Problem Statement

Discuss about the Statistics and Business Challenges Research Methods.

Tesco is a popular multinational grocery and general merchandise retailer located in Britain. The workforce of Tesco ranges across different cultures and different education levels. The diversities in the workforce of Tesco are given utmost importance in the organisation to have an effective business of the organisation (Snell et al., 2015). The HR management of the company faces various issues for this workforce diversity in their organisation. Difference in race, culture and background demystify the challenges for the management of Tesco Plc, which affects the working structure of the organisation (Epstein & Buhovac, 2014).

In this assignment, the challenges faced by Tesco Plc due to workforce diversity would be explored. The management of this workforce diversity by the Tesco Plc would also be explored in this assignment. The study of the impact of workforce diversity management on the organisation would also be studied in this assignment. The methods of collection of the data for this research, analysis of the collected data and the expected outcome of the research would be mentioned in this assignment.

The problem statement of this research is the challenges faced Tesco Plc due to diversity in workforce of the company and management of this workforce diversity by the organisation and the impact of the workforce diversity management on the organisation.

Research aim

The aim of the research is to identify the challenges faced Tesco Plc due to diversity in workforce of the company and management of this workforce diversity by the organisation. The aim also includes finding the impact of the workforce diversity management on the organisation.

The objective of the research is as follows:

• To find the importance of the workforce diversity management
• To identify the primary challenges faced by the organisation due to management of diversity in workforce
• To understand the impact on Tesco Plc for the challenges in workforce diversity management faced by the organisation
• To provide suggestions to Tesco Plc regarding the improvement of workforce diversity management

The questions of this research are given below:

• What are the importances of the workforce diversity management?
• What are the primary challenges faced by the organisation due to management of diversity in workforce?
• How is the impact on Tesco Plc for the challenges in workforce diversity management faced by the organisation?
• What are the suggestions to Tesco Plc regarding the improvement of workforce diversity management?

As per the viewpoint of Nica (2013), it was seen that diversity of workforce is one of the major subject of contemporary human resource department of any organisation. It is seen the topic of workforce diversity management is gathering importance because effective management of workforce diversity helps the organisation to have a better growth and creates a positive impact on the business (Berman et al., 2015). Tesco Plc, being a retail company in Britain, has diversity in the workforce. The employees, ranging from workers to higher authorities belong to different places across the globes (Sabharwal, 2014). These workforces have different cultural background and they belong to different races, class and creeds. This makes the working environment of Tesco Plc an interesting subject as it has different ethnic groups in the workplace.

Research Objective

According to the viewpoint of Kulik et al. (2014), it was found that the workforce diversity of the employees of Tesco Plc had helped in the development of the company over the years. There was various negative and positive impact of the workforce diversity management on Tesco Plc. As per the viewpoint of Kirton & Greene (2015), it was seen that the current era is the era of globalisation. This implements the world to mix with various workforces across the world. Mix of different cultural and educational backgrounds, beliefs, races, creeds and others makes the society and working environment a multicultural environment (Kulik 2014).

It is seen that globalisation improves the efficiency of a workplace and helps the co-workers gather knowledge regarding different cultural background, beliefs, traditions and customs. Tesco Plc, being a retail company, has their business spread worldwide. They had to frame their business policies accordingly so that they can ensure unbiased business policies at various outlets across the globe (Podsiadlowsk et al., 2013).  They have international customers who travel across the globe and purchase the products from various outlets of Tesco Plc worldwide. As per the viewpoint of Daft (2012), it was seen that workforce diversity sometimes creates differences among the co-workers due to the difference in their background, culture, race and beliefs. These affect the smooth functioning of the company, Tesco Plc., and affect the business of the company. It is seen that the success and failures of the business of this retail industry mainly depend on the attitudes of the diverse workforce of the company and the effective management of the company (Martín et al., 2013).

As per the viewpoint of Stone (2013), it was seen that the management of this diversity in the workforce of the Tesco Plc is important for the human resource management of the company. They frame effective policies for the smooth functioning of the company and performing important functions of the organisations. Smooth functioning of the employees is related to the healthy relationship between the co-workers and higher management (Barak, 2013). Disrespecting the co-workers and creating an unhealthy environment among the workplace would hamper their work and would affect the smooth functioning of the company. The challenges faced by the company, Tesco Plc, due to their workforce diversity management and the impact of this management on the functioning of the organisation would be studied, thereby providing an idea about the  management of workforce diversity in Tesco Plc.

