Human Resource Management Report: HRM at Tesco - Practices and Laws

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of Human Resource Management (HRM) practices within Tesco, a multinational trading organization. It begins with an introduction to HRM, defining its strategic approach to maximizing employee performance for competitive advantage. The report then delves into the core HR functions, including planning, recruitment, and selection, with a focus on Tesco's specific practices. It explores both internal and external recruitment approaches, evaluating their strengths and weaknesses. Furthermore, the report examines performance management techniques and the importance of employee relations, highlighting the impact of effective HRM on organizational profitability. The report also discusses various HRM practices such as workforce planning, training and development, and their benefits for both employers and employees. Finally, it covers key elements of employment legislation and factors influencing HR decision-making at Tesco, offering a detailed overview of the company's approach to managing its workforce.

HUMAN RESOURCE
MANAGEMENT

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
TASK 1............................................................................................................................................3
P1 Purpose of HR functions within organization...................................................................3
P2 Different Approaches to Recruitment and Selection with strengths and weaknesses.......5
TASK 2............................................................................................................................................7
P3 Various HRM practices and their benefits for employer and employee...........................7
P4 Evaluation of HR practices in terms of effectiveness.......................................................8
TASK 3..........................................................................................................................................10
P5 Importance of employee relations and its impact on HRM decision practices...............10
P6 Key elements of Employment Legislation laws..............................................................11
TASK 4..........................................................................................................................................12
P7 Illustration of different HRM practices...........................................................................12
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................14
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................15

INTRODUCTION
Human Resource Management refers to the process of managing and directing whole
workforce of an organisation in an effective and efficient manner. It is an strategic approach of
acquiring competitive advantage of business by maximizing the performance level of employees.
HR team perform various activities such as designing program of recruitment, training and
development, setting fair compensation benefits, reward management, pay rolls and performance
appraisals (What is Human Resource?. 2020). TESCO is one of the British multinational trading
organisation which deals in variety of product lines and has numerous stores which includes
supermarkets, hypermarkets, convenience stores. Organization has various subsidiaries namely
Tesco banks, mobile, Ireland, booker group so on. It has its headquarters in Welwyn Garden
City, England. This research report contains detailed information about Human resource
functions and their purpose with key responsibilities of HR manager. Report throws light on
various HR practices along with their effectiveness over organization profitability and it is
beneficial for employer and employee. Further, it explains numerous employment legislation
laws and factors which influence HR decision making.
TASK 1
P1 Purpose of HR functions within organization.
Human resource functions refer to various set of activities to manage and align effective
workforce in order to attain organisational mission objectives and goals. These functions are crux
of management because without performing these company may not able to fulfil the significant
needs of staff. Human Resource Management is separate mechanism of employment
management that explore to accomplish competitive edge by deploying extremely committed
and proficient workforce. TESCO is a British multinational trading company deals in groceries
and basic merchandise. Mission statement of firm is to understand customers and serve them best
quality of products to earn their loyalty. Core objective of Tesco is to provide goods and services
at affordable rates with main aim of maximizing sales and profits (Jensen, 2017)
PURPOSE OF HRM FUNCTION
1. HUMAN RESOURCE PLANNING: It is the prime function perform by Human
Resource team is to examine and analyse the organizational requirement regarding staff

and workforce for accomplishing the various operational task within company. Purpose
of proper planning of personnel ensures effective and efficient skilled pool of employees
that helps in attainment of ultimate goals of organisation. Tesco is a large retail
organization required number of individual to fill out various stored and non-stored
positions including checkout post, inventory handlers, cashiers etc. Company's HR
required to estimate and maintain record of necessities on basis of which appropriate
planning could be done (Gilbert and et. al., 2015).
Major responsibility of HR manager is to determine what kind of and how many individuals are
required by company and also conduct job analysis. This will beneficial for conducting other HR
functions.
2. RECRUITMENT AND SELECTION: The purpose of this function is to invite large
number of people to apply for vacant job position and selecting the suitable candidates
from that pool that will ensure right people with right skills at right place. Recruitment is
the process of acquiring and identifying fresh individuals for satisfying vacant job post at
all levels of organisation. Whereas, selection refers to hiring the best suitable applicant
and rejecting the rest. TESCO manager will figure out different approaches and methods
to recruit and select suitable employee with best KSA (Knowledge, skills , attitude) who
can able to perform under any conditions effectivelyn (Beer, Boselie and Brewster,
2015).
Key responsibility of HR is to determine and analyse the whole personality of applicants to be
assure that they are right persons to acquire positions.
3. PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT: This function is a crucial one operate by HR team
for purpose of ensuring that there are productive and competent workers who are engaged
in performing operational activities. Effective performance management requires good
leadership, well-defined goal setting, appropriate communication and initiative
feedbacks. It act as mechanism to reduce or eliminate gap between effective and
ineffective personnel. TESCO manager organizes different appraisal programs in order to
measure and evaluate performance of personnel also provides appraisals on daily basis to
keep them motivated towards job.

