Human Resource Management Practices in Barclays Bank and Canary Wharf

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HUMAN RESOUCES MANAGEMENT
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Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................3
Task 1.........................................................................................................................................4
Task2..........................................................................................................................................9
Task3........................................................................................................................................11
Task 4.......................................................................................................................................14
Conclusions..............................................................................................................................15
Reference List..........................................................................................................................16
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Introduction
Human resource department is one of the major strategically approaches in the business
context. It is an art of managing and monitoring people in an organisation in such a way that
they can perform better as per their skills, knowledge and capacity. The main purpose of
human resource management is to formulate the policies in the organisation so that the
employees can have the best working experience and to measure the productivity level. This
study will emphasize the various dimensions of human resource management of one the
major banking sectors in London. In this organisation, Different kinds of HR policies and
decisions made by the department will be elaborated. Barclays bank is the British-
multinational investment bank in London. Barclays bank is divided into four businesses.
Those are personal banking, wealth management, corporate banking, and investment
management. Their operational activities is divided into two business clusters investment
banking and wealth and investment banking and retail. Canary wharf firm is one of the major
financial centres in United Kingdom. Canary Wharf firm provides administrative support
and guidance to the operational firms.
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Task 1
P1 Explain the purpose and the functions of HRM, applicable to workforce planning
and resourcing of an organisation
Human resource management (HRM) is very concerned with the people dimensions of an
organisation (Collings et al., 2018). Every organisation’s performance area and strength
largely depend on the people of the organisation. Human resource management can be
described as the process of developing and maintaining strong human resource base so that
the employees can meet up to the organisation’s objective. HRM is a function within an
organisation that works in the area of recruiting, managing and providing various guidelines
to the labour management. The definitions of HRM:
The field of Human Resource management involves planning, organizations controlling and
directing and regulating the functions of developing and using the HR department.
Human Resource Management is a series of actions that strengths the relationship between
employer and employee and also increases the effectiveness between employers and
employees (Bach and Edwards, 2013).
Human Resources Management is a structural approach to manage people and work culture.
An efficient human resource management strengthen the workforce in such a way so that
employees can achieve organization’s goal and objectives efficiently (Stone and Deadrick,
2015).
The role of human resource management is:
Recruitment and selection of the people as per the organisation’s requirements is one of the
major functions of human resource management (Rabin, 2018). This process includes
ensuring the management that the right people are recruited as per the company standards at
the right time for the right job.
The second major role that covers the Human Resource Management is to maintain the
employee relations. In order to a strong working relationship among co-workers can make a
positive impact to the organisations performance area.
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The scope of HRM:
The scope of HRM is far reaching and broadly defined.
 Job analysis design: The job analysis design gives detailed information about the job
role, job criteria, job performance and also employee specifications of the
organisation.
 Training and development: Every employee in the organisation aims to perform as
per the company’s standards. The training programme is conducted in such a way that
an employee can fulfil the company’s desirability.
 Performance appraisal: Employee’s performance appraisal gives a detailed note
about the employee’s performance level. Performance appraisals help the organisation
to determine the future promotions, incentive schemes of the employee. Compensation planning and remuneration: Every organisation follows different
rules regarding compensation and benefits. Employee performance levels, labour
union, Demand and supply of labour, productivity level are the determinants of
compensation planning and remuneration. Motivation and employee welfare programme: Motivation plays an important factor
in sustainability of the organisation. Human resource department applies different
methods to motivate their employees. Constant motivation gives higher productivity.
For any organisation’s success and sustainability a strong human resource management is
needed who work efficiently to fulfil the company’s objective as well as employee well
being. In Barclays the human resource assistant maintains and work all the HR related area,
rules and regulations. The roles of HR assistant of Barclays are:
The HR assistant at Barclays arranges and organises the training programme for the
employees to train the staff members in accordance to the present banking scenarios. Various
training programmes like applicant screening which uncover the financial and criminal
history of the employees is very much necessary for safety of the clients and organisations
are done by the HR assistant of Barclays bank.
The HR assistant at Barclays maintains the employee relations among the employees. To
maintain the internal peace at the work area and grievances amongst employees HR assistant
follows or regulates the work.
