An organization’s human resources are an important determinant of its success. With this understanding, many global organizations focus on providing the best working conditions for their employees in order to benefit from their optimum performances. This focus is also as a way of conforming to international and local labor laws as well as standard human resource practices regulating the treatment of employees at the workplace (Armstrong, 2007). Of central focus are regulations dealing with employee health and safety and workplace equality and diversity. Boot is a good example of an organization whose focus on these two aspects of human resource management is noticeable. Being a significant employer, its efforts in promoting equity, diversity and prioritizing the health and safety of its employees is geared towards ensuring that the company attracts and retains the best talents in the market. The company perceives their employees as a critical aspect of their current success. My thesis statement is: Boots approach towards workplace health, safety, equity, and diversity is the reason for its current success.
Boots approach to Health and Safety: The organization places much significance on the health and safety of its employee’s customers and visitors. The management of the company knows that these groups are critical to the achievement of organizational objectives. The company is in a continuous process of improving its health and safety techniques (Gagné, 2009). The seriousness with which the organization takes the concept of health and safety for its employees, customers and visitors are reflected in the multiple strategies put in place by the company.
Health and Safety Policy. The Company has a health and safety policy through which it provides competent health and safety advice to all operational areas to minimize incidences of ill health and injuries. Through its health and safety policy, the company has also established a safety organization culture embedded in proactive safety and active care, by which each member of the organization is supposed to abide. The Company’s health and safety policy are geared towards the protection of its employees, customers, and visitors. Through the policy, the organizations also aim at ensuring that it continuously perfects its health and safety approach. The policy includes the importance of behaviors and safety systems, strengthening of safety culture, health and safety approach principles and provision of a learning opportunity form investigations.
Safety governance. In addition to health and safety policy, the company also has a safety governance framework. The company reviews its performance, business risks and health and safety monitoring on monthly basis through its Governance committee based in the UK. It also has other two groups for steering safety within the organization. The groups are Nottingham site safety steering group and Retail safety steering group. The groups are involved in the development of safety strategies for its various stores, risk assessment and the establishment of risk mitigation strategies.
Safety culture plan. In addition, the Company has implemented a safety culture Plan through which it encourages it’s to consider adopting ways of integrating safety into daily routines and engaging in continuous communication in order to acquire input on ways of improving safety at the organization. It is also meant to ensure that critical lessons on safety improvement are shared on ways of improving safety for employees and themselves.
Primary Authority Partner. The company has also successfully conducted several reviews on its stores in collaboration with the Highlands Council which is its Primary Authority Partner. Such reviews are aimed at helping the organization the organization to access the efficiency of its safety plan implementation as well as safety systems. Through the findings from these reviews, the Company is able to make improvements to its safety plans and strategy. It helps the company to achieve its continuous safety improvement objectives.
Bike to work and ongoing support. In order to enhance the wellness of its employees, the company encourages its employees to use bikes which are considered a more vigorous mode of transport. They do this by creating awareness on the benefits of riding and developing interest through bike riding events. It also provides ongoing support on pertinent issues affecting its employees.
Work well Campaign. Through its collaboration with business in the community campaign, Boots strives at improving the wellness of its employees, customers, and visitors as well as improve the overall engagement of its workforce.
Both national and International labor laws require that organizations put in place robust mechanisms to promote the health and safety of both their employees and customers. Employers are legally obliged to provide a healthy and safe work environment for their employees. In the United Kingdom, the Health and Safety at work Act 1974 is the main legislation dealing with occupational health and Safety (Martin, 2010). The Act requires that managers provide and maintain a healthy and safe working environment free of health and safety risks. The main provisions of the Act include a requirement for employers to adequately train their staff on health and safety; maintain workplace environment; put in place adequate welfare provisions and maintain an updated health and safety policy. The approaches employed by the organization reflect the provisions stated under this Act
There exists a general agreement that workplace safety is a contributor to a positive organizational culture. Workplace safety also improves the loyalty and productivity of employees. There are multiple benefits that accrue to an organization that prioritizes the health. Some of these benefits include reduced compensation costs for occupational injuries. Employee injuries are known to derail the productivity of employees (Brewster, 2017). Therefore for an organization such as Boots, its maintenance of high productivity levels could have been as a result of reduced occupational injuries.
