Aston Martin HRM: Resource-Based View and UK Labour Market Threats

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Managing Human Resource
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Introduction
Management of human resource includes the role of the manager of the organisation in
controlling and administering its employees. It is also referred to like the performance of the
human resource department in managing the workers of the company. Aston Martin is a public
limited company that falls in the sector of the automobile industry. Robert Bamford and Lionel
Martin have founded it in the year 1913. The organisation has the headquartered in England,
United Kingdom. Andy Palmer is the CEO of the company, and Penny Hughes is the
chairperson (astonmartin.com, 2019). The organisation has a worldwide presence. It
manufactures automobiles as well as luxury goods. The company has generated revenue of more
than one thousand million in the year 2018. The organisation has a few subsidiaries such as
Lagonda and Aston Martin Racing. In the given study, the importance of the resource-based
view in the context of human resource management would be explained. Certain threats on the
Aston Martin company in the labour market of the United Kingdom would be analysed.
Discussions
1. Explain how the ‘Resource Based View’ can be adapted to Human Resource
Management to help deliver competitive advantage and organisational success, using
examples of ‘good practice’ by organisations to support your argument.
The resource-based view is a framework of the managerial department that is used to verify the
strategic assets of the company with the capacity to perform competitive advantage in the
organisation (Datt, 2014). The resources of the company can be used to attain a sustainable
advantage from rival companies by applying an effective application of them. It can be applied in
human resource management by recognising and improving the personnel of the company to
face the competitors. Human resource development includes practices such as, teaching, training,
and developing (HEATHFIELD, 2019). The focus of resource based view model is to not only
predict the future but also create it through developing the potential of the employees. It would
incorporate not only positioning, learning, or planning for the future but at the same time
building a strategic plan to increase the abilities of resources. In this method, the knowledge of
the company is very important as well as the level of tactics should be high. The organisational
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process and human resource should support and reinforce each other for the success of the
business.
The human resource department with the adaption of resource-based view can develop the talent
and skills of the human resource after recruiting them. The major activities of the human
resource department in Aston Martin are to select the perfect candidates, develop their talents,
provide them good treatment and equal opportunities, as well as motivate them. It should adhere
to the country’s Government regulations such as the “Health and Safety Aid” 1981 to safeguard
the health of the personnel (hse.gov.uk, 2019). It helps in engaging the employees towards work
as well as maintains discipline in the organisation by developing some rules and regulations. The
company should follow the legislation of Equality Act 2010, of the UK Government and provide
equal rights to the company’s employees regardless their background, class, race, religion, caste
and gender (equality-act, 2015).
The selection and recruitment method appointed by the Aston Martin is online method. In this
method, the company would get more candidates from the specific region as well as the
advertisement would reach to the mass with less cost. The organisation advertises for job in
online portals and chooses the appropriate candidates for next process, which is interviewing.
The interview in the company has been held by the top managers of the organisation and
includes a series of stages that the candidates need to pass to be selected. After selection in
interview, the candidates would be provided with training as per the requirements of the job. The
organisation selects candidates from experienced to inexperienced as well as provides
apprenticeship to those who do not have much knowledge about work (express.co.uk, 2016).
The company appoints hundreds of candidates in a day for interview, thus providing equal
opportunities to them to work at a reputed company. It has thus increased the employment rate of
the countries from where it has selected candidates. Aston Martin is an automobile company, it
needs expert technicians to perform better work and produce good models of cars. The human
resource function in achieving this goal of the company is to recruit skilled candidates who
would be able to increase the profit of the business. It has also developed an apprenticeship
programme especially for the post of technician (astonmartin.com, 2019). It motivates and
rewards the perfect candidates and helps them in improving their knowledge and skills. There is
another apprenticeship programmes for designing and planning of models of cars. In this
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programme too, the HR plays a major role to increase the creativity level of the candidates
(Mullen, 2018).
The HR department improves the calibre of apprentices by enhancing their problem-solving
skills as well as their level of artisanship. It also provides career path that would be highly
rewarding and sought after in this industry. The HR department provides opportunities to the
apprentices to apply for the job in the same company after completion of their apprenticeship
programme. It also provides lucrative salary during the apprenticeship that would be highly
motivational for the candidates who are staring a new career. The HR also provides some
benefits package during the apprenticeship to encourage them and maintain their loyalty towards
the company (astonmartinlagonda.com, 2019). Through the apprenticeship programmes, the
company has improved the skills of the employees as well as has provided the company perfect
candidates for development and success of organisation in the future.
They should be provided reward and management to increase their potential in work. The effort
of the employees as well as loyalty towards the company would be and if they are recruited
properly and developed in the culture of the organisation. As per the view of Singh and Cappelli,
the resource-based view on strategic human resource management would require the adoption of
some strategies by the firm that would be inimitable or cannot be substituted by another firm to
gain competitive advantage. The VRIO framework would explain the ways through which the
human resource department of the organisation can provide competitive advantage to the
company. Value, the priority of the Aston Martin is in the brand image. The HR department can
reduce the cost of the business by introducing the practices in the work that would be beneficial
for the business as well as for employees. HR department of the organisation helps in selecting
the customers who has perfect skills and talents that would increase the profit of the businesss.
Thus, the role of HR in Aston Martin is to select perfect candidates who would boost the revenue
of the company.
The human resource department of Aston Martin should develop rarity of the human resource.
