HRM H&M
HRM H&M
HRM H&M
“HRM POLICIES”
(With Special Refernece H&M)”
PROJECT REPORT
SUBMITTED BY
June 2011
TABLE OF CONTENT
S.NO. DESCRIPTION PAGE NO.
1 Executive summary 3
6 Main competitors 5
9 Strategy of H&M 6
16 Reward management 17
17 Performance management 18
19 Recommendation 20
20 Conclusion 21
21 References 22
22 Appendix 24
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
The purpose of the study is to identify the future potential of the markets of H&M.
The company deals in fashion for women, men, children and teenagers. H&M’s
mission statement is ‘Fashion and Quality at best price’. This study consists of
strategic human resource challenges, leadership, reward management and team
management. All the data is collected from various internet sources, journals,
magazines and books on the competitors, company, and market factors. In this the
process of identification, evaluation and analysis is followed to know the various
human resource challenges and various theories that are used by H&M. The study
also includes the various HR policy and functions of H&M. There are various
recruitment and selection policies that are also taken into consideration. The
management intends to explore the complexities involve within, outside and
internationally –of these envisaged challenges, and requires advice on the possible
strategy for the application of a change management initiative for H&M. It is believed
that a comprehensive understanding of the idea behind each criticism and strategies
will help inform better judgment on the subject.
Human resource management helps in hiring the right person at right place, want
their people to do their best, proper utilization of time and helps to give proper
training to their employees. HRM helps in employing right person at right place with
right skills. HRM encourage the employees to achieve the organizational goals and
high performance of the company.
The main aim of the study is to critically analyze and valuate the strategic human
resource management of H&M. The study will include the HR function and policy of
the company. We will also study the recruitment and selection procedure of the
company.
H&M was established in 1947 by Erling Persson in Sweden. The first H&M offer
high quality fashion and quality at its best price. The company deals in fashion for
men, women, teenagers and children. H&M also deals in cosmetics, accessories
and footwear. They have around 2000 stores across the world. Online shopping is
currently available in Sweden, Finland, Norway, Denmark, Germany, Austria and
UK. All the stores are refreshed with new items on daily basis. The collection is
created by around 100-in house designers together with pattern and buyer makers.
The company has around 28 production offices around the world. The company
does not have its own production units; instead have around 700 suppliers mainly in
Asia and Europe from where it buys its goods. They have around 16 production units
around the world. H&M has about 76,000 people working in the company. H&M’s
employees are very dedicated and focused for their work which makes a major
contribution to company’s success. The company provides proper training and
special courses to their employees which is paid out of the company’s budget.
Moreover the company believes in individual ability and motivates them to grow
further. The turnover for the year 2009 was SEK 118,697 million. Germany is H&M’s
number one market producing more than 25% of the sales.
‘Fashion and quality at the best price’ is the company’s mission statement.
MAIN COMPETITOR’S
• ZARA
• GAP
• NEW LOOK
• NEXT
• RIVER ISLAND
• Human resource must be more involved in designing- not just executing- the
company’s strategic plan.
• New strategy
Strategy of H&M
The main strategy of H&M is to provide fashion and quality at the best price. The
annual report of the company for the year 2008 mainly emphasize that ‘quality’
relates to two things; products of the company exceeding expectation of the
company and the second is that the customers are being satisfied with the company.
In the annual report for the year 2008, the CEO of H&M Rolf Ericsson said that the
long term goals of the company is to “Make fashion available to everyone, give the
customer a fashion experience that strengthens H&M brand”. They also state that
the goal of the company is also to increase the number of stores to 10 to 15% every
year while focusing on continued profits and quality of the products. In 2010 the
company plan to add around 240 more new stores.
To achieve the targets H&M has to focus on the following main aspects of its
business concept:
• Price: the price can be controlled by limiting the middlemen, buying the right
product from right production markets, effective distribution procedures,
reducing economies of scale by buying in large volume.
The human resource manager has to perform some functions in any organization.
The human resource managers carry out various distinct functions like line function,
coordinative function and staff functions. From the below diagram we can see that
performance is the main function of all human resource components. The best
suited people are selected to perform the particular task. Then motivating the
employees to work hard and then rewarding them for their performance. Reward,
appraisal and development in human resource system are based on the concept of
‘corporate culture’ so as to sustain the values of the company and to support the
system. (Bratton, j. and Gold, J.2007). The below table explains the concept of
human resource cycle.
