HRM Report: Analysis of HRM Practices at Say It With Chocolate

This report delves into the core functions of Human Resource Management (HRM), examining their application within the context of 'Say it with Chocolate,' a chocolate-based greeting card company. The report analyzes workforce planning, recruitment, and selection methods, including the advantages and disadvantages of current practices and potential improvements. It outlines the roles and responsibilities of an HR officer and creates a person specification for a receptionist role. The report further explores employee engagement strategies, flexible working practices, and employee motivation through job design and reward systems, drawing comparisons with Microsoft's approach. Finally, the report covers key elements of employment legislation and provides a comprehensive overview of HRM practices, offering insights into their impact on business growth and sustainability.

Human Resource
Management

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
TASK 1............................................................................................................................................1
(a): Purpose and functions of HRM and application to workforce planning.........................1
(b): Role and responsibility of Human resources officer.......................................................3
(c): Advantage and disadvantage of current selection method ..............................................3
(d): Potential improvements that could be made to the current selection methods................5
TASK 2............................................................................................................................................6
(a): Create a person specification for the role........................................................................6
b) Provide a rationale for a suitable medium for placing the advertisement..........................7
c): Advantage and disadvantage of previous method of advertising jobs..............................7
(d): Some Interview Questions...............................................................................................8
TASK 3..........................................................................................................................................11
(a): Microsoft offer apprenticeship and graduate training schemes.....................................11
(b) Developmental opportunities are available to staff once they are in a permanent job role12
(c): Benefits of the approach Microsoft has taken in respect of flexible working practices 12
d): Microsoft motivates its workers through its job design and systems of reward.............13
TASK 4..........................................................................................................................................14
a): Employee engagement....................................................................................................14
(b): Employee engagement an integral strategy of employee relations...............................14
c): Identify some of the key approaches to engaging workers.............................................14
(d): There are various key elements of using employment legislation................................15
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................16
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................17

INTRODUCTION
Human resources is an essential part of every business organisation which is held
responsible for management and arranging various resources that are beneficial for them in long
term process. It is framed for the purpose of increasing employee performance in services of an
employer’s strategic aims and objectives. The role of human resources manager lies into various
categories such as staffing, employee compensation and benefits etc. This project aims to
provide vital information about purpose and functions of HRM and strength and weakness of
recruitment as well as selection. Apart from this benefits to workface by the help of HRM
practices are mentioned effectively under this report. Evaluation of various factors that influence
the decision making and key component of employment legislation are discussed positively in
this report. Rationale for the application of a particular HRM practices are examine by the help
of various examples in relation to effective growth and sustainability in near future (Abdelhak,
Grostick and Hanken, 2014).
TASK 1
(a): Purpose and functions of HRM and application to workforce planning
Say it with chocolate is said to be vastly increasing organisation that is situated in North
Yorkshire. It is basically deal in chocolate based greeting cards in all over the UK. It deals with
chocolate manufacturing team, finance and marketing team as well as distribution department.
HR practitioners in Small or medium size business those are having well-rounded expertise that
can provide a wide number of services in context to employee benefits as well as their growth.
The Human resource management convers crucial areas of staffing, recruiting, selecting,
appraising and motivating people to get better results in coming period of time. It would work
for the attaining overall aims and objectives of the firm that are also helpful for future strategies
(Bloom and Van Reenen, 2011). The main purpose of HRM is to increase the profitability as
well as growth of the business in reliable manner. There are certain some and nature as well as
scope of human resources management that are mentioned underneath:
Nature
 The company’s owner of the business is master chocolatier those are having creating
aroma chocolate flavours and amazing design of package.
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 It consists of various functions those are related with the training, performance appraisal,
selection and workforce planning etc.
 Say it with Chocolate is mainly deals in creating innovative chocolate flavours and
inspired design.
Size: The company say it with chocolate is having small team of staff that design and create
more specialist gift orders. They have grown staff’s turnover which increased and review from
long standing customer indicates in better quality of services.
Scope
 They are responsible for providing proper training to employees and staffs those are
working in the department.
 Enhance the motivational position of employees and other staffs that are operating in an
organisation (Functions of HRM, 2017).
