Harrods Organisational Structure Analysis
You will be asked to examine an organisation that you are familiar with and appraise the organisation’s structure, culture and approaches to leadership and organisational behaviour. You will then be required to analyse and evaluate these in relation to change within the organisation and how HR strategies can support the transition (If you cannot identify an organisation the tutor will provide a case study organisation upon request).
Introduction: Harrods we are unexceptional
Harrods is one of most famous luxury store brands which is well recognized in fashion and retail industry, Harrods is a leader in luxury retail. Harrods also includes sister franchises such as; Harrods Bank, Harrods estates, Harrods Aviation and Air Harrods. The Harrods was established in 1824 by Charles Henry Harrods and been continuing since, in 1834 a wholesales grocery was opened in east London where now the main store is located in London Knightsbridge and the warehouse is located in tech name.
The store has more than a million square feet shopping area including 340 variety of departments, Including: clothing for women, men and children; electronics, toys, sports, bridal, toys, food and drinks, health and beauty items, gifts, stationary, housewares and much more. Harrods have been in world record book as best seller of the year with their Qatar Holdings company which was purchased Harrods from Mohamed Al-Fayad. Harrods was sold to Qatar Holding which is owned by Qatar royal family since may 2010.
Harrods values are British; Luxury; Service; Innovation and Sensation. Harrods aim and goal is attracting customers from all over the world. Harrods believes that excelling expectation achieving, excellence in everything they do at their store, Harrods has sign of green and goal corporate responsibility program, which seeks to find and create a positive and long lasting impact into four pillars of workplace: environment and community, for instance Harrods are very active and keen on being involved into charity event and work as they run several charity direct and indirect. As it mentioned before Harrods as leading luxury retail business, Green and gold program stand has four elements: work place, Harrods believes their employees are the most important asset they have as comes to this simple roles when employees are happy costumers will be happy as well.
Marketplace: as leading luxury retailer brand Harrods focusing on ensuring no product traded in their store is produced in a way that is not in line with their values and standards.
Community: Harrods are involved in supporting local and in local charity, their main charity partner is NSPCC (national society for the prevention of cruelty to children).
Environment: Harrods philosophy for environment is to reduce or use natural resource and produce less waste.
Harrods has been in this industry for over 160 years and had got over 6000 temporary and permeant employees. The New Qatari owners are very keen on having strong employees team to the continuing success of the business, for instance, employees are welcomed to progress their caresses with Harrods by attending several courses on their favor which are advice by their senior manager to develop themselves such as management leadership and so on, following this investigation, the Harrods first comprehensive investigate and interview employees to figure out what their staff has thought about working there. This investigation and interview has become a fundamental aspect of Human Resource Management program at Harrods.
Organization culture:
The most important meaning can be used for Organization business, in Harrods it means the process of ordering and co-coordinating activities at work.
The difference of position can be talked, for instance organizations are having a lot of small parts or details that are arranged in a human strategies designed to archive certain elements.
All the organization are designed to enable humans and their objectives to reach goals and targets.
Each organization can be understood in different way for instance at Harrods by using different emotion to figure out the paradoxical character of organizational life and work for employees.
In Harrods as organizations they are flowing these elements:
Harrods has purpose and goals
Harrods are sangfroid of people
Harrods have value of structure
Harrods follow the update technology
Harrods have an effect in the context of extrinsic environment
Harrods improve their own value system and culture
All about it can be sum into 6 factors and it call as basic model as well in Harrods which are:
1 People (skills and knowledge  and educations), as a group or individual, different goals and aims)
2 goals and aims (goals statement, organization strategies and organization policies
3 culture value (management direction and styles, sub culture)
4 structure (roles apportion, assignment structure)
5 external environment (Market and Social and economic effect
6 technology (Machines, information processing)
At Harrods Organization feature which are seeking for are:
Propose and goals: margin profit of company and growth and comparing to each day and and month and year to last year
Social service benefit
Liberty services benefits
Mon profit
People: developed untrained personal
Predominately manual
Structure: tall or flat
Matrix
Hiretachila or organic
Technology:
Performance the mechanic which have been used is that low level or high
Not having technology
High level or low level of technology
Environment: not stable and always changeable
Stable
Culture: Market
Financial success
Self finically success
Harrods Organization structure:
This the most important fact of the nature of structure, as we mentioned earlier each organization are made by managers and the same rules apply at Harrods organization structure and reflect managerial and value more than having influence from stakeholders or main owner. After that the origination structure at Harrods are helping to promote corporate that each individual person a group interest.
