Strategic Human Resources Management for Marks and Spencer

This report discusses the current trends and practices of strategic human resources management for Marks and Spencer. It covers the influence of internal and external factors on HR strategy and practices, relevant theories of growth and development of strategic HRM, and evaluation of change management model which support HR strategies in Marks and Spencer. The report is divided into two parts, with the first part covering the current trends in HR strategies and the second part discussing the evaluation of change management model.

Strategic Human
Resources
Management

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
Part 1................................................................................................................................................3
Aim, scope and purpose of strategic workforce plan.............................................................3
Current trends in HR strategies for Marks and Spenser.........................................................4
Influence of Internal and External factors on HR strategy and practices...............................5
Relevant theories of growth and development of strategic HRM..........................................7
Part 2................................................................................................................................................9
Evaluation of change management model which support HR strategies in Marks and Spencer
................................................................................................................................................9
The ways of monitoring and measuring HR outcomes of chosen organisation...................11
Effectiveness of HR management and development that can support sustainable performance
and growth to meet organisational objectives......................................................................12
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................16
REFERNCES:................................................................................................................................17
Books and Journals:..............................................................................................................17

INTRODUCTION
Human Resource management is the most effective and efficient strategic approach to
manage the workforce of the organisation for their better efficiency in work. When the two terms
strategy and human resource management are linked together the new concept is aroused named
as strategic human resource management (Greer, 2021). The concept was formed to manage the
workforce and align them towards the organisational goals with the help of strategic framework.
The present report is the study of strategic human resource management for Global multinational
organisation” Marks and Spencer”. Marks and Spencer is British retailer that operates within
three categories of products i.e. home products, clothing and food products. The report contains
in two parts, part 1 of the report contains the current trends of the industry influencing HR
strategy and external and internal environment factors that influence HR strategy and practices.
Further this part also discusses the contemporary HRM theories and its development with
examples. Part 2 of the report will discuss about the two different change management model
and tools to monitor and measure the HR outcomes. Further effectiveness of HR management
and it development on the sustainable performance is discuss using 10- checklist of HRM.
Part 1
Aim, scope and purpose of strategic workforce plan
Strategic workforce planning is the framework or design of official works that how it will
be completed on time to achieve organisational goal. Here companies made framework that
which type of skills and talents they require in their organisation and they try to work
accordingly. There are many benefits of strategic workforce planning such as talent identification
of employees, identifying skill gaps and many others. It also help organisation to get prepared for
future uncertainties. The main aim of strategic workforce planning is to evaluate employee's
performance on continues basis so that it will be analysed that planned performance is getting
achieved or not. Secondly it aims to make sure that all employees of a company is correctly
placed on right position or not so that their skills and talents will be utilized for correct task. In
context to Marks and Spencer, their main purpose to make strategies for their work force is to
analyse that in which departments they are having excess workers and which departments are
facing the issue of lack of workers so that they will hire and replace some unwanted employees
according to their objectives. Their managers make sure that different skilled employees will be

placed in different departments according to their specialization and knowledge. With the help of
strategic workforce planning they also analyse the requirements of tasks so that whenever it is in
need then they will allot employees to do the same task for effectively completing the task.
Current trends in HR strategies for Marks and Spenser
HR strategies are those strategies which are made to handle manpower of an organisation
effectively to achieve their goal. HR department of Marks and Spenser is responsible to recruit
and hire new talents to their organisation so that they will not get delay in completing any
official task. HR strategies are made with the main aim to manage current resources of
organisation appropriately so that they will not get wasted as well as their will not remain
unused. Today's word is dynamic in nature. Hence, environment of working, attitude, behaviours
and many other factors changes continuously. Hence, it is essential to analyse current trends of
HR which will further help to adopt most advance technique to influence and motivate workers
to perform well. Some of the current trends that influence HR strategy of Marks and Spencer and
given below-
 Home like working environment at offices- This is one of the most current trend which
is adopted by many companies. Employees of company need a good amount of
flexibility and freedom to complete their official work in such a restriction free
environment where they feel like they are working inn home. It has a great influence on
HR strategies of Mark and Spencer because allowing too much of freedom to employees
will increase the chances indiscipline and misbehave at workplace. Hence, to handle this
issue HR manager of Mark and Spencer allow that much freedom to employees which
will help to make them satisfied as well as helps to create a proper discipline at
workplace.
 New rewarding and development policies- previously, HR managers only allow reward
system and professional development of those employees who have completed few years
in office and according to their performance. New employees are not gaining any
rewards even they perform good because of their working experience. Recently, it is
current trend that companies allow rewards and professional development to new
employees also according to their performance. HR manager of Marks and Spenser
mainly focuses to measure the performance of employees to benefit them with their
rewarding and development system.

