Managing Human Resources For Future And Sustainability- Challenges Faced By Tesco

Recruitment challenges experienced by Tesco and recommended strategies to overcome these issues

Discuss about the Managing Human Resources for Future and Sustainability.

Recruitment is not an easy job in present time as the organisations are experiencing a number of issues while recruiting the individuals. The future and sustainability of any company is more dominantly depended upon the type of human resource the company possesses. For attaining the organisational objective and competitive advantages in modern globalised world, there is vast dependency on ten competence and talent of the employees. The companies experienced a number of challenges in consideration with aspects such as rapidly ageing workforce, high level of generation gaps, competitive environments, increased level of cultural diversity and various other demographic aspects. Such issues hollow the process of recruitment and make an organisation weak and due to this various challenges related to sustainability and existences are aced by the organisations (Hurst and Good, 2009).The study will highlight the challenges associated with recruitment in consideration with Tesco PLC which is a giant retailer of groceries across the globe as well as a renowned super market chain that offers huge opportunities to the individuals to achieve employment. Tesco was established in the year 1919 i.e. almost a century ago and is presently giving employment to 476,000 people at its 6,553 stores but has experienced a series of recruitment challenges which are necessary to get overcome for better organisational working (Tesco, 2017).

Tesco is global player that have its existence across many overseas nations. The organisation is effective enough in offering extensive opportunities of employment to the masses. But in such vast business operations, there are times when the company ahs to experience some of the challenges in its recruitment process that are posing a negative impression of the organisation and impact on the business operations.

Tesco has experienced a certain issues related to demographic factors that comprises of issues related to ageing workforce and the continuously increasing generation gaps. The retail industries experienced a big threat due to the challenge of ageing workforces where there exist high numbers of people who are of elderly age group. It has been observed that the ageing workforce usually do not possess creative and innovative skills and eagerness to work on updated and techno savvy gadgets and tools. For having an increased customer base, it is essential for the Tesco to manage working on innovative technologies and to have young talent in the organisation (Beck, 2014). And thus, it occurs as one of the major recruitment issue for Tesco. Due t the increased presence of employees who are of elderly age and appointment of young ones to manage innovative technology based operations, there occurs a challenge of managing the generation gap among the workforces. Because of higher generation gaps, there takes place a number of conflicts and issues at the organisation. Because of higher presence of old age employees, the youth try to escape from such job opportunities because of increased autonomy and squat chance of growth in the company and yahoos, it creates recruitment challenges for Tesco (Broadbridge, 2017). 

Demographic factor as the key issue in the recruitment process of Tesco

To manage the demographic factor based recruitment challenge, it is essential for Tesco to manage fetching attention of the youth through interesting and eye-catching advertisements. The advertisements must be done on social media platforms as well as various other locations where there is increased presence of young individuals. Once the young individuals will be attracted and will have an insight about the significant role, there can be increased applications of recruitment. And to overcome the challenge of generation gap at Tesco, it is suggested that more informal communication should take place between the new as well as the old employees so that interchanging of ideas and better communication flow can reduce the gaps and can have a more united workforce (Billett, et al., 2011).

Next key issue faced by Tesco in its recruitment process is talent management and operating in a highly competitive business environment. In other various sectors, there are other recognized companies that offer high wages, employments offers and incentives to the potential candidate for seeking their attention and recruit them. In such competitive environment, it is extremely challenging for Tesco to retain its employees as well as to recruit competent candidates and this results in decreased number of applicants (Schuler, Jackson and Tarique, 2011). The primary reason that gives rise to the issue is the incompetency of the retail sector to fetch attention of talented and skilled candidates. Due to absence of professionalism as well as no requirement for specific knowledge, the most of the crowd is just under graduate or graduates and this restricts the talented one to join retail sector for their career. Because of absence of good knowledge and talent there becomes very difficult to manage and integrate the talent and this is one of the key recruitment challenges for Tesco (Armstrong and Taylor, 2014). 

For sustaining the challenge of talent management and competitive business environment Tesco is recommended to implement the employer branding strategy. It is a process by which an organisation is developed as an employer of choice in the viewpoint of the specific group of individuals who are the potential; employees of that company. These employees themselves want to join the organisation and retain themselves in that organisation because of its renowned culture and other various benefits (Wilden, Gudergan and Lings, 2010). Tesco is required to have huge investments in employer branding so that more talented and competent employees can join the organisation. therefore, it will help in both managing a pool of talented employees as well as gaining competit8ve advantages through effective employer branding (Schuler, Jackson and Tarique, 2011).

Talent management and Competitive Business Environment as the major issues in the recruitment process of Tesco

Another recruitment issue is the increased demand of labour and extreme shortage of supply of labour. In the regions of Australia, there has been analysed a sudden decrease in the availability of the labour and especially in the retail sector. Because of industrialisation and globalisation, the demand for the workers has been increased by several other industries and in that scenario, retaining or recruiting employees in the retails sector becomes an extremely tough job for the HR managers. Due to shortage of labour supply, the operations and functions of the company also impacts as there is unavailability of workers to carry on the large operations and thus productive its gets negatively impacted (Watson, 2008).

For managing the issue of shortage of labour supply, it is recommended to Tesco that it must improve its incentive plans, recruitment policies, reward plan and wages of the workers so that more number of workers can be attracted. There must be offered higher work life flexibility to the employees so that competent and skilled individuals can also give their applications and thus the demand can be met (Ruhs and Anderson, 2010).

