Stage 3 – Concluding from the experience
There would be little point in reviewing the experiences if Safeway do not draw up a conclusion. This is where Safeway learn what the employee has learnt, what worked well and what cloud being done differently.
Stage 4 – Planning the next steps
When Safeway reach a conclusion with the employee, they then plan a ladder for them to reach their aims. The aims are conclude from the result they feel they have gained from this process.
At Safeway they understand that employee development plays a big part in the success of Safeway.
Safeway’s definition
“The systematic development of attitude, knowledge, skill or a behaviour pattern required by an individual in order to adequately perform a given task”
Reason For Training at Safeway
Training and development has an associated costs to Safeway below are some of the reason why Safeway hold training:
- To close and/or fill skills gaps to create a competent workforce.
- To motivate colleagues and recognise their contribution.
- To accommodate and cope with change (i.e. in legislation or technology) other wise Safeway may become less competitive
- To enable internal promotions and retain/motivate colleagues
- To develop and grow the business
- To retain staff and reduce the cost of labour turnover.
- To promote safety & prevent accidents thus weaknesses into strengths and improving productivity and performance.
- Improve Safeway labour market image and help attract staff.
- Flexibility to enable cover for absence or peak periods i.e. multi-skilling
- To improve customer service
When Safeway are training there staff, they look at each individual at plan out what they need to know and need to be able to do in order to perform their job effectively and meet the needs of the business, and any shortfalls that need to be addresses, they call this training needs. Safeway have designed three levels of this training needs, the table below will show you:
When Safeway are thinking about training, they often use the Jill Fairbairn’s model when selecting training needs. The model helps identify which training needs they should use. They use this method because they want to achieve the best return on limited funds invested in training and development.
An e.g. of the Jill Fairbairn model:
Important in my job – knowledge or skill that is required for the jobholder’s current role identified through the store
In need of training – knowledge or skill that needs to be or could be developed
Likely to be encouraged and rewarded- viewed as important and has fit with the Safeway culture, and their values and their aspirations
Training and development department planning the training
Once the Safeway training and development department has identified the training, there are a number of choices about how to go about it and how it should be delivered. When the department are planning the training there are 3 steps that they should follow:
- There is a clear training objective *(SMART) – this should focus on WHAT it is that they want the person to do as a result of the training.
- The have to decided HOW the training should be carried out
- Which member of staff is going to carry out the training and development solution.
S=specific, M=measurable, A=attainable, R=realistic, T=time-bound
Recruitment and selection
This is a very important function of the HR department it is carried out with many others department. The main objective of the recruitment process is to select and appoint the best candidate for the job. If the wrong person is assigned to the wrong job this could be costly for the company its self. The process carried out is the following:
- Gathering and analysing information about the job
- Job description
- Person Specification
How do Safeway use Recruitment and selection?
At Safeway when they are recruiting new staff, they have a notice board at the front of their store, adverting what jobs they have got going at the current moment. There is a job description, which includes information about the contents of the job, the task to be performed and responsibilities to be taken on.
Safeway also advertise in the local papers such as the ‘Harrow times’ etc.
The table below shows the ways the Safeway recruit:
In order to attract a variety of applicants Safeway uses the methods in the above table. In order to support their equal opportunities policy all vacancies must be advertised in the job centre as wee as in the story vacancy board.
When Safeway advertise a job, the advert should cover the following;
- Job requirements
- Necessary/essential criteria for applicants, e.g. qualifications
- Activities of the company.
The internet is an exciting way of advertising, to support the promotion of vacancies registering vacancies for the internet is through a public document available on HOST called ‘internet Advertising request form’.
The national resourcing and records department (NRRD) will place the advertisement. It is then the responsible of the HR department to inform the NRRD of the out come of the applications through the Internet. (An applications form is on the next page, taken from .)
When the applications are received they must be contacted in seven days. Each applicant is recorded in the equal opportunities monitor.
