Training and Development programs at Tesco

Tesco employed people from different backgrounds and cultures so it can be expected that staff can have different behaviors, skills, knowledge and talents. Thus, training for employees is necessary for executing a particular task related to organization. Both organizations and employees can be benefited through training and development programs. On-the-job and off-the-job are the two training methods used by Tesco to train their employees. Providing coaching from experts and mentoring the employees regularly are the two basic processes occur in on-the-job training. Off-the-job training helps in developing individual skills of an employee, in the sense this training can generate new team leaders to organization.  Business objectives and goals can be injected to the employees through this training. In Tesco, Employee abilities and skills were improved by various development programs; both managers and trainees take part in these development programs.

Roles of Trainee in development program are:

• Recognizing and agreeing need of development
• Attending various workshops and conferences held by organizations.
• Use the feedback from managers to improve performance

Roles of manager in development program are:

• Building a new personal development plan
• Guiding and training employees according to requirement
• Regular performance reviews and providing feedback to the trainees

Benefits of training and development are:

• Employees can be more productive, skilled, organized and flexible.
• Staff can get an opportunity to learn about new methods or technologies.
• Decision making ability of staff can be improved so that new leaders can be evolved.
• Increased motivation and job satisfaction for employee.
• Organizations can reach their business objectives and can serve the customers more effectively

Workforce planning at Tesco

Workforce planning is one of the important tasks in the hands of managers; it identifies the number of employees required for organization in near future. Tesco maintains a workforce planning table and reviews it for every three months so that it can meet the demand for staff continuously.

As Tesco entered into new product categories and opened stores in different countries, various new jobs were created. Tesco controls its organization at six different work levels such as interacting with customers directly, heading the staff, maintaining operating unit, recommending changes in strategy, improving performance and developing new goals and objectives for organization; each of this level requires people with different qualifications and abilities. 

Providing job description and specifications are necessary while starting recruitment process. Job description includes what is the designation and what are the role and responsibilities of it. Specifications include skills and qualification required for particular job. While recruiting, Tesco first conducts an internal talent plan that means it prefers own employees for higher positions. Encouraging talented staff is one of the aims of conducting internal talent plan. If there are no suitable people, then Tesco goes for external recruiting. Tesco created a separate website “www.tesco-careers.com” for advertising the vacancies and it welcomes online applications for particular positions. Selection process includes identifying the best candidate suites for particular position, Screening all the applications, calling the suitable candidates for interview, Conducting second level of interview if necessary and Sending offer letter to the person is the selection process used at Tesco.

Employment legislation must be followed by every organization while recruiting and maintaining staff. Gender, race, nationality and religion discrimination must be avoided while recruiting people into organization. Minimum wages, safety and health are other important legal aspects in maintaining staff. Safe procedures, equipments and machinery must be provided for employees at work place. Tesco provided safe working environments and it also trained their staff on "how to tackle with dangerous situations". Tesco is paying minimum wages to daily checkout staff based on number of hours and days worked. 

Thus, workforce planning creates a clear picture of future human resource need for an organization. Recruiting right number of candidates at right location and at right time is the main motive of workforce planning. A use-friendly recruiting and selection process of Tesco helped them in meeting the demand for staff.

Agni 5 will be a major milestone for India

April 19th 2012

The dream missile of Indian Scientists " Agni-5 " launched successfully today. Agni-5 can aim up to 5000kms and it can be included in Indian army force after completing all the testing formalities. Indian prime minister Mr. Manmohan Singh and defense Minister Mr. Antony congratulated all the scientists on successful launch of the missile.

Antony adds " The nation stands tall today.  We have joined the elite club of nation. All the parameters of mission achieved successfully and it is a major milestone in history of Indian missile research and development program."

Agni - 5 missile Launch

Initially launch was planned on April 18th 2012, but due to bad weather conditions and safety reason DRDO postponed it to 19th April.  Scientists launched Agni -5 from Odisha at 8:07 in the morning, it reached the target (southern Indian ocean) after 15 minutes.

"Salute to all the Indian Scientists. Stand together to honor our scientific community"

Leadership Styles and Motivation to Employees At Tesco

Tesco is a familiar UK based organization which is providing grocery items and general commodities to customers all over the world. As a result of strong business strategies, Tesco ranked as third largest retailer when calculated in terms of profits. 

