Unit 3 Managing Human Resources Assignment Marks Spencer

Program	Diploma in Business
Unit Number and Title	Unit 3 Managing Human Resources Marks Spencer
QFC Level	Level 4

Introduction

Managing human resources marks spencer report is prepared in relation with managing human resource. Information related with human resource practices will be discussed in this report. For better understanding regarding the human resource management, Marks and Spencer is taken for reference. Discussion related with the human resource management of Marks and Spencer will be done. Mark and Spencer is a major British multinational retailer. Headquarters of Marks and Spencer is in City of Westminster, London. Company is listed in the London Stock Exchange. Company was founded by Sir Michael Marks and Thomas Spencer in 1884.  Marks and Spencer is the company involves in selling clothes, luxury and food productions. Mission of Marks and Spencer are providing the new quality products in the areas of cloths, food, home and financial services. Company believes in delivering good quality products, offering the products at affordable price. According to the company  human resource  department of the company promote the working environment free from all type of description and harassment, it ensures that each and every employee should get equal treatment in all the aspects of employment, it ensures that training programs should be delivered on time, provision of incentive is also there in the company, it renders the quality services to the target customers. Report will include the in depth information of human resource management and their functions.

Task 1

Explain Guest’s Model of HRM as applied to the organization.

Competition is increasing and in this increasing competitive environment organizations have to focus on the value of the investments in the human resources as they are the major resources which could help in attaining competitive advantage. Although business strategies as a means of the competition are a common conversation for a business, taking a strategic approach could be beneficial for the people working within the company (Maclachlan, 2011). So as to apply the strategic approach Marks and Spencer is focusing on the human resource management and so trying to apply Guest’s Model of HRM at workplace. Hence understanding the Guest’s Model will help Marks and Spencer in making appropriate decision:

• Guest’s Model: One of the biggest contributors in HRM is Devid Guest. Certain set of perspective and approaches are delivered BY David Guest and John Storey in concentration with human resource management. Some of the aspects that are provided by David Guests are as follows:
• HRM Strategy: Human resource strategies are the most important aspects that help in managing the employees (Ciobanica, et. al., 2016). According to Guest it is necessary that an organization should develop the strategy. Somewhere it could be related with the companies policies as the human resource policies of Marks and Spencer is to develop the strategies in relation with the human resource, like planning the human resource, developing a proper process of recruitment and selection of people, making decisions in relation with motivating the employees, evaluating the ways to motivate the employees and ways with the help of which discrimination could be reduced and equality could be practiced in the company.
• HRM Practices: Marks and Spencer have effective set of HRM practices which helps in managing its human resource. Some of the practices are providing training to the workforce so as to develop them, managing the performance of the employees and appraising them accordingly, building relationship with the employees, etc (Vasconcelos, 2015).
• HR Outcomes: Human resource management of Marks and Spencer focus on the outcomes and try to bring positive outcomes. It has a flexible working environment so as to ensure that it could meet out the objectives and goals that will help in the progress of the business.

• Behavioral Outcomes: HRM of Marks and Spencer uses 360 degree strategy so as to gather the information related with the behavior of the human resource working. According to human resource management of Marks and Spencer it is necessary that behavior of the employees should get analyzed and appraisal should be provided according to their behavior (Vasconcelos, 2015).
• Performance Outcomes: Performance is another aspect that is necessary to be evaluated by the HRM of Marks and Spencer. Human resource management of marks and Spencer track the performance of employees by gathering the performance report on monthly basis and provides rewards accordingly.
• Financial Outcomes: Marks and Spencer evaluate the necessity of finances with the help of the mails sent by its employees to the human resource management. Employee’s sends mail regarding the requirements of the finances and approval is made according to the credit capacity of the employees (Maclachlan, 2011).Choosing two organizations of your choice compare the difference between Storey’s definitions of HRM, personnel and IR practices.

To evaluate the effectiveness of the present human resource management Marks and Spencer done the comparison between the Storey’s definition of HRM and personal and IR Practices:

Storey’s HRM at Marks and Spencer	Personnel Management / IR Practices at JCB
Acc. to Storey’s HRM of Marks and Spencer is a distinctive approach which is being used by the organization so that it could achieve the competitive advantage with the application of strategic deployment of the employees which are committed and are able to perform the tasks which are allotted to them.	Personal management of JCB is a kind of administrative function which exists in the organization. This helps in building positive relationship between the management and the employees. Personal management of JCB ensures that the people having effective set of skills should get hired so that they can work according to the needs and wants of the objectives of the company.
Marks and Spencer’s HRM makes decision which are faster and effective (Maclachlan, 2011)	Personal management of JCB have a slow process of making decisions
HRM of Marks and Spencer believe that its employees should remain motivated	PM of JCB focus on developing the skills of the employees (Samavati, et. al., 2016)
It has a transformational management	It has a transactional management
Employees are free to communicate directly with the upper level management which makes the communication process of Marks and Spencer more clear and effective.	JCB do not have such type of communication system. It is restricted and has specific way of managing the information due to which massages are delivered in a very vague manner and unclear manner.
HRM of Marks and Spencer takes the strategic planning into consideration (Ciobanica, et. al., 2016)	PM of JCB do not rely on strategic planning

Assess the implications for line managers and employees of developing a strategic approach to HRM for any organization.

