Human Resource Management Report: Primark, Employee Relations, etc.

This report examines the Human Resource Management (HRM) practices of Primark, a clothing and accessories retailer. It begins by outlining the purpose and functions of HRM, emphasizing its strategic role in managing employees for competitive advantage. The report then analyzes different recruitment and selection approaches, comparing internal and external methods, and discusses the strengths and weaknesses of each. The report also explores the benefits of HRM practices for both employees and employers, including training, compensation, and work-life balance. Furthermore, it assesses the effectiveness of HRM in raising profit and productivity, highlighting the impact of talent acquisition, performance assessment, and employee motivation. The report also covers the importance of employee relations and the influence of employment legislation on HRM decision-making, concluding with a comprehensive overview of the subject matter. The report references key HRM concepts and their application within the context of Primark's operations.

Human Resource Management
Table of Contents

TASK 1............................................................................................................................................1
P1 Purpose and functions of HRM .............................................................................................1
P2 Strengths and weaknesses of recruitment and selection approaches.....................................2
TASK 2 ...........................................................................................................................................4
TASK 3 ...........................................................................................................................................7
P5 Importance of employee relation in respect to HRM decision making.................................7
P6 Key elements of employment legislation and the impact it has upon HRM decision-
making.........................................................................................................................................8
Conclusion ....................................................................................................................................10
REFERENCE ................................................................................................................................11

INTRODUCTION
Human resource management is concerned with recruitment, hiring, development and
retention of employees in an organisation. HR department is responsible for all activities related
to human assets of company. They manage activities through different functions of HRM like
Planning, Organising, Directing and Controlling. Present report is based on Primark, it is a
clothing and accessories retailer. Company offers wider range of clothing products for men,
women and new born children and footwear, confectionery and beauty products etc. This report
includes purpose and functions of HRM, Different approaches of recruitment and selection and
their strengths and weaknesses, benefits of HRM practices and its effectiveness for increasing
profitability and productivity (Brewster, 2017). It also comprises employee relationship,
legislations related to employment and their impact on decision making.
TASK 1
P1 Purpose and functions of HRM
Human resource management is a strategic approach for managing employees in an
effective and efficient manner for achieving competitive advantages in the market. This helps
company in increasing performance level of employees.
Purpose of HRM
The main goal of HR manager is to acquire and hold employees in business to generate
efficient and quality workforce which have required skills and knowledge for attaining objectives
of organisation(Armstrong, 2014) . HRM of Primark has the following purposes: Internal Customer Management: HR of company has many purposes to but main
purpose is to manage their customers by providing them good services. Primark manage
their consumers by maintaining productivity and quality of their staff through benefits
and compensation. Metrics: HRM make interactions with all levels in organisation. They prepare budget and
set goals and objectives for performances. Primark Managers use this to determine costs,
quantify performance outputs of employees and identify certain situations that can help
them in achieving objectives.

 Cultural Sensitivity: Managers keep awareness about cultural aspects. Primark hire staff
from different cultural regions. They have to maintain differences between different
cultural aspects. Because they all have different ways for performing their jobs due to
their culture.
HR functions:
Functions of human resources are related to recruiting, motivation, performance
improvement and motivation of employees. HR manager of Primark company also has some
functions to perform in order to planning for maintain workforce and managing employee
relations(McEvoy, 2012). Generally HR managers have main three functions like in A line
function managers control activities of employees in their departments, in coordinative function
they coordinate activities of business, in staff function managers helps and advice on issues
related to employee recruitment, safety etc. The following are some more functions performed
by HR: Recruitment: It is the most essential function for HR department to perform in order to
acquire human assets for organisation. For this HRM of Primark have to use various
resources for selection of candidates and to retain them in business. Managers have to
develop job description, job posting, connect to candidates, interviewing, discussion for
salary and offering jobs to selected candidates.
 Training and Development: It is the duty of HR manager to train employees for their
job. Primark provides training to their new as well as existing employees. This function
helps employees to know about the work process to do their tasks and assist in acquiring
required skills and knowledge. Performance Management: HR managers are accountable for managing performance of
employees in the organisation. Managers Primark set goals and identify areas for
measuring performance of staff. They give feedback to employees for their work and
provide improvement areas.
 Compensation and Benefits: Managers sets some goals and objectives for every
employee. If they achieve predetermined goals then they become eligible for benefits.
Primark give benefits to employees like Insurance, extended vacations, education funding
for children, sick leaves, paid and unpaid leaves etc.

