Human Resource Management Practices at Squire’s Garden Centres

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Human Resource Management
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Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................3
Task 1: Purpose and Scope of HRM................................................................................................4
A) The purpose of the HR function and its importance to the organization, given the size and
nature of the business and its plan to become an employer of choice.............................................4
B) Advantages and disadvantages of the current recruitment and selection methods used by the
organization and compare it to other methods of recruitment and selection...................................5
Task 2 – Application of HRM practices..........................................................................................7
A) Create a job description and a person specification for a customer services assistant- a role,
which each garden center will have.................................................................................................7
B) Create an advert for the Customer Service Assistant role suitable for Squires website.............9
C) Recommend at least one other medium that may be appropriate for this vacancy and justify
the recommendation.......................................................................................................................10
D) Provide a minimum of 4 questions, which could be asked at the interview for the Customer
Services Assistant, which would help to improve the selection decision-making process...........11
Task 3 – Evaluating the effectiveness of key elements of HRM...................................................12
(A) Evaluate the benefit of Squire’s offering Apprenticeships to both the organization and to
potential apprentices......................................................................................................................12
(B) Explain the development opportunities available to employees.............................................13
(C) Review the range of rewards and benefits available to staff. Assess to what extent these
might motivate employees and help to retain talented staff?........................................................13
Task 4 – Internal and External factors which affect the HRM decision-making..........................15
(A) An explanation of what is meant by employee engagement and its importance to employee
relations..........................................................................................................................................15
(B) Recommend ways of engaging workers more effectively within Squires..............................16
(C) An explanation as to how UK employment legislation influences human resource decision
making from recruitment and selection, training, development, and reward to redundancy and
retirement)......................................................................................................................................16
Conclusion.....................................................................................................................................18
Reference List................................................................................................................................19
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Introduction
The human resource department is one of the most important departments in an organization that
performs various functions like recruitment of new workforce or candidates, training and
development of the employees, employee engagement activities, providing appraisals and work
for the welfare of the resources or employees in the organization. They are responsible for taking
interviews, select the candidates and placing the newly selected candidates. They are in charge of
handling the relation of the organization with the employees and look at the payroll of the
employees in the organization. The human resource management is also responsible for the
administration of the organization.
In this assignment, the role of the HR officer in the organization Squire’s Garden Centres has
been described. The various ways in which the employees can be engaged and how can it be
used to improve the relationship with the employees have been portrayed. The effect of laws of
UK on the functions of HR has been demonstrated in the assignment.
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Task 1: Purpose and Scope of HRM
A) The purpose of the HR function and its importance to the organization, given the size
and nature of the business and its plan to become an employer of choice
Squire’s Garden Centres is a well-known organization in the United Kingdom that offers garden
products and plants to its customers. The organization has five centers across the United
Kingdom, each center has a free parking area for the customers, café bars for food, and
beverages and children’s play vicinity (Ulrich and Dulebohn, 2015). In order to look after the
administration of the five centers of the organization, it is necessary to have a Human Resource
Department in the organization as the organization is growing. Therefore, to look into the
varying functions of the organization like recruitment, payroll, employee engagement, the
working environment of the organization, employee relations, and to monitor the performance
of the employees it is necessary to have Human Resource Department. It will aid the
organization in its administrative functions and will assist the organization to increase the level
of its performance.
The Human Resource Department will aid the organization in its growth and development since
the organization is expanding at a high rate, therefore, it is necessary for the organization to have
an HR department. The main functions of the Human Resource Department have been described
below:
Job Analysis and Design: The HR department of the organization will evaluate the work or the
job and will describe the operation and duty of the job. It will enable them to design the job as
per requirement and assign them accordingly.
Recruitment and selection: The HR department is responsible for filling the vacancies in the
organization. The HR department of the organization performs the screening of the skills of the
employees, conducting interviews and the selection of new employees in the organization.
Training and development: The HR department of an organization is responsible for the training
and development of the employees so that the employees are able to improve their knowledge
and learn new skills such that the requirement of the organization is met (Angrave et al., 2016).
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Performance Management: The HR department is responsible for the analysis of the
performance of the employees and compensates the employees based on their performance. It
provides the employee's career development opportunities so that the employees can grow
personally as well.
Compensation and Benefits: The HR department scrutinizes the performance of the employees
in the organization and compensates them if the employee’s performance is very good.
