Strategic Human Resource Management Analysis: Mark and Spencer

This report provides an overview of Human Resource Management (HRM) and its significance within organizations, particularly focusing on Mark and Spencer. It emphasizes the importance of HRM in achieving competitive advantage and improving brand image. The report outlines various HRM functions, including recruitment, training, and compensation, while also addressing current challenges such as talent competition, technological advancements, economic impacts, demographic changes, and data-driven practices. It delves into compensation strategies, job evaluation methods, and different pay models like skill-based and competency-based pay. The report also explores key HRM theories, including equity theory, expectancy theory, and reinforcement theory, and their application in developing effective pay systems. The conclusion highlights the integral role of HRM in fostering a satisfied workforce and achieving organizational goals. The report underscores the importance of aligning HRM practices with business objectives to enhance productivity and employee morale.

Managing Human
Resource

INTRODUCTION.....................................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY.............................................................................................................................................3
Overview of Human Resource Management and its current issues.........................................................3
CONCLUSION..........................................................................................................................................8
REFERENCES..........................................................................................................................................9

INTRODUCTION
HRM function is considered as one of the essential area within an organization in order to
improve the overall performance of company in an impressive or productive style. Hence, human
resource management is a distinctive approach to employment managing which seeks to achieve
competitive advantage through the strategic deployment of a highly committed and capable
workforce, using an array of cultural, structural and personal techniques (Mok, Shen and Yang,
2015). Moreover, it ensures the success of an organization and also helps to improve its brand
image that is turn assist firm to sustain within competitive market for long period of time. Along
with this, this functional area enable firm to recruit, select, training and development, payroll,
employee relation, compensation management, personnel engagement policies etc. for
accomplishing company’s pre-determined goal or objective in a better manner. For this report
Mark and Spencer is considered which is one of the branded retailing firm in UK and it is
established in the year of 1884. Under this report, it encompasses importance of HRM and
explain its current issues. Finally, application of theories or concepts in order to provide relevant
solution for organization to enhance their brand image is also mentioned here.
MAIN BODY
Overview of Human Resource Management and its current issues
In today’s world it has become tougher and difficult for companies or organization to
survive within a high competitive market because of advancement of technologies and
globalization that directly impact over firm’s proficiency ratio. However, human resource
involves all application components related to an employees life cycle while at an organization.
These activities involves company structure, reward system, recruitment, personnel development
and many more which all contain common goal of achieving business or mission in an
innovative or creative style. Henceforth, in order to sustain within current industry, Mark and
Spencer contain satisfactory working culture which generate positive attitude among its
personnel that lead firm to enrich its profit margin within prescribed tine limit without any
hindrances. At the same, the core feature of this functional area is that it determine company’s
requirement and enable manager to make use of all available resources in order to achieve profit
maximization in a better mode (Le Roy and Fernandez, 2015). But as the world started to
transform into digital world, it threat Mark and Spencer to maintain fair or transparent

relationship with its internal or external clients that influence their decision making capability
and proficiency. Hence, human resource managers face a myriad challenges with today’s
workforce. There are issues concerning diverse manpower, legislation affecting workplace and
technology matters that rise the top of the list of challenges. Therefore, some of which Mark and
Spencer undergoes within their business operation or function are mentioned below:
Stepped up competition for talent: As labor market conditions improve and the need
for skilled and educated workers rises around the world, organizations are finding it more
difficult to attract the best employees. This makes it increasingly necessary for HR to help build
a strong employer brand. Thus, Mark and Spencer’s HR professionals are highlighting cultures
that incorporate the fundamentals of a great place to work, including corporate social
responsibility initiatives, strong worker safety and security measures, and an overarching
atmosphere of civility and respect in the workplace. The tight competition for talent is also
influencing compensation and benefits strategies, immigration policies, and global relocations.
New development in technology: There are several tools which is required in today’
working environment of Mark and Spencer, such as talent networks, crowdsourcing and internal
social networks, hold the promise of increased flexibility and productivity. But their use in
supporting a virtual workforce will continue to make employee management and team building
challenging.
Impact of economy: While economic indicators have improved in countries around the
world, Mark and Spencer continue to feel a strain on their budgets. This will influence hiring
strategies and other Mark and Spencer’s HR decisions. In addition, increased globalization and
political unrest in some regions will continue to make economic uncertainty the new normal
(Jelinkova and Jirincova, 2015).
Demographic changes: Population changes will have a mounting impact on many
aspects of employment and HR practices. These changes include the aging workforce, different
generations working together, the nature of family and parental roles, and increased cultural
diversity.
Data driven HR practices: The growing importance of “big data” presents human
resource practitioners with an opportunity—and puts them under pressure. Business leaders are

