Analysis of HRM Practices at Marks and Spencer: A Detailed Report

This report provides a detailed analysis of human resource management (HRM) practices at Marks and Spencer (M&S). It begins with an introduction to HRM and the company's background, mission, and goals. The report then delves into the purpose and functions of HRM, including recruitment and selection, skills monitoring and training, legal and regulatory compliance, performance management, and workforce planning. It explores various approaches to recruitment, such as internal and external methods, and the selection process. The report further examines the benefits of HRM practices, including skilled human resources, and the role of employee relations and legislation in HRM decision-making. Finally, it discusses the application of HRM practices in a work-related context, providing a comprehensive overview of M&S's HRM strategies.

Human Resource
Management

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
LO1..................................................................................................................................................4
P1. Purpose and Function of HRM Practices...............................................................................4
P2. Various approaches to recruitment and selection..................................................................5
LO2..................................................................................................................................................6
P3. Benefits of HRM practices ...................................................................................................6
P4. HRM practices.......................................................................................................................8
LO3..................................................................................................................................................9
P5. Importance of employee relation in influencing HRM decision making..............................9
P6. Impact of employee legislation over HRM decision making .............................................10
LO4................................................................................................................................................11
P7. Application of HRM practices in work related context ......................................................11
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................12
REFFERENCE .............................................................................................................................12

INTRODUCTION
Human resource management is expressed as the management of human resources in the
organization. Various activities related to the human resources such as recruiting, selecting,
induction, orientation and development related activities are included in human resource
management. In this report, Marks and Spencer (M&S) is taken as an organization. M&S was
established in the year 1884 by Michael Marks and Thomas Spencer. The company's headquarter
is located in Westminster, London. Various functions of HRM related to the work force planning
and resourcing specifies in this report. Various benefits associated with the HRM practices will
also be specified in this report. Evaluation of effectiveness of various HRM practices will also be
specified in this report. Employee relationship in influencing HRM decision making will also be
expressed in this report. Impact of employee legislation in HRM decision making will also be
expressed. HRM practices in work related context will also be reported.
LO1
Introduction: M&S is a UK Based retail organisation. Company's headquarter is located in
London, UK. Micheal Marks and Thomas Spencer are the founder of M&S. The company serves
its business operations world wide with more then 1400 retail outlets across the globe.
Background: M&S was founded intitially because of the partnership between Michael Marks
and Thomas Spencer in the early 1880s. Initially the company started its business operations in
UK then it shifted in international market by starting business outlet in Canada in the year 1973.
Mission of M&S: The company has the mission to serve the best retail products to all its
consumer's. With the quality efforts the company wants to achieve the best consumer
satisfaction.
Goal of M&S: To achieve the best profitability possible with the quality operations.
Purpose:
 To serve the quality retail products.
 Expand business world wide.
 To enhance the consumer experience.

Main Objective: The company management carry the ultimate objective to improve the market
share by serving the best retail products to all its consumer's.
P1. Purpose and Function of HRM Practices
Purpose of HRM:
HRM in M&S carry the following purpose.
Fulfilling the organization need: Fulfilling the various needs of the M&S attached with the
goal of the company is the prime role and purpose of the various HRM practices. The HRM of
M&S not just focus over recruitment and selection of human resources in the company but it also
engages with overall development of all the work force of the company to achieve the overall the
business objectives of the company.
Function of HRM:
Recruitment and Selection: To provide quality human resources with the help of recruitment
and selection is among the major task HRM department of M&S needs to conduct (Aybas and
Acar, 2017). Various stages such as personal interviews, group discussions, Q&A round is a part
of recruitment and selection process that enables the HRM to bring quality and skilled work
force in the organization. The main purpose of conducting the entire recruitment process with the
help of different stages such as group discussion, personal interviews and other's is to analyse the
required skills attached with various designations in the M&S organization hierarchy. By
recruiting quality and efficient human resources the company management wants to achieve all
the purposes of business.
Skills Monitoring and Training: Monitoring skills and conducting training programs is also
among the major function HRM department conducts. Skills monitoring enable the HRM to
analyse and evaluate various skills of employee's and it also guides about the work efficiency
related to the human resources in the company (Bastida, Marimon and Carreras, 2018). As per
the analytical review related to the employees of the company various training programs
conducts to improve the skills of employee's. Conducting training programs carry two aims one
is to improve the skills of employee's and the another one is to provide professional training to
learn new skills. Monitoring skills and conducting training programs play major role in
improving the work efficiencies of the human resources of the M&S. Monitoring the skills and
conducting training enable the company management to move towards acheiveing all business

