Human Resource Management Practices at Morrisons Supermarket

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Human Resource Management at Morrisons

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION........................................................................................................................2
ASSIGNMENT – 1......................................................................................................................3
PURPOSE AND SCOPE OF HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT............................................3
1.1: PURPOSE AND FUNCTIONS OF HRM AT MORRISONS IN CONTEXT OF RESOURCING
AND WORKFORCE PLANNING...........................................................................................3
1.2: APPROACHES TO SELECTION AND RECRUITMENT AT MORRISONS AND THEIR
WEAKNESSES AND STRENGTHS........................................................................................6
ASSIGNMENT – 2....................................................................................................................10
TASK 1: KEY ELEMENTS OF HRM AND THEIR EFFECTIVENESS.............................................10
1.1: BENEFITS OF HRM PRACTICES FOR EMPLOYERS AND EMPLOYEES.........................10
1.2: EFFECTIVENESS OF DIFFERENT HRM PRACTICES.....................................................12
TASK 2: EXTERNAL AND INTERNAL FACTORS THAT INFLUENCE HRM DECISION MAKING.....14
2.1: IMPORTANCE OF EMPLOYEE RELATIONS................................................................14
2.2: EMPLOYMENT LEGISLATIONS AND ITS IMPACT OF HRM DECISION MAKING.........16
TASK 3: APPLICATION OF HRM PRACTICES.........................................................................18
3.1: PERSON SPECIFICATION AND JOB DESCRIPTION FOR A TEAM LEADER AT
MORRISONS................................................................................................................... 18
CONCLUSION.......................................................................................................................... 20
BIBLIOGRAPHY........................................................................................................................21

INTRODUCTION
The HRM or Human Resource Management is considered to be a critical aspect of an
organisations existence, survival, and growth. HRM supplies the organisation with talented
and skilled employees through the recruitment and selection process so that the
organisational objectives can be pursued and fulfilled. It looks after the management of
organisational human resources so that their individual professional objectives and
performance align with the organisational needs and goals allowing the employees to
become the competitive edge especially in highly competitive industries like Retail (Bratton
and Gold, 2017).
The assignment is focused on human resource management in the retail sector and is
divided into two parts. The first part of the assignment explores the scope and purpose of
HRM in the context of resourcing in a retail organisation. The second part of the assignment
considers the principles of effective HRM in a retail organisation's context.
The Retail organisation being considered for this assignment is Morrisons. Morrisons is a UK
based retailer that’s fourth largest in the country. It was founded in 1899 and currently, it
employs over 100,000 people at over 490 locations and services around 12 million
customers every week.

ASSIGNMENT – 1
PURPOSE AND SCOPE OF HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT
1.1: PURPOSE AND FUNCTIONS OF HRM AT MORRISONS IN CONTEXT OF
RESOURCING AND WORKFORCE PLANNING
THE PURPOSE AND SCOPE OF HRM AT MORRISONS
The principle focuses of the HRM at Morrisons is the human resources working within the
company and managing them in a manner so that the organisational goals and objectives
are furthered. The purpose of HRM at Morrisons is manifold. Its focus is on enhancing
employee performance and productivity by implementing the relevant work life standards
with the organisational work environment and culture. It acts as a point of communication
between the employees and the top management and focuses on promoting their
communication (Armstrong and Taylor, 2014). The HRM at Morrisons also devises the
incentive and rewards schemes that could have a motivating effect on the employees. It
establishes relevant training and development programs to enhance employee skill and
knowledge level thereby enhancing their individual and team productivity. The HRM is also
responsible for ensuring compliance with the legislative as well as organisational policies
and guidelines. The HRM at Morrisons incorporates all the above-mentioned attributes and
activities to fulfil their primary objective of enticing, hiring and retaining talented and skilled
employees. The scope of HRM at Morrisons encompasses three different aspects that are
Personnel or labour aspect, Industrial relations aspect, and Welfare aspect (Bratton and
Gold, 2017).
FUNCTIONS OF HRM AT MORRISONS
The workforce planning can be defined as a process of identifying the future organisational
requirement of Human Resources and devising as well as implementing actions to fulfil the
identified requirements. The future human resources requirement is dependent on the

strategic plan of the company as well as other factors like current employee strength and
the employee turnover (Armstrong and Taylor, 2014). The HR functions in an organisation
like Morrisons relevant to the workforce planning and resourcing includes Payroll
management, employee relations, performance appraisal as well as training and
development, staffing, forecasting and job analysis (Purce, 2014).
Figure 1: Functions Of HRM in Context of Resourcing and Workforce Planning (Drucker,
2012)
Payroll Management
The HR at Morrisons looks after the creation of the wage and salary structure for the
employees. Another aspect being handled is the creation and implementation of rewards
such as bonuses and incentives (Purce, 2014).
Employee Relations
Under this function, the HR at Morrisons focuses on the management of interrelationship
between employees and the management so that their interrelationship is strengthened. HR
ensures the fulfilment of individual needs that includes relevant personal and professional
needs of the employees (Drucker, 2012).
Performance Appraisal

