Effective HRM Practices: A Case Study of Sainsbury’s, UK

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Human Resource Management
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Table of Contents
LO1............................................................................................................................. 4
LO2............................................................................................................................. 8
LO3........................................................................................................................... 10
LO4........................................................................................................................... 12
Conclusion................................................................................................................ 16
Reference List...........................................................................................................17
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Introduction
Human resource management is a department of an organisation that uses the
process of recruitment, coaching and development of personal and knowledge skills
of employees in specific areas. This department ensures balance of skills of
employees through implementation of various policies and procedures. The human
resource department looks into various leave policies and pay roll for improving
employee efficiency and engagement. This promotes employee welfare and good
relations with the organisation. Consequently, the quality of the various products and
services improve as the operations of the organisation improve. Sainsbury, UK
follows these procedures. Sainsbury is one of the leading supermarkets in retail of
groceries and food products. However, Sainsbury also provides various customer
services like banking and real estates. This research aims to investigate into various
HRM practices that improve the quality of the products and services in terms of
employee evaluation in achieving the goals and objectives of the organisation.
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LO1
Explain the purpose and scope of Human Resource Management in terms of
resourcing with the talents and skills appropriate to fulfil business objectives.
Explain the purpose and functions of HRM, applicable to workforce planning
and resources
HRM is a systematic situational process, which involves communication, listening,
understanding and problem solving behaviour of the human resource managers in
relation to work plans, and it is execution of the various team members and team
leaders. The HRM also functions in a way to promote motivation of employees and
balance in the utilization of the various resources of the organisation to enable it in
achieving the goals and objectives of the organisation (Cascio, 2015). They are:
Operative
Recruitment
It is a process of effective selection of employees through balance in the assessment
of the skills of the employees in terms of compatibility to fulfil the required tasks of
the organisation (Bratton and Gold, 2017). This will ensure that whether Sainsbury
will be able to achieve specific goals in relation to product design, development and
customer services as per their needs. This is because the recruitment process
enables in improving the various operations of Sainsbury, UK.
Workforce planning
This department develops various ideas for making work plans and allocating the
work responsibilities as per their abilities. This is done by understanding the qualities
and features required in carrying out the various job roles and devising the training
programs and the process of evaluation in relation to the effort required in carrying
the job role. With the help of various benefits to the employees in terms of leave and
incentives, employees are encouraged to work. In order to maintain a good
reputation of Sainsbury, this organisation provides various salary benefits to retired
employees.
Training and development
The purpose is to sharpen the skills of the employees in terms of personal skills in
carrying out the specific tasks and being able to perform more complex tasks. This
promotes personal and professional development of employees. This improves the
functions of Sainsbury and promotes opportunities for growth. This also ensures
reduces employee turnover and increases employee efficiency.
Employee Welfare
Sainsbury, UK provides employees with various benefits both economically and
socially. They motivate staff by providing adequate leave facilities and incentives.
They also improve the employee experience by providing them with various
increments of salary facilities and bonuses in addition to their salary. Sainsbury, UK
also aims to provide the additional skills to their job role and easier techniques of
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fulfilling the skills for the purpose of future growth and development of employees
professionally.
Managerial
Planning
It is one of the basic functions of the HRM department of Sainsbury, UK. This
function aims at forming the basic idea of what kind of work to be done and the areas
in which the employees require training to sharpen their skills and carry out the job
operations effectively. This function of the HRM department of Sainsbury also looks
into the process of evaluation of employees and the judgement of the specific skills
of the employees. This helps to assess the kind of work the employees will be able
to perform that will add value to the quality of operations of the organisation. This will
enable Sainsbury to design and develop the best quality products and services. This
helps to generate greater revenue by increasing customer satisfaction. This specific
function also focuses on the risks and opportunities that lay in performing the various
tasks and how they can be avoided and utilized respectively .This is done for the
objective of future growth and development of Sainsbury (Noe et al., 2017).
Organising
The HRM plans the work in accordance with the expertise, understanding and the
ability of the employees in performing specific functions. This estimation of the work
to be done by the employees helps the HR department in identify the strategies to be
adopted in order to achieve specific goals (Bailey et al., 2018).
Directing
It involves giving the assistance to employees in carrying out their specific tasks.
This involves the development of the employees skills in carrying out the tasks
consistently and having a control over the errors made in carrying out the same.
