Human Resource Management of Walmart

Introduction

Walmart is an American retail based multinational company that operates with discount department stores and grocery shop. They elaborated their business more than 28 countries and they are world’s largest company by revenue according to fortune global in 2014. Walmart is a family based business and their origin company is Walton. They are also biggest private employer in according 2014. Walmart follows some specific strategy to run their business. They follow Guests model of HRM as their personnel management. They also follow some other strategies like past and future oriented method for employee performance measurement tools. They established EO in their work place to make sure equal right of all of their employee. They have less discriminatory practices in their organization which makes them more success in international business. They prioritize the changes like labor change and they make sure that their environment is favorable to their employee. They have adequate tools to prevent an unexpected situation caused by fire, earthquake and other disaster. These initiative make them differ from others and are key for their success.

Task 1

1.1   Explain Guest’s model of HRM

Human resource management is a systematic study of manage people of an organization to achieves their expected goal. HRM starts their activities through seek for recruiting and end with selecting employees. It also includes planning for employee needs, job analysis, and job design and so on.

Guest’s model was developed by David guest’s which has 6 dimension of analysis.

Figure 1: Guest’s model of HRM

Source: own creation

The model is described in the way that explains HRM is totally differ from traditional personnel management. It believes that fundamental elements of HRM such as commitment have a valued business consequences. Guest’s has described that the concept of commitment is messy. He also believed that the relationship between commitment and high performance is difficult to establish. Like some other organization Walmart also follows guest’s model to differentiate their commitment and performance. They also use this model to

§       Acknowledge the difference between two model of incorporate and ideal model.

§      To seeks commitment to organization goals by strategic management.

§      Focuses on the individuals needs rather than overall combination of workforce.

§      Emphasizes people as an asset which will help to achieve organizations goals.

Guest’s model also referred two things which are also followed by Walmart that are soft HRM and Hard HRM. Hard HRM concerns with aligning human resources strategy whereas soft is more compassionate.

1.2   Compare the differences between Storey’s definitions of HRM, personnel and IR practices

Storey has established a model known as Storey’s theoretical model in 1992 based on his own perception of how organization has evolved from predominant personnel and IR practices. According to Storey human commitment and capacity can create differentiation among organizations.

From Storey’s definition the following points can be identify to differentiate HRM and personnel IR practices.

§  Personnel go through written contract whereas IR goes beyond written contract.

§  Personnel emphasis on clear rule whereas HRM don’t prioritizes it.

§  Personnel follows management procedures as their guide whereas HRM lighting on business procedures.

§  Personnel go side by side with corporate plan but HRM is integrated to its strategy and plan.

§  Personnel face a slower decision making process whereas HRM face a bit fast.

§  The key concerns of Personnel are labor management whereas HRM concerns with customer.

Walmart have personnel and HRM management to manage their employee and attain their goals. Like Storey’s model their personnel follows written contract, indirect communication, corporate plan as decision making process, and labor management whereas their HRM follows just contrast of these.

1.3 The implications for line managers and employees of developing a strategic approach to HRM

According to Delery and Doty the organizations which have the ability to attain superior performance needs to adopt a particular HR strategy that have ability to meet different purposes. There are many advice for line managers and employees to develop their strategy. These are given below:

Implication for line managers:

Implication for line managers lies in these activities

    Line managers categorized as day to day personal management.

§      Their primary task is to manage operational cost effectively.

§      They manage technical expertise.

§       They manage work allocation.

§       They look after work process and evaluate it.

Implication for employees:

Implication for employees lies in these activities

§       They can set direction to build a strategy that ensures commitment.

§       They can build a standard for measuring continuous performance.

§       They can set a standard to increase their productivity and product quality.

      They can be motivated by their better status.

Walmart also have their implication for line management and employee to develop their strategy of HRM approaches. They categorize their manager as day to day shift, they manage their technological expertise to make better product, and they evaluate their employees work process to make sure their progress. Walmart’s employees are also follows some strategy to make the company’s goals more successful.

Task 2

2.1 Review and explanation a model of flexibility

According to Rose [2008] flexibility is analyzing the perspective of revolution and the structure of relationship of employment and their help in adapting rapidly in changes in the world of market opportunity and technology. But Piore disagree with this and said flexibility is continuous adaption with workforce.

There are four dimension in this model and Walmart use some these to adopt with their changing workforce. The 1^st dimension in this model refers that production capabilities should be flexible as more as the company can. Flexibility in production is company should produce different types of product rather than producing some kinds. Walmart should produce some other product side by side their basic types. Sales priorities system in the model refers that company should prioritize any one or more than one products sale to capture the target market and target customer. The 3^rd one in the model followed by Walmart is distribution network which means company’s product distribution channel. Walmart should select such kind of channel which is lower in cost, more time saving and safe to deliver all kind of product.

