Human Resource Management Report: Tesco PLC Analysis - HRM

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of Human Resource Management (HRM) practices within Tesco PLC. It begins with an introduction defining HRM and its significance, particularly within a multinational corporation like Tesco. The report explores the core purpose and functions of HRM, including planning, recruitment and selection, performance management, rewarding, industrial relations, and employee welfare. It delves into various recruitment and selection approaches, such as internal job postings, employee referral programs, and online job boards, evaluating their advantages and disadvantages. The report also examines the effectiveness of different HRM practices and the impact of internal and external factors on HRM decision-making, including employee relations and relevant legislation. Finally, the report applies HRM practices specifically within Tesco, offering practical insights and concluding with a summary of key findings.

HUMAN RESOURCE
MANAGEMENT

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
LO 1 PURPOSE AND SCOPE OF HRM.......................................................................................3
P1 Purpose and Functions of Human Resource Management.....................................................3
P2 Various Approaches to Recruitment and Selection................................................................5
LO 2 Effectiveness of the key elements of Human Resource Management...................................9
P3 Different HRM practices........................................................................................................9
P4 Effectiveness of different HRM practices............................................................................10
LO3 Impact of internal and External factors on HRM decision making.......................................11
P5 Significance of Employee relations......................................................................................11
P6 Elements of Employee Legislation and its Impact on HRM decision-making....................13
LO 4...............................................................................................................................................14
P7 Application of HRM practices in Tesco...............................................................................14
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................17
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................19
Online........................................................................................................................................19

INTRODUCTION
Human resource management can be defined as the process of organizing, planning, coordinating
and controlling large group of people in the company. Human resource managers plays
significant role in the business such as recruitment-selection, reward-punishment, employee
retention, training and development and others in the company. The mission statement of the
Tesco Inc. is to “we make what the matters better, together”. The core purpose is “to develop
value for the customers to earn their lifetime loyalty” (Core Purpose and Values, 2020). Human
resource management has goal such as to improve productivity, growth and operations of the
business in the business market. To understand role of human resource management has an
example of Tesco plc. It is an MNC company which runs its business in domestic and
international market so it faces various issues while dealing with dynamic business environment.
But organization posses’ different and effective capabilities and deals with dynamic business
environment effectively. It is headquartered in UK and posses’ wide product line. This report
will provide understanding over purpose of human resource functions and its key roles and
responsibilities in the Tesco plc.
LO 1 PURPOSE AND SCOPE OF HRM
P1 Purpose and Functions of Human Resource Management
The main purpose of HRM is to encourage the environment of the workplace such that the
workforce can perform well in order to increase the productivity by increasing their knowledge,
skills and capabilities. In order to increase the competency, the HRM also organizes various
training programs which helps in enhancing the skills and abilities of the employees (Bailey and
et.al., 2018).
The HRM of Tesco mainly deals in providing the services to its customers according to their
demands. The company keeps a regular check on the changing demands of the customers in
order to fulfil maximum of them making the customers and the employees satisfied. The
implementation of all the strategies are depended on the HRM.
Tesco, being the largest among the multinational companies in the retailer industry in UK and
third largest in the world perform its operations worldwide.

The mission of Tesco is to make its customers satisfied by fulfilling their changing demands. It
wants to become the champion of the customers by helping them to live a better life (Core
Purpose and Values, 2020).
Functions of HRM
Human resource is basically the employment management in order to gain a competitive
advantage with the help of strategies made by highly talented and skilled workforce (Malik,
Pereira and Budhwar, 2017). It performs numerous functions but the major functions as observed
in Tesco, UK are as follows:
 Planning: The main role of HR is to know about the needs of the organization and the types
of people needed in order to perform well to achieve the organizational goals. By knowing
these, it performs the other functions of recruiting and selecting the employees along with
managing their performance.
 Recruitment and Selection: This is the major role played by the HRM to attract the
individuals for working in the organization along with choosing the best ones. Tesco do not
face any problem in attracting the individuals because of its good reputation that forces every
person to work for it. Nowadays, Tesco is using advanced technologies like Social
networking sites in order to gain a pool of talent. It then selects the best and highest-potential
candidates.
 Managing Performance: The HRM ensures that all the employees engage themselves in all
the activities and tasks an enhance the productivity (Zarqan and Sukarni, 2017). In Tesco,
this is done by reviewing the performance and taking feedbacks from the managers,
colleagues, customers etc. According to the performance, the HRM builds the future
workforce and provides learning to the employees whose performance is not upto the mark.
 Rewarding: The HRM is also responsible for giving regular rewards to the employees for
performing well even in the small tasks. This keeps the employees motivated and encouraged
to do better the next time. Tesco rewards its employees by giving incentives, bonus, some
easy tasks, flexibility in work hours and sometimes new good colleagues.