In this function responsibility of HR is to conduct and organise sound learning and development
programs to enhance performance of each employee and to sharpen their skills (Chuang, Liu and
Chen, 2015).
P2 Different Approaches to Recruitment and Selection with strengths and weaknesses
Recruitment is a positive process of seeking potential candidates and encourage them to
apply or approach for job post in organisation. Assumption behind creating large pool of
applicants is that there will be a wide opportunities for hiring better individuals. Recruitment act
as linkage activity which bring those people together who are job seekers and job providers.
TESCO advertises regarding job in various ways. There are two kind of approaches internal and
external which are explained below:
1. Internal Approach: internal recruitment refers to filling up job vacancies within
organization by approaching to its existing force. TESCO make use of its internal Talent
Plan to fulfil requirement of job vacancy. In this particular process manager enlist all
current employees names who are looking for promotion or better opportunities to grow.
If no suitable employee is identified during this talent plan then TESCO advertises or
circulate the post description internally through intranet system for two weeks (Nolan and
Garavan, 2016).
Strengths of internal approach
 It is an inexpensive and time saving approach as it saves valuable resources and efforts of
management team. It improves productivity and morale of employees cause it offers them opportunities to
grow their core competencies.
Weaknesses of Internal approach
 Small pool of applicants which reduce the chances for getting better candidate. Chances of biasedness or partiality may occur within organisation.
2. External Approach: External recruitment refers to conducting and evaluating open pool
hiring programs for attracting more and more applicants. It is a process of looking outside
from the organisation to fill up job positions. TESCO publish information regarding job
vacancies through Tesco website portal www.tesco-careers.com or via bill boards in
stores. Process of online applications are used for managerial positions and individuals
who are interested in store based jobs can directly walk-in with their CV in Tesco stores

or make them register through Jobcentre Plus. People who apply in this manner are called
by management when job posts are available (Wehrmeyer,2017).
Strengths of External Methods
 Large pool of applicant can be generated which brings people who have wider range of
experience. It brings fresh talent within organization that elevates creative ideas to maximise the
growth of company.
Weaknesses of External Recruitment
 Time consuming and expensive technique involves high cost.
 Creates possibility of demoralizing current employees.
Selection function is carried out in order to choose or short-listing the best eligible
candidate for vacant job positions inside organisation. This process seek right applicant with
required qualification and skill and reject those who are unqualified or less deserving. TESCO
conduct screening of candidates and assessment centre in selection process.1. Screening: It is the process of eliminating and reducing huge amount of candidates
applications and focus or select only those who are qualified and eligible for position. At
first stage, TESCO managers carefully scrutinize CV or resume of each applicant. CV
discloses the relevant detail regarding the candidate's education and previous job history.
An appropriate CV helps TESCO recruiters to analyse whether an individual matches job
specification or not. Firm offers job type match technique on its career site where people
can easily check in what job position they might be fit in (Sparrow and Makram, 2015).
Advantages of Screening
 It reduces or eliminate the high priced screening calls. Effective screening process helps in conducting customized interviews.
Disadvantage of Screening
 Sometime creates possibility of occurring mistakes in checking background of applicant.
 Applicants may provide false information and forged documents regarding their previous
work life.
2. Assessment centre: TESCO organizes assessment centre programs for the candidates
who pass screening phase. These type of centres are conducted in stores as well as control by
managers. This brings consistency in selection process by which applicants gets various forms

