Task-1: Understand the difference between personnel management and human resource management

There is no much distinction between human resource management and personnel management. However, the differences could be seen in the following areas.

Personnel management is seen as a traditional approach of managing people in an organization. However Human resource management is seen as a modern way of managing people and their strengths in an organization. Accordingly, whiles personnel management focuses on labor relation, personnel administration and employee welfare, human resource management on the other hand focuses more on acquisition, development, motivation and maintenance of human resources in the organization. Moreover whiles personnel management sees workers or employees as input for achieving desired output, human resource management sees workers or employees as valuable resource for achieving desired output. Personnel management is generally adopted in smaller organizations where there is no full fledge human resource department. However the human resource management function is a bigger activity which includes activities starting from planning for human resource management, advertising for vacancies.P1.1 As new internship HR Assistant at Harrods, your new manager wants you to distinguish between personnel management in Small retail organizations practicing PM and human resource management at Harrods.This section seeks to make a clear distinction between personnel management in a small retail organization and human resource function in bigger organizations such as Harrods. The main differences between personnel management in small retail organizations and human resource management in a large organization such as Harrods lie in some key factors such as the way operations are carried out in each organization, the way decisions are made, the way employees are involved in activities, motivation of employees among others. Thus as noted by Boxall and Macky (2009), personnel management is just a part of human resource management.Within a small retail organization where personnel management practiced, few number of employees are needed to perform daily task and operations. The owners of these small retail firms are mostly profit oriented, autocratic and mostly do not care about employees welfare and worker motivation. All they care about is how to get a task performed in order to maximize profit. The managers of these small organizations are most at times the personnel managers hence manage and control activities of the employees

However, with large organizations such as Harrods where human resource management is practiced, employees are given much attention in terms of motivation and welfare. Management in Harrods is not in the hands of one person as in the case of a small firm where personnel management is practiced. With large organizations, management is categorized into top, middle and lower level management as such the right persons and number of persons are assigned the job at the right time. Harrods has a very specific and fair corporate governance that ensures activities within the organization are well managed. Employees of Harrods are thus engaged in the decision making process unlike small organizations where decisions are at the discretion of the manager who acts as the personnel manager.P1.2 Assess the function of the human resource management in contributing to Harrods purposes. In every organization, there are certain functions addressing the purposes of the organization. The human resource function of Harrods has a key responsibility in achieving the organizations goal by aligning the objectives of the organization with the personal goals of the employees. However in order to proper align the goals of organization with that of the employees, human resource management should have a proper plan and procedure. Thus with proper planning employees would be directed towards the path of personal growth and good career (Mullins, 2005). Accordingly, it is important for the organization to motivate its employee in order to attain its goals and Harrods does this by motivating its employees through career development and welfare benefits. On the basis of recruitment of employees, Harrods always prefer excellent employees who will always add value to organization since employees are the bedrock of an organization. Thus without any form of discrimination (gender or ethnicity), Harrods always try to recruit the skilled, talented and smart employees for its operations. By recruiting the best and talented employees, Harrods has been able to increase its market share.P 1.3 Evaluate the roles and responsibilities of line managers in the human resource management department at Harrods. According to Boselie et al. (2005)

, it is beyond description matter that the roles and responsibilities of line managers of any organization is very important to achieve the ultimate goals of that organization. Line managers in Harrods play a vital role. Its activities is not limited only to selection and recruitment but also managing employees overall performance within the organization and this has contributed to the success and lucrative position in the market.

Below are some of the key functions assigned to the line managers in human resource department of Harrods; Line managers of Harrods always supervise their subordinates properly. They are very responsible in terms of helping and problem solving in daily operations of their subordinates. Accordingly, they are responsible for assessing employees performance and in case an employee is not working as per management expectation, they would help him or her improve on his/her performance within given timeframe. Thus as per the objective set by Harrods, line managers within the Human resource department are responsible in for assessing the needs of their subordinates for future job. Thus line managers within the human resource department impart training to the employees so that they possesses the required knowledge and skill. This shows that, there is a strong relationship between the line managers within the Human resource department and their subordinates.P1.4 Analyse the impact of legal and regulatory framework in Harrods human resource management.

