Human Resource Management Report: HND in Business (Level 4)

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of Human Resource Management (HRM) practices, specifically within Vodafone. It begins with an overview of the roles and responsibilities of a Human Resource Manager, including recruitment, selection, training, performance management, and compensation. The report then assesses Vodafone's approach to workforce planning, recruitment (internal and external), selection methods (interviews, tests, and group assignments), training and development, performance measurement, and reward systems. Further, the report examines Vodafone's approach to employee relations and engagement, including flexible working practices and the concept of 'employer of choice'. It also explores key aspects of employment legislation and how employee relations and legislation inform decision-making to meet business objectives. The report evaluates the application of HRM practices and the use of technology, online resources, and social networking in improving the recruitment and selection process, concluding with a summary of findings and recommendations.

Unit 3
HUMAN RESOURCE
MANAGEMENT
Course: HND in Business
(Level 4)
Academic Year: 2018-2019
1 Student ID: FE00285

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION..............................................................................................................3
TASK 1.............................................................................................................................3
QUESTION1- ROLES AND RESPONSIBILITIES OF THE HUMAN RESOURCE
MANAGER....................................................................................................................3
QUESTION-2 AN ASSESSMENT TO THE APPROACH TO WORKFORCE
PLANNING, RECRUITMENT, SELECTION, DEVELOPMENT AND TRAINING,
PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT AND REWARD SYSTEM.....................................4
QUESTION 3- METHODS USED BY VODAFONE IN HUMAN RESOURCE
MANAGEMENT.............................................................................................................8
QUESTION 4- THE APPROACH TO AND EFFECTIVENESS OF EMPLOYEE
RELATIONS AND EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT, WITH MENTION OF THE
FLEXIBLE ORGANIZATION AND FLEXIBLE WORKING PRACTICES AND
‘EMPLOYER OF CHOICE’ ...........................................................................................9
QUESTION 5 - KEY ASPECTS OF EMPLOYMENT LEGISLATION WITHIN WHICH
THE ORGANIZATION MUST WORK. .......................................................................10
QUESTION 6 - AN EVALUATION OF HOW EMPLOYEE RELATIONS AND
EMPLOYMENT LEGISLATION INFORM DECISION MAKING AND MEETS
BUSINESS OBJECTIVES...........................................................................................11
TASK 2...........................................................................................................................12
QUESTION 7 – APPLICATION OF HRM PRACTICES.............................................12
QUESTION 8 - EVALUATE THE USE OF TECHNOLOGY, ONLINE RESOURCES,
DIGITAL PLATFORMS AND SOCIAL NETWORKING ON IMPROVING THE
RECRUITMENT AND SELECTION PROCESS.........................................................15
CONCLUSION ...............................................................................................................17
REFERENCES...............................................................................................................18
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INTRODUCTION
Human resource management is known as managing and organizing the people in the
organization. The human resource or the workforce is the key element of the
organization which is directly related to the growth and development of the organization
and completion of its goals of as a whole. HRM includes selecting the best fit candidate
for the organization whose capabilities and experience can help the organization build
its competitive edge over others and it can only be done when the right person is
chosen for the right job and at the right time (Rieche et al., 2016). Human resource
management is not a onetime task it as it continues till there are required human
resource working in the organization such that approaches like motivation, appraisal,
performances analyses is carried to sustain them. A study has been conducted in order
to gain insights into Human Resource Management effectively such that its application
in Vodafone has been assessed.
TASK 1
QUESTION1- ROLES AND RESPONSIBILITIES OF THE HUMAN RESOURCE
MANAGER
The human resource manager is responsible to create, manage, implement and
regulate the policies of the organization. The manager in Vodafone has been
responsible for providing all the resources required from the employees’ end to
complete the organizational goals. There are several functions and responsibilities of a
Human resource manager:
1. Identify vacancy- identifying the job profile where the vacancy is there and then
selecting the medium and channel for advertising for the vacancy.