Controlling
The HRM monitors the tasks to be carried out by the employees by evaluating the
tasks and rechecking them in being able to fulfil the objectives of Sainsbury, UK.
Then through the various statistical measures of deviation of the performance from
the standard enables the HRM to understand the strategies to be taken in case of
extreme negative deviation of performance from the required one. In case of positive
deviation of performance, it is required to understand the various beneficial policies
to be made to increase the future scope of development of Sainsbury, UK. In this
way, the HRM department adopts the stability of Sainsbury, UK (Brewster et al.,
2016).
Explain the strengths and weakness of different approaches to recruitment
and selection
Recruitment
Recruitment function of HRM involves the process of attracting, choosing, screening
and recruiting selected employees as per their skills both temporarily and
permanently. The kinds of recruitment process followed by Sainsbury are:
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Internal Method
It is the process of selecting employees as per their association with Sainsbury. This
is because the employees already recruited for the organisation of Sainsbury are
aware of the work culture of Sainsbury (Brewster et al., 2016).The employees can
also identify the skills required by the various positions. Sainsbury aims to reduce its
costs by inducting existing employees. This is because no additional costs are
invested on training of employees, as they are aware of the operations of Sainsbury.
The knowledge of the existing employees of Sainsbury helps them in adjusting with
the work environment of Sainsbury easily. The internal method of recruitment also is
a complex process for managers. This is because it creates disappointment among
the external employees and sometimes Sainsbury may lose efficient employees.
Losing efficient employees may provide opportunity for market growth for the
competitors of Sainsbury. So this method of recruitment has to be done in a
situational context by the HR managers of Sainsbury for developing the scope of
growth of the market (Berman et al., 2019).
External Method
This involves the selection of candidates from external sources of Sainsbury. These
are the job openings available through social media, mediums like the print media,
online and others. The recruitment process involves viewing of job profiles of various
candidates for screening. The employees from external sources also feel attracted to
work in Sainsbury. This helps in inducting the most efficient employees. The
employees screened from new sources may provide innovative ideas and methods,
which provides a scope for growth and development of Sainsbury. However when
new employees are recruited, the present employees feel discouraged. Thus, it
affects the level of cooperation between the new and old employees. This proves to
be a greater risk to Sainsbury. The external recruitment process is very slow and it
involves various stages. They include job advertisement, telephonic conversation,
written examination and face-to-face interview. These mediums are involved in
various stages, they are screening, final selection and training. In this way
Sainsbury, UK, recruit well adjustable employees in terms of their work environment
by balancing the productivity of employees (Reiche et al., 2016).
Selection
This involves the screening of candidates based on several specialized tests or
interviews. The various strategies of selection are as follows:
Skill test
Through the process of various specialized test relevant to the job role, Sainsbury,
UK aims to assess the capacity of the candidates in fulfilling the specific tasks. Many
tests are conducted online which helps to reduce associated costs and increase
productivity of Sainsbury by screening knowledgeable employees. This process
requires more investigation and scrutiny if it is to be conducted in an offline mode by
Sainsbury (DeCenzo et al., 2016).
Personality test
It is a kind of test, which is used to measure the behaviour pattern of employees.
This test enables to identify the character traits of the employees whether present or
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absent required for fulfilling the job role. This test requires initiatives to be taken by
supervisors to design the test program in order to effectively evaluate the character
traits as per requirement of the job role. The training or job program is also designed
as per character traits available of employees and their ability to fulfil specific tasks
(Brewster et al., 2016).
Panel Interview
Interviewers question candidates. The selection approach involves asking valid
questions pertaining to the existing environment. The interviewee’s consistency,
reliability and validity of the answers determine the skills and the tact possessed by
the employees in handling different situations and the specified tasks of Sainsbury.
In this way, the employees of Sainsbury, UK are selected and recruited. However,
this recruitment process is a time taking process and the qualitative factor is
sometimes not met as the candidates may lose confidence during facing the
interview. It becomes difficult to recruit such interviewees due to gaps in the
communication process and gap in the evaluation process based on the
conversation due to ineffective assessment of the skills of the employees.
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LO2
Evaluate the effectiveness of the key elements of Human Resource
Management in an organisation
Explain the benefits of different HRM practices within an organisation for both
the employer and the employee
Flexible working environment
The flexibility derived in working practices, training and development helps in
improving the operations of Sainsbury in terms of product design and development.
