HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT

The definition of human resource management by Edwin Flippo is to plan, organize, direct, control, compensate, integrate, motivate and separate the human resources to achieve the goal and objectives for the organization.

The main focus of this function is to properly recruit people for the organization. It involves management functions which are organizing, planning, directing and controlling. It also involves the procurement, development and appraisal of human resources. The main objective is to achieve the organization goal. The team spirit and team work depends on the human resource management.

Human resource management has evolved back to ‘Kautilya Artha Shastra’ when he recommended the government to introduce the proper rules and regulation for the employers and employees. During the Medieval Times Allaudin Khilji who was the king that time has introduced the fixed prices and fixed salaries that time for the better living of people. In 1920 trade union emerged and most of the historian writes that human resource management started in the First World War with the emergence of trade union. In 1931 the Royal commission appointed the labor welfare officer for the governance of labor. Later in 1942 factory act has been made compulsory for the organization those have more than 500 workers. For the solution of labor and workers international institute of personnel management and national institute of management have been set up. Employees were more aware of their rights after the World War Two. After that new technology has made life easy for the workers. In 1960s most of the big companies started their separate professional management. In 1970s efficiency of the worker was most important and was measured. During 1980s technology emerged into organization and news rules and regulations have been made and 1990s was the era where human values and development of people were considered.

Organization follows bureaucratic style for their HR Department activities i.e. all major activities are concentrated to three positions which means that one person is HR manager and two are the HR officers.

HR Manager

HR Officer HR Officer

Key Activities of HRM:

The major activities in the human resource management process are as follows.

Planning of human resources

Major function is to identify the needs of the staff for the organization. The management of staff has been dealt in this.

Analysis for job

Job analysis is also another major area in human resource management. Every job in the company has been analyzed and then advertized on the basis of this analysis.

Recruitment and selection

The advertisement and publishing in the news papers or and media has been done after the detail analysis. This is called recruitment. The published advertisement resulted into many applications, interviews have been conducted and right candidate is selected.

Orientation and induction

After the selection of successful candidate induction has been done. The new employees have been informed about the organization, its culture, values, team and ethics.

Training and development

After the induction newly appointed employees have been trained for their role in the organization and better performance. The training has also been given to experienced employees as a refresher course. Most of the amount has been spend in this area.

Performance appraisal

The performance of the employees have been monitored by human resource department monthly, quarterly, yearly depends on the nature of the organization. On the basis of performance future appraisal like promotion, incentive or increment has been given to employees.

Compensation

Every organization has its own rules and regulation for the compensation and benefits. Human resource department is also responsible for this.

Motivation

The most important factor in successful organization is motivated employees. Different methods are applied to motivate the employees in the organization.

Industrial Relations

Human resource department also coordinates with the member of the union to help the company to prevent the strikes or anything against the company.

Achieving Objectives:

The HR department does the tracking of existing employee data which usually comprises personal accounts, abilities, competencies, achievements and salary. Companies have been using the electronic automated Specialized HR Management system to decrease the physical workload of these managerial actions. Services of the internal or external IT professional are used for the development, maintenance and integration of these systems. If any of the organization is working on the low capital assets then they need to buy or develop these proprietary software; these internally-developed HRMS were unrestricted to organizations that obsessed a large amount of capital.

Human Resource Model

There are few HRM models in business environment, even though, there are two models commonly use as HRM models in businesses today aside from other models that has been theorized and formulated by some academics.

Soft version of HRM which is treating employees as valued assets. This is called Harvard model, stresses the human element in the human resources formulation and is considered as the ‘soft’ variant in HRM. It is offered by Michael Beer.

Hard version of the HRM which is the Michigan model, holding that employees are resources in the same way as any other business resource. The Michigan model is also known as the ‘matching model’ or ‘best-fit’ approach to human resource management.  It is introduced by Fombrun, Tichy and Devanna, 1984.

Soft HRM Model

Hard HRM Model

Employee as resource

Employee as Cost

“People” issues

“Market” issues

Commitment

Compliance

Integration/Co -operation

Control

Qualitative/Negotiation

Quantitative/Rational

THE HARVARD FRAMEWORK MODEL

This framework is based on the belief that the problems of historical personnel management can only be solved when general develop a view point of how they wish to see employees involved and developed by the enterprise and of what human resource management policies and practices may achieve those goals .Without either a central philosophy or a strategic vision which can be provided only by general managers. Human resource management is likely to remain set of independent activities, each guided by its own practice tradition. As also explained earlier we can see that Sainsbury survival and growth have mainly been dependent on the fact that the Harvard Framework is partially followed where in Managers across Sainsbury are being given responsibilities for selecting, motivating, developing and evaluating employees. All managers are therefore taking on human resource responsibilities. Employees are the most important resources in Sainsbury, particularly in creating a competitive edge Managers across Sainsbury are being given responsibilities for selecting, motivating, developing and evaluating employees. All managers are therefore taking on human resource responsibilities. Has Employees are the most important resources in Sainsbury, particularly in creating a competitive edge.

