Addressing Product Management Problems at Tesco

The assignment content discusses the importance of employability skills in an organizational context. The report presents a reflection on my working experience at Tesco as an HR administrator, highlighting various responsibilities and performance objectives. It also explores different motivational techniques, communication styles, time management strategies, and teamworking significance. Furthermore, it addresses work-based problems and solutions, including the use of various formulas to resolve conflicts and the implementation of alternative strategies. The report concludes by summarizing the key takeaways from the content.

Employability skills

TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction......................................................................................................................................5
TASK 1 ...........................................................................................................................................5
1.1: Own responsibilities and performance objectives................................................................5
1.2: Effectiveness against defined objectives..............................................................................6
1.3: Recommendations for improvement.....................................................................................9
1.4: Motivational techniques to improve quality of performance...............................................9
TASK 2..........................................................................................................................................11
2.1 Solutions related to work based problems...........................................................................11
2.2 Style of communication at various levels ...........................................................................12
2.3 Effective time management strategies.................................................................................12
(Covered in PPT).......................................................................................................................13
Reflective Account....................................................................................................................13
TASK 4 .........................................................................................................................................13
4.1 Evaluating appropriate tools and techniques.......................................................................13
4.2 Developing alternative strategy to solve work problem......................................................14
4.3 Evaluating the potential impacts of implementing the strategy...........................................14
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................15
REFERENCE.................................................................................................................................15
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Illustration Index
Illustration 1: Maslow Hierarchy at Tesco.....................................................................................10
Illustration 2: Herzberg Two factor theory....................................................................................10
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Index of Tables
Table 1: My Personal Skills and Competencies Audit....................................................................7
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INTRODUCTION
Human resource is the biggest asset to every organization. However, managing them is a
biggest challenge as well. Recruiting the right candidate by effective matching of skills and
competencies is required to be made. Employability skills provide a platform to prepare oneself
with the various responsibilities and performance objective before entering into a workplace. The
various aspects such as qualification, training, skill development, performance objectives etc are
essentially required to develop high order skills which enable him/her to work in an organization
(Priddle, Greig and Wiles, 2015). With the help of this report, the main objective is to determine
the responsibilities and performance possess by an individual. For that, Tesco which is a retailer
organization of UK has been taken as a part of this study. Founded in 1947, it is best known for
its manpower strength, skills and abilities. With about 500000 staff, the objective of this
organization is to earn the greatest benefit in the retail industry (Our Tesco, 2015). Therefore,
this report will cover the set of responsibilities and performance objectives that are formulated as
an HR Administrator of Tesco. Along with this, interpersonal and transferable skills required for
dynamic team working and problem solving strategies have also been discussed.
TASK 1
1.1: Own responsibilities and performance objectives
Assessing my personal skills and abilities are required to meet with the desirable outcome
at my workplace. Being positioned as a HR administrator at Tesco, there are set of my own
responsibilities and performance objectives defined as follows:
Responsibilities:
These are duties which are performed by an employee in respect to the work allotted. I
have following set of responsibilities while working as a HR administrator. These are discussed
as follows:
 Conduct working activities and planning schedules associated with the management of
indirect and indirect relationship. It is with respect to supervisors and top level
management at Tesco.
 Working on job and project handling allotted by my team leader in the department.
 Conducting training and development sessions for teaching new skills and abilities.
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 Participating in decision making aspects associated with the employee and their work
management.
 Assure effective abiding of knowledge and follow up of legislation, workplace ethics and
rights of employees at work.
Performance objectives:
The goals and objectives are considered as most critical part of the whole organization. I
have to meet my responsibilities with respect to the performance objectives which are defined by
my seniors at Tesco. They are associated with the growth of personnel working in an
organization. These are generally, SMART objectives which measures performance of staff
member. They are stated as follows:
 Performance appraisals:The working performance of all the employee working at Tesco
should be measured equally. Therefore, there are various parameters on the basis of
which salary and incentives are provided to them for the work done. Ranking method has
been used for measuring performance appraisal of the employees.
 Recruitment of right candidate:The ability to make appropriate and suitable decision in
the organization is required. The ten days training program is planned at Tesco, after the
recruitment and selection process of candidate (Our Tesco, 2015). This is a planned
process according to which his/her skills and abilities are assessed as well.
 Developing candidate: The another performance objective is development of candidate
who has become a part of Tesco. Development of his present skills, abilities and
capabilities to do work are improved according to the organization standards.
 Managing relationship: The another performance objective is measured on the basis of
management of relationship both employee and top senior of the organization adopts the
method of controlling and monitoring the staff by effective management of relationship
with them.
