Strategic Human Resource Management at Mother London: A Case Study

This case study examines the HR practices implemented at Mother London, a creative advertising company, focusing on how they strategically manage their human resources. The analysis covers the role of HR in supporting human, social, and organizational capital, highlighting practices such as resourcing, training and development, and performance management. The report also explores the theoretical perspectives of Strategic Human Resource Management (SHRM) and discusses key areas and legislations in recruitment and selection, including the Equality Act 2010 and the General Data Protection Regulation Act. The study emphasizes how Mother London aligns its HR strategies with its business objectives to gain a competitive advantage through employee development, engagement, and retention. It also touches upon the importance of creating a positive work environment and ensuring compliance with relevant employment laws.

Case Study

Executive Summary:
HR practices play an important role in any organisation in managing human resource. It
helps in transforming efforts and skills of workers into achievement of business objectives. In
context with Mother London, this company implement various HR practices by concerning on
business strategy. It includes resourcing, performance and management, training and
development etc. This would help in strategically managing the human resource and gain their
contribution in getting competitive advantage.

Table of Contents
Executive Summary:........................................................................................................................2
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
TASK 2............................................................................................................................................1
a) Role of HR practices in supporting the different forms of capital.....................................1
b) HR practices implemented at Mother London with theoretical perspectives of SHRM....2
c) Key areas and legislations in recruitment and selection.....................................................4
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................5
REFERENCE...................................................................................................................................6
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................6

