Unit 3 Human Resource Management Assignment Solution

Program	Diploma in Business
Unit Number and Title	Unit 3 Human Resource Management
QFC Level	Level 4

Introduction

Every organisation compromises of human resource management that serves the purpose of recruiting appropriate candidates for their organisation. It is essential for the human resource management to determine the needs of the organisation and provide them appropriate candidates to increase the productivity of business organisation (Boxall and Purcell, 2011). Apart from that, laws and regulations are another aspect that must be considered in the organisation. Laws and regulation are important for maintaining a proper work ethics. In this essay, the learner creates a contrasting discussion on the two variables and presents an informative study by exploring the concepts which includes several perspectives of the organisation and develops the study accordingly.

Analysis

Key concepts and terminology in HRM

As quoted by Patrick & Kumar (2012), Human resource management is considered to be a dynamic asset to the organisation as they responsible in dealing with various tasks of the organisation that includes looking after the performance of employees, benefits for the employee, providing training, and others to name a few that directly reflects on the working environment of the organisation. Human resource manager is considered to be an important pillar in the development process of human resource team. In addition to this, the human resource management of an organisation is responsible for,

Figure1 – Responsibilities of HRM

Employment laws and regulations are put into effect by the management team of human resource for bringing equality among the employees. It is specifically designed to protect the right of employee. These laws are taken into account for fair practices. Retention of employees is another important aspect for the organisation to take into account. Many organisations are not able to retain employees because of ineffective services and benefits for the organisation (Armstrong, 2011). However, every organisation has good employees and they have to retain them. Under such circumstances, the organisation provides extra benefits to the employees such as vacation, extra perks, recognition programs and many others.

Retaining good employees are essential as it helps them to maintain the productivity of the organisation. Competency valuation helps in determining the performance of an employee by looking at the criteria and the conditions of the organisation. Sometimes the employees of the organisation has to undergo certain training or education to improve the standards of the employee that the organisation feels to be worthy of. Performance review helps the employee to identify their potential by reviewing the performance chart and analyse their strength and weakness (Bratton and Gold, 2012). Succession planning is another way of identifying the strength and weakness of employees by HR management. 

These stages in Human resource management helps an organisation to identify their employees and provide them with proper training and courses to improve their productivity in the organisation. It also enables the organisation to maintain high quality standards and operates in team.

Managing people in the organisation is one of the important jobs of the organisation as it involves concrete evidences to support the organisational production. The success of organisation depends on the human resource; however it is not easy for the management to handle the data of the entire employee in the organisation. Therefore, human resource of every company has developed a set of rules and regulations that comply with the European Union laws and regulation.

European Union Laws and regulation defines the rights of the employee in an organisation.  In addition to this, the organisation also focuses on the equality of the employees. In addition to this, the EU laws and regulations primarily focus on working condition, working hours, part time and fixed time jobs. These rules and regulation safeguards the interest of the employees and help them to do their job properly (Chang, Gong, and Shum, 2011). Hence when an employee is hired by an organisation, both the parties enter into an agreement by accepting the terms and conditions of the employee. It is essential for the company to safeguard the rights of the employee and theirs by initiating these laws. These help them to function properly in the business environment.

Some of the laws and regulations that safeguards the right of employees in an organisation are

• Receive the right to statement of employment
• Has the right to receive itemised pay slip
• Right to be paid the national minimum wage
• Right to have deduction illegally by the organisation
• Right to paid holiday
• Right to receive paternity and maternity leaves
• Right to equality

These are some of the basic laws and legislations in EU laws that safeguard the employee and the organisation. The company is bound to provide these benefits to their employees. 

