HRM Policies and Zero Hour Contracts: A Case Study of REED

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of Human Resource Management (HRM) policies and employment contracts, focusing on the case of REED, a UK-based online recruitment website. The report emphasizes the critical role of robust HRM policies in fostering a coordinated and engaged workforce, highlighting the importance of employee motivation and cooperation in achieving organizational goals. It delves into the specifics of zero-hour employment contracts, discussing their implications for both employers and employees, including flexibility and cost-saving benefits for REED, as well as the advantages of work-life balance for employees. The report concludes by underscoring the significance of effective HRM practices and flexible employment contracts in contemporary business environments, acknowledging the advantages these offer to both parties involved. The report provides a detailed overview of the company's HRM practices, highlighting the benefits of these policies for both employers and employees.

HRM Policies and
Employment Contract
1

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................3
Analysing the importance and need for robust HRM policies in REED................................3
Discussing Zero hour employment contract...........................................................................4
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................4
REFRENCES...................................................................................................................................6
2

INTRODUCTION
Human resource department plays a very important role in all different organisations available in
the market place. Human resource is considered as one of the most essential and major asset of
every company as the workforce and the people within the organisation works in for
implementing plans of the entity in order to attain the strategic objectives. The report is
developed on REED which is UK’s first online recruitment website established in 1995 with the
URL as reed.co.uk. the report covers two major aspects that is first it focuses over the
importance of different robust HRM policies in the organisation. Along with the report also
concentrates over the Zero hour employment contract which REED offers to the candidates.
MAIN BODY
Analysing the importance and need for robust HRM policies in REED.
Human resource department is an operational unit which is present in all organisations with the
sole purpose and objective of managing the workforce of the organisation in the most potential
and beneficial manner. Human resource department performs several different activities and
undertakes different practices for effective and efficient management and balancing the
workforce of their respective company (Brewster, Mayrhofer and Farndale, 2018). There are
various robust policies which are used by human resource department off REED in order to keep
the staff motivated and well organised focus over the attainment of organisational goal in the
most effective and potential way. These robust HRM policies of the organisation are very
important and beneficial for it as the overall objective of company is attained once the people
working in it strategically and cooperative li working with the full potential towards the effective
outcomes and attainment of organisational aims and goals. The specific importance of the
effective HRM policies used by the HR department of REED are as follows:
 Coordination and cooperation is one of the biggest importance that is been fulfilled by
use of appropriate robust HRM policies. Human resource department of REED focuses
on developing effective and healthy working environment in the organisation for all the
employees belonging to different levels of the company (Olson and et. al., 2018).
Effective insurance policies such as conflict management problem solving and employee
engagement increases the coordination and cooperation among staff drink in effective
3

results of their teamwork in a way of attaining organizational objectives in the given time
frame.
 Employee engagement and motivation is another importance of effective and potential
use of HRM policies by the company. The human resource department of REED makes
use of effective policies that brings employee engagement and showcase of there at one’s
talent and creativity while working for the company. Along with it increasing
engagement improves the motivation level of people increasing the retention ratio and
rate of the organization.
The different HRM policies and practices adopted by the organisational human resource
department provide appropriate structure, control, consistency, fairness and reasonableness to the
organisation bringing all people together and increasing their engagement in the company’s
operations drinking effective results by coordination and teamwork among staff and duties
performed with utmost motivation encouragement.
Discussing Zero hour employment contract.
Zero hour contract is basically an agreement that it takes place between the employer and
employee stating that the prospective employer is not obligated for providing the employee with
any minimum number of hours. This is a very casual contract and also known with name of
casual contract in the UK. REED the very first recruitment website of the UK make use of zero
hour contract while appointing staff for the respective employer (Datta, Giupponi and Machin,
2019). For employees point of view Zero hour contract offer great flexibility and work life
balance. The employees are allowed to only except those work and duties in which they are
comfortable and which they want to you can do to an extent according to arranging their time.
On the other hand for employers that is for REED Zero hour contract is a source of saving
money e as the organisation is not obligated to provide many benefits to the employees which are
provided to the full time employees. Another benefit of zero hour contracts is it can help the
organisation in increasing or decreasing their size of workforce according to their needs and
according to their requirements either quickly or slowly for meeting their demands (Koumenta
and Williams, 2019).
4

CONCLUSION
The above report countries that human resource Management and the policies and practices used
by the managers of the company are very effective and essential for potential and effective
management of workforce. the report also focus is over Zero hour contract used by businesses
which are beneficial for both the employer and employee as it provide flexibility to both. The
employers can save money e and time with the help of this contract and has the flexibility to
increase or decrease their staff whenever needed on the other hand the employees have the power
to select their work according to their comfort and acceptance level.
5

REFRENCES
Books and journals
Brewster, C., Mayrhofer, W. and Farndale, E. eds., 2018. Handbook of research on comparative
human resource management. Edward Elgar Publishing.
Datta, N., Giupponi, G. and Machin, S., 2019. Zero-hours contracts and labour market
policy. Economic Policy. 34(99). pp.369-427.
Koumenta, M. and Williams, M., 2019. An anatomy of zero‐hour contracts in the UK. Industrial
Relations Journal. 50(1). pp.20-40.
Olson, E. M. and et. al., 2018. The application of human resource management policies within
the marketing organization: The impact on business and marketing strategy
implementation. Industrial Marketing Management. 69. pp.62-73.
6