Human resources are how a business recruits Essay

Human resources are how a business recruits, retains and manages key features and functions of their employees. If businesses are to obtain their objectives, they must plan their human resources function so they have the right number of employees with the right kinds of qualifications and training to meet the needs of the business. Human resources use different approaches to all the different aspects of human resource planning and management. Human resource planning Businesses have to plan carefully to ensure that they have the right number of suitable employees for their needs. To do this they need a good understanding of the labour market in the areas where they operate. Human resource planning also involves looking at how labour is organised within the business. A range of factors when making decisions about staffing from the labour market includes; * Labour turnover * Sickness and accident rates * Age, Skills and Training * Succession In an ideal world businesses should plan ahead when it comes to human resources. A well-organised business will have forecasts and projections of its future staffing needs. These will then be matched to forecasts and projections about the local labour market, which means that the business can develop appropriate strategies for the recruitment, training and development of its staff. Recruitment and selection Recruitment and selection is a well-worn topic, which is treated fully in all major texts. There is always a tension between getting the right person for a job and how much resource in terms of time and money is devoted to recruitment. Businesses recruit staff for a variety of reasons. These can include: * The growth or reconstruction of the business * Changing job roles within a business * Filling vacancies created by resignation, retirement and dismissal * Internal promotion The recruitment process can be costly, in terms of resources devoted to the process and costs associated with recruiting poor performing staff. Therefore, it is important to select accurately people for interview. Businesses need to be very clear about the requirements of the job and about the kind of person they are looking for. This is done in several ways; * Preparing person specifications and job descriptions * Carefully planning how, when and where to advertise * Identifying the strengths and weaknesses of job applications, curriculum vitae and letters of application * Short-listing candidates Training and development Training and development are currently big issues for many businesses in most parts of the country, especially where there are low rates of unemployment. Moreover, more and more businesses are realising that if they fail to invest in training and development they will become uncompetitive. Training and development includes the following; * Induction training * Mentoring * Coaching * Apprenticeships * In-House training * External Training * Recognition of prior learning (RPL) and/or accreditation of prior learning (APL) and accreditation of prior experience and learning (APEL). Performance management Performance management refers to different strategies designed to get the best of a business work force. Different techniques are employed which attempt to relate performance with pay, or promotion or training. Such schemes are not always popular with workers. The following are methods that businesses use to manage the performance of their employees; * Performance reviews including appraisals * Self-evaluation * Peer evaluation * Target setting of individuals and groups. The labour Market Sainsburys constantly monitor the labour market to see any trends in each sector. They use local and national surveys to gather this information. Information gathered is them allocated to the departments that it would suit the best and what people are looking for. For example Sainsburys may be looking for trained bakers and fishmongers, as it is a rare profession. They may also look to see if anyone may reach this profession with a small amount of training, they may investigate if the opportunity cost of training them is viable. If Sainsburys needed a fishmonger and there was one available then they would have to pay them a decent amount of money to be able to acquire their services. This is because they are quite rare to find and may easily be coaxed into another job with money. They may also try to keep these professionals for a long time in one store so that the job in done with consistency. As sainsburys require a high standard they may send them to an off site training course to build up their knowledge of a certain area. Changing features in the market trends makes it hard for firms such as Sainsburys to find the staff they want for specific hi-skilled jobs. This may because there is an increase in professional and managerial work and a decrease in unskilled and semi-skilled work. Also people such as Bakers may have learnt new skills to enter different sections of the labour market. For example a Baker may have had enough of his job, taken an evening class in management, gained qualifications other than baking and joined a more managerial part of the team. Sainsburys need to look hard at the staff they acquire from agencies and applications and think hard about if it would be worth training them up for a specific job. They have to pick them up at exactly the right time. This means that they have to get them before they go elsewhere but have to be wary of them getting trained at great expense to sainsburys and then leaving for a job with better job satisfaction or better money. They have t get the balance just right unless it could prove costly. If Sainsburys employ new staff they may have to restructure the departments, this may prove popular with some staff but unpopular with others. Sainsburys have to think about management structures becoming flatter as a result of greater development of responsibilities and how hierarchies are being replaced by team working. Demographics show that the UK workforce is aging. This can be taken as a good aspect but also as a bad one. Some advantages of having an ageing workforce are that: * They know their job inside out and know how to deal with certain situations. * They have plenty of experience and may be able to offer light on problems which younger staff may have never encountered before. * It may be more reassuring to the customer to see an well experienced person doing the job rather then a young face straight out of school. Some disadvantages of having an ageing workforce are that: * As people get older they may be more susceptible to illness and take more time off. * With new computer equipment they may have to be sent on an expensive training course to learn new ways of working. * They may not be as motivated as younger staff as they are happy with their jobs and realise that they may not be doing it much longer. They may also not want to go for promotions, as they do not want to be bothered with the stress of the modern workplace. There is a steady decline in Primary and manufacturing sectors and an increase in