Table of Contents
Introduction to Woolworths
Woolworths limited is a chain of supermarkets in Australia owned by the Woolworths group. On the Woolworths online store, you’ll find various things of the best quality at reasonable prices. Woolworth’s stores open at 7 am and close at 9 pm every day except Sunday. Woolworths is the second-largest supermarket company in Australia and was founded in 1924. The company has experienced tremendous growth in the Australian retail market, and various factors have led to this exponential growth. According to the Integrated Annual report of Woolworths 2020, it is an organization with highly qualified people coming from all across the country, a solid IT infrastructure, and supporting supply chain processes implemented across the company. Furthermore, HR is the base of Woolworths’ business, and the company has a distinct culture and strategy for protecting its consumers. The organization has a long-term commitment to developing internal capabilities from diverse groups of people. Employees with a diverse background can bring up new ideas, leading to increased creativity and innovation which tend to perform better and as part of that commitment, it employs a diverse workforce. Woolworths is trusted in diversity that ensures equal opportunities for all. Woolworths embrace a diverse workforce to add skilled people to the organization.
The corporation ensures that its employees receive proper training, which helps them achieve its strategic goals in the market (Culture and Strategy of Woolworths, 2014)
Human resource management strategy
The Human Resources Management strategy was popularly known for attracting the most suitable candidates for vacant positions, identifying the strongest applicants, hiring them, and evaluating and rewarding them based on their performance. But recently, the human resources department has evolved and mainly focuses on planning, business growth, employee retention, innovation, and inspiration to keep the company on the high end of the competition – from introducing incentive programs for hardworking employees to identifying and resolving organizational problems.
Human resources management strategy is the process of linkage between the needs of human resources and the organization’s strategic plan to ensure proper recruitment so employees are qualified and skilled to support the organization in achieving its strategic goals. Internally, businesses and organizations are highly affected by high employee turnover and retirements. Externally, businesses are affected by technological advancements and changes in consumers’ needs and demands. Excellent human resource management always has backup to maintain the organization’s growth and make a competitive advantage by reducing employee turnover.
Woolworth’s strategic human resources management
Woolworths has a vast network of supermarket chains and millions of employees are working over there. To get the most out of its human capital, Woolworths generates high employee engagement, therefore, the company has a centralized and streamlined human resource strategy. HRM strategy is an essential aspect of every organization’s success. Woolworths HR ensures the organizations hire employees who are the right fit for the company. Woolworths HR is an excellent team, that employs a long and strict recruitment process to build a strong team for the company. HR is the top priority of the company because they always rely on its HR to onboard top quality and skilled people, which helps the company to deliver high-quality products and services to their consumers. Furthermore, Woolworths faced the challenge of diversity adoption by hiring employees in newly invested countries i.e: New Zealand, Hong Kong, Singapore, and South Africa.
Woolworth’s strategy is straightforward: they satisfy consumers by reducing prices, increasing market share by decreasing expenses, and improving all the aspects of customer experience. Woolworths has managed to implement its HRM policies effectively and keep its staff motivated. Woolworths also has a unique HR department that helps in the management of training programs as well as the promotion of its employees. These are multiple policies followed by Woolworths’ HRM strategies:
Recruitment and selection Woolworths
Woolworths hire talented and skilled people to ensure that each operational activity is performed in the best manner. Woolworths advertise their job vacancies online so every deserving candidate can equally avail the opportunity. It has been determined that Woolworths respects anti-discrimination rules as well as equal employment opportunity rules to hire the best, most qualified, and skilled employees.
Merit-based recruitment
Woolworth’s recruitment process is entirely based on merit. The company hires employees based on skills and good performance. The minimum age required is 16 or above, and age limitations may vary depending on the country. Candidates can apply for various jobs based on relevance.
Equal Opportunities
The human resources of Woolworths believe in extending equal opportunities to create a compelling and diverse workplace. At Woolworths, 54% of the employees are women, and 42% of managers are women; hence, Woolworth’s commitment to equal representation of women in leadership posts (Promoting gender equality) has been validated. (Woolworths group, 2021)
Induction and training
Woolworths announced to invest of $50M in Employee training and development programs to develop skills in employees according to the current working trends. (February 2021). Woolworths also often trains their newly hired employees to increase working efficiency and skills base. An Orientation is also provided to its new employees to ensure how the organization works to increase knowledge.
Managing performance of employees
Woolworths HR has an eye on how staff performance and has adopted multiple initiatives to increase the performance of its employees. Regular check on employees’ performance decreases the communication gap and helps to manage good performance. To enhance the performance outcome, Woolworths provides compensation as well.
Woolworth’s HR roles and Duties
Woolworths HR is recruiting skilled and talented people in the organization. The HR department’s most considerable duty is to manage the company’s discipline, and healthy work culture to ensure that a disciplined workspace is maintained. It also guarantees that employees are working in a safe environment. Woolworths and its HR staff showed a solid commitment to providing a safe and clean working environment for its employees, so as not to get exposed to the COVID-19 virus while on the job.
