HRM Report: Purpose, Practices, and Employee Relations at Farmfoods

This report delves into the realm of Human Resource Management (HRM) within Farmfoods Limited, a UK-based frozen food supermarket chain. It commences with an introduction to HRM, defining its core purpose of recruiting, training, and retaining employees, and then provides an overview of the company. Task 1 explores the purpose and functions of HRM, including workforce planning and resourcing, and contrasts best fit and best practice approaches. It further analyzes the strengths and weaknesses of various recruitment and selection methods, such as internal and external approaches. Task 2 focuses on the benefits of HRM practices and their effectiveness. Task 3 highlights the importance of employee relations and its impact on HRM decision-making, along with an examination of key elements of employment legislation. Finally, Task 4 applies HRM practices within the organization, providing a rationale for adopting these practices. The report concludes with a comprehensive overview of the key findings and implications for Farmfoods Limited.

Human resource management

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION ..........................................................................................................................3
TASK 1 ...........................................................................................................................................4
P1 Purpose and functions of HRM .............................................................................................4
P2 Strength and weakness of different recruitment and selection approaches ..........................4
TASK 2 ...........................................................................................................................................4
P3 Benefits of HRM practices of an organisation ......................................................................4
P4 Effectiveness of various HRM practices ...............................................................................4
TASK 3 ...........................................................................................................................................5
P5 Importance of employee relation and it's impact on HRM decision making ........................5
P6 Key elements of employment legislation and affect on HRM decision making ..................6
TASK 4 ...........................................................................................................................................7
P7 Application of HRM practise ................................................................................................7
Rationale of adopting HRM practices within the organisation...................................................9
CONCLUSION ...............................................................................................................................9

INTRODUCTION
Human resource management is the process of recruiting new employees and training
them for becoming competitive within companyy. The HR department of an organisation
develops strategies and plans for retaining employees (Naeem, and et.al, 2019). There are
several workplace policies developed within the company organisation by HR management
for engaging employees and maintaining positive workplace environment. The company
considered in this report is Farmfoods limited. This is a British frozen food supermarket
chain which has many stores across UK. This company started in the year 1955. There is
explanation of purpose and function of HRM discussed in this report. It also describes
benefits of HRM practices and importance of employee relation within a company. There is
explanation about job description of HR manager and
TASK 1
P1 Purpose and functions of HRM
Introduction of company
Farmfoods Limited is UK based retailer which was established in 1955. Its key products
includes frozen foods and groceries. It is a family business that works with mission on delivering
best values to all its customers and becoming champions in the industry (Farmfoods Limited,
2020). Moreover, purpose of the entity is to sell products to large customers size and sustaining
in industry for longer durations. The core business objective of Farmfoods Limited is to lead
retail supermarket through providing good quality of products and services at affordable costs in
market.
Definition of HRM
HRM is a philosophy to acquire, develop, use together with maintain competent and
productive human force for reaching great heights effectively and efficiently (Barrena-Martínez,
López-Fernández and Romero-Fernández, 2019). It is both science together with art which
manages group of individuals through recoursing innovative as well as creative approaches. In
Farmfoods Limited, HRM is a department that uses knowledge and inputs to encourage human
elements to give best.

According to Budhwar (2016) , following are some of nature or characteristics of human
resource management:
 HRM is ongoing activity in which managers provide training, development and
replacement of employees for coping with changes as well as increased competition.
 It is pervasive function that is not specific to particular department and functions broadly
throughout the company. In Farmfoods Limited, HRM deals with group of individuals that are different from one
another and apply diverse tactics in different situations.
Workforce planning
It is ongoing process that organisation uses for aligning priorities together with
requirement of business with workforce with the hope of ensuring to meet all objectives (Bratton
and Gold, 2017). In Farmfoods Limited, workforce planning serves purpose of ensuring that
business have adequate supply of employees with knowledge, skills and many more that are
necessary for fulfilling business objectives.
Resourcing:
Manpower resourcing is concerned with approaches that emphasis on recruiting and
deploying people in company. Good employee resourcing is key for Farmfoods Limited as it
ensure that professionals determines and retains requirements of employees to initiate potentials
for fulfilling corporate objectives.
Purpose of HRM for planing as well as resourcing people
In Farmfoods Limited, following are essential purposes of HRM:
 Maximising productivity: HRM improves organisational efficiency by providing
required equipments and tools to each department. In Farmfoods Limited, purpose of
HRM is to maximise organisational productivity through optimising effectiveness of each
and every employee that work for it.
 Recruitment and selection: HRM plays significant role in sourcing candidates and
selecting talent that have capability to take the company to another level (Crawshaw,
Budhwar and Davis, 2020). In context to Farmfoods Limited, HRM serves purpose of
recruiting, hiring and training workforce to reach desired potentials. Deployment of resources: HRM is also important in an entity as it deploys resources
with effective training sessions for improving skill sets of new and current employees to

