Strategic Human Resource Management - Research Paper Example

Running Head: STRATEGIC HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT Strategic Human Resource Management of the of the Abstract ASDA is engaged in the operation of food, clothing, home and leisure superstores throughout the UK and property development. ASDA chain of food superstores is focused on being a high quality operator of value for money fresh food in Britain. ASDA stores provide a wide range of fresh food and in-store prepared and finished goods including old fashioned scratch baking, in-store butchery, fishmongery and preparation of salads for its salad bars and cooked meals for the consumer to take home. ASDA markets its own brand of ASDA food products. In addition, ASDA is engaged in the retailing of clothing, home and leisure products. Entertainment products include the sale of compact discs and videos. Additionally, ASDA is engaged in property investment and development through its Gazeley division. In this paper we will evaluate the companies Strategic Human Resource Management policies. Strategic Human Resource Management Introduction The Human Resource Management or personnel function of ASDA covers a variety of activities. The term 'Human Resource Management' has largely replaced the old-fashioned word 'personnel', which was used in the past. (Arthur, 2003, 670-687) The effectiveness with which ASDA runs its Human Resources policies can be measured by the level of employee satisfaction, and this is where stability indexes and wastage rates are so important. If employees are content with their work, they are most likely to turn up for work. Levels of stress and stress-related absenteeism increase when there is a poor Human relations atmosphere. (Boxall, 2002, 51-7) Age, skills and training ASDA will have a range of employees who have worked for different lengths of time and who have different levels of skills and training. The Human Resource planner will seek to have a balance of new people entering ASDA in order to cover those who are leaving. The Human Resource Planner will also want to make sure that skill levels are raising within ASDA, and that training programmes are devised to make sure people have the skills to meet ASDA's job's requirements. If all ASDA's skilled employees are just about to retire, ASDA will have to spend a lot of money on training to build up a new pool of expertise. Succession Succession is the way in which one person follows another person into a particular job or role within ASDA. ASDA need to make sure it is grooming people to take on the responsibility required. If ASDA do not do this, it will suddenly find itself with a vacuum where it has not developed the people to move into the appropriate position of responsibility, and ASDA will be missing the right people in key position to hold ASDA together. Local Skills Shortages Within any area at any one time, there will be jobs that are going into decline because the skills required for those jobs are becoming redundant. At the same time, new skills and capabilities will be emerging, and demand for these will be rising faster than supply. As a result, skills shortages will arise and these will cause considerable frustration for local employers (e.g. ASDA). The wages of people in the skill shortages area will be rising, and there will be competition to recruit and to retain these scarce employees. Where a local shortage occurs, ASDA will often seek to advertise and recruit in other areas - in other regions and from other countries. This is why, for example, there are many doctors from overseas working in both private practice and for the National Health Service in the UK. ASDA need to be aware of local skills shortages so they can develop their own training programmes to make sure there are enough people coming through with the skills required. They will also work together with other local employers in the same industry to support local school, college and university courses that train people in the skills required for these specific industries. Competition for employees ASDA will be interested to know whether its competitors are expanding and, therefore, increasing the demand for labour, or whether local redundancies mean labour is more readily available. Availability of Labour (internal and external to ASDA) The amount of labour in a particular are, depends on the number of people available for work. The state of the local labour market is as significant as what is happening nationally or regionally. ASDA need to know about the supply of labour in the locations where they are operating (ASDA have many stores in the UK, e.g. Kingston, Roehampton, Walton, etc...) the need to know about the current and future supply trends. A report published in December 1999 showed that there is a gross simplification to think of the UK simply in terms of the north-south divided. (Arthur, 2003, 670-687) The report showed that a more accurate picture is of a relevantly south and a relevantly less prosperous north with pockets of prosperity. In the jobs market the gaps between regional unemployment rates in 2000 were lower than they had been in the past 20 years, but the southeast had far lower unemployment (3.7) than the northeast (10.1%). The southeast also had the highest proportion of its working-age population in employment, the lowest proportion of the UK workforce with no qualifications and the lowest proportion claiming benefits. (Beardwell, 2001, 45-58) The education and training opportunities available to ASDA employees will affect both, the numbers of people coming into the labour market and their overall skill level. In Britain over recent years, their has been an increasing number of young people participating in both further and higher education. Young people also appreciate the need for higher skills