Human resource management process followed at Harrods is subjected to the particular legal and regulatory framework which needs to be considered while making human resource decisions in the organization. Each and every function for human resource such as recruitment and selection, performance appraisal, career planning and pay and bonus needs to be executed as per the related legal and regulatory processes by human resource department of the organization. The major focus of the human resource department while executing these functions would be on deploying non-discriminating policies and equality among all the employees working in the organization. Further legal and regulatory framework in Harrods also gives due importance towards various ethical issues confronted in the organization. There can be heavy penalties which can be imposed on the organization in case it is found to be guilty of not abiding legal and regulatory frameworks (Keep, 1989). One of the important laws for bringing equality and non-discriminating policies is Equality Act 2010. This act brings together all acts of equality which can be informed of sex, race, religion, disability and orientation for the workforce employed in the organization. Further rules and regulations which govern ethics, intellectual property rights and privacy are under special consideration while considering the legal and regulatory impacts of the human resource department in Harrods.Task-2 Understand how to recruit employeesAccording to Windolf (1986) understanding the ways employees are recruited is very important part of business. If managers do not have proper knowledge about recruitment process, then the overall and ultimate goal of the organization will not stand aligned. Understanding how to recruit employees means the knowledge of hiring and selecting proper and appropriate employees for an organization. Thus recruitment of employees is a strategic function for the organization and Harrods place high importance to this process.

P2.1 Analyse the reasons for human resource planning at Harrods.

Human Resource planning process can be defined as the process and technique of determining the needs and requirement of an organisations human resource. Thus it also involves determining adequate number of people with desired skill.

Planning is a vital process which an organization needs to undertake in order to attain the organizational goals (Reid and Barrington, 1997). Harrods has the major plan for hiring the right calibre of employees for the right job at right time. Thus they are able to determine the demand for labour, predict the future labour supply and able to find the required people that matches the demand and supply for labour. Human resource planning also helps Harrods to manage its human resource efficiently and effectively. For example if Harrods wants to expand its activities, it has to recruit new employees. The company therefore have to plan this in advance so that they will be able to employ a suitable candidate with desired skill to man that position.P2.2 Outline the stages Harrods can adapt in planning human resource Requirements.

There are certain typical stages and procedure that can be adopted by Harrods when it is planning its human resource requirements. However due to the competitive nature of the businesses and firms adopting strategies to outwit their competitors, organisations tend to either follow these stages or add up to in order to make them suit their goals. Below are these stages that Harrods could adapt;

Harrods has to forecast. The main aim of this is to analyse and give a prediction about the shortage of manpower which is bound to happen or occur in the future. Thus Harrods should make an assessment of the resources that they have at present and whether the present resources will be more than required in the future or whether there will be shortage of the manpower. Thus, after forecasting has been made, Harrods need to have a plan about how this could be accomplished.

The second point Harrods should take note of is about demand and supply forecasting. Human Resource forecasting refers to the process of making estimates of the demand for and supply of human resources within an organization. Demand forecasting deals with being able to determine future needs for human resource in terms of quantity and quality. Harrods needs to do this in order for them to be able to meet the future personnel requirements of the organization to achieve the desired level of output. Future human resource need can be estimated with the help of the organization's current human resource situation and analysis of organizational plans and procedures. Harrods should therefore perform a year year-by-year analysis for every significant level and type. The supply forecasting is also concerned with the estimation of supply of manpower given the analysis of current resource and future availability of human resource in the organization. Harrods should therefore estimate the future sources of human resource that are likely to be available from within an outside the organization.

