Analysis of Harrods' HRM: Practices, Benefits, and Effectiveness

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of Human Resource Management (HRM) practices at Harrods, a luxury department store in London. It begins by defining HRM and outlining its purpose and functions within the context of workforce planning and resourcing at Harrods, emphasizing employee relations, development, and training. The report then evaluates the strengths and weaknesses of different recruitment and selection approaches used by Harrods, including internal sourcing, external sourcing, third-party sourcing, interviewing, and candidate selection. Furthermore, it examines the benefits of various HRM practices for both employers and employees, such as planning and assessment, individual and group improvement, career planning, hiring, succession planning, job design, classification, and compensation. The effectiveness of these practices in raising Harrods’ profit and productivity is evaluated using Hamblin’s Model of Evaluation. The report also analyzes the importance of employee relations in HRM decision-making and identifies key elements of employment legislation and their impact on HRM. Finally, the report includes practical examples such as a job specification, curriculum vitae, interview preparatory notes, and an offer letter to illustrate the application of HRM practices.

|
HARRODS HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT

Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................................3
TASK 1..........................................................................................................................................................4
P1 THE PURPOSE AND THE FUNCTIONS OF HRM, APPLICABLE TO WORKFORCE PLANNING AND
RESOURCING IN HARRODS......................................................................................................................4
P2 THE STRENGTHS AND THE WEAKNESSES OF DIFFERENT APPROACHES TO RECRUITMENT AND
SELECTION USED BY HARRODS................................................................................................................7
TASK 2..........................................................................................................................................................9
P3 THE BENEFITS OF DIFFERENT HRM PRACTICES WITHIN HARRODS FOR BOTH THE EMPLOYERS AND
EMPLOYEES.............................................................................................................................................9
P4 EVALUATING THE EFFECTIVENESS OF DIFFERENT HRM PRACTICES IN TERMS OF RAISING HARRODS’
PROFIT AND PRODUCTIVITY..................................................................................................................11
TASK 3........................................................................................................................................................13
P5 ANALYSING THE IMPORTANCE OF EMPLOYEE RELATIONS IN HARRODS WITH RESPECT TO
INFLUENCING HRM DECISION-MAKING.................................................................................................13
P6 IDENTIFYING THE KEY ELEMENTS OF EMPLOYMENT LEGISLATION AND THE IMPACT IT HAS UPON
HRM DECISION-MAKING.......................................................................................................................14
TASK 4........................................................................................................................................................16
P7 ILLUSTRATING THE APPLICATION OF HRM PRACTICES IN A WORK-RELATED CONTEXT...................16
1. JOB SPECIFICATION........................................................................................................................17
2. CURRICULUM VITAE (CV)...............................................................................................................18
3. PREPARATORY NOTES FOR INTERVIEW.........................................................................................19
4. OFFER LETTER................................................................................................................................20
5. EVALUATION OF THE PROCESS AND THE RATIONALE FOR THE CONDUCTING OF HR PRACTICES. 21
CONCLUSION.............................................................................................................................................22
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................................23

INTRODUCTION
All the organizations divide their work into various parts. One of the most important divisions of
any organization is considered as human resource department. The work of human resource
department is to manage the human resource of the organization. The activity of the
management of the human resource is to take out the planning of human resource from one
end to another (Armstrong and Taylor, 2014). Harrods are in the intention of measuring the
human resource management and its functions.
Harrods is one of the most famous luxury department store based in London. Its business
activities are being held for years. The company has a number of 4000 employees in its
organization and an extra number of agency and concession employees of about 3500. Qatar
holdings acquired Harrods from Mohamed Al-Fayed in the year 2010. The novel holders of the
company are considered to be more dedicated to all of the employees.

