Analysis of HR Practices at Chocolate Presence and Microsoft

Desklib provides past papers and solved assignments for students. This report analyzes HR practices at two organizations.

HUMAN RESOURCE
MANAGEMENT

TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction................................................................................................................................1
Task 1.........................................................................................................................................2
a) Explains the purpose of the HR function and its importance to the organization, given its
current problems and future plans for further growth............................................................2
b) Explains the strengths and weaknesses of the current selection methods used by the
organization............................................................................................................................3
c) Evaluates at least 2 two potential improvements that could be made by Chocolate
Presence to enhance its selection process..............................................................................4
Task 2.........................................................................................................................................6
a) Create a person specification for the role...........................................................................6
b). Discuss the advantages and disadvantages of the current methods of advertising jobs in
the organization......................................................................................................................7
c) Explain where you would recommend the job advert for the Receptionist vacancy to be
placed and why.......................................................................................................................8
Task 3.........................................................................................................................................9
a). Microsoft offer graduate training schemes and internships. Evaluate the benefits to both
the organization and employees of such schemes..................................................................9
b) Microsoft offers a range of flexible working arrangements for staff. Firstly, identify
some of these arrangements and then evaluate the benefits of offering these to both
Microsoft and its employees..................................................................................................9
c) Evaluate how Microsoft motivates its workers through the way it designs its job roles. 10
Task 4.......................................................................................................................................11
a) What is meant by the term employee engagement and why is employee engagement
such an important part in effective employee relations in Microsoft?.................................11
b) Critically evaluate the key approaches to engaging workers discussed in the Summit and
how these approaches improve communication in the workplace.......................................11
c) Identify the key elements of UK employment legislation, explaining how they influence
HR decision making such as recruitment, training and development and reward...............12

Conclusion................................................................................................................................14
References................................................................................................................................15

