2004 May - Stuart Rose was appointed as Chief Executive of Marks & Spencer
2004 - 120 Years Anniversary
120 years ago Michael Marks began to sell goods on a trestle table in Leeds' Kirkgate open market. The precise date is unknown but it is thought to have been in the last months of 1884.
Stakeholders of Marks & Spencer
Customers: A customer is someone who pays for a product or a service. A usual and trusty customer who, shops at Marks & Spencer more than once a day is bound to have a different relationship with the store than one who shops there only once or twice a month. Therefore Marks & Spencer have an accountability to carry on to have and continue to expand on a broaden range of products, and to make sure these products are of, not only a satisfactory quality, but of the best quality, and that means better than the competition. Customers of Marks & Spencer’ in the company, but the type of interest they have may vary depends on how frequently they shop at the store. Therefore the expectations that these customers will have of the store will also fluctuate, not just on how frequently they visit, but also on what goods they essentially purchase. All customers as stakeholders are appropriate to look at the business from a personal point of view. It is tremendously crucial that customers are satisfied; they have a choice in where they choose to shop and buy their products. The stores also need to have a high quantity of customer service, and the excellence of the customer service ought to match the quality of the produce, and the diversity of the products must be matched by the multiplicity of skills the customer service department are able to employ when dealing with customers.
Suppliers: Marks & Spencer’s stock is provided by the suppliers. Suppliers are also stakeholders, the better Marks & Spencer makes a profit, the probability is that the product of Supplier is selling well, and producing profit for Marks & Spencer. The more money Marks & Spencer produces, the more money the supplier makes. The size of a business can attract suppliers, the more suppliers the bigger the business,
Senior management: Marks & Spencer’s Senior Management can be measured to be stakeholders because the interest that a Senior Manager's main job is to work and communicate with the whole team, they are above Manager's in the hierarchy of work. They will be able to take full responsible for manager's actions whether good or bad, also they are sometimes paid almost double to that of a Manager. If there was a conflict occurred Marks & Spencer will close there account with them.
Shareholders: It may sound similar but have a different meaning; a shareholder is a person that as brought has share of a business, for example Marks & Spencer has many shareholders within its own business. They put money in the business and expecting to make a profit from the business. Marks & Spencer’s shareholders often sell their share or divide it in half in the intension of making more money.
Job Roles
A job role is a task for an individual that works in Marks & Spencer. Marks & Spencer has a large company that as different departments that do completely different things, I have to identify they tasks. I have looked at three different job roles from the Finance and the human resource department at Marks & Spencer in wood Green.
Financial manager: Finance manager (Louis Clark), her duties as a financial manager vary with their specific titles, which include controller, treasure or finance officer, credit manager, cash manager, and risk and insurance manager. Controllers direct the preparation of financial reports that summarize and forecast the organization’s financial position, such as income statements, balance sheets, and analyses of further earnings or expenses. Controllers also are in charge of preparing special reports required by regulatory authorities. Often, controllers oversee the accounting, audit, and budget departments. Treasures and finance officers direct the organization’s financial goals, objectives, and budgets. They oversee the investment of funds, manage associated risks, supervise cash management activities, execute capital-raising strategies to support a firm’s expansion, and deal with Marks & Spencer and acquisitions. Credit managers oversee the firm’s issuance of credit, establishing credit-rating criteria, determining credit ceilings, and monitoring the collections of past-due accounts. Managers specializing in international finance develop financial and accounting systems for the banking transactions of multinational organizations.
Financial manager (Louis Clark) plays an increasingly important role in Marks & Spencer and consolidations and in global expansion and related financing. These areas require extensive, specialized knowledge on the part of the financial manager to reduce risks and maximize profit. Financial managers increasingly are hired on a temporary basis to advise senior managers on these and other matters. In fact, some small firms contract out all their accounting and financial functions to companies that provide such services.
The role of the financial manager, particularly in Marks & Spencer, is changing in response to technological advances that have significantly reduced the amount of time it takes to produce financial reports. Financial managers now perform more data analysis and use it to offer senior managers ideas on how to maximize profits. They often work on teams, acting as business advisors to top management. Financial need to keep abreast of the latest computer technology in order to increase the efficiency of their firm’s financial operations.
