Strategic HRM: An Assessment of Tesco and Vodafone's HR Strategies

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SHRM Assessment 1
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Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................3
Analysis of HR Policies and Practices.............................................................................................3
High Commitment HRM.............................................................................................................3
Best Fit HRM...............................................................................................................................4
Hard and Soft HRM.....................................................................................................................4
External Factors Affecting HR Strategic Decisions........................................................................5
Regulation of Current Government.............................................................................................5
Economic Condition....................................................................................................................5
Employment Market....................................................................................................................6
Demographics of Workforces......................................................................................................6
Unionized and Non-Unionized....................................................................................................6
The Way HR Functions and Practices Are Organized....................................................................7
Ulrich’s Model.............................................................................................................................7
Roles and the Challenges of Line Manager in the Delivery of HRM.........................................8
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................9
References......................................................................................................................................10
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Introduction
HR policies and practices of an organization have been prepared by HR management to manage
human resources effectively. In the onset of the paper, a critical analysis of HR policies and
practices are discussed. The paper also discusses the high commitment HRM, best fit HRM, and
hard and soft HRM. After describing these aspects, the study delivers knowledge regarding the
external factors, which are affecting HR strategic decisions. At the end of the paper, the study
describes the way HR practices and policies are organized and delivered. Here, the roles and
challenges of line managers while delivering the HRM function are also discussed.
Analysis of HR Policies and Practices
HR policies and practices are prepared by the HR management for the establishment of a
framework in order to manage the people. There are few theories for implementing the HR
policies and theories.
High Commitment HRM
High commitment HRM is a set of practices to increase labour turnover, improvise behaviour
and attitude of the employees, minimize the absenteeism, etc. Tesco is a famous private
organization of the United Kingdom. Tesco is popular for its efficient service of its employees. It
has introduced high commitment HRM model, which focuses on the improvement of the
behavior, and attitude of the employees as it is one of the essential factors for satisfying the
customers (Bozic, Siebert and Martin, 2019). Tesco believes that the employees are the key
factors for the success of the employees. They conduct a various training program for its
employee to increase their skill.
Vodafone is a leading telecom player in the UK and all over the world also. They provide high-
quality services to its customers. They follow the high commitment HRM policies and practices
in order to increase their quality of skill. The recruitment, selection and training processes of
Vodafone Company are done with very carefulness (Ali, 2019). A leading telecommunication
company requires keeping in touch with its customers on a daily basis. For this purpose,
behavior and attitude of the employee are very important factors. Vodafone gives priority on
these factors during the whole recruitment session of employees.
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Best Fit HRM
Best fit practice HRM policy leads to high motivation and better commitment of employees. This
strategy results in achieving competitive advantages. Tesco is always conscious of achieving
competitive advantages. Tesco follows the best fit HRM policies. They always take new
initiatives for motivating the employees. Tesco introduced the reward and compensation strategy
(Kukreja and Gupta, 2016). This strategy motivates its employees at a great extent. Employees of
the Tesco are satisfied by the implementation of the Best fit practice HRM in their organization.
Implementation of this policy in the Tesco becomes able to bring more commitment from the
employees.
On the other hand, Vodafone has huge numbers of customers all over the world. Employees have
to take a huge pressure for handling its customers. Vodafone follows this policy to motivate their
employees to bring satisfaction on them. They introduce many kinds of schemes, awards,
rewards, compensation, etc in order to generate commitment among the employees. They have
special schemes for their employees (Kumar, 2019). Implementation of this policy in the
Vodafone Company becomes successful to bring commitment among the employees.
Hard and Soft HRM
Hard human resource management is a staff management system where workers are considered
as a resource that required to be controlled to achieve the highest profit and competitive
advantage. On the other hand, soft HRM policy is an approach to human resource management,
which involves treating employees as the important asset of the company (Ali, 2019)
It can be said that both Tesco and Vodafone follow the soft HRM policies as they think that the
employees are the keys to success for the development of the company. Both of the organization
does not consider their employees as the resource, which requires to be controlled under the
regulation of the company. Both of the organization has effective rules and regulation, most of
the employees follow the rules and regulation as they have the commitment for the organization.
Soft HRM policies help both companies to bring the commitment for the organization as they
consider the employees as one of the important members of their organizations (Collings, Wood
and Szamosi, 2018). Soft human resource policy is proved more effective in order to generate
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productivity and loyalty of the employees for the organization. Implementation of these policies
motivates the employees to handle the huge pressure with full dedication.
