This solution is written for theHND College Human Resource Management Assignment, Human resource management is important unit of HND business course.

Introduction

In the context of any big organization, human resource and personal development of the employees are the two sides of a coin. These two are related through different activities. In this paper we are going to explore these activities and also the different techniques of motivation. For the success of any organization it is very important that the staff they are recruiting fulfils the requirement of the position for which the recruitment is going on. Another aspect of good human resource is the retaining of the good employees who has the good knowledge of the concerned area and company has invested highly in their development (Kehoe & Wright, 2013, pp. 381).

On the other hand, human resource management includes that the process of hiring the employees and retaining them is following all kinds of legal and regularization techniques. As most of the managers have accepted that the employees they have are the most valuable resources for the company and retaining the good old staff has always been the priority in their job description.

LO1 Personnel management and human resource management

P 1.1 Harrods and Small Businesses

The terms personal management and human resource management have always been the cause of confusion to the managers in any company. Though if looked only at the outer side both of the terms mean same to the common people, but managers have to distinguish between them and use them appropriately. Personal Management is the term which is older than human resource management and used in managing the people in small companies. Human resource management has a wide area than personal management and deals with the overall performance of the company and strengthens the human resources in the company through various activities and also takes care of hiring the quality staff and reward schemes. In Harrods, Human Resource Management is the key department which has contributed a lot in the success of the company. Harrods is a 160 years old business and employs more than 4500 people (Boxall & Purcell, 2003, pp. 84). British; Luxury; Service; Innovation and Sensation are the five values of Harrods and it is the responsibility of the HRM department to engage the employees who could adhere to these values and work towards making these values better. On the other hand professional Development in the small companies is just limited to organize the current staff and hiring the staff as per the requirements given by the managers.

P 1.2 Function of Human Resource Management

As mentioned above the purpose of the human resource department is to take care of the five values of Harrods and to achieve that, human resource has to make sure that they have working people are qualified and productive in the company and also the staff they are hiring is according to the standards of Harrods. It is the job of the human resource that they keep the engaged people in the company because these kinds of people always go for the hard work and accept the challenges happily. Engaged people are the employees of the company who participate in the decision making process at the Harrods and these are the resources which are most important for the Harrods because they understands the responsibilities given to them by Harrods. Respecting these employees and developing more employees like these is the main function of the human resource at the Harrods. Other than these, there are three more activities which human resource follows at Harrods:

• Recruitment and selection - Recruitment and selection of the best talent available in the market is the primary function of the human resource at Harrods. The requirements are given by the developing manager for managing human resource and finds the talents which fulfill conditions.
• Performance - Keeping an eye on the performance of the employees is another function of the human resource. Enabling the employees who are not able to perform their duties effectively is managed by the human resource department. Human resource provides these employees training opportunities which help these employees in doing their job perfectly (Becker & Gerhart, 1996, pp. 780).
• Development - Development of the employees in Harrods is also the responsibilities of the human resource department. To persuade the engaged employees in building their long term relations with Harrods and help them in the process is the one thing which human resource is doing perfectly at Harrods. Human resource provides the career progressive opportunities to the employees in the company.

P 1.3 Roles and responsibilities of line managers

Line Managers at Harrods work as a mentor to the staff and to new employees in the company. They are like the coaches who train the people and also listen to their problems. They are also the advisors and guides to the employees in the company who might not have the knowledge as the line managers and it is the duty of the line managers to fulfil that gap. These activities also help the line managers in developing the managerial skills, leadership skills, communication skills, forming a bond with the employees in the company and also enforcing the trust among the employees at Harrods. Sometimes line managers might not be agree with the decisions of the human resource department and they help the human resource in understanding people and also suggest the different options which could be very helpful to human resource department. In the recent days, a new phenomenon has been developed in the business which is outsourcing the work to other companies and countries (Delaney & Huselid, 1996, pp. 981). It is also the responsibility of the line managers to handle the outsourced work and make these companies deliver the quality work. To do this sometimes line managers have to learn foreign languages which are an extra burden on them. Line managers also take part in the strategic execution of the policies of the company. Line managers also handle the personal management and employees relation programs.

P1.4 Impact of legal and regulatory framework on Harrods human resource management

Taking care of the legal issues and policies is very important for company, especially when company is as big as Harrods which has its presence in many places. All these places have different legal policies as per the state rules. Another issue Harrods faced long time back was the copyright issues with other stores. It is the duty of the brand managers to take care of copyright issues and they may take help from the legal authorities to handle the issues.

