HRM role in growth and development

Nowadays, Human resource management has become one of the major partners of an organization. The human resource management deals with managing people in an organization that means recruiting efficient and skilled employees in the right jobs at the right time at the right cost. Human resource management plays a major role in achieving organizational aims and objectives. To achieve these aims and objectives, human resource management has to apply some strategies to organization and organizational management and follow strategic process to face and overcome the completion of outside world. Strategic human resource management is one of the parts of human resource management which links with the implementation of strategic goals and organizational objectives that improves business performance and development of the organization. Strategic human resource management focuses in the key areas of HR, where long term strategies can be implemented for the improvement of productivity. It also solves the problems that effect the people management and concentrates on employee motivation. This report is all about how organizations got used to strategic human resource management. What was the impact on the organizations when human resource management started implementing strategies to organizational management and about the key strategic management issues.

There are some areas in human resource management where they need to concentrate for the growth and development of their organization.

HUMAN RESOURCE PLANNING:

Human resource planning is the process of planning manpower by the HR management to organize skilled and efficient employees to right work that results in organizations development. It predicts the future needs of human resources and plans to meet those needs. It involves in introducing new programs and then implements and develops these programs. These programs include recruiting the staff, training the staff and programs that improve employee performance and increases employee satisfaction.

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There are four phases of human resource planning. In the first phase the human resource planners gathers and analyzes the data, that data includes how much human resources they need for future and the plans that are to be introduced and implemented for the future. The second phase is to establish human resource objectives. The third phase is to design and implement the programs that will achieve human resource objectives. The fourth phase is to monitor and asses these programs. These plans may be short term or long term plans that depends up on the human resource planners and the situation of the organization.

RECRUITMENT AND SELECTION:

Recruitment and selection process plays main role in achieving organizational objectives. Recruitment and selection process is different in different organizations. This process main aims to get employees at minimal cost to satisfy human resource needs. There are three stages of recruitment and selection process.

Defining requirements: when the HR planners implement new strategies and plans, they once check if they need any extra manpower. Then, if they need extra employees they describe the job roles, duties and responsibilities. They also describe the skills that are to be for the candidate to the particular job. It also mentions about the terms and conditions of an organization like pay, benefits, and special requirements like mobility, travelling and experience, training and career opportunities.

Attracting candidates: To achieve strategic goals and objectives set by the HR planners, company needs right team with necessary skills, cultural fit and attitude. Attracting skilled employees in these competitive markets is one of the important stages in recruitment and selection process. First preference in recruitment process should be given to internal candidates. If they have not found any candidates within the organization, then they move next step by advertising through internet or through consultant agencies. In some organizations, even internal candidates should apply with external candidates. Some organizations approach universities and colleges where their career co-ordinator helps them to contact skilled and talented students.

Selecting candidates: Selection process is done by separate HR team. Selection process is different in different organizations. They use various selection techniques like face to face interviews, telephonic interviews, assessment centres, tests etc. Individual interview helps the interviewer to get close and know about the candidate but, by using single interviewer there is a chance for biased decision. So, they use second interviewer in interview panel. When two or more people are in the interview panel, they can discuss their judgements on candidate behaviour in the interview and modify any biased judgement. Another technique in selection process is selecting candidates through assessment centres. The techniques used in the assessment centres to judge candidates personal skills are by aptitude tests, attainments, general intelligence tests. Assessment centres helps the participants to know about the culture of the organization and its values, so they can decide whether they are fit for the job or not. Group discussions are of the techniques used in selection process. The final stage of selection process is to offer employment, if the candidate meets their requirements and contract of the employment is also made in this stage.

PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT:

Performance management is defined as the performance of the individuals in an organization to achieve their goals and objectives. Michael Armstrong said that ” Performance management is a process which is designed to improve organizational, team and individual performance and which is owned and driven by line managers” (Robert Dransfield, 2000). Every team and individual in an organization should know and understand about the strategies and objectives that are to be achieved. Objectives are some targets that are to be achieved in over a period of time. Objectives should be consistent, precise, challenging, measurable, achievable, time related.

The five different stages in performance management are planning, monitoring, developing, rating and rewarding. Performance planning is the first stage of performance management cycle where performance agreement or contract comes. Performance agreement is about goals, objectives, performance standards and capability requirements. When introducing performance planning, they concentrate on role definitions, objectives and standards. Performance planning is about the individuals and team, how they are expected to meet the roles and develop their skills to achieve the objectives. This plan also provides support and guidance from the management. Individuals will have an agreement for personal development plan in which they are trained themselves, assessed and monitored and are advised to any further developments if needed. The norms and agreements in the performance agreement will some times vary, that depends upon the situation and levels of management. Every individual will be compared with actual performance and agreed development performances. All the plans are agreed jointly by managers and individuals.

