Analyzing HRM at Vodafone: Planning, Employee Relations & Legislation

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of Human Resource Management (HRM) practices within Vodafone, a leading multinational telecommunications organization. It begins by explaining the purpose and functions of HRM, emphasizing workforce planning and resourcing, and delves into the strengths and weaknesses of various recruitment and selection approaches. The report evaluates the benefits and effectiveness of different HRM practices, such as training and development, in enhancing organizational profit and productivity. It also explores the importance of employee relations in influencing HRM decision-making and identifies key elements of employment legislation and their impact. Furthermore, the report illustrates the application of HRM practices in a work-related context, using the example of a lecturer's job description at Imperial College, and provides a rationale for specific HRM practices. The analysis highlights the critical role of HRM in achieving business objectives through effective talent management and employee relations.

HUMAN RESOURCE
MANAGEMENT

TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction......................................................................................................................................1
LO1..................................................................................................................................................2
P1 Explain the purpose and the functions of HRM, applicable to workforce planning and
resourcing an organisation...........................................................................................................2
P2 Explain the strengths and weaknesses of different approaches to recruitment and selection 6
M1 Assess how the functions of HRM can provide talent and skills appropriate to fulfil
business objectives.......................................................................................................................9
M2 Evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of different approaches to recruitment and selection
...................................................................................................................................................10
LO2................................................................................................................................................11
P3 Explain the benefits of different HRM practices within an organisation for both the
employer and employee.............................................................................................................11
P4 Evaluate the effectiveness of different HRM practices in terms of raising organisational
profit and productivity...............................................................................................................13
M3 Explore the different methods used in HRM practices.......................................................14
LO3................................................................................................................................................16
P5 Analyse the importance of employee relations in respect to influencing HRM decision
making.......................................................................................................................................16
P6 Identify the key elements of employment legislation and the impact it has upon HRM
decision making.........................................................................................................................18
M4 Evaluate the key aspects of employee relations management and employment legislation
that affect HRM decision-making.............................................................................................20
LO4................................................................................................................................................21
P7 Illustrate the application of HRM practices in a work related context, using specific
examples....................................................................................................................................21
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M5 Provide a rationale for the application of specific HRM practices in a work-related context
...................................................................................................................................................24
Conclusion.....................................................................................................................................25
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................26
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TABLE OF FIGURES
Figure 1: Functions of HRM............................................................................................................3
Figure 2: Workforce Planning.........................................................................................................4
Figure 3: Internal Recruitment.........................................................................................................6
Figure 4: External recruitment.........................................................................................................7
Figure 5: Training Program...........................................................................................................12
Figure 8: Employee relationship management..............................................................................17
Figure 9: Employment Legislations...............................................................................................19
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Introduction
Human resource management is the most important disciple of management in that helps in
managing the employees in an efficient way. It helps in enhancing the efficiency as well as
productivity of the workplace. It is one of the important elements that motivate organisation to
grow within the market. Report discusses the purpose of workforce planning of Vodafone, as
well as role of HR manager. Various methods of recruitment methods are also explained in order
to identify their weakness and strengths. Report helps in evaluating the various functions of
HRM for efficient management of Vodafone. Training and Development practices in terms of
return on investment are evaluated. Report also focuses on employee relations and its influences
on HR decision making in Vodafone. Various elements of employee legislation are also
explained in the report.
Vodafone Group plc is a leading multinational telecommunications organisation of United
Kingdom. The headquarters of the organisation is located in London. Globally, the organisation
is ranked 5th in terms of revenue and 2nd in terms of the service users. For the last part, job
description of a lecturer is considered for Imperial College.
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LO1
P1 Explain the purpose and the functions of HRM, applicable to workforce planning and
resourcing an organisation.
Human Resource Management
HRM is a system that describes the management of people within the organization. The
responsibilities of human resource management have mainly three categories staffing, employee
compensation and benefits and defining or designing work.
Traditional personnel management focuses on personnel administration and the labour issues.
In this concept people were not concerned with the training and development issues of the
employees and did not give consideration of their human aspects. Whereas the modern concept
of HRM deals with more focused way and mainly concerned with their training and development
