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Global Economy and Sustainable

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Human Resource Management And Its Alignment To The Strategy of A Future Group Company

(In Special Context of Big Bazaar)

Research By…

Dr. M.L Agarwal1 Nitesh Kumar Mishra2

M.com(F) Buss.Ad

Dayanand College Ajmer

Abstract

This research addresses the problem of Human Resource

Management and its alignment to the strategy of a Company. First, the theoretical background of human resource management is explained. This section includes the historical development of HR, corporate cultures, motivation as well as strategic management principles. The second part of this research focuses on the analysis of a chosen company – Big Bazaar stores (Future Group company) . The company is firstly introduced and then analyzed with the main focus on the employees of the company and the HR department. Mainly qualitative analysis is used to gather the needed final information and conclusions are consequently made from that. The overall goal of the research is to show how big bazaar stands as an employer.

Introduction

The main focus of this research is Human Resource management with the specific focus on how the HR department works and how it is involved in the activities of the rest of the company as well as the care for its customers. The whole concept of the Dissertation is the analysis of a chosen company based on the previously gained theoretical knowledge. The goal is to show if the chosen company has well-developed HR management consistent with its goals and strategies.

Cont…

The first part of the Dissertation describes the theoretical background of Human Resource management in general. The mentioned theory will later serve as background information for the consequently conducted analysis of the chosen company. It starts with a historical overview of human resource management along with its development all the way to the modern world. The most important steps of the HR management evolution are depicted in this section.

The following part focuses on different corporate cultures, what they mean and how exactly they are related to HR. This includes the responsibilities of the HR manager related to the corporate culture of a company.

Cont…

Then, a slightly larger part is devoted to motivation. It includes the optimum

motivation conditions and how motivation itself influences the employees’ satisfaction and

performance. Specific theories about motivation at work also have their place in this

section. Motivation is included in the theoretical part of this Dissertation because it is

generally one of the HR manager’s duties to look after the employees of the company,

specifically their job satisfaction.

The next part of the theoretical research consists of the features, structural

units and other factors included in strategic management. First, these elements are

fully described because each company has its set strategy and goals, and then a

connection is made between the strategic management of the company and its HR

department. The second half of the Dissertation contains research information. The

chosen company for this research is Big Bazaar.

What is Human Resource Management ?

Human Resource Management is the process of

recruitment, selection of employee, providing proper

orientation and induction, providing proper training and

the developing skills, assessment of employee

(performance of appraisal), providing proper

compensation and benefits, motivating, maintaining

proper relations with labour and with trade unions,

maintaining employees safety, welfare and health by

complying with labour laws of concern state or country.

•

Definitions of Human Resource Management :

“it is that part of management which is concerned with people at work and with the relation ships

within an enterprise. It applies not only to inculstry and commerce but o all fields of employment.”

- British Institute of personnel Management

The field of management which has to do with planning; organizing; directing and

controlling the functions of procuring; developing; maintaining and utilizing a labour force, such

that the

(a) Objectives for which the company is established are attained economically and effectively.

(b) Objectives of all levels of personnel are served to the highest possible degree.

(c) Objectives of society are duly considered and served.

- Pro. Michael J. Jucius

“Personnel Administration is that part of management process which is primarily

concerned with the human constituents of an organization.”

-E.F.L Brech

What is Strategic Planning ?

Strategic Planning is the determination of the overall

organizations purpose and goals and how they are to be achieved.

A company’s strategy is a set of principles, which guide the future

actions and decisions of the entire company. Strategic planning

used to be a yearly event, nowadays it is a more flexible process.

Managers of the organizations scan the environment continuously

and by that (should) notice new opportunities or threats as soon as

possible, thus aligning the plans. An effective form of a vision

statement is a picture of what the co pany should look like in three to

five years.

Strategy implementationWhen a company has it goals and visions set, it needs to successfully

implement the strategy; it needs to manage the following key factors:-

Action Plannin

g

Orgnization

Strcutre

Human Resourc

es

Annual Business Plan

Monitoring And Control

Linkage

Cont…

HR Motivation is one of the essential parts of personnel management. Generally, motivated workers work better –meaning that their performance is larger than the one of non motivated workers (e.g. in production, motivated workers produce more). It is also connected to the mood of the worker – if a worker feels bad in the working environment, his/her performance and productivity will not be as good as it should be.

