Human Resource Management: Strategies and Practices of Tesco

This article explores the HR strategies and practices of Tesco, including the ways in which HR strategies have been modified during crises, the impacts of environmental factors on culture and HR plans, and the value created by the firm. It also discusses Storey's 27 indicators of distinction between HRM and personnel administration, job design practices, and hiring and firing strategies. Additionally, it provides examples of good HR practices and recommendations for maintaining organizational performance.

RESOURCE
MANAGEMENT

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY..................................................................................................................................3
A) The ways in which HR strategies had been modified and changed according to the crisis...3
B) The impacts of environmental factors on culture and HR plan of Tesco...............................4
C) Explanation of value created by the firm................................................................................5
D) Storey’s 27 indicators of distinction between HRM and Personnel administration...............7
E) Job design practices followed by Tesco..................................................................................9
F) Hiring and firing strategies of Tesco.....................................................................................11
G) Examples of good HR practices in firms..............................................................................12
H) Advices to company regarding HRM rehearsals to maintain managerial presentation.......13
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................14
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................1

INTRODUCTION
Human resource management is a planned approach for effectual and efficient organization
of individuals within an association so that they can help the firm to increase business aggressive
advantages. It is designed in a manner through which the establishments are able to maximise
their employees’ performances within an organization to fulfil their strategic objectives. The
basic purpose of human resource management are arrangement, undeviating, domineering and
categorize the firms’ activities in a manner so that the establishment are easily able to utilise
workforce, do their recruitment and staffing in most appropriate manner (Lim, Wang and Lee,
2017). The scopes the concepts are highly wide in nature as it includes all activities that are
starting from manpower planning till employee leaves the establishment. In accordance to that,
the scope of human resource management is consists of development, maintenance, acquisition,
and control all the necessary resources within the firm.
In order to describe the concepts in detail the Tesco firm has been chosen to finish the study
through which the illustration of HRM models, environmental factors, difference between HRM
and personnel management, job design strategies and hiring and firing strategies of Tesco. Apart
from this, the study will also express various good HR practices along with certain
recommendations to maintain organizational performances.
MAIN BODY
A) The ways in which HR strategies had been modified and changed according to the crisis
For any organization to perform their tasks in most appropriate manner, it is significant to
achieve their common objectives through their employees who are the extreme imperative
possessions to the organization. There are two models of activity has developed within the Tesco
which has been discussed in detail such as Harvard model and Michigan model. The Harvard
model comes under the consideration of soft HRM which accentuate more on creature sides.
According to this model, the HR managers of the Tesco believe that employees are not only
resources but also a human being. There are four major guiding principles that have been
prepared in order to deal with people (El-Ghalayini, 2017). Primarily, there is employee pressure
which is inclusion of authority, responsibility and delegation with rationale and attention of
administration. The second is the flow of recruitment, selection, encouragement, job safekeeping,
career development and break of workforce. According to the Michigan model, human resource

should be used and exploited completely in order to achieve organizational goals. According to
the HR managers of Tesco, HRM will respond to external and internal environment. In order to
deal with pandemic crisis situation within the external environment Tesco made 16000
temporary staff permanent hires after their supermarket sight high increase in online sales due to
the pandemic situations. The well being of the employees are more and more important for the
future terms as well. The pandemic situation has bought many challenges to the firm and thus
requires certain modifications within the strategies that have been adopted by the HRM for their
employees. The firm requires huge team efforts from across their distribution and office network
to make sure that the supply chain of goods for consumers, adapting to an ever changing
situations. The firm started various health programs along with delivery using insight from their
colleagues’ health survey and other channel listening channels (Syed and Tariq, 2017). The firm
also works with their various charity health partners and other collaborators throughout their
colleague life cycle. The firm highly focusing on digital transformation and thus expand the
regions with the help of their staff members through which they are able to provide same day
delivery options to their customers.
B) The impacts of environmental factors on culture and HR plan of Tesco
Organizational structure of Tesco also affects the pattern of the firm to handle their functions
at the time of pandemic situation within as well as outside the company. Culture plays a vital role
to make the environment within the establishment to work frequently with their employees. If the
workplace having positive environment, then the final result faced by the firm are larger than
ever before. Tesco management highly focuses on the culture and environment in order to
motivate their employees to work for the betterment of the firm as well as their employees
(Heller, 2017). In order to describe various factors, it has been identified that there are not
specific factors that always influence the firm such as to enhance the selection and recruitment
procedure and to minimise employee issues, HR managers must have to endlessly observe
external and internal issues and regulate their schemes accordingly. The factors are explained
below:
 Effects of competition on recruiting: the HR managers of Tesco recruit qualified
employees thus; they highly focused on just beginning employment equipments. Tesco
start various job fairs in order to sponsor the firm and create a centre of attention