2. Recruitment and selection- to recruit applicants and select the candidates
required for the vacancies in the particular department. Recruitments means to
get applications of qualified candidates .Selection is a process to appoint the
most appropriate candidates through means of interview, aptitude or skill based
test, the candidate should be chosen after matching his skills to the skills
required by the job profile in Vodafone. The selected candidates should prove to
be asset to the company not the liability.
3. Training and development – training of the newly joined and introducing to the
new environmental culture of the organization. Training is done by two ways on
the job training and off the job training.
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4. Measuring performance- as the employees are an asset to the organization
they should help in increasing the profit so before they turn from assets to
liability their individual performance should be measured on a regular basis.
5. Appraisal- after analyzing the performances of the employees the best
performers should be appreciated and rewarded this boosts motivation among
the employees to do better and those who are not working up to the mark they
should be given motivation and should be told the areas in which they lack.
6. Compensation - providing performance wise compensation is very much
necessary for boosting the confidence and motivation of employees which is
necessary is sustaining them in the organization.
7. Analyzing turnover: Under this, manager taking an initiative to determine the
interest or ability of each personnel and providing enormous opportunity that
build increased level of encouragement and empower among Vodafone's
manpower to remain stable within an organization that improves the overall
productivity of company in an efficacious manner.
8. Enhanced competency: In this, giving appropriate feedback and reviews
based on employees performance assist Vodafone's workforce to gain
motivation for performing better by optimizing their strength in an effective way
so that they company can acquire competitive advantage.
HR plays an important role in selecting the best candidate to become an employee of
the organization which depend on the factors such as skills, experience and
qualification required for the current job profile are kept in mind while selection or
recruitment. The HR verifies the cultural values of the candidate through the interview,
questioning related to decision making, and the meaningful answering to these
questions are assessed that whether they match to the organizations’ cultural values
and also the behavioral values are also assessed before selection (Rimanoczy and
Pearson, 2010)
QUESTION-2 AN ASSESSMENT TO THE APPROACH TO WORKFORCE
PLANNING, RECRUITMENT, SELECTION, DEVELOPMENT AND TRAINING,
PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT AND REWARD SYSTEM
The functions of an HR start with workforce planning then recruitment followed by
selection, analyzing performances, rewarding them so to perform their functions. There
are some approaches which are to be followed which make the functioning smoother,
attainable and systematic.
 Workforce planning is the first step where the HR scans the organization if the
numbers of employees which are already there in the organization are sufficient
or not, what will be the future requirements according to the future strategic
goals of the company. If the company is planning to expand its business,
introducing a new branch where there is a need of more employees so how
much employees will be required, what are the posts or job profiles that will be
required. Scheduling the number and posts and time limit in which the
employees are to be recruited.
 The approach is to identify the demand and supply of the human resource in the
organization by comparing the number of jobs to the number of employees
needed to complete the goal (Schweyer, 2010).
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 Recruitment approach - recruitment means receiving and shortlisting the
applications from the sources where the advertisement is done by the company.
There are 2 approaches to recruit employees. First is the recruitment through
internal recruitment which means recruiting a person who already works in the
organization and second is external recruitment where the prospective
employee is an outsider.
Advantages Disadvantages
Internal 1. Motivation Tool For Juniors For
Post Up gradation. On promotion to a
senior post the employee gets
motivated and works with more
efficiency.
2. Economical than External
Recruitment as no training and
recruitment cost is required.
3. Employee Is Familiar With the
Organizational Culture so no time of
adjusting in new organization is
required.
1. No flow of new and
creative ideas.
2. Another post gets vacant.
For ex. - if the customer
relation employee is
upgraded to managerial post
than the post of customer
relation employee is vacant
so for that outside
recruitment is to be done.
External 1. The flow of new ideas as new
employee brings new experiences
with them and is more active.
2. No jealousy among the existing
employees. For ex- outsider is
appointed for senior post so all
employee are not jealous that their
colleague is promoted.
1. Expensive as advertising
needs to be done. For ex-
print media, agencies they
charge cost for recruitment.
2. Training and development
need to be done which is a
longer process and costlier
than internal recruitment.
