ASSESSMENT 2 – CASE STUDY: JOHN LEWIS

ASSESSMENT 2 – CASE STUDY: JOHN LEWIS

Module Code:	BMA5102
Module Title:	Human Resource Management Level 5
Assignment	Individual Report based on Case Study
Word Count:	3000 words (+/- 10%) not including any Title page, Abstract, Table of contents, Reference list and Appendices.
Contribution to the Module Mark:	70%
Module Leader:
Submission Deadline:	7thOctober 2024, at 23:59 pm
Submission:	Via Turnitin

Student name:

Student ID:

Executive summary

This report is focused on the HR practices of John Lewis, which has been highly crucial for getting upcoming growth in the business and helped it succeed. The individual HR practices like training, learning and development are also important for ensuring growth and success in the business. Mitigating the problems and issues like lack of training and knowledge needs to be resolved to motivate them and to grow their interest in future work. Providing rewards and appraisals is an important part of a business to increase the confidence and potentiality of all employees and has been discussed in the following report.

Introduction

HRM (Human Resource Management) is known as the organisational practice, which helps in recruiting, hiring and managing all employees (Pan and Froese, 2023). The HR department of the organisation is highly responsible for creating and managing relationships with the employees. HRM is considered a crucial part of a business, which helps to improve health. It is required to build and increase competitiveness by providing huge benefits for all employees. The company John Lewis has set their principles for managing different challenges and benefits and to get a huge profit for all business partners. The main aim of the report is to analyse and discuss the performance appraisal in John Lewis. This report will also cover different types of HR practices, which can be impactful in increasing the profit and growth of the business.

Company Background

John Lewis and its partnership have set for mitigating different issues and challenges in the business. It has also created a huge sustainable partnership for gaining huge business profit with the customers, suppliers and different communities (john lewis partnership, 2024).The main purpose of the business is to get a better way of conducting the business by optimising partnership value and by implementing innovative business strategies. John Lewis and its partnership includes 331 branches in the Middle East and it also expanded its business in 58 countries (johnlewispartnership, 2024).John Lewis has been inspired by their partners by getting a huge retail experience and by improving the productivity and skill for the business performance.

They have been focused on continuing the progress for increasing profitability and productivity. This organisation has continued to enhance the experience of their customers in 13000 locations. There are almost 53% of customers, use digital channels for shopping and to get huge offers in Omni channel practices. The company has been focused on bringing some significant changes by implementing the strategy in 2020 (johnlewispartnership, 2024). They are trying to provide a satisfied retail experience to the customers, inspired by the partners. It is required to simplify the business to improve productivity and to generate a strong performance by modernising and energising the unique offer for the customers.

Importance and Role of the Performance Appraisals in John Lewis

The main aim of implementing the performance appraisal in John Lewis is to increase motivation for the employees. The values and behaviour of the team members have been created by the people for making effective decisions and to implement all the ethical rules and sustainability in the business. According to Baird et al. (2020), the main aim and view of the organisation is to implement different approaches for working with the team and individuals. The skills and attitudes of the employees depend upon the values of the team members. The managers of this company are responsible for providing regular and constructive feedback to the employees. It also has been impactful in identifying different problems and issues with disciplinary and corrective action. Shrouf et al. (2020) have identified that organisational profitability and productivity help to manage organisational goals with the selection, promotion and placement of the employee. The HR department is mostly responsible for improving performance and appraisal. It is helpful for getting ideas about the advancement of the employees in their careers.

Using the performance appraisal can be helpful for John Lewis to listen to the staff and to offer peer support for the business. The learning and development team of the organisation are efficient and capable of achieving huge success in the competitive landscape. It is required to deliver an exceptional customer experience to maintain compliance and to optimise the sales journey. Elangovan and Rajendran (2020) have stated that, in the retail business industry, improving the organisational performance can help to get the critical insight of the organisation for identifying different problems and issues and to optimise sales growth. In the in-store retail business, streamlining the process can be helpful for ensuring the growth of the employees and fulfilling organisational needs. In real-time scoring and analytics, offering invaluable insight is also required for identifying the trend and the major areas of improvement.

