Argos Resource and Talent Planning: A Comprehensive Report

This report provides a detailed analysis of resource and talent planning, using Argos as a case study. It begins by examining current labor trends influencing talent management and workforce planning, including working conditions and the importance of a skilled workforce. The report then explores the legal requirements organizations must consider, such as the Data Protection Act 2018 and the National Minimum Wage Act 1998. It further identifies the current and anticipated skills necessary for HR managers, including communication and change management skills, as well as performance management. The report then delves into job descriptions and specifications for recruitment and selection, including a sample job description and person specification for a business analyst position. It concludes by outlining different recruitment and selection methods and examining the stages of the HR lifecycle and its integration with HR strategy.

Resource And Talent Planning

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
TASK 1............................................................................................................................................3
P1: Current labour trends which influences talent management and workforce planning..........3
P2: Different types of legal requirements an organisation must considered while planning......4
TASK 2............................................................................................................................................5
P3: Different types of current and anticipated skills necessary for an organisation...................5
TASK 3............................................................................................................................................6
P4: Job description and specification for recruitment and selection...........................................6
P5: Different types of recruitment and selection methods for talent planning...........................8
TASK 4............................................................................................................................................9
P6: Stages of Human resource life cycle.....................................................................................9
P7: How life cycle of HR integrate with HR strategy...............................................................10
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................11
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................12

INTRODUCTION
Resource and talent planning refers to attract and identify employees who are valuable to
an organisation and then retain it so that sustainable business performance would be attain
(Talent management, 2019). Company needs to identify human resources according to their
mission and vision as then only their actions would align with the pre set goals of company. For
this report, Argos is taken for discussion which is one of the largest catalogue retailer in United
Kingdom and owned by Sainsbury's plc which is also a retailing giant. Argos headquarter is in
Buckinghamshire, England. Various types of market trends in labour industry and how it affects
workforce planning will be discussed. Besides this, legal requirements which should be followed
by company while planning workforce will be explained with functional example. Different
types of needs and skills which an individual should be equipped with will be scrutinized and
distinct methods of recruitment and selection will also explained. Life cycle of HR will be
evaluated and how its influences strategy making of HR will be elaborated.
TASK 1
P1: Current labour trends which influences talent management and workforce planning`
Workforce planning is a perpetual process of maintaining the equilibrium of demand and
supply of the workforce working in an organisation. Workforce planning is concerned with the
labour needs of the new employees in the organisation but also focuses on sustaining the current
employees and improving the skills of the employees to meet the organisation goals. For
instance, if Argos has high number of employees in terms of less work, then proper utilisation of
human resources won’t be attained which will leads to loss for company and vice versa. Talent
management is the process which is designed to attain the qualified talent for the company. The
goal of this process is to keep the employees engaged and keep them motivated that will lead in
their productivity level.
Different types of labour market trends in United Kingdom is explained below with functional
examples of Argos,
 Working days and hours: Company can only achieve success in the competitive market
if they considered employees as an asset of company instead of machinery. For instance,
in 2002, Argos has faced criticism and penalty due to sacking of many employees
because they refuse to work on a Sunday which is their employees rights according to the