THE MATCHING MODEL

One of the first explicit statements of the HRM concept was made by Michigan School (Fombrun et al, 1984).They held that HR systems and the organization structure should be managed in a way that is similar with the organizational strategy (hence the name matching model).They further explained that there is a further human resource cycle, which consists of four generic processes or functions that are performed in all organizations. The first and the most important among them is Selection -matching available human resources to jobs is one among them that has been a key to the success of Sainsbury the reason being that as explained earlier that the Recruitment process are of two kinds external and Internal recruitment and according to the Matching Model Which is largely applied in Sainsbury the Recruitment is done internally by using Internal Job posting and no doubt has been a very successful thing ,has the individuals who are selected already have a hands on experience with the post that they have applied for as they do get trained skills required to full fill that role by doing multitasking by carrying on doing their work and also learning the skills required for the new job that they are applying for out of their own interest voluntarily.

Human Resource Planning:

Human resources planning in the broadest sense include both strategic and operational human resource planning as a continuous process rather than an activity limited to a fixed segment of the business planning process.

PLANNING – A BUSINESS STRATEGY

The concept of planning boiled down is that in order to determine the direction for human resource plans you must have “a series of questions that your organization needs to answer in order to predict and perhaps control some of the major change areas for the future. This means that you begin by asking the right questions – the questions which, if asked regularly and systematically, will force you to produce answers of maximum value in shaping your future human resources.”

It is also important to look at the planning activity from an activity standpoint. From an operational view human resources planning is the analysis of human resource requirements of organizations and the related needs for management policies, programs and resources to satisfy these requirements. As is shown by Figure A, human resources planning is critically interdependent with all aspects of the business. “A human resource strategy is a critical component of the firm’s corporate and business strategies, comprising a set of well-coordinated objectives and action programs aimed at securing a long-term, sustainable advantage over the firm’s competitors. A human resource strategy should be consistent with the firm’s corporate and business strategies, as well as with the other managerial functional strategies.”

RECRUITMENT AND SELECTION

Every post in Sainsbury’s is filled by the most appropriate candidate. The identification Atkinson J (1984) process for the vacancy has been followed in Sainsbury’s where the most suitable person is selected for the job. First of all requirements for the job have been defined, potential employees are attracted, interviewed and selected the right person for the job.

Objectives for recruitment and selection process

The most important objective of this process is to achieve organizational goal to become a leading retail supermarket in the UK by providing the excellent customer service, putting customer at first and meeting the customer day to day needs.

This is ensured that the best candidate has been selected and he/she will contribute to maximize the profit for the organization. The whole process based on the human resource department; if they are unable to select the right candidate then the whole effort will be lost with the expenses as well.

In Sainsbury’s the effective planned style has been followed in which recruitment starts with the identification of vacancy, then the job description has been analyzed and advertised internally and externally. They prefer to advertise internally because they want to promote the existing staff for the role and they save the initial training or induction. If they are unable to hire the existing employee for the current role and then they look for the proper person outside the organization.

The applications are called and reviewed initially and the then some candidates have been short listed and called for interviews. The interviews are face to face and it allows them to assess the right candidate. During the interview appearance, communication and interpersonal skills have been analyzed. After the interview most appropriate person has been selected who can perform juggling tasks, have got the potential for training, development and promotion. Customer focused, attitude towards helping the people, natural team member who can work with different culture people have been selected the most during the interviews. Sainsbury’s also fulfill the legal requirements about the labor laws and equal opportunities. In the past Sainsbury’s has been able to achieve their target by the successful recruiting and selection process.

TRAINING AND DEVELOPMENT

In Sainsbury’s when employee enters it starts learning and is a continued all the times. All the employees have been trained to improve the performance. On the basis of this performance they are then promoted to higher ranks.

Objectives of the training and development in Sainsbury’s

Following objectives are tried to be obtained during training and development process.

To provide and update all the employees about the current legislations

To develop the expertise and qualification

To increase the confidence and competence

To motivate and encourage employees to get the more profit in response of their service

To improve health and safety

In Sainsbury’s training and development has been done by determining the requirements of the employee’s through appraisal, job analysis and corporate analysis. All the training has been provided in house through external and internal resources. At the end of training a questionnaire has been answered by the candidates and sometimes interviews have been conducted to observe the improvements. On the basis of these interviews and questionnaires the performance is measured and employees are promoted. Also learning enthusiasm among the staff has been determined. The ultimate result of training is to meet the target by providing service better than others.