In this context, a performance management cycle can be used to review the performance with a work-based approach in the development centre. It is also used for getting performance feedback and to get profit with the appraisal in half a year and at the end of the year. The main principle components of a performance management system include the actual order for reviewing and appraising the performance. The socialisation is also important for understanding all the employees and to improve organisational culture. It is required to reinforce and maintain informal interaction within the workplace.

The performance appraisal in a retail firm is included with the employee benefits, promoting the motivation and enthusiasm of the employees and others. It is also helpful for improving the satisfaction of the staff by increasing productivity and by getting ideas about the digital skills in the business. It is necessary to serve all the customers in a better way for delivering and increasing the profit and growth and to get success about the training and development. As stated by Islam and Sarker (2020), improving and increasing the business process is required through implementing the strategy of performance and appraisal with regular performance. On the other side, a continuous improvement and effort is also effective for focusing on the dynamic policy and management within a team. The use of performance and appraisal is highly useful for allowing all the employees to get the training and to get different new ideas about the data and trend in the business.

Different benefits of the employer are focused on the training and on other function for enhancing the profitability and goals and to get different strategies for the new business tasks. It is required to fulfil and get the mission of the organisation for fulfilling the value and vision and to optimise the standard of the business. The use of performance appraisal is also beneficial for enhancing profitability using different strategies and focusing on the task. It is required to get efficiency with a streamlined process of the business and to make different ideas for managing the profit-making operations.

Analysis of UK business environment

In the UK retail business, there are almost 5.55 million private businesses, which have a turnover of 4.48 trillion British pounds. Due to the high revenue of the UK retail business like Shell plc, BP and Tesco, employment turnover has increased. There are almost 27 million private sector companies and have employed almost 9 million employees in 2023 (statista, 2024). During the COVID-19 pandemic, the GDP of the UK fell down by 20% in 2020 (statista, 2024). On the other side, inflation also has to be high with 11.1% in 2022 (statista, 2024). The uncertainty issue in the British economy has been created by the lack of business investment in 2020. In the British economy, the GDP was 2.27 trillion pounds in 2023 (statista, 2024). It was considered as the sixth largest global economy with the US, China, Germany and Japan. In 2020, the huge recession in the UK economy has developed in comparison with the pandemic situation.

In 2020, The GDP shrank by 10.4% due to the economic issues and problems in the COVID-19 pandemic (statista, 2024). The growth rate of annual GDP was 8.7% in 2021 (statista, 2024). In the labour business market, the low level of unemployment issue was highly strong. At the end of 2021, the inflation rate has been reached by 11.1% in 2023 (statista, 2024). At the peak time of 2022, the growth of the wages of the employees has increased. Due to the high inflation rate, the growth of wages has increased with the cost of living. On the other side, the disposable income fell down in 2023 managing the crisis and issue with 2.2% in 2024 (statista, 2024). The GDP and its forecast growth were 0.8% in 2024 (statista, 2024). In 2020, GDP fell down by 18.9% (statista, 2024). The trade negotiations of the government have been focused on the European Union for entering into the troubled issues.

Individual HR practices

In the HRM, training and development refers to a proper system, which is helpful for educating all the employees. It includes different tools for improving a better employee performance and getting the opportunity to increase their knowledge and skills for them. In the development and training, the latest trend can be identified for increasing the productivity of the organisation and to upgrade the skills of the employees (Goel, 2023). Training is considered as an important tool in the business organisation, which is helpful for improving organisational efficiency by identifying the abilities and motivation in the work. Adapting different new changes also have been useful for promoting the culture of learning in the workplace. It is also required to improve the service and quality of the product to get a huge business opportunity within the workplace. It is required to share different new techniques by practising the work process. It is required to allow and create a better product for satisfying all the services. Getting adequate training for the employees is involved with the same set of instructions. All the highly trained employees can create a huge positive impact on decreasing the costs and errors in the business field.

The training and development help for gathering huge feedback by interpreting the collected data. It is required to provide and get ideas about the enhancement activities with the educational business platforms. In the company John Lewis, the employment relationship programme has been created and maintained with a progressive approach (johnlewispartnership, 2024). A psychological contract has been identified for focusing on the commitment and motivation of the employees. In John Lewis, the HRM practices have been maintained by associating with the leadership style and to get a potential outcome for the employees. In organisations like Tesco, BP (British Petroleum) and others, HR practice has been important with open communication by managing healthy relationships with them.