 Industrial Relations: The HRM also ensures good relations with the employees and among
the employees which is must for enhancing their performance in order to increase the
productivity and making the environment of the workplace better. Tesco believes in making
the workplace friendlier and comfortable. This helps it to spot the conflicts if arises and
resolves it soon.
 Employees’ Welfare: This is the main responsibility of HRM to implement regulations
regarding the health and safety of the employees. In Tesco, it is forbidden to walk the stairs
holding the railings which are implemented by its HRM. It also listens to the employees’
personal problems by supporting them in the form of various benefits.
P2 Various Approaches to Recruitment and Selection
There are many methods used by the companies in order to recruit and select the best
employees in terms of skills and talents. Tesco focuses on the following approaches having its
own strengths and weaknesses:
 Internal Job postings
This is a method when a job position is opened by the hiring manager for the employees who
already work in the organization. Majority of the organizations focus on this as the existing
employees are already aware of the policies of the company.
Advantages: It helps in increasing the morale of the employees and gives them the opportunity
to become advances in the same organization. It helps in reducing the cost of hiring.
Disadvantages: It increases the competition among the employees and can lead to biased
selection process too. It can even result in conflicts among them due to some employees
promoted and some not.
 Employee Referral Programs
This is the internal method of recruitment in which the HRM makes the proper use of the
existing employees. In order to improve the hiring process, the employees are brought together
becoming the ambassadors of the company (Solutions and Belt, 2017). This encourages the

employees to bring the most talented and qualifying candidates from their social networks
thereby saving the money of the company and increasing the productivity.
Advantages: It eliminates the problem of advertising for positions and just focus on reviewing
the resumes which also saves money. It also helps in improving the employee retention because
of the commitment they have given to their near and dear ones. This will not make the company
face the problem of lacking the talent instead it will bring only those employees which are
considered best according to their friends who already worked for a long time improving the
morale.
Disadvantages: This is proved to be a loss to the company as if one employee is fired then the
employee which referred it also leaves the job as a protest against the firing. This also leads to
limited ideas and opinions. The HRM will not be able to extract the new ideas and views. If can
even reduce the employee morale if the hiring manager becomes unable to select the candidate
which is referred.
 Online Job Boards
The HRM also focuses on exposing the job opportunities through Online Job Boards. These
are generally the websites referred to as Job Banks which allows the employers to advertise for
the vacant positions in the organizations. These are used by the candidates who are in need of
any job (Alam and Raut-Roy, 2019). In Tesco, these are used in more advanced way to receive
and manage applications which enhances the recruitment and selection approach for candidates’
qualification.
Advantages: These gives many options to the recruiters as thousands of people post their
resumes on these sites in search of jobs. This becomes more convenient approach as the manager
can post a job anytime anywhere if having the internet connection and easy for the candidate too
to apply for the certain positions anytime from anywhere. It also helps the companies in
improving the brand image by creating innovative profiles to attract the brimming talent.
Disadvantages: It sometimes becomes time-consuming increasing the chances of unqualified
applicants. It also needs a complete research to choose the perfect board which can help the
company to hire the desired candidate. It also needs the support of other approaches. This does
not provide guarantee that the hiring manager always finds the qualified and talented candidate
and at the same location as well.

Therefore, Tesco can use the above-mentioned approaches in order to recruit and select the best
candidate which can enhance its productivity thereby increasing its customer base and the overall
sales and progress.
Social Media Postings
The new talent can also be found through the social networking sites as the candidates are
more engaged on digital networks. The additional information which is not presented in the
traditional resume is also highlighted on online platforms.
Advantages: Easy way to screen the candidates, increases the accessibility for both the manager
and the candidates and also helps the recruiters to reach the wider audience.
Disadvantages: It is time-consuming and can sometimes create privacy concerns. It becomes
difficult to measure the accuracy of the gauging personality through these networks.
Hence, among all the above-mentioned approaches, Tesco must use the Online Job Boards
approach which can give it many options to choose the skilled ones from. It will also help the
company to have new and fresh talent which can give more innovative solutions and strategies in
order to gain a competitive advantage. Though this approach will result in greater investment in
hiring the candidates but Tesco is financially stable so it can invest a larger amount for hiring the
candidates through online job boards and will use various selection tools like tests and interviews
to select certain from the pool of the candidates. Interviews can be the best method to have a
clear picture about the candidate but can be sometimes bad as the candidates may not always
present the true information at the time of interviews which can sometimes misguide the
interviewers. The efficient selection method like organizing tests can help the company to have
more talented and qualified employees in order to enhance the performance and achieve the
organizational goals.
Approaches to Selection
There can be various methods of selecting a candidate among the pool of candidates
which are as follows:
Interviews: These can be by various methods like face to face, online through video
conferencing etc. Face to face interview helps in gaining a better idea of the personality of the

