Analyzing HRM Practices and Workforce Planning at Marks & Spencer

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of Human Resource Management (HRM) practices at Marks and Spencer, a British multinational retail store. It explores the purpose and functions of HRM in workforce planning and resourcing, including talent management, labor relations, recruitment, performance management, and improving the working environment. The report examines how HRM helps Marks and Spencer achieve its business objectives through recruitment processes, training and development plans, employee benefits, and work environment improvements. It evaluates internal and external recruitment methods, highlighting their merits and demerits, and assesses the online recruitment process used by Marks and Spencer. Furthermore, the report discusses various HRM practices beneficial for both employees and employers, such as training and development, incentives and recognitions, employee health and security, and profit sharing.

HUMAN RESOURCE
MANAGEMENT

CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................................2
LO1..............................................................................................................................................................3
P1.............................................................................................................................................................3
M1...............................................................................................................................................................6
P2.............................................................................................................................................................8
M2.........................................................................................................................................................11
LO2............................................................................................................................................................12
P3...........................................................................................................................................................12
M3.........................................................................................................................................................14
P4...........................................................................................................................................................15
LO3............................................................................................................................................................16
P5...........................................................................................................................................................16
P6...........................................................................................................................................................17
M4.........................................................................................................................................................19
LO4............................................................................................................................................................20
P7...........................................................................................................................................................20
M5.........................................................................................................................................................25
CONCLUSION.............................................................................................................................................26
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................................27
1

INTRODUCTION
Human resource management is a systematic approach to manage the human resource of the
company. Human resource management helps the company to get better output and results as
well as create a good working environment for the company (Primecz, 2018). This assignment
helps to understand the different aspects of human resource management like workforce
planning, recruitment, different types of human resource management practice and their
influence on decision-making and the organisation. The company studied in this assignment is
Marks and Spencer; it is a British multinational retail store and more than one hundred and
thirty years old (corporate.marksandspencer, 2018).
2

LO1
P1
PURPOSE AND FUNCTIONS OF HRM APPLICABLE TO WORKFORCE PLANNING AND
RESOURCING
Human resource planning deals with planning and managing the human resource of the
company. It related to different duties and function that the human resource department has
to follow to make human resource management effective and help the company to achieve its
organisation goals (Brewster, 2017). Human resource management provides strategic direction
to the employees and measures their performance for further guidance and support.
The purpose of HRM in Marks and Spence include talent management, labour relation, and
personnel administration (corporate.marksandspencer, 2018). The other purpose of HRM
included recruitment, performance management, workforce planning, promotions and to
improve the working environment (Brewster, 2017).
3

Human Resource Management
Source: https://www.vacancycentre.com/advice/hr-management
Workforce planning in HRM is a continuous process that related to planning, scheduling and
monitoring the organisation workforce so that the organisation objectives fulfilled without
delay or any inconvenience (Goodman,2015). Resourcing is the process of hiring and training of
talent from the different source for job roles. The purpose of workforce planning and recruiting
in Marks and Spence is as follows:
 To make a plan of the work in the company and schedule the worksheet according to it
 To forecast working hours that is required in the company for the future and makes
appropriate plans according to them.
 To monitor the working plan by coordinating with different management at all the levels
of the company(Goodman,2015)
 To provide job satisfaction to the all the employee by proper planning of work schedule
 To communicate to all the employees about the working plan
 To hire the people for the various position available in the company
 To execute background and document checks for the people hired
 To monitor the performance of the staff in the company
The functions of HRM applicable to workforce planning and resourcing in Marks and Spence are
as follows:
Continuous Improvement
To undertake the process of continuous improvement in the workforce planning, by the process
of monitoring, evaluation and review at all the levels of management. This helps them to
improve workforce planning in Marks and Spencer.
Conduct Gap Analysis
4

Gap analysis is an important part of workforce planning; it helps the company to smooth the
workflow. The gap analysis is done by the HR team at Marks and Spencer, which helps in proper
distribution of work and discover the goals of hiring in future.
Setting Direction
The strategic plan ensures that the resource planning is appropriate and it fulfils all the
requirement of the workforce plan and resourcing. It is the function of HRM that the strategic
direction is achieved in harmony with the workforce plan of Marks and Spencer.
5

M1
THE FUNCTIONS OF HRM TO ACQUIRE APPROPRIATE TALENT AND SKILLS TO FULFIL BUSINESS
OBJECTIVES
The Business objective of Marks and Spencer is to be a standard of business in retail sector
across all its competition (corporate.marksandspencer, 2018). The HRM helps it to achieve its
business objective by fulfilling the needs that are essential for the company. The functions of
HRM that helps Marks and Spencer to get talent and skills are as follows:
Recruitment Process
The recruitment process that conducted by the HR team for Marks and Spence designed to hire
the best talents in the retail sector (Wilkinson,2016). It comprises of different test and interview
session according to the need of the job role. This helps the company to hire good and effective
people who help to fulfil the business objective.
Training and development
The training and development plan in Marks and Spencer designed according to expertise and
need of the job. It comprises of all the aspects that are required to be confident while doing the
job. This helps the company to skill the staff and archive the business objective.
Benefits and awards to employs
Marks and Spencer provide a variety of benefits to employees that range from insurance to
share buy offers for all its employees. This is controlled through the HRM process of the
company, it helps the employees to stay motivated during the working period, and help the
business grow (Wilkinson,2016).
Work Environment Improvement
6