Health and safety officer: The main roles that a Health and safety officer (Ruben Gardener) has at Marks & Spencer “Wood Green” is to manage any health and safety issues, their main task is to protect the staff and customer from a possible accident, if an accident was to take place the health and safety officer should recorded and learn from the mistake, He should act quick to prevent the same accident from happening again. Staff member’s has to quickly report any broken glass, wet floor or any out of date products for the safety of themselves and others around them. The duty is to insure there is a clean and hygienic environment for customer and the Staff.
The Health and safety officer could also offer training on the subject to both present and new employees in the form of talks and demonstrations.
It’s also their job to know ‘Marks & Spencer’ health and safety policy. This is a lawful obligation for organisation that employs 4 or more people, as Marks & Spencer obviously does. This document should state, in straightforward conditions what their aims are in relation to the health and safety of employees, singling out key members of Staff, and the arrangements for carrying out the policy. If I was to propose a change in the way the health and safety officer does his works, is to firstly put plenty of air conditioners to get the air blowing, I will act quicker upon a wet floor and put a warning sign “caution wet floor”, I will renew stock very 5 days for the customers health safety, I will put a strong foundation that will hold heavy products, such as beach and bottles from falling on a child that happens to be walking by. To be honest I don’t think the health and safety officer of Marks & Spencer is taking he work seriously, because went inside Marks & Spencer in wood green with my mum when I was a broken wine glass around the floor, someone could have easy got injured.
The health and safety officer need to be more cautious about these little issue that could turn out to case someone warm, Marks & Spencer need to have a health and safety officer for the customer and their own employee, this makes the HAS officer a crucial part of Marks & Spencer success.
Human Resource manager: The HR manager (Jane Johnson) has the responsibility of managing the HR department and the working Staff members, improving and implementing the store’s human resource policies, it’s concerned with industrial relation and trade union discussions. She has the task of solving disputes among any staff members; these disputes could be either internal or external, i.e. involving a trade union. Another job the human resource manager maybe assigned is writing staff appraisals. The human resource director is above the HR manager and his/hers work maybe delegated to her, the work could include recruitment of an employee, running a training programs for the staff and supervision employee well being. If employee has a dispute or a problem with anything or anyone that needs to be dealt with, they often go to the HR manager: with out a HR manager, there will be no one to sort disputes between employees, there will
be no one to organise the training program or to recruit new Staff members. Therefore HR manager play an important role in Marks & Spencer, if I was to make any suggest of a way to improve the quality or the way Louise Anderson the human resource manager does her work, I would suggest that Louise Anderson should build a better relationship with the trade union of all the employees, and work together to help the employee, I think this would stop any strike from happening. Other than that Louise Anderson as Human Resource manager is carry her responsibility perfectly for Marks & Spencer.
Employee Rights and Responsibility
Rights: There are many Laws that apply to Marks & Spencer and the same goes for many other businesses, the laws is there to protect the employees, Marks & Spencer should congregate to all the laws. Employment rights include:
Sex and Discrimination act: This law was brought up in the 1975; basically this law disallows prejudice against other people in the working environment, being injustice to a female Staff member and favouring a male Staff member is disallowed. It’s illegal to discriminate against men or women when, training, promoting an individual, hiring one sex and in the working environment. Discrimination against married persons in the employment field, The Act also defines direct and indirect discrimination against married persons in, and only in, the employment field.
Equal pay Act: Marks & Spencer believe this law is great and fair, because if two individual are doing the same work and therefore should be paid the same, this law was brought up (1970) for women because they used to be pay less than men.
Relationship between the Sex Discrimination Act and the Equal
Pay Act 1970:
Rights will be gained under either the Sex Discrimination Act or
The Equal Pay Act. The purpose of the Equal Pay Act is to eliminate
Discrimination between women and men in pay and other terms and
Conditions of their contracts of employment such as piecework, output
And bonus payments, pensions, holidays and sick leave.
The Equal Pay Act provided for equal pay by giving a woman the right
To equality in the terms of her contract of employment when she is
Employed
Disability Act 1995: It is illegal to discriminate a disabled employee, they should be treat the same and should be offered lifts to help them get about places in work, and Marks & Spencer didn’t have to face this issue because they don’t have a disabled employee and if they were to face this kind of task “we will be prepared to help and follow all of the disability act for a disabled individual”.
