Human Resources: Values and Contributions to Organisational Success

This study material from Desklib explores the role of Human Resource Management in organisational success, using Tesco as a specific example. It evaluates the importance of organisational design theory, analyses different approaches and techniques for attracting and maintaining human resources, and conducts research on emerging HR developments. The study material also provides recommendations for improving sustainable performance and evaluates the impact of emerging HR developments on the role of HR function in the future.

HR & Contribution to
Organisational Success

Contents
Contents...........................................................................................................................................2
Introduction......................................................................................................................................1
Main Body.......................................................................................................................................2
L01...................................................................................................................................................2
P1 Evaluate the importance of organisational design theory in the context of organisational
structure and fulfilling organisational strategy, using specific organisational examples............2
M1 Apply appropriate theories and concepts to critically evaluate the importance of
organisational design, using specific organisational examples...................................................4
L02...................................................................................................................................................4
P2 Analyse the different approaches and techniques used for attracting, maintaining,
developing and rewarding human resources to create a skilled and dedicated workforce..........4
M2 Use specific examples to critically analyse different approaches and techniques to
motivation, human capital and knowledge management.............................................................5
D1 Make appropriate recommendations supported by justification based on a synthesis of
knowledge and information to show how to improve the delivery of sustainable performance. 6
L03...................................................................................................................................................6
P3 Conduct research and use contemporary knowledge to support evidence for emerging HR
developments...............................................................................................................................6
M3 Evaluate how emerging HR developments will affect the role of the HR function in the
future............................................................................................................................................8
D2 Make valid judgements and conclusions supported by a synthesis of knowledge and
research information....................................................................................................................8
LO4..................................................................................................................................................9
Conclusion.....................................................................................................................................26
References......................................................................................................................................27
Books and Journal......................................................................................................................27

Introduction
Human Resource is the division of a business responsible for finding, screening, deploying,
recruiting and training the job applicants. It is the strategic approach to the effective and efficient
management of people around the organization such that they help the business gain a
competitive advantage. Tesco PLC a British multinational grocery and general merchandising
company established & founded by Mr. Jack Cohen in the year 1919 and headquartered in
Welwyn Garden City, Hertfordshire, England. It is the market leading company in the world
comprising it business operations in 16 countries around the globe with more than 7800 retail
stores. As general merchandise, Tesco has various products such as Tesco Banking, Tesco
Electronics, and Tesco Telecoms, to mention a few. Not only in the British market but also at the
global level Tesco offers a wide range/variety of products in different sectors and streams
including clothes, home-wares, school supplies, mobile phones, financial services and cotton fair
trade business worldwide. The report evaluates the function of Human Resource Management
which contributes an important role in assuring employee satisfaction, develop business
productivity and performance along with the managing the changes which affects the
organizational design.
1

Main Body
L01
P1 Evaluate the importance of organisational design theory in the context of organisational
structure and fulfilling organisational strategy, using specific organisational examples.
Importance of Organizational Design to Deliver of Sustainable Performance
Tesco has a Hierarchical Structure as they possess large organization chain and departments
(Saiti, and Stefou). It is mainly a functional structure as it focuses on the different departments in
the business. Thousands of employees around the globe are employed in Tesco, it would be
impossible to for one person to control all of them.
Hierarchical Structure help Tesco catering all the different departments around the globe
(Kim). This structure also allows Tesco to fulfil their purpose of taking care of customers in their
own country level.
2

There are several factors on which the organization design plays a crucial role to deliver
sustainable performance of the organization (Bag, S. and Pretorius), (Aubry and Lavoie). Some
of them are as follows:
Dealing with Contingencies
A contingency can be explained as an event that might occur without any expectation, and
the management should properly plan to meet such contingencies. One such contingency could
change the complete business environment of an organization.
For Example, the contingency raised in the past year between Tesco's warehouse workers and
drivers to hold a strike for increase in the pay raise of their respective wages. Tesco has seen off
the threat of a pre-Christmas strike by workers at nine distribution centres as it agreed to a new
pay deal with trade union Usdaw.
Competitive Advantage
In the modern age, every organisation wants to design its structure in such a way as to have
the maximum sustained competitive advantage. Competition allows a company to develop a
business strategy to out-perform competitors by producing better products and services.
For Example, Tesco's competitive advantage is its own price and promotion, development of
retail low prices, high quality and experienced customer services.
Diversity in Workforce:
Diversity in workforce on account of differences in race, gender, and the place or origin of
workers has an important impact on organization’s effectiveness. Change in the characteristics of
workers such as an influx of immigrant workers and retirement of current workforce require
effective planning in advance.
For example, Tesco has developed four networks to engage with people for any sort of
diversity at workplace, namely; 'Out at Tesco', 'Women in Business', 'Tesco Asian Network', and
'ABC Network'.
3

