Tesco's Community Engagement and the Role of Human Resource Management

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COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT
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Executive Summary
Community engagement is a powerful vehicle of collaborative working with groups of people
for addressing the well-being of the people. This report provides a clear idea about the
community engagement of Tesco Plc, an UK based renowned retail firm. This report identifies
the various roles of the employees working in different posts at Tesco and their responsibilities
toward helping the organization to reach its goals respecting the values and mission the
organization and to support it to fulfill its duties towards the society and the community. Factors
affecting the organizational growth have been effectively identified in this report and the ways in
which the employees counteract the various issues, for succeeding, have been discussed.
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Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................4
Overview of the organization..........................................................................................................4
Discussion and Analysis of the organization...................................................................................5
Identification of the customers and their expectations from the organization.................................5
Explanations of the skills and knowledge of Human Resource Manager.......................................8
Conclusion.....................................................................................................................................10
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Introduction
Community engagement may be defined as collaborative working with community for
addressing issues that affect the health of the community, relationship between the members of
the community. Business organizations carry out various activities in order to engage the
community like making decision collaboratively, reporting transparently and organizing
meetings that are necessary for generating trust, better decision making, keeping the community
satisfied. In this report analysis of the different job roles of the employees of Tesco Plc, a UK
based grocery and general merchandise store chain, to achieve its goals will be discussed. The
factors that influence this business organization to meet the expectations and needs of the
customers will also be discussed to understand how the organization engages the community.
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Overview of the organization
The organization Tesco that is based in the UK is one of the biggest grocery and general
merchandise store chains in the world. Tesco has stores in many countries of Asia and Europe.
Jack Cohen, the founder of Tesco, had the dream for creating a grocery store chain and became
actually successful (Tesco.com, 2019). Tesco belongs to the retail sector. In size and structure
retail sector is huge and diverse. The retail sector of UK had generated £395billion retail sales in
2017 and 319000 retail business in 2018. There is a strong bonding between retail sector and the
other sectors like manufacturing sector, wholesale distributors and transport sector etc.
The mission of Tesco plc is to become the champion in the eyes of its customers, and they are
bound to achieve it by helping the customers so that they can live a better quality of life easily.
The main goal of the organization is to meet the customer satisfaction by fulfilling their will of
getting great products at great prices and serving each and every customer with better service
every single day. The values for the organization are to understand and meet the needs of the
customer and its responsibilities to the community.
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Discussion and Analysis of the organization
Identification of the customers and their expectations from the organization
Tesco plc. is a grocery and general merchandise retailer. The customers of Tesco are those who
want to shop groceries, clothing, banking services, mobile phones etc. Individuals from all age
groups shop at Tesco but the age group of 18-44 is the major part of the total customers. The
customers want products with good value from Tesco, in comparison with the other retail stores
that are serving as competitors for the company. Tesco customers seek information regarding the
actual price of its products, if there are any hidden charges present or not. The customers want
quick and efficient repairing services for electronic good they have purchased from Tesco. They
also need replacement policy. Every customer thinks that his or her queries must be answered as
soon as possible. Therefore, they want good customer service desk so they can contact the
organization easily via phone or e-mail.
PESTLE analysis
The political factors include tax rates, legislations, the political environment and stability of the
country where the organization is operating. As majority of the countries is facing trouble with
unemployment issues, Tesco is influenced to create job opportunities by the governing body. So,
to generate employment opportunity, Tesco in turn is forced to increase the demand of the
products and to open more stores at different locations (López López, 2017).
The economic factors include changes in the rules of taxation, changes in demand and profit,
changes in the level of income of families etc. These play a great role in the profit of the
organization. According to the budget of the customers a retail firm must sell its goods in order
to satisfy them.
The Social factors influence the demand of the customers greatly. The changing trends leads to
changes in the attitude of product selection. Health issues forces people to change their mind
towards food items they buy. So, Tesco renders its concentration toward organic products as well
as launching products after carrying out proper market research, in order to gain a clear idea of
the demands of the customers
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As technology is advancing day by day, people are more likely to shop from that shop having
better technologies, so that they can be served in a better way. Online shopping and self-service
checkout point are the outcome of technological factors. Tesco is investing in energy efficiency
projects so that it can fulfill its goal for reducing its carbon footprint (Chen and Chen, 2017).
The legal factors have direct impact on Tesco. There are several laws like the organization
cannot increase the price of a certain product without prior notice as suggested by Food Retailing
Commission (FRC) in 2004. To support this policy, Tesco notifies its customers about any
changes in the price of the products sold by them, well in advance, so that they remain informed
about the same.
Environmental factors enhance the pressure on the organization so that addressing the
environmental issues the organization can run an environment friendly business.
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Explanation of the role of the employees within the organization and how they support the
organization achieve its goals
The goals of Tesco are to help the customers living a better quality of life in the easiest manner.
Meeting the customer satisfaction and fulfilling their will to get good quality services at great
prices and better to customer are the goals of Tesco. Being a retail firm, there are various job
roles at Tesco. The most important job roles that help the organization to achieve its goals can be
enlisted as follows:
Customer assistant: A customer assistant’s responsibility is to speak with the customers over the
phone to answer their various queries, taking their complaints. Customer assistants are those
employees who are always there to extend their helping hands to the customer by solving their
problems (Evanschitzky et al., 2015). They have to be patient while listening to the customers.