rules and regulations of the country (Argos Sunday working climbdown, 2019).
Nowadays, labours are more aware about their rights and that's why Argos should make
their working timing flexible in nature so that employees motivation would remain high
and every time they contribute well in accomplishment of goal of business unit. If the
company will lookout to the needs and rights of the employees in positive manner it will
lead to good relation between the workers and management and will also reduce the
investment in the workforce planning.
 Skilled workforce: Individual can only perform with their highest efficiency if they are
equipped with skills and capabilities which is required by company. For instance, if
candidate is giving interview in Argos for Business analyst position but does not have
any connection with the IT field, then it is of no use to hire them as person would be a
liability for Argos rather than assets. Knowledge of future employees is important for
firm as that's why Argos now prefers to visit college or university so that fresh candidates
would be recruited. The human resource department of Argos are currently recruiting
more employee's in the firm and giving them suitable training in accordance with their
job profile. They also direct and motivate their employee's in terms of their education
course which they want to pursue while doing a job in a organisation. It is easy to mould
or modify the individual which is new to job instead of person who has already some
experience in the field.
P2: Different types of legal requirements an organisation must considered while planning
Rules and legal regulations are made by company and the local authority to protect the
rights of employees as many companies considered employees as machinery (Sparrow, Hird and
Cooper, 2015). In context of use to Argos can use trend analysis to collect data and information
that impact the future conditions of the organisation. It will help the HR managers of Argos in
evaluating the employment data and foresee the modification to create an suitable strategy for a
business entity to meet industry needs of ever-changing business environment . It helps business
organisation to anticipate future events and also use to compute the uncertain events that
occurred in past. It helps a organisation to move with the trend not against them. There are two
functions of labour laws, primary is to provide equality to the employees in terms of pay, wages,
work etc so that their motivation remains high and secondary is mental well being. Different
types of labour laws which Argos should considered while workforce planning is given below,

Data Protection Act 2018: This act has recently gets its royal assent on 23rd May 2018.
According to this act, the company can ask for personal details of employees like unique
identification card, bank account details etc. but they are not authorised to share these details
with the third party and If they does then individual have full right to complain this incidents to
the local authority so that proper actions would be taken. For instance, if Argos share the phone
number of employees to other person or company in exchange of monetary value then it would
attract to legal issues to company which will affect their sales and profitability in a negative way.
So at the time of Workforce planning, Argos should only collect the information which is
essential for them.
National Minimum Wage Act 1998: This is one of the act which directly and badly
affect the company working requirement. Minimum wage of employees in UK is according to
the age as 7.83 euro will be given for one hour working to the age group of over 25 etc (The
National Minimum Wage and Living Wage, 2019). So at the time of workforce planning, Argos
have to set their budget of salary accordingly as if they does not follow it then chances of stuck
in the legal issues goes high.
TASK 2
P3: Different types of current and anticipated skills necessary for an organisation
HR is an important person in the organisation as they have two work to do without which
no company can attain success i.e., maintaining peace and harmony of the company so that
motivation level remains high and full utilisations of resources so that profitability would be
increased (Elegbe, 2016). Different types of current and anticipated skills which HR manager of
Argos requires is given below,
Current skills
 Communication skills: It is one of the soft skills which HR should be equipped with to
complete their work with highest productivity. For instance, information sent by the
Argos management is not properly disseminate to all the employees then false rumours
and news will be scatter in the organisation which is not good for Argos's performance.
Moreover, this skill also assists them to solve conflict among employees as conflict in the
company directly affects the efficiency of employees in a negative way.

 Change management skill: The change management skills mention the ability of the
labour as market trend is dynamic in nature so, it is important to work accordingly with
the trends. It has been observed that employees now a day’s like to work in comfortable
working conditions with flexible working hours, part time job, etc. For this, it essential
for HR manager to analyse these trend and avail similar working condition to its
employees in order to retain them for long term.
Anticipated skills
 Performance management: It refers to measuring of performance through various
software like performance management system which will help company at the time of
giving performance appraisal to their candidates (Carbery and Cross, 2015). This skills
should be learn by Argos HR as if improper appraisal is given then motivation of the
hard workers would be decrease to a certain level resulting in high turnover ratio. For
instance, if HR gave the appraisal like promotion to candidates who are more loyal to
them instead of company then this action will decrease the motivation of person who is
committing their highest potential to meet the expectations of Argos. Those individual
will try to get a new job where they will get the respect and recognition on the basis of
performance resulting in loss for Argos.
TASK 3
P4: Job description and specification for recruitment and selection
Person specification
Person specification refers to descriptions of individual consists of skills, capabilities,
qualification, past experience, knowledge related to work etc (Waheed and Zaim, 2015). This
mainly depends on the type of job description company releases for their vacant position. Argos
limited is planning to hire new candidates for business analyst position in their company.
PERSON SPECIFICATION
Organisation: Argos Limited
Job Title: Business Analyst
Qualification: Master of computer applications
Necessary Criteria:

