5HRF

By

Claire Young

Managing and Co-ordinating the Human Resources Function

Question 1 (AC 1.1)

There are 2 different fundamentals to HR; strategic HR, which is more proactive and
comprises innovation and forward-looking to recognise the key values, proposals and ideas.
Transactional HR functions together with strategic HR to support its HR strategy and occurs
on a continual frequent basis. The HR department responsible for planning the strategic
development is key in advancing the HR department’s mission and vision through
management of transactional matters.

Human Resources, formerly known as “personnel administration”, in latter times was mainly
an administration function to the organisation concerned with the hiring, management and
dismissal of employees and administering the payroll. In recent years, HR has emerged as
becoming more involved in the strategic direction the organisation is heading and has
evolved in to a functional HR; strategic and transactional. (Whatishumanresource.com, n.d.)

Some of the organisational objectives that the HR function is responsible for in contemporary
organisations are:

Recruitment and Selection: Formerly, HR’s method in recruitment and selection was to place
an advertisement in the newspapers to attract suitable candidates. The frequent use of
technology and social media has made advertising through online agencies, such as
Facebook and LinkedIn much more accessible resulting in networking being more effective.
There has also been an increase in realistic job adverts and psychometric testing to help
attract and match suitable candidates more effectively to be an asset to the organisation.

Performance appraisals: HR’s role in the management of performance appraisals is to

ensure employees receive an annual appraisal to check they are reaching their full potential
and performance is monitored for future development. In the past appraisals were completed
in paper form however, with the increasing use of technology this has evolved to online
completion with HR being a key player in ensuring they are completed appropriately, in a
timely fashion, and individual needs are met regarding performance improvement.

Learning and Development: Over the last decade HR’s role in learning and development has
evolved and many changes have been implemented. Previously training would have

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consisted of trainees attending a classroom-based set-up with a tutor using an overhead
projector to conduct a presentation. Learning and development has allowed for improved
efficiency within the workplace with the introduction of distance and virtual learning enabling
home-based study.

(AC 1.3)

It is HR’s role within an organisation to advise, carry out and strategically oversee a vast
number of areas that could be compromised if the HR professional’s moral compass and
ethical integrity was not on point, such as within recruitment, termination and remuneration
packages etc.

The following ethical behaviours’ would be expected to be found within HR professionals

explaining their impact within the role:

Business ethics is defined as “the set of moral rules that govern how businesses operate,
how business decisions are made and how people are treated”. (Yourdictionary.com, n.d.).

Professional competence and due care – by ensuring the HR professional remains

current within their area of expertise they are ensuring they can give effective and precise
advice. If the HR professional let qualifications slip or go out of date this could impact
negatively, for example current dismissal regulations were not being followed.

Integrity – this behaviour allows for only straightforward and honest relationships within the
business sphere. Ensuring a HR professional acts within integrity at all times ensures they
are trustworthy and any decisions they aid with their influence is for the good and benefit of
the organisation, for example in a recruitment scenario the best fit of person gets the job with
only their own merit.

Confidentiality – as a HR professional they will have unrestricted access to sensitive

information for staff be that bank account details, annual reports or pay scales. All of which if
exposed to outside agencies or colleagues could compromise the employees’ security,
relationships with other colleagues or personal self-esteem.

Objectivity – as a HR professional involved in recruitment and disciplinary procedures it is

imperative they remain impartial ensuring no bias is included in advice and aiding of decision
making. If required to be involved in either recruiting or disciplining a person with whom as
personal relationship is present, the HR professional would be required to act fairly to all
involved and would be a test of their ethical position.

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Question 2 (AC 2.1)

HR plays roles and has responsibilities in many areas of an organisation from recruitment to
training, organisational structure and remuneration packages. HR aids the success of
organisations meeting their multiple objectives whilst ensuring they are meeting their own
internal objectives. Two objectives that a HR department could be aiming to achieve are as
follows:

Employee engagement – the aim of this objective is encouraging and helping to facilitate the
employee to give their best performance in the work place. Employee engagement has
progressively been developed into the management ways of working and interacting with
their staff. The objective encompasses behavioural, mental, physical and emotional well-
being of the employee along with job fulfilment and commitment to the company. This
manifests in goal congruence between them and the organisation.

Within an organisation, HR delivers employee engagement by adopting the 4 principal

business drivers, as identified by Macleod and Clarke:

Strategic narrative – communicate and involve employees with the organisation’s strategies.

Engaging Managers – management and employee interaction. Building good relationships

allows for greater employee contributions.

Voice – allowing employee ideas and opinions to be heard can lead to increased employee
engagement.