It is required to use multiple platforms in an organisation with instant messages, internet and social tools. It has been necessary to reduce the conflict and issues in the organisation with a streamlining mechanism and to get the trust of the employees. Creating and building recognition is also important for the employees to reinforce the positive behaviour of the employees. A consistent recognition helps to boost motivation among employees, also it is also necessary for improving loyalty and job satisfaction (Setiawati and Ariani, 2020).The training and development can help with mentoring and getting organisational opportunities and to get help with the required skills of the employees. A constructive feedback can be obtained for continuous improvement by highlighting the strength and growth of the affected areas. In Tesco, an administration can be helpful in creating a high-quality team by embracing and recruiting different people.

The main aim of the HRM is to motivate all employees to conduct business and to achieve organisational objectives. Human resource management helps to achieve efficiency with the deployment of the funds. HRM offers different approaches for encouraging productivity and efficiency in the workforce. The training and development help for achieving workforce development by increasing the competency. Human resource management helps to achieve and accomplish an advanced creation with the efficient exploitation of the business. In Tesco, analysing the trend of the market is required for identifying the customers and to fulfil their demand with them. A strategic change has been beneficial for focusing on the HRM function and using different new purposes of the organisation (Rubin and Edwards, 2020).

It is required to get employment to fulfil the need and to upgrade the performance of the employees. Increasing and analysing the need is required to satisfy all the customers. In order to improve the HR practice with Tesco, integrating different aspects is required, including retention, employee engagement Reward and management style. Improving different skills and abilities is required for developing organisational capacity and to get huge feedback for upgrading performance. Increasing and gaining opportunities can help contribute to the individual and to achieve team objectives (He et al., 2021). The performance of the employees can be upgraded and maximised for socialisation and to work in a better way. It can create major problems and issues for reducing performance. Using the KPIs is important for focusing on the balanced approach and to plan different goals.

The strategic approach in the HRM helps to improve organisational goals for fulfilling the commitment with a good and supportive job. In retail business organisations, it is required to get an idea about labour rights violations by improving supply chain management. The commitment to human rights can help contribute to the organisational initiatives. Integrating human rights within the business can help get the responsibility with the source of the product in the retail business field (Chatterjee et al., 2024). Improving the planning and performance can be helpful for fulfilling organisational goals and to get and maximise the values with the competencies. The counselling and support is important for the team members by managing the issue with the absence (Saks, 2022).The ad hoc support is useful for getting idea with the occupational health and support for the professionals. Reviewing and appraising is required for improving the organisational growth.

HR theories

The contingency theory can be used in organisations to enforce the need and to adapt different management practices to specific issues in unique situations. This theory also helps to improve organisational flexibility for fulfilling the needs and challenges within an organisation. Focusing on business strategies can help in getting an idea about the optimal business performance in a dynamic and diverse business environment (Chatterjee et al., 2024). Human resource theories are highly useful for enhancing business performance with organisational growth. On the contrary, applying these theories can be useful for achieving success and improving the well-being of the organisation. The other theories like Human Capital Theory and Resource-based theories are also useful for maintaining and increasing competitive advantage in the business field. Human Capital theory is consisting of the existing employees, who are responsible for the education, skill and training. The innovation and creativity are highly important for resolving the problems and issues and to get the support from employees. As identified by Gerhart and Feng (2021), increasing productivity is required for working with different new workforce and managing the training and talent in the business.

A balanced scorecard can be used for measuring organisational performance and to establish the goals for achieving a strategic vision and goal for all individuals. Measuring and designing the work process is also important for improving financial results and getting an idea about the clear performance and target of the employees (Alsafadi and Altahat, 2021).