candidates along with their behaviour. In-person interview also helps in analysing the speaking
skills of the candidate along with the skill set, education and many more aspects.
Strengths: It helps the interviewer to evaluate the various cues of the candidate such as body
language, facial expressions and the true intent. It can also be analysed that whether the person
can be adapted to the situation and the environment of the workplace or not.
Weaknesses: The selection can involve the biasness. The minority ones can be more benefitted
as compared to the non-minority ones. Sometimes, the interviewer is not able to judge the
candidate by the first impression.
Assessment Centres: It gives an idea about the ways in which the candidate will react in
different typical situations.
Strengths: Through this, the performance of the candidate can be improved along with
increasing the strengths and removing the weaknesses. The candidates are judged by various
experts.
Weaknesses: It becomes very costly and time-consuming. Sometimes, the candidates may not be
provided with the positive feedback and the evaluation can be biased.
In-tray tests: These can be exercised by various methods like prioritising, information analysing
etc.
Strengths: Prioritising decides the priority of the jobs and responsibilities and gives more
importance to the significant activities rather than the insignificant ones that can be missed. The
record keeping also helps in identifying whether the talents of the candidates matches the
expectations of the organization or not.
Weaknesses: Diversions and problems can be created like the manager can be uncontactable for
a week or a two and the tone of the insignificant items also needs to be addressed which results
in wastage of time and cost.
Therefore, the interviews can be the best option for Tesco in order to select the candidates. It also
helps to evaluate the maximum aspects of the employees and also there can be minimum chances
of biasness. The candidate also cannot hide the important details which can affect the overall

performance of the organization. Tesco can be benefited greatly be selecting candidates through
interviews through various modes.
LO 2 Effectiveness of the key elements of Human Resource Management
P3 Different HRM practices
 Recruitment and selection
Recruitment and selection are the important function of the human resource managers who
practice this function in order to maintain productivity of business in the workplace. Human
resource managers of Tesco plc practice this function whenever company needs employees for
vacant post (Botha and Coetzee, 2017). However, managers offer attractive incentives and
business facilities so that effective talents can be attracted. Thus, Tesco’s management manage
productivity of the employees in the workplace.
 Flexible working hours’ practices
It is one of the best practices of human resource management that is practiced by various
companies in modern era for retaining wide number of talented staff in the workplace. This
function is practiced by management of Tesco in order to maintain their wellbeing within
workplace. Management of Tesco is flexible with time that reduces pressure on individuals and
encourages them to give best performance workplace. with this practice company enables to gain
all proposed projects on time with high quality. On the other hand, employees get optimum time
to spend with their family. So it will valid to say that this HRM practice brings mutual benefits in
the business.
 Performance appraisal
It is motivating approach of HRM that is not only stay motivated large group of people but also
improves their professional personality in the workplace. This approach is proposed to gain all
business objectives effectively. This HRM practice promotes individuals to earn more financial
benefits except salary so that always try to give productive performance in the job place so that
effective outcomes can be received on time (Guerci, Longoni and Luzzini, 2016). Apart from
this, it is important for management to treat individual fairly in the workplace as well as
promotes them to give high performance. The reason behind is that if HR managers unable to
keep transparency in decision-making and employment policies that creates conflicts between