Integrity – fair treatment of employees in alignment with clear and honest practices builds
trust. (Chamberlain, 2012).

The benefits to an organisation in having an engaged workforce is increased productivity

along with higher retention of staff which both have a positive effect on the profit margin. The
motivation factors, such as accountability and empowerment, identified by Hertzberg as
being more important than the hygiene factors of pay, for example, to satisfy personal and
professional needs. It will also be an attractive organisation to work for resulting in high
calibre candidates when recruitment is required. All stakeholders will benefit from having
engaged employees.

Global HR Management – HR plays an instrumental part in ensuring the organisations

strategic plans and thinking. By having a clear insight into the direction of the organisation
HR can equip from the top down to manage onto the global platform.

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Globalisation is defined within the business sphere as the combination of the three
engagement levels of operational, managerial and strategic into different fields and
behaviours including cultures, products and services. Focused weighted towards diversity,
globalisation changes companies from the bottom up, particularly on how they interact with
employees.

The divide between different languages, cultures and social structures has been drawn
together significantly due to globalisation. HR will have created an objective to ensure they
match the employees to the required backgrounds and cultures recognising the rewards and
benefits from being equally diverse. Attracting employees from all demographics of the
social spectrum opens the ideas and produces innovative ways of working. The inclusive
attitude that globalisation encourages facilitates internal and external objectives set to the
HR department. The reputation of the company by employing from a wider social
demographic demonstrates an inclusive culture and also makes interaction for customers
more effective by making it easier to interact. (Creativehrm.com, n.d.)

(AC 2.2)

The public sector is comprised of public services and local authorities and is run by the
government to provide services using taxpayers’ money and ensuring value for money is
demonstrated. Private sector businesses are not under government control, are privately run
and profit driven, whilst the voluntary sector is not-for-profit organisations supporting
humanitarian and environmental causes etc. and charities through utilisation of funds and
fund raising. (Staff, 2018).

Taking into consideration the size of the organisation the HR function can differ in all 3
sectors although mostly, they will all deal with recruitment, resignation, dismissals and
general employment issues. In larger companies, each of the departments mentioned will
usually be run by a team of different people, however in a smaller company one or two
people could cover all areas. There are pros and cons to both structures. Larger companies
with personnel only concerned with one area could arguably be more a SME, however when
one or two people are covering all areas it processes could be slicker, and information does
not get lost in translation.

Public sector organisations are governed by and must abide by laws and legislation whereas
the private sector can operate independently and have more freedom in the way the
business is run within reason. Monopolies and tax assurance is still monitored by the
government to ensure fair and open competition, along with all monies owed are calculated
and paid correctly. Although private sector, the public-sector organisations, such as HMRC,
have a vast influence over them.

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In both the public and private sectors HR is employed within the organisation as either a
centralised or decentralised function, whereas in the voluntary sector where the organisation
might be much smaller, HR can be outsourced, or the HR function is managed by an
employee initially employed to complete other administration duties but takes on both roles.

Recruitment differs in both the public and private sectors. In the public sector it is a long,
drawn out process. It can take several months to advertise and recruit a candidate into a
current position and longer still for creating and filling a new position. Recruitment is more
advantageous in the private sector as candidates can be appointed in a much quicker time-
frame if the needs of the business warrants it. Likewise, dismissal of employees differs in
both sectors. In the public sector the dismissal process is more intricate making it more time
consuming, and HR must complete a great amount of administration to ensure it complies
with legislation whereas management within the private sector can immediately dismiss
employees with the offer of a substantial severance package. Recruitment in the voluntary
sector proves more challenging as salaries are lower therefore they must promote their
employee brand extremely well to compensate for this and recruit the right individuals.
(Brunot, n.d.)

Question 3 (AC 1.2)

According to Fincham and Rhodes (2005, p525), change management is defined as “the
leadership and direction of a process of organisational transformation, especially with regard
to human aspects and overcoming resistance to change”. (Hughes, 2005, p4).

Change management is the procedure of supporting your organisation to transition from its
present state and moving forward to its desired state whilst helping individuals during the
process. It is the HR behaviours adopted, when an organisation is implementing a change,
are shock and fear, leading to acceptance. These emotions occur in a sequence. HR can
reduce the first stages by implementing plans on how to manage them when making a
change. Employees should be open to change and have transferable skills to aid a smooth
transition.

Lewin’s model for change management demonstrates three stages of change: unfreeze –
make changes – refreeze.

On recognition that the organisation needs to implement significant changes Lewin says the
first stage is to unfreeze. This involves looking and analysing each step including the staff
contributions to brain storm areas for improvement. By making no areas out of bounds to
scrutiny it alleviates the age-old problem of “the way it has always been done”. During this

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stage it is important to communicate the reason for change and what the current processes
are lacking in efficiencies.

