Human Resource Management Practices in Sainsbury's

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Human resource management

TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction......................................................................................................................................1
Task 1...............................................................................................................................................2
P1: Explain the purpose and functions of HRM, applicable to workforce planning and
resourcing an organization...........................................................................................................2
P2 Explain the strengths and weaknesses of different approaches to recruitment and selection 3
M1Assess how the functions of HRM can provide talent and skills appropriate to fulfil
business objectives.......................................................................................................................4
M2 Evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of different approaches to recruitment and selection
.....................................................................................................................................................5
P3 Benefits of HRM practices for both employee and employer................................................5
P4 & M3 evaluate the effectiveness of different HRM practices in terms of raising
organisational profits and productivity........................................................................................7
Task 2...............................................................................................................................................9
P5 Analyze the importance of employee relations in respect to influencing HRM decision-
making.........................................................................................................................................9
P6 Identify the key elements of employment legislation and the impact it has upon HRM
decision-making.........................................................................................................................10
M4 Evaluate the key aspects of employee relations management and employment legislation
that affect HRM decision-making in an organizational context................................................11
P7 Illustrate the application of HRM practices in a work-related context, using specific
examples....................................................................................................................................12
M5 Provide a rationale for the application of specific HRM practices in a work-related context
...................................................................................................................................................12
Conclusion.....................................................................................................................................14
References......................................................................................................................................15

LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 1: Workforce planning elements..........................................................................................2
Figure 2: Decision making process................................................................................................10

Introduction
Skilled and capable resources are the fundamental requirement of the business to drive the
productivity and quality. Human resource management has main purpose of resourcing and
workforce planning in the organization to achieve the business goals. The presented report will
discuss the management functions and purpose in Sainsbury’s which the leading supermarket
chain in United Kingdom is. The organization provides grocery products in which private
labelled products are also included. The report will further discuss the recruitment and selection
approaches and benefits of the management practices for employee and employers. Employee
relations and their significance for the business during decision making also will be discussed
while focusing on the influence of the employment legislation. The applications of the human
resource management practices will be demonstrated regarding rewarding strategies.
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Task 1
P1: Explain the purpose and functions of HRM, applicable to workforce planning and resourcing
an organization
The organizations have to manage the workforce and resources to ensure that the goals and
objectives are easy to attain. Workforce planning means to the continuous process through which
the organization can align the business priorities and needs to meet production, services,
legislative and regulatory requirements. It means to the foster the skills and capabilities of the
employees and to allocate the work accordingly to ensure high efficiency during the achievement
of the objectives (McConville, 2006). Resourcing means to the selection and recruitment of the
skilled and capable employees. Through resources, the human resource management assures that
the business has right number of people with right attitude to drive the business success.
Figure 1: Workforce planning elements
The main purpose of the human resource management is to ensure that the organization has right
people to execute the business goals whereas the management also focuses on the performance
and motivation of the employees. The human resource management has purpose to advertise the
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Workforce
planning
Right
people
Right
skills and
competen
cies
Right
place
Right
time