For planning this corporate organization structure Harrods managers always questioned themselves by few things for instance:
What Is the right way for approaching to work? By specific function or products or culture or destination or nation
.
when and how much employees should be promoted and how each task is identified to each person?
What is the limit of freedom for each person at work?
Most of the times theses elements are done at Harrods by: common function or product or service or location and nation.
How the organization structure are seined at Harrods:
Job speciation
Behavior formulation
Unit groping
Giving right induction and training to new and current employees
Each unit size and capacity
How to plan and control the system at work
Age and size and history behind the Harrods company
The main and most important effect of its decision making at top of the organization can be made.
Harrods leadership in organizations:
Leadership is vital elements in any organizational and social relationship of groups at work in everywhere and companies.
The leadership can be defined as one person for specific period of the time led a group and the group which is led by him are commit themselves to achieve the goals which was designed for them at that period of time.
At Harrods some departments they have team leader not all of them, for instance the distribution center which have vital rule like other department at Harrods. There are two shifts, one is morning shift which starts from 6 to 2 and one is 2 to 12 pm and each shift has one team leader at the time which are recognized by black t shirt are worn and they are suppose to led a team which all the structure are given before starts a each shifts by manager or assistance manager to them and they need to finish the task in right time. Team leader for distribution center are always an active and changing their place by checking  each member of staff and guide them to starts a each task which they are suppose to do that
The main role and principal it is to encourage the people to reach their goal and finish the task, at Harrods each team leader actually follow the same path and rote.
Leadership is guide or is exercised by particular self of circumstance which are advised by manager of each departments and at Harrods we can see the same approach every time.
At Harrods the leader are trained to feel and reach a few factors and elements which are:
The nature of the task or aim in each day
The climate or culture of organization and people they work with them: for instance if there are some Muslims are work in a group a leader can give them the driftnet time to find a freedom to practice their religion as it dose for other religions too
The skills and knowledge and how they have been trained either new staff or old staff and the task is given by their abilities
As the most and recent studies has shown that the successful leadership is likely to achieve their task by balancing into 4 factors which are monition before the nature the culture the skills and and leader attribute
The secret of Harrods leadership organization being successful is the quilts of leadership and how they have been trained and been promoted and updated.
This investigating interviews helped them to generate strategic plan to improve employment engagement and trust as high employee turnover rate has important rules to implicate business.
These 4 elements are:
Changing organizational structure: by having too many layers senior managers trying to reduce that and taking more responsibilities for employees by providing more opportunist and increase their satisfaction
Changing leadership: letting the employees to be encouraged by making more decisions themselves.
Improved staff communication skills: to untrusted the strategies of the company and also help them about operational plans of their working routine.
Living and understanding the brand values: all the staff knows the barns values where their work.
Human Resource Management (HR):
Human Resources is a business field focused on maximizing employee productivity. Human Resources professionals manage the human capital of an organization and focus on implementing policies and processes. They can be specialists focusing in on recruiting, training, employee relations or benefits. Recruiting specialists are in charge of finding and hiring top talent. Training and development professionals ensure that employees are trained and have continuous development. This is done through training programs, performance evaluations and reward programs. Employee relations deals with concerns of employees when policies are broken, such as harassment or discrimination. Someone in benefits develops compensation structures, family leave programs, discounts and other benefits that employees can get. On the other side of the field are Human Resources Generalists or Business Partners. These human resources professionals could work in all areas or be labor relations representatives working with unionized employees
Human recourse management can be listed in 15 parts at Harrods:
- Employment
- Improvement and Education-
- Appointment and Application
- Analysis Job
- Classification job and jobs Design
- Resources human Planning
- Employment
- System information resources Human
- Relationships working Times
- Order Social
- Evaluation Performance
- Salary
- Discipline
- Health and Safety
- Reward
The hiring process in Harrods began by HR Department like other companies.
Harrods hiring process has been intended to be as complete as necessary
Its aim to find best and experienced candidate in this journey.
The stage of hiring starts by understating the person and his skills as well as finding the best and open honest representation of life and working at Harrods brand.
The HR department are promising to go through all the CV which are submitted through their job website and respond to them as fast as they can. They have policy to treat each candidate with respect they deserve. Also there are several ways to track their progress and find out more about Harrods requirement which can be found at their social media such as Twitter or Facebook or send them Email to Harrods cares.
Human resource Management (HR) support:
After the hiring process had been one and the right candidate has been chosen, HR department provide them the right training and advice from pay roll or team work in a right manner and direction and also are helped support through their journey to be the most satisfy employees in their career and life.
