BTEC L4 Business: Unit 3 HRM Practices at Merrill Lynch Firm

This report provides an overview of Human Resource Management (HRM) practices within Merrill Lynch, a financial services firm. It examines the purpose and functions of HRM, including recruitment and selection processes, training and development programs, and the application of hard and soft HRM approaches. The report analyzes the strengths and weaknesses of different recruitment methods, such as internal and external recruitment, and selection methods like interviews. It also covers the scope of HRM, encompassing personal management, industrial relations, and welfare aspects. The analysis considers internal and external factors influencing the organization. The report aims to provide insights into how Merrill Lynch manages its workforce to achieve its business objectives and gain a competitive advantage.

Programme Title BTEC Pearson L4 in Business
Unit Number and Title Unit 3 Human Resource Management
Targeted Learning
outcomes
LO1, LO2, LO3 and LO4
Referred Pass Merit Distinction
Unit Final Grade
Learning Outcomes Feedback Grades awarded
LO 1
LO 2
LO 3
LO 4
Guidance for improvement / Action Plan / General comments

Date assignment marked:__________________________

Human Resource Management

INTRODUCTION
Human Resource Management is strategic approach of organisation for effective
management of employees and people related to organisation. There are different activities and
practices are used by the HRM department in the company to manage and improve and enhance
the performance and productivity of employees to gain marketplace advantage for higher
marginal profit and generate high revenue (Bondarouk, Meijerink and Leak, 2016). These
practices of HRM focuses on the individual employee performance to provide the company with
advantage in target market. This report is providing brief about function and activities of human
resource management in the organization to learn different strategy of HRM practices in Merrill
Lynch Firm. Merrill Lynch Firm id providing financial services to the company clients. This
company was founded in 1914 by Charles E. Merrill. Company is operation on May location
around the globe. The parent company of Merrill Lynch organisation is the Bank of America.
This report is providing the brief of work force management practices of HRM in Merrill Lynch
Firm. Functions of HRM are explained to find effectiveness of these practices. All the internal
and external factors of organisation are covered in study to evaluate their influence on Merrill
Lynch Company.
TASK 1
Purpose and function of HRM.
Human resource management — It is the blueprint that described the management approach.
Firm can use in the business to manage the People by organising, Planning, controlling, directing
and recruiting (Paredes, 2019). This approach helps to manage the people effectively in a
workplace such that they help their business to achieve the future goal and helps to take a
competitive advantage. This department enhances the development among the employee through
different learning programme as they able to achieve the goal of the organisation.
Nature -
1. It gives confident among the people that they have and ability to achieve goal of the firm.
2. It provides the training and development program to employees for develop their skills.
3. The main aim of achieving the goal of the firm with rules and regulations.
4. It is the inclusion function that helps to manage the people in an organisation.
Scope -
Personal management — The main scope of is that hiring, recruiting and motivate the people
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By provide training, placement, promotion, transfer, power, productivity etc.
Industrial relationship — in this, it contains grievance handling, collective bargaining, reduce
disputes, managing the relationship with co-workers etc.
Welfare aspect — In this strategy HR staff is concentrate on health and safety aspect of
employees, education level, provide better canteen facilities, flexible working hours,
transportation activities etc (Stachová, Stacho and Blštáková2019).
Purpose and function -
Recruitment and selection — Recruitment is the process of hiring and selecting the best
candidates by inviting the employees through advertising in newspaper, TV, social platforms etc.
This is the process that helps to firm for selecting the best candidate according to the
qualification and knowledge of employees (Ahmad, 2015). In this the purpose of Merrill lynch is
to recruit the best candidate for the suitable job position firm can use the internal and external
method for selecting the employees. Internal method provides the helps to firm for select the
candidate within the business like provide the opportunity to existing employees through
promotion transfer etc. on the other side external method provide helps to Merrill lynch for
recruit the candidate outside the business, as this method grab the new ideas that helps to make
the new and innovative products (Banfield, Kay and Royles, 2018). Thus, Merrill lynch used
these both methods for the purpose of this function is to select the best employees regarding
enhance the productivity. Thus, it makes better work force planning based on Channing needs
and requirements of employees.
Training and development — This process is provided the training facility to the employees for
develop the new skills in the employees for performing their work accordingly. Merrill lynch use