M1 Apply appropriate theories and concepts to critically evaluate the importance of
organisational design, using specific organisational examples.
Tesco as the market leader and empowering its global network possess the hierarchical
organizational structure as its design. A hierarchical structure, also known as a line organization,
is the most common type of organizational structure. Power flows from the board of directors
down to the CEO through the rest of the company from top to bottom. This makes the
hierarchical structure a centralized organizational structure.
Hierarchical Structure help Tesco catering all the different departments around the globe.
This structure also allows Tesco to fulfil their purpose of taking care of customers in their own
country level. Using this concept of organizational structure, Tesco is easily catering the
following advantages:
 Hierarchical Structure clearly defines reporting relationships, project organization and
division of authority.
 It details a corporate ladder & promotional structure, thereby encouraging high-quality
work within organization.
 It also cultivates stronger relationships among employees.
Antecedently, organization designs also helps to cater in dealing with the contingencies,
Competitive Advantages, Diversity in Workforce, Innovation and Efficiency.
L02
P2 Analyse the different approaches and techniques used for attracting, maintaining, developing
and rewarding human resources to create a skilled and dedicated workforce.
To support Tesco's growth, its employees are supported by the company in their various roles
and at different levels. Tesco considers that staff are unique and have diverse lifestyles outside of
work and by supporting the staff with a work/life balance and offers rewards.
Two different approaches (Galli) adopted by Tesco successfully to attract, motivate, maintain
and develop a dedicated workforce are: -
 Taylor's Motivational Theory
 According to Taylor´s research in the year 1911, people worked purely for money. This
approach of paying workers by results was good for the business. (Armstrong, and Taylor).
4

Tesco’s giant program of employee’s reward consists some similarity to Taylor”s theory
as its financial reward packages are one motivating factor. However, Tesco excel beyond
Taylor's theory and provides numerous benefits other than just simple pay increases and supports
the lifestyles of individual employees including all mentioned below which have been already
declared by Tesco to its employees:
a) Free Share after one year of service.
b) Pension schemes providing equal contribution from the company.
c) Employee Discount Card
d) Holiday discounts
and many much more benefits are provided along with the pay increase by Tesco to its
employees.
 Mayo Effect Theory
The theorist Elton Mayo in the early 1930s suggested that motivation at work was promoted
by such factors as Greater communication, Good teamwork, showing interest in others,
Involvement of staff in decision making, Ensuring the well-being of others, ensuring work is
interesting and non-repetitive (Sanders).
Throughout the organization at Tesco the Mayo theory is seen to be operating widely.
Communication is an extremely important factor in motivating employees. By holding a daily
Team Meeting to update staff on what is happening for the day and to give out Value Awards by
the team line members. Tesco motivates and empowers its employees by appropriate and timely
communication, by delegating responsibility, authority and involving staff in decision making.
Also, Tesco provide forums every year in which staff can be a part of discussions on pay
rises.
M2 Use specific examples to critically analyse different approaches and techniques to
motivation, human capital and knowledge management.
In contrast to the different approaches which are being used to attract, motivate, maintain and
develop a dedicated workforce, Tesco adopts various techniques to satisfy its employee in
5

different segments. Two of them are Taylor's motivational theory and Mayo effect theory which
is widely adopted by Tesco and render the benefits to its employees.
Taylor's motivational theory focuses on the pay rise of employee while Mayo effect theory
focuses on seeking communication and maintaining strong inter-personal relationship among the
different levels of employees.
Tesco's employee reward programs are beyond just pay rise but also renders numerous
benefits to its employees in lieu with their individual lifestyle standards. By involving the
employees in continuous communication, assigning responsibilities and decision making process
Tesco motivates and empowers its employees to a complete new level.
D1 Make appropriate recommendations supported by justification based on a synthesis of
knowledge and information to show how to improve the delivery of sustainable
performance.
In context to the above, Organizational structure plays an important role in maintaining fluent
operations of an organization. Tesco is a multinational general merchandising firm having a
gigantic organizational structure as it operates around the globe. Following the hierarchical
organizational structure by Tesco around the globe, it has been able to control the operations in
every sector articulately.
In conjunction with this, in the scenario of technologies advancement to maintain, attract, and
develop a dedicated workforce is a challenging task for every organization. Tesco using different
approaches to maintain the human resource sector have been successful. Considering more and
more inter-person benefits other than just increase in pay scale of employees.
Being the market leader, Tesco should adopt new and innovative source of employee's
encouragement. Providing such lifestyles benefits and other inter-person benefits, Tesco could
attract, maintain and develop the dedicated workforces within the firm.
L03
P3 Conduct research and use contemporary knowledge to support evidence for emerging HR
developments.
Analysing The Emerging HR Developments
6