Introduction
Chocolate presence is a renowned producer and distributor of chocolate based greeting card
and other gift items. It is based in North Yorkshire and the various departments coordinate
their efforts to maximize innovation and sales. There has been an increase in the staff
turnover rate and feedback suggests that the quality has degraded from past few years. The
human resource manager is responsible for strategically planning activities so that
employment can be enhanced and the rate of staff turnover is increased. Proper methods of
selection and recruitment process supports in proper filling of vacancies. The current report
will also focus on the employee performance, rewards and training at Microsoft to ensure
personal and professional growth of candidates.
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Task 1
a) Explains the purpose of the HR function and its importance to the organization, given its
current problems and future plans for further growth
The vacancies and unemployment situation at Chocolate presence can be effectively handled
with the efforts of human resource of the organization. The organization follows proper
procedure for identifying the skills and abilities of candidates and ensuring proper selection
of candidates so that the quality of work can be enhanced and customers deliver positive
feedback. The HR department performs various functions to ensure increasing productivity
and optimizing the coordination of efforts.
Planning:
The HR officer is responsible for planning the procedure that will support in the achievement
of long term objectives and enhance customer satisfaction. The decisions relating to use of
assets and resources are taken so that efficiency can be enhanced (Reilly and Williams,
2016).
Recruitment and selection:
The most essential role of the HR department is to ensure conducting proper process of
selection so that the vacancies in various departments can be filled with the most able and
skilled candidate. To analyze essential skills of employees proper assessment is conducted
and interview so that the right candidate is selected for the right job role.
Training and development:
Training is a vital step towards enhancing the skills and abilities of employees, the managers
at Chocolate presence ensures proper arrangement of training facilities for existing and new
employees so that the skills are groomed up and it also provides effective source of
motivation for ensuring long term relation.
Employee benefits:
The operations of employees are monitored to ensure that their performance is appraised
through proper rewards and returns. This improves the productivity in organization and
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creates a positive environment. The manager plans for proper rewards such as disability
programs, bonus and incentives.
Organizational issue at Chocolate presence
The Human resource department at Chocolate presence is currently facing the issue of
increasing labor turnover and negative feedback from customers due to ineffective process of
selection and recruitment. This is a major reason for reduced quality of product and service at
Chocolate presence.
Future Actions
The current problem faced by Chocolate presence can be reduced in the future with proper
methods of employee recruitment and training for future actions. Employee retention can be
enhanced through proper sources of motivation and rewards. The satisfaction of customers
can be improved through improving the quality of products and bringing innovation in the
products (Gabriyella et.al, 2018).
b) Explains the strengths and weaknesses of the current selection methods used by the
organization.
There is a lack of human resource at Chocolate presence due to ineffective methods of
selection process. The strength and weakness analyzed for currents selection process
includes:
Home based assessment:
This is a positive recruitment process where there is no screening, every candidate is allowed
to sit for the assessment exam and that involves questions of general aptitude, math and
English. Candidates gaining a pass mark of 50% are allowed to appear for the next rounds of
recruitment. The assessment test involves biasness and hence reduces the morale of
employees (Highhouse et.al, 2015).
Pass rate:
The pass rate is set at a very low percentage by the manager of chocolate presence and hence
many alternative options are available to the organization for selection of the best candidate.
The candidates are filtered out based on their level of skill and knowledge, although this
method is not supportive when the number of candidates is already little in number.
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Interview process:
A panel of guests is selected to conduct the interview process at Chocolate presence through
effective communication with the candidates so that their skills and traits can be analyzed
with personal observation. This method is ineffective when planning is not done effectively
and proper questions are not formulated to conduct proper analysis. The interviewer must
ensure that there is no communication gap and that proper transparency is maintained in this
procedure.
The current selection process at chocolate presence is not effective and hence it is vital to
change the selection process in a more systematic way so that the various issues faced by the
employees’ in the current selection method can be minimized. Use of proper tools and
techniques will improve the selection process in future.
Psychometric tests:
This is an online aptitude test that monitors various aspects of personality and traits of an
individual. It includes reviewing the level of education, ability and behaviour of candidate.
This is better than the home based method of examination as it is online and thus ensures
fairness.
Work sample:
This is the second step that involves conducting practical assessment of candidate at work so
that the best candidate from among the large pool is selected that have the best knowledge
about the current operations of the organization. This supports in analyzing the efficiency and
time required by candidate to conduct the test (Cook, 2016).
Panel interview:
This is the last step of personally communicating with the candidate so that physical
behaviour and attitude can be analyzed. It includes a set of structured questions so that basic
information about the candidate can be gained.
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c) Evaluates at least 2 two potential improvements that could be made by Chocolate Presence
to enhance its selection process.
The current selection process adapted by Chocolate presence is not so effective in improving
the human resource in the organization. It is recommended to make necessary improvement
in the process so that effectiveness can be enhanced. The organization must recruit skilled
and specialized employees for every department instead of hiring unskilled labours that needs
to be trained with additional cost. The psychometric test must be conducted in a fair and
unbiased manner to ensure that the necessary skills and abilities are examined. The structured
