Human Resource Management in Asda: A Comprehensive Analysis

Desklib provides solved assignments and past papers to help students succeed.

HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT
1 | P a g e

Table of Contents
Introduction...................................................................................................................... 3
Scope and purpose of Human Resource Management in relation with the organizational
skills and talents to fulfil the functions of business...........................................................4
Evaluation of the key elements related to human resource management in the
organizational culture.......................................................................................................7
External and internal factors affecting the decision making of human resource
management involving employee legislations..................................................................9
Conclusion..................................................................................................................... 11
References.....................................................................................................................12
2 | P a g e

Introduction
The term human resource management is considered as a function that is concerned
with motivating, hiring, as well as maintaining workforce within an organizational culture.
However, human resource management is known to deal with certain issues that are
associated with the employees like compensation, training, hiring, communication,
development, motivation and administration. Thus, a department of HR is considered as
a critical component for the well being of employees in any kind of business. The
responsibilities involve payroll, benefits, and keeping the employees up to date with the
federal and state laws of tax. Hence, the present study focuses upon the different
functions of human resource management within the organization of Asda.
Asda is a British supermarket that is headquartered in United Kingdom, England. This
company have been found in the year of 1949. During 1970s it was known to expand
across the south of England. Beside the core supermarket, the organization is also
found to offer several other services to the customers such as financial services and
provides mobile phone that utilizes the existing network of EE (Asda. 2019). the
marketing promotions of Asda is generally based on price. The mission of the
concerned organization is to be the best value for retailer of Britain through exceeding
the needs of customers. Thus, the purpose of Asda is to make goods and services that
are affordable to the customers.
3 | P a g e

Scope and purpose of Human Resource Management in relation with the
organizational skills and talents to fulfil the functions of business
The scope of human resource management is known to be very wide. However, this is
generally concerned with recruitment, manpower planning, placement, selection,
promotion, transfer, layoff and retrenchment, training and development, productivity,
incentives and similar other factors (Bailey et al., 2018). An officer of human resource
management is responsible for providing support for the above functions along with
employee counselling. Thus, the scope based on human resource management is
referred to as certain activities that are mentioned below:
Human resource planning: The planning of human resource is referred to as the
process through which, the concerned organization can identify vacant jobs, it can also
analyse its shortage of employees of number of excess staffs and the process for
dealing with the shortage or excess of employees.
Recruitment and selection: Based on detailed information related to the jobs of the
particular organization, Asda is known to prepare advertisements and also publishes
them within the newspapers. This is one of the recruitment strategies of the organization
and many applications are found to be received by the organization. However,
interviews are known to be conducted accordingly and prospect candidates are
selected.
Training and development: Each and every employee are seen to undergo through
the training program that helps the candidates to provide better performance within the
job (Storm and Taylor, 2018). The present company conducts training programs for the
existing staffs that consists of a lot experience as well. They termed it as refresher
training where the company seems to invest a huge amount.
Performance appraisal: After completion of 1 year of service, every employee is found
to get performance appraisal within the particular organizational culture. In this case, the
department of human resource check the performance based on the employees.
Regarding these appraisals, incentives, future promotions, and increments within the
salary are found to be decided by the human resource department.
4 | P a g e

Figure 1: Scope of HRM
Source: (Harada et al., 2019)
The purpose of human resource management is to coordinate with the people in the
organizational culture for achieving the goals of the company. Thus, this is termed as
the coordination within the people of the organization to accomplish specific objectives
of businesses, maintaining the satisfaction of employees, and fulfilling the needs of the
staff (Barrena‐Martinez et al., 2019). However, the concerned organization consists of
some specific functions to achieve the business objectives. These functions are
mentioned below:
Staffing Needs
The department of human resource are mainly concerned with the recruitment of
employees. Furthermore, according to the views of Othman and Mahmood, (2019), this
also involves creating announcements for positions that includes identification of jobs
and duties along with determining the level of skill as well as requirements, which are
important for the respective position. Based on the present organization, the department
of HR also focuses upon termination of the employees as; they ensure no laws should
be violated within this process. HR department of Asda is also involved for the process
of promotion and transfer regarding in context of the existing employees.
Benefits
5 | P a g e

