Evaluating the performance of tesco plc

For this assignment, I ideally considered an organization TESCO. It is a largest supermarket chain in United Kingdom. It employed over 260,000 employees over 1,800 stores.

Since its having ample of people, managing human resource would be a great challenge to such company. Therefore I think this is most suitable to go through my study.

Jack Cohen founded Tesco in 1919 when he began to sell surplus groceries from a stall in the East End of London. The Tesco brand first appeared in 1924. The name came about after Jack Cohen bought a shipment of tea from T.E. Stockwell. He made new labels using the first three letters of the supplier’s name (TES), and the first two letters of his surname (CO), forming the word “TESCO”.

The first Tesco store was opened in 1929 in Burnt Oak, Edgware, and Middlesex. Tesco floated on the London Stock Exchange in 1947 as Tesco Stores (Holdings) Limited. The first self service store opened in St Albans in 1951 (still operational in 2008 as a Metro), and the first supermarket in Maldon in 1956.

During the 1950s and the 1960s Tesco grew organically, but also through acquisitions until it owned more than 800 stores. The company purchased 70 Williamsons stores (1957), 200 Harrow Stores outlets (1959), 212 Irwins stores (1960), 97 Charles Phillips stores (1964) and the Victor Value chain (1968) (sold to Bejam in 1986).

Founder Jack Cohen was an enthusiastic advocate of trading stamps as an inducement for shoppers to patronise his stores. He signed up with Green Shield Stamps in 1963, and became one of the company’s largest clients. Now there are more than 1800 stores running under Tesco.

Tesco is being a one of the most important share holder in UK share market

UK market share

Graph Showing Market Share of Tesco

According to TNS World panel, Tesco’s share of the UK grocery market in the 12 weeks to 10 August 2008 was 31.6%, up 0.3% on 12 weeks to 13 July 2008. The business’ market share has been rising monthly since its recent low of 30.9% in March 2008. Across all categories, over £1 in every £7 (14.3%) of UK retail sales is spent at Tesco. Tesco also operates overseas, and non-UK revenue for the year to 24 February 2007 was up 18% on 25 February 2006.

Supermarket

Consumer

Spend (£000s)

Market Share

August 2008

+/- from

July 2008

Tesco

6,351,531

31.6%

â-²0.3%

Asda

3,410,431

17.0%

â-²0.1%

Sainsbury’s

3,175,543

15.9%

â-²0.1%

Morrisons

2,233,137

11.1%

â-¼0.2%

The Differing Perspectives of Human Resource Management

Today Human Resource Management, which is a very significant functional field of organizational management, has evolved a very board and profound management branch. HRM is the efficient and effective utilization of human resource to achieve goals of an organization.

While other resources make things possible only human resource make things happen. As employees have different personalities, different expectation and different abilities, it is difficult to manage them. In fact, HRM is a strategic source of competitive advantage that is more sustainable.

Guest’s Model

According to the David Guest’s (1989-1997) model of HRM has 6 dimensions of analysis:

HRM strategy

HRM practices

HRM outcomes

Behaviour outcomes

Performance outcomes

Financial outcomes

The model is prescriptive in the sense that it is based on the assumption that HRM is distinctively different from traditional personnel management. A business can take to HRM many different approaches. Guest(1999) identified two different perspectives of HRM ‘soft’ and ‘hard’, also these perspectives are similar to the ‘tight’ and ‘loose’ perspectives which are identified by Handy.

According to the soft view of HRM, it explains employees to be a valuable asset to the company. (e.g., it is people that make the difference; the workforce is the most vital asset; human resources are the sole, real, sustainable, competitive advantage or edge.) On the other hand, the hard view of HRM considers that employees are resources to be managed effectively to achieve business objectives.

According to Truss, those soft and hard approaches are based on opposing aims. The aim of soft model is to improve the competitive advantage of the company and the individual development of the employee based on the assumption that employees are viewed as a resource working to be trained and developed.

In contrast, on the hard model employees are viewed as a cost that has to be managed and the aim of the model is to use the employees to achieve the organization goals. These approaches can also be viewed as ‘tight’ and ‘loose’ HRM, which are system based on compliance and commitment.

