Employee Relations in Tesco PLC: A Comprehensive Report and Analysis

This report provides a detailed analysis of employee relations within Tesco PLC, a major UK retail company. It begins by exploring the unitary and pluralistic frames of reference, highlighting their impact on maintaining employee relationships and achieving organizational goals. The report then examines modifications in trade unionism and their effects on employee relations, including employment growth, social cohesion, and civil rights. The role of key players, such as managers, trade unions, and government, in fostering positive employee relations is also discussed. Furthermore, the report delves into conflict situations, outlining procedures for identifying and resolving conflicts, and analyzing key features of employee relations in a selected conflict scenario. It also addresses negotiation in collective bargaining, its impact on organizational strategies, and the influence of the EU on industrial democracy. The report concludes by assessing employee participation, involvement in decision-making processes, and the impact of human resource management on employee relations within Tesco PLC, providing a comprehensive overview of the challenges and strategies in this critical area.

Employee relation

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
TASK 1............................................................................................................................................1
1.1 Unitary and pluralistic frames of reference...........................................................................1
1.2 Modification in trade unionism that have affected employee relations................................2
1.3 The role of the main players in employee relations. ............................................................4
TASK 2............................................................................................................................................5
2.1 The procedures an organisation should follow when dealing with different conflict
situations.....................................................................................................................................5
2.2 The key features of employee relations in a selected conflict situation................................6
2.3 The effectiveness of procedures used in a selected conflict situation...................................7
TASK 3..........................................................................................................................................10
3.1 The role of negotiation in collective Bargaining.................................................................10
3.2 The impact of negotiation strategy for a given situation.....................................................11
TASK 4..........................................................................................................................................12
4.1 The influence of the EU on industrial democracy in the UK..............................................12
4.2 Employee participation and involvement in the decision making process in organisations
...................................................................................................................................................13
4.3 The impact of human resource management on employee relations..................................14
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................14
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................16
ILLUSTRATION INDEX
Illustration 1: Employee relationship...............................................................................................4
Illustration 2: Conflict workplace resolution...................................................................................8

INTRODUCTION
Employee relationship is the bonding and kinship between the employees and employers
within the firm. To achieve success and gain organizational goals, there is necessity of
maintaining the employee relation. It is the fundamental process and if not performed, there
could be difficulties for the company in their work performance. Firms focus on the employee
relation as it highlights the work environment, belief, culture, core competencies and values of
the entity (Medina-Garrido and et. al., 2017). In this report study is made on Tesco plc. which is
UK’s largest retail physical sector company. Tesco Plc. which is situated in UK, established by
Jack Cohen in 1919. It is world largest retail store expanded over 12 countries and having 6,553
stores. They have 476,000+ employees and earns revenue of £55,917 million with operating
income of £1,280 million (Tesco PLC, 2017). The company provides widest range of food in the
UK. Company’s main competitors are ASDA, Sainsbury's, M&S and Morrison's (Kim and et. al.,
2017).
In this report, frame of references are explained that have affected employees relations. It
includes the discussion over employee relation against the changing environment. Furthermore,
report explains existence of industrial conflict and its resolution by understanding the role of
players in employee relation. Additionally, ways are mentioned that help to reduce the conflicts.
Moreover, it also details about collective bargaining and negotiation processes and its impact on
the organization. In addition to this, report explains about the concept of employee participation
and involvement. Along with this, report also covers employee participation and involvement in
the decision-making process of Tesco. At last, report assesses the impact of HRM approach on
employees' relation for the mentioned firm.
TASK 1
1.1 Unitary and pluralistic frames of reference
In almost all the organization, there are certain relations shared by the employees at the
workplace. In order to achieve organizational goals firm uses Unitary and pluralistic factors.
They play significant role in maintaining the employee relationship as-well-as to accomplish the
task in more effective and efficient manner (Pandey, 2017). For Tesco, it is required to maintain
healthy relationship as employees are their greatest power. They are the most vital resource for
the firm. In this context, the above two frames of references are discussed on the organization:
1

