Tesco eyes customers to take over the tills
The Times Newspaper
By Clare Dight
Not content with advertising vacancies on its in-store television channel, the
giant retail chain is using its staff to headhunt new recruits. Clare Dight goes shopping.
"WOULD you like a job with your cashback?"
is a question you might be asked if you shop at Tesco in the run-up to
Christmas. Tesco has asked staff to be on the look-out for potential
employees as part of its seasonal recruitment drive.
So what makes a major corporation trust its till
workers to do its recruitment?
This trust is the product of endless in-store research. To listen to the
company's personnel director, David Fairhurst, you might think that Tesco's
staff spend as much time filling in questionnaires as
put-ting goods through the tills. About 90 per cent of the company's 237,000
Staff also take part in dedicated discussion groups, idea-gathering sessions
and regularly give their views on products, prices and in-store promotions. The
results of the company's annual people review are mulled over by HR directors,
bounced around by yet more staff focus groups and then put into action.
"Two years ago we distilled four what we call 'people promises', from
staff feedback: being treated with trust and respect; a manager who helps me;
being given the opportunity to get on; and an interesting job. All the work we
do in HR has to line up with these four promises," Fairhurst says.
The word trust implies both belief and responsibility and a two-way process on
the parts of employer and employee. Fairhurst insists that Tesco is
taking great pains to do its part and points out that the 90 per cent return on
the viewpoint survey suggests that it is working.
"You've got to remember that our staff are also
our customers, so it's a valuable source of customer data as well." Seen
in these terms, Tesco's management approach is simple common sense. Most
market researchers would give their right arm for such a huge sample of
opinions.
The policy has certainly reaped rewards. Staff morale is up year on year,
according to Fairhurst, and company profits are on target to reach £2 billion
this year. The
So far so rosy, but what about the old-fashioned rewards that build bank accounts for employees?
Tesco was recently criticised for its decision to reward staff with meal
vouchers worth less than £1 on the day it announced record profits. But
Fairhurst remains upbeat. "There is no doubt that our benefits are
designed to give our employees a share in the success of the business.
"We have an award-winning pension scheme and a benefits package that is
second to none," he says.