HRM Analysis: Royal Mail Strategies, Environmental Impact, and Models

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of the Human Resource Management (HRM) practices at Royal Mail. It begins with an executive summary and introduction, outlining the key aspects of HRM and its importance to organizational success. The main body of the report examines how Royal Mail has adapted its strategies, analyzes the impact of environmental factors on its culture and HR plans, and explores its employment model. The report also uses Storey's 27 points of difference between HRM and personnel management as a benchmark, analyzes job design strategies, and outlines the hiring and firing processes. Furthermore, the report incorporates corporate examples and literature to justify its analysis and concludes with recommendations for employers regarding HRM practices to ensure high organizational performance.

Human Resource
Management

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Human resource department is associated with managing human capital within an
organisation and the major role of this department is to bring higher contribution of employees
and to provide them such comfort zone within workplace so that they can retain there for longer
duration of time. This report is providing various aspects in relation to understand human
resource department and their functions along with their role in organisational success.

Table of Contents
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY.............................................................................................................2
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................4
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................4
A) Examine how strategies were changed by the firm......................................................4
B) Analyse the impact of environmental factors on culture and HR plan.........................6
C) Organisation's model of employment and organisational levers used to create values.7
D) Using Storey's 27 points of difference between HRM and personnel management as a
benchmark..............................................................................................................................9
D) Analyse the job design strategies....................................................................................12
F) State hiring and firing process.........................................................................................13
G) Use appropriate corporate examples and literature to justify your stand........................14
H) Recommendation to employers regarding HRM practices to ensure that the organisation
performance is high..............................................................................................................15
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................16
REFERENCE.................................................................................................................................17

INTRODUCTION
Human resource management is the process of managing and supervising different
activities that are being performed by HR Department and ensures the control over all the
activities so that they can be carried effectively (Zehir and et. al., 2016). Every function of
organization needs to be carried on with a proper strategy and like that Human resource
department is also responsible for framing strategies that are important in managing and
developing the individual’s standard of the organization. Human resource department is
integrated part of business associated with various other departments and are assigned with
various roles of planning, directing, controlling, and organising. The current report is based on
Royal Mail which is a multinational postal service and courier company established in the year
1516 by the British Government based out of UK. It offers various services such as letter post,
parcel service, EMS, delivery, freight forwarding and third-party logistics. It has various
subsidiaries as part of it i.e. Parcelforce worldwide, general logistics system etc. It is also a
listed company as a constituent of FTSE 100 Index. The report is aimed at providing the
different insights for roles and activities carried by Human Resource department and multiple
practices of managing the same.
MAIN BODY
A) Examine how strategies were changed by the firm
Bringing efficiency out of employee is the key aim of HR department. Succession of these
duties and working effectiveness assists in maintaining the healthy relations within business
environment, it helps in producing the positive work culture and acts as a morale booster
resulting in enhance efficiency of employees (Vanhala and Ritala, 2016). Human resource
management is responsible in analysing and keeping track of employee needs and try to
enhance their performance by motivating the employees in appropriate manner and provide
them with justified positive attitude so that overall contributions of employee can be brought to
optimum level. They are also responsible for enhancing the values and providing employees
with relevant training for their job position. Below given are some of the key measures through

which the human resource department of Royal Mail can create positive values in the
organization:
 Providing Rewards: Human resource managers of Royal Mail is continuously playing
a major role in motivating the employees which can help them in attaining a step ahead
position in the organization. The possibility of being provided with the justified rewards
will help employees in developing the dedicated and hardworking habits which carrying
on their job activities. This will lead to a competition which would ultimately benefit
Royal Mail in utilizing all their resources effectively and achieving all the
organizational goals.
 People and Performance: It is vital for every organization to execute all their activities
in a manner which can improve the organizations performance and working
possibilities. It would help in meeting the targets smoothly. Royal Mail uses financial
performance-based techniques and performance management tools to motivate their
employees and gain succession opportunities (Budhwar and et. al., 2019). HR
department should clearly assess and maintain balance between customer satisfaction
and employee satisfaction so that attainability towards goals can be achieved.
 Talent retention and acquisition: This is the most important activity carried on by
every organization. Royal Mail aims at retaining and acquisition of skilful talent so that
they can get competitive edge over their competitors (Do, Yeh and Madsen, 2016).
Another important objective of this measure is to ensure the reduced training costs and
use the skillset of employees in effectively achieving the organizational goals.
Harvard model of HRM
This model is considered as one of the most influential and significant model which is
associated with five major constraints such as situational factors, stakeholder’s interest, HRM
policies, HRM outcomes and long-term consequences within the organisation. In the context of
Royal Mail, when appropriate correlation is maintained within situational factors and
stakeholders’ interest then this will lead the company to shape its HRM policies and by which
significant HR outcomes can be attained by the organisation (Kosheleva and Bordunos, 2018).
In this manner in order to align with dynamic market condition Royal Mail has emerged with