Health and safety act: This law was started in 1974; this law is for the Staff member’s safety, this law also gives them the right to work in a clean environment, this law protects the employee, if the employee was to get harmed in work from lack of safety they would get compensation and Marks & Spencer will be in trouble. To avoid this from happening they should put safety signs and if the employees don’t follow those, Marks & Spencer are not to blame.
Working time directive: This law instruction was from the European Union which has the power of law, when this law was brought up it was forbidden to make employees work more than an average of 48 hours per week.
Parental leave directive: All employees are entitled to have an unpaid time off with their children to look after them. This directive was incorporated into the employment relation Act 1999.
The Employment Rights act: This law was brought in 1996; this law allows the employee some power and safety in their jobs. The employees can go to a tribunal and carry out an argument again the employer for dismissing He/Her unreasonable, the tribunal will resolve the dispute even with the help of ACAS, the case may go before an employment tribunal. They are like a court, with legal decision, making powers, but less formal.
If the employee wins their case they maybe given their old job back (reinstated), offered a new job by the business or paid compensation for losing their job.
Responsibilities
All of the responsibility will state of the contract of employment. They also have to abide by the laws that I have previously described. Setting responsibilities for individual employee will restore other, and it will be less likely for disputes. Employee responsibilities in Marks & Spencer included; dealing with the public issues, insuring the safety for all the people that enter the business, dealing with financial issues and resolving employee disputes.
Employees must also be punctual and attend work regularly in the hours that is stated in their contract of employment.
Resolving disagreements
Marks & Spencer’s employees do encounter problems at work; they can use this method to resolve a dispute:
Grievance procedures
- A grievance is where employees have a complaint against other staff or against their treatment at work. They can use a business’s GREVANCE PROCEDURE to resolve the complaint. It provides a fair way for employees to raise problems. Businesses do not need a formal grievance procedure by law. But they must give employees the name of the person who they can approach with a complaint.
Marks & Spencer’s grievance procedures explain:
- How, and whom, an employee should make a complaint;
- Who an employee should go to next if they are still not satisfied;
- The time it should take for a complaint to be dealt with;
- That employees can be represented by someone else, such as a member of their trade union.
European Court of Justice
- Employees could take their complaints to the European Court of Justice. It is a court that’s decides whether countries that belong to the European Union (EU) conform to EU law. For example, a business in the UK such as Marks & Spencer is part of the EU, if they discriminate against a female employee. The employee might win her case under the EU Equal Treatment Directive.
Trade Union
- A trade union is an organisation of workers who join together to further their own interest at work. Trade unions negotiate and bargain with employers on behalf of their members over pay, condition of work, job security and grievances, for example. Union might take industrial action to further their members’ interests. For example, they might call a strike employers sometimes consult unions before making changes to pay or working arrangements right at the start.
Arbitration service
Sometimes employers and employees cannot agree on a solution. In these situations the Advisory, conciliation and Arbitration Service (ACAS) can help. ACAS provides a wide range of services to employers and employees
- INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES Employers or unions can ask ACAS to become involved in a dispute. It will try to encourage a settlement between employers and unions that they both can agree upon.
- ARBITRATION AND MEDIATION ARBITRATION is where employers and employees explain their case to ACAS. ACAS then judges which is strongest makes a final decision that employers to the employers and employees to discuss a settlement.
- ADVISORY WORK ACAS can advise employers and unions. It may help to answer questions on issues such as contracts of employment, employment laws, and recruitment and selection.
- INDIVIDUAL CASESE ACAS investigates unfair discrimination or unfair dismissal, for example whether an employee has been unfairly sacked.
Employment Tribunals
Where employers and employees cannot resolve a dispute, even with the help of ACAS, the case may go before an Employment Tribunal. They are like a court, with legal decision making powers, but less formal.
Tribunals are made up of three people. A lawyer chairs the Tribunal there are two other people, often with industrial experience. Both employers and employees, often with a union representative, present their case for the Tribunal to rule on. Tribunals hear complaints about unfair dismissal, redundancy and discrimination.
Employees that win their case may be given their old job back (REINSTATED), offered a new job by the business or paid compensation for losing job.