vacancies and it also recruits and selects the skilled and capable resources for the business (Noe
et al., 2017). The human resources management also considers the right place and time for the
selected candidates within the business structure so that they can optimize the use of the skills to
foster the business growth and profitability.
Therefore human resource management has functions such as human resource planning,
recruitment and selection, training and development, role delegation and employee relations
management. During workforce planning, the human resource management has function to
uncover the skills and capabilities, define the scope, allocate the role and responsibilities and
align the business goals and objectives to drive the performance and quality (Cascio, 2015).
During, resources, the organization mainly has functions to select and recruit the resources to
fulfil the required number of skilled and capable employees whereas the management also might
prefer to terminate the resources those are not meeting standards and quality even after an effort
of training and development.
P2 Explain the strengths and weaknesses of different approaches to recruitment and selection
The large organizations in term of employees have capabilities to select the required roles from
within the existing set of the employees rather than to make use of the external sources. For
example, the Sainsbury’s ensures that the internal resources get enough support and
opportunities to move into higher level in the business hierarchy (Newell, 2005). It helps the
organization to improve satisfaction and employee retention whereas the management also can
optimize the cost on the recruitment and selection process. The internal process is simple and
effective to motivate the resources, meet the requirements for resources within cost and time and
to foster the internal empowerment to the individual at workplace. However, it also constraints
the business for the skills and capabilities because the organization limits the selection criteria
and becomes bounded to select required number of the resources from within the existing
employees (Cooper et al., 2003). In external recruitment, the organization has high cost and
influence of the legal aspects on the advertisements, selection process and recruiting but the
organization gets support to access the wider market for the required skilled number of
employees.
However, Sainsbury’s also following a systematic process for the selection of the employees. For
example, the job analysis is used to determine the skills and capabilities required in the candidate
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along with number of employees, time to recruit them and potential cost and efforts required to
retain them. The human resource management also prepares and reviews the job description and
personal specification to ensure that right people are selected. Job description helps to provide
information on the job role and responsibilities whereas personal specification helps to attract the
candidates with required hard and soft skills for the role (Billsberry, 2008). The management
also considers the use of the competency methods and framework during selection. For example,
human resource management also reviews the experience and work of the candidates to consider
it as competence of the business to meet resourcing requirements.
The organization can consider the use of the following two approaches for the selection and
recruitment. First, the organization can use the competence approaches which means to the
candidate can demonstrate the skills and experience during the selection and interview process to
get selected on the competences. The human resource management validates the outcomes with
the job description and specification to make a decision. It has strengths to select the candidate
with practical set of the skills and capabilities and allows the management to make an evidence
based decisions (Gusdorf, 2008). However, it might lack the validation of the soft skills
including critical problem solving skills those are difficult to demonstrate.
Second, Sainsbury’s also can prefer the contingency approach in the recruitment and selection
process. The approach helps the organization to continuously advertise the position and
opportunities to the market and assumes that there is collection of the required number of
resumes to select the most appropriate candidate for the business (Cooper et al., 2003). It has
potential to select the skilled and capable resources but it takes long time so that it is possible
that candidate is not available during the actual selection process whereas it needs pre-planning
and so that not suitable for recruiting in short-term.
M1Assess how the functions of HRM can provide talent and skills appropriate to fulfil business
objectives
The human resource management is connected to the other business functions such as marketing,
accounting and sales. Such functions report the need of the resources with expected skills and
capabilities to drive the business performance. The human resource management has main
function to plan the recruitment and selection process according to the demands and map the
legal and social factors in the advertising of the position (Taylor, 2007). The human resource
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management standardizes the process, circulate the job descriptions, define the person
specification, sort the resumes, call the candidates, and take tests and interviews and process with
other formalities to make them employees.
Therefore, the business goals and objectives are analyzed to understand the resourcing
requirements. The organization prepares the plan and set of the skills and competencies required
to verify throughout the test and interview to select the candidates. The human resource
management provides the skills and talented resources through effective recruitment and
selection planning and process where the organization validate the skills and interact with the
candidates to understand their expectations and visions behind the job role (Gusdorf, 2008).
M2 Evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of different approaches to recruitment and selection
The core strength of the internal recruitment approach is that the organization has to circulate the
position within the existing employees so that the overall cost and time in the recruitment is
comparatively low. Also, the management has no difficult and complex formalities with the
employees because of the pre-availed information about them. The management can easily
