Business Studies Unit 8 – Learning Aim A
,Business Studies Unit 8 – Learning Aim A
,Business Studies Unit 8 – Learning Aim A
,Business Studies Unit 8 – Learning Aim A
Contents
Introduction...........................................................................................................................................4
Synopsis.................................................................................................................................................5
Scope of Tesco activities........................................................................................................................5
Tesco mobile......................................................................................................................................5
Tesco Petrol Filling Station.................................................................................................................5
Size........................................................................................................................................................6
Workforce planning...............................................................................................................................6
Job description & Personal specification...............................................................................................6
P1 & M1- Analyse the different recruitment methods used in Tesco....................................................7
What does the selection process consist of?.........................................................................................9
P2 - Explain how and why a business adheres to recruitment processes which are ethical and comply
with current employment law.............................................................................................................10
D1-Evaluate the recruitment processes used and how they contribute to the success of the selected
business...............................................................................................................................................13
Are the recruitment and selection processes efficient?...................................................................13
Staff turnover...................................................................................................................................14
How staff are treated and staff opinions.........................................................................................14
Consider the impact on the business from staff shortages or ineffective recruitment........................15
Conclusion...........................................................................................................................................15
Evaluating the recruitment and selection process of a large business
Introduction
In this assignment, I have been asked to write a case study of a large business that has 250+
employees. I will be talking about Tesco since they have 460,000 employees and to recruit them they
,Business Studies Unit 8 – Learning Aim A
would have an efficient recruitment process. Because of this, I will be talking about their recruitment
and selection processes, as well as evaluating their processes, Tesco uses and how they contribute to
the success of the organisation.
Synopsis
Tesco is one of the four UK's biggest supermarket chains that currently operates in 11 different
countries1. Found in 1919s by Jack Cohen who bought stocks of tea from T.E. Stockwell. They
combined their initials of TE Stockwell and CO from Jack's surname to form – TESCO 2. Currently,
Tesco is a leading retailer, with 450,000 colleagues and serving millions of customers every week, in
their stores and online3.
Scope of Tesco activities
Tesco Bank: Tesco offers a range of personal banking and insurance products to customers.
Launched in 1997, Tesco Bank offers more than 5 million customers around 28 different financial
products including car, travel and home insurance, loans and savings accounts. Their main goal is to
help Tesco shoppers to manage their money a little better every day via creating products and
services which make customers’ lives simpler, giving them more of what they value, and rewarding
their loyalty through Club card4.
Tesco mobile
Having already branched out into banking and other sectors, in May 2003 Tesco joint venture with
O2 to launch its own mobile phone service to help reduce an £18.7bn debt. At present, with 5
million customers, Tesco Mobile has grown to become the biggest and most successful mobile
virtual network operator making an annual revenue of £39 million 5.
Tesco Petrol Filling Station
Tesco dominates the motor fuel market by
selling the most fuel through its 600+ petrol
stations throughout the UK6. The statistics
below show the brand market share of
motor fuel sold in petrol stations across the
UK in 2019. Tesco was followed by BP and
1 "Our businesses - About us - Tesco PLC." https://www.tescoplc.com/about-us/our-businesses.
2 "Our history - Tesco PLC." https://www.tescoplc.com/about/our-history/.
3 "Our businesses - Tesco PLC." https://www.tescoplc.com/about/our-businesses/..
4 "About us - Tesco Bank." https://bank.tescoplc.com/about-us/.
5 "Tesco Mobile Competitors, Revenue and Employees - Owler ...."
https://www.owler.com/company/tescomobile.
6 "Petrol Station FAQs | Help & Support | Tesco UK." https://www.tesco.com/help/petrol-stations/.
,Business Studies Unit 8 – Learning Aim A
Shell which both had high market share values. Tesco's position indicates that the introduction of its
Hypermarket in the UK fuel retail market had a profound impact on the shape of the motor fuel
industry. This has helped Tesco gain buying power in the wholesale fuel market as they can
negotiate lower prices for huge profit margin. 7
Size
Tesco is a public limited company which operates as an International scope. With over 6,800 8 shops
globally and employing about 460,000 staff internationally, including more than 300,000 9 In the UK
they can offer a more reliable service whilst attracting new customers worldwide.
