Mgt 307 International Human Resource Assessment Answers

HR Strategies

For the business to be productive and successful, Human resource capital needs to be strong enough because in the end its human mind which is leading a business (Kearns, 2010).

HR strategy for recruitment and selection of Woolworths

Woolworths believe in selecting and retaining the best employees in their organization for various operations. Process for the best recruitment includes advertisement of vacancy online where online applications can be collected. They treat all the applicants with consideration, fairness, and courtesy and throughout the process, transparency is maintained, and the company follows or abides by ‘Equal employment opportunity legislation’ and ‘Anti-discrimination’. In order to ensure that the right individual is selected, the company recruits people on basis of merit. Another significant aspect that the company follows, is working according to the Privacy act while handling any personal information, which means no personal information can leak through the company. Once the selection process is completed, an orientation program is taken for the selected candidates to ensure that no time is wasted by a new employee, for integrating into practices of the company.

HR strategies for Manages Staff Performance and Engagement

Woolworths has talent and performance management system, through which company’s employee analysis based on current skills that they possess, required skills for the job, and after analyzing the gap between both, future career ambitions are assessed. With this, the employee can interact with the management for the purpose of filling gaps. This strategy’s objective is to increase job satisfaction and enhance employee participation among the employees. Moreover, the talent management system is utilized in enhancing employee performance. The retail sector is changing venture in today's world which leads Woolworths to be always ready for any changes that may occur in the process (Shuck, 2014).

HR strategies for identification and advancement of high performing employees

Woolworths try to encourage great performance and rewarding for such performance. In this aspect, managers of the company assess employees to identify the best performance in the organization who is contributing extra to the business and did beyond scope and provision. To encourage such performance of the company and motivating people to give their best and enhance their performance, awards are given to on frequent occasions. Many different awards are also given for extraordinary performance. Such an act makes all the employees engaged in selecting who must be the winner. This recognition of a person makes them feel appreciated for their extra efforts among coworkers. This will also encourage other employees to enhance their work since it will increase the wish to achieve the same respect and award in the future. In Woolworths, there are other awards for extraordinary performance that is annual CEO award that is given best performing group and individual in the company. Such a great performance is also awarded in form of promotion in the company by providing career development opportunities (Bailey, 2018).

HR strategy for Employees safety

Woolworths is a concern for the safety of employees in some areas such as handlers of electrical appliances, drivers, and store workers. The company had set some rules and regulations in this regard; the process of performing in these specific departments will be governed according to these rules. Like drivers are not allowed to work beyond a speed limit, or not allowed to work under drugs influence. With these rules, preventing accidents from occurring can be made. Employees of the electrical department are required to use protective gear; these are also for the contractors. The store is arranged in such a manner that it ensures no harm to employees while roaming in the store. Such safety measures need to be considered by every employee, every time. Woolworths guiding principles for safety includes, care for each other actively; promote and celebrate company’s success; the individual is responsible for their actions and decisions; illnesses and injuries must be prevented; no work is significant or urgent that the safety is ignored.

Woolworths popular policy or this concern is ‘Destination ZERO’ means no harm to people, the environment, and communities Woolworth’s serve.

HR strategies for retaining employees in the company

High labor turnovers in one of the major challenge, which Woolworths are dealt with. This persuades managers to make a strategy for diminishing the rate of turnover, to retain skilled and talented staff. There are many ways found for this concern, one of them is using the provision of career development opportunities to encourage staff to continue working with the company, by promoting employees according to ranks. Many benefits are offered to employees like retirement funding, educational assistance through scholarships, and training, health care plans, disability benefits including death and funeral, and discounts. Fitness center provision and parental leave are some other benefits offered which enhance retention of employees in Woolworths.  The employee engagement will increase satisfaction among employees of their job and ensure retention of employees.

Employee development

• Woolworths held  various training and development programs, in order to  foster talent and enhance employees with the skills needed to the extent their potential
  
  
• A rigorous regular assessment method is used to recognize and develop great-performing employees to develop next-generation leaders for the company.
  
  
• Woolworths is registered as a private ‘Further Education and Training College (FET)’ along with the Unit of Higher Education.
  
  
• Tertiary funding is available for employees and their children only if they encounter the company’s criteria.
  
  
• NQF training programme is offered to both internal and external trainees, collaborating with leading tertiary institutions, and the SETAs.
  
  
• Woolworths is committed to transforming and outspread opportunities to employees from underprivileged backgrounds. 
  
  
• Local and International conferences take place regularly, with both internal and external tutoring and mentoring (woolworths.co.za, 2018).
  
  
• Woolworths growth academy cape town, launch a project in 2010. It was a career development initiative for 12-18 months. Internal and external graduates that are underemployed or unemployed. The selected candidates among them were given the opportunity to gain work experience at Woolworths and provide them with a certificate of an executive education from ‘University of Stellenbosch Business School Executive Development Ltd (USB-ED).’ SETA and Woolworths were co-founders of this project. The trainees in this academy are trained by experts from leading industry and are authorized to create real-life challenges solution of organizations (humancapitalreview, 2007).