The regulatory framework which is followed by the human resource department at Harrods mainly deals with the contracts with the employees. When human resource hires new employees, they sign a contract with the employees which mentions the probation period of 6 months. If the employees performance is not up to the standards, they might be fired based on the probation condition in the contract.

Another feature of the legal framework adopted by the human resource department at Harrods is taking care of the government policies regarding the wages of the employees, health of the employees and safety of the employees.

LO2 Understand how to recruit employees

P 2.1 Reasons for human resource planning at Harrods

Employees in any company is the key to success of the company and when it comes to the company like Harrods which has 45000 employees, human resource department is very much required. It is the human resource department who handles all the employees in the company and manages the task like recruiting the new talent, retaining the engaged employees, deal with the problems of the employees, taking care of the scheduling and rotation of the employees and handle the wages of the employees. Maintaining the employee relationships is also the responsibility of the HRM (MacDuffie, 1995, pp. 203).

Few years ago Harrods was facing the problem of Employee Turnover, which measure the rate at which employees of a particular company leaves the company in their first year of employment. This was the time when Harrods found out the need of a good human resource department. To resolve this problem, human resource department at Harrods conducted a survey of all the employees in the Harrods and found out the problems they were facing and recommended the management to take actions to resolve employees’ issues.

The reasons why human resource planning is necessary at Harrods could be summarized as below.

1. Retaining the engaged employees
2. Employee satisfaction
3. Managing the employees’ training
4. Getting in touch with line managers to get the requirement for the job
5. Hiring the best talent in the market.
6. Negotiating the salary with new employees
7. Managing the awards and appraisals.
8. Managing the discussion and forums to let the employees participate in decision making.

P 2.2 Stages that Harrods can adapt in planning human resource Requirements

Planning a human resource requirement is an incremental process, which start with the hiring the good HR managers. These managers should be highly qualified and should have the experience in the retail industry in the case of Harrods. For other companies which are in different fields, the requirement of experience is different. Human resource requirements are mostly provided by the line managers who provide the HR exact job description for which the position is vacant in their projects. Once these requirements are received, human resource would go through the following stages to complete the requirement.

1. Searching the Company database for existing resumes
2. Put the job requirement on different job portals
3. Use the referral program
4. Shortlisting of the resumes received through the job portal
5. Conducting the telephonic interview on the primarily basis.
6. Calling the candidates who seem satisfactory in telephonic conversations
7. Arrange a panel of managers or subject matter experts to conduct the interviews.
8. Negotiating the salary packages with selected candidates
9. Once the candidate is on board HR has to make sure that he knows all the policies and processes followed in Harrods.
10. Arrange a tour of the company’s different departments
11. Completing the formalities like salary account openings and ID cards issuing.

P 2.3 Comparison in the recruitment and selection process at Harrods with another Business

Every company has different policies for recruitment which are based upon the organizational structure of the company and also the type of Requirement Company has at that time. In this part of the paper a comparison of the recruitment process at Harrods and Sainsbury will be covered. Harrods is completely dependent on its Human Resource Department which performs the recruitment process in the way that has been followed since the birth of Harrods. The different stages of the recruitment processes are explained in the last paragraph. Harrods’ human resource department also hires the employees which are referred by the existing employees of the company. Human resource conducts all the processes as they do for other candidates. Referral is not a guarantee of the selection and is not considered a factor when deciding which employee is fir for the requirement.

Sainsbury, on the other hand outsource the recruitment process to other companies or consultancies. By doing this Sainsbury reduces the efforts in recruitment and their human resource department could focus on other issues at hand. The consultancies hired by the Sainsbury selects the candidates on the basis of the requirements given to them by Sainsbury. They conduct the primary interview and the candidates who are selected by the consultancies, sent to Sainsbury for the final interview which is called managerial round or HR round.

P 2.4 Effectiveness of the recruitment and selection techniques in the above two selected organizations

Both of the techniques explained above in Harrods and Sainsbury have their own pros and cons. Since both techniques are so much different than a point to point comparison is not possible and it is also difficult to compare their effectiveness. The technique adopted by Harrods seems to be more time taking and involving many resources of the human resource department which is definitely not good, but the advantage of this technique is that human resource is able to find the resources which match exactly the requirements given by line managers. At Harrods, line managers are included in the interview panel which makes it possible to hire the right talent. It may take more time and resources but finally this technique is very effective.

