HRM Report: HRM Approaches, Recruitment, and Employee Relations

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of Human Resource Management (HRM) practices within Barclay Bank. It begins with an introduction to HRM, outlining its purpose and functions, and explores both "hard" and "soft" HRM approaches. The report then delves into recruitment and selection strategies, comparing internal and external recruitment methods, and evaluates their respective strengths and weaknesses. A significant portion of the report focuses on the benefits of various HRM practices for both employees and the firm, including learning and development, selective hiring, flexible working, employee performance management, and compensation and reward systems. Furthermore, the report assesses the effectiveness of HRM practices in raising organizational profitability and productivity. It also examines the importance of employee relations and key elements of employment legislation, analyzing their impact on HRM decision-making. Finally, the report applies HRM practices in a work-related context and concludes with a summary of the findings and references.

Human Resource
Management

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
TASK 1............................................................................................................................................1
P1- Purpose and functions of HRM and also “soft and hard” HRM approaches for planning
and resourcing........................................................................................................................1
P2 Strength and Weakness of different approaches to Recruitment and Selection relate to
internal and external recruitment............................................................................................3
TASK 2............................................................................................................................................5
P3 Benefits of different HRM practices for both employees and firm...................................5
P4 evaluate the effectiveness of HRM practices in terms of raising organisational profitability
and productivity......................................................................................................................7
TASK 3 ...........................................................................................................................................8
P5 Analyse the importance of employee relations in respect to influence HRM decision
making....................................................................................................................................8
P6 Key elements of employment legislation and impact upon HRM decision making.......10
TASK 4..........................................................................................................................................11
P7 Apply HRM practice in work related context.................................................................11
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................13
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................14

INTRODUCTION
Human Resource Management (HRM) is effective approach in managing people in an
organisation, so that organisation gains competitive advantage (Mura, 2015). It includes
recruitment and selection, training and development, appraisal and reward. Present study lay
emphasis on BARCLAY. Barclay is a British multinational investment bank and financial
services company headquartered in London. It is founded on 17 November 1690 in city of
London. There are 79,900 employees working in Barclay. This file says about purpose and
function of HRM, strength and weakness of different approaches to recruitment and selection,
benefits of different HRM practices, significance of employee relation influencing to HRM
decision making.
TASK 1
P1- Purpose and functions of HRM and also “soft and hard” HRM approaches for planning and
resourcing
Human resource management (HRM or HR) is strategic approach within a company which
focusses on recruitment, training and development, performance appraisal, rewarding (Tarba,
2016). HR also concern with organisational change and industrial relations. It is an approach to
manage people and work culture in industry.
Nature- Helping the organisation to attain its target effectively and efficiently by
providing skilled, competent and motivated employees (Tarba, 2016). It is also HRM
responsibility to make employees satisfied.
Scope- Scope of HRM consists of acquisition, development, health and safety of
employees, controlling like HR audit, accounts and information system (Mura, 2015). It can also
deal with welfare aspects like transport, housing, medical assistance, education, recreation
facilities.
Functions of HRM
1

HRM is a premeditated approach to manage staff and work culture in organisation
(Tarba, 2016).
The functions of human resource management (HRM) is explained below:
Training & Development: - This function refers to learn and adopt new skills,
technologies to do job efficiently. By doing this Barclay bring the employees to the higher level
and with more responsibilities.
Purpose - Results are monitored and measured to give them appraisal for their learning and
development.
Recruitment & Selection:- A lot of attention and resources are required to draw, employ
and hold the prospective employees (Tarba, 2016). In Barclay, activities are done like, job
posting, sourcing the prospective candidates, interviewing, salary negotiations and making the
job offer.
Purpose - Selection of best among all makes this function more important as company's
growth depends on selected candidates.
2