When the demand and supply forecasting is done, then Harrods need to match demand and supply to an equilibrium. This means that Harrods needs to bring demand and supply in an equilibrium position so that shortages and surplus position will be solved. When Harrods experiences shortages, it has to hire more required number of employees. On the other hand, in the case of surplus it has to reduce the level of existing employment.

An action plan is therefore required by Harrods after it has gone through all the above stagesUnder the action plan, the Human resource plan is effected through the designation of different human resource activities. Harrods therefore need these major activities to execute this plan. These activities are recruitment, selection, placement, training and development among others. This should then be followed with control and evaluation to see whether these are in line with the Harrods goals.P2.3 Compare the recruitment and selection process at Harrods with another organisation such as John Lewis, M&S or Sainsbury etc.

Recruitment and selection process differs from organization to organization. Thus a recruitment and selection process that is adopted by Harrods may be different or similar to John Lewis or M&S. According to Lloyd (2007)

, the ultimate success or failure of an organisation depends on the recruitment and selection process. This is because when an organisation recruits the wrong employee, then it is bound to fail.There are two stages by which the entire recruitment and selection process is carried out. These two stages are internal recruitment and external recruitment (Walton, 1999). In initial stage Harrods looks within the organization for a suitable candidate to fill the vacant position. In case there is no suitable candidate available within the organisation, then the position would be advertised in the media so as to invite applicants. This is done by advertising the vacant position on career website and through the boards in Harrods stores.Accordingly, applicants interested in store based jobs can directly contact the human resource manager in the store with their resume. Sainsbury has a similar recruitment and selection process. Thus the recruitment and selection process of Sainsbury also involves two stages - internal recruitment and external recruitment. In internal recruitment process Sainsbury looks within the organization for a suitable candidate to fill the vacant position. In case there is unavailability of suitable candidate or number of candidates through then external advertisement through company website and other sources are made. Candidates applying through external advertisements would be shortlisted based on their curriculum Vitae and suitable candidates would be asked to appear for interview. Successful candidates in interview and assessment process would be going through background check and after completion of successful process they would be given appointment letter. Hence both Harrods and Sainsbury have similar recruitment and selection process (Harrison, 2002).P2.4 -Evaluate the effectiveness of the recruitment and selection techniques in the above two selected organizationsHarrods makes use of the most cost effective and efficient ways in order to ensure that selection and recruitment process takes minimum cost and suitable candidates are being hired by company from the recruitment & selection process. Both Harrods and Sainsbury make use of the similar process for recruitment and hence their effectiveness would be similar while hiring the candidate through internal as well as external sources. Internal employees are being looked first while hiring candidates for a vacant position. This serves as a motivation for the employees to work hard. Advertisement for external candidates are normally expensive for the organizations hence by considering internal employees for the new job vacancy company would be able to save on cost alongside motivating the employees (Garrick, 1999). Task-3 Understand how to reward employees in order to motivate and retain themRewarding employees is considered as another most important issue for motivating employees and retaining them. Reward is a major motivation element for employees and it is important for an organization to make efficient use of monetary and non-monetary rewards in order to motivate the employees in organization. P3.1 Assess the link between motivation theory and its reward with an application on Harrods Case study.According to Kiyani et al. (2011)

, there is a strong relationship between reward system and motivation. They thus noted that motivation can come from many ways and appropriate reward system is one of them. Harrods places much importance on employee motivation in their human resource policy and this is reflected in their statement on motivation which says that attract a person to do because he/she wants to do it. Harrods mostly depend on two kinds of people for their business i.e. customer and employees (Buchanan and Hucczynski, 1991). Harrods strives to achieve good lifestyle for their staff by giving them flexible working hours, health benefits, discounts and stock options in order to motivate them towards their job responsibilities. Harrods conduct a unique staff satisfaction survey named Viewpoint so as to assess staff satisfaction and from the results received through survey, efforts are then made in order to enhance the employee motivation. Some of the additional benefits which are offered by Harrods are outlined below; Employees are given lifestyle break for 4 to 12 weeks and guarantees employees to get their job back