candidates who are easily able to work in adverse conditions such as Covid-19 without
having any extra training efforts. Similarly, the HR managers also develop various
programs and incentives in order to retain their key employees.
 Manual labour provider and recompense: Labour provider drives the quantity of
reimbursement a business must offer to exert a pull on their workforce. In an
oversaturated marketplace such as at the time of pandemic, when the unemployment is at
higher side and more qualified candidates are available even more than job opportunities
the amount of compensation was less because the Tesco compete with other companies
as well in order to recruit more employees (Murphy and McCarthy, 2018).
 Impact of legislation: Legislation impacts the overall HR activities such as within the
Tesco, the acts related to certain disabilities states that the firm have to defend the
privacy of member of staff medicinal in sequence. The Tesco have to ensure that
corporation executive activate within the boundaries of commandment. HR professionals
have to manage their managers in order to manage their tasks.
 Interior strategy and worker associations: Policies and procedures effects the HR
activities as Tesco is committed to promote and make sure that their all employees
obtain suitable guidance and expansion and read for endorsement when the instance
comes. The HR managers ensure the potential replacements of people according to their
age and skills.
C) Explanation of value created by the firm
With the help of human resource models, the HR managers are able to run their business
activities in most effectual manner. The HR value chain model has been used by Tesco in order
to maintain their value in front of their competitive firms because this is one of the best known
models within the organization (Prowse, Dobbins and Felle, 2020). It illustrates the ways in
which HR operates. According to this representation, all the performances are divided into two
groups such as HRM actions and HRM conclusion.
 HRM activities illustrate the daily day to day activities which includes recruitment,
selection of appropriate candidate, compensation, training and succession planning.
These activities are measured often by utilising HR metrics. According to this concept,
HR managers believes that the cheaper the employees has been hired and the faster they

are trained within the firm, the better they are able to create value of their firm within the
market place.
 HRM outcomes are the final goals Tesco tries to achieve with their HRM activities. With
the help of these activities the HR managers if Tesco recruit, train and compensate in
order to achieve their organizational final goals (PAUZI, 2017). These outcomes involve
employee satisfaction, retention, motivation and presence.
With measuring the HR activities the Tesco automatically able to focus on reducing costs and
maximise their efficiency. Hence, instead of focusing on HRM outcomes, the company have to
focus on alignment of their processes with their goals.
For instance, Tesco managers’ states that spending longer duration of time on hiring a new
employee if that person exactly fit in the firm are better option. The goal of the establishment
should be getting the right person at the right place and not to just hire someone who seams
cheap for the establishment. When both the HRM activities and HRM outcomes hit their own
targets, they are able to fulfil better performance which means that by recruiting right people and
send people for right training sessions, the company performances increases and thus the value

