Managing Human Resource in Sainsbury - Report

Managing Human Resource
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In the modern age of globalisation it is important for the organisation to manage its
people. It can be done in the ways that employees remain satisfied as their needs are fulfilled and
there productivity also gets enhanced (Albrech, 2011). There are various approach that is
followed by the companies in order to manage its employees and ensure that they have continues
growth. For enhancing the productivity of the firm it is important for them to develop the skill,
abilities, knowledge and experience of the firm. Company apply different strategies so as to
manage equality and diversity at the workplace. HR managers generally make strategies for
managing workers. This strategy lasts too long. Sainsbury is second largest chain of
supermarkets in UK. It is having 16.9% share in the market. It was founded in the year.
Currently it is an employer of 162,700 employees. This report highlights the ways in which
Sainsbury is managing it’s such a large workforce. It also showcases the strategy made by the
company to understand the need of the employees and fulfilling them so as to achieve their high
level motivation towards their job.
Sainsbury is one such organisation that is operational in UK from many years and has
seen various phases of business ups and downs. It is capable of handling their employees and it
has been seen over the years. It is one such company that is known for its high payment to their
workers. In the report for Sainsbury this company stated that they want to provide people with
the job opportunities that they love. For managing the company employee they have used perfect
standards of human resource management. This company has employed one of the best HR team
which has a very wide range of activities that they perform. Their basic idea behind management
of human resource is that they want to keep the best set of talents working under their roof so as
to provide best services to their employees so that they can achieve maximum customer
satisfaction (Armstrong and Taylor, 2014). This can be done by enhancing creativity and
diversity in their employees so that they can serve customers at their stores in a most friendly
environment. They term their colleagues as their foundations. It understands that there is a
continuous need of their development in their personal and professional skills. For this purpose
they have invested a lot in the training and development programs in past and are planning to
invest a lot in the future. It is most crucial task for their long term success. They want to become
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inclusive retailer in the market through the help of their diversified colleagues to meet the
diverse need of the customers.
One of the most important aspect that is related with the human resource management of
the company is that it believes in indulging their employees in the process of decision making
process. Sainsbury’s wants to become a place where everyone gets motivated, energised and
enabled to offer the best value and service to their consumers. These kinds of motivation come
when they involve their employees in process of making decisions (Bamberger, Biron and
Meshoulam, 2014). For this they have used a strategy that will ensure that employees become an
integral part of the process. In order to do so they used a program known as Talk back where
they involved more than 116,000 employees in this process. They have made the future plans
were more participation will be ensured. It is their strategic planning that resulted in the way that
more than 77% of their colleagues feels that Sainsbury is a great place for working.
Not only this, they pay salaries that are above the minimum living wages. They provide a
range of benefits to their employees where they are also paid for breaks and other forms such as
discount and pensions. They understand the importance of remaining strong and competitive
business for both present and future colleagues. They are giving pensions to around 120000
current employees as well as 80000 former colleagues. This not only helps in maintaining the life
standards of the employees but also assist in managing the social well being of the society
(Boxall and Purcell, 2011). Due to all these reasons they have been awarded as the Gold
accreditation for the third time and hence they are the largest employers to receive such
distinction. Apart from this the company has made many training centres where the demand of
the skills that has to embed in the employees is provided. They have opened many apprenticeship
programs where they give opportunities to new candidates where they can get many kinds of job
trainings and earning professional qualifications.
They are also supporting the campaigns of Government of UK for addressing the gender
pay gap. This can be seen in the year 2016 where they increased the pay scale of the employees
by around four percent. In this they have increased the pay rate of 7.66 pounds per hour which is
highly above the national minimum wages standards i.e. 7.50.
In order to manage consent of their employees they have set up voice channels where
they can share their views with operating Board as well as senior leaders of the company. They
are continuously improving the standard of their stores so that workers can be comfortable in
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working at these places (Bratton and Gold, 2012). They have installed almost all kinds of needs
related to the employees so that they can serve in a better way and hence they have become first
retailers to get Gold standards. They have made their name in the ways they act on the feedback
that is given by the employers this helped them in retaining their valuable customers and they
also gets connected with the firm and supports firm in their hard times. Using all these
approaches they have been able to maintain the quality of work life of their employees.
Sainsbury's takes training and development very seriously as the understands its effect on
business operations. Their attitude to HRD has been positive as they have applied approaches to
make it effective. They understand developing skills in the workforce will enhance growth
speed. Company takes use of Performance as well humanist perspective while dealing in the
Human resource management (Sainsbury’s Supermarkets Ltd. 2017). This is illustrated by the
fact that they are trying hard to enhance the quality of their firm so that their own performance
gets enhanced. On the other hand they are doing HRD to increases the chances of individual for
surviving in the present day competition.
There are two kinds of training methods that is adopted at Sainsbury's:
On the job training: This company is spending a whole lot of money on the apprenticeship
program where they are providing training to their employees that can be beneficial for both
employee and employers. They focus mainly on developing and creating skills of the workers.
They provide vocational trainings as well as train their employees on nationally recognised
qualification.
Off the job training: They have opened there training college at Brixton that runs around 2000
training coarse. They also train about basic maths in collaboration with EDI to train there
employees and others. This also includes training in the virtual environment so as to educate
employees with what kind of skills they actually face at the setting. In this audiovisual
techniques are also used for training the employees.
The management at Sainsbury's believes that training is a solution towards building self
confidence in the workforce which is essential for performing different task as an when required.
Training assures that employee gets confident with their capabilities (Sainsbury’s announces
multi-million pound investment in training. 2017). It shields the firm from employee turnover
which occurs when employee is dissatisfied with their job. Highly efficient employees can
reduce the wastage of time which could be costly affair for the firm. Training is a symbiotic
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