HRM Practices in ASDA: Strengths, Weaknesses, and Analysis

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of Human Resource Management (HRM) practices within ASDA, a major UK supermarket chain. The report begins with an overview of ASDA, its organizational structure, and its competitive strategy. It then delves into the core functions of HRM, including job analysis and design, training and development, recruitment and selection, performance management, and compensation and benefits, particularly in the context of ASDA's integration of online sales channels. The report critically evaluates the strengths and weaknesses of various HRM practices, such as internal and external recruitment, and assesses ASDA's approach to workforce planning, resourcing, and employee relations. It also explores the benefits of effective HRM in raising organizational profit and productivity, including the use of performance management strategies like the 360-degree feedback approach. Furthermore, the report examines key areas of employment legislation and their impact on decision-making within ASDA. The second section of the report focuses on the practical application of HRM principles, including the design of a job specification, a sample CV, a person specification, and a job offer for a selected position within ASDA. The report concludes with an evaluation of the overall HRM process and the rationale for conducting appropriate HR practices, offering valuable insights into how ASDA manages its workforce to achieve its business objectives.

Human Resource
Management

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
SECTION 1......................................................................................................................................3
An overview of the organisation...........................................................................................3
An explanation of the purpose of the HR functions and the key roles and responsibilities of
the HR functions to your chosen organisation.......................................................................3
Critically evaluate the strengths and weakness of different HRM practices within your chosen
organisation for both the employer and employee.................................................................5
An assessment of the approach to workforce planning and resourcing, recruitment and
selection, development and training, performance management...........................................6
Explain the benefits of different HRM practices with reference to raising organisational profit
and productivity......................................................................................................................8
Analyse and evaluate the effectiveness of employee relations and employee engagement..9
“Employer of choice’............................................................................................................9
Identify the key areas of employment legislation ...............................................................10
Critical evaluation of HRM practices that have influenced the decision making with concert
examples for the chosen organisation...................................................................................11
SECTION 2....................................................................................................................................12
The design of a job specification for one of a number of given positions in the organisation.
..............................................................................................................................................12
CV:......................................................................................................................................12
PERSON Specification: ......................................................................................................13
A job offer to the selected candidate...................................................................................14
An evaluation of the process and the rationale for conducting appropriate HR practices. 15
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................17
REFERENCE.................................................................................................................................18

INTRODUCTION
Human resource management is regraded as organisation function that is aimed at
maximisation of employee performance in order to achieve laid mission and vision of
organisation. HR department in a organisation is responsible for recruitment of new employees
and then retaining them for long term in the organisation. HR managers are performing the
function of identification of employee capability and then application of models such as 360
degree feedback to further plan the training programs for employees. Present report is based on
ASDA and the organisation change that is bout to improve their store layouts and online channel
of sales to evolve with the shopping habits of their target market. For this there is assessment of
the main HR functions of a organisation (Armstrong, and Taylor, 2020). There is evaluation of
the main purpose of Human resource. There is assessment of approaches of workforce planning,
resourcing. There is discussion of benefits of HRM & effectiveness of employer relations,
employee engagement. There are areas of employee legislation that have to be analysed & its
impact has to be evaluated.
SECTION 1
An overview of the organisation
ASDA is a subsidiary of Walmart since 1999. the organisation has 604 retail outlets out
of which 196 are supermarkets. ASDA is having a large format of superstores that is dealing in
large variety of products ranging from clothes to furniture, groceries. The competitive strategy
of ASDA is prioritizing on maintaining the price leadership position as part of Big Four U.K
grocery brands (Collings, Wood and Szamosi, 2018). They are also working towards increasing
the nutritional value of private labelled products.
An explanation of the purpose of the HR functions and the key roles and responsibilities of the
HR functions to your chosen organisation
Human resource management is concern with utilisation of available human resource
by performing functions such as planning, organisation and directing employees along with
monitoring their performance. There is also focus on following of functions such as
compensation, development in order to accomplish laid objectives.