Pension scheme is offered as a long term benefit for the employees

Career break is offered to the employees ranging from 6 months to 5 year with the exclusive right to return on jobP3.2 Research and Evaluate the process of job evaluation and other factors determining pay with special reference to Harrods as your scenario.Job evaluation is the broad term which applies to a variety of ways in which the relative worth or value of different jobs may be established. It helps to determine internal relativities by relating different rates of pay to different elements in the job (Truss & Gratton, 2004). Harrods use job evaluation to determine the worth of each job which will then help determine the basis of wages and salaries offered for each job. There are several methods for evaluating ones job but one of the proven methods for job evaluation is the Hay group guide chart profile which is being used by more than 7000 companies in more than 40 countries. Three factors which are thus considered as most important in order to evaluate a job as per the Hay group guide chart and these are outlined below:

Job responsibilities assigned

Level of thinking required to tackle problem confronted

Skill set and knowledge required for the job

Hence three factors for the job evaluation are the technical know-how which forms the input part, problem solving which forms the processing part and finally accountability which forms the output part of the job (Nixon, 2004). A pictorial view of the factors of this is seen below:

Input--------------------------------------------(Processing------------------------------------(Output

(Know-how) (Problem solving) (Job responsibility)With the case of Harrods it can be said that there are three methods for evaluating job and these are ordering method, classification method and point method. The ordering method which is also known as ranking method generally involves putting all jobs within Harrods in a rank order of importance based on the contributions they make towards the goals of the organization. For example an account officer may be ranked higher than a dispatch rider. With the classification method, Harrods categorize jobs into classes and then match up the job descriptions for each job with the class and grade descriptions and then assigns the job to the class that best matches each category.

Harrods can use the point factor method to determine the relative value of a job compared to others in the organization.P3.3 Assess the effectiveness of reward systems in different contexts with your references to Harrods Harrods pays high importance towards the reward system in order to make employees better off. Every organisation be it small or large needs a strategic reward system for employees that addresses these four areas: compensation, benefits, recognition and appreciation.

There are basically four types of reward systems that are mostly practiced by several organisations. However each reward system has its advantages and disadvantages and organisations tend to choose a particular reward system that suits their goals and visions. The type of reward systems are the intrinsic versus extrinsic reward system, financial versus non-financial reward system, work place issue: job enrichment, performance-based versus membership-based reward system. The intrinsic and extrinsic reward system focuses on giving employees challenging task, involving them in decision making process, giving a higher rank in hierarchy, increasing their pay when necessary, paid leaves, annual recreational plans. This is done so that employees do not start thinking about leaving the company.Financial rewards system refers to those direct and indirect payments that enhance an employee's well-being. Financial rewards make employee financially sound so that they can fulfill their material desire. However non-financial rewards systems are those employee benefits that do not enhance an employee's financialwell-being.However, such rewards provide more job satisfaction.

Performance based reward systems are such benefits which are provided on the basis of an employee's job performance. On the other hand membership based reward systems are those rewards that are paid on the basis of being a member of an organization. It means, the basis of allocating rewards is employee's organizational membership.

A deduction made from the above shows that Harrods practices both Intrinsic, extrinsic and performance based reward systemsP3.4 Examine the methods adopted by Harrods to monitor employee performance. Comment with any suggestionsHarrods carries out the annual performance appraisal in order to assess employee performances towards achievement of the organizational objective and based on the performance of employee rewards are being assigned (Beardwell, 2004). Performance measurement is a continuous activity for the managers and their subordinates. Harrods has chosen several factors while monitoring employees performance and these are outline below:

Mostly line managers of Harrods monitor their employee performance by watching them as they go about their daily duties. Watching an employee perform a task tells the line manager more about the employee.Secondly, Harrods monitor its employees by asking for account. As line managers meet employees on a one-on-one basis, they ask for account of what the employee has done since their last meeting or conversation. This serves as a method of holding a person accountable for a particular work done and this normally is seen when line managers meet one-on one with their employees or subordinates.Moreover, Harrods ask employees to use self-monitoring tools to help track their actions.

