Tesco: Analysis Of HR Functions And Approaches To Planning, Recruitment, Selection, Development, And Training

As a newly appointed Human Resource Manager for [insert here either a named organisation or enable students to choose an organisation and use the following insertion ‘an organisation of your choice’. Students should be encouraged to use their own place of work, if appropriate], you have been tasked with leading on the restructuring of the department as part of organisational change.
The Human Resources (HR) department will be restructured based on the findings of a review report, which you have been asked to complete. You are to review the effectiveness of the HR function within the organisation, researching the role and scope of HR and reviewing and assessing the main HR functions within the organisation. This has to be submitted as a case study report.
The case study assessment report should cover then following:
1. An overview of the organisation.
2. An explanation on the purpose of the HR function and the key roles and responsibilities of the HR function.
3. An assessment of the approach to workforce planning, recruitment and selection, development and training.

About the company

Tesco PLC or Tesco is a multinational organization of British origin which operates in the retail sector of the country. The company has its headquarters in Welwyn Garden city, Hertfordshire, England, United Kingdom. Tesco has acquired the position of the third largest retailer in the entire world in terms of the profits that are earned by the company in the retail industry. Tesco has been placed in the ninth position in world in terms of the revenues that have been earned by the company in the UK market. The company has its operations in around seven countries in Europe and has become the market leader in grocery sales in the United Kingdom (Tesco.com. 2018).

The report will be based on the analysis of the human resource functions that are conducted by the company. The HR planning, selection, recruitment, training and development process that has been implemented in Tesco will be analysed in the report.

Explanation of the purpose of HR functions and role and responsibilities of HR functions

The purpose of the HR functions of an organization are based on three major areas which are, employee benefits and compensation, staffing, designing and definition of work. The main purpose of HRM is to maximize the overall productivity of the organization and increasing the effectiveness of the employees (Purce2014). The organizations run on the human resources department so that they are provided with a particular structure and the ability of meeting the business needs also increases in the process. The HR departments of the organizations consist of various disciplines and areas and the practitioners in each of the departments are able to perform more than six functions. Tesco requires huge number of people or human resources in the different areas of its operations which are, supervisors, checkout staffs, stock handlers and specialists (Brewster 2017). The main roles and responsibilities that are played by the human resource department of the organization is based on the management of the staffs belonging to these departments in an effective manner. The infrastructure that is required by Tesco to manage the HR operations in an efficient manner is provided by the head office of the company. The responsibilities of the various levels of employees are also decided by the management of the organization (Bratton and Gold 2017).

Workforce planning

The workforce planning is a major aspect of the human resource management that aligns the needs and requirements of the organisation with the workforce to meet the legislative, regulatory, production and service requirements for accomplishing the business goals and objectives with ease and effectiveness. It is also useful for maintaining a systematic flow of identifying the gaps within the workforce and manages a successful human capital for enhancing the workforce efficiency at Tesco, UK (Albrecht et al. 2015).  

Workforce Planning

The human resources are inclined with the strategic goals and objectives for improving the performance of business, at the same time, facilitate the development of a good organisational culture, and foster innovation, creativity, openness and flexibility at Tesco. The corporate objectives include achieving the expected level of profit and manage proper recruitment and selection procedures to enhance the workforce efficiency. The strategic orientation of HRM is achieved by aligning the HR functions with the business strategies to bring changes within the organisation and transform the image of cost centre to that of a strategic business partner (Alfes et al. 2013). The strategic human resource management can develop an action plan required to align the corporate objectives with the HR functions and form a skilled, motivated and committed workforce. This would result in greater productivity, keep the employees motivated and encouraged and Tesco would achieve competitive advantage in business by succeeding in the business long run (Marchington et al. 2016).

The existing workforce of Tesco consists of individuals who are skilled and knowledgeable enough to carry out their roles and responsibilities properly and achieve the business goals and objectives with ease. The existing workforce at Tesco provided an effective strategic plan to follow the rules and regulations and adopt the organisational culture for maintaining a stable working environment to foster innovation, creativity, openness and transparency. The existing workforce of Tesco was effective enough for enabling the knowledgeable and skilled staffs to improve the customers’ experiences, which increased the production level and supported higher revenue generation and attaining competitive advantage in business (Kramar 2014).