 Hiring, apprising and selection of new candidates are taken into account.
Currently, workforce of company is expanding and its difficult for the owner to manage the
increasing number of employees. Along with this, customers of “Say it with chocolate” are
complaining about the decreasing quality of its products and services.
Following are the functions of HRM:
 Training and development: These are said to be indispensable functions of HRM. It is
usually attempts to make modification in present and future performance of an employees
through increasing the knowledge and ability of an employee (Daley, 2012). In relation to
“Say it with chocolate” it is important for HR manager to provide the training to
employees which will help them in improving quality of products and services. The main
purpose of this function is to increases satisfaction level of customers in order to
overcome quality barrier.
 Management of employee relationship: It has been determining that employees are
consider as one of important part of an organisation. The relationship with board
members and their vital function and decision making is important. As per the given
scenario of “Say it with chocolate”, it is essential for HR manager to build proper
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relationship with employees as this organisation is a growing firm and requires to retain
employee in order to maintain its quality of the products.
 Maintaining positive working environment: It is necessary for Human resource
managers to provide positive working environment to employees so that they can provide
better results in more quick time. HR manager of “Say it with chocolate” is required to
develop positive working environment so that employees produce high quality product
with free mind. It also minimises the conflict level at the work place.
Comparison with best fit method Vs best practice
BEST PRACTICE BEST FIT
It is an individual bundle of HR policies
that consist of reward system to an
employees.
A company can reward systems that
would be aligned to make support the
organisations business planning.
It lead to increase motivation and
committed employees that are consider as
key aspects for the company.
The outcomes are attain in respect to get
competitive advantage of the company.
(b): Role and responsibility of Human resources officer
Human resource officer have to play various roles in organisation which helps in them in
improving whole functioning. HR officer plays multifunctional role in the small business which
includes making salary, resolving disputes among employees, recruitment, training sessions etc.
In context to “Say it with chocolate”, major role of its HR officer is to conduct training and
development session in the company as it helps improving skills of the employees. These
training session will be organised according to the needs and requirement of customers. Along
with this, responsibility of HR officer of this firm is to assure that all the employees are working
with their own happiness not with the pressure. For this, it is required by HR to maintain positive
relationship with employees which helps them in developing their trust on the organisation. As a
result, employee will perform more effectively and improve their quality of work in order to
meet customers requirement. This will help in the retaining customer by offering them new
innovative products with quality. (Fulton and et. al., 2011).
(c): Advantage and disadvantage of current selection method
Current selection Benefits Limitation
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methods
English and maths test It is assist in analysing the skills
and communication level of the
people.
Some numerical
information can create
difficulties while selecting
the candidates.
Work sample It provide unbiased outcomes
hence workmen are not in close
observation.
It interrupted at any
particular time without
affecting the outcomes.
Structure interview A representative sample is more
possible and outcome can be
used while preparing statements.
Respondents are more
focused to select among
best alternative solution to
interviewer.
Strengths and weaknesses of various recruitment and selection approaches
According to human resource management, recruitment is a process of finding and hiring
an appropriate individual who is best qualified for the vacant job. The process of recruitment
involves inviting applicants, screening all the applicants, hiring them after various personality
and aptitude tests and then provide them relevant training for the job. Selection is a process of
choosing an appropriate candidate for the vacant job, selection is a process where candidates are
actually appointed whereas recruitment process only includes searching suitable candidates.
“Say it with chocolate” hires efficient employees who have expertise in the field of
making personalised and custom chocolates by various internal and external sources of
recruitment and few them are listed below:
Internal sources of recruitment and selection
 Promotion– Promotion is an internal source by which employees are promoted or
moved in upward direction, or rehired for higher position. By using this recruitment
technique employees of the organisation gets motivated to work better so that they can
be benefited by promotion.
 Transfer – According to this source of recruitment, employees are transferred to some
different department or branch of the same organisation. This recruiting technique results
in convenience of various employees (Grumam and Saks, 2011).
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 Employee referrals – According to this, existing employees refers their family members
or friends for the vacant position in the organisation.
Strengths: Internal sources of recruitment saves time and cost of the organisation, as it does
not involves hiring any new candidates. Human resource manager already knows strengths and
capabilities of the existing employees so it makes easy for them to select existing personnel for
new vacancies.
