Strategic Human Resource Management Report: John Lewis Case Study

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of strategic human resource management (SHRM) within John Lewis. It begins with an introduction to SHRM, emphasizing its role in organizational success. The report then delves into an in-depth analysis of John Lewis's HR policies and practices, evaluating them against theoretical concepts such as High Commitment HRM and the Best Fit HRM model. It examines the influence of external factors like labor pool availability, government regulations, workforce demographics, and technological advancements on HR strategic decisions. Furthermore, the report explores the organization of HR functions, focusing on the Ulrich model, and analyzes the role of line managers in delivering HR services, including the challenges they face. The report concludes by summarizing the key findings and emphasizing the importance of SHRM for organizational effectiveness.

STRATEGIC HUMAN
RESOURCE
MANAGEMENT

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
Analysis of HR policies and practices within organisation against theoretical concepts...........1
Analysis of external forces and its effects on HR strategic decisions.........................................3
Analysing the way HR functions are organised and the way policies or practices are delivered.
.....................................................................................................................................................4
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................5
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................6

INTRODUCTION
Strategic human resource management is basically a administration of people. It is the
administrative procedure which includes different activities such as recruitment, hiring, payroll
etc. The human resource management in an organisation work closely with employees in order to
help them in getting the good experience of working. The main advantage of strategic human
resource management is that it provides clear vision as well as detail information about business
strategy. Purpose of strategic human resource management is to advance flexibility and to assist
an enterprise in gaining competitive advantage. Strategic human resource management can be
defined as practice of attracting, developing and retaining workers. It is the department in an
enterprise which makes significant contribution in making other functional unit more effective.
The report have focus on analysing the HR policies s well as practices in John lewis. It is
basically a departmental store which has department in other countries. Study concentrates on
identifying the external forces which have effect on decision taken by HR manager.
Analysis of HR policies and practices within organisation against theoretical concepts
John Lewis & partners is the chain of high-end departmental store that operates
throughout the United Kingdom. The company was founded in the year 1864 and there are 51
stores. The John Lewis & partners company offers wide range of products and services to its
customers including Home- ware products, fashion, electrics and many more (Banfield, Kay and
Royles, 2018). The business organisation aims at implementing and adapting to various HR
policies and practices in effective and systematic way to bring out the best outcomes and results.
The human resource policies can be described as the formal guidelines and rules which business
organisation puts in place for hiring, recruiting, training, assessing performance and rewarding
the employees or members of the business.
High commitment Human Resource Management is a practice that is adopted by John
Lewis and it can be defined as the management of employees in a way that is based on trust and
emphasizes on regulation oneself instead of being controlled by the external pressures. These
theoretical concepts are considered as the best practices which lead to improve the overall
organisational performances and also improve the employee's performance. The high
commitment HR practices is based on providing employment security and internal labour
markets. The HRM aims at sophisticated selection and selective hiring so that it can recruit
talented employees. HRM also provide employees with learning and development programs and
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extensive training to increase their skills and knowledge. HR of John Lewis also focus on
employee involvement and share important information with them.
These High Commitment HRM practices helps in contributing to organisation in form of
improving the behaviours and attitudes of employees, also reduces the absenteeism level. Such
practices also assists in reduction of turnover rate and leads to increase and improve the
productivity level. All this factors assist in improving the customer care and quality of products
and services. Thus, adapting to high commitment practices of HR, organisation can overall
improve the performance level and gain benefits by improving the profitability.
John Lewis also focuses on adapting to Best Fit HRM model and this strategy describes
that it can become more effective and efficient when it is accurately linked to the surrounding
context. The Best Fit model needs to be linked with external factors or competitive strategies
such as marketing strategies and operational strategies. And as a result, it helps in developing
effective relationship between behaviour of employees, HR practices and competitive advantage.
The best fit model describes that HR strategies also needs to be linked with internal factors. The
practices and policies of HR needs to be coherent. Organisation needs to focus on avoiding
strategies or policies which works in opposite directions. For example, encouraging teamwork
instead of focusing on rewarding the individual performances (Bailey and et.al, 2018.). The best
model also ensures that various HR practices are in appropriate proportion with the organisation,
i.e. development stage or resources. For example, if the organisation has adapted to
Differentiation strategy then HR practices needs to be focused on selecting highly talented and
skilled employees, needs to invest in development and training programs and implementing Just-
In-Time approach.
The Human resource Management of John Lewis aims at adapting to elements of both
Hard and Soft approaches of HRM (Soft and Hard HRM, 2018). The hard approach focuses on
treating employees as resource of business and makes strong link or connection with the
corporate business planning. For example, which resources are required, how can organisation
get it or what will be the cost for the same. In Hard approach, HRM focuses on identifying
workforce need and according doing hiring, moving or firing. The soft HRM model focuses on
treating employees as the most essential resource of business and also as a source of competitive
advantage. HRM of John Lewis implementing the Soft HRM model aims at concentrating on the
employee's needs and wants and also on focus on motivating them and rewards them as well.
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The HR policies and practices of John Lewis focuses on developing the organisational
culture, help and assist employees for understanding about what is expected from them and it
also reflects the standards of business. These policies also provide tools and guidance for the
manager so that they effectively manage the employees. The various Human Resource Practices
are focused on supporting the organisational culture and also effectively encourages
development and growth of company.
Analysis of external forces and its effects on HR strategic decisions
There are some external factors that affect the HR strategic decision and some of them
are as mention below:
Available labour pool: Though it is the main function of HR department to recruit the