They must have proper knowledge about the products and services of the organization. Decision
making in a short time is strength of customer assistants.
Human Resource Manager: A human resource manager’s major role is recruitment and staffing,
training and development, to keep a healthy relation between the employer and the employees, to
look after the compensation and benefits of the employees in order to generate a positive
working environment and building a flexible workplace (Jamali et al., 2015). At Tesco, A HR
manager motivates all the employees so that they can give their best performance to achieve the
goal of the organization. They are responsible for providing training to the newly-recruited
employees, so that they can perform well, as per the organizational requirements and can help in
meeting the organizational objectives (Hassan, 2016).
Marketing officer: A marketing officer prepares plans and manages the materials of publication
to enhance the brand promotion of the organization (Felgate and Fearne, 2015). The
responsibilities of a marketing officer is planning different ways of advertisement and
promotional campaigns, conducting market research, organizing marketing activities and similar
such activities (Wood et al., 2016). Marketing officers are responsible for brand promotion that
allows the customers to know the offers going on at Tesco and the organization can take
competitive advantage and reach its goal.
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Maintenance Technicians: As Tesco is a retail firm, for proper maintenance of the stores, the
role of multi-skilled and technically-savvy technicians are of great importance. Their
responsibilities are to survey building and repairing the mechanical systems, maintenance of
electrical system and taking care of the ventilation, refrigeration. They are responsible to
generate good working premises so that the customers and also the employees can feel good and
safe and the goal of the organization is achieved.
Out of the different roles in Tesco like that of the marketing officer, accountants, R&D
professionals and others, one of the most important job role at Tesco is the role of a Human
resource manager. For any organization, the most valuable asset is the workers. For smooth
running of an organization Human Resource managers’ function is very important. Human
resource department communicates with employees and takes account for their needs, their
culture. They act by hiring right candidates in the organization, checking their performance and
lastly by termination. One of the main goals of HRM is to maintain employee satisfaction in
order to enhance organizational performance. The main goal of Tesco is to satisfy its customers.
It is the employees of the organization with whom the customers interact. So maintaining the
employees is most important so that the organization can reach its goal.
Explanations of the skills and knowledge of Human Resource Manager
Skills: Skill is the term which refers to the ability to do something well. A HR manager should
posses various skills.
Excellent communication skills: A human resource manager must have good communication
skill so that they can communicate with the employees easily and understand them. A good
listening ability is also required (Hunter et al., 2016).
Decision-making skills: Decision making skill is very important because a HR manager have to
decide which applicant is suitable for a particular job role. Recognition of the talent and treating
every applicant equally is strength for a HR manager (Haddock-Millar and Rigby, 2015).
Training and development skills: HR managers, responsibility is to provide the employees
proper training and development opportunity. To enhance the performance of the employees this
skill is important for a HR manager (Kadiresan et al., 2015).
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Resource Allocation skills: These include managing the compensation and the benefits provided
to the employees. The HR manager must maintain a balance by not overspending on any
unnecessary things, while also ensuring that the employees are satisfactorily remunerated
(Nasurdinn et al., 2015).
Knowledge: Knowledge can be defined as the information, facts and skills that are gathered
through education or experience.
The HR managers must have knowledge about business management, business strategies,
Human resource legislation, performance management, risk management, crisis management,
budgeting, human psychology, business accounting and finance, Organizational development,
human resource strategies, business services, products and customers and similar such aspects
(Millar et al., 2017). This knowledge helps a HR manager to work efficiently, to communicate
and understand employees with ease, select talented people, understanding the requirement of
various job opportunities within the organization. Knowledge of Accounting and finance enables
a HR manager in proper budgeting. Presence of a HR manager with good knowledge smoothens
the way of the organization towards success.
The training and development requirements that needs to be considered
Training is the initial requirement of any job role including Human resource manager. At the
entry level, a HR manager must be trained about the unique recruitment and selection procedure
of Tesco. They must be trained how the former managers are conducting the workforce planning,
operating the Human Resource Information Software. A new HR manager must gather
knowledge about the products and the services of the company and the job responsibilities of
every employee must be clear to them so that they can hire perfect people for those particular job
roles. So they must be trained for that also. For promotion, there is a requirement of training of
the HR managers on how they will maintain a team, and the ways they will guide their juniors.
The HR managers recruited at Tesco are mandatorily trained in handling cross-cultural human
resources as well as efficiently managing time, so that they are able to meet all the deadlines
allocated to them, efficiently.
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Conclusion
Tesco, the UK based retailer, is committed to become a responsible retailer. In this organization,
all business aspects are observed regularly, different plans are made so that it can meet the
targets. The organization ensures regularly that its customers, employees, suppliers and the
community are equally treated with respect. Tesco also tries to make sustainable products that
can be afforded by all. Tesco supports all its employees to live a healthy life and helps its
customers by offering healthy food choices. They are taking steps to decline the amount of food
wastage. Local communities are also supported by Tesco through contribution both economically
and socially. Tesco is reducing its carbon emissions, using renewable sources of electricity to
become an environment friendly organization. This report helped in understanding the various
roles and responsibilities of the employees employed in the organization as well as the skills and
knowledge that should be mandatorily possessed by the Human Resource Manager, one of the
most responsible job roles in the organization.
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References
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