EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
This is a group project on the TESCO PLC which includes the history and introduction of the company and also give an insight of what is personnel management and human resource management and the human resource policies at Tesco and also the changes of the human resource policies of the company and also the diversification in their HR policies. It also contains information about the structure of the company and conclusion of the report.
Various sources were used in the making of the project and we have tried to use the latest data to compile the report so the report can contain valid data for arguments which we have try to present in the report.
INTRODUCTION AND HISTORY
Tesco is one of the biggest retailers in United Kingdom. The founder of Tesco was Jack Cohen. He initially started his own business by selling surplus groceries from a stall in East End in London. On the first day of his business he made a profit of 1£ and sale of 4£.Tesco name comes from the initial TE Stockwell, who was partner in the firm of tea suppliers, and CO from the Jack's surname. The first product sold by Jack was Tesco tea. He opens his first Tesco store in Burnt Oak, Edgware North London. Jack Cohen build a new headquarter and warehouse at Angel road, Edmonton, North London. It was the first modern food warehouse in the country which introduced innovative ideas for central stock control. In the initial period Tesco stores Ltd. had a share price of 25p in the stock exchange. In a converted cinema in Maldon, Tesco opens its first self service supermarket and in north of England Tesco takes over a chain of 212 stores. Tesco stores limited became a private limited company. (Tesco, 2009)
(From 1919 - 1960)
Tesco increases its empire by 144 more stores. In 1961, Tesco Leicester being the largest store in Europe enters in the Guinness Book of World Records. Green shield stamp was introduced in 1963. In 1968 Tesco opens its store in Crawley and West Sussex and uses the term 'superstore'. Tesco had introduced petrol station at its major stores. They started campaign of price-cutting under the banner 'checkout at Tesco'. Tesco hits its annual sales by £1 billion. (Tesco, 2009)
(From 1961 - 1980)
In 1982 Tesco stores had introduced its first computerized checkouts and its annual sales hits £2 billion. Tesco store limited becomes Tesco private limited company in 1983. In 1985 Nutritional value were shown in its brand to consumers through the 'healthy initiative'. In 1987 Tesco had declared to invest £500 million to open 29 new stores and in 1991 it became biggest petrol retailer in Britain. In 1992 Tesco had launched its strap line "every little helps" and opened its metro store in Covent Garden, London and also introduced its new organic range. Commitment was been offered to customers at the checkouts through 'one in front' and launched its first Tesco express stores and the club card and became the leading food retailer in the market in 1994. Launching of scheme 'would I buy it' to ensure highest quality product is delivered to the costumer in 1995. From 1996 Tesco entered the new market in Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia and Northern Ireland and it goes 24 hour. Tesco personal finance was introduced and launched its club card point per pound and also opened its new branch Pitsea and Essex in 1997, as well as entered in Taiwan and Thailand in 1998.In 1999 they introduced online book store, online banking and issued supermarket price comparison in internet and Tesco moved in to South Korea. Tesco.com had been introduced in 2000. (Tesco, 2009)
(From 1981 - 2000)
Since 2001 to 2003 Tesco reached £1 billion price cut and entered in Malaysia, Japan and Turkey. Tesco launched its own broadband in 2004. In 2005 annual profit of £2 billion was announced. Tesco direct was launched in 2006. In United States it opened Fresh & Easy in 2007. In 2008 Tesco discloses its plan to open cash and carry in India and Homever of Tesco procures 36 hypermarkets in South Korea. In 2009 opportunities offered to the customers to double up their vouchers by re-launching club card with £150 million investment. (Tesco, 2009)
(From 2001 - 2009)
PERSONNEL MANAGEMENT AN INTRODUCTION
Personal management can be considered as a part of HRM. It is a narrow concept aiming to the individuals placement and function in the organization. It is concerned with the effective use of the skills of the people. In a business personnel management starts with the recruiting and hiring of qualified people and continues with directing and encouraging their growth and solve the problems if any tensions arise in the work space.
Personnel management mostly concerns and deals with human and their relationship with their work. The person who deals with this work is called a personal manager. A personal manager has a responsibility of giving advice on different aspects relating to the employees like recruitment, conditions in contract, implementation of personnel policies, training and development of employees and health and safety etc. (Zeromillion, 2002)
HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT AN INTODUCTION
Human resource means the people that work for the organization and human resource management is how these people are managed by the organization.
