Human Resource Management Practices in Arcadia Group, UK

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Human Resources Management
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Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................. 3
LO1 (P1, P2)...............................................................................................................4
LO2 (P3, P4)...............................................................................................................9
LO3 (P5, P6)............................................................................................................. 11
LO4 (P7)....................................................................................................................14
Conclusion................................................................................................................ 19
Reference list............................................................................................................ 20
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Introduction
Across the UK retail market, there are several popular and successful organizations.
“Arcadia group, UK” is one of the most famous retail firms around the Great Britain
premises. This retail firm was established in 2002 and the company is owning by
Taveta investments. (arcadiagroup.co.uk, 2019) More than 22000-trained employees
provide satisfying services to customers. The company has multiple numbers of
subsidiaries and stores throughout the global premises.
In recent days, modern business firms are facing extreme level marketing
competition. All the business departments are focusing on improving their
performance scale to their peak point in order to achieve competitive advantage in
market place. According to modern market researchers, HR is the core business
department is modern market scenario that can influence other organizational units
and the entire workforce unit to speed up their growth and performance standard.
HR is associated with verity of vital responsibilities for better business performance
and greater market sustainability of any particular business venture.
This paper will shed light on verity of important responsibilities of HR personnel in
recruitment, employee empowerment, increasing profitability, increasing employee
performance and others. Benefits of following HRM practices to both employer and
employees will be assessed in this study. In the last section, multiple eternal factors,
mostly UK laws and norms that impact on business decision-making process will be
elaborated.
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LO1 (P1, P2)
Explain the purpose and scope of Human Resource Management in terms of
resourcing an organisation with talent and skills appropriate to fulfil business
objectives
P1 Explain the purpose and the functions of HRM, applicable to workforce
planning and resourcing an organisation.
In all business ventures, HR department is regarded as core business department as
it mainly aims at improving organizational efficiency and bringing positive changes in
the firm for higher growth and greater market sustainability. In modern business
aspect, business operations are designed generating revenues by meeting the
expectations of the customer base (Cascio, 2015). HR department is the most
responsible managerial department in an organization that follows multiple theories,
models and frameworks for better management of the workforce unit and providing
best class products and services to customers for increasing their satisfaction level.
As per the consideration of researchers, HR department is designed in such manner
that it can provide benefits and growth opportunities to both parties; employees and
employer for maintaining balance in employee-employer relation. Due to extremely
high market competition, market sustainability has become a rare thing (Noe et al.,
2017). Successful modern companies like “Arcadia group, UK” focus on adopting
effective HR team to formulate and execute a range of business activities. HR
personnel of business ventures have several important roles to play starting from
recruitment to redundancy or termination of an employee. In order to manage
business operations in a precise manner, HR department of the specified business
organization follows various models, theories and approaches for high organisational
performance.
All successful business ventures follow Best practices for speeding up their
employee performance and accelerating organizational productivity as well as profit
generation simultaneously (N. Theriou and Chatzoglou, 2014). “Arcadia group,
UK” uses Best practices that are set by HR personnel according to the needs and
business objectives of the specified company. Along with this, the venture also
follows Best fit model that is another key consideration in this business context. It
allows business organizations like “Arcadia group, UK” to analyse, assess and
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adopt the most suitable prefabricated business model for the organization so that the
entire workforce unit can better concentrate upon acceleration of their growth and
improvement of overall performance.
In this business context, Hard and Soft model HRM must be taken into key
consideration. Hard and Soft model of HRM is totally opposite to each other. Hard
model HRM focuses upon the building high amount of profits through using the
efforts and contributions of the workforce unit. They consider employees as profit
generating elements, where Soft model HRM states to behave with employees as
family members for making better relationship and influencing the growth process.
However, “Arcadia group, UK” follow Soft model of HRM for better production and
greater employee-employer relationship of the company.
HR personnel of “Arcadia group, UK” are associated with multiple vital roles and
responsibilities for better performance of the organization that are as follows:
Recruiting the best candidate
HR department of “Arcadia group, UK” arranges recruitment program, where wide
number of eligible employees apply to be employed in the company. HR personnel
analyse the performance, creditability and capacity of the applicants and then recruit
the most effective candidate from wide numbers of eligible applicants (Armstrong et
al., 2016). HR recruits the best candidates so that the company can make effective
teams and complete their tasks in time.
Training and development
One of the major responsibilities of HR department is arranging training programs
and providing training to new as well as existing employees for extending their
performance level and improving organization’s production rate and business
profitability amount simultaneously. Training strengthens the skills of the employees
and allows them to perform and contribute in better manner towards accomplishment
of business objectives (Bratton and Gold, 2017). Providing training is also beneficial
to employer as trained employees directly increases productivity and employer
generates high volume of business revenue.
Workforce flexibility
In terms of employee retention and employee satisfaction, workforce flexibility is
considered as an important factor. Flexibility of the working hours, working
environment and culture attracts employees and allows grater employee
engagement and effective employee retention as well. In an organization like
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“Arcadia group, UK” HR personnel has the responsibility of providing workforce
flexibility and job satisfaction to employees.
