Talent Planning and Success of Organisation Report: Argos Analysis

This report analyzes the talent planning and workforce management strategies of Argos, a British catalogue retailer. It begins by examining current labor market trends such as globalization, urbanization, and technological changes, and how these trends influence talent management. The report then outlines various legal requirements relevant to workforce planning, including the Equality Act 2010 and the Unfair Dismissal Act 1977. The analysis further explores how these trends and legal requirements shape the current and anticipated skill requirements within the organization. The report delves into the importance of job descriptions and person specifications in effective recruitment and selection, providing examples for a Design Lead position. Different recruitment and selection methods are also discussed. Finally, the report evaluates the stages of the HR lifecycle and how they are integrated into the organizational HR strategy. The conclusion summarizes the key findings and recommendations for Argos' talent planning initiatives.

Talent planning and success of
Organisation

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
TASK 1............................................................................................................................................3
P1. Current labour market trends that influence talent management and workforce planning...3
P2. Different types of legal requirements for workforce planning.........................................4
TASK 2............................................................................................................................................5
P3 Current labour market trends and legal requirements determine current and anticipated
skills requirements for a range of organisational examples...................................................5
TASK 3............................................................................................................................................6
P4. Job description and person specification documents for effective recruitment and selection
................................................................................................................................................6
P5. Different recruitment and selection method.....................................................................8
TASK 4..........................................................................................................................................10
P6. Evaluate the stages of the HR life-cycle applied to specific HR contexts.....................10
P7 Stages of the HR life-cycle are integrated within organisational HR strategy................11
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................11
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................13

INTRODUCTION
Resource and talent planning is an important function that involves coordination from
recruitment team and business in different features like analysis on forecast of required
resources, selection of proper hiring channel selection and networking to attain the goals and
targets of an organisation. The present report is about Argos, which is a British catalogue retailer
company founded in 1972 by Richard Tompkins. Argos is subsidiary company of Sainsbury
which is headquartered in England. This report emphasizes on the purpose of analysing the
current labour market trends that are influenced by talent management team organisation
(Armstrong and Taylor, 2014). The study entirely will show the different kinds of legal
requirement at the time of workforce planning. In addition, with this, it also includes job
description and person specification documents for effective recruitment and selection method.
Further, the report also elaborates about different types of recruitment and selection method. At
last the report is end up by describing the HR life cycle and various strategies that can be used by
an HR manager so that it can be beneficial in achieving goals and objectives of a company.
TASK 1
P1. Current labour market trends that influence talent management and workforce planning.
To understand the concept of talent planning, firstly it is necessary to see that what is
talent, and here talent refers to an Individual who are of specific value to an organisation either in
perspective of their ‘high potential’ for the future or because they are accomplishing business
critical roles. Talent management is the skill of attracting highly skilled employees, by integrated
set of activities, and developing and retaining existing workers to meet current and future
business goals and objectives. The current labour market trends and their influence on talent
management and workforce planning are outlined below -

1. Globalisation – Globalisation is means by which different organisations can influence
their business at global scale. This has been bought to enhance integration of the labour
markets and also closing gap among employees in advanced as well as developing
economies. The globalisation trend develops its outcome on the workforce planning
because it permits to the staff members or labours to work under HR legislation and laws
in different countries. In other words, Globalisation is the process which is used for the
relationship that different organisation share while trading with each other at global
level. There are different ways by which globalisation has helped companies to
make huge profits and increase their brand value across the globe. As globalisation
took place around the world, it gave rise to the concept of recruiting of people in
external countries.
2. Urbanisation – Urbanisation refers with the number of peoples who are living in towns
and cities. In this, all peoples of rural areas displace themselves in urban areas, and this
change result in the growth and enhancement of urban peoples in their area. In respect of
workforce planning, this trend helps in provide the good and best opportunities for job to
people and provide talent to Argos company. On the other hand, it will also aid in
enhancing employment rate and national income rate. Apart from this, People who move
to cities have more income then farmers of village, so as urban populations increases,
individual will spend their currency on durable goods such as homes and furniture, and
discretionary purchases such as electronics and clothes. Therefore, the organisation like
Argos can take advantage of this trend even better than constituted challengers if they are
quick enough to provide to the unsteady tastes of these new classes of groups.
3. Technology change - Technology helps the organisation in increasing the productivity
and profitability of business organisation (Briscoe, Tarique and Schuler, 2012) . Under
this, Argos company adopt the modern technologies to enhance the growth of their
business in market, and they also have to trained their existing employees about modern
technologies, so that they can effectively use the new technologies and help them in
attaining their goals and objectives. With the help of adopting artificial technology, Argos
can also hire the candidates that results in reduce cost. Along with this, for the
organisation like Argos, digital technology is very beneficial as more and more
companies are discovering by integrating the technology, by this they can growing

