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Assessment of Gladwell Grocery Stores

07/21/18

Introduction

To begin with, Gladwell Grocery Stores is a chain store with ten outlets in upstate New York. Tom Bell works at the stores as the operations manager and also as a human resource manager. This implies that he has to travel to all the ten stores to perform human resource functions such as recruiting, hiring, scheduling and also addressing issues that are presented by the employees. As a result of this, he is spending a lot of time dealing with these issues and he also spends a lot of financial resources due to the increasing gasoline costs. The high costs of transportation are highly reducing the store’s profitability.

Furthermore, the functions that Tom Bell performs solely are not being undertaken efficiently and effectively mainly because as an individual it is difficult for him to perform all these duties in the best and in a professional way. In addition, the grocery’s payroll is being taken care of using Excel spreadsheets. The use of such a payroll system exposes the grocery to risks of errors and it may also take a long time to address the payroll. Therefore, there is a great need for Tom Bell to seek assistance on the best means of how to reduce these costs and also enhance the effectiveness and efficiency of HR functions.

Business assessment

Human Resource Management (HRM) is a strategic function that plays a critical role in the growth and overall success of organizations (Kumar, 2011). Grocery retailing highly depends on strategic HRM for growth and success. The grocery industry is expanding and it is a competitive industry and therefore, Gladwell Grocery Stores should utilize appropriate HRM strategies. Gladwell Grocery Stores has around 400 to 440 employees working in the 10 stores. However, 55% of these employees are part-time employees and therefore it is important for the company to identify the talented part-time employees who may be later employed as full-time employees. The company has many part-time employees and therefore, they need to be assigned to short-term projects such as marketing rather than to departments.

These employees also need to be treated as part of the company. Both the part-time and full-time employees need to be given certain goals that need to be achieved after a certain period so as to ensure that they are always motivated. Despite the fact that Tom Bill travels to each of the ten locations each week, he needs to frequently contact the employees. It may be difficult for Tom Bill to address all issues presented by the employees because he only travels to each location once a week.

Identifiable issues

The key HR functions that would be beneficial to Gladwell Grocery Stores include recruitment and selection, orientation, management of employee relations, training and development, employee benefits, and handling of compensation. Focusing on these HR functions would be beneficial to Gladwell Grocery Stores for purposes of growth and overall success of the company.

The HR function that will be the focus of my business proposal is employee training and development. Basically, training and development is a program that is undertaken to help increase the level of knowledge and skills among employees. This enables them to have the ability to perform their roles effectively and efficiently. In addition, it also enables employees to adapt to the changes in the business environment. The main reason why I chose this function is that I believe this is the function that has the most value in human resource management and overall performance of any organization. Research shows that training employees enable them to reach 80 to 90 percent of their individual capabilities compared to those who are not trained who may retain only 20 to 30 percent of their potential (Rishipal, 2011). 

Conclusion Adapting an HRIS would enable the company to gather data on its employees in an effective and reliable manner (Tsui, & Lai, 2009). An example of important data would be the daily time record done through electronic means. The second benefit is that HRIS facilitates quick and efficient generation of valuable reports which are accurate. This is mainly because the system accommodates mobile accessibility which makes the process quick and simple and Tom Bell will generate reports from his office. Third, the grocery would reduce errors in payrolls as a result of utilizing HRIS. The system supports real-time tracking and therefore this makes it easy for an organization to identify any errors in the payroll.

As mentioned, HRIS would improve the employee data collection process and this would help in the training and development of employees. Tracking employee abilities and gathering appropriate employee data is important since it helps in identifying the existing gaps or areas that need improvement and therefore the training may be carried out based on the collected employee data. In conclusion, utilizing HRIS will reduce the time and high costs incurred, and will also enhance efficiency in HR functions.

References

Kumar, R. (2011). Human resource management : strategic analysis text and cases. New Dehli: I.K. International.

Rishipal, D. (2011). Training and development methods. S.L: S CHAND & CO LTD.

Tsui, A. & Lai, K. (2009). Professional practices of human resource management in Hong Kong : linking HRM to organizational success. Aberdeen, Hong Kong London: Hong Kong University Press Eurospan distributor.

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