Answer :

MANAGING HUMAN RESOURCE

Introduction:

Organisation cannot build up a good team of the working professional if they do not have any effective human resources. The key function of the human resource management is including the recruitment of the human resources, providing training to them, facilitating the performance appraisal, motivating employees through effective workplace communication and facilitating the workplace safety. In the modern organization where the effective performance is very much important, there effective management of the human resource is very much important because it ensures that all of the employees are focused on their individual work so they   can achieve the competitive advantage. This assignment is intended to describe the approaches of the HRM to manage the human resources in the Tesco, which is one of the multinational retail organizations in the UK.

Task 1:

1.1 Guest model of HRM:

The structural along with the functional activities of the business organisations can relevantly be connected with the Guest Model of HRM that consists of the concept of a relationship between the management of the organisations and consumers. This model was developed by David Guest and in the context of Tesco, a leading grocery companies in the UK context, the application and relation of this model is quite significant.

a) Commitment:

Development of a satisfactory relationship between the company staffs and target audiences plays one of the most important roles in expanding the way of organisational success. As stated by Ballester (2012), through this, the customers are satisfied and they can also share their feelings and suggestions for the betterment of the company. In the case of Tesco, as there is a huge number of efficient employees, they can serve their best effort for the improvement of this relationship.

b) Quality:

The quality of the products of Tesco has been improving day by day. Operating with more than 2000 stores in the UK along with a huge number of customers, the key strength of this company is the delivery of good quality products (tesco.com, 2016). On the other hand, this company also offers reasonable rates and provide guarantee against the freshness of the products.

Figure 1: Clubcard Reward vs Market Share of Tesco

(Source: Tesco.com, 2016)

It can be observed from the above-mentioned graph that in 2009, the clubcard value of Tesco was the highest that has gradually been declined since 2011 (tesco.com, 2016). However, the market share in relation with this Clubcard Reward has also declined with the progression of time.

c) Flexibility:

The management of Tesco is not strict regarding their business policies. Due to this, this company offers a lot of opportunities to its customers. One of these offers is the guarantee against the freshness of the products. They also use to compensate the customers in case of the delivery of bad quality products (Dubost et al. 2014). Even, the employees also enjoy their functional independence within this company. The online shopping system has also benefitted the customers of Tesco.

d) Strategic planning:

The management of Tesco is well aware of the necessity for maintaining a strategic planning regarding their functional activities in order to compete in the competitive marketing scenario. These strategic planning is as follows:

• To be internally strong regarding functional operations
• To serve their best effort and services t the consumers
• To make the society benefitted
• To maintain the price of the products affordable by all (tesco.com, 2016)
• To develop a teamwork value among the staffs
• To expand their business from the UK to the global market

1.2 Comparison between the Storey’s definition of HRM, personnel and IR:

As per the explanation of Storey, there are some clear differences that can be observed between the functional aspects of HRM and IR practices that are elaborated below:

Contract:

One of the most important responsibilities of the HRM is to create a verbal along with non-verbal communication with others whereas the IR only follows the written method.

Management:

HRM manages to monitor on the functional and structural features of the organisational workforce, however, the IR focuses on supervising the organisational operations (Savaneviciene and Stankeviciute, 2013).

Strategic aspects:

HRM possesses a rapid decision-making process whereas that of the IR is quite slow.

Line management:

The HRM of the companies have their transformational role whereas the IR has transactional role (Gooderham et al. 2013).

Within the context of Tesco, it can be noticed that the HRM is involved in maintaining the performance of the employees, reward system, development strategy for the company as well as focusing on the needs of the employees whereas the HRM of Coca Cola looks over the franchise system, distribution level and customer satisfaction level (coca-cola.com, 2016). On the other hand, both if these companies have their similarities regarding Investor Relations as quite healthy.