The term HRM is more than this as there are many types of people in the organization and they need to be approached in different ways to get the maximum output capacity from them so HRM is a wide concept.
The term HRM takes into consideration
It a general fact that different individuals have different needs and aspiration the role of HRM is finding out about those needs and aspiration of individual employees. HRM there for covers all the ways that an organization would interact with its people like training, development opportunities, finding out he individual needs etc and analysing how much of these is done and is it done up to the desired level.( TheTimes100)
TESCO'S HUMAN RESOURCE POLICY
Tesco is one of the biggest supermarkets that employ more than 450,000 staff members and biggest private employer in Britain. Human resource policies are centralised and under the control of head office. Tesco HR strategy keeps on revolving around work simplification, challenging unwritten rules, rolling out core skills to all the employees of head office and performance management correlated with achieving goals, mainly concentrating on performance management. Every staff member has got the opportunity to understand her/his role in order for them to contribute towards values and core purpose of the company. This requires conducting of innovative program that is induction program that caters for different styles of learning, culture and commitment towards the job. Staff members are considered to be the Tesco's indication to its customers and all the staff members have vital role to play in changing its core values and customer assurance into certainty on day-to-day basis (Whitelock, 2003). The challenge of the company is to make sure that all its staff members, wherever they work, should know their roles and actions taken by them affects the business as whole. Training of employees is to make sure that, they understand the history of the company, its values, goals, financial aims, core purpose, marketing and operational strategy and its dedication to their clients. Employees receive more training compare to before (Whitelock, 2003). Staff members at Tesco are motivated to work efficiently and effectively so that they can deliver great value services to their customers and for their own personal development from lower level to higher level through continuous training. Tesco aims at creating a culture of trust and respect where every staff member helps each other in their work.
The HR policy has helped the company to go ahead of its rival in today's competitive market. Strategic policies are concentrating on providing a clear path of defining roles, activities and responsibilities. All the employees are accountable, responsible, consulted and informed being guaranteed by the system. Several management techniques have been applied to improve the skills of the labour force. Techniques such as problem solving, situational leadership, plan do review and high performance coaching system.
Tesco has made the people core element of the strategy with a senior director in charge of it. Meeting conducted by the board members review human resource issues always. The company concentrates and evaluates on human resource information as much as it does on financial information. Tesco is putting lot of efforts in improving the skills of their workforce, their aim is to integrate it with the company's culture and have flexible organisation along with one step ahead of its rivals.(Whitelock, 2003)
A CHANGE IN THE HUMAN RESOURCE POLICY
There are two main differences to be taken into consideration about human resource approach. The first one is "hard" version which depends on business performance rather than workers while "Soft" version is all about balancing between the workers of the organization and the business performance. In recent years, the importance of human resource in the U.K has increased; this is due to some of overseas countries competition. This has encouraged some of the organization to review their human resource policy and one of them is Tesco.
Work simplification is the Tesco's first human resource policy and good illustration is that in Tesco all head office employees and performance management work together with their core skills to achieve the organization goals. The employees who have work in Tesco have a good opportunity to understand his or her individual role as well as the core value and purpose. Actually Tesco have used 13 key management techniques to develop the foundation skills of their workforces such as problem solving, situational leadership and coaching for high performance.
Once every month the board of directors in Tesco meets to review human resource problem. Tesco is putting plans forward to highlight on increasing the skills of labour and making the learning as a part of its culture because it helps the organization to improve it is flexibility (Whitelock.2003). Now, move toward the approach of human resource in the organization. The organization applies smart way to maintain their competitive advantages through past decade. It has long term strategy with compact between strategic human resource and increased training of employees. Consequently, the role of human resource inside the organization has risen sharply. From the previous data we can see that clearly the approach of human resource in Tesco depend on two main values the first is "Continuing Education" and the second is "Training".
According to what the prime minister say "education is the best economic policy we have. That through the policy of lifelong learning the UK would have the knowledge to compete in the new economy (Tony Blair PM (1998) DTI White Paper) Tesco try to reinforcing learning inside the organization through extended the learning to influence all aspect of the work environment". For example, they have created induction program to help their workers to understand different culture and to improve their core skills. The main reason for learning is that, they believe that the final result in company have been affected by the level of learning to all employees. As a result the employees feel valued and part of the organization. So that, they will give the customer more and more services in order to provide customer satisfaction. Turning to Delany (2001) successful organization keep human problem at the forint of their thinking and taking the decision making and planning from it.