2.2 Types of flexibility

Flexibility is to adapting to a changing situation on the basis of workforce, employee control, employee work schedule and so on. 

Functional Flexibility: This kind of flexibility is used to make employee improve so that they do a task in the quickest and smooth way. Walmart uses this flexibility to do different multi task through their employee and get the task smoother.

Financial Flexibility: Walmart generally use financial flexibility to reduce different line between consumption and limitation of employee to do task. It is the ability to a company to take initiative against excessive financial cost.

Numerical flexibility: It represents the adjustment of a company’s number of employees and their working hours in a systematical way. Companies like Walmart adjust their employees by adjusting part time employee and full time.

Location Flexibility: Location flexibility facilitates the employee to work anywhere based on company’s office. Walmart’s employee can work different part of America because they have available branch anywhere of America.

2.3 Assess the use of flexible working practices from both the employee and the employer perspective

The practice of flexible work practice includes some dimension like flexi-time, flexible work hour and flexible work location schedule. These dimensions help both the employee and the employers in such away:

Job Sharing

Another name of flexi-time is job sharing which represents that employees can inter exchange their job with each other. By job sharing Walmart’s employees can be benefited by part time job, compressed work weeks and so on. In job sharing employers also can benefited by scheduling work across longer portion, recruiting and keeping valued staff and so on.

Flexi-Time / Flexible work hour

It represents that an employee will work when he want. If an employee wants to work 12hours a day and then he claim 1day extra leave then it is flexible work hour. Walmart use it to benefit their employee by avoid rush hours, more control over time. It can be also benefited employer through making more efficient use of facilities.

Flexible Work location

It includes working on home, satellite office or on the move. Both Walmart’s employee and employers can be benefited by it through less time consumption and balance between work and home life.

2.4 Discuss the impact that changes in the labor market have had on flexible working practices

Depending on various factors labor market have changing day by day and it has a great impact on flexible working practice, which is the result of raise of employee rights. 

Population: The increasing population is the most responsible element for changing labor market. People are increasing but side by side work sectors are not increasing so it creates a gap which influences labor market. Walmart trying to fill up these gaps.

Education: Literacy rate is decreasing at a massive rate as a result crisis arising in the job sector. Educated people are more concern about their right and it is affect their working experience. Walmart train their employees to make them more effective.

Increasing Expenditure: Daily expense of the product massively increasing day by day as a result personnel wants to get an extra pert time job. Walmart facilitate their employees such kind of job.

Society: Society make a human based on its culture so a man’s needs and wants depends on what his society learn him so Walmart should concentrate on the society.

Task 3

3.1 Explain the forms of discrimination that can take place in the workplace

Decimation is a major problem in an organization. There are several factors of discriminating such as gender, race, region, color, ethnic, origin, social position, political view, and so on. 

Direct Discrimination: it is occurs when the authority or the colleagues treated less rather than other on the basis of his/her job position, social status, race, and gender. This situation Walmart should arrange seminar to grow concern against this kind of action.

Indirect Discrimination: There may be seem to be no direct discrimination problem but there may exist some indirect discrimination. It occurs when Walmart start all of their employee outside of the office. It is affects women worker mostly.

Abuse/Harassment: In the multinational company it looks most and faced by the minority group, a lesbian and an older person.

Racist Incident: The incident which is perceive from the another person. In this situation if the victim is not complain then another also do so.

3.2 Discuss the practical implications of equal opportunities legislation for an organization

Organization all over the world trying to stop or reduce discrimination in the work place because it greatly hampered productivity of an organization. Almost all of the organization understood the necessity of equal opportunities in the workplace. So they have start to follows these laws:

Act	Areas covered
Sex Discrimination Act 1975	Developed to stop sexual harassment in the workplace.
Sex Discrimination (Gender reassignment) Regulation 1999	Developed to reduce gender discrimination in the workplace.
Race Relations Act 1976	Developed to reduce discrimination like race, origin, color and nationality.
Disability Discrimination Act 1995	Developed for ensuring disable people’s rights
Equal Pay Act 1970	Developed to ensure equal payment to male and female, older and younger.
Employment Equality (Sexual Orientation)	It has been developed for both same sex and opposite sex.
Human Rights Act 1998	Developed to prohibit extra work and healthy work place.
Employment Equality Regulations 2003	Developed for the same religion and same belief.