 Hiring multiple skilled employees- Today most of the companies are focusing to hire
those employees only who have multiple skills so that in case of requirement they will be
assigned those tasks which did not covered under their specialization. This will help to
manage work of absentee’s employees. Secondly, it is beneficial for providing
multitasking employees which is effective to achieve organisational goal. In context to
Mark and Spenser, their HR strategies get affected with it because previously they hire
employees according to their required task of one field only but recently they are hiring
employees who can handle at least 3-4 tasks of different fields. They also focus to hire
employees by checking their communication and coordination skills.
Influence of Internal and External factors on HR strategy and practices.
The business environment in which company's operations are conducted and its
workforce exists contains of both internal and external factors that bring major influence on the
company's HR strategy. The internal and external environment analysis is done using the
strategic analytic tools such as SWOT and Pestle analysis respectively (Phan, 2021). The
influence of Internal and External factors on HR strategy and practices of Marks and Spencer is
discussed below:
PESTLE ANALYSIS
Pestle analysis is the strong tool to recognise the external environment factors that are
influencing the organisations working and business environment.
Political factors: The M&S is the multinational brand therefore has to respect and follow
the different countries political conditions. The company has it’s headquarter in London, UK and
the political environment of UK is stable. Due to Brexit the company has a major influence on its
HR recruiting policies because there were huge changes in the recruitment of staff from EU due
to change in political landscape of businesses working in both EU and UK (Collins, 2021).
Economic factors: The economic condition is adverse due to the COVID-19 has
changed the whole market size. Due to low GDP, the rate of employment has decreased which
has influenced Marks and Spencer Recruitment process as company is speedy hiring talented
employees for the each department and also implementation new practices to retain the
workforce.
Social factors: The customers are the most important element in the social environment
as their behaviour has major impact on the Marks and Spencer business. With the changing

customer behaviour company has adopted the new training and development system to enhance
its customer service and also has there is HR system installed to measure the performance of
employees as per social trends (Hamid, Muzamil and Shah, 2020).
Technological factors: The technology is rapidly growing in the modern business
environment which is directly influencing the traditional business practices and systems. Marks
and Spencer has rapidly changed its traditional system of managing human resource and
transformed it into digital systems like HRMS, KPIs and other practices to measure the
performance of the workforce and also to manage the large workforce.
Legal factors: the legal laws and regularities of the every countries are different and has
main aim to protect the rights of public. Therefore the being a multinational organisation Marks
and Spencer has been influenced by such legal factors as company has to obey the legal policies
of each country related to the workforce such as their minimum pay act. Equality act, leave
policy etc (Ludwikowska, 2021).
Environmental factors: the environment is the concern for the stakeholders, customers
and government. This factor has majorly influences the current HR practices and system of
Marks and Spencer. The company to develop sustainably has implemented the system of e-
recruitments, telephonic interview, and online exams to reduce the paper usage for the
sustainable development.
SWOT ANALYSIS
The SWOT analysis is the tool to analyse the internal capabilities and drawbacks of an
organisation or individual.
Strengths
 The strong HRM policies of the Marks and Spenser in the favour of the employees rights
and their benefits is the major strength that company holds from long run this is useful to
the company in retaining talented employees and also help to recruit best talent for the
organisation (Greer, 2021).
 The strong and talented workforce of the Marks and Spencer is the strength of the
company as this helps the company to build competitive HR strategy that are easily
adaptable by their staff.
Weaknesses

