Resource and Talent Planning Report: Argos Ltd, HRM Strategies

This report provides a detailed analysis of resource and talent planning, using Argos Ltd as a case study. It begins with an introduction to resource and talent planning, emphasizing its significance in organizational success. The report then examines current labor market trends, demographic shifts, social trends, and technological advancements and their impacts on workforce planning and talent management. It also explores the legal requirements organizations must adhere to in workforce planning, including employment rights, minimum wage, health and safety, and equality acts. Furthermore, the report delves into skills requirements, job analysis methods, and the creation of job descriptions and person specifications. It also covers various recruitment and selection methods, as well as an evaluation of the stages of the HR life cycle and its integration within organizational HR strategy. The report concludes with a summary of findings and recommendations, providing valuable insights for students and professionals in the field of human resource management.

Resource and Talent
Planning

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
TASK 1............................................................................................................................................4
P1 Examine current labour market trends that affect workforce planning & Talent
management............................................................................................................................4
P2: Explain the different types of legal requirements an organisation must take into account
when workforce planning.......................................................................................................5
TASK 2............................................................................................................................................7
P3 Current & Anticipated skills requirements with relation to organisational context..........7
TASK 3............................................................................................................................................8
P4 Produce appropriate examples of job description and person specification documents for
effective recruitment and selection.........................................................................................8
P5 Apply different recruitment and selection methods for effective talent resourcing and
planning................................................................................................................................10
TASK 4..........................................................................................................................................11
P6 Evaluate the stages of the HR life-cycle applied to specific HR contexts......................11
P7 Evaluate how stages of the HR life-cycle are integrated within organisational HR strategy.
..............................................................................................................................................12
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................12
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................14

INTRODUCTION
Resource & Talent planning plays an essential role in every organisation as it includes
identification of manpower required at workplace, develop networks, hire talented and skilled
employees, maintained healthy relations, keep records for future hiring and so on (Carbery and
Cross, 2015). In addition to this, it is basically a process to analyse as well as attract talented
people within the market so that a organisation can gain competitive edge which leads to
attainment of short term & long term of an association. In this current report, Argos Ltd. is
chosen as a base company. It is one of the retailing company in UK & Ireland. The company was
formulated in year 1972 and its head office is located at Buckinghamshire, England. Argos have
more than 880 shops which shows the company has high market presence. The present report
covers current trend of labour market which affect manpower planning & Talent management.
The various laws is discuss which an organisation adopted while managing its workforce. With
this, it covers various processes of recruitment as well as selection. Later, it discuss about Human
Resource life cycle along with its strategy.
TASK 1
P1 Examine current labour market trends that affect workforce planning & Talent management.
Work force planning is defined as a procedure of systematic identification & analysis of
needs of an organisation in terms of quality workforce so that objectives can be attained within
stipulated time frame in addition to this, it is basically putting the right employee on the right
place so that they can work with full potential and enhance productivity of company.
Talent is defined as a special often creative, athletic and artistic aptitude of a person, along
with this, it is the general intelligence and mental power which helps an individual to achieve
their common goal. Talent management is a systematic procedure of analysing the job vacant
position, recruiting the appropriate person, enhancing skills & expertise of an individual in order
to retain them for achieving business objective. Talent management plays vital role in an
organisation as it help in acquiring talent and retain them for longer time period that effect
positively on the productivity and profitability of an organisation.
Human Resource plays an essential function in every association as they build different
policies as well as plans for the manpower who is prevailing in an organisation. HR department
of a company made strategies with an aim to create positive relationship at workplace. They

