Human Resource Management in Aldi: Functions, Practices, and Strategy

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of Human Resource Management (HRM) practices within Aldi, a major retail company. It begins by outlining the core purposes and functions of HRM, emphasizing their application to workforce planning, recruitment, and employee relations. The report then delves into a comparative analysis of various recruitment and selection approaches, weighing their respective strengths and weaknesses. Furthermore, it examines the benefits of different HRM practices for both the employer and employee, focusing on areas such as performance management, career development, and compensation. The effectiveness of these practices is evaluated, considering their impact on employee retention, motivation, and overall organizational performance. The report also addresses the importance of employee relations in decision-making and the influence of employment legislation on HRM strategies. Finally, it illustrates the practical application of these HRM practices within the context of Aldi's business operations, providing a holistic view of how the company manages its human capital to achieve its strategic objectives.

HUMAN RESOURCE
MANAGEMENT
Table of Contents

INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
TASK 1............................................................................................................................................1
P1 Purpose and functions of HRM applicable to workforce planning........................................1
P2 Strengths and weaknesses of different approaches to recruitment and selection. ................2
TASK 2............................................................................................................................................4
P3 Benefits of different HRM practices for both the employer and employee...........................4
P4 Effectiveness of various HRM practices................................................................................6
TASK 3............................................................................................................................................7
P5 Importance of employee relations in decision making..........................................................7
P6 Key elements of employment legislations impacts on decision making...............................8
TASK 4............................................................................................................................................9
P7 Illustrate the application of HRM practices...........................................................................9
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................10
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................11

INTRODUCTION
Human resource management is mainly concerned with recruiting, hiring, retention,
perks, performance and change management and managing the organization's staff. Its main aim
is to maximise productivity and profits of an organisation by utilizing talents and skills of their
employees. It also deals with managing employee relations and personal management (Alarcon,
2011). Aldi is a retail store which was founded in 1913 by Karl Albrecht and Theo Albrecht.
They offer highest quality of products at lowest and economic price. It has 10,000 stores over 20
countries. This assignment will focus on the purposes and functions of HRM in Aldi. Strengths
and weaknesses of HRM will also be discussed along with their approaches and its effectiveness
in raising organizational profits.
TASK 1
P1 Purpose and functions of HRM applicable to workforce planning.
ALDI is a big company where large number of employees are working. For better
outputs, its important to manage the workers effectively. To do that it is necessary to implement
HRM functions to plan better strategies for both, employees and for organisation. These
functions ensures better working by employees which leads to more benefits and profits to
company. Various functions of human resource management are described below:
Operative Functions.
Recruitment:- This is the major task that a HR manager has to go through. A lot of
planning and attention is required to hire talented and capable employee. It mainly involves
attracting, short-listing, selecting and appointing suitable candidate for a particular job
(Armstrong and Taylor, 2014).
Training and development:- HR is mainly responsible for on the job training. Training
can be given to new employees or existing employees. It is mainly given to enhance skills
required for performing that job. Fresher training is given to new joiner to make them know
about that job. HR manager provide them necessary training to make them understand the
process and make it easy for them to work properly. During process of training and development,
results are monitored and measured to find out whether employees are acquiring that skills or
not.

Compensation and benefits:- A company can achieve its goals and objectives if they
have attractive plans of compensations and providing their employees with benefits. These plans
motivate employees to work more and get more benefits which ultimately leads to achievement
of goals. Some benefits which are given by company are medical benefits, maternal leaves,
working hour flexibility etc.
Performance appraisal:- Performance of an employees is evaluated by HR of that
company. Its help the manager to find out whether employees are working is a right manner and
achieve goals and objectives of organisation. They also assess whether any employee needs any
improvement is any field (Bhamra, Dani and Burnard, 2011).
Managerial Functions
Planning: This is very necessary step in setting up goals and objectives for organisation
in a proper manner. Effective planning helps to get more profits and outputs. Planning is done
after understanding internal and external factors which can effect the productivity of
organisation. HR manager should be aware of both market and strategic goals of company, then
only they can make good plans.
Organising: This function involves designing and developing the structures of company.
In this employees are grouped in different positions or activities they will be performing.
Different tasks are assigned to different persons. Then delegate authority are assigned as per
tasks and responsibilities.
