Functions of HRM at Kingfisher

Human resource management can be defined as the department under an organization which deals with the management of people in the organization. Generally the major responsibilities of the HRM department are defining and designing the work, staffing, employee compensation and benefits (Cascio, 2018). It further involves the performance evaluation, appraisals as well as the health and safety of the employees, and fairness concern. It also supports the mission and objectives of the organization.

Human resource management system serves two main purposes to the organization. First is to provide sufficient amount of skills, knowledge and attitudes manpower. Second is to provide satisfied and happy workforce.

The functions performed by HRM department are human resource planning, recruitment, selection, training and development, performance evaluation and appraisals. All the activities which are linked with the staff of the organization are performed by the HR manager. The manager should establish and activate these kinds of activities in the organization (Hendry, 2012).

Under human resource management best fit and best practice approach are generally used by the organization. Best practice approach involves best performance and high commitment which can increase the profitability of all types of organizations. This approach is based on universalism. It involves the kind of techniques and methods which enable improvement and will lead an organization to the desired result (Hendry, 2012). The commitment to use the best practice approach implies using all the knowledge and technology to achieve the objectives successfully. This approach is suitable for every type of organization. It establishes the indicators of best practice give fair appraisals and rewards, give human resource a high profile. On the other hand best fit approach focuses on fulfilling the immediate needs of the organization (Marchington et al, 2016). It defines connection and relationship between the strategy and different systems of the organization. Compare to universalism the best fit approach is more complex. Best fit approach helps the organization to achieve desired goals.

At Kingfisher, best fit and best approach aims at the best practice which helps the organization to evolve and establish the right guidelines for human resource. On the other hand the motive of best fit is to select suitable fit for everything in the organization such as suitable reward system for the organization (Kerzner and Kerzner, 2017).

The functions of best practice at Kingfisher Plc are training and development, performance evaluation and appraisals and the functions of best fit involves selecting a suitable fit according to the job position and job place.

Best fit and best practice approach

HRM at Kingfisher Plc involves several practices such as workforce planning, employee relations, hiring and selection, performance appraisals and many more. The workforce planning at Kingfisher Plc includes planning about vacancies, positions, placement, promotions and demotions and other issues in regards with job (Wilton, 2016). The recruitment process helps the organization in attracting many candidates for the job application. The selection process under HRM helps the organization to select best candidates from the applied candidates for the selected job. Moreover, the Kingfisher Plc to make the environment of the workplace favorable and to solve the disputes the employee relations makes a bridge between the organization and employees.

At kingfisher: There are some strengths and weaknesses of different functions of recruitment and selection which can be explained as follows:

There are two primary functions of human resource management called recruitment and selection. The process of hiring can be defined as the action of enlisting new people in the organization. It further includes attracting new candidates for the job applicants. And the selection process can be defined as selecting the best candidate for the selected post. In other words the main focus of both the recruitment and the selection process is selecting right candidate for the right job (Marchington et al, 2016).

The recruitment process involves job description, job analysis and job specification. The strengths and weaknesses of job description, job analysis and job specification can be explained as follows:

The approaches to selection process are reliability and validity. The strength and the weaknesses of the approaches can be explained as follows:

The internal sources of recruitment can be defined as when the organization recruits people from the organization itself (Farr and Tippins, 2017). For instance, Kingfisher puts notice on the information panel of the organization for the position of sales manager. Examples of internal recruitment are information panel of the organization, intra mails, organization newsletter and filers. On the contrary external recruitment involves recruiting people from outside of the organization. For instance, give advertisement for hiring of senior manager in the local newspaper. External recruitment takes place through job consultancies, job websites, national and local newspapers, recruitment agencies and internet.

Human resource management can be defined as the department under an organization which deals with the management of people in the organization. Generally the major responsibilities of the HRM department are defining and designing the work, staffing, employee compensation and benefits (Wilton, 2016). It further involves the performance evaluation, appraisals as well as the health and safety of the employees, and fairness concern. It also supports the mission and goals of the organization.

Recruitment and selection process

The advantages of different HRM practices at Kingfisher:

The HRM practices under Kingfisher Plc are wide which involves learning, design of the job and workplace, development and training, flexible organization, payment and reward system (Hendry, 2012). In this section, two HRM practices are to be discussed considering the case of Kingfisher.

