Understanding Human Resource Champions in Modern Organizations

The provided content includes two books and 17 journal articles that explore various aspects of organizational behavior, human resources, leadership, teamwork, and communication. The first book, 'Human Resource Champions: The Next Agenda for Adding Value and Delivering Results' by Ulrich (2013), focuses on the role of HR in driving business results. The second book, 'Effective Teamwork: Practical Lessons from Organizational Research' by West (2012), examines the key factors that contribute to team effectiveness. The journal articles cover topics such as change communication, conflict resolution, work team trust and effectiveness, self-monitoring personality at work, transformational leadership styles, skills and attributes needed for success in accounting career, and more.

WORKING WITH AND LEADING PEOPLE

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION......................................................................................................................1
TASK 1......................................................................................................................................1
1.1 Job descriptions and person specifications to select and recruit new sales assistants......1
1.2 Impact of existing legal, regulatory and ethical considerations on the recruitment and
selection process.....................................................................................................................2
1.3 Experience gained in the selection process......................................................................3
1.4 Own contribution as an HR assistant................................................................................3
TASK 2......................................................................................................................................4
2.1 Skills and attributes needed for leadership in the business organisations........................4
2.2 Differences between leadership and management...........................................................4
2.3 Leadership styles for different situations in different business organisations..................5
2.4 Ways adopted by leaders and managers to motivate staffs..............................................6
TASK 3......................................................................................................................................7
3.1 Benefits of team working.................................................................................................7
3.2 Working in a team and dealing with conflict as a manager or leader..............................7
3.3 Effectiveness of the team in achieving the goals..............................................................8
TASK 4......................................................................................................................................9
4.1 Factors involved in planning the monitoring and assessment of work performance.......9
4.2 Plan and deliver the assessment of the development needs of individuals......................9
4.3 Evaluation of the assessment process success................................................................10
CONCLUSION........................................................................................................................10
REFERENCES.........................................................................................................................12

INTRODUCTION
In the present modern business environment, organisations are following the working
with and leading concept. This offers efficient and useful methods to seniors for leading
employees and subordinates at the work. In order to understand this concept in real sense,
here in this report the example of real world companies are taken for discussion. The content
is including process and approach to adequate selection and recruitment of new staffs and
achievement of business goals with their adequate support and management.
TASK 1
The company selected for this task is Arcadia Group, which is a multinational retailing
organisation of British, headquartered in UK. The group has 25,000 and more outlets around
UK and deals in high street clothing.
1.1 Job descriptions and person specifications to select and recruit new sales assistants
The Arcadia Group has planned to recruit some sales assistants for its outlets around UK,
who can guide customers well at the stores and provide them with their needed items
(Armstrong and Taylor, 2014). In this regards, the following job description and personal
specification agenda can be used for the purpose of job advertisement:
Job description
 Maintain marketing record by inputting bill-back data and invoice.
 Resolve inventory problems and orders.
 Resolve rebate, pricing discrepancies and promotional allowance.
 Provide promotion, product and pricing information to customers.
 Provide projection vs. sales results by preparing reports of sales tracking.
 Forward samples by arranging shipment, entering request and notifying consumers.
 Maintain database of customers.
 Prepare sales presentations.
 Track sales expenses.
 Update knowledge of job.
 Reach organisational and department mission.
Person specification
 Eagerness to support customers and have an outgoing personality.
 Knowledgeable in products they are presenting to customers.
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 Exercise adequate grooming while dealing with customers.
 Data entry skills
 Customer focus
 Understand the customer
 Reporting skills
 Self-development skills
 Able to work in a team
 Microsoft office knowledge
1.2 Impact of existing legal, regulatory and ethical considerations on the recruitment and
selection process
The process of recruitment and selection goes beyond some legal implication and
statutory rules. Before initiating the process, the rules and regulations should be considered
by the organisation to minimise risk in job posting and selecting candidates on legal grounds.
The following law can impact upon the Arcadia Group sales assistant’s recruitment and
selection process:
 Sex discrimination act – The Company is bound to maintain this act in its recruitment
process. If applicants are qualified for the job, the organisation is bound to recruit them
regardless of their gender (Bisk, 2017).
 Race relation act – If any job calls for the specific nationality or race than it would break
the race relation act provision. This means the person who are permissible to work in UK
should be considered by company in the process regardless of his/her race or nationality.
 Equality regulation impact – The people should not be discriminate on the basis of their
age (i.e. old and young). If the HR manager provides special privilege to any particular
group then it will be considered as illegal under the equality act.
 Impact of law on job ads – While broadcasting job ads, the HR manager should not
include any content discriminating age, race, gender, nationality, etc. The overall process
of job advertisement should go beyond complying with the country’s constitution (David,
2012).
