Resource and Talent Planning for Unicorn Grocery: A Detailed Report

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of resource and talent planning, focusing on the context of Unicorn Grocery, a UK-based grocery store. The report begins by evaluating current market trends impacting workforce planning and talent management, including demographic, economic, and political factors, as well as the impact of Brexit. It then delves into different types of legal requirements relevant to HR, such as sex discrimination, occupational health and safety, and compensation and benefits. The report further examines current labour market trends in the retail sector, highlighting key skills and relevant legislation. Examples of job descriptions and person specifications are provided, followed by an exploration of various recruitment and selection methods. Finally, the report evaluates the stages of the HR lifecycle and explains how it integrates with the organization's operations, offering insights into effective workforce management strategies. The report emphasizes the importance of aligning HR and business needs to achieve organizational goals.

RESOURCE AND TALENT
PLANNING

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION ..........................................................................................................................1
TASK 1............................................................................................................................................1
P1 Evaluate current market trends that impact workforce planning and talent management.....1
P2 Different types of legal requirement .....................................................................................2
TASK 2............................................................................................................................................3
P3 Current labour market trends and legal requirements............................................................3
TASK 3............................................................................................................................................4
P4 Examples of Job Description and Person Specification........................................................4
P5 Different methods of recruitment and selection ....................................................................6
TASK 4............................................................................................................................................9
P6 Evaluate the stage of HR life cycle........................................................................................9
P7 Explain how life cycle is integrated with current organization ..........................................11
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................12
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................13

INTRODUCTION
Resourcing and Talent Planning are essential practices of management. Basically it
ensures that the company is able to identify & attract key people with the ability to create
competitive advantage as well as assist businesses in achieving both long and short term goals.
It's simply not related with hiring people into an organization but also concerned with succession
planning (Armstrong and Taylor, 2014). It maximise the availability of capable and experienced
employees with an intent to retain them for longer period of time. It is important for every
company to recruit personnel at right time and at right place. The chosen organization for given
report is Unicorn Grocery which is a UK-based small scale grocery store. It covers latest market
trends, different types of legal requirement, different methods of recruitment and selection and
lastly stages of HR-life cycle.
TASK 1
P1 Evaluate current market trends that impact workforce planning and talent management
The main role of Human Resource Department is to find most suitable and competent
candidate for the company and train them with an intent to improve its efficiency so that

organizational goals can be accomplished effectively. Workforce planning is a continual process
mainly used by firm to align its priorities and needs with those of workforce to ensure it can
fulfil legislative, production requirement and organizational objectives in an effective manner. In
simple words, it is a systematic procedure that align HR and business needs to ensure that
company must have right candidate with right skills, at right time & cost to execute successfully
and efficiently. On the other hand, Talent Management deals with managing the competency,
ability and power of workers within an organization. Both of these management practices play
key role in recruiting best candidate for the company and ensures to extract best out of them so
that goals and objectives of business can be achieved in an effective manner (Bethke-
Langenegger, Mahler and Staffelbach, 2011).
Labour market is a place where both labours and employees communicate with each
other. In labour market, company's manage compete against each other for recruiting most
talented and capable employees. As Unicorn Grocery is a small scale co-operative store, it' HR
department mainly emphasize on recruiting and selecting skilled, competent and knowledgeable
personnel employee for the company. The contribution of retail sector in UK's economy is
relatively large as compared to others.
However, the current labour market trend that influence human resource processes
include demographic, economical condition, political composition of population and also social
trends like customer's like and dislikes etc. Additionally, it is important that firm should hire
competent personnel who can work effectively towards achieving business goals and objectives
(Brunckhorst, 2013). Talent management and workforce planning puts positive impact on
increasing the productivity.
Brexit brings political instability in UK which results in bringing unemployment in the
country. This not only impact large scale industry but also affect small scale industries as well.
As a result, most of employees lose their job. Knowing the fact that, Unicorn Grocery is a small
scale industry and are also going to get affected by current political situation of UK. It's manager
try to retain and attract key talent which help in generating higher profitability ratio.
P2 Different types of legal requirement
HR Manager of Unicorn Grocery must be aware of all rules and regulation concerned
with legal, ethical and regulatory consideration. Knowledge of these laws help firm in reducing

