Human Resource Management Practices at Sainsbury's

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HUMAN RESOURCE
MANAGEMENT
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Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................................4
LO1..............................................................................................................................................................5
P1 PURPOSE AND FUNCTIONS OF HRM IN PLANNING AND RESOURCING OF WORKFORCE IN
SAINSBURY’S............................................................................................................................................5
P2 DIFFERENT APPROACHES TO RECRUITMENT AND SELECTION ALONG WITH THEIR STRENGTH AND
WEAKNESSES, IN CONTEXT TO SAINSBURY’S...........................................................................................9
LO 2...........................................................................................................................................................13
P3 BENEFITS OF HRM TO EMPLOYER AND EMPLOYEE IN SAINSBURY’S................................................13
P4 EFFECTIVENESS OF DIFFERENT HRM PRACTICES IN RAISING PROFITS AND PRODUCTIVITY IN
SAINSBURY’S..........................................................................................................................................15
LO 3...........................................................................................................................................................17
P5 IMPORTANCE OF EMPLOYEE RELATIONS IN INFLUENCING HRM DECISION MAKING AT SAINSBURY’S
...............................................................................................................................................................17
P6 KEY ELEMENTS IN EMPLOYMENT LEGISLATION AND THEIR IMPACT ON DECISION MAKING IN
SAINSBURY’S..........................................................................................................................................18
Lo 4............................................................................................................................................................20
P7 JOB DESCRIPTION AND PERSONAL SPECIFICATION OF TEAM LEADER IN SAINSBURY’S CONSIDERING
LEGISLATIONS AND COMPANY POLICIES...............................................................................................20
CONCLUSION.............................................................................................................................................22
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................................23
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LIST OF FIGURES:
Figure 1: FUNCTIONS OF HRM AT SAINSBURY'S..........................................................................................6
Figure 2: RECRUITMENT AND SELECTION PROCESS.....................................................................................8
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INTRODUCTION
Human resource management is referred to the management of people in the organization and
it is the most important aspect of a business as no business can operate without human
resource. This research report would be explaining the scope of human resource management
in Sainsbury’s, UK. The Company's approaches to recruiting and selecting employees and their
evaluation would be done to better understand employee relations and functions of HR in the
company.
The founder of Sainsbury’s is John James Sainsbury. The company was founded in 1869 in
London. Sainsbury’s is the third largest multinational supermarket to be built in the UK, having
headquarters in London, UK. The goods and services provided by the company are also sold
online under the brand name "Sainsbury's online". For selling slower moving goods, Sainsbury's
operate in 13 centres for regional level of distribution and 2 centres for national level
distribution. Sainsbury's introduced "internet only" system for the recruitment of its staff.
Sainsbury’s has nearly 1415 outlets running in different countries and gives employment to
161000 people approximately.
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LO1
P1 PURPOSE AND FUNCTIONS OF HRM IN PLANNING AND RESOURCING OF
WORKFORCE IN SAINSBURY’S
INTRODUCTION:
Human resource is the most valuable asset of every organization. Therefore, this resource
needs to be managed carefully in order to achieve the desired goals of Sainsbury’s. The human
resource team is responsible for recruiting and selecting the right people at the workplace,
taking care of the train and development of the employees, etc. (Waddock and Bodwell, 2017).
The HR team of Sainsbury’s is involved in planning for the recruitment of staff from available
sources to get good employees for the company.
The purpose of planning the workforce is:
Grabbing “the people aspect”: The HR team at Sainsbury’s focuses on getting the right people
with right attitude and skills to the right job that is capable of performing the assigned duties
and tasks in an effective manner in order to achieve optimum utilization of resources in the
organization (Wilton, 2016).
Improving employee’s performance: The planning done by the HR team takes into
consideration the training and development of the workforce, improving the calibre of
employee and giving performance appraisal which acts as motivation for employee and
improves their performance.
Assess HR requirement: The HR team at Sainsbury’s primarily estimates the number of
employees needed in the organization. A pool of candidates is invited for filling the vacant
position. The required number of candidates is selected from the pool of applicants that applied
for the job on the basis of their skills and abilities (Waddock and Bodwell, 2017).
