Tesco Case Study on Human Resource Management

Question

Section 1
LO1: Analyse employee knowledge, skills and behaviours required by HR professionals

LO2: Analyse the factors to be considered when implementing and evaluating inclusive learning and development to drive sustainable business performance

Scenario :Assume you have been appointed as a graduate trainee Human Resource Officer within the Human Resources Department of a large organisation. In order to develop an understanding of your role as an HR Officer your manager has requested you to

1. Determine appropriate knowledge, skills and behaviours (KSB) that are required by HR professionals across the department. Please refer to Appendix A for an overview of HR Officer responsibilities. (P1)
2. Analyse a completed personal skills audit for an employee: Jane Cambridge (See Appendix B) to identify training and development needs considering the knowledge, skills and behaviours you identified in task (a).
3. Create a professional development plan for Jane Cambridge in her HR Officer role.
   Tasks (b) and (c) is linked to (P2)

At the end of your training your line manager has asked you to write a report about inclusive learning and development within the organisation for driving sustainable business performance. In your report you should;

1. Analyse differences between organisational and individual learning; training and development. (P3)
2. Analyse the need for continuous learning and professional development to drive sustainable business performance. (P4)

You should try to give practical examples and provide some recommendations.

Section 2
LO3: Apply knowledge and understanding to the ways in which high-performance working (HPW) contributes to employee engagement and competitive advantage

LO4: Evaluate ways in which performance management, collaborative working and effective communication can support high-performance culture and commitment

Effective use of high-performance working (HPW) framework and performance management models to support high performance culture’

In your essay you should:

1. Demonstrate understanding of how HPW contributes to employee engagement and competitive advantage within a specific organisational situation. (P5)
2. Evaluate different approaches to performance management and using specific examples showing how they support high performance culture and commitment. (P6)

Answer

Introduction
Human resource management is looked after by the HR department in a firm. This is the most vital function of organizations that manage the people to ensure their best performance. Human resource management is the backbone of a firm and based on this effective function, firms are focused to recruit the right people with the appropriate talent in the right job. This is helpful for achieving organizational effectiveness along with the objectives. If a person is willing to work as a human resource professional in a firm then he is required to possess some skills for performing the job. Skills which are professional and personal could help employees to manage their job roles and performance in an effective manner (Armstrong and Taylor, 2014). Employees are expected to have awareness of their job roles and this can enable them to meet the performance criteria in their organizations. In this Tesco Case Study, the important features of human resource management have been mentioned in relevance to the aspect of the development of individuals, organizations, and teams. The Tesco Case Study has been discussed in this report and the HRM aspects also do relate to this case study organization.

Section 1
a) Discuss suitable knowledge, skills along with behaviors which are needed for professionals in HR department
As a profession, HRM has emerged immensely important for an organization and individuals. HR professionals are always engaged in work as per their busy schedules. This requires them to work effectively for their firms. There is a direct relation between organizational functions and human resource management. In this respect, it seems important that HR professionals need to have knowledge of organizational objectives along with the required level of knowledge for performing better. Organizations expect from that certain kind of knowledge, behaviors and skills (Collings, Wood and Szamosi, 2018). Professionals in this domain keep their focus on planning, managing and directing activities of employees and their own performance for better organizational performance. Efficiency and knowledge are helpful for these professionals to ensure that tasks are completed within the given time and firms are benefitted from the results. To a great extent, these professionals are assisted from the knowledge and required a level of skills with behaviors. While working in the firm named Tesco Plc a professional in HRM needs to have corporate as well as basic knowledge about human resource management. Theoretical knowledge is not always sufficient and considering this, practical knowledge regarding HRM is also required for HR professionals (Bratton and Gold, 2017).

