HR Strategy in Retail: A Report on Woolworths' Approach

This report examines the significance of Human Resources (HR) strategies for businesses, particularly within the retail sector, using Woolworths as a case study. It elucidates the rationale behind embedding HR strategies, emphasizing their role in aligning with business objectives to enhance productivity and profitability. The report analyzes how Woolworths integrates HR strategies into its broader corporate framework, focusing on performance and talent management systems, employee engagement, and initiatives to retain employees. Furthermore, it outlines how HR strategies can be implemented at a departmental level, providing examples such as aligning sales targets with marketing efforts. The report also identifies key HR challenges faced by Woolworths, including employee experience, data privacy, and workforce diversity management, offering recommendations for addressing these issues. The conclusion reinforces the critical role of HR in organizational success and highlights the importance of strategic alignment and proactive solutions to overcome challenges. This report offers valuable insights into effective HR practices and their impact on organizational performance.

HR

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
1. Rationale of embedding HR strategies....................................................................................1
2. Analyzing how HR strategy in embedded in broader corporate strategy...............................1
3. How the company may implement HR strategy at departmental level..................................2
4. HR challenges facing by the company....................................................................................3
CONCULSION................................................................................................................................4
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................5

INTRODUCTION
Human Resource plays an important role in every business specially in retail business. In
the same way, the entire report main aim is to provide the importance of HR strategies for the
company and the chosen firm for this report is Woolworths which is one of the retail company in
Australia which provides best quality of clothes and grocery products to their customers, the
report will provide the rationale of embedding the HR strategy and Analyzes how HR strategy in
embedded in broader corporate strategy fro Woolworths. Further it also describe How the
company may implement HR strategy at departmental level and present some HR challenges.
1. Rationale of embedding HR strategies
In every business HR strategies is quite important because HR practices that align and
have the harmony with the business goals will further assist the quoted firm to attain financial
and commercial goals. Such that having an effective HR strategy, will also help a business to
improve the productivity with profitability. The HR strategies of Woolworths assist a business to
reduce the cost- less wasted time, resources and wages, these also help to reduce the customer
complaints and gain high competitive advantages as well that further helps a business to sustain
its brand image in market (Need of HR startegy for a business, 2019).
An effective HR strategy will help a business to improved the recruitment and also
getting the right people at lower cost and avoiding the cost of an employment assembly. Not only
this another reason of having an effective HR strategy is such that it helps a business to maintain
good public relation and recognition as a great employer (Angrave and et.al., 2016). Thus, it
helps a business to improve its overall business working performance so that it can attain its
goals and objectives. Thus, it shows that there is a need of embedding HR strategies into
corporate strategies is a good idea and it will help a business to run effectively and improve its
financial condition as well.
2. Analyzing how HR strategy in embedded in broader corporate strategy
The HR strategy of Woolworths is unique such that it has the performance and talent
management system where the employees of the firm are analyzed based on the current skills
which they posses and they require for their career aspiration. Its HR strategy also helps to keep
them engaging in order to make better decision which directly affect the working performance.
Quoted firm HR strategy is to enhance the employee participation and increases the job
satisfaction of its workers (Malik, 2016). Apart from this, the company's HR strategy also
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identifies and advances the High performing staff in which the managers of the company plays
an important role (Dickmann, Brewster and Sparrow, 2016). This award and recognition also feel
appreciated by them and also found to provide the employees with the desire to work hard for
both as an individual and as a group. The HR strategy of high performance is also awarded a
promotion through providing the best career opportunity for the employee working.
Not only this, HR strategy of Woolworths also deal with the high turnover of their
employees in the firm and this also prompted the management to search different ways through
which it also reduces the high rate of turnover of their employees and also make sure that the
best and talented employees are retained (Rasmussen and Ulrich, 2015). Recently, when
Woolworths moved for the greener pasture in other business, then it faces high rate of employee
turnover and then the management also looking for the ways to reduce the rate in order to make
sure that talented employees should stay in the firm. Then it provide the benefits to their
employees such as discount, retirement funding, healthcare plans, training etc. It has been
analyzed that these will help the employees to improve the job satisfaction and the process
makes sure that the employees are retaining. Therefore, this shows that engaging in the
employees in an important decision of the firm and it also assist in enhancing the employee
motivation as it helps to feel them that they are part of the organization (Aboagye and Gao,
2018).
3. How the company may implement HR strategy at departmental level
The biggest part of implementing the successful HR strategy is to communicate the right
purpose of HR strategy to their employees and in the same way, Woolworths also implement HR
strategy at different departmental level such that for Marketing department, HR strategy is
implemented in order to describe how much sales the department should be done at particular
time (Ritter, 2016). The HR strategy is also implemented in different ways such that:
Understand company mission and vision: To develop any HR strategy into the
working area, it is quite essential for the firm to determine the company's mission and vision
such that its mission is to help the members if the company's members to attain the financial
security and their well being by offering a range of services to them. On the other side, its vision
is to provide the best financial services to their employees (Rice, 2019). It has been realized that
having a clear and vision also allow the HR to help the entire company to reach its goals and this
