Essay: Literature Review And Best Practices In HRM - 7-Eleven Case Study.

Literature review, research and documentation of best practice model for HRM from the perspective of an enterprise or a business unit or a major functional department in a major organisation. Distillation of key theories reviewed in the literature and of the best practices in HRM that the team considers to be suitable to the case organisation -develop a conceptual model.

Literature review

Human resource management of the company is the function that plays an important role in managing the most important asses of the firm that is its employees. There are different models of HRM that has been introduced by the theorists so that it can be used by the companies to frame their HRM policies. This is the report that discusses about various HRM models and their uses for the company. The major focus of the report is the company called 7-Eleven. It is the company that operates worldwide to serve the customers.it is the company that operates as a convenience store (About Our Convenience Stores | 7-Eleven, 2017).

Human resource management is the unction of the organisation that deals with the practices that are associated with the humans linked with the business. It involves the practices like attracting employees, hiring the employees, job designing, performance appraisal and management, training and development etc. There are many practices that the organisation needs to follow in order to get the expected performance or the outcomes in terms of HRM. Usually the employees at the organisations are managed by the line managers of the company or the department along with the help of the HR professionals (Gould-Williams & Mohamed, 2010). Every function in the organisation depends upon the human resources that are working in the company. Thus, there are different approaches or model that has been implemented by the organisations in order to manage the same. Two of the approaches that are very popular and are used by many companies are best practice approach and best fit approach. It has been argued by the author that best practice and best fit approach are both right on their part. Some of the basic practices like employee development, involvement, reward etc. are universally successful practices that are practiced in almost all the organisations (Kuvaas & Dysvik, 2010). But, it has been analysed that many of the HR practices depends on the context of the companies who can alter their practices according to their requirements. The best- practice approach suggests that some of the HR activities exists that supports all the organisations to achieve their set targets. It is suggested that HR activities from the best practice approach are directly linked with the performance of the company (Armstrong & Taylor, 2014). All the researchers who have conducted research of this approach have given same set of HR practices that are required to be followed in each and every organisation. It has been argued that these set of activities should be followed irrespective of the company strategy and the products that the company deals with. It has been argued by the author that the bundle of HR practices that are common for all the organisations are highly competent for the organisations (Lopez?Cabrales, Pérez?Luño & Cabrera, 2009). This also helps in maintaining the standards for HR practices in the companies. Best-practice approach is considered as the safest universal approach because it involves many practices that are mandatory for the organisations to implement. Some of them are discussed below:

Best-fit and Best-practice HRM approaches

Employee security: This is the strategy or the practice that is very much important to be implement by the company. This is because every employee has the right to be secured at the workplace. It is required to offer the employee security to the employees if the company wants loyalty from them in return.

Selective hiring: It is the most obvious practices that are practiced by the HR professionals of each and every company. This is because they require great workforce which can work in the company to attain the objectives of the firm. It has been analysed that most of the companies these days are hiring the employees by conducting many processes. Selective hiring is the notion that is not new but various techniques has been sued by the employers to hire the different types of relevant employees in their organisations (Storey, 2007). This concludes that hiring is the common practices and the best practices for all the companies but the techniques of hiring are different.

Team work: It is also the practice that is considered as important for the organisations. This is because a company is the entity that has many departments that works together for the common goals of attaining the company’s objective (Boxall & Purcell, 2011).

Compensation strategies: It is required for the companies to compensate the employees and provide them benefits as per their performance in the company. Compensation refers to the salary and the rewards along with the extra benefits that the company providers to their employees in return of what they do for the company.

Performance appraisal: It is the strategy that is practiced in order to motivate the employees. It has been analysed that it is also the practice that is being implanted in all the organisations to motivate the employees and thus it falls under the best practice approach that is universal for all (Noe, Hollenbeck, Gerhart & Wright, 2007).

Training and development: training and development is the approaches that are implemented in order train and develop the employees that are working in the organisation. It has been analysed that most of the employers try to develop the knowledge of their employees so that they do not need to hire the new ones with new skills (Bratton & Gold, 2012). 