 Selection approach – selection means choosing the best fit candidate out of the
recruited candidate. There are 2 approaches to selection first is personalized
approach this is on the basis of favoritism of the boss and other one is a
systematic approach where there are no personal biases according to merits and
skills the selection is done but you can do selection in combining both
approaches(Matthews et al., 2012). Selection is to be done by various methods
like-
Interview – it is the face to face interaction between the candidate and the HR and
also there may be 2 or more rounds of interview i.e. HR Interview, Technical
interview. Interview is done to check the knowledge of candidate and his
communication skills, his answer on the situation based questions his background
etc.
STRENGTHS WEAKNESS
If the candidate is lying about the skills
it can be verified by asking further
Cannot predict the future performances
of the candidate. He may be very
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questions and checking his knowledge
about the topic by giving him on spot
cases or questions.
promising today but may not be able to
perform well in the pressure of targets.
The interview process is very time
consuming.
By interviewing a candidate you can
gather a lot of information through body
language , some people are under
confident and some are over confident
the over confident ones are more
dangerous because they think they
know everything and are not into
learning and working under the boss.
Very dependent on first impression and
is a source of judgment error many
people are not very good at
communication skills but can be very
efficient at work.
Various types of tests- the test of skills including aptitude test , skill based test
through MCQ’s , quantitative test, finance based test etc. these test are done to
check the qualification based knowledge and the skills required for special purpose
jobs .
STRENGTHS WEAKNESS
This method is less time consuming
and less tiring, as the people
conducting the test do not have to
conduct test one by one but they can all
the candidates can give test at the
same time.
Cheating is possible even if the
candidates are supervised.
Very effective in companies where the
job profile is requires highly qualified
and technical people.
No face to face interaction which means
no assessment of communication skills ,
background etc.
Group assignments-
Group discussion is another method of selection where there is group of minimum 5
people and maximum 10 people and each group is given a topic and whoever
participates with best content is selected.
Weakness of this method is that after this the interview process is to be done so it is
an extra step.
Strength is that out of 10 only one or two people are selected which reduce the load
in interview process and also body language and communication is checked quickly
by this method.
 Training and development approach - There are two types of training -
1. On the job training – where the training is done in the actual environment
practically this is learning through experienced people while working.
2. Off the job training – in this, there are demo classes where training is provided
before going to the actual field so it reduces the damages and errors which can
cost a lot to the organization.
 Performance Measurement Approaches - there are five approaches to
measure the performance of employees.
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1. Comparative approach –in this approach the employees' performance is
measured in comparison to the performance of best and lowest performance
in the organization.
2. Attribute approach- in this the performance is measured on the basis of five
parameters such as creativity, teamwork, communication and problem-
solving ability.
3. Result approach- this approach is where the rating of an employee is done
based on the result of his performance during the period which is calculated
by two ways i.e. measurement scorecard technique and second is
productivity measurement and evaluation system.
4. Quality approach- in this approach the employees are given regular
feedback about their performance by their managers, peers and customers
and thus improvisation is done automatically thus increasing customer
satisfaction.
5. The behavioral approach-this approach is based on certain vertical scales
which varies from job to job and this is done through BARS and BOS
techniques(Bititci et al., 2018)
 Reward System approaches – There are 2 approaches to reward employees
one is intrinsic approach and other is the extrinsic approach. The intrinsic
approach is where the reward is building up internal satisfaction of the employee
such as quality of working culture or other non-monitory perks but extrinsic means
rewarding in terms of money or in quantitative terms like a bonus, stocks (CIPD,
2019).
Purpose of HRM
Purpose of HRM starts with internal management and this means to attract, recruit and
retain the quality employees in the organization. HR management needs to design and
implement policies and procedures such as minimum working hours, policies related to
benefits and incentives, details about paid and non-paid leaves, office ethics and rules
etc. HRM needs to provide benefits, compensation, incentives and rewards to
employees like annual or quarterly performance bonus, best employee award etc.
Effective HRM interacts with all levels of employees in an organization and uses the
various methods to evaluate the performance of employees and match it with the
desired results, like if the employee was provided the monthly target of £500 and how
much is actually achieved by him that is to be evaluated and compared. Hiring and
retaining the employees by recruitment and selection. To decrease the employee
turnover and maintain the existing employees is a major purpose of HRM.