Performance Appraisal: - Employees those who worked in company give their best to do
work. It is the responsibility of HR to give them appraisal of their work. It helps the Barclay to
evaluate whether employees need improvement or not.
Purpose – It motivates employees to do work smart and hard to get the appraisal of their
work and eager to reach to a higher level.
Compensation and Benefits:- A company achieves goals and objective and gets high
profitability then It is responsibility of HR to give compensation and benefits to staff as it is their
result of doing hard work (Riley, 2014). Benefits given by Barclay like working hour flexibility,
education reimbursement for children, medical insurance, etc.
Purpose- It motivates employees to do work smart and hard to get the compensation of
their work and eagerness to reach to a higher level and get promoted fast.
“Hard and Soft” HRM Approaches
Hard approach treats employees as a resource of the business like machines and buildings.
It minimises communication with employees and retain staff. Barclays bank uses this approach
when there is need to take quick decisions but this approach results in less success and higher
absenteeism (Riley, 2014.). The hard HRM approach look at the employees as an asset which
helps in proper planning of the recruitment and carrying out of the operations in a significant
manner. This approach of HRM involves the effective planning of hierarchical communication
which is very precise and incorporates the autocratic leadership style.
While, on other hand Soft approach treats employees as most important resource in
business and their needs are planned accordingly. It focuses on longer-term workforce planning
(Wright, 2018). It makes strong and regular two- way communication. It maintains equality and
diversity among all countries. HR requires leadership skills to adopt this approach depends on
which and what employee wants. This helps Barclays employees to work flexibility, effectively
and efficiently. It focuses on the long term workforce planning, and has competitive pay
structure. They are empowered and encouraged to take responsibility and involve the ideas and
suggestions of employees as it is based on democratic HRM leadership style.
Both the leadership styles have their benefits and advantages along with some drawbacks.
The organisation will look after proper handling of business measures which will lead to
significant rise in capability and execution of business operations and HRM activities (Riley,
2014).
3

P2 Strength and Weakness of different approaches to Recruitment and Selection relate to internal
and external recruitment
Recruitment is the process of searching suitable candidates, informing them about the
openings in an organisation and short-listing desirable candidates. It can be done in two different
ways: -
Internal Recruitment: -
It is the process of filling the vacant positions in a company by the employees within the
organisation premises (Riley, 2014). In this, existing workforce of the company are refereed or
taken into consideration for suitable post. Barclay keeps record of each and every employee.
When there is need, these records are viewed and most hard working or desirable candidate is
preferred for the vacant post. This is the mostly used recruitment method by larger firms as will
be encouraging all employees to work harder and try to achieve all targets on time. While on
other hand its weakness includes that there are new talent which are approached by company and
no fresh qualified personal could be recruited.
Strengths -
 It encourages employees to do hard work as it increases the chance of promotion.
 When employees are recruited from internal premises, there is almost zero chances of
selecting a wrong person
Weakness -
 It limits the choices in premises as there are only selected candidates according to post
demand.
 Creates another vacancy which need to be filled.
External Recruitment:-
It is the process of filling vacant positions of the company from outside the premises.
New people enrol in organisation with new skills and new ideas (Paauwe, 2018). Barclay uses
advertisement method or direct walk- ins for new openings. It also contacts educational institutes
to hire candidates as it saves time. On campus placements are beneficial for organisation as it
takes new fresher candidates with new technology updated. It helps in effective growth of
Barclay.
Strengths -
4

 It creates a pool for eligible candidates and best qualified ones.
 There is inflow of new ideas, skills and enthusiasm in organisation,
 New technologies are adopted from new ones which help to make change easily.
 It provides the accessibility to a larger number of potential candidate which will help in
effective recruitment process.
 It improves the adaptability of organisation towards innovative growth measures and
suggestions
Weakness -
 It consumes both time and money.
 It demoralises existing employees as they expect for up gradation.
 New employees take time to adopt work and culture of an organisation.
 Chances of wrong selection increased.
Selection
It is process of picking up individuals with requisite qualifications and competence to fill
jobs in organisation. Methods of selection are explained below:
Aptitude Test- This test takes screening of candidates. It includes mathematics, English,
reasoning, general awareness to recognise skills. Barclay takes this test to select desirable
candidates only (Boselie, 2016).
Strength-
 It eliminates talentless candidates from selection process. It helps in recruiting the best and most eligible candidate for a signified job role.
Weakness- It loss those candidates who has knowledge in other field irrespective of desired field.
Interview- This is done to check out personal skills off candidate. Barclay used this method to
recognise the candidate communication skills and IQ.
Strength-
 High communication skill candidates get chance of interacting and exploring with other
ones. It helps the interviewer to get the proper idea about the potential candidates behaviour
and knowledge.
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Weakness- Those who do not have good personal skills lost their chance to work (Boselie, 2016).
TASK 2
P3 Benefits of different HRM practices for both employees and firm.
HRM is a planned approach to manage people effectively for performance. It aims to
establish more flexible, open, caring and responsible management. HRM practices are helpful to
achieve departmental objectives and to enhance productivity (Riley, 2014). It served as
guidelines for HR profession. It makes realise HR to focus on both needs of the organisation and
employees. A lot of activities are there which support companies to reach at a competitive stage.
Having good practices make a difference to company performance in presence of competitive
organisation.
There are different HRM practices which is beneficial for both organisation and employees.
Benefits of different HRM practices
HRM Practice For Barclay For Employees
Learning and
Development
Barclay provides training to
employees for their improvement
in skills. It increases firm
profitability and expansion
worldwide (Boselie, 2016).
Every employee wants
improvement in their position. It
provides chance to employees to
get promoted in Barclay by
learning and applying skills in their
field.
Selective Hiring This helps Barclay to bring highly
skilled, talented, responsible
candidates who helps in growth of
firm. Selecting right people, a key
to building a competitive
advantage.
Get chance to work in high Firm
with their skills and also get chance
for learning and development of
their knowledge (Boselie, 2016).
6