risk factors and maximising employee retention rate. Companies are bound to follow these laws
as it has direct influence on employee's working. Different type of laws are discussed below:-
 Impact of sex discriminatory act: According to this law, if any candidate is qualified for
the given job position in respective firm whether female or male, needs to be get
recruited. Any company is not liable to do discrimination among employees on the basis
of sex or gender. In UK, whomsoever is having legal working license are eligible for job
irrespective of male/female.
 Occupational Health and Safety Law: The fundamental responsibility for every employer
to provide a “safe system of work”. The main purpose of this law is to protect employees
from any kind of health and safety hazards occurred on job. It's the duty of manager of
Unicorn Grocery to provide secure and safe working environment so that they can protect
employees from hazards (Cooke, Saini and Wang, 2014).
 Compensation and Benefit Act: As per this law, company is liable to pay compensation
amount to employees for any kind of injury which is accidentally caused to them at the
time of employment. In general, compensation is given to injured or accidental workers.
On the contrary, benefits are also given to employees in the form of incentives that
indirectly motivates them to perform more effectively & efficiently. Also with incentive
and bonus, company can retain employee for a longer period.
TASK 2
P3 Current labour market trends and legal requirements
UK's economy is depend upon certain perspectives that are related with labour market in
retail sector. Some of the current trend & legislation identified in retail sector are discussed
below:-
 Non specialised: In this, supermarket and department stores are considered.
 Specialised: Butchers, green merchants, fishmonger, and tobacconist are some particular
areas considered here (Dries, 2013).
 Pharmaceutical Goods: It covers medicines, chemical products and goods.
 New merchandise: It encompasses garments, books, , furnitures and textile and electronic
household products and appliances.
 Second-hand Goods: This section covers charitable shops and e-bay.

 Not in stores: It covers mail orders, stall and market that play key role in identifying
current market trends.
Current skill trends are discussed below:-
 UK is one of the biggest retail sector center point over the world. Low levels of formal
qualifications are counted as 31% of sales employees and five great GCSE are some basic
abilities which are required in current retail sector.
 Staff individuals with specialized talent and practical skills are additionally some basic
abilities which are pertinent to current labour trends.
 Entrepreneurial abilities are additionally required to help the structure of UK retail
market (Guerci and Solari, 2012).
Relevant legislation to manage and control skills: Anti discrimination act, food and safety act,
compensation and benefit act, worker adjustment act, retirement act and protected disclosure act
are some of the enactments which are required to oversee and control current trending skill in
retain industry.
A labour market is a mechanism which matches the potential employers of people with
people who are available for work. These markets operates at local, regional, national and
international levels which reflects the operations in an economy. There are various factors which
affects the labour market of UK and they are discussed below :
 Fluctuations in the external business environment, like maximisation in consumer
demand for goods or services provided by an industry or cheaper competition from
foreign countries which has lead to job loss.
 Variations in internal business environment like changes in production processes, new
technologies and business structures which results in changes in the level of occupation.
 Government intervention regarding the various policies, training and investment in
particular skills, etc.
 Various legislations which affects the rights of employments like equal pay act, sex
discrimination, race relations act, etc.
The population of the UK is growing at an tremendous rate and the actualized UK
workforce is smaller than the population of working age as some people are in full-time
education, some cannot work and some do not need or want to work. The UK labour market has
seen many fundamental changes. They have seen a diminution in full time manual labour

