Purpose and Scope of Human Resource Management

Human resources are a most valuable and specific assets of a business enterprise. It helps to examine on different HR processes with attracting, managing, motivating and developing employees for the benefits of a business firm.

TASK 1

a) Function and importance of HR in an organisation

Functions and its importance in an organisation

Every organisation involves people in it, human resource management is obtaining services from employees and encouraging them to increase their performance level so that they can work efficiently within a company (Alfes and et. al., 2013). In Squire's Garden Centre, HR manager plays a very vital role. Its role is to supervise and manage process of hiring to termination of an employee. Though a personnel manager has many functions which are listed below.

• Recruitment and selection: It is a method of selecting suitable candidate for a specific job. It includes various phases like entrancing, observing and hiring which needed for a job. This process plays a main role in every company(Budhwar and Debrah, 2013). In Squire's Garden Centres this function helps to encourage candidate which are qualified for a specific vacancy and to motivate unsuitable candidates to opt out. Through this company can do reduction in costs in errors or mistakes like hiring an incompetent, uncourageous and employees who are under qualified. But doing termination of an under qualified applicant and recruiting a new candidate will again require a huge cost.
• Orientation: There are many companies who do not conduct orientation programs for new joiners. It is a basic step which helps new employees to adjust oneself with working environment and also with employer. An orientation program of an employee should be conducted so that targets and objectives of a company so be introduce to employees and they get guidance on ways to achieve those goals and objectives(Chelladurai and Kerwin, 2017). Here in Squire's Garden Centres, this function is important as it helps in delegating duties and giving clarity about job description, roles and responsibilities of an employee. This function also helps in maintaining a healthy and harmonious relationship with other subordinates within an organisation.
• Maintaining Good Working Conditions: One of main function of an HR manager is provide a healthy and good conditions for working within an organisation. It is a priority of personnel manager to encourage employees. In Squire's Garden Centres, this function is important as delivering good working conditions to employees will eventually give job satisfaction to employees which will benefit organisation in a longer duration. When employees are given suitable working conditions they will work hard and will deliver their excel performance for achieving organisational objectives.
• Managing Employee Relations:Employees plays a crucial role in every organisation. Employee and employer relationship is a vast concept and is an important function of personnel manager. Moreover, in Squire's Garden Centres this function helps in fostering better relations between employees. Manager can conduct seminars or programs for knowing employees at personal as well as professional level. Maintaining healthy relations between employee and employer will also help organisation to increase profit and be successful in market place(Huselid and Becker,2011).
• Training and development: It is an indispensable function of a HR. It helps in improving present as well as future performance of an employee by giving them training to develop oneself. In Squire's Garden Centres, this function is important as it helps in educating and enhancing knowledge and skills of a workforce within an organisation.

Plans to become an employer of choice

Squire's Garden Centres can adopt various methods to become employer of choice and attract candidates to apply for their company. They can give compensation and extra salary for working extra for company. Various schemes can be introduced for employees to give them health and security benefits while working in an organisation.

b) Advantages and disadvantages of current recruitment and selection method of a company and its comparison with other methods 

Squire's Garden Centres advertises in various newspapers and online websites. By which there get many applicants for a specific vacancy. Then they do interviews to select appropriate and suitable candidates for a given job post(López-Nicolás and Meroño-Cerdán, 2011). An interview involves an interaction between an candidate applying for a job and a representative of a company who takes interview and is conducted to analyse whether an applicant is selected or not. This method of recruitment and selection has various advantages and disadvantages which are mentioned below.

Advantages of interview:

• Easy correction of speech: One of the main advantage of this process that errors or mistakes can be improved on the spot. It is because an applicant is present physically in front of interviewer.
• Selection of suitable candidate: This process can give an organisation a suitable candidate as through it interviewer can ask different questions from candidate and can judge them accordingly. It helps in getting a lot of information and knowledge about a candidate.

Disadvantages of interview

• Time-consuming: This process requires much time which is a major drawback. Conducting interviews, preparing for taking interviews,s and declaration of results require a huge time which makes this process a time consuming process.
• No record: As this process is done by the physical presence of both interviewer and interviewee no record as proof is collected or gathered in case if there is any future consequences(Messersmith and et. al., 2011). This method does not keep evidence of discussion done during the process of interview. 

Comparison of interview method with recruitment agency method

TASK 2

a) Prepare job description and a personal specification for a customer service assistant at Squire's Garden Centres

HR manager of Squire's Garden centre doing recruitment and selection process for the vacancy of Customer service assistant for that they prepare job description and personal specification according to vacant position.