HRM Practice For Barclay For Employees
Flexible working in
team
Working in a team provides a
common goal and it takes less
time to achieve it (Andersen and
et.al., 2017) Barclay combines all
ideas given by employees and
bring the result best which is a
competitive advantage
It increases the thinking power and
creativity skills while working in
team. Some employees feel
comfortable to work in team rather
than individual.
Employee performance
management
Barclay provide exclusive trainers
for employees who manage
quality of work done by
employees and make their
performance to work better (Paillé
and et.al., 2014).
Having proper training according
to performance of employees
increases their interest to do work
in efficient manner.
Payment and Reward
management
Barclay gives rewards to
employees who do hard and smart
work for organisation growth.
Taking appraisal of work that
employees do increases their area
of interest and also motivated them
for their work (Paillé and et.al.,
2014).
P4 Evaluate the effectiveness of HRM practices in terms of raising organisational profitability
and productivity and also explain systematic training and its benefits
HRM practices are helpful to achieve departmental objectives and to enhance productivity.
It served as guidelines for HR profession (Paillé and et.al., 2014). It makes realise HR to focus
on both needs of the organisation and employees. A lot of activities are there which support
companies to reach at a competitive stage. Having good practices make a difference to company
performance in presence of competitive organisation.
Systematic Training is given to employees for their improvement in their performance.
Performance increases, organisation productivity increases. Barclay employees need systematic
7