Being exist in a multicultural society, the companies usually face high challenges related to cultural diversity. Tesco similarly experienced a number of recruitment challenges due to cultural diversity aspect in the recruitment process. Managing workforce becomes a difficult job for the company in upsurge cultural diversity in the organisation (Alexandre-Leclair, 2014). Due to difference in culture of the candi9dteas and the recruiters, there develops a misunderstanding of concepts which results in either recruitment of an inappropriate candidate or rejection of a competent individuals (Herring, 2009). As well as there are challenges as because of fear of in-adjustment in a multicultural organisation, the potential candidate does not applied for jobs in such organisations. Thus, because of higher number of culturally diverse employees, Tesco also face some of these challenges in its recruitment process (Armstrong, et al., 2010).

Managing the challenge of cultural diversity is essential for Tesco to have improved productivity and recruitment of competent candidates. For this, it is recommended that Tesco must give its employees good training of cross cultural aspects so that there can be flexible adjustments of employees. This issue can also be resolved by having open discussion, informal communication channels and feedback sessions o that the issues do not raise and are resolved at primary stage only (Armstrong and Taylor, 2014).

Shortage of labor Supply as a recruitment challenge for Tesco

Organisational image is one of the key factors that impact the recruitment process of the company. Tesco holds a strong brand image and is well-known in the retail sector but from the perspectives of the individuals and competent candidates the retail sector is one of the not least favoured industries to get employed in due to several reasons as lack of knowledge requirement, sales work, etc. And because of this, there are less skilled individuals as applicants in Tesco. Another image associated with Tesco is high pressure and burden upon the employees for meeting the monthly sales targets. Thus, such organisational image binds the candidates to work in retail sector and it occurs as a big recruitment challenge for companies like Tesco. 

For managing the recruitment challenge posed because of the organisational image, it is recommended to Tesco that there must be take steps for changing the image of the industry and the company in the minds of the people by highlighting the various career and growth opportunities present at the organisation. The organisation must also build a strong culture to fetch attention of the employees and also give the employees opportunities for their career and personal development.

Conclusion and recommendations

For attaining continuous growth and long term sustainability, it is essential for the organisations to have efficient recruitment process and effective management of the human resources. Tesco is one of the most renowned organisations in the retail sector and somehow rules the supermarkets but thereat re various recruitment challenges that are holding back the success and growth of the company. From analysis of the various recruitment challenges of Tesco, it is evaluated that there must be take initiatives to improve the recruitment process. The various issues comprising of talent management, competitive business environment, and labour shortage can be overcome if the employees are offered with adequate incentives, wages and rewards. It is also necessary that improvements must be made in the policies and plans of recruitment for fetching the attention of the competent candidates (Boussebaa and Morgan, 2008). It is also recommended to Tesco that it must have huge investments on employer branding as well as on advertisements so that there can be a better organisational image and increased visibility among the masses so that potential candidates can apply for jobs in the company. Hence, it is concluded that Tesco must have effective use of its strong brand image and extensive capital for having a better recruitment process with no such above mentioned challenges and can attain recruitment of skilled and competent employees

References

Alexandre-Leclair, L. (2014). Diversity as a motive for entrepreneurship?: The case of gender, culture and ethnicity. Journal of Innovation Economics & Management, (2), 157-175.

Armstrong, C., Flood, P. C., Guthrie, J. P., Liu, W., MacCurtain, S., & Mkamwa, T. (2010). The impact of diversity and equality management on firm performance: Beyond high performance work systems. Human Resource Management, 49(6), 977-998.

Armstrong, M., & Taylor, S. (2014). Armstrong’s handbook of human resource management practice. Kogan Page Publishers.

Beck, V. (2014). Employers’ views of learning and training for an ageing workforce. Management Learning, 45(2), 200-215.

Billett, S., Dymock, D., Johnson, G., & Martin, G. (2011). Overcoming the paradox of employers’ views about older workers. The International Journal of Human Resource Management, 22(06), 1248-1261.

Boussebaa, M., & Morgan, G. (2008). Managing talent across national borders: the challenges faced by an international retail group. Critical perspectives on international business, 4(1), 25-41.

Broadbridge, A. (2017). 8 Ageism in retailing: myth or reality?. Revival: Ageism in Work and Employment (2001).

Herring, C. (2009). Does diversity pay?: Race, gender, and the business case for diversity. American Sociological Review, 74(2), 208-224.

Hurst, J. L., & Good, L. K. (2009). Generation Y and career choice: The impact of retail career perceptions, expectations and entitlement perceptions. Career Development International, 14(6), 570-593.

Ruhs, M., & Anderson, B. (Eds.). (2010). Who needs migrant workers?: labour shortages, immigration, and public policy. Oxford University Press.

Schuler, R. S., Jackson, S. E., & Tarique, I. (2011). Framework for global talent management: HR actions for dealing with global talent challenges. Global talent management, 17-36.

Schuler, R. S., Jackson, S. E., & Tarique, I. (2011). Global talent management and global talent challenges: Strategic opportunities for IHRM. Journal of World Business, 46(4), 506-516.

Tesco, (2017). About us, Retrieved on: 27^th September, 2017, Retrieved from: https://www.tesco.com

Watson, I. (2008, September). Skills in use: labour market and workplace trends in skills use in Australia. In Jobs Australia National Conference, Brisbane (Vol. 8).

Wilden, R., Gudergan, S., & Lings, I. (2010). Employer branding: strategic implications for staff recruitment. Journal of Marketing Management, 26(1-2), 56-73.