All applications are held for 12months. Safeway hold the file of regretted application and a file for application that are on ‘hold’. The reason why Safeway hold is either because there are no jobs going at the current moment, or there is no suitable vacancies currently going to suite the applicant,
To help Safeway with their recruitment selection and have designed something called ‘Selecting for Excellence’. This us a selection tool designed to support Safeway recruitment and selection process for sales assistant. The programme is designed to assess applicants using the sales assistant effectiveness mode, which describes the behaviours required for success in the role. The selecting for excellence is a process made up of a number of parts that identify these skills and qualities in order to select the best candidate for the job.
The process supports applicants to select/de-select from Safeway using the ‘Realistic Job Preview’ video to demonstrate whit it is really like to work in Safeway store.
Diagram of selecting for excellence process:
The first stage of the process is a preview video. This video lasts for ten minutes and provides the applicant with a realistic view of what it is like to work in Safeway. The video is the first stage of the process because it helps the applicant to understand the stages of the recruitment process. It also helps the applicant to decide if Safeway is the palace for them.
Stage 2, the Safeway applicant profile is a combination of a test and a questionnaire. It has been designed specifically for Safeway with the intention of selecting sales assistant.
Stage 3. The CPC (customer promise challenge) is a behavioural exercise that is specifically designed for Safeway in order to assess the applicant’s performance on three areas of effectiveness.
The CPC can be run with up to four applicants at a time. It consists of a fact-finding exercise followed by an individual and group discussion. The main aim of the CPC is to observe the behavioural interaction of the applicant and to provide the candidate with an idea of the type of situations they may confront at Safeway.
Stage 4. This is the process when the interview takes place. This is the Safeway’s opportunity to make the final assessment about the applicant if he/she is suitable for Safeway. This interview also provided a vital opportunity for the applicant to ask any outstanding questions about the position.
Stage 5. This is where the information is collected from the Safeway’s applicant profile, the Safeway CPC and the modular interview and assessed using the rating matrix. The information collected will help the team make a decision.
Stage 6. Once the decision has been made, Safeway’s then offer the applicant a position and notify the in successful applicant, by sending out letters.
Stage 7. This process is to ensure that the process, is Data tracking the will enable Safeway to track the applicant scores against performance.
Performance management
Organisation has always relied on the performance of the HR department. In the twenty-first century this is truer then ever before because the economy is built on intelligence and complex information and communications technology systems. The result of these developments is that the most modern employees have to interface directly with customers (they all have an internal customer), and decisions need to be taken by employees ay every level within the organisation, rather then being told what to do.
- Most organisations have a specialist personnel department, which gives support to mangers, and supervisors, who have direct responsibility for the management of people.
Safeway Performance management
The over all management of performance for supervisors and above is through the performance management process. Mangers exist to achieve result. To achieve results managers need to manage the performance of their team and the individual members of the team. The aim of performance management is to contribute to the improvement of the overall performance of Safeway by getting better results from teams and individuals.
Performance management processes are an integrated and continuous approach to the management of performance. The process is based on management by agreement or contract rather then management by command. It emphasises development and self managed learning through the initiation of personal development plans. It also encourages the combination if individuals and corporate objectives and contributes to improving overall organisational effectiveness.
Performance management can deliver at Safeway:
- Clarity about expectation
- Linkage between Safeway’s objectives and individuals
- An ‘improvement’ focus
The process should encourage dialogue about performance and development. it should provide feed back on what is achieved and the direction an individual has taken. It is not ‘system’ or ‘implementation’. Reviews are very important to Safeway, as it is a natural part of the process. During a 12-month period each member of staff should have a minimum of three reviews a year.
The process consists of three main elements:
- It gives everyone a clear set of performance objectives that are linked to the business goals.
- It gives individuals regular feed back on how they and the business are doing in relation to their objectives
- Ensures that all management and supervisory colleagues have a personal development plan to enhance their skills and knowledge.
The process is a formal one, and all their progress reviews, personal development plans and objectives are recorded. The process is a continual one and operates in the same way annually. At the initial meeting the individual is rated against the competencies required to perform their role, and the same time, performance and development objectives and agreed.