Giving the employees the freedom and allowing them to work as per their own pace
and time schedule helps in improving the quality of the products and services in
terms of design and development. This helps the employees of Sainsbury in carrying
out their duties and responsibilities towards work. This helps in reducing workload of
employees and requires limited administering or monitoring of the employees in
accomplishment of their tasks. In this way, Sainsbury can develop relation with
employees, which has a positive impact. Allowing the employees to work at their own
pace, Sainsbury, improves the efficiency of employees (Bailey et al., 2018).
Training and Development
This involves designing the work plans in such a way that it provides scope for
learning of the employees of Sainsbury. This provides employees with more scope in
carrying out difficult tasks in the future in an effective manner. Training of the
employees ensures that they can perform tasks independently and affectively.
During the training of the employees the various skills like the skills in balancing and
controlling the teams to maintain its quality through leadership practices is developed
and the retention power is also assessed. The employees also get other
opportunities in developing skills of creativity. In this way employees derive
motivation for work. Sainsbury, UK adopts these functions.
Evaluate the effectiveness of different HRM practices in terms of raising
organisational profit and productivity
Technological innovation leading to flexibility
With the advent of technological advancements and innovation the various
processes of recruitment and selection has become easier and systematic. This has
also ensured employees in a systematic work practice and made work easier. This
enables employees in deriving the desirable performance in terms of achievement of
goals of the specific tasks. This enables Sainsbury in achieving its goals and
objectives. This practice of Sainsbury has led to rise in its sales and diversification of
its market (Albrecht et al., 2015).
Training and development
Training in the field of balancing of utilization of various resources like time,
informational and knowledge resources and financial resources without wastage
ensures the efficiency of the employees. This ensures the productivity and quality of
the work done by employees of Sainsbury. This ensures the customers are satisfied
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with the products and services provided to them. Sainsbury training helps in clearing
the various misconceptions of the technicalities of performing the specific tasks. This
reduces the errors of performing the tasks and developing innovative products and
services. Through various cross training and team spirit building methods, Sainsbury
improves the quality of products and services.
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LO3
Analyse internal and external factors that affect Human Resource Management
decision-making, including employment legislation
Analyse the importance of employee relations in influencing HRM decision-
making.
Employee relation
Every organisation makes an effort to keep appropriate relationship among its
employees. It is a strategy to possess strong employee relation. It denotes to the fact
that every employee should get a reasonable amount of attention, respect.
Organisations offer equal treatment to every worker. Employees in Sainsbury share
healthy employee relation. They assist each other in every venture while handling
projects. Therefore, they are dealing with projects that are more important and
communicating a lot with their senior administrating officers. Senior administrators
are taking into consideration the opinions shared by employees while making crucial
decisions. By doing this, they are gaining the satisfaction of their employees.
Whatever complexities they were facing in terms of communication among all the
members, it has been decreased (Shields et al., 2015).
Sainsbury has a great advantage in promotion by increasing the quality of its
employee relation. The company is receiving innovative thoughts for developing their
products and operating promotional strategy, as the employees are happy with their
respective jobs and roles assigned to them. They all work together to achieve any
complicated goals within no time. This has helped in constructing a well-organised
scenario in the workplace that every employee takes part in every operation. The
organisation has been able to achieve constant growth in its reporting outlines. They
are gaining more benefits than their respective competitors are (Taylor et al., 2015).
Importance of employee relation
Excellent and powerful employee relation denotes to the fact that every employee
experiences a unique and distinctive identity that are proud of. They are also happy
with their total execution and activities. If the company does not hold a good
relationship among the employer and employees, it will not be capable of giving
satisfied performance and productivity. The management process will face
obstruction. For increasing employee attendance and involvement, it is vital to
creating a durable relationship between the employee and Sainsbury. The company
cannot correctly operate its workings without having correct teamwork and
understanding. The company should show respect and acknowledge their effort to
receive obligation and devotion from the employees (Bratton and Gold, 2017).
It is up to the HR department that handles the relation among every member. Based
on the employee relation the department takes any crucial decision. The rate of
outputs depends on the mannerisms and execution of the workers in the
organisation. Without their full endeavour, Sainsbury will not be capable of fulfilling
its objectives. In the time of any disagreement, the HR team must solve the problem.
