Strategic HRM Practices for Arcadia Group: A Comprehensive Report

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of HRM practices within the Arcadia Group, a British multinational company. The report begins by outlining the purpose and functions of HRM, emphasizing its role in strategic management and employee performance. It then delves into the strengths and weaknesses of various recruitment and selection methods, comparing internal and external approaches. The benefits of effective HRM practices for both employees and employers are highlighted, including conflict resolution, improved employee morale, and a positive working environment. The report evaluates the effectiveness of different HRM practices, recommending improvements in recruitment, training, and compensation. The importance of employee relations, including effective communication and fostering loyalty, is also examined. Finally, the report identifies key elements of employment legislation and their impact on HRM decisions, ensuring compliance and promoting a fair and safe workplace. The report concludes with a summary of findings and recommendations for improving HRM within the Arcadia Group, addressing issues such as discrimination and harassment.

Improving HRM Practices
within Arcadia Group

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
P1 Describing the purpose and functions of HRM.................................................................1
P2 Strength and weaknesses of different approaches of R&S...............................................2
P3 Benefits of Different HRM practices for employee and employer...................................4
P4 Evaluating the effectiveness of different HRM practices.................................................5
P5 Describing the importance of employee relation that influence the HRM decisions.......5
P6 Identify the key element of employment legislation and its impact upon HRM..............6
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................7
References........................................................................................................................................8

INTRODUCTION
HRM Is the strategic method that is used by the management that further aid a business in
order to gain a competitive advantages. It is also used to increases the employee performance of
an employer's strategic objectives. In the same way, report main aim is to improve the HRM
practices. The present study is based upon the case study of Arcadia Group, where employee
faces an issue of discrimination regarding race and sexuality. Report will present the purpose and
functions of HRM practices and also describe the strength and weaknesses of Recruitment and
selection process. Further report describe benefit of HRM practices for employee and employers
and analyse the importance of employee relations and then identify the key element of
employment legislation and its impact upon HRM decision.
P1 Describing the purpose and functions of HRM
Overview of the firm: Arcadia Group is the British multinational Private company
which Is famous for high street clothing. The group has more than 2500 outlets in UK and
different department and several franchise in other countries. The company mainly owned by
Taveta Investment which is owned by the Tina green who is the wife o chairman of Arcadia
Group. Currently the company has more than 20000 employees who are operating at different
unit in many countries.
Purpose: the main purpose of HRM is to manage different needs of company's employee
and including this, their main purpose is to provide a fair payment and also access whether the
company is adhering to laws or not (Noe and et.al., 2017). HRM is also responsible for creating
the entire performance appraisal process. But in Arcadia Group, the HRM did not follow this
such that the employees are faces issues of discrimination and sexual harassment.
Functions: The main functions of HRM in Arcadia Group are as mention below:
 Recruitment and hiring is the main function of HRM of Arcadia group such that the HR
of Arcadia group allow the management to select the right candidate so that it will help to
achieve the defined goals.
 HRM of Arcadia Group also provides training and development to their employees in
which they allow employees to acquire new skills and knowledge in order to perform
their job effectively.
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 Labour relation is another important function of HRM and this function takes care of
different services, benefits and some facilities that should be provided to every employee
as well (Function of HRM, 2019). But Arcadia group faces some issues such as the
employees are discriminated through race and gender and there is a need to improve its
HRM practices.
 HR main function is related to workforce planning, which is the process of analysing,
forecasting and planning workforce. Further they also assess the gap and determine the
target talent management so that it makes sure that firm has right people with effective
skills.
 For example, Arcadia Group should use effective external recruitment strategy so that it
will help to select those candidates who may assist the business to improve ts production
level.
P2 Strength and weaknesses of different approaches of R&S
Recruitment methods: recruitment is the process of attracting and short-listing the
candidate for the vacant position in a firm and it is also refers to the process which is involved in
choosing individual for some unpaid roles.
External Methods: This is the method in which the company uses external source of
recruitment such as they select candidate through job boards, social media and website. Through
this method, the company can select the best candidate that helps a business to attain the aims.
For example, Arcadia Group may use external method of recruitment in which it may post about
vacant position in social media so that best candidate may recruit.
Advantages:
 This method helps to gain new perspective and also gives Arcadia Group to select the
best candidate for the company (Lane, Armin and Gordon, 2015).
 This method also helps to increase the branding and by hiring new employees, company
get a chance of get new ideas and this will help to keep the firm in a competitive position.
Disadvantages:
 This process is expensive in nature and when a new person join the firm then old
employees feel demoralized.
