HRM Report: Analyzing Strategic HRM Plans and Policies at Woolworths

This report presents a comprehensive analysis of Woolworths Australia's strategic human resource management (HRM) plans and policies. It begins with an introduction that outlines the scope of the report, which includes an assessment of Woolworths' HRM practices, strategic planning, and recommendations for improvement. Task 1 focuses on a detailed examination of Woolworths' HRM practices, particularly in areas such as recruitment and selection, employee turnover, and compensation. The report identifies key issues, such as high employee turnover and low morale, and provides recommendations for addressing these challenges. Task 2 outlines a strategic HRM plan for Woolworths, including specific programs designed to improve employee engagement, learning and development, and compensation. The plan details objectives, recommendations, and timelines for implementation. The report also includes a discussion of the key performance indicators (KPIs) that will be used to measure the success of the HRM plan, such as recruitment costs, employee turnover rates, and training participation. The report concludes with a summary of the key findings and recommendations, emphasizing the importance of strategic HRM for Woolworths' continued success in the competitive retail market.

Running head: HRM: PLANS AND POLICIES
HRM: PLANS AND POLICIES
Name of the student
Name of the university
Author Note

1HRM: PLANS AND POLICIES
Introduction
The respective paper is a combination of two tasks, which are report of strategic human
resource planning of the company Woolworths Australia where the report has to assess the
definition, scope of strategic human resource planning, overview of the company Woolworths,
examination and evaluation of the strategic human resource practices of the respective company.
The Task 1 consists of certain recommendations for the gaps in the strategic human resource
practices in the respective company. Task 2 consists of a Human Resource Management Plan
(Action plan) of the company Woolworths in order to meet the gaps in their HRM practices.
TASK 1
Introduction: Woolworths Australia
Woolworths Australia is considered to be one of the biggest and largest retail stores in
Australia. The retail store was established in Australia in the year 1924 by Percy Christmas,
Chatterton, Williams and Creed and since the year 1924, the company has gained recognition
and become the largest functional retail store in Australia. The main focus of Woolworths is
catering to the retail customers and providing household and domiciliary goods and products to
the consumers. The Woolworths Australia has been speculating to expand its business in the
international market. For successfully launching and streamlining their business in the
international market, it is important for the respective brand to streamline the human resource
policies and plans of the respective company in order to ensure the fact that the respective
organization acquires and retains the best staff which would greatly influence the business
expansion through their individual and collective capabilities. In order to become one of the
topmost retail business all over the world, Woolworths has taken up certain human resource

2HRM: PLANS AND POLICIES
management plans, policies and programs in order to make their business, one of the best
business in terms of employment, trade and productivity (Woolworths.com.au.2020).
Woolworths: Strategic HRM plans
Strategic human resource planning can be broadly defined as the process that identifies
the current and future needs of human resources for an organization in order to achieve its
business goals. Human resource planning is usually speculated to form a link between human
resource management and overall strategic plan of an organization. Strategic human resource
planning can be managerially defined as “the process for ensuring that the requirements of the
human resources of a business are identified and plans are made to satisfy such kinds of
requirements” (Jackson, Schuler & Jiang, 2014). The process of strategic human resource
planning includes several stages and methodologies, such as, employee engagement and
retention strategy, employee absenteeism management strategy, talent management strategy,
employee flexibility strategy, recruitment and selection strategy. However, the most important
strategy that every human resource department is bound to take while formulating strategic
human resource planning is “Gap Analysis”. The term Gap Analysis can be defined as the gap
between what the organization wants to achieve and how the organization has been planning and
framing its human resource department to achieve the respective goal. The gap that is calculated
in between the two determinants would provide the respective department with ideas and
approaches of making the strategic human resource planning more precise, accurate and efficient
(Kramar, 2014).
The strategic human resource planning of Woolworths is not only efficient, but also effective in
its own way. Woolworths, which is considered to be one of the most renowned and famous retail

3HRM: PLANS AND POLICIES
stores of Australia, has an efficient and dedicated human resource department which focuses on
effective employee management within as well as outside the organization. The company
Woolworths Australia has been successful in designing their human resource department by
utilizing certain remarkable and capable human resource strategies and approaches. Activities
such as talent management, staff management, training and retaining employees, employee
engagement and downsizing are some of the significant approaches adopted by Woolworths
Limited.
There are three major levels at which the line managers as well as the practitioners operate
separately or together are the functional, operational and strategic level. The practitioners, along
with the line managers, together develop the different action plans for meeting the present needs
of labor. As far as strategic actions are concerned, the human resource personnel and
practitioners are involved in the human resource and corporate planning. Certain customary
activities at the functional level are carried out by the line managers that ensure that the
employees are being appointed at the correct time, cost, occasion and place (Bailey et al., 2018).
In the case of Woolworths Australia, the company operates their human resource functions at the
strategic and functional level.
HRM System
Recruitment and Selection procedure
The recruitment and selection procedure carried out by the human resource department of
the company Woolworths Australia is premium, efficient and effective in nature. Human
resource management of an organization is highly responsible and accountable for the proper
selection of the employees and candidates with quality, which also depends upon the effective

