Evaluating HRM Policies at Tesco for Competitive Advantage-MOD003486

This essay assesses Tesco Plc's HRM policies and processes, examining their contribution to strategic effectiveness and competitive advantage over the past 15 years. It highlights key HRM elements such as human resource planning, employee motivation using Maslow's hierarchy of needs, and training and development. The essay also discusses the legal and regulatory framework, including equal opportunities, discrimination acts, and working time directives. Performance monitoring, the effectiveness of reward systems, skill levels, workplace productivity, and compliance with regulations are also analyzed. The essay further explores job evaluation, recruitment and selection processes, and reasons for employee cessation. Finally, it examines the internal and external environmental factors affecting HRM policy and practice within the United Kingdom.

Running head: HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGMENT
Human Resource Management

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Introduction
In this essay, Tesco Plc is selected to assess the HRM policy and process. Tesco is a
multinational chain of grocery as well as general merchandise. This essay discusses the HRM
policy and process that can help Tesco organizations to deliver strategic effect and contributing
to competitive advantage in the last 15 years. Tesco was established in the year of 1919 and this
is now global corporation. It was developed as a set of the marketplace that stands to support the
consumers with their requirements at one place. In current times, it spread across the globe with
its stores dealing in 14 nations across North America, Asia and Europe (Tesco, 2018). In the
grocery market, it has 30% of market share in UK that deals in more than 60,000 stores at
international level. The key product of the company is cash and warehouse club, superstore,
hypermarkets, supermarkets and department store for selling different products associated with
general and grocery use. Human resource is an essential resource for Tesco. There are over
500,000 employees in across all stores which creating revenue of about 64 billion Euros. It is
assessed that all resources are effectively managed by Tesco and have allocated over time to
become the leader in its targeted market (Tesco, 2018).
HRM policies and processes that have contributed to organization success over the last 15
years
There are different HRM policies and processes that have contributed to the success of the
organization. Human resource planning is an essential elements of the human resource
management system. Through the planning phase, Tesco is competent to collect adequate
information over the existing HR of the company. This involves all the provisions, required
human resources and competencies to attain the desired future perspectives as well as goals. This

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activity is required for Tesco to communicate the mutual goals regarding business strategy
during the wider HR of the company (Banfield, and Kay, 2012).
Tesco is an employee-centric company because of direct interaction of customers with its
workforces to attain needs of customers. As a retail organization, Tesco is extremely relied on its
workforces for attaining goals as well as objectives. Tesco makes sure that the workforces are
organised in a way that they act successfully in order to accomplish the goals of company when
attaining the individual goals (Brewster Sparrow, Vernon, and Houldsworth, 2011).
Employee motivation is another HRM process used by Tesco. It is used to encourage employees
to accomplish the goal of the company. In this way, Tesco uses certain motivational theories as
well as strategies like reward theory, Maslow hierarchy of need theory and performance
evaluation. Maslow proposed that motivation is the outcome of attempts of an individual in
attaining five basic needs such as physiological, safety, social, esteem as well as self-
actualization. As per the Maslow, these needs can generate internal pressure that can affect the
behavior of an individual (Carberry, and Cross, 2015).
Physiological needs are those needs that are essential for the survival of an individual like water,
air, food, sleep, clothing, and shelter. Manager of Tesco can meet the physiological requirement
of workforces by offering a comfortable working situation, necessary breaks for using the
bathrooms, as well as eat and dirks, and reasonable working hours. Safety requirements involve
all those needs that offer an individual with a sense of security as well as well-being (Deal, and
Kennedy, 1982). Safety needs entail financial security, personal security, and protection from
accidents, financial security, and harms. Managers can meet the safety requirement of
workforces by offering secure compensation, job security and a safe working environment that is
particularly significant in UK (Gilmore, and Williams, 2013).

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Social needs are also known as love and belonging that is defined as the need to feel a sense of
acceptance as well as belonging. Social needs are significant to individuals hence they do not
feel depressed alone as well as inaccessible. It is assessed that family, friendship, and intimacy
all activities are used to meeting the social requirements. Managers can identify the social needs
of employees by ensuring each of their workforces knows one another, being an accessible and
kind supervisor, motivating cooperative teamwork as well as endorsing the good working life
balance (Mankin, 2009).
Along with this, esteem need is defined as the needs for self-esteem as well as respect being
slightly more significant as compared to the increasing respect as well as admiration from others.
Managers can attain the esteem needs of workforces by providing recognition and praises in
which the workforce does well and providing the additional accountabilities as well as
promotions for reflecting the opinion that they are appreciated workforces (Mello, 2015).
Self-actualization needs illustrate the need of an individual to arrive at their full potential. The
requirement is to assess the individual who is competent to do somethings that is extremely
personal. When an individual has requirements to become a good parent then he might have the
requirement to keep the managerial level position at the workplace. Since, this requirement is
adapted hence manager can identify the requirement by offering the inspiring performance,
attractive the workforces for participating in the decision making and offering them flexibility as
well as self-sufficiency in their jobs (Northouse, 2015).
Training and development is key emphasize of Tesco HRM department. By using this
methodical strategy, Tesco has been involving the training in order to make ongoing
development of skills of employees. Along with this, observing the efficiency of training is
performed by the line manager of Tesco (Reees, and Smith, 2014).