Type of investigation

Research Questions

There are various methods of investigation of data which includes exploratory, explanatory and descriptive. In this research, the explanatory methods would be used to investigate the collected data. The approach of this research would be deductive as it would help in the discussion of the collected data.

Research Strategy

The strategy of the research includes interviewing the managers and employees of Tesco Plc to collect the data regarding the research. The collected data would help the researcher to cover up all the objective of the research and would help to frame the report of the research.

Sampling and Sample Size

The sample size of this research would be 60 which include 5 managers and 55 employees of the company, Tesco Plc. The sampling method that will be used in this research is the methods of random sampling. 5 managers of the company and 55 employees of the company would be chosen randomly to form the sample of the research.

Techniques used for analysis

The methods of descriptive statistics, methods of frequency and Pearson’s correlation coefficient would be used to analyze the collected data and interpretation of these analysis would satisfy the aim of the research.

The data that would be used for the research is the primary data. It would be collected by surveying 5 managers of Tesco Plc and 55 employees of the organisation. They would be provided a set of questionnaire, which would provide the sample of the research. Both qualitative and quantitative data would be used in this research. Data on Likert’s scale would be used for quantitative measures. 60 samples would be used for this research. Statistical methods of descriptive statistics, frequency and Pearson’s correlation coefficient would be used for analysis of the collected data.

The managers were asked about the importance of the workforce diversity management, the average value of the variable was found to be 2.8, and the standard deviation was found to be 1.30. This shows that on an average the importance of workforce diversity management was found to be “variety of viewpoints”. The value of standard deviation is not high and it can be interpreted that the managers feel that the diversity in the viewpoints is important for workforce diversity. The average value for the challenges faced by workforce diversity management was found to be 2.4 and the standard deviation 1.14. This shows that the “resistance to change” is the average problem faced by the managers of the company on this variable.

Literature Review

The variable “impact on Tesco Plc for the challenges in workforce diversity management” has the average value of 2.2 and the standard deviation of the variable is 0.8366. This suggests that on an average the managers of the company feel that the impact on Tesco Plc due to the challenges in workforce diversity management is “provides opportunity of creativity”. They feel that it provides the employees an opportunity to show their innovative attitudes and put forward their creativity, which would help the company in their business in the end. The average value of the variable “suggestions to improve workforce diversity management” is found to be 2.4 and the standard deviation is found to be 1.14. This shows that the managers feel “address diversity in every aspect of talent management” is the best option to improve workforce diversity management. The value of standard deviation is not high, which suggests that the addressing the diversity would result to better workforce diversity management.

On surveying the employees regarding the workforce diversity management, 17 of them had said that the management of workforce diversity is highly important, 16 of them said that they are important while 9 of them remained neutral about it. 7 of the employees said that it is less important while 6 of them said it is least important. The Pearson’s correlation coefficient between “importance of workforce diversity management” and “degree of challenges faced” was found to be 0.088. This shows that the “importance of workforce diversity management” and “degree of challenges faced” is positively correlated with each other and the strength of association between the two variables is weak. 33 employees said that they face challenges regarding the workforce diversity management while 22 of them said that they do not face any challenges.

Survey result shows that the 17 employees face higher degree of challenges regarding workforce diversity management, 11 of them face high challenges regarding workforce diversity management and 8 of them gave neutral views regarding it. 12 employees said that they face less challenges while 7 of them said they face least challenges. It is seen that 15 employees had higher impact of workforce diversity management challenges, 19 of them had high impact on the of workforce diversity management challenges and 10 of them gave their views as neutral. 7 of them said that they had low impact of workforce diversity management challenges while 4 of them had least impact of workforce diversity management challenges.

Research Methodology

It was also seen that the 9 employees suggested the method of “identifying new talents” as a suggestion to improve workforce diversity management, 15 employees suggested the methods of “address diversity in every aspect of talent management”, 23 of them suggested the method of “create ways to connect like people” and 8 of them said that “look beyond compliances”. This shows that the employees prefer to create ways to connect with the people so that they can know their co-workers properly and can understand them for better performance in the workplace.