of exercise including team-working or problem solving activities. Candidates who proof
themselves in those activities are called for personal interview. Line manager carried out these
interviews to ensure that candidate is suitable for following job requirements (Luthans, Youssef
and Avolio, 2015).
Advantages of Assessment Centre This method helps in determining the strengths and weaknesses of suitable candidates. It helps in improvising candidate performance by shaping and increasing their core
competencies.
Disadvantage of Assessment Centre Very costly and Time consuming approach. Highly skilled and experienced experts are required to measure candidate's performance.
TASK 2
P3 Various HRM practices and their benefits for employer and employee.
There are different kind of HR practices perform by HR team to make sure that there is
an effective and competent workforce exist within organization. These practices needs to be
organized and implemented properly that in result must be beneficial for employees and
employer. Some of them are discussed below:
1. Workforce Planning: This HR practice is a process of determining the organisation
future requirements of individuals with regard of numbers, knowledge and locations. It
enables company to plan out how these needs will be fulfilled through other HR
programs. This is crucial for firm like TESCO which is growing company. Firm required
new comer on regular basis for both stored and non-stored area of business. TESCO
make use of workforce planning table to generate appropriate demand for new personnel
staff considering both managerial and non-managerial posts (Navimipour and et. al.,
2015).
Benefits: Employer- This is beneficial for employers in a positive way because it enhances
recruitment process as save time and decrease cost. It helps the manger to allocate
suitable candidate on right position who brings higher return on investments for TESCO.

 Employee- This benefits the Employees favourably as they get opportunity to explore
different jobs in which they are interested also it helps them to strengthen their career
path.
2. Training and Development: TESCO human resource team conduct various learning and
development programs for shaping and improving the knowledge and skills of
workforces so that they can upgrade their abilities and contribute their full efforts in
doing any task. To preserve high customer satisfaction and retention of employees
TESCO align training programs with purpose of enhancing the interaction skills of staff
so that they feel confident and self-managed while attending customers.
Benefits: Employer- The benefit of this practice to employer is that it reduces the unnecessary
costs and regular supervision.
 Employee- Employees receive technical knowledge which increases their job satisfaction
and reduce absenteeism issue (Collings, Wood and Szamosi, 2018).
3. Performance Management: For managing the performance level TESCO management
uses exclusive approach like corporate steering wheel that involves various elements on
which the performance of each worker is being evaluated. These parameters are customer
satisfaction, finance, operations.
Benefits: Employer- Main aim of this activity is to make them employees realize their hidden
potential and help them in setting goals. Advantage for employer is able to sustain
talented and competent workforce and helps in optimum utilization of resources.
 Employee- This practice keep employees inclined and boost up their morale positively.
Also it enables employees to develop good relations with managers and communicate
with them well. With making use of effective communication tools and relations
employees interact their problems to management in effective manner which renders
them rapid solutions to their problems and improves their performance level.
P4 Evaluation of HR practices in terms of effectiveness.
1. Workforce Planning: Effective and efficient planning of workforce can increase the
productivity level of organization as TESCO manager can optimally utilize the resource
and easily identify workforce discrepancies this helps them in understanding whom to

recruit in future and what qualifications are needed. This can promote organization
flexibility and easily adopt changes. The best use of human resource and efficient
utilization of other resources of the organisation by the employees while performing their
job roles enhances the productivity of company and improved productivity will
automatically result in higher profits.
2. Training and Development: This HR practices will enhance the profitability and
productivity of TESCO as manager can easily identify employee's strengths and
weaknesses on basis on which company strategize what type of training is going to be
required. This helps in building competent and effective workforce in order to attain core
objective of organisation also this will leads in increase in sales and profits of company.
The training and development sessions also improves the skills sets and update their
knowledge which allows them to work more appropriately and in more creative manner.
The creativity and innovative ideas which are developed by employees will be practiced
by them in company while performing their duties. This enable entity to improve their
productivity as workforce is willingly working with their full efficiency and it will
automatically enriches the profit units as well.
3. Performance Management: This HR practice helps in improvising entire performance
of the organization by managing and directing the efforts of individuals and teams in
order to achieve company ambitions and goals. An effective implementation of this
practice helps the organization to receive open and transparent feedbacks from
employees. It is beneficial for organization in a way of enhancing cost advantages,
reducing barriers of communication and conflicts (Ulrich and Dulebohn, 2015). The
employees and management healthy relations and effective interactions motivate staff
and provide them fast solution to their problems and issues. This result in getting better
outcomes forms the individuals through their performances and their contribution
towards the entity increases. The outcome of improved performances is higher
productivity and better execution of tasks which results in higher profits.