Workforce planning
Workforce Planning is the process of making sure that individuals with the right skills are where they
need to be at the right time to meet an organisation's current and future needs. It is important as it
helps businesses identify and analyse what they need in terms of their experience, knowledge, skills
and quality of their workforce10.This enables them to plan how to achieve their aims and objectives
through the recruitment and training process. Workforce planning also depends on the industry that
they work in. Since Tesco is a retail company their main focus will be having staff to put out stock
and to serve customers face-to-face.
Job description & Personal specification
An important part of workforce planning
is to have clear job descriptions and
person specifications. The job description
gives information to proposed
employees about what the job actually
involves by giving the purpose of the job
and the types of responsibilities and
duties that will be expected as part of
that job. Whereas the person
specification provides information about
the type of person that the organisation
is looking for to do the job.
7 "• Motor fuel market share by brand in the UK 2019 | Statista."
https://www.statista.com/statistics/312071/motor-fuel-market-share-by-brand-in-the-united-kingdom-uk/.
8 "Our businesses - Tesco PLC." https://www.tescoplc.com/about/our-businesses/. Accessed 5 Feb. 2020.
9 "Tesco to cut 1,700 shop floor jobs - BBC News." 22 Jan. 2018, https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-
42779698. Accessed 5 Feb. 2020.
10 "The importance of Workforce Planning." 8 Mar. 2016,
http://www.triplethreesolutions.co.uk/workforceplanning/. Accessed 9 Feb. 2020.
,Business Studies Unit 8 – Learning Aim A
Job descriptions and person specifications show how applicants should fit into Tesco. They also help
Tesco to recruit the right people since they provide a benchmark for each job in terms of
responsibilities and skills. These help managers to assess if staff are carrying out jobs to the
appropriate standards. The screenshot on the right shows a Tesco job advertisement which consists
of job descriptions and person specifications to help applicants know what is expected of them.
P1 & M1- Analyse the different recruitment
methods used in Tesco
Recruitment is the process by which an organisation seeks to hire the right person for a job 11. The
organisation writes a job description and person specification for the post and then advertises the
vacancy in an appropriate place. For example, Tesco may develop plans to recruit a new Manager
when the current one plans to retire in a month's time.
Majority of Tesco recruitment takes place through an external recruitment process which is when
the business looks to fill the vacancy from any suitable applicant outside the business 12.For instance,
Tesco advertises their vacancy through recruitment agencies like Indeed, Totaljobs and Glassdoor.
Another way is through their own internal online recruitment process which is their website. Tesco
advertises their vacancy through its career website for many as it helps candidates find stories about
colleagues who have built a successful career and their experience being part of the Tesco family.
Their website also shows information about what life is like working at Tesco, benefits of working
there as well as potential opportunities.
When candidates are on the Tesco careers website, they can
apply for a range of jobs from Warehouse Colleagues to Retail
operations. These are broken down into two main roles: Stores
and distribution also Office13 roles to help candidates find which
role suits them. To look for jobs through Tesco careers website,
candidates have to enter their town/postcode, adjust the radius
and have an option to enter keywords to help them refine the
results. Once completed candidates can find a job that interests
them and they can select the job by clicking apply.
11 "Recruiting staff - Recruitment - GCSE Business Revision - BBC."
https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/guides/zn6hyrd/revision/1. Accessed 11 Feb. 2020.
12 "Recruitment: Internal v External Recruitment | Business | tutor2u."
https://www.tutor2u.net/business/reference/recruitment-internal-v-external-recruitment. Accessed 13 Feb.
2020.
13 "Tesco Careers." https://www.tesco-careers.com/. Accessed 15 Feb. 2020.
,Business Studies Unit 8 – Learning Aim A
Candidates can follow the steps displayed on the top of the page for guidance. First, they will have to
register/login to build a profile. Then candidates are required to answer a questionnaire regarding
personal details like national insurance number and their rights to work in the UK. After that, they
will have to upload their CV and fill in an equal opportunities questionnaire to get candidates on the
final stage of confirming and submitting their application 14. When candidates register they can
effectively promote themselves to Tesco's recruitment teams by creating candidate profiles and
uploading their CV. This method has many benefits for Tesco since it allows the scope for selecting
the right candidate to be bigger as there would be a huge number of candidates applying. Also
increases Tesco's brand awareness and encourages new opportunities for job seekers.
