Analyzing HRM Practices, Employee Relations at Marks & Spencer Plc

This report provides an analysis of Human Resource Management (HRM) practices at Marks & Spencer Plc, a leading multinational retailer. It explores the purpose and functions of HRM in workforce planning and resourcing, including recruitment and selection approaches, highlighting their strengths and weaknesses. The report also examines the benefits of various HRM practices for both employers and employees, such as training and development, conflict resolution, and flexible work environments. Furthermore, it discusses the importance of employee relations in influencing HRM decision-making and the impact of employment legislation. The report uses specific examples from Marks & Spencer to illustrate the application of HRM practices in a real-world context. Desklib provides access to this and other solved assignments for students.

Human Resource
Management

INTRODUCTION.................................................................................................................................4
TASK 1.................................................................................................................................................4
P1 Purpose and functions of HRM in the workforce planning and resourcing an organisation.........4
P2 Explain the strengths and weaknesses of different approaches to recruitment and selection........6
TASK 2.................................................................................................................................................7
P3 Explain the benefits of different HRM practices for employer and employee..............................7
P4 Effectiveness of different HRM practices for organisational profit and productivity...................9
TASK 3.................................................................................................................................................9
P5 Importance of employee relation in respect of influencing HRM decision making......................9
P6 Key elements of employment legislation and its impact upon HRM decision making...............11
TASK 4...............................................................................................................................................12
P7 Application of HRM practices in work related context, using specific examples.......................12
CONCLUSION...................................................................................................................................14
REFRENCES......................................................................................................................................15

INTRODUCTION
Human resource management is defined as the area of management that has a strategic
approach for effective utilisation of resources and effective workforce (Alfes and et. al., 2013). This
helps in gaining competitive advantage in business and achieving goals and objectives of the
organisation. Human resource management is helps in gaining strength and it provides opportunities
for growth of business. This report will be carried on Marks & Spencer Plc is the leading
multinational retailer which lead its business in clothing, home care products, food product and luxury
goods. This report will cover various purpose and function of the HRM in the context and also the
strength and weaknesses of different approach of recruitment and selection stage. This will also
explain benefits of different HRM practices in context with both employer and employee. Apart from
this, it will help in knowing importance of an employee relation to influence decision making and key
elements of employment legislation.
TASK 1
P1 Purpose and functions of HRM in the workforce planning and resourcing an organisation.
Human resource management is defined as a strategic approach for establishing an effective
management in the organization. A proper human resource management helps in gaining business
advantage for the long period of time. HRM is designed for enhancing the efficiency and performance
of an employee. This provides an opportunity for accomplishing the defined goals or targets of an
organisation. In context with Marks & Spencer, purpose and function of the human resource
management should be well-defined and acknowledged. Marks & Spencer is the leading clothes and
garments retailer in United Kingdom. Therefore, it is essential that HRM of this organisation is
organised in such a way that goals or objectives of a company should be achieved properly and
effectively. There are following purpose and function of the human resource management that are
discussed below-
Purpose: The human resource management of any organisation has a purpose for regulating
and ensuring effective functioning of HR practices. This helps in maintaining the functions and
business activities of the company. This helps in achieving long term goals or objectives of an
organisation (Budhwar and Debrah, 2013). Therefore, it is essential for Marks & Spencer to link the
needs of employees with different strategies and planning of the company. HRM makes effective
purpose for motivating employees and meeting the targets and goals of the organisation
Function: Organisation is a place which consists of different people working together for
achieving a specific purpose. HRM is involved in hiring workforce and giving them training and