synchronised various activities so that organisational vision, mission can be attained within the
specified time period. The process of attracting, developing. Retaining, motivating and hiring the
effective manpower for the organisation is referred as Talent Management (Hedayati Mehdiabadi
and Li, 2016). The higher authorities of Argos Ltd follows this process to recruit potential
candidate, to raise skills & knowledge of employees, to gain opportunities and to engage
employees for longer time frame.
Workforce planning refers to an activity which assist an organisation to adopt as well as
implement changes according to the environment and market trends. In addition to this, it
develops an understanding about industry challenges & market trends which assist in gaining
competitive edge and in long term sustainability of an entity.
Effect of strategic approach to HRM & Talent resourcing:
Strategic approach consist of series of activities which is carried out for proper
management of HR. The initial step of this system is Talent resource that involves formulation of
job description, performance appraisal, development of opportunities & selection process. The
aim to adopt strategic approach within an organisation is to place right candidate to the right
position. The management team of Argos creates coordination among all these activities with an
aim to enhance employee performance and to gain competitive edge within the market.
Every organisation identifies market trends and customer needs before making policies
and plans. Labour market refers to the place where an interaction takes place among the workers
& employees (Latukha, 2016). Herein, the company is searching for effective candidate & the
workers is looking for those job which satisfy them.
Labour market trends in UK & its effect on Human Resource processes
Every organisation is basically a part of an economy and execute its operations as per the
economic changes as well as trends. The economy of United Kingdom face fluctuation due to
BREXIT and also due to financial crisis. With the change in economic conditions, it directly
effects on the business activities of an organisation. The employment level goes down which
affect companies to attain their desired goals. Thus, it is important that the economy is always
remain stable which assist to gain competitive edge at marketplace. In context to Argos, the
company can adopt changes according to the changes take place in industries which will lead to
achievement of goals.
Demographics:

Demographics includes age, sex, race and so on. Change in these factors directly effect
on the policies as well as strategies of an organisation. With this, changes may lead to
innovation, flexibility and agility at workplace and also effect on the employee's performance.
The labour productivity, supply and demand is interlinked with each other (Newhall, 2015).
The major issue which UK faces is its population rate is declined which directly impacts on
employment rate. The human resource manager of Argos also facing issues in recruiting
effective candidate due to UK demography. It Effect on the overall policies of company and
decline their profitability level due to which company face many issues within market and face
tough competition with its rivals.
Social Trends & Political Composition:
Nowadays, people prefer to work with those organisation which is ethical and due to this
most of the companies adopt corporate governance practices at their workplace. In addition to
this, government develop policies to safeguard investors. The per capita income of United
Kingdom is stable which assist managers of Argos to execute its operations and activities
smoothly. In today's world, Women's takes more parts in different activities which act as a social
trend. The country consist of huge population gives higher chances to an organisation to recruit
efficient candidate. With reference to Argos, the Human Resource Manager can develop and
execute those policies which ensures hiring of talented candidate who can work potentially and
contribute towards the attainment of organisational objectives. In addition to this, it is important
for HR manager of Argos to recruit those candidate who has the ability to cope up with the
changes and adopt flexibility as it is determined that social trends keeps on changing and effect
on the overall buying behaviour of employees.
Skill development to align with advanced technologies: In today’s world, technology is
changing rapidly and effect on the overall human resource processes of an organisation. In order
to retain top talent, it is important for company to reach maximum number of people which take
place by the help of technology. With reference to Argos, its human resource manager use social
media application and digital media applications such as LinkedIn, official pages so that they can
recruit top talent for company that leads to enhancement of productivity and profitability in a
positive manner.

P2: Explain the different types of legal requirements an organisation must take into account
when workforce planning.
There are different legal law for planning the workplace which are undertaken by the Hr manger.
These laws help in preventing the employment discrimination in the organisation which lead to
provide better performance in the by the management team. In the context of Argos which is a
subsidiary of the Sainsbury's one of the UK leading retailer. Argos acquires small retail group
in the market and follows legal laws in its workplace for maintaining balance between the
employer and employees relationship. Some of the laws are stated as follows(abdelqader
Alsakarneh and Hong, 2015).
Employment Right act 1964 : Under this act, it include freedom from the
discrimination, right to privacy and fair compensation. Employees are hire after examining their
skills and knowledge for the particular position. Here employees are nit discriminated on the
bases of religion, colour, race and national origin. Argos enforce this act to make employees
feels part of the organisation by giving their right in the team.
Minimum wages Act : under this act, employees have a right to receive minimum wages
for the work done by them. It include basic pay, overtime pay, any bonus for good work done by
the employees. This act also include immigration and nationality which states that aliens are
allowed to work thought visa program. With the reference of Argos, employees are given their
minimum wages to retain the its employees in the organisation and to attract new employees in
the company(AlKerdawy 2016).
Health and safety in the workplace: under this factors, employers take care of its
employees in the terms of health and safety at the organisation. Various health insurance
facilities are given to employees which helps them to retain the employees for the longer period
of time in the company. Argos, provide various safety factors to its employees. For example, any
employees have meet with the accident and company take care of all the expenses and return to
work after illness and injury.
Equality Act: according to this act, it is important for an organisation to give equal rights
to each and every individual of company. There is no discrimination regarding racism, gender
and many more. Along with this, the output given to employees should be equal to their inputs.
In relation to Argos, it follow this act which help them to develop positive image in market and
also lead to employee satisfaction.