The Human Recourse Management also has very important rules at Harrods which is called Learning and Development:
The Development and Learning team are always supported employees by offering them wide rage of course, workshop and mentoring programs to educate them. There are several course at Harrods such as Management, stress management, future talent, retail development, food and hospitality skills, luxury brand and more and more
Human Resource Management (HR) is valuing and developing people at work in different aspects. We can strongly argue these aspects by dividing them into three important steps:
- Recruitment and selection
Available jobs will be informed by the manger of each part of store to HR and after jobs will be advertised to public by Harrods employees website, each candidates has to go through some basic job application and after if their match by their need they will be invited to video interview, it means they are asked a few questions which are normally four and after recording, each video will be checked by HR team and the best candidates are invited to formal interview, the formal interview normally are announced by formal Email or sometimes by phone call, the main interview is hold by selected candidates and one of the HR team is responsible to running the interview and going through some normal induction and some questions in meanwhile manger of that department and their assistances are observing the interview. A few days after the first interview the selected candidates from the first one, depends on their need, those who will be invited to one to one interview by their selected department manager.
If candidates are chosen and offer them permeant contract then it has to authorized by floor manager, the process of requirement after formal interview will be taken two more group induction days and after that the contract can be signed.
As I mention above HR has vital rule to select the right people and invite them for interview and hiring the employees.
- Performance: by training employs to have better perform in their roles. The most important rule of Human Resource Management is training and development. Being changeless and compatible of a business, the best employees have to be hired and kept. Improving their skills will enhance their productivity and help the firm to achieve their goal as well.
3.   Development: help all the staff to build up better and progressive career with future opportunities
One of the HR managers in 2009 was reported which is knows as ‘Engaging for success’. the main major finding of this report was how business can be benefited by involving employees in all aspects of decision making. This aspect of decision making how the employee can be engagement or participation in this task.
Communication and culture change in Harrods:
The Macleod report in 2009 which was mentioned before has resulted in Harrods improving people focused culture in order to better work with its employees. As we might know the culture of an organization it’s very strong and can be described as DNA. There are many reasons why Harrods been successful over 160 years and one of them is that gives its employees a voice of charge either decision-making or other things.
As employs, they are advice to share their feedback on how Harrods operates and works.
This voice of view can be summarized in 5 parts as there will be explained here:
Internal employee magazine it names ‘your Harrods’ its very interesting and popular magazine among Harrods staff which shares interviews with key people, charities, staff discount, interviewing the employee of the month and some fun competitions.
Morning briefing:Â announcing shop floor staff if there is anything new or interesting and latest sales border as well.
Intranet: all the important  information are shared and employees find what their best needed to be focused and to be learned.
Quarterly employees’ forum: A team which is made up of employees’ volunteers. Help them to present issues and work towards company strategy.
Omnia Harrods: the website where all employees including temporary staff can find all the information they my need through the website including their pay slip shift hours employments days which day can get 10 more present discount plus 33 present regular discounts, available courses to enhance their career,
In relation to change with the organization:
one instance is before Christmas and new year sells, Harrods are getting very busy and much more promotion and offers and deals are running in deferent departments, one the department is become very busy it is distribution center which have responsibility to deliver the needed items to each section before the shop opens the distribution center is located on 6 floor under staff building and the main office is located next to the entry door and inside the place can be seen by everyone , basically orders are given by buying part of Harrods which is called buyer department that is located on 7 floor of Harrods staff building and after are sorted at an other warehouse which far away from main Harrods, from 5 Am all the trucks vans start lining up next to stuff building which is located behind main Harrods, items are delivered inside and will be sent to distribution center to send and put them to the right place before the shop opening, as we have discussed before new year period when its getting really busy the manager of distribution center will inform the line manager that how many more hours and shifts are needed to busy period tasks of the year would be done as smooth as possible, the manger commend are sent to Human recourse team via line manager and human recourse team will evaluate the order after one or two weeks theses things are planed 3 month before each new year, after having one internal human recourse management team, there will be an other formal meeting with the manager of distribution center and their assistance,  that what requirements need for that and after evaluating the time and budget management the order will be sent back to the line manager and from line manager is sent to distribution manger who inform to his staff, before the work begin to work there will be a last formal meting with distribution management team and team leaders of each shifts to make am and run the plan through the program given that how this task can be done. For instance last year they were told to have 24 days night shifts to deliver all the items to departments while store is closed as it was less than 30persent of 2015, to starts this process manger is asked to write down those they are interested to do night shift which is starts from 2 pm to 7 am in the morning for 14 days, its noted that this shift can be done only by permeant staff and those they are temporary are not allowed to participate into this shift.