The future needs of Tesco are to form skilled teams and groups and ensure better productivity for ensuring that the supplies meet the demands in the market. To meet the future needs, the company made sure to optimise the labour spend and focus on the areas of time and attendance of the employees. It also includes creating the forecasting plan, planning for demand and managing automated scheduling, which can help the staffs to provide self-service, maintain performance dashboards and computer based training sessions for enhancing the skills of staffs too (Brewster, Chung and Sparrow 2016).  The deals formed on the existing investments should enhance the supply chain activities and improve the labour supply and demand at the organisation too. To meet the demands of workforce, the existing employees should be retained, provided with better benefits for making them perform to their potential and drive the business performance (Kehoe and Wright 2013).

Assessment of Approach to Planning, Recruitment, Selection, Development, Training

Tesco develops a HR gap analysis for developing the HR strategy and make strng decisions regarding staffing and ensure proper allocation of budget too. The loopholes in the HRM processes will be identified during the processes of recruitment and selection, furthermore forecast the gaps between the present workforce and expected workforce in the future. Few gaps faced were cultural differences, which created complexities during the recruitment process and absence of proper organisational structure according to the organisational culture. The employees were found to work as part timers, which created issues on the HRM practices while the large workforce at Tesco burdened the management of training for the employees to enhance the productivity (Alfes et al. 2013).

Tesco must create a sense of responsibility and influence the mindset of the employees by providing them with both monetary and non-monetary rewards and benefits. Vraious plans should be created for enabling employee recognition and maintain positive relationships with the employer, furthermore delegate the roles and responsibilities properly to the staffs prior to making decisions in business. This would not only enhance the productivity, sales and profit, but could even allow the company to remain competitive and provide the best quality extensive customers’ services for ensuring customer satisfaction (Marchington  et al. 2016).

Assessment of approach to planning, recruitment, selection, development, training

The workforce planning process of Tesco starts from the recruitment based activities of Tesco in the retail sector of the United Kingdom. The recruitment process involves the implementation of the internal Talent Plan for the purpose of filling the vacancy that has been created by the staff who have left the organization. In the internal talent plan Tesco looks for the vacancies that are created by the employees who wish to leave the organization. Following this process, the organization advertises for the post where they require employees. In case of the recruitments outside the company, Tesco placed advertisements with the help of its website. The applications for various posts are made online (Brewster, Chung and Sparrow 2016). The selected candidates thereby attend the assessment centre of the organization for the final rounds of the interview. The people who are interested in working in the stores of the company need to drop their CVs in the stores. The organization analyses the various levels of steps that are related to the recruitment of the employees in Tesco.

The selection process of Tesco is also based on various steps. The first stage of the screening process is related to the careful checking process of the CV of the applicants. A well described CV is helpful for the candidates to pass the screening levels. The “job type match” that was available in the website Tesco helps the candidates to assess whether they are fit for the organization. The candidates need to attend the assessment centre after they pass the screening process. The approved candidates by the assessment centres have to face a personal interview (Marchington et al. 2016).

The training process follows the training that is provided to the employees who are selected after the end of selection process. The training and development related process is structures and flexible in nature. This program caters to the different needs and demands of the employees. The various training methods that are implemented by Tesco are, shadowing, coaching, mentoring, job rotation.

The development process that has been implemented by Tesco is related to the focus on growth of the person and further increasing the abilities of the employees. The training and development related activities of the staff are conducted responsibly by the management of Tesco (Reiche et al. 2016).

The personal development plan of the employees is related to the monitoring of the plans when they are needed. The personal development plans of Tesco is related to the increase of competencies of the employees. The employees thereby become more positive, productive and valuable for the organization in long-term. The organization aims at retaining the staff instead of recruiting new staff in the different positions. The process of development also assists in the increase in the level of motivation within the employees. Tesco also needs to ensure that right calibre of staff is required to build the management team for the future (Albrecht et al. 2015). The tools that are used by Tesco for the purpose of monitoring and then evaluating the training and development related activities of the organization are, scheduled tasks, timetable, checklists and measures.