Equal remuneration act 1976: Under this act, equal payment is given to men and
women worker in the organisation so that feel equally important for the company. This also helps
to elimination the discrimination on the base of sex, region and on the ground of gender, female
employees feel safe in the organisation. They are given equal importance as compared to male
employees and given same opportunity in the workplace and in team. Argos follows this act,
here all employees are treated equally in the organisation.
Payment of gratuity Act, 1972: under this act, employees are provided with the
facilities like gratuity and retirement benefit and various other benefit for the employees. Argos
make sure that they provide gratuity amount after succession completion of five years in the
organisation. Employees also receive the amount of retirement at the time of elimination of
employment in the organisation. All another benefits amount are given to employees which are
present in the letter of employment in the organisation (cooke, Saini and Wang 2014).
TASK 2
P3 Current & Anticipated skills requirements with relation to organisational context.
It is important to identify the efficiency of its employees because they are main asset for a
company who can reach business on high level. In order to fulfil this purpose, Human Resource
department of an organisation conducts job analysis (Oseghale, Mulyata and Debrah, 2018). It is
basically about gathering information regarding responsibilities, duties , work environment and
so on with an aim to put right candidate at right position in the organisation.
Job Analysis Methods:
Questionnaire Method: This is a method which consist of a set of questions designed by
higher authorities in order to know the opinions of employees. It is a time consuming process
and sometimes not drawn a specific conclusion.
Observation Method: Herein, the Human Resource department of an association
monitors & observe the performance of its subordinates and according to it outputs is given to
employees. In context to Argos, the Human Resource manager used methods such as direct
observation, critical incident technique & Work method analysis.
Interview Method: It includes discussion among experts or job occupants and job
analysis. It is determined that interview method is effective in order to know the behaviour and
question handling power of candidate. The senior management of Argos ask question to their

employees about issues they faced at workplace, their expectation and about their inputs towards
the company.
Group Discussion: Herein, a selected group of people is seated together and give their
opinions whether negative or positive on the basis pf particular topic given by employer. By the
assistance of this, communication and interaction skills of a candidate is analysed by the
company. The human resource manager of Argos uses this method in order to select individual
who have good interaction skills
All these methods raises the productivity level of employees which leads to attainment of
objectives within time frame.
Data Collection Methods:
Primary Method: This methods contain those information which is original and not
published anywhere. It involves Questionnaire, Direct & Indirect Interviews and so on.
Secondary Method: This information is collected by the help of secondary sources such
as Libraries, Newspaper, Internet, Magazines, past data and many more (Ratten and Ferreira,
2016) .
Job Design
It is also termed as work design as well as task design. Job design plays vital role in
Human Resource Management as it contains various methods as per technological,
organisational, social & personal needs of employees . The management team of Argos adopts
this method with a motive to develop job satisfaction.
Skills & abilities required for Succession planning
Succession planning is defined as a process which helps an organisation to recruit
effective candidate who performs the role of the company properly (Rothwell and et. al., 2015).
In addition to this, it is based on an assumption that the place of retried employees can be gained
by experience employees. The top level management of Argos uses succession planning with a
motive to enhance productivity and remove inefficient manpower form the workplace.
With this, Human Resource department of Argos requires various capabilities for
workforce planning & Talent management which is mentioned below:
Anticipated Skills:
 Change Management: Nowadays, the environment, trends is changing day to day and
for this change management is required in the organisation so that changes can be

