HP Project Report: HRM Analysis on Arcadia Group Ltd

This report, titled "HP Project Report," delves into the critical aspects of Human Resource Management (HRM) within the context of Arcadia Group Ltd. It begins with an essay section analyzing key articles that explore the changing balance of power in recruitment, the gender pay gap in Britain, international HRM from an Australian perspective, and leadership in the Australian higher education sector. The report further examines legal, social, and economic influences on HRM, emphasizing the importance of employee relations, and the implications of issues like pay discrimination. The report then proceeds to a short answer section addressing the quality of work life, the advantages and disadvantages of social media tools, and the pros and cons of linking pay to performance. Overall, the report provides a comprehensive overview of HRM practices, challenges, and strategies within a business environment, with a focus on leadership and employee well-being.

HP PROJECT

Table of Contents
PART 1 – ESSAY............................................................................................................................2
ARTICLE 1 - The Changing Balance of Power in Recruitment.....................................................3
ARTICLE 2 - The Gender Pay Gap in Britain Gets another Look.................................................4
ARTICLE 3: International human resource management: An Australian Perspective..................5
ARTICLE 4: Leadership provided by non academic leaders in the Australian higher education
sector................................................................................................................................................6
PART 2 – SHORT ANSWERS.......................................................................................................7
Question 1: Quality of Work life............................................................................................7
Question 2: Advantages and disadvantages of using various forms of social media
tools/channels.........................................................................................................................8
ADVANTAGES................................................................................................................8
DISADVANTAGES.........................................................................................................9
Question 3 Advantages and disadvantages of linking pay to performance..........................10
ADVANTAGES..............................................................................................................11
DISADVANTAGES.......................................................................................................11
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................13

PART 1 – ESSAY
Today, human resource management plays an important role in management and organising
of business activities of a business. Arcadia Group Ltd. Is one of the major organisations that
develops products and services serving the consumers as per their trends and lifestyles choices.
As being one of the most reputed organisations across the country, it is important for Arcadia to
have effective employees working in order to achieve set goals and objectives and make the
organisation fulfil its roles and duties as per the set standards. The Human Resource department
of the organisation tends to ensure that effective employees are being recruited within the
organisation and these employees are making the organisation fulfilling its roles and
responsibilities. The main responsibilities of Human Resource department include recruitment,
selection, training and development etc. These responsibilities are typically managed and owned
by the management of human resource department (Mitchell, 2017). In order to manage it
properly, it is important for the human resource department to ensure good decision making and
an orientation towards learning and development.
ARTICLE 1 - The Changing Balance of Power in Recruitment
The legal influences which impacting the human resource department includes strict
governmental policies, and laws surrounding the environment in which the organisation is
thriving into.
For example, concerns such as climate change, global warming and sustainability. Individuals
today are aware of the situation which our world is facing and they ensure that the organisation
which they want to be part of follows proper sustainability guidelines and ensure proper actions
to deal with climate change and global warming. In relevance to Human Resource, this impacts
the recruitment and selection process of Human resource department of the businesses and tends
to make it difficult for the managers to recruit required individuals.
In order to deal with such situations, the HRM has to understand the cultural aspects such
as the needs and understanding of the people residing in a particular community impacts the
human resource department, the department has to make its recruitment and selection policies as
per these understanding. Along with it, they have to ensure proper training and development as
per these cultural understandings only (The Changing Balance of Power in Recruitment, 2019).

The demographic characteristics such as education level, sex, age, and income level
influences also impact the human resource activities of Businesses. As per the education level
and income level in which the human resource department has to recruiting the individuals in
making the organisation prepares its provision of salaries accordingly.
Social influences such as the people requirements from the organisations and what they
seek to learn and develop in themselves while they are a part of the organisation influences the
activities of Human Resource completely (Equality commission to investigate BBC over pay
discrimination, 2019). For example, the employees while choosing where they want to work
understand their own requirements from the organisation and its cultures and what benefits they
will be receiving from working in the organisation. This needs and requirements should be
understood by the Human resource department in order to ensure appropriate selection.
ARTICLE 2 - The Gender Pay Gap in Britain Gets another Look
The human resource management of the business in United Kingdom in order to ensure that
their no pay gap between men and women working for or in the organisation has to rebuild its
policies of payment and salary provisions. In relevance to this, human resource management of
the organisations has to set-up a team in order to ensure in what areas of the organisation women
are receiving less pay than the men and what should they do to pay them equally.
The business factors influence the recruitment, training and development practices of human
resource. The businesses which are in competition to Arcadia tends to gain better advantage
when they provide better services to their employees. The HRM of Arcadia needs to understand
what practices and services are being undertaken by the organisations competitors in order to
gain employee advantage and how Arcadia after doing the same can reach gain employee
advancement.
It required a lot of effort and guidance for the team to rebuild the overall salary structure and
ensure proper provision of money to both men and women.
The business factors influence the recruitment, training and development practices of human
resource. The businesses which are in competition to Arcadia tends to gain better advantage
when they provide better services to their employees. The HRM of Arcadia needs to understand
what practices and services are being undertaken by the organisations competitors in order to