Storey’s Definitions

The different perspectives can also be seen between the difference of personnel and HRM. Storey (1992) regarded HRM as a ‘set of interrelated policies with an ‘ideal’ HRM consisting of beliefs an assumption; strategic aspects; line management; key levers and dimension.

For those who recognize a difference between personnel management and human resources, the difference can be described as philosophical. Personnel management is more administrative in nature, dealing with payroll, complying with employment law, and handling related tasks. Human resources, on the other hand, are responsible for managing a workforce as one of the primary resources that contributes to the success of an organization.

Then, human resources are described as much broader in scope than personnel management. Personnel management is often considered an independent function of an organization. Human resource management, on the other hand, tends to be an integral part of overall company function.

Personnel management is typically the sole responsibility of an organization’s personnel department. With human resources, all of an organization’s managers are often involved in some manner, and a chief goal may be to have managers of various departments develop the skills necessary to handle personnel-related tasks.

While HRM concerns the human side of the management of enterprises and employees’ relations with their firms, Industrial Relations (IR) is comprised of certain actors, certain contexts, and ideology which binds the industrial relation system together and a body of rules created to govern the actors at the work place and work community.

This term is a broader concept when compared with labour relations and it is concerned with the systems, rules and procedure used to determine the reward for effort and other conditions of employment. It can be viewed from tripartite perspective. Though the term IR seems to have a more macro view rather than micro view, it can be viewed as a one of the fields of HRM. Therefore we discuss IR under the theme of HRM.

Several view points of HRM

HRM is the management of people at work in an organization. Human resources are unique as they have expectation characteristics which are missing from all other resources. They have to be managed legally and ethically. Unilever practice this correctly. In management approach, HRM is a responsibility of every manager irrespective of his/her fields of interest a specialization.

Though the Unilever has a human resource department led by a human resource manager, it has to serve all managers, non-managers and departments through it expertise. Also HRM is viewed as a system of interrelated functions. For instance job analysis affects recruitment, selection and pay management. When human resource activities are involved as a whole, they from the Unilever’s human resource management system.

Also HRM is an open system that is affected by the external environment that is composed of various forces which have direct or indirect influences on the organization and it’s HRM. In case of Unilever, those forces, labour law, trade unions, education system, training system, employee markets…etc affect HRM.

Strategic approach to HRM is a recent development in the disciplines of HRM. HRM is called strategic HRM from this view point and the purpose is to generate or enhance competitive advantage or support achievement of strategic business needs. When it comes to Unilever, there also HRM is fully integrated with the strategy and strategic needs of the Unilever.

Also HRM can be viewed from the proactive approach. Being proactive means acting before a problem occurred. Since there may be situations where problems arise suddenly and no time is available to anticipate, Unilever also recommended proactive HRM to follow whenever it is possible.

Strategic Human Resource Management (SHRM) is treated a resent development in the field of HRM. It is concerned with those decisions which have a major and long term effect on the employment and development of people in the organization and on the relationship which exist between its management and staff. It is perceived and believed as an advance topic.

The purpose of strategic approach to HRM is to generate or enhance competitive advantage or support achievement of strategic business needs and goals.

Strategic aspect of HRM has four features which are as follows:

HRM is a broad approach to managing people at work based on philosophy of HR.

HRM is a major source of competitive advantage. It links to competitive advantage of the organization significantly.

HRM policies/functions cohere within themselves and with other functional fields of organizational management.

HRM is fully integrated with the strategy and strategic needs of the organization.

Also HRM plays an important role in Unilever strategic management. HRM contributes to strategy formulation, strategy implementation and strategy evaluation.

Flexibility within the Workplace

Flexibility in work is an important key to a company, if the company need employee attraction and not to lose them. Flexibility means the way of working, which means that flexibility can be based on time and location. The flexibility in work can be categorized as follows;

Part-Time Workers

Part time workers are cheaper to recruit and they are not permanent and cannot involve in management procedures. The rights of part time workers are limited.

Fixed/Short-Term Contract Workers

Workers who are taken at a specified period as the company need.

Outside Contractors/ Sub Contractors

Group of workers or individual worker requites from outside the company for a special work at a specific time.

Self Employed labour

People who work for an exact company as a self employed basis.

Agencies

An agency which supplies employees to companies which seeks for labour.