Labor Relations: The HR department is responsible for the development of a harmonious
relationship among the employees and resolves any kinds of issue that might arise among the
employees (Marler and Boudreau, 2017). It is responsible for establishing a good relationship
among not only the employees, but it is also responsible for the establishment of a harmonious
relationship between the employee and the employer.
Therefore, the necessity of the Human Resource Department cannot be denied in Squire’s
Garden Centres.
B) Advantages and disadvantages of the current recruitment and selection methods used
by the organization and compare it to other methods of recruitment and selection.
The current process of recruitment and selection that is practiced in Squire’s Garden Centres has
several advantages as well as disadvantages. Squire’s Garden Centres advertise the vacancy they
have in the organization in each of its centres, in the organization’s website and newspapers. It
aids the organization to get a pool of candidates in order to fill the vacancies in the organization.
The candidates need to answer the questions in the questionnaire that helps the organization
determine if the candidates are eligible to attend further rounds of selection in the organization.
The eligible candidates then need to fill the application form and upload their CV. After these
processes, the applications are reviewed based on the qualification and the experience of the
candidates and then shortlisted, following which two rounds of the interview are conducted in
order to finally select the candidates.
The process of selection in Squire’s Garden Centres has several advantages like:
 The deserving candidate is selected
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 There are no chances of fraud or forgery since a series of rounds are conducted in order
to select the deserving candidate
 Proper selection of deserving candidates reduces the expenditure that has to be made on
the training of the candidates
 The productivity of the organization increases since the deserving candidates are selected
in the organization
 It aids the organization to have a competitive advantage over other competing
organizations
 The performance of the organization is improved by the selection of deserving candidates
However, the process of selection in Squire’s Garden Centres has disadvantages as well that has
been described below:
 The process of selection in Squire’s Garden Centres is a lengthy process
 It is a time-taking process
 The process is costly as well since the organization has to advertise through newspapers
 There are possibilities that unsuitable candidates might apply for the positions in the
organization
The current process of recruitment of Squire’s Garden Centres is different from other methods of
recruitment as the organization first tests the eligibility of the candidates, in other words, it can
be said that the organization first checks that if the candidates are permitted to appear in the
further rounds of selection process. After it is found that, they are eligible to appear in further
rounds then the short-listing is done based on qualifications and experience of the candidates.
The other methods of selection are first reviewing the CVs of the candidates and short-listing
them to check their eligibility following which the interviews are taken (Baker et al., 2015).
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Task 2 – Application of HRM practices
A) Create a job description and a person specification for a customer services assistant- a
role, which each garden center will have
Squire’s Garden Centres
Email id – [e-mail]
Job Profile: Customer Service Assistant
Job description:
 Communicate with the customers over phone, internet or face-to-face
 Resolve the issues of the customers
 Excellent computer knowledge on Excel, MS Word, and Tally
 Good administration skills
 Generate reports of management (quarterly, monthly and annually)
 Maintain the files of the customers and keep it updated
 Increasing the sales of the organization
 Manage several accounts simultaneously
 Handle clients and look after the revenue generated by the organization
 Meet the targets set by the organization
Venue: Squire’s Garden Centres Seminar room, London Road, Washington, West Sussex,
RH20 3BP
(Till 25th February 2019)
Reporting time: 9:00 AM
Table 1: Job description
(Source: Created by the learner)
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Person Specification
Background  0.6 to 1-year experience in a Customer Support role
 Excellent communication skills
 Excellent presentation skills
 Good analytical skills
 Good typing skill with 90% accuracy
 Fresher are also eligible
 Experience in managing money
 Experience in dealing with customers and solving their
queries
Experience 0.6 – 1 year
Computer
knowledge
 Good knowledge of Excel
 Good knowledge of MS Word
 Experience on Tally
Qualifications  Any graduate
 Any post-graduate
 Diploma candidates are eligible
Teamwork abilities Candidate must be able to work in a team and must be able to
coordinate with other team members
Administration and
communication
skills
Candidate must be computer literate and must be really quick at
work with excellent communication and interpersonal skills
Preference Experienced candidates with a post-graduate degree will be
preferred
Table 2: Person specification
(Source: Created by the learner)
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Urgent Requirement!