staff and management. So, it is essential for the human resources to gather feedbacks from
individuals that will maintain wellbeing of individuals effectively.
 Benefits of employees and managers
Tesco plc gains various benefits from the HRM practices i.e. recruitment and selection process
help to maintain productivity of staff in the workplace. On the other hand, appraisal system helps
to gain framed objectives within timeframe. Flexible working hour practice is another practice of
HRM through which Tesco enables to gain high quality working in number of projects which
individuals have completed. While employees get satisfaction from all HRM practices of Tesco
in the workplace as resulted they do not seek for the employment elsewhere.
P4 Effectiveness of different HRM practices
It is one of the major responsibility of the HRM to hire right talent for the right post so
that so that Tesco can have effective functioning in the UK market which is going to bring
economic benefits for the business. Tesco is a retailing company that operates it’s business in
multiple countries across the world. So, it has to face tough competition from other big retail
companies like M&S, Asda and others because they offer similar product like Tesco. So, in such
state company requires will require to have better functioning in the retail sector so that it
enables to bring satisfaction in customers for the product and services that will keep it stay long
time in the market.
Recruiting right applicants
It is one of the essential requirements of the Tesco plc that practices by management to
manage employee’s availability of the company. Whenever organization faces employee
turnover issues then they recruit new talents who have extensive knowledge of customers which
supports to complete all issues of employee’s turnover in the job place. This HRM practice
supports organization to enhance ability and commitment of the business by recruiting right
candidate for the right job. Thus, organization enables to create innovative working environment
in the job place that makes organization to achieve competitive advantage (Hassan, 2016).
Security to the employees
It is HRM practice of the Tesco in order to keep individuals worry free about their safety
measures. Tesco offers insurance security and safety to the staff so that they maintain their
wellbeing within workplace. As know each candidate want such working environment whereas

they can spend additional hours except working hours to complete their targets on time. Tesco
plc offers compensation and safety insurance policy to the staff to bring satisfaction in
individuals and their family as well for safety perspective.
Fair Treatment
It is one of the important factors of HRM practice that helps company to promote
individuals to give honest performance in the workplace. It is primary responsibility of the
human resources that no employees feel that they are discriminated in the workplace in any
manner (Huang and et.al., 2016). Apart from this, Tesco has offered grievance policy to the staff
whereas individuals can complaint against management or staff members to the upper
management then they will take strict actions over them effectively. To keep transparency in
policies and decision-making process organizes meeting by managers of Tesco and involves all
staff to keep their preference over the decisions. Thus, company maintains fairness in the
business which encourages individuals to give honest performance in the job place.
Affect productivity and profitability of Tesco plc
Human resource managers of Tesco practices different HRM practices like fair treatment,
security to the employees and recruiting best talent affects profitability and productivity of
business in the workplace. In addition, these approaches support to resolve employee turnover
issues as well as fulfil all needs of customers within timeframe. With these approaches, Tesco
has gained effective competitive advantage, uplift selling revenue and high retention of talented
staff.
LO3 Impact of internal and External factors on HRM decision making
P5 Significance of Employee relations
It is essential for the human resource managers and team to keep high understanding level
and manages professional and personal level relationships. Employees are considered assets of
the company so; managers need to have effective knowledge about individuals needs and
expectation because through which HR can build sustainable relation between employer and
employees. There are various changes have come in the Tesco plc for the employees and for
customers which have to followed by company to gain profitable competitive advantages.
Motivation and communication are the two major factors of human resource that helped them
whenever changes take place in the company (Taamneh, Alsaad and Elrehail, 2018). However,

Tesco has recruited right talent or leaders for inspiring and declining work pressure of human
resource department.
 Tesco follows appraisal system to keep individuals motivated so that they give productive
performance in the workplace. in addition, it follows incentives and reward systems to
stay motivated its talented staff in the business. Such system supports company whenever
changes takes place in or requires to reduce employee turnover. It is important for the
business to adapt emerging changes in the business effectively so that productive
outcomes can achieved within timeframe (Xi, Zhao and Xu, 2017). Apart from this, such
rewarded and appraisal systems is not only helped company to keep individual motivated
for long time but also encourages them to give honest and effective performance at the
workplace so that effective outcomes can be received. In addition, it helps to maintain
good relation between employer and employees.
 Good employee relation supports company to raise goodwill of the business in it’s
business market and leads success in all business activities effectively (Vanhala and
Ritala, 2016). There is a reason to keep satisfied employees such as when employees are
satisfied from their job then they will put more efforts at the workplace and does not seek
employment elsewhere. Tesco always focus on employees needs and encourages them to
be productive at the job place. Apart from this, management involves large group of
employees in the decision-making process and promotes them to keep their views that
makes individual feel that they are valuable part of the business. Hierarchical
organizational structure follows by Tesco that is traditional organizational structure
wherein entire business activities are controlled by upper management of the company.
This organizational structure influences individuals to put more efforts in their working
so that they redeem their existing position effectively. Thus, Tesco maintains working
relationship with its staff effectively.
 Grievance and redundancy practice: It is one of the best practice of HRM through which
they can maintain good relation between employees and upper management. For
example, managers provided grievance facility to the staff because it allows individuals
to share their issue in written form to the HR manager and upper management, in that