development for motivating these employees and making them achieve company's objectives and
defined targets. In context with Marks & Spencer, there are various functions of human resource
management which are as follows:
Recruitment & Selection: This is the main function of human resource management of the
company for recruiting the best candidate for working in the organisation. These are given trainings
and career development sessions that will for fulfil the required vacancy of the company. A right
candidate is a person who possess right skills, talent, knowledge and information. For this purpose,
HR professional needs to be very competent for judging and noticing the behaviour, attitude and
personality of an individual.
Orientation: It means process when any new employee introduced to existing employer's and
employee, aware about infrastructure, systems, hierarchical structure, products an d service of an
organisation (Messersmith and et. al., 2011). In context with Marks & Spencer, it is the duty of HR
professional to make new employee aware about the current and future trends and past of the
company. In this function HR should provide the clear insight about the vision & Mission of the
company, targets, products or services etc.
Training and development: This is the prime and foremost function of every organisation. In
context with Marks & Spencer, after the recruitment & selection and orientation of an employee, next
phase is training and development of them. This phase is very challenging and critical activities of the
HR professional, where an employee needs to learn, adapt and gain various:
Knowledge: Regarding the current market scenario, about company, their products or
services, customer profile, acknowledgement etc.
Skills: Such as communication skills, attitude building, personality development, dressing
sense, customer engagement etc.
For Marks & Spencer, it is the major duty and responsibility of the HR manager to make sure
that all the activities regarding the training and development should be conducted with proper rules
and regulations.
Managing employee performance: In context with Marks & Spencer, it is necessary to have
effective employees so that they can perform well and builds company’s reputation and image in
market. A good performance of employee is obtained from high level motivation, inspiration, and
confidence given by the seniors and top level executives and person. In order to enhance performance
of an employee, Marks & Spencer should provide bonuses, perks, appreciations, certificates, adequate
pay and compensation, performance based incentives etc. This will help company to attain their long
term objectives and goals.

Providing good working conditions: This is the main function of HRM in which HR
executives of the Marks & Spencer needs to implement and formulate strategies and plans for
enabling and motivating their employee's to achieve their defined goals and targets and also
enhancing the effective and proper working culture in the company (Renwick, Redman and Maguire,
2013).
P2 Explain the strengths and weaknesses of different approaches to recruitment and selection
Recruitment is defined as the process of hiring new talents and candidates who can function
in the company. This is a process of searching for a skilled candidate and motivating this individual
for applying in the organisation. Recruitment process is started by searching individuals by giving
advertisements in the newspapers, journals and magazine. Other ways by which job advertisements
are circulated are employment websites or job portals. This involves internal and external sources of
recruitment. After recruitment, selection is the second process, when candidate is judged on the basis
of aptitude, analytical, behaviour, personality and attitude etc. In context with Marks & Spencer, it is
necessary to understand and evaluate strength and weaknesses of hiring through internal or external
recruitment.
Types of Recruitment:
Internal recruitment: It involves recruiting candidate from inside or those who already
employed in an organisation. It is completely based on merit cum seniority basis. In this, suitable
candidate is to be hired from the existing base of workforce such as transfer, promotion and references
etc. The strength and weaknesses are as follow:
Strength:
Saving time and cost: In this, employee is generally hired from internal sources such as
through promotion, transfer to the higher opportunities and references. It is helpful in saving time and
cost for recruitment and selection.
Less risky: Internal recruitment is less risky and protected. In this, employee for desired job
position are selected and hired from either the current base or past employee. So, in that case,
organisation is no need to hire and look for an employee from outside sources (Rubery and Urwin,
2011). Hence, it will result in less time and cost saving.
Weaknesses:
Limited excess to employees : Candidates are less in number and they lack the required
skills, knowledge and talent. Therefore it will result in less number of skilled employee.

