Strategic HRM Report: Tesco's Approach to Recruitment and Performance

This report provides an analysis of human resource management (HRM) practices at Tesco, a multinational retail company. It delves into Tesco's strategies for recruiting and selecting skilled employees, emphasizing the importance of training and development programs to optimize individual performance. The report explores both internal and external recruitment methods, including leveraging social media and online platforms to attract a diverse pool of candidates. Furthermore, it examines how Tesco fosters organizational effectiveness through performance appraisals, feedback mechanisms, and a supportive organizational culture. The study highlights the significance of leadership, communication, and employee motivation in achieving organizational goals, ultimately concluding that Tesco's HRM practices are crucial for its global success. Desklib provides access to similar solved assignments and past papers for students.

Running head: HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT
Human resource management
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Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................3
Ways of recruiting the best staffs....................................................................................................3
Optimization of the individual performance....................................................................................5
Organizational effectiveness............................................................................................................6
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................7
References........................................................................................................................................9

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Introduction
The report is prepared to discuss the major concepts of human resource management
considering the business organization Tesco, UK as the case study. Tesco is one of the largest
retail company that has managed to operate in more than 12 countries and boosts more than
500000 employees all over the world. The company manages a diversified workforce as well as
manages the workforce properly by fulfilling the needs and requirements of the staffs to keep
them motivated and encouraged to perform to their potential. Based on the global reach of the
retail chain, it is important for the business organization to manage a feasible HRM plan through
the development and use of various strategies for managing the staffs properly (Tesco.com
2018). The HRM plan not only includes the recruitment and selection of the skilled and
knowledgeable staffs but also to provide them with proper training and developmental programs
for making them perform to their potential as well. The topic will also discuss about the ways of
optimizing the performance of employees as well as the organization to ensure the best
production level.
Ways of recruiting the best staffs
The human resource management at Tesco includes the probable approaches of training
and development of the employees along with the recruitment and selection of the right staffs
who are skilled, knowledgeable and expert in handling critical tasks with ease and effectiveness.
Every year, Tesco has been employing a huge number of individuals other than the front line
shop staffs and most the candidates are graduates from the leading Universities in United
Kingdom. Based on the qualifications and academic backgrounds, the candidates are assessed at
first and then trained according to the corporate structure and mentality of the organization (Jiang

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et al. 2012). Tesco, being a leading reputed organization values the candidates as important
resources and so they provide them with relevant training sessions and programs to develop their
set of skills, knowledge and expertise. Tesco has learned to invest on the staffs’ recruitment
procedures and so it has followed the effective recruitment strategies to employ candidates
without any bias.
The recruitment and selection of staffs is considered as an essential aspect of the
workforce planning for Tesco. Tesco has planned for meeting the organizational needs through
recruitment procedures for both the food and non-food portions of the business. The positions are
vacant within Tesco due to the opening of new stores in UK, turnover of staffs or resignation.
The new kinds of job roles also create probability for recruiting new staffs. The job role consists
of the job description including the job title, qualification requirements, for and to whom the
jobholder is responsible and the roles and responsibilities to be performed (Alfes et al. 2013).
The job role and specification must hold proper information and should be published on
newspapers, magazines, job portals and internet websites for attracting suitable numbers of
candidates. By doing this, Tesco would be able to contain the candidates who possess the right
skills, knowledge and expertise and could be part of the interview session. This is an external
recruitment procedure where the candidates will provide their resumes to the company and the
employer shall assess those to make sure who can be the best fit for the job role. Based on the
reviewing of the resumes, they should be called in for the interview followed by attendance at
the assessment centre as the final stage of the selection process. Tesco’s website also could allow
the candidates to provide an online application form so that those could be submitted directly and
would be assessed afterwards. After checking the candidates whose resumes match with the
requirement of the job role, they would be called in for the interview (Jiang et al. 2012). The

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candidates might even have to take part in role-playing sessions and pass through psychometric
testing phases before they would be selected.
Currently, Tesco has followed some major steps to recruit the best talent and it includes
taking advantage of the social media to draw in more candidates, marketing the compensation
packages including the benefits that the employees will get along with optimization for mobile.
The app or website will also the candidates to manage live interviews and develop built in
function for the new employees such as an interactive employee handbook, access to PTO
balance, benefit registration, etc. Expansion of the search area, increasing the hiring speed and
utilization of the existing employees could be beneficial for recruiting the best staffs at Tesco
(Jackson, Schuler and Jiang 2014).
Optimization of the individual performance
To optimize the individual performance, Tesco must enable proper retail supply chain
planning and monitor the performances of the employees at first. This would help in identifying
their strengths as well as the areas of weaknesses, based on which, their performances could be
optimized through necessary training and development programs provided to them. The line
manager, HR manager and employer should consult with each other about the necessity of
training and optimization of the performances to make sure that they can perform to their
potential. The optimization of performances include appraisal and review of the employee
performance, obtaining feedbacks, enabling the learning and development, management of
performance standards and analyzing the performance measurement practices too. The success of
a business depends on the performances of employees and so it is important to optimize the job
performances through various steps (Pichler 2012).

