HRM and Health & Safety: Strategies for Employee Well-being at M&S

This report delves into the crucial aspects of Human Resource Management (HRM) and Health & Safety within the context of Marks & Spencer (M&S). It begins by emphasizing the significance of employee well-being, highlighting its impact on engagement, productivity, and retention. The report then identifies various factors that can undermine employee well-being, including poor management, organizational culture, lack of motivation, and workplace hazards. It also explores the detrimental effects of poor well-being on both employees and the organization, such as increased absenteeism, reduced productivity, and health issues. The report concludes by proposing strategies for improving employee well-being at M&S, including risk assessment, effective communication, access to health professionals, provision of basic facilities, and implementation of health policies. The report underscores the need for a proactive approach to employee well-being to foster a healthy and productive work environment.

Human Resource Management
and Health and Safety

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
TASK...............................................................................................................................................1
Importance of employee’s well being....................................................................................1
Causes of the lack of well-being and their impact on both organisation and workers...........2
Employees well-being strategies implemented within organisation......................................5
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................6
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................7

INTRODUCTION
Human resource management can be simply defined as the management of workforce
within an organisation. Employers are responsible for recruiting workers so that work of
enterprise will not get hampered. On the other hand, it is the responsibility of HR managers to
take care of all health and safety issues of these employees (Marchington and et. al., 2016). They
provide them a healthy environment so that they can perform well and give their best while
accomplishing goals and targets of the venture. The present report is going to be segmented into
different parts whereby importance of personnel’s well-being as well as various strategies that
can be enforced in Marks and Spencer for maintaining their health will be discussed.
TASK
Importance of employee’s well being
It is very important to maintain the well-being of employees in each and every
organisation as they are considered as the pillar of venture. Marks and Spencer should also take
care of their workforce. It is a British multinational retailer whose headquarter is situated in the
city of Westminster, London. It was established in the year 1884 by sir Michael Marks and
Thomas Spencer in Leeds. They are offering various domestic products, clothes and luxurious
food items. M&S has approx. 979 stores currently across the UK in which 615 stores sell only
food items. From a survey, it has been noticed that this company has around 84, 939 employees
in the year 2017 (Monnet, 2015). All these workers should be provided with safety and security
so that they can contribute effectively in attaining the aim and objectives of corporation. There
are so many reasons for providing well-being to personnel. Some of them are listed as below: Well employees are engaged employees: This has been examined that workers who are
emotionally and physically healthy are more probably committed to their duties as it
becomes easy for them to put high efforts to make accomplish their tasks without getting
tired. It they are getting support and appreciation by their supervisors, they are be willing
to do extra work as they know that their efforts would be rewarded. People who are
being healthy physically and emotionally are also good in handling stress of client’s
demands and deadlines of assigned work. This helps them in becoming more productive
and add to a positive working environment.
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 Unhealthy employees are less regular: This has been observed that those workers who
are struggling with emotional and physical problems, they get sick more frequently. If
they are unhealthy, capacity to perform a task also decreases and thus, it affects the
quality of outcomes as well. Even if they are present in office, they are likely to be less
productive. When M&S concentrates on keeping their employees healthy, they can
expect continuity in work. In fact workforce will work hard and put their all efforts into
their projects.
 Happy employees stay longer: When corporation provides supportive environment to
their workers, it is possible that they remain happier and build a good team (Well - being
at work, 2017). Thus, it can be said that such workers stay for a long period of time in
organisation and give their best in completing the tasks. Happiness or satisfaction can be
provided to all workforce by giving them benefits after retirement and competitive pay.
By this way, company does not have to spend their time in doing other recruitment as
they already have faithful workers.
(Source: Well - being at work, 2017)
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Illustration 1: Well - being at work