to compete in the job market. The policy-making role covers the labour turnover in which they both share the same goal 2employee satisfaction", and by using the wastage rate formula in which we can see: 13.3% of ASDA's permanent employees have left. This is bad because of the money ASDA have to spend on new employees for recruiting, introduction and training. A welfare role is concerned people who need to take a length of time to do with exam leave, maternity and paternity, these are unpaid leave. The supporting role will help managers appoint and train new staff they also play a part in Succession, Employment trends, competition from employers and the availability of labour (internal and external). The supporting role in which play a part in succession (this is to guide a new employee so they can take over a senior member of staff). So when ASDA hire a new college they try to set them a mentor to train from, so if that senior member is leaving the store or retiring ASDA are assured that there will be little or no differences with the new employee. If the new employee does not do this ASDA will find itself with a vacuum where ASDA have not developed the employee to move into the appropriate position, and ASDA will be missing the right employee in key positions to hold them together. ASDA have many competition from employers (or competition for employees) this is when employers find an outstanding individual and try to lure them into the their own company, in which they will try to bribe them to go there (e.g. offer a very high salary or offer a house and company car), this is all to lure them so the employee will give the business the same success as the company that, that employee worked for before. The company will then have a larger income whilst the employee who brought it to them will still get the same as before unless they offer the employee a bonus on their hard work. (Walton, 1999) Induction Training Induction is the process of introducing new employees to their place of work, job, new surroundings and the people they will be working with. Induction also provides information to help new employees start work and generally 'fit in'. (Dyer, 2002, 656-670) As well as following naturally from recruitment and selection, induction should also consider the initial training and development anyone needs either on joining ASDA or on taking a new function within it. As well as dealing with the initial knowledge and skills needed to do the job, in the case of a new organisation, it should also deal with the structure, culture and activities of the organisation. In large companies (i.e. ASDA), induction training will involve the new employee working in a number of departments for a short period of time to get an overall feel for ASDA before starting in a specific department. This enables the inductee to build up contacts and to obtain a good general overview of ASDA. Typically, induction will involve a talk from a senior member of ASDA, getting to know other new recruits, a corporate video and, often some activities to break the ice for the new recruit. An important part of induction training will involve an introduction to ASDA's regulations and health and safety requirements, etc. The new recruit will usually be given an induction pack that introduces him or her to ASDA. In-house training and external training In-house training is where ASDA has its own training department. External training is where employees are sent on external courses, or are trained in other ways, away from ASDA. In-house training can take place on the job or off the job within the company, but external training always takes place off the job. On-the-job training On-the-job training (OJT) takes place when employees are trained while they are carrying out an activity, often at their place of work. Off-the-job training Off-the-job training, as its name suggests, takes place away from the job. This can be either internally within ASDA or externally using outside trainer. Many large companies will engage in a great deal of internal off-the-job training. ASDA have always relied on the performance of the human resource. However, in the twenty-first centaury this is truer than ever before because the economy is built on intelligence and complex information and communications technology systems. The result of these developments is that most modern employees have to interface directly with customers (they all have an internal customer), and decisions need to be taken by employees at every level within ASDA, rather than waiting to be told what to do. Performance reviews (including appraisals) In ASDA you want everyone to be pulling in the same direction. ASDA will therefore set out a mission statement identifying the overarching aims of ASDA. This will be a brief statement. Coupled with this, ASDA will create a values statement. Given the mission and values the organisation can create objectives at every level within the company - right down to personal objectives for individual members of ASDA. It is through these objectives that the success of ASDA can be monitored and evaluated, as well as measuring the performance of individual members of ASDA. With such a system in place it becomes possible to establish for a period of time the key result areas that an individual achieves can be judged against expected standards; a reward system can then be tailored to the way in which the individual enables ASDA to achieve its results. Self-evaluation Self-evaluation is an important part of performance management. Self-evaluation is very important in the work context. ASDA encourage their employees to establish meaningful goals and then to evaluate his or her own performance against the required standards. Employees who are given more assignments to do are also often encouraged to evaluate their own performance in