IMPORTANCE OF HR PRACTICES FOR EMPLOYER AND EMPLOYEE
For employee
To provide safety and security to employees the HR practices are necessary, these
practices like training and orientation develop the skills of employees and help him to
grow within the organization. Employees get monetary motivation which is due to
proper HR practices followed by the HRM department.
For employer
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Through motivational activities in HR the productivity and efficiency of employees ids
increased that contributes to profit maximization. Employees remain under the control
of HR team and less chance of error and damage. Through training practices the
employee is skilled that ensures no hazardous activity and increase the efficiency of
employees. Through the policies and rules of HR the employees are bound to work for
minimum hours in the month or else the salary will be deducted this will reduce the
administration task of all the supervisors.
QUESTION 3- METHODS USED BY VODAFONE IN HUMAN RESOURCE
MANAGEMENT
Vodafone is a leading telecom company based in the UK and operates in the UK and
other countries which makes it the second largest telecom company in the world and
was founded in 1980 now headed by Nick Jeffery.
Recruitment and Selection process in Vodafone is related to their business strategy
which is differentiation. They decide the core competency the major quality required for
the different jobs respectively and then they search for those competencies skills while
hiring the people for different profiles and for manager level hiring they choose the
person having good leadership skills and good analytical skills.
For Training and Development, they start with finding the skills required by the
department keeping in mind the upcoming technological changes in the environment
so that the employees can be trained to the new technology either they are in on or off
the job training sessions.
Career building – Vodafone have clear career hierarchy where every post is decided
where the employee can see itself in the future after working a certain number of years.
Also, they promote the employee on the basis of their past performances which helps
the employee in growing effectively. It helps in maintaining employees and hence
reducing employee turnover (Koster et al., 2011).
Motivation - motivation is necessary method to manage the human resources as
motivation has guaranteed positive effects on increasing the efficiency of employees at
work place. Motivation is not just through words but through monetary and non-
monetary components like bonus, cash price on best performance etc.
Flexibility- the flexibility of working hours in another way to increase the employee
satisfaction. The employees have families and some time employees may be allowed
to work from home and should be allowed to leave 1 or 2 hours early if their work is
done as it increase the quality of work.
Rewards and compensation- Vodafone have their remuneration and annual appraisal
system so every employee gets an increase in salary ever changing year which gives
motivation to the employees already working and giving an edge in the industry. The
employees with high efficiency are attracted by this to work for the company.
Vodafone focuses on good relations with their employees as they make employee
friendly policies. When there are underperforming employees Vodafone provides them
training and tries to solve the problems that they face while working they try to set a
good working culture in the organization.
Henceforth, improved capabilities, knowledge and skills of talented workforce proved to
be major source of competitive advantage in a global market. Therefore, to enrich
desired knowledge, skills and potentialities of employees, Vodafone's superior makes
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an effort to provide trenchant training program and make use of various HR practices
that influence personnel motivation and commitment. With the help this, company can
easily accomplish their per-determined long term and short term goal within prescribed
time period without any hindrances .
Additionally, there are various models which defines the way for enhancing or
improving personnel capabilities and abilities. However, Handy's model is viewed as an
efficacious concept which is explained below:
Power: In this, it is concern with those aspect which states that in some firms,
control or governing authority remains in the hands of selected persons which give rise
to conflict among team members or employees. However, in such condition employees
feel forced to follow their superior's instruction or direction for achieving business goals.
Role:In this kind of culture, each manpower are assigned with own roles and
responsibilities which gives them intense level of motivation to put their best
contribution towards an accomplishment of firm's objectives in a desired time frame.
Task: Under this sort of working environment, establishments forms different
group who will be delegated with various task which they have to achieve it by
coordinating with team members.
Person: This culture connects with those firms in which every manpower are
more concern about their self instead of overall performance of organization. Hence,
such type of environment generate huge misunderstanding or disputes among
workforce that directly impact over goal achievement in efficient manner.