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The legal and regulatory framework in the context of HRM
Equal opportunities:
The performance relies on fair treatment of workforces at workplace. This regulation focuses on
fair deals in certain activities of HRM like selection, recruitment, allotment and job role. In
addition to this, fair treatment should be used within every activity of HRM such as nationality,
race, and gender in the system of payment (Schein, 2004).
Discrimination act:
By using this regulation, discrimination over entities is restricted at the workplace. There are
certain elements of legislation that covers the activities of discrimination. These discrimination
acts are related to sex, race, and disability. In addition, sex discrimination act 1975 emphasizes
on discrimination about the gender. Race discrimination act 1976 prohibited the practices of
discrimination on considering race (Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service, 2018).
Disability discrimination act 1995 is monitored and performs regarding the disability of the
workforces.
European Working Time Directive:
As per this law, Tesco will provide the right of having less amount of holiday for each year.
Moreover, the grievances related to excessive working hours is becoming a key concern that may
create the illness, depression, and stress within the workforces. This act could be forced with the
intention to keep the health and safety of workforces (Chartered Institute of Personnel and
Development, 2018).
Data protection act:
By using the act, workforces have the right to access the data in Tesco. This act can impose the
organization to keep the individual data safe.

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Employee Performance Monitoring
Tesco assesses the performance of its workforces by the support of feedback from the line
manager for the store employees. For the line managers, higher employees provide feedback
regarding their conduct within an organization. The feasible technique to evaluate the
performance of workforces is the appraisal of the workforce’s usefulness as well as efficiency
within four months. Another technique that is applicable to monitoring the performance of
workforces is an online portal mechanism, continuous assessment, target-based mechanism, and
direct monitoring of all practices (Gov.uk. 2018).
The effectiveness of the reward system
An effective reward system supports the workforces to get encouraged for acting in an efficient
and effective way. In addition, the reward system of Tesco illustrates the kinds of advantageous
and workforces may perform their job in a specified way. Tesco offers different rewards to its
workforces for attaining their task in a targeted way. These rewards factor can be compensation,
progression, business trips, promotions, and relocating as per desire of workforces. Moreover,
Tesco has a significant reward system that motivates workforces to work for the company in the
best possible manner (CIPD, 2018). The success of Tesco highly relies on the effectiveness of
reward systems, which is applicable to the workplace.
Skill Levels
As Tesco grows, the company might have additional operational and administrative requirements
that cannot be attained by existing employees. Instead of hiring the contractors and additional
workforces, the company should consider providing employees with training. It can add
development of employees, and human resources planning such as on-site training, sending

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employees, education repayment and sending employees to workshops and seminars (Chartered
Institute of Personnel and Development, 2018).
Workplace Productivity
Tesco can develop the most favorable workplace to influence most of the employees. It should
provide clear job descriptions and annual reviews, morals developing practices, wellness
initiatives like contests or outings, frequent communications regarding departments, individual
and successes of the company (Reees, and Smith, 2014).
Compliance with Regulations
In Tesco, the HR manager should work with the Insurance Corporation, security professional,
local fire department and employment expert in order to ensure the legal requirement as they
apply to employees. It also involves the federal labor regulations, generating an innocents and
secures office space, plant, instituting, warehouse and applying company strategies as well as
processes and paying all required insurance and taxes (Brewster, Chung, and Sparrow, 2016).
Job Evaluation
Job evaluation is a significant part of human resource management due to using several
compensation laws. Another elements that plays a significant role in choosing the pay for
workforces of a company could be outside to workforces and society. These elements involve
business situation at a specific time, economic atmosphere of the nation, the scenario of rivalry
in the industry, and financial health of the company. Tesco decides to pay for its workforces by
including all these factors (Armstrong and Taylor, 2014).
Recruitment and Selection process
Tesco uses recruitment factors on a continuous basis with the support of internal, external as well
as some different manners. These procedures make sure that corporation receives applications

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from all the matched applicants. It initially checks for the internal resources in order to meet any
profile available within an organization and then seek out external resources by shortlisting the
CVs of the applicants as per the profile. Along with this, referral procedure is also included at the
workplace (Bratton, and Gold, 2017).
Reasons for Cessation
Workforces could be terminated at the workplace because of different causes such as the
elimination of organizational regulations with rules by the workforces for their personal benefits.
It may adverse effects at the workplaces. Moreover, unlinked personal and organizational goals
are generating the conflict in the work for the workforces and declined performance by the
workforces. Furthermore, non-performance of workforces as per the standard may diminish the
efficacy as well as competences of the company (Bailey, et. al., 2018). In addition, negative
business atmosphere for a corporation such as recession may decline the sales from the company.
The unacceptable attitude of workforces may obstruct the organizational image. Legislative
orders are used to terminate the specific workforces by the court of law. In addition, personal
reasons for workforces such as location change, job switch and marriage (Brewster, Chung, and
Sparrow, 2016).
Internal (Organisational) or External Environment factors have affected the delivery of
HRM policy and practice within the United Kingdom in the last 25 years
There are different internal and external factors that have affected the delivery of HRM policy
and practice within the UK in the last 25 years.
The Internal Environment
Compensation