 Impact of law on interview – The interview process followed at the Arcadia Group must be
based on legal structure. The questions affecting any nationality or religion should be
avoided. The manager should avoid using sexist comment and treat everyone equally
without including personal biases.
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 Right to employment – The HR manager should verify that the applicant has legal
authority to get employment in UK and check his/her criminal record certificate.
 Employment statement – The new candidate once selected should be given with the
complete statement including all terms and conditions about working hours, pay scale,
holiday and other benefits (Duarte and Snyder, 2006).
1.3 Experience gained in the selection process
After posting the above job description and person specification agenda in the job ad, I took
an active participation in the actual process of recruitment. I played an essential role as a HR
assistant and below is the way in which I engaged myself in the process:
 Selection and recruitment panel – Firstly, I selected some executives to take the
interview of candidates (Germano, 2010).
 Short listing of applicants – It was a tough job for me, as all candidates were best
qualified for the vacant post. Therefore, to get best out of them I prepared a MCQ test
paper along with a written examination to short list the candidates effectively in an
unbiased manner.
 Interviews – I also prepared a structure format to ask some basic and work related
questions by the executives, so they don’t get out of track and give proper time to each
candidate. I was really appreciated by my seniors for this work, as it support them in
saving their valuable time and energy.
 Appointment – I was also responsible to design and given an appointment letter to the
selected candidates by ensuring all necessary information included in the latter, i.e.
payment terms, work system or method and joining date (Markowitz, 2013).
1.4 Own contribution as an HR assistant
Other than the process of selection, I was engaged in several tasks for ensuring that all
legal obligations and ethical practices are integrated properly in the recruitment process of
sales assistants. For instance, I arranged meetings with my seniors to discuss on aspects
related to candidate’s recruitment and selection. Furthermore, I was responsible to keep the
whole process legal and fair by maintaining proper accountability, transparency, objectivity
and equality. Throughout the interview session of new sales assistant, I also played an active
role in application screening and assessing capabilities and potential of a person to shortlist
for the further interview. I was responsible to take applicants written test, calculate their
marks and report the results to the executives fairly. The whole process was kept transparent
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and proper reasons where given to the applicants on their non-selection. Thus, it can be said
that I played a great role in the Arcadia Group recruitment and selection process by making it
logical for individuals belonging to different ethnic group and background.
TASK 2
2.1 Skills and attributes needed for leadership in the business organisations
The following are some main qualities that every capable leader should possess as well as
learn to produce better results for the organisation:
 Industry knowledge – An effective leader should know the inside and out of their industry.
They must be experts in complete market dynamics, know the competitive landscape, be
on the top of industry trends and be visible in several events (Marquardt and Horvath,
2014).
 Business savvy – To run the business successfully, the industry knowledge is not just
enough. Leaders should know the ways of operating business effectively and should have
strong knowledge of legal issues and finance (West, 2012).
 Courage – Managing or running a business require adequate boldness, courage and
sometimes fearless decision making by the leader.
 Communication – One of the most important qualities of a powerful leader is their
capacity to make effective communication. This comprise being capable of sharing their
business strategy and passion to potential lenders, investors or suppliers (Mattson, 2016).
 Accountability – Good leaders are able to admit their mistakes, whether it is business
decision, handling an event or bad hire, fix them effectively and move on for the business
productivity.
 Delegation – Successful leaders are well-engaged, informed and able to trust employees
and delegate tasks (Northouse, 2015).
 Motivator – A good leader know the way to remain positive even in the bad situations and
have capacity to work hard and get best outcomes out of it.
 Trustworthy – Integrity and character are significant for any leader to get subordinated
follow them positively. Employees will perform hard for leaders they trust and like, thus,
the leaders should do right things for the partners, employees and customers to remain
them happy and satisfied (McGinty, 2017).
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2.2 Differences between leadership and management
The following chart is illustrating some of the main differences in between the company’s
management and leadership:
Leadership Management
Definition It is the ability of a person to
motivate, influence and
enable others to put their
efforts in the organisation
success
It includes controlling and
directing people to
coordinate and harmonise
them towards achieving
organisational objectives
Personality styles Mercurial and brilliant with
good charisma. They are
able to take risks and have
good imagination level
Managers tend to rational
and problem solvers. They
focus on structures, goals,
resources availability and
personnel. Their personality
lean towards strong will,
persistence, intelligence and
analysis
Orientation People oriented Task oriented
Outcomes Achievements Results
Focus Leading followers Work management
Approach to tasks Leaders look the problems
simply and develop creative
and new solutions. Using
their commitment and
charisma they motivate and
focus others to excel in their
job and solve issues
Managers create policies,
strategies and methods of
developing ideas and teams
that combine to carry out
smooth operations. They
empower individuals by
soliciting their values,
principles and views
Approach to risk Risk-takers Risk-averse
Decision making role Facilitative Engaged
Styles Participative, consultative
and transformational
Dictatorial, autocratic,
transactional and democratic
Power through Influence and charisma Position and formal
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authority
2.3 Leadership styles for different situations in different business organisations
The following are some basic styles sued in different situations and organisations:
Autocratic – It is a classical approach through which manager retains decision making
authority and power. They does not consult with the employees and take their inputs while
making decisions. Staff are also required to obey only orders and don’t get much
explanations. This style is useful in case of untrained and new staffs and when employees do
not effectively respond to other style of leadership. Moreover, it is effective when urgent
decisions are required to be taken at work (Prive, 2012).