Effective administering and developing the programs for benefits of the employees are
termed as an efficient tool for retention and recruitment. The common benefits for a job
involve dental insurance, health insurance along with a retirement plan (Kumar and
Reddy, 2019). The department of HR in Asda are known to provide important
information to the staffs during the season of enrolment about making effective
decisions that must be time sensitive. They are also found to coordinate with the ways
that include specialised time of leave for the employees like leave for active duty of
military and maternal leave.
Compensation
Employees are always concerned about their fair payment. The personnel of HR
department evaluate and makes a change on the pay structure of an organization
through researching the trends of compensation. This also consists of the goal for
providing the employees with such a pay that is industry acceptable. For instance, in
Asda, Hr department is known to assess the policies as well as help the organization to
comply with different local, federal and state laws in relation with the compensation like
the Act of Fair Labour Standards. The concerned organization review and also provides
documentation regarding the unemployment claims.
Thus, the purpose of HR department in Asda is to manage specific needs based on the
employees of the organization. From the legal to the financial matters, the department
of human resource management helps to maximise the efficiency for the company.
6 | P a g e

Evaluation of the key elements related to human resource management in the
organizational culture
According to Gutierrez-Gutierrez et al., (2018), there are many key elements for human
resource department to manage in an effective manner. This involves many aspects
such as recording attendance of the employees, scheduling shifts, tracking sick days
and absences. However, the key elements rely upon the size as well as scale of the
organizational operation. In case of Asda, the key elements of Human resource
management are mentioned below:
Benefits administration
The system of benefits administration seems to provide a module for the organizations
to track and administer employee participation within the benefit programs. These
undertake compensation, insurance, retirement and profit sharing as well.
Recruiting
The process of online recruitment has become the primary methods that are employed
through the departments of HR for gaining potential candidates in context of the
available positions in the organization (Tang et al., 2018). For instance, the concerned
organization has implemented a system of talent management that includes
identification of potential applicants, analysis of personnel usage in the company,
recruitment through the listings that are company-facing and sites of online recruitment
or publications, which markets both applicants and recruiters.
Payroll
The module of payroll automates the process of pay through collecting data upon
employee attendance and time. It is also done through calculating different taxes and
deductions as well as generating pay cheques in a periodic manner along with the tax
reports of the employees. In case of Asda, data is fed through human resources and the
modules of time keeping for calculating automatic deposit along with the writing
capabilities of manual cheque. Hence, the respective module is able to encompass all
transactions related to employees and integrates with the existing systems of financial
management.
Employee self service
This module allows the employees to put query related to the HR data and also to
perform some transactions of HR within the system. For instance, employees can ask
about their attendance record through the system instead of taking any information from
the HR personnel. The particular module also allows the supervisors to approve the
requests of overtime through their subordinates from the system instead of overloading
the task over the department of HR.
7 | P a g e

Figure 2: Key Elements of HR
Source: (Gunnigle et al., 2019)
8 | P a g e

External and internal factors affecting the decision making of human resource
management involving employee legislations
Based on the views of Amarakoon et al., (2018), external factors that affect the policies
of HR are related with the impact of competition within the recruitment and designing
salary. Regarding the external factors, the organization comprises of social, political,
cultural, technological, legal and economic environment. The influence of external
factors is not within the control of HRM and often seeks action through HRM for
addressing the effects within the organizational goals. On the other hand, internal
factors consist of the internal policies of the organization that impacts human resource
management. In case of the present organization Asda, there are several external and
internal factors that affects the decision making process of HR department. These
factors are mentioned below:
Effect of competition upon recruitment
The extent based on competition of the present organization affects the organizational
ability for recruiting the qualified workers. Due to brand name of the concerned
organization, they find that the candidates seek them out and they do not invest much
amount in advertisement of recruitment. However, small businesses do not consist of
same power of branding and actively seeks for qualified candidates regarding the
critical position. Hence, in these types of cases, the department of HR focuses upon
developing the materials of recruitment and attends job fairs for promoting their
organization and attracting applicants as well.
Compensation and supply of labour
Supply of labours is known to drive the compensation amount that is offered by a
business for attracting employees. The department of HR based on the concerned
organization is considered to evaluate the structure of compensation continually through
conducting industry, specific surveys of salary, and location for assurance of wages that
remains enough competitive for retaining and attracting key staffs and keeps low on the
other hand to make their business financially competitive. The HR department of Asda
ensures a fair structure of internal compensation. For instance, the experienced workers
along with specialised qualifications within the particular organization earn more as
compared with the fresher who are also responsible for doing the same tasks.
Employee relations and internal policies
The internal procedures and policies of the concerned organization, impacts the
activities of the HR department (Soltis et al., 2018). For example, as the company is
known to be committed for promoting employees, HR department ensures that the
employees receives a proper training and development program for getting promotion in
an appropriate period of time. HR is responsible for monitoring the employees those are
eligible for retirement and provides assurance of potential replacements.
Impact of legislation
9 | P a g e