Employee relations and grievance handling

The grievance is a feeling of dissatisfaction or unfear that an employee experience about management procedure, or other employee behavior or job and its nature. This must be brought to the notice of the HR, management, and organization by the employee. Management can adopt some approaches to handle such grievances, such as Quick action, acknowledgment grievance, gathering facts, examining the causes of grievance, decisions, execution, and review (managementstudyguide, 2018).

Source: (managementstudyguide, 2018)

Woolworths has provided certain policies and code for employees to ensure healthy and safe work environment.

‘Doing the right’ company code of conduct include policies related to appropriate workplace behavior. This means the company is responsible to maintain a fair-working environment where everyone is treated with courtesy, respect, and dignity. This involves a respectable behavior of employees and behavior that do not conduct harassment, discrimination, and bullying. According to this code, employees are expected to:

An employee can contact their line manager or Human resource representative if any sought of unlawful harassment, discrimination, and bullying is experienced; do not victimize or making anyone in the position of disadvantage by making a complaint; anything discussed during the investigation must be kept confidential and complaint must be an honest act (woolworthsgroup, 2016).

Training

Wowlink

Woolworth’s online training center that provided various guides that can be studied online or can be downloaded. These include local administrator guides and reporting guides. Many modules for self-training are provided for enhancing knowledge of employees (wowlink, 2018).

Tafe nsw

Quality is the main concern for the Woolworths, which realize the need for quality training for their current staff. It is significant for company success. Woolworths collaborate with TAFE NSW for a development program to enhance training capabilities. Most suitable training approach for Woolworths is advised by TAFE. Federal funding was secure through Productivity placement program for up-skilling of individuals. A tailored training program was provided by TAFE, which helps in meeting requirements of Central Coast staff, also staff from Newcastle, mid-north coast, the hunter, Sydney, and Lake Macquarie for obtaining ‘certificate in training and assessment.’ TAFE training understands Woolworth's training environment and makes sure that the training course was easily understood, relevant and contextualized. Training participants agreed that the sessions conducted were exceeding expectations, and practices of appraisal in Woolworths reinforcement were valuable (hunter.tafensw, 2018).

Management and leadership development

For assistance of Woolworth’s employee to become future management and leadership and develop once, reach that position. A range of management, personal and leadership development learnings are supported to individuals of the company. The strong personal development process is provided in which employees are engaged in setting goals, receive performance feedback and career planning with Woolworths. Job opportunities for company’s employees are created for their work on complete job reliefs, business projects, and share best practices with all Woolworths brand. The training program aims to give the required support to the individual to control their careers and be successful with Woolworths (wowcareers, 2018).

Supermarket Retailing Certificate (level 2) - Countdown NZ

In Woolworth’s supermarket, as and when new employees started working it is essential to make sure they have the required skills and knowledge to make it successful. Every new employee of Woolworth’s supermarket, are provided Supermarket Retailing Level 2 as part of his or her training. To increase retail skills, more than 1000 company’s employees have signed throughout the country. This training program is an interactive online learning program that considers topics like safety, customer service, product learning and loss prevention to legal matters.  Existing skills of employees can be polished with this program (wowcareers, 2018).

Apprenticeships

This program gives an opportunity to earn while learning, in supermarket division of Woolworths, one can gain trade qualification that is nationally recognized in the bakery. With the combination of one the job training at a supermarket in Woolworths, and off the job training at TAFE college this training is completed in three or four years. For those who are interested in setting their career as a baker in Woolworths, an apprenticeship program was a great opportunity.  The learning areas covered in these programs are baking bread, food safety and sanitation, and time management and using resources effectively. Bakery apprenticeship prepares an individual with further advancement with Woolworths. The offered positions after completion are store manager or supermarket bakery manager or other managers position. An existing employee of this company can reach to HR specialist or store manager for these opportunities (wowcareers, 2018).

Fastrack

This training program was initiated for operational department employees of distribution and store centers. This program focus o to build skilled retailers and consider the diversity of thinking and experience across multiple brands. Identification and development of talent for leadership and management roles in the near future is the main emphasis for this program. Applications are for limited employees of Woolworths in New Zealand and Australia. Either manager nominates applications or employees can nominate themselves for this training program. Applicants those are successful are selected for company’s future site managers, store managers, and area managers based on their motivation and capability (wowcareers, 2018).

Conclusion

From the above discussion, the report can be concluded, that human resource management is a challenging aspect in an organization, for this aspect to understand, Woolworths Group was selected. Human resource functions and development is very strong of Woolworths. The human resource strategies of the company include strategies for recruitment and selection of Woolworths; Manages Staff Performance and Engagement; identification and advancement of high performing employees; Employees safety; retaining employees in the company. Woolworth also considers training and Employee development through various programs and training centers. For effective employee relations and prevent conflicts, a code of conduct, ‘doing things right’ is created for employees that must be followed.