helps a business to attain its goals.
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Assess the current condition: the next step is to determine the current situation of the
firm. Woolworths has a stable and strong financial condition and its effective HR strategy will
always help a business for its smooth functioning (Bader, Schuster and Dickmann, 2019). Its HR
department also handle every situation of their employees in order to feel them that they are also
a part of the company. Such that having a concrete plan in the form of rules and regulations will
make handling every employees issues a lot easier.
Plan and implement the HR strategy: It is the next stage in which the HR department
will implement different strategy for their employees such that company provides retirement
plans, extra benefits to their employees so that they will help a business by increasing the level of
production (Mahmood and et.al., 2019). This HR strategy should be established and align with
different department of the company such that by taking interview the HR department of the firm
are directly cover the aspect of an employee's relationship with the business.
Measure the result: in order to determine the exact result, the company should use
Bench-marking as a key performance indicators that helps a identify the working performance of
the employees of a particular department (Wallo and Kock, 2018). Thus, in this way, the HR of
the company will implement the HR strategy at departmental level and helps a business for its
smooth functioning as well.
4. HR challenges facing by the company
Woolworths currently facing different HR problem such that:
Creating the quality employee experience: Its not easy to find the high staff turnover in
the fast paced company and the HR of Woolworths also faces the problem to manage or hire the
best employees (Greene, 2018). But on the other side, if the employees are satisfied with the job
then it will help to overcome the challenges.
Therefore, to overcome this, it is recommended to quoted firm that they should provide
online training sessions, flexible their timings and provide other incentives also. Because
building the best culture and encourage them will help a business to get a good quality of
experience person (Abe and Abe, 2019).
Maintaining privacy and managing the business information: As new and advance
technology in an organization helps to connect the technical changes but this also creates a
challenge for the company to maintain such a huge information into a single way (Vázquez,
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2019). Sometimes this also leads to breach the privacy and confidentiality of the data. Thus the
HR of the company also faces this challenges .
Therefore, it is recommended to the firm that company should follow the Data Privacy
Act in order to maintain the confidentiality of all the information and also make sure that the
employees should be well trained in order to secure the data and preventing privacy breaches as
well (Lee, Batt and Moynihan, 2018).
Managing the diversity workforce: It is another issue or challenge which the company
is focus such that as the quoted firm currently has more than 2 lac employees of different caste,
age and gender. But the company faces issue regarding nature, personality and background. It
has been analyzed that more diverse workforce, issues arises such that harassment and
discrimination (Bader, Schuster and Dickmann, 2019).
Therefore, it is recommended to the firm that Woolworths should implemented or
formulate some strict rules and regulations that helps to deal with the situation.
CONCULSION
By summing up above report it has been concluded that HR plays an effective role and in
the same way, HR department of Woolworths also formulated the effective strategy that helps a
business for its smooth functioning. The report also concluded that there is a need of HR strategy
into broader corporate strategies because it assist to improve the actual condition of the firm,
further, report also concluded that Woolworths HR strategy is to providing the best incentives
and benefits to their employees so that it will help a business to run a firm successfully. By
implementing the stages of HR strategy at different departmental level will also help a business
to raise its current working performance. Moreover, the company also faces some HR challenges
and report concluded some recommendation to overcome those.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Abe, I. I. and Abe, E. N., 2019. Dynamics of Human Resource Strategies and Cultural
Orientations in Multinational Corporations. In Contemporary Multicultural Orientations
and Practices for Global Leadership (pp. 80-99). IGI Global.
Aboagye, E. O. and Gao, J., 2018, November. Computational Intelligence Strategies for
Effective Collaborative Decisions. In 2018 IEEE 9th Annual Information Technology,
Electronics and Mobile Communication Conference (IEMCON) (pp. 776-782). IEEE.
Angrave, D. and et.al., 2016. HR and analytics: why HR is set to fail the big data
challenge. Human Resource Management Journal. 26(1). pp.1-11.
Bader, B., Schuster, T. and Dickmann, M., 2019. Managing people in hostile environments:
lessons learned and new grounds in HR research. The International Journal of Human
Resource Management, pp.1-22.
Bader, B., Schuster, T. and Dickmann, M., 2019. Managing people in hostile environments:
lessons learned and new grounds in HR research. The International Journal of Human
Resource Management, pp.1-22.
Dickmann, M., Brewster, C. and Sparrow, P. eds., 2016. International human resource
management: contemporary HR issues in Europe. Routledge.
Greene, R. J., 2018. Rewarding performance: Guiding principles; custom strategies. Routledge.
Lee, J. E., Batt, R. and Moynihan, L. M., 2018. Strategic Dilemmas: How Managers Use HR
Practices to Meet Multiple Goals. British Journal of Industrial Relations.
Mahmood, A. and et.al., 2019. Specific HR practices and employee commitment: the mediating
role of job satisfaction. Employee Relations: The International Journal. 41(3). pp.420-435.
Malik, A., 2016. The role of HR strategies in change. In Organizational change management
strategies in modern business (pp. 193-215). IGI Global.
Rasmussen, T. and Ulrich, D., 2015. Learning from practice: how HR analytics avoids being a
management fad. Organizational Dynamics.44(3). pp.236-242.
Rice, C. M., 2019. Human Resource Strategies and Sustainability in Small Businesses (Doctoral
dissertation, Walden University).
Ritter, W., 2016. How Corporate Universities Can Thrive by Embedding Learning Across the
Business. HUMAN RESOURCES.
Vázquez, C. M., 2019. HR intrapreneurship and business strategy and their effects on
innovation practices on IT multinationals (Doctoral dissertation, Dublin Business School).
Wallo, A. and Kock, H., 2018. HR outsourcing in small and medium-sized enterprises:
Exploring the role of human resource intermediaries. Personnel Review.47(5.). pp.1003-
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Online
Need of HR startegy for a business. 2019. [Online]. Available
through:<https://www.solvehr.co.uk/why-does-your-business-need-an-hr-strategy/>.
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