Armani Industry Case Study

HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT 1 (HRMT16127)

ASSIGNMENT #1

AJAY XAVIER

SHERIDAN COLLEGE

As a staff of human resource department at Armani Canada and they are undertaking a review of the organisation policies, practices and systems with the goal of providing a workplace that is free from discrimination and harassment.

PROFILE OF ARMANI INDUSTRY

Armani exchange is an italian fashion house. The company designs, manufactures, distributes and retails fashion and lifestyle products, including apparel, accessories, eyewEAR and jewellery, in 200 stores worldwide. Giorgio Armani is the founder of this company. This company which I chose have four Armani clothing stores all over Toronto ("Giorgio Armani S.p.A. - Company Profile, Information, Business Description, History, Background Information on Giorgio Armani S.p.A.", 2016). Most of the people working are high school, college  graduated. And rest of the people who are in the main posts like Managerial, they all are Post graduates.  This company have unskilled workers like labours, people who are designers will be professionals, manufacturer teams are technically qualified and also many skilled workers who show their skills in the field of advertising, taking proper surveys from the customers for the profit making etc. People with professional designation certificates will be given the first preference by the company as they have extra experience in this particular field. The employer is looking for someone who has past experience in the field of sales and retail with added experience in customer support and service ("Giorgio Armani Application, Jobs & Careers Online", 2010). The people who work here has a minimum age of 18 years to a maximum of approximately 55 years old. We can say that this company is a both male and female dominated company because there is only a slight change compared to men and women. 48% of women are working as the supervisors in the shops while men are the rest. In the case of a retail salesperson, men are holding 59% whereas women are 41% (2016).  Armani have different people working from all over the world like Indians, Pakisthanis. But the major proportion working here is Canadians. So we can say that the work force here is diverse ("Diversity in the Workplace: Benefits, Challenges and Solutions", 2016).

NATURE OF THE WORK

The working hours for this stores from Monday – Saturday are 10:00am to 9:00pm. And for the Sundays with less working hours from 11:00am to 7:00pm ("Armani Exchange | Vaughan Mills, premier outlet mall", 2016). This company have both part-time and full-time workers with different payments. In full-time, there are also people working here for contract and permanent basis. And the people who work here for the part-time have 2 shifts, one for the morning and one for the evening ("Armani Exchange Reviews", 2016). Armani exchange has a fast paced working condition with regular direct interaction with the customers. This is not at all a dangerous work, as this company mostly have jobs which require one to interact with the customers. This job doesn’t have a life-threatening work environment, so it is not mandatory to have a  safety equipment. This organisation requires a little bit of travelling, for the purpose of restocking or moving products from one warehouse to another warehouse or a store. Armani have a number of job positions like Sales Associate, Store Manager, Brand ambassador, Associate Manager, Assistant Manager, Retail Sales Associate, Sales Assistant, Sales Consultant, Management, Style Specialist ("Armani Exchange Reviews", 2016).

Employment practises and procedures 

Like any other organisation, Armani also have regular annual meetings. From my research, I understood that the dress code for the workers in Armani is very liberal. Armani used to have a fixed uniform pattern like a formal shirt and pants in the past but now, the workers are free to wear a sporty kind of jackets, shoes etc. And I also saw that workers in the Armani wearing their own Armani t-shirts, jackets, shoes provided by the company. This organisation do have a pre-employment test to find out the best employers who are more skilled and sales focused. By doing this they can increase the company’s sales, therefore profit. Armani is a company which gives more importance to the workers who have more talent in interaction with the customers. So through pre-employment testing, the company can determine the employees they want (“A|X Armani Exchange implements Assess Systems pre-employment solution”, 2014). Armani have different types of Promotional Practices like coupon codes, extra discounts for regular customers etc. (“RetailMeNot.com Coupon Codes and Discounts”, 2016)

THREE HUMAN RIGHTS CHALLENGES

1. One of the human right challenges might happen here in this Armani Company is religion. Because of the diversity in the workers working here. For a country like Canada, there will be issues regarding some human rights because of the migrants from all over the world. Religion is one among the direct grounds of discrimination. They are many workers in these kinds of industries who complaints to the HR department because of the various problems they are facing like, the company programmes, food they provide during special days like some of the people won’t eat special kind of foods because of their belief, time for the prayer in between the working time (especially by Muslims) etc. As a person in HR department, we can take some steps to prevent all those things by informing details like the companies style, a way of giving importance to the religious concept, at the time of hiring employees. Some of the issues faced by the workers which I stated above can be solved by arrangement of programmes according to all the employees’ opinion, a common food for all the people and moreover, it’s also important to remember the employees that you are dealing with the work, focus only on the business and the companies productivity. Once an employee requests for an accommodation here in the company, the company can’t ignore that by initiating a religious discuss and good faith, whereas the employer should set a Bona Fide Occupational Requirement (BFOR) so that the employees can’t complain later on.

1. Gender identity is one of the human right challenges in this area. There are people who are feeling discomfort because of their gender issues like they are not getting the freedom to change their dress, harassments because of the often usage of gender-specific bathrooms, no space for them to specify their gender in the job application form provided by the company etc. From the company point of view all should be treated equally even if they employee is a gay, lesbian or a transgender. Employers can put this to an end by including some of the details or adding some of the facilities. A space for the specification for the gender or to provide other details for these type of people should be provided in the application forms. A separate restroom, bathroom facilities for all type of genders. The main important thing is that all the employees who are trying to work here must be informed about the company’s terms and policies like freedom for all type of genders to work here. This is very important to inform all because there are workers who are unwilling to work in these type of atmosphere. So they all should maintain good respectful behaviour to each other.

1. The third and the final human right issue which I like to discuss about my company is race and colour. This is one of the main human right violation happening in the company. Because of the diversification among workers, there are people who are whites, blacks and brown working in the Armani Exchange industry. This is the main place were the workers shows the discrimination by just comparing with the physical appearance of others which will later on leads to big problems like disrespectful behaviour, harassment, using offensive words towards each other etc. The harasser can be the supervisor of the employee or the co – worker. People who are harassed the most are the blacks. Because most of the people have an assumption that, blacks are the kind of people who are included in all kinds of convicts or criminal offences. This is all just a misunderstandings. Measures to be taken to reduce all these kind of issues as an employer is, to promote the workers to have an open-minded relationship with each other and while hiring the employees to the company, all should be informed about the policies of the company which includes the freedom of any people from any country to work here. So that the people can decide whether to work here or not. So if they are planning to work here, they all should maintain a good relation with each other.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Giorgio Armani S.p.A. - Company Profile, Information, Business Description, History, Background Information on Giorgio Armani S.p.A.. (2016). Referenceforbusiness.com. Retrieved 1 October 2016, from http://www.referenceforbusiness.com/history2/36/Giorgio-Armani-S-p-A.html

Giorgio Armani Application, Jobs & Careers Online. (2010). Job-Applications.com. Retrieved 1 October 2016, from http://www.job-applications.com/giorgio-armani-job-application/

(2016). Demography.cpc.unc.edu. Retrieved 1 October 2016, from http://demography.cpc.unc.edu/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/5-largest-jobs-by-sex-2013.png