Human Resource Management For Employers And Employees In The Global Retail Industry

Human Resource Management

Discuss about the Human Resource Management for Employers and Employees.

Human resource management is an approach that ensures proper management of the workforce using various core and non-core functions, such as recruitment and selection, compensation and benefit management, performance management, training and development (Armstrong & Taylor, 2014). Human resource management works by establishing better relations between employers and employees, which is made possible by improving the work conditions for the employees (Albrecht, et al., 2015).

The global retail industry is one of the most important businesses that offers employment opportunities to millions of people. A retail business or a retail outlet is a place where exchange of multiple goods and services takes place, such as groceries, electronics, household, etc. (Lucintel, 2012)The retail industry comprises of small grocery shops as well as supermarkets where every product required in our day-to-day life is available for purchase.

Recruitment is a process of identifying possible vacancies in a business organisations and inviting applications for the identified vacancies. Selection, on the other hand, is a process that involves screening of the applicants that have applied for a job so that the vacancies identified can be fulfilled and the organisation can run smoothly. Recruitment and selection is a major problem in the retail industry due to a number of issues (Rothwell & Prescott, 2012). Some major issues related to recruitment and selection in the retail industry have been discussed below.

Retail industry is one of the most important industry in the world because of the contribution that it makes towards the global GDP and employment opportunities that it offers to the global population. However, there are a number of issues that the managers working in retail industry face while carrying out selection and recruitment of employees to meet the demand of their retail stores. Some of the issues, related to recruitment and selection, that the global retail industry faces are discussed below:

First of all, recruitment and selection in the global retail industry is highly decentralised. Unlike other industries, where the human resource demand and supply patterns can be forecasted using data from the past and present, the human resource demand in the retail industry can never be accurately forecasted as each of the retail stores have their own human resource demand, which can undergo a change in real time (Barrett, 2016). As a result, the managers of the retail stores act as human resource managers of their respective stores and as they are not educated in the field of human resource management, they are rarely an expert in the field and are not able to carry out the recruitment and selection properly.

Global Retail Industry

Secondly, the fluctuations in human resource demand and supply patterns, experienced by the companies operating in the retail industry, pose a significant issue to the recruitment and selection procedures followed by the managers. The retail industry experiences a lot of fluctuations in human resource demands because of seasonal activities and festival seasons. During such periods, the human resource demands can increase and the failure to meet the human resource demands can result in decline of sales to a great extent. On the other hand, employing surplus staff can become a burden on the resources of the retail stores. Thus, recruitment and selection in the retail industry is difficult and is carried on as a continuous process because of high fluctuations in the demand and supply patterns of human resources.

Thirdly, the global retail industry experiences very high employee turnover rates. The retail industry is one industry which offers easy employment opportunities to the public because working in a retail store does not require much qualifications. Further, the pay scale for the employees working in the retail industry is also good, as compared to the qualifications required. Thus, a lot of unemployed people approach retail stores to get a job but demonstrate a very high tendency to quit their jobs once they receive a better job offer (Khillare, 2016). As a result, the retail industry experienced high employee turnover ratios and it becomes difficult for the retail companies to meet the human resource demands of their retail outlets.

Fourthly, the high fluctuations in human resource demand patterns makes it more important to keep the retail stores adequately employed rather than screening the candidates thoroughly before they can be recruited. Further, as the retail managers are not experts in the field of recruitment and selection, they are not able to assess the personality of the candidates and predict certain important traits about their personalities, such as organisational commitment, job commitment, etc. The managers taking care of all the recruitment and selection process have to take immediate decisions when a candidate approaches them for a job opportunity as a delay in taking a decision can result in the loss of a talented candidate, who might visit other retail stores for a job (Sinha, 2009). Therefore, the managers looking after the recruitment and selection of employees in the retail industry have a very less time to make recruitment decisions and are not able to assess the personalities of the candidates adequately.

Recruitment and Selection

Fifthly, a major issue that the managers operating in the retail industry face is that there is no shortage of candidates and the applicants in the retail industry are from diverse backgrounds, age groups, ethnicity, etc. and all of them are equally eligible to work in the retail stores. As a result, the pool of applicants will vary in terms of education and experience and all them being eligible for the job makes it difficult for the managers to recruit candidates and refuse some of them (Merkel, et al., 2009). It is also important for the managers working in the retail industry to behave ethically towards the candidates because most likely, they are also a customer in the business and will base their buying decisions on the basis of the way in which they are treated.