Bureaucratic – This style include management by the book in which all the things are carried
out according to policy or procedure. By following this style, leaders enforces rules on their
subordinates. The particular style is effective when employees perform routine activities and
they need to comprehend certain process or standards (Quast, 2012).
Democratic – It is also referred to the participative style, where employees are encouraged by
the leaders or managers to give their inputs in decision making. This leadership allows
keeping employees informed about all the things that can impact on their work and give them
authority to solve work related issues on their own. The well-known leader who followed
democratic style to lead his subordinates by providing them with challenging tasks to perform
well was Carlos Ghosn, who was the CEO of Nissan. This style is most effective when
employees are required to given with opportunities to develop themselves at work and leader
want to encourage individual’s participation and team building (Surbhi, 2015).
Laissez-faire – By following this style, manager gives very less or no direction to employees.
Here, all power or authority is provided to staffs and they are free to make decisions and
resolve issues as per their convenience. This style is effective in case of highly skilled staff
members, who have pride in their jobs (Ulrich, 2013).
2.4 Ways adopted by leaders and managers to motivate staffs
The below are some manners in which employees can be motivated by their seniors:
Tip 1: Managers should act as a role model and encourage staffs to determine their passion
and provide them with activities in their interested areas.
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Tip 2: Adequately define the company’s mission, strategy, vision along with the personal
goals of employees. The leader should also ensure that every people at the work contribute
well in the departmental success (Asquith and Scott, 2007).
Tip 3: Empower staff members to get success in their challenging activities and provide them
with adequate level of opportunities.
Tip 4: The manager should work with everyone for developing their own development plan
and then give them mentoring and coaching to increase their skills and potentials in
accomplishing them.
Tip 5: The leader should monitor the employee’s progress towards completing their personal
objective and goals then give them adequate rewards for reinforcing their positive behaviour
(Barrett, 2002).
TASK 3
3.1 Benefits of team working
The Arcadia Group may attain following benefits as a result of team working:
Fostering learning and creativity – Creativity prospers when individuals perform together in a
group. By combining each team member’s unique perspectives more effective solutions of
selling can be generated at the work (Behfar and et.al., 2008).
Blends complementary strengths – The team work allows employees to build on teammates
talents. While a person strength might be thinking creatively, his/her co-worker may shine in
the company. The team members in effective teams do not hesitate to share their abilities
within the team (Costa, 2003).
Builds trust – Team members build trust by relying on their peer and develops strong
relations with them. In spite of occasional disagreements, as effective team enjoys sharing a
strong bond and working together. When individuals put trust in their co-workers, they
establish the relationship, which support in avoiding minor conflicts at work.
Teaches conflict resolution skills – When conflict occurs in teamwork, the members are
forced to resolve it on their own instead of involving the senior executives to solve it out. The
learning to resolve conflicts, the team members develop them to become good managers for
the future (Daily and Huang, 2001).
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3.2 Working in a team and dealing with conflict as a manager or leader
The activities in a team is delegated to members on their basis of their capacity and
skills. When proper allocation of task is done then productive results can be generated.
Moreover, it would support the Arcadia group to deliver best customer service. The leader
should position all the staff members in their respected areas of interest where their potentials
can be best utilised for the organisation success (Day and et.al., 2002). The team success and
failure is highly based on the ability of leaders to resolve conflicts arise at the workplace. As
a HR assistant, most of the times I am required to handle the complete HR department on
behalf of manager. In such satiation, I face with several conflicts and required to deal with
them effectively by leading them all in right direction. In this regards, I undertake following
activities:
 Develop contract with team members by defining rules to work in a team;
 Hold team members intervention debriefing and discuss how their conflicts can be
minimised;
 Celebrate team member’s achievement.