as well (Uddin and Ferdous, 2020). It automatically enhances the company overall performances
and provides high level of advantages to the firm.
D) Storey’s 27 indicators of distinction between HRM and Personnel administration
Personnel management is a function of confirmation maintenance at the functioning level.
This administration challenge to continue reasonable and appropriate terms and environment of
services. While on the other hand, appropriately able to manage personnel activities for each
department. It has been evaluated that final outcome with providing justice helps to achieve
efficiency in the personnel management will ultimately result in organizational success (Rees
and Smith, 2021). While the human resource management refers to development and
implementation of people strategies which are incorporated and ensures cultural maintenance
within the firm and make sure those values, structure, quality, motivation and commitment of the
employees contribute their maximum to achieve organizational goals. The difference among both
the concepts is described below:
Personnel management Human resource management
 This concept is employees centred and
directed mainly by employees only
such as find and train them, explaining
company’s expectations, justify their
actions and many more similar actions.
 Personnel management never
completely identified with management
interests.
 This is a functioning purpose worried
basically with day to day individuals’
organization activities.
 HRM is resource centred directed
majorly at management which involve
liability of HRM to procession
management, expansion of firm, etc.
 This thought completely work on the
management interests’ concept.
 This is strategic in nature and being
concerned with direct assessing the
company gains in order to sustain in
competitive advantages.
The 27 points of differences between personnel management and human resource development
are:

No. Philosophy and
supposition
Employees
organization
Individual resource
development
1 Agreement vigilant explanation of
printed agreement
Aim to go away from
contracts
2 system significance of obvious
system and mutuality
Can do attitude
3 achievement actions Business necessitate
4 performance referent standard standards
5 manual labour observe promotion
6 life of associations Pluralist Unitary
7 disagreement Institutionalised De-emphasised
8 explanation dealings Labour organization purchaser
9 proposal gradually incorporated
10 commercial diagram unimportant innermost
11 hurry of conclusion leisurely high-speed
12 organization function Transactional Transformational
13 Key director workers broad
14 announcement roundabout straight
15 consistency valued
administration
elevated stumpy
16 abilities arbitration make possible
17 assortment divide included
18 disburse work estimate presentation
interrelated
19 circumstances removed discuss Harmonisation
20 employment
supervision
communal good deal
agreement
Towards entity
agreements
21 plunge of relatives Regularised through
amenities and guidance
Marginalised
22 marks numerous little
23 announcement controlled stream augmented stream

24 occupation plan separation of work cooperation
25 disagreement treatment attain provisional peace direct atmosphere and
society
26 education and
expansion
unnatural admission erudition corporation
27 interference Personnel procedures Wide ranging cultural
In context of Tesco, it has been identified that Tesco utilises human resource management
as modern technique or version of dealing with people or employees and their strengths
(Edwards and Rodriguez, 2018).
E) Job design practices followed by Tesco
An organizations performance highly dependent upon the HRM practices under which job
designing is one of the major components. Organizations like Tesco motivate their employees by
designing the process of assigning tasks to any specific position (Akanji, 2017). The job
designing model utilised within the firm Tesco are:

Job design structure
The factors related to job designing such as worker capability, contentment with work
surroundings and their enlargement needs to influence the incentive level of the workforce. The
schemes are related to job designing are:
 Job rotary motion: it is structure of job plan exercise in which employees are
stimulated from one occupation to an additional which helps to reduce job monotony
and help in just beginning of flexibility among workforce.
 Job improvement: It includes enhancing the numeral of responsibilities in occupation.
It helps in getting better of work competence and suppleness.
 Job enhancement: It happens when the employees are hand over with additional
everyday jobs for preparation, organize and preparation of their own work.
 Options for employment agenda: Company design their work in a manner through
which they provide convenience to their workers so that they can equilibrium their work
instance. These might in the form of dense job weeks, flexitime, shorter working week

and telecommuting. This particular practice highly beneficial in adverse conditions of
pandemic.
F) Hiring and firing strategies of Tesco
Recruitment of appropriate candidate is the most crucial task of HR department because
selecting the right candidate for specific position will bring productivity to the firm while
wrong selection bring losses to the firm (Kabrtova, 2018). The recruitment and selection
procedure that has been followed by Tesco are:
Recruitment and selection process in Tesco
 Advertise the job vacancy: Tesco initially identifies the vacant positions of all different
departments of the firm and then make list of required candidates. After collection of all
the necessary information, firm publishes job advertisements through news paper,
magazines, internet, etc.
 Check the application: After doing job advertising, interested people applied through
company website and send their CV through email to HR managers. Then Hr department
check the applications and create shortlisted candidates list according to their
qualifications and abilities to fulfil the position.
 Telephonic interview: HR managers gives the phone to shortlisted candidates and takes
interview over the phone call which is about 10 to 15 minutes through which they
collects detail about the candidates education qualification, previous job details, skills,
etc.