TASK 3
P5 Importance of employee relations and its impact on HRM decision practices.
Employee relations explain the efforts that an organization applies to manage harmonious
relationship between employers and their employees. Company having sound relations with its
workforce sustain fair and equal treatment to all employees so that they keep themselves
committed and loyal towards job tasks. Employee relations are important for any organisation as
it become easy for employees to work as team which increases productivity of organisation.
Healthy relations eliminate situation of conflicts which in turn upgrade concentration and
performance of employees.
There are different parties involve in maintaining employee relations such as
associations, employers, trade unions, government. All of them interact with each other to create
and shape effective employer-employee relation system. Trade Union plays an important role as
these are voluntary parties established to represent and fight for workers rights and their
individual interest. The purpose of these unions is to regulate collective bargaining regarding pay
and communicate on behalf of labours about workplace issues and conditions. There are various
methods used by TESCO to enhance and preserve good relations with employees such as
collective agreement, grievance handling, and redundancy practices. Through collective
agreement company can enable to build sound connections with trade union as both are agreed
and committed to terms and conditions. Positive implementation Grievance handling programs
can help TESCO to deeply understand the issues and problems facing by worker at workplace.
All these strategies are favourable for the firm as they will help in establishing strong and
powerful relations that has positive impact over the decision-making process of TESCO (Baum,
2015).
Also some of the other importance of employee relations in general is as follows:
 Conflict reduction- The workforce of an organisation like TESCO is the most important
asset as they are the pillars of the company. Human resource enables entity to execute
and implement their action plans into real scenarios which is why it is important for them
to maintain good employee relations. The effective and healthy relations in between
workforce and management reduces the conflicts and assist in working with one another
aligning their activities and actions and gaining best possible results and all pre-
determined objectives.

 Teamwork- This is a concept of working together and by coordination and cooperation
which is very important for an organisation to work in most potential manner. This is
another importance of maintaining good employee relations as the atmosphere within
company also play vital role in improving performance of entity. The teams and team
members in TESCO will be more comfortable with one another and work together as
their tasks are interrelated. This interlinking of their job roles and team objectives makes
it very essential to teams work together and practice of employee relations helps
managers to make people work together in most efficient manner.
P6 Key elements of Employment Legislation laws.
United Kingdom labour laws governed and regulate the positive relationship between
employers, workers and trade unions. Employment legislations refers to all legal laws
implementing in England influencing the contractual agreement between employers and their
existing employees or workers. Implementation of these laws somewhere affects the decision
making of TESCO.
1. EMPLOYMENT RELATIONS ACT, 1999: This act defines various essential
modified amendments in UK labour laws in order to ensure fair trade union relations,
appropriate disciplinary and grievance handling and other provisions. This act influence
the decisions and working of TESCO as HRM management has to take into
consideration of different changes take place due to this law. It is necessary for company
to compile their internal laws with Act so that it become easy for them to regulate cordial
relationship within internal and external people of organization (Bratton and Gold,
2017).
2. NATIONAL MINIMUM WAGE ACT, 1998: this act states that in UK there is
provision of minimum hourly rates paid to workers which must be follow by every
employer. It is based on gross pay from which tax and national insurance are deducted.
Government decides these percentage rates after analysing inflation and deflation
conditions. TESCO is huge corporation and its crucial elements are its human resource
so it is mandatory for HR manager to decide and generate fair remuneration packages
for workforce so that they can survive their basic needs according to updated law to
avoid unnecessary delay and conflicts.

3. EMPLOYMENT EQUALITY ACT: this act is an integral part of UK labour law
which states that no one at workplace has right to discriminate any other person on basis
of age, disability, sexual orientation, race or religion and other characteristics. TESCO
promotes human rights and provides equal opportunities for both male and female
employees according to act. Under this act, HRM management take care of employee's
dignity, respect individual rights and interest and cultivate an open environment where
everyone freely communicate and interact with each other (Armstrong and Taylor,2020).
TASK 4
P7 Illustration of different HRM practices.
Job specification
Job title: MARKETING MANAGER
Department: Marketing
Description
Marketing manager is required to manage total marketing department including market research
analysis to formulate and implement marketing strategy. Also, look after the promotional
activities and campaign and maintain sales results.
Required key Responsibilities:
 Effective communication and teamwork skills
 Ability to coordinate large team efforts
 Evaluating and researching new opportunities and demand for products
 Management of promotional campaigns and distribution channels
EXPERIENCE : 5 years working experience in supervision and marketing position
EDUCATION: Masters in business Administration (MARKETING Preferred), Diploma in
digital marketing.
INTERVIEW refers to face to face interaction between employer and candidate in order
to acquire detailed information regarding applicants. It is necessary for interviewer to be pre-
prepared for conducting interview. One needs to consider some basic pre-requisites for purpose