Likewise using a career website to advertise job vacancies is advantageous as it allows an excellent
opportunity for Tesco to brand itself since their career website will be particularly fed to their
business. This means they can showcase their core purpose and values as well as additional
information about the business. Hence, being helpful for suitable candidates applying for job roles as
they have sufficient information about Tesco so that they can decide if they're the right business to
work for.
Another advantage is that employing a career website is much cheaper for Tesco than using an
online recruitment agency which requires a huge amount of money to advertise job vacancies. This
is beneficial for Tesco as having their career website reduces costs considerably and makes it
efficient for recruiting people as it's not time-consuming. This is because research conducted by
Strategies found that using a career website is 70% 15 faster than using traditional hiring methods
such as newspapers or recruitment agencies. Therefore, meaning Tesco can contact candidates
immediately as well as directly since there's no middle man who has to filter through and select the
best candidates. However, a disadvantage of having a career website is that the business has to carry
out the recruitment and selection process themselves because there's no recruitment agent to carry
out the recruitment and selection on behalf of Tesco.
Another way Tesco recruits is through
external recruitment like agencies.
Tesco has vacancies on the following
recruitment agencies: Indeed, Totaljobs,
Glassdoor and Reed. All these
recruitment agencies operate online.
When applying for job vacancies online
candidates have the option to sign up to
14 "Our recruitment process - Tesco Underwriting." https://www.tescounderwriting.com/join-us/our-
recruitment-process/. Accessed 15 Feb. 2020.
15 "Top 5 benefits of a Career Site - Strategies." https://www.strategies.co.uk/top-5-benefits-of-a-career-site/.
Accessed 15 Feb. 2020.
, Business Studies Unit 8 – Learning Aim A
get alerts, upload their CV or some websites like Indeed gives the option to the candidates to apply
directly on the company site.
Tesco chose this method since employing recruitment agencies has many advantages. Mainly
because it saves the company time as the recruitment agency takes covers all the process such as
carrying out the screening process for Tesco which is less time-consuming. Also, it's a good way of
gathering candidates as it's widely advertised. This is helpful as Tesco can invest and focus on other
things like maximising profits. Depending on the expense imposed by recruitment agencies, using
this method is fairly cost-efficient for the Tesco.
In contrast, using recruitment agencies can have some negative impact. For instance, it's less
efficient compared to using a career website since recruitment agencies are expensive. This is to
ensure that the right type of people is recruited.
Besides that, Tesco mainly utilises its career website, Indeed and Reed for recruiting candidates
which are all efficient in recruiting a suitable candidate to an extent. This is because I personally
believe their career website is the most efficient compared to Indeed and Reed as it provides
candidates with lots of information about the company which allows candidates to make an
informed decision about the job they are applying for. Furthermore, it helps the company reduce
costs because they don't have to pay any external recruitment agents for recruiting and selecting
candidates. Therefore, having a careers website makes the recruitment process quicker as Tesco can
directly contact candidates as they already have access to candidates contact information through
their careers website. In contrast, recruitment agencies can find candidates for the company and
carry out the initial stages to recruit and select which can be tedious. This saves Tesco time and
money which could be invested in other aspects of their scope of activities.
On the other hand, the downside of Tesco carrying out the recruitment process themselves is that it
can be time-consuming for them but I believe it's worth it as using a career website outweighs the
disadvantages.
What does the selection process consist of?