increasingly demanding that HR professionals, like their colleagues in other functional areas, use
metrics and in-depth analysis to both make good decisions and demonstrate the return on
investment of key expenditures.
However, from the preceding discussed issues influence greatly over Mark and Spencer’s
productivity or proficiency. An ever-changing, complex environment can create the anxious
feeling that company’s HR professional undergoes huge challenges and it affect them in
maintaining better relationship with personnel. But above all those issues, one of the major
challenge which organization faces in reward or compensation system which has huge impact
over establishment decision making process as well as on morale of personnel. Once employer
have determined compensation strategy based on internal and external factors, for that they first
evaluate jobs, develop a pay system, and consider pay theories when making decisions. After
that they takes an initiative to determine the mix of pay, taking into consideration legal
implications. As mentioned earlier, internal and external factors, the value of the job is a major
factor when determining pay. There are several ways to determine the value of a job through job
evaluation. Job evaluation is defined as the process of determining the relative worth of jobs to
determine pay structure. Moreover, it help company to determine if pay is equitable and fair
among employees. Thus, there are several ways to perform a job evaluation. One of the simplest
methods, used by smaller companies or within individual departments, is a job ranking system.
In a job classification system, every job is classified and grouped based on the knowledge and
skills required for the job, years of experience, and amount of authority for that job. Another type
of job evaluation system is the point-factor system, which determines the value of an occupation
by computing the total points assigned to it (Hornstein, 2015). The points given to a specific job
are called compensable factors.
Once firm manager takes an attempt to evaluate a performed job, one of the essential step
which Mark and Spencer business operation follows that they call pay grading as it is signifies as
the process of setting the pay scale for specific jobs or types of jobs. One of the downsides to pay
grading is the possible lack of motivation for employees to work harder. As each individual
know even if they perform tasks outside their job description, their pay level or pay grade will be
the same. This can incubate a stagnant environment. Sometimes this system can also create too
many levels of hierarchy. For example, some administrations have moved to a delayering and

banding process, which cuts down the number of pay levels within the organization. Along with
this, it allows establishments to better reward performance, while still having a basic model for
hiring managers to follow. Another pay model is the management fit model. In this model, each
manager makes a decision about who should be paid what when that person is hired. The
downside to this model may be potential discrimination, halo effects, and resentment within the
association. Of course, these factors can create morale issues, the exact thing we want to avoid
when compensating employees. In addition to the pay level models, other considerations might
include the following:
Skill-based pay: With a skill-based pay system, salary levels are grounded on an
employee’s skills, as opposed to job title. This method is implemented similarly to the pay grade
model, but rather than career title, a set of skills is assigned a particular pay grade.
Competency-based pay: Rather than looking at specific skills, the competency-based approach
looks at the employee’s traits or characteristics as opposed to a specific skills set. This model
focuses more on what the employee can become as opposed to the skills he or she already has
(Sheehan, Ellinger and Ellinger, 2014).
Broad banding: It is similar to a pay grade system, except all jobs in a particular
category are assigned a specific pay category.
There are some theories or concepts which Mark and Spencer implies within their business
operation or functional areas are as follows:
The equity theory: It is concerned with the relational satisfaction employees get from
pay and inputs they provide to the organization. Moreover, it says that people will evaluate their
own compensation by comparing their reimbursement to others’ benefit and their inputs to
others’ efforts. In other words, people will look at their own compensation packages and at their
own inputs (the work performed) and compare that with others. If they perceive this to be unfair,
in that another person is paid more but they believe that person is doing less work, motivational
issues can occur. For example, people may reduce their own inputs and not work as hard.
Employees may also decide to leave the organization as a result of the perceived inequity. In HR,
this is an important theory to understand, because even if someone is being paid fairly, they will