They need to take opinion from both the conflicting sides in consideration. The
conflict can be among its employees or between Sainsbury and the staffs. The HRM
department should give preference to the requirements of the employees when they
make any settlement. It is very important to include employees while coming on to
any major commitments (Noe et al., 2017).
If the company does not maintain fruitful relationships among employees, they will
not find any interest to stay in the company. They are most likely to resign from the
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organisation in search of a better work environment. For adapting to this kind of
mishaps, the company should always possess good quality employee relation. They
will work hard to give the company profit from business procedures.
Identify the key elements of employment legislation and the impact it has on
HRM decision-making
Several types of methods help in protecting employers from redundant exercises.
These are the major factors of employment legalisation. It affects straight on the
employees as well as the employers. The company Sainsbury is liable for remaining
loyal to all the factors in employment legalisation and keeping the staff safe from all
bad behaviours. The employees also should abide by the rules and regulations of
the company. The factors regarding employment legalisation are described below.
Health and Safety Act, 1978: The factor includes the rules according to which the
employee health issues are protected. The organisation should maintain improved
health and safety of its employees. This Act states that Sainsbury is responsible for
evaluating risky aspects and taking proper steps to overcome the situation. The HR
department should look into the fact that everyone is following the prescribed rules
related to this Act. This department also operates training sessions to make the
employees understand and accept the safety measurements. It should persuade the
workers in making total use of the protection implements and take help of the
equipment when they act dangerous tasks (Wilton, 2016).
The objective of this Act includes the awareness among the employees about the
strategies of safety measurements and thinking of their health before everything
else. HR department also asks the managerial seniors to operate and administer the
outputs because it can create severe troubles in the atmosphere and to the common
people. The HR department makes some criteria to follow in every company and
outlets. It makes sure that every employee is safe during the work process like the
handling and transporting of weighty resources and products. They are asked to
follow the commands while storing the materials. This process should be followed
regularly to form an appropriate work atmosphere (Sharma, and Wood, 2018).
Equality Act, 2010: This act aims to protect every employee from various prejudices
like age, caste, religious notions, disability, gender, nationality and many others.
According to this Act, the HR department should include every individual in not
practising these kinds of discriminating factors in the workplace. They cannot
prioritise any employee having social benefits related to these discriminating
elements. They will not receive any chance of having benefits in their profession
even if they possess such factors in their background. All will get an equal amount of
remuneration and facilities. To follow this law, Sainsbury gives every employee the
same amount of attention without serving any prejudices (Ozturk and Tatli, 2016).
Data Protection Act, 2018: This act is the modified edition of the Data Protection
Act legalised in 1998. According to the conditions of this act, all data are processed
and kept manually in paper and technically in computers. This data possess the
information of the employees about their names, residential locations,
compensations and pensions, account particulars etc. It makes sure that all the
information noted is correct. This includes many sensitive details of the employees,
which the organisations should keep secret and value those. The managerial seniors
or HR department can anytime file a case if they find anyone misapplying that
information (Legislation.gov.uk, 2019).
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LO4
Apply Human Resource Management practices in a work-related context.
1. The design of a job specification for one of several given positions in the
organisation.
Job Role- Human Resources Manager
Department- Human Resources
Reports to- Senior Human Resources Manager
Position Summary
The HR manager should guide as well as manage the total allocation of services,
programs and policies provided by the Human Resource department of an
organisation. Sometimes he should handle and take charge of things like customer
service, reception of consumers, accounts of the transaction and administrating
departments. His objective is to operate performance in favour of the employees in a
high organisational culture, which caters to empowerment and quality products.
Responsibilities
 Maintain the good health of employees in a safe work environment.
 Develop an efficient team of employees.
 Recruit deserving candidates for several positions.
 Design an organisational department with active operations.
 Upgrade the entire system
 Look after the procedures of organisational growth
 Look after employee requirements, evaluation and training
 Maintain proper employee relation
 Operate a good communication system among employees.
 Administer the compensations and facilities provided to the employees
 Take charge of employee welfare, charities and counselling.
 Help the organisation in achieving business objectives
 Give reports about policies and programs to the CEO
 Give assistance and advice about several issues in the HR department.
 Take decisions, implement those in performance and review the actions
 Comply with governmental laws
2. A CV for each student, tailored to apply for one of the positions advertised
by another team.
CV -1
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