Unitary perspective frame: It is the process of conducting and operating the business with
integration to achieve organizational goals. Here staff members are considered as family and
pleasant work environment is provided to them so all of them remain incorporated. The main
rationale behind this is to share the same goals and objectives among the entire team of firm. In
addition to this, employee’s show more dedication and interest towards achieving organizational
goals. In Tesco, every member is contributing in effective manner to make firm best and high
class in market. There are various perspective or view points of the employees towards the
organization which can be based on flexibility, positioning and talent, etc. Effective
communication and problem-sharing among the employees and employers can help the
organisation to solve many of its problem (Rahman and Taniya, 2017). All the activities must be
managed by team leaders where they distribute duties, roles and responsibilities to every
member. As a result, complete and comprehensive relationship can be maintained based on terms
and conditions of organization and instruction of leaders are followed in sincere ways.
Pluralistic Perspective frame: According to Pluralistic framework, there is division among the
organisation in various groups. Every group is then assigned an objective and a leader. Tesco is
having 2-major subgroups that are management and trade unions. Management’s role is to
accomplish work properly and focus on employee relationship. Major focus is provided in
convincing and synchronization process. However, trade union plays essential role in getting
firm goals. Through the division, responsibilities among the employees, managers and
organization gets divided (Walker, van Jaarsveld and Skarlicki, 2017). For employees, they
support the legitimate and legislatures structure. Mutual agreements and negotiation are main
methods to accomplish organisational goals.
1.2 Modification in trade unionism that have affected employee relations
To assist employees from employer's exploitation, illegal policies and improvement in
working conditions, trade union was recommended by Royal Commission in 1867. Trade Union
and Labour Relations Act, 1992 was made to protect the employees’ rights and maintain
relationship among employees and employers. There are various objectives covered under the
trade union and has great significance. For Tesco, it majorly relates to the incentives, bonuses
and allowances, standards in wages, reducing conflicts among employees regarding unethical
rules and procedures. In order to accomplish this, various changes were considered by the
organization in employee relationship which are as follows:
2

 Employment growth: Without safe and effective workplace employee’s growth is
unpredictable and they cannot work efficiently (Zahid, Khan, Tariq and Azeem, 2017). In
respect to this, Tesco has to provide effective work environment so that very member in
the firm can participate in systematic and social manner. Through this employee’s safety
and various incentives as-well-as growth factors can be provided to them. Using this, the
cited firm will have high reputation, positive impact on market and their customers. Social Cohesion: Development process cannot be started without the Social cohesion.
Trade union seek for different agenda such as employee’s safety, social rights and to
reduces conflicts within the organisation. Tesco uses it to provide fair payment, income
and job security, safe workplace and individual rights. Partnership in Development: There are various developmental activities that are required
to maintain the employee relationship. For Tesco it will bring sustainable and ever lasting
development. Civil rights and equality: It is is similar to the social cohesion along with consumer
cooperatives involvement. Such aspects will maintain the loyalty among the employee’s.
 Partnership and Alliances: Trade union made such changes to accomplish the
community associations, human rights, consumer and environment regulations to ensure
the equality in the community (Coyne and et. al., 2017).
Illustration 1: Employee relationship
(Sources- Knowledge is strength. 2009)
3

1.3 The role of the main players in employee relations.
Maintaining healthy relationship among the organizational members is main roles and
responsibilities of organisations. Moreover, for employees it plays' essential role as it focus on
their interest areas and performance level in more specific ways (Kundu, Kundu, Lata and Lata,
2017). Thus, it is essential for every member of Tesco enterprise to maintain relations in
systematic manner. To achieve this, there are various players they support in this process. Tesco
has following key players that help them to maintain employee relationship:
Managers role: All the employee activities are managed, operated and monitored by the
managers. For them equality should be prime concept and there should be no favouritism.
Further, they must have open and flexible communication system so that they can ensure healthy
working environment. Moreover, they must encourage employees to have healthy competition at
the workplace and should regulate that roles and responsibilities must be properly accomplished
(Lijuan and Yawen, 2017). They must also focus on their job security.
Role of trade union: Trade union was made to protect the employees rights from employers.
They have formulated and established various policies, terms and conditions regarding
payments, their benefits and working hours. They also focus on the contract and negotiation that
are provided by the organisation. Additionally, they also provides legal and financial advices to
employee’s for their development and effective progress. Besides all this, they ensure employees
self-respect and standards of living.
Role of government and other authorization: Government and different NGOs' are present for
the protection of the employees rights. They also play major role towards the employee relations,
their rights and working condition in UK (Huang, 2017). For this various rules, regulations and
laws are framed and implemented for employees and employers. Tesco has framed its decisions
towards the workers benefits. In addition to this, they try to maintain high employment level.
Government also focuses on the areas like inflation and depression rate.
TASK 2
2.1 The procedures an organisation should follow when dealing with different conflict situations
There can be various reasons that can lead to the conflicts within an organization and
among any member of the firm. Changing organisational policies, rules and regulations they can
be reduced. However, continuous and ongoing conflicts can reduce the efficiency of the entity
4

