Comprehensive HRM Report: British Gas, Workforce, and Legislation

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of Human Resource Management (HRM) practices, focusing on workforce planning, recruitment and selection, employee benefits, and the impact of employment legislation. It examines the purpose and functions of HRM, different approaches to recruitment, the benefits of HRM practices for both employers and employees, and the effectiveness of these practices in raising profit and productivity within British Gas. The report also analyzes the importance of employee relations in HRM decision-making and identifies key elements of employment legislation, illustrating the application of HRM practices with specific examples. The document is available on Desklib, a platform offering a wide range of study tools and resources for students.

HUMAN RESOURCE
MANAGEMENT

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
LO1 & LO2: (Task 1)......................................................................................................................1
P1: Explain the purpose and functions of HRM, applicable to workforce planning and
resourcing an organization...........................................................................................................1
P2 Explain the strengths and weaknesses of different approaches to recruitment and selection.
.....................................................................................................................................................5
P3 Explain the benefits of different HRM practices within an organization for both the
employer and employee...............................................................................................................9
P4. Evaluate the effectiveness of different HRM practices in terms of raising British Gas’s
profit and productivity...............................................................................................................10
LO3 & LO4 (Task 02)...................................................................................................................11
P5 Analyze the importance of employee relations in respect to influencing HRM decision-
making.......................................................................................................................................11
P6 Identify the key elements of employment legislation and the impact it has upon HRM
decision-making.........................................................................................................................12
P7 Illustrate the application of HRM practices in a work-related context, using specific
examples....................................................................................................................................13
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................15
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................16

LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 1: Comparison between Personnel and HRM......................................................................2
Figure 2: Functions of HRM............................................................................................................3
Figure 3: Steps in workforce planning.............................................................................................4
Figure 4: Major strategic roles of the manager................................................................................5
Figure 5: Recruitment methods.......................................................................................................6
Figure 6: illustration on employment relations..............................................................................11

LIST OF TABLES
Table 1: Strengths and weaknesses of the recruitment methods.....................................................7
Table 2: Job description.................................................................................................................14
Table 3: Person specification.........................................................................................................14

INTRODUCTION
It is very well known thing nowadays that employee of every organisation must be treated as an
assets because they are the people who put their efforts to make an organisation better in terms of
production, productivity and rank so their benefits and everything should be prioritized and this
way the HR or the Human Resource came into existence as it concerns with every aspect of
Human in the organisation. Here this study gives the idea about the essentials of the human
resource in order to make individual as well as organisational development and for this purpose
the British Gas organisation is selected as the case study.
LO1 & LO2: (Task 1)
P1: Explain the purpose and functions of HRM, applicable to workforce planning and resourcing
an organization.
HRM meaning and definition
Human resource management is a system which relates with the planning, developing and
administrating the various policies of the Human Assets in the organisation. It deals with the
effective utilization of available human resource to achieve individual and organisational
objectives (Marchington et al, 2016).
Purpose of HRM
 It works to enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of individuals as well as
organisational.
 It boosts the positive and harmonious relations at workplace by following the effective
HR practices which are bind by the Labour Law.
 It facilitates the employment life cycle which includes from hiring to leaving the
organisation (Cascio, 2018).
Concepts of HRM
1

Figure 1: Comparison between Personnel and HRM
 Traditional concept – the traditional concept was only focused on the personnel functions
like only with their hiring and firing system with the salary and other issues. It was more
an employer centric approach.
 Modern concept – it is the actual concept of HRM and it relates with the relations and
development of individuals such as team building, development program.
Approaches of HRM
 Best practice approach – it offers better commitment with extreme motivation and
focuses on various HR policies like reward system.
 Best fit approach – it offers competitive benefit with the applicability of the reward
system which matches with the organisational policies.
Models of HRM
 Hard HRM – in this model more focus is given on the needs of the organisational
workforce and other requirements. It is known as short term modification in employee’s
existence.
2

 Soft HRM – in soft HRM model employees are treated as valuable assets and all the
motivation and reward system are applied to encourage them (Bratton and Gold, 2017).
Functions of HRM
Figure 2: Functions of HRM
HRM functions are mainly divided into two categories;
Operative functions such as;
 Recruitment – it is the process of attracting the candidates from the pool of the talent.
 Training & Development – it is the process to identify the training needs and designing
the appropriate training and development program.
 Compensation – designing the remuneration for every kind of job is really important
function of HRM.
 Performance appraisals – this function enables HRM to use the performance management
to offer appropriate reward system to motivate the workforce.
Managerial functions such as;
 Planning – it is the process of making the blue print of every activity in advance.
 Organising – the allocation of the all available resources takes place in this function of
HRM.
3

