Tesco has organised briefings for more than 600 retail staff on how to better manage their cash during the difficult economic times.
Staff attended the sessions during paid office hours as the supermarket giant’s HR director moves to help its employees spend less as well as its customers.
Therese Procter called on the HR profession to show compassion towards staff feeling the brunt of the economic squeeze, or who know somebody who has been laid off recently.
She told Personnel Today at the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development conference in Harrogate that employers had a job to empathise with staff who, at some point, would be affected by the poor market conditions.
Procter also said HR had a role to reassure employees where possible about job security, after the collapses of tour operator XL and Lehman Brothers bank resulted in thousands of redundancies.
She said: “It is important to understand what’s going on in people’s lives. Energy and food prices are going up, everyone at some point will be touched by that.
“Employers are working with people that could be facing redundancy – just look at XL and Lehman Brothers. They are very different sectors but HR needs to be intuitive and compassionate.”