Tesco is under the administration of many skilled people who are best in the industry. As it is into various categories of businesses like electronics, food items, furniture, clothing, DVD rentals, internet services, books retailing and many more, different groups were developed to handle all the activities effectively. Even though Tesco created coordination among staff and different teams by strong management and leaders, few group coordination problems occurred in some stores. Different managers handle the problems in different ways, for example Berian is one of the managers in Tesco who is heading a team of 17. Letting the team members to decide a solution for problem is the leadership style followed by Berian. This kind of approach motivated the team members and provided very positive results to Tesco. 

Autocratic approach- decision making is completely in the hands of manager, Democratic approach- asking for team members opinions while taking a decision are the two important leadership styles in decision making process. Tesco managers used both of these approaches timely. Tesco uses Critical Success factor (CSFs) which guides the staff towards team work and customer focus. 

Decision making is one of the important processes to be executed by managers; In Tesco managers value the team members’ opinion and suggestions within agreed boundaries. 

To continued growth it is very important to motivate the employees, Tesco always motivated its staff by providing an opportunity to learn new things and by increasing job satisfaction through various incentives, rewards and proper recognition. Standards of working improved in order to meet the product quality and to satisfy the customers more effectively.   

 

Tesco encouraged its employees through various appraisal, incentive and reward systems. In 2006, Tesco shared its success with employees by offering almost 78million pounds worth shares as incentives. ‘Save As you Earn’ and ‘Buy As You Earn’ are the two different Tesco schemes introduced to benefit its employees. Tesco also provide pension schemes based on employee service and performance. Tesco identified the problem of staff by conducting a viewpoint survey and solved them very quickly by taking necessary actions. Tesco believes that “Happier staff means better customer service”.

PESTLE analysis of Tesco

Political factors - Now Tesco is operating business in 14 courtiers all over the world, so its performance may be influenced by the local legislative and political conditions. Employment laws specified by local government must be followed in order to avoid legal hurdles. Most of the governments encourage the organizations to provide employment for local candidates so that local people can be benefited more. All kinds of jobs like low-paid, highly flexible, more skilled, highly-paid and local based jobs are available in stores like Tesco. Tesco employed different categories of people like students, elderly workers and disabled people for low labor rates. Tesco followed the employment legislation and other laws properly in every country where it has stores. 

Economical Factors - Demand for a product in market, price of the product and profits of an organization depends on the economic factors like interest, inflation rates and local unemployment levels. Organizations cannot have control on these economic factors, but it can show adverse effect on organization performance. Tesco is still completely depending on UK market even though it has stores in different countries, which mean if UK market collapsed or affected by any economic factors, Tesco will be in greater amount of risks.

Social Factors- Demographic changes and change in customer behaviors, attitudes are the important social factors which can show effect on business. As Tesco is into food business it has to examine the customers constantly, because today every customer is choosing healthy and tasty food items. Tesco understood the recent social changes and included non-food items in their sales list, thus it attracted more number of customers in the market.

Technological factors- Importing new technologies into business can be an advantage for organization as well as customer. In Tesco, using of advanced technologies improved customer satisfaction. Technologies used in most of the Tesco stores are:

• Electronic shelf labeling
• Electronic Point of Sale
• Radio Frequency Identification,
• Electronic Fund transfer system
• Self check-out machines

Customer can feel more convenient as product is readily available to them. The above mentioned technologies helped Tesco in improving the stocking and distribution processes. 

Legal factor- Tesco performance is directly affected by some of the laws specified by governments. For example, Food Retailing Commission enforced to use standard pricing for products. That means retailers must not change the prices without any notice and it should not demand the payment from suppliers. Most of the companies try to change product prices regularly in order to attract customers towards them and to hold its position in market. Tesco reduced prices on promoted products where as other product prices increased so that it implemented politically correct pricing laws.  

Environmental factors- Organizations must take the social responsibility while developing products. Cutting wastage while product manufacturing, decreasing the usage of resources and reducing environmental damage are the important specifications to be followed by companies like Tesco.

Assignment on Motorola or Dissertation topics on Motorola

Motorola is a renowned company in electronics field which is providing mobiles, semi-conductors, wireless technologies and microchips to user all over the globe. In 2011, Motorola is divided as two different companies- "Motorola Solutions" and "Motorola Mobility". Important topic on Motorola are listed below, click on the topics to see detailed description of each topic.

1. Marketing Mix of Motorola - 7P's 
2. SWOT Analysis for Motorola 
3. SLEPT or PEST Analysis of Motorola Or External influence while promoting a Motorola product 
4. Market Segmentation of Motorola 
5. Motorola Branding and Its advantages 
6. Boston Matrix for Motorola 
7. ANSOFF Matrix for Motorola