Tesco's selection process consists of obtaining a candidate's application so that their recruitment
team will review the candidate's CV. This will then enable the recruitment team to contact the
candidate so that they can let them know the outcome of their application. If successful the
recruitment team will decide to progress the candidate's application for an interview. This will
depend on the type of role they’ve applied for. The recruitment team might schedule a short
telephone interview, organise a face to face interview or even invite the candidate to attend an
assessment centre. During the telephone interview, candidates will be asked about their previous
experience, the role in more detail so that the Tesco can find a bit more about them. Generally, a
telephone interview will take about half an hour. Tesco does this as it provides them the best
opportunity to find more information about the candidate since they need to know the candidate
,Business Studies Unit 8 – Learning Aim A
,Business Studies Unit 8 – Learning Aim A
,Business Studies Unit 8 – Learning Aim A
Contents
Introduction...........................................................................................................................................4
Synopsis.................................................................................................................................................5
Scope of Tesco activities........................................................................................................................5
Tesco mobile......................................................................................................................................5
Tesco Petrol Filling Station.................................................................................................................5
Size........................................................................................................................................................6
Workforce planning...............................................................................................................................6
Job description & Personal specification...............................................................................................6
P1 & M1- Analyse the different recruitment methods used in Tesco....................................................7
What does the selection process consist of?.........................................................................................9
P2 - Explain how and why a business adheres to recruitment processes which are ethical and comply
with current employment law.............................................................................................................10
D1-Evaluate the recruitment processes used and how they contribute to the success of the selected
business...............................................................................................................................................13
Are the recruitment and selection processes efficient?...................................................................13
Staff turnover...................................................................................................................................14
How staff are treated and staff opinions.........................................................................................14
Consider the impact on the business from staff shortages or ineffective recruitment........................15
Conclusion...........................................................................................................................................15
Evaluating the recruitment and selection process of a large business
Introduction
In this assignment, I have been asked to write a case study of a large business that has 250+
employees. I will be talking about Tesco since they have 460,000 employees and to recruit them they
,Business Studies Unit 8 – Learning Aim A
would have an efficient recruitment process. Because of this, I will be talking about their recruitment
and selection processes, as well as evaluating their processes, Tesco uses and how they contribute to
the success of the organisation.
Synopsis
Tesco is one of the four UK's biggest supermarket chains that currently operates in 11 different
countries1. Found in 1919s by Jack Cohen who bought stocks of tea from T.E. Stockwell. They
combined their initials of TE Stockwell and CO from Jack's surname to form – TESCO 2. Currently,
Tesco is a leading retailer, with 450,000 colleagues and serving millions of customers every week, in
their stores and online3.
Scope of Tesco activities
Tesco Bank: Tesco offers a range of personal banking and insurance products to customers.
Launched in 1997, Tesco Bank offers more than 5 million customers around 28 different financial
products including car, travel and home insurance, loans and savings accounts. Their main goal is to
help Tesco shoppers to manage their money a little better every day via creating products and
services which make customers’ lives simpler, giving them more of what they value, and rewarding
their loyalty through Club card4.
Tesco mobile
Having already branched out into banking and other sectors, in May 2003 Tesco joint venture with
O2 to launch its own mobile phone service to help reduce an £18.7bn debt. At present, with 5
million customers, Tesco Mobile has grown to become the biggest and most successful mobile
virtual network operator making an annual revenue of £39 million 5.
Tesco Petrol Filling Station
Tesco dominates the motor fuel market by
selling the most fuel through its 600+ petrol
stations throughout the UK6. The statistics
below show the brand market share of
motor fuel sold in petrol stations across the
UK in 2019. Tesco was followed by BP and
1 "Our businesses - About us - Tesco PLC." https://www.tescoplc.com/about-us/our-businesses.
2 "Our history - Tesco PLC." https://www.tescoplc.com/about/our-history/.
3 "Our businesses - Tesco PLC." https://www.tescoplc.com/about/our-businesses/..
4 "About us - Tesco Bank." https://bank.tescoplc.com/about-us/.
5 "Tesco Mobile Competitors, Revenue and Employees - Owler ...."
https://www.owler.com/company/tescomobile.
6 "Petrol Station FAQs | Help & Support | Tesco UK." https://www.tesco.com/help/petrol-stations/.
,Business Studies Unit 8 – Learning Aim A
Shell which both had high market share values. Tesco's position indicates that the introduction of its
Hypermarket in the UK fuel retail market had a profound impact on the shape of the motor fuel
industry. This has helped Tesco gain buying power in the wholesale fuel market as they can
negotiate lower prices for huge profit margin. 7
Size
Tesco is a public limited company which operates as an International scope. With over 6,800 8 shops
globally and employing about 460,000 staff internationally, including more than 300,000 9 In the UK
they can offer a more reliable service whilst attracting new customers worldwide.