The kind of approach in HRM taken by Tesco is considered exclusively helpful for organizational efficacy through handling issues like grievances, managing talents and developing a congenial working atmosphere to work in. Management of people is the preliminary responsibility of HRM. This always includes performance like recruitment and selection of talented people. Focus for learning is always important for confirming better performance in the firm (Deery and Jago, 2015). The firm Tesco is a most leading organization in the retail sector in the United Kingdom and its human resource professionals are expected to work in tandem with vision and mission of businesses of the firm to fulfill the objectives. Knowledge of core HR matters is important for the professionals in the company (Budhwar and Debrah, 2013). Professionals in the HRM domain in the firm need to have knowledge about corporate culture and structure which can facilitate them to work within the scope framed by the cultures and structures. HR professionals in the company face some challenges in tasks involving recruitment and selection followed by grievance handling in the firm. If HR skills are talked about then it is required for the HR professionals in the company to have the adequate skills for helping them to perform in their jobs and having further growth in the firm (Deery and Jago, 2015). They also need to have a better skill in communication. As per requirement, HR people of Tesco keep their focus on improving communication skill for them along with other employees for better productivity (Alfes et al, 2013). Issues like organizational difficulties, employee grievances are most common in the firm and with help of better communication, these issues can be solved supported by active intervention by human resource professionals. Tesco’s HR professionals also need to have the skill of analysis to find the solution of problems. Tesco is a large corporate and team of HR professionals in the firm need to have skills of analysis to sort out problems. The foremost responsibility of HRM in Tesco is to ensure that right people are for right jobs and this can be ensured by the HR people in the firm depending on the analysis of talents required for better performance of the firm. In this HR domain skill of time management is also considered important. HR people in the firm require to work within a busy schedule and this needs them to manage time and performance quality. Preparation of planning and ideas including support for innovation are also helpful aspects (Brewster, Chung and Sparrow, 2016). They also have to be sure of organizational direction and to keep it as per vision and mission tasks such as liaison and negotiation are considered useful. Skills of decision making hold high importance.HR people in Tesco needs to take numbers of decisions which is why the need for better decision making is important. Knowledge and skills along with experiences are the prime factors which support proper decision making by HR people in the firm (Kavanagh and Johnson, 2017).

HR professionals in Tesco need to confront with some challenges which are required to be minimized by them for coming out achievers. Therefore HR people need to demonstrate professional and responsible behaviors to the firm and other employees. If any issue arises then HR people need to maintain their rationality for handling such issues and situations. If there are any employee grievances, HR people are expected to listen to their problems for making better decisions to sort out the problems. Liaison and negotiation are two important functions of HR people in Tesco and while performing these they need to maintain the highest level of professional behaviors (Marchington et al, 2016).

b) Examine an audit of completed personal skills for a staff
If discussion from above Tesco Case Study is referred to then it is clear that personal skill evaluation is always on high importance. From the standpoint of HR professionals of Tesco, analysis of personal skills is helpful for them to achieve their performance benchmark. Similarly, the performance of employees can be also understood and further improvement can be achieved. Importance of written communication is felt when employment contracts are drafted, the liaison is done in written and training is delivered to employees verbally and in writing. If communication skills are better used then many problems solving aspects are achievable and better results are possible to achieve. For this purpose HR, people need to work always on improving communication skills (Jackson, Schuler and Jiang, 2014). If better results are to be achieved then some aspects related to problem-solving expertise can be evaluated. This requires HR professionals in the firm to have better analytical skills for achieving better skills regarding problem-solving. Workplaces in Tesco are result oriented and better evaluation of skills that are mentioned above require to be developed if better results can be achieved.

c) Develop a plan for professional improvement

d) Examine the differences between individual and organizational learning, development and training
Organizations do have learning requirement and this is ensured by the implementation of learning with help of people or manpower. Firms if are adequately supported by knowledge enriched and educated manpower then preparedness for facing challenges becomes easy to develop. Organizational learning and learning of individuals are not the same and differences are existent. In a single go, an organization cannot be developed. People of the firms are most precious resources and with the development of learning among people, the possibility of learning for organizations gets developed. Singularity is the main difference between these two types of learning (Hollenbeck and Jamieson, 2015). Singularity as a factor relates to learning from organizational points of thoughts and if there is learning by two individuals for serving interests of the organization then the possibility of organizational learning is high. In simple words, when individuals learn for implementing their knowledge for the benefits of organizations and their operations then organizational learning gets developed. There is another view in this regard that when an organization is not old the employees are required to develop their knowledge through training for achieving confirmation that the required service can be provided by them. With the development of experiences of individuals, organizations also get to learn more from them. Development of learning for organizations is only possible through training and knowledge to build up for each individual (Brewster, 2017). Learning enrichment of a particular or single employee cannot serve the purpose of knowledge development by the organization. Leaning of all employees together can enhance the organizational development from the perspective of learning. This creates a version of sustainable development and the consistent growth of organizations become easy. From the case study perspective it is clear that as an organization Tesco can only develop when all employs are professionally driven by learning and achieve development (Sikora and Ferris, 2014).