Job Satisfaction is related to work motivation, although without a direct correlation, according to F. Herzberger. The absence of long-term job dissatisfaction is prerequisite for desirable work motivation. If a worker has motivation it does not automatically mean that he has satisfaction.

Action planning means that the company prepares detailed chronological action

steps. The important part is, that they set responsibility to each step, each individual

part of the plan, as well as the deadline – the date when the specific step needs to be

finished. This means, that the whole company vision and goals are broken down into

concrete action steps.

The structure of the company needs to suit the needs for strategy implementation. It

has to be checked, and if the current structure is unsuitable for the purpose of the

fulfillment of the goals, it has to be changed accordingly. All this is done in order to

help the workflow and overall communication in the company. The company

management also needs to consider the required human resources needed in order

to successfully reach the goals. Then, the management needs to make sure that

these people fully understand everything they are supposed to do. This step includes

hiring of new employees and training of current or new employees so they will have

the required skills and knowledge. When the plan is made, it is necessary to monitor

the progress. And since plans are made with concrete deadlines, and most often

updated for each year in advance, the managers have to check the overall situation

continuously – if the company is ahead of plan, on time or behind the plan. Then,

necessary measures need to come into action.

Linkage is very important in all this – it is simply the tying together

of all the above mentioned activities of the organization, to make

sure that everything is working together properly and developing in

the same direction. Since many people are working on many things

at the same time, it needs to be checked if it is corresponding not

only to one-another, but also to the overall strategy.

Strategic management and HR

strategic and

annual planning

Engage with primary stake

holders

Agree , vision,mission

and values statements

Cunduct an envireonmental

analysis

Define goals and prepare strategies

prepare annual business plan

Strategic planning allows agencies to map out where they are, where they

want to go, and how they plan to get there. The strategic planning process

varies from company to company. The plans are mostly organized in a step-

by-step matter with specific task assigned to specific departments,

managers and employees. Some companies may develop their plans at the

top management level with little input from other stakeholders, some may

plan by departments or just leave it up to the managers themselves. Each

company will do it the way it suits it best, but it will definitely be in line with

the overall goals of the whole company. However, the integration of HRM in

company plans is still evolving. Considering that a company’s mission

cannot be achieved without its people – that is where HRM comes in. Just

by looking at some examples of strategic plans, it is clear that diversity,

recruitment, retention, employee development, and workforce quality are

the main areas of interest. So, when these factors are designed and

implemented well, they lead to the ultimately desired result: the right people,

with the right skills, in the right positions carrying out the company mission

and goals.

Cont…

Nevertheless, most companies see the department of Human Resources as

an administrative department, thus they don’t get it involved in the strategic

planning, and the needs and opportunities are ignored – the alignment with

strategic plans. The main reason why HR is not involved in the company’s

strategic planning is mainly because its results are not measured in money.

So, the companies that don’t integrate HR plans into the overall strategy,

their HR departments usually develop their own goals and strategies based

on the current needs of the company, which are most often communicated

by managers to the HR department.

HR Motivation

Motivation is one of the essential parts of personnel management. Generally,

motivated workers work better – meaning that their performance is larger than the

one of non motivated workers (e.g. in production, motivated workers produce more).

It is also connected to the mood of the worker – if a worker feels bad in the working

environment, his/her performance and productivity will not be as good as it should be.

So, what is this motivation exactly?

“Motivation means a process of stimulating people to action to accomplish

desired goals.”

-William G. Scott

“Motivation is the inner state that energizes, channels and sustain human

behavior.”

-William Glueck

Cont…

“Motivation is a set of internal driving forces of a person, which make

focused in a certain direction, activating and maintaining the resulting

activity. Outwardly, these forces are manifested in the form of motivated

behavior (motivated activity).“

There is a working relationship between motivation and performance levels that is

very important for the purposes of corporate governance. The awareness of the need

of motivation in order to increase employee job performance has been constantly

growing, but still we cannot forget about other factors that affect the performance and

support good working conditions. These factors are:

1.sufficient knowledge;

2.competent skills;

3.availability of equipment of adequate quality;

4.good materials;

5.comfortable organization of work.