adopted by the employees quickly. In context to Argos, the HR manager of companies
organises sessions for employees in order to create awareness about the changing policies
and work.
 Forecasting & Planning: It is important for every organisation to formulate and plan
strategies so that organisational goals can be attained. The Human Resource Manager of
Argos builds effective strategies to raise efficiency of the company.
Current Skills:
 Task Management: The Human Resource manger of Argos have skills and capabilities
to manage the tasks assigned to them which results into positive outcome and raise the
company efficiency.
 Communication Skills: In order to effectively manage the work and to share ones
opinion, it is important to have effective communication skills (Sparrow, Hird and
Cooper, 2015). In context to Argos, the HR manager have good communication &
interaction skills which builds healthy relationship with employee's and leads to retention
of subordinates in the company for loner time period.
TASK 3
P4 Produce appropriate examples of job description and person specification documents for
effective recruitment and selection.
Job description-1
Job title
Main purpose of job
Reporting to
Key Tasks
Sales Executive
To increase the sales super retail good in the
market.
Sale Department head and Directors of the
organization.
 Helps in building business by selling
the prospects.
 Maintaining the relationship with the
clients( Guðmundsdóttir,
Aðalsteinsson and Helgudóttir, 2017)
 Providing the information and

guidance to the clients.
 Prepare reports by collecting and
analysing information of sales.
 Providing trends product in the
organisation.
 Help in contributing the team effort by
into improving the performance.
 Attending the meeting with clients and
presenting the product and service.
 Aims to achieve monthly target sale in
the market.
Job specification-1
Job position
Objectives of position
skills required
Duties and responsibilities:
Sale executive.
 Sale executive are responsible
increasing the sale for various retail
stores.
 They help in increasing the turn over
by achieving the target sales figure.
 Graduate in business management.
 Graduate in computer science.
 Should have strong communication
skills with good business knowledge.
 Having confidence in the sales
department (Mayfield, Mayfield and
Wheeler, 2016).
 Should have capabilities to work in
group as well as in perform individual.
 To maintain a good relationship with
the client
 to fill the gap between the current

market need and future market need.
 Help in development of new product
and to use various promotion ideas
(Noe and et.al., 2017).
 Review their performance and increase
the performance in achieving the target
goals.
Job Description-2
Job title
Main purpose of job
Reporting to
Key Tasks
Marketing executive
To promote the brand of company in market in
a different and unique manner.
Marketing Department head & Directors of
company
 Identifying customer requirements and
market trends
 Building effective relationship with
customers.
 Assist in increasing sales of the
company.
 Objective to achieve monthly target
sale in the market.
Job specification-2
Job position
Objectives of position
Marketing executive.
 Marketing executive is responsible for
increasing awareness in market towards
goods and service offered by company.
 They aid in raising the turn over by
achieving the target sales figure.

skills required
Duties and responsibilities:
 Graduate in business management.
 Graduated from marketing field.
 Effective communication and
interaction skills.
 To maintain an effective relationship
with customers.
 To meet with the marketing targets and
goals in a positive manner.
 To develop effective strategies for
marketing that affect positively on
profit of the organisation.
P5 Apply different recruitment and selection methods for effective talent resourcing and
planning.
Recruitment& selection is very important aspects of human resource planing in the organisation.
The HR manager make sure that right kind of employees are hired for the company which helps
in achieving goals and objectives of the organization. In the context of Argos, company create
pool of interested candidates from the recruitment process and few of them goes for selection
process(Rao and Priyadarshini, 2017).
Internal recruitment: under this process, vacant position are filling by choosing the companies
employees. In the other words,existing workforce are taken into consideration for the most
suitable position in the management team. For examples, employees gets promotion and transfer
for their good work in the organisation.
External recruitment: Here different positions are filled by selected employees outside the
organisation. New employees are selected by the following the selection process who have