 Final store interview: On the basis of telephonic interview, HR personnel managers
selects some applicants whose interview was good and call them for face to face
interview sessions. In the final interview, the interviewer asks questions in order to judge
the abilities through which the position can be handled by the candidate.
 Job offer to applicant: After final interview, HR manager offers selected employees to
join the firm and specify date of joining.
On the other hand, apart from selection procedure companies also have to adopt certain
termination processes as well in order to fire employees who are not suitable for the firm which
is the most challenging task for human resource people as well (Bozic, Siebert and Martin,
2019). The process followed by Tesco is:
 Tesco is completely transparent about their termination policies.
 Begin documentation processes as soon as the firm notices negative performance or
behaviour of any candidate within the organization.
 Work with management or concerned people to rapidly reach on decision that whether
and when the person should be terminated.
 Create time frame for termination.
 Schedule last meeting with the employee for necessary paper work and the final
payments.
 HR managers make sure that his electronic and physical access to the work premises is
disconnected along with providing or treating them with whole dignity.
G) Examples of good HR practices in firms
There are various tools and techniques that have been adopt by firms in order to make their
HR practices attractive for the betterment of the employees as well as firm. Some innovative Hr
practices within the firm are:
 Juniper has evolved an idea of doing and taking interviewing processes over video
during this pandemic situation which considered as one of the most cost cutting measure
and technological complexity. It is highly effective even the candidate is hundred miles
ago.

 Marriot hotel employs this scheme to drive possible workforce to their website. They use
practical tour of their place of work or playing video games implementation of their job
tasks adding rudiments into the employ toolbox.
 Apple is highly known for observance their occupation a underground in order to stop
contestant from judgment of certain particulars about their subsequent proposals.
 PR firms Golin unite communal media and meet their proceedings in order to draw and
construct relationship with potential new hires. Firm utilises employees social media
connections to request candidate through which they build relationships with others.
H) Advices to company regarding HRM rehearsals to maintain managerial presentation
The complete audit on the project and HR management strategies that has been conducted
by the firm management, certain recommendations are provided such as develop or revise
employee handbook as the handbook is the proper document which provides complete
information about company policies, procedures and benefits. It also requires development or
updation in job description which is the important part of various HR processes that also includes
hiring, employee performance management and orientation. The firm also renovate their hiring
procedures along with provide them appropriate training for their managers so that they are
appropriately able to manage their staff members or teammates. The Tesco HR managers also
have to focus towards development of performance evaluation procedure among the firm so that
the performance of employees is effectively evaluated and rewards given to them in most
appropriate manner (Sughra, 2019). This strategy enhances the motivation level among
employees. Evaluation of new measures and strategies are primal priority for the firms. In order
to improve the environment within the workplace, certain HR practices needs to be taken into
consideration such as providing the workers safe, healthy and happy premises to work with, open
book management style, provide performance linked bonuses, provide employees appropriate
feedback system, fair evaluation system, effective knowledge sharing, highlight the performance
of performers, open in house discussions along with proper feedback mechanisms. Delight
employees with the unexpected reward system in order to make them happy and highly
motivated in order to enhance their productivity level along with increase in their morale.

CONCLUSION
From the above report it has been concluded that human resource management is an
effective management of people within an organization which helps to bridge the gap among
employees’ performances and the firms’ organizational objectives. In addition to that, HR
management team can give establishments an edge over the other competitive firms because the
strategies adopted by HR people are the major ways which makes differences among the
enterprises. The most imperative aspect of HR is the populace as their main purpose is to locate,
draw and preserve the best individuals within an organization for the fulfilment of requirements
of appropriate positions. Apart from this, the report also discussed certain recommendations to
enhance the management practices to motivate the employees in effectual manner.

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