the growth of their business and enhancing the productivity. Apart from all this,
some small-scale organisation are not taking proper advantage of digital technology
as few are utilizing the digital tools for acquiring new customers and some are
personalizing their marketing content and approx 29% of companies are using social
media on a regular basis just to interact with their customer base.
P2. Different types of legal requirements for workforce planning
Workforce planning is a an effective approach which is adopted by organisation's in order
to meet needs and requirement of business goals and objectives. It is important for a company to
analyse all the legal requirements before doing workforce planning. It has analysed that, certain
legal requirements are being needed by a company to be taken into consideration during process
of workforce planning within an organisation, which are as follows-
 Equality Act, 2010 - This is an act which an organisation undertakes for smooth
functioning and flowing of business activities. The purpose of this act is to eliminate
gender inequalities and also develop a culture within an organisation, under which tasks
are being allotted to all staff members as per their knowledge and skills. Here, Argos
Ltd. require to compensate their employees in accordance with their performances and
outcomes.
 Unfair Dismissal Act, 1977 - This act is being enforced in order to decline some
activities which have a negative impact on the employees of an organisation. It defend
workforce from sudden ending which is being given without any notice by an
organisation (Cooke, Saini and Wang, 2014). In relation to Argos, this act should be
considered by its management team while hiring its employees. Along with this, it is their
responsibility to conduct any unethical activity which might harm them in future as each
staff member is aware about that. Also, this act warns company to be loyal with their staff
office.
Good HRM – Human resource management is the term which is used in management of the
resources in context to human who are working in the organization. The main purpose of HRM
is to enhance productivity by optimizing effectiveness of individuals in organization. It is
necessary for human resource in Argos to adopt the better HRM, which are as follows -

 Equality policy - This policy of equality should be adopted by the adopt company, to
treat their all employees equally, and this HRM policy will help the organisation to
enhance their goodwill and also increases their workforce planning.
 Complaints procedures – This policy is related with complaints and disputes procedures
at workplace. It can be related to anything like working environment, poor behaviour of
manager or peer groups, etc. So, for this proper complaint procedure is required and
management need to take some appropriate actions to resolve complaints of working
staff.
TASK 2
P3 Current labour market trends and legal requirements determine current and anticipated skills
requirements for a range of organisational examples
Labour market trends and anticipated skills
Labour market
trends
Legal requirements Anticipated
skills
Examples
Globalisation
The main requirements for
globalisation is Visa and
passport. For diffusing
innovations transparent
system is needed.
Decision
making and
Effective
communication
SME help in
improving their
new talent.
Technology change
Labelling of the products
and Laws regarding
property (Church and
Silzer, 2013) .
Keep updated
knowledge
about new
technologies
and Innovative
mind.
Using robots
and other new
technology in
different fields.
Urbanisation
Local ID certificate or ID
card.
Effective
academic skills
and Innovative
skills for
In modern era,
many doctors
use to migrate
from villages to