Interpretation of the human resource management of Marks and Spencer is based either on the “Soft”, developmental humanist approach or on the “Hard” situational contingent approach. Line manager of Marks and Spencer decides whether to apply the “Soft” approach so as to manage the employees of to apply the “Hard” approach. Line Manager applying the soft approach ensures that the employees working should remain motivated, committed to work and develop in the organization. Line manager applying the “Soft” approach to manage the human resource ensures that the environment of the organization could remain flexible, innovative and should have the committed employees. He ensures that proper training should be provided to the workforce and they should remain participative to manage every type of work (Vasconcelos, 2015).On the other hand applying the “Hard” approach line manager of Marks and Spencer will be able to develop the strategic approach. In this HRM will be closely linked with the business strategy. Line manager adopting such type of approach views the employees as the resources which are to be used dispassionately and in the formally rational manner. Hard Contingency approach is mostly used so as to minimize the cost on the human resource and is seen as the cost minimization strategy.

Analyzing both the aspects it can be evaluated that line manager of Marks and Spencer should apply “Soft” approach so as to manage the human resource (Mishra, et. al., 2015).

Task 2

2.1 Explain how a model of flexibility might be applied in your organization.

One of the challenges that are being faced by the management of Marks and Spencer is introduction of the change and to determine the strategies that will produce best results. In such type of situation HRM of Marks and Spencer has to be able not only to adapt in the outstanding strategy to its market conditions but it is also necessary to develop the internal practices that clearly aside from the competition. Hence, applying flexibility at the workplace will help it to manage the challenge and to internal decorum of the organization.

HRM of Marks and Spencer ensure that the responsiveness should be there. Organization should respond positively to every challenge as well as change. Responsiveness ensures that the work process and change could be managed in a proper manner.Differentiation will also help the organization to remain flexible. HRM of Marks and Spencer ensure that it could avail the different services and concepts to the employees so that they could remain prepared to accept the change and manage it (Ciobanica, et. al., 2016).HRM of Marks and Spencer try that the efficiency of its workforce could become efficient because enhanced efficiency ensures that they could accept the change and manage it effectively.Analysis of the impact of the change is done on timely basis in Marks and Spencer so that HRM could manage to develop the strategies accordingly. Such type of activity helps in remaining flexible and moves on the path of success and sustainability.

Hence, it is necessary that Marks and Spencer should apply the strategy of remaining flexible as it will help the organization to accept the change and overcome from the challenges which could affect the process of the organization in near future (Samavati, et. al., 2016). 

2.2 Discuss the types of flexibility that may be developed by Marks and Spencer.

As Marks and Spencer is planning to manage the challenges and to ensure that organization could attain success in near future it is necessary that it should adopt various types of flexibility. Hence the types of flexibility that could be adopted by the company are:

• Functional Flexibility: Adopting functional flexibility will help Marks and Spencer to redeploy the employees in any kind of portfolio or process to manage the work at peak time. Marks and Spencer should adopt the strategy and provide cross training to the employees so that they could remain prepared to adopt any kind of change and manage the work accordingly (Ciobanica, et. al., 2016).
• Numerical Flexibility: This is the strategy that helps the organization in allocation of the work to the employees according to the requirements of the workplace. Requirement of the workforce at the workplace could be evaluated by the company which will help in  decision making  the decision of placing right person at right job at right time. It helps in evaluating the number of employees required at the workplace so as to manage the work and making the decisions accordingly.
• Financial Flexibility: Flexibility is reinforced by certain type of payment systems. These payments that are applied at the workplace are known as financial flexibility. This type of flexibility will help Marks and Spencer to keep the track on the financial systems and overcome from the challenge that could affect the business (Mishra, et. al., 2015).

