Human Resource Management Practices in Chocolate Presence

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HND Business
Human Resource Management

Table of Contents
Introduction....................................................................................................................................3
Task 1............................................................................................................................................4
LO1 ...............................................................................................................................................4
a) Explain the purpose of the HR function and its importance to the organization, given its
current problems and future plans for further growth................................................................5
(b) Explain the strengths and weaknesses of the current selection methods used by the
organization...............................................................................................................................7
c) Evaluates at least two potential improvements that could be made by Chocolate Presence
to enhance its selection process..............................................................................................10
Task 3..........................................................................................................................................12
LO2..............................................................................................................................................12
a) Microsoft offer graduate training schemes and internships. Evaluate the benefits to both
the organization and employees of such schemes..................................................................13
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...............................................................................................................................15
c) Evaluate how Microsoft motivates its workers through the way it designs its job roles.......17
Task 4..........................................................................................................................................19
LO3..............................................................................................................................................19
a) What is meant by the term employee engagement and why is employee engagement such
an important part in effective employee relations in Microsoft?...............................................19
b) Critically evaluate the key approaches to engaging workers discussed in the Summit and
how these approaches improve communication in the workplace..........................................21
c) Identify the key elements of UK employment legislation, explaining how they influence HR
decision making such as recruitment, training and development and reward.........................22
Task 2..........................................................................................................................................24
LO4..............................................................................................................................................24
a) Create a person specification for the role............................................................................25
b) Discuss the advantages and disadvantages of the current methods of advertising jobs in
the organization.......................................................................................................................27
c) Explain where you would recommend the job advert for the Receptionist vacancy to be
placed and why........................................................................................................................28
Conclusion...................................................................................................................................29
References..................................................................................................................................30

Introduction
Human resource management plays an important role in any organization as it is the
driving force for the proper working of the employees. Their major responsibilities
include providing the organization with proper resources in terms of human force so that
they can achieve the objective of the business. In this report, all the functions and
purposes of the HRM has been discussed and have been applied in an organization
called Chocolate Presence in order to understand the terms and purposes. The factors
which mainly focuses on the decision of human resource management may include the
requirement of the organizations, availability of the professional, market conditions, pay
scale of the organization, and the legislation related to the employment practices.
Availability of finance is also a major factor which impacts the most while starting the
recruitment process under any organization as a huge cost is incurred in the selection
and recruitment process. In addition to this, the decision of the top level management is
also a main internal factor which influences the activities of the HR department.

Task 1
LO1
Introduction
The report includes different sections mentioning the working of HR department in a
business organization. It explains various aspects of its working process that majorly
includes the hiring, selection and recruitment of the candidates. In the end, a conclusion
is provided that summarises the report and gives the final result of the study.

a) Explain the purpose of the HR function and its importance to the organization,
given its current problems and future plans for further growth.
Human resources play a crucial role in an organization, it is the workforce that pushes
the growth of the organization. Thus, its proper management is required which results in
the growth of the company in terms of productivity. In a small business, human resource
practitioners who have proper knowledge are able to provide various services to the
staff. The functions of the HR department includes conducting proper selection and
recruitment processes, hiring, employee satisfaction, and benefits analysis for the
organization (Keegan, et. al., 2018).
 Hiring Process: As per the requirement of the organization the hiring process is
conducted by the HR managers. Given the situation of Chocolate Presence their
quality of service is getting down as per the feedback of the customers, so they
have decided to hire employees for the production and administration team.
Here the job of HR is to direct the workshop manager in order to recruit the right
candidates as a lot of previously candidates were failed in the probation period.
 Selection and recruitment: The HR recruiters work with the hiring managers by
providing them with the potentially suitable candidates for the job by resume
screening and scheduling the interviews of the candidates. It is the duty of the
HR to ensure effective methods for employee selection.
As a human resource officer for Chocolate Presence, the selection of the
candidates will be important as the previous hiring process was not compatible.
 Employee satisfaction: Employee satisfaction is managed by the HR officials
by keeping in touch with the employees to know their opinion regarding the
working environment. For this purpose, various sessions such as focus groups
and personal interviews are conducted by the HRs to understand the employees
well (Glaister, et. al., 2018).