Nature of HRM:
 HRM functions are followed in all organisations.
 Main focus is on utilising the existing potential of employees and enhance their personal
development. The objective is to work towards motivating the workforce so that they are able to
perform, their job responsibilities according to their competence level.
Scope of strategic HRM :
 HRM deals with manpower planning, procurement process, compensation policies etc.
 The objective is to maintain industrial relations with all consultancies and labour union
relations
Purpose HRM functions: The main objective of HR management is manage workforce
requirements and enhance employee efficiency to work towards achievement of organisations
goals (Haddock-Millar, Sanyal, and Müller-Camen, 2016). There are some specific functions
that have to be performed in ASDA in order to implement their new change of integration of
online sales channel as mentioned below:
 Job analysis & Design: For describing the job details that is experience, qualification,
knowledge, skill set, ability there is need to define details of each task that will be
changed or newly implemented. Such as there will be a separate department to handle t
eh social media functions for online marketing in ASDA. According to that job
description has to be prepared in order to hire employees.
 Training & development: In this function of HRM there is focus in providing the right
training to existing or newly hired employees if they are lacking the specific skills to
perform their job responsibilities. In ASDA if there will be involvement of existing
employees in new job roles of online sales channel then there has to be specific training
programs that have to be prepared to train them according to required skill set.
 Recruitment & selection: For achievement of specific organizations goals there is need
to create pool of resources that can help in hiring of employees according to requirement.
This function helps in selection of employee according to specific job requirements.
 Performance management: This function helps in managing employee performance
according to pre decided standards. It helps in facilitating HR managers of ASDA to

further decide incentives and plan according to requirement of various training programs
and monitor the performance of new hirings.
 Compensation & benefits: According to this function there is focus on cost control and
according to that form policies related to compensation of employees. There has to be
offering of fair remuneration (Banfield, Kay and Royles, 2018). In ASDA this function
will help in further planning workforce compensation and employee benefit programs so
that there can be achievement of required satisfaction level of workforce.
Hard & soft approach of HRM us based on managing of workforce. These approaches
can be very helpful in enhancing planning of workforce and resourcing in manner as mentioned
below:
 Hard approach: In this approach employees are the source for achievement of
organisations objectives. Focus of HRM is to identify workforce needs with top down
communication. The approach is used in ASDA if there will be focus on just the task that
have to be done, cost controlling and achievement of laid objectives.
 Soft approach: In soft approach of HRM the focus of HR managers in ASDA is to
emphasise in self development, placing more commitment, self regulated behaviour and
centre of strategic approaches (Obedgiu, 2017).
Critically evaluate the strengths and weakness of different HRM practices within your chosen
organisation for both the employer and employee
Recruitment is a process in which a resource pool is created by attracting talent and inviting
applications. There are two sources of recruitment that is internal recruitment and external
recruitment sources.
Internal recruitment is a process where a organisation is willing to fill their vacancies by using
ways such as employee referrals, transfer or promotions. Vacancies can be filled by internal
recruitment fast and economical, it helps in saving of efforts and time of employer.
Employer Employee
Strength There is accurate selection
according to capabilities and
qualities of existing
Internal recruitment helps in
providing growth &
development opportunities to

employees. employers that can help in
enhancing their level of
satisfaction.
Weakness There are limited choices that
are available with the recruiter
(Bratton, and Gold, 2017).
There can be favouritism that
might lead to rise of internal
conflict among employees.
External recruitment sources: It is a process in which vacancies of a organisation are followed
by identification of external sources. There are various available sources such as employment
agencies, walk ins or campus recruitments. This source is very helpful in enhancing of new
enthusiasm and ideas by saving of time and process.
Employer Employee
Strength It helps in hiring from wide
availability of choices of
qualified candidates that can
contribute towards generation
of new ideas (Chelladurai,
Pand Kerwin, 2018).
There is fostering of more
creativity and skilled
candidates can help existing
employees in learning
something different.
Weakness Employees face high
adaptability issues and there is
involvement of high cost when
external recruitment sources
are used.
Existing employees may be
dissatisfied as they are not
provided with the
opportunities of growth and
development in form
promotions.
An assessment of the approach to workforce planning and resourcing, recruitment and selection,
development and training, performance management
Planning and resourcing: Planning recognize the numbers of staff and types of staff needed for
a particular place to meet objective of organisation. It identifies weather the right persons is at
right job or not and allocating the right person at right place to maximize efficiency is termed as