By the way, nothing is forever, and any kind of growth or a long-term function

eventually looses its attraction and the employees loose their motivation at a certain

level. According to the Yerkes-Dodson‘s theory, when you have crossed this

hypothetical level, the resulting level of motivation begins to decline. However, the

achievement of this level of excessive motivation, or even higher, is possible. There

are several reasons when that happens:

• in certain situations, when a person is trying to do everything for the success;

• in certain areas, which that certain person especially dislikes or puts excessive

• attention to;

• in a short period of time with a short-term reset.

• As some typical examples, we can present: a difficult test at school, an important job

• interview, a high-level sporting events, etc. Unfortunately, the staff at work needs to

be

• permanently motivated. It means that what was said above is relevant for most

cases, but

• not for cases with employment.

• 1.1 Optimum working conditions and motivation

There are no doubts about the fact that better staff motivation results in better

working performance of the staff.18 Let us now focus on some other conditions that

affect the performance level of workers. The subjective factors that affect

performance along with motivation are the following:

• - individual abilities;

• - personal skills;

• - knowledge;

• - general qualifications.

Workers generally need to be qualified to do their jobs and have the proper skill to

perform the tasks, otherwise the job will not get done and the worker will only get

frustrated, and thus unmotivated, at work. And also the following objective factors

increase performance:

• - organization of work;

• - level of the used technology;

• - the working environment.

The above-mentioned specifics refer to the working conditions – workers will

generally work better if they feel like the conditions and the environment they work in

are suitable. Another important thing to remember is, that it is impossible to just claim

that "the greater the motivation, the higher the performance", because there is no

proportional relationship between motivation and the resulting activity. There are

cases, when performance does not increase, but conversely decreases, because of

the fact that the level of motivation is too high, above the optimum value. Such cases

are also called cases without motivation. So, it can happen that the low level of

performance is a result of very high (too high) motivation. As we can see above, the

level of motivation needs to be “just right” – the workers need to be motivated and

supported, but there is such a thing as too much motivation, which, infect,

demotivates the workforce, they may start to feel incompetent or inferior if the

managers push too hard and become annoying. So, we can say, that the

performance level of any activity, of any person, depends on the levels of motivation,

employee skills and on working conditions.

1.2 Motivation and satisfaction

There is a term that describes the feelings and expressions of people about their profession, job

or work. This term is "job satisfaction". Satisfaction towards work means that a person has

favorable and positive attitudes. On the contrary, dissatisfaction with work means that the person

has adverse and negative attitudes toward the job.

Job satisfaction is related to work motivation, although without a direct correlation, according to F.

Herzberger. The absence of long-term job dissatisfaction is prerequisite for desirable work

motivation. If a worker has motivation it does not automatically mean that he has satisfaction.

•

Cont…

Human Resource Alignment means “integrating decisions about people with decisions about the results an organization is trying to obtain.” By integrating human resources management into the organization’s planning process, emphasizing human resources activities that support the organization’s mission goals, and building a strong relationship between HR and management, organizations are able to ensure that the management of human resources contributes properly to mission accomplishment and that managers are held accountable for their HRM decisions.

Corporate Culture of Big Bazaar in

connection to HRCorporate culture means the way things are done within a company. This refers to anything from the main goals and visions of the company, overall morale in the work place, the ways offices are set up (closed or open space) or how meeting are organized all the way to dress codes. The corporate culture defines the company from the inside as well as the outside. Corporate culture is a very important aspect of every company because it affects mainly the employees –how they feel at work. Companies with a strict hierarchical structure where

people are just placed into tiny offices or cubicles with strictly set rules about how they should do everything and have no say whatsoever usually have a very poor (in relation to human resource management) corporate culture. The corporate culture is simply made up of strict rules and obligations with no personal freedom. Many companies used to have structures like this in the past. Nowadays it is more common for organizations to give their employees more freedom – more casual dress code so they would be more comfortable, added value to their opinions and suggestions or some other benefits. So, corporate culture defines how the employees work as well as how they feel about it.

