Human Resource Policies and Practices in Morrisons and Sainsbury

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Strategic Human Resource
Management

TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction................................................................................................................................1
Discussion..................................................................................................................................2
HR policies and practices within organizations.....................................................................2
External forces and effect on HR strategic decisions within the organizations.....................3
How the HR function is organized and how HR policies and practices are delivered..........5
Conclusion..................................................................................................................................8
References..................................................................................................................................9

Introduction
The organizations need human resource management to accomplish the goals with high
efficiency, easy monitoring and systematic execution. Strategic human resource mainly
focuses on the development of the goals and visions that can be implemented through the
efforts of the resources to achieve particular advantages. The report will discuss human
resource practices and policies in Morrisons and Sainsbury. Both are a competitor to each
other in the retailer sector and provide main services like supermarkets and grocery stores in
the country. The report will discuss the effect of external factors on the strategic business
decisions, whereas it will also focus on how human resource policies and practices are
implemented in the organizational context through the Ulrich model.
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Discussion
HR policies and practices within organizations
Resource management is a complex task in an organization because the organizations have to
achieve strategic outcomes as well as the satisfaction of the resources to attain sustainable
growth. Human resource policies are defined as some rules and standards that are used to
manage the resources on different aspects such as employment, recruitment, training and
compensation (Schuler and Jackson, 2008). Therefore, managers can use human resource
policies as a reference to make decisions for the workforce and to design and assure human
resource practices.
Morrisons has the main purpose with HR policies is to provide clear communication to the
employees for employment conditions and to set guideline for managers and supervisors. It
also creates a basis for fair treatment of the individual, review of changes at workplace and
decisions on the training and development (Boxall and Purcell, 2000). Also, Sainsbury has
the main requirement of HR policies to improve employee productivity and to improve
administration on their contribution and support to the business.
High-commitment management means to promote employees and to foster independence and
personal responsibilities across business regardless of being centralized to high power. It
means that commitment is at core among employees to assure performance and quality. There
is a high focus on task completion, regardless of cultural structure and job design (Whitener,
2001). Morrisons follow high-commitment human resource management because the flat
organizational structure allows the employees to take the roles and responsibilities on the
priorities and ensure that the task is completed with high liability and independence. The
organization supports that the employees can manage their personal as well as professional
task at the same time if they are committed to performance and quality.
Employee relationship is also a core focus on high-commitment human resource management
because the organization has a focus on the people those can integrate into human resource
practices with high efficiency. For example, the organization has consideration of the nine
practices of human resource management. Morrisons follow a systematic job or organization
design, which is used to define how tasks and authorities are organized and integrated to
achieve common goals (Conway and Monks, 2009). Therefore, there is a commitment of the
employees on the defined task to complete with high performance, and it is their perception
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of how they manage the work along with their routines. The managers are committed for
organizational development through human resource practices and creativities to improve the
outcomes and quality (Ramsay et al., 2000). Human resource planning, selection and staffing
are also part of the high-commitment practices to create skills and capabilities in business and
to support organizational growth.
Most of the organizational supermarkets work with the best-fit approach for human resource
management because the management strategies are highly aligned to the business goals and
strategies. Therefore, the HR policies and practices are required to consider the requirements
of the business and the employees to achieve operational, technological and other aspects and
benefits (Paauwe and Boselie, 2003). However, it also limits the business to respond to the
competitive advantages outside the scope of organizational arrangement and strategies. Best
practice management is suitable to meet the competitive advantages with best alignment to
the organizational strategies, but it has scope to add flexibilities and diversions to attain
advantages outside the context.
Sainsbury has a high focus on hard HRM practices so that task-oriented behaviour can be
achieved and high performance can be used to lead the industry whereas Morrisons
implement soft HRM as employees are considered as most valuable resources and fostered to
support the business functions as an integral part (Edgar and Geare, 2005).
External forces and effect on HR strategic decisions within the organizations
Several external factors can impact human resource strategic decisions because the factors
can create scope or hinder the practices to attain competitive advantages.
Employment market
Capabilities in the employment market impact strategic decisions. For example, high
availability of the resources from the market helps the organisation to reduce the cost per
head in the operations and so that high profitability can be achieved. Morrisons also prefer to
make use of the migration to reduce the cost on the operations. The people are moving
toward the management in the hotels and other organisations with the perception of career
growth and rapid enhancement in the pay scale (App et al., 2012). The supermarket business,
such as Morrisons, influences the decreasing interest of the people into supermarket
operations management. Therefore, the inclination of the employment market and the
availability of the resources impact the business to make strategic decisions for growth. Also,
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pay scale and benefits related expectations are also constraining the business to meet strategic
decisions aligned to the business goals.
Skills in workforce
From the analysis of the business, it is determined that the skills among the resources impact
the management decisions. For example, a well organised and skilled set of resources allows
Morrison to plan market strategies. Suppose there is a short term opportunity in which the
organisation can attract the customer market with an effective introduction of the new and
private labelled products. The organisation can align, guide and motivate the skilled team to
work on the vision and to introduce the products and services within time to achieve the
