Career Aspirations in Human Resources

Introduction

As a graduate and post-graduate student, I have considered multiplicity of employment sectors, such as marketing, accounting, finance consultancy and HR operations pertaining to multiple industries such as sports & leisure, retail, public sector organisations and travel and tourism for the purpose of effective formulation of my future career plan. To this effect, my existing skill sets have convinced me to orient the formulation of my future career development plan towards the discipline of Human Resource Management based official responsibilities. The corresponding report would have the aim to successfully demonstrate the gained awareness of the knowledge and skills associated with those of the responsibilities of a graduate level Human Resource Management officer within a selected multi-brand retail organisation. For this purpose, the organisation which would be emphasised upon in the subsequent report would be the Marks and Spencer Group plc (M&S) which is a UK based multinational retailer which specialises in the sales of home appliances, edible products and quality apparel.

Analysis and Application

General trends

Ybema, van Vuuren and van Dam (2017) have identified three specific human resource and management trends which are currently influencing the multi-brand retail industry, including that of M&S in the current industrial scenario. These could be illustrated as the significance of the two sizable skill cohorts associated with the human resources as technically sound (generation X and Y) and capable communicators, incremental diversity in the ethnic composition of the available working personnel for multi-brand retailers such as M&S and candidates for recruitment and, finally, the expanding complications regarding the management of required shopping environments at different store based sales outlets. According to Veld, Semeijn and van Vuuren (2015) this final trend is of vital significance since this denotes the advent of increasing numbers of competing channels and formats of sales stores on the one and on the other, the demonstration of multichannel based shopping behaviour on part of the consumers (generation X and Y) which requires greater sophistication of the shopping and sales infrastructures without jeopardising the organisational cost control mechanisms since these could contribute to considerable cost overheads (Pak, 2016). Thus, fundamental aspect remains firmly associated with the enhancement of customer services and shopping experiences so that the efficiency in customer services could enable employers such as M&S to successfully distinguish themselves from the market rivals and competitors through addition of significant value to the offered services (Smith and Rees, 2017). In this context, Suleman (2018) has observed that retailers such as M&S are required to ensure that their store service personnel could be trained enough to efficaciously provide 5 different conveniences to the customers visiting the store outlets. These are identifiable as the following:

1: Decision convenience: This involves the ability to provide the customers with adequate and appropriate information through which informed decisions of purchase could be formulated on part of the consumers.

2: Access convenience: This involves the knowledge of the exact locations of the merchandises within the store space so that the customers could be immediately assisted with locating their desired products.

3: Transaction convenience: This involves facilitation of transaction functions such as returns and checkouts.

4: Benefits convenience: This is the most significant USP (unique selling point) for any retailer since this pertains to successful communication of the products and services benefits to the customers which could enhance the experience of purchase enjoyment for the customers.

5: Post-benefit convenience: Effective services for rectification of post-purchase problems in the form of customer services. Attending to the customer service aspects could contribute to the positive perceptions by customer regarding value of purchase and this could add to the competitive leverage advancement for retailers such as M&S.

Considerations of responsibility predicaments of HR officials within globalised multi-brand retail organisations

Responsibilities

The existing HRM responsibilities for multi-brand, multi-channel retail organisations, such as the M&S, are constituted with strategic planning and management of existing and prospective human resources of the organisation so that the formulation of a motivated and productive workforce could be developed. However, the retail industry could pose particularly intransigent human resource management challenges since direct contact with the customers is a permanent feature of this industry (Rees and Smith, 2017). These challenges also influence the required skills and experiences on part of HRM officials.

Challenges

The initial of the challenges is the comparative high turnover of employees in the retail sector which necessitates both short and long term planning and preparation processes so as to address this challenge since the impartation of training and development of the human resources are both time consuming and complicated undertakings since constant recruitment and replacement of employees have be performed. It becomes a challenge, as per Sparrow, Brewster and Chung (2016), to effectively develop and retain customer loyalty as the customers generally do not get to engage with personnel in the M&S stores who they could have come in contact with at the previous occasion when they had visited the stores. Thus, according to Anselmsson, Bondesson and Melin (2016) recruitment of the appropriate personnel becomes vital for the HR professionals. The second of the challenges involves the complications of management of an increasingly diverse population of employees with divergent demographic and cultural backgrounds which hinders development of cohesion and proper promotion of teamwork and collaborative working environment. This requires greater diversity discussions in management meetings (Wilkinson and Johnstone, 2016). The final challenge, especially in the context of M&S, according to Wilton (2016), is to manage the human resources to better suit the seasonal demand fluctuation factor as the retailers often add temporary employees during the most busy purchasing seasons such as during the Christmas or from the Black Friday through to Christmas. This presents unique challenges for the HR professionals to develop a plan of assimilation of temporary working personnel recruited during seasonal periods.