required skills and knowledge about the task are selected by the HR manager. With the reference
of Argos, company hire new candidates after evaluating their capabilities (Schein and Van
Maanen, 2016)
Selection process is implements the selection application in the management team. Here various
step are followed such as screening of application information and introducing the interview for
the screened candidate. Here interview is conducted by face to face process and on audio&videos
mode for having employment test and evaluated the capabilities of candidates.
TASK 4
P6 Evaluate the stages of the HR life-cycle applied to specific HR contexts.
Human resource have a unique life cycle in the management of the organisation. Here
employees are introduce to the company and used in the work then finally exist the company.
Each stages have its own challenges and befits which effect the performance of the firm. The
employee life cycle is a method where employees go through the engagement to the exist form
the company. Under the ELC model, there are five stages such as recruitment, on boarding,
development, retention and exist.
Recruitment: under this stages, right employees are selected for the right position in the
organisation. Here employees are attracted to the company because of the brand evaluate how
stages of the HR life-cycle are integrated within organisational HR strategy. Mage in the market.
HR manager hire perfect employee for the company which help in achieving the goals and
objectives of the organisation. Positive impact of this stage in HR life cycle is that it help in
attracting huge candidates towards the organisation so they can select best and most suitable
member for their business entity. On the other hand, in case of negative impact it is time
consuming and lengthy process which affect the whole functionality of business organisation in
an adverse manner. For this, an effective legislation is developed by the government which
assist companies in adopting HR life cycle in a positive way. In this context, Employment
Agencies Act 1973 is one of the best act implemented by the government of UK.
On boarding: under this stage, selected employees are introduce into the companies
culture by the HR manger. A smooth process happens in the on boarding, employees are
informed about the roles and responsibility about various function in the management stream.
With the assistance of this stage, company can easily create positive culture within the

organization as they make their employees aware about the organisational culture. Whereas,
negative impact is that company need to conduct this process in an effective manner for which
various strategies and policies need to be developed by them. UK government develop an
effective legislation in which best act which need to be adopted by the company is flexible
working hour act.
Development: Here employees are provide with various training program in the
organisation which helps them to provide better outcomes in the activities. Employers also help
in providing good career for its employees by appreciating their work from time to time ( Su and
Yang, 2015). With the help of effective implementation of this HR life cycle stage, manager of
the company will be able to enhance the skill and knowledge of their employees which increases
the productivity of business entity in a positive manner. On the other hand, sometimes employees
adopt training and development session in a negative manner which might influence the overall
performance of the company in an adverse manner. Employment and Training Act 1973 is the
act which is adopted by the management team of the company.
Retention. Under this stage, employers ties to hold the sound employees in the
management team. Holding on to talented employees helps in increasing the overall production
of the organisation. This as a result create positive impact on the company as they will be able to
retain their capable staff members for longer period so they can produce favourable outcomes.
But on the other hand, retaining staff members might affect negative impact as new and fresh
talent cannot be able to show their skill. For this, Employment Right Act, 1996 is helpful for the
management team of any organization.
Exit: This is the last stages in the employees life cycle in the model, here employees
wants to leave the organisation for whatever reasons such as retirement, personal and new job
reasons. This stage help in hiring new staff members so they can develop innovative strategies
for attaining goals and objectives. Negative impact is that losing a experience staff member can
affect the overall functionality of the business organisation. Employment and labour law 2020
assist an organization in order to complete their activities in an effective manner.
P7 Evaluate how stages of the HR life-cycle are integrated within organisational HR strategy.
The HR life cycle have five stages which helps organisation to coordinated with the HR strategy
to achieve the pre-determine the goals and objective in the organisation. HR strategy can

structure their practice which will be benefit for overall performance of the organisation.
Management team focus on enhancing the outcomes from the activities by implementing the best
suitable HRM particle in the organisation. To increase the profit for the organisation, company
use various method to which will provide a clear path for the formatting the good strategies for
achieving target outcome which can be achieve in the long run of the organisation. Here HR
manger co-branded various strategies with the life cycle if employee in the organisation.
Employees are hired in the organisation who matching the desire skill and knowledge about the
position. This help employees to work in according to determine the goals and objective in the
long run. Manager try to achieve the target objective in the long run. Employees are trained to
performance in predetermined standard so that target objectiveness can be taken on time in the
effective ways. HR strategies go hand in hand with the five stages of the employees of life cycle
so that proper process is followed in the organisation ( Sunanda, 2018).
CONCLUSION
From the above study, it is stated that Talent management assist Human Resource
manager to hire the best candidate for the organisation. With this, workforce planning aid an
organisation to manage all the human resource that results to positive outcome. Recruitment
consist of internal as well as external processes which an organisation follow at the time of hiring
of candidates. Moreover, the company follows laws such as employment law, health & safety
law, equality law in order to implement the business activities efficiently and smoothly. In
addition to this, job analysis method used by the organisation to meet with the specification &
expectations. Furthermore, the different approaches of selection as well as recruitment which is
suitable and coat effective is adopted by the organisation.

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