HRM Practices at Tesco

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.

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 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 candidates might even have to take part in role-playing sessions and pass through psychometric testing phases before they would be selected.

Recruitment and Selection of Staffs

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). 

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).

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). 

Optimizing the Individual and Organizational Performance

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

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.

Tesco.com. (2018). Tesco – Online Groceries, Homeware, Electricals & Clothing. [online] Available at: https://www.tesco.com/ [Accessed 15 Mar. 2018]