Analysis of HRM Practices at National Westminster Bank Report

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of Human Resource Management (HRM) practices, specifically focusing on National Westminster Bank (Natwest Bank). It begins by defining the purpose and functions of HRM, emphasizing its role in planning, organizing, and directing human resources to achieve organizational objectives. The report then delves into the strengths and weaknesses of different HRM approaches, such as soft and hard approaches, in relation to functions like recruitment, selection, training, and development. It explores the importance of employee relations and key elements of employee legislation, illustrating how HRM practices are applied within an organizational context. The report also covers the purpose of HRM, its scope, and various aspects like personal, welfare, and industrial relations, and the report also examines the recruitment and selection process and the different methods used in the process. Furthermore, the report highlights the significance of employee orientation, managing employee relations, and how HRM functions contribute to talent and skill development to achieve business objectives.

Human Resource
Management

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
ACTIVITY 1....................................................................................................................................1
Define the purpose and functions of Human resource management......................................1
Explain the strength and weaknesses of HRM approaches to its functions...........................4
ACTIVITY 2....................................................................................................................................7
Covered in Booklet.................................................................................................................7
ACTIVITY 3....................................................................................................................................7
Identifying the importance of employee relations..................................................................7
Identify the key elements of employee legislation.................................................................8
Application of HRM practices in organizational context.....................................................10
CONCLUSION ............................................................................................................................12
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................13

INTRODUCTION
Human resource management is a process of planning, organising, controlling and
directing of the procurement, development, compensation, maintenance and separation of human
resources to achieve the objectives of individual, social as well as organization. It is classified
into mainly three terms like human, resource and management which means as follows: Human
means the skilled and knowledgeable workforce. Resource means the limited availability of
things, and management means fully utilization of limited resources and humans to meet the
objectives of an organization. In this report, National Westminster Bank commonly known as
Natwest bank is chosen for examining the HR practices. It is a major retail and commercial bank
in the United Kingdom and it was founded in 1968 by the merger of National Provincial and
Westminster bank. This deals in the financial services industry and it's headquarter is located in
250 Bishopsgate, London. The company deals in the banking and insurance products and it is
considered as one of the big four clearing banks in the United Kingdom. Under this report
discussed about the purpose and functions of HRM along with the human resource practices.
Also, the report analyse the strength and weaknesses of HRM approaches, its functions as well as
benefits and its effectiveness with the context of company and employees. In addition, it examine
the importance of employee relations and elements of employee legislations as well as
application of HR practices with the context of an organization.
ACTIVITY 1
Define the purpose and functions of Human resource management
HRM is a strategic tool that are used for the management of people within a company as
well as maintaining the employee-employer relationship. It involves the acquiring and managing
plans that are used to ascertain the employees, businesses and management effectiveness. HRM
totally consists of human resources which defines as skills, knowledge, talent, abilities of an
organization workforce as well as approaches, values, beliefs and attitudes of an individuals
involved in the organization's affairs (Human Resource Management – Nature, Scope,
Objectives and Function, 2019).
According to the Mathis and Jackson, “HRM is related to the effective utilization of
people and organization through managing the activities related to the human resource.”
Characteristics of HRM:
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Art & science: Human resource management is a combination of both art and science.
Managing the people by using creative approaches is an art, whereas applying the theories and
methods is related to the science.
Continuous process: HRM is never ending in nature, it is beginning with the planning
and continue till the performance appraisals and employees maintenance as well as separation.
Persuasive: This kind of activities are presented at every stage, levels and departments of
an organization so, it is persuasive in nature. Although, all types of firms have to follow HRM.
People oriented: This is concerned with employees either individual's or in groups in the
better attainment of goals and objectives. It involves personnel behaviour, emotions which helps
in accomplishing individual and organizational goals together.
Staff function: HRM is responsible for all line managers and staff manager functions in
an organization because they contribute towards the growth and success of business (Berman and
et. al. 2019).