The HR at Morrisons coordinates and collaborates with managers of other business
functions to ensure transparent performance appraisal of employees as per the
organisational policy and practices. The HR also ensures that employees are aware of the
organisational expectation as per the appraisal parameters and are given feedback
periodically about their performance levels (Purce, 2014).
Training and Development
The HR at Morrisons ensures the creation and delivery of training and development
programs. These programs ensure that new employees are aware of their roles and
responsibilities as well as the history of the organisation and its hierarchy. It’s ensured that
the new employees have sufficient skill levels to execute their work efficiently also existing
employees are given opportunities to enhance their skill levels to enhance their productivity
and acquire skills that can prepare them for future roles (Drucker, 2012).
Staffing
The Recruitment and selection process focuses on attracting talented and skilled people for
the recruitment process and them selecting the best suitable ones as per the job
requirements. The standard basis for hiring new employees at Morrisons is their
qualification and skill levels as well as past experience in certain cases (Purce, 2014).
Job Analysis
The HRM at Morrisons focuses on in-depth analysis of different roles to identify and
determine the importance, duties, and requirements associated with specific roles. This is a
necessary HR function that allows it to determine the job placements and necessary
competencies while creating a legally defensible source of the staffing process (Drucker,
2012).
Forecasting
The HR at Morrisons continuously focuses on the determination of short and long term
human resource needs of the organisation. This allows the organisation to function
efficiently and have access to the necessary resources to maintain its performance levels
(Bratton and Gold, 2017).

1.2: APPROACHES TO SELECTION AND RECRUITMENT AT MORRISONS AND THEIR
WEAKNESSES AND STRENGTHS
The Recruitment and selection process at Morrisons involves identifying skilled and talented
people on the basis of their suitability to the role in context from a pool of potential
employees through screening, interviewing, and testing and hiring them to fill the vacant
positions (Garner, 2012). For the purpose of recruitment and selection, the HRM at
Morrisons utilises various recruitment and selection approaches and each of these
approaches that are being utilised has their specific set of Strengths and Weaknesses. The
Recruitment and selection process is categorised as internal sources and external sources of
Recruitment and Selection (Ekwoaba et al., 2015).
INTERNAL SOURCES OF RECRUITMENT
The internal Sources of Recruitment approach involves hiring internally the needed
employees from within the organisation. The different types of internal sources of
recruitment are promotions, transfers, former employee recruitment, internal job postings,
and recruitment database of past applicants (Garner, 2012).
Promotions It involves elevating the role of existing employees on the basis of
their performance to fill the vacant positions
Transfers It involves moving an employee from one role to another role provided
both roles are equal in responsibilities and rank. It also included the
inter-department movement of employees or location changes.
Recruitment Database
Of Past Applicants
The Recruitment database of the organisation contains the data of
applicants who were not selected previously due to various reasons.
This database is used as a source of candidates for the vacant position
Internal Job Postings It involves posting the job advertisement at common employee portals
or notice boards seeking potential employees from the pool of existing
employees.
Former Employee
Recruitment
This involves offering employment to past employees of the
organisation on the basis of needs of a position.

Table 1: Types of Internal sources of Recruitment (Ekwoaba et al., 2015)
STRENGTH AND WEAKNESSES OF INTERNAL SOURCES OF RECRUITMENT
Strength Weaknesses
It's a cost-effective method of recruitment that's
simple and quick.
Prevents the entry of external potential
candidates and thereby limits the entry of
innovativeness and fresh perspective.
There’s no requirement of induction or training
since being an existing employee the candidate
already has the knowledge of the things covered
in the induction and initial training.
This type of recruitment is limited in scope due
to its inability to find candidates for all the
vacant posts.
The potential for professional growth enhances
employee performance and motivation levels, as
well as, organisational inter-work relations.
This could be a cause of a conflict between
selected employees and others. Also, using this
source of recruitment results in filling up of a
vacancy at the cost of vacating another post
It establishes and promotes a sense of loyalty in
employees
The employees that are overlooked in the
process could feel demotivated and it may affect
their individual performance levels.
Table 2: Strength and Weaknesses of Internal Sources of Recruitment (Shammot, 2014)
EXTERNAL SOURCES OF RECRUITMENT
In this approach of recruitment, the pool of potential applicants is availed externally to
recruit potential employees (Griffeth et al., 2013). The candidates have no connection to the
organisations like Morrisons and this approach is comparatively more expensive than the
internal sources approach but it allows access to new thoughts and innovativeness from
externally sourced employees. The different types of External sources of recruitments are
direct recruitment, employment exchange, advertisements, employment agencies, campus
recruitment, professional associations, etc. (Griffeth et al., 2013).
Advertisements This external source of recruitment is widely used by HRM at Morrisons.
It involves utilising a variety of electronic, print, and digital mediums as a