execute operations smartly. In Farmfoods Limited, human resource managers plays
significant role in implementing development plans to deploy resources according to set
criteria.
Scope of HRM
HRM have wide scope as it brings group of individuals and corporates together for
meeting goals of each. In case with Farmfoods Limited, scope of HRM are mentioned
underneath:
 Labour Aspects: In the company, HRM is all about managing people. In this aspect,
HRM in Farmfoods Limited is concerned with planning required manpower, sourcing,
hiring, compensation, training and development, incentives, transfers and promotions.
 Welfare Aspects: In this aspect, HRM deals with working situations addition to
additional amenities. Within Farmfoods Limited, HRM looks for medical assistance,
canteen, transport, education, recreation facility and remunerations. Industrial relations Aspects: HRM also manages relations with other and same industry.
It covers joint consultation, settlement of disputes and collective bargaining (Emeagwal
and Ogbonmwan, 2018).
Main functions along with activities of HRM related to workforce planning addition to
resourcing
In corporate world, HRM is associated to hiring, motivating, supervising and maintaining
workforce. In Farmfoods Limited, following are key functions with activities of HRM:
Managerial function: The function assist human resource professionals to properly
manage and maintain human resources in company (Florén, Rundquist and Fischer, 2016). The
activities that are part of managerial function of human resource management in Farmfoods
Limited are underneath:
 Planning: In this activity, managers plan ahead for getting things completed on time by
subordinates. Managers in Farmfoods Limited establish goals, develop plans and
structure of company.
 Organising: Herein, managers arrange required resources, allot them to different groups,
identify relationships and integrate activities for reaching common objectives.
 Directing: Within the activity, managers of Farmfoods Limited encourage subordinates
and guides them to perform willingly for accomplishing personnel programs.

 Controlling: It is about regulating activities as per plans devised on the basis of business
objectives. In this, managers of company observe and compare outcomes with set
benchmarks or standards.
Operative functions: The activities of duties that organisation entrust to personnel
department are termed as operative function (Grobelna and Marciszewska, 2016). Following are
various activities of operative function in Farmfoods Limited:
 Procurement: HRM have function of procuring talents or human resources through
recruitment and selection. In this, managers bring pool of candidates to select right
person for the job.
 Performance appraisal: In Farmfoods Limited, human resource professionals have
function to ensure that each and every employee perform at acceptable level.
 Employment relations: Human resource managers have responsibility to manage
relations with employees. Within the company, HRM functions to provide fair along with
consistent treatment to all workforce. Developing manpower: In a firm, manpower are developed by managers by training and
development activities (Hoon, Hack and Kellermanns, 2019). Systematic training
programme is organised by HRM for the purpose of improving ways to perform in
different situations.
Best Fit approach vs Best practice
The concept of best fit approach is based on setting and developing policies of human
resource management as per overall business tactic or strategy. It argues that organisation, for
example, Farm foods Limited must adapt its HR strategies in accordance with overall business
strategy and wider environment. In contrary, best practice is an universal aspect that is related to
premise which selects most effectual practices or policies for managing employees as per
organisational environment. It implies close connections among performance of company and
practices of HR.
Hard and soft models of HRM
Hard model of HRM puts focus towards strategic together with quantitative aspects to
manage people as economic production factor. As per the model, employees are perceived as
resource as well as entities gains advantages by using them in proper manner. In Farmfoods
Limited, use of Hard model help line managers to deploy and develop employees effectively.

