BUSI3323: Human Resources Management
Dr. Beverley McNally
Prepared by: Rawan Alaskar
ID# 201001452
Section: 201
Rawan Alaskar
ID#201001452
Table of Contents:
Introduction .................................................................................................................. 3
Q1. Difference between Training & Development .................................................... 3
Q2. Importance of Employees Development ............................................................. 4
Q3. Recruitment and Retention .................................................................................. 5
Q4. Career Progression ............................................................................................... 5
Conclusion .................................................................................................................... 6
References ..................................................................................................................... 7
Appendix ....................................................................................................................... 8
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Introduction
Harrods is one of the most well-known and respected retail stores in the
world. It is a British institution that was founded by Charles Henry Harrod at the year
of 1834, located in London, United Kingdom.” The idea of Harrods began with a tiny
grocery specialized in tea, and by the year of 1880, it developed into the style of
selling a huge variety of products. British, Luxury, Innovation, Sensation and Service
are the brand values, which is the key that supported Harrods to keep its unique
reputation for the past 162 years. Moreover, 5,000 people work at Harrods institution
from 86 different nationalities. At their peak times, those employees handle
approximately 100,000 customers a day! Therefore, Harrods seek for hiring
employees who can handle such challenges to keep its reputation.
Since working in a shop is seen as poor job, small payments and little chance
of promotion, hiring the qualified staff is consider a big challenge to Harrods. To
succeed in hiring the needed staff, Harrods has to change the negative idea about
working in retail. They succeeded by providing good payments, respecting them,
offering a clear career paths open to them. This term paper will discuss the training
and development at Harrods. More importantly, it will illustrate the importance of
developing employee’s abilities. It will analyze the method of recruitment and
retention, which followed by Harrods. Lastly, it will evaluate how training and
development leads to career progression at Harrods.
Q1: Describe the difference between training and development.
Training is basically getting the skills needed for a job; these may be learned
at the place of work (on-the-job) or away from work (off-the-job). On-the-job training
tends to be more cost-effective and relevant. However, professional trainers usually
carry out off-the-job training. It also occurs away from the distractions of work. On
the other hand, development not only improves job performance, but also teaches how
to become more effective and productive at work, facing different responsibilities and
challenges. Development concentrates on the broader skills that are applicable to a
wider variety of situations, such as thinking creatively, decision-making and
managing people. In other words, training provides the skill and development
maximizes it training means teaching new skills and development means perfecting
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existing skills.
Employees are the most vital part of any organization, behind every
successful organization, a group of well-trained and developed employees. For a
unique retail store such as Harrods, that receives thousands of customers from all over
the globe, employees could play a very huge role. For example, at Harrods the Sales
Academy develops employees’ sales skills, leading to increased sales when they
return to the shop floor. Allowing employees to acquire new skills, expertise and
qualifications supports employee progression, which leads to increased motivation.
On the other hand, developing employees is the main factor for the organization’s
growth and improvement. At Harrods in particular, employee’s development is what
gives it a competitive advantage, because employees are always motivated to do their
best in order to be promoted and moves forward on their career pathway. Harrods
values their employees and focuses on offering development opportunities to all
different levels of employees, depending upon every employee’s competency,
because Harrods sees it as a shortcut way for a best and a most successful retail store
among competitors.
Q2: Explain the importance of developing employees.
We all know that the good reputation is the key to any organization success.
And good reputation depends highly on the service provided by the employees. That
is why Harrods are highly concern about the development of their staff. Employee
development is crucial and important for the growth and development for any
business and any company because employees are one of the determining factors for
the success of the company. In fact, The Company’s performance depends on the
capability and qualification of its employees. When they are well trained, they can
easily and smoothly handle situations, and please customers. Essentially, Harrods
provides efficient development sessions to improve the performance of their
employees in order to successfully meet its business goals and missions. A good
illustration for such sessions is the Harrods Sales academy. The Sales Academy at
Harrods spends a lot of effort and money in developing its employees’ sales skills. As
a result, when the employees return to the shop floor they increase the sales and
maximize the shop profits.