Weaknesses: More than one existing employee can be appropriate for vacant position
which leads towards conflicts between employees and sometimes also results in partiality from
managers.
External sources of recruitment and selection
External sources of recruitment are those which are not related with the organisation like
job fairs, campuses, factory gates etc. few of them are described below:
 Campus placements – Organisations hire employees by conducting campus interview
programs it helps employer to employ fresh talents.
 Factory gate – Factory gate is a source of external recruitment, where factory manager
affix or paste a circular about hiring temporary employees at the factory gate so that cost
and time can be saved (Iles, Chuai and Preece, 2011).
 Labour contractors - Instead of hiring labours individually, factory manager hires a
contractor who hires all labours and in addition all the responsibilities and liabilities of
these labours are confined with contractor only.
Strengths
External sources of recruitment allow employer to appointing fresh new talent, this
source is helpful as new talent can serve innovation ideas. Also, there is no scope of partiality in
external sources of selection.
Weaknesses
This source involves high costs and time, as recruiting new talents requires ample of
money and time. Recruiting new talents leads to train new staff members which needs a lot of
time, the process of selecting appropriate employee can be a crucial task to perform.
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(d): Potential improvements that could be made to the current selection methods
Currently “Say it with chocolate” is hiring employees by using basic English & Maths
test and an informal interview. Company should change this selection method. As a HR officer
of organisation, they can add reasoning ability examination criteria for recruiting innovative
minded candidates. This will help them to have innovative employee team which will be
beneficial in increasing range of innovative product. They should hire candidates who have
experience of same field. This will save their time in improving interview procedure by making
it formal. Formal interview will help HR manager to know more about knowledge and
experience of candidates. They can also use this saved time which they used to spend on training
and development of selected candidates.
TASK 2
(a): Create a person specification for the role
In order to select “Receptionist”, there is need to formulate an effective job specification
and also take into account various facts and figures to hire correct candidate for correct job
position in an organisation.
Personal specification
1. Job details
Title of the job: - Receptionist
Department – Human Resource
2. Job Purpose
 To organise and manage all activities that are performed within an organisation
 Enhance overall productivity and profitability for an organisation
 To fill gaps in the departments that are arises in Say it with Chocolate.
3. Competencies, Skill and Attributes
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 Excellent telephone manner
 Ability to effectively and pleasantly deal with people.
 Ability to file correctly
 Ability to work under pressure and main proper accuracy.
4. Educational attainment or equivalent:
 GCSE English and maths
 1-year diploma in customer essential service management
5. Past Experience:
 Working with the common public, face to face and by telephone.
 Experience of working under pressure
b) Provide a rationale for a suitable medium for placing the advertisement.
Say it with chocolate, is required to find out different kind of option for this particular
post because they cannot determine right pool of talent without using effective medium of
advertising. However, there are various sources which a company can use such as print
advertising, broadcasting, digital advertising etc. Say it with chocolate will use appropriate
digital advertising because most of the people are now spending maximum time on internet as
compared to reading newspaper or T.V. This particular company wants to recruit reliable person
for the post which are vacant and for this, HR manager of the organisation has given
advertisements on local newspapers along with social media sites. Further more they are calling
maximum people for interview.
c): Advantage and disadvantage of previous method of advertising jobs
“Say it with chocolate” is growing drastically through their effective product and services
in all over the UK. The primary issues which are faced by the owner of an organisation is
accounted with the high rate of staff turnover. The process which were used in previous time
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was circyulating job vacancies within the organisation and on the job board outside the main site.
Its advantages and disadvantages are:-
Advantage:
Job boards is more time saving method which will assist to attract local talent. This will be
more beneficial for Say it with chocolate to select easily the desired number of employees as per
the need of an organisation.
Disadvantage: The biggest demerit of using job board is that it cannot attract talented
candidates due to having limited reach.
(d): Some Interview Questions
Q1: Tell me about yourself?
Q2: What are your major strengths and weakness?
Q3: What are your future goals?
Q4: What do you know about our company?
Q5: Why should we hire you?