Monitoring is the second stage of performance management. To monitor the performance of individual employee, management will observe directly and identifies strength and weakness of each employee. They also monitor the impact of employee on co-workers during the work stress and person’s ability to achieve goals. The best process in monitoring employee is to set goals for each and every two weeks and observe their performance and spot the performance gaps and give feedback as they develop to achieve their goals. Ongoing monitoring provides a clear understanding of how employees are reaching their predetermined goals and if they have any problems, they will be provided with assistance.

Developing is third stage of performance management. Performance management process helps to identify the employee development needs. Development needs like increasing the capacity of the employee through training, giving assignments that help them to achieve high responsibilities, improving work progress and new skills. When new technologies are introduced in to organization, the employees should be trained so that they can easily access them. Rating is the fourth stage in performance management. Rating in performance management is to compare the performances of employees in their organization. This is to know who is giving best output among their employees and how many employees are up to their standards in employee’s performance plan. This rating is given according to procedures included in organization’s appraisal program. Rewarding is the fifth stage in performance management cycle. The employees are rewarded, when their work is recognized. Rewarding is different in different companies. Some companies reward cash, gifts or employees are promoted to next level.

REWARD MANAGEMENT:

Reward management is a part of human resource management, which deals with rewarding people fairly and equitably for implementing strategies, policies and their services to the organization. It looks after the reward process and policies which improves organizational team and individual performance. Reward strategies are set and implemented through human resource strategies. Main objectives of reward management are to achieve organizational goals, motivate employees, strengthening the psychological contract. Reward system may be in two types, one is financial reward system and non-financial system. Base pay, pay incentives, employee benefits comes under financial reward system and intrinsic rewards, recognition, promotions etc comes under non-financial reward systems.

Base pay is fixed rate of pay for which organization agreed to pay for an employee. Base pay may be depends upon the market rate. Employees may have pay rise according to their performance. If the organization achieves targets or goals employees may have bonuses. Depending on the employee performance, they get benefits such as sick pay, holiday pay, and house and car allowances. Some of them get non-financial rewards like they are promoted to higher leadership positions.

LEARNING AND DEVELOPMENT (HRD):

Human resource development is a part of human resource management which deals with training and developing individuals or a team for future organizational benefits. HRD sets long term goals and objectives and train skilled people according to strategy to achieve those goals. The main objective of HRD is to create a learning environment within the organization so that knowledge can be shared to each other. According to Rothwell and Kazanas (1989), there are five strategies in HRD. There are employee training, employee education, employee development, organizational development, and non-employee development.

Organizational learning is the set of procedures and processes implemented by organization for easy learning. Learning depends upon the capability of a person. Some can learn quickly and some people take time. Taking all these in to consideration HRD has developed some learning techniques. Employees can be taught or instructed or they can learn themselves by experience they gained with senior staff. Different learning methods have different outcomes. (Sloman, 2003) Training ‘that lies within the domain of the organization’ and learning ‘that lies within the domain of individual’. Organizational development depends upon how organizations plan their strategies to develop each and every management.

MANAGING DIVERSITY:

Managing diversity is a long term strategic process that helps organization to have employees from different gender, religions, cultural background, race and ethnicity so that it can be a source of competitive advantage. As they have people with different attitudes, different lifestyles, skills, experiences and different behaviour, organization can know how to operate in different cultures. Managing diversity can be defined as ” A planned systematic and comprehensive managerial process for developing an organizational environment in which all employees, with in their similarities and differences, can contribute to the strategic and competitive advantage of organization and where no-one is excluded on the basis of factors unrelated to productivity”(Thomas, 1996).

Managing diversity has its own benefits. It can recruit the best employees over the world and can respond to diverse customers and markets. Age, ethnicity, gender, race, physical abilities come under primary dimension. Education, geographical location, income, material status, religion, experience, parental status is some of the examples of secondary dimension. Because of diversity marketing, companies make better use of their market and gains profit. Every company cannot have the advantages of diversity. There are few general rules for the implementation of successful managing diversity.

Changes in the corporate culture: Diversity can only achieve by changes in the top management. Majority of managers should include more diversity.