always compare their own pay to that of others in the organization. The key here is perception, in
that the fairness is based entirely on what the employee sees, not what may be the actual reality.
The expectancy theory: This is another key theory in relation to pay. The expectancy
theory signifies that employees will put in as much work as they expect to receive. In other
words, if the workforce perceives they are going to be paid favorably, they will work to achieve
the outcomes. If they believe the rewards do not equal the amount of effort, they may not work
as hard (Burrai, E., Font, X. and Cochrane, J., 2015. Destination stakeholders' perceptions of
volunteer tourism:
The reinforcement theory: Under this, it is regarded as that if high performance is
followed by some reward that desired behavior will likely occur in the future. Likewise, if high
performance isn’t followed by an incentive, it is less likely the high performance will occur in
the future.
Hence, all these theories provide relevant information to Mark and Spencer to make
better decisions when developing our own pay systems. Besides the motivational aspect of
creating a pay structure, there are some other considerations. First, the size of the organization
and the expected expansion of the organization will be a factor. After a recompense system has
been developed, we can begin to look at specific methods of paying an employees. Remember
that when we talk about compensation, we are referring to not only an actual paycheck but
additional types of compensation, such as incentive plans that include bonuses and profit sharing
which assist Mark and Spencer to improve their proficiency ratio as well as help them to enrich
manpower morale in an actual and efficient manner (Tseng and Kuo, 2014).
CONCLUSION
It has been concluded from the above explained report that human resource management
is an integral functional area of an organization as it assist them to obtain and maintain
satisfactory and satisfied work force by fulfilling’s their all demands in an effective or efficient
manner. Moreover, employees are an essential part of company and effectually managing them
help firm to acquire best positioning among industry. Along with this, several types of theories

or concepts help business to examine each individual skill and based on that provide them proper
position which encourage them to put their best contribution towards attainment of high
productivity or profitability. Additionally, firm maintain better relationship with their workforce
that lead them to generate best working culture as well as add value among the mindset of
personnel in a better manner.

REFERENCES
Books and journals
Mok, K. Y., Shen, G. Q. and Yang, J., 2015. Stakeholder management studies in mega
construction projects: A review and future directions. International Journal of Project
Management, 33(2). pp.446-457.
Le Roy, F. and Fernandez, A. S., 2015. Managing coopetitive tensions at the working‐group
level: The rise of the coopetitive project team. British Journal of Management, 26(4). pp.671-
688.
Jelinkova, E. and Jirincova, M., 2015. Diversity management as a tool of managing intellectual
capital. Journal of Competitiveness, 7(4).
Hornstein, H. A., 2015. The integration of project management and organizational change
management is now a necessity. International Journal of Project Management, 33(2). pp.291-
298.
Sheehan, M., Ellinger, A. E. and Ellinger, A. D., 2014. Leveraging human resource development
expertise to improve supply chain managers' skills and competencies. European Journal of
Training and Development.
Burrai, E., Font, X. and Cochrane, J., 2015. Destination stakeholders' perceptions of volunteer
tourism: An equity theory approach. International Journal of Tourism Research, 17(5). pp.451-
459.
Davcik, N. S., Vinhas da Silva, R. and Hair, J. F., 2015. Towards a unified theory of brand
equity: conceptualizations, taxonomy and avenues for future research. Journal of Product &
Brand Management, 24(1). pp.3-17.
Tseng, L. M. and Kuo, C. L., 2014. Customers’ attitudes toward insurance frauds: an application
of Adams’ equity theory. International Journal of Social Economics. 41(11). pp.1038-1054.
Parijat, P. and Bagga, S., 2014. Victor Vroom’s expectancy theory of motivation–An
evaluation. International Research Journal of Business and Management, 7(9). pp.1-8.
Purvis, R. L., Zagenczyk, T. J. and McCray, G. E., 2015. What's in it for me? Using expectancy
theory and climate to explain stakeholder participation, its direction and intensity. International
Journal of Project Management, 33(1). pp.3-14.
Hsu, D. K., Shinnar, R. S. and Powell, B. C., 2014. Expectancy theory and entrepreneurial
motivation: A longitudinal examination of the role of entrepreneurship education. Journal of
Business and Entrepreneurship, 26(1). pp.121-140.
Smederevac, S., Mitrović, D., Čolović, P. and Nikolašević, Ž., 2014. Validation of the measure
of revised reinforcement sensitivity theory constructs. Journal of Individual Differences.
Wei, L. T. and Yazdanifard, R., 2014. The impact of positive reinforcement on employees'
performance in organizations. American Journal of Industrial and Business Management, 4(1).
p.9.

Madani, K. and Hooshyar, M., 2014. A game theory–reinforcement learning (GT–RL) method to
develop optimal operation policies for multi-operator reservoir systems. Journal of
hydrology, 519. pp.732-742.