Argos Ltd: Resource and Talent Planning, HR Lifecycle Analysis

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of resource and talent planning within Argos Limited, a retail company. It begins by examining workforce trends influencing planning and talent management, including the impact of an aging population and the fourth Industrial Revolution. The report then discusses various legal arrangements affecting workforce planning, such as the Employment Rights Act, Equality Act, and Health and Safety at Work Act. It further explores worker market trends, anticipated skills, and methods of job analysis, including interview, observation, and questionnaire methods. The report delves into job design and presents different applications of recruitment and selection processes. Finally, it examines the stages of the HR life-cycle within the organization, offering insights into Argos' human resource strategy.

Unit 19: Resource and
Talent Planning

Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
TASK 1............................................................................................................................................1
P1. Present workforce trends which influence workforce planning & talent management.. .1
P2. Various legal arrangements on company which consider workforce planning...............4
TASK 2............................................................................................................................................5
P3. Present worker market trends and legal requirements which include anticipated skills with
an organisation........................................................................................................................5
TASK 3............................................................................................................................................7
P4. Illustration of job description and individual specification..............................................7
P5. Various applications of recruitment and selection...........................................................9
TASK 4..........................................................................................................................................10
P6. Examine various stages of HR life-cycle.......................................................................10
P7. Examine the stages of HR life-cycle within organization..............................................10
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................13

INTRODUCTION
Resource and talent planning is a crucial aspect in an organisation in which entity is required
to engage in the functions of ensuring coordination from business and recruitment team in
different aspects like forecast of essential resources, selection of proper channel of networking,
delivery of schedule resources and maintenance of skilled individual for future recruitment. This
process allows entity to attract and evaluate potential candidates from larger market place in
order to further ensure competitive advantage. This report has been made on Argos Limited.
Company operate their functioning in retail industry segment and was established in the year
1972. Organisation headquartered in Buckinghamshire, England, with having more than 29, 768
employees this company offer consumer goods through online and physical stores. In this report
discussion has been conducted on different type of legal requirement in workforce planning
along with different process and method of recruitment and selection. In addition to this report
include HR life cycle and human resource strategy that allow organisation to effectively consider
the process of talent planning.
TASK 1
P1. Present workforce trends which influence workforce planning & talent management
Human resource management play most important role in a business administration, as this
unit engage in the service of developing efficient plan and policies for individual in
organizational workplace structure. With these plans and strategy HR unit significantly aim
towards providing positive organisational workplace culture in order to increase productivity of
employees. In addition to this it has been evaluated that by synchronising diverse range of
function within company this unit also help in resolving unnecessary conflicts, issues that arises
in entity and further ensure towards ensuring healthy and happy workplace atmosphere as to
accomplish organisational vision, mission and goal. In relation with Argos Limited, this has been
evaluated that top executive by opting current as well as latest market trend and strategy provide
assistance to HR management to increase efficiency of their functions related to enhancing and
increasing skills and knowledge of workers, as to further enhance the performance and
productivity for company benefit.
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Labour plan is a systematic and crucial aspect of business activity in which changes in
strategies are implemented as to modify organisational workplace environment. With the help of
this Argos management can effectively able to provide more stable way to understand HR
department with different challenges and industrial dispute and further adopt significant changes
in order to ensure more competitive advantage.
Overview of the organisation:
Argos limited performs their operations with 29,768 and more than employees. Entity
established in 1972 and conducts their business operations in retailing segment. By offering
highly qualitative goods and services to customers this entity effectively satisfies needs and
demands of consumers in a well defined and feasible manner.
Types of labour
Semi-skilled labour:
Workers within this category posses best effective form of mechanical abilities and skills
in order to operate machinery.
Skilled Labour:
This involves labour like carpenter, dishwasher, typist and, toolmaker, etc.
Unskilled Labour:
Unskilled labour mainly involve those individual those who perform their work mainly
with their hands. They mainly lack in skills and training that are required for tasks.
Such current labour trends are disused below:
Ageing Populations: This has been observed that in most of the country’s, population
are ageing faster. Countries like Japan, United Kingdom, Germany and US has predicted to
recruit thin labour workforce upcoming 15 years because of fast aging of population. It further
imposes threat upon recruitment process of hiring skilled and fresh and talented workers.
However it has been evaluated that individuals with having talent and skills in some countries
are hired, while some of the countries will encourage and support their citizen and labour force.
Industry: It has been observed that nowadays fourth Industrial Revolution involved
number of jobs and most of them are increasing at rapid rate on daily basis and are computerise.
