Analysis of HR Policies and Practices: Case Study of Asda Supermarket

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HUMAN RESOURCE
MANAGEMENT

TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction......................................................................................................................................1
Task..................................................................................................................................................2
1. An analysis of HR policies and practices within the organisation..........................................2
2. An analysis of impact of external forces on HR strategic decisions within the organisation. 4
3. An analysis of how the HR function is organised and how HR policies and practices are
delivered......................................................................................................................................6
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................8
References........................................................................................................................................9

LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 1: HR policies and practices.................................................................................................3

Introduction
Human resources are the valuable asset for the business organization that contribute their efforts,
time and utilize their skills and knowledge for delivering quality products or services to
customers. It is essential for the business organization to develop and have effective HR policies
and practices for hiring, managing and making optimum utilization of human resources to
enhance the productivity and profitability of the business and gain competitive advantages. The
current report will discuss the example of Asda organization for analysing HR policies and
practices used within the organization. Asda is the one of the leading supermarket in the UK that
provides fresh groceries, home products and appliances and insurance services. The report will
discuss and analyze the major impact of various external factors or forces on the HR strategic
decision-making within the Asda. The report will also discuss and analyze that how HR function
is organized and HR practices and policies are delivered.
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Task
1. An analysis of HR policies and practices within the organisation
HR policies can be defined as the formal guidelines and rules that the business organizations
follow to hire, train, appraise and reward employees in the workplace. It is essential for the
business organization like Asda to identify key HR policies and to analyze that these are fairly
and consistently applied in the workplace for protecting interest and rights of the employees. HR
policies of the organization involves policies such as equal employment opportunities policies,
pay days, pay advances, overtime compensation, payroll deductions, vacation or holidays, sick
days & personal leave, performance appraisal and increment policies, termination policies, etc
(Brewster and Hegewisch, 2017). These policies defined that there is a written contract between
the employer and employees and if the written policies are not clear then the organization may
face some disadvantages. Therefore, it is essential for the Asda to have clearly defined or follow
HR policies to avoid unexpected disadvantages and to ensure the long term existence and growth
of the business organization.
The best HR practices are set of processes and actions of the HRM that can be applied in the
different workplace situation universally. There are different types of HR practices that HRM in
the ASDA can use such as best fit practices and best practices. As per best fit HR practices,
HRM in the Asda mainly focuses on meeting needs of both organization as well as the
employees for ensuring the growth of the business. While as per the best HR practices, HRM in
the Asda can focus on higher business performance for gaining competitive benefits despite of
the organizational setting (Kuvaas et.al, 2014). As per the hard HRM practices, the HRM or the
organization like Asda treats employees as a resource just like machinery and identify workforce
requirements and then hire and manage skilled workforce to meet needs of the organization.
While as per the soft HRM practices, organization treats employees as most valuable asset of the
organization and focuses to meet different needs of the employees such as motivation, rewards,
good payroll, etc.
There are numbers of HR practices performed by the HRM in the Asda such as selection of right
people, security to employees, fair and performance based compensation, training to employees,
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etc. to achieve the business objectives. The HR personnel in the Asda identify the workforce
requirement and then bring in the right person for the right job to gain the competitive
advantages. The Asda uses various instruments and techniques to select the right person such as
personal interview, work test, personality assessments and reference check (Wei, 2015). The
organization makes both formal as well as informal employment contract with employees but it
is essential to provide employment security to employees for retaining them in the organization.
The organization invests in providing skill training, motivation and rewards to employees and if
it not do so then employees are more likely to leave the organization.
It is also an important HR practice in the organization like Asda to provide appropriate fair and
performance based compensation to employees to motivate and retain them in the organization
for long term to gain competitive advantages. The organization also provides rewards to
employees on the basis of their performance so that they are motivated to perform well in the
future task also. It is one of important HR practice of the organization to invest in the training
and development programmes for enhancing and improving skills and knowledge of employees
so that they can contribute efficiently in gaining competitive advantages.
Figure 1: HR policies and practices
(Source: tmforum, 2019)
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2. An analysis of impact of external forces on HR strategic decisions within the organisation
There are numbers of external forces and factors that can impact on the HR strategic decision-
making within the business organization like Asda. It essential for the HRM or organization to
effectively and efficiently analyze various external forces so that decisions can be made or
strategies can be developed accordingly to overcome their negative impacts. Following are given
below some external factors that can impact the HR strategic decision-making within the Asda
organization:
Employment market: The employment market is the place where employees are in search of
jobs and employers are in search of employees to meet their purposes. But in the current business
environment, there is a huge competition in the employment market that is creating big challenge
for HRM and the organization to hire skilled workforce for gaining competitive advantages and
meeting the business organizational objectives. There are large numbers of business
organizations in retail sectors that focus to attract and hire skilled employees by offering them
attractive salary packages and other additional benefits (Bailey et.al, 2018).
This situation creates the major problem for the business organization like Asda to recruit the
skilled employees for performing different tasks and activities in the organization. This also
adversely impact on the strategic decision-making of the strategic HR managerial personnel in
the Asda as they face difficulty in attracting and hiring skilled candidates to meet the workforce
requirements of the organization. Therefore, the HRM needs to develop effective strategies to