2.3 Assess the use of flexible working practices from both the employees and employers perspective.

Flexible methods are not only developed to help the employers but it also helps employers. Marks and Spencer takes feedback from the employees who help the organization to gather the information of whether they are comfortable with the flexible working practices or not and whether these practices are helping the employees in managing the challenges or not. There are certain flexible working practices that are developed Marks and Spencer so as to help the employees and support them to work effectively at the workplace:

• Employment at Part Time: This is the employment in which agreement is made between the employer and employee in which employee works for the half hours and help the company to manage the work accordingly. Such type of agreement helps the employees to earn money and manage others works (Vasconcelos, 2015).
• Temporary Staff: Temporary staff members are hired on contract basis and signs the agreement that they would work till the requirements of the company will meet after which company could terminate the agreement with them. This helps the organization to reduce the expenses and manage the work.
• Teleworking and Home working: Teleworking is the flexible working practice that will help the organization to manage its customers and providing them quality service. Home working or work from home helps in reducing the expenses that would indulge in fulfilling the requirements of employees at workplace (Jones, 2009).
• Zero Hour Contract: This is the contract in which no set working time is being provided by the employer to the employee. In this employees have the freedom to work at the time they want which allows them to manage the work according to their requirements.

Adapting such type of flexible working practices will help Marks and Spencer to reduce the expenses that could indulge in managing the employees and work. In the same manner such types of flexible practices helps the employees to manage the work and funds (Bach, et. al., 2013).

2.4 Discuss the impact that changes in the labor market have had on flexible working practices.

Change one of the most challenging aspects that are attached with Marks and Spencer. One of the most concerning factors is the impact of change on the labor market. Labor is one of the most important parts of Marks and Spencer without which it will not be able to manage the work and attain success in the competitive market. Adapting the flexible working practices at the workplace helps Marks and Spencer to avail various set of opportunities to the labor which helps them to refine their skills and develop the quality to manage the work.

It is necessary that Marks and Spencer should develop the strategies and should provide appropriate training to the employees so that they could manage the work with quality. It is necessary that Marks and Spencer should adopt the flexible working practices so that its labor could work according to the requirement and manage their earnings accordingly (Maclachlan, 2011).

Task 3

3.1 Explain the forms of discrimination that can take place in the workplace using the examples of recent discrimination cases which has made the news.

Discrimination at the workplace is a legal offence. It is necessary that marks and Spencer should work to reduce discrimination and ensure that ethical practices should be applied at the workplace. It is necessary that all the employees working in Marks and Spencer should be treated equally not on the basis of the caste, religion, gender, disability or culture. There are various discriminations that should be known by Marks and Spencer so that it could eliminate the discrimination from the workplace.

• Direct Discrimination: This is the discrimination in which employees are selected on the basis of the castes, cultures, religion, gender or age. It is necessary that Marks and Spencer should avoid direct discrimination as it could affect the image of the company (Samavati, et. al., 2016).
• Indirect Discrimination: This is the discrimination in which individuals are not being discriminated rather there are certain groups that are discriminated. Employees are treated equally except certain groups. There are certain conditions in which discriminations can be done by organizations like if a requirement of the jobs is only for the female candidates as that work can only be done by female candidates only. In this case Marks and Spencer could do discrimination which should be in legal boundaries.

There are certain statistics that were published by the ministry of Justice according to which there are certain up to date figures related with the Employment Tribunal Claims which were raised in Scotland, England and Whales (Fan, et. al., 2016). According to the ministry there is a list of awards that are related with the unfair dismissal and discrimination claims.

3.2 Discuss the practical implications of equal opportunities legislations for an organization.

Equal treatment is one of the most important aspects attached with the organization. Every organization should provide equal treatment to each and every employee working at the workplace. There are certain practical implications that are provided by the legislations they are:

It is necessary that all the HRM policies should be reviewed by Marks and Spencer. Reviewing the HRM policies helps the organization to keep the  internal environment  happy and healthy (Butler, 2016).Financial implications are other aspects that should be focused upon by the HRM of Marks and Spencer. It should ensure that they should be implemented fairly at the workplace. HRM should ensure that the employees should get proper finances which should be availed according to their skills and abilities.Marks and Spencer have the equal pay policies which helps the organization to ensure that all the employees should get fair treatment and equal pay at the workplace. Such types of activities helps Marks and Spencer to avoid all kind of discrimination and applying the ethical practices at the workplace (Curseu, 2015).

3.3 Compare the approaches to managing equal opportunities and managing diversity. You should give examples from a selected organization and discuss the similarities and differences in their approaches to managing equal opportunities and diversity.

People in the organization come from different diversities so managing the diversity becomes very tough. It is necessary to develop the strategies and approaches which could help in managing the same. It is necessary that the HRM of Marks and Spencer should prepare the policies which could help in providing equal opportunities as well as managing the diversities.Policies should be developed which could help the organization to hire the employees on the basis of the skills and abilities rather than hiring them on the basis of the caste, religion, gender or culture (Ciobanica, et. al., 2016).Togetherness is one of the most important aspects attached with every organization. Employees should understand the importance of togetherness and should try to work as a team. HRM of Marks and Spencer should try to provide the training of bringing the employees together and working in a team.Various activities that could be adopted by Marks and Spencer to develop the feeling of togetherness among the employees, these activities are:  organizing the cultural activities, fun games, and official parties (Mishra, et. al., 2015).