The Human Resource Planning refers to the continuous process of systematic planning in the
search of people who will spearhead the realization of organizational goals and objectives of the
organization in the current period as well as the future. (Landry, and Mclarney)
Tesco being a retail merchandise organization, it is highly dependent on its employees for the
achievement of its goals and objectives (Chakraborty, and Biswas). The planning process of
Tesco takes place in the annual beginning of the new financial year and the reviews are conduct
quarterly.
Tesco has a process of strategic involvement of HRM strategies and their overall business
plan (Aust, Muller-Camen, and Poutsma). The managers in the department have been observed
to utilise different features in decision-making aspects critically and align with the need of high
commitment to the HRM dynamics therefore attempting to achieve acceptance from employees.
There are various improvements that could be taken in the recruitment process of Tesco.
 They could adopt placement options for its recruitment processes and develop close
relationships with universities in order to attract the best talents and skilled persons.
 Development of such HRM Portals which could help the department in the better
interpretation, communication, reporting and data base management to enhance the
working culture of the organization.
 They could use the social platforms, companies career website, job opportunity
applications where the individuals or group of candidates are looking for the job can sort
off the vacancies, job roles and designations to be employed at Tesco.
 Antecedently, Tesco could use the aptitude tests, especially in its managerial positions to
determine their managerial skills that best suit the requirements of the company’s
managerial positions.
In conjunction with this, in the year 2019, the CIPD have named Tesco as its first partner
under an initiative launched for HR and Learning & Development teams. The scheme, launched
in August 2019, recognises employers that commit to continually raising the level of expertise
and influence that their people team has, both internally and externally; it further acknowledges
businesses that develop their people teams as a function, as well as supporting individual HR and
learning and development professionals.
7

Tesco as the market leader in the retail supermarket industry had become the first partner of
the scheme due to the fact that for working for a number of years the supermarket network chain
with CIPD in order to develop HR capabilities and confidence.
Tesco performs recruitment drive on continuous basis with the help of external, internal and
some different ways. These processes ensure that company receives the applications from all
matched candidates.
M3 Evaluate how emerging HR developments will affect the role of the HR function in the
future.
Tesco being a multinational organization requires a huge number of employees to achieve the
set objectives. Emerging HR developments in numerous segments should be kept in mind to
ensures the optimum utilization of resources.
Tesco should adopt and be in practice to use the emerging technologies by which HR
professionals can access the programs to identify patterns in data and even make decisions based
on the data presented, thus improving the productivity of the HR team. This also increases the
response time when issues arise in the workforce, which in turn can improve employee
satisfaction.
HR professionals will need to equip themselves with a new range of skills including people
analytics, digital HR, strategic workforce planning, design thinking, and stakeholder
management to conquer the emerging trend like hybrid work model, Multi-generational
workforces, All-in-one HR tools, Advanced Technologies, Digitalization, and many more.
D2 Make valid judgements and conclusions supported by a synthesis of knowledge and research
information.
In the new emerging era of technologies and practices, human resource should be updated to
maintain the continuous process of systematic planning in search best talents to perform the
operations of the firm.
8

Tesco as the leading employer in the UK, It also cultivates stronger relationships among
employees recruitment processes with various techniques. Emerging HR developments in
numerous segments should be kept in mind to ensures the optimum utilization of resources.
Tesco should adopt various forms of placement techniques, namely; recruiting with universities,
developing HRM portals, to select the best suitable talent in the placement process.
These processes and updated training policies & programs could help this quote to manage
global business and highly profit in terms of better efficiency of employees at all hierarchy stage
in the organizational chain.
LO4
9

10

Speaker Notes:
Tesco PLC is the market leading company in the world comprising it business operations in
16 countries around the globe with more than 7800 retail stores.
Its performances have never been limited to the statistical reports. It has won many awards
like 'British Favourite Supermarket’; 'Drink Awards and the Grocer's Label Food Award’; 'Best
Grocer Award' etc. It maintains the Brand Value in the global market.
11

Speaker Notes:
Change Management is the process of facilitating change at any level of the organization where
it occurs.
12