Objectives (also known as contributions or targets) are not fixed for a year: they can be added to and evolved through out the year. a particular objective may be held for a period of time. Examples for shorter-term objectives are where a refit is taking place or a new department is being introduced to the store.
Through out the year there are two interim reviews conducted at approximately week 20 and week 36. At the end of the year a final review is completed and objectives are assesses along with competencies by exception. A rating is then agreed between the individual and the line manager. The process then begins it cycle again.
Training and development needs identified during the performance management process should be included in the store-training plan as appropriate.
Internal staffing information
Safeway use many ways of internal staffing information to plan its human resources. Safeway uses information data information about their staff, such as:
Documents
When Safeway collects all different kinds of information it provides the human resources department information to help them plan their HR.
The Number of employees in Particular job Categories
This gives Safeway an overview of the number in the organisation who already process certain broad categories e.g. Safeway have many different departments so it gives them a rough idea of how many staff work in each department.
Safeway uses this information on how many people they have currently working for them to plan HR. This information looks at how many employees they already have, by using this information it helps Safeway to see how many employees they need and how many they got. So they compare the staff they need and staff they got. From looking at this information the HR team could keep a record of how staff are in each department. For e.g. if the Dairy department is decreasing in staff then they need to start planning of how they are going to recruit new employees to make up for the decreasing numbers.
Skills Available
It may be helpful to identify the current skills held by the labour force and to see how many of these are transferable (a skill used in one job may be transferable to another). It is important for the staff to be skilled in there department, because they need to know what is going on and what they are talking about to there customers.
Skills of workforce
Safeway uses information on the skills of workforce to plan HR as it gives them a plan for the training to provide, their employees with a job role. Safeway gather this information from when the people fill in the application form. Skills of workforce allow Safeway to plan for the training.
Age distribution
The people who work for the organisation, if there are to many old people working there? If there are too many older people then the organisation may be storing up problems for it self:
- They may retire
- This leaving the organisation without experienced workers.
If Safeway have too many young people, you may find that people are not staying long enough to make their mark in the business. Perhaps promotion prospects are blocked in the business so that people are leaving.
Safeway uses information on age to plan HR as it allows Safeway to plan for any decrease in staff depending on what age their employees is. In Safeway stores they have about 150 staff from part/full time staff from young to old people. Safeway uses this information on age to plan for the training to provide to their employees.
Length of Service
It is important, therefore to be able to plan retirement within the organisation so that you keep a good balance between people who have been in the organisation for a long time and people who are bringing new ideas into the organisation. Safeway uses this kind of information to help them give their employees holiday entitlements that they are allowed. Safeway also offer bonus, extra holidays. This is to try and keep their employees for as long as possible.
Employee wastage rate
It is possible to calculate the number of staff leaving a business, as percentage of those who could have left. (The formula below will work out the wastage rate).
Wastage Rate
External Labour Market Information
The external labour market for Safeway’s is made up of potential employees, locally, regionally or nationally, whom have the skills and experience required at a particular time. There are a range of factors that affect the size and nature of these labour markets.
Trends in the size/characteristics of the working population
Changes in the age distraction of the UK population will be affecting the HR planning of the organisation. The UK has an ageing population, with fewer school leavers and young workers available for employment.
Safeway uses the unemployment rates of the external labour to give them selves’ important information to do with the number of workers who will be able to work for them. Safeway uses a pay plan to give them selves a rough idea of how much to pay their workers. When Safeway consider how much to pay their workers they have to think about the national minimum wage laws, they have to be aware as part of their labour market information. This is because the working times sets out the laws regarding the hours, breaks and rest period that all works are entitled to. The minimum wage sets out the minimum amount that the employees are entitled per hour. The list below shows you what Safeway staffs are entitled to:
- 30 min break on a 5hour shift
- 1 hour break on a 8 hour shift
- Between ages16-18 they are paid £4.25. But goes up after 3months to £4.75
- Between the ages of 18 above they are paid £5.75-£6, plus on certain days they are paid double such as bank holidays.