This can be achieved by increasing the revenue of the employees to motivate and encourage
them in work. Inimitability of the human resource can be developed by building a strong
relationship with the members of the organisation. Any company cannot imitate the trust and
loyalty of the emolyees as it is an internal factor. This can be achieved by maintaining a strong
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social culture in the organisation. Organisation needs to be organised in such a way that the
practices of individual would be effective. The HR department should make some policies to
coordinate the members as well as select appropriate duties and tasks to them as per their skills
and desires. The human resource should be willing to serve and to achieve the goals of the
company as well as they should be skilled enough to gain success over the competitors
(automotivecouncil.co.uk, 2015). The behaviour and skills of the human resource should be
consistent for better output in future.
The practices involved in developing the skills of the personnel are, staffing and informing work
to the candidates, providing training to develop their skills, recognising and rewarding the talent
and performance of the employees, and constantly communicate with them to solve their queries
and problems (Cohen, 2017). In the changing environment of the market situation, the company
needs to adopt new strategies for the survival of the business. Aston Martin needs to modify its
services, routines, as well as products with time. The role of human resource is to motivate and
maintain the people in the organisation. It should develop knowledge of the employees and
transfer it among other members as well.
Human resource management also incorporates the method of integrating the knowledge of the
employees through communication and practice. Aston Martin has incorporated the five-point
plan of cooperation, collaboration, communication, improvement, and learning to transform the
business (astonmartinlagonda.com, 2019). It has adopted these measures to drive change in the
business. The human resource department of this company set a vision or goal to be achieved
and plan for it with the help of employees. It designs the processes incorporated in the
functioning of the task and considers the values of the company as well as the image of the
brand.
The organisation considers these points before implementing them into work and manufacturing
products. According to Mr.Kerr, the quality of the luxury products is essential in maintaining the
image of the brand, and it is achieved in the company by incorporating a good culture among the
employees. The organisation has adopted the measure of producing goods with the help of team
members who have different skills. In this way, it has been able to perform efficiently by taking
advantage of the skills of every one of them. The company is setting a goal for the employees to
be solution-oriented so that there would not be any problem in manufacturing or marketing the
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products and services offered to the consumers. The employees of the company are given
responsibility as per their tasks, and their performance is recorded too. The relocation
programme of the HR department of the company provides the employees with the opportunities
to expand and develop by adjusting in a new area. This helps in talent mobility. The company
would be able to get talented employees from different parts of the world that would increase the
profit of the business.
In this way, it would be able to select skilled and best candidates for their permanent placement
in the future. This method would help the company to choose perfect workers for providing
reward and other benefits. The company also provides career development programmes to the
employees to improve their living standard as well as loyalty towards the company. This
indicates that the company has a resource view that means it consider the personnel of the
company as a resource. These good practices of the organisation have enhanced the prospect of
profit of the business and have helped it to gain competitive advantage over rival companies.
2. Analyse two major threats currently facing organisations operating within the United
Kingdom labour market, using evidenced examples as part of your critical assessment
Labour market usually involves either local or regional staffing or international or global
staffing. Aston Martin has incorporated the use of international staffing process to hire talented
people from different parts of the world for benefit of the business (astonmartinlagonda.com,
2019). The threats that have been faced by Aston Martin in the labour market of United
Kingdom are challenges of relocation of the employees in different regions of the world and
restrictions from EU trade resulted in skill shortages. The company has incorporated
appointment of candidates from overseas. It has presence worldwide and relocates the employees
frequently to unite the employees of every region into single culture. However, there are some
negative implications of these activities that mi8ght affect the business negatively.
The relocation of the employees might lead to lack of accommodation and increase the turnover
rate of the workers (Hopkins, 2016). In a new organisation culture, there are chances that the
employees might not feel comfortable that might result in disappointment and lack of
concentration in work. The employees might have problem in a new team and there would be not
much collaboration among the team members. Lack of communication would affect the quality
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of work negatively. This might lead to turnover of the employees and put pressure on the human
resource department to recruit more employees. Recruiting new employees need time as well as
money. There would not be fluency in work, as the task has to be stopped or paused due to lack
of adequate number of employees. Even after the recruitment the employees need to be given
training and this would further delay the work. New employees might not have adequate skills
required for the work that would affect the business negatively.
However, the company can develop solutions to these problems by communicating with the local
service providers to get information about the new regions to be able to make accommodation
for the employees. The organisation should train the employees on strategies to deal with
changed environment to ensure smooth functioning of the business in any part of the world. It is
the duty of the human resource department to develop a healthy organisational culture to
improve the communication and team management skills of the employees.
As per the EU restrictions on trade, Aston Martin Company’s profit rate would be decreased as
well as due to this restriction, personnel from different regions of Europe would not be permitted
to work in the United Kingdom. This would result in skill shortages as the talent and experience
of the skilled labourers would not be utilised in the organisation. The ease through the company
has worked would become unstable due to this factor (Davies, 2016). Recruitment of personnel
from different parts of world would increase the cost of the business that would be a negative
effect.
The negative effects of EU restrictions on trade can be solved by hiring the personnel from the
native country. This would cut the expense of travel and accommodation as well as increase the
employment rate of the country. The HR department should develop some techniques to teach
the core values of the company to the candidates so that there would not be confusion. It can also
hire experienced candidates and choose he method of internal recruitment for selection of better
candidates for the specific job.
Conclusion
It can be concluded from the given study that the resource-based view in the HR department of
Aston Martin has increased the potential of the employees as well as enhance the profit of the
business by accelerating the improvement in work. The HR department of the organisation has
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also incorporated some good practices such as apprenticeship programmes to increase the
capabilities of the employees. The threats that can affect the organisation’s human resource
aspect are restrictions on trade with EU nation as well as negative effects of relocation. However,
by implementation of some effective strategies by HR department of the organisation, the
impacts would be solved and the company would be able to make profit.
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