performance and could create danger for the firm in attending their goals. Conflicts can be
interpersonal, intra-personal, structural, strategies and operational conflicts. Solving conflicts
among the members of organisation and parties is among the challenges aspect for Tesco (Las
Heras, Van der Heijden, De Jong and Rofcanin, 2017). If such conflicts are not solved by the
organisation their regular operation and performance will surely get impacted. In order to solve
these issues Tesco uses different procedures and conflicts solving models to reduce such issues
and maintain work-environment within the organisation. These are mentioned below: Identifying types of the conflict: To solve the conflicts among the organisational
members, there is need to identify, analyse and think over the mitigation areas. Tesco
found that most of the issues and conflicts were due to communication-gap or miss-
communication among the employees and employers. This can be due to attitude,
personal belief and interpersonal skills among various members in the enterprise.
Identifying their issues can help in reducing them through collective approach. Attitude, belief, culture and values at workplace: For Tesco these are the main factors
for their success. In order to solve the conflicts, they try to compromise among the
parties, avoid conflicts, try to resolve and if they do not get any solutions they take strict
action against the person (Amin and et. al., 2017). The organization integrates various
activities to solve the situations in systematic manner. Adopting strategy: To avoid the conflicts within the organization various strategies can
be adopted by the firm. They can monitor through cameras, get reviews of other
employees or even conflicts can be taken to the governing body. The person found guilty
must be banned from the organization or relative action must be taken against them.
 Compromising and Resolving: Compromise and resolving is the best way to solve the
conflicts. Using it person can easily solve their problems without raising it further. Using
the methods organization can eliminate difficulties from the workplace.
2.2 The key features of employee relations in a selected conflict situation
Conflicts can be raised every day, however, there are certain conflicts that affects the
organizational policies in every dangerous ways. Additionally, is firm is unable to resolve those
issues they may get serious impact and can be severely hampered. Due to largely expanded firm
5

and operation at different areas Tesco employees are facing conflicts in their communication
areas.
 For maintaining employer and employees relationship, firm can achieve their desired
outcomes through different approaches in their operational activities and manner of
performance (Stiglbauer, 2017). In this context, there is need of effective participation of
both the members in the activities of the firm. As results, they will able to understand
each other and in collective, collaborative and systematic manner they can accomplish
organizational goals. Thus, Tesco can set their targets with maintain social-relations with
every member in the entity.
 For integrating the employee employer relations, participation of all the people within the
workplace is required. Though, they work for the same organization, conflicts may
separate them and can change the objectives of the firm. In this context, they must have
bonding and strong understanding level so that firm operation does not get affected due to
internal conflicts (Eldor and Vigoda-Gadot, 2017). Collective resources' and use of
different parameters can help in reducing the conflicts and issues within the company.
 Concept of employer employee relations is ever-changing aspect which changes
according to the environment or time. In respect to this, Tesco can systematically work
according to changing structure and environment. They should make their
communication part stronger so that such changes can be made as-soon-as possible.
Though they are not drastic changes but can affect the working of organization and or its
society members. Additionally, Tesco must provide flexible working hours so that
employees can do their work efficiently and can achieve convenience within workplace.
 Further, in-effective communication affects various parts involving employee-employer
relations and decision-making ability within the enterprise. In respect to this, mainly
communicating, reviews, feedback and interaction with the employees can solve the
problem (Timming, 2017). Such interaction among them shapes to effective and strong
relationship within the enterprise along with appropriate working environment.
 For smooth functioning at workplace miss-communication and discrimination regarding
anything should not be there. In this context, Tesco should focus on their serving areas
such as services to employees such as effective accommodation facilities, incentives,
6

