Strategic HRM Report: Analysis of Wesfarmers' HR Practices

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of Wesfarmers' human resource management (HRM) practices. It begins with an introduction to the company, its mission, vision, and market position, followed by a market analysis including SWOT and PEST analyses. The report then delves into the role and functions of HRM within Wesfarmers, examining key aspects such as recruitment, selection, employee encouragement, and performance management. It critiques the management of these functions and offers commentary on ethical considerations. The report identifies challenges such as high labor turnover, employee inefficiency, and the need for improved performance management systems. Finally, the report offers recommendations to address these challenges and improve the effectiveness of Wesfarmers' HRM strategies, concluding with a summary of the key findings and insights. This report aligns with the assignment brief's requirement to develop a Strategic HRM Plan for an organization by performing strategic analysis, examining the role of HRM, identifying HR functions, and offering recommendations.

Wesfarmers

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Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................2
Mission and Vision....................................................................................................................2
Market Analysis.........................................................................................................................2
SWOT Analysis......................................................................................................................2
PEST Analysis........................................................................................................................3
Role of Human resource management.......................................................................................3
Function of Human resource management................................................................................5
Technique of Human resource management..............................................................................8
Recommendation......................................................................................................................10
Conclusion................................................................................................................................11
References................................................................................................................................12
Appendix..................................................................................................................................15

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Introduction
Wesfarmers is a conglomerate company, it was established in 1914. The company
operates in chemical, fertilisers, coal mining and safety products. It has the largest private
employers in Australia, with 220000 employees. In 1984, it was listed on the Australian
Security Exchange and grew as a retail conglomerate. With the continuous success,
Wesfarmers started operating with Cole’s group. The Company targets the department stores
retailer in Australia (Wesfarmers, 2018).
In the first phase of report, the market analysis will be discussed to identify the
strength and weakness of the company. After that, the report will be made on the role and
function of human resource management. And at the last phase, the recommendation will be
provided to handle the challenges.
Mission and Vision
Vision of Wesfarmers is “to become the best retailer in the market” and the mission
and core value of the company is “to maintain the employee alignment”. The company has
selected the right path to achieve the objective (Wesfarmers, 2018).
Market Analysis
SWOT Analysis
It has been analysed that the company has large market share in the private sector of
Australia and New Zealand which is the great advantage for the company. Due to the high
market share, the company has a strong network with the supermarkets which attracts the
consumers. It is observed that the company has many local suppliers that is why, company
faces the problem of old material or common material. Thus, the company is facing he

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problem of new ideas to extend the business in the new market. The company has many
departments which is a major weakness because the company cannot gain the profit on all
services. Wesfarmers has an opportunity to grow with the online market and it can enter into
the new retail sector with the help of the employees. But the company faces the challenge of
non-performing employees. The company has a good name in the market thus; the company
has a high competition in the market which is a high threat for the company (Olander,
Hurmelinna, Laukkanen, & Heilmann, 2015).
PEST Analysis
It has been evaluated that the company faces the biggest challenge of restrictive
trading hours. Due to the minimum contribution of the employees towards the work; the
company did not finish the work at the restrictive trading hour just because of the high
turnover of employees. The company has the low growth rate just because of employee’s
inefficiency towards the work. The company is facing the loss because of the higher wage
rate as compare to employee’s performance. Wesfarmers provides an opportunity for Women
in decision making but the company is facing the problem of low average education of
employees and unskilled labour. It is observed that the company adopts the new technology
to target the new customer (Wesfarmers, 2018).
From the above analysis, it is observed that the company is facing the challenges of
average qualification, the efficiency of an employee, labour turnover, new ideas or minimum
participation of employee towards the work and the non- performance of an employee. In the
next phase of the report, is based on the role of human resource management to reduce or
handle these challenges.
Role of Human resource management
Recruitment and selection