In addition to above, I adopt some practices to lessen the conflicts at the work. These are:
 Encourage viewpoints of different members and make with the honest dialogue;
 Concentrate on what can be effectively perform rather than concentrating on what is not
possible to done;
 Express feelings in a way that not hurt others;
 Understand and listen others views before making final decisions;
 Solved problems while creating healthy relations with team members;
 Displayed respect to others views (Eagly, Johannesen-Schmidt and Van Engen, 2003).
3.3 Effectiveness of the team in achieving the goals
Effective teams are developed by members who have all necessary skills to complete
their personal and organisational goals. They all bring their own views and knowledge
effectively to the group. They engage themselves in the open communication by using active
responding and listening activities. All individuals are responsible to achieve defined
objectives and are encouraged to perform well. Individuals also acknowledge achievements
of each other (Klibi and Oussii, 2013). In the most productive teams, co-workers support and
trust one another, which allow them to contribute well in the organisation success. For many
managers in the business, an effective teamwork is considered as an ultimate competitive
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edge that can produce excellent outcomes. By improving the performance of teams, a leader
can increase market share, make regular improvement, increase employee’s engagement,
reduce waste and innovation. Also, high-performing teams in business organisations produce
excellent outcomes based on their active participation and open dialogue with each other
(Lurey and Raisinghani, 2001).
TASK 4
The medium sized company chosen for the discussion of this task is Shine Communications,
UK to illustrate its performance management system.
4.1 Factors involved in planning the monitoring and assessment of work performance
The following are some aspects included in the assessment and monitoring of work
performance:
Planning – It is mainly undertaken by senior managers and top executives. Also, they should
plan tasks and fix targets in a way that encourage staffs to carry out their work in an effective
manner (McDonough, 2000).
Monitoring – The Shine Communications entire business process should be monitored by the
senior executives. The performance of staff members should be measured by following
timely and regular monitoring. After that, managers must be given with feedback on the work
performance of employees.
Development – The manager’s target must be the employee’s complete development by
giving them tasks of their related areas, where they can face challenges effectively and find
new growth opportunities (Oldham and Hackman, 2010).
Assessing – The leaders should evaluate the overall effectiveness of tasks completed by
employees. It is important, as it helps in analysing the progress of staff members by
maintaining records that help in making further comparison with the set targets. In case these
targets remain unachieved than the organisation take relevant steps.
Rewarding – It includes encouraging employees for their better engagement and contribution.
It can be done by providing certificates, bonus, incentives, etc. to staffs for their best
performance and contribution in the organisational goal achievement (Salanova, Agut and
Peiró, 2005).
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4.2 Plan and deliver the assessment of the development needs of individuals
The assessment of employees development needs can be done in the following manner:
Re-value job description of employees – Individual team member’s skills and assigned jobs
must be assessed by the leader and then compare with the standard roles and responsibilities
of job.
Arrange meetings – Meetings should be arranged on the regular basis to make open
discussion with the employees and managers. In such meetings, employees should discuss
about their development needs with the seniors to get their positive support in the career
growth (Vaccaro and et.al., 2012).
Performance assessment – leaders must maintain an adequate control on the team’s regular
performance.
Collect additional information – Additional data about individuals development needs should
be collected from their previous supervisors, peer workers etc.
Analyse from above and maintain a record – By the above assessment, a record must be kept
by the leaders and tally it with other information for planning valuable employees
development program (Van der Klink and et.al., 2001).
Take action – At last, the HR manager should take proper action to work on fulfilling
employee’s development needs.
4.3 Evaluation of the assessment process success
In order to get success in the assessment process, the HR manager of Shine
Communications should arrange training sessions for employees on the continuous basis.
This training would support them in taking adequate knowledge about the novel and
advanced working methodologies. It will add in putting best potentials of employees in the
business success. Moreover, open discussion is adequate for both employees and senior
members to assess the overall performance of company together with staff’s individual
performance (Zaccaro, Rittman and Marks, 2002). Furthermore, seminars and business events
can be organised by the firm to call business professionals and outsiders to share their
creative knowledge and ideas with staffs. Besides this, the assessment of end result and
employees survey can be a significant part of the entire process. Thus, the given procedure
will support the firm to grow successfully by reaching the synergistic level (Zellmer-Bruhn
and Gibson, 2006).
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CONCLUSION
The above report concludes that a proper documentation of person specification and job
description is important in the organisation to short list the potential candidates for the vacant
posts. In this regards, an advertisement should be broadcasted after receiving the complete
approvals of seniors. Moreover, an effective leader is required to evaluate performances of
employees and rewards them in well manner to satisfy them. Also, the HR manager should
set an example in the motivation type and encourage staffs to perform best for generating
positive results in the business. Therefore, the productive outcomes can be achieved by the
organisation with the regular evaluation of its employees and management performance.
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