External recruitment: It is the process of hiring people from outside the company. In
external recruitment process, company needs to hire an employee from outside sources such as
recruitment agencies, newspaper advertisement, other companies, campus placement, employee
referrals, job fair, employment agencies etc. In context with Marks & Spencer, this process of
recruitment is beneficial in selecting and hiring talented and skilled employees for the organisation
(Careers at Squire's, 2019). The strength and weaknesses of external recruitment are discussed below-
Strength:
Wide range of candidate: In this source of recruitment, there are large number of person for
available designation or job role. So, employer used to hire candidate from outside sources such as
through employment agencies, campus placements, job fair, employee referral etc. Through this,
company would get most skilled, talented and well-equipped by knowledge candidate.
Weaknesses:
Cost and time consuming: This is one of the most critical and time consuming source of
recruitment. In this, organisation is required to incur huge cost in advertisement in newspaper,
magazine, and journals along with recruiting through third party, employment agencies where
company needs to give some percent of commission.
Selection: It is the process of differentiating between applicants in order to identify those who have
factors such as appropriate skills, talent and knowledge and higher likelihood for the job
(Schermerhorn and et. al., 2014). It involves several tests such as aptitude test, personality test,
analytical test, case study analysis etc. This process comes after the recruitment and can take along
with the interview stage.
The strength of this selection is that it provides appropriate candidate who is equipped by
relevant skills, knowledge and talent to perform their tasks or job. Such candidate is used to come
after the entire process of hiring. On the other hand, the weakness of this recruitment process is that it
leads to incurring of high cost and time consuming.
TASK 2
P3 Explain the benefits of different HRM practices for employer and employee
HRM practices are important in an organisation for both employees and employers. The
management of Marks and Spencer manages organisational activities and improve employee’s

performance by implementing effective HRM practices. It involves different activities such as –
recruiting, training, firing, paying, employee welfare administration, etc. All these activities are
incomplete without employees and employer coordination (Sheehan, 2014). There are different
benefits of HRM practices to both employees and employers such as – increasing motivation, training
and development, retaining qualified employees, flexible workplace, maintaining good relations, etc.
Employees benefits: - There are different benefits for employees by applying HRM practices
which are discussed below-
Conflict solving: Human resource management helps in solving conflicts that take place
between employees or management of the organisation. In Marks and Spencer, the management helps
in interpreting operations and policies of company and determining suitable environment at
workplace. This helps in making efforts to provide appropriate solutions for different organisational
issues like improper language, poor attitude, insubordination, etc.
Training and development: - It is the role of human resource management to provide
effective training and development to employees. In Marks and Spencer they execute various training
programmes considering employees needs and requirements to improve their performance. HRM
practise refers to an asset for employees, as it is useful for improving their skills to serve customers.
Individuals working in M&S can take appropriate benefit of continuous training programmes
organised by HRM.
Information resources: - It is responsibility of human resource management by which HR
managers provides all relevant information related to employees such as – assisting programmes,
different benefits, compensatory advantages, leave of absence, etc. For example – If an employee's
leader is not able to provide answer for any question, then it will be answered by HR department.
Employers benefits: - Some advantages of HRM practices for employers are explained
below:
Flexible workplace: - Effective HRM practices helps in building flexible environment in
workplace. In Marks and Spencer present employers also accepts contrasting conditions in
comparison of past (Sparrow, Brewster and Chung, 2016). It is easy to keep more flexibility in the
organisation, as today's workers and their skills are diversified. Flexible workplace involves work
location, work groups composition, accountability, work assignment, communication types, etc.
Developing better relations: - Keeping better relationships with workers in the organisation
helps employers in their development tracking. In Marks and Spencer it supports in assessing their
performance and appropriate actions are taken, in order to control them. Human resource management
drafts company's marketing programme and business.