Competition for labour
There is a high demand for people with specific skills. That why there will be competition between employers to attract people with those skills. An organisation will be interested to know whether its competitors are expending and they’re fore, increasing the demand for labour or whether local redundancies mean labour is more readily available. The table below show the competition for employees:
Analysis of Relevant Labour market trends
The labour market information that Safeway uses is very helpful to the organisation. After speaking to the HR department and received relevant information on internal and external labour market trends. I feel that the information the organisation receives allows the human resources department to plan it resources effectively. Each piece if information they receive helps Safeway to gain different information to plan their human resources department. The information that Safeway gets helps them in many ways. By looking at the past data they can tell if the business is going to do well in the next few years. Looking at the previous data Safeway can tell when they made the most sales e.g. during when they had many offers going on such as buy one get one free. By looking at all the different type of trends they can see if the business needs to expand, if they build more stores how are they likely to do in that particular area? How Safeway’s sae doing to other major supermarkets.
I conclude that it is very important for Safeway’s to look at the different market trends as it tells them many facts and figures. With out this information Safeway’s HR department as smoothly as it is running now. The most important information that Safeway need is the past data. The past data tell the HR department many facts, it tells them,
- How they are going to do
- How many members of staff they might need in the up and coming years
- What they need is to pay employees.
Recruitment Documents
Before recruiting a suitable employee for a particular job, the personnel department needs to have a clear idea of the type of work and of the responsibilities that a successful candidate will be expected to take. A list of the desired qualities (personality) and qualification (examination, experience) that an employee should have together with any specific requirements.
Why Recruit
Without staff the business wills not successes fully, the business needs workers. How many workers they employ depends upon the work which needs to be done, the cost of the worker and how much they can afford to pay. Many business carry out HR planning to find out how many workers and what types of workers are needed. Recruiting workers with the right skills and at the right salary the business can afford to pay is very important.
Internal recruitment is when the business gives someone a different job such as going up I in the hierarchy chart. It is for staff members who already work for the business.
Advantages of internal recruitment
- The organisation will attract better candidates if they see there is a future career init.
- Internal staff knows the business and what will be expected of them and they can become effective in the new job very quickly.
- The organisation will not need to rely upon external references when choosing from internal applicants accurate information will be available from department heads and other colleges.
Disadvantages
- Successful candidates may suffer, conflict in that they are now senior to people with whom they worked with as equals. There may be a problem for them in asserting their authority.
- A person promoted internally may be expected to pick up the new job in an unreasonably short space of time.
- Filling a vacancy internally leaves another vacancy to fill.
External recruitment
Looking outside the company for workers,
Advantages
- A much wider range of people from which to choose from.
- New comers to the organisation will bring new ideas
- New comers are likely to be more mobile than existing staff and in a multi site because this can be very useful to the organisation.
Disadvantages
- It is more expensive than internal recruitment, and often much more so.
- It takes time fro a newcomer to get used to his or her new employer, and there fore the new comer will not be performing effectively for the time period.
- Employers have to rely heavily on the references of other employers, and in reality these can be quite unreliable.
Filling a vacancy-finding the applicants
When filling a vacancy the organisation needs to know reason why the staff member left in the first place. There could be much reason some of the reasons are below:
- A new job is available because of the expansion of the organisation
- Someone in the organisation has retired/left
- Somebody has been promoted or a vacancy arises because the previous holder has been given a better job.
The HR department at Safeway is under a lot of pressure to, keep filling in job when someone leaves the company. At Safeway when they are looking for a new person to take on the job role, that job role needs to be covered by another employee. At the point Safeway gives the current employees overtime, employing part time staff until they find someone suitable for the job role.
When someone is looking for a job and they have in their CV, the CV is then hand to the HR department; the CV is then put into folders. Each folder is under different names, (the names are listed below)
- Full time
- Part Time
- Male
- Female
The reason why CV are put into folders is because it easier for the recruitment department to look for staff as they know what they are looking for. The reason why Safeway put CV in sex order is because, it easier for them to finds, as many of the female staff are on checkouts, or be hide the meat counters, or bakery department. Most of the males are on the shop floor, or out side collecting the trolleys.