Task 4

4.1 Select an organization you work or have worked for, identify and compare the performance management methods used.

Performance management is the most beneficial aspect attached with every organization. Managing the performance of the employees will help Marks and Spencer to manage the work and to move on the path of success and sustainability. Performance management helps in removing the biasness and providing equal opportunities to the employees. Various methods that could be adopted by Marks and Spencer to manage the performance are:

• Reward System: Rewarding the employees on the basis of the performance of the employees will help it in managing the performance. Track record of the employees could be kept by the organization on the basis of which rewards will be availed to the effective performers and training will be given accordingly.
• Monitoring and Supervising: Monitoring and supervising is the aspect with the effect of which performance of the employees could be evaluated. Monitoring the performance of the employees will help in evaluating the day to day progress report and will help in making the decision related with requirement of training at the workplace (Vasconcelos, 2015). Supervision helps in providing the guidance to the employees with the effect of which they can manage the work according to the requirements of the workplace.
• 360 Degree Appraisals: This is the appraisal system that could be adopted by Marks and Spencer so as to evaluate the performance of the employees. This is the process in which feedback from the peer members, employees, colleagues and managers is taken regarding an individual and appraisal are provided according to the feedbacks.

4.2 Assess the approaches used to managing employee welfare in Thomas Cook.

Organizations have certain set of roles and responsibilities towards its employees. Organizations should try to work on the welfare of the employees and should treat them as an important asset. According to Well Being Charters there are certain opportunities that are availed in relation with the employer to demonstrate their commitment to the health and well being of the employees (Wellbeingcharter.org.uk, 2016). According to it, it is necessary that organization should employer should work toward to keep the employees healthy and safe and provide them the training to overcome from any kind of challenging situation. There are certain instructions that are provided by Well Being Charters they are:

• Personal Assistance: It is important that employers should provide personal assistance to the employees and should provide proper guidance and support (Cipd.co.uk, 2016).
• Anti Discrimination Programs: It is the welfare program that should be organized by the employer so as to protect the employees from any kind of discrimination by providing them the information related with the types of discrimination and the path which could help them to overcome from such type of discrimination.

It is necessary to apply the occupational health practices and policies at the workplace as it will help in supporting the employees and in reducing absenteeism from the workplace (Bach, et. al., 2013).

4.3 Discuss the implications of health and safety legislations on human resource practices.

Certain set of regulatory frameworks and legislations are attached with the human resource practices which help in making these practices more effective and trustworthy. These legislations are developed in concentration with protecting the interest of the employees. It is necessary that the policies should be according to these legislations by Marks and Spencer so as to protect the interest of the employees.

According to Health and Safety at Work Act 1974, it is necessary that Marks and Spencer should provide proper training to the employees regarding the health and safety aspects and should avail the equipment which could help them to remain safe at the time of emergency situation.

A very vital role is being played by health and safety commission in managing the health of the employees. Commission keeps eye on the health and safety needs at the workplace and ensures that they should get fulfilled.

4.4 Evaluate the impact of another topical issue on human resource planning.

There are various issues that could affect planning of HRM at the workplace. Working on such type of issues will help the Marks and Spencer in smooth functioning of the work process. Certain topical issues on human resource planning are:

Lack of team spirit is the issue that could affect the whole process of Marks and Spencer. Working towards to develop the team spirit will help the organization to manage the work effectively (Cipd.co.uk, 2016). Providing training to the employees and organizing cultural activities, official parties and fun games will help Marks and Spencer to build effective team spirit and to ensure that employees could coordinate effectively with each other.

Employee turnover ratio is another topical issue which is necessary to be focused upon by HRM of Marks and Spencer (Jones, 2009). Company spends huge amount on hiring the candidates and providing them training. Increased turnover ratio affects the goodwill as well as increase the work burden at the workplace. Hence, developing a proper appraisal system and providing effective training to the employees helps in keeping them motivated with the effect of which turnover ratio could be reduced (Bach, et. al., 2013).

Conclusion

At the end conclusion could be made that one of the most important and critical task attached with every organization is managing the human resource. It is necessary that organizations should have a proper human resource management system which could ensure to manage its human resource in a proper manner and fulfill their requirements which could help in reducing the turnover ratio. It is also necessary that organizations should work on providing equal opportunities to the workforce so that discrimination could be eliminated and fair and ethical practices could be processed at the workplace.

References