resourcing. Workforce planning identifies the gap in workforce of organisation needs in
upcoming time based on planning and its current workforce. After finding gap actions are taken
to overcome this gap.
Recruitment and selection: Process of probing appropriate candidates and attracting
them to go for the vacancies in company is termed as recruitment. Whereas selection refer to
screening and testing of applicants (Delery and Roumpi, 2017). In this hiring of people is
carried out among shortlisted candidates and giving them a job in their company. For any
organisation recruitment is the base step of choosing right candidate. In context to ASDA
company they publishes their vacancies through advertisement, online job portals, newspaper,
consultancy services and then they do recruitment and selection process.
Development and training: In human resource department training and developing of an
employee is the main function. Training is a systematic method of providing technical
knowledge related to their jobs. It is a short term reactive process meant for new joiners and
operative employees. In this function they teach their employees that how to perform a particular
task and how to use a specific machine to enhance efficiency. On the other hand development is
a process of developing employee for current as well as future job by giving them new learning
opportunists to enhance their capability to endeavour more complex and difficult task. This is
continuous pro active process meant for executives .In context of ASDA they provides training
and development to employees and executives for enhancing their skills so that they will helps
the organisation to enhance productivity and profitability.
Performance management and reward systems: Performance management is a
continuous process of planning, analysing, identifying, coaching and reviewing the performance
of employees to ensures that employee are meeting their objective and career goal. Whereas
reward system refers to motivating staff members to work effectively in order to achieve
strategic goal which are sent by entities. The main purpose of rewarding with performance
management is retaining and reducing turnover of employees. With reference to ASDA
organization they provides monetary and non-monetary motivation, do performance appraisal,in
order to reduce turnover of employee.

Explain the benefits of different HRM practices with reference to raising organisational profit
and productivity
In every organisation human resource department plays a very crucial in raising the profitability
and productivity. It helps in enhancing the level of HR practices and ensure high growth of
different functional departments of organisations.
In case of ASDA there is use of performance management strategy for the purpose of evaluating
and continuously monitoring performance level of their staff (Akinnusi, Sonubi and Oyewunmi,
2017). HR department is responsible for measurement of efficiency of work and then according
to that further improvement strategies are formed to ensure maximization of contribution towards
their job roles.
Performance management strategy:
HR department of ASDA is following a 360 degree feedback approach in which manager and
employees are setting objectives initially and after a specific period of time there is measurement
of performance of employees based on this approach (Poisat, and Mey, 2017). In ASDA these
practices help in making a all round evaluation of employees performance level according to
some specified performance standards.
360 degree feedback is also defined as a multi rate feedback system in this there is anonymous
feedback that is collected by different employees who are related to a employee. There is
collection of view points of peers, managers, subordinates to understand the opinion of each such
individual who is related to the employees whose performance is being assessed.
Impact on organisational productivity and performance:
360 degree is a feedback and a performance management approach that is used by HR
managers in ASDA. It helps in evaluating the existing performance level of employee based on
that there is a decision related to the level of performance that has been achieved by a employee.
It leads to setting of preference improvement measures in case if there is requirement.
It is used as a development tool to provide detailed information related to present
competency level and working relationships that has been established by management in ASDA.
It is a development tool that can help in increasing the self awareness process of employees and
making them understand about strength, belief or motivation level. This can help in adjustment
of behaviour. Consequently this process leads to higher effectiveness of employees in
performing their job roles and overall responsibilities. All this has a direct positive impact on

increasing productivity of employee as individual and this leads to increase in organisational
productivity.
Analyse and evaluate the effectiveness of employee relations and employee engagement
Employee relations:
Employee relations are the organisation efforts to maintain positive relationship with
employees (Kolar, Skilton and Judge, 2016). By this organisations are able to create a loyal
and engaged workforce. In ASDA this function is performed by human resource department to
manage employee relations in case of new structural change that is adopted in the organisations
related to their existing sales channel.
Employee engagement:
Employee engagement is regarded as the extent to which employees feel passionate
about the jobs, level of commitment. It is a tool that can help in ASDA in driving performance of
particular employee, engagement is a differentiate according to innovation and growth. It helps
in better understanding of organisation needs for employees while there is implementation of
new change.
Flexible working practices:
There can be positive employee relations that can be maintained in a ASDA by focussing
of flexible working arrangement. It includes making Changes in existing practices such as
providing part time working options, flexitime (Amarakoon, Weerawardena and Verreynne,
201). Annualised hours policies, job sharing and remote working that is facility of working from
home in required situations. All these aspects help in enhancing overall flexibility at workplace.
Flexible working practices can help ion increasing both the level of positive employee relations
and employee engagement in organisation like ASDA.
“Employer of choice’
Employer of choices is a criteria that offer employees a suitable working culture in the
organisation. There are certain features of a employer of choice it is a criteria that can help in
maintaining positive employee relations and enhancing employee engagement at ASDA. For this
there is need to enhance the safety, well being and satisfaction of employees. For this flexible