INTRODUCTION
Workers are considered as main resource of a company, as they give support and efforts
for achievement of business success. In order to strategically manage the human resources,
managers of an organisation used to adopt various HR policies (Zhong, Wayne and Liden, 2016).
It includes training and development, high appraisals, good pay scale, accommodations etc. This
would help in giving job satisfaction under employees and retain them for longer period as well.
The present report is based on a case study of Mother London, which handles commercials for
television and cinema. It has near about 280 people whose support helps in building its creative
output. To manage these people, role of some HR practices are described in this assignment.
Furthermore, legislation and key areas required for recruitment are also highlighted.
TASK 2
a) Role of HR practices in supporting the different forms of capital
Human resource management usually depends on specific policies and operational
system which influences the staff's behaviour, performance and personal attitude. As manpower
is considered as main assets in a firm therefore, HR practices plays an important role in
managing them at workplace (Björkman and et. al., 2014). It is based on four main perceptive,
that are- attract; develop; motivate and retain employees in organisation. Mother London is one
of the branch of 20 companies of Mother Holdings which deals in creative and advertising
sector. It has established in 1996 and given employment to near about 280 people. Currently it
works with 40 clients including a number of some high-branded companies. Creativity is
considered as an essence of this company, where its workers concern more on quality of creative
output. The main principles on which Mother London works belongs to 'Holy Trinity' which
underpins a statement of values. It includes- Produce best quality of creative output; Have Fun
and Make money. In general, there are various forms of key resources on which a company
draws its creative output. For Mother London, it includes human, social and organisation capital.
Human Capital:
Workers act as main resource of a company, as they have potential to get competitive
advantages for business. In this regard, a firm having a stock of human capital consider as a key
determinant of obtaining the quality of outputs. Therefore, the core principles of Mother London
is completely depended on quality of human capital for its success. In order to increase
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productivity and performance of employees, managers of Mother London adopt an HR practice
i.e.' talent or people-centric approach'. Under this process, performance of each employee is
measured by giving them group activities. Here, strengths and weaknesses of individuals are
evaluated to analyse the requirement of training (Lo, Macky and Pio, 2015). This leads to
develop abilities and knowledge of workers as well as reduce gap skills also.
Social Capital:
It can be defined as network of relationship among workers who work in a particular
society or environment. In this context, Holy Trinity of Mother London reflects that
organisational culture plays an important role in increasing productivity of workplace. For this
assistance, it concerns on giving priority to creativity while developing culture. Therefore,
commitment of workers towards success of business refers as glue which holds people together.
It leads to convert abilities, knowledge and experience of workers into valuable client outputs.
Under this process, HR policies i.e. providing motivation to staff by recognising their
performance, giving appraisals and more, leads to get high level of emotional attachment to
workplace.
Organisational Capital:
It defines particular pattern of interaction or transform of information within organisation.
It also reflects structure, roles and responsibilities of each employee as well as how people
communicate with each other. In context with Mother London- structure, processes and
procedures also shows its core principles (Kerzner and Kerzner, 2017). Therefore, to fit workers
within organisational culture, HR practices play an important role. It includes flat organisational
structure where every kind of information is given to workers. In this kind of structure, minimum
level of management is shown between staff and higher executives. It also promotes employee
involvement by a decentralised decision-making process.
b) HR practices implemented at Mother London with theoretical perspectives of SHRM
In order to strategically human resource and enhance their productivity, managers of
Mother London have implemented various HR practices (Cohen, 2017). It includes resourcing,
training and development, performance management and rewards etc. Here, for managing the
workplace and get high commitment of employees, owners have assigned responsibilities to
three groups of staff. It includes HR team, Partners and Discipline Head. In this regard, sharing
of responsibilities help in developing collaboration among upper level of management. It leads to
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create positive working environment also which ultimately helps in improving performance of
workers. Therefore, concepts of these HR practices can be described in following manner:-
Resourcing:
For increasing performance of business and get high profitability, it is essential for an
organisation to hire most eligible employees (Downey and et. al., 2015). In this regard, managers
of London concern on external recruitment process to identify suitable workers. It is in hands of
Head of Discipline who collaborates with Partners for hiring candidates. They approaches
recruitment agencies for resourcing the employees from external environment. After getting list
of applicants, HOD and Partners screen applicant's portfolio of work to analyse their working
skills and experience. This would help in hiring best suitable workers as per business
requirement. Furthermore, managers also emphasised on organisational culture by evaluating if
new recruiters are fit or not with the same. For this purpose, Head of Creative Resource deal with
unsolicited applications as well as internship, to make internal allocation of creative workers.
The main task under this regard is to create a balance between interest and challenging work of
employees. This would help in increasing productivity of workers and enhance their level of
performance also.
Training and development:
After hiring new workers under business, it is foremost duty of HR team of a company to
organise training and development program. In addition to this, training is also provided for
existing workers as per their requirement to understand difficult tasks. In general, training is
classified as formal and informal process (Martin-Rios, 2014). Here budget is set for formal
training under which same kind of training is provided to workers to make them familiar with
business. While, under informal training, existing workers learn by working under seniors and