Figure 1: Human Resource Management
(Source: Ganapathi, 2013)

(b) Explain the strengths and weaknesses of the current selection methods used
by the organization
There is a various range of methods available for the hiring of the candidates for a job.
These methods include online job portals, agencies for recruitment, consultants and
advertising in press (Powell, et. al., 2017).
In Chocolate Presence the job vacancies were known only to the working employees
via internal circulation of the information and the information was available at the main
entrance of the organization on a noticeboard for a vacancy. It was good for the
organization until the business was limited, now that organization is growing thus this
form of job advertisement will not be sufficient to search for the right candidate as it has
very limited reach.
The strengths and weaknesses of the various selection processes:
Method Advantage Disadvantage
Online Job Portals  It has a global
reach.
 It is cost-effective
and the selection
procedure is less
time-consuming.
 A number of
inappropriate
candidates for the
job are high.
 For the candidates
who do not know
about operating
computers, it is a
bad choice.
Agencies for
Recruitment
 The candidates who
apply are pre-screened.
 It is sometimes a costly
process.

 Response speed from
the staff is high.
 If the agency is not
much reputable than it
can send the
candidates who are not
even meeting the job
requirements.
Consultants  They have the
knowledge of
candidates who can do
the job.
 Discretion
 Have knowledge of the
recruitment market.
 Very costly
 Candidates shortlisted
can sometimes are not
available
Advertisement in Press  The message of
recruitment is delivered
positively.
 Costs are fixed
 A success guarantee is
low
 Limited to the particular
newspaper readers.
The Human Resource Management provides the organization with proper employees
who are talented as well as skilled for the job, they do so by conducting the appropriate
procedure for the assortment of the right applicant for the job. The function of the HRM
department is different in different organizations. The talent acquisition is done with the
help of proper selection procedure as per the needs of the organization (Horak, 2017).
To fulfill the needs of the business and the business objectives, it is important that the
human workforce working in the organization needs to have proper skill for the job and
to ensure that is the job of HRM.

The strength and weakness of different approaches for the selection of the candidate
are evaluated below:
 Online Job Portals: These are on one hand an easy way to reach to a large number
of applicants looking for a job, but on the other hand acquires a lot of candidates
who are not appropriate for the job.
 Agencies for Recruitment: Candidates recruitment agencies are good for the
companies as they provide the candidates directly for the interview by the
organization as they are pre-screened for the job. But the difference that is in the
level of agencies plays a key role in providing the appropriate candidate.
 Consultants: As the consultant have the knowledge and experience in determining
the right candidate for the job so the process takes less time but it is much costly
than other options.
 Advertisement in Press: It helps in providing the hiring news positively to the
candidates, but the limitation is that it has limited reach.

c) Evaluates at least two potential improvements that could be made by
Chocolate Presence to enhance its selection process.
Selection procedures such as online job portals and press advertisement, as in case of
Chocolate Presence, they have a requirement in the administration and production
section, but by this selection method, they will have to go through a lot of job
applications and to do the screening it becomes a hectic job.
The selection procedure that the Chocolate Presence needs to follow is:
 Along with the assessment test of English and Maths, one more subject should
be included in the test that will be of the particular section of an organization like
production, marketing, etc.
 The pass criteria for the test needs to be enhanced from 50% to 65% so that the
screening process can be further enhanced.
 The interview needs to be formal instead of informal and should assess the
candidate’s knowledge and skills in a proper manner.

Conclusion
From this report, it can be concluded that the HRM department in any organization
plays a key role as it has the responsibility of acquiring the best talents and skilled
person for the job. The report includes various functions and working of the HRM in the
organization, their purpose, strength, and weaknesses are elaborated in the report. It
also provides information regarding the various approaches of selection and recruitment
of candidates in a company.

Task 3
LO2
Introduction
This section of the report is related to the importance of the internship and training
programs held by Microsoft and other similar organization. The benefits to the
employees as well as to the employers have been discussed to show the need for such
programs. In addition to this, it also includes a description of the benefits of flexible
working hours to the organization as well as to the employees: