HR Report: Analysis and Recommendations for Escape to the Wild

This report analyzes the human resource management (HRM) needs of 'Escape to the Wild,' a privately owned clothing company facing challenges due to the absence of a dedicated HR function. The report addresses critical HRM activities such as recruitment and selection, employee maintenance (training and development), employee motivation, and employee relations. It highlights the importance of a structured HR function, including roles like HR Director, HR Manager, Recruiter, and Salary Administrator, and emphasizes the significance of a Management Information System (MIS) for improved decision-making. The report provides recommendations to the Managing Director, focusing on the structure of the HR function, the benefits of an MIS, and the advantages of establishing a dedicated HR department for employees. The analysis underscores the need for effective recruitment, training, fair pay and rewards, and positive employee relations to enhance productivity, reduce staff turnover, and achieve organizational goals. The report references relevant sources to support its findings and recommendations, offering valuable insights into optimizing HRM practices within the company.

HR Assessment 2

Contents
Introduction...................................................................................................................................................3
I. Recruitment and Selection.................................................................................................................4
II. Employee Maintenance (Training and Development).......................................................................4
III. Employee Motivation.....................................................................................................................5
IV. Employee Relations........................................................................................................................6
Recommendations to the Managing Director of Escape to the Wild............................................................6
i. Structure of the HR function and the roles given..............................................................................6
ii. Importance of MIS to Escape to the World.......................................................................................7
Benefits of having a HR function to employees............................................................................................7
References......................................................................................................................................................8

Introduction
Escape to Wild is a privately owned company which has been in the clothing industry for
15 years and they sell specialist clothing for outdoor leisure pursuits through mail orders
and small retail outlets. The company has no dedicated HR function in the organization
which resulted to face problems such as no proper training given to employees, finance
section spending too much time on staff related issues, no employment policies
implemented, and managers are responsible in job descriptions, recruitment and
selection which they are not compatible in it, and finally staff leaving as they are
dissatisfied about the unfair approach to HR issues.

Activities that the HRM function of Escape to Wild will undertake
Human resource management is the function within an organization that focuses on recruitment,
management, and providing direction for the people who work in the organization. There are many
HRM activities that an organization has which includes HR planning, job analysis, employee hiring,
pay and reward, employee motivation, employee training and development, employee relations, and
HR policies.
As a HR advisor, Wild to Escape company has to focus on some HR activities in order to success in
future such as;
I. Recruitment and Selection
Recruitment and selection refers to the process of identifying the needs and relevant
requirements of a job, advertise it and choose the most suitable candidate for the job.
The purpose of recruitment and selection is to reduce the risk of selecting candidates who
doesn’t meet the requirements for the job. In other words, it is the selection of the most
suitable candidate who would best meet the requirements of the job.
A proper recruitment and selection process doesn’t takes place in Escape to Wild which has
caused senior managers spending too much time on staff issues as they might not have
relevant skills and experience for handling these tasks. Therefore, a better recruitment and
selection process will help to overcome these problems. Success of an organization depends
upon the efficiency of employees in a company therefore recruiting the correct person to
the correct job is important.
II. Employee Maintenance (Training and Development)
Training and development refers to educational activities that improves the knowledge and
skills of employees while providing information and instructions on how to perform better
specific tasks.
The quality of employees and their development through training and education are major
factors determining long-term profitability of a business. If you hire and keep good
employees, it is a good policy to invest in the development of their skills, so they can
increase their productivity. (Thaker, 2008)
The purpose of providing training and development is to enhance the skills and knowledge
required in performing the tasks given. Training and development will result to motivate
and satisfy employees as it might develop positive attitudes in the workplace and it allows
employees to improve personal development. Growth of Escape to the Wild company
resulted to increase the workforce rapidly which problems such as not able to provide

proper training for employees has raised, which resulted staff to leave as they feel
dissatisfied in the working place. Also, senior members of staff have no formal qualifications
and experience which could result to increase wastages and fall in efficiency and
productivity. Therefore, having a better training and development could result employees to
get the required skills and knowledge. A better training provided for designers in Escape to Wild
could result in producing clothes in better standard quality with less mistakes which customer
satisfaction and brand image of the company will improve.
III. Employee Motivation
Motivation is the process of increasing the confident level of employees to encourage them to give
their best effort in completing the tasks given. Organizations should provide a fair pay and reward
system to its employees which it should be measured by the performance of each employees and
the tasks given for them. Rewards such as bonus and overtime payments should be given to
workers if they have perform their job well or if they work more hours than usual in which this
would motivate workers as they might think that the time and effort they have invested has led to
success. Employees at Escape to the Wild might not receive fair pay and rewards as the Finance
section is responsible for it where they might not have necessary knowledge in calculating the pay
and rewards for employees. Also some employees at Escape to the Wild are leaving as they feel
dissatisfied about the unfair approach to HR issues and this result to increase labor turnover. Thus
introducing a better pay and reward system would result to minimize these problems which the
workers will satisfy and happy at work place, and increase employee morale which leads to
motivation. Finally, motivated workforce would increase the quality of work which could
reduce wastage and increase productivity as they are efficient in which organizational goals
might able to achieve.