understand the hidden skills and capabilities of the resources to manage the role because the
historical information, performance, quality of the employees at workplace can be used as
potential evidence to recruit on a job role (Orlitzky, 2007). However, the weakness is that the
management becomes limited to the existing employees and so that cannot explore the external
resources those might contain more skills and competence to meet the business goals. Also, it
can create the workload or new vacant positions in departments.
External recruitments are valuable for the organization because the human resource management
can advertise the position to the public and can get the resumes and participation from the skilled
and capable candidates. It expands the business practice to access the candidates and make it
flexible to select the right resources (Newell, 2005). However, there is additional burden of the
planning and execution of the advertising and other approaches to attract the candidates.
P3 Benefits of HRM practices for both employee and employer
HRM practices within act as a catalyst to boost the productivity of an organisation as well as
individual performance of employees. There are wide benefits of HR management practices at
Sainsbury that support the improvement in the efficiency of employer as well as employees. The
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effective management of employees ensures long term and positive relationship with the
employees and hence, leads to high job satisfaction. It helps the Sainsbury to get hard work and
efficiency of employees in a defined direction of success.
Benefits of HRM practices to the employees of Sainsbury
Positive working environment: HRM practices ensure that people are effectively managed at
Sainsbury with the development of a better understanding with them (Hoch and Dulebohn,
2013). It also helps to develop positive working conditions where staff of Sainsbury can perform
their work without any stress and working pressure that leads to positive behaviour with
colleagues and higher management staffs.
Better relations: HRM practices ensure that workforce can easily convey various issues they are
facing at Sainsbury. Hence, the development of a strong communication channel within the
organisation leads to the development of better and strong relations. Hence, it ultimately
improves the employees’ satisfaction pertaining to their job.
Improved efficiency: HRM practices support flexible working environment so that employees
can perform their work in a highly comfortable and friendly manner. Hence, it helps to improve
the willingness of employees and ultimately support them with improved efficiency. Also,
enthusiastic behaviour supports the working staff of Sainsbury to grab more growth opportunities
and tends towards better future career (Cascio, 2015).
High motivation: HRM practices support reward system and performance appraisal in which
manpower of Sainsbury are motivated to perform their tasks better and efficiently. Hence, high
motivation leads to positive outcome that ultimately benefits the employees in the form of
rewards and incentives.
Benefits of HRM practices to the Sainsbury
Low employees’ turnover: Dissatisfied employees generally leaves the organisation that
ultimately reduces the organisational productivity and costs twice due to frequent recruitment
and selection process. Hence, HR management practices support the Sainsbury in reducing the
workforce turnover by developing job satisfaction, motivation, and providing high support.
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Reduce conflicts: Employees at Sainsbury belongs to diverse culture, and therefore, such
differences leads to high conflicts and disagreements on various matters. Therefore, HR manager
ensures that such conflicts can be managed with the development of friendly atmosphere
(Albrecht et al., 2015). In addition, conducting Group discussion, informal meetings, etc helps
the organisation to better manage the conflicts of their employees.
Higher productivity and overall performance: HRM practices include trainings and coaching
sessions and hence it leads to the improved performance of each employee at Sainsbury.
Therefore, the overall productivity and revenue of Sainsbury can be easily improved.
P4 & M3 evaluate the effectiveness of different HRM practices in terms of raising organisational
profits and productivity
HRM practices ensure management of performance of Sainsbury as well as its internal
stakeholders that ultimately support it to survive for long term in the market with increased
revenue and productivity. Following are the HRM practices which is crucial for the growth of
Sainsbury:
Performance Appraisal: It is a continuous review method in which the performance of staff and
their contribution towards organisational success is evaluated and documented. This method of
HRM practices is effective for Sainsbury as it helps the staff to improve their efficiency in their
performance with appropriate feedback, suggestions, and trainings (Alfes et al., 2013).
Career management: It is a continuous process of learning and investing efforts into actions to
ensure fruitful outcome pertaining to the career growth. For example, the HRM practices support
the working staff of Sainsbury in their career with appropriate development programs that not
only focuses on their efficiency but also on their skills, knowledge, and potential development.
Hence, career management fulfil their goal of better career, financial stability, and growth.
Training: It is process of teaching and coaching the staff of Sainsbury to improve their
competencies for carrying out their job in a quality and effective manner. For example, HR
manager at Sainsbury conduct timely training programs for the new candidates to improve their
working style, capability, and performance. It is effective for the organisation as it helps the staff
to understand what they have to do and the different ways of performing it (Messersmith and
Wales, 2013).
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Reward system: this system is a motivational method associated with incentives, learning, and
rewards. The effectiveness of reward system at Sainsbury can be measured through recognition.
For example, at Sainsbury, for the reward system to be effective, goals are required to be
establishing for different jobs and key parameters are specified to measure the performance and
behaviour of employees. Employee’s performance that matches with the parameters can get high
rewards and incentives.
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