HR Business Plan and Personal Development Plan for Marks & Spencer

This report presents an HR Business Plan and a Personal Development Plan (PDP) for Marks & Spencer. The HR Business Plan outlines the company's objectives, analyzes its needs, and details the steps taken to develop the plan, including determining objectives, analyzing needs, reviewing job descriptions, curating a list of functions, scheduling meetings, creating feedback forms, and utilizing internal and external resources. The PDP focuses on the HR professional's development, including objectives, success criteria, planned actions, and implementation strategies. The report covers the different roles and functions of HR professionals, HR service delivery models, and the skills and knowledge required for effective HR practice. The report explores the company's HR department's functions, which include maintaining staffing levels, building effective employee relations, complying with legislation, promoting a safe and healthy workplace, facilitating training and development, improving compensation packages, planning for the future, and resolving employee grievances. The analysis also considers the role of HR in maintaining morale and trust, setting a sound organizational structure, ensuring workforce satisfaction, and planning the workforce. The report includes recommendations for improvement and a conclusion summarizing the key findings and insights of the analysis.

HR Professional
Practice and service
delivery

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................1
HR Business plan...................................................................................................................1
Personal development Plan.....................................................................................................9
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................15
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................16

INTRODUCTION
Professional practice is mentioned to application of an individual knowledge in specific
profession. It is stated to the way in which a professional personality behaves in any workplace.
Similarly service delivery is characterised as the activity in which services are offered to people
either outside or inside of business concern (Ashton, 2018). Human resource professionals plays
important role in delivering effective services to manpower that builds morale of employees that
leads to company towards attaining desired productivity and profits within stipulated time frame.
There are wide number of roles and functions which a human resource professional perform
within the enterprise. Marks and Spencer is the selected company for this assessment. It is one of
leading retail business that is situated in Westminster, UK. It offers variants of clothing, food
items, home commodities and many more at global level. The company has official presence in
approx 1468 locations and also have more than 80000 employees. The present assessment is
prepared in two parts. The first part includes development of HR business plan for the company.
The second part includes personal development plan in which objectives, success criteria,
suitable actions and implementation are defined in detail.
MAIN BODY
HR Business plan
In an organisation, Human Resource plays very important role as they handles wide
number of tasks. HR professionals are the people that makes workforce effective to produce with
huge efficiency (Bailey, 2015). They majorly emphasises on ensuring compliances related to
employment law addition to maintaining employee levels to accomplish set objectives of
company. Human resource planning contributes in proper managing existing organisational staff
and upcoming manpower through optimising knowledge and skills which creates values. This
plays significant in an organisation as to overcome from hurdles in completion of workings or
failures in meeting deadlines. Through this, human resource managers plans adopting of suitable
sources for recruiting the desired number of people for future and choosing effective selection
methods that results in gap fulfilment among required people and available employees to
complete specific projects. In context to Marks and Spencer, HR professionals performs
functions such as maintaining desired staffing level, building effective employee relations,
complying with legislations, promoting safe and healthy workplace, facilitating workplace
1

training along with development, improving compensation packages, planning for future and
solving grievances of manpower. At same time, they plays various roles that are consultant in
which they offers valuable advices to top managers, Recruiter wherein they recruits candidates
from diverse sources as per the requirements in company, evaluator in which HR professionals
monitors performances of workforce after training and development programmes, mindset coach
in which they deals with burnout issues of manpower and talent manager wherein they retains
the exiting talents in the company through offering them attractive rewards.
The owner of the company devises plans for all departments so that entire procedures and
activities are performed in effective manner from top to lower levels. One of the organisational
departments is human resource department which manages all the workings concerned with
manpower that ranges from planning required people to hiring them to retaining them. Human
resources are heart of business concern and it is significant to treat them in proper manner. HR
business plan is required for attaining success (Beevers and Rea, 2016). No business is similar
and HR business plan that is developed in one business in not same as that of other business. It is
so as the companies have distinct objectives to meet. Through the plan, various benchmarks and
standards are set the professionals for the required manpower in the company. All companies
must have effective HR business plan as all of them wants to work in ethical manner and
eliminate any type of troubles coming in success path of achieving end results. Prior to devising
HR business plan, professionals of Marks and Spencer creates organisational plan in which they
examines all areas and accordingly set objectives in line with business. With the help of
following steps, HR Business plan is developed by top level management of Marks and Spencer:
HR business plan for Marks and Spencer
Particulars Description
Determining objectives Need determination involves objectives for upcoming durations.
Through determing the objectives of human resource department,
time is saved as well as procedures for further working are
streamlined properly (Collings, Scullion and Caligiuri, 2018). In
case with Marks and Spencer, the objectives are clearly stated by
human resource professionals. In this context, following are
objectives of human resource professionals of the company:
2