Other than the above discussed activities, there are many other activities that are involved in the HR activities bundle of the best practice approach. It has been analysed that if the organisations implement appropriate strategies of HR in the organisation or the organisational functions than it helps in enhancing the organisational performance of the company (Lapi?a, Maur?ne & Stari?eca, 2014). This clearly proves the assumption that is being made regarding the best practice approach that the some of the best practices helps all the organisations to have performance enhancement advantage. It also helps in achieving the expected outcomes of the company.    

As far as 7 Eleven is considered, it has been analysed that the company is found not be a very good employer and faced many issues in terms of employer and employee relationship. It has been analysed that most of the 7 Eleven stores have not paid according to the minimum standard wages to their employees (Ferguson & Danckert, 2017). Many of the franchises were not keeping the proper records of the employees which are required. It is the time that the HR managers of the company have to alter its remuneration and pay policies so that they can satisfy the employees and become fair for them. It is required by the company to meet the minimum pay obligation standards.

Best Practices for HRM: Employee Security, Selective Hiring, Teamwork, Compensation Strategies, Performance Appraisal, Training and Development

As far as the case of 7 Eleven is concerned, it has been analysed that it is the company that needs to make the policies of HRM so that it can improve its HRM practices in the company. The best practice model of HRM for 7 eleven should include the practices that are related to pay and remuneration of the employees. This is because it is the area where the company is lacking.

It is the model that suggests that there are five most important practices that are considered as best practices for the company like 7 Eleven. It has been analysed that the first function that needs to be improved in the company that can affect the business performance of the company is training and development. It is the function that allows the company to develop its employees so that their individual performance can be enhanced ad ultimately results in improvement of the business performance (Noon, 1999). Equal remuneration and pay as per the minimum wage obligations is very important thus the company also needs to make alterations in this policy so that it can raise the employee morale and retain the employees within the company. Employee security is the term that involves creating the effective working environment that is safe for the employees to work. Another best practice is team work. Team work helps the company to hence its business performance and skills of each and every members of the team can be utilised and the working time in order to complete the task can also be reduced (Boxall, 1995). The last one is rewards; it is the practice that enhances the morals of the employees who are working with the organisation.

This conceptual model suggests that the company likes 7 eleven has to follow the model so that it can work efficiently and the improved HRM practices can helps the company to enhance its business performance. 

References:

About Our Convenience Stores | 7-Eleven. (2017). 7eleven.com.au. Retrieved 8 December 2017, from https://www.7eleven.com.au/about-us

Armstrong, M., & Taylor, S. (2014). Armstrong's handbook of human resource management practice. Kogan Page Publishers.

Boxall, P. (1995). Building the theory of comparative HRM. Human Resource Management Journal, 5(5), 5-17.

Boxall, P., & Purcell, J. (2011). Strategy and human resource management. Palgrave Macmillan.

Bratton, J., & Gold, J. (2012). Human resource management: theory and practice. Palgrave Macmillan.

Ferguson, A., & Danckert, S. (2017). An inconvenient year for 7-Eleven. The Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved 8 December 2017, from https://www.smh.com.au/business/retail/an-inconvenient-year-for-7eleven-20160826-gr1xff.html

Gould-Williams, J., & Mohamed, R. B. (2010). A comparative study of the effects of ‘best practice’HRM on worker outcomes in Malaysia and England local government. The International Journal of Human Resource Management, 21(5), 653-675.

Kuvaas, B., & Dysvik, A. (2010). Does best practice HRM only work for intrinsically motivated employees?. The International Journal of Human Resource Management, 21(13), 2339-2357.

Lapi?a, I., Maur?ne, G., & Stari?eca, O. (2014). Human resource management models: aspects of knowledge management and corporate social responsibility. Procedia-social and behavioral sciences, 110, 577-586.

Lopez?Cabrales, A., Pérez?Luño, A., & Cabrera, R. V. (2009). Knowledge as a mediator between HRM practices and innovative activity. Human resource management, 48(4), 485-503.

Noe, R. A., Hollenbeck, J. R., Gerhart, B., & Wright, P. M. (2007). Fundamentals of human resource management. Boston, MA: McGraw-Hill/Irwin.

Noon, M. (1999). HRM: a map, model or theory?. HRM: Critical perspective on business and management, 1, 175-190.

Storey, J. (2007). Human resource management: A critical text. Cengage Learning EMEA.