For instance there is a significant decrease in stores sales while this further gets replaced by
moving services and streaming. It indicates that supplying channel ID change while demand of
customers is not decreasing. Thus, it indicates that mode of supply of services and goods
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modified and upgraded that lead towards decrease in store staff number, but there is a
corresponding increase in individual and labour for streaming entities.
UK labour market trends have a impact on the overall HR processes for
organisation:
Such as it can be said that there is a change of increase competitive intensity and because of
globalisation there is a high pressure on the HR workforce to have diversity in their overall
workforce. So there is complete change in the way recruitment policies have to be formed as
there must not be similar backgrounds of all employees but they must be difference in the
background so that there can be enough diversity that has to be created in the organisation.
Along with new changes taking place in the Macro environment and the high pressure that is
formed by the trade unions on human resource managers that they have to form timely policies
for development and training sessions for their employees. So it has become very important for
human resource managers that they have to make plans for such sessions that have to be taken
place in weekly or in monthly manner. so that they can help in skill development and individual
development of the existing workforce.
The trend of globalisation is impacting the labour market of UK in such a manner that there is
complete difference in the background of employees that a part of the overall culture of a
company that is the domestic country to which originally a organisation belong and the
employees that are working in them in various locations are completely different.
Strategic approaches of Human Resource Management and its impact:
Strategic approach of Human Resource Management mainly involves wide range of
action plan and policies through which entity can aim towards efficient management of
employers in organisational workplace structure. In this it has evaluated that a systematic flow of
system prevails in organisation which initiate from talent resources, in this performance of
employees are encourage with the method of development of opportunity, performance
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appraisal, efficient process of selection and formation of job description. HR department aim
towards hiring right individual and place them in rights position in organisation
In context with Argos HR manager is required to ensure that there is a proper
coordination in all the function as to increase performance and ensure maximum competitive
advantage. Effective Labour market is termed as a platform in which employees and employers
can have interactions within each other via face-to-face medium. It has been evaluated that
employment trend are affecting job rates in different countries and domestic market.
Human resource process and its impact in Economic composition:
An organisation plays a significant aspect for an economy in which they conduct their
business operations. By undertaking economical changes and abiding all the legislations and
laws and entity can ensure their growth. However it has been determined that there are different
fluctuations prices in United Kingdom market. This is mainly due to financial crisis in economy.
Along with this Brexit also pose threat on United Kingdom economy which is having maximum
capability to impact business operations in many aspects.
Thus, stable economy is important for ensuring maximum competitive growth. While in
terms of Argos it is essential for management to undertake advantage of strategies policies and
economical practices in order to overcome industrial changes and hire experienced, skilled and
potential influence in order to fulfil their business course.
Current Market trend that are affecting Argos talent management
Globalisation:
There is a stiff competition in all around the world in which every organisation aim
towards expanding their operations in international market. In this globalisation effectively
assist entity to ensure more competitive advancements by increasing their market share. Along
with this globalisation allow Argos to not only satisfy customers in different locations around the
world but also hire skilled, talented and effective candidates.
Demographic change:
It indicates towards rise and decrease in population in any region or area within a country.
This has been evaluated that if there is a higher level of population then there is automatically
higher availability population. In addition with this according to the UK Government analysis
majority of population in country are getting aged at faster rate, this can affect Argos as create
obstacles for them to hire fresh talented employees.
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P2. Various legal arrangements on company which consider workforce planning
Legal laws and legislations are framed by government of a country that assist organisation
to perform their operations in a legal and lawful manner as to promote uniformity. In this top
management of company is having responsibility to formulate efficient strategies in order to
ensure that entity abide all the necessary legal requirements. It further assist organisation to offer
satisfaction to customers without being engage in any legal application and issues.
Employment Rights Act, 1996
Employment right act mainly regulate Labour Day in United Kingdom, this act protect
right of employees. In this Argo manager is required to make sure that this act prevails in
organisational structure in which they protect right of employees as per according to regulatory
standards in order to promote ethical working conditions.
Equality Act, 2010
Equality act has been passed by Parliament that indicated towards protecting employees
and further allows them to get treated in an equal manager in an organisation workplace
structure. In this Argos Limited are required to make sure that all the individual get treated in an
equal manner and do not get discriminated on any basis like colour, nationality, caste, religion
etc.
Health and Safety at Work Act, 1974
According to health and safety fact it is essential for employer to provide proper health and
safety measures to employees in an effective manner. This is required to be abide by employers,
suppliers, employees and more in order to promote healthy working in organisational premises.
In this Argos limited is required to implement health and safety Act at workplace as to safeguard
their employees from any legal consequences and offer them safe and secure environment that
also increase overall revenue organisation at great extent.
