Human Resource Management Report for Tesco: Analysis and Strategies

This report provides a comprehensive overview of Human Resource Management (HRM) practices at Tesco, a leading retail firm. It begins with an introduction to HRM, defining its purpose and functions, including employee relations, performance management, and adherence to employment laws. The report then delves into recruitment and selection processes, comparing the strengths and weaknesses of internal and external sourcing methods. It further explores the benefits of HRM practices for both employees and the employer, such as training and development, staff appraisal, and work-life balance, highlighting their impact on employee satisfaction, career growth, and organizational performance. The report concludes with a discussion on the importance of employee relations and the influence of employee legislation on HRM decision-making. Throughout the report, real-world examples from Tesco are used to illustrate key concepts and strategies. The report emphasizes the crucial role of HRM in enhancing organizational profit, productivity, and overall success.

HUMAN RESOURCE
MANAGEMENT

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
LO 1.................................................................................................................................................1
P1. Purpose and functions of HRM.............................................................................................1
P2. Strengths and weaknesses of recruitment and selection.......................................................2
LO2..................................................................................................................................................4
P3 Benefits of HRM practice to employees and employer.........................................................4
P4 Evaluation of effectiveness of HRM practice regarding raising organisation profit and
productivity.................................................................................................................................6
LO3..................................................................................................................................................7
P5 Importance of employee relation at the time of HRM decision making................................7
P6 Impact of employees legislation on HRM decision making..................................................8
LO4..................................................................................................................................................9
P7 Application of HRM practice.................................................................................................9
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................13
REFERNCES.................................................................................................................................14

INTRODUCTION
Human resource management is a process of selecting right people in company so that
they can assist people to accomplish desired targets and goals (Bacon and Voss, 2012). Besides
this primary function, personnel department also focuses on other crucial activities like making
arrangements for training of employees, deciding their salary and promotion, etc. There was a
time when workers were not considered as a significant asset of the enterprise but now, every
employer understands that their role is most important in success or failure of corporation. Tesco
is a leading firm of retail sector in the UK where almost 476000 people are working across many
nations. This report will discuss about the purpose of managing human resources along with
functions performed by this department. Various recruitment and selection procedures with their
strengths and weaknesses will become an important part of this assignment as well. Also,
benefits provided by HRM to employees and employer will get covered in this project. Profit on
an enterprise can increase if they adopt right practices of managing human resource (Banks and
Kepes, 2015). Concept of employee relation has gained lot of importance in recent time because
of its various advantages. It will be explained in this assignment. Employee legislation and HRM
practices will be discussed at the end as well.
LO 1
P1. Purpose and functions of HRM
Concept of human resource management arises because employers were failing to focus
on retaining and making good relation with their workers. In recent scenario, importance of this
department in most of the big companies like Tesco has increased as they know that if personnel
is not happy with company then they will never try to get their best at the time of moving
forward towards organisational goals. Below is the purpose of human resource management:
Employees – Workers are the key strengths of company and they can provide some extra
edge to enterprise (DeNisi,Wilson and Biteman, 2014). HR division is made by a firm because
they want to make sure that their staff members get necessary training in allotted time period and
most of their problems get resolved at the point of its generation. It is their duty to increase
productivity and retain them for long period of time.
Organisational – Every company wants to have talented employees in their organisation.
HRM fulfils this need of firm by finding, hiring and retaining skilled workers.
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Performance management – HRM focuses on improving the employee’s performance by
having continuous conversation with them and analysing problems which are stopping them
from committing mistakes (Dul,Ceylan and Jaspers, 2011).
Employee relation – Employer always need someone who assist them in developing good
connection with their workers. One of the prime purposes of HRM is to ensure that they work as
a bridge between both sides and removing every kind of confusion between them.
Cultural sensitivity – Human resource management plays a crucial role in increasing and
maintaining diversity among the workforce. This division of Tesco understands that they need
people from different parts of the world.
Laws – There are various acts relating to employment legislation. It is the purpose of HR
department to make sure that company follows all regulations and avoid legal troubles.
Functions of HRM
Recruitment and selection – This is primary and the most significant work of human
resource division of Tesco. They are responsible for hiring right people on a position. They
conduct complete procedure for finding and recruiting an employee who can fit in the company.