Directing: This help in directing employees to achieve goals in better way. It is a great
challenge for a manager to get their work done in a specified manner. They have to keep on
motivating employees for better work done by them.
P2 Strengths and weaknesses of different approaches to recruitment and selection.
Recruitment is a management function which appoints desired candidates whereas
selection is a process of interviewing and evaluating candidates for a particular job position.
Recruitment is a positive process and selection is a negative process as it only hires desired
candidates and eliminate others. There are mainly two types of recruitment sources, they are:
internal and external sources (Bratton and Gold, 2017).
 Internal sources is a process where job position is filled from inside the company and it
includes - job posting and bidding, promotions and transfers, employee referrals, re-
recruiting former employees and applicants and internal recruiting data base.
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 External sources is a process where employees are hired from outside the organisation
and it include – media sources, employment agencies, labour unions and school colleges
and university.
There are various of recruitment approaches which an organisation uses at the time of
hiring employees. Following are some steps of recruiting approaches:
 In-house recruitment.
 Outsourcing
 employment agencies.
 Executive search firms.
 Internal recruitment services.
Strength of approaches to recruitment and selection
These processes are ability of an organisation to source employees and improve quality
of its human capital to withstand competition (Brewster and Hegewisch, 2017). This process is
carried by human resource management of that particular organisation where they attract
candidates which are of best quality, talented and capable of doing work in effective manner.
Some are mentioned below:
 It gives an accurate view of candidate's skills.
 It appoints new blood.
 New candidates give new ideas, insights and experience.
 Internal recruitment are cheaper and quicker to recruit.
 Hire best quality of candidates.
 Helps in better assessment of abilities.
 It may bring new industry insights.
 Better candidates maximise productivity of organisation.
Weakness of approaches to recruitment and selection
It has several strengths but it also has some weaknesses also. They are described below:
 Some candidates are not selected due to jack of other candidates (Chelladurai and
Kerwin, 2017).
 Possible morale problems of those not hired.
 Recruitment sometimes get costly.
 There is need for management development program.
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 Some recruiters end up hiring wrong candidate for a job position.
TASK 2
P3 Benefits of different HRM practices for both the employer and employee.
Human Resource Management is a planned approach which manage people effectively
for better performance. Good HRM practices helps in achieving organisational goals and
objectives in effective manner and enhances productivity. The common practices are:
 Effectively management of people through an Open Performance Management System
that will tie departmental objectives with individual objectives, regular coaching and
developing staff on the job (Ellison and Boyd, 2013).
 For better performance, competencies of staff members are enhanced through necessary
training to achieve departmental objectives and goals.
 Quality service is delivered through training and engaging staff in developing a service
culture.
HRM involves several practices which are used by managers, HR worker and automated
systems to manage people. Without organisational coordination through HRM practices,
employees feel dissatisfied and wanting to work for more organised firm.
Benefits of HRM practices for employer are:
Performance management system: This system helps in tracking employee behaviour
and results, which together contribute to performance. In this, employer assigns different tasks or
targets to different employees and then watch their behaviour towards their target and record
their results. When employees perform better in their tasks, they are rewarded and if some
employees lack behind or they are unable to perform better, they are guided and motivated for
better work done in next time. Employers should encourage their members by providing them
incentives and various benefits so that employees remain motivated and perform well and
achieve organisational goals in effective manner. Performance reviews also help in identifying
training need for employees. Benefits of performance benefits are:
 Consistency: Right person should be appointed for right job. Selection of employees for
promotion, transfer or other action should be done in consistent manner.
 Motivation: Employees remain motivated while performing their work in order to
receive incentives and benefits.
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 Morale and retention: Highly motivated employers remain loyal towards company and
are tend to perform better in their work which leads in increment in productivity of the
firm. Good employers tend to remain for longer time in organisation. Firing risks: Employees who are weak in performing their job should be dismissed or
fired. This can be evaluated through performance system. In certain cases training can
also be provided to enhance or improve that skill.
Career management system: Its is conscious planning of one's activities and engagement
in the jobs one undertakes in course of his life for better fulfilment, growth and financial
stability. Employer provide better career opportunities to their employees so that they can
prosper and achieve their goals of life.