1.3 Implication of the employees and managers to develop the strategic approach of HRM:

According to Okpara (2014), the employees in Tesco are responsible to serve their best effort in order to make it sure that the quality of foods is healthy for the customers. On the other hand, it is also the responsibility of the employees to observe that the ingredients used for the manufacturing of the foods are also fresh and genuine. Development of an effective relation with customers is another implication for the employees.

Similarly, in the case of managers, they are needed to be flexible towards the needs of both the customers and employees. Through monitoring the functions of the production staffs, the quality of foods can be maintained. Even, in creating a healthy internal environment, the mangers of Tesco are responsible.

Task 2:

2.1 Model of flexibility applied to the organization:

Flexibility can be defined as the situation when the employee and employer making the changes when, how and where a person should work to meet both the individual and organizational needs. Flexibility helps both the employer and employee by doing different things right. Tesco is one of the retail based organisation that has diverse range of employees and labour conditions (Armstrong and Taylor, 2014). To implement flexibility it is important for the Tesco to apply the Shamrock organisational model in the organisation and should divide their employees in three divisions such as:

Among the three parts the first part mainly involves the core staffs who are very much experienced as well as competent. Therefore, Tesco must provide them effective level of training so their knowledge can be improved and they become more competent for their organisation. For the core employees performances are generally measured by some extra level of responsibilities.

In the second parts, those employees are involved that are not the permanent employees of the Tesco but they have a good level of knowledge regarding the responsibilities of the business. In this part the level of flexibility is very high and management provides the opportunities to the employee so they can easily change the job location as well as the responsibilities (Storey, 2014). It is seen that those employees are not the permanent employee so they do not have effective knowledge so effective level of training is required to make them more competent.

In the third part of the Shamrock organisational model mainly includes those workers who are completing their apprenticeship program from the organisation. Tesco mainly provide differ management training program and retail based training program to the students.

On the other hand, core and periphery workforce model generally involve the idea regarding the safeguarding of the resources as well as the competences of any establishments. Here the idea is perceived as the central of the competitiveness. By following this model Tesco must divide their employees in different layer such as core layer and different peripheral layer. In the core group mainly the permanent employees are situated. The first peripheral group associated different full time employees, whereas, in the second peripheral group those employees are involved who are working in the contractual basis.

Figure 2:  Flexible firm

(Source: Storey, 2014, p.217)

2.2 Types of flexibility applied to organization:

There are different types of flexibility that should be followed by the Tesco to effectively maintain their employees’ that are as follows:

Functional flexibility:

Functional flexibility main referred as the function that any employee mainly carries out when they are employed by the organisations. This kind of flexibility implies that the multi skilled and multitasking workers of the Tesco are carrying out a range of duties. By implementing this kind of flexibility, Tesco can move their employees from different direct and indirect service based jobs (Renwick et al. 2013). This kind of flexibility can help the employees of Tesco to change their entire careers. This kind of flexibility is also effective to change some of the labour forces among the short term and long term based jobs.

Financial flexibility:

There are mainly two different reasons for which the Tesco adapt this kind of flexibility that are the employment costs or the remunerations. The main importance of this kind of flexibility is it is mainly impelled between the differentials and the relatives between different groups of workers so the wages among them can be decreased. Another reason to adapt this kind of flexibility is to shift the job based payment system to the assessment based payment system so they can increase their productivity in the organisation.

Numerical flexibility:

Numeric flexibility is important in the Tesco to change the ability of the management so they can make an effective and rapid adjustment to the number of its workforce. This kind of flexibility is important for the management of eth Tesco so they can adapt the hire and fire policy in their organisation with effectiveness.

Temporal flexibility:

Temporal flexibility is important to facilitate the adjustments to the time, the working years or the working days. The example of the temporal flexibility mainly includes the annualised hours, flexitime Electra. This kind of flexibility is also extended to different types of effective practices such as the utilisation of the overtime as well as the part time work (Alfes et al. 2013). This kind of flexibility is very much important to reduce the extra need of the employees to involve the current employee in the overtime. This kind of flexibility is mainly adapted during the seasonal sales.