Source: (Recker, 2013)

Comparison of Woolworths HRM practices with Wesfarmers HRM practices

In this report, HR strategies of Woolworths were discussed in detail. Those strategies are quite different from those of Wesfarmers. Wesfarmers was established in 1914, headquarters are in Perth, Western Australia. Its Human resource strategies consist of increasing employees and for that, the company grows their business and introduce British executives to the company. This will bring new office culture in the company. For growth, the company renewed investment in value, create strong supplier relations, introduce new brand design, investment in team members, better and bigger new stores. To achieve this growth, the required skills were added to the human resource. The company provides many benefits to the employees, like allocation of Wesfarmers shares, employees are involved in annual incentive plan,  education assistance, opportunities to sacrifice salaries, employee assistance programs, discount provision for Wesfarmers Arts tickets and many more to encourage employees for improved performance (bohatala, 2018).

Recommendation to improve HRM of Woolworths

• Offer salaries according to competitive companies, in order to attract employees that are more talented and retain existing.
  
  
• Increase the number of avenues, for advertising job vacancies so that a large number of employees are approachable and the number of the applicant will increase.
  
  
• Optimum utilization of skills of an employee, this can be done by clearly defined job description.
  
  
• Transformational leadership must be adopted to make sure that they are able to develop people they are liable to manage and harness employees talent.
  
  
• HRM department must improve ways of motivation, other than monetary motivation; they can also adopt many non-monetary benefits to motivate employees.
  
  
• Leaders and managers of the organization must be provided training through the HRM department on how to motivate and coach the employees.
  
  
• The incentive should be increased for the employees such as better parking, lunches and more. This can encourage employees to be committed and loyal towards their work and company.
  
  
• Performance management system of Woolworths is quite underdeveloped; an effective performance appraisal system must be implemented semiannually or annually.
  
  
• For better training program planning, talent management program must be combined with the appraisal It means that the training and development programs should depend on the gap identified in the appraisal system by the HRM department.

References

Bailey, C., 2018. Strategic human resource management. s.l.:Oxford University Press,.

bohatala, 2018. Wesfarmers Strategic Management Project Report. [Online]
Available at: https://bohatala.com/wesfarmers-strategic-management-project-report/

humancapitalreview, 2007. Woolworths Growth Academy: Developing Local Retail Skills. [Online]
Available at: https://www.humancapitalreview.org/content/default.asp?Article_ID=976

hunter.tafensw, 2018. Ongoing training critical to Woolworths staff. [Online]
Available at: https://www.hunter.tafensw.edu.au/about-us/casestudies/pages/ongoing-training-critical-to-woolworths-staff.aspx

Kearns, P., 2010. HR strategy.. New York ed. s.l.:Routledge.

managementstudyguide, 2018. Employee Grievance - Effective Ways of Handling Grievance. [Online]
Available at: https://www.managementstudyguide.com/methods-of-training-employees-at-workplace.htm

news.com.au, 2018. Woolworths half-year profit up 37.6 per cent. [Online]
Available at: https://www.news.com.au/finance/business/retail/woolworths-halfyear-profit-up-376-per-cent/news-story/120347ae2a14d5be05b31581f07bb30b

news.com.au, 2018. Woolworths reports full-year profit of $1.53 billion. [Online]
Available at: https://www.news.com.au/finance/business/retail/woolworths-reports-fullyear-profit-of-153-billion/news-story/1b8b3fe2d88e51585a9a29fcc42594fb

Recker, J., 2013. The Effect of Strategic Human Resource Management on Organizational Performance: The Mediating Role of High &Performance Human Resource Practices. Human Resource Management,, 52(6), pp. 899-921.

Shuck, B., 2014. Employee engagement and well-being: A moderation model and implications for practice. Journal of Leadership & Organizational Studies, 21(1), pp. 43-58.

woolworths.co.za, 2018. Development opportunities. [Online]
Available at: https://www.woolworths.co.za/recipe/_/A-cmp100617

woolworthsgroup, 2016. DOING THE RIGHT THING. [Online]
Available at: https://www.woolworthsgroup.com.au/content/Document/Dec%202016_Code%20of%20Conduct.pdf

woolworthsgroup, 2018. Our Businesses. [Online]
Available at: https://www.woolworthsgroup.com.au/page/about-us/our-brands/

woolworthsgroup, 2018. Strategy and Objectives. [Online]
Available at: https://www.woolworthsgroup.com.au/page/about-us/our-approach/strategy-and-objectives/

wowcareers, 2018. Training. [Online]
Available at: https://www.wowcareers.com.au/page/Careers/Develop_your_career/Training/

wowlink, 2018. Training center. [Online]
Available at: https://www.wowlink.com.au/wps/portal/get_started?WCM_GLOBAL_CONTEXT=/cmgt/wcm/connect/Content%20Library%20-%20WOWLink/WOWLink/Getting%20Started/wowlinkSupportCentre/TrainingCentre