Case Study Report: HRM Practices, Employee Relations at Next PLC

This report provides an analysis of the Human Resource Management (HRM) practices at Next PLC, a major clothing retailer. It begins by outlining the company's background and its position in the market. The report then delves into the importance of employee relations, highlighting how strong relationships and teamwork contribute to a positive work environment and efficient task completion. Furthermore, the report examines the impact of the Health and Safety Act 1974 on HRM decision-making, emphasizing the importance of a safe work environment and the role of the HR department in implementing safety measures and training. The conclusion summarizes the key findings, emphasizing the vital role of HRM in the company's operations and the effectiveness of various HR practices, particularly in employee selection and retention, ultimately contributing to a successful business environment.

HUMAN RESOURCE
MANAGEMENT

About Next
 NEXT PLC Is a British Multi National Corporation set up in 1872 and its headquarters
are based in Enderby, Leicestershire. They deal in clothing industry, footwear and as a
retailer of home products.
 This report highlights the scope and purpose of HRM and the various practices of HRM
applicable in NEXT.
 Next is the largest clothing retailer by sales in the United Kingdom, having overtaken
Marks & Spencer in early 2012and 2014.
 It is listed on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index.

Importance of employee relations in respect
to influencing HRM decision making.
 Shared Work :- NEXT Company has established strong relationships with each other
forming great bonds (Chelladurai and Kerwin, 2018).
 Therefore, employees at NEXT share friendly relationships which has fostered healthy
relations and reduced conflicts level. Also, this has encouraged appropriate work load
distribution where they help each other when a employee gets stuck.
 This appropriate distribution helps the employees in completing their task more
efficiently and achieve the targets timely thus encouraging mutual growth of all the
employees together.

Employee legislation and their impact on
decision making of HR
 Health and safety act 1974
 This regulation ensures that each entity has to ensure creating safer environment and protecting
employees from hazardous activities and other risks. It describes rights and obligations of employees and
employer both.
 It ensures that work premises remain safer for staff members. This influence decision making of HRM as
HR department of Next company has to maintain list of safety equipment’s and also make reports of
serious accidents occur at workplace (The Health and Safety at Work Act Explained | British Safety
Council, 2019).
 Human resource management of enterprise has to arrange training sessions for employees so that staff
can know more about use of safety measures. This legislation helps in minimizing accidents or death in
organization and protecting people as well.

CONCLUSION
 After going through the research conducted in above report, it can be concluded that
Human Resource Management plays a vital role in the functioning of any company.
 At NEXT Plc different approaches are used for selection the best personnel out of all
the available candidates and different techniques are beneficial for both employees and
employers at company.
 This report also concludes that employee retention ratio can be increased only when
they are satisfied with the norms of company and at NEXT Plc, the HR department
focuses on this aspect very importantly.

REFERENCES
 Bailey, C. and et.al., 2018. Strategic human resource management. Oxford University
Press.
 Banfield, P., Kay, R. and Royles, D., 2018. Introduction to human resource
management. Oxford University Press.
 Berman, E.M. and et.al., 2019. Human resource management in public service:
Paradoxes, processes, and problems. CQ Press.