This is a solution of UK College Human Resource Management Assignment which discusses about management if Human Resources in companies, analyze legal and regulatory framework and more.

Introduction

Human resource management is one of the modules which are considered as one of the most important modules of any big organization. Big organizations have a lot of employees working for them and it is the need of the company that it should keep its employees satisfied so that they can out their full efforts in the work and show good performance. For this to happen, the organizations need to have a robust human resource management system. The organizations have understood the fact their success is directly dependent on the performance of the employees. The organization knows this that the management of the resources is really important to ensure better performance from them. Moreover in the industries like retail the employees are the face of the company because they have to deal with the customer and stockholders on a daily basis. This human resource management is different from personnel management which was followed earlier. Personnel management was on a need basis but Human resource management is more on a proactive approach. It include multiple roles which is associated to managing human resources which vary right from recruitment and selection of the employees to the training and development of the employees to the employee welfare and reward system management functions. There are a lot of efforts for proper management of the employees in any organization. The line managers play a very crucial role in this section. They are the ones who are working in sync with the employees and they know the employees very well. They are the ones who are responsible for the training and development of the employees. They can understand the issues with the employees and can solve them as they are the closer ones to the employees in the organization hierarchy.

Task 1

LO1 Understand the difference between personal management and human resource management

P1.1 As new internship HR Assistant at Harrods, your new manager wants you to distinguish between personnel management in Small retail organizations practicing PM and human resource management at Harrods.

There is a lot of difference between the personnel management and human resource management as their approach is different. The human resource management has a broader perspective as compared to personnel management. Personnel management is followed in smaller organization where the focus on human resources is not so important while in bigger organization it is almost compulsory to have a proper human resource management system in place. The difference can better understood if we take example of few organizations like Harrods and other small retail organizations. The psychological contract is commitment based in human resource management at Harrods and compliance based in case of personnel management in small retail companies (Wright, 1992). Planning in Personnel management is mostly reactive while in the case of human resource management at Harrods and in small retail organization is short term. The control system is external in Personnel management in small companies and it is self-controlled in human resource management at Harrods. In Personnel management in small retail organization the structure of the organization is more of a bureaucratic form while in human resource management at Harrods it is organic and flexible. The evaluation criteria in personnel management in small retail companies is cost minimization while in human resource management at Harrods it is maximum utilization of resources. The roles are more professional in Personnel management in small retail organizations and in case of human resource management at Harrods it is integrated with the line managers.

P1.2 Access the function of Human Resource Management in contributing to Harrods purpose

The human resource management plays a very crucial role in the success of any organization. Here the success of Harrods is also majorly dependent on the performance of the human resources and the human resource management is contributing towards fulfilling this purpose of Harrods. The human resources management plays a lot of roles as mentioned before like recruitment and selection of employees, training and development of the employees, reward management system, employees’ welfare, shift management, attendance management, leave management, payroll management, etc. as shown below.

The human resource management is really important to handle the human resources as per the need of the organization. All the above mentioned functions are really important from the employee perspective and they need to be performed properly to keep the employee satisfied and make them perform properly.

P1.3 Evaluate the role and responsibilities of line managers in   the human resource management department at Harrods

The line managers are playing a very important role in the organizations. They are the people who manage the employees closely. They know the in and out of all the employees and they know how to manage them. They are the link between the employees and the top management. They are responsible for the training and development of the employees. They know the strengths and the weaknesses of the employees and can make use of them accordingly. They can also help the employees to overcome the weaknesses. They also estimate the requirement of the employees and help the management. They develop the employees with the skills which is required in the organization. The line managers know that who will be most suitable for a suitable role in the organization (Hollenbeck, 1997). They also understand the weaknesses of the employees and help they improve their performance by overcoming their weaknesses. In a nutshell they help the employees and manage them to help the organization achieve its objectives. For the beginning, when this department was introduces in the companies, line managers have a major function to play and they remain highly involved in the human resource practices in any company. Here we will analyse the involvement of the line managers in the human recourse management at Harrods. At Harrods the human resource management team plays a very vital role so line managers’ contribution is very important. They are responsible for mainly driving better performance of the employees and to keep them updated with the skills required in the projects. They know how to handle the employees and they also look after the requirements of the employees.