The technique applied by the Sainsbury depends upon the consultancies they hire fir the recruitment purpose. The biggest challenge in applying this technique is finding the right consultancy to outsource the requirement process. Since the interviewers in the consultancy might not be the subject matter expert, they might not be able to get the best talent in the market. The last interview in this process is held by the HR of the Sainsbury where only managerial questions are asked and negotiating on the salary is done. The line managers are completely absent in this process. This is the reason that this process may take less time and efforts, but may not be effective as the technique adopted by Harrods.

LO3 How to reward employees in order to motivate and retain them

P 3.1 Link between motivation theory and its reward with an application on Harrods Case study

There are many motivational theories explained by many authors and applying them is a very good idea to keep the employees motivated and cease the employee turnover. Maslow’s hierarchy of needs motivational theory is one the best theories which are adopted by the Harrods. According to the theory by Maslow, every person has its own needs and if these needs are not satisfied by the company, they could create a tension in the mind of the employee and he may not be able to perform his work duties efficiently. Maslow has divided his theory of hierarchy of needs into 6 levels and suggested that a need at higher level would only arise if the need at lower level is fulfilled. These levels are summarized below:

1. Self-Actualization needs
2. Participation in decision making
3. Esteem needs
4. Social needs
5. Safety needs
6. Physiological needs

Harrods has successfully implemented these six levels of needs and doing everything they could to satisfy the needs of the employees. At Harrods, Democratic leadership is followed which gives the employees a chance to be the part of the decision making. The advices from employees are taken into account and implemented in the policies of the company. People are assigned challenging and creative work, which satisfy their Actualization needs and promotion are given to the employees for good work which satisfy their esteem needs.

P 3.2 The process of job evaluation and other factors determining pay

At Harrods, pay determination is purely based upon the performance of the employees. These performance are measured not only in the work assigned to them bus also the initiative taken by the employees to make Harrods a better place to work (Ulrich, 2013, pp. 376). The job evaluation at Harrods is multilevel process which makes it perfect for determining the pay. In this process, first of all the employee is asked to submit a self-evaluation form, which is forwarded to the team lead. Team lead mentions his comments on the assessment done by the employee and may add some comments also. Once the team lead is done with the evaluation, form reaches to the line manager which discusses the points mentioned in the form with HR of the company. In this discussion the performance of the employee is evaluated on the basis of the comments given by the team lead. Employee self-assessment is also considered in this matter. Once the evaluation is done and pay is decided, HR calls up the employee for the pay discussion and listens to the employee. If the employee is not happy with the pay HR may take a final decision on the pay and increase it to an extent if convinced by the arguments of the employee.

P 3.3 Effectiveness of reward systems

The rewards system in an organization has always been the topic of interest for the employees. But the effectiveness of the reward system depends upon what is being rewarded and who is being reward. Sometimes a person whose performance is not very good but he is rewarded due to some reasons could affect the effectiveness of the reward system. Another issue is what is being rewarded. If a reward is provided to the employee but he has no use of that reward, the effectiveness of the reward system is affected.

Rewards play an important role in the motivation of the employees. It is not necessary that these rewards are always monetary, but anything which makes people happy is considered a good reward. At Harrods the reward system comes under the human resource department. Human resource department evaluate all the employees in the above mentioned manner and reward the people who are at the top of the performance list.

P 3.4 Methods adopted by Harrods to monitor employee performance

The performance of the employee is determined in the way which is explained in the above paragraphs. Other than this there are several activities which are used to evaluate the performance of the employee. One method is the daily status report, which employee submits to his reporting manager. This report contains all the duties performed by the employee on that particular day. The manager consolidates all these reports which come in very handy during the time of performance evaluation. Another performance measure is the initiative taken by the employee when a challenging task comes and other people do not want to take that up. If an employee takes initiative in this kind of condition, it really counts in his performance evaluation. Attendance and regularity of the employee is also considered in the Harrods Performance Evaluation (Gatewood, Feild & Barrick, 2010, pp. 97).