4HRM: PLANS AND POLICIES
strategy that the HR managers follow while recruiting the employees. Throughout the world, the
process of recruitment and selection has been one of the easiest as well as toughest job that the
HR departments have to carry out. With the evolution of job skills and competencies, employee
skills and employability has become a complicated aspect in the industrial and corporate
paradigm. Employers of the organizations worldwide face several tangible as well as intangible
issues such as advertisement costs and other obstacles such as lack of proper interaction and
communication while carrying out the act of recruitment and selection.
Issues
Issues Comments
1 Employee turnover rate has increased and most of the employees are leaving the company
within a short tenure.
2 Employee strikes and turnover rates have relatively increased due to Woolworths’ lack of
proper payment to the employees. Maximum employees in Woolworths are underpaid and
provided less bonus which has affected their morale.
3 Low productivity in the company due to low learning and development, incentives and
subsequently, low morale of the workers.
FUTURE
No. Objectives Measures of Performance

5HRM: PLANS AND POLICIES
1 To incorporate strategies such as
prioritizing expectations, tackling
tactics of conflicts and conflict
management. The company has to
incorporate strategies of proper
recruitment and selection.
KPI (Key Performance Indicators)
calculation, such as, average
recruitment cost, average length of
placement and average interviewing
costs would be measured to calculate
the performance through indicators.
2 The company must appoint competent
compensation consultants and industrial
psychologists who would research about
the management and workplace
dynamics of the company and formulate
certain compensation, bonus and reward
plans for the employees (short term and
long term) respectively.
KPI (Key Performance Indicators)
calculation, such as cost of average
remuneration of each employee, average
salary, average number of paid and
unpaid leave, average amount of bonus
and appraisals would be measured to
calculate the performance through
indicators.
3 The company should appoint best and
capable training and learning &
development experts who would train the
employees of new store operating model
so that the company becomes more
“customer friendly”.
Key Performance indicators such as
calculation of activity pass/fail rate, class
attendance rate and compliance
percentage rate are to be calculated to
check the progress.
Strategies Step by Step Plan Due Date Name

6HRM: PLANS AND POLICIES
1. Ensuring
productivit
y by
learning
and
developme
nt,
increase in
monetary
and non-
monetary
incentives,
employee
engageme
nt
programs
to tackle
employee
turnover.
Ensuring productivity by learning and development,
22nd
February
to 29
Septembe
r
Mr. Hall as soft
skills trainer, Mrs.
Martha Mark as
assistant trainer
increase in monetary and non-monetary incentives, 22nd
February to
22nd March
Mr. Devas and Mr.
Taylor to be
appointed as
employee
remuneration
consultants.
Employee engagement programs to tackle employee
turnover.
22nd
February to
22nd August
Mrs. Agatha March
as human resource
development
manager and
employee
engagement expert to
be appointed.
Mr. Jonas to be
appointed as the
department head
of accounts
department by
providing him
with exclusive
learning and
development
training.
Mr. Devas and Mr. Taylor would be appointed as
senior accounts manager who would supervise Mr.
Jonas in financial case.
Mr. Jonas would be the deputy head of accounts
department. He would be given special training in ICT
Resources and digitalization. He would be responsible
to look after the analogue and digital financial audit
and review and would be supervised by Mr. Devas and
Mr. Taylor.
Mr. Jonas is the deputy head of accounts department.
Mr. Jonas would be given special development training
in information technology and digital audit. He would
be responsible for maintaining all kinds of important
book keeping and calculations within the organization.
Mr. Jonas would be given an opportunity to sit for a
written examination. He would also be interviewed by
the HRM department of the company.

7HRM: PLANS AND POLICIES
The main issue that the company Woolworths Australia face is that the company has a
high labor turnover with many employees (new and working) do not stick to the company for a
very long time, rather, tend to shift themselves to other companies. It is mainly due to the fact
that most of the staff recruited in Woolworths company are part time students who might be
looking for temporary employment while they might be carrying out or completing their
graduation or post graduation degrees.
Woolworths relies on having the best employees working in the departments of the
business. Woolworths usually provides recruitment and selection advertisements in different
online portals and digital media where the applicants are required to send their applications via
online basis to ensure transparency and integrity of the recruitment procedure. The company
recruits the best candidates on the basis of merit and capabilities without practicing or
propagating any kind of discrimination. Woolworths provides premium training, induction
training and orientation to the selected and recruited candidates. The Woolworths Academy takes
the responsibility to carry out all kinds of workplace training programs and also manages career
development of all the employees. The business strategies that Woolworths has been planning to
take, such as opening its international branches and improved “customer- oriented” service levels
in stores have been repeatedly hampered due to the poor employee retention and a continuous
employee resignation and low staff morale.