Relevance with organisational contexts

Diversity management explains the strategy to implement the best organisational practices to develop a proper diverse and inclusive workplace that can improve the organisational performance overall. Every organisation implements such activities in their organisation and hence it can be said that this helps them to develop necessary steps in developing the required goals and objectives of the company (Kehoe and Wright, 2013). In order to create perfect diversity management criteria, the organisation has to identify,

• The goals and objectives of the organisation: It is essential for the organisation to identify their goals and objectives to shape the goals of the company. A diverse approach is not possible for every organisation and requires understanding the working styles.
• Realistic Approach: the organisation has to be logical and realistic of their approach in business and towards their employees of the organisation. A realistic approach to the goals and objectives of the business provides a proper direction to the goals of the organisation.
• Build in metrics: it is essential to determine the long term and short term goals of the organisation. This helps in establishing the timeline for the goal.
• Assemble your resources: resources are considered to be the blood line for the organisation. Without proper capital, funding, employee, an organisation cannot operate and hence requires proper support to operate in the market place.
• Educate: providing appropriate training to the employees is also an essential responsibility for the organisation in order to improve their worth in the organisation and increase the productivity of the organisation. 

So, the important thing to understand in this assignment is how the laws and legislation with the help of diversity management approach creates working conditions for the employees in the organisation. It is important to understand the various contexts of the organisation and the learner uses some of the most promising information to add to the discussion (Bennett and Ho, 2014.)

Diversity management approach has helped the organisation to perform adequately well as it has helped in expanding the business operation in a diverse form. The recent developments in the legislations have brought changes in the workflow and hence have improved the employee base of every organisation. Every organisation in Europe that falls under the EU laws and legislations are not able to implement the idea of diversity management because the management does not have the strength to promote such management. This mainly occurs in the small or medium sized organisation.

Differing qualities administration exploits the developing social pluralism that comes about because of the internationalization of business, improvement of world markets, developing workforce portability, and the expanding familiarity with individual contrasts. Break even with work opportunity begins remotely and is authorized through enactment, though differing qualities administration begins inside, through the endeavours to make a climate of correspondence and a completely comprehensive authoritative culture at work (Jackson et al. 2014).The organisation through a proper diversity management approach can help the organisation to achieve the short term and long term goals of the company.

The function of human resource management has increased over the years and therefore this process has made itself worthy enough to handle huge crowd of employees under their organisation(Boxall and Purcell, 2011). Through proper approach the human resource management has included the key practices of involving the process such as recruitment, training and development of the employees, appraisals, and performance management to identify the strength of worthy employees.

Critical awareness of theory and practice to employee sourcing

Employee sourcing is a process to identify, assess and engage skilled employees in an organisation though proper recruitment process. With the development of business strategy, this process of recruiting young talents for the organisation has been termed as talent acquisition. The process remains the same but changes the outlook of the method. Some of the best ways of employee resourcing includes,

• Defining the job position and responsibility: in order to recruit the most effective employees, it is essential for the organisation to provide proper information on the job description. A proper job description helps an organisation to welcome candidates with appropriate educational qualification, experience and skills (Changet al, 2011).  Inappropriate job description attracts unnecessary candidates that do not fit the job role.
• A proper approach: a proper approach is very important for bringing the right candidates. It is essential for the HR professionals have a proper setof mind to approach the candidates and judge them accordingly for the position they are interacting for.
• An effective advertising to spread the news: In order to promote their advertisement about new recruitment, the organisation uses online job hunting, internal job posting, and external activities to attract employees. Skills are considered to be an important event in recruiting the employees based on their credentials. Therefore approaching the right candidates through the means of advertising can be beneficial as it attracts the right applicant for the post. 
• Working efficiently with database: another way of head hunting employees is going over the database of those employees who had earlier appeared for the interview for that particular post. Every organisation has a database of employees that can be used by the organisation to provide them another chance.
• Networking: networking is a good way of collaborating with top recruiters for job. Like applicants, organisation also conducts various events to create a relation with the applicants and identify their sole purpose of recruitment and employment (Jiang,et al. 2012). Through proper approach, the organisation can get network with the help of consultancy that provides manpower to the organisation based on their requirement.

Figure2- Sources for candidates
(Source:Boxall and Purcell, 2011)

It has been noticed that there is a difference between sourcing and recruiting. For any organisation or employee resource provider, there is a catch to the process, which is recruiters do have the leverage to source, but the sourcers do not have the liberty to recruit. These steps can help the organisation in identifying potential candidates for their company. Employee resourcing can help the organisation to recruit right candidates for the job based on their merit and help them to grow professionally in the workplace and improve their career and help them to advance in their career (Muethelet al.2012). Many companies follow recruitment process through the help of internal and external sources. Internal sources include the process of recruiting a candidate through internal job posting. This happens through referral or promotion. There are many employees in the organisation that deserve this post but do not show appropriate performance to gain recognition in the company. Therefore the organisation is left with no choice but to recruit through external sources.