1.2: Effectiveness against defined objectives
According to defined performance objectives in the section above, the evaluation has
been made on the basis of template given below which shows audit of my personal skills and
Competencies Audit:
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Table 1: My Personal Skills and Competencies Audit
SKILL TYPICAL DESCRIPTORS SKILL LEVEL
Low High
Organization and time
management
Prioritizing, dealing with paperwork;
interruptions; planning your day.
1 2 3 4 5
Decision making and
problem solving
Ability to make decisions; selecting suitable
solutions; analysis of appropriateness.
1 2 3 4 5
Planning Leading teams; consulting team members; task
allocation; objective setting.
1 2 3 4 5
Delegation Matching tasks to staff; providing guidance and
advice; maintaining staff motivation and focus.
1 2 3 4 5
Motivation Applying motivational techniques;
understanding individual motives; making tasks
challenging; encouraging creativity; providing
team support; engendering trust and openness.
1 2 3 4 5
Coaching Providing guidance; listening skills; ability to
draw out information; reinforcing behaviour
using feedback; negotiating; planning goals and
objectives.
1 2 3 4 5
Target setting Understanding and communicating
organisational objectives; use of SMART
objectives to achieve targets.
1 2 3 4 5
Interpersonal skills Relating to others; building rapport and positive
relationships; being sensitive to people’s needs;
using influencing and persuasive skills to help
others improve performance or overcome
problems; listening effectively and providing
feedback; being assertive; use of body language.
1 2 3 4 5
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Written
communications
Structure and format of letters, memos, e-mails,
reports
1 2 3 4 5
Oral communications Structure and format: techniques for effective
presentations; using the telephone; meetings.
1 2 3 4 5
COMPETENCY TYPICAL DESCRIPTORS SKILL LEVEL
Low High
1 2 3 4 5
1 2 3 4 5
1 2 3 4 5
1 2 3 4 5
The evaluation of my effectiveness against the defined objectives for the Personnel and
Administrator department has been discussed as follows:
 Performance appraisals: In order to improve the skills which have been depicted above,
I will make use of various performance appraisals method that are beneficial for me. It
will support me to work through motivation to achieve the better outcome.
 Recruitment of right candidate: The process of recruitment is done in regular basis. It is
made for saving time and cost of the recruitment procedure (Grawitch and Munz, 2015).
Since, there are number of skills which are required to be improved as depicted in the
audit template above. These aspects will be covered by working on employability skills.
 Developing candidate: Training is the best method which is considered to be very
significant for evaluating the development of the candidate (Miner, 2015). As per
evaluation made, it has been analyzed that, I still have to work on some areas such as
communication and decision making skills to get the desirable promotion and work at
Tecso.
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 Managing relationship: With an aim of maintaining a positive relationship among
employees, the defined objective proves effective. It helped in fostering better
communication. Staff is now motivated to participate in both formal and informal
interaction at Tesco.
1.3: Recommendations for improvement
A specific situation has been encountered while working at Tesco as a HR administrator.
I have faced lack of decisions making ability in me. Therefore, following recommendations for
improvement made are stated as follows.
 This is to ensure agreed appraisal for the next ten months:
 Recommendation to make use of understand the applicability of various decision making
processes that helps to provide effective solution at Tecso.
 Become a part of various seminars and conferences in order to strengthen the relationship
between employee and employers (Silberman and Biech, 2015).
 Using the performance criteria at work. It is required to provide new joinee with the
effective training programs and inductions.
 Using the tactics of monitoring such as 360 degree feedback (Robertson and Edwards,
2015). This is to assess the improvement in the organization.
1.4: Motivational techniques to improve quality of performance
Motivational techniques are used to improve the quality performance at Tesco. The
following theories of motivation have been used to assess its contribution in bringing quality.
1) Application of motivational theories
Various needs of employees working at Tesco are primarily taken care. It is made with
the application of motivational techniques so that better results can be acquired from it.
Maslow Theory
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According to Maslow theory, above figure depicts the use of motivational technique used
to boost the employees at Tesco. Every need from basic to self-fulfillment requirement of staff is
taken care. Organization work on giving salary, incentives and perks for accomplishing demand
and work of the employees. A healthy environment is supported by organization social activities
and environment friendly actions ( People and organization, 2011). This is to fulfill their social
and security needs. Similarly, they are free to an extent to maintain friendly relationship with
other employees to foster better communication. Personnel are appraised with various self-
esteem needs so that they feel respected and valued.