2.3 Utilization of the flexible working practices for both the employee and employers perspectives:

As stated by Kehoe and Wright (2013), employee and employer both are benefitted by the flexible working practices. By implementing the flexible working practices in the Tesco employer can achieve more productive environments and employee can get more friendly environments. The flexibility are implemented in the Tesco by following ways:

Employment of the temporary staff:

Flexibility can help the employer of Tesco by hiring the temporary staff. Hiring this kind of staff can help the employer to reduce some cost of the employment because temporary employees are not eligible to get all of the facilities. Moreover, temporary staff can help the management to handle the emergency situation during the seasonal sales. 

Tele-working:

This kind of facilities are generally provides to the staff that are associated with the customer care, in this flexibility they get the same salary but they can work from home.

Working from home:

Tesco provides this facility to those employees who are ill or going through maternity phase.

Job sharing:

By implementing this flexibility one employee of Tesco can share their job with other employees and here the second employee gets the wages for this job.

Staggered hours:

By implementing this flexibility, Tesco define the hours when their employee should start their job and when they should end their job.

Annual hours:

By applying this flexibility, the management of the Tesco mention the hours by which the employees should work for their organisation.

Zero working hour’s contract:

This kind of flexibility is important to because it ensures that the employees must provide their highest effort to the organisation. This flexibility states that employers are not liable to provide the minimum working hours to employee, whereas the employees are not eligible to receive the work from the organisation.

2.4 Impact of changes in the labour market had on flexible working practices:

Labour market generally refers to the human resource that creates value for both organisations and consumers.  As per Employment-studies.co.uk (2016), flexible working practices are the main strength of UK labour market. 90% of the labour unions are in favour of flexible working practices within the organisational premises. However, unlike the first half of 20^th century, labour markets in the UK started to change. The main changes occurred due to changes in education level of the employees. Albrecht et al. (2015) remarked that education; especially technological education has brought changes in the flexible working practices. There are a number of employees who are working along with studying. Therefore, working in flexible hours is not possible for them. However, as education has created awareness among the future employees, organisations when employing full time employees need to give them room for work life balance.  Another important factor is the change of gender proportion in factories or even in retail stores. It is identified that, compared to the late 20^th century, participation of women in employment group has increased by 30%. Now, the proportion of male and female in either a factory or in retail stores is not 4:1, but the 2:1 and in some context, 1:1. Thus, as women participation has increased, organisations are now bound to implement flexible working practices, namely working hours and other policies regarding leave and benefits.  As far as age is concerned, young generation is proudly participating in the labour market which is creating the requirement for a flexible firm. In this context, it can be said that keeping in mind the current changes in the labour market, Tesco needs to develop tactics and strategies for flexible working practices. 

Task 3:

3.1 Forms of discrimination in the workplace:

In order to increase the productivity in the organisation, it is important for the Tesco to facilitate the fair treatment procedures because it highly motivated the employees to conduct their job with effectiveness. It has been observed that in the year of 2015, 61308 cases of discrimination have been placed by the employees. Discrimination mainly describes the ill treatment for the employees in terms of the age, sex, race and belief (Stone and Deadrick, 2015). There are different types of the discrimination that are mainly takes place ion Tesco, which are the age discrimination, race discrimination etc.

Tesco mainly hires those employees that are very young and dynamic in nature because dynamic employees help their organisation to influence the buying behaviour of the customers with more effectiveness (Legislation.gov.uk, 2016). Moreover, young employees are also effective to understand the current trend of the market. Some organisation discriminates their employees based on their gender, but Tesco do not discriminate their employee based on the gender because they are a big organisation. However, they the management of the Tesco do not encourage the racial discriminations but some of their employees discriminates their colleagues based upon their race. 