this method for the purpose of increase the knowledge among the employees. Therefore, they do
their work effectively and makes higher production (Fu, Jonathan and Bano, 2019). Thus, it
helps to enhance the profitability of the firm.
Hard HRM — This process is described that firm only focuses on productivity as they hire the
person on the needs of company. Thus, Merrill lynch pay the minimum salary to employees by
recruit the enough staff as requirements.
Soft HRM — This process is describing that firm many focuses on employees that they believe
that human resource is important resources for the business. Therefore, firm provides the benefits
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to enhance the motivation among the employees like, promotion, bonus, incentives, holidays,
insurance, retirement benefits etc.
Strength and weakness of different approaches of recruitment and selection
Types of recruitment Strength Weakness
Internal Method- it is the
process which select the
employees within the business
through transfer, promotion,
job rotation and rehiring
Save cost of recruitment —
in this process the cost of
recruits is less because Merrill
lynch do not advertise job
vacancy on outside (Uysal,
2019). Thus, they
communicate directly to the
employees through general
meetings. There are many
emplo0yees in organisation
and these employees who are
currently working in
organisation have enough
experience. So, organisation
do not have to spend extra
amount on training and
development of employees.
Enhance motivation among
employees — Merrill Lynch
provide the opportunity to the
people it helps to enhance the
motivation and productivity of
the firm (Bondarouk, Meijer
ink and Leak, 2016). This
approach of interview can
provide better opportunity to
employees in same
Lack of innovative ideas —
This method provides the few
choices that means the pool of
fresh talent and innovative
ideas is not considered is
remained constant. In the
internal interview the
employee is less innovative
because they are not aware of
latest technology. This reduces
the chances of innovation in
organization.
Increase the conflicts — this
method increases the conflict
because firm provide
opportunity to one person and
other person feel dissatisfied,
and they do not work properly
so it leads conflicts and reduce
productivity.
Less option of selection –
when an organisation conducts
internal recruitment then they
have limited option and they
have to make selection within
the available options. This
thing reduces the chances to
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organization and if one person
is awarded with promotion on
their positive work in
organization this will also
motivate other people to work
accordingly with higher
efficiency.
Continuity of operations – In
the internal process the cost of
recruitment is minimum also
Merrill Lynch provide the
opportunity to existing
employees so adopting the
new job is easy for them
because they already
understand the environment of
the firm. that means Merrill
Lynch Chances are that an
internal employee can
transition into the new role
with minimal downtime. Thus,
the cost is less while using the
internal method also this
process is not affecting the
operational activities.
Less paper work – Using the
internal process it also helps
because it provides the less
paper work While there will
be some HR forms to change,
firm won’t necessarily have to
select right person with
required qualities (Bloom,
Sadun and Van Reenen, 2015).
Limited in choice -
Merrill Lynch could be limited
your choices because through
internal recruitments firm have
no choice as They select the
candidate on the performance
basis not on the basis of new
ideas and experiences so, this
is the biggest disadvantage as
firm cannot hire the new
people(Berman, 2015).
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issue new passwords, keys,
insurance and tax paperwork
to get the staffer up and
running (Boxall, Guthrie and
Paauwe, 2016).
Reduce the operational cost
Reduce the operating cost
when recruited internally
generally internal recruitment
is not expensive and benefit
for the Merrill Lynch. In these
firm do not have any advertise
also they do not provide high
training programmes to the
employees, so these is not
expensive for company and
help to reduce expenses
External Method— it is the
process which select and hire
the employees outside the firm
through advertising,
placements, employees
exchange etc.
Find right person — this
process helps to identify the
right person for the right job
(Chuang, Jackson and Jiang,
2016). Thus, Merrill Lynch
select the candidates based on
qualification and knowledge.
Selection and recruitment are
the main method to manage
work force of organisation and
in this procedure, company do
not have to spent large amount
because they can hire different
Costly — This method is
costly as compare to the
internal method. Thus, Merrill
lynch invest their money in
advertising activities which
leads cost of the recruitment
(DiCenzo, Robbins and
Verhulst, 2016). In external
process of recruitment
organization hire new
candidate from different
sources like campus interview
and use different employment
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employment service to select
right candidates for company
to full fill their requirement.
Enhance the competitive
spirit — Merrill Lynch
provides the different
opportunity that creates the
competition among new and