Reward
Performance Appraisal
Selection
Development
The corporate objective of H&M is to expand worldwide and hence with the
continuous increase in the employee strength. The staff H&M is spread
approximately across 33 countries which come from different cultural background.
Their strategy is to recruit local people whenever they open they open the new store.
The main policies of H&M can be categorized as:
• Overall policies and values: the website of the H&M indicates that the
company’s main objective is to be a good employer. At H&M, the HR activities
are guided in such a way that every individual have equal fundamental rights.
This means that every one will have fair wages and working hours. They all
will have full freedom of association to the opportunity for overall growth and
development within the company.
• Employee relation and voice: H&M’s employees have equal right and
opportunities to discuss any work related issues directly with the
management. Every employee have the right to choose and to decide who
should represent them in the workforce. H&M have good relations with the
trade union and they welcome such relation where ever they operate. The
company thinks that such relation are essential for the betterment of the
company.
• Promotion: Mr. Pär Darj, head of HR at H&M said that, “Internal recruitment
and job rotation enable the company to grow quickly.” (AR1, 2009). This
states the H&M policy related to promotion.
• Employee development: H&M gives its employees full and equal opportunity
to grow and develop within the organization which in turn will help the
company to grow more quickly.
• Rewards: H&M not only reward the employees through promotion and job
titles but also focus on rewarding people by giving them more opportunities
and responsibilities.
Recruitment is all about choosing ‘a right person for right job’. Recruitment is defined
by various authors:
qualifications matches functions for the relevant posts. It can also be well described as ‘heart’
of the organization.
THREE TYPES OF RECRUITMENT NEEDS
PLANNED: An organization always need new employees this may because of new
recruitment policy of the company or due to some other changes.
UNEXPECTED: There may be any unexpected happening in the company like death of an
employee or some accident or may be due to illness etc. These all leads to unexpected
recruitment.
ANTICIPATED: The need of such recruitment is required by seeing the internal or external
environment.
• Image/goodwill • Planning
These are the major recruitment factors which are taken into consideration before doing
recruitment in an organization.
Source of recruitment
Internals Externals
• Upgrading • Placement
agencies/outsourcing
• Demotion
• Employment exchange
• Retired employees
• Labour contractors
• Retrenched employees
• Employee referrals
• Dependents & relatives
of decreased • Recruitment at factory
employees gate
These are the main sources of recruitment from where an organization can hire its employees.
The main priority of an organization is to recruit internally and then take into consideration
the external sources.
H&M group has around 76,000 employees. The ability of an employee and their
entrepreneurial spirit make them the best assets of H&M. The corporate culture of
H&M has been one of the major factor in enabling them one of the world’s largest
fashion company and at the same time enjoying the high profitability.
In H&M personal qualities are given more preference than formal qualification.
According to the head of HR department of H&M all the university credits and great
grades in the world does not give any guarantee of getting a job or a fast-track
career. The company look for people with right personality, more than anything else.
H&M belief that skills can be gathered as you go, but you cannot taught personality
and right attitude to a person. Since the tempo of the company is always high and is
a fast growing company, therefore employees who are self driven and who have the
capability of direct communication are the main requirement of the company. Hence
people who likes decision making and responsibility are recruited by the company.
Therefore information provided by the career sites, and from the interviewed
candidates shows their love for fashion with their focus on sales. These are the
basic requirement for H&M to recruit the employees and drive its basis for selection
process. This feedback from candidates indicates that the interview is mostly
‘structured situational based’ (Armstrong (2006), p.447), which include latest fashion
trends and customer service. The selection is followed by panel of interviews and
sample test. Candidates are filtered at each stage of selection process.
INTERNAL RECRUITMENT: This means when the company hire from their own
staff. This is mainly the first choice of recruitment by the company.
EXTERNAL RECRUITMENT: outside people are encouraged to apply for the job in
the stores, from the career website. The company doesn’t offer any work experience
placement or summer jobs. H&M mainly recruits local people for their new store.
Training is the process of teaching new employees the basic skills they need to
perform at their job. Robin writes that:
• Reduces absenteeism
• Increase in productivity
PROCESS OF TRAINING
1. Need analysis: the first step is to identify the specific job performance skills
required by the employees.
