Tesco is the largest UK based supermarket and the world’s third largest grocery retailer with stores across Europe, USA and Asia. Tesco has a well-established and long-term strategy for growth. Tesco has net profits of around £3 billion before tax. The objectives of the strategy are:

• To grow the core UK business
• To be strong in food and non-food
• To develop retailing services
• To put customer at the heart of what they do
• To be a successful international retailer

Tesco was founded in 1919 by Jack Cohen selling groceries in the markets of London’s East End. Tesco brand first appeared in 1924 when Cohen bought stocks of tea from T.E. Stockwell. They combined their names to form – TESCO. In 1929, the first Tesco store opened in North London. Since then Tesco has expanded rapidly by opening more new stores and retail services, while adapting to consumers’ needs. In 1961, Tesco Leicester entered the Guinness Book of Records as the largest store in Europe. In 1968 Tesco opened its first superstore in Crawley, West Sussex. By the 1970s Tesco diversified into other products and opened its first petrol stations in 1974.

In 1992, Tesco launched its slogan ‘every little helps’, followed by the Tesco Value range in 1993 and the Tesco Club card in 1995, helping Tesco to overtake Sainsbury’s as the UK’s largest food retailer. Tesco.com was launched in 2000, followed by Tesco broadband in 2004 and Tesco Direct in 2006. Tesco’s Personal Finance Acquisition was completed in 2008.

Tesco has now over 2,200 stores with 280,000 employees in the UK. From 1994 to 2007 Tesco expanded overseas by opening stores in Hungary, Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Rep. of Ireland, Thailand, South Korea, Taiwan, Malaysia, Turkey, Japan, China and US under the name ‘Fresh & Easy’. Last year Tesco announced plans to establish cash and carry business in India.

TASK 2: Literature Review

Differences between human resource management and personnel management

Human resource management (HRM) is defined as a strategic and coherent approach to the management of an organisation’s most valued assets – the people working there who individually and collectively contribute to the achievement of its objectives. (M Armstrong)

Personnel management (PM) is concerned with obtaining, organising and motivating the human resources required by the enterprise. (M Armstrong)

The concept of HRM places greater emphasis on:

• Integration with the business strategies rather than focusing on delivering basic services such as recruitment and training

Adopting a management and business-oriented philosophy

• Using unitary approach rather than pluralist approach
• Treating people as assets (human capital) rather than costs

Personnel management

is workforce-centred, directed mainly at an organisation’s employees covering issues such as:

1. Finding and training them,
2. Arranging for them to be paid.
3. Satisfying employees’ work-related needs,
4. Dealing with their problems and
5. Seeking to change management action that could produce an unwelcome employee response.

• HRM is “resource-centred, directed mainly at management needs for human resources (not necessarily employees) to be provided and deployed.
• Demand rather than supply is the focus of the activity.
• There is greater emphasis on planning, monitoring and control rather than mediation between employee and employer.

Role of human resource (HR) practitioner

The main roles of HR practitioners are:

The strategic role

• To formulate and implement forward-looking HR strategies that are aligned to business objectives and integrated with one another.
• To contribute to the development of business strategies.
• To work alongside their line management colleagues to provide on an everyday basis continuous support to the implementation of the strategy of the organisation.

The business partner role

As business partners, HR specialists share responsibility with their line management colleagues for the success of the enterprise and get involved with them in implementing business strategy and running the business.

The change agent role

HR specialists act as change agents, facilitating change by providing advice and support on its introduction and management.

The internal consultant role

As internal consultants, HR practitioners work alongside their clients in analysing problems, diagnosing issues and proposing solutions.

The service provider role

As service provider, HR practitioners provide services to internal customers.

The guardian of values role

HR practitioners may act as the guardians of the organisation’s values and ethical standards concerning people. They point out when behaviour conflicts with those values or where proposed actions will be incompatible with them.

Role and responsibilities of line managers in HR practices

HR can initiate new policies and practices but the line managers have the main responsibility for implementing them. Line managers can achieve better ownership if:

• The practices benefit them.
• They are involved in the development and the testing of the practices.
• The practices are not too complicated, bureaucratic or time-consuming.
• Their responsibilities are defined and communicated clearly.
• They are provided with the guidance, support and training required to implement the practices.

Human resource planning

The need for HR planning

HR planning determines the HR required by the organisation to achieve its strategic goals. HR planning at Tesco aims to ensure that the organisation has the right number of people with the right skills needed to meet forecast requirements. It also ensures that people with the right type of attitudes and motivation are available, who are committed to the organisation and engaged in their work, and behave accordingly.

The process of HR planning