 The poor financial condition of the M&S is the drawback to company as due to this
company has to lay- off the human resource and also company's minimum wage act
practice for the human resource has influenced.
Opportunities
 Diversity in the workforce of the organisation is the major opportunity to enhance the
value and worth of its HRM policies by implementing the new policies for the Human
resource that respect their culture and belief (Phan, 2021).
 Marks and Spencer has a major opportunity to utilize the effective HR policies of
different country in which it operates to make the Human resource management stronger.
Threats
 Marks and Spencer has very poor policy and rules regarding the compensation and
termination of the employees during retirement that give the company a threat to lose its
talented employees in long run.
 The competitors HR strategy for the development of the employees and to recruit new
talent is putting pressure to the HR manger of Marks and Spencer to improve their
current HR strategy (Collins, 2021).
Relevant theories of growth and development of strategic HRM
It is essential that organisation's will focus to developing their HRM strategies on regular
basis to improve the skills and working condition of their organisations. Some of the theories and
approaches related to HRM strategies are discussed below-
 Best Fit approach- This approach states that all HRM strategies which are made by HR
manager will be checked on regular basis to test whether they are potential to achieve
organisational goal or not. Here, HR manager of Marks and Spencer check that what all
important strategies are useful in handling different situations at their workplace like
handling conflicts, handling external environment factors and many more. The main
purpose of this approach is to adopt those specific strategies which best fits to handle
organisational situation in such a way that it will provide benefit to both organisation as
well as to workforce. In Marks and Spencer, they adopt those strategies only which is
proven best to handle their organisational workforce and tasks. This approach also makes
sure that employees will perform with best efforts and abilities.

Contingency theory of HRM- This theory suggests that HR manager of any company must
focus on other aspects also like external environment and many others.
 . HR manager is responsible to handle inner situations and aspects of organisation but it a
fact that external environment can impact internal happening of company. Hence, it is
essential for a good HR manager to consider all related aspects in their HRM strategies
which will further help to achieve organisational goal in a flexible manner. In context of
Marks and Spencer, their HR managers make strategies after consider all internal and
external aspects like employee’s behaviour, supplier’s attitude, political factors and many
more. This will help them to make sure that so single factor will remain unfocused which
will provide hazardous effects on organisation.
 The HRM practice of flexible work arrangement- It is essential to have flexible work
arrangement within an organisation so that employees will feel free to conduct their work
in a proper way. A proper kind of management, communication channel and many other
factors helps to keep working environment flexible. In context to Marks and Spencer,
they have a good arrangement of their work so that their employees will get motivated to
perform well.
 Performance management theory- This HRM theory states that employee’s performance
must get measured on regular basis by their manager. In context to Marks and Spencer,
they measure the employee's performance so that they can analyse how effective their
human resource is working within organisation. This will also help in reward
management system.

Part 2
Evaluation of change management model which support HR strategies in Marks and Spencer
Unfreeze- This is the stage where managers and employees get prepared for new change.
Here, they get to know the reason for change and which will be the new strategy they are going
to adopt. Hence, this stage requires a proper communication between management team and
employee’s team for understanding the impacts and causes of new change. In context of Marks
and Spencer, they require change in their financial team management because they are unable to
manage their expenses properly and due to this they are facing over expenses in their
organisation which is done on unproductive activities (Turan And et. al., 2021). Hence, they are
required change some policies related to their financial department. Therefore, senior authority
of Marks and Spenser communicate well with financial department employees and convey them
about new changes.
Change- This is the step where the idea of new change get implemented. In context of
Marks and Spencer, they adopt new policies in this stage like regular checking of financial
records and fixing a proper budget of every department.
Refreeze- This stage occurs after making change in the organisation. Here, managers
make sure that their employees will work continue by adopting new change. It is essential that
managers will monitor the new change in this stage where they notice that what all impacts are
there within organisation after adopting new change. In context to Marks and Spencer, their
managers have main responsibilities to check that employees will work according to new change
to eliminate unproductive activities (Doumic and et. al., 2017).

Awareness- It includes the need and requirement of change that what are basic reasons
for adopting new change. In context of Marks and Spenser, their HR manager take reports from
supervisors about the performance of their junior employees to analyse all departments are
working properly or not. The report presented by leaders and supervisors will help the HR
manager to analyse the requirement of change in their strategies (White, 2017).
Desire- It means to bring a new change to organisation and be a part of change. In Marks
and Spencer their managers tries to bring those change which will help them to achieve their
organisational goal more effectively as compared to previous strategies. Here, managers also try
to change their own work according to new strategies which is bringing by senior authority of
company.
Knowledge- It means how the new change will impacted upon organisation and
employees. Mark and Spenser first gain all knowledge about causes and impacts of change in
their organisation. In case they found that there are more advantages of new change then
disadvantages then they accept the change (Kroezen, Van Hoegaerden and Batenburg, 2018).
Hence, this segment of the model states that a proper knowledge is required for making new
changes.
Ability- Here, it states that the change will be incorporated on a regular basis so that the
ability of employees will be measured that how much they are able and capable to adopt new
change as soon as possible.
Reinforcement- This stage states that change will be continues for a longer period of time
till the company did not found new best alternative of change. Manager of Marks and Spenser

