Analysis of HRM Practices: A Comparative Study of Two Organizations

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Human resource management

TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction......................................................................................................................................1
Task 1 (Lo1)....................................................................................................................................1
a) Explains the purpose of the HR function and its importance to the organization, given its
current problems and future plans for further growth.................................................................1
b) Explains the strengths and weaknesses of the current selection methods used by the
organization.................................................................................................................................2
c) Evaluates at least 2 two potential improvements that could be made by Chocolate Presence
to enhance its selection process...................................................................................................4
Task 2 (LO4)....................................................................................................................................5
a) Create a person specification for the role................................................................................5
b) Discuss the advantages and disadvantages of the current methods of advertising jobs in the
organization (internally within the organization and on the notice board outside the main
entrance)......................................................................................................................................6
c) Explain where you would recommend the job advert for the Receptionist vacancy to be
placed and why............................................................................................................................6
Task 3 (LO2)....................................................................................................................................8
a) Microsoft offer graduate training schemes and internships. Evaluate the benefits to both the
organisation and employees of such schemes.............................................................................8
b) Microsoft offers a range of flexible working arrangements for staff. Firstly, identify some of
these arrangements and then evaluate the benefits of offering these to both Microsoft and its
employees....................................................................................................................................9
c) Evaluate how Microsoft motivates its workers through the way it designs its job roles........9
Task 4 (LO3)..................................................................................................................................11
a) What is meant by the term employee engagement and why is employee engagement such an
important part in effective employee relations in Microsoft?...................................................11

b) Critically evaluate the key approaches to engaging workers discussed in the Summit and
how these approaches improve communication in the workplace............................................11
c) Identify the key elements of UK employment legislation, explaining how they influence HR
decision making such as recruitment, training and development and reward...........................12
Conclusion.....................................................................................................................................13
References......................................................................................................................................14

Introduction
Human resource management (HRM) is the suitable approach that is based on enhancing ability
and skills of the individual to enhance the values of the business. HR of the organisation plays
important role in selecting the right employees at right time with offering them adequate
payments along with seeking their development (Armstrong and Taylor, 2014. ). Part 1 of report
discusses about application of different practices of HRM considering the case study of Say it
with chocolate that provides tailor made chocolate across different parts of the UK. This is the
small scale organisation operating with small staff and is planning to recruit workforce that
require application of different practices of HR. On the other hand, Part 2 highlights about
managing the employee performance, offering rewards and taking effective HR decisions. This
will be highlighted considering the case study of Microsoft that is one of the technologies firm
providing software solutions. At last, report focuses on enhancing the level of employee
engagement for organisational productivity.
1

Task 1 (Lo1)
a) Explains the purpose of the HR function and its importance to the organization, given its
current problems and future plans for further growth.
Current problem
Say it with chocolate is being facing the growing problem of turnover of employees that is
degrading the quality of operations and giving rise to customer complaints. In addition, the
organisation is facing the negative impact of economic condition that is the business is located in
high unemployment area that is leading to increase the vacant position in production department.
Along with this business have the poor selection process as more complaints are being found
from applicants regarding the fairness of the selection process.
Solution to such problem is increasing the activeness of HR manager with performing best
selection of the employees to enable business growth. Some of the HR functions are stated
below:
Recruitment and selection: This is the function of HR that includes employing right employee at
the right time. It is necessary to recruit employee matching with the qualification and necessity
by the departments. HR manager of Say it with chocolate need to improve the selection process
with appointing employees with the help of different sources. External sources can be adopted by
organisation to invite applicants (Noe et.al. 2014). Change in the selection process is necessary
to be adopted by HR managers to overcome the issue.
Rewarding employees: The increasing problem of Staff turnover can be resolved with the help of
offering motivation to the employees. For this, HR function of rewarding employees on the basis
of performance can be helpful for increasing satisfaction of employees from the workplace.
Rewards can be offered in terms of incentives, bonus, promotion, etc.
Training and development: This HR function is conducted for the objective of enhancing skills,
abilities, knowledge, confidence and satisfaction to achieve targets in the workplace. In Say it
chocolate increasing customer complaints is trouble for organisational sales and revenues. For
example, HR manager need to organise training sessions about meeting with the customer

