From �People Management� the journal of CIPD (Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development) � the UK equivalent of the US ASTD, 29 September 2005.
Tesco to take on more Polish workers. By Anna Czerny (anna@peoplemanagement.co.uk)
Tesco (UK�s biggest supermarket chain) has decided to continue to recruit workers from Poland for hard-to-fill vacancies following a successful pilot scheme earlier this year. The organization first hired 100 Polish workers in February for jobs that were not being filled locally in Tesco stores and distribution centres.
Seven months on, the majority of the new recruits are still there, with a labour turnover of just over 7 per cent and attendance at over 98 per cent. And four employees from the group have already been promoted.
Mark Ashby, programme manager, central European resourcing, at Tesco stores said the pilot was very successful and that several hundred Polish staff had since been recruited. �This means we are bringing more talent into the business which is a great way to go� he said. The organisation looked to Poland to recruit because of the country�s high unemployment rate and well-educated people. In fact, 37 per cent of the Polish workers hired in February had master�s degrees.
Another reason for recruiting from Poland was the fact that Tesco already operated there, which meant new recruits were familiar with the organisation. Ashy said �We will, of course, continue to recruit locally wherever possible, and while the new staff will represent a small proportion of our 250,000 strong team in the UK, we hope it will make a real difference in areas where they can provide valuable support to our existing people.� He added that the new employees would be entitled to the same rate of pay and benefits as existing staff, and were also given help in finding accommodation and setting up bank account.