 Lack of co- operation is another disadvantages of an external method.
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Internal Methods: This is the methods in which job is offered to someone who is
already work in the company and through promotion, internal advertisement the employees are
promoted and the vacant position are filled. For example, The HR of Arcadia group may also use
internal method in which they promote the best candidate whose performance is outstanding.
This will help o save the extra cost of recruiting other individual.
Advantages:
 Employees grow within a business and it also helps to increase the job efficiency level as
well.
 This method also helps to improve the morale and promotes loyalty as well.
Disadvantages:
 This method discourage the capable person from outside to join the concern
 There is no opportunity for external employees (Dany and Torchy, 2017).
Selection methods: It is the method in which the company is picking up the right
candidate from large applicants. Further, it is the process by which the firm matches
organizational requirement with the skills and qualification of a people. There are different
methods such as:
 Preliminary interview: This method helps to eliminate the unqualified applications
which is based upon the information so that best and suitable candidates are choose.
 Personality Selection test: This method helps to determine whether the candidate has a
personality to succeed in a job (Patterson and et.al., 2016).
 Administering skill test: Skill test help to determine the minimum level of skill posses
by the candidate.
Advantages:
 Helps to reduce operational cost and cost effective method.
 Help to determine the best candidate which is suited for vacant position.
Disadvantages:
 Sometimes this method leads to choose wrong candidate and time-consuming method as
well (Jović, Brkić and Bogunović, 2015).
Among all, Arcadia Group chooses external method of recruitment because it helps to
gain new perspective and also increase the branding, by hiring new employees. In this way,
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Arcadia Group get a chance of get new ideas and this will help to keep the firm in a competitive
position.
P3 Benefits of Different HRM practices for employee and employer
Benefits of HRM practices for Employee:
 HRM practices will help in conflict resolution and through effective training and
development session, the performance level of employee is increases that also affect their
personal growth.
 HRM also provide induction that will help to make their employee comfortable in the
working area (Albrecht and et.al., 2015).
 Managers of Arcadia Group should also provide support for the employees who feel their
rights are violated. Even they also motivated their employees by providing monetary or
non- monetary form of rewards.
 There are some external bodies which also benefit for employees such as ACAS and
trade union help Arcadia Group to improve working life through the promotion and
facilitation of strong industrial relations practice. They also offer training on trade union
for the people who want to understand legal aspect of working and this also improve the
collective bargaining skills. Thus, it creates positive impact upon them.
Benefits of HRM practices for Employer:
 HRM practices helps to build a flexible workplace which includes flexible design of
work environment and working schedule.
 By opting the best HRM practice by Arcadia Group, the employers manages all the
conflicts of their employees and they also leads to make their employee comfortable in
the working area.
 Through effective HRM practice, the employee– employer relationship is maintained and
this will also affect the working in positive manner. As a result, this helps to attained the
aims and objectives in defined time.
 HRM practices also helps to creates a positive working environment and also provides
favourable benefits for employees and as a result, it will help to keep the employer as
well as employee happy and productive.
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P4 Evaluating the effectiveness of different HRM practices
It is recommended to Arcadia Group to improve the HRM by opting and make changes in
its existing practices such as:
 Recruitment and selection: It is the best practices in which Arcadia Group should opt
external methods of recruitment in which the firm uses social media and advertisement in
order to let people know about the different job vacancies (Cascio, 2015). This helps a
business to select the best candidate so that it will helps to enhance the company's brand
image.
 Training and development: Arcadia group should opt best training methods into the
working place so that it will help to minimize the issue of discrimination and harassment.
Such that when the HR of the firm will provide better job skill training and leadership
training then it directly affect the working performance of an employee. So that the
defined aims and objectives are attained.
 Compensation and benefits: When an employee of Arcadia Group perform better, then
it is the function of HR to provides best incentives to their employees which includes
salary, promotion (Bratton and Gold, 2017). It has been analysed that this HR practices
will help to increases the employee performance and accomplish the aims and objectives
of the firm as well.
P5 Describing the importance of employee relation that influence the HRM decisions
It is quite essential for Arcadia Group to maintain healthy employee relations because it
has been analysed that good employee relation signifies that employee should feel positive and
an attractive workplace also motivate the employees which cannot be measured in monetary
values. Therefore, the importance of employee relationship is as mention:
Discourage conflict among workers: It has been analyse that a good relation among
employee of Arcadia Group reduce the chance of conflict and they also gain the trust among
each other in order to fulfil the goals. Further, worker should also consider their fellow as their
colleagues not as a competitor so that it will help to increase the performance with productivity.