manufacturing jobs and a growth in labour market flexibility. The current labour market is more
diverse with more people working in self-employment, part-time jobs, zero hour contracts. In
order to find out the issues the human resources departments are expected to face in the future, it
is necessary to analyse the factors that transform labour markets in UK and the following are the
five factors discussed below :
 Changes in the composition of economically active population.
 The demographic situation.
 Fluctuations in the rate of unemployment.
 Legal restrictions.
 The changing requirements for skill.
Apart from this, the current labour trends in UK is also concerned with female employees
and start ups. It is estimated that in the UK, women-led SME contribute about £85
billion to economic output. The proportion of men involved in start-ups was 6.2% points higher
than the proportion of women involved in start-ups in the UK.
Therefore, the current and anticipated skills requirements in the XYZ organisation is
discussed below :
 Critical thinking skills : Human resources strategic leaders are entrusted with
information, data and projections pertaining to the workforce as well as the entire
organization. Consequently, business ethics, principles and discretion are essential skills
and characteristics. Analytical and critical thinking skills are paramount regarding access
to confidential information and data. HR leaders also must be cognizant of circumstances
that cause inadvertent and unintentional disclosure of information that could disrupt a
strategic plan.
 Leadership skills : They are fundamental to consensus building, negotiation and day-to-
day management of human resources functions. These skills are very important in the
labour market because it is the leader who will guide and train its employees so that they
will be aware about the work which is required to be performed by them and helps in
meeting the business objectives effectively and efficiently.

TASK 3
P4 Examples of Job Description and Person Specification
Job Description: It is a written document of all duties, roles or responsibilities involved in a
particular job position.
Job Description
Organisation Name Unicorn Grocery
Job Designation Human Resource Manager
Location London, United Kingdom
Reporting To General Manager
Roles and Responsibilities  Must aware of all policies and practices related with
Human Resource.
 Conduct training programmes for workforce
 Provide guidance and consultation on employee
relation matters
 Proper maintenance of records and payrolls.
Working Hours 9: 00 am to 6:30 pm
Salary 9500 Pound per month
Working Facilities Flexible working hours, positive working environment,

performance based compensation and benefits.
Person Specification: It include skills, experience, qualification, knowledge and some personal
characteristics which a person needs to posses in order to perform the job duties (Dries, N.,
2013).
Name: Jack Daniel
Contact no: 546466565
Email: danieljack@yahoo .com
Career Objective: Seeking for an opportunity where i can utilise my skills and comptency in
achieving organzional objectives.
Qualification:
MBA (Master of Business
Administration)
London University 95.00%
B.com London University 94.00%
Secondary education London school of economics 82.00%
Higher education London school of economics 91.00%
Experience:
 Minimum experience of 3 years as HR Manager
 2 year of experience as Training and Development Manager

Skills:
 Effective communication skill
 Strong Interpersonal skills
Awards and Achievements:
 Employee of the year
 Certification concerning to training and selecting staff members.
Declaration:
Hereby I declared that all above given information is correct and relevant on the basis of my
skills and knowledge.
Date:
Place:
(Signature)
P5 Different methods of recruitment and selection
Growth and Development of any business undertaking relies on the knowledge, abilities
and skills of Human Resource. It is essential for each firm to pay attention towards its employees
so that business goals can be achieved in a better manner. In this way, company is required to
recruit and select innovative and competent personnel (Hartmann, Feisel and Schober, 2010).
Recruitment: In HRM, the procedure of recruitment implies procuring and finding most
qualified and talented candidate for a job opportunity in a savvy and convenient way. In simple
words, it refers to the procedure of searching prospective candidate and stimulate them to apply
for given job vacancy in the company (Iles, Preece and Chuai, 2010). There are several other
activities related with the process of recruitment such investigation of specific occupation
necessity, stimulate personnel to apply for vacant position, screening and choosing the candidate
and after that in conclusion hiring them and making them new worker of business enterprise. As
indicated by Edwin Flippo " It is viewed as a positive procedure that stimulate candidate to

