Impact of HR Practices on Employee Performance in Retail Industry - A Study of Tesco

This research aims to analyse the impact of HR practices on employee performance in the retail industry, with a focus on Tesco. The research objectives include identifying the importance of HR practices, analysing their impact on employee performance, determining the challenges faced by HR managers, and analysing strategies for improving employee performance through HR practices.

Research Proposal

Contents
Research proposal............................................................................................................................3
Research topic..............................................................................................................................3
Research aim................................................................................................................................3
Research objectives......................................................................................................................3
Research questions.......................................................................................................................3
Background of research...............................................................................................................3
Problem statement........................................................................................................................4
Rationale of the research..............................................................................................................5
Literature review..............................................................................................................................5
To identify the importance of HR practices.................................................................................5
To analyse the impact of HR practices on employee performance.............................................5
To determine the challenges faced by HR manager while performing their main HR practices 6
To analyse the strategies for improving employees performance through HR practices within
Tesco............................................................................................................................................7
Research methodology.....................................................................................................................7
Research Philosophy....................................................................................................................7
Research approach.......................................................................................................................8
Research strategy.........................................................................................................................8
Data collection method................................................................................................................8
Choices of method.......................................................................................................................9
Time horizons..............................................................................................................................9
Data collection and analysis.........................................................................................................9
Ethical considerations................................................................................................................10
Validity and reliability of research............................................................................................10
Limitation of the research..........................................................................................................10
Research plan.............................................................................................................................11
References......................................................................................................................................13
Online.............................................................................................................................................14

Research proposal
Research topic
Impact of HR practices on employee performance.
Research aim
"To analyse the impact of HR practices on employee performance in retain industry"- A study of
Tesco
Research objectives
 To identify the importance of HR practices.
 To analyse the impact of HR practices on employee performance.
 To determine the challenges faced by HR manager while performing their main HR
practices.
 To analyse the strategies for improving employees performance through HR practices
within Tesco.
Research questions
 What are the importance of HR practices?
 How HR practices impact on employee performance?
 What are the challenges faced by HR manager while performing their main HR
practices?
 What are the strategies for improving employee performance through HR practices
within Tesco?
Background of research
Background of topic-
HR practices are those actions within the organisation which help the companies to manage their
employees and these actions are aligned with overall organisational strategies to achieve their
common goal (Van Beurden and et. al., 2021). HR practices are key to success in maintaining
discipline at organisation and help the companies to control employees performance as per their
requirement. Various kinds of research had been conducted previously related to HR practices
because this topic is one of the most interesting and current topic for research. This topic of
research will help to analyse the issues faced by organisations in maintaining their HR practices
effectively. The authors which had done researches on the similar topics conclude that HR

practices can help organisation to enhance their productivity and profitability through
understanding main needs of employees and by fulfilling them appropriately.
Background of organisation-
Tesco is a British multinational groceries and general merchandise retailer. It was founded in the
year 1919 by Jack Cohen and it is headquartered in Welwyn Garden City, United Kingdom. It is
one of the most popular chain of supermarkets and hypermarkets all across the world. They are
well known for their quality products and affordable prices. They sell household products, home
appliances, vegetables and many others. In the year 2011, they stood at third largest chain of
retails in the world. They are having approximate 3,67,321 employees all across the world,
hence, each branch of this organisation is assigned with a team of HR managers and executives
to manage the employees and their work effectively. They prefer to hire those employees within
their organisation which can work 5/7 days per week. They are also having night shifts and they
prefer to hire those employees who can work effectively at night shift. Beside this, there are
various benefits provided by the company to their employees to gain their high satisfaction level
which further help them to retain their most talented employees. They are also having high brand
image due to their quality of products as well as well-being working conditions.
Problem statement
Low employee performance is one of the biggest issue faced by companies and there are various
reasons of employee's low performance within the companies (Wang and et. al., 2020). One of
the common reason of low employee productivity is improper HR practices within the company.
Due to improper implementation of HR practices most of the employees did not get clear vision
about their task and they work without clearing the vision which impacts upon their productivity.
Another issues which is noticed from HR department of an organisation is that they use outdated
software and technology to measure employee's performance which sometimes record wrong
employee data and work performance. Hiring wrong individual at wrong job post will also
impact negative upon employee's performance. For example, a individual which is hired for
marketing department and that individual is lacking behind to have those skills which are
important for marketing employee. This will impact negative to accomplish the task as well as
HR manager will be unable to satisfy and retain their employees.