Job Description:-

It is a written document that contain description of general tasks or other related duties and responsibilities of a particular position. Job description specify the function of position reported, specification such as qualification, location, skills, purpose, salary range, department and so on(Marchington and et. al., 2016). In short it is the summary of job analysis. Squire's Garden centre design job description for position of Customer Services assistant is describe below:-

Person Specification:-

It refers to quality of human required for performing the jobs. Person specification is the description of persons qualification, skills, experiences, knowledge and attributes which is required to perform job duties or task. It is derive form job description and create foundation for recruitment process(Renwick, Redman, and Maguire, 2013). Respective company create person specification for the given profile is mention below:

b) Prepare an advert for the customer service assistant for Squire's website

The advertisement designed by mangers of Squire's Garden Centre to inform about opining of Customer service assistant to the appropriate candidates, so that they can apply for specific position(Rubery and Urwin, 2011). It help the respective company to recruit right person at the right position. Advertisement created by company is given below:-

c) Recommend at least one medium which may be appropriate for this vacancy and justify the recommendation

It can be recommended that the job description and persons specification is more appropriate for HR managers of Squire's Garden Centre to advertise about their opining of Customer service assistant for recruitment and selection process. Because through it both respective company and candidates get proper idea about the vacancy and requirement criteria such as qualification, skills requires, responsibilities, purpose, location and so on. By help of job description and persons specification candidates can compare their skills with required skills and if they find that they can do respective work then only they will apply, which help company to filter out unrelevant candidates and find the appropriate candidate for the customer service assistance position in Squire's Garden Centre(Schermerhorn and et. al., 2014). Advertisement is not much effective because in for the respective organization because it did not give much clarity about position which is customer service assistant. It is because it didn't contain more required information, which not give clear picture about the requirement.

TASK 3

a) Benefits of Squires providing Apprenticeship to both organisation as well as apprentice 

Squire's Garden Centre's is a medium size horticultural business company that deals with local community. It was founded by D.J Squire in 1936. This company provide a vast variety of plants and products of garden along with houseplants, furniture of garden and gifts. Human resource manager of this company conducts various programs for training and developing employees within an organisation. Training and development is important in an organisation to enhance a person knowledge and skill. There are two types of methods in this which are On the job and off the job method. They follow apprenticeship method under off the job methods for giving training and development to employees. Apprenticeship training approach was started in Middle ages and is a method through which employees can become experts in their work by a combination of on the job training and instruction within classrooms. Benefits of Apprenticeship for organisation as well as apprentice are been discussed below.

Boosting productivity and competitiveness:

It is a proof that hiring apprentices can help in increasing productivity of an organisation covering both both long and short term profits. Apprenticeship also help companies to have a competitive advantage in dynamic market place. Customers get attracted to those companies who employs apprentices within it.

Building Skills and keeping staff:

Major issue which is affecting most of companies is skill gap where they find difficulty in filling vacant posts. But by hiring apprentices, company can give them training so that they can gain skills and knowledge which is required for an enterprise. Moreover, to improve training of an employee one can offer apprenticeship to present staff members. By providing employees effective training will also help the company in keeping retention of staff members. One of main reason for this, is that employees have a sense of loyalty towards employers and they will work more dedicatedly and will be encouraged to stay at a work place.

Cost effective training:

This method of training is quite a cost effective approach, since younger people are contributing to companies during their process of learning(Sheehan, 2014). Apprentices invest their lot of time in acquiring skills during job, and might attend Skills Training centres. Another benefit for employers is that when they pay wages for apprenticeship, they are also provided with funding which cover other expenses of training. We provide the Top essay writing service from experts.

b) Development opportunities to employees

Squire's Garden Centre's provide various development opportunities to employees to gain knowledge and increase their skill which are been discussed below.

• High rewards: After getting proper training and development employee is eligible for high rewards and incentives which are available within a company. Rewards can be of two types that is monetary and non monetary. Monetary rewards can given through bonus and incentives and non monetary is given in form of appreciation.
• Promotion: If an employee will learn within an organisation they will get to know everything about it which led to promotion within a workplace. Promotion is a method which helps in encouraging employees to work hard. There are two types of promotion that is either horizontal or vertical. Horizontal means increment in same post and vertical means promoting to a higher level.
• Job security: When an employee gets a job security while working they feel secure and they will not feel insecure and will work dedicatedly within an organisation which will them to get more career development opportunities in a company.
• High rewards: When employees are given high rewards they will get motivated and will work hard and will work efficiently which will help organisation to increase profit and productivity.
• Job security: Job security in employee's hand will encourage them to work with full enthusiasm. Once employee working in Squire's Garden Centres have surety of job security that they can not be fire without providing correct justification. They can only terminate them in case if they are found under malpractices or illegal by a law.
• Social recognition: Recognition refer to get appreciation which employee get for performing good. Squire's Garden Centres is a medium size industry by remaining with them for a long period give social recognition which tell that person have some capability.
• Higher responsibilities: When employee get permanent in the organisation than employer start assigning higher responsibilities which increase the change of development of employee in the organisation. Squire's Garden Centres employees also get higher responsibilities in the organisation on the basis of their previous performances.