purposes such as achieving and serving the quality products, business expansion and improved
consumer experience.
Legal and Regulatory Compliance: HRM carry various responsibilities as a part of the
operations. To compliance with various laws and governmental regulations while managing the
human resources is among the prime purpose of the HRM department (Fernández and
et.al.,2017). In UK various laws employment law, labour law and all such associated laws with
human resources implemented over corporate body's and the HRM of M&S needs to cope up
with all such laws while conducting operations related to the HRM. Compliance with laws is also
become more crucial as in case of not fulfilment with the mandatory requirements the company
management needs to engage with various legislation of UK for non fulfilling the basic
requirements of such laws. Compliance of regulatory requirements enable the company
management to maintain the healthy work culture through which company management wants to
inspire to all human resources of the company to put quality efforts to achieve all the busines
purpose of M&S.
Performance Management: Performance management is also a major purpose and functions
HRM department needs to engage with. Performance management involve various functions
such as setting expectation, monitoring employee performance, rewarding and awarding
productive performance by giving bonus, appraisal and promotions (Geary and Hunek, 2019).
The main purpose to implement all such functions is to improve the motivation of human
resources in the company. Critical analytical review about the employee performance is a part of
functional activities under performance management. Senior employee's and manager's in HRM
involve in implementation of various functions attached with the performance management.
Performance management enable the company management to guide all the human resources to
achieve more productive outcomes that can enable the company management to achieve the best
customer experience by serving the quality products.
Work Force Planning: Work force planning involve various operations such as selecting the
human resources for various tasks, planning the various stages involved in the task, time
management and performance management. All such aspects give the proper guidence to the
operation management to achieve the best productivity with the operation.
Importance of Work Force Planning:
 It improves the work efficiency.

 It saves time in conducting operations.
 Enable the management to involve skilled human resources in the operations.
Role of GR: GR department play the crucial role in providing quality and skilled work force for
various tasks involved in operations. GR department also play the role in conducting required
training to improve the skills of employee's for better productivity. Based on the required skills
identified with work force planning GR department suggest the best human resources based on
academics and experience.
P2. Various approaches to recruitment and selection
Recruitment can be specifies as selecting the human resources for various positions of
company. HRM of M&S follows various approaches to conduct recruitment and selection for
various positions in the organization structure of the company. HRM follow both internal and
external recruitment process to meet various needs related to the designation in the company.
Importance of Recruitment:
 Help the organization to bring skilled and efficient human resources in the company.
 Based on the various requirements attached with the company's operations the HRM plan
its actions of recruitments as it decide the place of recruitment.
Internal Recruitment
The HRM management of M&S follow the approach of internal recruitment by
promoting employees to upper positions based on the needs and demands of the organization
hierarchy. Internal recruitment is more like a reward system for efficient and productive
performance by employee's in the company (Girma, 2019). Apart from direct promotion of
employee's many times the HRM follow the same approach such as personal interviews as it
follows in case of external recruitment in the company. For example, the HRM of M&S provide
various promotions to reward the efforts of productive employees of the company.
Strength:
 It gives chance to productive employees for achieving the higher positions in the
company.
 Internal recruitment improves the confidence and motivation level of all the human
resources of the company as the productive performances are rewarded in form of
promotion that inspire other employee's in the company to work more efficiently.
 Cost and time efficient recruitment and selection process.