Get the customer to do the work

Without any employee customers fulfil his needs by himself by use of technology.

Shift working

A continue way of working where employees work according to a time based system.

Flex-Time

A way of making decision by employee about his working time with in a core time.

Job Share

A way of sharing once works with other who work full time job on a part time basis.

Annualized Hours

A number of hours labour is given to employee and he need to complete that within a year.

Tele working

An easy way of working, by the use of technology employee can work at his own place, home, or even at road.

Hot Disking/Hotel ling

Employees need to go outside the company for specific job and they have a specific desk for them self in the office for permanently.

Home working

This is the same as Tele working and work can be carried out in home and this no need of network or communication

As shown above flexibility of work can achieve the company a high standard in business and the satisfaction of the employee will be high because they get what they need. The flexibility in work will give advantage as well as disadvantages. Some of them are as follow.

Employer view

Employee satisfaction will reduce employee strikes etc. High level of outcome can be achieve Cost of employee is low Sometime cost cannot be maintained Employee internal competition will effect on company manufacture process or sales can be continue without a stop.

Employee view

Employee satisfaction is high Working stress is low There will be a new ‘can do’ attitude in the business Time can be managed to do personal works Employers will miss use the labour Sometimes salary payment will be postponed.

At Tesco, they are giving employees (and not just the women) the chance to work flexibly for years. Flexible working can mean

Working part-time,

Working from home

Job sharing

Most who take up the opportunity are parents. But not all One Tesco employee studied at college for his degree and was allowed to work flexibly in order to train more often. Another was given a sabbatical to practice with his rock band. These examples show how Tesco has given flexibility for their employees.

When it comes to maternity and paternity packages, Tesco beats many other businesses. Company also believes in educating managers about the merits of employing mums.

Work life initiative has been developed many years in response to employee request in Tesco. Tesco believes that this will make employee attraction on the company and the satisfaction will rise above the roof.

Tesco sees the flexibility as an important issue because that directly effect on employees and without them company cannot carry out the works. Tesco as a company has arrange different ways of flexibility in work specially for mother who work full time, company has given them a holiday system where they can take holidays without a pre notice. The most of the part time worker in the company are employed in Europe rather than Asia.

Form of the Discrimination

Discrimination is someone is not treated as fairly to someone else in similar situation or treated differently because they are deferent in some way. Have two types of discriminations. Those are,

Direct Discrimination

Indirect Discrimination

Direct Discrimination

Race, sex, nationality of ethnic or national origin, disability are using for treat badly to someone.

Indirect Discrimination

Occurs when rules, regulations, policy procedures operating, which appears to treat everyone equality has the effect of the disadvantaging certain group and the recruitment is not reasonable.

Current Legislations are against Employment Discrimination.

There are 3 main legislations. Those are,

Employment Equality (Age) Regulations 2006.

Employment Equality (Religion or Bellies) Regulations 2003.

Employment Equality (sexual orientation) Regulations 2003.

Employment Equality (Age) Regulations 2006

Protect against discrimination on grounds of age in employment and training prohibits direct and indirect discrimination, victimization, harassment and instruction to discrimination.

Employment Equality (Religion or Bellies) Regulations 2003

The directive protects discrimination on the ground of religion and belief in employment, vocational training, promotions and working conditions.

Employment Equality (sexual orientation) Regulations 2003

The directive protects against discrimination of sexual orientation in employment, Vocational training, Promotions and Working conditions.

Proposed Changes to the Law

Hours, Rest break and maximum working hours of the week.

Most workers have the maximum they should work set down in law under the working time regulations. That guide can get understand rest breaking and rest periods offer employers to workers.

Give national minimum wage to employees.

Give pension scheme to all workers and increase maximum working age limit.

Range of current Initiatives and practices are which focus on equal Opportunities in Employment.

Current initiatives are very helpful for build up employer and employee rights. It is very need to work with trade unions. Other hand it is very helpful for give equal opportunities to all employees. Bellow I mentioned some practices for focus on equal opportunities in employment.

Opportunity 2000 is aim to increase the quality and quantity of woman employment opportunities both practice and public sector organizations.

Codes of practices; there have some codes to practice law.eg: the pension regulators codes of practice guidelines on how to comply with legal requirements.

Disable workers to give flexible works and more job opportunities.