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

The legal and regulatory framework on Harrods has a high impact. The legal and regulatory framework is applied by the top authorities on the firm and on their policies. Their policies are formulated keeping in mind these rules and regulatory framework. It is basically made for the betterment of the employees and the society. Sometimes it is in favour of the organization and sometimes it is against it but it is made in favour of the employees. The practice at Harrods is to formulate the human resource policies depending on the legal and regulatory framework which is taking care of controlling the part of the employees, the equality of the employees, performance discrimination, looking after the responsibilities of the employees as well as protecting their rights. The legal and regulatory frameworks are basically developed with the view point of protecting the rights of the employees and are directed to their development. It is basically looking for the development of the employees and the society as a whole and also looks after the protection of the rights of the people. They also make sure that the organizations do not harm the society in any way.  In favour of employees it is made to make sure that the right of the employees are protected for example the minimum wages that needs to be sent to the employees, to protect their leaves that should be provided to the employees, to fix the work timings for the employees, for women employee safety etc. (Armstrong, 2003).

Task 2

LO2 Understand how to recruit people

P2.1 Analyse the Reasons for Human Resource Management at Harrods

There are many reasons for human resource management at Harrods. Harrods performance and success is totally dependent on this human resource management. The Harrods being such a big brand name, it is really important to maintain that brand image that they have and for that they need to have an efficient and effective employee workforce and they need to be managed efficiently. This calls for a robust human resource management system. For a company like Harrods where the human resource are the one who interact with the customers, stakeholders on a day to day basis, it is really important to have them managed properly. Harrods also have such big stores which accommodate a lot of employees and a lot of synchronization is needed between them and a lot of skills are needed. As we have seen that there are so many roles performed by the human resource management as discussed in the above segment which is really important and hence it is so much required to get that roles performed.

P2.2 Outline the stages that Harrods can adapt in planning human resource Requirements

This is one of the most important decisions that any organization has to make and this requires a lot of calculations. This can be done by the organization with ease if they follow certain stages. It is really very difficult of calculate the exact requirement of human resources by the organization but we can estimate an approximate figure which will be much closer to the exact requirement. There are several stages for this process and the organization should follow this process. The common requirement here is to understand the total requirement that the company may face depending on the current requirement as well as the future required based on the projects the organization is expected to undertake or based on the extension plans. Then they need to identify that which are the skills and resources that are already available with the organization and faintly how much requirement more is there and accordingly how much have to be recruited. The common stages which we are thinking of here are as follows. Firstly we need to identify the human resource management problems and opportunities which becomes the base of the requirement. Then the next stage would be to keep a database of the current and future needs of Human Resources. Further the next step would be to analyse the human resources that is already available with the organization and finally this will help to calculate the final requirement of the origination apart from the already available resources. Lastly a proper plan is required to fill this gap i.e., interface the needs of the human resources and the human resources available with the company.

P2.3 Compare the recruitment and selection process of Harrods with another organization such as John Lewis, M&S or Sainsbury etc.

The recruitment and selection process is the same for all the companies but just there are some differences between them in the examination process and the kind of examination taken. This also differs in the rounds of examination taken. In Harrods the examination process is very long and a lot of examination is taken for the applicants for Harrods. This is not the case with other organizations like Marks and Spencer.