Scope of HRM: Human resource management have a wide scope in fulfilling the several aspects
such as personal, industrial relations as well as social welfare views. Personal aspects: This refers to the manpower planning, recruitment, selection, transfer,
training and development, promotion, remuneration as well as incentives. Welfare aspects: It is concerned with the Working conditions, facilities and amenities
like canteens, rest room, transportation, medical, lunch room, education, health and safety
as well as sports and housing facilities to their employees.
 Industrial relations aspects: It includes the collective bargaining, disputes settlement,
grievance and disciplinary procedures and union relations etc.
Purpose of HRM: The main purpose of human resource management is to hire and select the
appropriate candidates on a right job at a right time. In the context of National Westminster Bank
is to optimizing the effectiveness of its employees for increasing the organization's productivity
and profitability. Its purpose is to estimate manpower gaps and fill it by hiring right number of
candidates who are skilled enough to attain objectives of organisation.
Functions of HRM: A Natwest bank can use the several functions for effective management of
human resource and effective workforce planning that are as follows:
Recruitment and selection: It is a process of hiring and choosing the qualified as well as
potential candidates from the given pool for a specified job openings. In the context of National
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Westminster Bank, a company uses different recruitment and selection approaches to screen and
choose the right person for the vacant job. This function helps in achieving the objectives of
company in an effective and efficient manner.
Training and development: Natwest bank exercises this function to improve the current
as well as future performance of employees by increasing their abilities through educating them
and enhancing employees skills and abilities. By using this function a company prepares
applicants for higher level responsibilities and improves talent in order to fulfil the goals and of
an organization in adequate way(Cascio, 2015).
Orientation: This is a fundamental stage which helps new employees to adjust them with
the job, employer as well as organization. In the context of National Westminster Bank,
employee orientation program includes the clear goals and objectives of company and defines
that how employees are helpful for achieving the short term as well as long term goals which
leads in effective utilisation of skills and abilities of an individual.
Managing employee relations: Maintaining good relations with the employees is needed
for smooth functioning of human resource management. In National Westminster Bank, the
management of company conducts activities which helps in knowing the employee's personal as
well as professional circumstances. Good employee relations is a key for the success of an
organization and also have ability to influence the behaviours and results of performance as well
as successfully attainment of company's goals.
Approaches of HRM: Human resource management defines mainly two kinds of approaches i.e.
soft and hard approach that are necessary for every organizations (Waddock and Bodwell, 2017).
These approaches are described as follows:
Soft approach of HRM Hard approach of HRM
 This approach is focused on the
behaviours, commitments and needs of
an individual on the trust basis.
 In soft approach of HRM, employees
are treated as an assets for a company.
 Soft HRM approach is called as
humanistic approach.
 It emphasised on the performance
management by providing directions
and guidelines to the persons.
 Employees are treated as a resource of
business like machinery and buildings.
 Hard approach is also known as a
instrumental approach of HRM.
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Soft approaches of human resource management is more suitable for Natwest Bank
because the company focused on the employee's behaviour and commitments instead of their
performance.
Analyse how HRM functions provide talent and skills to fulfil business objectives
HRM helps in facilitating competent employees for which they perform several activities
like recruitment and selection, training and development etc. Training and development helps in
developing the skill sets and enhance employees capabilities that assists increasing the
employees performance. National Westminster Bank provides training to make competent and
capable for better understanding and accepting changes which can takes place in terms of
technologies mainly. This will helps in achieving the organizational objectives in an effective
manner.
Explain the strength and weaknesses of HRM approaches to its functions
Recruitment: It is considered as a process of searching and hiring the most appropriate
candidate from the given pool for a vacant job openings. In the context of National Westminster
Bank, recruitment is a positive process for finding the most suitable candidate as well as have
wide scope for hiring the better person among various applications (Stewart and Brown, 2019).
According to the William B. Werther and Keith Davis, “recruitment means screening
potential candidates for anticipated job vacancies of an organization, it considered as a linking
approach which brings together to both types of candidates who have jobs and who are seeking
for jobs.”
