The Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations 1985 (RIDDOR) set out that injuries resulting from accidents at work where an employee is incapacitated for three or more days must be reported to the authorities within seven days. Injuries involving fatalities must be notified immediately by the most practical means (e. g. by phone). Listed diseases must also be notified. Boots, therefore, will keep statistics on both minor accidents at work (i. e. ones however minor that involve some form of first aid) and accidents that have to be reported to the authorities under RIDDOR.
Accident statistics relating to particular industries and organisations can then be collected nationally. In addition, Marks and Spencer and other organisations will want to keep internal statistics to make sure that undesirable trends do not occur. In the course of time Marks and Spencer will want to see accident rates falling. Accident rates can be calculated simply as a number of accidents per year within a chosen unit (team, firm, industry etc). In calculating accident rates in a particular industry or firm, the most accurate method is to calculate the statistics according to each employee working in the industry.
This is because some industries employ far more people than others and because the numbers employed change over time. Statistics for age, skills and training As earlier explained in the report, Marks and Spencer will have a range of employees who have worked for different lengths of time and who have different levels of skills and training. The human resource planner will seek to have a balance of new people entering Marks and Spencer in order to cover those who are leaving.
The human resource planner will also want to make sure that skill levels are rising within Marks and Spencer and that training programmes are devised to make sure people have the skills to meet the job requirements. If all of Marks and Spencer’ skilled workers are just about to retire, then the company is quickly going to have to spend money on training to build up a new pool of expertise. Succession Succession is the way in which one person follows another into a particular job or role within a company. Marks and Spencer needs to make sure it is grooming people to take on the responsibilities required.
If it does not do this, it will suddenly find itself with a vacuum where it has not developed the appropriate positions of responsibility and the company will be missing the right people in key positions to hold the organisation together. The external labour market This is a market of potential employees for Marks and Spencer or any particular organisation to choose from when recruiting more workers. The employees are usually listed locally, regionally or nationally whom have the skills and experience required at a particular time. The national labour market
When Marks and Spencer examine the supply of the labour market, a number of factors need to be taken into consideration: The one factor that will definitely affect the human resource department of Boots is the changes in the age distribution of the UK population. To meet their human resource requirements, the company now have to look further a field when recruiting new staff, as there is now fewer school leavers and young workers available for employment. This may involve recruiting more women to balance out the organisations male to female ratio or more elderly employees to gain that further experience into the workforce.
Competition for labour Persons of specific qualifications such as ICT may be offered more attractive wage packages than other members of Marks and Spencer’ workforce, as the competition for recruiting these rare potential employees is high. In other words – Organisations compete with each other by offering potential employees with rare qualifications high wage packages. The overall level of economic activity The demand for employees can be determined by whether the economy is in a boom or recession period.
If there is a high demand for goods and services Marks and Spencer’ productivity will increase along with sales and profit. More demand for the products or services leads to a higher demand rate for employees. If the unemployment rate is at a low, the economy will be at a high. However, this factor can make it extremely difficult for human resource planners to recruit the right sorts of employees with the correct sorts of skills. Education and training opportunities With higher education opportunities evermore increasing – young people are seeking to gain more qualifications in order to advance to a higher paid occupation.
Because over recent years the level of higher education opportunities has grown the level of skilled workers coming into the labour market has decreased. Young people appreciate the need for higher skill levels in order to compete in the job market. The effect of government policies Government legislation can affect the labour market in a number of ways. The government provides incentives to organisations to employ and train people. Where such incentives are available, they will reduce the costs of labour and therefore have implications for human resource planning.
The lifelong learning in this country (and in Europe) has meant the general skill levels of the working population have been improving. With new courses such as the AVCE (Advanced Vocational Certificates in Education) and NVQs (National Vocational Qualifications) being taken by an increased amount of people has led to a rise in skill level in the economy. The reasons for this happening are that the curriculum in schools makes it a necessity for pupils to attain the required grades in literacy, numeracy and information and communication technology skills for the future of the economy.
By giving organisations incentives to recruit young people and the unemployed, the government has given the economy a high increase in the supply of labour. Local employment For Marks and Spencer and many other organisations, the state of the local labour market is as significant as what is happening nationally or regionally. Marks and Spencer need to know about the supply of labour in the locations where they are operating. The company needs to know about current and future supply trends. A report published in December 2000 showed that it is a gross simplification to think of the UK simply in terms of north-south divide.
The report showed that a more accurate picture is of a relatively prosperous south with pockets of poverty and a relatively less prosperous north with pockets of prosperity. In the jobs market the gaps between regional unemployment rates in 2001 were lower than they had been for over 20 years, but the south-east had far lower employment (3. 7%) than the north-east (10. 1%). The south-east also had the highest proportion of its working-age population in employment, the lowest proportion of the UK workforce with no qualifications and the lowest proportion claiming benefits.
These sorts of statistics are essential to a business organisation such as Marks and Spencer in understanding local supply conditions, and are looked upon into more detail further on in the report. Further information is provided by local employment offices and job centres, which hold details of unemployment figures of their particular areas. Local employment trends Local employment levels give an indication of the general availability of labour and suggest whether it will be easy or difficult to recruit. It is also important to find out more about which organisations in a locality have been laying off workers.
Often, when a major employer closes down or discards labour, this provides an opportunity for another local company, which may be able to employ the workers who have been made redundant. These employees might have the right sorts of occupational or transferable skills that could be applied to similar work. A study of local employment trends will give an idea of whether demand for certain types of work is rising or falling. Where demand increases this will lead to shortages. Local skills shortages Within any area at one time, there will be jobs that are going into decline because the skills required for those jobs are becoming redundant.
At the same time, new skills and capabilities will be emerging, and demand for these will be rising faster than supply. As a result, skills shortages will arise and these will cause considerable frustration for local employers. The wages of people in the skills shortages areas will be rising and there will be competition to recruit and retain these scarce employees. Where a local shortage occurs, employers will often seek to advertise and recruit in other areas, regions or even countries. This is why, for example, there are many doctors from over seas working in both private practice and for the National Health Service in the UK.
Marks and Spencer need to be aware of local skills shortages so they can develop their own training programmes to make sure there are enough people coming through with the skills required. They will also work together with local employers in the same industry to support local school, college and university courses that train people the skills required for these specific industries. Competition for employees Marks and Spencer will be interested to know whether its competitors are expanding and, therefore, increasing the demand for labour, or whether local redundancies mean labour is more readily available.