P2 Strengths and weaknesses of recruitment and selection approaches
Recruitment and selection
Recruitment is identifying many candidates who have required skills, experience and
knowledge. This will help organisation in selecting candidates who are suitable for the job
according to the job description. Primark should hire appropriate candidates to have competitive
advantage for business. Inappropriate recruitment can result in weakened productivity and
hurdles in operations. It is a positive process as it select appropriate candidates(Gold,2017).
Selection is the process of identifying candidates through recruitment process. It includes
interviewing selected candidates for analysing skills & knowledge that are necessary for job and
selecting candidates for vacant job position.
Primark can hire candidates from the following two ways: Internal Recruitment: Company can use this method to hire employees from existing
staff or someone known to business. Primark can use promotion, transfer, hiring ex
employees or retired persons or temporary recruiting, informing employees for vacant
post etc. External Recruitment: Business recruit candidates from outside the organisation.
Primark use this method for improving performance and increasing level of innovation.
Employees hired from outside are very much active and enthusiastic towards company.
They can hire employees from online job portals like LinkedIn, Naukri.com etc.,
Recruitment agencies, Newspaper advertisement, Campus recruitment, Walk Ins, Social
media.
Strengths and Weaknesses of Internal Recruitment
Strengths Weaknesses
 This method of recruitment is less time
consuming and very easy as candidates
are already working with organisation.
 If employees are dissatisfy with their
jobs than there are chances to leave that
they may leave the job.
 Employees are promoted for their good
work.
 Reduces opportunities for potential
candidates.
 Competition between employees for
achieving higher position in
 Low level of innovation among existing
employees.

organisation.
Strengths and Weaknesses of External Recruitment
Strengths Weaknesses
 It creates job opportunities for freshers
as well as experienced candidates.
 This more time consuming as recruiter
has to identify pool of candidates.
 Increase innovation in business
operations.
 It includes high cost to hire new
employees.
 It will help in recruiting candidates who
have special skills to perform the job.
 Newly hired employees can leave job if
they are not comfortable for the job.
Selection approaches:
A company can select candidates from the pool of candidates for vacant job post. Primark
can use the following process for selection of candidates: Inviting application and resume: Company select candidates from different sources and
call for applications for the job. They provide job description to candidates through
recruitment sources. Receiving Applications: Applications are received from many candidates and than HR
managers analyse those application. Short-listing: Few candidates are selected and other applications are rejected which do
not match with the specified job requirement. Tests: After short-listing of applications, company conducts tests to identify skills,
knowledge, area of interests and attitude of candidates. Interview: It is conducted for those applicants who passed previous rounds. This could be
telephonic or personal interview. In this interviewer ask questions from candidates about
their education, family background, work experience etc. Generally it helps interviewer
to identify strengths and weaknesses of candidates.
 Final selection: When a candidate is selected interview round than company gives offer
letter to them, which includes date of joining, salary, post and other details of job and
company.