TASK 2
P3. Present worker market trends and legal requirements which include anticipated skills with an
organisation
Methods of Job analysis
Interview Method:
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In according to this, it is essential for HR manager to Argos to ask certain questions to
employees in context with problems, expectations and work performance that employees facing
in entity.
Observation Method:
Argos Human resource manager have responsibility to effectively evaluate each and every
employees performance with the assistance of techniques and tool like work method analysis,
direct observation and incident technique.
Questionnaire Method:
In this Argos senior manager formed certain questions in the form of questionnaire as to
evaluate their views and opinions. This method allows company to make significant increase in
performance and productivity of employees.
Methods of collecting data and information
Primary Method-
Within this mode, information get allocated from first hand measures that are not used
anywhere. For these indirect interviews, questionnaire and direct interview method are included.
Secondary Method-
In this method sources like magazines, feedbacks, and computer database, existing files and
more is being undertaken by organization
Job Design
This is defined as a task frame or work design which is most important activity for HRM. It
is mainly related with number of content and methods and further develop relation between job
and organization, social requirements, personal requirements and technological. With the use of
this method Argos aim towards increasing job satisfaction.
To identify skills and abilities of employees in context to succession planning
Succession planning can be referred to as a process through which an entity seeks to
evaluate effective and potential individuals with an aim of filling the vacancies within the
confines of the organisation. Besides this, this also works in accordance with the premise that
states that experienced personnel would replace promoted and retired individuals. Thus, it
becomes important for the respective company to carry out succession planning for the
replacement of inefficient personnel with the efficient ones. In this regard, certain capabilities for
management of talent and planning of workforce are discussed underneath:-
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Current Skills-
Communication skill:
It is regarded important for the HR manager of Argos to make use of communication skills in
order to carry out strong and meaningful interaction with the workforce. They need to possess
written, oral and non verbal communication skills so that they can convey information to the
employees in any form as per the requirements of the company. This leads to development of a
culture whereby employees are free to express their views and opinions in front of others. In the
absence of communication skills, conflicts may emerge that tend to affect the productivity of the
company.
Forecasting:
Forecasting term is mainly related to the prediction which simply specifies the
requirement of number of employees in the near future according to the dynamic environment.
This estimation simply helps company in reducing wastage of resources, cost etc. that simply
places influence over growth. This further supports HR manager of Argos in accomplishing their
organisational growth and success rate.
Anticipated Skills-
Change management:
Advance technology has brought range of benefits for the company. Here, it is important for HR
manager of the company to developing such a environment where employees can easily perform
their work in appropriate manner. This ultimately enhances their work efficiency in appropriate
manner.
Performance Management:
Performance management is determined as the effective way through which HR manager
of the company emphasizes on evaluating employees performance by monitoring their each and
every activity so that they valuable rewards can be provided to them for motivating them.
For example:
In case of Argos there is requirement of a post of accountant for this there is requirement
of certain skills that have to be compulsory present in employee that is related with having
adequate bachelor's degree in finance and these are the basic requirements that have to be present
in an employee. In case of prospective anticipated skills there will be requirement of effective
communication skills for leading a team and another major requirement will be related with how
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effectively change is able to be managed by search prospective employees apart from performing
the finance function they have to perform such additional functions also in the organisation.
Comparison between Argos and Waitrose & Partners
Argos is the online retail company which is offering diversified products and services in
UK and Ireland. Waitrose and Partners generates higher revenues as compared to Argos. Also
Waitrose and Partners has more than 52,590 employees whereas Argos only has approximately
29,768 numbers of employees.
TASK 3
P4. Illustration of job description and individual specification
Person Specification
Post: Accountant
Department: Accounting
Attributes Essential Desirable
Experience &
Qualification
CA degree. The experience of
Accountant within a renowned
corporation for at least 5 years.
Experience in working with the
Accounts department for at least
3 years.
Skills or knowledge Presentation as well as analytical
skills along with knowledge of
accounting concepts and practices
is essential.
It is desired that the candidate
should have basic MS Excel
knowledge along with extensive
knowledge of accounting as a
whole subject.
Job Description
Job Details
Post: Accountant
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Company: Argos Ltd.
Job Purpose
Maintenance of record of transactions taking place within the confines of the head office
together with doing internal audit at rapid intervals of time for the timely identification of errors
or frauds.
Responsibilities and roles
 Evaluating IC to ascertain mis management or misappropriation of fund within the
company.
 Identification and analysis of financial performance of the company along with devising
future forecast.
