Harrods case study

Harrods case study

The people in an organization are more valuable than the buildings and the machinery and even more valuable than the capital investment. Employees provide an asset that is unique in the market in terms of personality, character and decision making. These three aspects are what make the difference in performance; creativity leads to new unique products, strategic decision making provides opportunities that never existed and customer relations brings about customer loyalty. These are aspects that cannot be acquired from standardized inputs and therefore human resource management is a very crucial aspect of an organisation.

Harrods make attention about the HRM because it's about valuing and developing people at work and this company want to cover all the aspects of developing employees including the recruitment and selection, performance and development. in 2009 “ engaging for success “ was a big step from harrods to take the HRM from executing orders to trust employees in making decisions.

Harrods adapted this theory by changing their organisational structure so it can be with less hierarchical with less layers so the employees can take more responsibilities and make more satisfaction about their job .They also did a Changing leadership so the employees can make decisions themselves. Harrods also improved their communication, so all the employees can be informed about the strategy, the operational plans of the company without any layers problem.

Harrods key of success is due to the ability of all employees to give feedback on every aspect of how HARRODS operates.

Leadership is important in shaping the culture of an organisation. There are two opposite poles in terms of leadership:

• Autocratic which is about telling employees what to do.
• Democratic which is about giving the employees the voice for change.

 HARRODS leadership focus is at the democratic end of the spectrum. There are three main elements of the democratic leadership approach:

1.  Talent spotting which means identifying people who can make important contributions to Harrods.
2. Mentoring and coaching in Harrods managers are encouraged to communicate and advice employees trough face to face interactions, acting as a coach helps the line managers to develop their managerial skills.
3.  Support networks it’s about meeting regularly others managers to share ideas and issues.

The employees have to be motivated and feel the need that they can do something well, the need to be part of a group, and the need for respect and encouragement from others. The ultimate purpose of this is to make the employee feel that the culture has changed and they have played a part in the improvement. Harrods consider it employees the organisation itself, not only a part of the organisation.

in a nutshell, HRM is an actual function of the organisation. It helps to build a connection with employees by positively engaging them and by making them feel that their ideas are important in the decisions of Harrods.

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