3.2 Practical implication of the equal opportunities legislation for any organization:

Direct and indirect both kinds of discriminations are not encouraged by the government of the UK. There are equality based acts such as, Equality act 2010 that protect the employees from any kind of discrimination based upon the race, sex, gender in the workplace. This equality based act prohibits any kind of discrimination so in order to facilitate the ethical practice in the organisation (Hoque and Bacon, 2014), Tesco should not encourage discrimination. If any employee can encounter that they are the victim then they can sue their organisation. In order to save them from discrimination, Tesco can select mediator for resolving the issues or they can accept the advices from the federal court of the UK. However, there are not any kinds of legislation that can protect the employee if they faced discrimination from their colleague (). Therefore, the court of the UK should adapt the act that can protect employee from all kind of discriminations.

There are both the positive as we’ll as the negative implications of the equal opportunities. The positive implication of the equal opportunities is providing equal opportunities to all of the employees so the organisation can utilise their talent to improve their productivity (Harrington et al. 2015). Along with that, equal opportunities create a healthy and positive environment that can increase the motivation among the employees and creates effective level of productivity.

On the other hand, the negative implication of the equal opportunities is discrimination in the organisation may destroy the motivation from the employees to provide effective effort to the organisation. On the other hand, allegation of discrimination from the employees may create some legal issues in Tesco and destroy the brand image of the organisation. 

3.3 Comparison between the approaches to manage the diversity and equal opportunities:

Managing diversity in the organisation means hiring employees from different backgrounds and handles them effectively. On the other hand, managing equal opportunities means provide equal opportunities to the employees in training, recruitment and promotion irrespective of their race, age, sex. Equal opportunities mainly diminish the discrimination fork the organisation, whereas the diversity helps organisation to utilise talent form different background that increases the productivity and creates more collaboration into workplace (Anitha et al. 2012). For maintenance of the transparency in the organisation it is important for the Tesco to follow the transparent and appropriate recruitment and training policy by which they can provide the equal opportunities to their employees. For managing the diversity and eliminating the discriminations from the workplace, it is very much important for the Tesco to follow the effective ethical code of practice by which they can facilitate the ethical practice. Along with that, it is also important to take different initiatives by the Tesco so they can lower the discrimination in their organisation. As stated by Lussier and Hendon (2015), maintaining diversity in the organisation also facilities the maintenance of the equal opportunities. This is because; any organisation is able to hire employee from different backgrounds only then if they have the mentality to provide equal opportunities to all of the candidates. In order to utilise the employees from different background, it is important for the Tesco to provide equal opportunities to all of the people so they can get effective training and increase the productivity of the organisation. 

Task 4:

4.1 Identification and comparison between the performance management:

Performance management system of any organisation generally helps employees to increase their skills in their organisation. Through the performance management system Tesco measure the performances of their employee so they can provide training to their employees accordingly to fulfil the gap between the expected results and actual result. If Tesco can implement an effective performance management system in their organisation then they can get the employees who have developed level of confidence and self-esteem (Punnett, 2015). 360 degree feedback, performance ranking process, graphic scale ratings are some important performance appraisal method, among them Tesco utilises the 360 degree feedback and behaviourally anchored rating scales.

Behaviourally anchored rating scales:

Behaviourally anchored rating scales are one of the technical tools that provide rating to the employees based on the narratives and incidents that are frequently occurred in the workplace. Retail sector handles different type of complex situation and incidents, the tools measures the performance of the employees based upon those incidents and views the capability of the employees to handle those situations. However, it is very much difficult to implement this because it requires the involvement of the skilled professional.

360 degree feedback:

It is one of the effective performance appraisal methods that Tesco applied in their organisation by gathering the feedback for any employee from their colleagues and supervisor based on different type of parameters such as the punctuality, behaviour, responsiveness etc. Tesco mainly adapt this performance appraisal method so they can provide incentive and reward based upon their team performance and productivity. In order to conduct performance appraisal, different types of skills such as providing recognition to the employee, listening skills, identification the right development area and setting the performance related objectives are important.

