Strategic Human Resource Management (Research Paper Sample)

UNIT NAME

Strategic Human Resource Management

COURSE

Postgraduate Diploma in Strategic Management and Leadership

UNIT CODE

10

LEVEL

7


LECTURER

John Mariampillai

VERIFIER

Sean Barrett

HAND OUT DATE

22nd Oct 2012

SUBMISSION DATE

See submission deadlines

STUDENT NAME

Raju Dhakal

STUDENT ID

101323

PART 1
Strategic Human Resource Management at
J Sainsbury’s PLC, UK
1.0 AN INTRODUCTION
Established in London in 1869, J Sainsbury's PLC is one of the leading retailer in UK with over £22million turnover in the year 2011. J Sainsbury's PLC’s strategic vision is to be the most trusted retailer in the UK’s retailing industry. The company's success up to date had been tremendous. It had achieved revenue of over. J Sainsbury's PLC’s mission is simplicity, team work, quality products and services to their valued customers.
Nevertheless, the organization values its workforce and maintains high quality Strategic Human resource practices and the staff are extremely welcoming, customer dedicated, team oriented individuals. However, this report was set to investigate the importance and purpose of strategic human resource management at J Sainsbury’s PLC.
2.0 IMPORTANCE OF STRATEGIC HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT
As elaborated by Armstrong (2009), any organization comprises of two types of resources – the human resource and the non-human resource. However, as further elaborated by him, the human resource is vital to any organization due to various importance outlines below. Mondy (2010) on the other hand elaborated that people of an organization is a dynamic resource and they are the key influence for organizational performance and the management must undertake human centric managerial practices in order to achieve higher efficiency in business. Nevertheless, Mondy (2010) had further identified that there are various distinctive HR roles involved in any organization as,
However, according to the modern thoughts on strategic HRM, these basic HR practices must be linked to the strategic objectives of the organization. Nevertheless, as elaborated by CIPD (2012), Strategic HRM is a framework to support organizations in achieving long term strategic objectives of the company by successfully managing the resources, structure, quality, culture, values and commitment of the workforce. In a nutshell, the purpose of existence of ‘Strategic Human Resource Management’ in organization is to strategically manage the workforce of the organization towards achieving organizational goals.
For example, the strategic goals of J Sainsbury's PLC’s is enabling customers to live life for less. This involves simplicity, teamwork, quality products and services for affordable prices. So, during strategic HRM, these goals are interconnected to the organizational HRM practices.
Following is the broad application of Strategic HRM model to Sainsbury’s
Strategic HRM in Sainsbury’s (derived from Kane and Palmer, 1995)
For example, to achieve the goal in teamwork – the HRM managers at Sainsbury’s must first create effective teams. This will be done though effective recruitment and selection procedure at Sainsbury’s. So, HRM team at Sainsbury’s follow a prescribed HRM practices in recruitment and selection. Also, to facilitate equal employment opportunities, Sainsbury’s undertake a specific HRM process during their recruitment and selection. For instance, the vacancy must be advertised, applications must be submitted through the corporate website, the applicants are supposed to undergo a series of online tests, CVs must be screened, first stages of interviews needed to be undertaken, final interviews should be carried out, then the appropriate applicant should be selected and recruited. Thereafter, the manager must issue the employee adequate contracts, employment letters, terms and conditions at work, uniforms etc. the official induction 3 days training session should be carried out and adequate training and development sessions should also be followed to enhance employee skills and competencies from time to time.
This process had been linked to the organizational objective in building effective teams within Sainsbury’s. Therefore, the company follows strategic HRM practices in recruitment and selection of employees to facilitate the overall objective in enabling customers to live life for less.
However, these various strategic activities are highly important for organizations and successful use of these HR practices towards the workforce, the management would be able to create and maintain a competitive workforce within the company. This would enable the management in achieving a competitive edge over the other players in the market and finally, attaining their desired business success (Mondy, 2010).
Nevertheless, as elaborated by Rothwell et al (2008), modern transformed Human Resource Management plays three vital roles within an organization, namely; supporting business changes, attracting and retaining a growing talent and supporting business by HR core capabilities (figure 1.0).
Figure 1.0 Three main aspects of modern transforming HR (Rothwell et al, 2008)
For instance, as per the figure 1.0, Sainsbury could tailor made the training and development programmes to build effective teams who could deliver the strategic goals of the organization – the quality products, services to its valued customers. HR department could carry out various training and development programs on customer services, service quality, selling skills, team building skills, effective communication skills etc in order to support the internal business practices of Sainsbury’s in attracting and retaining customers, increasing sales, building winning teams etc. Therefore, by practicing effective human resource management strategies is important in supporting the organization to achieve its business objectives.
Moreover, strategic HRM also involves responding to the external business competition. For instance, ASDA uses various SHRM strategies to attract and retain a quality staff by offering career progress, attractive remuneration, rewards and recognition etc. therefore, Sainsbury’s must also provide attractive facilities, industry average salaries etc to attract and retain their human talent. Once, the quality staff are retained, trained and developed, Sainsbury’s could easily use this as a competitive advantage and also to achieve strategic corporate objectives in delivering highest quality services and products and to be and to reach the vision of being the most trusted retailer. Hence, a sustainable strategic HRM practices is vital for Sainsbury’s in order to survive in the market and to attain organizational strategic goals.
In addition, talented workforce is an asset to an organization since its overall performance is dependent on the actions of the workforce. So, once the staffs are educated on the company internal business processes and procedures, they are becoming talented and effective in the field of retailing. So, if Sainsbury’s could successfully retain these talented individuals, then it can be used as a competitive advantage over the other players in the market. Also, trained and developed staff could facilitate further organizational development, innovation and change to further gain competitive edge. For example, the current 20x20 leaders program of Sainsbury’s is the most invested and attractive leadership development program in the industry with the focus of creating leaders at Sainsbury’s in the year 2020. Sainsbury’s is focusing on a huge expansion of its fleet and the HRM department of Sainsbury’s has changed its traditional approach to HR and has come up with 20x20 leaders program to support these organizational wide strategic changes (, 2012).
3.0 HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT STRATEGIES
Sainsbury’s corporate strategy – Quality Service, Products
Sainsbury’s HR strategy - 20 x 20 A great place to work
As elaborated by Haslinda (2009), Human Resource Management is a key function in any business in managing talents of its workforce in order to attain organizational objectives. Hence, the human resource management strategies used at Sainsbury’s help to achieve its objectives in many ways. For instance, the Sainsbury’s HR strategy for 2020 is designed to optimize the performance of the company by the year 2020. The objectives and the values of J Sainsbury's PLC had been set as simplicity, teamwork, quality products and services (see figure 2.0) (J Sainsbury’s PLC, 2012).
Ex; Operational excellence is achieved by effective management of human resource at Sainsbury’s. 20x20 leaders HR strategy would lead operational excellence of Sainsbury’s
Figure 2.0 Sainsbury’s Values (J Sainsbury’s PLC, 2012)
However, delivering these values and achieving objectives are purely depending on the performance of the Sainsbury’s workforce. Therefore, implementing a right strategic HR approach to the entire workforce of the company is essential in accomplishing set objectives by 2020.
Accordingly, the store staff had first been announced on the new HR strategy of 2020 leaders. Then, the management of Sainsbury’s had set milestones, SLAs (Service Level Agreements), KPIs (Key Performance Indicators), KRAs (Key Results Areas) etc to every department and allocated respective tasks for teams and individuals in achieving goals. Then, the manage...