Training: It is very important for employers to be well informed about everything
because they have to guide and direct employees working under them. If they are not aware of
any area, proper training can be provided to them to become an efficient employer (Fulton and
et. al., 2011).
Benefits of HRM practices for employee are: Training and development: Training is given to employees when they lack desired skill
to perform a particular task. It help employees to enhance their skills and ensure easy
working by them. It also improves employee performance and better productivity. It
decreases risk of any failure at the time of performing job. Better training ensures
employee satisfaction. Highly trained and skilled employees results in maximum outputs
with high quality.
 Compensation and benefits: Benefits typically refers to health insurance, disability
insurance, vacations, various rewards, life insurance etc. These benefits are given when
any employee perform good in their work. Compensation refers to cash rewards paid to
employees in exchange of services they provide. It may include salary, wages, incentives
and commissions. Compensation strategy should be well structures and well defined.
These motivates employee to work more for a firm to get these rewards and
compensation.
P4 Effectiveness of various HRM practices
Human resource management can be defined as to mange manpower of an organisation
by allocating various available sources and tasks as per requirements. There are several kind of
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business entities which are working for achieving greater financial outputs as well as competitive
advantages. This will facilitate to attain growth of organisation and hence to acquire certain
objectives and targets of HRM practices are developed in contributive manner. Different types of
activities, procedures, events, etc. are conducting in various kind of styles or processes. ALDI
have to focus in specific direction to cooperate with several roles and targets in correct way. It is
necessary for an enterprise to watch out the efficiencies of certain learning and training
programmes which are organise to enhance working ability as well as regular outcomes of
company. These are few of essential fields in which they have to put appropriate attention as
well as needed improvements in ALDI. Some of such aspects are given below:
 Aids in grabbing workers for longer period of time:- Every firm hire number of
candidates for various kind of designations as per requirements. Besides of that they also
put efforts to retain these employees for long period of time in an organisation. ALDI
have to focus on several rules and policies which mat support them to keep their staff
members for long time in company (Hendry, 2012). It is necessary because experienced
people are bale to do work more efficiently. But if they left the job then it is necessary to
hire new workers and render training to them by investing enough cost.
 Creating of healthy relationship among employees:- There are many employees
working in particular company who belongs different kind of culture and categories.
According to that, they have their own thoughts, views and ideas to follow. Sometimes
different mind set-ups results in various types of issues or conflicts among them. Then it
is important for ALDI to provide healthy environment by solving such problems which
may personal or professional. This will facilitate to perform more effective outcomes in
regular basis.
 Developing motivation factor in the employees:- It is well known that people get bored
by doing same work on daily basis. Due to this, firms have to put efforts to encourage the
morale of staff members by organising several attractive or enjoyable events regularly in
firm. This will make them stress free and help them to retain their energies back to work
in better way. This aspects render support to ALDI to reduce employee turnover by
retaining its workers. Along with it, they are bale to generate better profitability as well
as productivity of an organisation.
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The above factors concluded that various HRM practices need to be implemented in
appropriate manner in to organisational system of ALDI. This will helps to contribute by
cooperating with each other to improve profits as well as productivity.
TASK 3
P5 Importance of employee relations in decision making
It is important in any organisation to maintain healthy and peaceful environment. This
will impacts on working efficiencies of staff members and outcomes created on daily basis. This
criteria should be fulfilled by Human resource team of ALDI to generate healthy conditions of
company. ALDI have to plan and apply various kind of effective strategies and policies to make
healthy relations between employees. This prospect is essential to facilitate more efficient as well
as effective performance to attain better outputs for an enterprise (Hobfoll, 2011). It is obvious
that if employees of an organisation have strong bond then they become able to fulfil aspects of
performance in every serious situations. There are various benefits of employee relations which
are as follows:
 Perfect environment of working:- It is important to create and update condition of
working area in such a way that every employee may feel comfortable to perform their
respective tasks and activities. ALDI need to take several steps to maintain peaceful
environment of company so that people can work more effectively and prepare desired
outcomes.
 Incubating feeling of confidence and faith:- This criteria should be completed b y
superiors such as managers and leaders to evolve trust amongst their sub-ordinates. This
will results to generate faith and confidence in staff members and it will reflects
postpositive in their performance as well.
