Managing Human Resource Essays
Word Limit: 3000
Assessed Learning Outcomes:
- Understand and analyse the relationship between HRM and corporate strategy;
- Examine the internal and external factors that can influence the influence the employment relationship.
ASSIGNMENT QUESTION
Read the following extract from Boots‟ the Chemist corporate website (full link:
http://www.boots-uk.com/corporate_social_responsibility/workplace.aspx, last accessed 29 Jun 17) and then complete the tasks listed:
Developing our people:
Here at Boots we not only encourage people to join us from outside the business and develop great careers with us, but we also invest in developing the talents of allof our colleagues who work for us today.
Caring for our customers and communities:
Our main aim in stores is to deliver the very best customer care so that we delight you when you shop with us. We achieve this by having the best people with the right skills on hand to care for you every time you enter one of our stores. We develop all of our store colleagues to be able to:
- Have high levels of skill, knowledge and care
- Provide the very best healthcare advice and support so that you feel informed and confident about any aspect of your health, from sun protection through to treatment for long term conditions such as cancer or diabetes
- Have individually tailored conversations that help you find complete solutions to your health and beauty needs
- All of our training is provided by experts and supported with a range of on line materials, with continuing professional development days particularly for our Pharmacists and Pharmacy Technicians.
- One example of community involvement occurs as part of the training year completed by our Pre-registration Pharmacists. They organise and run health promotion events specific to the health needs of their local area, focusing on raising awareness of health issues of particular concern.
Boots Macmillan Information Pharmacists:
Our future health strategy also includes developing our people through our ongoing partnership with Macmillan Cancer Support. Together we want everyone in the UK affected by cancer to have access to the very best information and support. So, we‟ve introduced the Boots Macmillan Information Pharmacist role, our aim being to provide the right kind of help in a familiar and trusted environment. These pharmacists are part of the local community and, supported by Macmillan, they can advise and point people in the direction of the right person or support group to helpwith concerns.
Making Boots a great place to work:
At Boots we work as part of a team – whether in a store, in a warehouse or in one of our centralised operations and support functions, we know we can only give you the shopping experience and the products you want if we have engaged and motivated teams working together. We appreciate just how much both you and our people benefit from great training and development, which means that we will continue to create and update our resources to make them best in class. We want to continue to champion your right to feel good and also support our people to be the best they can be, helping them to enjoy developing and progressing their careers with us. To do this we offer a range of learning opportunities in a blended way that allows our colleagues to learn through both formal learning and on the job activities.
Examples of the learning we offer are:
- Induction training for those new to Boots
- Line Manager Essentials training for those stepping into leadership roles
- Development of knowledge, skills and behaviours through our on line learning
- portal ICan and a range of e-learning programmes ranging from product
- knowledge to how best to help and care for our customers
It looks like all our efforts have paid off, as we‟ve won some awards recognising our achievements:
- Top 25 in the Sunday Times 2013 Best Big Companies to Work For
- A place in the Times Top 100 Graduate Employers 2013
- Winner of the Job Crowd – Top Companies for Graduates to work (Retail) 2013/14
Developing our future leaders:
Great leadership lies at the heart of fantastic customer care and we recognise the important role that our leaders play in motivating and engaging all of our colleagues all of the time. We have a range of development programmes that run across our stores and support functions to help leaders be the best that they can be. For those identified as having high potential, we offer development programmes that help colleagues to reach their full potential. These leadership programmes further develop an understanding of customer care, our business, team working and self awareness over a 12 month period through a combination of formal learning and on the job development.
Our learning and development partners:
Nottingham Trent University for our Management and Leadership Development programmes, offering a Post Graduate Certificate and Diploma as an integral part of the programme Nottingham Business School for our Senior Leadership programmes, offering master-classes on a range of key business topics Babington College for the Boots Apprenticeship Programme, offering level 4 qualification in Business Administration
Boots colleagues – inclusion and diversity:
Our teams, whether in stores or our support office, are amazing – they inspire great ideas, drive new plans forwards and help make Boots a fantastic place to work. Ensuring that we are always recruiting, retaining and promoting a diverse mix of colleagues who are representative of the diversity in our local communities gives usa great opportunity to have access to a broad range of ideas and allows us to give you the wide mix of products you know and expect from Boots.