There are two sources of recruitment which can be classified further along with its
strength and weaknesses:
Basis Internal source External source
Meaning Internal source of recruitment means
looking the employees from inside the
organization to fulfil the vacant job
openings.
External source of recruitment means
searching those employees who has not
been associated previously with the
Natwest bank.
Sources For internal recruitment, a company use
previous applicants, current employees,
employee referrals etc. for promoting
For this, the businesses use
advertisements, e-recruitment, campus
hiring, outsourcing as well as
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their existing employees. employment exchange.
Strengths  It helps in motivating the present
employees to perform better and
finding new opportunities within
the workplace.
 Helps in increasing loyalty of
employees towards the
organization and provides high
range of satisfaction.
 Internal source is less costly and
time saving because it does not
need to display ads, third-party
recruitment, background check
etc.
 It helps in encouraging and
promoting the fresh talent with
innovative skills, knowledge
and ideas.
 It gives a fair chance to all
candidates to compete and
secure the positions in the
organization.
 It opens up several
opportunities to find
experienced candidates who
helps in meeting the diverse
requirements of an
organization.
Weaknesses  Employees are suffering from
the partiality in the promotions
and transfers which leads to
dissatisfaction.
 Transfer method of internal
sourcing can demotivate
employees which leads in poor
performance.
 Existing employees feel
demotivated and dissatisfied, if
senior positions are filled by an
outsiders.
 New candidate have less
understanding about the
company as well as it is time
consuming and costly process.
Selection: It means choosing the right person for the right job, at a right time after
matching the qualifications of individual with the organizational requirement (DeCenzo, Robbins
and Verhulst, 2016). In the context of National Westminster Bank, selection considered as a
negative process because it rejects the unqualified candidates to select the most best applicants.
According to the Decenzo & Robbins, “selection process based on the structured activity
which begins with screening interview and ends with the final decision of employment.”
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The selection methods can be described below along with the strength and
weaknesses:
Basis Personality test Interview
Meaning It helps in providing the intangible
informations about the candidate such
as their values, personality as well as
work preferences.
It is a formal planned discussion
between two or more persons to know
about the personal information and
background of a candidate.
Strengths  It is useful in selecting the right
candidate for right job after
reducing the chances of false
selection.
 It gives better understanding
about how to keep an individual
engaged and motivated at
workplace.
 Personality traits of an
individual have been shown to
correlate job performances in
different roles.
 A structured method is possible
to reach a large number of
candidates at a same time.
 This is most suitable for
collecting more data and
informations about candidate
and also it is a very flexible
approach.
 Interview helps in developing
better relationship between
interviewer and interviewee.
Weaknesses  It is more expensive as well as
time consuming method.
 This may results in inaccurate
and less reliable informations
because they misrepresenting
themselves.
 Social desirability bias occurs in
self-reported tests
 It is considered as a time
consuming process.
 Level of scrutiny and question
selection is depends upon the
interviewer's personality and
mood.
 There is no proof is available
for the future.
It has been summarized and evaluate from the above discussion that human resource
practices are very important for every business organization. There are several functions which
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are helpful in the effective as well as efficient performance to achieve the goals and objectives of
National Westminster Bank (Gupta and Sharma, 2016). For Natwest bank, the internal method of
recruitment is more appropriate because of the time and cost saving. As well as the personality
test is more suitable for selecting the best candidate because it helps in reducing the chances of
wrong selection.
ACTIVITY 2
Covered in Booklet
ACTIVITY 3
Identifying the importance of employee relations
Employee relations: It concern with the efforts of company to manage the relationships
between the employer and employees of an organization. A good employee relation schemes
helps in fair treatment with all workers that helps in make them committed towards their job
roles and more loyal towards the business. With the context of Natwest bank, importance of
employee relations are classified below:
Importance of employee relations: This is very essential for an organization to create
and maintain effective relationship with their employees (Shen and Benson, 2016). The
importance of healthy employee relations are as follows:
Retaining loyal employees: If the company maintains better relationship within the
organization, it assists in increasing the employee retention as well as decrease absenteeism and
turnover. This will increases the chances of making its employees more loyal towards the
company.