Encouraging employees: At Sainsbury’s, different methods of motivation are used like
employees participation, recognition of employees at work, performance appraisal, monetary
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incentives like a bonus, etc. are offered in order to encourage employees to perform well and
give their best to the organization.
The HRM of Sainsbury’s serves its purpose at three levels of the organization:
Individual level: At the individual level, the HR department of Sainsbury's focuses on providing
job opportunities to individuals depending on their skills and capabilities.
Societal level: At the societal level, Sainsbury's HRM emphasizes on utilizing the resources of
society optimally and reducing unemployment from the society (Wilton, 2016).
National level: The HR department of Sainsbury's, at the national level, focuses on efficiently
utilizing all the resources and also saving them for future use.
The HR team of Sainsbury’s plays a vital role in effectively achieving the objectives of the
organization and managing the workforce of Sainsbury’s. The HRM functions performed at
Sainsbury’s in the planning of workforce are as follows:
Figure 1: FUNCTIONS OF HRM AT SAINSBURY'S
(Source: Bailey et al. 2018)
Recruitment and staffing: Sainsbury's follow a step by step procedure for recruiting and
selecting personnel in the organization. Firstly, the need for manpower is estimated by the HR
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team, the company than outsource the employees to fill the vacancy. A wide range of
applicants apply for the available position; the eligible applicants are shortlisted and go for the
next round. The shortlisted candidates are interviewed personally. The best candidate is chosen
for the available job position and is hired by the company (Waddock and Bodwell, 2017).
Payroll management: The HR team of Sainsbury’s manages the payroll of all the employees
working in the organization with the help of payroll software. The management of payroll refers
to managing the details of financial records of the employees which include their salaries,
bonuses, deductions and incentives. This is very helpful for the employees as they are able to
measure their progress on the basis of monetary terms.
Performance appraisal and management: This function is performed by the managers in
Sainsbury’s. The line managers record the performance of employees on a regular basis and
update it to the HR team. The team gives feedbacks to the employees with respect to their
performance in team meetings (Wilton, 2016). The good performance is encouraged and
employees with poor performance results are sent for training and development.
Training and development: When new staff is hired at Sainsbury’s, they are guided by the
managers of the company about the working environment of the organization. The candidates
are given adequate training in order to enhance their skills and abilities, improve their
performance, reduce the chances of errors and therefore achieve the goals of the organization
efficiently.
Conflict resolution: At Sainsbury’s, it is the primary role and responsibility of the HR team to
maintain good relations with the employees of the organization and handle all the disputes that
arise between two parties and solve them without being partial. This management of conflict
by the HR team is very important in creating a peaceful surrounding for all the employees of
Sainsbury’s (Bailey et al. 2018).
Employee relations: The HR managers of Sainsbury’s focus on managing a good employer-
employee relation with its employees, recognizing employees for their good performance,
encouraging employees to participate in discussions in order to motivate employees, boost
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their morale and also create a feeling of belongingness in employees which leads to better
performance of employees at workplace and thus, results in effective utilization of human
resource of the company.
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P2 DIFFERENT APPROACHES TO RECRUITMENT AND SELECTION ALONG WITH
THEIR STRENGTH AND WEAKNESSES, IN CONTEXT TO SAINSBURY’S
Recruitment and selection:
The recruitment and selection for identification of staff is a process through which applicants
are attracted, screened and selected to work in Sainsbury’s after getting adequate training of
the work to be performed. It is a time-consuming procedure which includes several steps.
Figure 2: RECRUITMENT AND SELECTION PROCESS
(Source: Brown et al. 2019)
APPROACHES TO RECRUITMENT AND SELECTION:
There are majorly two approaches to searching and hiring of staff in Sainsbury’s which are:
internal and external sources of recruitment. The internal source is referred to as filling of the
job position by existing members of the organization. The current employee gets transferred or
promoted to the job position in order to fill the gap. This helps in encouraging the employees
and boosting their morale and they try to give their best by utilizing their abilities (Brown et al.
2019).
The employees are also hired through external sources which comprise of campus recruitment,
advertisement in newspapers, journals or magazines, employment agencies, recruitment
consultants, the recommendation of current employees, etc. With the help of external sources,
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Sainsbury's get to hire fresh talents into the organization which leads to an increase in
efficiency of performance.