Cont…

So, what exactly is the relation to HR management? HR managers, more or less, take care of the company’s employees and it is (not only) their job to make them feel valued. HR managers are also the ones who introduce the corporate culture to the new employees they tell them how things are generally done within the company (most often already at job interviews). When a new employee comes to the company, his first contact is usually with the HR department from where he/she is introduced further on to the company. Any new employee needs to know how things work in the company and the general structure of work, so it is primarily up to the HR manager to inform the new employees about all this relevant information before they start work.

Research Methodology

The chosen hypotheses for the purposes of

this Research are as follows:

• 1. Big Bazaar has a well-developed Human

Resource management system with great

emphasis on the satisfaction of the

employee.

• 2. Big Bazaar implements Human Resource

goals into their overall business strategy.

Objectives

The field of management which has to do with planning; organizing; directing and controlling the functions of procuring; developing; maintaining and utilizing a labour force, such that the

• (a) Objectives for which the company is established are attained economically and effectively.

• (b) Objectives of all levels of personnel are served to the highest possible degree.

• (c) Objectives of society are duly considered and served.

Big Bazaar StoresThe Company Big Bazaar Stores is a subsidiary of the parent company Future Group (Public Limited Company), located in Mumbai(India). It is the largest Indian retail chain, which is the largest private sector employer in the India. Big Bazaar sells food and non-food goods to end customers, retails commercial space to other marketers, and currently also provides financial services.

AFFILIATE COMPANIES

• Home Solutions Retail (India) Limited

• Future Media (India) Limited

• Future Logistic Solutions Limited

• Future Axiom Telecom Limited

• Pantaloon Food Product (India) Limited

• Future General India Insurance Company Ltd

• Future Capital Holdings Ltd

• Future Bazaar India Ltd

• Staples Future Office Products Private Ltd

Early Timeline of Future Group

2011 Enters the rural wholesale and distribution business through 'Aadhaar Wholesale' store at Kalol, Gujrat.

Big Bazaar has come up a new logo with a new tag line: 'NayeIndia Ka Bazaar'.[200th store opened in India

2012

Big Bazaar entered into a five year multi million dollar deal with Cognizant Technology Solution for IT infrastructure services that support Future Group’s network of stores,

warehouse, offices and data centers.Partnered with Disney to launch “Kidz Cookies”, exclusively for kids across India.

Big Bazaar is planning to add further value to its retail services by offering value added services like grinding, de-seeding, vegetables cutting at free of cost.

2013 Future Group successfully introduced 'Big Bazaar Direct' an assisted shopping concept where franchises will sell Big Bazaar products through a catalogue on a 'tablet'.Big Bazaar introduced an exciting occasion for shopping 'April Utsav'.

Big Bazaar introduced a unique customer membership program 'Big Bazaar Profit Club.‘

2014Big Bazaar and Ezone were voted as one of the Top 50 Most Trusted Brands in the country in the Brand Equity Survey 2013 conducted by Nielson. The survey also revealed that Big Bazaar is the 4th Most Trusted Service Brand of the country

A New Generation Big Bazaar, Big Bazaar Family Centre was launched at Alcove in Kolkata on January 6, 2014

2015Big Bazaar announced an exclusive tie-up with a leading mobile wallet company, MobiKwik

The UK based Plymouth City College awarded Future Sharp with a title of 'The Best International Business Partner'

Giovani, Indus League's suits & jackets brand signs FawadKhan as it's brand ambassador

Future Group as an Employer

Future Group is one of the largest retail chains and currently employs about 36,000 workers, The company is still growing, even throughout the financial crisis. Future Group is still opening new business units, and thus still offering new employment opportunities. Because Future Group its representation in most towns in the India Republic now, it creates jobs in almost all regions. The central office of Future Group is based in Mumbai(Bombay). Future Group creates employment opportunities for every one Skilled salespeople, heads of departments, college-educated professionals and top experts with years of experience should be able to find jobs at Future Group’s different stores like food bazaar, big bazaar in different different posts like relationship manager, content writer, store manager, store karta, unit head, department manager and many more. Future Group is currently the most demanded employer company, for which people want to work, on average 3 times more future employees than the current number of jobs that the company can offer.

