Strategic Human Resource Management at Harrods: Benefits and Roles

This essay explores the critical role of Human Resource Management (HRM) in Harrods' organizational success. It delves into various HRM strategies, including talent recruitment, employee training, performance evaluation, and rewards systems, highlighting how these practices contribute to a motivated and committed workforce. The report assesses how HRM aligns with Harrods' overall business strategy, focusing on enhancing employee satisfaction, promoting a positive work environment, and resolving workplace conflicts. It further examines the stages adopted by Harrods' HR department for optimum workforce utilization, emphasizing the importance of aligning internal practices with external environmental factors. The essay also covers the benefits of effective HRM, such as building team spirit, securing top talent, and improving overall productivity, underlining the significance of continuous learning, development, and employee well-being in achieving a competitive advantage and sustained growth for Harrods. Desklib offers this essay and a wealth of other resources for students.

Essay

Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................1
CONCLUSION ...............................................................................................................................4
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................4

INTRODUCTION
Harrods is an international name dealing in more than 5000 brands, including fashion and
accessories, jewellery, food, furniture etc. It has over 4000 employees working on stores and
online. Harrods understands that motivated and focused employees are an important part in the
smooth working and success of an organisation.
Human resource management is the function of organization that is related with the
people of organization. It is an activity of developing, respecting and solving issues of people at
work. It covers areas like recruitment of right people according to the job profile, assessing their
performance, providing them necessary training and develops them to achieve company as well
as their own goals(Armstrong, 2020). It is known as the transparent workforce management that
utilises human resource at precise place as it make the efficient use of people in skilled and
required workforce. Human resource management is known as the department in organisation
which handles all the employees and different specific functions which includes planning of
human resource, recruitment, selecting, orienting, training, providing benefits like appraisals and
incentives.
MAIN BODY
Human resource management is a strategy to connect employees to workplace
environment and culture. The managers plays a vital role in Human resource department of
Harrods. It encourage people of Harrods to work efficiently and contribute to the overall
productivity and success of company. It is also responsible to build relationships between
employees and their employers. There are several role and responsibilities of human resource
department in Harrods (Benevene and Buonomo, 2020). One of the role is recruitment of people
on basis of their talent and expertise and put them to the duties they can perform the best.
Providing necessary training to enhance employees skills is also a responsibility of human
resource department. Another role of Human resource managers is to evaluate the performance
of employees and further boost them to work with their full capabilities and providing them
necessary training in case of underperformance. Human resource management is responsible for
managing flow of people in Harrods and acknowledging their efforts with appropriate rewards.
Human resource management converted the inputs of company to outputs and further
links them to policies and strategy of Harrods. The managers make sure that the employees are
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committed to the organisation to stay longer and are satisfied to perform better. The more
satisfied the employees, the better they will deliver quality outcomes. The human resource
managers are responsible to set targets and create goals for the employees. They are also
responsible to make appropriate action plans or projects and assign well suited personnels to
them (Garcia-Arroyo and Osca, 2021). It is job of Human resource management to convert the
resources of the Harrods to achieve better financial results, to evaluate sales growth and return on
investment. The managers responsibility is to remove any issues or problems face by employees
through effective strategies or planning that is becoming an obstacle in the growth of Harrods.
Stages adopted by Human Resource Department of Harrods for optimum utilisation of
the workforce for the company involves notifying the top level managers about requirement of
human resource process in the organisation. Then the needs of Harrods are assessed carefully to
identify the changes needed by the execution of human resource process. The outside
environment affects the quality of human resource of Harrods. So the human resource managers
need to correlate the internal situations of Harrods with the external situations to manage the
flow of human resources. The alternative strategies are assessed and the best one is chosen in
order form a valued team of employees for driving the growth of Harrods.
There are number of benefits of Human Resource Management in Harrods such as it
helps in building team spirit and values among employees. Individual performance is based on
the work environment of firm so creating a good favourable work atmosphere is one of the
benefits Harrods enjoys through human resource management. A safe and secure environment
helps in maximising job satisfaction. There can be instances of disputes among employees or
managers of Harrods, in this situation Human Resource Management acts as a mediator to solve
the issues and conflicts. Human Resource department helps in securing top talent for Harrods by
conducting thorough interviews and asking right questions (Jiang and Messersmith, 2018). It
benefits the firm by explaining the reasons for growth with a detailed information of all
resources. Human Resource Department saves the time and energy of Harrods by handling
human resource that allows the company to focus on major areas like company's sales and
growth.
Human Resource Management points all the factors that motivate and inspire employees