 Directing – it is the process of giving support and providing way to perform the job
effectively.
 Controlling – it is very important function to monitor or to control so the gap between
desired and actual can be identified.
Workforce planning
Figure 3: Steps in workforce planning
Workforce planning is the process of forecasting the requirements of the organisation in terms of
Human Resource to meet its goal and objectives (Marchington et al, 2016). Workforce planning
is very important function of HRM as it enables the organisation to take the Human Assets in the
organisation so the company can increase its production capacity with highly skilled people.
Roles of HRM
4

Figure 4: Major strategic roles of the manager
 In British Gas organisation its Human Resource Department keeps very vital part as it
forecast the requirement and meets those requirements through workforce planning.
 In this organisation HRM plays important role to maintain effective working conditions.
 The HRM department is very much responsible in British Gas organisation in terms of
taking strategic decision regarding workforce.
 Training & development, performance appraisals and remuneration management are the
other major roles and responsibility of the HRM in British Gas Corporation.
P2 Explain the strengths and weaknesses of different approaches to recruitment and selection.
Recruitment and selection
Recruitment is the process of attracting the right people for the right kind of job these candidates
are the most skilled and helps to achieve organisational goal on the other hand selection is a
negative process to remove the unsuitable candidates (Costen, 2012).
Advantages
 It boosts right people at right place and right position
 It helps in profit maximization
 It helps to have highly skilled workforce
5

 Selection removes unsuitable candidates
Methods of recruitment & selection
Figure 5: Recruitment methods
There are three main recruitment approaches that are used;
 Internal – it recruits the candidates internally and also by the reference of the existing
working employees. Transfers, promotion, reference and job rotation is the main sources
of internal recruitment.
 External – this method finds the candidates from the outside the company such as
advertisement, employee exchange, educational institutes and etc (McGraw, 2013).
 Third party – these are the placement agencies which recruits the candidate for the
company.
6

Table 1: Strengths and weaknesses of the recruitment methods
Methods Strengths Weakness Evaluation Critical
evaluation
Internal  Recruitment
process takes less
time through this
method.
 Does not require
deep training.
 References make
work easy.
 Build commitment
and healthy
relations.
 Less risk
involved.
 Promotes
frustration as
not
promoted.
 May lead
discriminatio
n
 It minimizes
the
opportunity
to hire fresh
and new
talent.
Internal
approach is
very good as it
promotes the
commitment
level and builds
strong relations
between the
employer and
employee and
also it really
cost effective as
less training
and cost
involved in this
process.
Internal methods
are good in
terms of
relationship
building but for
the same reason
it can be the big
issue for the
frustration of the
not promoted
employee and
company can be
infamous for the
discrimination
issues.
External  Increased
innovation and
ideas.
 It helps to
promote brand.
 Pool of talent can
be available.
 It helps high
productivity.
 More time
required.
 More finance
involved.
 More risk is
involved.
External
method of
recruitment
gives the new
blood to the
company and
gives new
dimension or
direction to
move as the
new people
with various
ideas and
innovative
thoughts can
With the more
cost
involvement of
the recruitment
the external
methods also
requires much
finance to
design the good
training and
recruitment
program and for
head hunting
much
remuneration is
7

move company
to the top ranks.
needed to offer.
Third
party
 Less time involves
 It decreases the
burden of HRM
department.
 Increases
employee
association.
 High fees
involved.
 It not
guarantees
about the
talent.
 Fear from
fraud cases
(Cascio,
2018).
Some of the
organisations
are not that
much capable
to hire good
candidates due
to less time or
due to less
knowledge so
in that situation
third party
method is really
beneficial to
opt.
These kinds of
recruitment
agencies are
reliable at the
great level as so
many fraud
cases can be
seen as they
charging the
higher amount
and also not
providing the
required skilled
candidates.
Three part
assessment
or
interview
(selection)
 It helps in
complete
assessment.
 It removes the
unsuitable
candidates.
 It helps to
recognize the
skilled talent.
 It creates
difficulty
sometimes to
assess.
 Sometimes
talented
candidates
also can be
assessed
negatively.
As some skills
such as
adapting to
change,
motivation and
building
relations with
people is the
really much
required in the
candidates so
the assessment
selection
method helps to
overall
assessment of
the candidate.
Many
assessment
criteria hamper
the quality of
candidates and
also sometimes
the small
amount of
favouritism can
affect the entire
assessment.
8