Organisational Behaviour and Human Resource Management

Organisational Behaviour and Human Resource Management

 Table of Contents

Introduction. 3

Task 1. 3

1. Human resource planning of Danube company. 3
2. Selection process for the four different jobs in Danube company. 5
3. The role of training and development in the staff development of the Danube company. 7
4. The performance Appraisal methods followed in the Danube company for three categories of employees 9
5. The significance of employee relations and also reflect the significance of labour union in maintaining the peace among employees in the Danube company. 10

Task 2. 12

Introduction. 12

Description. 12

Analysis. 12

Conclusion. 13

Conclusion. 13

References. 14

Introduction

The human resource management can be said as a strategic approach for effective management of the workforce in an organisation or company for gaining competitive advantage in the market for the growth of the organisation. The main purpose of human resource management in an organization is to maximize the performance of employees in the service of strategic objectives of employer. The human resource management can be said as an important tool of a company for managing the workforce and increasing the efficiency and effectiveness of their work. The organisational behaviour can be said as a significant component which involves study of the human behaviour in the setting of a company, organisation itself and interface between the organisation and human behaviour. It also involves the study of the impact of human behaviour on performance, motivation, job structure, leadership, communication and others. It provides the understanding of the various factors that are responsible for the behaviour of people in the work environment which is effective in managing and motivating the workforce in an organization. The aim of this report is to illustrate the various aspects of the human resource management with the help of the case study of Danube Company Limited which is among the leading hypermarket and supermarket chain. The company was established in 1987 and owned by the Bindawood group of companies.

Task 1

1. Human resource planning of Danube company

The human resource planning can be said as a process of recognising the present and future requirement of human resources for a company so that it can accomplish its goals. The planning of human resource act as a link among the entire strategic plan and human resource management of the company (Rathi and Lee, 2015). The human resource planning involves five steps that are as follows:

• Appropriately defined objective: In every organization, the human resource performs various tasks and their responsibilities for achieving the objective of the company so it is important that the objective or aim of the company must be well defined. The clear understanding of the objective not only motivate the workforce but also help them in understanding their job role (Brewster, Vernon, Sparrow and Houldsworth, 2016). The objective of the Danube company is to provide easier grocery shopping to all of its customers, making the task of shopping easier convenient and seamless along with providing the convenient experience to the customers. The workforce in the company is recruited according to the skills that are required for achieving the objective of Danube company. The objective of the human resource planning in the company is to provide human resources on every level, manage and trained them so that they can achieve the objective of the company.
• Forecasting: the planning of human resources must include the need of organisation in relevant to the human resources. The assessment of the requirement is conducted in advance so that the human resources remain available whenever required in the company. As per the Hr.com, (2019), the human resource manager of the Danube company asses the need of workforce for avoiding the issues of over staffing and under staffing. In the present time the company has about 10,000 employees which are appropriate as per the number of stores of the company which are 53 but Danube company is launching its e-commerce store in the three locations that are Jeddah, Riyadh and Al Khobar (Danube.sa, 2019). After launch of its app the company will face the situation of understaffing therefore, the human resource department has already assessed the need of the human resource and planned the recruitment of 1000 employees in the company.
• Shortage and surplus of the employees: The hyper market and super market of Danube merely faces any concern regarding shortage of the employees, mainly the human resources in sales department. Danube hypermarkets are the major retail stores of the country for the customers as well as the opportunity for the career growth of the individuals because of which the company receives the continuous applicants for the sales department of the company. The company prevents the shortage or surplus of the workforce by conducting analysis of sales performance, gap analysis and analysis of the turnover rate. When the company opened its store in Riyadh and Jeddah faced the problem of understaffing. After that crisis the human resource manager of the company perform strategic planning for analysing the requirement of staff and recruit the employees accordingly. The human resource manager of the company has been able to design the threshold for avoiding the issues of overstaffing and understaffing. The decision of recruiting 1000 employees for the online retail store of the company is an example of such planning (Danube.sa, 2019).
• Adjusting the supply and demand: The human resource planning also involves the adjustment between the demand and supply of the manpower for future. In this factor of human resource planning, the company enable its staff by providing training so that they can work in the other departments for maintain the demand and supply. The company also conduct the recruitment when the present number of workers are not able to meet the demand of the company (com, 2019). The activities that the organization can conduct for maintaining the demand and supply are planned in advance by the company among which the training by job rotation is an important part.
• Proper work environment: The human resource planning in Danube company also involves providing proper and effective work environment to the employees so that they remain motivated and efficient. It also helps the company in minimizing turnover rate of the employees. The company focus on providing collaborative working experience to the employees and also focus on the growth of the workforce by providing unrivalled opportunity to grow. The work environment for the supermarket and hypermarkets of Danube company makes the employees feel empowered so that the staff can work on their full potential for achieving the objective of the company.