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The HR assistant in Barclays bank also supervises the quality or the performance level of the
staff members. The employee’s performance level is measured by the banking sector
guidelines. As per the performance level the staff members awarded or punished.
Appraisals of the performance level or arranging the reward programme is also an area that
totally regulated by the HR assistant in Barclays bank. Designing the perks and benefits to
motivate the employees for better performance is also an area of their operations in Barclays
bank.
Strategic Approach of Human Resource Management:
The strategic approach of human resource management is the connection that links the two
sectors like human resources and its objectives and strategy, goals. The strategic approach of
HRM is to:
 Best-fit approach: Best-fit approach is the strategically approach which develops the
HRM policy as per the business strategy. This approach includes planning financial
activities, performance objectives etc. It signifies the fit between banking sectors
internal structures and external structures like clients, governments.
 Best practise approach: Best practice approach signifies the close connection
between HR practices and organisational performance. Best practise approach does
not support the particular needs of an employee but it supports the overall strategic
objectives.
The hard and soft models of human resource management:
Hard models of HRM: The hard model of HRM is the short term goal oriented approach
that treats every employee as resource of the organisation. In Hard models of HRM
management mainly focuses on workforce and recruit people as per the workforce standards.
In hard models of HRM communication level among each department is very less. This
model suits only for autocratic leadership styles.
Soft models of HRM: The soft models of HRM are long term approach which structured
according to the individual needs of the employee. In soft model of HRM management
usually concentrate on employee roles, area of performance and reward programmes.
Barclays bank uses the soft model strategy of HRM.
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P2 Explain the strengths and weakness of the different approaches to recruitment and
selection.
One of the major activities of HRM is to recruit and select the right people for the right job in
the organisation. The main goal of recruitment and selection is to choose the skilled people
for the organisation so that they can meet up the organisational goal.
Recruitment is the process where the skilled employee attracted for the vacancies (Stone et
al., 2015). There are two types of recruitment;
Internal recruitment: Internal recruitment is the process where the employees are selected
within the organisation. This kind of recruitment is cost friendly and easier to recruit as the
employees are always familiar with the work.
The strengths of internal recruitment:
 Reduce time on hiring process
 Shorter on boarding Time period
 Cost friendly
 Stronger employee engagement
The weakness of internal recruitment:
 Limited pool of applicants
 Results in inflexible culture
External recruitment: External recruitment is based on the outside of the organisation
through various advertisements, job portals etc. The advantages of external recruitment are
that it brings the large pool of candidates. Barclays bank uses external recruitment for
choosing the potential candidates.
The strengths of external recruitment:
 It can bring up fresh skills and new talents
 Promotes better competition
The weakness of external recruitment:
 Time consuming process
 Limited understanding about job role and company.
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Selection is the process by picking up the skilled candidates for the right position of an
organisation (Stjerne, 2018). There is mainly two ways selection process
 Interviewing is the assessment programme where the abilities of the employees are
checked or to know their skill and capacity to fulfil a particular position in an
organisation. There are various kinds of interviews like behavioural interview;
situational interviews are done to identify the competency of an organisation.
 Inductions are another type of selection the employees are being informed about the
company guidelines and their operational area. So, the chances to get the highly
competent employee are quite high. The employees can understand about the work
area and about company quickly.
In Barclays bank every employee is selected through interviews and inductions programme.
In Barclays bank employees are selected in various interviews techniques like Face to face
interviews where HR department of Barclays asked few questions to the candidates regarding
their academic qualifications, professional competencies etc.
The Human resource management of Barclays Bank also conducted the panel interview for
their candidates. In panel interview a number of candidates are sitting with the chairperson of
the Barclays bank.
In Barclays bank various induction programme is given to the employees to increase their
professional expertise and competencies skills. Inductions like coaching, on job training , job
rotations are given to the employees.
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Task2
P3 Explain the benefits of different HRM practices within the organisation for both the
employer and employee.