Employer's reputation

Building a reputation as a good employer involves a long and hard work. It can be very simple to tarnish your reputation, but to return your company‘s reputation is very difficult and often impossible. Future Group is very well aware to this fact, and thus it tries to work hard on its own employer’s reputation. In 2008, these efforts were well appreciated by the professional community and the company was awarded with the title "Retail Employer of the Year" (see Awards section).The company knows very well that not only the quality of implementation of individual personnel actions, but also other activities contribute to the way, how the general public perceives it.

Corporate Social

ResponsibilityFuture Group recognizes that its activities not only affect employees, who work in the company, and customers, who shop there, but also the lives of other people, who live in its vicinity. The company boasts a long tradition of helping people and supporting the life in the cities where Future Group operates. Future Group has created the so-called responsible neighborhood plan under which it focuses on the following key areas:

• promoting economic development with regard to ecology,

• helping children with mental or physical disabilities and people with health problems,

• promoting healthy lifestyles,

• building fair relationships with its business partners.

Acquisition, selection and

recruitmentFuture Group is a company that is constantly expanding and that is still opening new business units. Of course, this is related to the growing need for new employees. Future Group is trying to cover vacancies first from its own resources and if they fail to meet the demand for labor in the standard way, they turn to the external labor market. The staff learns about job vacancies through internal advertising. The premises of vacancies are advertised together with the requirements on local bulletin boards, under the responsibility of personnel managers of the branches. If any person from the staff is interested in the offer, he must addresses the employer, and all the information will be sent to him from his HR manager. The headquarters staff works with open positions introduced either through similar boards or on the company intranet. Appropriate forms and personnel contacts are also available there, which may be interesting as well. However, the employee's supervisor must always approve of the internal selection process. External advertising is most often done via the Internet. The Future Group’s website holds a summary of vacant positions, which is structured on the basis of the areas covered by the advertising concerns (traffic, distribution, headquarters, positions for graduates, etc.).

Why Align in Big Bazaar (Future

Group) ?

Why the sudden emphasis on aligning HRM activities with agency mission accomplishment? Basically, it comes down to demonstrating the value of human resources management to the agency. In the past, one of HR’s primary roles has been to ensure compliance with laws, rules, and regulations. Although this is still, and will always be, a necessary function, many recent developments have led to a strong emphasis on results.

Human Resource Management in

Big Bazaar

• The HR department of Big Bazaar is very dynamic.

• Employees are the biggest strength and asset of any organization and the HR dept realizes this very well.

• This is very evident from the way the HR department handles all its employees.

• They take utmost care to select, train, motivate and retain all the employees.

• They have continuous developmental Programs for all the employees.

• There are two shifts for the employees. The first shift employees arrive at 10AM in the morning and leave at 7.30 in the evening, while the second shift employees report at 12.30 in the afternoon and leave at the time of Store closing (10pm).

Performance Appraisal

• The HR department conducts performance appraisal of all the employees annually in the month of April.

• Based on their performance increments are given in their pay.

• In addition to this if an employee achieves or exceeds the target given to along with their team members will be provided with attractive cash and other incentives.

Employee benefits,

compensations and rewards-Employee benefits are optional, non-wage compensation provided to employees in addition to their normal wages or salaries. These types of benefits may include group insurance (health, dental, vision, life etc.), disability income protection, retirement benefits, daycare, tuition reimbursement, sick leave, vacation (paid and non-paid), funding of education, as well as flexible and alternative work arrangements. Every employee wants secrurity and many essential things of life. Big Bazaar makes sure that all its employees work in a safe and not health-threatening environment. The rewards and benefits given by big bazaar for employee's are as following :-

• The employees are rewarded suitably with attractive pay packages. The salary of an employee includes basic pay. HRA, special allowance, Mediclaim etc. Annual bonus will be given at the time of Diwali.