2. Selection process for the four different jobs in Danube company

Danube is the first hypermarket of the country and has about 10,000 employees which perform their roles and responsibilities in the company for achieving its objective and providing customer satisfaction (Web.archive.org., 2019). The organisational structure of the company comprises of different departments that are marketing, sales, finance and others. Beside of departments, the roles and responsibilities of employees are also distributed on the basis of the level of the hierarchy of organization such as top-level management, managers, supervisors, workers and others. the recruitment and selection of the employees is conducted on the basis of the job role and the skills, knowledge and abilities that are required for performing their task in the company (Collings, Wood and Szamosi, 2018). For the recruitment and selection of the employees the one step which is similar for every vacancy of the company which is receiving application. The applicants sent their application on the job portal of the company which are screened by the HR (human resource) manager of the Danube company. The selection process of the four different jobs in the company are as follows:

1. Selection process of the retail operation manager for the super market and hyper market of Danube

• The initial stage for the selection of the retail operation manager is to identify the roles and responsibilities so that the requirement in terms of skills and knowledge can be assesses. The skills and knowledge that are required in the retail operation manager of the company are have knowledge about quality and product control, highly enthusiastic and motivated, experienced in policy making, program development and management, have ability of analysing the problems, developing innovative solutions, ability of motivating workforce, streamlining communication, flexible, versatile, multitasking and others (fas.usda.gov., 2019).
• The application received through the job portal of the company is scrutinised by the HR manager as per the requirement. The selected candidates are called for interview which is conducted by two rounds.

Figure 1: job portal of the Danube company

• In the selection process, the first round of interview is taken by the HR manager of the company in which the candidates are analysed for the personal and professional skills required for the role of retail operation manager. The selected candidates from this round of interview is then interviewed by the top management of the company.
• In the second round of interview, the shortlisted candidates are interviewed by the top management for identifying their knowledge ad suitability for the job role. The selection of the suitable candidate for the post of the retail operation manager is performed by the outcome of the both interviews.
• The final stage of the selection of retail operation manager is providing offer letter.

2. Selection process of the store manager for the super market and hyper market of Danube

• The initial stage for the selection of store manager is to identify the requirement of abilities and knowledge in the candidate for fulfilling the responsibilities of the store manager such as team management, leadership, effective communication skills, inventory management, risk management, performance management, scheduling, product management and others.
• The HR manager scrutinise the received application for the role of store manager in contrast to the required skills and abilities and call the selected candidates for the interview.
• The first round of interview is conducted by the HR manager in which the candidate is asked about the experience, previous responsibilities and skills. The candidate selected in this round of interview is then sent for the second round of interview (Danube.sa, 2019).
• The second round of interview is conducted by the area manager of the company which analyse the knowledge of the candidates. The candidate is selected on the basis of the result of both interviews and the negotiations regarding the salary along with other factors.
• The candidate is then called for joining by providing offer letter.

3. Selection process of the sales representative for the super market and hyper market of Danube

• The sales representative in the hypermarket and super market of company are responsible for selling services and products by using effective communication skills. The skills that are required for the job role of sales representative are effective communication, motivation, flexibility, patience and others.
• The received applications are scrutinized by human resource manager and the selected candidates are interviewed by HR manager. the selection process of the sales representatives involves only one round of interview (fas.usda.gov., 2019).
• The result of candidates selected in the interview is then forwarded to the store manager along with the application of the candidates. The store manager selects the candidate accordingly.
• The selected candidate is then informed and called for joining.

4. Selection process of the marketing manager for the super market and hyper market of Danube

• Like recruitment and selection process of other job roles, the selection process for marketing manager also involves identification of skills such as knowledge of product, market, recent marketing strategies and trends and others.
• The selected applicants face two rounds of interview one from the HR and other from the head of the department (fas.usda.gov., 2019).
• The candidates are selected on the basis of the outcome of both interviews.
• The last step in the selection process is to provide the offer letter for joining.

3. The role of training and development in the staff development of the Danube company

The training and development are an important responsibility of the human resource department in the organization. Danube company also provide training to the employees by their different training programs like other retail organizations. the training programs in the Danube involves two activities that are on the job training and of the job training. The purpose of conducting training programs is refined as strengthen the skills and abilities of the employees as per the objective of the company (Slavić and Berber, 2019). Off the job training enable the staff to understand their roles and responsibilities along with the work culture of the company. The on the job training improves the personal and professional skills and knowledge of the workforce which results into development of both staff and organization. The off the job training in the Danube involves seminars and group activities for providing understanding of work culture, policies of the company, job role, improve ability of working in a team and others while the on the job training improve the ability of conducting task, fulfilling responsibilities, improve skills like communication and others. The training program of the company is designed on the basis of the training need analysis which is conducted on the three levels that are:

1. Organisational level: At this level, the skills that are required for achieving the objective of the company is identified so that these skills can be incorporated or improved in the workforce. The training need analysis at the organization level for Danube involves communication skills, interpersonal skills, knowledge of roles and responsibilities, understanding of objective, leadership and others.
2. Departmental level: the training needs at this level involves the knowledge and skills that are required for achieving the goal of the department and depends on the functions performed by the department. It involves the understanding and knowledge of the field of work, responsibilities, aim of department, team work and others (von Bonsdorff, et al., 2015).
3. Individual level: The analysis of training needs at this level involves the strengthening and incorporation of the skills that help the individuals to utilise the opportunities of growth in the organization. The training program must involve the activities that results into not only the professional development but also the personal development of the employees such as motivation, patience, communication and others.

The training and development in Danube is conducted on the basis of the output of the training need analysis (TNA) for making the organisational and staff development as it improves the ability of the staff to work in a team, enhance the understanding towards their role in organisation and department, improves interpersonal and professional skills, increase their ability of performing task and improve their performance which is beneficial for their professional growth. Danube company focuses equally on the development of the staff because of which the company emphasize on the development of staff by analysing their training needs and fulfilling them in the training and development program of the company.

4. The performance Appraisal methods followed in the Danube company for three categories of employees

The appraisal system in an organization helps the manager in evaluating the performance of employees and creating the unbiased system for promotion and increment in the salary. The appraisal system also hep the members of staff to improve their performance and also provide assistance to the company in reorganising or devising the job functions as per the abilities and skills of the employees (Bratton and Gold, 2017). In Danube company the performance appraisal methods for the various employees are as follows:

1. Sales Representative: The performance appraisal method that are used for analysing the performance of the sales representatives and other workers of the hypermarket and supermarket of the Danube company are the feedback or ranking methods. The questionnaire is prepared by the HR department of the company for gaining feedback on the performance of the workers. This analysis is conducted by the supervisor of the employees as they are the personnel that continuously monitor the performance of these workers very closely regarding the changes in the productivity of employees, hostility in the customer relationships and others. The feedback received from the supervisors of the teams are used for analysing performance and providing appraisals to the workforce. the performance of the employees is also evaluated on the basis of the absenteeism and tardiness of the workers (Rees and Smith, 2017).
2. Supervisors: The performance appraisal system which is used for analysing the performance of the supervisor in the company is trait focused systems which mainly emphasize on the attributes like punctuality, helpfulness and dependability. The store manager rates the supervisors by signifying particular traits that are exhibit by the supervisor. The trait focused system used by the company is simple checklists that has the rating of needs improvement, excellent or satisfactory, or options similar to those (Hr.com, 2019). Such type of method used by the manager sometimes indicates the personal biased behaviour manager and most of the supervisors gain the satisfactory remark which restrict the accuracy and reliability of the system. The main reason of using this system in the Danube company is the ease and it also provide the analysis of the basic traits that are required in the supervisor of the super market and hyper market of the company.
3. Managers: The main factor upon which the performance of managers is evaluated are the performance of the store, maintenance of customer relationship, management of workforce, management for inventory and others. The performance appraisal method which is used for the analysing performance of manager are known as human resource accounting method. In the super markets and hyper markets of the company (Anstey, et al., 2017). The feedback system or trait focused system is not suitable because of the absence of any senior personnel or top management for regular monitoring of the managers. The ability of planning for the various operations of the stores, decision making, analysis of the problems and providing solutions are also certain factors that are analysed for the performance of manager. the one most important factor which is used for the performance analysis are the accuracy in the planning, reporting and recording (Hr.com, 2019).

5. The significance of employee relations and also reflect the significance of labour union in maintaining the peace among employees in the Danube company

The employee relations are said as the means by which the management interacts and addresses the workforce of the organization. The good relationship with the employees helps in reducing the conflicts among the workforce, increasing the morale of workforce and enhancing the overall productivity of the employees while the poor employee relations reduces the productivity and motivation of the workers which is harmful for the growth of the organization and the employees themselves (Kollasch, et al., 2016). The employees are the most important asset in an organization and effective performance of them makes the organization to run smoothly. The employee relationship helps in avoiding the problems and conflicts among the workers and management in the company. The good employee relationship in Danube company provide the fair and unbiased treatment to every employee so that they can put their maximum effort and also maintain trust on the organisation. The company has properly developed and designed policies as a code of conduct n the work place which are very effective in maintaining and managing employee relationship in the company.