Learning, development and training

Generally every organization have applied learning, development and training practice of HRM as it plays very important role in the organization (Noe, Wilk and Wanek, 2014). As no employee is perfect in their job and knowledge so every employee needs to be trained and need to learn about new strategies.  Therefore, training, development and learning is necessary for Kingfisher’s workers to enable continuous improvement in their performance. It further helps in understanding the capabilities of the employees. Training and development efforts must be designed in such a way that it considers the essential skills, knowledge and capabilities of the employees therefore it can serve the goals of the Kingfisher it also works as a method of motivation for the employees.

Kingfisher is using several techniques of learning, development and training which can be described as follows:

Apprentice training:

Apprentice training can be defined as the process long term on the job training through which the employee becomes skilled and knowledgeable (Phillips and Phillips, 2016). After entering into the job the employee of the Kingfisher have to spend at least six months in an internal apprentice training.

Informal training:

Informal training can be defined as the training which is conducted informally in the organization, which is not the part of any training program (Noe, Wilk and Wanek, 2014).  It can be further explained as when an employee is learning informally. For instance, the employee needs assistance on some issues then he/she can ask the supervisor and can learn the method to perform the task. At Kingfisher most of the workers learned through informal ways.

Audio-visual based training:

Under this technique power point presentation, audio tapes are generally used to train the employees. This type of technique is to be used when there is high number of employees are participated in the training program (Ford, 2014).

On-the-job training:

Under this training the employees are learning during their jobs. On the job training is very usual practice at Kingfisher. The trainee will get the training by some experienced workers of the organization.

Off-the-job training:

Off the job training can be defined as getting training and learning from outside of the organization. It involves outside seminar, management games, case study method, university related programs, role playing, corporate universities and so many (Ford, 2014). Off the job training has been widely used for the development of the management at Kingfisher.

Advantages of different HRM practices at Kingfisher

Performance and reward

Performance and reward is one of the important practices of the HRM. The performance management can be defined as the evaluation of the performance of the employees that can further help in achieving the goals and objectives of the organization. These kinds of practice increase the rate of job retention by evaluating the performance of the employees. It also motivates the employees by providing attractive rewards (Antoni et al, 2017). At Kingfisher both the practice the performance appraisal and reward can ensure the job retention of the employees.

Employee performance monitoring techniques

The following techniques are to be considered at Kingfisher while tracking the performance of the employees:

• Target setting: under this technique a target has been given to the employees of the Kingfisher then actual performance is to be measure against the set target.
• 360 degree: under this technique the employees at Kingfisher receive the feedback from the employees working around them which generally includes managers, peers and their supervisors (Goetsch and Davis, 2014).
• Self-appraisal: this technique includes the self-assessment test which further involves the set of questions on which the worker have to give the self-opinion (Goetsch and Davis, 2014).

Types of payment and reward system

At Kingfisher two types of payment and rewards are there which are as follows:

• Financial reward: financial reward plays very important role in motivating the workers at Kingfisher as it includes share, pensions, salary, wages, bonuses, commission and performance related incentives (Antoni et al, 2017).
• Non-financial reward: Non-financial reward can be defined as non-monetary rewards such as promotion, job recognition, job rotation, job enrichment and others.

Effectiveness of different HRM practices at Kingfisher

The effectiveness of different HRM practices at kingfisher can be defined as follows:

Effectiveness of learning, training and development

• At Kingfisher learning, training and development methods are used to enhance the skills of the workers (Noe, Wilk and Wanek, 2014). It also helps the workers to make their work efficient and effective. For instance, on the job training and informal training helps the workers to develop the skills and knowledge of the employees. It helps to increase the profit and productivity of the organization as it involves very less cost.

• Off-the-job training is very important for the development of the management at Kingfisher. It often includes very high cost but it is always worth it to spend on the training of the employees. Employees need to be trained because it helps in enhancing their knowledge and skills (Phillips and Phillips, 2016). The short term funding gives long term sustainability, productivity and profitability to the organization.

Effectiveness of performance and reward

• At Kingfisher employees are worked to get attractive incentives and recognition in the organization therefore performance and reward plays very important role in the organization (Antoni et al, 2017). Kingfishers want their workers to perform well in their specific jobs. Evaluation of the performance of the employees helps the employers to know about their weaknesses and strengths so they can take further initiatives. Consequently it helps in increasing the productivity of the workers.

• At Kingfisher, reward is the greatest tool to motivate the employees. Employees are doing great to achieve the objective of the organization so they expect recognition for their performance. Kingfishers generally use both monetary and non-monetary incentives.