Safeway’s Definition – the three stages of resourcing are –
- Defining Requirements. Preparing the person specification using the job profile or the job outline in the career route passport.
- Attracting candidates – reviewing and evaluating alternative sources of application inside and outside Safeway. Which also includes advertising using various sources
- Selecting candidates- screen application forms, testing, interviewing and assessing candidates. It will also include the offer of employment, obtaining references and ensuring all colleagues have a principal statement to confirm the contract.
When Safeway needs to identify vacancies they use a method called “man power”. This method man power (workforce) is the planning which supports Safeway to plan by forecasting the staffing requirements for the store. Supplying the right amount of labour at any given time is crucial to Safeway as it will help them to there success. The concept is to plan and structure of the workforce using the four aims of manpower planning they are:
- Investigating the current status and trends
- Forecasting the labour needs for the future
- Planning to meet the needs
- Control to monitor and evaluate progress
Safeway believe by using this method and there four main aims the management team at Safeway can reduce the number of potential vacancies at Safeway.
Safeway’s Application Form
The application form that Safeway have is an application form that the members of the public can get on line, from (www.Safeway.com). Safeway find it easier if the general public can go online, as all the information is in the web site, it also tells us if a job is available.
When the applicant’s fills in the application form, they then receive an e-mail telling them that we have your received you application form and that they will be hearing from us very soon.
If the applicant is not successfully then the application form is kept for 6moths if in the time period a job comes up the applicant is then reconsidered.
The table below it tell us the advantage and disadvantages of the application form,
Evaluation
The application form is easy to see and easy to follow this is important for the applicant so they can follow it, in a simple and easy way. From looking at the application form I can that is very straightforward to use it is not very confusing, and there are not many question to fill in. what is also good about the form is that most of the questions are tick boxes. Which make it easier on the applicant.
The main disadvantage is that not all people have access to the Internet, this will problem and is unfair to certain people. Also when applying through the Internet is that it can get lost or pick up a virus.
Person Specifications at Safeway
A person specification should be prepared for all vacancies. The Safeway team who are in charge should make this available to the employment service for each vacancy in order to facilitate them recommending suitable candidates. If the Safeway team are unhappy with quality of people being forward through the unemployment service, this might be the fault of Safeway in this case they will have to write a more detailed person specification.
The specification should be complied in conjunction with the line manager using either job profile or Safeway’s career passport. The team must ensure that nay knowledge; skills, aptitudes or experiences that are specified are relevant to the job. They must be able to justify all recruitment conditions by reference to the job itself. The specification should not be too restrictive and there should be clear distinction between characteristics that are ‘essential’ and ‘desirable’. This is useful to Safeway when they are short-listing or demonstrating why a particular decision was made.
(On the next page I have inserted a person specification given to me by Queensbury Safeway, Kim Porter. It is an example of how a completed person specification form)
Evaluation of Person Specification
From looking at the person specification given to me from Safeway, I can see many positive and negative factors. I can see that it is very clear and the person is given their details relating to the job. The person is asking the question that Safeway have set. The answers are not in full sentences but are bullet pointed which does not tell a lot about the individual. It only gives a few word answers. The main reason why the person can not put in all there details is because the boxes are not that bigger this could be a place for improvement that Safeway may need to consider.
Job Description
This is a document that shows a statement of the job, it also identifies the tasks needed to be carried out. The job description explains to the applicant what job he/she will be applying for, and how they would be involved in the business. It should also state where they should be placed in the hierarchical structure. From looking at the job description the person should tell if the job would suit them or not.
Evaluation
The job description should say what the job entails such as what he/she will be doing, skills that he/she will need, and the hours of work. The job description also allows potential applicants to understand the job role fully. It is very important for Safeway to put our detailed description of what kind of person they are looking for. If they put out the wrong kind of information or miss some information out then might cause confusion between Safeway and the person at will then lead to hiring of the wrong kind of person and the person not enjoying the job that they have applied for. That why it is very important for the job description to be very detailed other wise it could lead to all sort of problems for the business and the person.
