HR role and priorities:

HR functions enable organisations to maximise the contribution of people to delivery of the

organisations goals.

building the people strategy providing the framework of policies and procedures

related to the employment of staff

providing the tools to do this effectively
Providing guidance, support and advice on the effective implementation of the
strategy, policies, procedures and tools.

HR functions are including recruitment and selection, reward management, training and
development, performance management and etc. According to Weingberg et al. (2010:80)
when it is developed HR planning process it is important to have HR functions at the
organisation and it is affecting for the HR plan. As an example at Tesco they have training
and development programs which are conducting each year and the cost is depending on the
number of participants.
The works of Marchington M & Wilkinson, A (1997), one of the best skills an
organisation can teach their employees are transferable skills. This has stemmed from todays
economic stage, in terms of employment availability and the evolving trend that no
organisation today offers a job for life, this has resulted in individuals feeling they have lesser
job security but taking more responsibility for their career paths.
Employees are increasingly becoming more mobile and according to Harrison, R
(2002), top employees have more scope of choice of where to work and change of
employment for reasons such as better incentives, for example, promotion, better security,
better opportunities, and satisfaction. Harrison states that: to retain these key individuals, the
role of HR must create an environment suited to personal growth.

Internal and external influences

People at each level of responsibility in Tesco, from administrators and customer

assistants to directors, face different types of decisions. Each comes with its own
responsibilities and timescales. These will influence the most appropriate leadership style for
a particular piece of work or for a given project or audience.
Tesco managers have responsibilities for front of house (customer-facing) staff as well
as behind the scenes employees, such as office staff. Before making a decision, the manager
will consider the task in hand, the people involved and those who will be affected (such as
customers). Various internal and external factors may also affect the choice of leadership
style used.
Internal factors include the levels of skill that employees have. Large teams may have
members with varying levels of skill. This may require the manager to adopt a more directive
style, providing clear communication so that everyone knows what to do to achieve goals and
tasks.
External factors may arise when dealing with customers. For example, Berian may need
to use a persuasive style to convince a customer to accept a replacement product for an item
that is temporarily out of stock.
http://businesscasestudies.co.uk/tesco/developing-appropriate-leadership-styles/factorsinfluencing-leadership-style.html#ixzz3smGlsdK8

Changes in TESCO

1. Regaining competitiveness in the core UK business

Restoring performance in the UK is Tesco's number one priority and while it is still early
days, Tesco is showing signs of turning a corner, with latest market share figures showing a
return to sales growth for the first time since January 2014 of +0.3%1. While this rate of
growth was still behind the market, it reflects Tesco's progress in appealing to shoppers over
recent months. In particular, performance has been lifted by a focus on higher levels of
staffing and better availability.

2. New management structure taking shape

Lewis will also be committed to building the right team around him to deliver change across
Tesco. In June, Matt Davies, Halfords Group Chief Executive will join Tesco in the new role
of UK and Ireland CEO. Davies has a reputation for focusing on customer service and
building staff morale. A non-executive director of Debenhams, he will also bring valuable
non-food retailing experience to his new role. His people skills will be much-needed as Tesco
takes action to reduce costs across head office functions by 30%.

3. Reshaping the store portfolio

At the start of the year Tesco announced it would not be going ahead with plans to develop 49
sites for large format stores in the UK and that it would close 43 existing stores. Half of these
store closures affected the retailers Express format, with the changing retail landscape
calling the commercial case for these stores in to question. The cutbacks follow Tesco's tight
control over capital expenditure: this year it plans to invest 1bn, down from 4.7bn in
2008/09.

4. Targeting international investment where it counts

Internationally, Tesco faces many local challenges and there has been significant speculation
about possible exits from underperforming markets. However, having retreated from the US
and China, and given that it is a leading player in many of its territories, Tesco will be
reluctant to withdraw from further markets if there are other options available.

Changes in the structure of HR function

There have been a number of dimensions to the changing face of the HR function over recent
years. Some of these interlink. Some are to be seen only in larger, more sophisticated
organisations. Simply put, for those in the vanguard of change there has been a move to
increase the value HR offers its business customers.
Business environment is changing environment and so is HR environment. The changing
environment of HRM includes work force diversity, economic and technological change,
globalisation, organisational restructuring, changes in the nature of jobs and work and so on.
1. Work force Diversity: Diversity has been defined as any attribute that humans are
likely to use to tell themselves, that person is different from me and, thus, includes
such factors as race, sex, age, values, and cultural norms.
2. Economic and Technological Change: Along with time, several economic and
technological changes have occurred that have altered employment and occupational
pattern. In India too, there is a perceptible shift in occupational structure from
agriculture to industry to services.
3. Globalization: The New Economic Policy, 1991 has, among other things, globalised
the Indian economy. There has been a growing tendency among business firms to
extend their sales or manufacturing to new markets aboard. The rate of globalization
in the past few years in India has been nothing short of phenomenal.
4. Organisational Restructuring: Organisational restructuring is used to make the
organisation competitive. From this point of view, mergers and acquisitions of firms
have

become

common

forms

of

restructuring

to

ensure

organisational

competitiveness.
5. Changing Nature of Work: Along with changes in technology and globalization, the
nature of jobs and work has also changed. For example, technological changes like
introduction of fax machines, information technology, and personal computers have
allowed companies to relocate operations to locations with lower wages.

The field of strategic HRM is still evolving and there is little agreement among
scholars regarding an acceptable definition. Broadly speaking, SHRM is about systematically
linking people with the organisation; more specifically, it is about the integration of HRM
strategies into corporate strategies. HR strategies are essentially plans and programmes that
address and solve fundamental strategic issues related to the management of human resources
in an organisation (Schuler, 1992).
In adopting an organisational model for HR the danger is that we believe there is a one
size fits all approach. We look for, one model that meets all needs, or look at external best
practice in admired companies to decide what model to apply. The problem is that every
organisation faces a unique set of challenges in terms of scale, culture, maturity, strategy,
market, sector, geography, customer needs etc. Each organisation needs to look at its own
context and develop a model that meets its own different challenges.

There are three theoretical approaches to strategic management of human resources, namely:
1) universal access,
2) Access to opportunities and fitting,
3) An approach that is based on resources.

1) Universal access focuses on the concept of human resource management "best practices",
based on four objectives of human resource policies that must be met in order to obtain the
desired organizational result.
Human resources policy objectives are:

Strategic integration (human resource management is integrated into strategic

planning);
Commitment (employees feel as a part of the organization and they show it by their

relationship to performance);
Flexibility (structure of the organization is flexible) and
Quality (high quality employees provide high quality goods and services).

2) Approach to integration or opportunities is based on two basic forms of incorporation.

The first involves external integration (human resources strategy fits the demands of
organizational (business) strategy) and the second involves internal integration (all human
resources activities fit together making one unit).

3) The approach based on resources focuses on the relation between internal resources,
strategy and performance. The development of human capital provides a competitive
advantage. There are four ways in which human resources generate competitive advantage,
namely:

The resource must have a value (merging with the requirements of the individual

competencies of the organization estimated value);

Low frequency of resources (organizations that have difficulty in searching for the

best talents);
Difficult to imitate resources (the inability of competitors to copy resource); A
resource should be indispensable (human resources do not become obsolete as
opposed to technology and can switch from one market to another) (Torrington et al.,
2004).