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Job postings should enable providing the job description and hiring the inputs of the
managers to know what actually he is looking from the new employees. The descriptions of job
include the desired qualifications and various other components of the appropriate job postings.
The inputs from the hiring manager would allow the recruiter to check whether the candidates
have met the preliminary qualifications or not. Clarifying the job expectations with them could
also measure the job performance. By managing the interview procedures, the most suitable
staffs should be recruited and it could be done by using the job description as a checklist (Costen
2012). It would be easy to manage the selection process in that way and could create better
scopes for recruiting a longer list of candidates. By measuring their performances, the areas of
weaknesses would come into limelight, based on which, necessary training programs could be
provided to them for enhancing their performances, skills and knowledge. Regular feedbacks
obtained from the supervisors could be beneficial too for improving the job performance of the
employees as well as optimize the performance, furthermore could establish open
communication path between the supervisors, employers and employees at Tesco (Bryson, James
and Keep 2013).
Organizational effectiveness
Not only does optimization of organizational effectiveness means improving the
performance of the employees but also is important to create a strong culture and good structure
for making the organization achieve the objectives with ease. Analyzing the organizational
structure is important to assess the performances of the employees and compare the information
related to theirs with the actual outcomes (Demerouti, Bakker and Leiter 2014). The analysis of
roles and responsibilities is important for managing the productivity of the employees within the
organization as well as create communication between the employees from various departments.

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This would not only facilitate the coordination between the employees, but could also make them
adapt to changes, furthermore handle critical situations with ease and effectiveness. Tesco has
optimized the organizational effectiveness by defining the basic and secondary processes to
clarify the roles and responsibilities of the employees properly.
The optimization of organizational effectiveness has been managed by providing the
employees with enough benefits and rewards so that they are kept motivated and encouraged to
perform to their potential. Leadership is another important aspect that can guide the employees in
the right direction by making them understand the vision of the organization (Schmitt, Zacher
and Frese 2012). A democratic leader could consider the views and opinions of the employees
and then make a decision to manage the business processes successfully while the establishment
of a positive culture could be beneficial for optimizing the organizational effectiveness. The flow
of communication would also improve the level of coordination, promote team working and
ensure active sharing of knowledge and information for deriving better business outcomes with
convenience at Tesco (Tesco.com 2018).
Conclusion
Based on the analysis of the report, it could be understood that Tesco had managed the
human resources well by managing the recruitment and selection processes properly. The
recruitment and selection of staffs were done focusing on the large pool of talent, according to
which, their performances were assessed and monitored. The external recruitment process was
managed along with the involvement of social media platforms to engage more candidates and
selected them as part of the organization. To optimize the performances of employees, they could

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be provided with training as well as benefits and rewards for keeping them motivated and
encouraged to perform better.

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References
Alfes, K., Shantz, A.D., Truss, C. and Soane, E.C., 2013. The link between perceived human
resource management practices, engagement and employee behaviour: a moderated mediation
model. The international journal of human resource management, 24(2), pp.330-351.
Bryson, J., James, S. and Keep, E., 2013. Recruitment and selection. Managing human
resources. Human Resource Management in transition, pp.125-149.
Costen, W.M., 2012. Recruitment and selection. The Encyclopedia of Human Resource
Management: Short Entries, pp.379-387.
Demerouti, E., Bakker, A.B. and Leiter, M., 2014. Burnout and job performance: The
moderating role of selection, optimization, and compensation strategies. Journal of occupational
health psychology, 19(1), p.96.
Jackson, S.E., Schuler, R.S. and Jiang, K., 2014. An aspirational framework for strategic human
resource management. The Academy of Management Annals, 8(1), pp.1-56.
Jiang, K., Lepak, D.P., Han, K., Hong, Y., Kim, A. and Winkler, A.L., 2012. Clarifying the
construct of human resource systems: Relating human resource management to employee
performance. Human resource management review, 22(2), pp.73-85.
Jiang, K., Lepak, D.P., Hu, J. and Baer, J.C., 2012. How does human resource management
influence organizational outcomes? A meta-analytic investigation of mediating
mechanisms. Academy of management Journal, 55(6), pp.1264-1294.
Pichler, S., 2012. The social context of performance appraisal and appraisal reactions: A meta‐
analysis. Human Resource Management, 51(5), pp.709-732.

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Schmitt, A., Zacher, H. and Frese, M., 2012. The buffering effect of selection, optimization, and
compensation strategy use on the relationship between problem solving demands and
occupational well-being: A daily diary study. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, 17(2),
p.139.
Tesco.com. (2018). Tesco - Online Groceries, Homeware, Electricals & Clothing. [online]
Available at: https://www.tesco.com/ [Accessed 15 Mar. 2018].