Increasing the productivity and profitability: National Westminster Bank have good
relations with its members which results in increasing the overall profits and productivity of an
organization and satisfied workforce.
Reduce the workplace conflicts and disputes: Conflicts are arises in all companies
whereas, the manager of Natwest bank maintain interactions with its members because conflicts
can not be solved by a person itself. Employee's needs some kind of guidance and direction of
manager or team members to solve the conflicts which helps in maintaining better employee
relations. So, good employee relation helps in managing workplace conflicts.
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Encourage individual's to be friendly with each other: Good employee relations plays a
important role in encouraging teams and individuals or timely communicate with all the
members for achieving the objectives of an organization in an effective manner. Natwest bank
maintain a good relations between the employers and employees by involving the whole teams in
several kind of activities and tasks related to team. This assists in maintaining healthy
environment at workplace.
Employee relations helps in increasing the engagement of an individual towards their
work and views the organizational interest of their priority. The benefits of employee
engagement to NatWest Bank is to make employees satisfied in order to perform in a better way
that results in increasing the company's profitability and productivity. Better relations leads in
effective decision making regarding the adoption of changes which are easily accepted by its
employees as well as good relations helps in reducing conflicts, so human resource manager
makes appropriate decisions.
Significance of trade union in UK for employee engagement: Trade union is the
workers association which is formed for the worker's welfare in the National Westminster Bank
as well as protect the employee's rights and interests. The motive of trade union is to build a
relationship between employer and employees for the purpose of negotiating the working
conditions and the remuneration. With the context of UK, powerful instant of this benefits all the
workers of every company which involves: Disclose the various informations related to the
changes at workplace, facilitates the legal as well as financial advice to its members. This will
benefited for the both managers and workers (Shields, 2015). Managers get benefited while
taking decision for effective human resource management. Also, workers get benefits in the job
security.
Evaluate the employee relations which effects the HRM decision making: Employee
relations are essential for managing National Westminster Bank's employees in an effective
manner and taking most appropriate decisions related to the human resources. If the employee
and employer of a company have positive relations then, it will helps in getting high returns and
sustainable future growth of Natwest bank. To maintain its employees HR manager needs to
facilitates incentives, recognitions etc. and make effective decisions.
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Identify the key elements of employee legislation.
Employment legislation: It helps in protecting the rights of employees and maintain the
relationship with them (Sparrow, Brewster and Chung, 2016). In the context of National
Westminster Bank, employee legislation helps in determining the aspects and elements of labour
laws to facilitates the equal opportunities and remuneration, worker's health & safety as well as
the diversity at its workplace.
Key elements of employee legislation and their impacts on HRM decision making: This is
presented in every kind of organization to maintain the positive working environment of a
company as well as its very helpful in effective decision making. With the context of Natwest
bank, there are several laws that have impacts on the decision making regarding human resource
management such as follows:
Data protection Act, 2018: It is a UK's act of parliament which controls the personal
data and informations that are used by businesses or government and make sure that information
is used fairly, lawfully and transparently. This law impacts on the National Westminster Bank at
a great extent as well as beneficial for increasing the digital amount of data, having more control
over information as well as support the business through the changes. Also, this will helps in
regulating the processing of personal information and securing individual's rights that are
affiliated to subject matter (Banfield, Kay and Royles, 2018). HR manager of a company
ensures about their employees that they do not share or leak customers informations to the third
party as well as make sure that data should be protected effectively.
Equality Act, 2010: It is the UK's parliament act whose main objective is to provide
legal framework to protect the rights of people. This act helps in providing the equal
opportunities for all as well as support from discrimination at company's workplace and in
society also. This act impacts the decision of HR manager of National Westminster Bank as there
may not exist the opportunity for all and sometimes for accomplishing the goal, encouraging
selected candidate may become important for the organisation but the act of equality may bound
HR mangers to decide as per their requirements.