The company Harrods follows such a long procedure to make sure that the employees who are finally recruited after such a long procedure if best among the lot and have all the skills and talent which is required for the specific role for which he or she is selected. The recruitment and selection process starts at Harrods with Initial application.  It seeks initial application from all the aspirants with all the details regarding the skills, education, experience, strengths, etc. Then they filter out some of the applicants based on the application. The next step would be telephone and video conferencing. The sleeted applicants are interviewed over call and video.  Next round is personal interview where selected applicants are called to assessment centres. If successful in the last stage they are asked to meet one of the recruiters for face to face interview. They are examined by giving some real time tasks, followed by final interviews. As we can see this is a very big procedure. At Marks and Spencer also the selection procedure is somewhat same but it a bit short as compared to that of Harrods. Marks and Spencer also asks for CVs on their website from aspirants who want to work for the company. The aspirants can just submit the CV on the company website and then they are contacted when the demand comes.  After they are selected based on their CVs, they are asked to go through a proper examination process. The examination process involves various tests like solving real life problems, doing role plays, written exams and finally face to face interview.

P2.4 Evaluate the effectiveness of the recruitment and selection techniques in the above two selected organizations

The recruitment and selection procedure is very effective for both the companies because the kind of procedure followed is very effective and will help to recruit the skills and talent which they are looking for. Actually it will help the companies to recruit people who are the best in the spool for a specific role which they are looking to perform. The procedure examines the applicants in all those ways which is necessary to bring out the skills which they require. They have a very robust examination procedure in their recruitment and selection process and hence we can say the process is effective enough. It is really important for the employees’ part to have the skills to manage difficult situations and maintain the brand name of the organization.

Task 3

LO3 Understand how to reward employees in order to motivate and retain them

P3.1 Assess the link between motivation theory and its reward with an application in Harrods Case study

There exist a relationship between the motivation theory and its reward with the application in Harrods case. It is really important to motivate the employees of an organization to make sure they perform better and even to keep them satisfied and to keep them satisfied and motivated they need to be rewarded for the good work. So we can say that they are related to each other. The motivation theory and its rewards are closely linked to each other. Actually the reward system is the role of the human resource department and this is really important to make sure the people performing better than other should be recognized and they should be motivated by providing those rewards (Purcell, 2007). This will also encourage the underperforming employees to perform better and achieve the awards and rewards fixed for better performance. If the employees are not motivated in the organization then the employees’ performance will come down. According to a case study of the human resource management at Harrods, the rewards and awards have a direct link with the motivation theory at the company. Read about Hospitality Provisions in IT Sector.

P3.2 Research and Evaluate the process of job evaluation and other factors determining pay with special reference to Harrods as your scenario

The job evaluation process at Harrods is very robust and helps to fix the importance of a role based on the relation to the other roles and with the same role in other combines also. They define the importance of the role with the impact also it has on the overall functioning and based on these facts the pay structure of the job is also decided. The job is evaluated based on the job roles and the impact it will have on the project. If we go by the definition, Job evaluation is defined as the process where the job significance and importance is decided in the organization. Based on that job compensation is also decided. Now the importance of the job is decided by evaluating the roles which is needed to be performed at that level, the importance of that job as compared to the jobs in the organization, the value addition of the job, etc. (Wood, 1998). All these factors are consolidated to evaluate the job at Harrods.

P3.3 Assess the effectiveness of reward systems in different contexts with reference to Harrods

The reward system is really effective which can be actually explained in different contexts. The people are rewarded based on the work they do and the way they have performed any role in the organization. Also the people who perform better should be awarded to keep their efforts valued and to motivate them to perform better because in absence of this they will not feel like performing better if it gores unrecognized. The reward system will also create a sense of competition between the employees and people will try to perform better based on this reward system. This is really important for big organization to make the employees perform better than each other to achieve this reward. The reward systems are really very important from different perspectives with reference to Harrods. It is really very important to keep the employees happy and motivated to perform better in the organization. For this it is really very important for the reward system to be effective. It should be made sure that the awards should be given to those who deserve it the most and there should be no discrimination in this aspect.