Compare and Contrast Equal Opportunities and Managing Diversity

Equal Opportunities

Concentration on discrimination /unfairness

Perceived as an issue for woman and ethnic minorities and people with disabilities.

Focus on boosting proportion of minority groups in employment.

Strategy has to be ‘main teamed’.

Emphasis on positive action rather than corporate vision.

Managing Diversity

Aims to ensure that all employees maximize their potential and contribution to the organization.

Concentrates on movement within an organization it is culture and the meeting of business objectives.

Concerns all staff and specially managers.

Does not rely on positive action and provides a vision.

(John P.Wilson workplace diversity and training 2005 page253)

Tesco is view the Concept of Discrimination in Employment.

Tesco protect their work force discrimination. They have suitable work patterns for employees. Every time they modify their rules and regulations for current social needs. In this time they are giving more job opportunities for female workers. They ignore race, ethnic, colour for recruitments and training promotions. Tesco have specific age limit for recruitments and pension.

How is the organization move from equal opportunities to managing diversity?

Tesco move from equal opportunities to managing diversity use some activities. Such as internal employee networks, Monitoring programs, Diversity conferences. They build up employee societies for discuss their problems and set solutions. Other hand trade unions are helping solve the employee’s problems. Management every time monitoring employees efficiency and give more benefits and promotions to them.

Performance Management

Armstrong and Baron define performance management as ‘A process which contributes to the effective management of individuals and teams in order to achieve high levels of organizational performance. As such, it establishes shared understanding about what is to be achieved and an approach to leading and developing people which will ensure that it is achieved’. They go on to stress that it is ‘a strategy which relates to every activity of the organization set in the context of its human resource policies, culture, style and communications systems. The nature of the strategy depends on the organizational context and can vary from organization to organization.’

In other words performance management should be:

Strategic – it is about broader issues and longer-term goals

Integrated – it should link various aspects of the business, people management, and individuals and teams.

It should incorporate:

Performance Improvement – throughout the organization, for individual, team and organizational effectiveness

Development – unless there is continuous development of individuals and teams, performance will not improve

Managing Behaviour – ensuring that individuals are encouraged to behave in a way that allows and fosters better working relationships.

While most firms have a human resources or personnel department that develops and implements HRM practices, responsibility lies with both HR professionals and line managers. The interplay between managers and HR professionals leads to effective HRM practices. For example, consider performance appraisals. The success of a firm’s performance appraisal system depends on the ability of both parties to do their jobs correctly. HR professionals develop the system, while managers provide the actual performance evaluations.

The nature of these roles varies from company to company, depending primarily on the size of the organization. This discussion assumes a large company with a sizable HRM department. However, in smaller companies without large HRM departments, line managers must assume an even larger role in effective HRM practices.

HR professionals typically assume the following four areas of responsibility: establishing HRM policies and procedures, developing/choosing HRM methods, monitoring/evaluating HRM practices, and advising/assisting managers on HRM-related matters. HR professionals typically decide (subject to upper-management approval) what procedures to follow when implementing an HRM practice.

For example, HR professionals may decide that the selection process should include having all candidates complete an application, take an employment test, and then be interviewed by a HR professional and line manager.

HR professionals also consult with management on an array of HRM-related topics. They may assist by providing managers with formal training programs on topics like selection and the law, how to conduct an employment interview, how to appraise employee job performance, or how to effectively discipline employees.

HR professionals also provide assistance by giving line managers advice about specific HRM-related concerns, such as how to deal with problem employees.

Line managers direct employees’ day-to-day tasks. From an HRM perspective, line managers are mainly responsible for implementing HRM practices and providing HR professionals with necessary input for developing effective practices. Managers carry out many procedures and methods devised by HR professionals. For instance, line managers: Interview job applicants Provide orientation, coaching, and on-the-job training

Provide and communicate job performance ratings

Recommend salary increases

Carry out disciplinary procedures

Investigate accidents

Settle grievance issues

The development of HRM procedures and methods often requires input from line managers. For example, when conducting a job analysis, HR professionals often seek job information from managers and ask managers to review the final written product. Additionally, when HR professionals determine an organization’s training needs, managers often suggest what types of training are needed and who, in particular, needs the training.