working practices and flexible organisation are the two major tools that can be adopted by
Management.
Identify the key areas of employment legislation
Employment legislation means every relevant laws related to employment including
employment standards, labour relation, workers compensation, pay equity, wages, working hours
etc. Employee legislation is related to forming a bond in between employer and employee it
holds the employee rights. Main aim of subordinates legislation is to provide protection to their
employee and there are several elements of employee legislation which includes employee
relationship, working hour, working environment, working condition, remuneration,
benefits ,industrial relation. Some effects of employee legislation in Human resource
management decision making is discussed below:
Equality act 2010: This act focused on protection of staff members or users of public or
private services from any kind of discrimination or harassment at workplace. There are some
laws like the Equal Pay act 1970, the Race Relation act 1976, Disability Discrimination act1995,
the Sex Discrimination act 1975 all condition of these laws are considerer as to protect employee
from any type of harassment (Buzkan, 2016). This law removes inconsistency & ban unfair
treatment of employee and make easy for people to understand company. In context of ASDA
they adopt this law for giving equal opportunists to their employees and by adopting this workers
will not be able to feel any discrimination at workplace in order to achieve organisational goal.
The sex discrimination act 1975: This acts protects employees against discrimination on
the basis of gender like in job advertisement, in selection of employees for job, in promoting
employees, in providing training and career development opportunities (Collings, Wood and
Szamosi, 2018). In references to ASDA organisation they hires suitable and appropriate
candidates for any position on the basis of their skills not on discrimination basis.
Minimum wages act 1998: This act is proposed to ensures that the workers to be paid at
least minimum wage. It determines hourly rate of remuneration and discussed the amount of
wages that are offers to employees. State and central government have power to decide wages
according to kind of work and location. In ASDA they focus on wage criteria that a specific
amount has to be paid to their employees.

Health & safety act 1974: According to this act the duty of an employer of the
organisation have to protect health, safety and welfare of employees at workplace. ASDA
maintains proper security for their employees and provides good working environment so that
they feel secure and positive.
Child labour act 1986 : This acts prohibits the employment of child less than 14 years
old in any organisation and in ASDA organisation they only hires only those who are above 20
years old (Chowhan, Pries and Mann, 2017).
Equal pay act 1963: This prohibits the discrimination based on gender who are working
in same organisation at same position mean and women doing job at same position must received
same pay. In context of ASDA they adopts this law to give equal rights who are working at same
position.
Data protection act 1998: This act is designed to protect personal data of any employers
working in an organisation. There should not be loss of any information or leaking of data
related with any employee (Matsumoto, 2019). In ASDA organisation it is the responsibility of
human resource department that they should secure the data by assuring them that they will not
leak their information.
Critical evaluation of HRM practices that have influenced the decision making with concert
examples for the chosen organisation
There are many HR practices that can help a organisation in development of a
Competitive advantage. There are different training & wage management strategies that are
contributing towards strategic plans in a organisation. HR planners are willing to learn
techniques of strategic planning (Huemann, 2016). So, that they are able to play a better
proactive role in promotion of effective functioning in ASDA. Functions of human resource such
as recruitment and selection, performance management techniques can help in hiring employees
according to skill requirement that can lead to implementation of strategic Changes that has to be
done in the present sales channel. Human performance is highly variable because of high
complexity of jobs so there is need to improve overall quality of strategic management process
that is performed by Human resource department in ASDA.

SECTION 2
The design of a job specification for one of a number of given positions in the organisation.
HR practices are applied for different activities in a organization. Person specification is a
basic document that consist knowledge, skills, experience, abilities that are necessary for
performing particular job (Brunstein, 2016). It is prepared for any particular job position in a
organisation. In ASDA this document will help in analysing from the available pool of
candidates the most suitable job profile for the present vacant post of a marketing manager that is
required to perform the functions of new added online sales channel.
CV:
CV helps in analysing a individual skills, capability and competence according to a particular job
criteria. It is used for establishment of initial communication with a prospective employer by a
candidate who is applying for a particular job vacancy. In present scenario there is CV prepared
for the post of a Marketing manager as mentioned below:
Curriculum Vitae
Address : 285, Grover street, London
Phone no: 5485415646
Email id: [e-mail]
Objectives: Looking for a opportunity in Marketing department to enhance my present skills
and enhance my knowledge level.
Work Experience:
 Experience of six months in Marketing department of Atlantic, London
 1 year experience as Marketing assistant in Crown centre, London
Qualifications:
 Graduated from Rowley university, 2011
 Masters with Specialisation in Marketing from XYZ universalist 2013
 High school completed in 2008
Certificates -
 Certification in Digital marketing
 Certification in MS office
Operational information