Here‟s a snapshot of our team‟s profile:
- 79 per cent are women
- 35 per cent are from an ethnic minority (it is possible to compare the overall ratio of women to women in the company or with proportions in the industry or similar competitor in the company)
- The introduction in 2012 of our „Dignity at Work‟ policy ensures we remain in line with legislation, but we know we always have more work to do to ensure we are truly representing a diverse range of UK communities. A diversity and inclusion day, facilitated by Business in the Community for the fullBoots UK executive team, took place in February 2013. It also included guest speakers from two other leading companies. The workshop day gave us even greater focus, and helped us refresh our strategy and plans for diversity and inclusion. It also helped us look at our priorities, with the following initiatives being just a few examples of the improved programmes being put in place:
- A broad range of career programmes for all our colleagues
- Actively delivering a work experience programme with communities that are traditionally hard to reach
- A diversity e-learning package
Women in IT:
(can be compare women’s in IT industry ratio, what’s the average)
The Women in IT network was established to promote the talents of women in BootsIT and to provide networking and mentoring opportunities and to „give back‟ to thelocal community. Women in IT wants to help increase the number of women in the sector, improve life for those women already working in IT, to keep their talent in the business and to address the gender imbalance issue. Most importantly it sets out to provide help, support and inspiration that women can apply both in and out of work.
Benchmarking our progress:
We have recently participated in the Business in the Community “Opportunity Now” and “Race for Opportunity” benchmarking surveys that centre on gender and race equality. The results are helping us to further shape our strategy and plans.
Health and Safety:
We know that our colleagues, customers and visitors put their trust in Boots, which is why the safety of everyone who works for us, visits us and shops with us is really important to our organisation. That‟s why we constantly challenge ourselves to make continuous performance improvements in this area, putting robust measures in place to ensure that the safety of colleagues and customers is stronger than ever before. Here‟s an overview of some of the work we‟ve been doing to make sure you‟re always in safe hands at Boots.
Safe measures
Health and Safety policy
We‟ve updated and refreshed our Health and Safety policy so that it‟s easier and clearer to read and to make sure our approach focuses on two key aims:
Health and safety document
To protect colleagues, customers and visitors
To seek ways to perfect our approach to health and safety
The policy includes:
- Principles of our approach
- Importance of both safety systems and behaviours
- How we strengthen our culture of safety
- Ensuring we learn from any investigations
- Safety governance
We‟ve also refreshed the way we monitor health and safety business risks andperformance, and continue to review on a monthly basis through the Boots UK Governance Committee. Reporting to this committee are two important strategic safety steering groups: The Retail Safety Steering Group is chaired by a store director who helps develop the right safety strategy for stores
The second steering group (Nottingham Site Safety Steering Group) is chaired byour Director of Logistics and ensures that risks at our Nottingham support office siteare properly assessed and the right plans are in place to mitigate risks
Developing a Safety Culture Plan
We know that a good safety management system can‟t work in isolation, which iswhy we‟re implementing our Safety Culture Plan. It is really encouraging our managers to look at how they can integrate safety into everyday ways of working, and to make sure that regular communication shares lessons and seeks more inputfrom colleagues on ways to improve safety for themselves and our customers.
This is the next stage of our long-term safety strategy, and getting everyone even more involved is very important for the safety of our customers and colleagues
Adrian Bremner, Boots UK Safety Team
Primary Authority Partner
Through our successful relationship with our Primary Authority Partner, TheHighlands Council, we‟ve conducted a number of reviews in stores, to help us understand the effectiveness of our safety systems and safety plan implementation. The findings of these reviews have been fed back to our Retail Safety Steering Group to further improve our safety strategy, plans and performance going forward.
All these ways of working help us to strengthen our continuous improvementapproach to the safety of our colleagues, customers and visitors.
Feeling good at work!
At Boots, people‟s health and wellbeing is at the heart of everything we do. We want to help you feel good, whether you‟re taking care of your family with the help of our experienced pharmacists, relaxing with a Botanics bubble bath or simply enjoying a bit of retail therapy in our stores.