Herzberg two factor theory
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Illustration 1: Maslow Hierarchy at Tesco
(Source: People and organization, 2011)

The two factor theory is also been used at Tesco for motivating employees at work. The
company make use of this strategy for providing benefits, promotions, achievements to its staff
members. For example, there is a benefit of privileged card which is provided to employee after
one year of their service to ripe the benefits.
TASK 2
2.1 Solutions related to work based problems
The operations at retail sector are impossible without working in integration with other
employees. However, there are various number of issue and problems that an organization such
as Tesco came across (Priddle, Greig and Wiles, 2015). The issues encountered are discussed
with the HR consultancy so that better and suitable solution can be provided to the organization.
These are work based problems which have been discussed with solutions as follows:
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Illustration 2: Herzberg Two factor theory
(Source: Management, 2015)

 Problem analysis: Managers at Tesco, generally faces the issues such as lack of
interaction among employee or with them. This is considered to be serious issue as it may
have direct impact on the work performance. Therefore, the sessions are planned at Tesco
where problems are discussed openly.
 Researching changes in the workplace: There are situations where situations are found
to be not positive from the end of employees. It might be because of change aspect which
is not quickly adapted by staff members. In that case, Tesco arranges survey technique
where 20 open ended questions are asked to them for arriving at suitable conclusion.
 Generating solutions: There are scenarios in the organization, where employees hardly
feel satisfied with the work (Snell, Morris and Bohlander, 2015). In that case, general
solutions are provided to deal with the attitude of people, their communication and other
working skills.
 Choosing a solution: Inappropriate communication at the workplace is a major cause of
work based problem. Therefore, Tesco deals with the meeting sessions, conferences etc
so that employee become interactive.
2.2 Style of communication at various levels
In respect to the different work based problems defined above, there is need for
communicating that aspect at all level of the management at Tesco. It has been carried out by
using both formal and informal types as follows:
 Strategic level: This is a top level group of employees who are responsible for taking all
the major decision in the organization. In order to communicate with them, various
communication methods such as team meetings, intranet, conferences, video
conferencing, letter, memos etc. are used.
 Middle level: All the managers working at Tesco are part of middle level. Sharing of
information is significant aspect at this retail company, therefore, it has been made with
the help of sources such as meetings, conferences, phones, e-mails, presentations etc
(Rahim, 2015).
 Operational level: This is the lower level of the organization who are responsible for
doing work. Use of both formal and informal methods are used for communicating with
them. Generally, direct and face to face interaction is made.
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2.3 Effective time management strategies
Various strategies for time management has been identified at Tesco. The rationale
behind the same is to make the employees aware about need for getting things done for achieving
the desired outcome. It has been discussed briefly as follows: Prioritization of activities: Work can be planned at best when the most prominent tasks to
be carried out are sorted (Moore and Morton, 2015). It helps in reducing the work load
and managing the work. Formulating objectives: There are instances when the work is to be achieved as per the
standard objectives. It is most effective way to get things done as it helps in achieving the
desirable outcome with the set of direction and standard provided by the organisation.
 Appointments: It is another way by which work can be managed as per the time strategy.
Use of schedules, pocket diaries, remainders etc. can be used for maintaining and
managing routine work.
TASK 3
(Covered in PPT)
Reflective Account
Working in team is my biggest experience on a project for meeting a single objective. My
involvement to that particular project work is assigned to lead the team members. I have given
my full involvement in the work of every member (Konings and Vanormelingen, 2015). This
leads to equip my learning and to learn about new ideas as well. The learning was enhanced by
working on team dynamics. I have put my efforts to show the dynamics of team working in the
form of effective coordination and cooperation. But, there has been encountered various issues in
the form of conflicts among the members. In that case, I have put efforts to develop the
monitoring for the team members so that chances of conflicts can be reduced.
TASK 4
4.1 Evaluating appropriate tools and techniques
One work-based real problem in the Tesco has been assessed. While managing varieties
of products at Tesco, problems of product management arises. There are regular issues which are
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faced by the management and department head. For that, several techniques and strategies
followed by them are as follows: Heuristics: It is a tool which is known as an innovative and learning method tool. It is
generally applied to solve the psychological issues (Collet, Hine and Du Plessis, 2015).
However, this may not generally proved effective from the point of giving accurate and
effective results. It is not apt for present situation as well. Mathematics: This is a mathematical tool which is used to solve the work-based
problems in the organization. For example, there are problems which are encountered by
the Production manager at the Tesco related to the number and management of products
and services. With the applications of various formulas, the solutions for the projects can
be worked out. It is a time consuming process and therefore need to be used for resolving
organization conflicts.
 Trail and Error: It is another method which is used in the organization where there are
provided alternatives (Devambatla and Nalla, 2015). It is generally considered to be the
most appropriate and suitable technique which helps in making effective decision making
in the organization. Therefore, it is appropriate method till the final sorting of products.