The global retail industry is one industry that experiences a lot of issues when it comes to recruitment and selection of candidate. Dealing with the issues becomes important because the retail industry is highly dependent on its human resources to attend and deal with thousands of customers that visit the store on a daily basis. Some strategies that can help the managers working in the retail industry in dealing with recruitment and selection issues are discussed below:

First of all, the retail industry managers should implement strategies that would help them in retaining their employees and reducing their employee turnover rates. Some strategies to achieve these objectives can be to offer better compensation and benefits to the employees or by offering them with certain welfare activities while they are working in the retail stores. In other words, the managers of the retail stores need to make the job more interesting and the work conditions more suitable for the employees so that they can differentiate the retail company from the competitive firms (Bansal, 2014). Such actions can help retail companies in distinguishing themselves from other retailers, attracting talented pool of employees, retaining the existing pool of employees and also in becoming an employer of choice for the fresh candidates in the retail industry.

Secondly, the managers working in the retail industry need to carry out human resource demand forecasting on a continuous basis. Forecasting the human resource demands of the retail stores on a continuous basis will allow the managers to be prepared with strategies that would help them in meeting any fluctuations in the demand identified (Bhattacharyya, 2009). The managers should also find out new ways to deal with fluctuations in human resource demands, such as recruiting employees on a temporary basis for seasonal or festival demands as the walk-in during such times increases exponentially. This would not only allow them to carry out their work operations smoothly but would also help them in curbing their operational costs.

Recruitment and selection issues in retail industry

Conclusion/Recommendations

The global retail industry is one of the most competitive industries as the competition in the market is very high. Major supermarkets and individually owned grocery shops pose a great threat to each other and are able to achieve competencies only on the basis of how well they are able to attend the customers. To offer better services, retail outlets require adequate human resource supply as shortage of human resources can delay the restocking process and can even become a reason for customer dissatisfaction with the retail store. As a result, it is important to manage the human resources in a retail store in the best possible manner.

On the other hand, managing the human resources in the retail industry is not an easy task. Recruitment and selection of employees in the retail industry is a tough job as there are a number of issues experienced by the managers of retail stores while trying to attract and retain talented candidates. If the managers have a little knowledge about the concepts of human resource management, they can implement efficient strategies that would not only help them in retaining their employees but also in attracting a greater pool of talented employees. To achieve better efficiency in the management of human resources and in the recruitment and selection of employees, the managers of the retail stores can look into the strategies discussed above.

References

Lucintel, 2012. Growth Opportunities in the Global Retail Market. [Online] Available at: https://www.lucintel.com/retail-market-2017.aspx[Accessed 24 September 2017].

Armstrong, M. & Taylor, S., 2014. Armstrong’s Handbook of Human Resource Management Practice. s.l.:Kogan Page Publishers.

Albrecht, S. L. et al., 2015. Employee engagement, human resource management practices and competitive advantage: An integrated approach. Journal of Organizational Effectiveness: People and Performance , 2(1).

Rothwell, W. J. & Prescott, R. K., 2012. Recruitment and Selection. The Encyclopedia of Human Resource Management: Short Entries, 9 April, 2017(September), p. 24.

Barrett, D., 2016. Six recruitment challenges that retailers must conquer. [Online] Available at: https://www.hrzone.com/talent/acquisition/six-recruitment-challenges-that-retailers-must-conquer[Accessed 26 September 2017].

Khillare, D. S., 2016. Challenges Of Human Resource Practices In Retail Sectors : in India. International Journal of Engineering Technology, Management and Applied Sciences, March.4(3).

Sinha, B. K., 2009. Trends and Issues in Recruitment and Selection: A Critical Analysis. [Online] Available at: https://www.indianmba.com/Faculty_Column/FC1081/fc1081.html[Accessed 25 September 2017]. 

Merkel, J., Jackson, P. & Pick, D., 2009. New Challenges in Retail Human Resource Management. Retailing in the 21st Century, 30 November, 2017(September), p. 26.

Bansal, S., 2014. EMPLOYEE RETENTION STRATEGIES. International Journal of Research in Management & Social Science, June.2(2).

Bhattacharyya, D. K., 2009. Human Resource Planning. 2 ed. s.l.:Excel Books.