Carrying out an interview
The main purpose of the interview is to find the right person for the job. Interviewing is the process of getting information through questioning, on a one to one base, (face to face). At Safeway when they carry out interviews they are looking for certain factors. These factors are based on how the interview will be carried out by the interviewer.
The following factors is what Safeway believe in when they are carrying out interviews,
- Open the interview
- The question they will be asked
- Body language
- How the interview should be closed
Open the interview
The interviewer should consider how they would open the interview. The interviewer should try and make the person feel relaxed; this will make feel less stressed and more relaxed.
How Safeway open the interview
When a member of the recruitment department takes someone for an interview they make the person feel welcome and relaxed. They do this in the following way,
- By greeting the person with a friendly attitude, such shaking the hand, telling them not to be nervous.
- When they are the interview room, the interviewer asked them common question, such as how do u feel, what you been doing this week. From this point they get into the 12 question set by Safeway’s
The question they will be asked
When Safeway carry out interviews, the interviews are pre organised. The person being interviewed has a set of 12 questions, which is asked by the interview. The reason why Safeway do this is because they find it easier on them selves to ask the same questions to each individual. The 12 question that are being asked is a bout, your self, then about past experience and then it goes on to what you can offer as a staff member at Safeway.
It is very important for Safeway to ask the right question, as they have to find out as mush about the individual as possible in a certain amount of time. It is also important, as this is the only opportunity that Safeway will get.
Body language
Body language is a key to person and their attitude. It can tell someone a lot about there attitude, such as if the body is to relaxed it can tell us that they are lazy and to laid back. That’s why it is important to present your self-well and confident.
Safeway believe that a person body language is very important, as it tell us a whole lot of information about the individual. When we look at someone who is coming for an interview the body language should be positive, with an open posture.
Safeway believes that the body language should be with them all the time, when a member of staff who is working on the shop floor, working on the checkouts etc, the body language is positive this will give the customers a good impression and it also looks good for the business.
How the interview should be closed
When an interview is be closed, the interviewer will then ask if there is anything he/ she will like to ask. The interviewer is able to see how much the interviewee has understood.
At Safeway they always prefer if they do ask questions, this show them that they confident and positive person.
Identification of any possible areas of conflict
The HR department could come across many conflicts with other departments. Theses conflicts could be a little conflict or it could be major. After speaking with the HR department at Safeway they told me that they do not have many conflicts, but the only major conflict that they do have is between the finance department and training and development department. (Quoted by Monika Halia, who works in the HR department)
The finance department will have a conflict with the Training and development department over funds. The training and development department will need money to for the training of the staff members, as to send them a way to different location, which will cost money. As the training department get a certain amount of money to spend a year, this might cause a conflict as they might feel they need more money to send there staff on training courses, and also they have to think of the new members of staff that will be joining Safeway who will also need training.
Another type of conflict that occurs is that the recruitment and selection function make receive less money than the training and development function. There could a conflict about this as if the recruitment and selection was given more or the same amount of money as the training and development, they could make sure that attraction and selection process is carried out to full effect.
Advantages of Conflicts
- Once the conflict has begun the humans resources department may be able to lower the chance of the same conflict arising again.
- Human resources manager will be able to identify the possible conflict and resolve it.
Disadvantages of Conflicts
- Sometimes a minor dispute could lead to major dispute if the conflict is mishandled.
- Human resources manager will need lots of motivation to resolve the possible conflict.
- If a possible conflict occurs and cannot be resolved then if may affect the performance the business.
At Safeway they do not have many conflict in between the HR function the conflicts that do occur are the above. But many of the conflict happy between the store such as the shop floor staff and the shop floor department against the HR department.
- Conflict: between a staff members and the performance management. The employee may feel that they deserve a increase in their wage. But the performance management may feel that they do not for a number of reasons for e.g. then have not reached goals set by the TD team, they do not have the money to offer them the increase.
- Another conflict may be the health and safety factor. There might be a cage full of stock covering a fire exit door/bell. It is not the job of the HR department to move it but it is there job to check all of the safety issues that might occur and should call some one to solve the problem.