Encouraging optimistic behaviour: - The HRM approaches and practices ensures to
develop a positive behaviour between employers and employees. This helps in motivating workers
and making them efficient to work. A positive environment at workplace will always help employees
to concentrate on work and be productive and achieve targets of the company in specified time frame.
Retaining educated employees: - Human resource practices are very important in the
recruiting and selecting of qualified employees (Storey, 2014). The human resource management of
Marks and Spencer supports flexibility. It provides an easy approach for benefiting employees.
Organisations must gain well educated and qualified staff for enhancing efficiency and productivity of
the company. This helps organisation in reducing turnover and controlling risk in business.
P4 Effectiveness of different HRM practices for organisational profit and productivity.
A proper human resource management in Marks & Spencer will help in maximising profits
and achieving goals or targets of an organisation in given time. Marks and Spencer is a big
multinational company that is operating in different countries. Thus it is necessary for such companies
to formulate and implement good HR strategies and increase productivity of the organisation. There
are different opportunities of effective HRM practices in this company like increasing employee
morale, productivity, efficiency etc. In context with Marks & Spencer, detailed and comprehensive
explanation is required for the better understanding of effectiveness of HRM practices. HRM practice
enhances Innovation and high performing employees and it is the responsibility of the human resource
management to promote healthy and innovative environment for motivating and enhancing
performance of employees and achieving organisational goals and objectives in given time. In Marks
& Spencer, it would be beneficial for an employee to increase their productivity as well as their
contribution in maximising profits for the company.
TASK 3
P5 Importance of employee relation in respect of influencing HRM decision making
It is important for an organisation to have health relation within employee and
employers so they can accomplish predetermined common goals as well as objectives in
effective manner. Along with this, maintaining healthy or well-motivated relationship with
employees needed for the success of business (Welch and et. al., 2011). Moreover, healthy
employee relation result in achieving objectives of Mark and Spencer in better manner. It is
needed to discuss significance of employee for influencing effective Human Resource
Management decision making in a proper as well as effective manner:

Helpful in the employee loyalty: Good employees relations in the organisation result
in building staff members loyality towards organisation. Because when staff members are
involved in every activity of Mark and Spenser they feel like part of company which result in
building loyalty towards company. Apart from this, good employee relation result in several
benefits for respective firm such as employee retention, reducing cost of managing
workforce, effective training and development, pay or remuneration and many more (People
theory, 2019). All these are needed within organisation for increasing will power of personnel
in performing their daily basis activity in better manner.
Enhance productivity: In relation to the Marks & Spencer, strong relationship within
employee is required for creating pleasant atmosphere within the organisation. If employess
get satisfy with the company they are working in along with job roles then it will
automatically result in increasing their morale as well as productivity of Mark and Spencer.
In the present scenario, organisations are investing more and more in building employee
relationship through several activities like tours, visits, parties and so on. Because it is
required to getting familiar with each other and also for sharing view points of individual.
Delegation of work: Relation with staff members is much proficient in the proper as
well as effective delegation of work or other task. With the assistance of delegation, it
becomes easy to make effectual relations within employee by offering equal opportunity to
each and everyone with the appropriate skills or knowledge of an personnel. Along with this,
for delegation it is needed to have equal contribution, vision, mission and values of an staff
member for making it happen. Although, in relation to Marks & Spencer, for gaining
effectiveness within work, it is important to have proper delegation within both work, roles as
well as responsibilities.
Pure communication: It is important to have effectual as well as proper
communication skills, personality or attitude for influencing the behaviour of senior person
or employer as well as other staff members or colleagues of an organisation. Along with this,
Employee relation plays important role within the development of an organisation. Thus, fr
accomplishing goals and objectives of the Marks & Spencer, staff members may wish to take
several interaction like eye-breaking session, self-introduction, mutual understanding and so
on. For respective organisation, it is suggestible that company have to conduct all given
interaction within every two month because it will definitely result in accomplishing business
targets and goals.