face competition in the employment market and provide skilled employees to the organization to
perform their various tasks and gain competitive advantages.
High or low skilled workforce: Workforce or employees are valuable asset for the business
organization like Asda that contribute in the effective operations of the business by performing
various activities and serving customers. The availability of the highly skilled workforce in the
organization helps in providing quality services to customers and producing quality output that
helps in gaining competitive advantages (Jackson et.al, 2014). But if the organization lack the
skilled workforce and there is a decrease in sales and productivity of the business due to low
skilled workforce then HR personnel in the Asda needs to take some strategic decisions
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effectively or develop appropriate strategies for hiring skilled employees and retain them in the
organization for long term to meet the business purpose and gain competitive advantages.
Unionised or non-unionised workforce: If the employees in the organization are organized as
the labour union then they are known as the unionised employees and they act as the
intermediate between the organization and employees. On the other hand, non-unionised
employees are those employees who are not a member of the labour union. The labour union act
as a leader of unionised employees and then it negotiate with the organization to protect right and
interest of employees (Cullinane et.al, 2014). While, non-unionised employees have to come
themselves to protect their rights and interest or also protected by the acts like the National Labor
Relations Act (NLRA).
If the organizational HR policies and practices are not in favour or beneficial for employees then
labour unions and employees may raise their voice to protect their rights and hence sometimes
this situation may create the disputes among the employees and the employer or organization.
Therefore, it is essential for the HRM in the Asda to develop appropriate strategies by taking
strategic decisions to avoid any dispute with labour unions and employees and hence ensure the
long-term sustainable growth and survival of the business organization.
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3. An analysis of how the HR function is organised and how HR policies and practices are
delivered
It is essential for the business organization like Asda to have HR function for identifying the
needs of workforce, hiring skilled and experienced workforce, providing them training and
motivation and rewarding so that business organization can gain competitive advantages and
ensure the long-term survival by utilizing skills and knowledge of employees. Asda needs to
have focus on the delivering quality products to customers as reasonable prices for satisfying
them and make them as permanent customers. There, the organization needs HR professionals or
personnel to hire skilled and experienced employees so that can contribute in delivering quality
products or services to customers (Noe et.al, 2017). It is not easy for the organization to choose
right person for the vacant position so there the organization needs skilled HR personnel that
have good interviewing skills and have experience as a HR professional in the well recognized
organization.
HR professional perform the HR functions such as identify skills and knowledge in hiring
employees as required to meet the desired business objectives also reference checking is
important task of the HR professional or personnel. After hiring skilled and experienced
employees, it is also essential for the HR professional in the Asda to reward employees fairly and
equally on the basis of their performance that will motivate employees for better performance in
future tasks and also enhance the business productivity and profitability. It is also not easy for
the business organization like Asda to say good bye or terminate employee from the workplace
as organization must perform this function by taking the advice of professional expertise (Rao,
T.V., 2014). Asda needs to manage the termination costs as well as the employee relations for
retaining employees and hiring new skilled employees efficiently.
The organization must need to conduct the professional interview by taking help of the HR
professional as it will provide skilled workforce to the business organization and hence prevent
the bad hire. It is also essential for the Asda to take advice of the HR professionals while
planning and designing bonus and rewards for employees as inappropriate decisions in the
absence of the HR professionals may be very expensive and serious for the organization (Ulrich
and Dulebohn, 2015). Therefore, the HR function or advice and assistance of HR professional
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are essential for improving the performance of HR and avoiding any risk and serious threat to the
organization.
If the Asda organization has skilled and experienced HR professionals and personnel then it will
help the organization in delivering effective HR policies and practices to hire, train, apprise,
motivate and reward the employees for better performance of the business and hence gain
competitive benefits.
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Conclusion
The report has concluded that HR policies are the set of rules and guidelines that assist the HR
professionals or the business organization to recruit, train, analyze and reward and motivate
employees to gain the competitive advantages. The organization also needs to prepare some
appropriate HR practices such as recruiting the right people, provide security, fair and
performance based compensation, training to them for enabling them to put their full efforts and
time for achieving the desired organizational objectives. But also there are various external
forces that impact the HR strategic decisions positively or negatively such as skilled or unskilled
employees, unionized or non- unionized employees and employment market. The organization
like Asda require skilled and well experienced HR personnel or professionals for performing
various HRM functions effectively and efficiently and delivering appropriate HR policies and
practices.
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References
Books and Journals
 Bailey, C., Mankin, D., Kelliher, C. and Garavan, T., 2018. Strategic human resource
management. Oxford University Press.
 Brewster, C. and Hegewisch, A. eds., 2017. Policy and practice in european human
resource management: The Price Waterhouse Cranfield survey. Taylor & Francis.
 Cullinane, N., Donaghey, J., Dundon, T., Hickland, E. and Dobbins, T., 2014. Regulating
for mutual gains? Non-union employee representation and the Information and
Consultation Directive. The International Journal of Human Resource
Management, 25(6), pp.810-828.
 Jackson, S.E., Schuler, R.S. and Jiang, K., 2014. An aspirational framework for strategic
human resource management. The Academy of Management Annals, 8(1), pp.1-56.
 Kuvaas, B., Dysvik, A. and Buch, R., 2014. Antecedents and employee outcomes of line
managers' perceptions of enabling HR practices. Journal of Management Studies, 51(6),
pp.845-868.
 Noe, R.A., Hollenbeck, J.R., Gerhart, B. and Wright, P.M., 2017. Human resource
management: Gaining a competitive advantage. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill
Education.
 Rao, T.V., 2014. HRD audit: Evaluating the human resource function for business
improvement. SAGE Publications India.
 Ulrich, D. and Dulebohn, J.H., 2015. Are we there yet? What's next for HR?. Human
Resource Management Review, 25(2), pp.188-204.
 Wei, Y.C., 2015. Do employees high in general human capital tend to have higher
turnover intention? The moderating role of high-performance HR practices and PO
fit. Personnel Review, 44(5), pp.739-756
Online
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