Causes of the lack of well-being and their impact on both organisation and workers
There are various causes of lack of wellness of workforce within an enterprise. Some of
the factors that causes lack of well-being it are mentioned below: Management: This is the most important factor that affects professional as well as
personal lives of an individual. If the managers and leaders are not skilled and active in
their work, they cannot provide a good working environment to their personnel
(Chelladurai and Kerwin, 2017). Due to this, welfare of employees is not offered and this
leads to demotivation within workers. If weak training and coaching is given by the team
leaders then is also creates an unhealthy environment. Organisational culture: This is another factor that affects the wellbeing of an employee.
In this context, if managers are not open in nature, then trust between employers and
employees is not created. This unfaithful environment creates fear among workers as
they cannot ask any question to their superiors (Jamali, Dirani and Harwood, 2015). This
as a result generates a bad environment that impacts on the well-being of employees. Motivation: It is another factor that effects the well-being of personnel. If any worker
does not get motivation from their employers then it is obvious that they get depressed
and stressed which finally results in making workforce unhealthy. Employee relationship: Marks and Spencer should focus on maintaining good employee
relations as this increases the level of productivity. But if this is not maintained properly
and if any gap between supervisors and workers is found there, then harmony of working
environment gets disrupted (Lu and et. al., 2015). This is not good as it affects negatively
on the well-being of employees. Bullying and harassment: Workers who are harassed by their associates and bosses are
most probably to call in sick for avoiding that situation. Injuries: As M&S is dealing with offering several kinds of goods and services to their
customers, they use various types of machineries and instruments. So, due to
mishandling of these instruments, sometimes, accidents may occur at job locations or
outside the workplace (Marchington, 2015). This results in making people unhealthy and
increases the percentage of their absence. Besides this, several chronic injuries like neck
and back problem are the common causes of absenteeism.
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 Long working hours: In the firm, sometimes, due to high workload or in peak season,
employees are forced to work for extra period of time. Due this reason, they losses their
physical strength and becomes ill. This has been said by scholars that when a machine
gets hot and does not work properly after its continuous use then how a human body
survive in that situation. They also needs rest and so, company should think about this
and permit them to work for approx. 8 hours.
Apart from this, lack of well-being impacts a lot on both workers as well as whole
organisation because if personnel are not provided with safe and healthy environment, they
cannot perform well and as a result, overall production of venture gets badly affected. Some of
the impacts are highlighted as below: Absenteeism: This simply refers to worker's intentional absence from work. If M&S will
not focus on giving a healthy working environment to their employees, this will cause
emergence of absenteeism (Hollenbeck and Jamieson, 2015). From one side, managers
expect personnel to miss a specific number of working days per year but on the other
hand, when employees are not getting adequate facilities, it becomes a habit to take leave
as their interest from work gets decreased day by day. This large number of absence can
lead to decreased production and has a main impact on morale, financial condition and
other factors. Lower level of production: When workers are not good physically or even mentally, they
cannot give best to their work (Fox and Cowan, 2015). This is the reason of lowering of
productivity level and due to this, whole organisation will get adversely affected. Due to
the same, turnover of venture gets lower day by day. Impact on worker's health: Due to lack of wellbeing of employees within organisation,
workers gets badly impacted. If there is no provision of maintaining health and safety in
company then the probability or possibility of sickness or accidents gets increased. In
some cases, severe injuries occur or sometimes, even the death of workers also happen
while working. Lack of motivation: Every employee needs some facilities at their working place so that
they do not face any kind of issues while working. But when they do not get the same,
their motivational level gets lower down and they lose interest from their work. They
even try to migrate other firms in the search of better jobs and organisational culture.
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Thus, it can be said that lack of wellness demotivate people and also decreases their
engagement from work.
 Delay in delivery of products on time: If workers get sick frequently, they are not able to
manufacture goods or deliver services on time. Another reason of this is demotivation
within employees. All these reasons cause late in delivery of products. This in turn
impacts on the brand image of enterprise and thus, they also lose trust from their clients.
Employees well-being strategies implemented within organisation
Some of the strategies can be enforced by Marks and Spencer in order to offer wellbeing
