Analysis of HR Policies and Practices: SHRM Report

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of Strategic Human Resource Management (SHRM), examining HR policies and practices within the context of two car-based companies, Cargurus and TrueCar. It analyzes how HR practices, such as selective hiring, employment security, and extensive training, align with theoretical concepts. The report also explores the impact of external forces like technological advancements, trade unions, and government regulations on HR strategic decisions. Furthermore, it delves into the organization of HR functions, including recruitment, training, and development, and applies the Ulrich model to organize these functions, detailing the roles of strategic partner, change agent, administrative expert, and employee champion. The report also discusses the roles and challenges faced by line managers in HR.

SHRM

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
1. Analysis of HR policies and practices within organisation against theoretical concepts...1
2. Analysis of specific external forces and effect of these on HR strategic decisions within
organisation............................................................................................................................3
3. Analysis of how HR functions are organised and HR policies and practices are delivered. . 4
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................7
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................8

INTRODUCTION
Strategic management is defined that process that involves formulation and also
implementation of various strategies used by business in order to achieve various business
objectives (Collings, Wood and Szamosi, 2018). It also provides overall direction to the
organisation that leads them in achieving targeted goals. In the following report, Cargurus and
True car organisation has been taken into consideration. They both are car based company.
In the following report, various policies and practices of HR against theoretical concept
has been discussed. Further, various external forces that affect strategic decisions has been
illustrated. In addition to this, Ulrich model has been used that may help these organisations to
organise the HR functions.
1. Analysis of HR policies and practices within organisation against theoretical concepts.
Human resource is termed as that department that is involved within a particular business
those who are critically responsible to all work related things in particular organisation (Analoui,
2017). Thus, they perform various practices that include recruitment, selection, hiring, training
and promoting.
HR policies and practices are defined as a tool that leads in managing people. They cover
everything right from recruitment of staff by ensuring employees about procedures, rules and
expectations.
HR practices
Human resource practices are the set of human resource management process and actions
that may work in universal manner (Bailey, Mankin, Kelliher and Garavan, 2018). Thus, best
HRM practices has been discussed as per below context-
 Selective hiring- This is one of the best HRM practice that leads particular organisation to
bring high added value employees and it becomes essential objective of HR manager.
Thus, this practice is adopted by the True Car so that they can easily hire or recruit
individuals by taking their abilities and skills into consideration.
 Employment security- in this practice there is a social contract between organisation and
also its employees. Thus, employees that are involved has been asked to work and
commit towards particular enterprise by offering creative and innovative ideas.
Therefore, employees may do this only if they are provided with employment security.
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Cargurus adopt this strategy and enjoy various ideas that has been offered by members.
Thus, the focus of this firm is to retain employees for which job security has been
provided by HR manager. For this, high commitment human resource management
supports in order to improve the employees' attitude and behaviour with help of fulfiling
needs of them in particular enterprise.
 Extensive training- This practice which is adopted by HR of particular organisation states
that there is huge amount of resources required to be invested in terms of training for
employees. At this stage learning and development takes place. Thus, both the
organisations invest in this type of HR practices. In this, Truecar adopts Soft HRM
practices that lead them in making employees happy and feel satisfied. While, Cargurus
adopts Hard HRM where they treat their employees as machine and make them things
done forcefully.
HR policies
Human resource policies are termed as the guidelines that are continuing on that
approach in which organisation intends in order to adopt so that they can manage their people
(Boselie, 2016). Thus, a good HR policy is that which provides generalised guidance of approach
which has been adopted by particular enterprise. Thus, some of the HR policy has been discussed
as per below context-
 Approved and unapproved leave- thus, to document details about employees that can be
absent from their work is termed as the most important HR policy. Therefore, the
enterprise has to consider offering about types of leaves that can be used or needed for
any purpose. Further, to determine the type of leave that has been offered to employee,
than rate of accrual of each group of employee has to be stated.
 Performance evaluation policy- HR policies has to inform employees that are involved in
particular organisation about impact of performance evaluation on their employment. In
addition to this, they also need to know about way through which they can view their
evaluations that are included in work history file of employee.
Thus, High commitment human resource management is that set of HR practices those has the
potential in order to contribute towards performance in a particular organisation. They are
majorly used in order to increase labour turnover, improvise employees behaviour and also
attitude, reduce absenteeism and also improve quality and customer service.
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2. Analysis of specific external forces and effect of these on HR strategic decisions within
organisation.
Human resource management of particular selected organisation involves various factors
that may impact the process related to decision making at high level. There are some of the
external factors that affect HR management function on daily basis (Brewster, 2017). Hence,
some has been discussed below-
 Technological factors- new technologies may generally lead people in order to learn new
skills or to upgrade the old ones. Further, there will be increasing demand for workers
with high level of training and development of skills in various sectors. In addition to
this, technology may lead to alienation of workers. Moreover, organisational work for
both skilled and unskilled labour level may decline due to use of faster, stronger and
more intelligent robots in the future. Therefore, both the organisation must adopt creative
and innovative techniques that may lead in order to motivate so that they can easily
perform particular task.
 Trade unions- this has been constituted as one of the major block in organisations. Thus,
by forming and recognising unions, issues that is related to employee interest are not
determined any more by unilateral actions in terms of management. Due to this, scope in
terms of managerial discretion in decision making process of HRM has been narrowed
down. Further, to meet out the goals and also different target performance, they must
adopt unique ways to attract huge volume of skilled candidates towards them. In addition
to this, it is also important for Human Resource manager to adopt and follow external
changes due to which both companies includes Cagurus and True car has to adopt this
practices accordingly.