Recruitment
Recruitment is the process of finding the right person to do a particular job in an organisation. This is usually the responsibility of the human resources department, if the organisation has one. For skilled or higher-level jobs, the manager of the relevant section will also be involved. In a small business, the owner or manager is likely to be in charge of recruitment. Managers take a keen interest because they want the best person possible to be offered the job. Identifying who should be interviewed, and then who should be appointed, is not easy, but it is important for the following reason:
- The recruitment process is expensive. Apart from advertising costs, it takes time to look through applications and to interview.
Marks & Spencer recruitment is done on Christmas and summer times. in order to do that Marks & Spencer most have a job vacancy, a business mighty have a vacancy because a worker has left a job, retired, been promoted or has been dismissed; a new job has been created because there is more work to do. They need to draw up a job description and person specification; a job description states the title of the job and outlines the tasks and responsibilities of the employee. A business also needs to decide what skills, experience, attitudes, qualifications an employee needs. These are shown in a person specification.
Advertising the vacancy internally, this is where a business advertises the job to people who already work in the business. Internal recruitment has certain advantages.
Externally, a business could recruit people who do not work for the business at the moment. People who are new to the business might have fresh ideas and be very motivated.
Job Centres, these are government run offices that help the unemployed find jobs and local firms to fill vacancies. Vacancies tend to be for lower paid jobs.
The media, vacancies can be advertised in the local and national press, in technical journals, on television and through the internet.
The human resources manage need to shortlist candidates and select the best one, and interview the applicants may include tests, select and appoint the best candidate and offer the person a job.
Training
Marks & Spencer’s training relates to job specific skills and abilities, learned at work or somewhere else (e.g. how to use a spreadsheet package).
Development relates to any activities to increase knowledge, skills or experience
(e.g. learning a foreign language).
Why and train and develop employee?
- Jobs and technology changes
- New staff need special training
- Promoted staff need new skills
- It increases staff motivation and retention
- It increases staff efficiency
- It improves employee career prospects
- Staff become multi-skilled and can do more interesting jobs
Identifying training needs
- New employees – may be identified
at interview
- Existing employees – usually identified during appraisal or performance review
- Employees expected to identify own needs and make suggestions. Normally expected to link to company needs.
Employees training at Marks & Spencer are separated into categories:
- Off the job training – off the job means exactly what it says, they are not at work and are studying somewhere away from Marks & Spencer. Marks & Spencer often send their employee on a training course at college or a training centre, the employees at Marks & Spencer are sent to Barnet or Enfield College.
- On the job training – this means the employee is actually training at the Wood Green branch of Marks & Spencer, Marks Spencer only allow the employee to train at the workplace if the have the right experience, meaning they have to complete their course depending on which department they want to work, because every department has different needs.
Training staff is very essential, because it will teach them skills that is required to fit the job specification, by teaching the employees new skill they will feel more comfortable in the working environment and therefore less errors will occur. Training the staff member often will increase their knowledge with customers and that’s a very significant thing, they will have a clear idea of the products a customer likes to buy.
If the Marks & Spencer didn’t offer customer training it will most definitely affect their profits, and the employees may experience more problems and could end up with less confident, the employee will not have full experience in the working environment and therefore errors will occur often, that by affect the profits significantly.
The comment I got from the Human resource manager (Ruben Gardener) about the training policy at Marks & Spencer was, “the way we training employees has improved for the better, because we offer more courses and more facility for new and previous employees, we offer courses in many colleges around the London to give the best opportunity to our employees
Customer Service
Improving Customers: A customer is somebody who pays for a product or a service. All of Marks & Spencer’ customers have an interest in the business such as the products and if it satisfied them to any extended.
- Putting the customer first is essential
- Employees should know the range of products that is available
- Libelling products that by cause harm to the customer (cigarettes)
The loyal customers of Marks & Spencer are given a loyalty card that will give them a special discount or gift vouchers, to be a loyal customer you need to make a difference in Marks & Spencer, to make a difference the customer will have to shop once or twice a week for about a month, than an employee will offer the customer a loyalty card. Customers look out for products that is great value for money and easily affordable; customers say is valued very much by Marks & Spencer. Marks & Spencer aims to improve customer service by offering the consumer many options such as cloths, car insurance, mobile phones and celebration toys for any festival. Marks & Spencer should prove a clean environment for their customers, if an accident was to happen they should have Staff looking around for any hazard. If an item fell or broke they should have cleaners in hand to deal with the problem before anyone gets injured. Health and safety is a major issue for Marks & Spencer and a business like it, insuring the safety of the customer and the Staff members is essential because how would want to enter a shop the has poor health and safety. The first method of insuring a the safety of customers is to have Fire Exit, Fire alarm and fire extinguisher should be seen clearly any were you are around Marks & Spencer. Marks & Spencer should have an image on the wall of a hazard that might happen for example, “Caution wet floor!”