Planning – Making plans for various works like organising events, selection, etc. are
done by this department. HR department of Tesco has to conduct planning whether they are
going to use internal or external source of recruitment (Giauque, 2015).
Orientation – Whenever new employees enter in the organisation, HR manager
introduces them to all policies and systems of company. They tell them their workstation and
colleague who are going to work with new joinee.
Maintain positive working condition – Human resource management plays an important
role in removing differences between different employees, teams and departments so productive
working environment can be created and performance of workers will be improved.
Training and development – HR manager finds training needs of employees and motivate
them to learn something new and upgrade their present skill set.
P2. Strengths and weaknesses of recruitment and selection
An organisation has various choices at the time of find which source would be best for
them at the time of selecting right candidates for a post. Choosing mode of recruitment depends
upon the position and availability of resource to human resource department of company. Below
are some significant source of recruitment:
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External sourcing – Normally this method is used at the time of hiring fresh talent. This
Job offer regarding any post is published in newspaper, magazines and social media websites.
Recruiting candidates from colleges, walk in, taking assistance of HR are some of the option
which is available to the HR division of Tesco.
Strengths – By opting this source, company can find a wide range of variety of candidates
who are eligible for a specific post. If people are selected from outside the organisation then
enterprise can get new and innovative ideas which can easily be implemented in firm (Gill and
Meyer, 2011). Tesco requires high experience at senior posts, this work can be use external
source because many talented and experienced candidates can be found in other companies who
are doing same job. Another major advantage of this source is that it assists in finding employees
who have exact skills that are needed by the firm. Probability of partiality is very low in this
option and Tesco always believed in gaining trust of public and their HR department can also
support them through adopting this source of recruitment.
Weaknesses – Their is no doubt that this source of recruitment is expensive. Tesco may
have deep pocket but no company want to spend extra money on a work which can be done by
low price. Another problem with this option is that it is lengthy. If a company will go for campus
recruitment then first they have to wait for right time because they cannot hire someone from
mid session. Other thing is that they have to organise a lengthy process like make questionnaire
which is to be filled by potential candidates in order to check their aptitude and others skills
(Innocenti, Pilati and Peluso, 2011). Group decision, personal interview are some other part of
this lengthy process. If human resource manager will hire someone from outside then moral of
present employees go down and they may feel bad because they will get a feeling that company
does not think that they are suitable for a particular post.
Internal sources – These are sources which is used by company without looking outside
of the organisation for finding right candidate. Promotion, referral by current employees are
some of the prime example of internal source of selection. Normally this option is adopted by
small firms but nowadays multi-national companies are also using it.
Strengths – One of the main advantage of this internal sources is that it does not involve
much cost. In order to save money, company can ask their employees to suggestion their friends
or relatives who are eligible for a post. Promotion is another type of recruitment sources
(internal). If Tesco promote one of their employee to a higher post then they this will make a
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positive impact in his/her moral other workers will also get motivated to perform better so they
can get promotion in upcoming time (Nabrzyski, Schopf and Weglarz, 2012). Normally HR
department face the problems of trust, they do not know that whether the person has claimed
skills and experience because people can lie in a interview. But, if option of internal hiring is
chosen then it human resource managers will have all the details of the employee and they can
easily make correct decisions.
Weaknesses – Main disadvantage of this approach is that it does not allow HR division to
recruit talent from external source. This result in lack of new idea in the company and
organisation may fail to do timely innovation for coping up with present and future challenges.
Less ability of talent create various issues for the HR manager because they does not find
required skills when number of applicants are less. Also finding right man for right job is very
difficult by adopting this option (Internal and external sources of recruitment. 2011).
LO2
P3 Benefits of HRM practice to employees and employer
With time, importance of HR division has grown because big companies like Tesco know
that they only great minds can assist then in achieving companies goals. Machines and other
resources like financial are less important compared to people who are working in the firm.
Below are different HRM practice which is done by the HR team of Tesco:
Training and development – Everyone know that human resource wing cannot teach
technological skills to the employees but do the work of arranging training session for the worker
where they can get knowledge about significant things like leadership, professional development,
etc. (Osman, Ho and Carmen Galang, 2011). For high level of jobs, employees needs extra
training and acquire information about more areas. Most of the people who are working at higher
level in Tesco have gone through important training.
