People and customers

Over 470,000 people now work for Tesco across 14 countries. It’s been a challenging year for our people and they have worked harder than ever to deliver an ‘Every Little Helps’ shopping trip.

Having started a business from scratch in the US – one of the world’s largest markets – I know how important it is to have a strong team around you. Developing talent is crucial to any growing business, particularly retail which is a people-intensive industry.

As a Group, we’re still investing hard and growing through the downturn, with sales growing by 15% last year. To handle that growth well, we need to bring skilled, experienced people through all the time to fill the thousands of jobs it creates. Take Fresh & Easy where our team has grown from 65 to over 2,500 in less than two years. Hundreds more will join us this year, so we can’t rely on bringing people in from other parts of the business. We need to develop our own talent locally and equip our people with the skills they need to be able to do the job and lead others. That’s why we’re absolutely committed to putting the best training plans in place making sure that all of our people have the opportunity to get on in the business.

Tim Mason President and CEO of Fresh & Easy

Board of Directors

This year we brought together over 2,000 managers from across the whole business at our triennial conference. It was an opportunity to look back at the tremendous growth in the business in the last three years, but also to look ahead. It has been a challenging year for our people, but with a clear strategy, underpinned by our Values, they have never been clearer on what we need to do.

The theme of the conference was ‘Living the Values’. We first launched our Values a decade ago and they have been the glue that has held us together as we have rapidly grown the business. They ensure that every person understands our culture and goals. In the last year we have spent a lot of time talking to our people across the business to make sure that they are still as relevant today as they were ten years ago and that they are universally understood. It was clear that not only do our Values remain relevant, but that they have travelled because things like trust and respect, for example, are universal – they are as important to our people in Tokyo as to those in Torquay.

Our Values

No-one tries harder for customers

• Understand customers
• Be first to meet their needs
• Act responsibly for our communities

We treat people how we like to be treated

• Work as a team
• Trust and respect each other
• Listen, support and say thank you
• Share knowledge and experience
  ...so we can enjoy our work.

As the business continues to grow it is important that we build capability through training and development. Over 3,500 new management appointments were made in the UK last year through Options, a tailored programme for our people who have been identified as having the potential to move to a bigger job, and our training Academies. We also have our highest ever number of people on Options – 7,680 – which includes over 500 in our depots. Our Graduate Options programme was externally recognised, winning a Times Graduate Recruitment award in 2008 for Graduate Employer of Choice in General Management.

We’re also doing more to recruit graduates across our international business. We have plans to recruit 1,000 graduates in Asia and 300 in Central Europe to ensure that we have a great pool of talent to support our future growth.

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