Challenges and issues in the HRM Practice

The issues and challenges in the HRM include selection and recruitment, development of the leadership and managing a diverse workforce. All HR professionals need to ensure the achievement of the organisational objectives for contributing to productivity and tackling different problems, which can affect their business. It is required to adapt to all the technological changes, which include the offering of the new training service to ensure quality (Cooke et al., 2020). Nurturing the employees is also required for advancement in career development. HR professionals need to select and develop future leaders within their organisations. John Lewis faced different problems and issues with open communication with the workers. It has been impactful in providing support to the communication channel and getting assistance with programmes (Tanveer et al., 2024). It also faced huge financial pressure for the lack of hiring and recruitment. The working and performance is improving in this organisation for getting huge returns to the profit and to get more efficiency in the business field. Due to their financial pressure, John Lewis has been forced to close almost 16 departmental stores with different supermarkets (Johnlewispartnership, 2024).

Most of the HR managers face huge problems and issues for managing a diverse workforce. Salas?Vallina et al. (021) narrates it is required to maximise organisational productivity to encourage effective communication with the different workforce. Due to the changes in the employees, HR professionals can avoid the audits, which can create an impact on the business performance. The lack of workplace safety is also important for maximising the productivity and performance of the business. The lack of compensation and benefits can also create major issues in providing all the required benefits to the employees. Creating a workforce is challenging for the diverse backgrounds and perspectives in a workplace (Salas?Vallina et al., 2021). It is required to engage all employees to increase motivation in remote or hybrid work environments. In the retail organisation, implementing a continuous performance evaluation rather than annual reviews can be resource-intensive.

It is required to identify the mental health issues and promoting wellbeing programs are critical, especially in high-stress environments. The demand of the trade unions can be harmful for the organisation for identifying and implementing the policy and procedure. It is required to retain a best talent with the on boarding plan and to get the employee turnover and to achieve a proper business growth.

Recommendations

It is required to focus on the retention of the best talent to mitigate the issues and problems in recruitment and to create a conducive work environment for the development of careers. Maintaining the safety and security of the employees is the topmost priority for managing the challenges and issues by allocating different new tasks and managing stress. In order to store and manage the organisational data with integrity management, all the HR professionals can communicate with the employees. The financial issues and struggles need to be removed by managing the cost and inflation (Pan and Froese, 2023). In the report and analytics, it is required to get an insight into employee data by tracking the HR metrics and to get an idea about the data-driven decisions. Using the integrated options is required for using HR and business software and to increase the versatility of the existing task. An employee-centric approach is also required to focus on employee service and to enhance employee engagement and satisfaction.

The customisation and onboarding can help for ensuring a proper transition for the new hires. Simplifying the payroll process can help in getting a user-friendly interface for handling the tax and managing all the required benefits for the individuals. It is required to get an attractive option for the organisations. It is required to manage the HR and payroll efficiently with the HR-related documents. John Lewis needs to increase their investment to increase proper business efficiency and to get a democratic process in the business field. Apart from talent acquisition, the HR department needs to retain more employees to influence growth and sustainability (Shrouf et al., 2020). HRM is involved with different new opportunities for getting ideas about the continual training and development of legal compliance. It is required to create an employee-friendly atmosphere with the hiring practices, which are associated with staff benefits, payment and employment.

It is required to build relationships with all employees to get ideas about self-training and learning. All the leaders need to be aware of the organisational structure to gain staff satisfaction but can be time and cost consuming in nature.

Conclusion

This report helped to get different ideas about the challenges and issues of HRM in the workplace. Using HR theories also helped to identify the benefits and advantages of HRM in an organisation. The individual HR practices of the organisation are involved with the development and training, which have been useful for mitigating the problems and issues in John Lewis. In a dynamic business environment, achieving organisational growth is required to mitigate the issues and problems in the retail business field.

Reference List

Alsafadi, Y. and Altahat, S.(2021)‘Human resource management practices and employee performance: the role of job satisfaction’. The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business, 8(1), pp.519-529.

Baird, K., Tung, A. and Su, S. (2020) ‘Employee empowerment, performance appraisal quality and performance’. Journal of Management Control, 31(4), pp.451-474. https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Kevin-Baird/publication/346493015_Employee_empowerment_performance_appraisal_quality_and_performance/links/606254fa92851cd8ce7617ac/Employee-empowerment-performance-appraisal-quality-and-performance.pdf

Bbc (2024) Business issues. Available at: https://www.bbc.com/news/business-68118092 (Accessed: 04 October 2024)

Chatterjee, S., Mikalef, P., Khorana, S. and Kizgin, H. (2024) ‘Assessing the implementation of AI integrated CRM system for B2C relationship management: integrating contingency theory and dynamic capability view theory’. Information systems frontiers, 26(3), pp.967-985.