Workforce planning
Workforce Planning is the process of making sure that individuals with the right skills are where they
need to be at the right time to meet an organisation's current and future needs. It is important as it
helps businesses identify and analyse what they need in terms of their experience, knowledge, skills
and quality of their workforce10.This enables them to plan how to achieve their aims and objectives
through the recruitment and training process. Workforce planning also depends on the industry that
they work in. Since Tesco is a retail company their main focus will be having staff to put out stock
and to serve customers face-to-face.
Job description & Personal specification
An important part of workforce planning
is to have clear job descriptions and
person specifications. The job description
gives information to proposed
employees about what the job actually
involves by giving the purpose of the job
and the types of responsibilities and
duties that will be expected as part of
that job. Whereas the person
specification provides information about
the type of person that the organisation
is looking for to do the job.
7 "• Motor fuel market share by brand in the UK 2019 | Statista."
https://www.statista.com/statistics/312071/motor-fuel-market-share-by-brand-in-the-united-kingdom-uk/.
8 "Our businesses - Tesco PLC." https://www.tescoplc.com/about/our-businesses/. Accessed 5 Feb. 2020.
9 "Tesco to cut 1,700 shop floor jobs - BBC News." 22 Jan. 2018, https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-
42779698. Accessed 5 Feb. 2020.
10 "The importance of Workforce Planning." 8 Mar. 2016,
http://www.triplethreesolutions.co.uk/workforceplanning/. Accessed 9 Feb. 2020.
,Business Studies Unit 8 – Learning Aim A
Job descriptions and person specifications show how applicants should fit into Tesco. They also help
Tesco to recruit the right people since they provide a benchmark for each job in terms of
responsibilities and skills. These help managers to assess if staff are carrying out jobs to the
appropriate standards. The screenshot on the right shows a Tesco job advertisement which consists
of job descriptions and person specifications to help applicants know what is expected of them.
P1 & M1- Analyse the different recruitment
methods used in Tesco
Recruitment is the process by which an organisation seeks to hire the right person for a job 11. The
organisation writes a job description and person specification for the post and then advertises the
vacancy in an appropriate place. For example, Tesco may develop plans to recruit a new Manager
when the current one plans to retire in a month's time.
Majority of Tesco recruitment takes place through an external recruitment process which is when
the business looks to fill the vacancy from any suitable applicant outside the business 12.For instance,
Tesco advertises their vacancy through recruitment agencies like Indeed, Totaljobs and Glassdoor.
Another way is through their own internal online recruitment process which is their website. Tesco
advertises their vacancy through its career website for many as it helps candidates find stories about
colleagues who have built a successful career and their experience being part of the Tesco family.
Their website also shows information about what life is like working at Tesco, benefits of working
there as well as potential opportunities.
When candidates are on the Tesco careers website, they can
apply for a range of jobs from Warehouse Colleagues to Retail
operations. These are broken down into two main roles: Stores
and distribution also Office13 roles to help candidates find which
role suits them. To look for jobs through Tesco careers website,
candidates have to enter their town/postcode, adjust the radius
and have an option to enter keywords to help them refine the
results. Once completed candidates can find a job that interests
them and they can select the job by clicking apply.
11 "Recruiting staff - Recruitment - GCSE Business Revision - BBC."
https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/guides/zn6hyrd/revision/1. Accessed 11 Feb. 2020.
12 "Recruitment: Internal v External Recruitment | Business | tutor2u."
https://www.tutor2u.net/business/reference/recruitment-internal-v-external-recruitment. Accessed 13 Feb.
2020.
13 "Tesco Careers." https://www.tesco-careers.com/. Accessed 15 Feb. 2020.
,Business Studies Unit 8 – Learning Aim A
Candidates can follow the steps displayed on the top of the page for guidance. First, they will have to
register/login to build a profile. Then candidates are required to answer a questionnaire regarding
personal details like national insurance number and their rights to work in the UK. After that, they
will have to upload their CV and fill in an equal opportunities questionnaire to get candidates on the
final stage of confirming and submitting their application 14. When candidates register they can
effectively promote themselves to Tesco's recruitment teams by creating candidate profiles and
uploading their CV. This method has many benefits for Tesco since it allows the scope for selecting
the right candidate to be bigger as there would be a huge number of candidates applying. Also
increases Tesco's brand awareness and encourages new opportunities for job seekers.