carrying out these assignments to the required standard. Peer evaluation Although, peer evaluation can often result in low levels of criticism so that performance is judged in too favourable light. Also, peer evaluation can create an approach whereby those who working the peer evaluation system build up a defensive position against ASDA - to justify their own decisions and performance rather than viewing things from ASDA side. Target setting for individuals and groups Performance management is a term that is used to describe the process in which employees participate with their superiors in setting their own performance targets. (Mueller, 2001, 757-785) These targets are directly aligned with the stated goals of the teams, units or departments they work for and hence, with ASDA's targets. There are three broad approaches to staff appraisals, based on personal attributes, skills or performance. They are not necessarily mutually exclusive. Schemes may contain elements of each. ASDA may use different schemes for different groups of employees. Skills Appraisals focus on the employee's proficiency in the skills relevant to the particular job. Depending on the job, these might include technical competence, communications skills and the interpersonal skills needed to deal with customers. The person doing the appraisals, usually the manager, observes the employee over a period of time and records his or her judgement of the employee's competence. The standard cold be ASDA's own or it could be the performance standard of a relevant National Vocational Qualification. Measuring individual and group output/productivity Often within ASDA there is a considerable amount of dissatisfaction about the way different individuals or groups rewarded in the system, which may seem to defy logic. Many appraisal schemes include behaviour scales because it is felt that behaviour rather than personality should be appraised and rewarded. Behaviour scales describe a range of behaviours that contribute, to a greater or lesser degree, to the successful achievement of the cluster of task that make up a job. Supervisors carrying out an appraisal are asked to indicate which statements on the specially designed form most accurately describe a subordinate's behaviour. A detailed version of this is the behaviour. A detailed version of this is the Behaviourally Anchored Rating Scales (BARS). Statements about work behaviour are used to create scales, which must then be tested to confirm their relevance and accuracy. Today, ASDA use a competency-based approach to measuring performance. Competency is defined as 'an underlying characteristic of an individual which is related to effective or superior performance in a job'. Job evaluation is the process of assessing in ASDA the value of one job in relation to another, without regard to the ability or personality of the individuals currently holding the position. It results in a pay range for each job. An individual's personal worth within the fixed range for that job. Training needs to be closely related to the business environment. This is particularly true in ASDA where the pace of change is very high. In commerce (buying and selling), for example, there has been a revolution in the development of e-commerce. As a result, ASDA have had to make a great leap forward to ensure large numbers of people are able to work effectively with new internet-based technologies. In the last decade of the twentieth century, ASDA started dealing with the people who were their employees. Instead of seeking to get the best out of people just for the sake of the business - i.e. to help it achieve its objectives - the new emphasis termed 'human resources management' (HRM) was that people would only work for their best for ASDA if ASDA gave priority to identifying and seeking to meet the personal needs and objectives of its employees. A second important change in people management in the 1990s was recognition in many business organisations that 'people work' was not just the responsibility of the 'personnel' department. It is the responsibility of all the managers in ASDA - supported by HRM specialists. Increasingly, responsibility for recruitment, selection, appraisals and training in ASDA is carried out by managers who work on an ongoing basis with employees rather than by a specialist in a centralised HRM function. A third key change in people management was that HRM was given a great deal more status in ASDA. Instead of being something carried on at lower levels of ASDA, HRM is now recognised as a key 'strategic' area of ASD (i.e. one that needs to be given a high priority in organisational planning involving senior management). Conclusion ASDA have moved away from 'personnel management' to the new 'human resource management'. Responsibilities for people management are developed to line managers. Personnel professionals support and facilitate. Line managers are responsible for the appraisals of staff and staff development, personnel professionals may offer support through appraisal training for staff and staff managers. Planning of Human Resources is part of overall corporate planning. The mission statements of ASDA today include references to the place of human resources. Employees are viewed as individuals with the potential for development, in line with the needs of ASDA. ASDA have an appraisal system, which focus on the continuing professional development of staff. Management and non-management are committed to common goals, and have an interest in the success of ASDA. The increased emphasis on teams in ASDA means that more people are involved in identifying goals and should therefore be more committed to them. References Arthur, J. (2003). Effects of human resource systems on manufacturing performance and turnover. 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