apply for work which eventually increases employee's hiring ratio. Suitable candidate can be
available through two common sources of recruitment namely Internal and External.
Internal: It implies when a person is chosen within the company chiefly through promotion or
transfer.
 Promotion: Under this method, employee usually gets shifted from a lower to higher
position with more responsibilities, remuneration, status and facilities. It indirectly
motivates personnel to work incredibly hard so as to get promotion (Kavanagh and
Johnson, 2017).
 Transfer: In this method, candidate interchange it's job from one place to another without
changing its roles as well as responsibilities. Along with this, workers gets shifted from
one to another department or location on the basis of needs of job position.
External: This alludes to when an organization chooses individual from outside the business
premises, for example; direct recruitment, advertisement, labour unions, employment exchange,
former employees etc.
 Direct Recruitment: It is one of the most common external source of recruitment used by
Unicorn Grocery to recruit talented and capable personnel. Walk-ins are usually included
in this.
 Employment Agencies: These are another source of external recruitment through firm
gets suitable employees. It is mainly used by public, private and governmental
organization. It gives skilled, semi-skilled and unskilled employees depending upon the
need of firm (Khasawneh, 2011).
 Advertisement: This is another effective source of recruitment. Under this, advertisement
is given or publish by firm on magazines, newspapers, social media networking sites etc.
to seize the attention of customers. With the help of these advertisement, Unicorn
Grocery can stimulate candidate to apply for vacant position in the company.
 External: This alludes to when an organization chooses individual from outside the
business premises, for example; direct recruitment, advertisement, labour unions,
employment exchange, former employees etc.
 Direct Recruitment: It is one of the most common external source of recruitment used by
Unicorn Grocery to recruit talented and capable personnel. Walk-ins are usually included
in this.

 Employment Agencies: These are another source of external recruitment through firm
gets suitable employees. It is mainly used by public, private and governmental
organization. It gives skilled, semi-skilled and unskilled employees depending upon the
need of firm.
 Advertisement: This is another effective source of recruitment. Under this, advertisement
is given or publish by firm on magazines, newspapers, social media networking sites etc.
to seize the attention of customers. With the help of these advertisement, Unicorn
Grocery can stimulate candidate to apply for vacant position in the company (Khera and
Gulati, 2012).
Selection: The process of selection essentially deals in choosing the best and most suitable
candidate from pool of applicants who all have applied for job in Unicorn Grocery. HR Manager
assumes a critical part in this procedure as they short-list the applicants based on required
aptitudes and learning. Alongside that, HR executive chooses board individuals from inside
organization that convey forward the whole procedure. It by and large trade off of a few levels
which are as per the following:
1. Short-listing Candidate: After accepting numerous job application of several candidates
the board and HR Manager short-lists candidate on the grounds of required capacities and
learning identified with vacant position (Meyers, van Woerkom and Dries, 2013). They
additionally select the individual by means of various short-posting strategies, for
example, composed test, MCQ examination, and so on. After the list of all short-listed
candidate are prepared, the following stage is to advise them through mail or telephone
and mastermind meet for those participants.
2. Candidate Screening: At this stage, the resumes of all hopeful and select the most
educated and capable one. Manager have to see whether their ability, learning, instruction
coordinate with the base criteria for the given employment. On the off chance that
competitor is some way or another unfit to meet the base criteria, at that point all things
considered manager will dismiss their application shape.
3. Meeting: At this progression, board of Unicorn Grocery arrange interview for chosen
candidates. In this procedure, questioner regularly makes inquiries identified with the
foundation, encounter, instruction, family and learning of competitors. They additionally
discuss their future objectives and why they are keen on doing this activity. This

discussion closes with defining roles and responsibilities to them identified with current
job opening (Pilbeam and Corbridge, 2010). At this level, meet is organized every one of
those candidate whose resume have met the base criteria. Manager's role is inspect the
instructive qualification of hopeful and see their correspondence aptitude and certainty
level. At this stage, board individuals takes another meeting of the chose applicant. This
is somewhat trouble when contrasted with the underlying one. Board part is generally
comprise of directors, division workers and office heads. So here my part is to co-
ordinate these meetings. Likewise manager can send suggestion to every questioner
before its meeting day (Rothwell, 2011).
4. Reference and Background Check: Once the competitor got chosen, role of manager is to
check the foundation points of interest of chosen hopeful. This incorporate their family
points of interest, past employment subtle elements and so on.
5. Letter of Appointment: At this stage, letter of employment is given to employees who
have cleared all the rounds and whose skills, knowledge and efficiency are match
company' requirement.
TASK 4
P6 Evaluate the stage of HR life cycle
Life cycle of Human Resource starts with the stage of recruitment and ends at retirement
stage. Each phase of HR life cycle has its own opportunities, advantages and challenges which
needs to be undertake by respective firm. Discussed below are the main stages of HR life-cycle:-
 Recruitment and Selection: Under this phase, there is a need to recruit right personnel for
the given job vacancy. The process of recruitment plays vital part in firm's development,
turnover and profitability (Schuler, Jackson and Tarique, 2011). In order to makes this
phase successful, it is important to formulate strategies related with recruiting most
suitable candidate. But before hiring an individual various aspects that needs to be taken
into account by HR manager of Unicorn Grocery such as defining roles and
responsibilities, evaluating compensation and benefits packages, create interviewing
protocol etc.