Employee motivation and empowerment
Another important role of human resource department is empowering the workforce
unit for extending their organizational performance and speeding up overall
organizational growth and prosperity. HR motivates employees and brings positive
thinking and positive energy into employees so that they can contribute to business
objectives in better manner.
Apart from this, HR department of the specified organization is associated with
solving every issue of the entire workforce unit and increasing the profitability of the
organization simultaneously.
P2 Explain the strengths and weaknesses of different approaches to
recruitment and selection.
Recruitment is a part of business that allows filling the vacant job positions in the firm
with effective and skilled candidates. It is appositive business activity to recruit
workable and skilled candidates in the organization from both outside and inside of
the company. HR manager of business ventures like “Arcadia group, UK” has the
responsibility of assessing the vacant job designations and conducting recruitment
process successfully in the company. In order to achieve competitive advantage in
market place, having effective workforce unit is necessary (Mello, 2014). HR
department focuses on developing the most efficient workforce unit by making the
recruitment process effective. The primary aim of the recruitment is obtaining right
type as well as right number of people, who can contribute their efforts towards
accomplishment of organizational objectives. In most of the business organizations
such as “Arcadia group, UK”, recruitment is conducted for filling their vacant job
designations with proper resources and talents. However, modern recruitment
process can be classified into two vital segments; internal recruitment method and
external recruitment method. Successful organizations like “Arcadia group, UK”
use both of these recruitment methods for section of most qualified and reliable
candidates in the firm. However, there are several advantages and disadvantages
are associated with recruitment process. Internal recruitment is while the company is
looking for filling job vacancies from inside the organization without making any king
of outside recruitment process. Similarly, external recruitment method allows
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recruiting best quality eligible applicants from outside the organization (Greiner,
2015). In external recruitment process, candidates those are selected are more
talented and skilled compared to internal recruitment as well as this recruitment
process is more reliable compared to other method. However, the entire external
process is highly expensive as well as takes high time to recruit best quality
candidates for the company. On the other hand, the internal recruitment process is
cheap and takes minimal time to fill job vacancies from inside the existing
organizational workforce or from their family remembers. Though it limits the quality,
efficiency and ideas of employees, external recruitment promotes all these factors
among their employees. Most of the well-established and popular organizations
including “Arcadia group, UK” use both of these internal as well as external
recruitment methods for making their recruitment process authentic and effective
together. It allows them to recruit eligible candidates as per the organizational
requirements.
Selection is the process of choosing effective employees as per the organizational
requirements and putting right people at right job designations to keep the
organizational workforce balance. However, these are multiple selection methods
such as aptitude test, group discussion, psychometric test, interviews and others.
Modern business ventures always including “Arcadia group, UK” are likely to use
more than one selection process instead of using single selection method. Through
using more than one selection process, organizations make sure the qualities,
efficiency and future scope of the candidates effectively. It is undeniable that all
these selection methods have their own advantages and disadvantages that are
described in the below portion;
Ability test
This effective selection test allows knowing a bit more about the staffs in a direct
way. In the entire process, recruitment board authorities judge the qualities and
efficiency of candidates (Śmieja et al., 2014). This selection process mainly assists
in measuring mental abilities of staffs like mathematical ability, verbal reasoning,
reading ability and others.
Advantages Disadvantages
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 It is easy to undertake
 It is less costly process
 The process is not reliable so that
the entire selection decision
cannot be ,made only by this
ability test method.
Personality describing test
It is another important process of selection of appropriate candidates for the
organization. This personality tests assist to assess certain numbers of traits of
applicants that can help the company to reach out their business destinations.
Advantages Disadvantages
 It allows understanding the
presentation quality of the
employees
 Less expensive selection
process
 Easy to conduct and select
candidates in this selection
method.
 Less reliable process
 It has its own traditional was of
conducting test with pen and
paper that might create difficulties
to modern candidates.
Panel interview
Panel interview is one of the most reliable selection processes that is mostly used by
multinational organizations. It is lengthy process (Pau et al., 2018).
Advantages Disadvantages
 It is highly reliable selection
process
 It allows selecting the most
eligible candidate for the
organization
 The panel interview process is
lengthy, where more than one
interviewer ask questions to
candidates.
 Many candidates feel nervous to
face multiple interviewers at a
single time
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LO2 (P3, P4)
P3 Explain the benefits of different HRM practices within an organisation for
both the employer and employee.
HRM is the most essential activity that a business needs to practice while performing
their activities. HRM are of various types and supports a business from different
directions. It is essential for the business to identify the most suitable form of HRM in
order to receive the best results from its practice. One of the benefits that a business
can receive from practicing HRM is solving out problems that the employees are
facing while working for the firm (Currie et al., 2017). It is essential for the developers
to identify the key issues that the employees are facing while working for them,
which can be solved with the practice of proper HRM. With the help of HRM, the
managers can even solve out their issues, which they may face while handling the
employees. This on the other hand creates the sense of responsibility among the
employees and even within the managers, which enable them to perform their work
as per the needs of the business.