gain employee advantage and how Arcadia after doing the same can reach gain employee
advancement.
The economic conditions of the country impact the human resource management at large.
For example, the human resource management of Arcadia needs to increase the employees’
salaries when the economic conditions of United Kingdom are weak and timid. In these
situations, the organisation needs set new accounts and provide the salaries to the employees
from its revenues (Record jobs figures hide the true story of UK economy, 2019).
The industrial relations by far makes Arcadia's human resource management to choose
and follow the right practices in order to provide appropriate training and development
opportunities to its worker. Finding the appropriate trainings and development rituals takes a lot
of effort for the HRM of Arcadia.
The employee relations influence the human resource activities at large. It is important
for the human resource department of Arcadia to maintain strong employee relations in order to
retain the employees within the organisational environment (The Gender Pay Gap in Britain
Gets another Look. 2018). In order to do this, the organisation's Human Resource Department
makes use of effective practices and develops such platforms where its employees can grow and
achieve growth while working with the organisation. The major legal influences which the
organisations Human Resource department has recently faced includes the investigation of BBC
over pay discrimination in the country (Wang and Jin, 2018). As per this investigation, it has
been seen at the women's working in the organisations of United Kingdom are not receiving
equal pay for equal work.
Non Academic journal
ARTICLE 3: International human resource management: An Australian
Perspective
Human resources are known as one of the most valuable assets of any organisation. Actions
perform by employees and decisions taken by them directly affect the success and failure of a
company. So effective and optimum utilisation of human resources should be the main objective
of every enterprise whether it is operating on international level or under domestic boundaries.
So many factors and elements are there which affect the commercial activities of organisation
which operate on international level. Issues such as international compensation and national
policies are the examples of such factors. It is very essential for companies to effectively deal

with these issues in order to operating effectively on international level. With this, they can
easily manage all the employees and can achieve the set goals and objectives. Companies who
trade beyond there national boundaries face different kind of issues and staffing issue is one of
the major issues face by them. Staffing process is known as one of the most significant process
for every kind of company various elements are there which require to be consider by entities
which operate at international level. Various approaches are there which can be adopted by
firms to carry out their business activities on global level. These approaches are known as
Ethnocentric, polycentric, geocentric, mixed and Ad-hoc approach. Under ethnocentric approach
company hire individuals from parent country in order to fill the fill the key positions in the
organisations. This approach is mainly used by organisation at their first stage of internalisation
in which it set their operations in another country. This help in carry out commercial activities in
effective manner and ensure business success. Another reason why organisations adopt this
approach is lack of skilled individuals in host country. Apart from various advantages various
issues are there related with this approach which is that it limits the promotional opportunities
which results in increase employee’s turnover and reduce productivity. Every approach has its
own features and advantages companies can use these approaches as per the objective they want
to achieve and as per their stage of internalisation. Adoption of right approach not only help
company in achieve its business objectives but also ensure its long term sustainability in market.
Right approach help managers in manage employee’s action and also improve their contribution
in company’s success which results in increase number of company’s profits.
ARTICLE 4: Leadership provided by non academic leaders in the Australian
higher education sector
Leaders are known as the individuals who direct and encourage employees to perform their
best in organisation so company can achieve its set goal and objective and can better satisfy the
needs and requirements of its target customers. It is very essential that leaders should have some
specific skills and qualities so they can perform their job role and identify the potential of every
employee. With this productivity of employees can be improved and company can attain
competitive advantage. to identify effectiveness of a leader various tools are there that can be
used such as feedback from customers and 360 degree evaluation. With this managers can
identify which leader perform well and what are the areas that require some improvement.
Leaders are known as one of the most important individuals for an organisation because these are