TASK 1
P1 THE PURPOSE AND THE FUNCTIONS OF HRM, APPLICABLE TO WORKFORCE
PLANNING AND RESOURCING IN HARRODS
Definition of HRM
The term human resource management is used to describe that organization has formal
systems within they manage their people. There is a manager appointed in this department
known as human resource manager whose responsibility is to staff and recruit employees,
design and define their work to them and compensate and benefits them accordingly (Boxall
and Purcell, 2011). Harrods’ human resource management believe in maintaining employee
relationship in the organization. Developing employees and providing them suitable training
with the intention of getting highly effective work from the employees is the most important
function of HRM in Harrods. At Harrods, the human resource management is considered as the
procedure to utilise the available skilled workforce of the organization properly and maximising
their performance level in respect to the organization’s goals, objectives and aims (Beardwell
and Thompson, 2014). According to the 35th US president John F. Kennedy, “Our progress as a
nation can be no swifter than our progress in education. The human mind is our fundamental
resource.”
Purpose of HRM
The purpose of the human resource management of an organization is to enhance the
organization’s productivity by optimizing the performance of employees and increase their
effectiveness of doing work. The human resource management is considered as successful
when it creates a healthy bridge between the workforce and line management of the
organization (Bratton and Gold, 2012). The key functions of workforce management of an
organization such as Harrods are as follows:
 The main purpose of the HRM of the organization is to manage internal customers and
create an external relationship with them.

 Keeping the working environment of an organization safe and healthy for employees is
another purpose of HRM.
 Measuring the performance of employees in accordance with the desired results and is
the main principle of HRM.
 One of the important purposes of HRM is to manage the cultural difference in the
organization effectively aims (Beardwell and Thompson, 2014).
Functions of HRM
The functions of HRM of Harrods are divided into 5 major types which are discussed as follows:
Figure: Human resource management functions
[Source: https://www.keka.com/5-major-functions-human-resource-management/]
Recruitment and selection: Recruiting highly efficient workforce by appealing, viewing, and
choosing probable and competent candidates based on an objective criterion for an exacting
work.

Orientation: The process where HRM of the organizations helps novel employees of the
organization to adjust to an environment with work is considered as orientation.
Maintaining good working conditions: Maintaining good working conditions for employees is
the most important function aims (Beardwell and Thompson, 2014).
Managing employee relations: Managing highly effective relations with employees helps the
organization to work effectively.
Training and development: Providing high training and development to employees will help the
organization to increase the skills and knowledge of employees that will result in effective
output.
(Armstrong and Taylor, 2014)

P2 THE STRENGTHS AND THE WEAKNESSES OF DIFFERENT APPROACHES TO
RECRUITMENT AND SELECTION USED BY HARRODS
The human resource management of Harrods uses different approaches for recruiting and
selecting qualified candidates. These approaches along with its strengths and weaknesses are
explained as follows:
Internal Sourcing
The recruitment process of internal sourcing refers to advertising the novel vacated position in
the organization and the employees already working in the organization can apply for the post.
Many organizations such as Harrods are using this technique as there is no or very less need of
training required in this method. This process also helps the organizations to invest less or no
expenses for recruitment. It also helps the organizations with trustworthy employees but it
limits the organization in terms of the new skilled workforce (Brewster and Mayrhofer, 2012).
This method limits the management to select from a limited number of candidates.
External Sourcing
The recruitment process of external sourcing is done by the organization when the vacated
position cannot be filled with existing employees and there is a need for new employees for the
organization. This process requires tools such as trade journal announcements, newspaper and
pamphlets advertisements, job portals and boards, etc. This method limits the organizations
with respect to expenses as it is an expensive method and it does not guarantee high skilled
employees. The candidates applying for the job may be fresher or less experienced or
experienced with small business organizations (Brewster and Mayrhofer, 2012). The
technicality and speciality of the position allow the organization to recruit current employees in
the external sourcing. This method is so expensive that it limits the management to select from
applying candidates whether they are suitable or not.
Third-Party Sourcing
The third party sourcing is the process of recruitment that makes the organization use
placement agencies to find highly skilled candidates for the organization. It saves much time.

Placement agencies use best methods to find the best candidate. This method becomes very
expensive for the organizations as sometimes placement companies charge very high cost
(Brewster and Mayrhofer, 2012). The agencies offer flexible benefits packages to employees
that attract employees towards the company.
Interviewing/Pre-Selection
This process allows organizations to select from applying candidates and then again
interviewing them on a different basis. This method makes the organization to not focus only
on credentials of the candidate but also on other scenarios. This is the best process an
organization can adapt to recruit employees as it provides them with a highly skilled workforce
(Brewster and Mayrhofer, 2012). This process is so time-consuming for the organization as it
sometimes causes to the effectivity of the job.
Candidate Selection
The organizations use the interview notes in this process and compare the candidates with their
resume. This process allows organizations to select the candidates on the basis of the way they
answer the questions (Brewster and Mayrhofer, 2012). This can be effective and sometimes
also the meaningless process of recruitment for the organization.

