Human Resource Management Report: M&S Case Study and Analysis

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of Human Resource Management (HRM) practices at Marks & Spencer (M&S). It begins with an introduction to HRM and its core functions, including recruitment and selection, orientation, maintaining good working conditions, managing employee relations, and training and development. The report then delves into different approaches to recruitment and selection, comparing their strengths and weaknesses, and highlighting the use of online websites, recruitment agencies, and other methods. It further examines the benefits of various HRM practices for both employers and employees, such as performance management, flexible working, training, and reward systems. The report also assesses the effectiveness of HRM practices in raising organizational profit and productivity, emphasizing the importance of an innovative environment and effective communication. Finally, it explores the significance of employee relations in influencing HRM decision-making and outlines key elements of employment legislation, focusing on the Payment of Wages Act and other relevant regulations. The report concludes with a discussion on the application of HRM practices within M&S, emphasizing their impact on the organization's success.

HUMAN RESOURCE
MANAGEMENT

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION................................................................................................................................3
TASK 1.................................................................................................................................................3
P1 Purpose And Functions Of HRM, Applicable To Workforce Planning And Resourcing An
Organization Like M & S................................................................................................................3
P2 Strength And Weakness Of Different Approaches To Recruitment And Selection...................4
P3 Benefits Of Different HRM Practices Within M & S For Both The Employer And Employee.
.........................................................................................................................................................5
P4 Effectiveness Of Different HRM Practices In Terms Of Raising Organisational Profit And
Productivity......................................................................................................................................6
TASK 2.................................................................................................................................................7
P5 The Importance Of Employee Relations In Respect To Influencing HRM Decision Making. .7
P6 Key Elements Of Employment Legislation...............................................................................8
P7 Application of HRM practices:.................................................................................................9
CONCLUSION..................................................................................................................................10
REFERENCES...................................................................................................................................11

INTRODUCTION
A strategic approach for effective management in an organization is called Human Resource
management. This report will lay emphasis on details of Human Resource Management using
Marks and Spencer as an example. Marks and Spencer is a British multinational retailer
headquartered in London. This report will focus on purpose and functions of HRM, strength and
weakness of different approaches of recruitment and selection, benefits and effectiveness of
different HRM practices, importance of employee's relation in respect to influencing HRM decision.
TASK 1
P1 Purpose And Functions Of HRM, Applicable To Workforce Planning And Resourcing An
Organization Like M & S
Human Resource Management is basically a function in an organization like M & S which is
performed so that it can use people in their most effective way to achieve targeted individual goals
or organizational goals. Its purpose is to coordinate all the people in an organization to achieve
business goals(Bratton and Gold, 2017). Human resource management has many functions but out
of those functions there are Five main functions of Human Resource Management in an
organization like M & S like:
 Recruitment and Selection: Recruitment is basically a process in which screening of all the
candidates is done and then qualified and potential candidates are chosen based on job
specification and its criteria. This process is done to select best and qualified applicants out
of all the other applicants. Recruitment and selection is the most important process in any
organization specially M & S because revenue of the company depends upon sales which is
done by sales offices.
 Orientation: Orientation is the most basic function of an organization which help
employees to adjust themselves with their job and with their employer and other employees.
It should include all the goals and objectives of an organization and how all these goals and
objectives can be achieved weather they are short tern or long term goals.
 Maintain good working conditions: It is the primary responsibility of HRM to maintain
good working conditions for the employees so that they like the working environment and
workplace and also get motivated. If all the employees are motivated then they contribute to
achieve as many goals they can of the business.
 Managing employee's relations: Main pillar of an organization is its employees. So its the