PERFORMANCE APPRAISAL

Sainsbury has well defined system by which performance of the employees have been reviews regularly. They are following the Belbim 2008 logical review system for the performance assessment. On the basis of this system line managers in Sainsbury’s tries to develop skills to individuals as well as the whole team.

Objectives of the performance appraisal in Sainsbury’s

Some of the following objectives have been obtained

Feedback to employees on their work

Fair decision on the promotion and salaries

Providing opportunities to employees to participate the decision making process

Providing opportunities to employees for training and development

Measurement of the efficiency of the individual employees and to emphasize on the performance at their best

In Sainsbury’s performance have been measured using different methods for every department. Such as customer service; normally people at the tills; their performance has been measured through centralized computerized system. The employees are automatically ranked by the computer. When the weekly report has come then performance has been analyzed. If the performance is up to standards then employees are appreciated and if not for three consecutive three weeks then called for interview to understand the underperformance, reason are tried to find out. This system monitors speed, number of transactions, cancelled transactions and mistakes during the transactions. This helps Sainsbury’s to analyze the performance of the each individual. Due to this every employee is very sensitive about the mistakes, customer service and helped to get the target. On the basis of this effort monthly bonus scheme as a reward has been given to employees. This has done trick for Sainsbury’s and has got position in the market. Appraisal has been offered on the basis of the performance has been offered to the employees and trained for further role.

Human Resource Development (HRD)

Human Resource Development (HRD) is a framework for helping the employees to develop their personal and organizational skills, knowledge, and abilities. Human Resource Development includes such opportunities as employee training, employee career development, performance management and development, coaching, mentoring, succession planning, key employee identification, tuition assistance, and organization development.

Change of work environment has created many challenges for the human resource management to overcome for the smooth and calm run of the organization. These challenges are as under

Employee’s retention

To reduce the cost of the company management tries to cut the cost by telling human resource department to reduce the number of employees. This challenge some time gives hard time to management.

Multi-national workforce

Most of the companies are spreading operation in the different continents, where they get employee from different nations, cultures and ethics. This whole system generates a multinational environment where people work together from different nation’s altogether. The integration of multi-national work force is one of the toughest challenges faced by the human resource management.

Women in the organizations

In the number of employees in the world trend has changed and it has been seen a dramatic increase in the number of women in the organizations all over the world. Women have understood their right more than before. Their understanding has been improved a lot and human resource department have given them opportunity to work with male workforce and accepted this challenge as well.

People with disabilities and organizations

The most difficult challenge faced by human resource management is to employee the handicap person and fit into organization with all other people. Only fewer organizations in the world are giving opportunities to such people. These people need motivation which is one of the most difficult for the human resource department.

Downsizing and employees

In the recent era it has been seen that due to high cost, most of the companies have reduced number of employees. This affects the performance of the employees and left negative impact. Human resource departments are trying to implement this strategy without hurting any one’s feelings and sentiments.

Government rules and regulations

In any country companies have to follow rules and regulations by the relative government. Most of the governments have given freedom to the companies to work independently, but sometimes governments have to implement some new rules and regulations in the national interest which may be against the organizations policies which causes some problems for the human resource management.

Restructuring in the organization

Management faces a lot of problems when it decides to restructure the organization. Nobody wants change that why they always oppose the restructuring process. Human resource management tries to handle this challenge.

RECOMMENDATIONS

On the basis of analysis of human resource management system in Sainsbury’s following recommendations have been made

Career goal for the employees should be defined and staff should be motivated by deriving them towards the goal by showing them the right way, also opportunities should be indicated for the employees.

Performance appraisal should be done on the basis to quarterly performance.

The gap between the line managers and staff and management should be reduced by providing them interaction.

Time to time human resource manager workshops for the better understanding of the role; can make a difference towards the goal of the organization.

Mystery shopper reports should not be ignored; this tells the current situation of the stores.

Latest technologies should be used to improve the skills of the employees to get competitive advantage over the competitors.

There should be some mechanism be introduced which tells the management about the job satisfaction of the employees and to understand the problem those are faced by the employees at lower level.

Rewards management should be attractive in terms of benefits or bonuses or compensation.

CONCLUSION

Human resource management is responsible for the recruitment of the right people for the job to meet the goal of Sainsbury’s. Successful completion of the goals of Sainsbury’s requires effective use of people during the whole process. If anything happens during the process suppose selection of right person and the provision of right person. After completing this assignment it is concluded that human resource department is one of the critical department in the organization that plays crucial role for achieving the target of the organization. Because results are achieved with the help or organization policies, policies are made by human beings. Human beings are selected by human resource department for any organization. They work for the organization for the achievement of the result. None of the organization can get the result without loyal employees. Those should be trained up to standards and rewarded whenever they perform well. Sainsbury’s motive is to hire most hardworking and skilled people for the achievement of its goal. They train and try to develop their skills all the times. The ultimate results they wanted to become retail market leader in the UK.