This is also true for our teams and we are always looking for ways to support the people who work for Boots, helping them to have happy, healthy lifestyles.
We asked some of you what you thought about our teams‟ wellbeing. Here are someof the findings:
- 92 per cent of you think companies have a responsibility to look after their colleagues‟ health, as this could help them deliver fantastic customer service
- 88 per cent of you feel that unless we looked after our colleagues‟ health how can you trust us to look after yours?
- 86 per cent of you feel that Boots should be a driving force in healthcarepromotion and this includes ensuring health for employees
This clearly shows that you feel we have a big role to play in looking after our teams, and we totally agree. As a major national employer with almost 60,000 people working with us, we want to ensure they are cared for as part of our organisation. In a recent colleague survey:
- 94 per cent of our staff understand how they contribute to our aims and goals
- 91 per cent believe in our mission to motivate everyone to „feel good‟
So we know we‟re doing something right. Let‟s take a look at some of the major schemes helping our staff feel great at work:
Workwell Campaign: We work closely with this Business in the Community (BITC) campaign, which strives to improve wellness in the workplace and helps UK businesses have some of the most engaged workforces in the world. To read more about our work with BITC in this area, please click here
Occupational Health Service: Providing advice on work and health to employees, our Occupational Health Service was first granted SEQOHS (Safe Effective Quality Occupational Health Services) status in 2011 and has been reaccredited since, acknowledging the quality scheme we provide
Bike to Work Week: Running (or riding) alongside National Bike Week, we encourage colleagues to try cycling to work to raise awareness of the health benefits of cycling. During the week we give out advice, hold competitions, offer free bikechecks and have some biking promotions. Our colleagues have found the event a great way to kick start a new interest in pedal power!
Products and services: We offer a wide range of products and services especially for our teams, including: staff discount card, discounted eye tests, glasses and contact lenses, plus discounted flu vaccines and seasonal product discounts which we offer to colleagues through our Lets Make It Happen booklets
Other support: We have also listened to the types of issues our staff feel they needhelp with, and offer support for people in the following areas, for example:
Safeguarding and Prevent: we have a Safeguarding and Prevent policy which setsout how we help our young or vulnerable colleagues to stay safe from harm, whetherthat‟s inside or outside of work. It also tells our colleagues what signs they might spotif someone is at risk of harm and who they should contact if they are worried, so wecan get them the help they need. The policy is displayed on our noticeboards at work and can also be found under Related Resources (Policies) on this page.
Healthy Minds, raising awareness and understanding of mental health and stressthrough our internal website and e-Learning programme
Healthy Backs, raising awareness and understanding of how to manage backproblems and stay fit for work through our internal website
You are encouraged to visit the site using the link at the top of this extract to explore the company in more detail.
Task:
Analyse the above extract of Boots Corporate Social Responsibility „Workplace‟website, then write an essay in which you:
Introduction 150-200 words
- Identify and analyse the company‟s approach to Health and Safety (850 words)
- Analyse the company approach to managing Equality and Diversity in the workplace (850 words)
- Evaluate how the company‟s approach to these two aspects of Human Resource Management might help to deliver strategic effect, and how its approach is affected by both internal and external factors (words 850 )
Conclusion (200-300 words)
- Use correct academic writing technique including the effective structure, grammar, spelling, use of in-text citations, and a reference list, both of which should use the Harvard Referencing convention.
In addition to using this extract of the report, you should also conduct additional research into the company to help add detail and evidence to your answers. You should frame all of your answers using academic theories and concepts of the topicsunder consideration.
ASSESSMENT CRITERIA
You are required to compare the company approach against both UK legislation and academic theory regarding Health and Safety at Work, and analyse how the company approaches this important topic and why they place the importance they doon this issue.
You are required to compare the company approach against both UK legislation and academic theory regarding Equality and Diversity, and analyse how the company approaches this important topic and why they place the importance they do on this issue.
You are required to link both of the above aspects of HRM at Boots to the company‟s strategic objectives and evaluate how their approach to these two topics assists the company in achieving strategic outcomes, using a range of theories and/or academic thinking on Strategic HRM.