other experienced people. As Mother London deals in creativity and commercial events
therefore, skills of workers are measured on the basis of creativity and blog writings.
Performance management and rewards:
It can be defined as a process of developing a working environment where employees
feel able to give best performance. In order to appraise workers for their performance, an annual
system is carried out by its line managers. They conduct meetings and discussions with head of
departments to explore performance of each worker. This process is done by In this regard, they
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make reward packages as per contribution of workers, where any changes in salary is further
approved by formal permission of key Partners.
Thus, for implementation of these HR practices within business- HOD, key Partners and
human resource department also emphasises on business and HR strategy. Business strategy
refers to techniques for achievement of objectives and certain goals of a company. In this regard,
strategic plans generally succeed when it helps in attaining growth and a strong competitive
position. While HR practices is made to uphold performance of employees and make them able
to face difficult and challenging roles within business (Kuvaas, Dysvik and Buch, 2014). As
business strategy focuses on building three types of competitive advantages that are- Cost
leadership; Differentiation and targeted audience. Therefore, to formulate HR strategy, managers
are also concern on these aspects. Here, resourcing employees from external environment helps
in creating diversity and equality at workplace. By introducing most eligible applicants, Mother
London gains advantage to create differentiation in products or services. They give more efforts
and contribution in obtaining best quality of creativity. Furthermore, human resource practices
like training and development aid managers in creating and sustaining high performance of
workers. As by getting such classes, employees can develop their skills and level of knowledge
related to blog writing, commercial events and more. Therefore, they can give more efforts for
enhancing brand reputation of business.
Along with this, performance and reward system policy, also aid managers of Mother
London to link the same with business strategy.
c) Key areas and legislations in recruitment and selection
Significance of recruitment and selection is highlighted to evaluate and interview
candidates based on potential of employees which can be determined by legislation and good
practices (Kooij and et. al., 2014). Anti-discrimination act is implied when some odd activities
happen within organisation like priority is given more to men than women, they are paid higher
then man. Vacancies in organisation signifies lack of human resources which are regarded as
drawback or barriers during running of task for achieving objectives and goals of organisation.
This can be considered as fact that organisation gets satisfied by more productive employees
which will enhance profitability and productivity and will also build strong relationship between
employees and employers. Some of the laws are mentioned below for having a better
understanding:
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Equality Act, 2010: This law was developed so as to maintained an effective
environment within workplace without any kind of discrimination based on gender, class or
status. Apart from this, it includes other factors as well such as Sex discrimination act, race
relation etc., Mother London has adopted this law so as to develop an environment where
employees can do their work peacefully and in an effective manner. For example: company
while selecting candidates are proffering skills and knowledge rather than choosing on the basis
race, class, gender etc.,
Equality and Human Right Commission: As per this law every individual have a
chance of getting selected for the job they are applying without getting discriminated. This law
can differ according to different nations and requirements and regulated by government of a
country (Maheshwari and Vohra, 2015). For example: Human resource department of Mother
London has provided guidelines regarding recruitment and selection process and if these are
violated than serve action can be taken.
General Data protection Regulation Act: Data that are provided during recruitment and
selection process is should be kept secret so that it cannot be used by somebody else. Mother
London, is keeping all the data and information confidential so that ethics can be maintained.
CONCLUSION
It has been concluded from this report that for gaining competitive advantage, it is necessary
for a company to adopt effective HR practices. It includes resourcing by which employees can be
hire from external environment. Similarly, by giving training to new and existing workers, their
productivity can be increased. Apart from this, for getting retention of employees for longer
period, applying practices like reward and compensation also helps in increasing efficiencies of
workplace.
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REFERENCE
Books and Journals
Maheshwari, S. and Vohra, V., 2015. Identifying critical HR practices impacting employee
perception and commitment during organizational change. Journal of Organizational Change
Management. 28(5). pp.872-894.
Kooij, D. T. and et. al., 2014. Managing aging workers: a mixed methods study on bundles of
HR practices for aging workers. The International Journal of Human Resource
Management. 25(15). pp.2192-2212.
Kuvaas, B., Dysvik, A. and Buch, R., 2014. Antecedents and employee outcomes of line
managers' perceptions of enabling HR practices. Journal of Management Studies. 51(6). pp.845-
868.
Martin-Rios, C., 2014. Why do firms seek to share human resource management knowledge?
The importance of inter-firm networks. Journal of Business Research. 67(2). pp.190-199.
Downey, S. N. and et. al., 2015. The role of diversity practices and inclusion in promoting trust
and employee engagement. Journal of Applied Social Psychology. 45(1). pp.35-44.
Cohen, E., 2017. CSR for HR: A necessary partnership for advancing responsible business
practices. Routledge.
Kerzner, H. and Kerzner, H. R., 2017. Project management: a systems approach to planning,
scheduling, and controlling. John Wiley & Sons.
Lo, K., Macky, K. and Pio, E., 2015. The HR competency requirements for strategic and
functional HR practitioners. The international journal of human resource management. 26(18).
pp.2308-2328.
Björkman, I. and et. al., 2014. From HRM practices to the practice of HRM: Setting a research
agenda. Journal of Organizational Effectiveness: People and Performance. 1(2). pp.122-140.
Zhong, L., Wayne, S. J. and Liden, R. C., 2016. Job engagement, perceived organizational
support, high‐performance human resource practices, and cultural value orientations: A cross‐
level investigation. Journal of Organizational Behavior. 37(6). pp.823-844.
CONCLUSION
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