Human Resources.

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Mohammed Abu Saleh

Human Resources

Human resources or personnel function fulfils a number of needs. It is responsible for the hiring and firing of employees, for staff training and development, and for dealing with matters relating to industrial relations.

In this report I will be analysing each of the functions related to human resource and then take one of them and make an in depth analysis of it. Once I collect the information I need regarding the responsibilities of the human resources and how they should be carried out, my next step will be to compare them with a medium or large size company to see how they carrying out the responsibilities and what alterations they have made to suit their particular needs. To do this I have chosen Tesco.

Below I will briefly look at the four functions of human resource and how they affect Tesco:

1. Human Resource Planning

Human resource planning can be defined as:

“The activity of management which is aimed at coordinating the requirements for and the availability of the different types of employee”

In simplicity, this means to make sure that the organisation has the right number of employees and of the right quality.

For the human resource to achieve their targets they need to have a good understating of the labour market in the local area. When planning human resources Tesco need to take into account the following factors:

a) Local employment trends

Local employment trends tells Tesco about the levels of employment in the area and gives them a general idea of the type of jobs people are getting and the type of jobs that there are a shortage in.

b) Local skills shortages

Local skills shortages is an important aspect to Tesco’s human resource because it informs them about the lack of people with certain qualities in the local area. This is important as it can be used to compare against the Tesco’s skills criteria for new employees. If they are looking for certain skills from people and theses are not available then they will either need to compromise or look elsewhere. Also, if they know the general skills of the people then when they advertising for a job, it will reduce the chance of them asking for qualities which are absent in the people, which might keep very suitable people from applying and few applicants might mean that further advertisements are needed, costing time and money to Tesco.

c) Competition for employees

There may be very few people with top qualities willing to work for a company like Tesco. It would be in the best interest of Tesco to seek and take theses enthusiasts on board. If they don’t, then other similar retailers will recruit them and then they will become rivals to Tesco. Competition for employees may even be on the lower skills end where there may be a shortage for cashiers, for example. Tesco will need to provide suitable incentives to attract these key people. One simple way in which to attract the mass of people is to increase their wage. This is not always the case due to the financial constraints on a business.  

d) Availability of labour

Availability of labour is an important factor for Tesco. They need to make sure that they are aware of the quantity and quality of workers available when recruiting. This understanding will allow them to make right decision when employing people. If there are very few suitable candidates then they will have to choose someone amongst those. However, if there are many people suitable for the job then they can carry on with their search until they come across some one who fulfils all the requirements. It is important for Tesco to know the availability of workers in their locality as this will enable them to prepare and make back up plans for when there is a shortage of suitable people willing to work for Tesco.

Human resource planning also involves looking at how labour is organised within a business. The factors that Tesco must take into account are as follows:

a) Labour turnover

This is about forecasting supply of labour. It asks the question ‘how many employees will we have in the future?’ It therefore means looking at internal and external sources of labour.

When Tesco is looking at the total supply of labour in its organisation it is important for them to look at labour turnover.

Below is an example of one of many ways of working out employee turnover:

This is sometime called the ‘percentage waste rate’. It tells Tesco what percentage of workforce left in a year.

There are also other indexes which deal with stability, which give a good idea of how long employees are staying with the organisation. If employees are not staying very long in certain departments of Tesco, then this can be pinpointed and investigated.

b) Sickness and accident rates

A high level of sickness absence will affect the supply of labour very badly. If genuine then Tesco can do very little in the short term. If they are bogus then moral within honest workers will be low and confidence in managers can sink. There are many ways in which the human resource team can monitor performance against:

  • Performance in the previous year
  • Trends in other organisations in the same industrial sector
  • National sickness absence figures

Accident rates can be lowered and kept to a minimum if health and safety guidelines are followed properly.

 

c) Age, skills and training

This is also known as stock taking. It asks the question ‘what is the quantity and quality of staff available in the organisation?’ It uses the following techniques:

  • Job analysis involves gathering information about all employees. It collects information regarding their duties and skills required to fulfil those duties.

  • Skills audit is a survey of the skills, qualifications and experience of all existing staff.

  • Performance review involves looking at the performance of all employees in order to:
  •  identify potential staff
  •  identify where staff have more training needs

This information will give an idea to the rest of the company about the skills and training of their employees. Weakness can be tackled using these information and strengths can be built upon.

d) Succession

This really only applies to employees at supervisor/line manager level and above. Succession planning enables the organisation to ensure that staff with potential to fill top jobs are given extra training or wider experience so that when the time comes they will be able to fill those positions.

Without this type of planning Tesco would see good employees leaving for better opportunities elsewhere. This will make it harder for Tesco to fill gaps at a later date.

Conclusion on Human Resource Planning

Humans are the most important resource to Tesco and they will need to make sure that they plan properly to ensure that they employee the best people who are best suited to the job. This will ensure they have an advantage over their rivals, as rivals can copy products but not staff.

2. Recruitment and Selection

Tesco recruit staff for a number of reasons. Initial recruiting is needed when a new store opens and after that there will be a constant need for recruiting due to the changing needs of Tesco and the needs of he employees.

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  • The growth of Tesco is usually seen with the opening of new stores. The opening of stores means that they need to recruit so that the employees can run the store.

  • Changing job roles within the business

  • Resignation, retirement, dismissal also means that recruitment needs to take place in order to replace these workers and keep the business running as before

  • Internal promotion means that new recruits are needed when existing employees are being promoted to higher positions, which leads to vacancies which can be filled by internal candidates. Promotion usually means that ...

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