to meet their personal needs. These needs are generally fulfilled by financial and non-financial
rewards such as giving opportunities for promotion, for leading a team, to do different tasks etc.
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Harrods acknowledge these natural needs and apply various actions like job rotation, job
expansion, and job improvement to give career growth opportunities. Job rotation means
changing of jobs and department of employees in order to develop skills of each area of company
(Laužikas and Miliūtė, 2020). Harrods management is completely devoted to its employees and
business so that they are satisfied fully. The company follows democratic leadership formula to
manage its employees development because employees form an organisation and the brand
values of same are reflected through employees attitude and behaviour.
Human Resource department is important in an organisation as without human mind and
effort no goods and services can be developed. Now a days each organisation is desired to have
competent and skilled employees in the organisation. In Harrords human resource management
is considered as an important department as this company has all the strength of skilled workers.
An organisational strategy can be developed and enhanced by the proper utilization of human
resource management. There are many functions of human resource management which supports
the organisation to fulfil its current business needs in order to increase growth rate of company.
Human resource planning helps the organisation to develop and manage employees on the basis
of contemporary business environment as Human resource team already know about the future
needs in different ways (Meijerink and Keegan, 2019). The main function of human resource
management is recruitment as they put right people at right place as per the requirement of an
organisation and as when right and potential people are selected in the organisation it enhances
the profitability level of the organisation as employees are the sword of the organisation they can
build or destroy the organisation. Harrords always choose their employees skilled and wisely.
Human resource management also looks after the performance of the employees if they are
working hard and accurately it will affect the overall profit level in an organisation. This always
fills the gap between workforce and performance of employees before and after. Learning and
development is also plays a important role as a strategic management. As it is important for each
employee to have a acquired skills for the future requirements and this can be done by the human
resource team by developing and make the employees learn new things and due to which
Harrords develops frequent training programs for developing employees for the best which not
only helps an employee to achieve its personal aim in an organisation but it also make an
organisation achieve their aims and objectives (Opatha, 2020).
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Human resource management also involves rewards and recognition process in an
organisation which involves appreciating of employees and rewarding them with some gift to
motivate them, by this other employees also get motivated and desired to work hard which
improves the overall productivity level of an organisation. Harrords employees are always
motivated and have the desire to work hard in order to receive appreciation which is considered
as a proud moment for them. This department also involves the compliance of employees which
involves leaves of the employees, tax reporting and payroll. It is important to be considered in an
organisation for maintaining the decorum of the organisation. It also involves administrative
responsibility which involves relocations, illness, upskilling and promotions. Harrords takes this
into consideration as employee safety is must for this company as it leads to employee job
satisfaction which motivates them and it improves the productivity as well as profitability level
of an organisation (Turulja and Bajgoric, 2018). Harrords also pays special attention towards
employees health and safety and it is also considered as one of the important function of human
resource management. These functions and responsibilities are important to be considered by
each organisation to gain a competitive advantage and profit in the industry.
CONCLUSION
As per the above report it is concluded that humans need motivation, apprehension and positive
reviews to work in any organisation thus human resource management plays an essential and
vital part. It helps in planning and building competitive strategies for the smooth working of an
organisation. It creates a platform where the employees feel they are heard as well as their
opinions are valued. A satisfied employee is more likely to function efficiently and retain in
company where they are considered an important part of the organisation.
REFERENCES
Armstrong, M., 2020. Human resource management practice. Kogan page limited.
Benevene, P. and Buonomo, I., 2020. Green human resource management: An evidence-based
systematic literature review. Sustainability. 12(15). p.5974.
Garcia-Arroyo, J. and Osca, A., 2021. Big data contributions to human resource management: a
systematic review. The International Journal of Human Resource Management. 32(20).
pp.4337-4362.
Jiang, K. and Messersmith, J., 2018. On the shoulders of giants: A meta-review of strategic
human resource management. The International Journal of Human Resource
Management. 29(1). pp.6-33.
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Laužikas, M. and Miliūtė, A., 2020. Human resource management effects on sustainability of
high-tech companies: what Lithuania and South Korea can learn from each
other. Insights into Regional Development. 2(2). pp.562-579.
Meijerink, J. and Keegan, A., 2019. Conceptualizing human resource management in the gig
economy: Toward a platform ecosystem perspective. Journal of managerial psychology.
Opatha, H. H. D. N. P., 2020. The coronavirus and the employees: A Study from the point of
human resource management. Sri Lankan Journal of Human Resource
Management. 10(1).
Turulja, L. and Bajgoric, N., 2018. Information technology, knowledge management and human
resource management: Investigating mutual interactions towards better organizational
performance. VINE Journal of Information and Knowledge Management Systems.
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