problem
solving.
cities, as they
are very hard
working
From the above table, it has been interpreted that in globalisation the visa is the legal
requirement in which SME helps in improving their skills and decision making is the anticipated
skills. On the other hand, the legal requirement of Urbanisation and technology change is ID card
and labelling all the products.
TASK 3
P4. Job description and person specification documents for effective recruitment and selection
Job description and person specification is required by an organisation in order to have an
effective recruitment and selection process (Guerci and Solari, 2012).
Job Description – This can be a formal document which describes about the general tasks, or
other related duties, and responsibilities of a particular position.
Job Description
Job Details
Post : Design Lead
Company : Argos Ltd.
Job Purpose
Argos Ltd. Looking for a passionate and talented Designer that can join innovative Digital
team. The company is searching for the fully fledged knowledgeable Designer that should be
confident and also deal with all issues and situations.
Roles & Responsibilities
 The responsibility is to own development & production of creative design and digital
activity.
 Create the guidelines and practices which needs to support creative development
transition in business.
 Use the new technologies when executing design strategy of Argos across digital and
multi- channel platform.
 The cooperation between Brand team is essential to develop concepts and also to use

the Digital approach.
 The candidate should concentrate on the concept of digital marketing to increase brand
development.
Evaluation - The following job description which is formal document by an individual
for the vacant post in an organisation. The above description is of design lead for the company
Argos with the purpose of having the skills of confidence, able to handle all the issues and
conflicts. The above job description helps the person to get the position in the company Argos
for the post of Design Lead.
Person Specification – Person specification is related with the skills that a nominee must have
in order to complete a task which is given by the company (Sparrow, Hird and Cooper, 2015).
This includes educational qualification as well as more personal qualification that a candidate
must possess (Ulrich and et. al., 2012).
Person Specification
Post : Design manager
Department : Design Department
Key : This show that what is required when like an evidence:
(A): Application form, (I): Interview, (R): Role
Attributes Essential Desirable
Qualification & Experience Graphic degree with designing
as specialisation from an
authorised college. Minimum
3 years of working experience
as a design manager.
Experience of the
collaborative working of
different content & design
disciplines consisting
Technical Team and Product
Managers.
Skills or knowledge Effective communication
skills in both written and
verbal, interpersonal skills and
Strong focus ability, leadership
and organisational skills,
should be passion and

must be expressive. charismatic.
Evaluation – The above person specification defines the skills which the person must
have for the position of design lead, as the required qualification must have the degree of graphic
and experienced also. Along with this, the individual who have applied for the post of Design
Lead must have the good and proper communication and presentation skills.
P5. Different recruitment and selection method
Recruitment is the process of finding and hiring the best-qualified candidate for a job
opening, in a timely and cost effective manner. In case of Argos, their recruitment practices are
usually a part of their workplace culture (Rothwell and et. al., 2015). Managers of Argos follow a
quite structured process for recruitment as they believe employing right candidates for right job
profile. To increase the efficiency of hiring, the HR team of Argos follows some recruitment
methods:
Internal Sources of Recruitment: Process in which needs are accomplished from within the
organisation refers to internal recruitment process.1. Promotion - This method of recruitment motivates employees as they get promoted in the
company only. This process shifts an employee from a lower position to a higher position
with more responsibilities, status and remuneration (Sparrow and Makram, 2015) .2. Transfer – This method of recruitment saves time and money of the company as they are
not required to spend too much money in the recruitment procedure (Tansley, Kirk and
Tietze, 2013). Transfer is to interchange from one job to another without any change in
the status and responsibilities.
Advantages of internal sources :
 It is time saving and cost saving method. Helpful in motivating staff, so that they can work better.
Disadvantages of internal source :
 Using this method lead to lack in new talent in organisation. No innovative mind come in organisation, as it restrict new entry in organisation.

External Sources of Recruitment : The process in which fresh candidates are brought within the
organisation this is referred to as external recruitment process (Internal and External
Recruitment, 2018) .1. Campus Recruitment - Campus recruitment is an external source of recruitment, where
the educational organisation such as colleges and universities offers opportunities to hire
their students.2. Advertisements - This method is cost-effective and can speed up the recruitment cycle
and streamline administration. Advertisements are the most well-Known and preferred
source of external recruitment (Sparrow, Hird and Cooper, 2015) .
Advantages of External source :
 New talent gets engaged with organisation. Possibilities for new innovation get generated which help in getting success.
Disadvantages of External source :
 It is very much time consuming method. Have to provide proper training and development session for new ones.
Selection Methods - Selection process refers to choose or select the right candidate for the right
job, hiring those who are most suitable for a vacant job position in an organization (Thunnissen,
Boselie and Fruytier, 2013) . This is the responsibility of the HR manager of Argos to select the
right person for the right job by following selection methods, which are as follows :1. Interview method - Interview is a process in which one by one session are conducted to
know the better candidate for the job. Interview can help to save time to select the best
suitable candidate.
Advantages of Interview : This method is time saving and also cost saving.
Disadvantages of Interview :
 Method may get fail when there are ample number applicants. Making summary of applicants is not very easy.
2. Application Form – This is a process in which the physical and the mental fitness of the
individual is checked to ensure that the candidate has the ability to do a job or not (Tansley, Kirk
and Tietze, 2013). By this method, organisation can get the complete details of candidate without
any misses.

