The core of the company's success is human capital in the form of knowledge, experience and skills of individual employees. It is therefore extremely important to continually educate the employees and develop their potential and knowledge.
Tesco has been focusing on the education of its employees since their entry into society. New employees get familiar with their work environment in the process of adaptation; they are trained with the use of OSH manuals, receive needed materials to be able to work properly, get advice from their experienced colleagues, etc. During the time in the company, employees can use a variety of training courses, which enhance their knowledge, work abilities and skills. Tesco provides its employees with a wide range of training activities, which correspond primarily with the professional needs of individual employees and allow them to move up the career ladder. The company organizes internal training sessions, which are provided by HR professionals, experts in particular areas or experienced teachers, or employees may even participate in educational activities organized by external companies.
Tesco introduced a new company process for the enhancement of management performance for all central office staff - facilities managers, directors, senior managers, shift leaders establishments and other staff with management responsibilities. The process is designed to help employees to pay them for their good work according to their specified expectations, and at the same time, to achieve continuous improvement goals - that employees can develop their work, skills and behaviors. The performance of management processes is performed in such a way that the employees write about their working process and their career goals and their personal development plans every year. These documents
are then a basis for performance evaluation and staff development that takes place at least twice a year.53
Since the company's headquarters are in daily contact with the British leadership body and a considerable group of employees also comes from Great Britain, everyone in
management must be proficient in English. Employees of the central office undergo testing, and those whose current level of English is lower than desired are entitled to free internal lessons. Everyone can then improve in English via e-learning.
Another educational program, which must be compulsorily attended by all newcomers in the central office and every other worker may voluntarily participate it, is called TWIST. The program participants spend a week at a business unit or a distribution center and learn to better understand the important work in the company.54
As commonly happens in companies, managers who sit in offices and make decisions about operational processes have only theoretical knowledge about the subject but no practical experience and then their actions can have a negative impact not only on the work of employees in the company, but also on customers, who shop in Tesco stores. Tesco is trying to avoid such problems and that is why TWIST was implemented. The program also works vice versa. Employees in services can learn about the individual job descriptions of separate departments in the central office. By making employees understand better the work of their colleagues within the entire company, they find that everyone has their own place in the company and it is not divided. It certainly has a positive effect on relations and the overall atmosphere in the company.
We have to talk about the employees, who were admitted to the graduate programs separately. Overall, the program uses the principle of job rotation, where graduates rotate between teams within the department from time to time, acquiring individual work, gaining new skills and knowledge to use in the future to successfully perform their managerial work later on. Retail graduate programs last six months and are aimed at thorough trainings of operational issues. That means manual skills, team management, analytical work, financial management, logistics, etc. The alumni program for distribution and logistics is also a six- month course and focuses on deepening knowledge and gaining new skills in distribution and logistics. Graduates will learn a variety of optimization methods for logistics, and apply the practical use of the methods (FIFO, LIFO, Just in Time), etc. The central office provides annual graduate programs in the departments of marketing, finance, logistics, and human
53 Intranet of the company Tesco Stores ČR plc
resources.55 These programs are great opportunities for starting and developing careers in the professional field.
Generally speaking, Tesco offers a wide range of educational activities for employees. Some are mandatory for some employees because they need to complete them in order to cope with all the work, each is connected to the profession they are doing. Mostly, these trainings are voluntary. It is only up to the employees whether they want to improve their skills to work above the desired level of their current job and build their own professional careers in the company or not.
Trainings in general are very motivating for the employees; it is the right kind of
stimulation to work. This way, the employee sees that the company cares enough to provide a training session and the obtaining of the new knowledge or skill motivates the worker to use it and thus work better. This forms a worker that corresponds with the “theory Y” for some time after the training session.