TRAINING METHODS
Training must be provided by all the personnel, whether or not academic education
at a university, college or technician was a prerequisite of employment. The
following are the various methods of training:
Apprenticeship training
Lectures
Programmed learning
Internet-based training
• Off-the-job training: there are many off the job training and developing
managers.
Management games
Outside seminars
University-related programs
Role playing
Conferences
• Development
• Professional development
DEVELOPMENT:
Modern approach: according to this approach the companies have realize the
importance training and development. They have turn out to give fruitful results.
Designer
Evaluator
Each employee in H&M has to undergo a training process. The training period
depends on staff to staff. In 2009, for a new staff the average number of days are
10, for existing sale staff it is 1 and for existing management positions the training
period is 5. All the training in H&M is mainly in-house (classroom, stores and one to
one) which is written and produced by the H&M staff. For some areas like ‘buying’
external training is provided. E-learning concept is also initiated as a new subject.
However, H&M mainly focuses on “just-in time”, on-the-job and hands on learning.
For instance, when the company open its first store in Japan, the employees who
were locally recruited were sent to Norway and Germany. This is done basically to
gain experience and to learn the existing operations. H&M claims that they provide
structured opportunities for hands on, work place and on-the-job based training.
(career site).
REWARD MANAGEMENT
Total reward
model
Quality of work
Engaged
Performan
Future ce Inspiration/values
growth
Enabling environment
Everyone want to be recognized for his or her work and their contribution make in
the maintenance, establishment and development of the company. This involve not
only the basic pay, but include many incentives like fringe benefits. This may differ
from employee to employee depending on their post. Every organization have
different criteria of measuring the performance of the employees. Some involve
length of service while other involve performance appraisals or it may be type of job
or company performance. The modern approach is gradually replacing the
traditional approach.
• Motivation to employees
• Efficiency in administration
TYPES OF REWARDS
There are two types of rewards: intrinsic and extrinsic. Extrinsic rewards are mainly
for satisfying the basic needs, survival and security. They are mainly given to lower
level employees. Intrinsic rewards are mainly for the higher level employees like
directors and the managers.
The career website of the H&M indicates that the company offers many benefits like
incentive bonuses, staff discounts, company sick pay, pension scheme and private
health care schemes. The HR head of the company indicates that they do not
considered pay structure and titles as motivational tools. Though more and more
opportunities for the fulfillment of employee’s aspirations are provided more. Apart
from these employees satisfaction is the main reward as derived from the career
website and the annual report of the company. Thus H&M gives more emphasis on
relational work along with transactional reward. H&M reward management strategy
is link with HR strategy of ‘job rotation’, ‘open doors’ etc in consistent with other HR
areas which includes recruitment/selection, organizational culture etc. this becomes
essential for the fulfillment of H&M strategy of fast growth.
H&M has adopted an integrated and strategic approach for achieving there
organizational goal through the improved performance of the employees. The growth
of the employees and the organization are inter related. The practice of the shop
manager i.e. to review the daily business with their subordinates is the part of
performance management activity. This indicates that H&M has been successful in
bringing the managers and subordinates as a team. Delegation of authority to
manage the shop’s activity is the key factor for the success of an organization.
This section basically includes how HRM practices have made the contribution in the
success of H&M as an organization. H&M is a successful multinational company.
The main success of H&M basically lies in the business model of the company. All
the designing procedure is being done internally and centrally. The whole
manufacturing is being outsourcing with no compromise on the quality of the
product. The company has their local retailing with hired places, and that to with
local staff and local shop mangers with full power to take the decisions. The reason
behind the success and growth of the company lies in H&M’s formatted strategy in
line with corporate strategy. While entering into the new market the company does
not lose their core values which can be seen evaluated from their annual report. The
company is successful in managing all the core values in respect of country and
cultural differences.
H&M is expanding its business in almost all the countries. By their HR procedures
and policies, all the staff for their new store is recruited locally. Moreover the
company also practices job rotation and movement of their employees from one
location to another by internal recruitment like promotions. This help in bringing the
people of different culture to work together as a team for the success of the
organization. The HR strategy as stated in the annual report is as:
• To fulfill the people’s expectations of H&M, company has develop the global
guide lines on equal rights, diversity and against discrimination.