After the choosing interested candidates which is 10 employees, they are informed how much they an get paid and working days and extra information they may need after one week.
In this strategies shows how Human recourse management has vital role to impact working and payment method and how they can cooperate with employees as well as manager of each department.
As we mention Human recourse (HR) and Management models must be adapted to different phases of being change of situations. To begin to change should be needed to firm, directive method, where the changed needs more supportive and consultative approach.
Having trust is the vital element and its first step for all the employees who are begin consider for that transition cycle.
As employees they need to believe their senior manager teams and human resource part as well.
If the change and transition structure and process are not managed as perfect as it should be then the company which is Harrods in this essay may be experience some of theses risks and factors:
Employees sickness being increased
Employees performance are getting reduced and starts being poor and in the result costumer wont be happy and satisfy
Employees scapegoat
The firm will start showing loss of creativity among employees
Employees resignation will be increased
How and when we can prepare employees for transition
The following key factors were first identified by Peter Herriot in his 1999 paper ‘Trust & Transition’:
- engage in real two-way dialogue, not one-way communication
- understand the organizational change from the employee’s perspective
- align the organizations human resources systems to support the employees in transition
- allow for individual differences in employees capacity to cope with change
- concentrate on providing adequate training, mentoring and coaching for employees affected by change
- equip managers and employees with the personal and leadership skills to manage change and the transition process.
At Harrods the Human reassure department strongly believe this factors which are made by Peter Herriot
Mentoring and coaching when the company starts for transition cycle and period
Mentoring and coaching could be very an important and vital role and key in supporting all the employees through this period of transition.
Knowing the employees transition right and how to approach to employees
As we know the business view and picture is growing and moving faster than before in our century. Going to bring and start transition to organization of each type of challenge around employees and firm, in Harrods when the organization are being changed by new legislation and regulation is finding and creating whole new organization and demise of others.
It may some employees can’t resist and fall down from this process to change
In the begging of the transition for managers and leaders, managing employee’s transition can be very challenging and seems to more than harder and difficult that it looks like.at Harrods most of the times employees are not happy with the changes and disagree with that is going to be happened. And the cuss of this unwanted changed the anxiety can be occur among the employment about their own security job and it means their decisions could be influenced by their emotion first at the work.
Because of that new challenge and transition among employees in Harrods the extra support and skills can be helpful for that matter.
In Harrods after being exist as a successful  company more than 160 years there are several way has shown to be vital element for that matter those are: the program structure and HR are skilled and supportive and the managers and leaders are also showing very helpful as well.
As we have said the organization maybe falls away and the responsibly are linked to them with a cycle of uncertainty, starting informal ways of making decisions are seems to be effective and useful.
Progress the central team as the first main decision maker at the right time will be very important for to solve this issue.
Most of the times its has shown extremely difficult to make a right decision when the shareholders and owners are getting involved, so we do can understand how this changed and transition will play out then. Having right and covered date can bring enough information in both situations. Company data brought together for other expert team and analysis. It can be new ways of understanding change into transition. It means it can provide very solid and stable base against which to report shareholders and owners and external partners they have influence and benefit from companies.
In the stage of transition process. The leaders and managers emotion can be an unhelpful element among the many that it need to managed.
Having and getting the right balance between and new in organization for transition:
For leaders organization change is likely is an exacting prospect and they will want to focus organization and what it will be like as soon as possible. Whoever senior leader need to focuses and split their attention in change into new and old towards setting up the new and the balance needs to move smoothly and slowly ass the change are progressing. We need to attention and focus that for moving and getting down to the smooth transition leaders need to be fully supported to get the right balanced.
Using the right and most experience and professional Human Recourse team available
By having and creating the right and strong core of Human resource management team who are used to working with ambiguity in a challenging environments is the main factor and key epically for Harrods.
True be told Harrods is one of the best company in retail business who wish to work for it among employees in the UK.
References:
2017 .PA . Getting employees transition right Keys : Claire Logan ( people and talent), Lesley Uren)
2016 , Increasing employees engagement through HRM : The times 100 business case study. Businesscasestudy.co.uk
2015. Case study: The HR in Harrods, how we helped a word famous department store create a work class HR department
Wikipedia : what is leadership and Human rescore management in general
2016 BBC.co.uk Business decision making areas 2: Human resource management
08.16.2013 Harrods of London, understanding business functions, training and development of employees, Ezissa Brock
12/01/2107 Harrods.com, how and what we are
12/01/2017 omnia.harrods.com, Harrods employees website
12/01/2017 http://www.harrodscareers.com/Â Futures, the retail academy, Harrods recruitment, retail management , HR department