makes sure that their financial department employees will work according to new strategies and
budget for a longer period of time (Rees and et. al., 2018).
The ways of monitoring and measuring HR outcomes of chosen organisation
Supervising employees- Supervisors are assigned to check whether the employees are
working properly or not and in case they found any obstacle then they will try to remove that
obstacle as soon as possible so that employees performance will not get impacted. In context to
Marks and Spencer, their supervisors are assigned so that employee’s performance will get
measured as the supervisor observe the performance of each employee working under their
guidance (Bruen and Brugha, 2020). They measure it because at the end of month they are
required to present a report to their manager for the performance of employees. Secondly,
supervisors are also essential for mentioned company because their supervisor motivate the
workforce to do well and enhance their skills by sharing good ideas to complete the task on time
with effective manner.
Camera or any other observing digital tool- Cameras are effective in case they are
used to maesure the performance of employees. Most of the companies set cameras at their
workplace to analyse the productive and unproductive activities help in theior organisations. In
context of Marks and Spencer, their stores and office areas are having cameras to analyse which
worker is working properly and which is not (Jnitova, Elsawah and Ryan, 2017). One manager is
unable to keep their eyes on each and every worker. Hence, here, cameras play an important role
in monitoring every employee in their stores at any corner. Recordings of cameras are also kept
for longer period of time for the future records. Today at modern time era when technology is
getting advanced and developed very quickly, here cameras are developed in such a way that

they can recognize facial expressions of employees and customers to analyse that they are
satisfied or not.
Key performance indicator- They are those indicators of organisation which help to
analyse employee’s performance by focusing on other factors like training cost, absenteeism
rates and many others. The main focus of this model is on financial and operational
achievements. Here, company set targets and objectives and then measure performance to
achieve those set targets (Chamberland-Rowe, Simkin and Bourgeault, 2021) . This method
measures company performance as a whole and does not include a single employee's
performance. In context of Mark and Spenser, they have good earning revenue which indicates
that they are performing well. Their operational activities are managed properly and their most of
the task get achieved before due date which again indicates that they are a good performing
company as a whole.
Effectiveness of HR management and development that can support sustainable performance and
growth to meet organisational objectives
There are various kinds of HR strategies which will support sustainable growth in Marks and
Spencer like promoting employees from existing employees of the company will help to
motivate employees to perform well which directly contributed to develop sustainable growth of
company. Another way to develop strong HR strategy for sustainable development of company
is creating a long term leadership solution (Schulte and Nissen, 2019). A stable leadership style
and stable rules and regulations will help the employees to maintain their performance because
again and again change in leadership style and quality will distract employees to work due to
different behaviours and attitude of different leaders. Hence, it is essential to have same
leadership style for a longer period of time. Some other activities for effective HR strategies
which will help Mark and Spencer to perform sustainable growth in their organisation are given
below-

 Work ethics- It is essential to develop a good work ethics at organisation where
employees are helping each other and sharing good perceived value for each other. It is
essential that employees will respect each other’s designation and work for maintaining
good working ethics.
 CSR- For maintaining sustainable growth within organisation, it is essential to focus on
CSR activities as it will provide a motivational factor for employees top perform well.
10-C checklist of HRM in Marks and Spencer-
Credibility- It refers to building trust between management team and employees so that
they will work as a team and achieve organisational goal effectively. Marks and Spencer have
good relationship between their management team and employees which will help them to make
decisions collectively (Rusco, 2017).
Communication- It is essential that employees will understand organisational goals and
objectives clearly which further help to provide direction to employees that how they have to
work.
Cost- effectiveness- Marks and Spencer managers makes sure that the distribution of
their rewards promotions will be held fairly according to actual performance of employees.
Creatively- It refers to make effective competitive strategies to gain all competitive
advantage in industry. It is essential that these strategies are made by HR department.
Coherence- It is essential that all HR strategies and activities must be considered as
meaningful for organisation. In context of Marks and Spencer, their HRM activities are
important for their organisation to manage manpower of company.