 To maintain morale along with trust: Human resource
department of Marks and Spencer has objective to
maintain trust addition to morale among employees of all
department
 To set sound structure for the company: Another
objective of the HR department of the retailer is to
establish effective structure through forecasting future and
needs of business in order to promote growth and
expansion.
 To ensure satisfaction to entire workforce: Hr
department of entity has objective of providing satisfaction
to all workforce via different things that are rewards,
entertainment facilities, wages and incentives.
 To plan workforce: Major objective of HR department of
the business is to plan required number of workforce at
right place and at right time.
Analysing needs In this, the needs of entire workforce are analysed by the human
resource professionals (DeCenzo, Robbins and Verhulst, 2016).
Addition to this, human resource department also analyses needs
of other business department from it. In case with Marks and
Spencer, HR manager outlines hiring needs of manpower that is
the required number of people in different department and when to
hire, on boarding schedules along with orientation days for
ensuring staff members are set for performing operations to gain
success. Further, the human resource managers documents
performance reviews of each employees about the manner people
are performing and the timings for terminating them. Through
this, HR business plan fills needs of staffing in different
departments in current and upcoming period. It is analysed that
the managers also works for ensuring that all people are paid
fairly and accurately for the workings performed by them. As part
3

of plan, this can benefit in stating clear purposes together with
directions to the department. Moreover, this also helps in working
towards making relations with other departments and fulfilling
their all the needs on time and in effective manner.
Read through job
descriptions
The activities undertaken by the managers of the department such
as HR Assistant as well as HR Manager are best to line with
descriptions of the job as per expectations of department. In this
process, existence of components of job descriptions which are
underperformed or not performed that enhances organisational
values is involved in HR business plan (DiClaudio, 2019).
Moreover, all the roles and functions are described herein related
with the department. All the current functions and roles of hr
department of Marks and Spencer are analysed first and then
described in this, moreover, the upcoming functions and new roles
are also defined through forecasting situations and emerging
trends that assist the ways to manage human resource. All the
activities and practices of human resource department are
reviewed and audit book is prepared for the plan. Furthermore, job
descriptions of all existing manpower in the department are read
and analysis is made regarding the missing roles, duties and
others. Along with this, brainstorming practices are implemented
to find additional functions that could be provided to the business.
Curating list As part of HR business plan, there are various functions as
performed by HR department people (Gregório, Cavaco and
Lapão, 2017). Various other types of functions are brainstormed
and list is prepared about what are the existing functions and role
that are performed by these people. The new functions which are
brainstormed by experts and experienced administrators of Marks
and Spencer for HR team includes analysing experiences of
workforce, collaboration among technology and staff member,
strategic workforce planning and many more. In this plan, it is
4

also seen that whether the current human resource people are
working on these new functions and roles. Moreover, various
aspects are also analysed in context to whether these functions or
roles can add or subtract productivity and efficiency of the
department people. In dept working is performed herein so to
make improvements in each role as per the list curated so that
successful paths are prepared to gain favourable outcomes.
Through preparing accurate list of delegation in the human
resource department and organisation generally ensures that all
divisions of Marks and Spencer are functioning with coordination
to human resource department and delivering their best abilities.
Scheduling meeting with
senior management
Prior to making any plan for changing, it is important to get
approval from top level of the organisation. For this, professionals
of human resource department in Marks and Spencer schedules
meeting with various top executives and provide them complete
information about the business process and changes in functions.
Along with this, various discussions are also made in this so that
additional information is obtained to meet objectives in effective
manner (Heizmann and Fox, 2019). This helps human resource
department to work towards preparing workings for further
business procedures. Moreover, having clear talking with top
executives assist in developing excellent scope about the aspects
in which human resource department must look alike in context to
the norms in the field as well as developing planning priorities.
With this, the managers of the department gains additional ways
to deliver additional services which adds values in cultures and
sizes of the outlets of company. the additional HR delivery models
includes employee morale boosting programmes, providing
mediation services in order to resolve grievances or conflicts of
employees, HR documentation and counsels related to employee
management along with legal issues.
5