• The employees and their dependents are also entitled for medical treatment in recognized hospitals with cashless hospitalization with whom the company has tie-ups. If a hospital is not recognised, the amount spent by the employee will be reimbursed.

• Along with these all the employees are given a card known as ‘Employee Discount card’ (EDC) through which they can buy any product at Big Bazaar at a special discount of 20-30 %.

Conclusions:

The analysis of Big Bazaar(Future Group) (the selected company) was conducted successfully.

• The first hypotheses: Big Bazaar(Future Group) has a well developed Human Resource management system with great emphasis on the satisfaction of the employee can be accepted. Theresearch showed, that Big Bazaar(Future Group) puts great emphasis on the satisfaction of their employees. The services provided range from information availability to training and feedback systems. Big Bazaar(Future Group) is well aware of the fact that proper care of employees promotes employee satisfaction. Safety and health precautions are all in place and the working environment is constantly being developed according to the employees’ needs. Big Bazaar(Future Group) also conducts regular surveys called “Our Opinion” where the employees share their views about the work in general, the working environment and where they can also express their own ideas for improvement.

Cont…

• Big Bazaar(Future Group) managers pay great attention to these surveys

and try to do their best to improve as much as they can. Another important

aspect is that Big Bazaar(Future Group) has well developed its internal

communication via the Intranet. Communication with employees is very

important not only to keep the employees updated, but also to inform them

about current events. Big Bazaar(Future Group) sees it as essential to

keeping their customers up to date, which is a good thing and also

contributes to the acceptance of the first hypothesis. The proper care for its

employees can also be seen in the way they care about their new

employees. In the introductory period, the new employees are introduced to

the corporate culture and structure of the company, they are provided with

welcoming brochures, they are guided by supervisors for the first several

months of their new job and they are also enrolled in special training

sessions. These training sessions provide proper information needed for

their job as well as learning new skills in order to perform their new jobs

better. It is also important to mention that these training sessions are not

provided only for

Cont…

• the new employees, but also for the current employees, for whoever wishes to attend and expand their views or knowledge as further development in their jobs. All these factors also contribute to the acceptance of the first hypothesis. Big Bazaar(Future Group) also holds Employment Forums where the supervisors and managers listen to the ideas of the regular employees of lower non-management positions. This also shows that Big Bazaar(Future Group) really cares about their employees. The compensation of employees is also relatively competitive.

Cont…The second stated hypotheses: Big Bazaar(Future Group) implements Human Resource goals into their overall business strategy can be partly rejected, but the answer is not so simple. Big Bazaar(Future Group) doeshave specific HR goals and visions set, and as can be seen above, Big Bazaar(Future Group) really takes good care of their employees, but the overall vision of the company is as follows: “The vision of the company is based on high quality goods, low prices and continuous improvement ofservices.” That does not really include its employees. But, Big Bazaar(Future Group) is currently one of the most desired employers, so the idea that they have an employee strategy and goals concerning the employees has to be known somehow. The focus on employee welfare is obvious, even though it is not included in the public vision of the company. The HR department has its goals and ideas clearly set. Otherwise the focus would not be so great. The internal plans obviously calculate with the focus on employees and their wellbeing, because Tesco’s focus is not only on high profitability, but also on its employees who, in Tesco’s definition, form the basis of its success. This shows great emphasis on the employees as being essential parts of the company. Nonetheless, not all strategic plans for the future can mention anything about employees (i.e. finances or sales goals).

• We can easily conclude, that Big Bazaar (Future Group) values its employees and does as much as it can to help them feel valued and develop their skills to better suit their occupation and further career.

References :

• Human Resource Management (Sharma, Surana, Sharma) edition 2013-2014

• Theory & Practice Of Management (Sharma & Surana) edition 2013-2014

• Strategic Management Dr.P.C jain edition 2015-2016

• Research Methodology : Big Bazaar Stores : Wikipedia, Encyclopedia.

• Future Group’s Timeline : http://www.futuregroup.in/

• Career Informations : http://www.futuregroup.in/

• Presentations provided by www.slideshare.net/

• Various websites, magazines, news papers.