Advantages of Application form :
 The cost involved in this is very low. Help in comparing several numbers of applicants.
Disadvantages of Application form :
 It requires huge time for completing.
 Not help in extracting the ability and intelligence of an applicant.
TASK 4
P6. Evaluate the stages of the HR life-cycle applied to specific HR contexts.
In every phase of life, there is a life cycle, in similar way HR business also have a life
cycle or business cycle, which is being present in various areas of working. HR life cycle
consists of five important steps, which are as follows -
 Recruitment : The organisation can enhance the growth of their business by recruiting
the best and highly skilled peoples. Therefore, Recruitment is the process of identifying
the jobs vacancies, analysing the job requirements, reviewing applications, screening,
short listing and selecting the right candidate. The hiring decisions are most important for
an organisation as this is helpful for the organisation turnover, growth and productivity.
To recruit, HR and staff requires more time and effort than simply scanning through
Resumes or CV (Meyers, Van Woerkom and Dries, 2013). It is very much needed for HR
staff to make effective strategies and plans that help them in filling the specific and
vacant job place.
 Education : After recruiting process, the education of the applicants begin and this will
be the new and fresh education for them as they are getting the new position and that's
why they should know about their roles and responsibilities and they should meet the
expectations of their clients. It is very important for an organisation to make their
employees know that what are there roles in their job. In this stage, it is essential for HR
manager to communicate with the staff members so that they can understand what the
role and responsibilities they have to follow in order to achieve organisational and
personal goals.
 Evaluation : This is the stage where, HR manager of organisation have to measure the
performance of their staff. Here, they use to give review to their performance so that the
future strategies and plans can get designed according to that (Dessler, 2013) . This

section or stage of HR life cycle is used by a supervisor which measures and evaluate the
performance of that employer which is currently recruited and check whether by giving
review that they are fit for the job or not.
 Celebration : This is the last stage of HR life cycle and here manager use to motivate
and appreciate their employees. Along with this, here employees of organisation get
many opportunities, which can help them in growing their future. This stage of HR life
cycle will provide the opportunioty to the organisation to reenergize their employees by
appreciating them and motivating them for their hard work. Along with this, some
companies use the way of rewarding their employees with huge benefits to show their
appreciation.
 The End of the cycle : As all have the end, the HR life cycle also has an end. Therefore,
Every cycle is ended by certain reasons, either it is retirement of leaving the school or
leaving the organisation because there is no increment in the pay. The life cycle is end up
by attaining the aim of recruiting the right people for the right job.
P7 Stages of the HR life-cycle are integrated within organisational HR strategy
There are several stages which HR manager of Argos have to follow, so that they can
gain their goals and objectives in effective manner, which is as beneath :-
 Business needs : In this HR of Argos consider the viewpoint of their employees related
to economic surveys, customer satisfaction. The Argos gives importance to the opinion of
their workers, and prefer most of the time to consider their decisions to make the
organisation better in the market.
 Job competencies : This stage is concerned with job abilities, knowledge, and skills of
employees with respect to plans and strategies of Argos. It is very important for Argos
and their managers to make and execute better competency model for their future (Gold
and et. al., 2013) .
 The hiring process : The hiring process of Argos for different positions like technical,
management, administrative etc. are depends on the competency and industry validated
hiring. This process is used to hire the right person for the right job so that the
organisation can easily able to attain their targets in effective time frame.
 Learning and development : It is very important for HR department of Argos to
conduct Learning and development programmes in organisation, so that their employees