Human Resource Management Report: Microsoft Case Study Analysis

This report delves into the core principles and practices of Human Resource Management (HRM), focusing on recruitment, selection, training, and employee engagement within an organizational context, using a Microsoft case study. It begins by defining the purpose and importance of HRM functions, including the roles and responsibilities of HR officers, and discusses the advantages and disadvantages of various selection methods. The report then analyzes potential improvements to current selection processes, creates a person specification for a receptionist role, and evaluates suitable advertising mediums. Furthermore, it explores the benefits of apprenticeship and graduate training schemes, flexible working practices, and employee motivation strategies. The report also examines employee engagement, its integral role in employee relations, key approaches to engaging workers, and the influence of UK employment legislation on HR decision-making. Finally, the report offers a conclusion summarizing the key findings and recommendations.

HUMAN RESOURCE
MANAGEMENT
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Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION .....................................................................................................................3
TASK 1.......................................................................................................................................3
a) Purpose of HR. function and its importance to organisation .............................................3
b)Roles and responsibilities of Human Resource Officer.......................................................4
c)Advantages and disadvantages of current selection method used by organisation ............5
d)Potential improvements that could be made to current selection methods..........................6
TASK 2.......................................................................................................................................7
a) Create person specification for role. ..................................................................................7
b) Provide rationale for a suitable medium for placing an advertisement..............................8
c). Discuss advantages and disadvantages of previous advertising method used within
organisation.............................................................................................................................9
d) Produce question to be asked in for receptionist interview..............................................10
TASK 3.....................................................................................................................................11
a) Microsoft offer apprenticeship and graduate training schemes. Evaluate the benefits of
organisation and employees .................................................................................................11
b) Development opportunities are available to staff on their permanent job role ..............12
c) Benefits of approach Microsoft has taken in respect of flexible working practise ..........12
d) explain how Microsoft motives their employees through its job design and system of
reward...................................................................................................................................13
TASK 4.....................................................................................................................................14
a) Term of employee engagement ........................................................................................14
b) Employees engagement an integral strategies of employees relation ...........................14
c) Identify the key approaches to engaging workers explain in the summit and discuss
their importance in terms of improving communication in the workplace...........................15
d)Identify the main pieces of employment legislation in the UK and explain how they
influence human resource decision making..........................................................................15
CONCLUSION.........................................................................................................................16
REFERENCES.........................................................................................................................17
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INTRODUCTION
Human resource Management refers to recruiting, selecting, hiring, maintaining and
developing the current and new employees within organisation. This is an important tool of
management. The HR. focuses on employees. They are the main assets of company and thus
needs to be maintained and developed properly for achieving objectives of organisation. This
report discuss about the purpose of HR (Principles Of Human Resource Management, 2014).
function and it importance to organisation. It discusses about the role of HR. officer. The
report discuss about the various selection methods and their advantages and disadvantages.
Further, it discuss the ways of promoting the job vacancies and the various ways to motivate
and increase the engagement of employees within company.
TASK 1
a) Purpose of HR. function and its importance to organisation
Human Resource Management is the coordination of people within an organisation to
achieve specific business objectives. The purpose of HR. professionals is to fulfil staffing
needs and maintain employees’ satisfaction. It deals with issues regarding performance
management, organisation development, and safety wellness, benefits, and training and
employee motivation. HR. plays a strategic role in managing people and the workplace
culture (Armstrong and et. al, 2014). Thus, importance of HR. professionals is as follows:
 Training: They coordinate new employees' orientation. HR. specialist provides
required amount of training to each employee in order to perform his/her jobs
efficiently.
 Safety and Risk Management: HR. professionals provide safety and manage risk by
engaging employees in promoting awareness and safe handling of dangerous
equipments and hazardous chemicals (Bratton and et. al 2017).
 Employee Satisfaction: Human Resource Specialist helps 'Say it with Chocolate' in
achieving high performance, morale and satisfaction within their workforce. They
conduct employee opinion surveys and seek their inputs regarding job satisfaction.