External Factors Affecting HR Strategic Decisions
Internal and external both the environment has directly influenced the decision-making process
of an organization. With a motive to maximize retention rate and minimize employee-related
issues, HR managers of an organization should monitor the internal and external forces
efficiently and according to that, they should develop appropriate HR strategies (Paauwe and
Boon, 2018). The following section, we are going to discuss the external factors, which are
affecting the HR strategic decision.
Regulation of Current Government
Regulations and legislation of government also affected the decision-making process of an
organization. The HR department of an organization should follow government regulations while
completing several activities, such as employing, training, terminating and others. Moreover,
government regulations and policies also directly influence the compensation policy of an
organization. Likewise, HR manager of Tesco also obeys basic government regulations, while
making their HR related strategic decisions. Moreover, HR strategic decision of Vodafone also
affected by the current government regulations. Apart from this, if these organizations are not
adhering the government regulations, then these companies may be fined (Marler and Parry,
2016).
Economic Condition
The current economic condition of a country is also directly influenced the activities especially
the HR related activities of an organization. Similarly, the economic status of a company also
helps HR managers to make appropriate strategic decisions. Interest rate, exchange rate, GDP
growth, unemployment rate also impact the decision-making process of the HR department
(Nolan and Garavan, 2016). By considering these economic factors, the HR managers of an
organization should take an adequate strategic decision for maximizing the organizational
efficiencies. Therefore, these previously mentioned economic factors also affected the HR
strategic decision of Tesco and Vodafone.
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Employment Market
Market condition is also considered as the external factor, which influences the decision-making
process of an organization. As we all know that the unemployment rate is adversely affected the
financial performance of an organization. For this reason, most of the company hired local
employees to reduce the unemployment rate. It also creates a positive impact on the mind of the
stakeholders. The employment market is also known as the labour market, which comprises with
skilled people (Noe and et al., 2017). This factor helps the HR manager to make appropriate
hiring strategies for an organization to fulfil the vacant place.
Demographics of Workforces
It is one of the external factors that also influence the HR strategic decision-making process.
Every employee has different types of capabilities, and the role of an HR manager is to
channelize the employee’s capabilities in a positive manner. According to the skills of
employees, the HR manager of an organization should decide an appropriate compensation
package for its employees. Apart from that, educational qualification, age, and gender also
considered as the most important factors that positively influence the HR strategic decisions
(Nolan and Garavan, 2016). For example, highly skilled employees of Tesco get much salary as
compared to lower skilled employees.
Unionized and Non-Unionized
The prime responsibility of an employee is to complete his work in a unionized way. The
unionized and non-unionized environment of an organization also impacts the HR strategic
decision. For this reason, HR manager of Tesco always tries to communicate their employees to
identify the inherent lamentation among employees. This approach helps to take the right
strategic decision to resolve the inherent problem efficiently. Most of the organization has
employee union. The prime duty of an HR manager is to develop a healthy relationship with
employee union and try to recognize the expectation of employees, which will help managers to
make appropriate decisions (Paauwe and Boon, 2018).
These are the major external factors that affect the HR strategic decisions of every business
organization like Tesco and Vodafone.
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The Way HR Functions and Practices Are Organized
Ulrich’s Model
Ulrich model has meant specifically for the organization of human resources functions. This was
developed by David Ulrich. He suggested that in large scale businesses, HR functions should be
divided into four segments. These four segments are strategic partner, change agent,
administrative expert and employee champion. This model is considered as an effective model
for bringing the smoothness of the proper implementation of human resource functions within an
organization. The four segments of this model are very effective in order to generate productivity
and make the organization more systematic. In today’s world, human resource management
plays an important role in the development of the organization. Proper implementation of the
HRM policies and practices can help a company to fulfill its duty in an organized way. The
strategic partner helps a company to create and implement effective strategies. Administrative
expert, change of agent and employee champions are also proved as the effective strategies for
implementation of HRM policies (Schimmelfennig and Sedelmeier, 2019).
Tesco and Vodafone both companies follow the Ulrich model. Both of the companies are large-
scale companies. They have a strategic partner to introduce new effective organizational
strategies. Both of the companies have an administrative expert as they have various sectors and
multiple employees. Both companies are termed as employee champion because its policies are
directed for the welfare of the employees (Bozic Siebert and Martin, 2019). Their central focus is
to care for their employees as they are the key to the success of the organizations. There are
change agents in both of the companies. The duty of these change agents is to help to transform
the organization by focusing on the effectiveness, improvement, and development of the
organization.