Henceforth, role culture is most appropriate for Vodafone as it help them to enrich
every employees performance as well as can maintain a better relationship with them
that benefits them in enlarging their productivity and profitability ratio.
QUESTION 4- THE APPROACH TO AND EFFECTIVENESS OF EMPLOYEE
RELATIONS AND EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT, WITH MENTION OF THE
FLEXIBLE ORGANIZATION AND FLEXIBLE WORKING PRACTICES AND
‘EMPLOYER OF CHOICE’
Employee relations - employee relations means the relation of employees with the
other employees’ in the organization, ways to the effectiveness of employee relation
are-
 Make the employees feel that they are very much important for the organization.
 Encourage them to work in a team and valuing every employee helping each
other.
 The manager should make sure that all the employees communicate with each
other properly and mostly written communication should prevail.
 Different events and parties motivate the employees and help in relation building
(Koster et al.,2011)
Strategies used for employee relation
 Collective agreements-Encourage individuals to share their work with each
other, through ERM the employees tend to work with each other, collectively
suggesting each other with the solutions of various problems, collectively
making decisions on difficult topics.
 Written mode of communication should be adopted by the employees to
maintain transparency among the organization and will reduce the conflicts at
work place.
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 ERM should made proper disciplinary rules and charge fine on the employees
breaking the rules. These rules will involve prohibition of phone during working
hours, don’t misuse office equipment’s etc.
 Psychological contracts are contracts other than employment contract which
include promises that are exchanged between the parties having employment
relationships these contracts are invisible, never spoken or written but followed
by all.
 ERM helps in solving grievances between the employees as there are very
differences between the employees that can only be solved through talking.
 Through ERM the wasteful activities can be eliminated because only talking with
employees the superiors can know which activities are useless and should be
eliminated.
Significance of strategies of employee relations-
Implementing the strategies for employee relations helps in proper functioning in the
organization. The employees remain motivated through maintaining employee relations
and whom the employer can trust whenever they are in need .Healthy employee
relationships reduce the chances of conflicts among the individuals. Many a times
employee has the answer to the problems faced by the employer that can be for
operations , strategies etc. if the relations between the employer and employee is good
then only they try to solve each other’s problems at the work place.
Significance of employee relations in decision making-
Employee relations help in various Activities of HRM decision making as the employee
can communicate the necessities and the skills required for the particular job, the HR
department is hiring for. The work of HR department is made easy ,for example the HR
department is thinking of filling the vacancy of new Manager from outside the company
so the employees can vote in majority about their views on outside recruitment of the
manager.HR department needs to provide training to the employees and for that HR
needs to know the technicalities and courses that are to be taught during the training
period like for Vodafone the IT engineers are best suitable for the operations
department so relative courses , languages and training that should be provided to
them but the technicalities are known by the employees who work in this field so they
only can help the HR department in this purpose and only if they will help each other if
good employee relations are maintained. Employee relations also help the HR
department with the performance evaluation and rewarding system.
Employee engagement – It means how much the employee is committed to the
organization and how much they are willing to contribute to the organization like the
employees feel that the company is their family. It is different from employee
satisfaction as for some employees the salary is the only motive but engagement
means how passionate the employee is for his work in the organization (Albrech, 2011)
Approaches to employee engagement are-
1. Organizations should always be giving feedback to the employees about their
work and how is their performance, getting their feedback about the problems
they face while doing their job.
2. The employees should be given all the equipment they need and minimizing
their other distractions within the organization.
3. The manager should find what is important for the employee and they are ready
for the changes in the environment.
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Flexible organization is where the employee can adopt change and quickly moulds
themselves in the change of environment and work accordingly, this means fast
decision-making process so as to gain a competitive advantage this helps in employee
relation because here employee is allowed to give new innovative ideas and ultimately
boosts up the employees confidence and motivation (CI, 2019).
Flexible working practices means the working hours of the organization should be
assigned to the employees according to their preferences like if there is night shift in
the organization than the girls or ladies should be allowed to choose between night
shift and day shift this helps in employee engagement as the employee knows that
company is taking good care of them and also in IT sector companies work from home
is another option for employees and facility of flexible working hours (Dendy, 2018).