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The amount of compensation a business provides workforces to the company and keeps them
away. HR continually assesses the compensation structure by conducting a survey related to
location and industry-specific salary. It would ensure that salaries remain viable in order to retain
and attract the employees but there is low enough that Tesco remains economically reasonable.
HR makes sure that the structure of internal payment is fair. For instance, experienced employees
with proficient qualification can perform well as compared to recent college graduates
performing the same projects (Reiche, et. al., 2016).
Employees Relations
Human resource practices consider different factors such as training their employees before
endorsing them while their recruitment strategies rely on internal promotion. They can monitor
retiring workforces so that replacement provisions are made in time. For instance, when Tesco is
engaged to endorse from within an organization, HR should make sure that workforces receive
feasible training and development to be ready to endorse while the time comes (Brewster,
Mayrhofer, and Morley, 2016). In addition, HR can assess the number of workforces qualified
for retirement and makes sure the potential replacement and other employees are skilled to
eliminate a rapid removal of business.
Organizational Structure
Organizational structure is an outline of the association between a position in the company and
also members. The requirement for organizational structure review should always be leading
things at the workplace. It can make sure the growth and development between workforces.
When a company does not review the organizational structure lately and never generated
comprehensive organizational charts, it should focus on performing so. The key is to take full
advantage of the human resources functions is to identify the needs of staffing (Albrecht, et. al.,

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2015). The company can generate an organizational chart, ranking each position as well as
clearly outlining who performs for whom. It can write a job description for each position in order
to complete the tasks. HR manager does not afraid to involve the position for which they do not
have employees or to leave out employees who do not fit into the optimal organizational chart.
Once an HR manager identifies these holes and redundancies then, they can better plan regarding
how to address them (Brewster, et. al., 2016).
External factors
Political factor
Brexit impact on recruitment
The uncertainty caused by the decision of UK related to leaving the EU is being felt on the
ground by talent and recruitment professionals. It is addressed that there is increased
cautiousness in potential applicants and about the same percentage is identified related to
increased cautiousness in the recruitment of the company (Wilton, 2016). Along with this,
organizations anticipate that as consequences of Brexit vote, HR managers may face complexity
in recruiting senior and skilled/technical workforces together with they may also face complexity
in recruiting operational employees. While it comes to employing migrants, then despite the
Brexit decision, the high amount of consumers prospecting that they will recruit the EU migrants
in the year of 2017. It is similar to the proportion performing so in 2016, across all fields
(Albrecht, et. al., 2015).
How prevalent are hard-to-fill vacancies
The labor market is presently competent to attain the requirement of some employers with
respect to labor demand. There is a high unemployment rate and it has affected different
individuals in the UK. In this nation, Tesco is struggling to fill their vacancies and it is assessed

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that there is a lack of qualifications, skills as well as an experience between applicants. This is
the main cause of recruitment complexities. The experience of skills shortage vacancies differs
greatly by sector (Reiche, et. al., 2016).
Technological factors
Technology is a key factor that affected food retailers. There is over 70% of UK population
exercises internet and it has observed that there is 50% growth in the subscription. Furthermore,
online shopping for grocery products has developed a stable growth throughout the years.
The loyalty program practiced by Tesco such as Tesco club card supports in retaining the
consumers. It also provides promotional offers thereby discouraging customers from switching to
their rivalries (Bratton, and Gold, 2017).
Tesco mobile application is available, particularly for the 4G phones like iPhone that instructs
the users regarding nearby Tesco shop in their surrounding areas. Online shopping provides
different benefits because of wider reputation of internet practice between the residents of UK. It
is evaluated that more than 70% of UK population uses internet broadband (Armstrong, and
Taylor, 2014).
Economic factors
Economic factor has directly affected consumer buying behavior. Therefore, it is a key factor for
Tesco. The UK was formally comes in recession category since year of 2008; however, the
discount in rates of interest by government helps in reducing the rate of unemployment.This has
made the confident among consumers regarding the financial position and thus lead to increase
in the power of customer’s spending (Brewster, Chung, and Sparrow, 2016). But, the crisis is not
fully finished and interest of customers is increasing to spend on premium products. A favorable
concept of recession that is less spend by customers on eating out and rather than eating more at

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home and hence revenues for grocery market like Tesco is increasing. In addition, the customers
reduce expenditure on food and spending proportion on food has gained over the period
(Albrecht, et. al., 2015).
Conclusion
From the above discussion, it can be summarised that there are different HRM policies and
processes that have contributed to organizational success over the last 15 years. These policies
are processes are employee-centric, employee’s motivation, training, and development, legal and
regulatory framework, employee performance monitoring, the effectiveness of the reward
system, job evaluation, recruitment and selection procedures. Moreover, there are different
internal and external environmental factors that have affected the delivery of HRM policy and
practices within the United Kingdom in the last 25 years. These internal factors are
compensation, employee’s relation, and organizational structure. Along with this, external
factors are political factors, technology factors, and economic factors.

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