using of this method which is helping the company to attain significant competitive edge in the
market and gain trust of their employees.
B) Analyse the impact of environmental factors on culture and HR plan
Environment factors are associated with providing significant impact over the business and
specifically to HR department. In this manner for a business this is imperative to hold higher
functions related to environment so that they can align various functions and acquire
prominence in the same. Environment factors are drawing immense impact over culture of the
organisation and in the same manner HR plans are required to be moulded. In the context of
Royal Mail as the company is managing such aspects related to environment in order to
perform appropriate working and to frame such effective HR plans. In this manner the company
is facing the above mentioned impact:
 Royal Mail follow the ethno-centrism policy of employment which focuses on
recruitment and hiring process of employees based on the available superiority position
awarded to employees whereas another policy is called Polycentrism which insists the
managers to follow foreign culture so that employees can be made comfortable all
around the globe (Brewster, Mayrhofer and Smale, 2016).
 Selection process used by Royal Mail is varied from region to region, for example they
recruit large number of candidates from Asia whereas number of resources hired from
US are low. HR is keen in gaining awareness of culture and family background of their
employees so that their skills and performance can be enhanced by providing them the
similar culture (Santos, 2018). Besides this they aim at providing their employees with
culture and work environment which would make them comfortable and provide a
happy and healthy work environment.
 Training is the first activity carried on by HR managers right after the resource is
recruited. It helps in improving the understanding and performance of new recruits.
Royal Mail have implemented a very well-planned training program and working
environment in various department of the organization, it ensures the smooth business
succession phase and enhancement of business processes effectiveness and efficiency
(Prince, Prince and Kabst, 2018). The gap in cultural differences can be bridged using
the various aspects mentioned and discussed in above points.

SHRM competency model
SHRM competency model is associated with identification of such factors by which
successful HR management can be exerted within organisation and at the same time skills of
HR professionals can be enhanced. With the help of SHRM competency model foundation of
talent management can be exerted within the organisation which could be helpful for HR
manager to analyse behaviour of employees and then execute HR functions. In the context of
Royal Mail using this model career of HR professionals can be sustained. This model is having
9 major dimensions and in the same manner Royal Mail may use the same for developing
environment aspects in their practices (Paauwe and Boon, 2018). The model is clearly
emphasising over ethical practices, cultural effectiveness and communication. In this manner
environment factors are defining the way in which environment is treated by the organisation so
Royal Mail is inhaling these aspects in their business so that to overcome with environment
discrepancies and to upkeep their environment.
Figure 1 SHRM competency model

C) Organisation's model of employment and organisational levers used to create values.
Employment model is the structure representing roles and responsibilities of HR management
that are segregated to ensure smooth execution of various tasks (Shafeek, 2016). Below given is
the employment model with context of Royal Mail:
The Standard Casual Model of HRM: This model is a highly effective model of employment
which is started with such business strategy which may end up examining the different financial
and operational aspects of business (Lee, Raschke and Louis, 2016). This model is depicting the
relationship of HR activities with overall organisational strategies which is helpful for the
business to lead higher opportunities of success. This model states that effectiveness of HR
strategy is totally dependent on business strategy so this can be said that HR strategy is derived
from overall business strategy in order to gain maximum benefits over financial performance.
An organisation follows HR strategy such as hiring, training, appraisal and providing
appropriate compensation to employees. With the help of using these practices certain
outcomes can be attained by the organisation by which internal performance of the business can
be improvised. When internal improvements are seen then the organisation may lead into
developing innovation and increasing of product or service quality.
This model is followed by Royal Mail to complete their human resource management
related tasks and activities (Heggen, 2019). This model insists on framing and implementing
various strategies which are aligned together to develop the standard set of performance and
benchmark as well as balancing the anticipated amendments. This is the responsibility of HR
managers to formulate such policy so that performance of its employees can be enhanced by
gaining higher productivity and any form of inefficiency can be eliminated. Apart from these

