Importance of Employee Relations in HRM Decision Making

Human Resource
Management

INTRODUCTION
Human Resource Management (HRM) is a practice in which people are managed to
achieve better performance. This involves procurement, management and performance of the
employees (Azeem and Yasmin, 2016). HRM includes several functions that are recruitment,
selection of people, training and development, compensation and benefits and many other
functions that facilitate working of employees in organisation. This report will discuss purpose
and functions of HRM applicable for workforce planning and resourcing. Followed by this
different approaches of recruitment and selection will also be discussed. Practices of HRM are
undertaken by organisation but they are important for employee as well. This report will also
discuss about benefits of HRM for employee and employer. Effectiveness of different HRM
practices in terms of raising profit and productivity of the organisation. This discussion will
contextualise Marks and Spencer (M&S) British multinational retailer. Organisation was
founded in 1884 and headquartered at London, England, UK operates worldwide at 1463
locations. This report will discuss about human resource management at M&S that will cover
importance of employee relations and elements of employment legislation. Further report will
illustrate application of different HRM practice. Vision of the company is to be the standard
against which others are measured and mission is to make aspirational quality that is accessible
to all.
LO1
P1 Purpose and Functions of HRM applicable to workforce planning and resourcing an
organisation
M&S is a multination organisation and employs around 80000 employees and HRM is
one of the important practice of M&S. HRM in organisation is undertaken with certain purposes
and these purposes of M&S are as follows-
Ensuring effective performance of Employees

Performance of employees that contribute in achievement of organisational objectives is
one of the purposes of HRM. HRM involves several practices which contribute and facilitate
effective performance of employees. These practices mainly are training and development,
performance management (Bos-Nehles, Bondarouk and Labrenz, 2017). Other than this,
equipping employees with resources that help them in completing their task and performance is
also ensured by HRM. Maintenance of workplace in such way that facilitates performance of
employees is also a task of HRM.
Compliance to Employee Legislative
This is another purpose of HRM in which HRM ensures that all the practices of
organisation regarding employees are in accordance with legislation of employees. Compliance
of employee legislation refers to laws and regulations that have been developed to protect rights
and liabilities of employees and employer. For example- maintaining payroll and remuneration
according wages and payroll legislation and maintaining health and safety in organisation
according to health and safety legislations.
Functions of HRM applicable to workforce planning and resourcing an organisation are-
Supply and demand forecasting
Supply and demand forecasting refers to identifying what will be demand for manpower
in future in M&S. This means identifying in advance about demand of employees in
organisation. There are certain techniques that are used for demand forecasting such as
managerial judgement, work-study techniques, ratio trend analysis. Through these techniques
M&S can forecast demand of manpower.
Supply forecasting refers to forecasting and identifying availability of manpower. There
are different techniques through which M&S can identify and forecast manpower availability
(Ayandibu and Kaseeram, 2020). These techniques are succession analysis, Markov analysis.
Internal and external analysis is also done by the company to identify availability within
organisation and from outside organisation.
Selection of candidates