P3.4 Examine the methods adopted by Harrods that is using to monitor employee performance. Comment with any suggestion

Harrods adopts different methods to monitor the employee performance. They have a proper performance evaluation method in place where they measure the performance for the employees based on the role they were assigned and the quality of work performed. They also consider that of the employee has added anything which is valuable for the business and has made something which can be sued by the project. They see if the employee has also taken some extra initiative to perform better and made the business easier or something.  They also take feedback from the heads and see if the role that was assigned was completed in time and with good quality. They also see if the employees have the quality to work in team and help other in their work. They also see the skills the employee has adopted while the period for which they are evaluating the employee. These are some of the most important factors on which the employee performance is judged in Harrods.

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Task 4

LO4 Know the mechanisms for cessation of employment

P4.1 Identify the reasons for cessation of employment with special reference to Harrods in General

There are many reasons why the employee leave the organization or the organization make the employee leave the company. There are a lot of reason which include a variety from not performing well in the organization to a lot of discrimination in the organization. So the employee dissatisfaction is one of the modes which make them leave the organization now for the dissatisfaction mode there can be a lot of reasons. These reasons are for the cessation of the employees like recession, bad market conditions, economic slowdown, and poor performance. There can be other reasons like the employees being no0t happy with the company policies, or the company is showing discrimination or the employees may be getting better jobs in other companies or the employees are not given proper facilities they require so they are not getting better opportunities in the organization.

P4.2 Research and Describe the employment exit procedures used by Harrods and compare it with any other organization of your choice.

The exit procedure followed by Harrods is similar to what is followed in all the organization. It starts with an online application of leaving the organization. After they have a lot of formalities to be completed and take several approvals and finally it ends with an exit interview. In this exit interview, the organization tries to understand the reason for which the employee has left the company. This procedure is more or less in all the organization like Harrods or Marks and Spencer. There is proper procedure for this which starts with application of resignation online, taking proper approvals, signing several no dues, check if the employees is breaking any company policy like time bond, it also include an exit interview where the employees are offered better facilities or role and try to retain the employees within the organization or understand the reason for the employee resignation.

P4.3 Consider the impact of the legal and regulatory framework on employment cessation arrangements with special reference to Harrods.

The legal and regulatory framework has very high impact on employment cessation arrangements with respect to Harrods.  The rules and regulatory framework protects the employees that they should be released from the company on unfair means and there should be fair reasons for employees to be released from the company. This also helps to protect the employee termination due to different reasons like discrimination, retaliation, when employees refuse to do an illegal act, when the company does not follow proper termination process.  This protects the employees from getting terminated due to race, nationality, age, sexual orientation, etc.

Conclusion

Based on what we have seen in the above segments we can say the organizations can perform better if they work on some of the things like having a very robust human resource management system. The human resource management system should be able to perform all the roles that was defined in the above segment and should be effective enough in those roles. Above all the employees needs to mnoti8vated to perform better which is the key role of an effective human resource management system of and organization.

References

• Wright, P. M., & McMahan, G. C. 1992. Theoretical perspectives for strategic human resource management. Journal of management, 18(2), 295-320.
• Hollenbeck, J. R., Gerhart, B., & Wright, P. M. 1997. Human resource management: Gaining a competitive advantage. Irwin.
• Purcell, J., & Hutchinson, S. 2007. Front?line managers as agents in the HRM?performance causal chain: theory, analysis and evidence. Human Resource Management Journal, 17(1), 3-20.
• Wood, R., & Payne, T. 1998. Competency-based recruitment and selection. Chichester: Wiley.
• Anderson, N., Born, M., & Cunningham-Snell, N. 2002. Recruitment and selection: Applicant perspectives and outcomes.
• Becker, B., & Gerhart, B. 1996. The impact of human resource management on organizational performance: Progress and prospects. Academy of management journal, 39(4), 779-801.
• Youndt, M. A., Snell, S. A., Dean, J. W., & Lepak, D. P. 1996. Human resource management, manufacturing strategy, and firm performance. Academy of management Journal, 39(4), 836-866.
• Armstrong, M. 2003. A handbook of human resource management practice. Kogan Page Limited.

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