Factors affecting HR activities in the organization

The purpose is to provide information regarding internal and external factors affecting human resource management decision making and employment legislation. The internal and external factors affecting HR activities are as follows:

Competition

The increasing competition under our industry is affecting the organization’s abilities to recruit good and suitable candidates. There is no need to spend lot of money on advertising because if the candidates are interested they will visit the website of the company by their own accord. Therefore the human resource department needs to develop some new policies and need to focus on developing new recruitment ways and methods (Sparrow, Brewster and Chung, 2016). The department should attend the job fairs to further promote the brand name of the company or to attract the candidates. The department should also create some new incentives to retain the employees in the organization.

Compensation

Compensation is one of the internal factors which influence the HR activities of our organization. The business should offer the amount of compensation as per the labor supply of the organization. When there are more qualified candidates than the job opportunities the less amount of compensation can be given to the employees (Benjamin, 2018). When there are more job opportunities than the qualified candidates at that time we are actually competing with so many organizations in recruiting qualified candidates. Human resource manager should ensure that the structure of compensation should be fair. He should also conduct the salary surveys to provide competitive wages to attract the employees towards the organization. For instance, the experienced workers must get higher wages than the candidates who have no experience at all.

Legislation

HR activities also get affected by legislation. The state and federal legislation decides how long business can retain the personnel records and the details of the employee (Benjamin, 2018). What kind of data should be stored? For example the act of Health Insurance Portability Accountability, the act of American with Disabilities and the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination obliged the employers to make the personal data or the medical data of the employee confidential. The manager should operate as per the employee legislations.

Employee Relations

HR activities also get affected by the internal procedure and policies (Benjamin, 2018). For instance, if the organization has decided to promote the employees from the organization itself, HR manager should make sure that the employees will get necessary training. The HR manager should raise the employees this way that when the time comes they can fill the spaces. The manger should check the number of employees who are eligible for retirement and should also have the potential employees who can fill their spaces.

Importance of employee relations in Kingfisher with respect to influencing HRM decision-making

Kingfisher involves very interactive environment as all the employees are comfortable with each other (Barak, 2016). It is very necessary for an organization to have interactive environment as it motivates the employees and this is one of the way to retain the employees in the organization. Employees need to talk and need to be comfortable with each other as they have to work as a single unit to achieve the desired goals. To take a right decision it is necessary to take advices from fellow workers for making the decision wise. Therefore the importance of employee relations can be described as follows:

• Delegation of authorities and responsibilities

‘By sharing work with other people makes the work easy’. Kingfisher follows this quote and they divide the work among all the employees to make the task easy. The advantage of delegating the authority and responsibility is that assigned task will get complete on time (Rees and Smith, 2017). Sharing work with other employees maintains the good relation among the employees consequently productivity will get increase.

• Discouraging conflict among workers

To decrease the chances of conflict among the workers there is a need to maintain the good employee relations in the organization (Kitchin, 2017). At Kingfisher the employees have trust on each other. They help each other in doing the difficult task by trusting each other that they will not provide the wrong information. They do not consider their coworkers as their competitors. Consequently it helps the human resource department to take the wise decision for the organization.

• Loyalty of the employee

Kingfisher has earned the loyalty of the employees by providing the interactive environment to the employees. The employees perform their duties and responsibilities more willingly. To retain the employees in the organization it is necessary to provide them a healthy environment. This will further help in maintaining good relations with the employees and that will result into greater productivity (Rees and Smith, 2017).

• Equity

Kingfisher treats all his employees equally. The organization does not discriminate between different people working in the organization. The employees get motivated, when they get the chance to freely share their opinions. When this kind of environment is being provided to the employees they perform their task very well and it further help human resource department to take the right decision.

The key elements of employment legislation and the impact it has upon HRM decision-making

• Ensuring equality

The organization must treat every employee equally there should be no discrimination at the time of recruiting employees. Every employee should be given equal working hours, health facilities, wages and sex. If any time employee feels any kind of discrimination in this criterion they can ask for the help of legislative to resolve their issue (Hood, Hardy and Simpson, 2016). Human resource department can have positive impact on employees by making sure the point of equality.

• Data protection

Every organization should provide the data protection to every employee of the department. According to the federal legislation the organization should make the employee’s health related information confidential and they cannot even share the personal data of the employees (Martocchio, 2011).

• Proper compensation

The organization should provide the full detail regarding the compensation to the employees (Martocchio, 2011).  They should state the minimum wages to the employees at the time of recruitment.

• Time of work

The organization should inform the employees about the exact working hours of their job (Hood, Hardy and Simpson, 2016). The employees have contributed to the organization and they help the HR department in decision making. So at the time of recruiting people, Kingfisher must give a prior set of legal actions.

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