service sector employment. This may work in sainsburys favour as they have positions for all sorts of people in all different sectors. There are a lot of people wanting to do the jobs where you do not need as much experience such as till manning and shelf stacking but they also have room for people with experience such as the butchers and bakers. As there is such a lot of people wanting to take on the less experience needed jobs the employees in these positions have to try and make a good impression and try hard as they know that there is always someone around the corner waiting for their job. This may boost Sainsburys productivity and customer relations. There are increasing numbers of women being qualified in previously ‘mans work’. More and more women are being trained as butchers and fishmongers. Women are now holding more high skilled positions now also, for example it would not be uncommon to ask to see the manager and a women to walk out and speak to you. This may seem strange to older generations who may still believe that it should be a mans job. The education and training system is undergoing a change. There has been a major expansion in further and higher education and the development of more flexible vocational training structures. This allows more part-time and mature students to gain higher qualifications. This may also allow them to train whilst working, improving there skills for an in-house vacancy. Part-time students make up a large proportion of Sainsburys workforce. This is because they can work flexible hours and are willing to learn. They may also not mind doing low skilled jobs as they need the money and know that they may not be doing that job forever as they are studying at a high level, having these people on their books may be an advantage to Sainsburys as if they are good they may placed in the running for higher positions. When they finish their higher education weather it be A-Levels or Degree they may give them a chance to move up the ladder. This may seem promising to the employee who already has friends there and knows the set up. They may also like it as it saves them the hassle of finding a completely new job. The sectors that are forecast to expand are those, which have grown since the early 1980s. The exception is construction, where employment is forecast to fall 4.2%. The largest absolute increase in employment is in public services. The majority of new jobs are to be in education and health, which is an area, which has seen significant growth since the early 1980s. Financial and Business services are expected to show the fastest percentage growth. Business services are expected to be the strongest performer in this sector with employment growth at 2.5% per year whilst a fall is forecast in financial services. Manufacturing is set to see further productivity gains, which may lead to falls in unemployment. Norwich’s Economy * One third of all the jobs in Norfolk are within the Norwich city council area. This totals up to 94,000 people. * Half the jobs in Norfolk are within the greater Norwich area. Employment in Norwich has grown over the last 6 years, but more slowly than the UK as a whole. * Over 90% of Norwich companies employ less than 50 people but over half of the Norwich workforce are employed in the 66 largest companies and organisations such as Norwich Union and Mash. * More than 50,000 people travel into Norwich each day to work, from the surrounding area. * The average earnings of full-time employees in Norwich (Excluding overtime) are just over à ¯Ã‚ ¿Ã‚ ½10 per hour, which is below the national average of à ¯Ã‚ ¿Ã‚ ½11.18 per hour. * Between 1995 and 2000 employment grew fastest in financial services, public sector and construction. * In the next few years most jobs are likely to be created within Norwich in business services, hotels and catering, retailing, banking and insurance and construction. There will be a long-term demand for construction skills creating sustainable jobs. * Tourism is growing fast and currently provides 5,600 jobs in Norwich Trends in employment 1997-2007(predictions) 1997 2007 Increasing involvement of Women Female share of total employment 46.5% 48.2% Female share of employees in employment 49.7% 51.7% More Working part-time Part-time share of employees in employment 29.1% 31.2% More self-employed Self employed share of total employment 13.0% 15.2% Supply and Demand graph for Wage Rates S WR1 WR = Wage Rate Sk = Skills WR D2 D Sk Sk1 As you can see as the demand for high skilled people goes up so does the wages they will be getting paid. Supply of Labour S2 S WR = Wage WR2 Rate L = Labour WR D L2 L If the supply of labour decreases then the wage rate will increase. Minimum Wage rate S WR2 WR1 D Q2 Q1 If a minimum wage is introduced which is higher than the wage rate the demand for labour falls Training and Development The aim of training a person is to permanently change their ability. Improving their knowledge, experience and skills does this. To start you off at Sainsburys you are given an induction. This tells you the basics of your job and allows you to do it. Induction programmes are designed to familiarise new recruits with the layout, security systems and about health and safety within the company. To inspire new recruits they may be introduced to key personnel. Sainsburys hold policy interviews, one review happens at 3 weeks, one at 7 weeks and then again at 11 weeks. Sainsburys holds in-house training and coaching in each branch. They also have a ‘How well and I doing?’ handbook which they give to each employee. This can map out paths and set targets, different for each section on the company. The targets set are: * Measurable * Specific * Time-related * Agreed * Realistic These are set at 6-month periods. The workbooks, which are used for technical training, coach trainees on a specific part of their job. They help them understand what they have got to do and how they have got to do it. For example training for a checkout operator may be given on a dummy checkout and they on a real one serving customers but with supervision. Each store trains its own staff at their job; training centres are used for external training, which may be specific to a person’s job such as health and safety or food hygiene. These parts of training may also involve passing an exam and gaining a qualification. The in store training organiser may not be qualified to teach this. External training may also occur when the trainee is learning a specialist subject. For example a fishmonger may be sent to a special training-centre especially for fishmongers. I believe that Sainsburys send their head fishmongers to a centre in London. Sainsburys also has a training room where training videos are shown to trainees. These may be in general subjects such as customer relations. This is very handy as videos can be shown to a trainee as many times as it takes and at very little cost. Also the audience can be selected and many trained at a time. Sainsburys also has a computer on which there are training programs, these give training and also provide a test, which they have to pass.