the one who encourage employees to think creatively and appreciate their efforts to accomplish
business activities. Leaders improve employee’s morale and motivate them. All this reduce
employee’s turnover and improve company’s productivity and also provide competitive benefit
to enterprise. Leaders require to possess some specific skills and traits so they can perform their
job role and can ensure effective accomplishment of jobs through workers. Without leaders
employees can not perform business activities effectively and can not learn new things. To
achieve success and to learn something new employees require skilled leader who can guide and
inspire them. Various approaches and behaviour are there which can be adopted by leaders to
inspire workers at workplace and to encourage them to work effectively. There is not universal
approach of leadership which is effective in every business situation and always provide good
results. So leaders require to adopt different leadership skill as per the situations exist in order to
get effective result. Leaders require to first analyse and `better understand the various
determinants of a situation in order to adopt an effective leadership style in order to handle the
situation and to get better results. With this leaders can give provide better direction to
employees and can contribute more in success of entity. Approach use of leaders have a great
impact on the behaviour of employees working in company. Adoption of right leadership style
enhance employee’s motivation and improve their productivity at workplace. Overall leadership
style have a great impact on workers and their actions at workplace.
PART 2 – SHORT ANSWERS
Question 1: Quality of Work life
Quality of work life refers to a concept in which the organisation such as Arcadia tends to
put their overall focus on the employee which are working for them as a person instead of just
focusing on the work done by him/her (Hall, 2017). The work life quality is becoming a very
popular concept in recent times. It speaks about the methods in which tends to ensure the holistic
well-being of an employee rather than focusing on his work-related aspects.
Quality of work life plays a major role in improving the needs and requirements of the
employee and provide them with better satisfaction. The major criteria for improving the QWL is
understanding the needs and requirements of the employees working for or in the organisation.
The other essential criteria are to understand on what basis the employee’s requirements needs to
be fulfilled in order to ensure better quality of work life such as a particular employees’ family,

health needs, social needs etc. Along with it, the criteria of their professional needs and
satisfactory requirements needs to be evaluated as well.
I work in Arcadia on the job role of Human Resource Assistant. The organisation
understands my particular requirements such as I have a big family and it is important for me to
have a good salary in order to fulfil their and my personal needs as well. Arcadia in order to
ensure this, has provided me a good salary in which I can fulfil these needs and requirements
(Jarvis and Clevers, 2017). Also, the organisation has provided me with other options such as
overtime and working for extra hours where I can earn more to fulfil my needs and requirements.
Although, I have observed that the organisation has failed to meet the criteria of
understanding the health needs to ensure better Quality of work life. Arcadia is not having any
policies for its employees where it is taking responsibilities for the health and welfare.
Organisations such as McDonald and Starbucks are providing facilities of healthcare to its
employees in which appropriate health insurances have been provided to them in order to ensure
the well-being of the employees.
It can be seen that the provision of better healthcare to the employees increase the Quality
of work life as well as motivates them to work for long periods of time and stick with the
organisation (Wright, 2018). Better healthcare also provides them with facilities in which at the
times when they are sick and finding it difficult to work, they can make use of the healthcare
options provided by the organisation and can take rest. This ensures that the employees will get
well soon and will be back to work after ensuring a good health.
Organisations such as Oxfam and Bentley have ensured the provision of rewards and
recognition in order to ensure a good quality of work life. Employees when provided with
recognition and rewards tends to get motivated and develops a sense of attachments towards the
organisation (Bratton and Gold, 2017). This ensures their proper growth and development and
provides the organisation with new set of improvements to gain new market advantage.
Open communication is another important aspect which helps the organisation in
developing the Quality of work life for its employees. In order to ensure that Arcadia provides its
employees with options in which they can openly communicate with their fellow members and
management officials to ensure a good Quality of work life within the working environment.

Question 2: Advantages and disadvantages of using various forms of social media tools/channels
ADVANTAGES Helps to reach large audiences: It helps the organisation to reach large audiences in
the process of recruitment and selection. It is important for an organisation to reach a
large set of audiences in order to find the appropriate individuals for the set job roles
(DeCenzo, Robbins and Verhulst, 2016). The usage of social media tools allows the
organisation to promote their particular jobs and advertise them on the social media
platforms to attract individual across the globe. For example, Arcadia when puts its
advertisements on Facebook to attract new individuals tend to gain more advantage of
generating large audiences because a lot of people today Facebook.
 Direct connection with the employees: In order to ensure that the right employees are
being hired by the organisation and the business. Social media allows them to have
direct connection with their employees. The organisation while recruiting can chat
and speak with their employees on social media. Also, they can take necessary
interviews in order to understand that the employees are having right skills as per the
set requirements by the organisation. For example, the organisation when recruit
individuals on Facebook, tends to receive an opportunity to chat them directly. It
helps them to reach make direct connection with the employee fast and effective.
 Lower costs: Social media tends to lower the costs of the organisation in its
recruitment process. Recruitment process takes a lot of cost and expenses from the
organisation and sometimes the organisation fails to recruit the right employees and
the presented costs often put the organisation in a loss. Social media helps the
organisation to manage a recruitment process in low costs. For example, it is
expensive for Arcadia to organise physical interviews as they cost a lot in setting up
things and requires a lot of involvement and activity. Social media instead of this
lowers these costs and ensures that employees are being recruited as per the needs and
requirements of the organisation.
 Immediate Response: The best advantage of social media is that it provides
immediate response to the organisation while selecting and recruiting the employees
(Brewster and Hegewisch, 2017). Immediate response makes it able for the