Rationale of the research
The main purpose of conducting this research is to analyse the importance of HR practices
within an organisation (Mahmood and et. al., 2019). This research will help the researcher from
two perspectives, personally and professionally. In context of professional, the researcher is
covering that topic through this research which is considered as one of the most important and
business issue faced by today's organisations. Hence, there is a huge scope of this research to
concern by others. In context of personal, the researcher will gain various skills through this
research report like the researcher will gain communication skill by communicating with
respondents to collect data, time management skill will enhanced by completing each task of this
research on time. This research report will further help the researcher to gain the knowledge
about challenges faced by company in implementing HR practices as well as the strategies to
mitigate the negative impacts of improper HR practices.
Literature review
To identify the importance of HR practices
As per the point of view of Laura Sands (2022) Human Resource is the term which is
used for management and development of employees within an organisation. There are various
functions of an HR manager like recruitment, onboarding, providing employee benefits and
many others (Sands, 2022). HR practices are important within the organisation to manage the
work culture of the company. Effective HR practices will help the company to gain high
wellness and personal development of employees which further help to gain their high
engagement within the organisation.
According to the Darren Perucci (2020) there are few HR practices which will help the
organisation to grow well like recruitment and selection, it is essential for HR manager to hire
highly skilled employees so that they help organisation to achieve the goal (Perucci, 2020).
Training and development is another HR practice which will help the company to enhance the
skills of their existing employees and adopt organisational change effectively as per the
requirement of the current organisational requirement.
To analyse the impact of HR practices on employee performance.
As per the perspective of Laureen A. Odendo (2018) HR practices are having direct
relationship with employees performance which means when HR practices of an organisation

will develop then employee's performance will also get enhanced. For example, HR manager of a
company adopt updated technology to measure the performance of employees than they are able
to measure the exact performance of their employees from which they will get to know about
their high, moderate and low performers (Odendo, 2018). This will further help them to retain
their high performers and provide training to moderate and low performers which will further
help to enhance employee's performance.
As per the point of view of Shatha Mahfouz (2021) sometimes the performance of
employees are not impacted by HR practices of an company (Mom and et. al., 2019). There are
many other factors within a company which can impact employee's performance such as
relationship between management team and employees, leadership style, communication level,
location of the company and many others (Mahfouz, 2021). Hence, the company is required to
analyse the need and wants of employees to fulfil them appropriately so that they will get
satisfied and show their high engagement and commitment within the organisation to achieve
organisational goal.
To determine the challenges faced by HR manager while performing their main HR practices
As per the point of view of Alex Larralde (2022) there are few of the challenges which
are faced by HR manager within an organisation such as engaging the workforce, attracting
talent to the enterprise, managing relationships and many others (Larralde, 2022). HR managers
are required to spend a lot of time to evaluate their candidates for interview and sort the list that
which candidate's skills and talent will help the organisation to achieve their goal. It is tough to
maintain a good relationship with employees and continence them to follow a new organisational
policy (Cuéllar-Molina, García-Cabrera and de la Cruz Déniz-Déniz, 2019).
According to the Jeremy Bradley (2022) SME face major issues in managing their HR.
some of the SME owners take responsibilities to manage their HR by them self due to less
number of employees but the issues is that few of the SME owners are not having those skills
and talents which are essential to manage the HR of an organisation (Bradley, 2022). Budgeting
the organisational activities is one of the biggest challenge for HR manager. It is tough for HR
manager to decide that how much budget is given to which department on the basis of their
needs and wants.

To analyse the strategies for improving employees performance through HR practices within
Tesco.
As per the point of view of Jeanellie Avelino (2021) there are few of the strategies which
can be adopted by companies including Tesco to manage their HR practices effectively. One of
the best option is to focus on interactive training where trainer and employees who are getting
training should interact openly and share their ideas and doubts with each other (Luu, 2018). HR
manager is is also required to identify their low performers within the organisation and
communicate with them and ask about their issues and try their best to mitigate the issues which
they are facing. It is also essential for HR mangers to make their employees understand that their
low performance will not only impact the organisational growth but will also impact negative to
their personal growth (Avelino, 2021).
According to the Pete Bilski (2022) there are few HR practices which can help the
company to improve the performance of their employees such as training and development. HR
managers are required to analyse that which employee is having lack of which skill so that
training should be given to employees as per the lacking organisational requirement (Bilski,
2022). It is also good if HR manger will ask employees to work as a team and a team should
have diversity of employees on the basis of their performance and experience within the
company (Khoreva and Wechtler, 2018). For example, a team should have both highly
productive as well as moderate productive and well experienced and well as new employees so
that moderate performers and new employees will learn from highly performers and experienced
employees to perform their task effectively.
Research methodology
Research Philosophy
It refers to the set of principles concerning the world view or stance from which the research is
conducted. There are four types of research philosophy, positivism, interpretivism, realism and
pragnatism (Zafar and et. al., 2020). The following research is based on positivism because it is
concern with deep analysis to measure the results. Secondly, it help to codify the results in
appropriate structure and manner. It is systematic which provide effective knowledge about the
topic of research.