Recruitment and selection model approach

The recruitment and selection model approach enables Tesco to identify the vacant positions at first, create description of job, advertise and promote the job vacancy, manage the responses, shortlist the candidates and conduct interviews with them. The vacant position at Tesco is assessed at first and then job descriptions are created to start the systematic hiring policy. It will include information about the various aspects of job, pay scale, tasks to be done, reporting and supervisory requirements and the qualifications required to carry out the job roles in different vacant positions available at Tesco. The job is advertised to seek the attention of individuals who are willing to work for the company. The advertisements on newspapers and job portals would allow for making the candidates provide their resumes (Alfes et al. 2013). The HR department at Tesco should assess the resumes that were submitted and this would help in checking whether the qualifications and skills of the candidates could fulfil the criteria for the job role or not. The candidates would be shortlisted afterwards and then called in for the interview sessions. Based on the interview outcomes, the HR manager would decide whom to recruit and whom not to (Brewster et al. 2017).

Approaches to training and development

At first, the needs for training and development are identified and then the appropriate training and selection methods have been selected and implemented. The performances of the employees are monitored to determine their areas of strengths and weaknesses, based on which, the training and development needs are understood quite easily. To improve their skills and knowledge in those areas, the training and development programs are provided to motivate and encourage them to give their best for contributing to the business efficiency. Rather than recruiting the new staffs, Tesco focused on retaining the existing talents and trained them to use their existing skills and knowledge to perform to their potential (Marchington et al. 2016). The implementation of training and development programs could help in improving the knowledge of workers; furthermore make them carry out their roles and responsibilities with dedication and commitment.

Conclusion:

The report can be concluded by stating that the human resource related functions of an organization are important for the proper operations of an organization. Tesco has formulated the various human resource steps in an effective manner. The employees are selected with the help of the formulated recruitment and selection plan. The employees are then trained according to the needs of the post in which they are employed. The organization mainly aims at retaining the employees rather than recruiting new employees. This helps Tesco in reducing the costs that are related to the recruitment and training of new employees.

References:

Albrecht, S.L., Bakker, A.B., Gruman, J.A., Macey, W.H. and Saks, A.M., 2015. Employee engagement, human resource management practices and competitive advantage: An integrated approach. Journal of Organizational Effectiveness: People and Performance, 2(1), pp.7-35.

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.

Bratton, J. and Gold, J., 2017. Human resource management: theory and practice. Palgrave.

Brewster, C., 2017. The integration of human resource management and corporate strategy. In Policy and practice in European human resource management (pp. 22-35).

Brewster, C., Chung, C. and Sparrow, P., 2016. Globalizing human resource management. Routledge.

Kehoe, R.R. and Wright, P.M., 2013. The impact of high-performance human resource practices on employees’ attitudes and behaviors. Journal of management, 39(2), pp.366-391.

Kramar, R., 2014. Beyond strategic human resource management: is sustainable human resource management the next approach?. The International Journal of Human Resource Management, 25(8), pp.1069-1089.

Marchington, M., Wilkinson, A., Donnelly, R. and Kynighou, A., 2016. Human resource management at work. Kogan Page Publishers.

Marchington, M., Wilkinson, A., Donnelly, R. and Kynighou, A., 2016. Human resource management at work. Kogan Page Publishers.

Purce, J., 2014. The impact of corporate strategy on human resource management. New Perspectives on Human Resource Management (Routledge Revivals), 67.

Reiche, B.S., Stahl, G.K., Mendenhall, M.E. and Oddou, G.R. eds., 2016. Readings and cases in international human resource management. Taylor & Francis.

Tesco.com. (2018). Tesco - Online Groceries, Homeware, Electricals & Clothing. [online] Available at: https://www.tesco.com/ [Accessed 10 May 2018].