Person Specification
Post Marketing manager
Department Marketing
Qualification  Bachelors Degree in Commerce field.
 MBA with marketing as the subject of specialisation
Skills Required  Tactical skills
 Interpersonal skills
 Presentation skills
 Team working ability
 Communication skills
Experience 3-5 years of experience in working as a marketing manager within a top
company.
Job Description
Company: Argos Ltd.
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Job Details
Post: Marketing manager
Company: Argos Ltd.
Job Purpose
Promotion of the products and services of the company for the purpose of development of
strong customer relation and assurance of long term business continuity in market place.
Roles & Responsibilities
 Development of promotional and advertising strategies to capture the attention of large
number of individuals at market place.
 Development of strategies for development of strong customer relations.
 Creating and implementing appealing branding strategies that can help the entity in
increasing its customer retention rates.
 Developing appealing and lucrative content for marketing to ensure business continuity
for the long run.
P5. Various applications of recruitment and selection
Internal Recruitment: Hereby, a company offers opportunity to its workforce to get
elevated by being allotted a new job position indicating higher roles and responsibilities. This
serves as a cost saving method of recruitment for the company.
External Recruitment: This is a method whereby totally new candidates are hired for
filling the vacancies available within the company. Argos makes use of this approach to have
access to a larger pool of skilled and competent candidates. Some of the ways of external
recruitment are explained beneath.
 Interview: It act as a prominent method of recruiting candidates whereby interviewers
makes few enquiries from the candidates to check the suitability of their personality for
the company’s position against a number of grounds.
 Written Test: Through this, the concerned entity is able to assess the efficiency as well
as performance of individuals applying for the job post. Hereby, they are asked questions
of subjects such as maths, reasoning and technical
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There are some selection and recruitment methods that can be used for the purpose of getting
talent in our Argos:
1) Online screening:
Online screening is a very effective method in which there Can be submission of
application based on the job advertisement that is done by Argos according to the vacant
positions in their organisation. According to search submission of application there can be
screening of the rejected application and further such selected applications can be sent to the
second round of interview and personal interactions with the head of department for the
purpose of selection of an Eligible Candidate.
2) Interview:
Structure interviews are one of the effective type of interview that is related with the
interview process form with the help of identification of key requirements in a job and
further a list of questions are prepared.
There is a panel of interview that will be involved in Argos those who will go through all
the selected applicants from the online applications and there will be two personal rounds of
interview that will take place in case of every vacant position.
3) Aptitude test:
After there will be first round of interview second round of test will be related with the
testing of Intelligence level of organisation it is going to test about the General Intelligence
numerical ability clerical ability mechanical ability special ability verbal ability and sensory
Ability of a particular candidate. After there has been completion of this test there will be
scores based on which employee will be passed on to the next interview rounds and there will
be for the final decision related to selection on selection of a employee.
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TASK 4
P6. Examine various stages of HR life-cycle
There are five stages of HR life cycle which are explored below.
Selection and Recruitment: It is concerned with collecting CV or resume of candidates
as a result of which company can recruit suitable candidate for the post. Selection and
recruitment stage is there is evaluation of a employee in a detailed manner according to the
present level of potential and competence. The stage is very effective and helps in taking of only
the qualified and competent candidate who is able to perform the required roles and
responsibilities in case of Argo it is one of the major functions that will help in deciding the
overall quality of their work force.
Orientation: This is concerned with developing knowledge of the work premise and
personnel in the newly joined candidate. An employee has been selected orientation is the next
step that help a employee in getting familiar to the workplace and this function in our goes will
help their newly selected employee to understand their overall job roles and responsibilities this
is the initial stages where employees effectiveness can be tested.
Career planning and performance management: This is concerned with stipulation of
empowerment opportunities to candidates for facilitating their professional development.
Further, the HR manager of Argos also needs to focus over evaluation of employee performance.
This function is concerned with providing various developmental opportunities related to the key
Areas where employee is not able to perform the assigned job roles. It helps in increasing the
effectiveness of a particular employee towards their assigned roles and also in their individual
development which is going to help them in future career prospects.
Succession Planning: This stage is concerned with the replacement of inefficient
employees with the efficient ones to enhance market positioning and ensure business continuity.
Succession planning is related with all the employees who are not able to contribute effectively
to the organisation so that only those employees who are qualified enough can be retained for a
long term in the organisation.
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Exit: Hereby, the HR is responsible for managing procedure of worker’s exit from the
company. This is a very important function in Argos as it will help in dealing with all the
ineffective employees who are adding extra cost to the organisation.