Current problems of HR. are as follows
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 Recruitment: The major challenges faced by HR. professionals are the recruitment of
talented staff. It has become difficult for HR. manager to find employee having the
correct blend of skills and personality (Brewster and Hegewisch eds.,2017). Productivity: It is important to have productive team for better results. HR.
professionals within organisation should check productivity level. If the level of
productivity is low then it should examine reasons and issues behind them
(Chelladurai and et. al 2017).
 Diversity: The composition of workforce within organisation is getting diversed. Due
to diversification issues related to bullying, discrimination and harassments may arise.
Future plans for growth of HR. are: Assess Current HR. Capacity: It is important to evaluate the capacity of current staff
within company before employing new applicants. This can be done by asking
employees within organisation to self-evaluate themselves. Forecast the needs of HR.: It is important to assess 'Say it With Chocolate' demands
for qualified employees. The company should carefully manage the supply and
demand of skilled employees (Brewster, and et. al, 2016).
 Develop Strategies: Company should develop strategies to recruit talented staff . It
should carefully manage the process of recruitment, selection and hiring of employees
within company.
b)Roles and responsibilities of Human Resource Officer Recruitment: It is the basic and most crucial task performed by HR. professionals.
The process starts with planning requirement of manpower within 'Say it With
Chocolate'. After assessing the requirements, the next step would be to implement
action plan to attract talented professionals for job (Marchington and et. al, 2016). Training: The role of HR. is to train new employees, guide them to organisational
norms and work pattern. It is important for Human Resource Officer to conduct
training program for every new employees based on the set of skills that will be
required in 'Say it with Chocolate'.
 Maintaining Work Culture: It is a responsibility of HR to maintain healthy and safe
environment at workplace and assures comfort amongst all employees. The role of
HRD is to maintain friendly environment and have an open attitude towards
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employees. It is essential to maintain positive work culture as the performance of
employee greatly depends on its surroundings.
c)Advantages and disadvantages of current selection method used by organisation
Advantages of selection test which is used by ' Say it with chocolate'
 Test provides uniform basis for comparing the performance of applicants.
 Test evaluates the aptitude, adjust-ability and temperament of individual candidate.
 This selection method is economical and time saving. Further, they are quick and easy
to score.
 This is reliable and accurate means of selecting employees from pool of large number
of applicants.
 Selection of applicants by test compares individuals on the basis of skills, knowledge
and special abilities possess by them.
Disadvantages of selection test which are used by ' Say it with chocolate'
 The conclusion drawn from test may not be correct in many cases. The skills and
ability of candidate is not judged through these tests.
 Enterprise may get deprived of applicants who are not willing to come to test but are
suitable for the concern.
 There must be some sort of biasness towards certain person and this will falsify the
results.
 These test are least successful in indicating the extent to which and individual want to
perform a given job.
Comparison with other selection methods:
Basis Cognitive Ability Interviews Personality test
Validity It is highly valid. Structured interviews
have high validity as
compared to
unstructured ones.
The validity is
moderate.
Acceptability Conducting of
cognitive test is
It is highly acceptable. This not widely
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moderately acceptable. acceptable
Reliability The results generated
from cognitive test are
less reliable.
Interviews provide
reliable information.
The reliability of
personality test is less.
Practicability It is more practical to
conduct.
The interviews can be
put into action and can
be conducted when
required.