Making the changes is the middle stage and can be implemented once all the stakeholders
have been prepared. This transition period will be where the most resistance will be incurred
and where communication, support and education will be the key instruments in the success
or failure of the new ideas. It will be imperative the correct procedures are followed if
switching technology systems, for example, is the area of change. Listening to feedback
during this period from those on the shop floor will also be a key to success as problems can
still be tweaked before the final stage of refreeze occurs.

(Mulholland, 2017)

By refreezing at the final stage, it is drawing a line in the sand between old processes,
bedding in period and it then becoming the norm. By defining the new period, it will make it
less likely for old habits to reoccur. As with all processes however, reviews should still take
place to ensure the new strategy is being followed and being effective.

In contrast to Lewin’s change management model, which is rather labour and time intensive
in its procedure of unfreezing the processes McKinsey’s 7-S model breaks down an
organisation into 7 aspects to analyse each separately to identify if change is required within
the selected area, rather than the whole organisation. This model supports smaller less in-
depth changes and arguably is easier to manage. Both change management styles will
affect the staff on implementation. It will be important in both to communicate but within the
McKinsey model as it is broken down into smaller areas staff will have the opportunity to be

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considered and their opinions regarded more than in Lewin’s model as that is a more
strategic style i.e. top down.

The 7 areas of McKinsey’s model are as follows with ideas of what could be analysed within
each:

Strategy – objectives, strategic aims and competitive status within industry.

Structure – type of hierarchy, type of management who are decision makers, what are the
communication chains.

Systems – identifying core systems, when are systems updated, how accurate are they.

Shared values – business culture, team culture, core values, strength and cohesion.

Style – encourage competition or collaboration, what type of active management is in place.

Staff – what gaps are present, what skills do the staff have, is there a recruitment problem?

Skills – do the skill sets match the requirement, are there gaps in skills present and how are
skills identified and recorded.

The breakdown of analysis in each area enables the reconstruction of the organisation
creating a united approach.

(Mulholland, 2017)

Question 4 (AC 3.1)

HR sits as a strategic partner within a formed organisation and has weighted influences over
the success, or possible failure. Aims and objectives are identified at a strategic level gives
HR the direction required to align activities to develop and support the desired outcomes of
areas such as realistic job previews, test for selections or induction for new employees’. As

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the new strategies are developing HR will then implement KPI’s and measures to quantify
and qualify the desired outcomes have been achieved.

There are several different types of measures to be able to ascertain the effectiveness of the
contribution from the HR department. These are as follows:

Within an organisation, HR is evaluated by measure:

Sustainability and health of an organisation linked to strategic HRM

Productivity linked with employee morale and satisfaction

People could be a competitive advantage

High attrition costs

3 methods of evaluation:

Employee Engagement Surveys - attempts to determine employee perceptions of their

working environment.

Advantages – improves organisational culture by providing the employees the opportunity to

submit an anonymous to response, without recourse to its employers in raising concerns or
putting forward ideas they might have. If the opinions and suggestions are taken on board by
the management, the employees will feel valued and empowered.

Disadvantages – Oracle Jan 2016: Measuring the value of Employee Engagement states
that feedback surveys are out of date and not a true representation of the employees’
opinions or how they wish to engage with their line managers. Living in a digital world lends
itself more to the instant feedback where employees desire on-going and meaningful
dialogue with the various stakeholders they report to. (Oracle Simply Talent: A Western
European Perspective Measuring the Value of Employee Engagement, 2016, p9).

Qualifying the moods of the employees’ by conducting various diagnostic approaches such
as employee forums, improvement groups, consultation, surveys, or quality circles can be
informative however a start point of attitudes need to be used a benchmark to be able to
recognise progress or decline in employee engagement.

Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) – Implementing KPI’s is useful in obtaining the short and
long-term goals pertaining to the organisation to ensure it meets its business objectives.
KPI’s should be used in line with S.M.A.R.T objectives.

Advantages – beneficial to an organisation if it requires a short-term and long-term issues to

be resolved by identifying goals and measuring the obtainment of the required outcomes it

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enables to organisation to ensure it is moving towards to end goal. If there were no KPIs in
place it would be a lot harder to measure the success of new implemented procedures.

Disadvantages – requires longer-term investment by the organisation. It is time consuming

and considerable effort must be put in to the initial development of the KPI’s. The information
could arguably open to interpretation and skewing meaning the management of the results
will need to be transparent and auditable, all of which is timely and costly.