The labour union is also a way by which the company resolve the issues among the workforce and maintain good relationship with the employees. The labour union is also referred as trade union which can be described as organisation of the workers who are gathered for achieving the common goals like preserving integrity of the trade, improving the standards of safety, achieving the benefits like health care and others, gaining higher pay and others (Sinha, Sinha and Shekhar, 2017). The labour union empowers the employees and also provide a leader to the workforce who can put their issues and conflicts with the management of the company. The labour union can be said as a body which also help the employees in managing conflicts among themselves also which is important for maintaining the peace among them. The labour union also makes the workers to avoid conflicts for maintaining the unity and for achieving the purpose of union. In the company, the labour union is formed for preserving the rights of the workforce, managing conflicts, communicating with the management and maintaining peace among the employees. The labour union also promote the equality among the employees which is an important factor in maintaining peace among the workforce. the labour union plays significant role in maintain employee relationships.

Beside of the labour union there are also certain ways by which the employee relationship can be improved in the Danube company such as:

1. The first way by which the employee relation can be improved in the company is the proper communication with the employees. The management of the company can use the appropriate form of communication such as emails for communicating with the employees and maintain the flow of information without any interruption (Brewster, Mayrhofer and Farndale, 2018). The clear communication with the management reduces the conflict among the management and the workforce therefore improving the employee relationship and motivation.
2. Danube company can also improve the employee relationships by designing policies for managing workforce. the policies regarding the biased behaviour, unfair practices and equality helps the company to form good relationship with the employees. The policies can be designed and implemented in within the 2 months and are required to review after a specific period of times such as quarterly for analysing its impact on improving employee relationships.
3. The development of employees is also a way by which employee relationship can be improved. The unbiased analysis of performance and appraisal system can be a way by which the employee relationship can be improved. The company can alter its present system to other approach like 360-degree feedback which is more reliable and unbiased (Cascio, 2015).
4. The one more way by which the employee relationships can be improved in the company is by providing opportunities for career development such as promotions. Every employee wants a clear path for the better opportunities and the company can provide it by providing promotions timely to the employees of every level. The clear understanding of the career path helps in motivating workforce and employee relations.
5. the use of team building activities and events is also a method which can be used by the company for improving employee relationships as it promotes the coordination and communication among the workers. Such activities can be conducted once in a month which enable the team member to learn about each other and also form trust among them thus improving employee relationships.
6. The company can also improve employee relation by asking for their ideas and suggestions in the process of decision making.
7. Transparency is also a way of improving employee relationship. The HRM of company can make the process of promotions and recognition transparent for gaining the trust of employees and managing employee relations.

Conclusion

The HRM is an important pillar n an organization for improving the efficiency of workforce and growth of the company. It is two-sided approach as it involves the development of both organisation and employees. The HR planning is an important concept as it prevents Danube from the event of over staffing and under staffing. Beside of this, the proper designing and implementation of the training and development program is also important for improving the productivity of employees. Danube has effective process of HR planning and training need analysis which not only provide mutual development but also maintain the employee relationship. The conclusion that can be obtained from this work is the practice of HRM is an important tool for the development of a company and its staff.

Task 2

Introduction

The reflective writing is a way of learning from own experience by describing the incident. It can also be said as a way of identifying the strengths and weakness in terms of skills and knowledge (Cottrell, 2017).  The aim of this report is to analyse the knowledge gained by doing this assignment with the help of reflective writing.

Description

This reflection is about the learning gained from preparing the report on the organizational behaviour and human resource management in the Danube company. For preparing the report, the data and information is gathered from the various online sources for analysing the human resource management of the company and condition of retail sector n the country. Danube is the first organization that set up the hyper market in the country. It is also the first retail organization that has entered in the platform of the e-commerce in country. The analysis of the human resource management (HRM) of the company has improved my learning towards the concept of the HRM and also provide analysis of the knowledge that I had on the topic.

Analysis

The working on this assignment made me analyse my knowledge regarding the concepts of human resource planning, recruitment and selection methods, importance of training and development, performance appraisal method and employee relationships of the organization. At the starting of this work, I only had the theoretical knowledge about the practices and theories of HRM. While working on this project, I have recognised my strengths that are selection of data, knowledge of the topic ad industry and weaknesses that are analysis skills and implementation of knowledge into the practical work. While preparing this work, I have learned the importance of human resource management in an organization for its proper functioning and growth. I have also learnt the importance of human resource planning for managing the issues of understaffing and over staffing along with the role of training and development for the growth of the company and its employees. I have also learned the method of analysing the training need in the Danube at the three levels for the staff development. The development of staff is important for the growth of company, maintaining employee relationship and the motivation of workforce. the implementation of theoretical knowledge to the information gathered about the HRM practices of the company has also improved my understanding on the concepts of the HRM and enable me to implement that in the future.

Conclusion

This work has improved my learning and provide understanding of my ability for conducting such type of work. I can use the learning from this work for managing human resources in the future. I have also recognised the skills that are required to improve for enhancing my efficiency and effectiveness for working in the similar assignment on future. I will work for improving mt analytical skills so that I will not face hurdle regarding its implementation in future. I have also gained the understanding of the retail industry by working in this project which is also useful for future.

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