Internal recruitment occurs on the ground of

• Email advertisement (intranet)
• Word of mouth
• Promotions
• Employee referral

These processes are mainly carried out in the internal job posting process that picks the most influential employee from their office and offers them a higher position in the organisation. Human resource management is completely responsible for this process, as they are well aware with the laws and legislation surrounding the benefits of employee development and performance and review. This also helps the human resource department to save time, money and the training cost for the internal employees (Renwicket al. 2013). However, the only flaw in this process is that the employee who has been promoted for a higher post makes the other post vacant and therefore it affects the production of the company.

External Recruitment occurs on the basis of

• Job portals
• Head hunting agencies
• Campus recruitment
• Walk-in

External recruitment makes way for the fresh talents in the organisation and helps them grow with the company. This also helps in minimising the cost of employee, in the sense that if the organisation was supposed to recruit internally they would have increase the wage of the employee, however for the new candidate it is not applicable (Armstrong and Taylor, 2014). However, the costs to hire new employees are considerably high, since they have to walk through the training, orientation and other processes to help the new employee get acquainted to the organisation.

Examine the impact of flexibility, work-life balance and diversity on the practice of HRM:

Flexibility is considered as a best strategy for HR management. The continuous iterative process aimed at keeping an organization as a whole appropriately matched to its environment. It has been observed that human resource management has implemented flexible workforce maintenance strategy for the organization (Boxall and Purcell, 2011). The entire strategy is based upon different steps such as critically observed the changing cost centres of employees; arrange selection process based on the requirement of the organization, induction and training process, training and development of skills of the employees. Retention of the employees has been maintained by the human resource management department through motivational strategy, compensation, innovation and learning process for the employees (Armstrong and Taylor, 2014). The flexibility of the human resource management is depending on the management values, risk on innovation process, and economic rationale for investment in training and utility theory. After recruitment the human resource management sometimes offers the preferable shifting to the employees and rotational shifting duty for the employees.  It helps to motivate the employees towards their job. On another hand the human resource management has developed the leave policies for the employees to motivate them (Scullion and Collings, 2011). Employment laws and regulations are developed by the human resource management department for maintaining equality among the employees. This law is maintained by the human resource management department to protect the right of employee. Employment laws and regulation laws have been maintained by the HR department for fair practices (Armstrong, 2011). Retention of employees is another important aspect for the human resource management to maintain safe and secure employee policy.

As stated by Wright and McMahan (2011, p.95), work life balance is consider as a concept which includes proper prioritizing between “work” and “lifestyle” of the employees. It has been noticed that human has developed the work life balance concept in such way that employees can spend 50% time in workplace and 50% of their time in home (Lengnick-Hall et al. 2011, p.245). It has been noticed that In addition to this, the EU laws and regulations primarily focus on working condition, working hours, part time and fixed time jobs. Hence when an employee is hired by an organisation, both the parties enter into an agreement by accepting the terms and conditions of the employee (Camelo-Ordazet al. 2011, p.1443). The human resource management has to mention the working hours in the contract paper to maintain the function properly in business environment.

According to Chang et al. (2011, p.813), the human resource management has to handle different types and employees. The employees are different in terms of culture, religion and lifestyle. Therefore it is quite challenging for the HR department to avoid conflict in workplace. Therefore, the HR executives follow different legislations like EU laws and other government legislation for maintaining work life balance with a finite amount of mental, physical and emotional resources allocate those resources in that corresponds their personal or professional goals (Jiang et al. 2012, p.1265). The human resource management has managed the employees with the help of different legislation and policy. 