Diversity as permanent process: Diversity cannot be achieved in short term. It is long-term process. Any racial discrimination in management will lead company to stress.

Build on international business: Many international organizations have achieved successful managing diversity. As their business is global, all the managers who works have an idea on different cultures, different languages. This helps organization to achieve success in International business relationships.

Detailed analysis

Senior management commitment: To implement the policies for successful diversity management, they should have support of senior management.

Incorporate in to human resource management.

EMPLOYER/EMPLOYEE RELATIONS:

Good communication between employees and management should be on higher priority for organizations growth and profits. When the management have good relationship with employees, employees try to deliver their full effort at work and as the result productivity increases and as profits. Human resource management introduces some strategies, policies, procedures to establish a good communication with employees, where mutual trust is main agenda. Guest (1995) has stated some policies for successful employee relations:

• The new realism: A high emphasis on HRM and industrial relations.
• Traditional collectivism: Priority to industrial relations without HRM.
• Individualised HRM: High priority to HRM without industrial relations.
• The black hole: No industrial relations.

Some of the employees form as a union and discuss or negotiate with management about their problems on behalf of all employees, as it is a good way of communication with management in peaceful manner (Michael Armstrong, 2000). Some management introduce a strategy like partnership agreements, in which management and the trade unions agree to work together for organizational success. By implementation of employment protection act in 1975, trade unions got right to obtain certain information from the employers.

Employment contract is an agreement that is signed by employee, a proof of evidence with terms and conditions of the employment.

IMPACT OF STATEGIC HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT ON ORGANIZATIONS:

From the introduction of SHRM in mid 70’s, many organizations have benefited with their policies, HRM practices through strategic approach. Even though the organization has good HRM practices and strategies, the organizational performance also depends up on the factors such as organizational climate, completion in market etc. This can be easily explained by taking any particular organization. For example Sainsbury, what is the impact of SHRM on J. Sainsbury plc. How are their HRM practices implemented? How are their key strategic human resource management issues implemented for their success?

J. Sainsbury plc is one of the largest food retailers chain in UK operating with more than 790 supermarkets and convenience stores, more than 2000 suppliers, 21 distribution centres. Sainsbury also offers a wide range of employment in UK. By this year it has more than 1,50,000 employees severing over 18 million customers every week. Human resource management at Sainsbury plays a major role in its business success. It mainly concentrates on its functional areas like human resource planning, recruitment and selection of employees, employee motivation and training, performance management, managing diversity.

Human resource planning is overview plan done by human resource management about their employment requirement status. The objectives, goals that are to be achieved are planned by human resource management. HR plan has the current status of workforce and it predicts the coming season’s business. For example during the time of Christmas, the stores are very busy so at that they need more manpower. Sainsbury HR plans these types of future predictions and if they need any man power, then recruitment is done. It also concentrates on existing staff and some areas where they lack skills. It trains and develops the existing employees. It is a time consuming process and less expensive process because no recruitment and selection process is required. They can train existing staff with excellent skills to achieve their objectives. This could be a type of employee motivation. These are some of the objectives set by Sainsburys:

• Best for food and health.
• Sourcing with integrity.
• Respect for our environment.
• Making a positive difference to our community.
• A great place to work.

RECRUITMENT AND SELECTION PROCESS AT SAINSBURY:

The HR plan plotted by the HR management gives an idea about the employment requirements. Recruitment and selection process in Sainsbury is done in different procedures. Recruitment and selection process is continues process at Sainsbury. It has different employment roles like jobs at supermarkets, jobs at convenience stores, jobs at pharmacies, management roles, bakery jobs etc. Recruitment is done through online process. Human resource management has detailed summary of how many employee they require for each store. The vacancies are posted in Sainsbury recruitment website. The first step is to fill the application and will have online assessment exam. The candidates who get through this are called for personal interview. The assessment exam is the process of filtration. Sainsbury recruitment team aims for the people with high skills. This is the process for hourly paid employees. Recruitment of management roles is done in different process.

Sainsbury has introduced a program to graduates called graduate training scheme. Graduate training scheme is a long term process where it recruits candidates who finished their graduation and train them to achieve their future goals and objectives. There are many types of graduate schemes like retail graduate scheme, buying, commercial, customer and marketing, finance, human resource, IT, logistics, merchandising, product development, product technology. These graduate schemes are generally one year or 18 months placements schemes.

PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT IN SAINSBURY:

Performance management at Sainsbury assists management about employee performance and the feedback of candidates in graduate scheme. It assists the development of staff and about their pay rise according to their performance.