Walmart have been following most of these act strictly to prohibit discriminatory action among the employee and to ensure equal right to all employees at the purpose of making the employee more productive.

3.3 Compare the approaches to managing equal opportunities and managing diversity

Equal opportunity refers to traditional models of EO where all people will treated equally working in the same organization. It ensures that a person will be promoted on the basis of his or her capacity.

On the other hand managing diversity is which accepts the workforce consist of diverse population of the people. Diversity includes the factors which may be visible or not visible including sex, age, background, race, disability, and work style.

The basic difference between these two is the driven force of implementation. Equal opportunity is external related and driven by law and ethnic like judge, fairness and so on whereas diversity is internal related and driven by business needs. The objective of equal opportunity is social justice and human rights whereas managing diversity’s objective is treat employees as individual, understand that each individuals have unique needs. EO is a social fact to treat everyone eventually on the other hand managing diversity is business and economic orientation within the organization.

Task 4

4.1 Compare different methods of performance management

Performance management is the measurement of performance delivered by an individual to an organization. There are various methods use to find out performance. The methods used by Walmart can be divided in to two different categories.

Past oriented method:

This method judge an employee based on his past experience, knowledge, and practices. There are some methods available based on past orientation like:

·         Rating scale: it represents several numerical scale of job related performance.

·         Checklist: A statement of behavior of employee based on closed question.

·         Force Choice: Series of statement arranged in question paper.

Future oriented method:

This methods includes employee’s current performance as well as company’s objective. Some other methods of future oriented methods are:

·         Management by objective; based on organization goals establish standard of performance for the employee.

·         Psychological appraisal: Test it by depth interview, psychological test and discussion with superior.

·         360- Degree feedback: Performance data collection technique from individual and group.

Walmart follows these two methods to make their employee more productive and make their goal more attainable.

4.2 Assess the approaches to the practice of managing employee welfare in a selected organization

Walmart follows different types of way of managing employee welfare such as income protection, family and personal safety, development and training.

·         Family and personal safety

Not only the employee of Walmart but the employees of the organization of all over the world feel safety in their work place. This safety can be include their salary, job protection, workplace security and so on.

·         Income protection

It includes employee’s salary protection and having their salary after a certain period of time. To reduce the tension of income protection Walmart ensure the salary and job protection of their employee.

·         Development and training

Through D&T a company can make their employee more productive. Walmart train their employee to find out the capacity hidden in them and by this they try to get their desired goals attainable.

4.3 Discuss the implications of health and safety legislation on human resources practices

Health and safety legislation on HRM refers to employee’s health security and their workplace security. When an employee work to an organization then the organization should ensure his health safety as if an employee works on steal factory then the organization should ensure availability of ante smock equipment to ensure employees health safety. Health and safety equipment may add some extra cost but for this cost the employee will more relaxed in their work.

Walmart are responsible to their employee to provide health security to their employee and bound to pay penalties if any occurrence happens. Safety issues ensure both the company and their environment security. Walmart should concentrate both on their employee and their environment. Their workplace should smock free, dust free and ante fire equipment needs to available. Walmart should follows some policies to prevent unexpected occurrence:

ü  Make sure of fire protection.

ü  Emergency exit

ü  Make the workplace healthy

ü  Replace old and risky equipment with new one.

4.4 Evaluate the impact of one topical issue on human resources practices

In the previous question it has been discussed about a company’s and its manager’s responsibility to their employee. It is one of the important issue on impact of HRM practices. There are also some other practices of HRM practices by the manager. Labor supply is one of them and affect can affect an organization greatly by under and over supply.

Under supply of labor occurs when a company needs 100 worker but HR supplies them 80. This situations have a great negative impact on company’s production and daily activities. Lack of employee can reduce a company’s work performance. If Walmart do not concentrate on their labor supply then they will lose their desired goal.

Over supply is when a company needs 100 employee and their HR recruited 120. This situation also threatens for the company. If Walmart recruited more employee than they needs then they will needs to pay more salary, should train more employee which will also lacks company performance.

So Walmart should recruit as just they needs. Over and under supply hamper the employee performance.

Conclusion:

Walmart makes their employee more productive and by this they are trying to attain their desired goals. They make their employee more productive through the use of different motivational tool on them as like financial and non-financial motivation. They try to maintain their work place safe to their employee so that their employee can concentrate on their work and produce more product. Walmart should also concentrate on different kinds discrimination which is occurs all of the organizations to get all kind of help from their employee. They should pay equal opportunity to attain all of the employees help. They also should use different kinds of performance measuring methods to track their employee effectively.