Another method used by Harrods is that, they review work of employees on regular basis. Harrods also uses hearsay to monitor the performance of its employeesTask-4 Know the mechanisms for the cessation of employment

Cessation of employment is done with several reasons and Harrods also have specific reasons for doing this. Cessation of an employee from an organization can take three forms and in relation to Harrods they are; termination, resignation and transfer. Mostly cessations are as a results of organizations trying to minimize the labour costs or as a result a dispute.P4.1 Identify the reasons for cessation of employment with special reference to Harrods in General.

Any employee cant be fired from the job until he/she is abiding by the processes & policies framed by the organization at workplace along with fulfilling terms and condition for contract of employment (Paauwe & Boselie, 2003). There can be numerous reasons for which an employer can terminate the employees appointment. Some of the common reasons which have been observed as major factors for cessation of employees are outlined below:

Layoff from the organization due to cost cutting measures or business activity change

Mergers and buyout are another critical phenomenon in organization which lead to cessation of employees from the organization

Poor performance of the employee towards attainment of organizational objective

Behavioural misconduct from employee can be considered as another major issue for the cessation of employee from the organization

P4.2 Research and Describe the employment exit procedures used by Harrods and compare it with any other organisation of your choice.For exit of an employee there are three major procedures which are used by several organizations and especially in context of Harrods and Sainsbury:

Resignation can be given by employee by his/her own will in case there is dissatisfaction. When the employee is dissatisfied towards the work environment or when there is a lot of work pressure the employee can write a letter directly to his supervisor clearly mentioning the reason for he or she seeks to terminate his appointment. Termination: Termination of the employee is done as per the rules & regulation following the disciplinary regulations. A series of processes is followed while terminating the employees appointment. Thus warning letters are issued, disciplinary notice are being given, exit interviews are conducted and finally termination letter would be given to the employee.

Transfer: Transfer can be considered as per request from employee or on the discretion of manager considering the employee performance. Harrods makes use of these two criteria while transferring their employees. Employee request for transfer would be considered subjected to availability of job and management decision to assign particular location or store for the employee (Poulter, 2005). P4.3 Consider the impact of the legal and regulatory framework on employment cessation arrangements with special reference to Harrods.

An organization recruit the employees as per the employment contract made between the two parties i.e. employee and employer and this contract needs to be followed by the organization as well as employee (Treen, 2000). But in several instances the contract between the two parties needs to be terminated due to certain circumstances. But there are several legal and regulatory frameworks which need to be adopted while terminating the contract between employee and employer. For example economic dismissal can be one of the reason due to which an organization need to terminate the contract with employee but due to legal and regulatory policies an organization need to follow particular rules while terminating the contract. Some of the example for economic dismissal of company and possible regulatory guideline can be given as below:

In Chile, economic dismissal of an organization due to reduced productivity and modernization activities may require termination of contract but as per regulatory framework an organization need to compensate with 30 day wage to employee with advance notice (Rogers, 2004).

In Ethiopia, alternation in work method or decline in demand for the product may lead to termination of employees from the organization but organization need to provide 1 month salary in case employee is one year old and 2 month salary need to be given to employee in case employee has association for more than 1 year.

Above example shows that economic dismissal in the organization may lead to termination but presence of legal and regulatory framework would ensure fair treatment with the employee for termination.

Similarly in case the employee desire to end the employment contract with their employer he/she can resign at his will but there are regulatory and legal bindings as per the terms and conditions mentioned in contract which need to be abide by the employee also. In most of the scenario employer would ask the employee to give notice well before leaving the organization and the period may be from one month to 1 year depending upon the term stipulated by the organization. Further in case of not serving notice period and employee can be asked to sacrifice his/her pay for the equivalent time so that organization can be compensated for their loss and cost of new hiring can be incurred.

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