As what happened in Tesco the manager and employees who have work inside this organization have a good chance of training which prepares them to face the issues that may happen in the future as a customer issues or changing of economic environment. As a result the employees will be allowed to control their career path at the same time in order for them to climb the ladder or not. Interestingly, the training to all employees at all levels in Tesco allow the human resource department to be a specific model of human resource in Tesco to be one of the best practice done in England. In addition it helps the organization to focus on human resource.
MANAGEMENT STRUCTURE
Tesco management structure has store director on the top and Store Manger follows Store Director. Under store director Tesco has eight different managerial departments, firstly Personnel Manger under it they have Admin/Personnel Assistant and Support Office followed to it. Second managerial department is Ambient manger and under it Ambient Team Leader which is followed to Team Leader. Third managerial department in Tesco is Fresh Manger and it has three other managerial department under it which are Counter Manger (Deli, Curry Pot, Pizza), Bakery Team Leader, Restaurant Team Leader and Fresh Assistant follows to Restaurant Team Leader. Forth is Non Food Manger follows to Clothing Team Leader and Electrical Team Leader and Non Food Assistant comes under Electrical Team Leader. Fifth managerial department in Tesco is Training manger who is person responsible for training for new recruited employs. Sixth department is Stock Control Manger and Stock Control Assistant follows to it. Security Manager comes as seventh managerial department of Tesco and Security Assistant follows to Security Manger. And Last but not list Customer Service Manger and Customer Service Assistant comes under it and Customer Service Desk (CS Desk) follows to it. It can be clearly seen in the following organizational chart Fig 1.0 give on the next page.
DIVERSIFICATION IN HUMAN RESOURCE POLICIES
Tesco has been considered to be an exemplar of good HR for more than a decade, in particular offering learning development to all staff, currently 440,000 across 13 countries with an age range of 17 to 70. Tesco also has started many other businesses like finance services which has further led to the diversification in the HR management strategy.
Procter companies HR director says that the company's success is down to its commitment to simple values: "No-one tries harder for customers" and "Treat people how we like to be treated". (Procter, 2009)
she also adds up the statement by saying "We know that the areas of the business where our people are the most content and satisfied with the quality of their work life usually correlate with the most impressive key performance indicators of the business," (Procter, 2009)
She gives the example of a recent initiative where staff rooms were redesigned by staff after feedback on Viewpoint highlighted this as an issue. "Stores with the new design scored higher on morale and key performance indicators in customer satisfaction, and helpful and friendly staff," (Procter, 2009)
Procter Tesco's leadership training also includes modules on maintaining health and wellbeing, and managers are encouraged to look after their own nutrition, hydration, sleep and exercise. And added "With health and wellbeing, what you can't do is dictating to people what they should do. All you can do is give them some choices that they can make that may benefit them, and then it's up to them if they want to take advantage of that." (Procter, 2009)
Tesco has remodeled its HR operations to focus on its staff's four key values, according to the supermarket giant's group personnel director Clare Chapman.
She said that "". Staff want to be treated with respect, a manager who helps them, an interesting job, and the opportunity to get on" (Chapman, 2009)
"We don't do anything that doesn't improve these four things. Our role is to make the values of the business concrete and to articulate them so people know what we're talking about." (Chapman, 2009)
Tesco also announced of a significant number of 11000 jobs that they will create this year for the long term unemployed after new came that about 2.1 million were job less .
CONCLUSION
The study of Tesco's HR policies has demonstrated that by introducing a higher level of training to all employees it has an effect on the bottom line. When the employees are trained they demonstrate a higher commitment to the organisation they feel part of the overall strategy. This leads to employees feeling valued and therefore a more committed work force. This is then felt by the consumer, with a higher level of service, which gives the organisation added value.
From all the data presented a assumption can be made that Tesco is more in to HRM but also gives importance to personnel management and the training Is given to the employees taking in consideration both the aspects of HRM and personnel management . After studying the techniques adopted by them there are some negative points to it like their absenteeism, policy which is also cities by David pollitt in human resource international digest any many other authors have also criticized it . They were also falling in motivating their young employees mainly of age group 17 - 25 but by making some changes in their policies they were able to reduce the turnover rate of this section of the employees.