to their personnel. The important strategies in context of this are stated as below: Identification of risks and hazards: Company should build up a group of members who
can determine expected risks or hazards which may impact on the health of workers.
They can use sign boards for showing the danger areas or locations where no one is
allowed to go. Different hazards may occur while operating machines (De Lange, Kooij
and Van der Heijden, 2015). So, all these should be explored and eliminated so that
safety and security at workplace can be maintained. Stakeholders should also
communicate efficiently and show active participation in the risk assessment. Communication and consultations: All the individuals should communicate properly so
that any of the issues noticed by anyone can be conveyed to supervisors and by this way,
that problem can be removed easily. If this is not done, any danger cannot be found and
their solution is also not formed. Involvement of doctors or health professionals at workplace: In order to maintain health
and safety, it is essential to provide health professionals to workers so that if any critical
situation occurs then that can be handled by them effectively (Albrecht and et. al., 2015).
First aid can be given to any person if doctor is not available on the spot. Basic facilities: Marks and Spencer should focus on providing fundamental facilities to
their workforce such as portable water, food, clean sanitary, convenience, etc. so that
workers would not face any kind of issues. If these things are not given to them, their
survival is impossible. Emergency leaves: Some of the emergency conditions occur in every family and for this,
firm should give leaves to them so that they can control those situations easily. Company
should offer different types of leaves such as casual leave, sick leave, paid leave, etc. on
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the basis of some criteria in a year so that they can enjoy this facility and maintain their
leave balance accordingly.
 Health policies and principles : Firm should form some principles and policies related to
health whereby any worker who is falling sick is provided with additional compensation
along with wages so that he can take proper treatment and get well soon (Chelladurai and
Kerwin, 2017). This also makes them closer to their employers and as a result, employee
relations can be maintained effectively.
CONCLUSION
From the above based report, it can be concluded that maintenance of well-being of
workers is very important in every firm as it is beneficial for not only employees but also for
corporation. Thus, Marks and Spencer should take care of their personnel and focus on their
necessities. Various types of issues are present in this company that impacts on the wellness of
workers such as demotivation level, injuries, long working hours, bullying and harassment,
organisational culture, etc. which are explained in this assignment. So, M&S should try to
remove these factors so that upliftment of employees can be done. If company would provide
them special facilities then this becomes the reason of motivation for all of them. If work forces
get motivated then productivity of venture get also increased.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Albrecht, S. L. and et. al., 2015. Employee engagement, human resource management practices
and competitive advantage: An integrated approach. Journal of Organizational
Effectiveness: People and Performance. 2(1). pp.7-35.
Chelladurai, P. and Kerwin, S., 2017.Human resource management in sport and recreation.
Human Kinetics.
De Lange, A. H., Kooij, D. T. A. M. and Van der Heijden, B. I. J. M., 2015. Human resource
management and sustainability at work across the lifespan: An integrative perspective.
Facing the challenges of a multi-age workforce: A use-inspired approach. pp.50-79.
Fox, S. and Cowan, R. L., 2015. Revision of the workplace bullying checklist: the importance of
human resource management's role in defining and addressing workplace bullying.
Human Resource Management Journal. 25(1). pp.116-130.
Hollenbeck, J.R. and Jamieson, B.B., 2015. Human capital, social capital, and social network
analysis: Implications for strategic human resource management. The Academy of
Management Perspectives. 29(3).pp.370-385.
Jamali, D. R., El Dirani, A. M. and Harwood, I. A., 2015. Exploring human resource
management roles in corporate social responsibility: the CSR‐HRM co‐creation model.
Business Ethics: A European Review. 24(2). pp.125-143.
Lu, Y. and et. al., 2015. Impacts of soil and water pollution on food safety and health risks in
China. Environment international. 77. pp.5-15.
Marchington, M., 2015. Human resource management (HRM): Too busy looking up to see
where it is going longer term?. Human Resource Management Review. 25(2). pp.176-
187.
Marchington, M. and et. al., 2016.Human resource management at work. Kogan Page
Publishers.
Monnet, E., 2015. Brachycephalic airway syndrome. In40th World Small Animal Veterinary
Association Congress, Bangkok, Thailand, 15-18 May, 2015. Proceedings book (pp. 245-
247). World Small Animal Veterinary Association.
Redpath, S. M., Bhatia, S. and Young, J., 2015. Tilting at wildlife: reconsidering human–wildlife
conflict. Oryx. 49(2). pp.222-225.
Online
Well - being at work. 2017. [Online]. Available through:
<https://www.cipd.co.uk/knowledge/culture/well-being/factsheet>.
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