TASK 3
(a): Microsoft offer apprenticeship and graduate training schemes
In every organisation employee relation can be define as the company’s efforts to manage
all relationships among employers and employees. Microsoft is between one of the largest IT
company. It is considered as global dealer of computer software, hardware, mobile, gaming
system as well as cloud services. Also, it is an American multi-national company that is located
in Redmond, Washington, U.S it has their overall operations in around 60nations. It has been
found that there are various types of conflicts that are occur in an organisation premises. If
employees will not able to perform their job in right manner such kind of issues get arises. On
the other hand, some problems are happening because top management cannot be able to manage
employee grievances (Tarique and Schuler, 2011). This seems to be crucial for the employees
that they should be satisfied with each other and also have the positive outcome in near future
time. It is being determine that Microsoft leaders has given a statements for their employees
which is our leadership is focused on bringing out the best in people, supporting their gaols and
allowing them to determine deep meaning in their work”.
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Benefits of Microsoft training programs to employers and employees.
The training programme is the primary key part of organisation HRM practice and it assist
plenty of graduates to get a chance for learning new stuff which is needed for employee’s career
growth. Nationally recognised certification would ensure that high level of mobility can be found
within an organisation. It provides chance to work toward qualification.
Development of Skills: Biggest advantage of training programme is that it enhance the
skills and knowledge of an individual. With further assist a person in performing its activities in
an effective manner.
Organisational experience and understanding: With the help of proper training,
employee can develop his/her understanding of doing a task in an appropriate way. As a result, it
will improve the performance of organisation at market area.
(b) Developmental opportunities available to staff once they are in a permanent job role
There are various kind of professional opportunity that is contributing to the development
of permanent role of an individual or staff’s member. Microsoft is giving more preference to its
employees as they are the only one who works hard to achieve goals and objectives of company.
Some of the major practices which are opted by Microsoft are described as below:
Training and development: Microsoft offers various training and development programs
to its existing as well as new employees who are permanent in the company now (Empowering
our employees, 2018). These training sessions are further categorised such as training for new
employees which elaborates them about companies culture, customised training to managers
which will enhance their skills, frequent promotional opportunities etc.
Compensation and benefits: In this, company offers various benefits to the employees by
availing them incentive on the basis of their performance. These incentives contributes in
satisfying their monetary requirement of employees.
(c): Benefits of the approach Microsoft has taken in respect of flexible working practices
It has been observed that positive relationships always reliable for the company attaining
maximum profit in near future time. The healthy relationship used to maintain effective and
positive environment for the company. on the other hand, say it with chocolate company used to
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provide safe and positive working atmosphere to employees so that they can work effective in
coming period of time. The better relationship is useful in reducing the workplace disputes,
enhance attitude and behaviours of employees and growth of industry. Positive communication is
crucial to make interaction with people in an effective way. The people who are chosen by this
division of work on significant project of the company and if these employees do not have set of
skills then overall productivity of entire team goes down which would make negative implication
on the company’s profitability. There are various ways in which relations can be improve. Some
of them are discussed underneath:
Better Communication: It has been seen by the help of effective communication, it will be easy
to make positive relation among the staffs and employees. They are utmost crucial parties that
gives equal contribution in attaining the aims and objectives effective and efficient manner.
Along with that, they provide opportunity to workers to complete their work from home once in
a week.
 Flexible working practices: It used to provide employees more flexibility on overall
long work ability of employees and staffs. It can be helpful for the human resources
policies is usually need supervisory approval. Employees starts earning more incentives
which means that company is also earning more profit as incentive is only a small portion
that is given by company to its employees.
Benefits to Employers: Microsoft is a software which would provide various types of technical
products. Training of employees is more beneficial for an organisation as this will aid in
attaining proper utilisation of resources. This is basic aspects which would help to attain this
effective position within Microsoft.
Benefits to Employees:
It will increase job satisfaction and moral of employees. This will result in promotion and
appreciation of employee at work place which would create satisfaction among them towards
their proper functioning in an organisation.
Importance of flexible working practices for Microsoft: This factor is crucial and
company has to work with it, as there might be some chances where employees had to do work
in multiple projects. Thus, in relation with Microsoft, they are giving flexible working hours
which is providing the organisation with benefits and opportunities. Company is providing
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