main function of HRM to maintain good relation between employees and influence their
behaviour and work outputs.
 Training and development: It is necessary function of HRM. It helps to improve current
and future performance of an employee by increasing their skills and knowledge in
particular subject.
P2 Strength And Weakness Of Different Approaches To Recruitment And Selection.
There are different approaches of recruitment and selection with various strength and
weakness are categorized into internal recruitments (Search Consultants, online websites,
professional referral schemes, advertisement) and external recruitment (Recruitment agencies,
Recruitment events).
Online websites and job boards: These are generally helpful for the organisations which
do not have strong brand name and are unable to attract employees(Bailey and et.al., 2018). But
organizations with good brand names like M & S also use this approach as it is easy.
Strength: It is a cost effective approach. Can handle large volume of applications.
Weakness: It is not useful where candidates are not computer literate. A badly designed website can
lead to damage your brand.
Recruitment agencies: Agencies that provide placements weather they are permanent or
temporary. This method is used by M & S.
Strength: No hire, no risk, no fee. Vacancy does not become public knowledge.
Weakness: Candidate's may prefer dealing with the employers directly. It can be a costly process
sometimes.
Search consultants: They are employed when the job position is not to be made public,
specially when it is a very senior post.
Strength: Identifies people who are capable of doing that particular job.
Weakness: Limited candidates specially for senior post also a bit costly.
Advertisement in news papers: Advertising in local/ national news papers is one of the
oldest approach or recruitments(Armstrong and Taylor, 2014). Candidates with required skills
always look for available job positions in newspapers.
Strength: Fixed cost, although they need to be repeated. Recruitment messages are easily
communicated.

Weakness: Motley a slow process. No guarantee weather that advertisement will be a success or a
failure.
Professional referral schemes: It is an approach in which internal referrals are considered
for filling the post. This is done in Marks and Spencer.
Strength: Cost less than compared to other approaches. High quality candidate's can be availed.
Weakness: f a referral is rejected then it may demotivate the employee by whom the referral was
made. Also limited candidates option is available.
Recruitment events: These are the job fairs mostly conducted at colleges or universities.
Strength: Awareness about your organization is increased. Effective way to meet many candidates
in short time and also cost effective.
Weakness: Competition among many other employers who will also be present at the job fair.
Competition among many other employers who will also be present at the job fair.
P3 Benefits Of Different HRM Practices Within M & S For Both The Employer And Employee.
Before explaining any benefits of HRM practises, different HRM practises will be
explained like:
Performance Management is an HRM practice which includes determining standards, evaluating
and assigning work, distribution of rewards and many more. It is basically used for improving
individual or teams development and performance.
Flexible working practice is also an HRM practice which is provided to employees to work with
flexible working hours. This benefits the organization as well as the employees.
Training is a process where improved is brought in an employees skills by providing them training.
It is purely focused on job whereas development is a process in which all the soft skills and
psychology skills of employees are developed, it purely focusses on carrier of an employee.
Reward management is basically implementation of different policies and strategies through which
employees are rewarded for their performance or achieving targets either by team reward, bonuses
etc.
Benefits:
 If any conflict occurs between employee's then it is resolved by Human resource managers.
Through protocols, procedures and policies they maintain workplace environment suitable
for both employee's and employers.
 Employees are provided with the training programs organized by the employers which is

beneficial for both of them as employees get to improve their skills and employers get better
skilled employees through this training.
 Rewards or incentives are provided to the employees so that they get motivated, work with
more dedication and try to improve their skills and knowledge. Non financial rewards (like
titles, recognition etc.) are also given mostly to both employees and employers to encourage
them to work with more dedication(Albrecht and et.al., 2015.). They are appraised for
achieving targets or goals or objectives. In few companies like M & S if any employee
achieve maximum target they are given foreign trips as a reward
 Increment in salaries is also made if employee's works efficiently and consistently for a year.
In Marks and Spencer every year increment in wedges and appraisal is given to employees if
they achieve given target.
 Employers are helped by HRM to maintain work performance of each employee and if they
fail to complete their targets then they are terminated.
 Employers are benefited by HRM to maintain medical leaves taken by workers so that they
can get a temporary substitute.
 HRM arrange different types of activities for employee's which help them to develop
leadership qualities in them.
P4 Effectiveness Of Different HRM Practices In Terms Of Raising Organisational Profit And
Productivity.
For an organization to gain more profit and productivity it is important that HRM should be
implemented properly.
Promotion of innovative environment is done by HRM Which helps employee's achieving results,
so that productivity and sales of an organization is increased. This practice helps Marks and Spencer
in many ways such as performance of subsidiaries of M&S gets better and better and also
profitability of company is increased.
HRM provides different mode of communication according to the market which helps them to
communicate frequently and all the employees can get in touch with each other.
HRM helps employees to get ready for the global competition by helping them to update their skill
set, education qualification and general knowledge(Clair and Milliman, 2017). They keep an eye on
each employee's performance, their skills, qualification and check if the employee less qualified or
less educated according to the global market. If they are less qualified they are provided with some
training or some crash course to update themselves.

