This section will report on the organizations HR policies, the information is taken from current articles and their web site which is outlined in the appendices.
Tesco's profits have soared 20% in the last year, taking them to a record 2 billion and setting a new milestone for UK business. The company takes almost one of every three pounds spent in a supermarket, and more than one of every eight pounds spent on the High Street. The supermarket chain is Britain's biggest private employer with nearly 260,000 staff (Poulter, S. 2005).
The human-resource strategy at Tesco's revolves around work simplification, challenging unwritten rules, rolling out core skills to all head-office employees and performance management linked to achieving steering-wheel targets. This highlights the way in which Tesco's business measures are closely linked to performance management (Anonymous 2003).
Tesco ensures that each and every employee has the opportunity to understand his or her individual role in contributing to the Tesco core purpose and values. This requires an innovative induction programme that caters for different cultures, styles of learning and varying commitments to the job. The frontline employees are considered the ultimate reflection of Tesco to its customers, but all employees have a very important role to play in turning core values and customer commitment into reality on a daily basis (Whitelock, N. 2003).
A major Tesco challenge is to ensure that all of its employees, wherever they work, are aware of the role they play and that they can clearly see how their actions affect the "big picture" of the overall business. The training creates a graphical journey through the history of Tesco, its core purpose, values, business goals, financial aims, operations and marketing strategy and its commitment to customers. All employees are receiving more training than before (Whitelock, N. 2003).
A human-resource-led business strategy has helped Tesco to take the lead over its rivals in the fiercely-competitive UK supermarket sector. The strategic policy (Future) started in the company's supermarkets, where its aim was to free up stores employees so they could do more and improve customer service (Anonymous 2003).
Future concentrates on providing a clear way of defining roles, responsibilities and activities. The system guarantees that all employees are responsible, accountable, consulted and informed. A group of 13 key management techniques is used to improve the core skills of the workforce. The techniques include root cause analysis, problem solving, plan-do-review, situational leadership and coaching for high performance (Anonymous 2003).
For the first time, people have been made a core element of strategy. The importance of this strand of the project has been recognised by putting a senior director in charge. Quarterly board meetings always review human resource issues. Tesco now tracks human-resource information as closely as financial results (Anonymous 2003).
Looking ahead, Tesco intends to continue its emphasis on increasing the skills of its workforce. The firm aims to make learning into a truly integrated part of its culture, as an important way of developing organisational flexibility and remaining one step ahead of its rivals (Anonymous 2003).
Difference between Human Resource Management and Personnel Management
There is not a really big difference between Human Resource Management and Personnel Management, in actual fact "Human Resources" have largely replaced the term "Personnel Management".
Human Resource Management is basically much broader in scope than Personnel Management.
Human Resource Management could be described in two ways. Strategic and Proactive. The reason being that there strategies are ongoing and they constantly work towards managing and developing an organizations workforce. It can be seen as Proactive because of their continuous development and functions to improve the company's workforce.
Human Resource Management is the type of Management where almost everybody in Managing Position can play a part in Training and Development. They aim to have many different Managers in various departments with the necessary skills to handle employee tasks at hand.
Personnel Management can be described as reactive. The reason why I would say this is because of the way they operate. An example of this would be that they respond to demands and concerns as they are presented.
Personnel Management could also be seen as a independent way of managing. It is a sole responsibility of the organisation.
Quoted: "When a difference between personnel management and human resources is recognized, human resources is described as much broader in scope than personnel management. Human resources is said to incorporate and develop personnel management tasks, while seeking to create and develop teams of workers for the benefit of the organization. A primary goal of human resources is to enable employees to work to a maximum level of efficiency.
Personnel management can include administrative tasks that are both traditional and routine. It can be described as reactive, providing a response to demands and concerns as they are presented. By contrast, human resources involves ongoing strategies to manage and develop an organization's workforce. It is proactive, as it involves the continuous development of functions and policies for the purposes of improving a company's workforce.
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.
As far as motivators are concerned, personnel management typically seeks to motivate employees with such things as compensation, bonuses, rewards, and the simplification of work responsibilities. From the personnel management point of view, employee satisfaction provides the motivation necessary to improve job performance. The opposite is true of human resources. Human resource management holds that improved performance leads to employee satisfaction. With human resources, work groups, effective strategies for meeting challenges, and job creativity are seen as the primary motivators."