organisation to fasten the recruitment process and ensure better growth and
development. For example, the organisation while making use of platforms such as
Facebook and twitter gets immediate response from the employees which are online
and are interested in job roles.
DISADVANTAGES Unnecessary fraud recruitment ads – Sometimes it become difficult for the
organisation to maintain a good and effective recruitment process on online
platforms. Unnecessary fraud recruitments ads often make it difficult for the
organisation to hire the right individuals and the employees shift themselves towards
the competitors rather than choosing the organisation whose ad is being presented on
the social media platform. For example, Arcadia’s marketing team when looks for
new individuals posts ads online. These ads are often used by fraudulent across the
world to earn money from wrongdoing activities.
 Unnecessary online traffic: Although, it helps them organisations in recruiting the
appropriate individuals but it also makes them suffer when they get unnecessary
online traffic (Wang and Jin, 2018. It is hard for the organisation to look for the
appropriate individuals while making use of social media. For example, Arcadia
while hiring individuals online tends to face large online traffics and it makes it
difficult for the organisation to properly look for the right employees.
 Negative comments from rejected candidates: The candidates which are being
rejected sometimes post negative comments and make the organisation suffer. It is
important that the organisation ensures that the right candidates are being spoken or
connected with otherwise negative comments can cause a lot of troubles for the
organisation in maintaining a good reputation on online platforms. For example, the
organisation often receives negative comments from the individuals which are not
selected. This disrupts the organisations reputation and leads it towards failure.
 Consumes a lot of time: Making connections on social media and recruiting
appropriate individuals takes a lot of time for the organisation. It is important that the
organisation in the process of recruitment makes use of early advertising and
promotion to gather the appropriate employees and ensure the right recruitment

practices. This is going to allow the businesses to find the right individuals in the
right time (Hall, 2017). For example, Organisations when in need of urgent
recruitments tend to find it difficult in getting the right recruitments because social
media consumes a lot of time while recruiting the right individuals. It requires an
entire process of recruitment and selection activities which needs to be done online.
Question 3 Advantages and disadvantages of linking pay to performance
ADVANTAGES Improving productivity and performance: Linking pay to performance can help the
organisations to improve and increase their employees’ productivity and performance.
It is one of the most effective approach in ensuring better productivity within the
organisational environment. For example, when employees will receive salaries as
per their performance, it will increase the competition in Arcadia group. More and
more employees will feel the need to work hard and gain better salaries (Wright,
2018). This is going to help the organisation in reaching its own set goals and
profitability.
 Staff retaining: When employees are being paid as per their performances. It is going
to help the organisation in retaining the employees for a longer time period. It has
been seen as one of the most effective ways of retaining smart talent within the
organisation. For example, when employees are going to be paid as per their
performances in Arcadia Group. More and more employees are going to stay in the
organisation and would try to develop themselves in order to achieve better pay. Also,
the employees working within the organisation will improve themselves when their
pay is linked to the performance.
 Positive culture: When pay is being linked with the performance, the organisation
tends to develop a culture which is positive. It helps the organisation to make and
develop new standards and promote performance-based salaries (Wang and Jin,
2018). The employees are going to feel motivated and satisfied while working for the
organisation and being a culture that supports their development.

DISADVANTAGES Hindrance in team spirit and co-operation: When fewer employees tend to follow good
performance routine and some of them finds it difficult to maintain a good performance.
It makes it difficult for the employees to maintain a good cooperation and team spirit. It
is important that the organisation maintains itself in such ways while linking its
performances to pay that the team spirit and co-operation of the team is not jeopardised.
This effort is going to make the organisation reach new heights and gaining better
advantage over linking performance to pay.
 Too much of the process is relied on the judgement quality: It take a lot of process in
order to understand and make a judgement on the performance of a particular employee
(Brewster and Hegewisch, 2017). The organisation has to set up a specific team for such
evaluation as they have to manage it appropriately in order to ensure a better judgement
of the employee performances.
Ethical considerations are an important aspect while linking pay to the performance because
the employees working in the organisation often stand upon the provided standards by the
organisation. The standards are the core ethics on which any organisation across the globe stands
upon. If the organisations ethics allow it to judge and pay their employees by their performance
rather than treating them equally. In that case, they should go further with linking pay to
performance. If it does not allow it do so, in that case each and every employee needs to be
treated equally as per the set ethics.