Soft model of HRM majorly emphasis towards motivation, communication along with
leadership (Kasemsap, 2016). With the help of soft model, managers of company involves
people in team to collectively decide the ways things are to be performed and inform necessary
information to each and every person at workplace.
P2 Strength and weakness of different recruitment and selection approaches
Recruitment
Recruitment of action of activity performed by human resource managers to enlist new
people. Recruitment is a five stage process that includes planning of probable job vacancies,
developing strategy, searching methods, screening materials and evaluation (Kehoe and Collins,
2017). In Farmfoods Limited, following are recruitment approaches that are preferred more:
Internal approaches: Any approach to determine and attract candidates for job within the
firm are considered as internal recruitment approaches. Some of internal recruitment approaches
that are used in Farmfoods Limited are explained below:
 Promotion: It is an approach of advancing post or position of employee in the
organisation. In Farmfoods Limited, promotion is used to promote employee to high
positions in certain time period according to their performance.
Strengths: Promotion is the recruitment approach that benefits an organisation in filling
job vacancy with known person. For example, in Farmfoods Limited, promotion impacts
positively from employee morale or satisfaction to lower training costs.
Weaknesses: Promotion creates resentment among current employees and leaves wide
gap within workforce (Moore and Jennings, 2017). For instance, in Farmfoods Limited,
promotion increases favouritism.
 Transfer: Large company has various branches in which requirement of human resource
could be filled through placing employee of other branch. In Farmfoods Limited,
managers identify need of employee in any branch or store and then transfer suitable
candidate for the same position.
Strengths: Transfer reduces monetary boredom, prepares employees for challenging
circumstances and is best approach for faulty placement decisions. For example, Transfer
approaches encourages hard work as well as develops employees of Farmfoods Limited.

Weaknesses: Discriminatory transfers affects morale of employee. For example, when
one person do not want to work at store of Farmfoods Limited in which there is huge rush and if
managers transfer that employee to such store then the employee will be demotivated.
External approaches: An approach which fills vacant post in entity by human resource
excluding current ones is said to external recruitment approach (Rodríguez-Sánchez, Mora-
Valentín and Ortiz-de-Urbina-Criado, 2019). New people with necessary and required
qualification, abilities, competence and skills are enrolled in business to initiate new ideas.
External approaches through which managers of Farmfoods Limited fills vacancies are as
follows:
 Advertisements: It is commonly utilised external recruitment method. Professionals of
Farmfoods Limited creates person specification and job description for vacant positions
and announces vacancies via print addition to electronic media including internet and
advertisement.
Strengths: Advertisement benefit the company through generating awareness among
large pool of people about available vacant position. Advertisement rejuvenates organisation, for
instance, Farmfoods Limited with new ideas and skills.
Weaknesses: Advertisements adds huge costs to company as multipole resources are
invested by business to advertise vacant position. It also creates opportunities for misleading
people.
 Campus placement: In present world, most of organisations have initiated the trend to
conduct recruitment from educational institutions (Stewart and Brown, 2019). In case
with Farmfoods Limited, recruiting team visits colleges and universities annually for
recruiting all types of students for their stores.
Strengths: Campus placement ensures that best qualified people can be selected that
provides wider selection choices. It helps in entering fresh blood in the company. For example,
campus placement aids managers of Farmfoods Limited to hire people with innovate, creative
and extraordinary skills.
Weaknesses: When candidates hired from outside the company that is from universities
or colleges then it demoralise existing staff. The recruitment approach approaches are time
consuming together with money consuming. For example, while recruiting people through
campus placement, many of additional costs are beared by Farmfoods Limited.

Selection
It is about choosing most suitable person for vacant profile in enterprise (Turulja and
Bajgoric, 2018). In Farmfoods Limited, selection procedure is designed as per urgency of hiring
along with prerequisites of vacant position. Following are some selection approaches:
Interview: Interview in one on one oral communication among interview and
interviewee. In Farmfoods Limited, recruitment panel asks questions from candidates for
collecting important information so that effective selection decision could be taken.
Strengths: Interview improves mutual understanding together with co-operation among
parties. It helps in selecting suitable candidates as managers of Farmfoods Limited generates
huge information through the approach.
Weaknesses: Interviews are oral communication that have no evidence of records. Time
constraint is major weakness of interview.
Employment tests: It is selection approach that assist in determining desirability along
with suitability of job applicant (Syed and Kramar, 2017). In context to Farmfoods Limited,
various employment tests such as intelligence test, psychological tests and aptitude tests are
conducted for checking abilities, potentials and skill sets of people.
Strengths: The approach reduces operational costs in Farmfoods Limited through finding
desired candidate for the profile. These are standardised that selects human resources in total
unbiased manner.
Weaknesses: Employment tests fails to understand total personality of candidate. Certain
tests demoralise candidates due to which they become nervous and are unable to give their best
that leads to wrong selection decision.
TASK 2
P3 Benefits of HRM practices of an organisation
HRM practices are systems or activities which are adopted by managers to influence attitudes,
performance along with behaviours of employees (Carden, Kovach and Flores, 2020). With the
help of the practices, administrators of Farmfoods Limited are able to attract, hire, train,
encourage and retain workforce for ensuring effective execution of plans and achieving
sustainability in competition. Some of HRM practices used in Farmfoods Limited are as follows:
Performance based rewards