It is difficult to
conduct personality
test.
d)Potential improvements that could be made to current selection methods
Improvement that could be made to current selection methods are; Standardisation: It refers to uniformity of the procedures and conditions which is
related to conducting test. This is important to have standardisation of test conducted
by company. It would provide a structured method and reliable data that saves the
time of an organisation. Further, it would allow 'Say It with Chocolate' to recruit
potential staff and reduce the complaints from clients. Objectivity: It means lack of biasness, judgement or prejudice. The test with an
objective measures without references to outside influences. This can be achieved
when all individuals performing the given test receives same results. Norms: A norm reflects the distribution of score obtained by many people who
performed that particular test is similar to the applicants being tested. The prospective
employees score would be compared to that norm and the important of the test score is
determined. It provided a frame of comparing applicant’s performance with that of
others. Validity: The extent of which test measures for what it is been conducted. If the test
cannot indicate the ability to perform the job, then the test has no value. Company
should check the validity of test conducted by them as many of it new recruited
employees have been fail in their initial period.
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 Reliability: The extent to which selection test provides consistent results. To validate
result it is important to verified it. This will improve the fairness of test conducted
within company.
TASK 2
a) Create person specification for role.
The job holder needs to demonstrate following competencies and must use it in the
wok.
Job title Receptionist
Recruiting Manager Practice manager
Qualifications Essentials Desirable
Standard grade English and mathematics or Equivalent.
Positive and friendly personal.
Excellent time keeping skills.
Good communication skills with employees at all levels of
management.
Experience Essentials Desirable
Experience of basic clerical duties and office procedures.
Ability to promote a positive image of company to its
clients.
It must have experience of handling calls in peak periods.
Must handle the customers in a friendly manner and make
them comfortable.
Experience of working in General Practice Environment.
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Skills Essentials Desirable
Excellent Communication skills.
Interpersonal Skills.
The job holder must have the skills to manage conflicts.
It must have good typing speed to match the need of job.
Problem solving skill.
Time management and ability to finish work in the assigned
time or deadline.
Behavioural Skills Essentials Desirable
Adaptability to changes within organisation.
The post holder must have self motivated behaviour.
He/she should maintain confidentiality of the information
of business.
Flexibility.
Effectively planned and managed the activities or task
assigned to him/her.
b) Provide rationale for a suitable medium for placing an advertisement.
There are different ways through which company can place their advertisement. These
are; Advertise through newspaper: This is the most common and efficient way of
advertising about job vacancies within organisation. The advertising cost through
newspaper is cheaper in compare to the other forms of advertisements. Further,
newspapers have better reach to adults and young talented youth than an average half
an hour advertisement on the televisions (Lussier and Hendon, 2017). Use of Social Networking Sites: Social media is widely used platform among youth.
Posting of job vacancies on these sites would attract more young talent for the job.
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The company can make a blog to promote recruitment activities on these platforms.
These blogs play a crucial role in attracting talented applicants for job. Further,
company can promote for it job through online job sites. These sites are cheaper
sources of recruiting.
 Trade publications: Advertising of job vacancies through trade publications is cost
effective method. The advantage of using these trade publications is that, the targeted
audience of these magazines are the people who work in a particular industry. There
are high chances that job seekers within chocolate industry must be reading these trade
journals (Guest, 2017).
 Private Employment Agencies: These agencies are the best tool to prompt for job. As
private agencies saves the time and have access to large number of job seekers.
Further, the cost of hiring applicants from these agencies is moderate.
c). Discuss advantages and disadvantages of previous advertising method used within
organisation.
The job advertising method used by 'Say it with Chocolate' initially were; Circulation
of job vacancies within organisation and The job boards outside of the main site. These
advertising methods used by the company have both pros and cons. The advantage and
disadvantage of circulating of job vacancies.
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Advantage Disadvantage
This form of advertising help in tapping
the institutional knowledge within
organisation.
This leads to stagnation within company as the
same employees are been promoted to do the
job.
The recruitment through this method is
cheaper and time saving.
This stop the fresh and new talent to recruit
within organisation.
Company operates in a specialised
business of making chocolate thus, it is the
best way to hunt talent within
organisation.
It is difficult to fulfil all vacancies through
internal advertising.
This form of advertising promotes
continuity of operations. The internal
employee can transit new operations
(Boon and et.al., 2018).
This may increased partiality while promoting
employees.
