Human resource management in Carrefour

My role of Human Resource Consultant , is to analyse the function and the purpose of the Personnel Department within the Carrefour organisation . Usually , the life of a company is described by results, figures , indicators ,forgetting one of the most important aspect: The Human Resource aspect of the company. The people within the company are valuable assets witch influence and helps the development of the organisation , and because of that , the Human Resource Management is very important . How well an organisation obtains, maintains and retains its human resources determines its success or failure.

William Werther and Keits Davis (1993:10) suggest that:” The purpose of Human Resource management is to improve the productive contribution of people of the organisation in an ethical and socially responsible way”. In practice, human resource management achieve its purpose by meeting objectives. II. Theory Aims and Objectives The objectives are benchmarks against witch actions are evaluated. There are four types of objectives that are common to human resource management:

1. Societal objectives -its about meeting social and legal responsibilities within the employment field. Being one of the PEST factors , social environment influence any company’s activity. Any firm is recruiting its human resources from society ,so the organisation must be ethically and socially responsible to the needs and challenges of society . The failure of the organisation to use their resources for society’s benefit in ethical ways, may result in restrictions. The most common societal concerns are about discrimination , safety etc.
2. Organisational objectives – to recognise that human resource management exists to contribute to organisational effectiveness and to assist the organisation with its primary objectives. The personnel department exists to serve the rest of the organisation and its duty is to obtain, utilise and develop human resources to achieve this objective. Obtaining involves recruitment and selections, utilising- manpower planning and developing -appraising, training and promoting.
3. Functional objectives – the personnel department needs to contribute to organisational goals and also to help in the management of change through its specific activities(training , recruitment/selection , appraisal) and through consultation , participation and education ,enabling the organisation to change.
4.  Personal objectives- to create and maintain effective relationships within organisation by offering to the employees assistance in achieving their personal goals. Personal objectives of employees must be met if workers are to be maintained , retained and motivated. Otherwise , employee performance and satisfaction may decline and employees may leave the organisation.

Personnel Department Activities

To achieve its purpose and objectives , the personnel department obtains, develops utilises, evaluates , maintains and retains the right numbers and types of workers to provide an appropriate workforce. Werther and Davis (1993:13) say in their descriptions of Human Resources and Personnel Management ” Human Resource activities are those actions to provide and maintain an appropriate workforce for the organisation “. The human resource activities are different from one organisation from another , because of the size of the organisation. Large personnel departments are usually “full-service”. This means that activity is very complex and includes:

• Employee relations – human resource departments are establishing policies and assisting managers to ensure employee retention, satisfaction and performance. Here we can meet
• Industrial relations: developing communication systems designed to promote co-operation between employees and employers.
• Participation : Jointly involving management and employees in making decisions on matters of mutual interest.
• Communications: Promoting organisation effectiveness through the design of informational channels that ensure that the right information is available to the right people at the right time.

Discipline/ grievance – there are numerous incidents or situation that can lead to an employee to holding a grievance (sex assault, safety hazards, dealing with conflict); internal rules and legislation and writing grievance and discipline procedures are required Health and Safety/Welfare – health and safety policies aim to protect people against the hazards arising from their employment. Occupational health programmes are concerned with the prevention of ill-health arising from work Safety programmes deal with the prevention of accidents ensuring the safety of everyone within the workplace.

Welfare is about providing leisure, counselling and other support services for employees(medical insurance The main objectives of the Carrefour Personnel Department is to become an employer of reference in the modern distribution. Carrefour is doing that by thinking new training projects. Carrefour is aiming to stimulate intercultural communication facilitate new employee exchange between collaborators from different countries , sending employees abroad through exchange programs which can share experiences with others.

Carrefour also believes in teenage power. In 1999 a group of 20 young Romanian graduates was trained for 9 months in French Carrefour stores and in the same time at the Professional Institute from Clermont Ferrand . There , they learned about the business management and now they are managers in different departments in the first hypermarket in Bucharest . The investment in such training programs costs the French Group about 3 million FF.