 On boarding and introduction: After selecting new candidate, it is important for HR
manager to either arrange induction program for new candidate or to brief them with their
respective job roles & responsibilities. On boarding is a procedure or activity of
coordinating new specialists in firm or likewise acquaint new customers with
administrations. On the other hand, introduction means systematic orientation of new
candidates among other co-workers, colleagues etc.
 Performance Management: In this phase, new employees are settled for their given job
position and try to perform in a better manner. Basically at this stage, performance of
new candidate is evaluated and favourable outcomes are expected from their
performance. It is consistent process in which employees and managers work in a group
so as to design survey and furthermore monitor work objectives of staff individuals
which give their commitment in organization (Schweyer, 2010).
 Succession Planning: It is a method of appointing new manager which the old ones
leave , retire and die. The primary part of leader is to guide and give proper advice to
individuals which help them in performing better and achieving business goals in an
effective and efficient manner.
 Exit and Transition: Under this phase, some of employees will leave an association by
retirement after its successful long career. While there are some employees who leave
company on voluntary basis or through wrong conduct of behaviour.
All these given stages can legitimately took care of in business firm. This is an entire
human resource life cycle and Unicorn Grocery can apply this framework at the of its
recruitment and selection process.
P7 Explain how life cycle is integrated with current organization
Human resource cycle helps management in hiring and introducing new employees at
work place and to make them feel comfortable in their new working environment. Unicorn
grocery being one of the leading firm in retail industry puts its most valuable resources its
employees in centre of focus while preparing any policies or programs. This is because they
serves as the source of knowledge, skills and capabilities utilizing which a company attain
growth and success in its business (Silzer and Dowell, 2010). To attain employee job
satisfaction firm integrates its human resource life cycle in more coordinated and effective
manner. Under this mangers encourages its staff menders by building cordial relations with them

within first 90 days from their date of joining. This helps firm to enhance their morale that
directly impacts employees level to sustain at their place of work and to increase their
productivity as well. Firm also works upon attaining employees loyalty and to retain its
proficient work force by formulating various policies related to compensation and benefit,
various growth related opportunities etc. Also, under HR life cycle framework management also
works towards recognizing the efforts of its employees by appreciating and rewarding its star
performers in front of whole staff. This thus motivates other employees to work with zeal and
enthusiasm to give their best efforts for completing a assigned task with efficiency.
On the other side, on the part of employees also it is their duty to know their roles and
responsibilities that are expected from them by the firm. The role of management in this regard
is :
 To communicate the set of values and organization culture to its new joiners.
 Conduct proper training and development program for staff to enhance their
competencies.
 Organize induction and orientation program for its new employees (Meyers, van
Woerkom and Dries, 2013).
In addition to this, managers of Unicorn grocer are responsible for monitoring and
evaluating performance of its workforce. It is important as it assists managers to have knowledge
about the particular metrics of employees and to assess their suitability and KSA level in
reference to a particular job profile. For this managers of Unicorn Grocer conduct reviews about
their performance. They also provide guidelines, give challenges to its workforce and provide
them with opportunities to attain their professional and personal goals.
CONCLUSION
From the project undertaken it is concluded that there is huge competition in the retail
industry. Therefore to be effective in managing profits and its operations it is requite for an
organisation to proper forecast its workforce planning in accordance to the prevailing labour and
market trends in retail sectors. Also there are various laws that are incorporated by government
which are essential for a firm to be abide by in its business. Further some prominent methods for
recruiting and selecting employees that are adopted by Unicorn Grocer are discussed.

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