The advantage and disadvantage of The job boards outside of the main site:
Advantage Disadvantage
This increase the chance of finding right
person for right job.
This process of advertising is time consuming
and expensive.
It leads to healthy competition within
employees and they are motivated to work.
Employees need to be trained for performing
the given task or job role.
This form of advertising gives company the
opportunity to get skilled and highly-qualified
labour (Marchington,Wilkinson, Donnelly and
Kynighou, 2016).
Further, it becomes difficult to examine
whether the candidate would be suitable for the
job.
d) Produce question to be asked in for receptionist interview
 The question to be asked for a Receptionist interview should be framed properly so
that it help in improving the selection:
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 Tell me about yourself?
 What kind of education, training and qualification do you have for working as
receptionist?
 What according to you, is the most important skill required for being perfect
receptionist.
 Why we should hired you as receptionist for our company?
 What is the customer satisfaction according to you?
 How will you deal with high work load and the stress accompanying the job?
TASK 3
a) Microsoft offer apprenticeship and graduate training schemes. Evaluate the benefits of
organisation and employees
Apprenticeship and graduates training schemes is very useful fr developing the skills
of their this organisation. Though this process worker learn so many thing. It is very
important part of human resources management . Management of Microsoft is responsible
for providing the training session to their employees.
Benefits of apprenticeship and graduate training
Employees increasing their job satisfaction level and increasing their motivation level
it is also very important providing effective training to their employees. Training is the part
of human resource management it help to developing employees skill and providing
motivation. Though effective training worker also increasing their efficiency and work
abilities. They people also increasing their capacity like they adopting new technology and
increasing their idea though effective training (Guest, 2017)..
Organisation is also increasing their productivity of the businesses. When Microsoft
providing effective to their employees so they usually greater productivity and improving
high quality of product. This company is also increasing their profit margin and maintained
their their businesses performance. If company provide good training programme so
organisation improv their business and employees is also improve their skill. So it is very
essential part for every organisation as well as employees.
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b) Development opportunities are available to staff on their permanent job role
Training program help to improving the skills of employees. Training is very
necessary part of learn particular knowledge and it helps to improving the performance in
their current roles and responsibilities. Better training help to obtain the profit of the
Microsoft company. So developing new opportunities are existing staff on their permanent
job role so this organisation conduct training session to their employees. It is more beneficial
of leaning new techniques that helps to improving the performance of the business.
Developing employees opportunities providing rewards and recognises, bonus,
incentive to their employees for their permanent job. It is very important for the organisation
to stability to their employees. So organisation is also help them and providing lots of job
opportunities to their employees like providing extra benefits, increasing their salary,
promotions etc. it is also the responsibility of human resource management to develop
opportunities for the growth of the employees as-well as. Microsoft also developing their
employees opportunities though they providing reward and performance appraisal it is
necessary for the all over the development of worker a as well as organisation.
Motivated employees have so many opportunities in their permanent job role, they
have proper knowledge their work, it is more beneficial for organisation growth. Generally
employees are motivated from organisation support like if Micro soft providing reward,
promotion, flexibility to their working hour so worker automatically motivated. They
concerted on their work and increasing work efficiency day by day. Motivation is the process
of stimulating their employees for doing work in proper manner. Without motivation no any
one developing their career so every one need to great motivation for developing their jobs
opportunities. If this organisation gives a lot of opportunities to their permanent staff for
developing their skill so it is great chances for the staff for growing their work efficiency it is
not beneficial for employees, it is also effective for organisation because they have already
skilful employee’s so they do not need to hire outside.
c) Benefits of approach Microsoft has taken in respect of flexible working practise
The benefits of flexible working hours flexibility to meet family need means
employees fulfil their family needs (Ones and et.al, 2017). If Microsoft providing their
employees in flexibility in working schedule so employee’s spend their time with family, and
doing their personal obligations like go with friends, yoga class or be home to fulfil their
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