The role played by the human resources department: Its contribution to bringing success in the retail supermarkets in UK with reference to Tesco

During the past few decades, the world has observed an unparalleled growth of business into universal markets. To compete with changing trends in the market businesses are becoming more system oriented. In UK the retail landscape has changed over the past 40 years in terms of changes in location of shops, shop formats and product offerings. The retail sector in general is fiercely competitive. The grocery sector in particular has produced the most aggressive competitors in the industry with Tesco, Asda-Walmart, Sainsbury’s and Morrison’s dominating the market. The grocery market is worth 76 billion pounds annually for food alone and 130 billion pounds annually when non-food groceries are included (Web3). Extensive research has been done on human resource management from many different angles. One aspect that was not deeply explored is the role played by this department and its contribution in the growth of retail sector in U.K. This study aims to bring into limelight the contribution of human resource department in the retail sector and how human resource can be used strategically and effectively to enhance results in the retail sector. In the year 2004, the retail sales in U.K reached 246.3 billion pounds, a figure larger than the combined economies of Switzerland and Ireland. There are 184,695 business operating 278,630 shops in the UK, which constitutes 11% of all UK businesses. Retailing is a valuable business sector that exerts a major influence on the lives of people. With over a one third of consumer spending typically in the retail sector, retailers play a major role in sustaining the economy. Retail outlets are usually the end point for any supply chain; they are the main channel for consumers to access goods.

[...] Behaviors that are regarded to be employees' supportive behaviors in labor firms are those that are carried out by employees when they side with their interests with those of the employer and other employees (Barnard and Rogers, 2000). Supportive behaviors comprise a range of behaviors that are valuable to the employer or co-workers. Instances of such behaviors are working jointly with colleagues in a team, sharing knowledge, working overtime, and presenting information required to keep the firm running (Holbeche, 2005) . [...]

[...] (1997), transformation of the human resource function: Resolving the tension between a traditional administrative and a new strategic in Human Resource Management pp.49-56. Bloom, M./Michel, J.G. (2002): The relationships among organizational context, pay dispersion, and managerial turnover. In: Academy of Management Journal 33-42. Bowen, D. E./Ostroff, C. (2004): Understanding HRM-Firm Performance Linkages: The Role of the "Strength" of the HRM System. In: Academy of Management Review, 203-221. Brelade, S. (2000); “Using human resources to put knowledge to Knowledge Management Review March-April, p26-29. [...]

[...] HRM strategy has attained its distinction since it endows with a means by which business firms can improve their competitiveness and uphold managerial competence (Torrington, 2007).By successfully managing their human resources, firms foster the type of employee behavior that is indispensable to the success of their competitive strategy (Dessler, 2007). HRM strategy assists the growth of a work force that meets up the necessities of business competitive strategy, so that organizational goals and missions will be attained. Further, those firms adopting a quality- enhancement strategy should make recurrent changes in the production process in a bid to incessantly improve product quality (Stewart et al, 2008). [...]