• The objective of H&M is to be a good employer, not only in a particular
country but the countries whose laws and regulations are very strict. This may
include law regarding wages, freedom of association to opportunity for overall
development and growth of the company and working hours.
• H&M has good relations with trade unions and they maintain such relations
where ever the company operates.
The success of the company indicates that the HR practices have been successful
in managing the diversity in groups and teams.
The group sale excluding VAT of H&M for the financial year 2009 is SEK is 101,393
m, which is an increase of 15% if we compare to the same month of the last year.
The profits after financial items of the financial year was SEK 22,103 m. the group
profit of the company after tax was SEK 16,384 m. the increase in sales during the
year was weak, which may be due to several factors. This may be because of
recession and also the fact that the market was discount-driven. The average
number of employees in 2009 was 53476.
RECOMMENDATIONS
According to the study, H&M should maintain its strategic growth and try to seek
new opportunities in this apparel market. The company should try to become the
largest market for trendy clothes. H&M should try to expand its online selling. They
should try and maintain their positive outlook for the future market. H&M should try
increasing its sales in the existing stores. They should try and maintain the quality of
the products as the consumers gives more attention to quality than price or they can
price the item based on the quality offered. H&M should try and improve more on
customer satisfaction. Moreover to increase the sales at the existing stores H&M can
improve the product quality as the consumers are more sensitive about the quality
than on pricing. H&M can also price the item based on the quality. They can even
use bamboo fabric and becomes the number one to use that and can have the first
mover advantage. H&M can introduce the products with innovative features i.e.
combining the high skilled and experienced designer that to with modern technology
e.g. simulation. The company can even sell other brand cosmetics like L’Oreal,
Maybelline, etc. H&M can do more advertisement specially when introducing the
new product. They can improve customer satisfaction using surveys. The company
should try and provide full collection in all the stores. They should start online selling
in every country. The company should train the employees much better and should
always motivate them. H&M should keep on doing regular surveys which will help
the company in gaining more ideas and improving on their drawbacks.
CONCLUSION
It can be concluded that the company is growing rapidly and is opening its branches
in many parts of the world. H&M has fully balanced the needs of autonomy,
coordination and control and even maintained the appropriate balance between
them. The best part of H&M is that the employees can communicate freely and
easily. Proper training and development is provided to the employees who mark
them as the best assets of the company. The company is open to customer’s ideas
and initiatives. Moreover every employee contributes their experience as there are
various challenges that are faced by them. And most important the H&M never
compromises on its quality and always tries to give best at the best price. They also
have a major impact on HR aspects like recruitment needs, facilitating rewards,
pension schemes and proper training and development to the staff. Moreover in
2011, H&M is ready to open its three stores in Croatia, one in Split and two in
Zagreb. H&M is also ready to enter in Singapore and is opening its first store in
Autumn 2011 which is located on Orchard road. Therefore, H&M has the full ability
to compete in the apparel industry.
REFERENCES:
Books:
Reports:
Available at
http://www.hm.com/gb/investorrelations/financialreports/annualreports__inves
torannualreports.nhtml
http://www.hm.com/gb/investorrelations/financialreports/annualreports__inves
torannualreports.nhtml
http://ethicalperformance.com/reports/links/hm-sustainability09
• Larenaudie, S.R. (2004), Inside The H&M Fashion Machine, Time Magazine
Available at
http://www.time.com/time/2004/style/020904/article/inside_the_h_m_fashion_
01a.html
• DWYER, J. (2010), A Clothing Clearance Where More Than Just the Prices
Have Been Slashed, The New York Times
Available at
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/06/nyregion/06about.html
Available at
(http://www.hm.com/gb/press__press.nhtml)
Available at
(https://hm.myvurv.taleo.net/main/careerportal/)
Available at
http://www.vogue.co.uk/news/daily/090617-jimmy-choo-collaborates-with-hm.asp
Websites:
Available at
http://www.hm.com/gb/press/pressreleases/corporate/financepressrelease.ah
tml?pressreleaseid=526975&nodeid=336
Available at
http://www.researchandmarkets.com/reports/555050/h_and_m_hennes_and_
mauritz_ab_swot_analysis
Available at
www.hm.com
APPENDIX
HR DATA
EMPLOYEES
EMPLOYEES PER JOB CATEGORY (% OF TOTAL WORKFORCE)*