Staff appraisal – Making decisions about which employees will get more incentive and
who will get promotion is a apart of HR practice. They may not make these decision by their
own, they also involve other like senior manger and immediate superior of the employee so
because they have more information of performance of that employee. 360 degree appraisal
system is adopted by Tesco for this work.
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Rewards - HR practice also include motivating employees. By giving rewards to the
employees who have performed better than the expectation of company, HR manager try to keep
employees morale high and motivate them to removing their shortcoming and perform their
work in better way. This mat result in reward to them in forthcoming time.
Work - life balance – Tesco has almost half a million employees. Ensuring that they are
live a happy life is also a responsibility of the company where they are working. Significant part
of HR practice is focusing on ensuring that employees have fun at work and they get holidays in
regular interval of time so they do not feel any pressure or workload and maintain proper balance
between life and work (Shaw,Park and Kim, 2013).
Benefits to employees
 Improve KSA – When workers get training at right time then their needs relating to
increment in knowledge and skills increases. They ability and productivity also enhances
and this assist them in their whole life.
 Career growth – When employee acquire new knowledge in continuous interval of time
then they attain rapid career growth by getting promotion and more incentives in short
period of time.
 Motivation – Employees get motivation when company spend much on increasing their
level of job satisfaction. They make a positive impact on their performance and
productivity their productivity.
Benefits to employer
 Decrease conflicts – No employer like dispute with their employees. HR practice play
important role in assuring the any kind of conflict between both sides get resolved at its
generation point.
 Quality workforce – Tesco always earned competitive advantage because of their trained
employees. They understand significance of training events and organise continuous
training session to for the workers.
 Attainment of Organisational goals – It employees get essential training and have high
job satisfaction then they do not give their best in order to achieve organisational goals.
It ultimately result in more profit and fast expansion of organisation (Sparrow, 2013).
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P4 Evaluation of effectiveness of HRM practice regarding raising organisation profit and
productivity
Every organisation want to increase their profit because they know that putting right man
at right place will solve most of the problems of the company and it will also enhance
productivity of workers because if they will do a job which they like then putting more efforts in
it and attaining set goals would be hard for them. Evaluation of effectiveness of HRM practice is
as follows:
Staffing – Tesco has many kind of job because they are operating at high level.
Effectiveness of their HRM practice is high because no positions in this organisation remain
vacant for more period of time. They have also attained success in lowering down employee
turnover ratio.
Employee relation – Although there are many big incidents where employee went on
strike because of differences with management of Tesco but this thing is normal when almost
half a million people are working in the firm. All the matter are resolved is short time period and
permanent solution is done. This shows positive effectiveness of HRM practice. Good
connection better employer and employee result in more profit.
Improved efficiency – Performance of most of the employees of Tesco has gone up
because of their good training. Their efficiency has increased and this reveals fine work from the
side of HRM (Sturdy, 2011). This is the prime factor that company is still holding top spot in
domestic market.
Below are models which are used in evaluating the effectiveness of HRM practice:
Krikpatrick four level training evaluation model:
Reaction – This part of the model discuss about how employees are reacting toward the
training session. Tesco wanted to make sure that employees feel that they got valuable
experience, they have attained success in it because employees of this company never complain
about their training programmes.
Learning – This part covers what employees has learnt. Most of the employees who have
gone through training process understand got promotion because of new acquired skills. This
shows that training event was successful and HRM practice was fine.
Behaviour – If behaviour of employees have positive affected after training then this
shows that HR division did great job.
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Results – Analysation of results is done in this part of the process. Tesco's profit did not
go down compared to the revenue of others and their employee are still satisfied with the
company. This is result of good work that is done by HR division (Troshani, Jerram and Rao
Hill, 2011).
LO3
P5 Importance of employee relation at the time of HRM decision making
Employees relation mainly target positive working environment by removing differences
between employees and employers. This concept earned popularity when significance of trade
unions went down. HR department has to make various decision because they do important work
of hiring people in the organisation. Difference between employer and worker is normal but if
they are resolved in short time period and without hampering relationship between both of them
then it will be consider as a successful work from the side of HR team (Wagstaff and Lie, 2011).