Research approach
Once the appropriate research philosophies are adopted now the next step is to pick appropriate
research approach (Anwar and Abdullah, 2021). There are two types of research approach,
inductive and deductive. Deductive research approach mainly focus to analyse the research
results with proper testing and analysing the literature reviews of the studies and many others.
On the other hand, inductive research approach is based on analysing the research findings
through researcher observations which further help researcher to make new theories. The
following research is based on deductive research approach because it helps to explain the casual
relationship between concepts and variable. Secondly, it consume less time as well as it is
flexible for researchers to use for their research.
Research strategy
This will help to analyse the ways which is used by researcher to collect data for the research.
There are few of the research strategies such as case study, survey, interview and many others. In
context of case study, researcher analyse a existing issues facing by a specific organisation and
find out the solution to mitigate those issues effectively. In context of survey, researcher collect
data by distributing questionnaire to their respondents. In context of interview, researcher ask
questions from the respondents through face to face manner. The following research will use
survey research strategy because it helps to collect fresh data which further help to collect
appropriate preference of respondents. This research strategy is considered as reliable and valid
to collect primary data.
Data collection method
Type of data- There are basically two types of data, qualitative data and quantitative data.
Quantitative data is based on numbers and statistical information (Guan and Frenkel, 2018). On
the other hand, qualitative data is based on theories of organisations and behaviour of individual.
The following research is based on quantitative data where researcher will use tables, pie charts
and bar charts to interpretate the findings.
Sampling method- It is also essential for a researcher to choose sampling method which help to
analyse the best suitable way to collect data from targeted audience. There are basically five
sampling method, random sampling, systematic sampling, convenience sampling, cluster
sampling and stratified sampling. The following research will use cluster sampling because it
consist of dividing the population into groups and these groups are called clusters or blocks. The

clusters are randomly selected and each element in the selected clusters are used. In context of
this research, the researcher will divide the respondents in terms of HR managers of Tesco and
employees of different departments of Tesco. They suppose to collect data from each selected
group. The sample size for this research is 20 respondents.
Target group- Main targeted respondents of this research are the employees of Tesco and HR
department employees whether they are managers or HR executives. The researcher will try to
include respondents from all departments of Tesco to analyse the main objective of the research.
Choices of method
There are three types of method choice in research, mono, mixed and multi-mixed (Tănăsescu
and Ramona-Diana, 2019). Mono is the research method which reflect that whether researcher
will use qualitative research or quantitive research. The researcher need to make only one choice
out of the qualitative and quantitative research. On the other hand, mixed research states that
researcher can use both qualitative as well as quantitive research type. The following research
will use mono research choice because here researcher will only use quantitative research type.
Time horizons
It is essential for researchers to conduct research in appropriate time. There are two types of time
horizon, longitudinal and cross-sectional. The researcher will use cross-sectional time horizon
because it helps to complete the research within short period of time. The benefit of choosing
this time horizon is that the researcher will use valid and updated data within the research.
Data collection and analysis
Here, the researcher is required to make a choice between qualitative data and quantitative data
as well as primary data and secondary data. In context of this research topic, the researcher will
use quantitative data and primary data which means numerical data will be used while collecting
data from respondents. The data should be collected first time by the researcher. The procedure
of data collection and analysis is mentioned below-
1. Researcher will prepare a questionnaire as per the objectives of the research.
2. Then researcher will distribute the questionnaire to their targeted respondents.
3. Researcher will collect the responses and start evaluating the data.
4. Cleaning of data is the next stage where researcher is required to analyse which data is
need to include in research and which data is need to eliminate.

5. This is the last stage where researcher will provide main findings of the research and
conclude the research the end.
Ethical considerations
 The following research will include the consent of respondents which means the
researcher will aware the respondents that they are the part of a research.
 The following research will not harm the respondents physically and mentally.
 The research will also not harm the environment in any ways.
 The researcher will make sure that the data collected for research purpose will be kept
safe and secure from external threats like hackers. For this Data Protection Act will be
used.
Validity and reliability of research
The researcher will use authentic websites to collect data. The articles used for literature review
is based on the same topic which is chosen by the researcher and those articles are related to
current years. Secondly, researcher also focus to include those articles which are written by well
known and experienced researchers. On the other hand, all those research methodologies which
are chosen by researcher is reliable as per the topic of research because the research
methodologies secreted are on the basis of quantitive research and the chosen topic is also related
to quantitative research type. Hence, the research method will help the researcher to complete the
research in appropriate structure.
Limitation of the research
 The following research consume time to accomplish because the researcher have to wait
for the respondents to fill the questionnaire and submit it back to the researcher.
 The following research is also considered as costly because it is based on primary
research where the researcher need to spend on stationary, travelling expenses and few
other expenditure.

Research plan

References
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Cuéllar-Molina, D., García-Cabrera, A.M. and de la Cruz Déniz-Déniz, M., 2019. Emotional
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employee performance. Chinese Management Studies.
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Online
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