advantages (Cunha et al., 2003). Adverse to it, the organisation cannot plan strategic
decisions to bring the changes if the resources are not skilled for a particular requirement.
The change might be within business operations, structure, policies and practices. Sainsbury
manages skilled resources through training and development practices and ensures that the
resources are capable of executing strategic decisions.
Workforce organisation
The management of Morrisons also has the impact of the unionised or non-unionised
workforce. A unionised workforce has a high focus on the employee benefits alongside the
business strategies and so that the management has to consider employee expectations, values
and benefits within strategic business decisions. Therefore, the unionised workforce also
helps the organisation to formulate the employee requirements and to deliver a more
acceptable and functional strategic decision (Kim et al., 2010). However, a non-unionised
workforce has no shared goal of the employees aligned to the strategic business decisions and
can help to reduce the impact of the workforce on the decisions because the organisation
become dominant to enforce the decisions. However, it can lead to unsatisfied workplace
situations.
Also, the management has no effective understanding with employees and their expectations
so that the strategic decision might generate the loss and barriers in growth and profitability.
Therefore, the management required to integrate the employees and their contribution to the
business strategic decision to attain the benefits. It is also required to improve to assure that
Morrisons uses the capabilities of the external environment to determine the suitability of the
strategic decisions (Schuler and Jackson, 2008). The management practices need to focus on
the strategic alignment of the employees and market opportunities to drive profitability. A
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proper balance between management strategies and external factor can need financial as well
as operational stabilities.
How the HR function is organized and how HR policies and practices are delivered
Human resource manager functions are associated with the selection and recruitment of the
resources with nurturing them for skills and capabilities to become competent. Training and
development are also required to keep them ahead in performance and deliver motivation.
Morrison, as one of the leading supermarket, has a strong implementation of the Ulrich
model. The entire model is divided into four sections (Gratton and Truss, 2003). The vertical
division shows that organizational management can focus on the people or process, whereas
horizontally, the management might be oriented to the strategic task or day to day routine
activities. It is determined that human resource functions of Morrisons have the inclusion of
all four functions to meet the competitive outcomes.
For example, the organizational focus on the strategic decisions and people helps to make
managers as change agents. They function to achieve staffing and organizational design with
skilled and capable resources. Therefore, the managers and first line leaders focus on the
staffing of the resources to make the strategic business decisions aligned to the capabilities. It
helps them to attain the goals effectively. The manager also manages and monitors the
performance with time and enables the resources to adopt the changes and challenges at the
workplace (Holbeche, 2009). Morrisons has gone through a dramatic change to adopt the
technological advancement and so that the organizational managers and leaders restructured
the design and measure performance with high precision to achieve the goals and to develop
liabilities among individual.
The managers act as a strategic partner when they focus more on the processes. They have a
function to strategically plan the human resource and develop their personality and
responsibilities as partners to business lines. The managers also focus on the development of
the business image and productivity-oriented culture. It is also required in the organization to
establish the business processes and to align the resources. During routine operations, the
managers are less creative, but they are more oriented to the administrative tasks to retain the
profitability and strategic execution with a pre-established set of processes. For example, an
expert administrative role of the manager focuses on the operational requirements and
business processes (Caldwell, 2008). The manager, as an administrative expert has the role in
determining compensation and benefits for the employees. The manager also focuses on the
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establishment and management of HR information systems and legal compliances in a
business function.
The leader or manager becomes an employee advocate when highly oriented to the people
during routine operations. The manager has a role in understanding and integrating the
employee relations practices, labour relations, diversity and equal opportunity concepts and
safety and worker compensation (Lawler, 2008). Therefore, it allows the management of
Morrisons and other businesses to understand the expectations of the employees and to
design the practices and policies to meet their satisfaction.
Figure 1: Ulrich model
Therefore, human resource policies are prepared on the orientation of the management with
employees and business process. The management is more oriented to the tasks or processes
while being strategic to achieve competitive advantages, then the organization focus on the
development of the business reputation and workplace culture. The manager has values to act
as a strategic partner if the organization has significant competitive advantages (Garavan,
2007). However, the orientation of Morrisons toward change can lead to influences on the
resource structure, organizational design, enabling individual and performance measurement.
It simply means that Morrisons and manager could be part of the employee team, but they are
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strategic in decisions to meet the goals. Also, policies and practices are required to deliver as
a line manager in the form of an administrative expert or employee advocate, but it is
required to balance the role to achieve routine operations with high quality.
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Conclusion
The presented report discussed human resource management concepts and practices in a
brief. Later, the report discussed how organizations make use of the theoretical aspects to
organize human resource practices and policies. The content of Morrisons is used to analyze
the HR policies and practices. Also, the report determined how external environmental
factors influence strategic business decisions. For example, the support from the employment
market helps the organization to acquire the right skills and capabilities, whereas the overall
cost and complexities within operations can be reduced. Also, the arrangement of the
resources in unions and their skills to accomplish the tasks impacts the strategic business
decisions. It is determined that the Ulrich model is significant in human resource
management because it presents the human resource functions with an effective focus on
their responsibilities to manage the strategic direction and routine operations.
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References
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from and where should we be going?. International journal of management reviews, 2(2),
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Ramsay, H., Scholarios, D. and Harley, B., 2000. Employees and high‐performance work
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