best candidate for company's welfare through workforce planning. But the availability of labour
market also affect the HR strategic decision which is further affected by unemployment rates,
number of qualifies workers in premises. There may be chances that John Lewis faces difficulty
to identify and attracting some suitable candidate (Berman and et.al., 2019). But as the company
operate at large level which means that it has high skill of employees who help to attain the
defined aim.
Government regulations: State and National laws also affect the HR strategic
management such that these regulation can influence how a firm goes about hiring, training and
compensating and a misstep may also result in sanction against the company. Therefore, it is
quite essential for the firm to comply all the laws and regulation so that it will help for the
smooth functioning of a business.
Workforce Demographics: In every multinational firm, as an older generation retires,
new generation enters the workforce, that is why HR of quoted firm should hire the new
candidate by offering them different types of compensation packages so that it will help to offer
a work environment bruise to how this generation works. On the other side, it has been analysed
that it Is quite necessary to develop the strategy that helps a firm to keep their employees in the
firm such that they can provide reward system and incentives schemes so that it will help them to
maintain positive working environment of the firm.
Technological factors: this is another external factor that affect HR strategic decision in
positive manner, because in this new era, technological advancement can easily create a new
competitive advantages so that they can stay ahead in this competitive world. By using new and
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advance technology can help to upgrade the skill set and HR can also use these techniques in
their recruitment and selection procedure in order to save time and money, that attract best fit for
the firm as well.
Analysing the way HR functions are organised and the way policies or practices are delivered.
The organisation of the different HRM functions in very much crucial in order to drive
firm toward success. In context of John lewis organisation, human resource management is
considered to be as one of the crucial function (Meyer and Xin, 2018). Human resource manager
in John lewis company, human resource manager in an enterprise Ulrich model for organising
the different functions. It is the hypothesis which has served as the benchmark for the human
resource manager in John lewis organisation. Ulrich model ha been adopted by the human
resource manager in John lewis organisation as an initiative for dissecting as well as mobilising
their multi faced role in an enterprise.The main purpose of utilising the Ulrich model by human
resource manager in John lewis enterprise is to increase their potential of making good decisions
. According to the Ulrich model the human resource management functions can be categorised
into the different functions these are strategic parters, change agent, administrative experts and
employee champion. In context of John lewis, human resource manager in an organization
utilises the integrated system for keeping as well as maintaining the record in systematic
manner.
Role of line manager in delivering of Human resource management.
A line manager is recognised to be as an individual who is mainly responsible for
managing workers as well as other operations of business. It is the duty of line manager is to
report about the performance of employees to higher authority in an enterprise. The line manager
in John lewis organisation plays very much crucial role in managing the employees and
performance at workplace (Stewart and Brown, 2019). The main role of line manager is to
manage workers as well as resources for assisting firm in accomplishment of desired business
objectives. In addition to this, it is the duty of line manager to communicate the goals to
employees and make sure that all workers have understanding about their respective goals as
well as objectives. In addition to this, the role of line manager is to recruit as well as hire talented
candidates for filling specific position within an organisation. IT is the duty of line manager to
provide training to workers and support new candidates in adjusting to new working
environment. In addition to this, other role of line manager is to provide cross training to workers
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fore making sure that rotation as well as minimising the performance gaps. It is the role of line
manger to provide continuous feedbacks as well as suggestions to term members. The duty of
line manager is to analyse as well as measure the performance of team members and take an
appropriate action when necessary. In context of John lewis organisation , the line manager is
mainly responsible for making sure that all the quality set standards are being followed by all
employees in an organisation (Amberg and McGaughey, 2019).
Challenges faced by human resource manager in performing their role.
The challenges or issues faced by the line manager in performing their role in context of
delivering the HR services are limited resources due to which they are facing issues in managing
the routine business operations. In addition to this, line manager in John lewis organisation is
facing challenging in retaining their control on such a large team. Due to the large size of team
the line manager in an enterprise is facing difficulty in providing the development support as
well as coaching to team members at regular interval of time. In context of John lewis
organisation, due to high employees turnover rate the line manager in an enterprise is facing
issue in bringing the improvement in different business operations.
CONCLUSION
From the above report, it has been concluded that strategic human resource management
is very much important for success of an organisation. The other fact which has been
summarised from the above report is that there are various factors such as rate of labour,
changes in employment market, has significant influence on the decision taken by human
resource manager. It has also been concluded that amendments in the employment or other
related norm has significant influences on the policies as well as procedure designed by human
resource manager in an organisation. The other thing which has been concluded is that
organisation of Different HR functions is very much essential for accomplishment of desired
objectives. Proper organisation of HR function is essential for having positive as well as long
term effect on business.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journal
Amberg, J.J. and McGaughey, S.L., 2019. Strategic human resource management and inertia in
the corporate entrepreneurship of a multinational enterprise. The International Journal of
Human Resource Management. 30(5). pp.759-793.
Bailey, C. and et.al, 2018. Strategic human resource management. Oxford University Press.
Banfield, P., Kay, R. and Royles, D., 2018. Introduction to human resource management.
Oxford University Press.
Berman, E.M. and et.al., 2019. Human resource management in public service: Paradoxes,
processes, and problems. CQ Press.
Meyer, K.E. and Xin, K.R., 2018. Managing talent in emerging economy multinationals:
Integrating strategic management and human resource management. The International
Journal of Human Resource Management. 29(11). pp.1827-1855.
Stewart, G.L. and Brown, K.G., 2019. Human resource management. Wiley.
Online
Soft and Hard HRM. 2018. [Online]. Available through:
<https://www.tutor2u.net/business/reference/soft-and-hard-hrm>
The role and challenges of Line manager.2019.[ONLINE]. Available through
:<https://www.thebalancecareers.com/role-and-challenges-of-a-line-manager-2275752>
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