c) Range of benefits and rewards available to staff

TASK 4

a) Employee engagement and its importance to employee relations

Employee engagement is capacity of employees through which they feel dedication of their job roles and gets committed to a workplace and also takes initiative in their work. It helps in gaining performance of an employee. Employees who are engaged in their organisation leads to be good decision maker and they also do excellence in their performance. Engaged employees also give an competitive advantage to its rivals(Sparrow, Brewster, and Chung, 2016).

Importance of employee engagement to employee relations

If there will be engagement of employees within an organisation they will collaborate with each other and work in a team. Engaged employees will feel motivated and encouraged towards goals and objectives of an organisation and will work dedicatedly to achieve their targets. Through engaged employees productivity and performance of employees will increase. It will also boost morale of employees which will gain productivity of a firm. When workers will coordinate with each other and work effectively it will help in reducing negativity within a workplace.

b) Recommend workers of engaging effectively within Squire's Garden Centres

For keeping employees engaged within organisation Squire's Garden Centres follows various techniques which also help them to maintain employment resistivity and reduce turnover .These methods are being discussed below. 

Open communication:

Through this company give chances to employees to give their opinions in any decision. People are asked to interact with each other so that they can earn profits for an organisation. Communication can be two different types which are verbal and non verbal communication. Through open communication employees feel motivated and work dedicatedly for a company(Storey, 2014).

• Organisation meetings: Companies can conduct meetings to solve or resolve issues or grievances of employees which will make them feel secured and committed towards the organisation. Under meetings performance of employees should be discussed and employees who are working should be appraised or given recognition.
• Decision making: It is another important factor which can keep employees engaged within the organisation. Employees will feel loyal towards company when they are free to discuss and share their ideas about a topic and when their ideas are being considered.
• Sharing practice and ideas with teams: Squire's Garden Centres should share their ideas with the employees so that they can get the opportunity to show their talent and the work. Learning programs can be used to involve workers and strength the relationship with employees.
• Invite feedback: The respective company can use feedback method to engage employees in the work. Feedback is done through taking suggestion, surveys, and by organising meetings so that worker get the opportunity to speak and respond.
• Employee voice:Taking surveys is not enough for the any company for involving staff. Microsoft should use various channels through which each employee can raise various business issues and provide feedback. Concerned company use discussion forums where group can easily inform about issues and get feedback from their respective authority.

Engaging employees is very important in the business because it improve communication in the following ways. Interaction between peer and authority with the employees engagement there is a relation start building between top and lower authority. Both of them is an essential part of the business who are responsible for the success. They can discuss any problems and issues with each other without any inconvenience and hesitation(Storey, 2014).

c)Legislation of the UK and its impact on the human resource management

In order to provide security to employees and lawful consideration of an organisation UK has implemented many acts within an organisation. These acts are amended by different companies for functioning of business as well as employees. Manager of Squire's Garden Centres also amended some acts within an organisation to give rights to employees. These laws are been discussed below. 

Equality Act 2010:

This act provides equal opportunity to every individual who work in any enterprise. It save people or individual from discrimination in the work premises which are based on race,gender,nation origin,religion and disability. Moreover, it also provide benefit to all employees whether that worker belong to private or public sector. In an organisation it is necessary to follow equality act at time of appointing or hiring new employee. Every employee whether new or old want equal authority and responsibility who are at same designation. It should be followed thoroughly otherwise it will affect employees performance.

General data protection regulation Act 2018:

This act is formulated to protect the data of individuals from other individuals. No person is allowed to pass individual data and information to others whether that is employer. Due this every organisation make strict rules by banning CDs ,hard disk and any transfer device in the work environment.

Health and safety at work Act 1974 :

This act is formed to provide employees safety at work place. Safety is provided in respect of proper machinery, mask for saving from hazardous chemical and substance,clean environment and proper ventilation and so on. This include all type of individuals who visited the premises fall under this which are retailers, wholesalers,public,casual and temporary employees. At the time of employing new worker in the organisation authority should look that all rules and regulation should be fulfilled according to the act. Otherwise new employee and old employee does not want to retain in the organisation.

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Conclusion:

This report is about Squire's Garden Centres which is a medium-size company founded by D.J Squire in 1936. It provides plants and garden products along with gifts and garden furniture. This assignment is divided into four tasks in which the purpose and scope of HRM along with the application of human resource management practices are been discussed. It also includes the effectiveness of key elements of HRM and internal and external factor which affects the decision making of human resource management.

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