Health & safety Act, 1974: It facilitates the framework regarding to protect health,
safety and welfare of National Westminster Bank's workforce. This emphasised on the duties of
employer and employees that they need to undertake to maintain health and safety at workplace.
It has impacts on the decision making of NatWest Bank's manager as they have other policies to
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secure and maintain the employees health but due to compliances of health and safety act the
company may need to change their existing practices. HR department of a company is liable to
provide the basic health and safety requirements of its employees, otherwise they will liable to
pay legal penalties for offending the laws.
Evaluate the employee legislation which impacts on decision making of HRM:
employee relation plays crucial role in the organization for employer and employees as it
creates clear better understanding and build trust for each other. The culture of NatWest Bank is
comfortable for their workers as they offer various opportunities such as flexible working hours,
training, rewards etc. to make them competent. Employee legislation affect the NatWest decision
making due to meet the compliances they have to change their policies. The company has
successfully fulfilled all regulations and maintain healthy and competitive workplace. This will
helps in making effective decisions towards increasing the National Westminster Bank's
productivity and profitability.
Critically evaluate employee relations and application of HRM practices:
HRM practices assists in improving the productivity and profitability of an organization
as they adopts various methods which contributes in increasing the employees performance
effectively. They also emphasised on maintaining positive employee relations that helps in
keeping employees motivated. Whereas, all such practices can make company's workers lenient
towards their performance as a effect of friendly culture. This can increase the chances of
conflicts among their employees as well as with the management.
Application of HRM practices in organizational context
Application of HRM practices: Human resource management faces several issues
related to compensation, safety, wellness, performance management, benefits, motivation and
training management of employees, so the Natwest bank required to practical application of
HRM practices (Coetzee, Ferreira and Potgieter, 2015). HRM plays a strategic role in managing
people and workplace culture and environment.
Person specification: It is a written statement of educational qualification, experiences,
qualities, physical, emotional, technical and communicational skills which are required to
perform a job. This kind of specification is derived from the job description and consider as a
recruitment process. In the context of National Westminster Bank, job position is related to the
HR executives. According to the job criteria candidate's specification document is prepared
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which involves job position, attributes, experience, skills and knowledge as well as department.
This can be shown under:
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PERSON SPECIFICATION
Company name: National Westminster Bank
Job title: HR Executives
Qualification: MBA in HR
Essential Criteria:
 knowledge and experience of planning, recruitment, selection, development, training,
employee relations, legislations as well as engagement.
 Written and oral communication skill better then average.
 Decision making and problem solving skill is required.
Desirable Criteria:
 Fluent in English communication.
 Experience of 1 year.
CURRICULUM VITAE
Name: Stella John
Address: 35th street, West-side, London
Phone number: 142516547
Career objective: To pursue in an organization that helps me in providing opportunities where I
can use my skills and educational experience.
Educational qualification:
 BBA
 MBA
Experience: 1 year experience in consultancy firm.
Skills:
 Fluent communication skill.
 Negotiable skill.
Declaration:
I hereby declare that all the above informations presented by me are correct as per my
knowledge.
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Date:
Place:
This person specification and curriculum vitae helps in recruiting and selecting best
appropriate candidate for bringing right talent in an organization. Also, it will be suitable for the
candidate to analyse the job requirements as it includes all expectations related to job
performance. On the basis of which they can apply for the job if they possess the required
aspects of the organisation.
CONCLUSION
It has been concluded from the above report that HRM plays a very important role in
every organization. It assist an organisation in planning for the workforce such as for their
recruitment, selection, training, compensation etc. It was also concluded that soft HRM
approaches and effective HRM practices that helps an organisation to improve their productivity
and profitability by making their staff competent through trainings and learning programs which
improves their skills, knowledge and abilities. Practices related to the employee legislations and
relations are applicable in an organisation for increasing the retention rate of employees and
decrease turnover and absenteeism. HR practices of employers are affected by various
employment legislations such as equality, anti-discrimination, health and safety etc.
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