The Pearson’s correlation coefficient shows that the correlation coefficient of “how important is the workforce diversity management” with the variables “degree of impact of workforce diversity management challenges” and “suggestions to improve workforce diversity management” is -0.103112436 and 0.262749078 respectively. This shows that the degree of impact of workforce diversity management on its importance is negatively related with each other and the degree of association is weak in this case. The importances of workforce diversity management challenges are weakly and positively correlated with suggestions of its improvement, which shows that its importance is dependent on the suggestions of improvement.

The Pearson’s correlation coefficient between “degrees of challenges faced” and “degree of impact of workforce diversity management challenges” and “suggestions to improve workforce diversity management” was found to be 0.24 and -0.104 respectively. It can be interpreted that the degree of the challenges faced is weakly, positively correlated with degree of impact of the challenges, and negatively correlated with the suggestions provided for improvement. The Pearson’s correlation coefficient between “degree of impact of workforce diversity management challenges” and “suggestions to improve workforce diversity management” was found to be 0.089, which is a weak and positive correlation coefficient. This shows that the impact of the challenges is positive when the suggestions regarding the improvement of challenges are positive.

The respondents must be informed about the aim of the research and they should not be forced to answer the questionnaire. Consents must be taken from the respondents prior to the use of their responses in the survey. The researcher must not alter any responses of the respondents and he should keep the identity of the respondents confidential. The researcher must not for the respondents to respond to the questions and he shall be easily approachable by the respondents.

Table 1: Gantt chart of the research

(Source: created by author)

It is expected that the managers would prefer “variety of viewpoints” as the importance of the workforce diversity management. They might also think that “resistance to change” is the major challenge that they would face during workforce diversity management. The managers are expected to agree that providing better opportunity for the creativity would be the impact of the challenges on Tesco Plc and they would prefer to create ways to connect like people to improve workforce diversity management. It is also expected that the workforce diversity management is important for the employees. The employees are expected to face challenges regarding the workforce diversity management and the degrees of challenges are expected to be of higher level. The degree of impact of workforce diversity management challenges are expected to be high and the employees are expected to suggest the method of “create ways to connect like people” for the improvement of workforce diversity management.

References

Barak, M. E. M. (2013). Managing diversity: Toward a globally inclusive workplace. Sage Publications.

Berman, E. M., Bowman, J. S., West, J. P., & Van Wart, M. R. (2015). Human resource management in public service: Paradoxes, processes, and problems. Sage Publications.

Daft, R. (2012). Organization theory and design. Nelson Education.

Epstein, M. J., & Buhovac, A. R. (2014). Making sustainability work: Best practices in managing and measuring corporate social, environmental, and economic impacts. Berrett-Koehler Publishers.

Kirton, G., & Greene, A. M. (2015). The dynamics of managing diversity: A critical approach. Routledge.

Kulik, C. T. (2014). Working below and above the line: The research–practice gap in diversity management. Human Resource Management Journal, 24(2), 129-144.

Kulik, C. T., Ryan, S., Harper, S., & George, G. (2014). Aging populations and management. Academy of Management Journal, 57(4), 929-935.

Martín Alcázar, F., Miguel Romero Fernández, P., & Sánchez Gardey, G. (2013). Workforce diversity in strategic human resource management models: A critical review of the literature and implications for future research. Cross Cultural Management: An International Journal, 20(1), 39-49.

Nica, E. (2013). Organizational culture in the public sector. Economics, Management and Financial Markets, 8(2), 179.

Podsiadlowski, A., Gröschke, D., Kogler, M., Springer, C., & Van Der Zee, K. (2013). Managing a culturally diverse workforce: Diversity perspectives in organizations. International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 37(2), 159-175.

Sabharwal, M. (2014). Is diversity management sufficient? Organizational inclusion to further performance. Public Personnel Management, 0091026014522202.

Snell, S. A., Morris, S. S., & Bohlander, G. W. (2015). Managing human resources. Nelson Education.

Stone, R. J. (2013). Managing human resources. John Wiley and Sons.

Thomas, K. M. (Ed.). (2012). Diversity resistance in organizations. Psychology Press.