satisfaction and their high retention (Buller and McEvoy, 2012). This training can be provided
to marketing and sales staff to develop positive relationships with the customers.
Talent management: Providing training to the employees it not enough it is required to retain
such talents. For this, HR manager is responsible to regularly monitor employee performance
and feedbacks are necessary to be offered to the employees so that they can improve in near
future (Bamberger et.al. 2014). For example, HR manager must insist other departmental
managers to educate employees about reducing the growing customer complaints.
Future plans
As per the analysis of stated HR function, Say it chocolate need to adopt all such functions for
overcoming the current problems. For example, modifications in selection process are important
for organisation and also motivation is required to be provided to the employees for enhancing
the level of satisfaction. With this, employees will produce productive efforts to reduce the
customer complaints by meeting with their needs. Overall, it impact on increasing sales and
revenues of the organisation.
b) Explains the strengths and weaknesses of the current selection methods used by the
organization.
Selection is concerned as the process of interviewing and selecting the employees on the basis of
its qualification, skills and experience to match with the requirement of the organisation.
Currently, Say it with chocolate is being using some of the selection methods that is recorded to
be unsuccessful. However, some of the advantages and disadvantages of such method is
elaborated below:
Assessment test: Currently Say it with chocolate is using the assessment test in which employees
are required to get 50% of marks in English and Maths. Then the employee’s profile is reference
checked and then they are called for the Interview.
Suitable advantage of this method includes judging the employee on the basis of English and
maths that employer mainly judges Math skills to handle cost operations and English skills is
judged so that it can communicate with the customers and also checking the level of literacy.
Fair criteria is being set that means 50% of marks are to be achieved that would make easy for

the employer to short list the candidate. The disadvantage of this method the organisation is
facing is regarding the fairness as number of recruiters is being failing in the probationary period
(London and McFarland, 2017). However, HR only gathers information about English and maths
skills and other skills are not identified.
Interview: This is currently used by the Say it chocolate when the employees are being called for
the interviews after they are being passed in the test.
This method is reliable as interviewer is able to observe the skills and personality of the
employees by having face to face conversation. The method is cheap and HR will design easy
question for the question (Dipboye and Johnson, 2013). On the other hand, Say it with chocolate
is being facing difficulty in terms of using this method as it is being taken as the informal chat
that takes about 15 minutes. However, the questions might confuse the candidate and can hold
misconception.
Alternative methods
Psychometric tests: This method is used by the employer in the selection process to mainly test
the intelligence, skills and personality. This helps HR to judge the actual capability of the
employee and match with the requirement of the business. Therefore, the method is effective as
compared to the assessment test because it helps to overall judge the employee. The test is
accurate and the results are fair and are also reliable and biased. Also the method can be
conducted on cheap cost as ready kits are available that is being used by many businesses.
Overall old norms can be modified as per making new modifications (Cokely et.al. 2012). On the
other hand, this method also contains some of the disadvantage that means employer can get the
fake answers and problem will arise mainly at the interview stage when employer gets different
answers.
Panel Interview: This includes the group of skilled and qualified employer that conducts the
process of interview to analyse the candidate skills test and enhance the overall efficiency. This
is far better as compared to the interview conducted by Say it with chocolate. This interview
takes less time and avoids employers conduct interview twice. In addition, fairness is being
maintained as whole team is able to judge the candidate skills and experience and also

personality (Huffcutt et.al.2013). Moreover, this conducts lot of time and panel of members
available can generate nervousness in the candidate.
c) Evaluates at least 2 two potential improvements that could be made by Chocolate Presence to
enhance its selection process
The main improvement is required to be made in the current selection process of Say it with
chocolate that can bring improvement in the current business operations. Two of the potential
improvements that can be brought in the selection process is changing the method. These
methods are explained below:
Work sampling: This includes judging candidate on the basis of assigning the job role and
evaluating them on the basis of the performance within the particular job. This method is
effective as no close observations are required to be done by HR manager. Other departmental
manager will observe on daily basis and will give feedbacks about candidate after short period of
time (Shahid and Azhar, 2013). Moreover, employer of Say it with chocolate can adopt this
method as overall judgment of the applicant can be achieved with observing him/her on actual
job role.
General ability test: This includes carrying out assessment of other skills includes English and
Math that is currently used by Say it with chocolate. Employer will be able to judge the scientific
and reasoning skills and also candidate intellectual skills are judged with building profile of the
individual (Campbell, 2012). This would help employer to directly employ candidate on the
basis of such aptitude test.