8HRM: PLANS AND POLICIES
However, in order to recheck and restructure the HR aspects of the company so that they can
curb the employee turnover, the company needs to take four stages of HR planning which are:
1. Stock taking
2. Forecasting the supply of labor
3. Forecasting the demand of the employees
4. Implementation and review
Stock taking: The stock taking in terms of Human Resource Development is the process by
which the company makes effort to examine, count and value the employees who are working in
the respective organization. Woolworths, in order to keep an eye on the credibility and
significance of the employees (no matter how important or trivial they are), the Woolworths
company needs to scrutinize all the employees, the duties assigned to them and their worth.
Forecasting the supply of labor: The Company Woolworths has to first understand whether the
employees they need are for long term, medium term or short term. Based on the priority and
tenure of the employees, the human resource department of the company might look into the
final decision of the demand of the labor or candidates within the organization. According to the
prioritized demand of the employees and workers, the recruitment and selection procedure would
thus begin
Implementation and review: while the human resource plans and programs are taken care of, the
next and the final step for the human resource planning is the implementation and the review of
the same. In order to carry out the implementation and review of the strategic human resource
planning, the respective company has to take up proper and accurate recruitment strategy, select
the employees, develop training, determine compensation, appraisal and review the same with

9HRM: PLANS AND POLICIES
the help of review forms, questionnaires, group discussions and personal interviews with the
personnel and the employees of the different departments in the respective company (Sikora &
Ferris, 2014).
Lesser compensation to the workers
Another bigger problem that Woolworths is facing is the continued strikes called up by
the workers and the employees due to underpayment of their work and lesser compensation
provided to them. The reason for such employee unrest is mainly due to the unpaid bonus and
lesser wages. There has been a direct and indirect violence that goes among the paid and
underpaid employees which has also hampered the daily activities and productivity of the
organization. The organization has been called for “fair work system” which largely falls under
the “fair work act 2009” which is formulated to eradicate any kind of discrimination and
underpayment to the employees and workers of different organizations and institutions that are
functional in Australia. Most of the manufacturing units of Woolworths have been seen to be
driven by excessive unhealthy competition and market pressure which have been significant
reasons for the underpayment of the employees of Woolworths.
In such cases, the only way by which Woolworths can tackle such issues is by enhancing
the pay scale increment that would subsequently reduce the employee grievances. The company
must also incorporate the “reward system’ through monetary and other quasi- monetary
incentives to increase the morale of the employees. The company must utilize certain strategies
that would be helpful in increasing the wage of the employees by at least 3 per cent annually by
hiring competent compensation consultants (Giauque, Anderfuhren-Biget & Varone, 2013).
TASK 2

10HRM: PLANS AND POLICIES
HRM PLAN FOR WOOLWORTHS
HRM Gap HRM Plan Action Plan Commentary
1. Low
compensation
and
underpayment
of the
employees that
have given rise
to low
employee
morale and
low
productivity
among the
employees.
To incorporate certain
strategies to increase
the wage of the
employees. To start
the concept of
“reward system”
according to the
performance
standards and
yardsticks of every
employee separately
and individually. The
company must make a
solemn attempt to find
out ways by which the
employees are paid
and rewarded
according to their
caliber.
The company must
appoint competent
compensation
consultants and
industrial
psychologists who
would research about
the management and
workplace dynamics
of the company and
formulate certain
compensation, bonus
and reward plans for
the employees (short
term and long term)
respectively.
The company must
provide
advertisements for
their needs regarding
consultants through
online and print
media. The company
should also focus on
maintaining a regular
scrutiny on employee
performance through
various technologies
and tools. The
company should make
a solemn attempt to
carry out the tasks of
performance
appraisals with the
help of eminent
human resource

11HRM: PLANS AND POLICIES
personnel.
2. Greater
turnover of the
employees as
most of the
employees are
temporary and
part time who
are hired on
the short and
medium term
basis.
To incorporate certain
strategies that would
help in employee
engagement within
the organization. The
company should make
efforts to build strong
employee retention
methodologies and
mechanisms.
To incorporate
strategies such as
prioritizing
expectations, tackling
tactics of conflicts and
conflict management.
The company has to
incorporate strategies
of proper recruitment
and selection.
The company must
hire and involve
premium recruitment
and selection
personnel along with
digital applications
and software that help
in recruitment and
selection process in a
business in order to
carry out the process
of recruitment and
selection without any
unnecessary
digressions and
obstacles.
Conclusion
The respective paper concludes to be a combination of two tasks, which are report of
strategic human resource planning of the company Woolworths Australia where the report has