Speaker Notes:
Lewis change model is a three distinct step model including unfreeze, change and refreeze which
aims to creating a perception to change, implementing the change and finally embracing the new
way of working.
13

Speaker Notes:
The Continuous Change Process Model is an approach which redefines the entire process of
change from top level management perspective which clearly defines their goals or objectives,
reforms in the processes or change in the output which is expected to be attained at the end of the
process of change.
14

Speaker Notes:
In every stage of changes in the Tesco's organisational design and change, HR undertakes
numerous ways from finding a new training program for the team, to moving the company to
remote work.
15

Speaker Notes:
It Prepare and ensures new policies aligning with Tesco's culture
HR are responsible in part for the ways a company lives up to its values. They can work together
with managers and senior executives to consult on the impact of policy on people processes.
16

Speaker Notes:
Technological Change adopted by Tesco:
They had introduced a self-scan checkouts technology which serves to reduce queues in stores
and attract more customers worldwide.
Unplanned Change adopted by Tesco:
They had introduced and adopted work from home culture to continue its operations and
entertain its customers worldwide.
17

Speaker Notes:
Transformation Change adopted by Tesco:
Adopting digital innovation where Tesco is being able to provide its services, products and all
other offerings over the internet easily.
Psychological Change adopted by Tesco:
Tesco conducts proper training campaigns to its employee's regarding the complete session of
the changes which are going to be implemented within the organisation and what effects might
rise with it and how to deal with it.
18

Speaker Notes:
The purpose of organizational design is to create the right structure that fits the requirement of
the strategy to be implemented whereas Change Management is meant to modify the existing
structures that have gone wrong over a period of time or no longer fit to the requirements of the
strategy being implemented or to enhance/adopt the new emerging trends and technologies.
19

Speaker notes:
There are strong relations between the change management and organizational design. The
change management is implemented to adopt new emerging trends within the existing design to
change and innovate in lieu to become advanced and achieve desired goals.
20

21

Speaker Notes:
Tesco was successful in implementing the changes with time and is the market leader of United
Kingdom in the retail-supermarket industry.
22

23

24

25

Conclusion
As the number one organization in the retail-supermarket industry of United Kingdom, the
concerned firm has expanded its network around the globe with numerous segments of products
and services. Following the hierarchical structure, the firm has established the control over every
sector, every department around the globe. It also has been able to cater or dealt with all the
contingencies and also has achieved sustainable performance in the past years. In conjunction
with this, being the largest firm in the United Kingdom, it also aims to satisfy its employees
around the globe by providing numerous benefits beyond just rise in the pay scale including
enhancing the living standards of an individual. Achieving the business objectives, the firm has
aimed to develop the emerging trends and technologies for the smooth functioning of operations.
In the era of emerging technologies, the firm should adopt and update its recruitment process and
training programmes to enhance its performance around the globe.
26

References
Books and Journal
Saiti, A. and Stefou, T., 2020. Hierarchical organizational structure and leadership. In Oxford
Research Encyclopedia of Education.
Kim, L., 2018. Organizational Innovation and Structure1. In Organizational Innovation (pp. 35-
56). Routledge.
Bag, S. and Pretorius, J.H.C., 2020. Relationships between industry 4.0, sustainable
manufacturing and circular economy: proposal of a research framework. International
Journal of Organizational Analysis.
Aubry, M. and Lavoie-Tremblay, M., 2018. Rethinking organizational design for managing
multiple projects. International Journal of Project Management, 36(1), pp.12-26.
Galli, B.J., 2020. Impact and role of motivation theories in continuous improvement
environments: A reflection of literature. International Journal of Service Science,
Management, Engineering, and Technology (IJSSMET), 11(1), pp.1-13.
Armstrong, M. and Taylor, S., 2020. Armstrong's handbook of human resource management
practice. Kogan Page Publishers.
Sanders, E.J., 2021. Mayo, Elton: The Fruitful Legacy of an Intellectual Explorer. Springer
Books, pp.1047-1066.
Landry, N. and Mclarney, C., 2019. Using Human Resource Management to Drive Business
Strategy: The Case of BAE Systems. IUP Journal of Business Strategy, 16(4).
Chakraborty, D. and Biswas, W., 2020. Articulating the value of human resource planning
(HRP) activities in augmenting organizational performance toward a sustained
competitive firm. Journal of Asia Business Studies.
Aust, I., Muller-Camen, M. and Poutsma, E., 2018. Sustainable HRM: A comparative and
international perspective. In Handbook of research on comparative human resource
management. Edward Elgar Publishing.
27