Ensure an equality by communicating effectively: It is also recommended to Arcadia
Group to have proper communication system so that there should not be any discrimination and
they all feel positive and motivated in order to perform their task in better way (Kianto, Sáenz
and Aramburu, 2017). As per the case study, the firm faces issue regarding discrimination,
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therefore a firm should develop effective communication system that helps HRM to take proper
decision in time.
Loyalty of employee: In addition to this, it has been analysed that pleasant and
interactive work environment will definitely creates loyal employees, as a result, they feel
motivated to perform task which is assigned to them. Even this also helps to encourage or they
provide more efforts that also leads to provide greater productivity. Thus, the rate of employee
turnover is quite few in a firm that helps to reduce cost of recruitment for quoted firm.
P6 Identify the key element of employment legislation and its impact upon HRM
It has been realized through case study that Arcadia Group also comply with employment
legislation when recruitment is done so that it creates positive impact upon HRM decision-
making. There are some major key element of legislation such as:
Health and safety Act, 1974: Arcadia Group must follow the act in which it define the
general duties of employers and employees so that they will manage the work accordingly. This
act creates positive impact upon the employees because it mainly deals with safety and welfare.
Employment act, 1996: Arcadia Group also comply with this legislation in which they
provide minimum pay to their employees and there should not be any discrimination at the time
of recruitment and at workplace. Further, they should not do any unfair dismissal, therefore, this
leads to creates positive impact upon employees as well as employers.
Proper Compensation: It is necessary for HR to define the compensation for the
employee at the time of recruitment such that the firm should provide minimum wages and
length of their work hours and if the employee takes extra time for competing the task then it is
the responsibility of HR to pay extra. As a result, it will help to creates positive impact upon
HRM practices (Guest, 2017).
Ensuring about equality: Firm should also make sure that while recruiting, there should
not be any discrimination related to age, gender and caste. So that it will help to creates positive
impact upon employees and HRM as well. As the firm is facing issue of discrimination and as a
result, the entire work got affected in negative way, which needs to be reduced.
Working flexibility: It is quite necessary that employees should be aware of time and if
they perform over duties then they have to get proper compensation for overtime and apart from
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this, Arcadia Group should allow them proper leave and this effective time distribution also
affect the HRM decision in better way (Noe and et.al., 2017).
CONCLUSION
By summing up above report it has been concluded that HRM affected entire working
system of Arcadia and there is a need to improve the HRM practices so that it will help to
enhance the working performance of employees as well. Further, report also concluded that
through effective HRM practices, company's productivity also increases that creates direct
impact upon profit of a business and also provide benefit to employee and employer that leads to
affect their performance. Lastly, it has been concluded that through effective HRM, Arcadia
Group can easily influence the employees and also take better decision in order to achieve the
strategic goals.
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References
Books and Journals
Albrecht, S. L. and et.al., 2015. Employee engagement, human resource management practices
and competitive advantage: An integrated approach. Journal of Organizational
Effectiveness: People and Performance.2(1). pp.7-35.
Bratton, J. and Gold, J., 2017. Human resource management: theory and practice. Palgrave.
Cascio, W. F., 2015. Managing human resources. McGraw-Hill.
Dany, F. and Torchy, V., 2017. Recruitment and selection in Europe Policies, practices and
methods 1. In Policy and Practice in European Human Resource Management (pp. 68-
88). Routledge.
Guest, D. E., 2017. Human resource management and employee well‐being: Towards a new
analytic framework. Human Resource Management Journal.27(1). pp.22-38.
Jović, A., Brkić, K. and Bogunović, N., 2015, May. A review of feature selection methods with
applications. In 2015 38th International Convention on Information and Communication
Technology, Electronics and Microelectronics (MIPRO) (pp. 1200-1205). IEEE.
Kianto, A., Sáenz, J. and Aramburu, N., 2017. Knowledge-based human resource management
practices, intellectual capital and innovation. Journal of Business Research.81. pp.11-20.
Lane, T. S., Armin, J. and Gordon, J. S., 2015. Online recruitment methods for web-based and
mobile health studies: a review of the literature. Journal of medical Internet
research. 17(7). p.e183.
Noe, R. A. and et.al., 2017. Human resource management: Gaining a competitive advantage.
New York, NY: McGraw-Hill Education.
Patterson, F. and et.al., 2016. How effective are selection methods in medical education? A
systematic review. Medical education. 50(1). pp.36-60.
Online
Function of HRM. 2019. [Online]. Available through:
<https://medium.com/@swaticbindia/human-resource-management-its-core-functions-
managerial-operative-fc0335ef616a>.
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