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Figure. 1: Ulrich’s Model
(Source: Forbes Media LLC, 2019)
Roles and the Challenges of Line Manager in the Delivery of HRM
Line manager is a managerial personality, who is mainly responsible for managing human
resources and other operation appropriately to reach the organizational goals efficiently.
Roles
 Employing skilled professionals to fulfil the vacant place with the organization
 Conducting on-job training for newly joined employee
 Communicating employees on a regular basis
 Monitoring works and performance of employees
 Providing performance feedback to all the employees
 Try to motivate and encourage staff members to improve their performance
 Identify the issues, which are confronted by team members
 Try to give appropriate suggestion to resolve problems efficiently
 Evaluating the overall team performance and also evaluate individual performance and
then provide adequate suggestions to improve performance standard
(SourceL Evans, 2017)
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Challenges
While delivering the HRM, line manager also faced certain problems. Implementation of Limited
resources is one of the challenges to deliver HRM appropriately. Moreover, constant pressure
also creates an obstacle for the line manager, while delivering HRM. The line manager of Tesco
and Vodafone also faced this kind of obstacle, while delivering HRM. However, constant
pressure is the main factor, which maximizes the productivity of an organization. On the other
hand, negative feedback from the end of employees also demotivates line manager of an
organization in the delivery of HRM practices (Shipton and et al., 2016). While hiring people,
the line manager of an organization should not follow any biased approach. Biasness is measured
as the core challenge, which may face by line manager while delivering HRM practices. These
are the major challenges of the line manager in the delivery of HRM.
Conclusion
It can be observed that in today’s world human resource management play an important role in
order to bring development in any organization. There are few external factors, which are
creating an impact on the policies and practices of human resource management. These factors
are unity among the employees, level of skill of the employees, etc. There are few effective
policies are made for bringing smoothness in the proper implementation of the human resource
functions. Large-scale companies like Vodafone and Tesco follow the HRM policies like high
commitment HRM policies, best fit HRM policies and soft HRM policies, Ulrich model, etc.
Both companies become successful in implementing these policies.
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References
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Journal of Management, 2(2), pp.48-57.
Bozic, B., Siebert, S. and Martin, G., 2019. A strategic action fields perspective on
organizational trust repair. European Management Journal, 37(1), pp.58-66.
Collings, D.G., Wood, G.T. and Szamosi, L.T., 2018. Human resource management: A critical
approach. In Human Resource Management (pp. 1-23). Routledge.
Evans, S., 2017. HRM and front line managers: the influence of role stress. The International
Journal of Human Resource Management, 28(22), pp.3128-3148.
Forbes Media LLC, 2019. Forbes. Taking HR Analytics beyond Technologists. [Online]
Available at: https://www.forbes.com/sites/rawnshah/2015/04/13/taking-hr-analytics-beyond-
technologists/#1780e28a6af2 [Accessed on: 8th June, 2019]
Kukreja, G. and Gupta, S., 2016. Tesco Accounting Misstatements: Myopic Ideologies
Overshadowing Larger Organisational Interests. SDMIMD Journal of Management, 7(1), pp.9-
18.
Kumar, B.R., 2019. Vodafone Acquisition of Mannesmann. In Wealth Creation in the World’s
Largest Mergers and Acquisitions (pp. 17-29). Springer, Cham.
Marler, J.H. and Parry, E., 2016. Human resource management, strategic involvement and e-
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2253.
Noe, R.A., Hollenbeck, J.R., Gerhart, B. and Wright, P.M., 2017. Human resource management:
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Nolan, C.T. and Garavan, T.N., 2016. Human resource development in SMEs: a systematic
review of the literature. International Journal of Management Reviews, 18(1), pp.85-107.
Paauwe, J. and Boon, C., 2018. Strategic HRM: A critical review. In Human Resource
Management (pp. 49-73). Routledge.
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Schimmelfennig, F. and Sedelmeier, U., 2019. The Europeanization of Eastern Europe: the
external incentives model revisited. Journal of European Public Policy, pp.1-20.
Shipton, H., Sanders, K., Atkinson, C. and Frenkel, S., 2016. Sense‐giving in health care: the
relationship between the HR roles of line managers and employee commitment. Human
Resource Management Journal, 26(1), pp.29-45.
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