training for interaction with customers to explain new bank policies. Its benefits to enhance
organisation growth.
Learning and development HRM practice evaluate the skills of employees for their
improvement in work performance. Learning new technologies and implementing them in
process leads to effective growth of Barclay. Development of Barclay is in hands of employees
and it can be gained by successful training provided by HR to employees (Kowalski, 2017).
After recruiting best people, HR ensure that they remain front runners in organisation. Fresh
employees rate learning and personal growth as much more important compared to older
generation. New generation come up with innovative and creative ideas for development of
Barclay and to spread their network worldwide and helps to make organisation as the biggest
investment bank.
Selective Hiring HRM practice evaluate right employees for organisation. Barclay adopts
selective methods for selection of employees like group discussion, aptitude test, personal
interview. Choosing right employees in Barclay reduces status difference and make employees
comfortable to work (Albrecht and et.al., 2015). Barclay takes pre assessment of candidates to
check their ability, capability, learning and commitment for organisation to do work in effect
manner. Barclay HR check staff interest in investment bank concern for easily adoption of work
culture of organisation (Highhouse and et.al., 2015).
Flexible working in team HRM practice makes employees comfortable in organisation
and increase their area of interest to do work. Barclay makes team relating to employee's field
and every team leader distribute work to team members so that work gets complete on time and
effectively (Kowalski, 2017). It doesn't realize any stress level to employee for completing the
work. Team members play their individual role to completing the work. It helps in effective
growth and increase in profit of Barclay.
Employee performance management HRM practice evaluate performance of employees
and help for improvement in their skills and talent. Improvement in employees of Barclay make
perfection in their work and increases profitability (Petty and et.al., 2015). It benefits
organisation to retain their staff. This practice is essential and underpins almost everything HR
does.
Payment and Reward management HRM practice benefits to employees as it appreciates
their way of doing work. Choosing right people in organisation is responsibility of HR so that
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chance of profitability increases. Barclay rewards employees for their hard work in effective
growth of organisation (Petty and et.al., 2015). By coupling Barclay performance to individual
performance incentivize to maximize the profitability and effective growth.
TASK 3
P5 Analyse the importance of employee relations in respect to influence HRM decision making
Healthy employee relations lead to more efficient, productive and motivated employees
which impacts to increase in market share level of organisation. Strong employee relation is
required for high productivity and work satisfaction and also helps in decision making (Kramar,
2014). HR people work on Human capital management programs and initiatives, but it is
employee relation that determine organisation success. HRM involves some strategies for
employee relation management which are explained below:
Negotiation - It is just like bargaining in market and it take place because neither side has
power or authority to force a decision. In Barclay, there are negotiations with supplier such as
recruitment agencies or training providers, and difference of opinion between managers and staff
(Petty and et.al., 2015). To improve negotiations skills, HR team is making policies with terms
and conditions like rewarding employees, providing employment security, flexible working in
team, learning and development training so that employee gets engaged and it increase employee
relation and helps in decision making.
Conflict Management – When a work environment is efficient and friendly, extent of
conflict within workplace is reduced. Less conflicts results in more concentration on tasks and
more efficiency in work. Barclay believes “A happy workforce is a productive workforce.”
culture diversity conflicts held in Barclay (Kramar, 2014). HR is making policies to celebrate
every festival of every culture so that all religions staff gets interacted and reduces these cultural
conflicts. Getting engaged in their field reduces conflicts.
Communication- Interaction between HR and employees make relation strong and
decreases chance of conflicts between them. Interaction makes staff comfortable to make trust on
HR managers to listen and solve their problems. Barclay HRM maintains a precise warm
relationship among employees so that thought clarity is involved. HR held activities in office
premises so that staff get interacted with each other and get refreshment for doing work (Jackson,
9

Schuler and Jiang, 2014). It decreases stress level of employee and maintains a healthy
relationship and also important for decision making. Tours are organised by HR for their interest
to do work and also to get appraisal, employee makes healthy and friendly relation with other
and support decision of managers.
Trade union- this is that part of organisation which is made up of members and its
membership must be made up mainly of workers. One of trade union aim is to protect and
advance the interest of its members in workplace (Kramar, 2014). Its purpose is to bargain with
employer on behalf of union member rank and file member and negotiates labour contract with
employee.
Improving employee relation through “Maslow Hierarchy”. It is a motivational theory in
psychology comprising five tier model:-
Physiological Needs- These are the basic needs which every human wants like food, water,
air, cloths. Barclay HRM provide healthy environment to employees.
Safety needs- Barclay HRM takes care of all safety and security factors and provide
environment friendly workplace.
Belongingness and love needs- Barclay keeps employee free for their personal life needs
after working hours.
Esteem needs- Barclay HRM maintains disciplined environment as employees desire for
respect from others.
Self- actualization needs- HRM realize individual potential give them reward according to
their grades.
P6 Key elements of employment legislation and impact upon HRM decision making.
Employment legislation is the law that governs employment within organisation. It affects
employer, employee and unions directly. Human resource department is responsible for
compliance of multitude of employment and workplace related laws (Currie and et,.al., 2017).
Laws that affect HR decisions and actions involve equality, labour laws, health and safety laws,
data protection laws.
Equality act 2010- This act protects people in employment from discrimination,
victimisation, harassment. Employers wants workplace to be fair, positive and progressive place
with equality among all. It prohibits discrimination against employees on basis of race, colour,
10