KPI’s are only as valuable as the developer makes them - this is why, it can be argued, a
true measure of success can only be in a situation where a number of different measures
are used. In this way a more rounded and comprehensive view of all aspects of the
organisation can be obtained. (Managers-net.com, n.d.)

HR Balanced Scorecard – a strategic management tool that balances areas other than
purely financial factors by connecting defined department objectives and performance to the
company’s strategic goals, the HR balanced scorecard can assist in a way of concentrating
HR staff on activities that will help aid the organisation’s goals. It also highlights the value of
HR by quantifying and qualifying the department’s contribution.

Along with identifying with the organisation objectives the HR balance scorecard is required
to also consider the following areas to provide a full picture: accountability, validity and
actionable, measurable results. The vision and strategy of the organisation is pulled together
through four areas of financial, internal business, customer and learning & growth. Each
area playing their part in assuring shareholder returns (financial, monetary returns, and
internal business, looking at the processes required to excel at) and engagement with all
stakeholders (learning & growth by streamlining procedures to be effective and economic for
the environment, employees and the customer perspective of the organisation).

The outcomes found by the investigations within the areas discussed of the HR balance
scorecard must also be actioned to produce results. Data gathering, and analysis is only
effective if it then goes on to improve productivity. (SHRM, 2018).

Question 5 (AC 4.1)

Article: Front-line managers as agents in the HRM-performance causal chain: theory,

analysis and evidence: (Purcell and Hutchinson, 2007)

The article has investigated the significance of the influences that front line managers (FLM)
and HR practises have on the employee. It concludes that both areas have a direct impact
on the employees’ work experience, be that positive or negative dependant on the
relationship. Leadership behaviours and HR practises need to be well received by the

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employees’, but these are only effective if the FLM bridges them through to the employee
effectively.

Taking FLM and HR practises separately I will discuss each impact and offer an opinion if
these are mutually exclusive:

HR Practises – by HR investing in their employees it creates employee engagement and, as

discussed in 2.1, this can achieve job satisfaction, productivity and loyalty to the
organisation. I work for the Armed Forces and within my organisation, HR does not play
such an intricate role in job satisfaction due to the fixed contract service personnel enrol on.
Bespoke remuneration packages and financial rewards are not accessible as an incentive,
meaning a lot of the hygiene factors are not available to be used. Motivation factors such as
empowerment and responsibility are required for job and personal satisfaction, which
arguably falls within the FLM influence.

FLM Influences – the article has concluded that FLM heavily influences the success of the
HR practises and I would wholly agree with this statement. Leadership behaviours define the
relationship that the employee has with an FLM. If the manager is unapproachable and is the
link between the employee and HR this could lead to an employee feeling confined and their
options restricted, without going outside the natural chain of command, which a lot of
employees feel uncomfortable in doing. These relationships result in a drop of productivity
and employees’ leaving which costs the organisation on monetary and reputational terms.
Conversely, a strong manager can smooth unwelcome HR practises, such as redundancies,
by supporting their staff and by ensuring strong lines of communication are created they can
ease unrest within change.

Within the Armed Forces the empowerment and responsibility discussed within the
motivation factors are achieved through investment in the soldiers, through the middle
management of the chain of command. They achieve this through strong appraisal reporting
and empowerment of working to the next rank. In this organisation, the relationship with the
FLM appears more significant than the relationship with HR.

Mutually Exclusive – as the article concludes, having both a strong HR practise and a close
association with the FLM is the win-win outcome and the most desired. In my opinion, having
strong HR practises will not succeed without a strong FLM embedding, communicating and
championing the practises. Also, having an ineffective FLM with regards to leadership and
behaviours the HR practises will not flow to the employee. Having weaker HR practises, but
combined with a strong FLM, could still result in an employee having a positive work
experience as the FLM will protect the employee from top level stresses. I conclude that HR
practises and FLM influences are not mutually exclusive but complimentary.

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(AC 4.2)

High performance working (HPW) practises are innovative ideas and practises produced by
HR departments to increase productivity, stimulation and encourage best working practises.
Although there are ongoing discussions about the effectiveness of the ideas of HPW and
how it can be integrated into the workplace.

The 18 key practises, identified by Guest in work for the CIPD, are:

Realistic job previews

Use of psychometric tests for selection

Well-developed induction training

Extensive training for experienced employees

Regular appraisals

Regular multi-source feedback on performance

Individual performance-related pay

Profit related bonuses

Flexible job descriptions

Multi-skilling

Presence of work-improvement teams

Presence of problem-solving groups

Information provided on the business plan

Information provided on the firm’s performance targets

No compulsory redundancies

Avoidance of voluntary redundancies

Commitment to single status

Harmonised holiday entitlement

Thompson’s work (2000) states that the practises can fall within 3 clusters:

High involvement practises to aim to create opportunities for engagement, e.g. semi-
autonomous teams, problem-solving team etc.

