Current Hr

Introduction

Nowadays human capitals can be regarded as the most precious assets to any business, just as Baron (1999) stated, human resources are essential for each organization to succeed or fail.

Within the studies of human resource management, a great deal of efforts haves been paid to research the impact of human resource management on the performance of the firms. For example, Wright et al (1994) examined the contributions of human resources to foster the sustainable competitive competence.

The majorities of the companies concentrate on their advancement of managing human resources and shape their own human resource philosophy and policies. L’Oréal - the top beauty company with 66,600 employees - is such a kind of companies, owning their own human resource management system that can be the key for L’Oréal to succeed.

The purpose of this essay is to use the academic knowledge, such as models, frameworks and theories to critically analyze the human resource polices in L’Oréal and to provide suggestions for L’Oréal to make sure that they can succeed in the cross border merger in the future. In the fist part, the HR model, the recruitment and selection processes, the rewards management system, the performance management system, the employment philosophy and the influences on staff motivation in L’Oréal will be critically analyzed. In the second part, the recommendations that are based on academic theories will be offered for L’Oréal to make sure the merger will be successful.

The HR model of L’Oréal

Truss et al (2001) stated that there are two influential models about the human resource management, one is the Harvard model based on the soft version (Beer et al, 1984), the other is Michigan model based on the hard version (Fombrun et al, 1984). The HR system of L’Oréal is designed on the Harvard model by analyzing their HR system.

The Harvard model has been designed based on the notion that human capitals are the most important and different...