Generally, if an organization has safety concerns, its employees tend to be more worried about their safety than their productivity. The perception of a company in the eyes of the public is a great asset. Customers tend to be attracted to an organization with safe practices (Mathis & Jackson, 2012). Safe health and safety practices not only attract customers but also give an organization a good reputation in the eyes of the public. Health and safety is therefore not only a preserve for employees but also for customers. Organizations are tasked with the responsibility of ensuring the health and safety of their employees and customers (Lengnick-Hall et al.,2009) If employees of an organization are offered the best working environment they are likely to offer the best customer service which will lead to customer loyalty and retention.
Boot’s Approach to managing Equality and Diversity. Diversity at the workplace involves an appreciation of employees with different attributes such as sexual orientation, ethnicity, social status, sex, age, and gender. Multiple benefits accrue to an organization that values diversity. On the other hand, equity is the fair treatment of everybody at the workplace. Trough equity organizations grant similar chances and opportunities to their employees without discrimination. The organization strongly believes in the ability of its team to inspire great ideas, come up with unique plans and make the organization a favorite workplace for employees (Wright and McMahan,2011). The organization uses a wide range of techniques to achieve its diversity objectives.
Diversity through the recruitment process. The organization ensures that diversity is reflected in its recruitment process by attracting a diverse pool of applicants, retaining and promoting them. The organization perceives diversity as an opportunity for bringing on board a wide range of ideas which can be used to improve the status of the organization. Its diverse workforce representative of the local populations brings on board unique talents through which it is able to deliver its wide range of products. Diversity is represented in its workforce which is made up of 79% women and 35% ethnic minorities.
Dignity at work policy. This policy was introduced in 2012 as part of the organization’s attempt to conform to legislation governing workplace diversity. Through this policy, the organization ensures that the workplace is representative of the diverse communities forms the United Kingdom.
A diversity and Inclusion day: Such forums give the organization an opportunity to review its diversity plans and strategy. Its 2013 diversity and inclusion day brought together its UK executive team and speakers from other top companies. With such representation, the event provided an opportunity for exchanging ideas and reflecting on the progress made regarding the management of diversity (Deb,2008). It also provided an opportunity for the organization to review its diversity priorities. Some of the strategies put in place by the company to promote workplace diversity include the provision of an electronic-leaning package on diversity, engaging community members through work experience programs, and availing career programs for its employees
Women in IT Network: This was another strategy established by the organization as a way of giving back to the society provide mentorship and networking opportunities and enhance women’s talent in the Organization’s Information Technology. Through this strategy, the organization aims at improving life for female IT experts, provide opportunities for women inclusion in It Sector and deal with gender inequality issues. Through the provision of equal chances, the organization also aims at offering necessary inspiration and support in order to enable them to deal with challenges in and out of work.
Benchmarking of progress: The organization uses race for opportunity and opportunity now” benchmarking surveys through community engagement as a way of tracking its progress.The results from these surveys are used to further improve its strategy and plan for diversity and equity.
Equality and equity are important areas of focus for modern day organizations. With increased competitiveness in various industries, Organizations are always on the lookout for exceptional employees who can bring forth their ideas for the betterment of their organization (Jiang et al.,2012). A diverse workforce presents an organization with various skills and competencies which it can use to solve both its current needs and future demands. Reliance on a homogenous workforce denies an organization an opportunity to solve future challenges in multiple ways. The most common is the promotion of gender-based initiatives, encouraging gender balance and diversity, appointing women to senior positions, a selection from a large pool of applicants, creating equal access to opportunities for all employees, offering mentorship opportunities, coaching and training employees.
Regulations. In the United Kingdom, workplace equality and equity are supported by legislation such as Equality Act 2010. Equality Acts 2010 protects individuals form unethical discriminatory practices both at the workplace and other spheres of the society (Chelladurai,2016). The act offers equal employment rights to both men and women. Employers are also required to promote equal opportunities and equality and work towards prevention and elimination of discrimination in their workplaces. They are also required to demonstrate that any actions that they take will not discriminate against any employee.
The Organization places much significance on workplace diversity because of several reasons. First, it plays a significant role in employee retention; improve the overall productivity of employees and contributes to the attraction of best talents in the market (Boxall and Macky, 2009). The organization also clearly understands that the strategies can also contribute to improved competitiveness.
The contribution of the approaches to the organization’s strategic objectives. Just like others businesses boots also has its strategic aims and objectives (Jackson, Schuler and Werner, 2009). The achievement of these objectives is the main goal for the various health and safety as well as equity and equality strategies being employed by the organization. The organization clearly understands the role played by its workforce, customers, and visitors. The organization has a couple of objectives: Its main objectives are maximizing profits, achieving overall market leadership in the United Kingdom, being the health and beauty shop of choice for customers and building a recognizable brand. It aims at being the pharmacy, well being and beauty center of choice, helping people to lead a healthier life, maintain trust by doing the right thing, acting with commitment and passion and cultivate entrepreneurial skills and open-mindedness among its employees and collaborating in order to win together as a team (Avey, Luthans and Jensen,2009). The organization also aims at working with dedication to achieve exceptional results.