TASK 2

P3 Benefits of HRM practices for employee and employer
The HRM approach is used for the effective management of company or an
organization. So it helps the company to gain the advantage of competition(Brewster, 2017)
Primark limited uses different HRM practices in an organization which are beneficial for both
employee and the employer and those practices are as follows:
Training and development - The process of teaching a person is refereed as training
while development is the process of acquiring the new stage from the current stage. These are the
management function which includes the orientation program of every employee. Primark
limited always looks for creative employee which benefits the company.
Compensation and benefits - The amount of money or other then monetary measure
which is given to the person in return of loss or work performed is known as compensation. The
Primark limited gives benefits to the employees. If there is any loss in the form of
resources ,suffering from illness,or injury due to accident.
Balance in the work life - Balance is very important in every part of life as it helps in
improving the performance of an individual. The Primark limited applies flexible work schedule
which helps in minimizing the stress during the work. It also helps in maintaining the life style
of the worker or employee.
Employees relation- When the workers shares a good relation with the other co-workers
then they can share the thoughts and inner feeling with one another and it gives benefits to each
employee in form of healthy culture of the organization.
Benefits for employer
High morale - The any employee is positive and feels confident about its work then a
satisfaction level builds up in the mind of the worker then it is known a person with high morale.
The employer of the Primark limited always tries to keep the morale level of employee high
which benefits the organization and the employer too. High morale keeps is boosting the
performance of the employee's and this helps the growth of the organization and employer also
gets the benefit in the form incentive and bonus from the companies growth.
Productivity - It is the ratio of the total output of the process to the total cost of resources
used in it. Used to measure the efficiency of the particular thing that could a person, a system or
a machine. In The Primark limited productivity can increase large amount of the profit and due

to growth of the company the retention ratio of the worker would be increased and it is beneficial
for the employer.
P4 Effectiveness of HRM in raising profit and productivity
Human resource management plays an important role in making profit and in increasing
the productivity. Different studies shows various output for the profit and productivity. If
turnover ratio, high absenteeism do not have the effect the productivity then profit would be
considered as the benefit .The different HRM practices which affects the profit and productivity
are as follows
Talent acquisition- It is the process of finding the skilled person or a worker in an
organization which helps in completing the need of the company. Primark limited always looks
for talented people,as its business is based upon clothing accessories and new ideas of fashion
and marketing are always welcomed in company, talent in the different field of work is always
need in every organization. In Primark limited employer always looks for creative employee
which benefits the company in the form of improved profit and productivity (iang and et. al
2012).
Assessment of Performance-In The Primark limited The overall evaluation and the
performance of each and every individual is measured so that it could be identified that there is
the need of training program or not. Then accordingly the training programs are scheduled.
After completing the training the productivity of each individual or a group is increased by a
certain level which ensures the profit maximization in an organization.
Motivation – It is important to stay motivated to perform effectively , if a company
want to be productive and grow for the longer period of time then motivation should be a must
there and it is the important task for the organization itself to keep the workers motivate as long
as they can. The best method by which an individual or a group can be motivated is through the
rewards or incentive through this the motivation can be done easily (Buller and McEvoy, 2012).
While the motivation for the different individual works in a different manner for example In The
Primark limited a senior employee could not be motivated through rewards but it could me
motivated by giving better position in the organization itself and it will help individual to work
for the success of the company which helps in gaining the productivity and by the effort of every
individual the profit making chances of the company increases.

TASK 3
P5 Importance of employee relation in respect to HRM decision making
A strong employer and employee relationship are a key to the utmost success of an
organisation. The results come from such relationship is considered as advantage. An employee
relations plays an important role in influencing decision making of an organisation. In context to
Primark, an effective worker relation enables company to be more effective, goal-oriented and
achieving task/goals on time. Employee relations programs are typically part of a human
resource strategy designed to ensure the most effective use of people to accomplish the
organization's mission. Having a good relations of employee and employer reaps a lot of benefits
for a company's business. The main importance of employee relationship in context to decision
making are as follow:
Productivity - Strong employee relation creates gratifying atmosphere within the work
environment of an organisation. In context with primark, It increases employee's motivation and
working morale to empower decision making process. Primark should invests in employee
relation program to increase productivity and leads to rise in the profitability. In this case,
relevant employee's relation empower overall productivity and earning profitability of an
organisation.
Employee's loyalty – Creating pleasant and creative working environment has a drastic
effect on an employee's loyalty to the business. In case of Primark, it enhances morale of a loyal
workforce and capability to perform a task/goals. Having such a loyal workforce improves
employee retention in order to reduce an additional cost of recruitment, hiring and training. It
enable an employee to comes out with good understanding with their co-workers and colleagues
Conflict reduction - When employee's relations are improved and effective, there is a
maximum chances of reducing conflicts and issues among workforce. Less conflicts results in
the employee's being able to concentrate on the tasks and be more productive and enhance power
to influence decision making in a right and purposeful way. In context with Primark, company
needs to manage their conflict management in accordance with rising productivity and achieving
future goals (Why Strong Employee/Employer Relationship is Important and How to Achieve
This, 2017).