Competence- It is essential to make those HR strategies which will help to achieve
organisational goal as well as individual goal of employees.
Control- Having continues measurement or activities are essential in HR department.
Change- It refers to that segment which includes continuous development of company's
strategy on regular basis. Marks and Spencer adopt those strategies which help them to achieve
their organisational goal much quicker.
Commitment- A good level of motivation will be achieved by employees to perform
their task. Marks and Spencer HR managers motivate their employees by appreciating their good
performance (Nelson, 2017).

CONCLUSION
From the above information it is concluded that in current business environment
managing the human resource is the tough task for which companies use different strategies to
bring out their full potential. For the development and growth of HR practices it is essential to
analyse the internal and external factors for better management. For the effective management of
HR the organisation's must adopt some theories and model related to HRM and also monitor and
measure the suitable outcomes of current HRM practices for changes and improvements.

REFERNCES:
Books and Journals:
Aged Care Workforce Strategy Taskforce, 2018. A matter of care: Australia's aged care
workforce strategy: report of the Aged Care Workforce Strategy Taskforce.
Bruen, C. and Brugha, R., 2020. “We’re not there to protect ourselves, we’re there to talk about
workforce planning”: A qualitative study of policy dialogues as a mechanism to inform
medical workforce planning. Health Policy. 124(7). pp.736-742.
Chamberland-Rowe, C., Simkin, S. and Bourgeault, I.L., 2021. An integrated primary care
workforce planning toolkit at the regional level (part 1): qualitative tools compiled for
decision-makers in Toronto, Canada. Human Resources for Health. 19(1). pp.1-13.
Collins, C.J., 2021. Expanding the resource based view model of strategic human resource
management. The International Journal of Human Resource Management. 32(2).
pp.331-358.
Doumic, M. and et. al., 2017. Toward an integrated workforce planning framework using
structured equations. European Journal of Operational Research. 262(1). pp.217-230.
Greer, C.R., 2021. Strategic human resource management. Pearson Custom Publishing.
Hamid, Z., Muzamil, M. and Shah, S.A., 2020. Strategic human resource management.
In Handbook of research on positive organizational behavior for improved workplace
performance (pp. 260-275). IGI Global.
Jnitova, V., Elsawah, S. and Ryan, M., 2017. Review of simulation models in military workforce
planning and management context. The Journal of Defense Modeling and
Simulation. 14(4). pp.447-463.
Kroezen, M., Van Hoegaerden, M. and Batenburg, R., 2018. The Joint Action on Health
Workforce Planning and Forecasting: Results of a European programme to improve
health workforce policies. Health Policy. 122(2). pp.87-93.
Ludwikowska, K., 2021. The mediating role of employee-oriented human resource policy in the
relationship between strategic human resource management and organisational
performance. In Forum Scientiae Oeconomia (Vol. 9, No. 2, pp. 131-150).
Wydawnictwo Naukowe Akademii WSB.
Nelson, A., 2017. Addiction workforce development in Aotearoa New Zealand. Drugs:
Education, Prevention and Policy. 24(6). pp.461-468.
Phan, S., 2021. The effect of PESTLE factors on development of e-commerce. International
Journal of Data and Network Science. 5(1). pp.37-42.
Rees, G.H. and et. al., 2018. The promise of complementarity: using the methods of foresight for
health workforce planning. Health services management research. 31(2). pp.97-105.
Rusco, F., 2017. Strategic Human Capital Management: NRC Could Better Manage the Size and
Composition of Its Workforce by Further Incorporating Leading Practices.
Schulte, J. and Nissen, V., 2019. Holistic Workforce Planning: Integrating Staffing, Shift Design
and Scheduling using Evolutionary Bilevel Optimization. MISTA 2019.
Turan, H.H. And et. al., 2021. A joint problem of strategic workforce planning and fleet renewal:
With an application in defense. European Journal of Operational Research.
White, E., 2017. A comparison of nursing education and workforce planning initiatives in the
United States and England. Policy, Politics, & Nursing Practice. 18(4). pp.173-185.