rewards and recognition (Li, Kim and Zhao, 2017). Based on their skills and attributes
managers should provide this things so relationship and trust can be maintained.
2.3 The effectiveness of procedures used in a selected conflict situation
There are various procedures that can be used by the organization and organizational
members to solve conflict. However, if effectiveness is not among the solution, then conflicts
can not be resolved. Following steps are used to solve the conflicts in Tesco:
 Conflict resolution at the workplace: If manager in Tesco found some conflict
among the employees, they should resolve it constructively and at regular basis.
For this, they can supervise the situation and identify the main cause for it. In this
context, they can formulate and develop strategies through which firm can solve
conflict among employees at the workplace (Medina-Garrido and et. al., 2017).
Additionally, managers need to understand conflict reason and after that solve it
very carefully. Besides this, they can concentrate on employee’s behavior and
attitude as these can be reason for the problems due to which sometimes workers
hange it easily. Along with this, personality is another aspect which might be
change at the workplace.
7

Illustration 2: Conflict workplace resolution
(Sources: CONFLICT RESOLUTION. 2017)
8

 Responding to a conflict: Sometimes managers are unable to overview the
conflicts situations. In respect to this, they should not take decision of their own.
In Tesco supervision is done through various ways and employees are aware
towards the situations. So supervisor can easily respond towards the situation of
firm and can provide the changes that are required by people.
 Understand the problem: To resolve the conflict situations in Tesco, the firm
needs to respond towards the situations in more approachable ways. As mentioned
above managers or employers must not take decision without understanding the
problem and making discussion (Mohammed, 2017). In respect to this, manager
of the Tesco needs to listen employees request carefully so that they can maintain
their loyalty towards the business operations. This can be accomplished through
effective communication. In this context, managers can interpret the problem at
the workplace and can make their decision on the problem.
 Work on solution: Additionally, effectiveness can be seen in through improving
the employees and employers relationship. Further, cohesion is maintained among
the team members. They have developed self-knowledge and are providing
efficiency in the operational activities. They have developed effective and better
work environment as-well-as quality of life.
TASK 3
3.1 The role of negotiation in collective Bargaining
According to Eldor (2017) collective bargaining is the negotiation techniques between
employer and employee for getting advantages over work progress. It can be regarding their
salaries, work-environment, profit sharing and other rights and compensation which employees
must achieve. For Tesco it can be agreement between labour or employer including various term
and condition. Some of the negotiation made by Tesco employees during collective bargaining
process are mentioned below:
 Negotiation is the middle solution that is acceptable to all the members of the
organization which provides higher satisfaction level at high stage. Being formal
agreements negotiation requires deeper mutual level understanding. However, if Tesco
9

does not follow negotiation regarding their communication issues, they may face
difficulty in achieving the appropriate solution and adopting strategy for getting goals
(Burton and et. al., 2017). In this situation organization must make peaceful approach and
employees must have faith that their issues will be resolved.
 Employees-employers both needs to understand their responsibilities and should solve
their issues in systematic manner. In this context, they can negotiate to solve this problem
through appropriate terms or conditions or methodology (Kim and et. al., 2017).
 Further, its the organizational duties to inform their members about any changes or
decisions that are going to be implemented within the organisation. The decision-making
must be made by following the union and government laws and regulation. Further,
salaries, work-environment and culture must be hampered through such decisions. Tesco
can also create link among union and members of the enterprise so that they can also
consult them and can receive important information regarding organization easily.
 Tesco must promote and should make effective arrangements for making the effective
communication among members of the enterprise. In order to achieve business results,
the cited organisation can also offer information regarding new members, policies and
arrangements. If firm is unable to implement certain conditions they must inform their
employees with proper reason behind that.
 Through negotiation and collective bargaining firm can enhance their productivity. They
can motivate employees through various things for achieving targets of the business
(Pandey, 2017). Group discussion, planning, developing strategies, communication,
analysing and flexibility in the process are negotiation which can be adopted by Tesco.
3.2 The impact of negotiation strategy for a given situation
Effective negotiation strategy may affects firm finance, operation, sales and performance
(Burton and et. al., 2017). It can be that Tesco may be facing various issues like conflict and
disputes which can impact in their all the above mentioned activities. However, using the
negotiation strategies it can be reduced. They can adopt different negotiation strategy for solving
different conditions. For instance, miss-communication within the organization needs effective
negotiation solution to solve the problem. In this context, impact of negotiation strategy for a
given situation are provided below:
10