questions formulated by the HR panel must include necessary questions that relates to the job
role. Also, fairness ad integrity must be maintained while selecting candidates so that no
candidate is recruited merely due to reference (Furnham, 2017). It is recommended to the HR
manager to adapt effective methods of selection and recruitment so that quality of work can
be maintained.
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Task 2
a) Create a person specification for the role
Table 1: Person specification of receptionist
RECEPTIONIST AT CHOCOLATE PRESENCE
HOURS: 8 HOURS
SALARY: AS PER THE EXPERIENCE
BY- ABC
Title of Job: Receptionist
Purpose of Job: To have knowledge about the operations of the organization and communicate
effectively with the guests to guide them for solutions to their queries.
Personal attributes and capabilities:
 Having knowledge about the organization
 Effective verbal and non verbal communication skill.
 Multi tasking abilities
 Forming work schedules
 Ability to work on computer system.
 Good administration of tasks
Essential Experience
 Information collection and retrieval from computer
 Handling guest queries
 Effective communication with guests (Lønsmann, 2017)
 Ability to work in teams
Desirable working Experience
 Having an experience as receptionist in any other organization
 Having a general awareness about the use of software system
Essential Attitude
 Innovation and creativity
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 Flexible working schedule
 Ability to handle work pressure
 Knowledge about sharing ideas and views
b). Discuss the advantages and disadvantages of the current methods of advertising jobs in
the organization
The Chocolate presence organization is currently facing the problem of increased turnover of
employees that needs to filled back with proper process of recruitment and selection. There
are various methods of effective advertisement to create general awareness among candidates
about the recruitment process being conducted.
Internal advertising:
This method of advertising is concerned with proper referencing about candidates from the
existing employees so the cost on external advertisement can be minimized. It also involves
procedure of transfers, job rotation and promotions. This saves organizations cost and time to
conduct activities of promotion and orientation as the employees are already aware of the
organizations policy, procedure, work culture and environment. This method also acts as a
source of motivation for employees to work hard and increase job commitment so that they
are promoted to better jobs and positions (Kampkötter et.al, 2018). The drawback associated
with this method is that it restricts entry of new ideas and human capital that can impact the
organizational environment in a positive manner. This method leads to increased conflicts
among employees due to increased competitive behaviour.
External advertising:
This method of recruitment at chocolate presence supports in advertising vacancies outside
the organizational environment. This method supports in attracting more alternative options
for the vacancies. This method of advertisement includes advertising agencies, notice boards,
and use of social media. It allows higher number of participants and involves cost on
conducting proper activities of interview so that the skills of various candidates can be
analyzed. Further orientation is conducted so that the candidates can be made aware of the
organizational culture and environment. This method of advertising is beneficial to gain
benefit of recruiting fresh talent.
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c) Explain where you would recommend the job advert for the Receptionist vacancy to be
placed and why.
Chocolate presence is a midsized form and hence many people are not aware of the
organization and its operations, in such situation social media sites is the most effective
method of placing job advertisement as millions of people are conducted on internet and
scroll the new feed in search of relevant job posts. This is a cost effective method of
advertisement as it allows large pool of candidates applying for the process of recruitment.
The manager has an option of selecting among the various alternatives so that the most
skilled and efficient candidate gets an opportunity to be a part of the organization. Another
effective source of advertisement is the use of television advertising as people spend some
time on these entertainment activities so this method would be effective to communicate with
a large group of people (Slavić et.al, 2017).
Also, it is vital to post an advertisement about vacancy on the online website of the
organization as many people that are aware about the organization scroll its website to know
about vacancies.
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Task 3
a). Microsoft offer graduate training schemes and internships. Evaluate the benefits to both
the organization and employees of such schemes.
The students that are graduating around the age group of 16-24 years are provided internship
and graduate training program at Microsoft so as to enhance their practical knowledge and
skill. This method provides an option for career growth and enhancement. Microsoft aims at
providing proper training to the interns and graduates so that necessary skills are imparted
among them (Careers Microsoft, 2019).
Benefits to organization
The Microsoft Training and graduation program supports in monitoring activities of various
candidates and selecting the best one for future vacancies of the organization. This type of
recruitment provides the benefit of cost effectiveness to Microsoft and hiring the right talent.
It also saves the time and efforts of manager to post job vacancy advertisement through other
methods. Also, this method provides new and innovative ideas to the organization at
comparatively lower costs. It enhances the reputation of organization through positive
feedbacks regarding work environment, motivation and organizational culture.
Benefits to the employees
The employees’ years of experience are increased and training and development adds on to
the existing knowledge and skill of the candidate. Microsoft provides the benefit of financial
and non financial incentives while at work so as to stay motivated. They get an opportunity to
be further recruited by Microsoft for placements in vacancies.
b) Microsoft offers a range of flexible working arrangements for staff. Firstly, identify some
of these arrangements and then evaluate the benefits of offering these to both Microsoft and
its employees.
Flexible working practices are basically an allowance that allows employees to maintain
balance between their work life ad personal lives so that they stay motivated and committed
towards organizational goals. This is an effective method of increasing the level of
satisfaction and for both employers and employees (Hubbard and Bailey, 2018). In Microsoft
various flexible working practices are allowed such as part time working for those experts
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