Healthy employee relationships have different impacts which may affect decision making of an
organisation in various manners and situations. Few of impacts are given below:
 Developing innovative and advanced ideas:- It is mandatory to prepare new and
innovative working strategies or policies to enhance performance outputs on regular basis
in an enterprise. ALDI have to render proper training and development events to expand
working efficiencies and skills of staff members. It will encourage people to perform well
and generate better results.
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 Maintaining firm cost at significant level:- There are various kind of technologies and
other systems which are able to reduce cost and facilitate to work faster. ALDI have to
adopt such techniques to enhance its products or services and deliver faster to clients. for
this firms are needed to be necessarily implement effective and unique methods for
profits.
 Supply incentives and increments:- Every organisation have their own criteria of
providing salary and wages to employees. Along with it, ALDI have to render various
kind of incentives and increments as per effective performance of employees in different
situations. This will encourage them to perform more efficiently and retain them in
company for long time.
P6 Key elements of employment legislations impacts on decision making
It is obvious that they have to make several rule and regulations to implement in
organisation. But besides of this, there are various kind of of norms which are prepared by
government and following them is mandatory task for every business entity. ALDI have to
consider different employment legislations prepared by legal authorities. There are several types
of employment legislations which are formulated as well as impacts on HR practices.
Equal pay ACT, 1970:- This act refers that firm have to apply equally distribute
structure of salary and wages to all employees working in firm (Ployhart and Moliterno, 2011).
All kind of factors like gender, creed, caste etc. will not impacts on incentives and provide fair
compensation.
Health and Safety Act, 1974:- This act enforce every enterprise to focus on health and
safety issues. It basically states that if person is working in specific company then they are
responsible for such problems during working hours. The firm have to apply desired HR
practices to solve such aspects and focus to provide safe environment to staff members.
Disability Act:- It states that it will be considered for physically challenged people
present in organisation. Then it is necessary to build special rules and norms to make such
employees to feel comfortable and survive easily.
RIDDOR, 2013:- This act defines several aspects to control various kind of unfavourable
as well as complex situations which may raise in future regarding organised procedures.
Therefore, ALDI have to implement appropriate system to be execute.
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Impacts on HRM decision making:
 It is necessary to follow employment legislations to make decisions.
 HR manager have to identify issues and regular put efforts to enhance working in
formative style.
 Several acts are needed to be considered while making any kind of decision in company.
The above discussion convey that there are various kind of rules or norms which are prepared by
government authorities. These are needed to be followed by ALDI while building certain
decisions (Watson, 2011).
TASK 4
P7 Illustrate the application of HRM practices
Function of Job Advertisement
VACANCY
Vacancy for MARKETING MANAGER is there in ALDI which is a common brand of two
discount super market chains. It is Germany based company founded by brothers Karl and Theo
Albrecht over their mother's store in Essen. They are providing food, beverages, sanitary
articles and household goods in various nations at global level. ALDI is open now for rendering
several opportunities to number of candidates who are interested to join.
Requirements for this post:
 Applicants have age below 30 years.
 Must have experience of 3-5 years in marketing.
 Must know about unique and current techniques of effective marketing.
 Excellent communication skills and convincing power.
 Attractive and efficient personality.
 Salary package: 2000-3000 pounds per month in order to experience.
Candidate who are interested to apply for this job with appropriate qualifications are requested
to upload their resume on company's E-mail id: [e-mail].
Last date of applying: Till 1st April, 2018.
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There are many sources by which organisations are able to provide information about job
vacancies by conducting several advertising procedures. This is responsibility of manager to
select best alternation to gain its most effective aspects.
Job Specification
Job Specification of Marketing Manager
Educational Qualification Must be from marketing field.
Experience Between 3-5 years.
Special quality Effective communication skills and convincing
power.
Other attributes Must have patience factor and answer humbly
to people.
Must have innovative ideas to enhance sales.
CONCLUSION
From the above report, it is concluded that every firm have to make an effective Human
resource department to conduct various necessary aspects. They have to implement applicable
HRM practices in company to solve several issues and problems of firm it will facilitate to
maintain healthy environment by which employees are easily perform their tasks. This results in
generating more efficient outcomes ion regular basis and retain worker by following employment
rules in an enterprise.
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