sex, religion, nationality. In Barclay, HR makes policies to maintain equality within organisation.
Policies like to maintain equal pay to equal level employees according to their grades, treating
equally all employees bases on religion, nationality, sex, colour. Equality act makes employees
comfortable to work in organisation without any interruption.
Health and Safety act 1974- This act makes laws for health of employees and provides security
for their workplace. In UK, a person who get caused some problems by regulations then they can
have action in tort against offender (Currie and et,.al., 2017). It is responsibility of HR to make
healthy workplace where security and safety factors gets controlled. In Barclay, HR make policy
that employees can leave the area if reasonably believe that they are in danger. Regulations
covers a range of issues like use of computers, lifting operations, radiation, working with
chemicals, working environment.
Data protection act 2018- It is a national law which complements union's general data
protection regulation (GDPR). It got assessment on 23 may 2018. Most processing of personal
data is subject to GDPR. HR introduces this law to each Barclay employee that knowingly or
recklessly obtaining or disclosing organisation data will be granted as offence and actions will be
taken against them. (Vaiman, 2015). It benefits to privacy of organisation and chances of stealing
data gets reduced. Electronic gadgets are also not allowed in workspace under data protection act
2018 followed by Barclay helps in HRM decision.
Employment act 2008- This act introduced a mandatory dismissal procedure which is to be
followed in every case otherwise it will be taken as unfair and actions will be taken. HR of
Barclay initially clears all terms regarding employment act to employees so that there will be
equality and diversity in workplace (Currie and et,.al., 2017). It will be benefit to take written
statement as to keep in record of organisation and called as like “contract” signed by employee.
TASK 4
P7 Apply HRM practice in work related context.
Job Specification
Barclay need human resource assistant who recruits and select candidate for organisation. A high
skilled person is needed who effectively interact with candidates and make them satisfied.
Job Title Human resource assistant
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Reports to HR Manager of Barclay
Roles & Responsibilities Recruitment and selection
Qualification MBA in human resource management
Interview question1. how you ensure all employee information remains confidential?2. Tell about your experience that you faced such that you are not being aware of that.3. How you handle employees who are complaining about their pay check.4. What does EEO mean within context of recruitment and selection?5. Which software applications are you proficient with?
Person Specification
Title of the job Human resource assistant
Date: 28/02/2019
Qualification required Essential Desirable Met
Any graduation, MBA with full
time regular course of 2 years in
human resource management with
6 months internship in any
organization.
Yes
Yes
yes
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Need of Experience
8 years of experience in HR unit. Yes No
Personal characteristics &
conduct
 Good and effective
communication skills.
 Leadership quality required
 Decision making capability
Yes
Yes
Yes
Roles and Responsibilities
 Recruiting candidates
through telephonic
interview or face to face
interview and provide
employees that helps to
achieve company
objectives.
 Making and explaining
employment legislation
policies for good employee
relationship
Yes
yes
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 Making strategies to adopt
HRM practices.
 Preparing or updating
employment records
 Maintain work culture in
organization.
 Ability to resolve conflicts
Yes
CONCLUSION
Above file summarised about purpose and functions of HRM, “soft and hard” HRM
approaches for planning and resourcing the importance of employee relations in respect to
influence HRM decision making, the effectiveness of HRM practices in terms of raising
organisational profitability and productivity and also applying HRM practice in work related
context. It can be concluded that HRM was designed to maximize employee performance,
recruiting and selecting employees, training and development. HR made strategies to manage
employees in organisation.
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REFERENCES
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sustainability. In International Interdisciplinary Conference on HRM.
Boselie, P., 2016. Strategic HRM. In Encyclopedia of human resource management. Edward
Elgar Publishing Limited.
Currie, D. and et,.al., 2017. The management of workplace conflict: Contrasting pathways in the
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Highhouse, S. and et.al., 2015. Essentials of personnel assessment and selection. Routledge.
Jackson, S.E., Schuler, R.S. and Jiang, K., 2014. An aspirational framework for strategic human
resource management. The Academy of Management Annals. 8(1). pp.1-56.
Kowalski, T.H. and Loretto, W., 2017. Well-being and HRM in the changing workplace.
Kramar, R., 2014. Beyond strategic human resource management: is sustainable human resource
management the next approach?. The International Journal of Human Resource
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Mura, L. and Horvath, P., 2015. Some aspects of human resource management.
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Petty, R.J. and et.al., 2015. Integration of Micro-Blogs into the Human Resource Management
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Ployhart, R.E. and et.al., 2014. Human capital is dead; long live human capital
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Riley, M., 2014. Human resource management in the hospitality and tourism industry.
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Vaiman, V. and Brewster, C., 2015. How far do cultural differences explain the differences
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