 Government regulations- This part is termed as the most complex for every companies or
organisations. Thus, to keep workplace environment safe and secure, government has
been introduced various regulations which may lead them in fulfilling this. This type of
factor has its impact mainly on recruitment, training and selection of candidates. While,
both the organisation Cargurus and true car has to adopt various practices and policies as
it becomes important for them to run their business in successful manner. In addition to
this, this policy may influence rate of interest where rise in it may lead in increasing
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borrowing cost in terms of business community. Therefore, there is a huge requirement of
business to be enough flexible so that they may respond to changing rules and policies.
3. Analysis of how HR functions are organised and HR policies and practices are delivered.
HR functions are that which basically deals with concerns that are related deeply with
company's staff in order to hire, compensate, performance, wellness, safety, wellness, benefits,
training and also motivation (Michael, 2017). In addition to this, it has also been termed as
premeditated approach in terms of managing people and also the culture of the working
environment. Thus, basic functions of HR includes following-
 Recruitment and selection- this is the most primary function of HR department.
Department actively recruits, interviews and thus hires the respected candidate as per
their skills and talent. They also must develop employees handbooks that may lead them
in explaining about policies and procedures that has been followed b y both the selected
organisation.
 Training and development- To handle the process related to training and development is
very essential task which is therefore carried out by Human resource department. Further,
they must try to adjust training programs and also work in conjunction with various
department managers so that they can determine training requirements.
Therefore, to deliver this functions in particular organisation both Cargurus and TrueCar has to
adopt Ulrich model so that they can easily and smoothly organise these functions.
Ulrich model
Under this model, Dave Ulrich defined four various roles as the basic components of the
human resource department (Srivastava and Dhar, 2016). Thus, the four segments in which HR
functions and policies has been divided includes Strategic partner, change agent administrative
expert and employee champion. All these segments has been described deeply in below context-
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Illustration 1: Ulrich model
(Source: Managing HR Roles : David Ulrich's Model, 2018)
Strategic partnership- the business partner is tasked in order to communicate with
internal customers. The function of this department is to perform the task with line manager so
that they can easily deliver information to clients or buyers those who are related internally.
Further, Human resource manager gives feedback to the clients relarted to performance level. In
addition to this, this helps in pulling new talent with creative ideas that in turn increase
productivity of both organisations.
Change agent- If any of the organisation requires expanding or diversify their business,
evolve or to alter goals and objectives, change agent is therefore termed as one of the most
important role human resource. This further leads in communicating with the changes of the
organisation internally. Therefore, training opportunities has to be organised by them for
employees that are involved which will help them to learn new skills that is actually required to
change goals of business. Thus, it is the change agent that helps in adapting organisation
basically for upcoming growth or evolution.
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Administrative expert- This is mainly responsible for various tasks and follows changes
in spectrum. Further, it is also responsible in order to organise personal information relation to
employees and also in making sure that all that information or data are up to date. Thus,
innovative system is being used as Human Resource Information system that leads them in
monitoring, securing and also updating those employee related information. This are those
experts who has focus on current legislation, regulations, occupational and also health and safety
rules.
Employee champion- Employee champion is also known as employee advocate and is
the role in charge in determining morale of employees and also their satisfaction. This is done
with help of information so that they can create positive image of a company where people desire
to work with. They also help the change agent by offering them with various opportunities
related to training and professional development. In addition to this, they also ensures that the
employees that are already involved with organisations have various opportunities in order to
apply for new job or position within a particular organisation.
Role and challenges of Line manager
Line manager is that person who manages other employees and also operations directly
while reporting to the manager having high ranking (Welch and Björkman, 2015). Thus, they
play very essential role in many operations related to business.
Role
 They hire and recruit talent to fill their vacant positions.
 Provide training and development sessions to employees
 Identify requirements in terms of corrective actions.
 Engage with other managers in an organisation.
Challenges
 They perform jobs that basically demand long hours.
 They have constant pressure in order to minimise expenses and maximise output.
 They also tend to increase their span of control and has much larger teams. This creates
difficulty to provide coaching and development support to them.
CONCLUSION
From the above report, it has been analysed that strategic human resource management
plays critical role in order to face challenges and achieve long term profitability. This later leads
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in achieving long term success and company may reach the boost. Further, it has also been
analysed that importance of Ulrich model has been discussed that must be adopted by both the
organisations in order to perform various functions in easy and smooth manner. In addition to
this, it has also been determined from this report that there are number of external factors that
affect the decision making process of HR manager to a large extent.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journal
Analoui, F., 2017. The changing patterns of human resource management. Routledge.
Bailey, C., Mankin, D., Kelliher, C. and Garavan, T., 2018. Strategic human resource
management. Oxford University Press.
Boselie, P., 2016. Strategic HRM. In Encyclopedia of human resource management. Edward
Elgar Publishing Limited.
Brewster, C., 2017. The integration of human resource management and corporate strategy.
In Policy and practice in European human resource management (pp. 22-35). Routledge.
Collings, D.G., Wood, G.T. and Szamosi, L.T., 2018. Human resource management: A critical
approach. In Human Resource Management (pp. 1-23). Routledge.
Michael, F., 2017. Hard and Soft Human Resource Management Compensation Practices on
Employee Job Satisfaction. ORSEA JOURNAL. 5(1).
Srivastava, A.P. and Dhar, R.L., 2016. Impact of Leader member exchange, human resource
management practices and psychological empowerment on extra role performances: the
mediating role of organisational commitment. International Journal of Productivity and
Performance Management. 65(3). pp.351-377.
Welch, D. and Björkman, I., 2015. The place of international human resource management in
international business. Management International Review. 55(3). pp.303-322.
Online
Managing HR Roles : David Ulrich's Model. 2018. [Online]. Available
through :<https://blog.mettl.com/talent-hub/managing-hr-roles-david-ulrich-model>.
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