Task 2 (LO4)
a) Create a person specification for the role
Job Title: Receptionist
The candidate interested for this job role must demonstrate the different core competencies that are being
given below that will help to perform according to the suitable job role. The interviewer will focus on the
core competencies for selecting a candidate.
Core competencies
 Must have the tendency to complete task that is customer centric
 Have strong communication skill to have effective client communication
 Must be multi tasking to handle all the operation work
 Friendly natured and self motivated
 Well informed about organisational systems and processes
 Effective time management
Qualification
 Capability of basic computer education
 High school diploma
 Capability of maintaining records
Experience
 Experience of greeting guest and making them feel comfortable
 Experience of handling multiple calls of clients
 Handling stocks and process of inventory
 A good physical personality and personal presentation skills
 Ability to achieve organisational goals and meeting with client needs
 Ability to handle office couriers and paperwork
Special knowledge and requirement
 Basic knowledge of computer and IT in terms of operating MS word, Excel and Excel
 Taking initiative to do work apart from the job role
 Coordinating with other departments
 Creating flexible environment for customers
 Managing things according to requirement of business in terms of Stationery stock and

ordering of refreshments
b) Discuss the advantages and disadvantages of the current methods of advertising jobs in the
organization (internally within the organization and on the notice board outside the main
entrance).
Currently, Say it with chocolate is currently using the internal method and also using notice
board that is being placed on outside the main entrance. Advantages and disadvantages of these
methods include:
When the business hire from within it is effective to have the good idea and it helps in increasing
morale and retention of the employees with offering them the value. Advertising jobs internally
is cheaper and quicker to recruit and provide opportunities to get better skills of the employees.
Internal employees are well informed about the practice of vacant position that avoids the case of
discrimination (Craig, 2015). Another disadvantage include it limits the potential number of
applicants and this increase the biasness of the employer to save the cost. No implementation of
the efforts is done by the employer to appoint high experienced and skilled candidate.
On the other hand, advertising on notice board is the well crafted message displayed at the
entrance. This method is beneficial as many of the customers that will visit the store will be
informed about the vacant position. This will increase the mouth publicity of the vacancy that
can attract many candidates (Kumari, 2012). Disadvantage of such method can lead employer to
receive fake applicants and it is not necessary that all the customers will respond to that
advertisement. In addition, this will not target the specific requirements due to the visibility
issue.
c) Explain where you would recommend the job advert for the Receptionist vacancy to be placed
and why
A selection for the appropriate medium of advertising the job is important part for the
receptionist. The evolution of the internet and social media is one of the effective platforms that
attract millions of users under single platform. However, organisations can place advertisement
on job finding website, social media sites and also with the external agencies. The best medium
for Say it chocolate is social media as it will lead to promote the business and also vacancy that

will be attracted by millions of users. This will target all the segment as social media is
commonly used by maximum population for employing experienced individuals (Kapse et.al.
2012). In order to optimise the cost this medium is effective to recruit candidate on the suitable
role. This will help employer to receive many phone calls and emails if the candidates would be
allowed to submit their resume through mail.

Task 3 (LO2)
a) Microsoft offer graduate training schemes and internships. Evaluate the benefits to both the
organisation and employees of such schemes.
Microsoft is one of the leading organisations that provide the best of technology solutions. It
generally believes to offer opportunity to young talents to gain experience in business. On the
other hand, internships are organised for PhD level and university level. Apprenticeship is kind
of training programme organised for people aged 16+ where Microsoft offers opportunity to start
the career at early age and offer extended level of experience. On the other hand, internships are
organised for 12 weeks for the PhD level students (Microsoft carers, 2018). Also university level
internship is organised to work on the projects matter for students in Bachelor’s, Master’s, MBA,
PhD programs. This internship is provided in different areas such as sales, marketing, finance,
etc.
Benefits to organisation: These programs by Microsoft acts as the recruiting tool for finding
skilled and experienced employees. Moreover, students that take participate in such programs are
paid low. Microsoft takes advantage of such low cost employees and offer them task related to
organisational goals. On the other hand, young interns will give best idea and knowledge to bring
changes in the workplace. This enhances the power of the workforce to achieve productive goals
of the organisation (Dorff, 2014). College students have the learning of cutting edge strategies
and technologies in field. This will lead to optimise the cost, develop positive culture and bring
growth of organisation.
Benefits to employees: The programs organised can by Microsoft that would find development
in the skills and lead to develop positive organisational experience. Interns for the current
employees can also benefit as team targets can be attained with the help of trained candidates and
they would suggest the best creative idea for achieving the objective. In addition, such programs
boost employee confidence regarding finding career development opportunities (P. Maertz Jr
et.al. 2014). Moreover, this will help employee to meet with personal development and with that
the assigned tasks are performed in the productive manner.