IV. Employee Relations
Employee relation refers to creating and maintaining positive working relationships between
organization and employees. Better employee relations in a company can help to maintain
happy motivated workforce. The main purpose of this is to strengthen employer and
employee relationship by identifying and resolving workplace issues, measuring employee
satisfaction and morale. Also employee relations is responsible for creating fair employment
policies which includes reasonable working hours, compensation paid for workers, employee
welfare, and negotiating terms and conditions. At Escape to Wild, policies and procedures
doesn’t take place, and some staff are leaving as they feel dissatisfy about the unfair
approach to HR issues. Employee relations is important to Escape to Wild since firms cannot
run effectively without employees which they need to satisfy their workers. Therefore
managing relationships in the company will help the business to function smoothly,
employees to perform best and, minimize problems.
Recommendations to the Managing Director of Escape to the Wild
i. Structure of the HR function and the roles given
HR Director – The HR Director will plan, lead, direct, develop, and coordinate the policies, activities, and
staff of the HR department, ensuring legal compliance and implementation of the organizations mission
and talent strategy. (Anon., n.d.)
HR Manager - HR manager is responsible for managing and supervising the employees in the organization.
The role of HR manager is to manage, create, implement and oversee the policies and regulations. Also to
supervise the staff in his department. The reporting line of HR manager is HR director.
Recruiter – Recruiter is a person whose job is to enroll people as employees or as members of an
organization. The role given to the recruiter incudes identifying future hiring needs and developing job
descriptions and specifications. Which job description should clearly describe the general task and
responsibilities of the job and job specification should clearly mention the characteristics, qualifications,
and experiences required for the job. Also, to advertise the available vacancies. Recruiters should conduct
interviews for candidates who is more relevant to the job and finally selecting the most appropriate
candidates to fill the vacancies. The reporting line of recruiter is HR manager.
Salary administrator – Salary administration is a systematic approach which ensures that employees are
paid based on a fair basis. The role of salary administrator is providing better working conditions,
appropriate pay and reward system. Also rewards should be awarded if employees has performed their
job well. Also salary administrator should mark the attendance of the employees at Escape to the Wild in
calculation of the wages or salary. Finally the reporting line of salary administrator is HR manager.

ii. Importance of MIS to Escape to the World
MIS is a computer system consisting of hardware and software that serves as the backbone of an
organization’s operations. MIS will help Escape to the Wild in improving decision making since information
such as sales of clothes in retail outlets, cash balance, and profit generated by outlets can be used to
analyse the sales trends, improvement in cash balance and profit. In which the company can evaluate the
information and decide whether the outlets are performing well or not and take necessary actions.
Moreover it would allow easy access to the information since data gathered is stored in a online servers in
which employees don’t have to spend time in gathering searching for the data required. Information can
be accessed from anywhere that is the retail outlet managers can access to data by their itself and
management can access data even while travelling. Furthermore, it minimizes information overload. MIS
will change large amount of data such as amount of clothes sold, expenses, and profit made by individual
outlets into a summarize form which might includes the sales trend of clothing, profit comparison of
previous and current months, which items has sold mostly by the outlets, etc. And this might avoid
confusion which might arise when managers are with more detailed facts.
Benefits of having a HR function to employees
HR department is responsible for recruiting and training employees in order to meet the skills and
knowledge required to perform the certain job, which this would allow employees at Escape to the Wild to
improve their skills, knowledge and upgrade their talents. Also this might able workers to promote for
higher positions in an organization such as sales executive to sales manager. Senior staff at Escape to Wild
have no formal qualifications or experience in which providing a proper training by the HR department will
result to get the required knowledge and skills for the job which result to improve personal development
of employees. Moreover, HR function is responsible for providing fair salaries and working conditions to
workers where they should give rewards for workers if they have performed well. At Escape to the Wild
the finance section is responsible for giving special paid leave and salary increases for employees and this
would be a difficult task for finance section to determine salary raises or bonus based on employee
performance. Having a HR department might be a solution for this problem as they have more knowledge
and experience than finance section in determining salary increase and rewards based on employee
performance. Therefore this might lead employees receive fair pay and working conditions, which lead to
increase income for workers. Finally, maintaining and creating employee relations is a duty of HR
department. The main purpose of this is to strengthen the relationship between employer and employee
that is by identifying and resolving staff issues such as conflicts among staff members, disputes between
employees and organization, health and safety issues, and implementing fair policies in the working place.
Also relationships will be built with other employees in Escape to the Wild which employees able to meet
new friends at the workplace which results to be happy and satisfied at the firm.
References

Anon., n.d. Career Ride. [Online]
Available at: https://www.careerride.com/td-role-of-a-trainer.aspx
[Accessed 13 September 2020].
Anon., n.d. SHRM. [Online]
Available at: https://www.shrm.org/ResourcesAndTools/tools-and-samples/job-descriptions/Pages/
Human-Resource-Director.aspx
[Accessed 13 September 2020].
Thaker, D. S., 2008. Scribd. [Online]
Available at: https://www.scribd.com/doc/6330124/Purpose-of-Training-and-Development
[Accessed 7 September 2020].