Weaknesses:
 Internal recruitments many times causes to various conflicts between the employees of
the company.
 Internal recruitment also promote politics in the organization as many times with the
support of higher authorities in the company inefficient employees also get promoted.
External Recruitment
The HRM of M&S various employment opportunities to young graduates or even to
experienced human resources who are not a part of any operational activity of the company
(Hashim, Ismail and Hassan, 2016). For implementing the external recruitment, the HRM
conducts certain activities that are summarised as follows. For example, the HRM of M&S
conducts external interviews to fill various designations in the company. The major sources of
external recruitments use in M&S are campus placements and job portal recruitments.
Create Job Post: Creating job post with the help of effective advertisements at various channels
is a first step of external recruitment. Precise description is granted about the job role in the job
post. HRM of M&S use effective advertisement channels such as social media, internet and
holdings to post the job requirements.
Conducting Interviews: After implementing the job post interviews are schedules and
conducted by the HRM for filling various positions in the company (Kabalina, Zelenova and
Reshetnikova, 2019). Interview process also involve group discussions, Q&A sessions and
personal interview sessions. All such processes effectively taste and analyse the skill and
knowledge of the candidate and the candidate who best fit the job role get final selection at the
end of external recruitment process.
Strength:
 External recruitments provide major employment opportunities to new and experienced
graduates for the various positions.
 External recruitments provide fairness in the recruitment process.
Weaknesses:
 External recruitment is a time consuming process.
 External recruitment is a costlier process.

Selection: Selection can be defined as the process to recruit professionals for the various
positions in the company. The HRM of M&S follow approaches such as quantitative test, group
discussion and personal interview to select candidates for various positions.
Strength of Selection:
 Selection enable the HRM to taste the required skills and knowledge for associated
position.
 Selection also express the personality of the candidate.
Weakness:
 Many times process of selection also causes to fear of losing in respect to the candidate
that also reduces the confidence level of candidate.
Performance Management: Performance management involve various approaches to manage
the performance of human resources in the M&S. Various approaches of performance
management is use in M&S that are called as establishing goal, develop plan, take action and
assess performance.
Reward System: Reward system is called as rewarding the employee's of the company for
productive performances.The HRM give rewards to all the employee's of the company based on
the productivity and efficiency. Performance management and measurement is an approach use
in M&S to give rewards.
This task express about various approaches of recruitment and selection internal and
external. Role of both the approaches in achieving the objective of the company.
LO2
P3. Benefits of HRM practices
The HRM of M&S utilize various benefits that are as follows with the help of efficient
HRM practices. HRM practices provide several benefits to both employer and employee's in the
M&S.
Skilled Human Resources: HRM in M&S follow the practice to conduct various training
programs based on the requirements of the various job roles that resulted into improved skills
and efficiencies of the employee's (Kim and Cooke, 2018). HRM also focus over giving
professional training to different employee's so the employee can learn new skills as well.
Employee's also guided about all the technological development in the retail sector so the

employees can apply such new development and practices in implementing operations of the
company.
Improve Employee Turnover: HRM practices of M&S related to the motivation, reward
management and flexibility resulted into improved employee turnover in the company.
Employee turnover depicted about the sustainability of human resources in the organization
(Latukha and et.al., 2019). If the employee turnover is high, it means the number of employee
leaving the organization is high. All such HRM practices enabled the management to get
sustainable human resources in the company. Low employee turnover provide stability in the
organization structure that drives the management and employee in the company to achieve
higher work efficiencies and job satisfaction from various operations of the company.
Conflict Resolution: HRM of M&S could effectively resolve various issues and grievances
related to the employees with effective practices such as emphasis clarity and consistency policy
and ensure accountability for conflict resolution (Meijerink and et.al., 2018). Both the practices
enabled the HRM towards clearing several issues related to the employee's in the company.
Conflict resolution also improve the employee determination towards the organization that
resulted into efficient and productive operations of the company. Conflict resolution also create
an effective work culture in the company.
Flexible Work Place: HRM practices in M&S created a flexible working environment in the
company. The HRM of M&S enables the company management to follow several collaborative
work practices that improves the bonding between employees from different departments in the
organization (Park, Song and Lee, 2017). With the help of collaborative work practice
employee's in the company could achieve better work efficiency as the employee could grab
better support from other departments due to improved bonding between employee's. Flexible
work place improves the organization hierarchy of the M&S that also reduced the number issues
among employees of various departments.
Out of the various HRM Practices such as skilled human resources, improve employee
turnover, conflict resolution and flexible work place the HRM in M&S follow the approaches of
skilled human resources and conflict resolution.
Benefits for Employer from HRM Practices:

 Both the HRM Practices use in M&S improve employee turnover and conflict resolution
resulted into healthy work culture in the company that improved the productivity of
employee's.
 Achieved higher profitability with business operations.
Benefits to Employee's:
 Better work culture.
 Timely solution of issues.
Various HRM practices such as skilled human resources, improve employee turnover,
conflict resolution and flexible work place the HRM Of M&S follow the two most suitable
approaches to improve the productivity of employee's in the company.
P4. HRM practices
Human resource as the person within M&S who make up the workforce for increasing
overall business productivity and profitability in global marketplace.
HRM of M&S follows several practices that are summarised as follows.
Training and Development: HRM in M&S conducts various training programs such as IT
training that involve practical knowledge about all the latest inclusions about information
technology in retail sector (Rees and Smith, 2017). Other trainings also conducted by HRM such
as personality development training that involve various topics like time management, work
management, confidence building, presentation that effectively improve the productivity of the
employee's and also influence the profitability of the company. The training programs run by
HRM is more advanced then other competitors of M&S like Morrisons who conduct only basic
training of employee's. The training program of M&S is much more effective as compare to
other competitors as the training program is more systematic it takes more time then training
program run by HRM of Morrisons that run comparatively shorter training program because the
training only covers the basic aspect of personality development but M&S covers both practical
aspects by giving opportunities to present various topics in front of senior authorities of the
company who regularly visits the training campaign. All such aspect has resulted into better
productivity and profitability of M&S as compare to other competitors like Morrison.
Strength of Training and Development:
 Improve skills of employees.

 Enables in personality development of employees.
 Improve profitability of company by achieving higher sales
 Improved productivity as the company management can introduce advanced technologies
and training will guide the employee's about effective use of such technologies to achieve
higher productivity from operations. Guidance related to the new technology make
employee's more advanced than employee's associated with other company's like
Morrison who don't give such advanced trainings.
 Practical experience give more exposure to employee's to improve the whole personality.
Weakness:
 It consumes quality time and investment.
 Benefits are not guaranteed.
 Many times productivity of employee's depends on individual abilities.
Reward Management: Reward management system in M&S is more advanced as the HRM
give rewards to employee's of all the operational departments on the basis of performance.
Rewards given by M&S are more effective as compare to other competitors like Morrison as
such company's give only a small rewards like small amount of bonus but the management of
M&S provide rewards to employee's in various ways like productive bonus, incentives and
promotions (Rondeau and Wagar, 2016). All such rewards effectively influence the employee's
to work more productive towards achieving company's targets that also improve the profitability
of M&S. Recently M&S has witnessed the increasing trend in sales and the company's rewards
system play the effective role in such a context as employee's try to work more efficiently that
also causes to delivery of quality products to customer's.
Strength of Reward Management:
 It motivate the employee's of the company.
 It resulted into improve confidence of employee's.
 Comparatively, high rewards of good performance will motivate the employee's towards
more productive performances.
 Fresh talent also get attracted towards the company that also improved the corporate
culture and productivity of the company. Now talents also enable the company
management to achieve higher profitability.

Weaknesses:
 Many times politics also get involve in rewards.
 Better rewards also causes to unethical organisation culture like involvement of political
aspect for giving rewards that can also causes to inefficient work culture which also
reduce the productivity and profitability of organisation.
Motivation Practices: HRM in M&S follow the more effective employee motivation practices
as compare to other competitors like Morrison(Sandrin, Trentin and Forza, 2018). In M&S
human resource department follow the approach of giving performance based incentives and
other benefits to motivate the employee's which is more effective as compare to other
competitors like Morrison that follows the motivation practices of only giving few rewards to
productive employee's. To improve the productivity of employee's HRM in M&S conduct team
building session except giving rewards like other competitors like Morrison to improve the
effectiveness and productivity of various actions that also improve the profitability of M&S.
Strength:
 Motivation practices enable the company management and employee's to perform more
productive task as it improves the confidence.
 Motivation practices many times look ineffective as company's use old methods of
motivating that reduces the benefits of such motivational practices and it also reduced the
productivity of employee's as compare to other competitors like Tesco.
 Confidence building session improve the motivation and confidence of employee's.
Weaknesses:
 Many times, employee get demotivate too in this process that reduces the work
efficiencies.
 Use of old methods as compare to other competitors like Tesco also demotivate
employees of the company many times that also resulted into reduced efficiency and
productivity of employees.
Companies follow various HRM practices such as training and development, reward
management and motivation practices to improve the work culture of the company. Various
benefits and disadvantages are also associated with the HRM practices.