P6 Key elements of employment legislation and its impact upon HRM decision making
Legal bodies have designed several laws and legislation in relation to employment.
That should be implemented by Mark and Spencer in their working so that effective results
can be gained in better manner. Moreover, employment legislation is the law that regulated
employment in the firm including employees who are working there. Along with this,
employment law is crucial for company in providing better service to staff members working
within Mark and Spencer. All these legislation are designed by the government in favour of
employees for providing them better services. It protect staff members in terms of promoting
safety and welfare, protecting discrimination, minimising work interruption because of
organisational conflicts, formation of required level to support economically and so on.
Explanation of several acts are as follows :-
 Fair Labour Standards Act - It is introduced in 1938 and main motive behind its
introduction is to provide fair labour standards to employees. Along with this it also
include several other activities such as child labour legislation, minimum wages, extra
pay to the staff members according to their overtime duration, record keeping and so
on. Within Mark and Spencer human resource department is implementing respective
law in protest of staff members working over there.
 Occupational Health and Safety Act: - This act was introduced in 1970 by
Occupational Health and Safety Administration. It was establish to prevent staff
members from any kind of dangerous surrounding within working area. This law must
be implement by Mark and Spencer so they can provide proper safety to the staff
members and protect them from any kind of mishappenings.
 The Age Discrimination Act: - It is introduced in 1967 and age discrimination cat is
designed for providing protection to employees who had completed the age of 40
years. Thus, it will protect from any discrimination done within recruitment procedure
on the basis of age group. So that, people who get retried by government sector can do
job within private for some earning and living better life.
 The Medical Disability Act: - This act is related to employees favour which describe
how an staff member should be treated within disable condition. Thus, Mark and
Spencer also have to implement respective act in their working for protecting
employees to get discriminated on the basis of any kind of disability.
 The Equal Pay Act: - This act is related to equal pay to employees and it was
enacted in 1963. Main motive behind its introduction is to protect employees by

different wages which pays on the basis of gender for the similar roles and
responsibility. Thus, manager of Mark and Spencer have to make sure that there will
be no differentiation in wages paid to staff member on the basis of gender
discrimination.
There will be positive impact on organisation while these legislations implemented by
Human Resource division within workplace. When all these get implemented in better
manner safe and health working environment will be provided to staff members which help in
making them satisfy, increasing productivity, profit maximisation as well as accomplishing
predetermined goals and objectives.
TASK 4
P7 Application of HRM practices in work related context, using specific examples
Human resource management is important division of an organisation and all the
important role as well as responsibilities related to managing or controlling manpower within
organisation manage in effective manner. Moreover, major role of HRM division is to
provide training and development session to their staff members for making them capable
and develop so they can perform in effectual manner as well as result in accomplishing goals
and objectives of Mark and Spencer. Apart from this, there are several role performed by
HRM department within respective organisation such as motivating, encourage staff
members for enhancing productivity, coordination, hiring candidates for filling vacant
position and many more.
Hiring candidate within Mark & Spencer require to prepare job advertisement that
will cover job description including specification of the individual. It is important for an
organisation to find such candidates who are potential as well as reliable for filling vacant job
position. For this, Marks & Spencer required to discuss job description and person
specification for filling the vacant position by suitable candidate as per needed skills and
knowledge.

Job Description
Marks & Spencer
Job code - XXXXXX
Job title: Marketing Manager
PFD exemption: Yes
Report to: Human Resource manager
Date of joining: 20th May, 2019
Summary: The marketing manager must have to be responsible for all activities related to
promotional as well as marketing campaign conducted by company. For creating awareness
related the product and services within customers. Moreover, the candidate should have proper
skills, talent and knowledge for respective job role. They need to align and utilize it for
development or welfare of the firm.
Roles & Responsibilities
 One of the main role is to generate maximum revenue for company by conducting
marketing as well as promotional activities in effective manner.
 By generating revenue help company in accomplishing their predetermined goals and
objectives.
 To conduct campaign or other marketing activities like public engagement, direct
customer relation, resolving issues and so on.
 Along with all this there is one another crucial role and responsibility also to maintain
brand image as well as create awareness among people of company.
Person specification
Job code: 342R
Job title: Marketing manager
PFD exemption: Yes
Date of joining: 20th, May, 2019
Required Skills: Interpersonal skills, analytical potential, negotiation skills and communication
ability. Candidate must be well-mannered as well as have effective personality and multitasking
for tackle work or problem in effective manner.
Experience: Minimum 2 year plus experience in the field of marketing managerial as well as
have adequate knowledge about it.