Effectiveness of talent management practices: Talent management of an organisation helps the employees to develop their work skills accordingly by providing them appropriate feedbacks on improving the performance and quality of their work. In this competitive business market, organisations are developing strong employee base to retain their best employees. Therefore organisations have to be more careful in presenting information to the candidates (Muethelet al. 2012, p.526). There are certain benefits for the organisation in having a talent management department that reviews the performance of the employees. The benefits of having a talent management are to select clear expectations and align organizational goals.  It has been observed that human resource management has implemented regular performance appraisal to influence the employees (Hong et al.2012, p.65).

Conducting employee reviews to track performance: The organizations have implemented the review process to track the performance of the employees. The human resource management has to implement the monitoring process to understand the performance improvement of the employees. On another hand the performance improvement also decide the incentive amount of the employees (Renwick et al. 2013, p.5). It has been noticed that tracking performance also improves the time management for the managers. The HR department also improves the tracking process to understand whether the employees are eligible to fulfil the goal.

Providing feedback to improve performance and quality standards: It has been observed that marketing team collects the feedback from the customers about their experience of shopping or taking service from them (Alfeset al. 2013, p.331). It has been observed that human resource management has to improve the standard of the employees by arranging training and development process. The human resource management has to arrange behaviour training session and skill development session to improve overall performance of the employees (Kehoe and Wright, 2013, p.367). Therefore providing feedback of the customers also improves the employee quality and employee performance.

Performance based development: It has been noticed that human resource management has developed their strategy based on the existing performance of the employees. The human resource management has to critically observe the performance of the employees and highlight the issues that employees have faced (Bennett and Ho, 2014, p.232). On another hand, HR executives have to observe the issues that the organization has faced such as performance decrease, work place conflict, sales decrease, aim less emplo0yees and poor performance of the employees. Most of the cases human resource management human resource management apply Doglas McGregor’s Theory X and Theory Y to improve the employee performance (Jackson et al. 2014, p.6). Therefore, the human resource management has developed the performance based development to increase performance of employees.

Reward high performing employees in the organisation: The human resource management has developed the reward strategy to motivate the employees for fulfil the target and deliver better works to the organization (Aswathappa, 2013). It has been observed that human resource management has generally developed two different types reward system in organization such as financial reward system and nonfinancial reward system for influencing employees (Mello, 2014). It has been noticed that HR executives or team leaders often rewarded the best performed employees directly on the floor. It also motivates the employees to perform well.

Critical Incident Technique (CIT) Reflection: After developing the essay by discussing the challenges of human resource management in retaining the employees and exploring the various aspects of the business process which includes the laws and legislation, diversity management, and talent management of the organisation. The challenges faced but the human resource management of an organisation is considered to be very stressful, but yet the department has to operate accordingly to bring performance within the organisation. The development of essay has helped me to understand the corporate process of any organisation. I have understood the various concepts that help an organisation to recruit employees and retain them. I have also elaborated on the talent management practices of the organisation to provide a proper output.

EU Law is considered to be an integral part of any organisation and I have understood the importance of it in the organisation. EU laws provide security and safety to the employees and employers of every organisation. It helps in maintaining a proper environment in the organization by abiding the laws and legislation. HR Practices is very essential for any organisation as it helps the organisation to develop an employee base of good potentials and skilled labors. This helps the organisation in developing a productive base that improvises on the performance of the company. Human resource practices are important towards the development of organisation in every aspect.

Diversity Management is another area that requires immense focus and a strategic approach towards the expansion of business in different departments. However, I have realised that initiating a diversity approach management is not possible for small or medium sized organisation since it requires a stronger base of employees and a good performance level. Talent Management reviews the performance of every employee monthly to ensure that they are maintaining the criteria of their goal. It helps the organisation to maintain their standard and quality. In addition to this, if an employee’s performance is below the average criteria, the employee gets training to improve the performance. Recruitmentstrategy is essential for the organisation towards developing a proper an employee base. I have identified that through discussion that recruitment follows internal and external process of recruiting candidates based on their educational qualification, skills and experience. It provides ample opportunity for the organisation to identify appropriate candidates for the post that they are hiring based on their profile.