TASK 2
P3 THE BENEFITS OF DIFFERENT HRM PRACTICES WITHIN HARRODS FOR
BOTH THE EMPLOYERS AND EMPLOYEES
The HRM practices are divided into the basic 9 elements and these elements along with their
benefits are discussed as follows:
Planning and assessment: This is the practice adopted by the organizations to forecast and
schedule the goals, plans, performance and training of the organization and then assessing the
performance of employees on the basis of planned schedule (Snape and Redman, 2010).
Individual and group improvement: The HRM practice termed as individual and group
development refers to the identification of the need for the development of skills and
knowledge of employees and fulfilling that needs. This helps the organization to gain
employees trust and increase the work productivity and efficiency (Meredith Belbin, 2011).
Career Planning: This practice makes the organization to help employees to learn potentials
and then match those with the future work. This will result in increased work satisfaction for
employees.
Hiring: The process of recruiting best employees for the vacant post will help the organization
to speed up the work process and efficiency of the work with highly efficient workforce (Snape
and Redman, 2010).
Paving the Career way: This process benefits the employers to know the qualifications of
employees and makes them more qualified related to work with the intention of making them
more career-oriented (Kaufman, 2010).

Succession Planning: The HRM practice of succession planning helps the employer to identify
the roles of employees, determining their performance level and requirements and planning to
assign the work for future (Snape and Redman, 2010).
Job Design: Determining the best methods to accomplish the work is the HRM practice that
helps employers to pre-design the solutions to particular problems.
Classification: Classifying employees according to their role and work helps the employers to
decide the appropriate salary range to be offered to the employees (Fong, et. al. 2011).
Compensation/Recognition/Other Rewards: Rewarding and compensating employees at times
helps the employers to gain trust and satisfaction from employees that will result in more
efficient work in future by employees (Kaufman, 2010).

P4 EVALUATING THE EFFECTIVENESS OF DIFFERENT HRM PRACTICES IN
TERMS OF RAISING HARRODS’ PROFIT AND PRODUCTIVITY
The HRM of Harrods performs many practices and functions as discussed above. These
practices play an important role in Harrods for increasing the profit and productivity of the
organization. The evaluation of these practices will help Harrods’ management to recognize the
market position of the company and its brand value in the UK market. This will benefit the
organization in terms of identifying the need for different factors to enhance the productivity
and profit for the organization (Fong, et. al. 2011). Many organizations use different models for
evaluating the HRM practices. The model used here is Hamblin’s Model of evaluation.
Figure: Hamblin’s Model of Evaluation
[Source: https://anjuthomasbims.wordpress.com/2015/12/14/training-evaluation/]
This model helped the management of Harrods to evaluate the effectiveness of different HRM
practices and its effectiveness in terms of profit and productivity for the organization. This
evaluation is discussed as follows:

 Effectiveness Of Praising The Employees’ Performance
It is considered as an HRM practice to appraise employees regarding their performance and
great work. The human resource managers of Harrods are most likely to praise their employees
by evaluating their work and improvement rate. This process makes employees to feel satisfied
towards their work and to trust more on the organization which will result in high effective
outputs for the company (Patel and Cardon, 2010). This process also helps the organization to
motivate employees to increase their work efficiency that will all return in the improved
performance of employees which will in return result in the increased productivity for the
organization. This whole process and increased productivity will make Harrods generate a high-
profit ratio.
 Effectiveness Of Motivating Employees
As discussed, praising the performance of employees is a type of indirect motivation, but apart
from this, there are many types of motivation direct and indirect both that an HR and
management of organization provides to employees. Harrods and its HR managers also provide
motivation such as internal and external motivation to employees. This motivation technique
helps the employees to increase their performance level by trusting more on the organizational
way of work (Patel and Cardon, 2010). This also makes them satisfied and secure regarding
their work and working environment which always return to the better work performance. The
better work performance affects the productivity of the organization in a positive way and this
effect results in the generation of high-profit ration for Harrods.