Strengths and weaknesses of internal sources of Sainsbury’s:
STRENGTHS:
 Employee motivation: The internal sourcing leads to boosting the morale of the
employees and they feel motivated which results in improving performance of
employees at work and effective utilization of the human resource is achieved by
Sainsbury's (Guerci et al. 2016).
 Time-saving and efforts: The internal recruitment and selection save time and efforts of
HR managers. They don’t have to search for employees externally, screening them and
selecting them on the basis of interview. The existing employees who perform well can
be easily transferred or promoted to the vacant job position without many efforts.
 Ease of training: The existing employees can be trained easily as they are well aware of
the organization work culture. Thus, their training requires less induction cost.
 Cost saving: If the employees are hired internally, it eliminates the expenses incurred in
recruitment through advertisement, selection cost, etc. (Guerci et al. 2016)
 Employee retention: Sainsbury’s retain its competent employees through internal
recruitment. If employees are promoted to fill a vacant job position, the employee feel
motivated and they try to give their best to the organization by performing their tasks to
their optimum efficiency.
WEAKNESSES:
 Lack of innovative ideas: If Sainsbury's fill its job position through internal recruitment
and selection, the business gets no fresh talent and therefore no newly innovated ideas
can be generated through the existing employees (Betgerikar, 2015).
 Continuous job vacancy: Because of internal recruitment, one position always remains
vacant. Hiring an employee to another position leads to the vacancy of employee’s
current position which is filled by some other employee of the organization.
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 The behaviour of other employees: If anyone amongst the existing employee is hired
for the vacant job position, it affects the morale of other employees at the workplace.
They get demotivated and this results in poor job performance of those employees
(Betgerikar, 2015).
Strengths and weaknesses of external sources of Sainsbury’s:
STRENGTHS:
 Increase in innovative ideas: Hiring of new and fresh talents in the organization results
in many innovative ideas from the new employees which might lead to change in
current working procedures and help in the development of effectiveness in Sainsbury's.
 Increase in competition: Hiring of new employees leads to an increase in competition
between the new and current employees. The existing employees are motivated to
perform better and develop their skills and abilities to compete with the new
employees. Thus, it leads to better performance of all the employees at Sainsbury’s
(Anstey et al. 2017).
 Hiring competent staff: The HR team of Sainsbury’s gets to choose the best amongst the
pool of applicants on the basis of their skills, capabilities and expertise. The HR team
must select an employee who fulfils the requirement of the job position in an effective
manner.
WEAKNESSES:
 Expensive process: It is an expensive process as it includes the cost of advertisement at
the time of recruitment, induction cost after selecting the employees. Sainsbury’s has to
spend this cost in order to search and select good employees for the organization.
 Demoralization of existing employees: Hiring of staff through external sources leads to
dissatisfaction of existing employees as new employees are hired for filling the gaps
instead of promoting them to the required position. The existing employees feel low
and it affects their job performance (Anstey et al. 2017).
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 Time consuming approach: It is a time-consuming process as recruitment and selection
of staff at Sainsbury’s is a lengthy process of searching for candidates through external
sources of the company and stimulating them to apply for job, screening the pool of
applicants and shortlisting the eligible ones, conducting interviews, finalizing the
candidate that is best suitable for the job position, taking medical tests and then
offering job letter to the candidate.
 Lack of cooperation: The existing employees of Sainsbury's become less cooperative to
the new employees as they feel that their place is being given to the new ones and so
they don't work with them as a team (Guo and Wang, 2019).
 Adjustment problem: There are times when new employees are not able to adjust
themselves in the new environment having people who are completely new to them.
This results in new employees leaving the organization or being replaced by the HR team
of the company.
CONCLUSION:
Sainsbury's is a large business enterprise giving employment to lakhs of people. The existing
employees of the organization may leave due to some reason which leads to a vacancy in a job
position. Sainsbury's has to face a high level of competition from other supermarkets in the UK
like Tesco, Morrison's, etc. (Guo and Wang, 2019). To face this competition, Sainsbury’s hire
new and competent staff in the company either internally or externally. The above report
explained the strengths and weaknesses of these sources of recruitment and selecting
competent people in Sainsbury’s.
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