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Wesfarmers recruits the employee with the high skills in its organisation. It has a
responsibility to hire the right person in the right place. The human resource management of
the company follows the process at the time of recruitment from which they can hire the right
person and the best talent for the company (Black, Washington, & Schmidt, 2016). The
company identifies the factor before the recruiting process such as the size of the
organisation, vacant vacancies of the company and the requirements of the job.
After completing recruitment, the human resource management follows selection
process. This role of human resource management helps the company to improve the
productivity of the company by hiring the highly skilled employees. Human resource
management follows the process in which it is compulsory for the company to clear the
aptitude test for the professional vacancies. This step of human resource management helps to
hire the highly qualified employees in the organisation (Budworth, Latham, & Manroop,
2015).
Encourage the employees
It has been seen that the Human resource management of the company helps to reduce
the labour turnover by encouraging them towards the objective. Wesfarmers faces high
labour turnover of employees just because workers move for the incentives and wages. It
encourages the employee by offering them incentive and bonus. Incentive and bonus is a
major part which attracts the employees to stay long in the organisation like Wesfarmers
provides the fair work commission to the employees who work in the field of Coles
(Wesfarmers, 2018). The company provides numerous benefits to the employees like the
discount on supermarkets, transportation charges and many others. It also provides the career
opportunity to the employees by promoting them for their rank. Human resource management
of the company analyses the individual employees and provides the incentive to the

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employees (Grant, 2016). Human resource management of the company set the incentives
and bonus according to the quality work of the employee. This role helps the company to
reduce the labour turnover and encourages the best talent to stay in the company (Akhter,
Hussain, Bhatti, Shahid, & Ullah, 2016).
Performance Management
Human resource management of the company hires the best-talented employees in the
organisation. It helps the company to overcome of challenge of non-performance and
inefficiency of the employee. The company failed to meet the requirement at the restrictive
trading time, from which company faces the problems. Thus, it helps to improve the
efficiency of an employee by measuring their performance on a regular basis. Human
resource management of the company inspire the employees by awarding them for their
work. It provides awards to the best performers, best performers of the company are
appreciated by the other fellows who encourage the other employees to work hard and give
their best in their work. It especially encourages that employee who did not perform well in
their work. It helps the company to increase the productivity by encouraging the employees
to perform well in their work (Buckingham, & Goodall, 2015).
The function of HRM
Recruitment
Human resource management of the company recruits the employees by following the
rules and regulation as well as procedure of the company. The company recruit the best
employee by identifying the factors of the company like size, vacancy and requirement of
recruitment. For this, the human resource management of the company is analysing the
records of the other department documents. It is observed that each business of Wesfarmers

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has its own human resource team which manages the recruitment and selection of the
company. Human resource management takes the help from the managers of another
department. It indicates that the company did the recruitment with the help of the managers
from other departments.
Selection
Human resource management of Wesfarmers follows the selection process to hire the
high skill employee in the organisation. It is necessary for the candidate to clear the aptitude
test, HR interview and the other interviews. These tests and interviews help the Human
resource management to analyse the skills and intelligence according to the requirement of
the job vacancy. Wesfarmers is a well-known company for its employees; it shows that the
company selects the higher skilled person by following the procedure. To select the best
employee, the other managers also help the human resource department by making the test
papers according to the profession of the job vacancy.
Employee performance
Human resource analyses the performance of each employee. It helps the employees
to improve their performance by encouraging and understanding their problem which is faced
by the company. This function of the HR manager helps to improve the efficiency of the
employee towards the work. It used the talent management system to analyse the skills and
ability of the company according to their job requirements (Reeve, 2014). The company
analyses the performance by the analysis of daily work performance of the employee. The
management of another department records the daily work performance of an employee.
Human resource requires the record to enhance the employee performance which is made by
the manager (Anitha, 2014).

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Training and Development
The human resource of Wesfarmers plays an important function to increase the
productivity of the company by improving their concepts according to their job profile.
Human resource organises the training session to train the employee as per the requirement of
their profession. Training helps the company to improve the employee performance. The HR
department provides the training to the selected candidates to explain the rules and regulation
of the company. Training also helps the new employees to understand the basic concepts
regarding the job. Human resource trains the employee themselves by explaining the policies
of the company (Brewster, 2017). Thus, it indicates that the human resource manager
manages the function without any help from the other department at the time of training of
new employees.
Maintaining a good working environment
This function of management helps the company in influencing the employee to stay
in the organisation for a long time. To maintain the environment of the organisation HR takes
the feedback from each employee at the end of the month. It is observed that human resource
management of Wesfarmers interacts with the employees and understands their problems and
helps to reduce the problems. Wesfarmers has many businesses; especially the human
resource of Cole business of Wesfarmers is more active towards the health of the employees.
The human resource of the company provides the facilities to the employee so that the
employees are influenced to stay long in the organisation and give their best (Brewster,
Chung, & Sparrow, 2016). The human resource of Wesfarmers follows the Privacy Act at the
time of personal interaction with the employee.