Likewise using a career website to advertise job vacancies is advantageous as it allows an excellent
opportunity for Tesco to brand itself since their career website will be particularly fed to their
business. This means they can showcase their core purpose and values as well as additional
information about the business. Hence, being helpful for suitable candidates applying for job roles as
they have sufficient information about Tesco so that they can decide if they're the right business to
work for.
Another advantage is that employing a career website is much cheaper for Tesco than using an
online recruitment agency which requires a huge amount of money to advertise job vacancies. This
is beneficial for Tesco as having their career website reduces costs considerably and makes it
efficient for recruiting people as it's not time-consuming. This is because research conducted by
Strategies found that using a career website is 70% 15 faster than using traditional hiring methods
such as newspapers or recruitment agencies. Therefore, meaning Tesco can contact candidates
immediately as well as directly since there's no middle man who has to filter through and select the
best candidates. However, a disadvantage of having a career website is that the business has to carry
out the recruitment and selection process themselves because there's no recruitment agent to carry
out the recruitment and selection on behalf of Tesco.
Another way Tesco recruits is through
external recruitment like agencies.
Tesco has vacancies on the following
recruitment agencies: Indeed, Totaljobs,
Glassdoor and Reed. All these
recruitment agencies operate online.
When applying for job vacancies online
candidates have the option to sign up to
14 "Our recruitment process - Tesco Underwriting." https://www.tescounderwriting.com/join-us/our-
recruitment-process/. Accessed 15 Feb. 2020.
15 "Top 5 benefits of a Career Site - Strategies." https://www.strategies.co.uk/top-5-benefits-of-a-career-site/.
Accessed 15 Feb. 2020.
, Business Studies Unit 8 – Learning Aim A
get alerts, upload their CV or some websites like Indeed gives the option to the candidates to apply
directly on the company site.
Tesco chose this method since employing recruitment agencies has many advantages. Mainly
because it saves the company time as the recruitment agency takes covers all the process such as
carrying out the screening process for Tesco which is less time-consuming. Also, it's a good way of
gathering candidates as it's widely advertised. This is helpful as Tesco can invest and focus on other
things like maximising profits. Depending on the expense imposed by recruitment agencies, using
this method is fairly cost-efficient for the Tesco.
In contrast, using recruitment agencies can have some negative impact. For instance, it's less
efficient compared to using a career website since recruitment agencies are expensive. This is to
ensure that the right type of people is recruited.
Besides that, Tesco mainly utilises its career website, Indeed and Reed for recruiting candidates
which are all efficient in recruiting a suitable candidate to an extent. This is because I personally
believe their career website is the most efficient compared to Indeed and Reed as it provides
candidates with lots of information about the company which allows candidates to make an
informed decision about the job they are applying for. Furthermore, it helps the company reduce
costs because they don't have to pay any external recruitment agents for recruiting and selecting
candidates. Therefore, having a careers website makes the recruitment process quicker as Tesco can
directly contact candidates as they already have access to candidates contact information through
their careers website. In contrast, recruitment agencies can find candidates for the company and
carry out the initial stages to recruit and select which can be tedious. This saves Tesco time and
money which could be invested in other aspects of their scope of activities.
On the other hand, the downside of Tesco carrying out the recruitment process themselves is that it
can be time-consuming for them but I believe it's worth it as using a career website outweighs the
disadvantages.
What does the selection process consist of?
Tesco's selection process consists of obtaining a candidate's application so that their recruitment
team will review the candidate's CV. This will then enable the recruitment team to contact the
candidate so that they can let them know the outcome of their application. If successful the
recruitment team will decide to progress the candidate's application for an interview. This will
depend on the type of role they’ve applied for. The recruitment team might schedule a short
telephone interview, organise a face to face interview or even invite the candidate to attend an
assessment centre. During the telephone interview, candidates will be asked about their previous
experience, the role in more detail so that the Tesco can find a bit more about them. Generally, a
telephone interview will take about half an hour. Tesco does this as it provides them the best
opportunity to find more information about the candidate since they need to know the candidate