Date of birth: 30 march 1993
Hobbies: calligraphy, painting'
Key skills:
 Leading a team & handling different marketing department
 Effective communication skills
PERSON Specification:
Person Specification
 Post: Marketing manager
 Department: Marketing
 Key: This depicts what is basically require as evidence for post in recruitment process :
(A) : Application form, (I) : Interview, (R) : Role
Attributes Essential Desirable
Qualification &
Experience
 Graduation
 Post graduation with
specialisation in marketing
 Knowledge of digital media
communication
Skills or
Abilities
 Interpersonal skills
 communication skills
 Knowledge & proficiency of
IT skills such as excel,
outlook etc.
 Experience team leading
 Analysis & Assessment of
risk
 Ability to train others
A CV for each student, tailored to apply for one of the positions advertised by the other team
member.

Interview
In this step there is preparation of interview notes for the purpose of conducting actual interview
of the candidate (Belizon, Morley and Gunnigle, 2016). For this there are certain specific
interview questions that are prepared for the purpose of assessment of candidate in detail. This
tool is very helpful in everlasting a candidate. In ASDA there are certain questions that will be
asked to candidate as mentioned below:
Interview questions
Q1) What do you understand by role of Marketing department in a organisation?
Q2) Tell some of your strength and weakness?
Q3) Which is the best approach of leading to a team in case of implementation of change?
Q4) In situation of employee conflict which is the best approach that a leader can use?
Q5) What will be best digital marketing strategy that can help ASDA in enhancing their present
level of sales?
A job offer to the selected candidate
After there has been interview there is offer letter that is sent to selected candidate
according to their interview. For this the candidates are sent final selection offer through this
offer letter. In case of ASDA for post of marketing manager after conducting all the steps there is
offer letter sent to selected candidate:
Offer letter
Mr. XYZ
144 Main street
Town, CA12355
October 1, 2020
66-69 Crown square
St jame's London
WC269 JKI
UK

XYZ@gmial .com
XYZ,
We are please to inform you that you have been selected for the post of marketing manager in
ASDA. We believe that you will be contribution up to requirement of assigned job roles and
responsibilities of the organisation.
Find attached details of pay, incentives, leaves and other benefits.
Joining date: 5th October, 2020
Working hours: 9:30 am to 6:00 pm
Salary:
Compensation benefits: accommodation, conveyance facility, food facility.
If you are accepting this offer kindly revert on this mail as soon as possible.
HR department
ASDA
Signature _____________________________
Date ----------------------------
An evaluation of the process and the rationale for conducting appropriate HR practices
All the different activities tarting from the job advertisement to final offer letter to a
candidate play a very effective role in helping that a suitable Candidate is select in a
organisation. There are different aspects of a particular job vacancy and it is very difficult for
organisations in case they get a wide range of applications for a particular profile. In ASDA, for
the new structural change of shift taking place in the present operations of organisation to online
marketing channels.
There was a need of competent marketing manager who is able to perform all such
functions. For this job specification helped in actually describing the key skill requirement of
Candidate according to compulsory skills and desirable skills. After this CV of employees can
help in short-listing incompetent candidate at initial stage only. Shortlisted candidates go through

actual interview round that help in selecting the candidate who successfully goes through all such
stages and according to final interview rounds is selected and is communicated about the
selection decision via offer letter that can help Candidate in reverting about the acceptance or
rejection of final job offer.

CONCLUSION
It can be concluded from the above mentioned points that human resource management is
a very crucial concept that can help in achievements of certain specified goals. It helps in
analysing the overall requirements of workforce according to which further hiring and selection
is done. There are different HR practices that can be beneficial both for employee and employer
along with its specific strength and weakness. Healthy employee relations are very crucial in
developing a detail understanding and enhancing the cultural deliverables for employees. There
are certain tools such as job offer, person specification, CV, Interview questions and job offer
letter that can lead to proper selection of candidate accordance to vacancy.

REFERENCE
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