4.2 Developing alternative strategy to solve work problem
After discussing above stated methods above, there has been implemented another
strategy to solve the work problem. It is a problem solving strategy which comprises of
following four stages. These are stated as follows: Understanding the problem: It commences with the understanding of problem with
respect to its nature and type. Setting plan: After assessing about what problem is, there is need for making decision
regarding what is need to be done (Gowsalya and Kumar, 2015). It helps in identifying
the correct tool and technique for meeting plan. Implementation: This is the stage where there is need to solve the issue encountered with
different alternatives. Choosing the one best for the implementation is assessed and
examined.
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 Evaluation: This is the last stage where the cross check of problem to be solved has been
done. Whenever there is detected any kind of issue, the results are evaluated. This will be
useful for implementing the immediate solution with the same.
4.3 Evaluating the potential impacts of implementing the strategy
In the above section, there has been implemented a problem solving strategy in order to
address the issue of product management at Tesco. Potential impact of implementing that
strategy has been evaluated. The business environment is dynamic and therefore, implementation
of one strategy may not be so effective with the change aspect. There can be instances where
employees may not feel adaptive with the change (Burt, 2015). Therefore, there is need to assess
that facet and accordingly a strategic plan should be there to meet the business problem. Along
wit this, training is another way which can be used as part of strategy to meet with the potential
impact of the implementing the strategy. It may be effective in making employees aware about
the changes. Moreover, it will be supportive and helpful in minimizing the negative chances or
outcome at the Tesco.
CONCLUSION
In a nutshell, it can be concluded that employability skills are key essential aspect of
every organization. By assessing my working experience at Tesco, there are certain things
related to HR department and manpower management have been analyzed. With the help of this
report, set of my own responsibilities and performance objectives, being HR administrator has
been evaluated. Use of various motivational techniques, communication styles and time
management strategies has been discussed. Working in team and its significance in organization
is required for achieving goals. The rationale for dealing with work-based problem and solution
has been covered in this report.
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REFERENCE
Books and Journals
Burt, C. D., 2015. The Influences of Recruitment Processes and Selection Predictors on New
Employee Safety. In New Employee Safety. (pp. 55-73). Springer International Publishing.
Collet, C., Hine, D. and du Plessis, K., 2015. Employability skills: perspectives from a
knowledge-intensive industry. Education+ Training. 57(5). pp.532-559.
Devambatla, L. and Nalla, D., 2015. An Approach to Improve Employability Skills: ebridge.
Journal of Engineering Education Transformations. 28(2&3). pp. 131-138.
Gowsalya, G. and Kumar, M. A., 2015. Employability Skill: A Literature Review. International
Journal.3(3).
Konings, J. and Vanormelingen, S., 2015. The impact of training on productivity and wages:
firm-level evidence. Review of Economics and Statistics. 97(2). pp. 485-497.
Miner, J. B., 2015. Organizational behavior 1: Essential theories of motivation and leadership.
Routledge.
Moore, T. and Morton, J., 2015. The myth of job readiness? Written communication,
employability, and the ‘skills gap’in higher education. Studies in Higher Education. pp. 1-19.
Priddle, J., Greig, A. J. and Wiles, E., 2015. Student Attitudes to Sustainability and
Employability Skills: Expectations from the University Curriculum. In Integrative
Approaches to Sustainable Development at University Level. (pp. 143-154). Springer
International Publishing.
Robertson, S. and Edwards, A., 2015. Employability Skills in Large Business Modules: Built-in
or Bolted-on?.
Silberman, M. L. and Biech, E., 2015. Active training: A handbook of techniques, designs, case
examples, and tips. John Wiley & Sons.
Snell, S., Morris, S. and Bohlander, G. 2015. Managing human resources. Cengage Learning.
Rahim, M. A., 2015. Managing conflict in organizations. Transaction Publishers.
Grawitch, M. J. and Munz, D. C., 2015. Individual and group affect in problem-solving
workgroups. Emotions in organizational behavior. pp.119-142.
Online
People and organization. 2011. [Online]. Available
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through:<http://shanaz-parvin.blogspot.in/2011/01/improving-staff-performance.html>.
[Accessed on 27th November 2015].
Our Tesco. 2015. [Online]. Available through:<https://www.ourtesco.com/>. [Accessed on 27th
November 2015].
Management, 2015. [Online]. Available
through:<http://www.johnwiley.net.au/highered/management/istudy/menu/
motivation_and_rewards/content_theories_of_motivation/?page=0007>. [Accessed on 27th
November 2015].
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