It is relevant for the business to provide the required training to the employees, to
receive the best out of them, which can be availed by practicing the required HRM.
With the aid of HRM practices, the employers can provide the necessary training to
the employees, which not only help the business in receiving the right effort from
their side but also allow them to enhance the skills of the employees (Ahmad and
Allen, 2015). This practice of HRM further supports in developing relationship among
the employees, which provides them the sense of belongingness and drives them to
work properly for the firm. Additionally, the maintenance of flow of authority can be
maintained with the aid of HRM practice.
P4 Evaluate the effectiveness of different HRM practices in terms of raising
organisational profit and productivity.
HRM practices are mainly of two types, hard and soft (Escrig-Tena et al., 2018). In
hard HRM the employees are treated as just the source of income and they are
controlled in such a manner that the organizat6ion can make the best profit out of
them. With the help of this king of HRM practice, the organisation can receive the
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most out of their presence. The employees are guided in such a way that they are
only focused on the level of productivity that they can provide to the business. This
helps the business in creating better productivity and profit generation at the end.
Contradictorily, soft HRM considers the employees as the main element of the
business. In this type of HRM practice, the employees are considered to be the most
essential resources, which can be utilized for a longer time frame, creating support to
the developed strategies by the business developers.
The more the employees feel important, the more the employees feel like working for
the firm (Chumg et al., 2016). Organizational profit is directly related to the amount of
support that the employees make while working for the business and the more they
feel for the organization the more they work for them. It is essential for the
developers of the business to understand the type of HRM practice that is supported
by the employees and to practice them as per the need of the business, which can
help the firm in receiving the best productivity. The more the employees receive the
sense of togetherness and belongingness, the more they give fuller effort for the
growth of the business.
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LO3 (P5, P6)
Analyse internal and external factors that affect Human Resource Management
decision-making, including employment legislation
P5 Analyse the importance of employee relations in respect to influencing
HRM decision- making.
Employee relation refers to the relationship between employer and employees. In
present business context, every business organization is aimed at building a strong
employee-employer relationship to influence the organizational performance and the
business as well as HRM decision-making process (Babalola et al., 2018).
Simultaneously, it is important for achieving competitive advantage in this highly
competitive market place. Sustainable business model always advices to build and
successfully maintain healthy relationship within the company. However, low
productivity is the major problem of UK business industry and main reason behind is
ineffective relationship and understanding between employees and employer.
Therefore, effective employee-employer relationship can mitigate this issues,
increase the productivity and sale.
HR department is responsible for incising the relationship between employer and
employees and maintaining the positive work culture for greater productivity. In a
survey, it has been known that employees with high motivation are much more
productive compared ordinary, de-motivated employees. HR teams encourage
employees and assist them to improve productivity. It is undeniable that the entire
employment base is the most significant asset of the business ventures like
“Arcadia group, UK” that allows them to enhance their market position and
business capacity simultaneously. HR management makes their policies and
practices in such ways that they can provide benefits to both of the parties;
workforce unit and employer. Apart from this, smooth functioning of business
practices allows betterment of business venture. Organizations with healthy and
effective employee-employer relationship have to face less number of organisational
conflicts. Due to less number of conflicts, managerial and higher authorities can
make better decision in business as well (Dávila and Piña-Ramírez, 2014).
Additionally, in healthy organizations like “Arcadia group, UK”, loyalty of
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employees is always extremely high due to quality relationship with employer.
Employer motivates them to be loyal in firm, which improves the employee retention
of the specified organization. Moreover, strong employee-employer relationship
attracts other employees and improves the employee engagement. High employee-
engagement allows HR and other managerial authorities to make better
organizational decisions and accelerating company’s productivity and sales
simultaneously.
P6 Identify the key elements of employment legislation and the impact it has
upon HRM decision- making.
In every country, there are certain legislations and norms that are required to be
followed by business organizations. Governments set these laws to safeguard the
employees and avoid unethical business practices. Great Britain is one of the most
advanced countries in the world so that the country must have various laws and
legislations for protecting their employee force and maintaining ethical standard. In
this process, UK government has enforced multiple effective as well as strict laws
like Equality Act, Redundancy Act, Data Protection Act and others. In most of cases,
it has been seen that business ventures are mainly aimed at increasing their
business profits by hook or crook. Hence, it is such important to limit the capabilities
of business ventures and encouraging them to improve their business function
quality. The UK parliament is strict about following these wide ranges of norms and
regulations.
Equality Act 2010
Equality Act was enforced across the Great Britain premises in 2010 for protecting
the workforce unit from any type of discrimination activities. In this act, multiple
pieces of legislations have merged including the ex Discrimination Act 1975, the
Equal Pay Act 1975, the Employment Equality Age regulations 2006, the
Employment Equality Religion regulations 2006, the Race Relations Act 1976, the
Disability Discrimination Act 1995 and others. In simple words, the Equality Act 2010
has simplified and strengthened the current legislations for providing Great Brittan
with a new standard Discrimination Act that protects employees and other individuals
from any sort of unfair treatments (Hepple, 2014). This act promotes equal and fair
society as well as workplace, where decision-making process can be easier.
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