 Knowledge of how business could enhance their customer and market base.
 Must be able to handle team of more than 20 individual.
 Candidate should be highly proficient while working on computer.
 Excellent communication and interpersonal skills is must.
 Knowledge of big data is essential.
Desired criteria:
 Overall experience should be more than 5 years, specially in MNC's.
 Person should have more than 3 years of experience in managing big data.
 Knowledge of SAS, SAP, Hadoop, Python is mandatory.
Job description
It is a specific document published by company which includes purpose and scope of the
job, duties person have to do if selected, responsibility which person have to bear while working
etc (Sparrow and Makram, 2015). Argos limited should considered few points which should be
there in their job description of Business analyst like roles and responsibilities of BA, what they
have to achieve in the future, qualification of the person, skills which person should be equipped.
Job Description
Organisation: Argos Limited
Division: Analytics department
Title of Job: Business Analyst
Job Purpose: Developing technical solutions to the business problems
Direct Reports: Senior Analyst or to the H.O.D
Location of Job: Buckinghamshire, England.
Role and responsibilities of Job
1. Person have to work within analytics department and have to complete the assigned
work within strict deadlines.
2. Individual have to liaison with the clients of Argos to bring more sales..
3. Providing support to big data team while data mining.
4. Responsible for providing training to new employees.

Qualification: Individual should have passed Masters of computer application with minimum
7 CGPA from a reputed university or college. Should have intermediary knowledge about
languages like SQL, Java script, Hadoop, NodeJS etc.
Experience: Overall experience should be more than 5 years, specially in MNC's. Person
should have more than 3 years of experience in managing big data.
Skills: Knowledge of SAS software and SAP is must. Command over data mining language is
preferable.

P5: Different types of recruitment and selection methods for talent planning
Both the approaches i.e., recruitment and selection is crucial for company success as it
directly affects the working of an organisation (Cascio and Boudreau, 2016). But on the other
side, both are different as recruitment refers to a way of attracting potential candidates to apply
for a vacant position in a company. Like, if more candidates will apply to Argos vacant position
then it would be beneficial for them to select highly qualified and skilful individual from pool of
candidates. Selection is a process of interviewing and evaluates candidates which come through
rigorous process of recruitment so that company can reduce their workforce gap. Different types
of recruitment and selection methods which could be use by Argos is explained below,
Recruitment: There are two types of methods in this, internal and external recruitment.
Internal recruitment refers to way of attracting candidates within the organisation as this process
is fast and effective in nature. Argos can use technique like internal promotion, posting
advertisement on boards as it would assist them to reduce their acquisition cost and fill the
position in no time. It will persuade to longer retention of employees which is a positive sign for
Argos future growth. Other approach of recruitment is external recruitment in which company
post their vacant job position on online platform, newspaper, magazines etc so that external
candidates would be recruited. It will help Argos to attract more potential candidates which
could help them to enhance their productivity and efficiency to a certain level. But on the other
side, chances of high employee’s turnover is also high because chances of retaining new
employees are less. So it can be said that, Argos have to opt mixture of internal and external
recruitment to select new employees so that effective talent and resource planning of Argos
would be attain.
Selection: This phase is crucial for company as it directly affects working operations of
company and how they are going to attain its pre set goals and objectives (Hedayati Mehdiabadi
and Li, 2016). There are various methods which Argos can use to select candidates like face to
face interview in which it would assist HR to identify communication skills, interpersonal skills,
confidence while speaking etc. This method is fruitful for company as HR of Argos can identify
the candidates who are fruitful for them or not. Other methods, which Argos could use is panel
interview in which more than one interviewer is present at the similar time while taking
interview of candidate. This method allows company to properly interpretate the answers given
by prospective employee and then finds out the authenticity and credibility of it. Besides this,