The activities of HRM in the organisation are important and relevant for both the employers
and employees. In an organisation both employees and employers activities are interlinked
with HRM policies. Canary Wharf firm is one of the reputed law firm in London. The human
resource management in the organisation is structured in such a way that it fulfils both
employer and employee’s perspective. Some of the different human resource management
policies that followed at the Canary Wharf firm are:
 Training and development of the workforce is one of the key functional areas of HRM
(Kadiresan et al., 2015). The HR manager provides the training to achieve the
competency among the workers. Providing training and development is beneficial for
both the employees and employers. Training and development is not only making
skilful employees but also helps the employer to get to know about technical
implications about the job area.
 Employee relations and work life balance is another important area of human resource
management. A human resource manager plays a major role in binding employees
together (Bailey et al., 2017). The human resource management conduct a lot of
group activities in Canary Wharf firm to bring most of employees together and to
reduce or to eliminate the work related conflict. Maintaining employee relations will
not only help the employees. But for employers the overall performance starts
showing some positive results.
 The other human resource practices that are highly beneficial for both the employees
and employers are Employee reward and recognition programme, Employee
performance mapping, Building strong cultural programmes to eliminate the cultural
differences amongst employees in the company.
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P4 Evaluate the effectiveness of the key elements of the Human Resource Management
in an organisation.
The key elements of human resource management are structured in such a way in an
organisation that boosts the productivity and overall performance. An organisation’s
performance level and profitability highly depend on the various HRM practices. The
effectiveness of HRM practices are
 Providing training and development to the employees is a structured process to
increase the performance level and effectiveness of the organisation. The training and
development procedure has become the most efficient and continuous task for any
organisation to update the skills and knowledge of the employees (Fletcher et al.,
2018). Employee training and development is provided to make the employees more
skilful to perform a particular job or task in the organisation. Employee development
is the psychological oriented procedure that provided to perform managerial tasks.
Employee development covers few areas like emotional balance, physical health,
intellectual growth etc.
 Flexible working options are another important functional area that is covered by
HRM. Flexible working options provide different working approaches to getting work
done through non-traditional working hours (Koivisto and Rice, 2016). They provide
visionary working approaches for completing work to promote the work-life balance.
Flexible working options give the positive response at the workplaces.
 Employee performance management is all about maintaining the line between
organisational objectives and the employees development plans, skills and
professional competencies. Organisations used the performance management tool to
bridge the gap between employee’s performance area and their desired goal. Under
the employee performance management there are few departments like talent
management, constant monitoring of work and reviewing process, management by
objectives etc (Smith and Bititci, 2017).
 Payment and reward management involves the effective control and analysis of
employee remuneration that covers the salary and all other benefits provided by the
organisation (Aguenza and Som, 2018). Reward management is not only restricted to
the employee’s wages structure it is also concerned with the motivation among
employees. Employee reward and payment system is not just providing a positive
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outlook to the work area, but it also act as encouraging tool for the employees to
create the sustainability and productivity for the company.
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Task3
Introduction
Human Resource Management is the practice of recruiting, hiring, and developing the
employees in an organisation. Human resource management is responsible for creating and
developing employees as per the company standards. In these sections we will discuss about
the internal and external factors of an organisation that affect the decision making process of
HRM. In this report we will also discuss the employee relations and laws that related to
employment and ethical and social aspect of HRM.
P5 Analyse the importance of employee relations in respect to influencing HRM
activities.
Employee Relations is the term that used to manage or to solve the differences between
employee and employers (Eldor and Vigoda-Gadot, 2017). An organisation who has a strong
employee relationship programme can achieve the organisations target quite precisely. The
employee relationship programmes in Canary Wharf firm aims to fulfil or to resolve the
issues arising from work area. Employee relationship programme in Canary Wharf firm are
designed to promote the healthy workforce and most efficient use of human resource
management. Maintaining cordial relationship amongst employee ensures the good
performance and strong bonding at the workplace. In different dimensions, employee relation
is also beneficial for company’s decision making process.
Strategies for building and improving the employee relationships and engagement:
Focus on company mission and promote positive workforce: Human resource
management reduce the grievances and differences between employee and employers and
focus on positive values on a constant basis to increase the effectiveness of performance
Team building and increasing the rate of joint activities: Human resource management
always try to maintain a stress-free environment the HRM department builds the team
building activities.
Reward and recognition programme to encourage the employees: The HR department of
Canary Wharf firm conduct a lot of reward and recognition programme for the skilled
employees to encourage them for future performance.
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