Health and Safety at Tesco

Occupational Health and Safety is an essential element of a successful and sustainable business in today’s global village. Consequently, Tesco takes responsibility for Occupational Health and safety very seriously. Sustainable, profitable growth for Tesco is dependent on:

Providing consumers and customers with products that are safe in use. 

Protecting the health and safety of employees and contractors. 

Managing activities so as to provide care and protection of the environment   

“To achieve a safe working environment and a world class reputation for Tesco in Health & Safety at Work”

Some companies take some actions in order to retain health and safety in the company. Some may be in success but some companies can’t achieve that goal. Tesco achieves health and safety by followings;

Developing, designing, operating and maintaining facilities and processes that are safe and without risk to health.

Developing, introducing and maintaining systems, which will establish appropriate standards of occupational health and safety and ensure compliance with all applicable legislation and internal Tesco standards by means of regular auditing?

Setting annual improvement objectives, targets, and reviewing these to ensure they are being met at company, divisional and departmental levels to ensure continual improvement.

Involving all employees in the preparation, review and implementation of this policy and providing appropriate training and safety awareness.

Holding management at all levels accountable for the occupational health and safety performance of their staff.

Recruitment Process at Tesco

Recruitment refers to the process of screening, and selecting qualified people for a job at an organization or firm, or for a vacancy in a volunteer-based organization or community group.

While generalist managers or administrators can undertake some components of the recruitment process, mid- and large-size organizations and companies often retain professional recruiters or outsource some of the process to recruitment agencies. External recruitment is the process of attracting and selecting employees from outside the organization.

The recruitment industry has three main types of agencies: employment agencies, recruitment websites and job search engines, and “headhunters” for executive and professional recruitment. The stages in recruitment include sourcing candidates by advertising or other methods, and screening and selecting potential candidates using tests or interviews.

The proper start to a recruitment effort is to perform a job analysis, to document the actual or intended requirement of the job to be performed. This information is captured in a job description and provides the recruitment effort with the boundaries and objectives of the search. Often times a company will have job descriptions that represent a historical collection of tasks performed in the past.

These job descriptions need to be reviewed or updated prior to a recruitment effort to reflect present day requirements. Starting recruitment with an accurate job analysis and job description insures the recruitment effort starts off on a proper track for success.

Sourcing

Sourcing involves;

1)advertising, a common part of the recruiting process, often encompassing multiple media, such as the Internet, general newspapers, job ad newspapers, professional publications, window advertisements, job centres, and campus graduate recruitment programs;

2) Recruiting research, which is the proactive identification of relevant talent who may not respond to job postings and other recruitment advertising methods done in 1. This initial research for so-called passive prospects, also called name-generation, results in a list of prospects who can then be contacted to solicit interest, obtain a resume/CV, and be screened.

Screening and Selection

Suitability for a job is typically assessed by looking for skills, e.g. communication, typing, and computer skills. Qualifications may be shown through resumes, job applications, interviews, educational or professional experience, the testimony of references, such as for software knowledge, typing skills, numeracy, and literacy, through physiological tests or employment testing.

In some countries, employers are legally mandated to provide equal opportunity in hiring. Business management software is used by many recruitment agencies to automate the testing process. Many recruiters and agencies are using an applicant tracking system to perform many of the filtering tasks, along with software tools for psychometric testing.

Conclusion

Human resource management is an important function not only for Tesco but also for all the companies which manage human power or which deal with people. HRM is a key point for a company for its success if that function fails or malfunctioned the company will fall because the effect of bad HRM are not friendly to the company.

Company labour cost will increase and because of that cost of production will rise and the sales will decrease, Because of less Sales Company cannot stay in the market or face the competition. The difficult management function within the company in known as HRM. Lot of studies has carried our around the world by professors and professional authorities in order to maintain a successful HRM in companies

This case study is written in order to those companies which need basic knowledge of HRM and for students who want to know the meaning of HRM and how that functions. Tesco is a multinational company that has spread over 25 countries with about 440,000 employees.

That much of employees are a asset to a company and the management is very important else employee dissatisfaction will leave to Tesco company down as mention above. HRM is not just a management function like finance management, production management etc, its special because it always deal with real people and they are hard to handle and the understanding in to be there within the company and employee to achieve success in future.