old employees that helps to
enhance the individual growth
of the peoples (Debroux,
2017).
services that can cause a lot
money to organisation.
Enhance misunderstanding -
This method is increases
misunderstanding because
Merrill Lynch recruit the
person with lack of knowledge
as it leads misunderstanding
(Englert 2019). Recruitment
from external sources is a
lengthy process and after this
expensive process company
again must spent for training
and development of new
employee because they are not
aware of company procedures
and functions.
Selection method Strength Weakness
Interview Merrill Lynch used this
method to recruit the person
this method is easy and
effective because it provides
the usable and clear
information of employees.
Thus, this information helps to
select the best person for the
job (Suleman and Goyette,
2019).
This process is expensive and
time-consuming. Thus, firm
can use this method, but they
faced issues like, it increases
the cost of recruitment.
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Personality test This process is also the best
process because it provides the
deep information of employees
like, employees are really fit in
the job or not (Englert, 2019).
Thus, Merrill Lynch used this
method to find the best
candidate by analysing the
personality of employees.
Merrill Lynch face the lack of
different trait and
characteristics that means lack
of diversity. Thus, this method
recruits the same trait of
person again and again which
leads the disadvantage of the
firm (Fu, Jonathan and Bano,
2019). In the personality test
there are a lot of chances of
personality faking because the
through test they can provide
different answer form their
personal perspectives this can
lead the organisation in
different way.
TASK 2
Functions of HRM in organization and Their Effectiveness
In an organisation different function are performed by human resource department to
increase the productivity of company in market. This is essential for the organisation to maintain
the functions and operation of employees in effective way to get larger output from them. There
are different functions of HRM in company are- recruitment and selection, payroll management,
appraisal and performance management, training and development, conflict management,
employee relation (Chuang, Jackson and Jiang, 2016). These all functions of HRM are important
for the company to get maximum output from the people who are associated with company.
Recruitment and Hiring
This function of HRM is most important for organisation. Through this process Hr
department full fills, the requirement of company related to work for by performing recruitment
and selection drive. The purpose of this is to select or hire the person with all the qualities that
required by organisation. It is their responsibility to select the employee for specific job role.
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This is function is also consisting of job designing. By this process HRM hires the employees for
Merrill Lynch Organisation to meet long term and short goals and targets of company. If the
selected person is right for company operation, then it will help the growth of company. For an
example company need a software programmer to solve problems which are common the
workplace. Then the operation department will provide information to HRM department about
their need. After this communication of employee need HRM will ask the Operation department
about the skill required employee. As per the required skills and qualification HRM will prepare
a job description and publish this information in public figure to ask the candidate to provide
their personal details to conduct interview for job opening in company (Tabard, Tahrir and
Baruch, 2017). By this method human resource management full fill need of company related to
work force management
Payroll and Reward Management
In the organisation HRM performs the activity of employee management and tracking.
All the information of employee is kept by HRM department. It is their duty to track the
performance and working of employee to provide them relevant payroll that is based on the
attendance of employee (Paredes, 2019). This function of HRM is also important for Merrill
Lynch Company because this function related to money issue and satisfaction level of employee
in organisation. If employees of company are not satisfied with their payment, then it will reduce
their fate in company, and this will lead to the reduced productivity of Merrill Lynch
organisation. This is how the effective payroll management can help the organisation to
encourage the employee to perform better in organisation by provide them with respective salary
as per their performance in company.
The employees in the company are paid as per their work hours at workplace. As per the
legal laws of minimum wages act company must pay the employees with relevant payment to
meet their personal requirements (Santhanam, Dayaram and Ziegler, 2017). Apart from this as
per the extra hours served by employee are counted as overtime. HRM consider this overtime
work and provide extra financial benefits to employee. This practice motivates employees to put
more efforts in their work.
Appraisal and Performance Management
In Merrill Lynch organization many employees work around the world and for good
performance they need to keep motivate their employee to get 100 % of their performance. Good
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