Cooke, F.L., Dickmann, M. and Parry, E.(2020)‘Important issues in human resource management: introduction to the 2020 review issue’. The International Journal of Human Resource Management, 31(1), pp.1-5.

Elangovan, N. and Rajendran, S. (2020) ‘Impact of functional interdependency on employee satisfaction with performance appraisal in the real estate industry’. Problems and Perspectives in Management, 18(4), p.213. https://www.businessperspectives.org/images/pdf/applications/publishing/templates/article/assets/14382/PPM_2020_04_Elangovan.pdf

Gerhart, B. and Feng, J.(2021)‘The resource-based view of the firm, human resources, and human capital: Progress and prospects’. Journal of management, 47(7), pp.1796-1819

Goel, D. (2023) Performance appraisal and compensation management: A modern approach. PHI Learning Pvt.Ltd..

He, J., Morrison, A.M. and Zhang, H.(2021)‘How high-performance HR practices and LMX affect employee engagement and creativity in hospitality’. Journal of Hospitality & Tourism Research, 45(8), pp.1360-1382.

Islam, M.A.R.H. and Sarker, R.I.N.K. (2020) ‘The effect of management by objectives on performance appraisal and employee satisfaction in commercial banks’. Journal of Social and Development Sciences, 32(6), pp.4-23. https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Hasibul-Islam-4/publication/343335722_The_Effect_of_Management_by_Objectives_on_Performance_Appraisal_and_Employee_Satisfaction_in_Commercial_Banks/links/5f23dbc5458515b729f5ebb7/The-Effect-of-Management-by-Objectives-on-Performance-Appraisal-and-Employee-Satisfaction-in-Commercial-Banks.pdf

Johnlewispartnership (2024) About us. Available at: https://www.johnlewispartnership.co.uk/purpose.html (Accessed: 04 October 2024)

Johnlewispartnership (2024) Annual Report. Available at: https://www.johnlewispartnership.co.uk/content/dam/cws/pdfs/Juniper/ARA/JLP-Annual-Report-and-Accounts-2024.pdf (Accessed: 04 October 2024)

Pan, Y. and Froese, F.J. (2023) ‘An interdisciplinary review of AI and HRM: Challenges and future directions’. Human resource management review, 33(1), p.100924.

Rubin, E.V. and Edwards, A. (2020) ‘The performance of performance appraisal systems: understanding the linkage between appraisal structure and appraisal discrimination complaints’. The International Journal of Human Resource Management, 31(15), pp.1938-1957.

Saks, A.M.(2022)‘Caring human resources management and employee engagement’. Human resource management review, 32(3), p.100835.

Salas?Vallina, A., Alegre, J. and López?Cabrales, Á.(2021)‘The challenge of increasing employees' well?being and performance: How human resource management practices and engaging leadership work together toward reaching this goal’. Human Resource Management, 60(3), pp.333-347.

Setiawati, T. and Ariani, I.D. (2020) ‘Influence of performance appraisal fairness and job satisfaction through commitment on job performance’. Review of Integrative Business and Economics Research, 9(3), pp.133-151.

Shrouf, H., Al-Qudah, S., Khawaldeh, K., Obeidat, A. and Rawashdeh, A.J.M.S.L.(2020)‘A study on relationship between human resources and strategic performance: The mediating role of productivity’. Management Science Letters, 10(13), pp.3189-3196.

Statista (2024) British Economy. Available at: https://www.statista.com/topics/6500/the-british-economy/#topicOverview (Accessed: 04 October 2024)

Statista (2024) UK business. Available at: https://www.statista.com/topics/6848/businesses-in-the-uk/#topicOverview (Accessed: 04 October 2024)

Tanveer, M.I., Yusliza, M.Y. and Fawehinmi, O.(2024)‘Green HRM and hospitality industry: challenges and barriers in adopting environmentally friendly practices’. Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Insights, 7(1), pp.121-141.