4.2 Approaches to manage the employee welfare in the organization:

Employee welfare is the most effective technique, by which any organisation can increase the performance of their employees so they can lower the switching rate in their organisation. In order to motivate the employees it is very much important for the Tesco to fulfil all of the needs of the employees according to the Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. For motivating employee, it is important for Tesco to implement different types of schemes that can help employees. Along with that, they need some occupational health insurance to their employees.

For managing stress in their organisation Tesco arranges the room where employees can take rest and eliminate their stress, which helps their employee to be motivated towards the work. Along with that, they provide several workplaces counselling to their employee so they can avoid different kinds of sexually transmitted diseases and implement effective working atmosphere in their organisation. Along with that, Tesco also providers career development opportunities to their employees through effective level of training and development and they provide more flexible working shift to the employees according to their need so Tesco provides facilities to their employees to balance their family and work life (Kehoe and Wright, 2013). However, according to the latest news Tesco have reduces their wages for the overtime and extra time pay and provides a standard payment to their employees this reduces the intention of the employees to work extra time.

4.3 Implication of health and safety legislation on the human resource practices:

There are a number of health and safety legislations that organisations need to follow while developing their human resource practices. Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974 is a single piece of act in UK that covers the workplace safety and security of employees. As per the act, along with the local authorities, organisations need to make sure that the workplace is free of health hazards like explosives, hazardous chemicals and most importantly a safe working environment (Healthyworkinglives.com, 2016). Tesco as one of the largest retail firm in UK needs to ensure that the instructions of this legislation are properly implemented within the organisation so that employees get a safe workplace environment.  

Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999 is another important health and safety regulation. As per this legislation, employees need to assess workplace risks as well as manage them for providing safety to the employees.  Employers are also required to make arrangements for avoiding hazards in the workplace for example, employers need to make arrangements for emergency exits, fire distinguishing and training to the employees. Tesco seems to be quite successful in following this health and safety principle as there are adequate emergency and hazard preventing systems in its retail stores. 

Another important safety act is Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations 1995 which bounds the employers or in charge of workplace premises to report injuries and deaths in the workplace and the possible reasons of it. N the other hand, Workplace (Health, Safety and Welfare) Regulations 1992 bounds the employers to make sure that all the workplace safety arrangements are done for employee welfare (Healthyworkinglives.com, 2016). The arrangements include ventilation, lightning, floor condition and all other aspects that may create hazardous situation for employees directly or indirectly. 

4.4 Impact of topical issues on the human resource practices:

Tesco has jump down to the least quality after sales service provider in UK in the last quarter. In this context, the main issue faced by the firm is its re-innovation. Consumer loyalty and customer satisfaction has gone to the lowest level which has created the threat for losing the competitive advantage in the UK retail market.  In this context, the new CEO of the company needs to focus on improving its services, rebuilding the brand image and improving the product quality of the brand of the company.  

As per the news from the Dailymail.co.uk (2016), Tesco has scored the lowest rank on customer service in UK whereas Waitrose is at the top with a five star rating and 82% satisfaction from the customers. This issue might affect the brand image of the company very badly as accumulation of new customers would be very difficult for the organisation whereas losing the loyal customers would reduce the profit margin of the firm hugely. Customer service as identified by Armstrong and Taylor (2014), is the duty of employees. It means that the firm has failed short in giving proper training to the employees in providing quality customer service. In this context, due to this issue, the firm might introduce new employee training schemes or performance appraisal methods for encouraging and improving their performance so that this situation can be avoided.  One such employee training can be e-training for improving employee performance. However, due to the ignorance regarding the knowledge of e-learning, the company might not be able to improve the current situation. 

Conclusion:

Thus, from the above analysis, it becomes clear that for the management of human resource practices, it is necessary for an organisation to focus on developing flexible working practices whereas following of the health and safety workplace regulations needs to be maintained for improving employee welfare.  It has also become clear that encouraging and improving employee performance through different performance appraisal method is an essential part of human resource practices.