Legislation is considered to impact all the activities of HR. For instance, the state and
Federal legislation dictates the time period of a business to retain the records of
personnel and data of other employees along with the information that can be stored as
well as the process of storing. Hence, the HR professionals are known to stay abreast
of the legislation and to train managers for operating through maintaining the laws.
10 | P a g e

Conclusion
Based on the above discussion, the present study has been focused upon the concept
of human resource management within the organization of Asda. Scope and purpose
related to the activities of human resource management have also been highlighted in
the above discussion. Furthermore, the key elements of human resource management
is also considered in the present study along with the external and internal factors that
affects the decision making of human resource department. Hence, it can be concluded
that the internal and external factors within the organizational culture can influence the
practices of HR department both in a positive and negative manner.
11 | P a g e

References
Amarakoon, U., Weerawardena, J. and Verreynne, M.L., 2018. Learning capabilities,
human resource management innovation and competitive advantage. The International
Journal of Human Resource Management, 29(10), pp.1736-1766.
Asda.com. 2019. Asda.com - Online Food Shopping, George, & more. [online] Available
at: https://www.asda.com/ [Accessed 25 May 2019].
Bailey, C., Mankin, D., Kelliher, C. and Garavan, T., 2018. Strategic human resource
management. Oxford University Press.
Barrena‐Martinez, J., López‐Fernández, M. and Romero‐Fernández, P.M., 2019. The
link between socially responsible human resource management and intellectual
capital. Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, 26(1), pp.71-
81.
Gunnigle, P., Lavelle, J. and Monaghan, S., 2019. Multinational companies and human
resource management in Ireland during recession: A retrospective from a highly
globalized economy. Thunderbird International Business Review, 61(3), pp.481-489.
Gutierrez-Gutierrez, L.J., Barrales-Molina, V. and Kaynak, H., 2018. The role of human
resource-related quality management practices in new product development: A dynamic
capability perspective. International Journal of Operations & Production
Management, 38(1), pp.43-66.
Harada, N., Kai, S., Chishima, K., Miyamoto, J., Kodama, M., Koda, M., Bando, M. and
Tani, H., 2019. No More Suffering: Building Human Resource Capacities with the
Sphere Standard. Prehospital and Disaster Medicine, 34(s1), pp.s152-s153.
Kumar, K.S. and Reddy, M.L., 2019. Strategic Human Resource Management: The
Calibrated Catalysts for Indian IT-SMEs Performance Optimization. SDMIMD Journal of
Management, 10(1), pp.31-42.
Othman, S. and Mahmood, N., 2019. Linking employee engagement towards individual
work performance through human resource management practice: From high potential
employee’s perspectives. Management Science Letters, 9(7), pp.1083-1092.
Soltis, S.M., Brass, D.J. and Lepak, D.P., 2018. Social resource management:
Integrating social network theory and human resource management. Academy of
Management Annals, 12(2), pp.537-573.
Storm, E. and Taylor, B., 2018. Green human resource management: An organisational
strategy for Greening employees. Kings & Queens Journal, 1(1), pp.18-26.
Tang, G., Chen, Y., Jiang, Y., Paillé, P. and Jia, J., 2018. Green human resource
management practices: scale development and validity. Asia Pacific Journal of Human
Resources, 56(1), pp.31-55.
12 | P a g e