Marks & Spencer should label their products to warn the user of some products the can harm the them, for example the cigarette packs, “Smoking Kills”
The other issue that needs to be improved is the level of customer service, for example the waiting queue, a customer should not wait for a long time to pay for products because the customer could decide to go. They could produce some more tills to serve the customer; this improvement will reduce the wait time for the customers, this will obtain more customers in the business, therefore more profit will be earned by Marks & Spencer and customer will be satisfied with the business, they may even return to the business and could become a loyal customer.
Customer service is important to Marks & Spencer, having a good Customer Service means more customers and more customers means more profit
Marks & Spencer claim their customers will benefit from these extra facilities:
- Offer a parking area for employees and customers
- Extended opening hours to 12pm at all stores, including Sundays
- Offer a petrol Stations with competitive prices
- Offer more toilet facilities.
- Being more environmental friendly, offer recycling facilities
- Offer more Cash machines for most banks
- Offer car insurance to compete with competitors
It was estimated Marks & Spencer get 15 million weekly customers. The Store Manager (Nilfer Muezzin) said “the products that we offer is to the highest quality and our unbeatable quality of customer service will surely attract more customers, Marks & Spencer and surly other business know more customers means more money”.
Evaluation
The conflict that may occur in Marks Spencer is the, Quality of the product that will involve the customer and the employee; cost of the product is a main conflict that a customer has towards many businesses. Employees may have a conflict with the employer over wages, pay rise or promotion. The methods I would suggest:
- Offer a better quality product s
- Try to reduce price tags on most of the products
- Treat the employees fairly
- Make less error in the workplace
- Set rules and regulations so employee and follow it
Human Resource manager is doing his job very well in dealing with disputes that is brought forward to him, “I do my best with any complaints that an employee has, I do my best to resolve any complaint”, the changes that I would suggest is only based on the Recruitment, because I fell Marks & Spencer don’t employ often, but should do so.
Health and safety officer (Ruben Gardener) said “Safety is the most important aspect in Marks & Spencer same with any other business”
To be honest Marks & Spencer Safety for customer is not really prefect; the improvement, I will suggest Marks & Spencer employ more works that is trained to inspect the area for any hazards just as broken class, wet floor or expired products.
The Financial manager (Louis Clark) I my opinion does her job inch perfect according to my research, the sales have increased in Marks & Spencer since the last mouth, I do not any suggest any to improve the Finance Managers role in Marks & Spencer
Grievance procedures
- A grievance is where employees have a complaint against other staff or against their treatment at work. They can use a business’s GREVANCE PROCEDURE to resolve the complaint. It provides a fair way for employees to raise problems. Businesses do not need a formal grievance procedure by law. But they must give employees the name of the person who they can approach with a complaint.
Marks & Spencer’s grievance procedures explain:
- How, and whom, an employee should make a complaint;
- Who an employee should go to next if they are still not satisfied;
- The time it should take for a complaint to be dealt with;
- That employee can be represented by someone else, such as a member of their trade union.
Marks & Spencer don’t put much effort in to advertising the job vacancy because you don’t see it in the newspapers, not on TV and you don’t see it on a poster. Secondly Marks & Spencer should employ often to do jobs like inspecting the area for any perennial hazards. The training policy is straight forward and understandable, and I got no suggests make.
I think that the staffs are very professional in the roles of their jobs in Marks & Spencer; I think that it is because they enjoy their job. I often shop in Marks & Spencer and the staffs greet you with a polite tone of voice, they are all cheerful before you even get to the till, for example Omar Ahmad said “It essential to make friends get work, because it help you confidants towards customer”. I would not change a thing because the customer Service an excellent skill that Marks & Spencer has.
Bibliography:
Wood Green, Branch of Marks & Spencer
Tel: 08456090200
Web:http://www2.marksandspencer.com/thecompany/whoweare/our_history/index.shtml