The working environment helps employees to stay positive and delighted, the HRM of Marks
and Spencer takes care that the working environment well maintained. This helps the
employees to feel active during the working hours (Wilkinson,2016).
P2
METHODS OF RECRUITMENT IN MARKS AND SPENCER
Recruitment is the process of invitation, identification, and selection of the suitable candidates
for different job roles that are present in the company. It is a very crucial process as the
performance of the company depends largely on the people that work in it (Cascio, 2018). The
recruitment process in Marks and Spencer based on two methods that are internal recruitment
and external recruitment. Both the process has merit and demerits linked to them.
Internal Recruitment
In the process of internal recruitment, the talent hired by the current employee of the
company. This process followed in Marks and Spencer through the suggestion from the senior
of through applying on the career web portal of the company. Internal recruitment is very
beneficial for companies as it saves time and money (Cascio, 2018).
The merits of the internal recruitment process are as follows:
 The people hired know the organisation culture well and adjusted with the system and
process of the company.
 The employees feel motivated to work in the company as they can apply for a new
position
 It helps to save time and money of the company as the cost of advertisement and time
of recruitment is less than external recruitment
 It also helps to save the work related to documentation and orientation of the
employee.
The demerits of the internal recruitment process are as follows:
7

 It limits the scope of talent for the position, as the company requires to hire from a
limited pool of employees
 Internal recruitment does not create proper balance as one position became empty if
other gets filled
 It may result in discrimination between employees due to personal interest or past
performance.
External Recruitment
External recruitment is the process when the company publish its job opening on various job
portals like job websites, newspaper, and magazines and other (Cascio, 2018). For this job,
opening who is eligible for the position can apply and take part in the recruitment process. In
Marks and Spenser, the external recruitment carried mainly through their job portal.
The advantages of external recruitment are as follows:
 The company gets to hire from a large pool of candidates for the position, so it increases
the possibility of getting good talent.
 It helps to improve the competition in the company by the entry of new people
 It also gives cope to hire talent with new skills that help the company to grow
The disadvantages of external recruitment are as follows:
 A lot of cost and time is involved in the hiring talent from a large number of applicants
 Cost is also involved in training and induction of the new recruits in the company
 New people require time to adjust to the company, their performance is also low during
the initial period
 The current employees may feel demotivated, as they could not apply for different
positions in the company.
8

There are other processes along with external and internal recruitment for hiring talent. They
are professional reference policy in which the current employee refers an external candidate
for the job. This process helps to hire good quality employees but its limitation is that company
gets less pool of candidates to hire. The other process is through an external recruitment
agency, in this, an agency helps the company to recruit the candidate for the company. The
advantage of this process is that it saves a lot of time of the company, but it is expensive for the
candidate, as she/he has to pay a fee of the agency.
The recruitment process in Marks and Spencer carried out through an online application
submitted by the candidate. Then candidates, who are fit for the job according to their
qualification and work experience, filtered out of the applicants. The filtered candidates go
through various tests before the job interview. After selection through the final job interview,
the candidates are provided offer letter their training process start.
9

M2
EVALUATION OF PROCESS OF RECRUITMENT
The hiring process at Marks and Spencer carried out by online recruitment. The online
recruitment process is done easefully with the help of hiring team and a dedicated job portal
for the hiring the candidates. Both internal and external employees can apply for the post on
this job portal. These carry advantages of both internal recruitment and external recruitment
process. As it, help the company to filter desired candidates from employees and the outside
talent. It also helps the company to save a lot of money, by saving the cost of the
advertisement in different media. The employees of the company also feel motivated, as they
are free to apply for the position form the job portal.
The limitation of this process that carried out by Marks and Spencer is that the awareness of
the job opening is limited to the people who visit the website frequently or have signed for
updates. It also limits the scope of recruitment form a larger pool of talent. The internal
recruitment carried out from this job portal concrete imbalance, as the position of the
employee selected for the new position remains empty.
10

LO2
P3
HRM PRACTICES USED IN THE ORGANISATION
The HRM practices that used in Marks and Spencer that are beneficial for both employee and
employer are as follows:
Training and Development
Training and development help both employee and employer in many ways (Foss et al.,2015).
The training program that conducted in Marks and Spencer help the employees to gain
confidence in doing the job, it also helps them to get hands-on experience of the job profile
(careers.marksandspencer, 2018). The advantages of training for the company is that the
employee is able to perform in real job scenario, commits fewer mistakes and feels motivated
to do the job.
Incentives and Recognitions
Incentives and recognition motivate the employees to perform better and overcome challenges
that faced during the job. It also helps employees to earn respect and bonus by doing the job
properly (Glaister et al.,2018). The advantage of incentives and recognition for the company is
that helps them to identify talented employee (careers.marksandspencer, 2018). It also helps
the company to improve the revenue collection and customer service. Marks and Spencer offer
a variety of incentive to all its employees and franchise for completing the target.
Security and health for employees
Marks and Spencer provide different types of insurance benefits to all its employees, this
includes accidental and health coverage. This helps employees during an accident or health
issues by providing them with financial support (careers.marksandspencer, 2018). This policy
11