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Human resource practices to build skill levels, motivation and ability e.g. formal recruitment
interviews, competency tests etc.

Employee relations practises that help build trust, loyalty and identify with the organisation
e.g. single status, formal grievance procedures etc. (Tamkin, 2004, p6-7)

Employing a workforce can be one of the most expensive elements of an organisation, for
example 80% of the budget of my organisation is spent on manpower costs, and as such
they are viewed, correctly, as a high valued asset and should be invested in. Although they
cannot be quantified and held as an asset on a balance sheet because they can leave at
any time they can, and do, produce a tangible output for an organisation so a return is
received for the capital investment.

The practises discussed in the list above shows a balance between the requirement of the
organisation. Initially, using realistic job previews to attract compatible candidates and using
tests to filter out those who are not suitable. This allows the organisation the best chance of
employing the best fit person.

Once the candidate is employed the other practises are designed to make the employee feel
valued with pay rewards, personal feedback and communication. All are factors identified
that are required to be present to make an employee feel satisfaction within the job and
personal aspirations.

The instigation of HPW and human capital investment has the concept of spend to save.
Spending the capital ensures a return from the human invested in which will be rewarded
back to the organisation with loyalty reducing recruitment costs, man hours in potential
grievances, reputation of the business to satisfy stakeholders and ultimately the profit line.
Huselid, in the US, found sales per employee rose by $27,000 and the market value per
employee rose by $18,000 with the implementation of HPW. (Tamkin, 2004, p9).

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References:

Brunot, T. (n.d.). Differences in the Roles of HR in Profit & Nonprofit Organizations. [online]
Yourbusiness.azcentral.com. Available at: https://yourbusiness.azcentral.com/differences-
roles-hr-profit-nonprofit-organizations-25027.html [Accessed 4 Mar. 2018].

Chamberlain, L. (2012). Four key enablers to employee engagement - Personnel Today.

[online] Personnel Today. Available at: https://www.personneltoday.com/hr/four-key-
enablers-to-employee-engagement/ [Accessed 25 Feb. 2018].

Creativehrm.com. (n.d.). HR Goals: Global Human Resources. [online] Available at:

http://www.creativehrm.com/hr-gos-global-human-resources.html [Accessed 3 Mar. 2018].

Fincham and Rhodes (2005). Managing Change: A Critical Perspective. Kogan Page, p.4.
[Accessed 25 Feb. 2018].

Managers-net.com. (n.d.). Key Performance Indicators (KPI's). [online] Available at:

http://www.managers-net.com/KPI.html [Accessed 3 Mar. 2018].

Mulholland, B. (2017). 8 Critical Change Management Models to Evolve and Survive |

Process Street. [online] Process Street. Available at: https://www.process.st/change-
management-models/ [Accessed 26 Feb. 2018].

Oracle Simply Talent: A Western European Perspective Measuring the Value of Employee
Engagement. (2016). [online] USA: Oracle Corporation, p9. Available at:
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2018].

Purcell, J. and Hutchinson, S. (2007). Front-line managers as agents in the HRM-

performance causal chain: theory, analysis and evidence. Human Resource Management
Journal, 17(1), pp.3-20.

SHRM. (2018). Scorecard: How can the balanced scorecard be applied to human
resources?. [online] Available at: https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/tools-and-
samples/hr-qa/pages/howcanthebalancedscorecardbeappliedtohumanresources.aspx
[Accessed 3 Mar. 2018].

Staff, I. (2018). Private Sector. [online] Investopedia. Available at:

https://www.investopedia.com/terms/p/private-sector.asp [Accessed 3 Mar. 2018].

Tamkin, P. (2004). High Performance Work Practices. [online] Institute for Employment
Studies, pp.6-7 and pp 9. Available at: http://www.employment-
studies.co.uk/system/files/resources/files/mp36.pdf [Accessed 7 Mar. 2018].

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Whatishumanresource.com. (n.d.). The Historical Background Of Human Resource
Management - What is Human Resource? (Defined) Human Resource Management-
whatishumanresource.com-Labour Laws. [online] Available at:
http://www.whatishumanresource.com/the-historical-background-of-human-resource-
management [Accessed 1 Mar. 2018].

Yourdictionary.com. (n.d.). Business-ethics dictionary definition | business-ethics defined.

[online] Available at: http://www.yourdictionary.com/business-ethics [Accessed 26 Feb.
2018].

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