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Techniques
Lack of better working environment
It is analysed that the working environment of the company is good and it is very
efficiently maintained by the Human resource team of the company. It provides many
facilities to the employees to influence them to stay for a long time in the organisation.
Human resource especially provides the facilities by understanding their performance or
making good relationship with them (Karam, Gardner, Gullifor, Tribble, & Li, 2017). But it
is observed that the company is still facing the challenges of high labour turnover which
affects the organisation’s goodwill and decreases the productivity of the company. Thus, it
can be said that the human resource management of Wesfarmers requires maintaining the
healthy and safe environment so the rate of labour turnover will decrease and the company
can expand the market easily (Bhatt, & Lakshmi, 2017).
Lack of motivation
Human resource management helps to motivate the employee towards their job by
interacting with them, understanding their problems and many more techniques to improve
their performance. It is observed that Wesfarmers has a good technique to improve the
performance of the employee but it is still facing the problem of the minimum contribution of
the employee towards the work and objectives. It can be said that the human resource
department has to improve the technique of motivation to improve the employee performance
(Miner, 2015).
Need of performance management system
The human resource of Wesfarmers evaluates the performance of an individual
employee which helps to understand the challenges which are faced by the employees.

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Although human resource of the company has excellent technique to improve the
performance of best performers still; company’s growth rate is slow which indicates the
minimum contribution of employees towards the work. The company has to improve the
technique to grow with the high-profit rate (Arnaboldi, Lapsley, & Steccolini, 2015).
Inappropriate Training and development session
It has been evaluated that the training and development session is provided by the
company. HR manager organises the sessions for the new employees to explain them the
rules and regulation of the company. It also organises the development sessions for the old
employees year after year which improves the productivity of the company. But still,
company faces the problem of the lower level of employee’s skill and capabilities which
decreases the satisfaction level of the consumers. It can be said that the company has to
improve this training and development session so that the employees understand the concepts
of the company and help to expand the business in the new market. Till now the discussion is
about the role and function of human resource management in reducing the challenges of the
company. Now, in the next phase, the recommendation will be discussed that how human
resource of Wesfarmers can reduce the problems.
Recommendation
SHRMP of working environment
Objective- To improve the working environment to influence the employee to stay for long
period
Strategies- the Human resource of Wesfarmers has to offer more career opportunity so that
they can stay for a long time (Schuler, & Jackson, 2008). Job enlargement and Job Rotations
are some key strategies to enhance the interest level of the employees.

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KPIs- Less employee turnover, increased average working time of an employee.
SHRMP of Motivation
Objective- To enhance the motivation level of the employees
Strategies- Human resources of Wesfarmers can provide the services such as discount in the
supermarkets, accommodation facility to the labour. Labour is a major part of an organisation
to increase its productivity. The company can provide better health and educational facilities
for the families (Collings, Wood, & Szamosi, 2018).
KPIs- increased productivity, cost reduction and enhanced operational profit.
SHRMP of performance management
Objective- To improve the capacity and skills of the employees
Strategies- The Company can measure the performance of an employee by measuring the
wastage of time and evaluating the time especially in packaging and distribution (DeNisi, &
Smith, 2014). A regular audit of the operations will help in identifying the weak areas.
KPIs- Less number of defects in the operations and enhances quality of work delivered.
SHRMP of Training and development
Objective- To improve the training and development programs
Strategies- The Company can hire the skilled employees, and provide the training to the old
employees in a year. The company can also provide the practical training with the help of
artificial equipment’s. Wesfarmers can also arrange training session from training
professionals from outside.

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KPIs- enhanced productivity and growth rate of the employees (Dooren, Bouckaert, &
Halligan, 2015).
Conclusion
From the above analysis, it has been concluded that the Wesfarmers has the largest
market share in retail sector of Australia. But it faced the challenges such as high labour
turnover, non-performers, employee inefficiency and others. Human resource management of
the company plays a significant role to reduce the challenges. The functions of the company
maintained the employee performance and motivate them towards the objective. It also used
the techniques but still, it has been observed that the Wesfarmers still faces the challenges;
thus it requires improving the employee performance. The company will grow with the high
rate of profit by improving the training and development session, increasing bonuses and
other facilities. It can be said that the company will grow with the high rate of profit in the
online market in the near future.
References
Akhter, N., Hussain, A., Bhatti, M. U. S., Shahid, F., & Ullah, H. M. E. (2016). Impact of HR
Practices on job Satisfaction: A Study on Teachers of Private and Public Sector.
International Review of Management and Business Research, 5(2), 572.
Anitha, J. (2014). Determinants of employee engagement and their impact on employee
performance. International journal of productivity and performance management,
63(3), 308.