Challenges in Managing People: A Case Study of Woolworths Group

Running Head: Woolworths Group
WOOLWORTHS GROUP
Report
SEPTEMBER 19, 2019

Woolworths Group 1
Executive Summary
The purpose of this report is to analyze the critical challenges that Woolworth Group is
facing while managing people. This report includes the three key challenging issues in HRM
field in Woolworths Group and assesses the implications of these challenges on the future HR
planning and programs of the organisation.
It has been discussed in the report that changing employment relation is the major
challenge for the Woolworth organisation and the major causes behind this is increasing
competition in the retail sector. The competition in labour market to recruit people at any cost
also affects the employment relation. The second challenge for the Woolworth Group is related
to recruitment and selection of people. In the era of digitalization and online selling and buying
of products killed the job of people in retail sector. The third issues are related to unethical
behavior of employees at the workplace that is raised because of poor organisational culture and
moral value of people. The target pressure and challenging situation also force the people to
select unethical way of doing work or involve in any type of misconduct in the organization.
In the recommendation of the report, it has been included that if Woolworth encourages
employee relation in the organisation and avoid the conflict situation then it will help HRM
department to recruit new people in the organisation and retain the existing employees for long
time. This practice will help the organisation to enhance the moral value of employees that will
further help to avoid any unethical behavior at the workplace. This will also enhance the
productivity of the employees and create a brand image of Woolworth Group.

Woolworths Group 2
Table of Contents
Executive Summary.........................................................................................................................1
Introduction......................................................................................................................................3
Overview about the Company.........................................................................................................3
Three Critical Challenges in Woolworths Group............................................................................4
Changing Employment Relations................................................................................................4
Issues Related to Recruitment and Selection of People...............................................................5
Unethical Behaviour of Employees.............................................................................................6
Impact of these above three critical challenges on implementation of the organisational HR
program............................................................................................................................................7
Key findings.....................................................................................................................................9
Recommendations............................................................................................................................9
Conclusion.....................................................................................................................................10
References......................................................................................................................................11

Woolworths Group 3
Introduction
Woolworth Group is one of the popular retail chain organizations in Australia and New
Zealand and a brand name in the grocery and fresh food market in Australia. The company is
known for its quality products and huge market share in Australia and New Zealand market.
Although the company is facing several issues related to management of people in the
organization. This report includes three critical challenges that Woolworth group is facing
currently and analyses that how these challenges will affect the future business strategy of the
company. The report also includes that how these critical challenges affect the implementation of
future HR program of the organisation and performance of the people. In the end of this report, a
short summary has been added as a conclusion of the entire analysis done in this report.
Overview about the Company
The Woolworth Group was founded in 1924 by five key founder members when the first
store was opened in Pitt Street, Sydney on 5th December 1924. The current Chairman of the
company is Gordon Cairns and CEO of the company is Brad Banducci (Woolworth Group,
2019). The company has more than 3000 stores in Australia and New Zealand and it has more
than 201,000 employees who are serving more than 29 million of customers every week.
Woolworth is an Australian supermarket /grocery store chain owned by Woolworth Group
(Woolworth Group, 2019). The revenue of the company was A$55.669 billion in 2017 while the
operating income of the company was A$2.325 billion in 2017. The net income of the
Woolworth Group was A$1.593 billion in 2017 (Woolworth Group, 2019).
Woolworth Group is known for its best quality products and value provided to its
customers. The company provides best customer experience in its stores. Woolworths Group
deals in variety of business including supermarket for grocery products and cloths (Woolworths
supermarket, Countdown, Woolworths online), liquor products (Dan Murphy’s), General
Merchandise (Big W), and Financial services (Woolworths rewards and Woolworths finance)
etc. However, managing these huge numbers of subsidiaries including large number of peoples is
really a challenge for the Woolworths group when the company has to manage varieties of
demand and needs of its employees (Woolworth Group, 2019).