issues to enhance their capabilities and efficiency along with the employee’s overall
development. Apart from these concepts the HRM has its two approaches such as soft and hard
HRM which includes the behavioural pattern of the HR management and HR manager.
The Hard HRM finds the humans as machine or resource for the business or it can be said that
this approach is business concerned so when the task is accomplished the employee can be fired
as there is no need of the particular employee whereas the Soft HRM treats the employee as
valuable assets and keeps their rights protected and provides the required things to them whether
tangible or intangible.
Functions of HRM
Operative functions Recruitment
It is the process of choosing right candidates out of the pool of
candidates.
Training & Development
It is very important function to identify training needs and then designing
the training program.
Compensation
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It is the function of managing the remuneration and salary aspects.
Performance management
It is the key function to manage the performance of employees.
Industrial relations
It is the major function to maintain the industrial or employment relation
at workplace.
Managerial
functions
Planning
It is the function of making the basic outline of the task or activity on
prior basis.
Organizing
The function of allocating every kind of resources at the required place.
Directing
It is the function of monitoring and giving the direction at right side.
Controlling
It is very important function of measuring the gap between the desired
and actual performance.
Figure 1: Functions of HRM
(Source: Framework of HRM functions, 2018)
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Workforce planning
Workforce planning in any organization is used as the strategy in order to fulfil the needs of
labour as well as it utilizes the skills of all employees in the most efficient way (De Bruecker
et.al., 2015). It basically helps maintaining the best performance of employee as well as
management in order to achieve goals, productivity and profits of an organization. Vodafone
focuses on operational as well as strategic workforce planning. Operational Workforce Planning
helps the managers of Vodafone to maintain schedules according to the work as well as to gain
continuity and productivity of business.
Workforce planning plays an important role in functioning of Human Resource Management. It
includes recruitment process, development and training programs, decision making regarding
promotion, transfers and many more.
Figure 2: Workforce Planning
(Source: Framework of Workforce Planning, 2018)
Role of HR Manager with respect to workforce planning and resourcing for Vodafone
 The HR Manager must ensure the availability of appropriate number of employees with
appropriate skills at the time of need.
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 HR manager should appoint the employees in the department according to their talent and
skills. HR manager must identify the skills of employees.
 HR manager must utilise various sources for recruitment in order to invite applications of
the skilled candidates (Barma and Gupta, 2015). Implementation of appropriate selection
process in order to select the best candidate’s application is also the major role of HR.
 Reduction of employee turnover is also taken into consideration by HR Manager for
understanding the needs of employees. HR must identify the reason for high employee
turnover and must take various measures to eliminate it.
 Work Satisfaction of employees is very important while working in an organisation.
Therefore, it is the responsibility of an HR to maintain the decorum and environment of
an organisation.
 Arrangement of development and training programs is an important task of HR manager
that helps in improving the existing skills of employees.
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P2 Explain the strengths and weaknesses of different approaches to recruitment and selection
Recruitment is the function that is performed by the operational manager of an organization. It
invites large number of applications in order to select the most skilled candidate according to the
need of an organization. There are various approaches of recruitment and selection process and
their strengths and weaknesses are explained below:
Internal recruitment: It is the process in which an organization utilizes internal resources to fill
the vacant position. Promotions and increments are used in this type of recruitment (Dash
et.al.2017). Various methods that are used in internal recruitment are
1. Promoting a junior to the senior position
2. Advertisement through internal resources
3. Conversion of temporary employee to a permanent position
4. Hiring of employee from different department to some other department
Strengths
 HR is already aware of the skills and capabilities of the existing employee and have an
idea on how the employee will perform after hiring on to a new position
 Promotion of the employee will also act as the motivating factor in an organization.
Weaknesses
 Competition of being promoted increases the politics environment in an organization.
 Restrict the number of candidates to be chosen from.
Figure 3: Internal Recruitment
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(Source: Framework of Internal Recruitment, 2018)
External recruitment: External recruitment involves the process of hiring the candidates from
outside the organization in order to occupy the vacant position (Bidwell and Keller, 2014). This
process can be done by posting the advertisements for the open positions on various job portals.
Various methods of external recruitment are:
 Hiring a recruitment agency
 Posting vacancies on social media or job related portals
 Referral procedure from already existing employees
Strengths
 It helps to bring new talent from outside the organization
 More skills can be analyzed before hiring
Weakness
 This is an expensive process. Hiring an agent or job advertisements costs very high as
compared to internal recruitment
 It is a very long process
Figure 4: External recruitment
(Source: Methods of external recruitment, 2018)
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Third Party Recruitment: In this type of recruitment, an organization hires the recruitment
agency for recruitment and selecting purpose (Dineen and Allen, 2016). By combination of
various HR technologies and referral programs, recruitment process becomes easier and more
efficient.
Strengths
 It helps to develop relationship with many candidates which can be utilized for the future
hiring process
 It also helps in providing temporary recruitment
Weakness
 Cost of recruitment is very high as it includes all the taxes, administrative costs as well as
other profits of the agent
 Lack of control over the entire hiring process
 Difficulty to access the employee
All the functions of HRM practices such as workforce planning, recruitment and selection are
very important to achieve the business objectives. These functions are so much vital for every
organization as they are very basic in nature to acquire the right kind of talent but these strategic
functions need extreme planning. Internal recruitment methods are good to increase the
commitment level and the loyalty to the organization but the people who are not promoted can be
frustrated and this may lead to turnover. In the case of external recruitment the organization has
chance to go for the new ideas and talent but these all forms are so expensive so this method is
not so cost effective whereas third party recruitment helps to reduce the time for the entire
procedure but the organization has to compromise with the talent sometimes.
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