Communicate effectively – Suitable and gratifying working environment creates
effective communication network and empower decision making process in regards to human
resource management. In Primark, it is important to open channel of communication which will
make you aware of problem quickly, which is beneficial for quick resolution. It enables worker 's
interaction to perform task or goals collaboratively and increase future purpose of an
organisation.
P6 Key elements of employment legislation and the impact it has upon HRM decision-making.
Employment legislation is the law which govern employment within the workplace with
everyone who works. Employment law exists to regulate the relationship between employer and
employee. By complying with legislation, it can ensure that their hiring processes, dismissal
processes and their workplace as a whole, are fair for every individual. In Primark, company has
multiple legislation which are as under:
The Family Medical Leave Act,1993 - This act allows an employee working with a
company for twelve months or more, the ability to take twelve weeks of leave, without pay,
during any twelve month period. An acceptable reason for taking such leave includes: the birth
of a child, care of a child, spouse or parents that are seriously ill and any other specified medical
cause. When an employee returns to the workplace after certain leave, he/she have equal right of
being paid or work on roles and duties before availing leave. In Primark, company need to take
decision regarding employee leaves and for how much time tenure.
Occupational health and safety act,1970 - This law was governed by the Occupational
health and Safety Administration and require company compliance with a variety of law that
protect employee from unsafe work environments. In context with Primark, This act will provide
safety for their employee who act as whistle blowers when lying in unsafe condition in the
workplace. HRM department of a company is required to keep documentation of all hazardous
material used, report injuries etc and to take decision regarding employee safety and security.
The fair labour standard act,1938 - This law governs minimum wages, overtime pay for
workers that work over 40 hours in one week and keeping requirements. This law was first
enacted in 1938 and has been revised many times since its inception. In context with Primark,
company needs to take decision regarding paying their employee with basic pay plus working
incentives, bonus and other monetary benefits. Department of labour provides program that

explains each aspect of this law and its relation to business management and human resource
management.
Anti-Discrimination Act,1964 – This law states that an individual cannot be rejected on
the basis of religion, colour, cast, gender and region etc. An employer who is conducting his
business operation for 20 weeks and have more than 15 employees in an organisation on payroll
must consider this act while hiring new personnels.
By taking assistance of HR practice, manager can make best and most efficient decision
for Primark. This move is helpful in proper management and success of an organisation. While
taking decision, senior and manager must consider all current legislation and future incorporated
law in regard to this(Buller and McEvoy,2012).
TASK 4
P7 Illustrate the application of HRM practices using specific examples.
If Primark wants to achieve their all target and goals, for this company wants to hire
employees by inviting job application using internal and external source. Before inviting
application, company must follow following steps which are explained as under:
Job description
Job Description
Job Details
Post - Marketing Manager
Area of Function - Marketing
Experience: Minimum 2 years experience required in both marketing and advertising/PR field.
Education:
 Bachelor's Degree in Marketing or a related field required.
 Masters in Business or Marketing preferred.
Required Skills, Knowledge, and Characteristics:
 Strong effective communicator.
 Highly developed, demonstrated teamwork skills.
 Ability to coordinate the efforts of a large team of diverse creative employees.
Job Requirements:
 Working with product development teams to manage new product development.
 Managing launch campaigns for new products.