Based on the discussion, I believe that implementing certain strategies can help the human resource management to ease the business operation. Integrating appropriate European Union law has already helped the organisation in developing a niche working environment for the employees by providing them with proper benefits and remuneration. However, there are employees in the organisation that are not able to meet the deadline and hence it affects the overall performance of the organisation. Under such circumstances, the organisation has to bear the cost of providing training to the employee which is performance improvement plan. Thorough this organisation can enhance the credential of the employees and provide them with proper objectives and agenda. On the other hand talent management are there to review the performance of the employees and report them by discussing their flaws. This concept sometimes demotivates the employees and slowly affects the performance level of the respective organisation as well.

Based on the conditions, I believe bringing certain changes to the organisation’s human resource management can help the organisation to maintain a smooth process to review their candidates and improve their efficiency to enter diversity management approach to improvise the functions in the organisation. I believe that implementing performance improvement plan for a set of employees who have performed below the average level. This can help the organisation to reduce the cost on initiating the training for a single candidate and focus on a group of candidate and improve their efficiency in the organisation. In addition to this, I believe that external sources of recruitment are considered to be the best because even if it cost too much for the organisation, they are able to recruit many employees at minimal cost.

Transfer of learning: I have related the discussion to proper models and theory like X and Y theory. I have linked the information with appropriate discussions. However, I believe if the organisation can bring changes to the organisation by implementing the diversity approach, there are high chances that the organisation can face an impact on the development of approaching the goals and objectives. Therefore the organisation can develop appropriate strategies towards developing a proper diversity management approach that can benefit the management of human resources Apart from that, new facilities to improve performance can also be implemented in the organisation to benefit the employees and employers. Through proper discussions I have understood that in order to improve the performance of the organisation, the management of human resources can bring necessary changes towards the development of employees and also recognise their efforts towards contributing to the organisation.   

Conclusion

The learner has prepared the essay by identifying the various area of business operation that human resource management has to go through. Apart from that, this has helped the learner in understanding the concept of HRM and their function in the organisation. By integrating models, the learner has produced the documents in an informative way to provide a better understanding.

Reference

Books

Armstrong, M. and Taylor, S., 2014. Armstrong's handbook of human resource management practice.Kogan Page Publishers.
Armstrong, M., 2011. Armstrong's handbook of strategic human resource management.Kogan Page Publishers.
Boxall, P. and Purcell, J., 2011. Strategy and human resource management. Palgrave Macmillan.
Bratton, J. and Gold, J., 2012. Human resource management: theory and practice. Palgrave Macmillan.
Flamholtz, E.G., 2012. Human resource accounting: Advances in concepts, methods and applications. Springer Science & Business Media.
Mendenhall, M.E. and Osland, J., 2012. Global leadership: Research, practice, and development. Routledge.
Patrick, H.A. & Kumar, V.R. (2012).Managing Workplace Diversity: issues and challenges.Sage Open. 1-15 UK
Scullion, H. and Collings, D., 2011. Global talent management.Routledge.

Journals

Alfes, K., Shantz, A.D., Truss, C. and Soane, E.C., 2013. The link between perceived human resource management practices, engagement and employee behaviour: a moderated mediation model. The international journal of human resource management, 24(2), pp.330-351.
Bennett, J.M. and Ho, D.S., 2014. Human resource management.In PROJECT MANAGEMENT FOR ENGINEERS (pp. 231-249).
Camelo-Ordaz, C., Garcia-Cruz, J., Sousa-Ginel, E. and Valle-Cabrera, R., 2011. The influence of human resource management on knowledge sharing and innovation in Spain: the mediating role of affective commitment. The International Journal of Human Resource Management, 22(07), pp.1442-1463.
Chang, S., Gong, Y. and Shum, C., 2011.Promoting innovation in hospitality companies through human resource management practices. International Journal of Hospitality Management, 30(4), pp.812-818.
Guest, D.E., 2011. Human resource management and performance: still searching for some answers. Human Resource Management Journal, 21(1), pp.3-13.
Hong, E.N.C., Hao, L.Z., Kumar, R., Ramendran, C. and Kadiresan, V., 2012. An effectiveness of human resource management practices on employee retention in institute of higher learning: A regression analysis. International journal of business research and management, 3(2), pp.60-79.