LO4 Mechanisms for the cessation of employment

P 4.1 Reasons for cessation of employment

Cessation of the employee is the prime responsibility of the human resource department in any company. Human Resource does everything possible to cease the current employees. The main points behind the importance are mentioned below:

1. High cost of recruiting new employees
2. Loss of expertise of the employee in a particular area he had been working
3. Need for training the new employees hired

These three reasons are the key factor in reducing the turnover of the employees. If an employee leaves the company, human resource has to find a new resource for that job with the qualification required (Becker & Gerhart, 1996, pp. 94). The cost of recruitment has become very high these days, whether it is self-recruiting or outsourcing the recruitment. The next reason to cease the employee is that company has invested very much in the training of these employees and when an employee leaves the company, he also takes away his training and experience with him. Another reason for cessation of the employees is that human resource has to start the training of the new employees again from the scratch, which takes time and efforts.

P 4.2 employment exit procedures used by Harrods

As mentioned above that Harrods does everything possible to cease the employees but still they cannot stop the turnover of the employees completely. As the recruitment of the employees is the responsibility of the human resource department, so is the exit procedure of the employee. The procedure followed by the human resource could be divided into the following steps:

1. Employee submits his resignation to his reporting manager.
2. Manager arranges a meeting with the employee to know the reason of resign.
3. Manager forwards the resignation to the human resource and human resource setup an exit interview with the employee.
4. Human resource check the performance of the employee and if the performance is found good and worthy, HR meets with the employee and offers him some benefits to stay in the company.
5. If the employee still wants to resign, HR asks him to complete the notice period as mentioned in the contract.
6. If the employee does not want to serve the notice period, it is up to the HR that he may grant him the leave as soon as possible but may take the salary from the employees according to the notice period.
7. HR instructs the IT department to close the email account of the employee and also instruct the admin department to collect the ID card and any other particulars which belongs to the company

P 4.3 impact of the legal and regulatory framework on employment cessation

Employment cessation is a very important part of the human resource department which also has the impacts on the legal and regulatory framework of the company. Since cessation or termination affects both of the parties i.e. the company and the employee, there are many legal laws which need to be followed by both. The first one is the labour law, which makes sure that employee is not ceased by the company by using any kind of force. The legal rights of the employee while working in the company are highlighted below:

1. Right to safety and protection while working for the company
2. Any kind of discrimination against the employee due to any reason is prohibited by the legal framework.
3. Freedom of leaving the organization due to any personal unavoidable reason.

These three points form the basis of the legal and regularity framework for employee cessation, but companies are also given some liberty in the legal framework. For example, if the employee has signed a contract with the company in which notice period is mentioned, he has to complete that period or buyout that period according to the contract (Huselid, M. A. (1995, pp. 660).

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Conclusion

In this particular paper, Harrods Human Resource policies are studied deeply and various responsibilities of the human resource are explained. How to reduce the employee turnover and provide them a good environment is also explained. Recruitment and selection process at Harrods is also explained. The one thing which is most important for the company is cessation of the employees and it could be done by motivating the employees. Maslow’s theory of hierarchy needs fulfil this purpose and it has been analysed that Harrods is following the theory very well and able to satisfy the needs of the employees. Harrods has also adopted the survey of employees practice and in a recent survey around 91% employee of the Harrods said that they were proud of working at Harrods. The reason for this is the good human resource management at the Harrods along with the personal management of the employees. A comparison between the recruitment process of Harrods and Sainsbury is also discussed and found out that both companies use different approaches to recruit the new employees; where Harrods go for the new recruitment through their human resource department, Sainsbury outsources the process. The pros and cons of both approaches are explained in the paper.

References

Huselid, M. A. (1995). The impact of human resource management practices on turnover, productivity, and corporate financial performance. Academy of management journal, 38(3), 635-672. Ulrich, D. (2013). Human resource champions: The next agenda for adding value and delivering results. Harvard Business Press. Gatewood, R., Feild, H., & Barrick, M. (2010). Human resource selection. Cengage Learning. Guest, D. E. (2011). Human resource management and performance: still searching for some answers. Human Resource Management Journal, 21(1), 3-13. Kehoe, R. R., & Wright, P. M. (2013). The impact of high-performance human resource practices on employees’ attitudes and behaviors. Journal of Management, 39(2), 366-391. Arthur, J. B. (1994). Effects of human resource systems on manufacturing performance and turnover. Academy of Management journal, 37(3), 670-687. Boxall, P., & Purcell, J. (2003). Strategy and human resource management.Industrial & Labor Relations Review, 57(1), 84. Fombrun, C. J., Tichy, N. M., & Devanna, M. A. (1984). Strategic human resource management.

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