every aspect of candidates can be find out with this approaches which makes it more believable
in nature.
It can be concluded from the above mentioned points that Argos should use these techniques
to find appropriate candidates for their company which could help them to achieve their purpose
of existence.
TASK 4
P6: Stages of Human resource life cycle
Work of human resource starts from the day when candidates gives their first interview
with the company and ends at when that person quits the organisation. HR life cycle is consist of
5 stages which is explain below by taking Argos as example,
 Recruitment and selection: In this stage, HR department provides the necessary support
to hire qualified candidates for Argos. This stage involves several factors like resume
collection, interview etc. of employees for determining their skills, knowledge and
capabilities through which they can perform their function properly (Morley and et. al.,
2015). In several organisations, employers or owners perform such function and It is the
duty of HR manager to support the owner in the recruitment process. Whereas, On
boarding refers to the internal recruitment in which the new position is filled from within
the organisation.
 On boarding and orientation: This stage is known as meeting the demand and needs of
the newly recruited workers. In this stage, the newly hired candidates start to become the
part of organisation and learn new skills for maintaining the harmonious and healthy
working culture of the firm (Wilton, 2016). These new candidates start to build the trust
and proper relations with other employees and the managers. Career planning refers to
the thinking of employees for achieving the determined goals and objectives in order to
develop for the future career. The HR department of Argos needs to determine such
needs of their employees and must provide them suggestions for getting the desired
growth in their career and success in the firm.
 Performance management: It is a process use by company to measure and monitor the
performance employees are giving at work and how it could be improved so to attain
more heights. For instance, if employee of Argos is not working according to the

expectations then they should provide proper training to them so that they can improve in
the future. It would assist Argos to make their employees more productive so that Argos
can achieve their mission and vision.
 Succession planning: It refers to planning of future executives for the company so that
when the existing one left or did not performing according to the shareholders then they
can replace it with the new one without affecting the productivity of Argos (van Zyl,
Mathafena and Ras, 2017).
 Exit and transition: This is the last stage in which employees has planned to quit the
organisation because of many different reasons. So Argos management and HR should
take exit interviews so that real and accurate reason behind leaving the Argos would be
find out and if it is related to company, then Argos should try to remove it so that more
employees won’t leave the organisation for the same or other reason.
P7: How life cycle of HR integrate with HR strategy
Organisation HR strategy is directly connected to the life cycle of HR because everything
is directly or indirectly connected to the employees as they are the one who put their hard work
and efforts so that company can achieve its objectives and goals (Martin, 2015). Different stages
with strategy are explained below,
In the first stage, HR uses different types of approach like internal recruitment or external
recruitment so that HR can save some money for the company which they can use it to other
work. Main strategy of HR while recruiting and selecting employees is to find the potential
candidates who are equipped with skills and capabilities so that Argos efficiency would increase.
In the second stage, Argos try to provide combination of training and development sessions to
their new employees so that new employees would be equipped with skills which is necessary
for them at the time of doing work. In the third stage, HR try to measure to the performance of
employees through various means like KPI so that current status of skills would be find out.
Besides this it helps HR to find out low productive employees of Argos and how it could be
improve so that company efficiency wont get affected. In the next stage, succession planning is
done by company to find out future executives of Argos by measuring them with various aspects
so that suitable employees would be selected. At last in the exit stage, HR try to find out
problems which employees are facing due to which they are leaving the organisation. If the

problems are identified then HR could remove the obstacle in no time so that employees turnover
would be reduced which is favourable for Argos future.
CONCLUSION
From the above report it can be concluded that company should always try to plan their
workforce before bringing any changes in the organisation as then only they would be able to
utilise their resources to its maximum. Their are various types of rules and regulations which
company should considered to avoid any legal issues they might face if they does not follow it.
Proper analysis should be done at the time of recruitment and selection as then only they can hire
those person who have skills and capabilities which is required by company to succeed in the
competitive market. There are many stages of HR life cycle and according to that they have to
modify their working style so to maximize the productivity and efficiency. Apart from this,
organisation can only achieve sustainable business performance if they are able to retain their old
employees with the organisation which automatically decrease employees turnover ratio and
acquisition cost of employees resulting in competitive advantage for company over others.