e) Examine what are the requirements of continuous learning along with professional development to manage business performance to be sustainable
Human resource management department needs its employees to be skilled and talented always. Therefore, they need to attain continuous learning for developing themselves professionally for driving performance of the business as sustainable. Self-managed learning becomes possible with the practice of continuous learning and HR professionals get to know about several aspects related to their working domain to be certain that better performance could be delivered (Luthans and Doh, 2018). Continuous learning is al supportive of helping employees to adopt an approach which includes consistency to support further growth in the workplace. For long-term survival in business, the most important element is the sustainability of the business. While working in the HR domain, professionals need to give high importance on continuous learning for fitting better in the organizational environment and competition. Moreover, organizational development becomes possible if the business can be steered through competition for reaching the vision and mission of organizations (Bolman and Deal, 2017). On the basis of continuous learning, more knowledge basis can be attained and in the future course of business, this becomes supportive of knowledge implementation for better growth. In Tesco continuous learning immensely helps HR professionals to develop their skills and professional behaviors for ensuring better display of HR knowledge and skills. This helps business getting benefitted from the sustainable nature of performance in business (Purce, 2014).

Section 2
1) Demonstrate an understanding of how HPW contributes to employee engagement and competitive advantage within a specific organizational situation
HR approach considers another important working concept that is high performance working for motivating organizational efficiency based on improvement in the engagement of employees in the development of business through performance enhancement. The concept of high-performance working is preferred by many organizations and HR managers to keep talented people engaged in business performance for getting the best performance out of them (Grant, 2016). From numerous researches, it is found that besides large organizations, high-performance working also helps small firms to achieve better outcomes. High-performance working is a practice which packs in coordinated and united efforts which make people work with maximum enthusiasm. There is the maximum benefit of high performance working since people are motivated and working atmosphere also helps them to maximize their performance for the overall improvement of business performance (Nankervis et al, 2016).

High performance working if is viewed as an approach of synchronization of tasks then contribution of human resources, technological aspects and other strategic capacities of firms are understood as working factors which together develop organizational efficiency for maintaining organizational success. High-performance working is often viewed as a system which gives maximum importance on communication for communicating with employees regarding specification of tasks needed to be accomplished and performance criteria that need to be maintained by employees for ensuring better delivery of performance (Paillé et al, 2014). Employees by depending on high-performance working become able to deliver the most effective performance at the time when are needed most by their organization. Working atmosphere becomes more dynamic and organization such as Tesco builds a reputation in the international business arena. By adopting the approach like high performance working for organization Tesco stays hooked to performance orientation and this helps the firm to achieve the most beneficial aspects of high performance working leading to maximum efficiency of the organization and its employees. Tesco has many talented employees and their talents can be identified since the working atmosphere becomes more dynamic and people tend to work more efficiently (Reiche et al, 2016). Employees get better chances of professional improvement which improves the level of motivation among them and maximum engagement of employees come into the picture. High-performance working is most effective when the formation of suitable manpower or workforce is concerned. This is a most important feature of high performance working concept in the firm. Employees get to know about their responsibilities and job specifications which make them efficient to deliver the required performance. Moreover, if any tricky situation arises then employees can emerge the winner by solving the problem. It is one of the core competencies and develops from a high-performance concept in the firm. With a focus on maintaining the core competence by Tesco a situation such as competitive advantage gets created for the firm and in retail markets, Tesco remains in a competitive position for long (Albrecht et al, 2015). HR performance of the firm is always entrusted with the responsibility of effective recruitment to fulfill purpose like right people for the right job and this is met with by Tesco’s HR people with help of approach concerning high performance working in the firm. Employees’ engagement is always a sought-after aspect in HR domain to support organizational vision and mission. With help of high-performance orientation, this can be achieved by Tesco in retail markets.