some of the other important activities carried on by HR department are training, recruitment,
Hiring and employee management activities (Baird, Su and Munir, 2018). Adhering to this
model tool appropriately would help Royal Mail in implementing and ensuring the internal and
external performance enhancement so that overall performance of organization can be
enhanced, and improved productivity and standard can be infused. This factors and changes are
the key influencers for profitability and return on investment. It is helpful in creating high value
within the organization that would benefit in terms of effectiveness as well as efficiency on
continuous and intensified manner. Royal Mail had framed various policies relying on this
model to attain the effectiveness and results. These policies are formed and managed by HR
management of Royal Mail which helps organization in achieving their desired goals and
visions in effective and efficient manner on timely basis (Cecere and Mazzanti, 2017). As we
know, individual performance plays a major role in the overall results of the organization and
this model insists on framing policies that will develop the performance standard and skills of
their employees. This model is helping in enhancing and improvising the individual
performance of employee along with financial performance of the organization.
D) Using Storey's 27 points of difference between HRM and personnel management as a
benchmark
HRM and Personnel management are two different employee related processes and departments
and the major difference between both the concepts is reasons of HRM and functions those are
executed (Storey, Wright and Ulrich, 2019). It is importance for Royal Mail to identify the
individual needs and demands either related to salaries or any other form of benefit. HR policies
are created to implement effective position for business organization within market so that
business can be carried in effective and developing manner. These roles are the major reasons
that HR department is such an important and integral part of business organization and
associated with employees and their well-being which provides a healthy working environment
and effective employee engagement process. With context of Royal Mail it is being observed
that balance between activities of HRM and Personnel management is established and often
used as a benchmark. Below given table shows the elaboration of the same:
BASIS Personnel management HRM
Contract A proper contract is being executed for HRM is provided with responsibility to

Personnel management with context of
Royal Mail Which provides them with
clarity in terms of working
standards(Brewster, 2017)
regularise all the activities. They enter
number of contracts to ensure smooth
processing of activities along with the
business functions carried parallelly.
Rules It is an important bridge and tool of
certain roles and abilities. They are
helpful in resolving various disputes
for organization and eliminate
possibilities of confusion.
HR Management of Royal Mail should
assess and identify any kind of negative
elements which can tarnish the
operational efficiency. Effective
communication is the way these
consequences can be mitigated, and
functions can be carried in effective
manner(Saridakis, Lai and Cooper,
2017).
Managemen
t task
Personnel management of Royal Mail
is provided with responsibility of
identifying and mitigate the negative
elements that can have adverse effect
on sustainability (Brewster and
Mayrhofer, 2018).
Whereas HRM management is provided
with responsibility of forming policies
for employees and process that would be
helpful in broadening the knowledge
base of their employees so that task can
be carried more effectively and
productively.

Figure 2 Storey's 27 points

D) Analyse the job design strategies
Job design is one of the essential activity exerted by HR department and this is helpful in
gaining attention of various people in order to take participate in job drive. For an organisation
various job design strategies are required to be used so that they can acquire higher prominence
in easy manner (Siengthai and Pila-Ngarm, 2016). With the help of job design strategies
employees can be involved in organisational working and at the same time overall productivity
can also be enhanced. Job design strategies are used for the major purpose of providing job
satisfaction to employees and in the same manner overall business development can be
rendered as well. In the context of Royal Mail some of the job design strategies are elaborated
as under:
Job rotation: Job rotation is defined as moving of employees from one job role to other so that
they can get skills of performing various tasks. This strategy is helpful in boosting ability to
face challenges in employees so that situation of boredom can be avoided. This will boost level
of flexibility within employees due to they can adapt change in a very significant manner. In the
context of Royal Mail as the company is having variety of operational tasks and positions in
their organisation and with the help of job rotation they can provide skill enlargement in their
employees to perform diversified tasks.
Job enlargement: This strategy is defined as expansion in task executed by an employee with
their job role. Job enlargement is associated with taking more responsibilities so that verity of
tasks can be performed in effective manner so that skills and capabilities of individual can also
be enhanced (Oakman, Kinsman and Briggs, 2017). In Royal Mail job enlargement will
develop ability of utilising their own skills so that performance of each and every employee can
be improved in specific period of time.
Job enrichment: Job enrichment is defined as including such motivational force within job so
that job role given to employees could become more challenging and attractive as well. Job
enrichment helps in gaining new learning so that work plan can be scheduled and at the same
time unique experience can be attained. In the context of Royal Mail using this strategy of job
design personal accountability within employees can be developed and at the same time more
growth opportunities can be inhaled.