Analysis of HRM Strategies in Diverse Organizational Contexts

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Human resource management

Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................1
Task 1...............................................................................................................................................2
a) Explain the purpose of the HR function and its importance to the organisation, given its
current problems and future plans for further growth.................................................................2
b) Explain the strengths and weaknesses of the current selection methods used by the
organization.................................................................................................................................3
c) Evaluate at least 2 potential improvements that could be made by Chocolate Presence to
enhance its selection process.......................................................................................................4
Task 2...............................................................................................................................................6
a) Person specification- Receptionist role...................................................................................6
b) Discuss the advantages and disadvantages of the current methods of advertising jobs in the
organization.................................................................................................................................7
c) Explain where you would recommend the job advert for the Receptionist vacancy to be
placed and why?..........................................................................................................................8
Task 3.............................................................................................................................................10
a) Evaluate the benefits to both the organization and employees of such schemes...................10
b) Identify some of these arrangements and then evaluate the benefits of offering these to both
Microsoft and its employees......................................................................................................10
c) Evaluate how Microsoft motivates its workers through the way it designs its job roles......11
Task 4.............................................................................................................................................12
a) What is meant by the term employee engagement and why is employee engagement such an
important part in effective employee relations in Microsoft?...................................................12
b) Critically evaluate the key approaches to engaging workers discussed in The Summit and
how these approaches improve communication in the workplace............................................12

c) Identify the key elements of UK employment legislation, explaining how they influence HR
decision making such as recruitment, training and development and reward...........................13
Conclusion.....................................................................................................................................14
References......................................................................................................................................15

LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 1: Core functions of human resource manager.....................................................................3

Introduction
The management of the resources toward the effective achievement of the business goals is
defined as human resource management. The presented report will discuss the purpose and
functions of the human resource management including the capabilities of recruitment and
selection approaches. Also, the report will discuss key elements of the human resource practices
to drive the business profitability and productivity. The impact of the internal and external
factors on the human resource management practices and decision making also will be discussed
in the context of the business. The report will discuss the context of Chocolate Presence and
Microsoft whereas Chocolate Presence is a innovative chocolate based gifting card manufacturer
whereas Microsoft is a giant leader in the software industry.
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Task 1
a) Explain the purpose of the HR function and its importance to the organisation, given its
current problems and future plans for further growth
Definition
The organization has strategic growth and power from the human resources and therefore, human
resource management is essential function in the business. Human resource management is the
management of the people in such a way that they can help the business to achieve competitive
advantages effectively (Cascio, 2015). In detail, it is the practice to plan, organize, control and
manage the business resources toward the effective attainment of the business goals.
Functional activities of human resource management
Human resource planning: It is required to plan the resources on the business goals and
capabilities so that high efficiency and quality can be achieved. For example, Chocolate Presence
needs to plan effective number of skilled and capable employees on the work schedules and
objectives so that they combined can achieve the business goals.
Recruitment and selection: The manager also process the recruitment and selection through
analysis of the business requirements for human resources, advertising of the job positions,
filtering of the applications, organization of the test and interview and handover of the roles and
responsibilities (Armstrong and Taylor, 2014). Therefore, Chocolate Presence needs significance
of HRM to achieve the effective number of resources at workplace to ensure smooth execution.
Reward: Human resource manager in Chocolate Presence also needs to define and provide the
rewards through transparent communication and management practices. Therefore, rewarding is
required to motivate the employees and to engage them into business operations to achieve high
quality and performance. Through rewarding, the organization can reduce the customer
complaints for quality and can improve the employee performance and retention.
Performance management: A systematic and transparent performance measures are also defined
at management level. Therefore, the manager is liable for the periodic performance management
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and further actions on them to ensure each resource is working with high potential (Buller and
McEvoy, 2012).
Training and development: The HR manager has function to determine the poor areas of the
performance and quality and according to them; training and development programs are defined.
The planning, organization and controlling of the training and development is under the human
resource management to retain the employees, improve their contribution and to lead high
quality.
Figure 1: Core functions of human resource manager
Purpose and importance of HRM
Chocolate Presence has purpose of human resource management to standardize the process of
selection and recruitment, create the policies and manage the performance and quality.
Therefore, the smaller size of business structure and operations ensures that HRM can directly
deal with the employees or vice versa (Cascio, 2015). Also, the organization has potential niche
market and so that HRM has importance to meet the quality and performance standards.
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Functions of
HRM
Human
resource
planning
Recruitm
ent and
selection
Reward
Performa
nce
manage
ment
Training
and
develop
ment