Another reason to show the importance of developing employees is employee
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progression. It is very important factor considering that employees who have a stable
career tend to be more loyal and stay at the company, which lower the costs of hiring
and training other new workers. Consequently, Harrods advocates the progression of
its staff leading to enhance their motivation. They do that by allowing their employees
to obtain new useful skills, expertise and qualifications. In fact, this mainly supports
the retention strategies at Harrods.
Q3: Analyze the methods by which Harrods ensures it recruits and retains its
employees.
Recruitment and retention are two requirements for building a special talented
staff and obviously Harrods had a huge success in Recruiting qualified applicants and
encouraging them to join their corporation. Harrods pays no less attention to retaining
than recruitment; the preservation of employee’s motivation and self-esteem is what
matters the most. It focuses on never losing the valuable employee, and evidence to
that is the low turnover ratio Harrods has, that is at a decreasing rate. Therefore, it
develops a career path that has a wide range of promotion opportunities to all
employees; so that their work of the growth and development of the employees can
never be wasted. What I analyzed from Harrods techniques in Recruits and retains is
that employees does not necessarily seek monetary incentive but also training and
ways of motivation. As the reading provides us of a glimpse of Sabrina’s career, we
come to the understanding that Harrods not only train its employees but also develop
their talents in a way that they motivate them for more future careers, by professional
training. They gain skills needed for the job to keep their workforce.
Q4: Evaluate how training and development leads to career progression at
Harrods.
Every employee in any organization seek to develop his/her job by getting
promoted to a higher-level career, Harrods is no different than that, in fact Harrods
supports and encourages its employees by focusing on their development and giving
“Career Progression” its worth attention. As mentioned above, Harrods provides a
variety of employees development programs to maintain its employees motivated into
moving forward on their career path. However, the processes of training and
development at Harrods shows how it helped the employees to cope with all the tasks
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they faced and also formed a career path for them, it is important for the institution/
company to meet all the needs of the business. What you see today, that Harrods lead
to a career progression with success by matching its business strategy and linking it
together. They use training and development to improve their workers skills along
with the technical skills and business capabilities that's needed.
In view of the fact that Harrods stores are international, their employees – as a
result – come from various backgrounds and have different nationalities. Hence, they
have different levels of competency, education and experience. Harrods management
is aware of such difference that is why Harrods offers comprehensive training
sessions and development opportunities to their staff in different types of levels. All
of that effort in dividing these levels is to make sure that all Harrods employees are
getting the suitable levels and education that they need to perform their tasks
efficiently. This is because if an employee is completely satisfied and have a lot of
opportunities to increase his\her knowledge and abilities, the company can insure the
worker’s loyalty leading to increase the employee’s enthusiasm in carrying out the job
effectively.
Conclusion
In conclusion, I believe that Harrods sees their customers as their most
profitable asset, and sees their employees as their most important resource. Harrods
value their employees before their customers, because they know that employees are
the basic structure of any successful organization. This paper discussed the success in
changing the traditional idea about retail work of Harrods. It starts with a brief
introduction about Harrods and its staff. Followed by an illustration about the
difference between training and development. After that, it explains in details how
developing employees is a significant factor to Harrods success or any other
organization. Analyzing the methods on how Harrods ensures it recruits and retains its
employees is what comes next. Furthermore it ends with an evaluation on how
training and development leads to career progression at Harrods. Finally, all of these
main points are supported by evidence from Harrods employees themselves.
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References
Blue, G. (2011, August 22). Harrods: a history of the famous storeGlobal Blue.
Global Blue - The 1900s. Retrieved December 15, 2012, from
http://www.global-blue.com/brands/specials/harrods/history-of-harrodsluxury-department-store-london/
Gordon, A. (2006, December 24). Importance Of Employee Development.
EzineArticles. Retrieved December 15, 2012, from
http://ezinearticles.com/?Importance-Of-Employee-Development&id=395203
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Appendix
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