Following are some of the significance of employee relation relating to HRM decision making:
Promote creative ideas and innovation – HR department make decision regarding
selection and promotion of appropriate candidate at a post. With that, they also try to make
positive and friendly relationship between different level of management. When employees feel
that their idea will be implement and used by company then they use their creativity for
increasing profit of the company. This improves their moral and they feel their importance in the
organisation. Ultimately, it result in happy employees.
High loyalty from worker – If relation between these workers and their employers are
fine then employer can easily earn high loyalty from the side of staff members (Wickramasinghe
and Gamage, 2011). Tesco is known for their loyal employees and company also trust them.
Employees relation do the work of removing differences and conflicts in order to assure smooth
relation between them.
Promote team working – Employees relation ensures that every all the employees work in
a team and if they have any issues with each other then HR division try to resolve them. Tesco
has many small team and if they always try to make promote the concept of working and living
in team. Good relation between team members can solve major problems in effective manner.
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Job satisfaction – When issues of employees, relating to salary or promotion, are timely
solved and get training for assuring self development then it enhances job satisfaction of the
workers.
Reduction in recruitment expenses – Employees relation focuses on a key issues that is
increase employee retention ratio. Tesco is spending huge amount in recruitment process.
Employees relation decreases the rate of worker turnover and minimises the amount which HR
division has to incur on selection and promotion of candidates (Flamholtz, 2012).
P6 Impact of employees legislation on HRM decision making
Every company has to follow various kind of rules which is present in the business
environment. If doers not matter whether the organisation is small or big, pubic or private, they
have to follow laws which are made by government. Below are some main acts relating to
employment which Tesco need to follow:
Equal pay Act, 1970 – This law states that an enterprise cannot do discrimination
between made and female. If they will discriminate on the basis of gender then they have to face
serious legal consequences. Normally this kind of biasness is seen at the time of giving
promotions or paying incentives.
Heath and safety act, 1974 – According to this act, employer is responsible for providing
safety and hygiene workplace to the employees (Guest, 2011). They also have to make some
other provision relating to making a first aid box and paste sign of warnings at danger areas
where chances of mishappening is high.
UK employment equality act – This law focuses on giving equal opportunities to all the
eligible candidates. If employer will do discrimination at the time of recruiting or promoting a
candidates then they will be held guilty under this act.
RIDDOR 2013 – This act is made for reporting of injuries, diseases and dangerous
occurrences regulations. Government want to keep the record of every major accident which has
happened at a workplace. Employer or even self employed people have to report accidents at
workplace and occupational diseases.
Disability rights – This law provide details about what should be the basic facilities
which employer has to provide to disable people at workplace. Government also have fixed some
rate i.e. a particular percentage of disable people who should be recruited in the organisation.
Impact of these legislation of decision making by HR division is as followed:
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 Human resource team of Tesco has keep an important thing in their mind that they cannot
do discrimination between made and female employ when they make call regarding their
promotion (Hendry, 2012). At the time of recruitment, they cannot offer more salary to
male worker and less to female or vice-a-versa. If will not comply legislation then they
have to end up paying a huge amount of fine.
 Tesco have thousand of stores, decisions taken by their HR department may severely
impact because of the regulations of equal pay act. They may attain success in
negotiation and make employee agree to work at low salary but because of this law they
have to make sure that they do not pay more pay more amount to one gender less to
other.
 It is the responsibility of HR team to provide all necessary facilities to disable person at
the time of training. They have special needs and HR team has to think about their
condition before making any call regarding arrangements of training.
 Promotion and selection of candidates are two areas where HR team have make some
crucial. This is considered as their prime work. According to employment equality act,
they have to select both male and female candidates in organisation.
LO4
P7 Application of HRM practice
An organisation with sound HR department can resolve most of the issues in less time.
Earlier work of human resource wing was limited but now it has increased and along with hiring
they also practice other significant activities like identifying training needs of staff members,
resolving their problems, creation fine work-life balance. Tesco department is trying to fill the
vacant post of HR manager for one of their store. This have to follow a process for selecting
right candidate and it is mentioned below:
 Find vacancy – Their first task is identify the vacant post which is to be filled by them.
This is an important step because all the next step are dependant on it.
 Job analysis – HR team has to find all the desired skills and degrees which are needed
for the post. Job description is made in this process along with a job specification.
 Advertisement – If potential candidates would not have any information about vacant
post then they cannot apply for it (Jabbour and et. al., 2013). In third step, HR team has
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