QUESTION 5 - KEY ASPECTS OF EMPLOYMENT LEGISLATION WITHIN WHICH
THE ORGANIZATION MUST WORK.
Employment laws are made to help the employees so that they are to be treated fairly
and so that there is no discrimination between employees on the basis of race, creed,
gender or another demographic basis, this makes a healthy working culture in the
organization this promotes flexibility, motivation among the employees (Barnard,2012).
There are different laws for employees in UK legislation for the protection of
employees’ interest:
1. Equal Employment Act 2010 - This act states that there should be no
discrimination on the basis of race, disability etc. it also covers protection from
all types of harassments. This law replaces the equal pay act, the sex
discrimination act.
2. Disability Discrimination Act 1995 – it states no discrimination should be done to
the disabled people in providing them employment (Legislations.gov.UK, 2019).
3. Race Relations Act 1968 - the law states that any employer cannot deliberately
or knowingly refuse to employ any person the basis of colour, race, national
originality, ethnic values, and cannot ask an employee to leave the job he is
working on.
4. Employment Act 2002 - Working laws are equal to all employees which bounds
them to work 8 hours a day specified in the Working Hour Regulation 1998 and
the extra time comes with extra salary (Legislations.gov.UK, 2019).
Current wage rate in UK law-
Weakly payments Amount
Maternity pay £146
Sick leave pay £94
Minimum wages £118
Hourly pay for workers over 25 years £8
21-24 years £7
18-20 years £6
16- 17 years £4
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Employment laws are there to protect the interest of the employee so that he/she gets
a safe and good working environment without discrimination.
QUESTION 6 - AN EVALUATION OF HOW EMPLOYEE RELATIONS AND
EMPLOYMENT LEGISLATION INFORM DECISION MAKING AND MEETS
BUSINESS OBJECTIVES
The Employment Legislation
Employment law is the regulator of the relationship between the employer and
employees.it states what the employer can expect the employees and what the rights
of the employees at work are.
Employment contract- terms and conditions of the employment are the components of
the employment contract which clarifies the relationship between the employer and
employee. The employment legislation provides the rules and regulations governing
the terms of employment including types of employment contract; notice periods,
employer employee views on the zero hour’s contracts and a written statement on
particulars.
Health and safety-the legislation governing health and safety in UK is Health and safety
at work act 1974. It includes employers responsibilities like risk assessments, defining
and executing health and safety policy, providing safety information and training.
Equality- the Equality act 2010 is replacement of sex discrimination act, race relations
act and disability discrimination act, this act states that there cannot be discrimination
against any employee regarding the race, caste, gender, disability.
Data protection- data protection means that the important information is used properly
and legally and to ensure its safety. According to the data protection act, 2018 there
are some general data protection regulations (GDPR) which replaced the previous act
of 1998 in this all the employers have to be aware of their respective duties under the
legislation because if they breach any of the rules they will have to pay severe
penalties.
Impact of legislation on HRM practices
The imposition of employment laws in the United Kingdom is creating problems as
earlier this country was the one which was very less regulated by the labour or
employment laws there is an extreme burden on the employers because of the new
enactments in employment policies and the employers are not satisfied with the new
laws and this makes UK less competitive in the world. On the other hand, the
imposition of laws increases the professionalism and dedication towards their work and
helps the employer to make a decision without any biases for any employee as law
restricts to make fair decisions without discrimination.
Employment relations help in achieving the business objectives by-
1. Helping the employer to sustain the employees in the organization reducing the
employee turnover ratio and thus increasing the overall value of the company
and helps in gaining a competitive advantage over the other companies.
2. Motivating the employees to do better if they are satisfied and passionate about
their work so they will achieve more targets in a lesser number of times.
3. Involving employees in decision making process helps you to pool up several
new ideas which may be innovative, less costly, more practical as the
employees are the one who brings ideas to action so they know what are the
real practicalities and how they can be solved, plus involving them to decision
making makes them motivated and states that their opinion matters, the
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