Skills and experience required

Concerning the observed prevalent trends in the global retail industry and the associated responsibility profile of any HR professional, Bailey et al (2018) have identified key requirements in terms of skills and experiences for any applicant to the post of HR manager in the following manner:

1: Effective self-management in terms of HR policies: Time management: This involves planning process control in the most conscious manner regarding certain activities so as to increase performance measure of the existing employees through fast paced completion of tasks. This could involve utilisation of time management matrix so as to prioritise responsibilities in the most judicious manner (Newell and Scarbrough, 2017).

2: Work organisation through prospective planning: This requires utilisation of responsibility management calendar through which deadlines of recruitment and other HR operations could be significantly managed through maintenance of clarity in an absolute manner. One example of such a calendar has been provided below:

3: Management of employee training projects: Such responsibilities involve five different steps through which the training and motivational projects could be completed. These are as the following:

Initiation: Development of the nature of the project and the associated idea.

Designing: This involves the appropriation of work specific details to the previously formulated broad ideas.

Execution: Implementation of the planned procedures into active practices.

Control supervision: This involves close monitoring of the execution phase.

Evaluation post completion: This involves the finalisation of the project conclusion.

4: Formulation of relationships to sustain interpersonal effectiveness and networking: This involves the following functionalities:

Evaluation of appropriateness of employee performance.

Evaluation of the efficacy of existing communication procedures.

Assessment of opinions, solutions and arguments concerning the criteria appropriate prospects.

5: Collaborative teamwork management through conflict resolution: This most vital capability involves procedures such as avoiding of the conflict through unassertiveness, dominance through exertion of power and authority to influence development of conflict resolution, arriving at compromises amongst conflicting elements through negotiation to develop mutually acceptable solutions and institution of flexibility and adaptability regarding the crux of the conflict (Marchington et al. 2016).

Evaluation

From the evaluation of the primary research, I have arrived at the conclusion that the applied position for the graduate level HR manager is particularly conducive to my existing skill sets on the basis of dual perspectives. The initial one is that this choice of the potential work designation could enable me to effectively further develop the process of employee motivation to which I already have a fundamental inclination in the following format:

Furthermore, this employment opportunity is particularly preferable to me since, though this designation is not an emerging one and thus not future proof, the element of perpetuity associated with the responsibilities of recruitment, selection, induction, orientation, training of personnel and grievance handling and various other HR responsibilities of any multinational retailer such as M&S, could assist me in determining the measure of stability and prospective promises associated with such a job designation. I also consider this job role to be of greater preference for me on the basis of the opportunity of holistic managerial capability development which could be obtained through working as HR management functionary. These would entail the benefits of groups/team based working to achieve shared objectives which could assist me in future in terms of operating effectively within formal and semi-formal work settings to manage the working standards and to manage technological complications involving the rapidly changing environment of retail sales within the current industrial scenario.

Reference List

Anselmsson, J., Bondesson, N. and Melin, F., 2016. Customer-based brand equity and human resource management image. European Journal of Marketing.

Bailey, C., Mankin, D., Kelliher, C. and Garavan, T., 2018. Strategic human resource management. Oxford University Press.

Marchington, M., Kynighou, A., Wilkinson, A. and Donnelly, R., 2016. Human resource management at work. Kogan Page Publishers.

Newell, H. and Scarbrough, H., 2017. Human resource management in context: A case study approach. Macmillan International Higher Education.

Rees, G. and Smith, P. eds., 2017. Strategic human resource management: An international perspective. Sage.

Smith, P.E. and Rees, G., 2017. An introduction to the organization, its environment and human resource management. Strategic human resource management: an international perspective, 3.

Sparrow, P., Brewster, C. and Chung, C., 2016. Globalizing human resource management. Routledge.

Suleman, F., 2018. The employability skills of higher education graduates: insights into conceptual frameworks and methodological options. Higher Education, 76(2), pp.263-278.

Wilkinson, A. and Johnstone, S. eds., 2016. Encyclopedia of human resource management. Edward Elgar Publishing.

Ybema, J.F., van Vuuren, T. and van Dam, K., 2017. HR practices for enhancing sustainable employability: implementation, use, and outcomes. The International Journal of Human Resource Management, pp.1-22.