TASK 2
P5 The Importance Of Employee Relations In Respect To Influencing HRM Decision Making
Good and healthy employee relations is pre requisite for industry success. Marks and
Spencer build human relation whether personal or professional(Lopez-Cotarelo and Nicolini, 2015).
Seeking expression is human growth of human relation.
The employee relation is company try to mange relation between the employee and
employer in the organisation. Employee relation in the organisation identify employee problem and
solve issue. The human resource team work for the measuring employee satisfaction and provide
support to mange employee work performance.
Decision making is the process of the finding the result of action among serial alternative.
Decision making is the choices of the two alternative for the HR. manager.
HR is all about good decision making(Tzabbar, Tzafrir and Baruch, 2017). Several factor are affect
the decision. Decision making is related to the planning organising, directing , and controlling
function of the Marks and Spencer employee. Because of decision help to achieve to company
objective and goal. Marks and Spencer HR team focused on derive growth and profit maximising.
Decision is the process to identify problem and reason of the problem. The problem may be
internal and external . Decision making help to identify the correct problem for the taking any
decision.
Employee relation will be effect company objective and goal. When company employees
relation is good that time the company employee work for the archive company objective and goal.
Good employee and employer relation improve company productivity. It also helps company to
motive employee for work performance and achieve firm target. Good relation make effective
communication, set goal, achieve strong employee relations. Marks and Spencer HR team try to
make better employee relation for making employee loyalty and reduce conflict reduction.
Employee relation is the important for improve company employee relation and achieve objective.
Good employee relation improve company working conditions and environment. The company
employee and employer relation mange human relation in the working environment
P6 Key Elements Of Employment Legislation
Employment legislation define the worker's remuneration, condition of work, trade unions
and industrial relations. It includes the social security of the organisation employee(Noe and et.al.,
2016). Main aimed to reduce the production losses, industrial dispute, solve wages and

remuneration problem. The Marks and Spencer use law for worker's security, solve wages and
remuneration problem, condition of work, health, safety and welfare and trade unions or industrial
dispute.
Marks and Spencer Human resource manager applies the act for the worker's security explained
below:
Payment of wages act 1936: Marks and Spencer pay the payment of there wages at the regular and
intervals without any deduction of there payment. In this deduction are fines, for absence from duty,
for damage caused to the property of the employer, for life insurance/general insurance policies.
Marks and Spencer main objective to fellow the act, regulate of payment, payment of legal tender,
arbitrary deduction, remedy to work.
Payment of bonus act 1965: Marks and Spencer is a large level organisation the company have to
pay bonus there employee after 8 months of every accounting year. The minimum bonus of the
8.33% and maximum bonus is 20% of the productivity.
Minimum wages act 1948: Labour law that seats the minimum wages that must be paid to skill and
unskilled labour. Stop exploitation of the worker. Empower the government to take steps for fixing
minimum wages.
Trade unions act 1926: Marks and Spencer make a labour union for the organisation member. The
member are must be membership of the mainly of workers. Union member are intermediary of the
workers and top level team. Principal and purpose of trade union are negotiate wages and working
condition and term, regulate the relation between employee and employer, take corrective action to
enforce the term.
Payment of gratuity act 1972: Marks and Spencer provide gratuity benefit of there employee
whose engages of the orientation work. An employee complete at-list five year in the of services
with the current employer that worker are eligible for the take gratuity advantage.
P7 Application of HRM practices:
Marks and Spencer human resource department work to achieve company objectives and
goal. So the company HR team make some practices for the company employee and employer is the
employee security, selective hiring, self management, Contingent compensation, extensive Training
and Sharing information organisation employee.
Human resource best practices interact the employee performance. Human resources'
management practices enhance workforce ability, motivation and opportunity. Its lead to high work
performance. Marks and Spencer best human resource practices are:

Employment security : It is a contract between employee and employer for the job security. Firm
ask employee to work, commit to the organization and offer to idea.
Selective hiring: Marks and Spencer human resource manager enables to bring in employees who
add value. Human resource manager hire that employee who are perfect the post. Select the right
person who are key to building a competitive advantage.
Self managed and effective teams: Marks and Spencer human resources' manager provide task for
team work they think differently but working toward a common goal because of the different ideas
help to company to achieve target and complete the task.
Contingent compensation: Marks and Spencer give compensation benefit for the losses, financial
pay and employee benefit, and performance related benefit. Company want those employees
whose are unique skill and who are valuable to business.
Extensive Training: Marks and Spencer invest a heavy amount for the employee and workers
training and development. This training are relevant to the technology and the company
development.
Sharing information: Marks and Spencer allow sharing the information about the company there
employee the company not allow sharing there information competitor. If the employee want to
share there ideas and culture the company have to allow. Information about the business is also
something mention as something find important in attitude surveys(Ellmer and Reichel, 2018).
The Best human resource pectic are aligned the organization to achieve there goal and
employee work performance and they will out performance their competition.
Job advertisement:
JOB OPPORTUNITIES
Title: human resource assistant
Company: Marks and Spencer
location: London
Qualification : complied 2 year MBA and 1 year experience
job Role: recruitment and selection, training and development and Other work.
Working time: 9.30- 6 and 5 day working

salary: 25000 P.M
CONCLUSION
From the above study it has been summarized that there are different functions of HRM
applicable in an organization, there are many approaches to recruitment and selection such as online
websites, recruitment agencies, advertisement in mews paper etc., many acts such as payment of
wedges act 1936, payment of bonus act 1965, minimum wedges act 1965, trade union act etc.
applies in Marks and Spencer company and at the last many applications of HRM practice have
been explained.

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Bratton, J. and Gold, J., 2017. Human resource management: theory and practice. Palgrave.
Bailey and et.al., 2018. Strategic human resource management. Oxford University Press.
Armstrong, M. and Taylor, S., 2014. Armstrong's handbook of human resource management
practice. Kogan Page Publishers.
Albrechtand et.al., 2015. Employee engagement, human resource management practices and
competitive advantage: An integrated approach. Journal of Organizational Effectiveness:
People and Performance, 2(1), pp.7-35.
Clair, J. and Milliman, J., 2017. Best environmental HRM practices in the US. In Greening
People (pp. 49-73). Routledge.
Lopez-Cotarelo, J. and Nicolini, D., 2015. Achieving consistency: a practice-based approach to
HRM. In Academy of Management Proceedings (Vol. 2015, No. 1, p. 12518). Briarcliff
Manor, NY 10510: Academy of Management.
Tzabbar, D., Tzafrir, S. and Baruch, Y., 2017. A bridge over troubled water: Replication,
integration and extension of the relationship between HRM practices and organizational
performance using moderating meta-analysis. Human Resource Management
Review.27(1).pp.134-148.
Ellmer, M. and Reichel, A., 2018. Exploring the Implications of Data-driven Practices for HRM
Power. Academy of Management Global Proceedings. (2018). p.133.
Noe, R. and et.al., 2016. Human Resources Management: Gaining a Competitive Advantage,
Tenth Global Edition. McGraw-Hill Education.