P7. Examine the stages of HR life-cycle within organization
It is highly important for human resource department of business organisation to make use of HR
life cycle in order to align overall organisational work in systematic manner and attain
organisational goals and objectives in quicker manner. All of these stages are specified as below:
First stage:
This is the very first stage in which HR manager is responsible for developing strategies
associated with the recruitment and selection procedure with the motive of selecting talented
employees.
Second stage:
In this stage, HR manager of Argos must emphasise on developing positive relationship
with employees. For this, they conduct induction program where employees get aware about
organisational vision, mission and objectives and the specific towards the way through which
they can be accomplished are explained to employees.
Third Stage:
In this, main focus of HR manager is to evaluate employees performance so that
requirement for training and development session can be identified which further contributes in
improvement of organisational productivity.
Fourth Stage:
In the fourth stage, HR manager of Argos develops appropriate norms and polices which
includes benefits for employees in terms of rewards with the motive of sustaining employees
longer within the company.
Last Stage:
This is mainly acknowledged as the last stage of HR life cycle in which HR manager of
Argos focuses on developing effective database of its employees which is further used by them
at the time of terminating employees at the time of their retirements or other reasons.
HR life cycle
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HR life cycle is mainly consisting of several steps as well as stages that supports business
organisation in accomplishing their predefined growth rate along with the sustainability. All of
them are specified as below:
Recruitment and selection:
This stage simply states that HR manager of the Argos takes several initiatives for
bringing effective and skilled workforce within the company. For this advertisement has been
placed with the motive of attracting maximum number of employees towards them in appropriate
manner.
Orientation:
Here, HR manager of Argos conducts orientation for creating familiarity between
employees and company and also convey them mandatory information in appropriate manner.
Career planning and performance management:
At this stage, HR manager of Argos emphasizes on growing employees by simply
conducting few training and development sessions for them which further helps them out in
accomplishing organisational goals and objectives.
Succession Planning:
Here, skilled employees are hired by the HR manager of Argos for maximising their
productivity and accomplishing organisational goals and objectives.
Exit:
This is last stage which is highly associated with the overall management prices of entry
and exit. This simply states that how organisational imitative supports company in the
enhancement of organisational opportunity which leads to attainment of success.
Alignment of HR strategy with Argos business strategy:
The overall strategy of our course is to maximize the human resource life cycle so that
organisation work can take place in a more systematic manner. Also related with different
functions such as recruiting employees from identification of major Areas where qualified
employees can be selected after selection of employees making proper orientation so that there
can be timely career development opportunities that will be provided to employee and their
performance can be managed. So there is always a alignment of the overall objectives of
organisation to have a structural approach towards hiring of employees and retaining them for a
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longer duration of time that has to be implemented in each stage of human resource life cycle.
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CONCLUSION
On the basis of above discussion, it can be said that resource and talent planning is
concerned with the management of workforce in an effective manner so as to hire skilled and
competent candidates who are capable of executing the tasks and activities of a company.
Besides this, there are several laws that need to be followed by a company in order to restrain
themselves from being dragged into legal consequences. Apart from this, it is essential that the
entity makes use of job analysis for recruitment and selection of candidates as per the
requirements of the corporation. By taking into account strong and effective policies and
strategies, organisations are capable of meeting their goals and objective in due course of time.
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REFERENCES
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future directions. Sage Publications.
Longenecker and et. al., 2013. Creating human-resource management value in the twenty-first
century: Seven steps to strategic HR. Human Resource Management International
Digest. 21(2). pp.29-32.
Meyers and et. al., 2013. Talent—Innate or acquired? Theoretical considerations and their
implications for talent management. Human Resource Management Review. 23(4).
pp.305-321.
Siikaniemi, L., 2012. Information pathways for the competence foresight mechanism in talent
management framework. European Journal of Training and Development. 36(1). pp.46-
65.
Sparrow and et. al., 2015. Strategic talent management. In Do We Need HR? (pp. 177-212).
Palgrave Macmillan, London.
Stredwick, J., 2013. An introduction to human resource management. Routledge.
Tansley and et. al., 2013. The currency of talent management—A reply to “talent management
and the relevance of context: Towards a pluralistic approach”. Human Resource
Management Review. 23(4). pp.337-340.
Thunnissen and et. al., 2013. A review of talent management:‘infancy or adolescence?’. The
international journal of human resource managemen. 24(9). pp.1744-1761.
Ulrich, D. and et. al., 2012. HR talent and the new HR competencies. Strategic HR Review.
11(4). pp.217-222.
Waheed and et. al., 2013. Talent management in four stages. The USV Annals of Economics and
Public Administration. 12(1 (15)). pp.130-137.
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