But there are some points that they should think over about their existing policies
Like the absenteeism policy points which should be considered are
They can also take steps for increasing the level of young employees as in the long run the can prove to be an asset to the company
But to conclude Tesco became the number one super market chain over passing all its competitors and achieved the first position by changing its Human resource policies. And a general conclusion can be made that the change of these policies has proved to be good for them and their employees.
REFRENCES
BIBLOGRAPHY
PERSONAL CONTRIBUTION
We have done the essay in effective and harmony way. We have divided the work between us in Order to give a chance to everybody to contribute and simplify the duty. This, everyone in our group has responsibility to complete the work on the time that we made. We communicate with each other by mobile to make sure that everyone is updated and completely familiar with the role that he or she has chosen. We shared the ideas and tried to deal with the difficulties that face us by discussing them and find appropriate solutions for them. We are not moving from one point to another if there is someone does not understand some points. My role was to search about human resource management at Tesco and find the articles that might support our work. In addition, I have to know the way that Tesco treat their employees and managing their business. It is really a good experience and I wish I could improve and learn from my mistake in the future.
-Abbdhula
Everybody in the group was very hardworking and co-operative. We all had the group discussion related to the topic and everybody had an active participation and then we divided the work. Everybody was helpful round the clock when somebody was struggling with the topic. Everybody was communicative which helped us to arrange the meetings and discuss the progress. Everybody in the group attended the meetings at time allotted that showed the commitment and value for time. The most important aspect was everybody did their part at the time given and had no regression about the team play.
Group assignment one of the life time experience. It gave me an opportunity to gain knowledge related to working in group. It helped me to analyse the factors that can affect in working in group. This would assist me in working in the group in companies in future.
I was given the part of doing the introduction and the history of Tesco. I found it very interesting to know where and when was company formed. The success story of Tesco, from nowhere to everywhere is very inspiring. The way that they use their human resource practices was remarkable.
I am highly grateful to my entire group for such an exceptional experience.
-Abhilash
Working in a group is a great experience for me. I learned a lot and gained from the members experience and knowledge. we work together as an integrated team of different culture and countries. Each of us has different background form the other and this is made us a marvellous team. I learned how to deal with others and how to solve problems. Time inanagement and risk management was illustrated with time to accomplish the derived goal.
Taran is link between each member in the team and he Measure our progress . he has ability to be good manager. He try his best
Abdullah is a nice person in the group .he respects all member in the group and he collected information and outline the most important information to save our time. He is helpful person and he tries his best.
Heet is he is helpful person he try hard to finish our work and he collected the data plus finish his part. Also he has ability to be good manager. He try his best.
Mahmad ovesh is nice person he corrected our Mistake in the first part and earn information plus his part. He tried his best.
Abhilash is nice person he corrected our Mistake in the first part and earn information plus his part .he try his best.
Finally;_ I feel I belong to this group so if I have the opportunity to choice I will join them again
-Amani
Our group had Selected TESCO PLC as our group subject we all regularly meet and divided the work and completed the work accordingly .it was a great experience and i came to know many new people whom i would have never knew or met if it was not for this project. As this was the first time the second go would be easier for every one as now everyone knows the working style and patter of every one.
In my part the work was of personnel and Human resource management and the diversification and compilation and typing of the project, and making the flow of the report easy which i have tried but as this was my first time i think i would do better next time. I hope everyone was happy with me and my work
And it was a great experience and a fun ride to work with all my group members .
-Heet
My group report was on Tesco plc .we were six members in our group and all work divided properly among us .we mate regularly and all group member were well coordinated and all members give their best contribution for this report. I enjoyed my time with my group and it was great experience. it was one of the kind experience which I would never get as back there was no such assessment system.
I was given the work of Tesco management structure and HR policies which was completed by me and it was great experience to work with them and i would like to work with them again. Hope everyone is happy with my work and i have completed my work with all my capabilities.
-Mahmadovesh
Our group includes members from different programs modules. Our group consist of six members, all from different backgrounds and with different personalities. Our group has chosen Tesco PLC for assignment in Operation management and Human resource management module, because the organization is the biggest retailing business employing thousands of employees.
All the members of the group participated equally and contributed towards accomplishment of the assignment. People with different thinking, ideas and knowledge led us to share ideas and knowledge among our group members. I was allocated with finding of information on Human Resource policy and the organisations international background. I as well as all members of the group have put lots of efforts in gathering the information and doing their work accordingly as allotted. It has been great experience working with different people of different culture. It was fun working in group and exciting as well.