2) Examine varied approaches regarding performance management by using definite examples to show that it supports a culture of high performance and commitment
Performance analysis of employees for understanding the performance efficacy of employees is a vital Strategy of every organization. Therefore Tesco needs to maintain performance management in its HR domain to understand the performance related contribution of employees. For the firm and its HR people, it is required to evaluate their performance and communicate with them regarding their performance and further need for improvement. This could help Tesco to improve performance aspects of the employees (Paauwe and Boon, 2018). Alongside, performance appraisal is a major cause of strategy development regarding knowledge development among all employees in the firm. It is important for the human resource professionals in the company in the HR domain and overall performance development for all departments become possible. Performance appraisal is related to performance management which is an important Aspect of high performance working in Tesco and the intended outcome for this working concept is to achieve organizational development by achieving performance on consistency basis from the workforce. In the context of Tesco, the strategy of high-performance working is a most vital aspect of human resource management (Wilton, 2016).

Performance management aims for improving the performance of employees in the organization Tesco. There are many approaches towards performance management for improvement of performance of individuals in the firm. A 360-degree appraisal is the most common type of appraisal system in the organization. For analyzing varied perspectives of performance, implementation of 360-degree performance appraisal is necessary. This includes a range of activities such as data collection and analysis followed by knowledge achievement from findings. Data represents here performance related knowledge and could be gathered from different types of stakeholders of the business. Feedbacks of seniors and other departmental officials make for important knowledge input to arrive at decisions regarding performance quality of employees in the firm (Storey, 2014). Based on this system of performance management the firm can achieve a broad view of performance features of employees compared with actual and present performance aspects with standards and potential performance achievement from them in the firm. All these apart, a 360-degree appraisal is important for the firm to achieve better performance of employees and development of employee remains possible always for the firm Tesco.

Importance of performance is another needful feature from an organizational perspective. For meeting with this objective a tool of analysis named key performance indicator (KPI) is of importance for many organizations including Tesco. Through this tool, organizations set their focuses on overall capacity related to the performance of their employees. This tool also helps in team-performance improvement as individuals are parts of a team and individual performance plays an important role for overall team performance (Shields et al, 2015).

An organization which maintains the hierarchical structure with service orientation can better implement 360-degree performance appraisal along with KPI mechanism for better achievement of results. Tesco is the example of this type of organization and is benefitted from the approach which is KPI and 360 degree of appraisal. KPI is a performance development parameter which is maintained for understanding the performance of employees and overall performance development becomes possible for Tesco. Therefore 360-degree appraisal and KPI tool support each other with the objective of performance development of staffs in the organization. Based on performance, employees are rewarded by the management and this further creates a high level of motivation among all employees (Bamberger, Meshoulam and Biron, 2014).

Conclusion
This Tesco Case Study has described important knowledge, behaviors, and skills required for an HR professional in the HRM department of Tesco. They need to show the utmost level of professionalism by virtue of their jobs. It is observed in this Tesco Case Study that Communication skill is important for all HR people. The skill of problem solving and analysis are important for them to show a high level of efficiency in their performance. A personal and professional development plan has been included in this report. Human resource management is an effective department which incorporates individual and team development as integral parts of organizational success. Importance of skill audit and plan for development are key aspects of human resource management of an organization such as Tesco. Moreover, Tesco’s HRM is also focused on looking after recruitment and selection of individuals with importance for ensuring that the right people are in the right jobs in the company. In this Tesco Case Study it can be achieved by the development of individuals and teams for better organizational development. Tesco Case Study assignments are being prepared by our hrm assignment help experts from top universities which let us to provide you a reliable best assignment help service

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