The Potential for Conflict in Tesco's Human Resource Management

Human resource planning may plan expansionial growth of the business that will increase the work of recruitment and selection, without reference to recruitment and selection who may not have the staff in order to complete the planned expansion.

Conflict may arise between performance management and training may disagree on training post appraisal and performance management and recruitment and selection regarding the quality of recruits. The sales team working on the shop floor may be lacking in communication skills and therefore customer service would be at a low standard.

The sales department-the sales department may require more employees in a specific department or feel that there is a lack of staff motivation in certain areas, therefore Human Resources will have the responsibility of boosting morale and therefore could be in disagreement. The administration department may be lacking in punctuality, therefore letters are sent out late, or staff do not receive important memo's or messages, adverts may not be efficiently placed in the correct location or time, which could result in recruitment and selection having to reschedule appointments, which would be time costly for recruitment and selection. This would mean that administrations job may need replacing or they may need further training which would result in finding the finance to recruit or the finance to train.

Trade Union - is an organisation of workers that join together to further their own interests. One of the interests of the trade union is to maximise and ensure the best conditions for employees. Tesco' human resource department has to ensure it can attract the best calibre of workers by offering them a fair but not too expensive salary. In order to do this the salary must be at a minimum. Tesco are always "on top of things" when it comes to handing out fair wages to employees, therefore in the past it has never had a problem with trade unions and industrial relations. However, when each side is attempting to achieve the maximum, the potential for conflict is always there.

The staff union and the finance department may also have conflict. Finance may suggest that some staff may have to be dismissed due to Tesco losing too much money through staff wages. The staff union may disagree as well as the Human Resources department. Human Resources will feel that in the future Tesco will have to recruit again due to the profit argon increasing, repeating the recruitment process and this may result in losing more money. Unions will be unhappy due to fellow employees being dismissed, and may de-motivate staff and lower work output.

The finance department- the finance department may demand more workers, recruitment and selection will have the task of finding these workers, this will be costly. The finance department could also decide that their staff may need additional training this will cost time, and replacement workers to fulfil their job roles, and money form the training and development department. Human resources may not want to fund the training or supply extra workers, as they may feel that it is not needed as the staff have high performance rates.

Departmental rivalry - The managers of Tesco's human resource department have the extremely difficult job of deciding which areas of the business gets the benefits of staff training and development. But these benefits for the different departments of Tesco are limited therefore some departments miss out thus causing major conflict between all the departmental managers.

Human resources may wish to give staff extra training to improve their performance yet this will cost money and the finance department may disagree because they do not want to fund it. Research and development may want to launch a new product that has been developed therefore they may want more staff on hand, Human Resources will then have the responsibility of recruiting more staff and may disagree with the launch process. The distribution department may require more staff working in a specific department or feel that lack of staff motivation in this area, therefore Human Resources will have the responsibility of boosting morale and there could be a disagreement.

Human resources- may conflict with other areas such as administration, marketing and the finance department, research and development, and distribution. Human resources may want to appeal to a larger segment of society giving Tesco a larger and better reputation encouraging people to want to work for the organisation through advertising in more upmarket locations or increasing the advertisements in more newspapers. Marketing may disagree at this because it will increase their expenditure and the theory may not be successful due to bad advertising or too much advertising which will bore the consumer, they also may not recruit appropriately. Marketing need Human Resources for Recruitment and Selection, they may want more employees who are specialists in marketing and human resources may disagree as they are too expensive.

Training and development may want staff to have additional training, which is off the job, which is very expensive per person, Human Resources may disagree. Marketing may launch a new product and may need more staff, no planning ahs been put into it, human resource will have to either hire experts or pay to train, both expensive. Human resources may conflict with sales because if they are low then they will have to make employees redundant.

When Tesco open a store it is a struggle to hire a large amount of staff and keep them within the company, this means their might be conflict between recruitment and selection and finance on the amount of expenditure.

The staff working within customer services may not have very much experience and therefore may need training from Training and development, this will cost money and may de-motivate staff who have to help staff that are less experienced, they may feel that further training may benefit their job role, and may result in feeling neglected or resented by Tesco.

Theory X and Theory Y - The managers of Tesco are at the forefront of potential conflict within the business. Many managers of any organisation may wish to believe that Douglas McGregor's Theory X is the correct one to go by but others may argue that Theory Y is. This can cause managers to argue whether the employees of the business should be given more responsibility or whether they should be told what to do, how to do it and to do it in a certain amount of time.

Appraisal - This is the most common cause of conflict in any large or medium sized business including that of Tesco. Employees sometimes wish to be left alone to get on with their job instead of being told how good they are at doing it (they may feel like they have someone behind their shoulder keeping an eye on them all the time). Therefore such employees will be against the idea of an appraisal system in the organisation.

There is always the potential for conflict in Tesco whether an appraisal system is in use at the company. Employees may feel that they are working much harder than what the manger(s) recognises and may feel like they deserve more appraisal causing disputes and disagreements. Also other kinds of disputes may tend towards that of favouritism or victimisation. Staff workers of Tesco could be jealous of those who may look to be favoured by the employer(s) and could feel victimised due to a lack of attention.