Creating feedback form Feedback form is the form that is prepared for analysing
experiences about some products that are used by others. In
context to Marks and Spencer, human resource department
personnel come with diverse list of questions in context to
leadership for role in the entity and providing them same to others
prepares human professionals to think and talk with various staff.
Moreover, as part of business plan, human resource department
even have wish to present a rating along with ranking format to
various questions so that the responses are easily understandable
addition to executed on time. Through preparing feedback form,
managers of the company understand the wants together with
needs of entire management team and other divisions from HR
department (Huffington, 2018). This is done through preparing
effective questionnaire and circulating it to other departments for
analysing perceptions and requirements from human resource
department. Through this, the managers gain success in perceiving
requirements in order to work accordingly. This also assist in
making changes in existing practices and service delivery models
of human resource division in retailing entity that helps entire
company in working towards gaining suitable outcomes and
building healthy relations with all people at different levels.
Looking internal and
external resources
Internal resources plays essential role in providing required
information to human resource department in developing suitable
business plan. Furthermore, external resources are also crucial in
gathering information or data from professional companies along
with websites (Latimer-Cheung and et. al., 2016). Some of the
external resources that are assessed by human resource department
of Marks and Spencer include The Balance, HR Magazines,
Society for HRM and many more. Further, the department also
contact with other internal colleagues for gaining various tips or
information for the HR business plan. A list of priorities is
6

developed by the department and in depth discussion is done on
certain items. By laying out all aspects, human resource
department determines accurately all its priorities, requirements to
expand the division and ways to emphasis towards efforts. With
the help of the information, HR managers works towards lot of
work and prioritising things in such manner that helps in
organising and formulated further processes. Moreover, major
functions which are executed by other companies are listed out
and the things which are missing are outlined and practices are
done on them. As element of HR business plan, this plays
significant aspect in setting clear directions that are required to be
completed on time.
Using information to
make plan
With all the ideas, discussions with internal and external
stakeholders, feedbacks from executives and suggestions from
outside resource provide a view about HR business plan
implementation (Lawler III and Boudreau, 2015). Further, the
missing things and functions in human resource departments at
Marks and Spencer are analysed and changes are made in existing
ones. This provides clarity in professionals of the department and
also guides them to emphasis towards improving their
contributions to business concerns. Herein, human resource
department makes changes in their current functions and roles in
order to executive practices towards attaining the states objectives
of the department. Moreover, various modifications in
responsibilities are added in the job description of all people that
works in human resource department. Through utilising all the
information from various sources it becomes easy for human
resource division to prepare clear and effective business plan for
the department. Addition to this, focus is also made towards
contributions of the department for the achievement of
organisational plan and major modification made that result in
7

effective assistance to executives to make their workings for
business productivity.
Re- delegating tasks As when business plan is developed, it is essential to delegate
tasks to entire human resource team for the purpose to ensure
capturing all necessary components and focusing on moving
towards accurate directions. However, the step may take some
time but will result in effective outcomes (Martin and Whiting,
2016). At marks and Spencer, when things are placed in accurate
directions then the next working undertaken by the professionals
is to delegate workings to people that are part of the division.
Moreover, it is also seen by managers that all the functions and
practices are reorganised and restructured when things goes out of
hand. Through preparing list of accomplishments helps in
reaching towards desired results and for upcoming durations.
Addition to it, human resource management also gains
perspectives for setting objectives for upcoming years and
planning to work on them in current era.
The human resource department of Marks and Spencer will place the above mentioned HR
business plan for gaining success. It is also seen that developing business plan for the human
resource not completes the workings. Moreover, it is significant to revisit entire HR business
plan on ongoing aspects. With attainment of business growth and fulfilment of objectives it is
necessary to update various components of the plan as devised by human resource department.
Moreover, business plan of human resource must outline the ways things runs successfully
within the department (Mitchell and et. al., 2016). Through the plan, managers also grows entire
business through making necessary changes in its own plan that contributes in victorious
achieving all business and human resource department objectives as whole. Moreover, top
managers of human resource department of the company are recommended to follow the
business plan step by step so that they will be successful in analysing needs of other departments
and taking suggestions from external people to upgrade their professional service delivery. This
will help in making various changes in HR delivery models as per required criteria and
8