b) Explain the strengths and weaknesses of the current selection methods used by the
organization
Current selection methods and their reliability and validity
Home-made assessment: The organization provides a fixed set of questions to all candidates
throughout the year and it can be submitted through in person or online. It has strengths to
simplify the cost, provide equal opportunity to all candidates and to reduce cost on operations.
However, it has weaknesses that there is only inclusion of the English and Mathematics
questions those are not enough to address the professional skills and capabilities of the
candidates. Also, passing criteria is too low which is not satisfactory when there is high
unemployment in market (Dany and Torchy, 2017). The method is not reliable because the
candidates failed in first attempt might crack the test during second with high efficiency because
of pre-knowledge of same questions. From the professional requirement aspect, the test is not
valid to select a capable and skilled resource because of lack of questions and test on
professional skills.
References: It means to use the name of person to get a job. It has strength to achieve the
candidates free from the criminal records and a bit known to establish a good team. However, it
has weaknesses because the reference also enforces the owner or manager to prefer a candidate
even the candidate might not possess the competency. Also, referencing breaks the fairness of
test for other candidates (Wood, 2018). It is not reliable to test the candidate effectively whereas
it is also not valid as it prevents the entry of new and unknown but skilled candidates at
workplace.
Informal chat: It has main strength to uncover the hidden skills, behavior and attitude of the
candidate during interview but it fails to test the professional skills and competence to work in a
team and to meet the goals. It is not reliable and valid from the professional point of selection
because it creates discrimination through the personal relations (Ekwoaba et al., 2015).
There are several problems identified. For example, Chocolate Presence has complaints for
quality of the test because of lack of reliability and validity whereas the new recruit process also
fails because of poor attraction and attention to the candidates because of lack of reference in
their application.
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c) Evaluate at least 2 potential improvements that could be made by Chocolate Presence to
enhance its selection process
The current problems in the selection process can be improved through the use of the structured
interview and work sample methods. However, the each approach has own benefits and
limitations but Chocolate Presence can make use of the goodness of the approaches to achieve
effective selection of the candidates.
Structured interview: It means that the organization can design and manage the structured
interview process in which the questions on personal behavior and attitude, communication,
problem solving, future vision with job and professional knowledge on the position can be
included. It can help to optimize the time of the interview process whereas provide transparent
interview process (Albrecht et al., 2015). However, there is need of interview designing and
evaluation team and a good set of measures is also required to validate the candidates.
Work sample: It means to prefer the candidates with evaluation of the previous work experience
or work sample in same field of selection. It helps to achieve skilled and capable candidate and
reduces the time required for selection and further training and development. However, the work
samples in most of cases might not fit into innovative and creative business operational context.
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Task 2
a) Person specification- Receptionist role
Company name: Chocolate Presence
Job title: Receptionist
Table 1: Person Specification
(Source: Ressia, 2016)
Criteria Essential Desirable
Qualifications At least graduate in management subject Certificate of computer
knowledge
Skills/
competencies
-Warm and welcoming behaviour with the
visitors
-Time management skills
-Self-managed with team working
- Multitasking
-Self-learning
-Good problem solving skills
Knowledge -Front desk management task
-Functions of the receptionist
-Reporting and communication tools
-
Previous
experience
At least experience of six months in
reception or front desk functions
- Good to have internship and
engagement in such events
and occasions
Experience
Required
Experience of at least six months is required. -
Special -Answer the queries of the visitors regarding -flexible to work within
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attributes business operations and functions.
-Interact and deal with various departments
to accomplish the customer requirements.
-Track finance records and logbook
-File handling and other back office tasks for
administration department
administrative department to
support operations
Personal
qualities
Fluent in communication
Good personality and interactive in nature
Bi-language in English and
one other international
language
b) Discuss the advantages and disadvantages of the current methods of advertising jobs in the
organization
The organization has current no effective advertising approach and it is preventing the business
to attain the competitive workforce to meet the quality standard. For example, following are the
two methods used but has advantages and disadvantages for the business.
Internal advertisement
During internal advertisement of the job, the employees and their friends and relatives may know
about the vacant position whereas the employees are also powered to achieve the position
through justification of the skills and requirement. Therefore, it has strengths for the faster
selection and recruitment process whereas the cost on the advertising and selection process is
low. However, it has disadvantage that the organization is constraint to the potential number of
the candidates and so that it becomes difficult to attract the external skilled candidates (Almeida
et al., 2012). It has benefits for the promotional opportunities and referral fees but it has lack of
transparency and reliability to select the candidate.
Advertising on external wall: The organization posts the vacancy on wall of the business which
is good to reduce the cost on the advertising because the region has high unemployment people
and so that they normally visit the businesses one by one to get a job. Also, it has advertisement
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for the people who are associated with the local region or have relatives. However, there is
disadvantage that the organization has no reach to the unaware people who are not visiting the
business from a time and seeking information on the website (O'Meara and Petzall, 2013). Also,
the job of receptionist needs adequate personal and computer skills whereas salary is also good
enough.
c) Explain where you would recommend the job advert for the Receptionist vacancy to be placed
and why?
The current approaches are not effective to attract the candidates with high diversity and so that
the organization is constraint to the local market for the candidates. For example, the
organization can use website with job vacancy section, social media posts and job portals for the
vacant seats. Also, the organization can consider consultancy for the candidates.
Website based job advertising: Website based job advertising is appropriate if the organization
has high traffic on the website and the candidates are seeking more information about the
business besides of the job advertisement. However, if there is also not a big cost because a
single website post is effective to communicate to the most of the candidates and the approach is
also realistic to reduce the efforts and practices for the apply process (Nikandrou and
Panayotopoulou, 2012). However, the human resource manager needs to prepare the content and
forward the content to the website administrator for the posting.
Social media: The manager also can prefer to use social media to advertise the job vacancy.
Currently, it is the fastest way to attract the candidates and to improve reach to the potential set
of the candidates. There is high flexibility and customization to control the impact and reach of
the advertisement (Ekwoaba et al., 2015). There is need of skills and roles to manage the digital
advertisement. Also, the cost is not high for the advertisement and it is realistic for the small and
medium businesses.
Job portals and consultancy: The organization can post the job on portals so that it can be reach
to more number of the candidates whereas the organization also gets equal opportunity to review
the individual’s experience and skills through the automating software. Therefore, it can reduce
the cost but can match with potential candidates (Cascio, 2015). Cost for advertising is also
comparatively low. Consultancy firms can validate the candidates for skills, competence and
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