Performance management is practice of human resource managers to ensure that
operations and results meets goals of company effectively. To monitor performance of
employees, superiors of Farmfoods Limited uses monitoring methods that includes observation,
self monitoring tools and regular reviews. Furthermore, rewards system used within the company
are bonus and incentives.
Benefits to employees: With the HRM practice, employees of Farmfoods Limited are
benefited to improve their performances and make huge revenues through rewards. When
rewards are given to employees, they are highly motivated to work.
Benefits to employers: Performance and rewards benefits employers of Farmfoods
Limited to understand career ambition and development opportunities of employees. It also help
employers to manage performances of subordinates and developing positive experience.
Job and workplace design
HRM practice of reward management is related to devising and executing strategies and
policies for reward people consistently and fairly (Klein and Potosky, 2019). In Farmfoods
Limited, both extrinsic and intrinsic rewards are given to workforce. Incentive theory of
motivation is closely linked with rewards as it states that a person is motivated through
incentives or rewards.
Benefits to employees: The HRM practice helps employees of Farmfoods Limited to
meet their critical internal needs as well as enhance connections with peers. It also encourages
creativity and efficiency within employees.
Benefit to employers: The HRM practice of job and workplace design assist employers to
promote motivation or collaboration at Farmfoods Limited.
P4 Effectiveness of various HRM practices
HRM practices consists of different activities within business used for handling and
controlling business operations. There are different HRM practices followed within Farmfoods
limited such as training and development, reward system, compensation, etc. These are explained
below -
1. Performance and reward
Performance management - Farmfoods is an organisation that won On boarding programme
of the year at the prestigious awards scheme. This company provides an effective induction

programme which gives employees an engaging introduction. This helps new employees to set a
pathway which they can use while working towards success in FoodfarmsFarmfoods . This is a
program that includes high quality modules that incorporates guidelines and working scenarios
(Manzoor, and et.al, 2019). Elearning was developed by using the Adapt multi device
responsive framework through which training can be accessed on smartphone.
2. Job and workplace design
Reward system -
The reward system of FoodfarmsFarmfoods provides various benefits to employees and staff.
Every employee is provided reward program that includes 15% off on all purchases. When this
company provides such rewards then employee engagement is increased.
In relevance with Farmfoods company, there are several HRM practices like reward
management and performance management that helps in attaining organisational goals.
Performance management Reward system
Performance management is helpful for the
Farmfoods limited to manage the effectiveness
of business activities. The organisational goals
and values are aligned with HR strategies for
enhancing employee performance.
Reward system is used within Farmfood
Limited in order to motivate and encourage
employees and staff members. There is need
for providing attractive rewards to employees
for managing employee engagement.
Therefore, it is essential for an entity to adopt these HRM practices so that employees
and other activities are well organised & managed. As, it assist in development and higher
growth.
Training and development
Benefits of HRM practices for employer
HRM practices like training and development provides help to employers in managing
company's performance.
Benefits of HRM practices for employees
Employee performance is increased by adopting effective HRM practices. This leads to maintain
business sustainability.
Reward management
Benefits of HRM practices for employer

Reward management is helpful for the employer as when management knows the right
way for rewarding employees, it is easy to increase employee satisfaction. This is helpful in
enhancing overall business performance.
Benefits of HRM practices for employees
When employees get attractive incentives and rewards then they are benefited as their
satisfaction level increases. This is very important for employees to be happy so that they can
work properly.
TASK 3
P5 Importance of employee relation and it's impact on HRM decision making
The concept of employee relation is known as efforts of an organisation for managing
relationship between employers and employees. It is very essential for Farmfoods limited to
manage employee relation effectively. When a company is having good employee relation then it
provides fair and consistent treatment to all staff members. Employee relation is part of HR
strategy designed for ensuring that employees are helping in meeting the mission of company.
Decision making of HR management is related to the employee relation within Farmfoods
Limited. Some of the employee relation practices affecting the HRM decision making are
mentioned below -
Collective agreement: There is presence of collective agreements which helps in
managing trade union and staff working in the company. There are several norms and legal
regulations that are adopted by Farmfoods for managing the employee engagement and relation
activities (Murugan, and Francifca, 2019). The collective agreements provide help in handling
different conflicts and fights. When there is positive workplace environment then employees will
share more strong relation among themselves. It will help to manage collaboration and
coordination among individuals working in the company.
Grievance: The grievance handling strategy is helpful for employees because it provides
management to resolve different conflicts and fights among employees. When HR management
adopts strong and effective grievance management then several policies and strategies of
company will reduce the solving time of fights and problems. Employees are allowed to discuss
their problems and issues with HR management and it helps to remove barrier between
employees and management.