Job Role – Customer Service Assistant
Job description –
Communicate with customers over phone, internet and face-to-face interaction
Resolve the issues of the customers
Excellent computer knowledge on Excel, MS Word and Tally
Good administration skills
Generate management reports
Maintain and update client files
Increase sales and meet targets set by the organization
Send your updated resumes on–
B) Create an advert for the Customer Service Assistant role suitable for Squires website
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C) Recommend at least one other medium that may be appropriate for this vacancy and
justify the recommendation
Various methods of recruitment are used in order to fill the vacant positions in an organization.
The method of selection used by Squire’s Garden Centres is lengthy and time taking as it first
tests the eligibility of the candidates that whether they will be able to attend further rounds of
interview or not. After the eligibility is checked, then the applications made by the candidates are
reviewed and then the candidates are shortlisted based on their qualifications and experience.
After the above states are completed, the managers of the organization conduct two rounds of
interviews of the shortlisted candidates. The method is costly as well as advertisements are given
on newspapers which is very costly.
Medium: The other medium that can be used by the organization in order to fill the vacancies is
through job portals. Instead of giving advertisements to fill the vacant positions, the organization
can use job portals in order to find suitable candidates. It will also aid the organization to reduce
the wastage of time checking the eligibility of unsuitable candidates. The organization can assign
this task to the HR department to screen the CVs of the candidates through the job portals.
Initially, the HRs will find suitable candidates or screen the candidates through the job portals
based on their experience as well as qualifications and call them in order to take telephonic
interviews of the candidates in order to check their eligibility (Lane et al., 2015). The candidates
shortlisted in the first telephonic round will then be shared the call letter in order to attend the
interview in Squire’s Garden Centres.
Justification: This method of recruitment will aid the organization to save time on conducting
several rounds for the selection of the candidates in the organization. This will assist the
organization to reduce its expenditure on advertisements in newspapers in order to fill the
vacancy since it is very costly (Laws et al., 2016). This process in short and will enable the
organization to receive applications from suitable candidates as the screening is done by the HR
department in the very first round itself.
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D) Provide a minimum of 4 questions, which could be asked at the interview for the
Customer Services Assistant, which would help to improve the selection decision-making
process
In order to select the best and the most deserving candidate in the organization, it is necessary
that the questions that are asked in the interview are standardized and such that it helps the HR
department to make decisions without any confusion. The questions must be framed in such a
way that the HR department can quickly make the decisions without any uncertainty. The
questions that can be asked to the candidates in order to screen them perfectly for the post of
Customer Service Assistant are as follows:
 What are the services you delivered your previous organization?
 How did you deal with your customers and solve their queries or issues? Mention at least
two such incidents
 What are your strengths and weaknesses and how do you think you will overcome your
weaknesses?
 Where do you see yourself after five years?
 Why do you want to be a part of Squire’s Garden Centres family?
 How much will you rate yourself in terms of computer knowledge like Tally, MS Word,
and Excel?
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Task 3 – Evaluating the effectiveness of key elements of HRM
(A) Evaluate the benefit of Squire’s offering Apprenticeships to both the organization and
to potential apprentices.
Horticulture is an important aspect of Squires Garden center for which it has launched its
horticultural apprenticeship scheme in 2014 (squiresgardencentres.co.uk, 2019). The objective of
this scheme is to train and nurture staffs, who work in the plant area. Benefits of this
apprenticeship to both organisation and potential apprentices are as follows.
Benefits to Squires
Squire is able to learn the skills and knowledge of apprentices during the program. It is able to
get skilled employees for the future. The apprenticeship training enhances the skills of
employees, which provides long-term benefits to the company. Squire does not have to recruit
people from external sources for which its hiring cost reduces. The skills provided during
apprenticeship are matched to the future requirements of Squire. This ultimately helps in filling
skill gaps and allowing the management to source future leaders and managers from within
(Lerman, 2014). Apprenticeship is an ideal approach to bring young talents to the workplace,
who can contribute to the work due to a positive and energetic attitude. The company is able to
grow and promote excellent standards in horticulture retailing.
Benefits to apprentices
Apprentices are able to learn how to work in the plant area. They get essential skills and
knowledge of horticulture. They gain experience in gardening before working in any
organisation like Squires. The company pays a stipend to each apprentice, which makes them
earn while continuing horticulture learning. The apprenticeship offers opportunities to progress
onto higher-level qualifications and enhance own career. Apprentices are able to enjoy marked
salary, when they finish their training successfully. They have the chance to learn each aspect of
gardening with the support of a skilled assessor or mentor appointed by Squires. They become
confident, self-assured and independent to work without the supervision of seniors (Christman,
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