pertaining conditions in external and internal business environment. Moreover, planning
mechanisms also plays crucial role in analysing needs of people in the company and focusing on
increasing number of employees so that all the desired outcomes are achieved prior to any
deadline.
Personal development Plan
SWOT Analysis
This tool is useful in determining the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of an
individual (Ribbers and Waringa, 2015). With the help of the tool, an individual is successful in
preparing personal development plan as it assist in analysing strengths, weakness, threats and
opportunities in proper manner. In addition to this, it is useful in taking proper action in order to
take prominent actions to enhance my weak areas and overcome from threats. Being a HR
Professional of Marks and Spencer, it is necessary for me to undertake the tool so that I can
analyse my strengths, weakness and also opportunities that will help me in achieving great career
heights, my SWOT analysis is as follows:
 Strengths: My organisational skills are quite good as it helps in going through with
whole procedure in more prominent way. In terms of this, human resource professionals
need to perform prominent functions considering proper recruitment, training, individual
development, employee relations and many more. My excellent organisational skills are
useful in performing all the suitable functions in an effective manner.
 Weaknesses: This part describe those skills in which I am lack and need some sort of
improvement and it include communication skills, problem solving, analytical, legal,
managerial knowledge and team working and because of the lack of all these skills I
cannot perform my whole job and task in an appropriate manner that can become a major
barrier in my career path.
 Opportunities: This attribute is useful in attaining all my prominent skills and
professional goals as well (Sanghi, 2016). In terms of this, some of the suitable
opportunities include enhancing good communication skills as it helps me in interacting
with other employees in order to provide clear information and understanding to them. It
leads to develop their overall performance and productivity and develop transparency
among them. In addition to this, gaining some advanced skills are also helpful for me in
9

pursuing my roles and responsibilities in more effective manner as it offer me suitable
opportunities. Along with this, developing managerial skills also enables me to manage
the entire prominent task in an effective manner in order to attain good growth and
success in my career.
 Threats: It define those factors that impacts my growth and success in both personal and
professional life as it may become threat for me that include my inappropriate
communication, team working and decision making skills that leads to develop threat for
me in my overall performance. Along with this, within the competitive business
environment, lack of advanced technology can become threat for me in achieving growth
and success.
By considering the above discussion on the SWOT analysis, I am quite able to analyse and
identify my strengths and opportunities that is useful for me in achieving prominent growth and
success and leads me towards the development of my career. Through strengths and
opportunities, I am able to manage people of different behaviours and attitudes. Away with this,
there are some weak areas in which I need to work as it become threat for me that is required to
overcome in order to achieve success for my future. Weaknesses and threats motivate me to
improve them or mitigate them that are coming in the path of success. These are the barriers in
my life which restricts me to work towards career development in human resource field. In order
to develop my weak areas, personal development plan is developed by me that is mentioned
below.
Personal Development Plan
Personal development plan refers to the procedure of devising effective action plan on the
basis of various aspects for personal development or self development (Schutte, Barkhuizen and
Van der Sluis, 2016). It acts as roadmap to improve oneself and building best version of own in
the competing scenario. Through this, purpose of life is discovered by an individual and also
assists in focusing towards capabilities and potentials which requires improvements. It is
considered as fastest way to search own true calling as well as essential objectives that an
individual wishes to attain in life. If a person values its own professional life then it is necessary
to prepare personal development plan as this will help in all paths to attain lifelong career aims.
This boosts motivation of the person, helps in advancing several of skills and makes them master
10