platform for publishing the job vacancy and the recruitment schedule.
The advertisement includes a specific person specification and job
description that acts as a primary mode of screening.
Direct
Recruitment
This involves publishing the job vacancy on the organisational notice board
and qualified candidates are screened and selected if they are suitable for
vacant roles. It’s usually used for recruiting technical or blue-collar workers.
Employment
Exchange
These are government agencies that have the legal mandate of receiving
certain specific types of job vacancies from the employers. They maintain a
database of applicants and the employers are provided with suitable
candidates on registering the vacancies with employment exchange.
Employment
Agencies
The employment agencies can be from the public, government, or private
sector. These agencies are directly connected with the candidates and
maintain a database of applicants that could be skilled, unskilled, or
semiskilled. Their services can be used by paying a fee.
Professional
Associations
This involves using professional associations as a source of potential
candidates. These professional associations tend to become a link between
job seekers and employers like Morrisons.
Campus
Recruitment
It involves hiring candidates from various colleges or universities from their
pool of eligible students. The choice of university and college is made on the
basis of nature of qualification required by the vacant positions such as
technical or management based.
Table 3: Different Types of External Recruitment Sources(Muscalu, 2015)
STRENGTH AND WEAKNESSES OF EXTERNAL SOURCES OF RECRUITMENT
STRENGTHS WEAKNESSES
 It helps in enhancing the organisational
branding
 The recruitment process doesn’t cause
any partiality, conflict, or personal bias
among the employees
 There's no limitation to the scope of
recruitment due to a large pool of
candidates
 It allows the influx of new thought
 It's a time-consuming process since it
involves different stages from the
publishing of the vacancy until the final
selection of the candidate.
 It's comparatively expensive
 The candidates being interviewed may
expect higher wages and benefits
 After the selection, the selected
candidates require induction and other

process, innovativeness and creativity in
the organisation
 There’s no impact on the current staff
strength or on-going task execution
training activities to prepare them for
their designated role
Table 4: Strength and Weaknesses of External Sources of Recruitment (Muscalu, 2015)
It can be concluded that the External sources of Recruitment are the favoured type of
recruitment of the HRM at Morrisons. The HRM at Morrisons uses the advertisement and
Employment agencies extensively for the recruitment process. Another favoured approach
is a type of internal sources approach that's the recruitment database of past applicants
(Muscalu, 2015).

ASSIGNMENT – 2
TASK 1: KEY ELEMENTS OF HRM AND THEIR EFFECTIVENESS
1.1: BENEFITS OF HRM PRACTICES FOR EMPLOYERS AND EMPLOYEES
The integration of the practices of the Morrisons HRM is a necessary aspect of effective and
efficient workforce management (Yang et al., 2015). The HRM at Morrisons devises and
implements a plan that focuses on aligning the organisational goals and objectives with
human resource management. It works towards enhancing employee productivity to
achieve the strategic objectives of the organisation. The incorporation of effective HRM
practices benefits both the employers and the employee (Noe et al., 2017).
The Benefits of effective HRM practices for Employees
 It provides better opportunities for professional advancement
 It enhances motivation and employee satisfaction levels
 It facilitates the work-life balance thereby aiding employees in fulfilling both
professional and personal responsibilities (Yang et al., 2015)
 The Training and development programs allow the employees to gain skills and
knowledge to better execute their work thereby enhancing their personal
performance levels
 It provides employees with opportunities to acquire additional skills and knowledge
(Yang et al., 2015)
The Benefits of effective HRM practices for Employers
 It facilitates the reduction of fixed and operational costs
 It facilitates better resource utilisation
 It helps in reducing employee turnover and absenteeism
 It aids the employer (Morrisons) in exploring new market opportunities (Noe et al.,
2017)
 It facilitates effective stimulation and streamlining of organisational business
processes

 It helps in creating avenues of additional revenue generation by effective utilisation
of employee talent and skills
 It aids in enhancing the performance and profitability of the organisation
 It aids in maintaining the supply and demand balance of the workforce in order to
meet organisational human resource requirement (Noe et al., 2017)