Optimizing profits: The organizations approach the concepts of health and safety; equity and equality is a big plus towards its objective for optimum profits. By giving equal opportunities, the organization is able to benefit from the contributions of all employees including the most skilled (Subramony, 2009). Giving equal opportunities for all employees improves on their motivation and positively affects their performance. With improved employee performances; the overall productivity of the organization is likely to be kept high. Through its health and safety strategies, the organization ensures that cases of employee’s injury are minimized or eliminated. It also ensures that cases of occupational illnesses are minimized (Baker & Doran, 2008). Elimination of injury and workplace injuries ensure that injury relates costs such costs incurred in the treatment of employees, compensation, and fines incurred in legal battles are eliminated. It also ensures that cases of absenteeism due to injury and ill health are eliminated. Absenteeism leads to direct loss of labor which translates to reduced profits for an organization. With reduced cases of absenteeism, the organization is able to benefit from optimum productivity for all its employees which lead to optimized profits. In addition provision of a healthy and safe working environment improves employee loyalty and reduces employee turnover. While employee turnover is known to be a costly affair, lack of it means improved profits margin for the organization because no costs will be incurred in the recruitment and selection of new employees to replace those that have left (Guest, 2011).
To be a health and beauty shop of choice. Multiple factors determine the ability of an organization to attract and retain customers. For Boots its focus on ensuring a safe workplace not only benefits its employees but also its customers and visitors. Through its various health and safety strategies, the organization has presented itself as an organization that cares both for its employees and customers. Customers tend to associate themselves with organizations that treat them with care and respect (Bratton and Gold, 2017). With the kind of strategies put in place, the company has been able to retain and attract more customers. It has also been able to maintain a positive public image. The more it is able to appeal to more customers and the more it is able to maintain a positive public image, though out is health, safety, diversity, and equity strategies, the more it is likely to achieve this objective.
Build a recognizable brand and become a market leader in the UK. There are several factors that contribute to the awareness of an organization’s brand. The most common aspect of organizations brand awareness is offsite mentions, direct traffic by visitors using search engines, social media followers, level of engagement, referrals, testimonials, and reviews (Fottler, Khatri & Savage,2010). However, all these do not just come without being worked for. An organization like boots has invested heavily in building its brand and establishing itself as a market leader. Its community engagement strategies have enabled it to increase its chances of referrals and testimonials. With is focus on prioritizing the safety and health of its followers and customers the company has been able to create a lasting impression on its customers (Bucknall & Wei, 2008). A lasting impression means that the organization will receive more mentions, more reviews, more testimonials and finally more referrals. This has also been facilitated by its focus on creating equal chances for both men and women and giving back to the society.
Cultivating entrepreneurial skills and open-mindedness among its employees. The organization greatly values the role played by its employees. The productivity of employees is determined by a number of things including the workplace environment, the level of training to deal with a wider range of issues that arise at the workplace and the level of appreciation by the management (Niles, 2013). The company provides health and safety training to its employees, gives them equal chances and opportunities, offer them the necessary support and encourages workplace diversity. With such efforts, the employees become free thinkers and transform the workplace into a breeding ground for innovative ideas (Amos, 2008). This has helped the organization to offer better services and products to its employees
Conclusion
In conclusion health and safety; equality and diversity are important Hrm aspects playing significant roles in the success of organizations. An organization’s approach towards health and safety as well as equality for its employees is a major determinant of its level of success in the market. The boot is an example of an organization that is much focused on supporting the two aspects. The organization significantly values the health and safety of its employees, visitors, and customers. For this reason, it has put in place various strategies to promote the health and safety of these three groups. Its strategies include the creation of a health and safety policy, adoption of the governance framework, implementation of a safety culture plan, collaboration with a primary authority partner, adoption of work well campaign, offering necessary support and encouraging their employees to cycle to work. The organization has also put in place various strategies to manage equality and diversity. Its strategies include the establishment of women in IT network, facilitating diversity during the recruitment process, implementation of dignity at work policy, involvement in social diversity functions and benchmarking its progress on equality and diversity. The strategies employed by the organization are significant contributors to the achievement of its strategic objectives.
References
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