that employment relation is one of the crucial factor
that must be managed by an organisation in order to achieve higher success and growth. As
employees are the main part of a company which perform activities that support an organisation
in achieving their desired goal. So in order to achieve maximum productivity from their
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employee it is very essential for employer to develop an healthy and safe working environment
to keep their workers happy to achieve higher growth in market place.
REFERENCES:-
Geppert, M., Williams, K. and Wortmann, M., 2015. Micro-political game playing in Lidl: A
comparison of store-level employment relations. European Journal of Industrial
Relations. 21(3). pp.241-257.
Jacoby, S.M., 2018. The embedded corporation: Corporate governance and employment
relations in Japan and the United States. Princeton University Press.
Kim, D.O. and Bae, J., 2017. Employment relations and HRM in South Korea. Routledge.
McBride, A., Hebson, G. and Holgate, J., 2015. Intersectionality: are we taking enough notice in
the field of work and employment relations?. Work, employment and society. 29(2).
pp.331-341.
Mishra, K., Boynton, L. and Mishra, A., 2014. Driving employee engagement: The expanded
role of internal communications. International Journal of Business Communication.
51(2). pp.183-202.
Rousseau, D., 2015. I-deals: Idiosyncratic Deals Employees Bargain for Themselves:
Idiosyncratic Deals Employees Bargain for Themselves. Routledge.
Online
changing nature of employee relations. 2017. [Online] Available through
<http://www.hrreview.co.uk/hr-news/strategy-news/new-report-reveals-changing-
nature-of-employee-relations/39887>./
Employment Relationship. 2018. [Online] Available
through<http://ilo.org/ifpdial/areas-of-work/labour-law/WCMS_CON_TXT_IFPDIAL_
EMPREL_EN/lang--en/index.htm>./
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