HRM Report: Asda's Recruitment, Selection, Training & Culture Analysis

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of Asda's Human Resource Management (HRM) practices, focusing on recruitment, selection, and training processes. It begins with an introduction to Asda, a major UK supermarket chain and a subsidiary of Walmart, highlighting its market position and organizational culture. The report then outlines Asda's recruitment strategies, including the use of a dedicated career website, social media, and recruitment firms, emphasizing the company's goal of attracting and retaining talented individuals. The selection process, involving online applications, shortlisting by the HR team, and assessment centers, is detailed. Furthermore, the report examines Asda's structured training programs, which consist of three stages designed to develop employees' skills and knowledge. The evaluation section connects these HRM processes to Asda's organizational culture, which emphasizes employee satisfaction, customer service, and integrity, illustrating how recruitment, selection, and training contribute to maintaining this culture and achieving business success.

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Executive Summary:
The report provides an insight into the recruitment, selection and the training process of
Asda along with an overview on how the processes relates to the culture of the organization. The
report commences with the brief introduction of Asda. The report also outlines the recruitment,
selection and the training process of the company and evaluates how these process evaluates the
organizational culture.

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Table of Contents
Introduction to ASDA:....................................................................................................................3
Outlining Recruitment, Selection and Training Processes..............................................................3
Evaluation of How Recruitment, Selection and Training Processes Relates to Company’s
Organizational Culture.....................................................................................................................5
References:......................................................................................................................................6

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Introduction to ASDA:
Asda represented a British supermarket with headquarters in Leeds, West Yorkshire. It
was found in the year 1949 and merged with Associated Dairies Company (asda.com 2019). As
per market share, Asda represented the second biggest chain of retailers in UK. In the year 1999
the company was acquired by the giant American retailer Walmart. It addition to focusing on
retail items like selling clothing, food, toys, electronics, general merchandize and home
furnishings it also provides financial services known as ‘Asda Money’. The acquisition aided
Walmart in not only entering the UK market but allowed Asda in having a direct access to the
expertise of Walmart. Asda is also the biggest employers recruiting close to 175,000 employees
in different formats. Asda continues expanding its operations in UK and presently have acquired
quite a number of stores from Neto for expanding its local supermarkets.
The leaders of Asda has remained committed towards a philosophy of recognizing Tiny
Noticeable Things (TNT) along with involving colleagues (Ockenden and Stuart 2014). The
TNTs plays a huge role in making the colleagues feel more valued, fulfilled, motivated and
supported for delivering customer pledges. Awareness of such behavior also has a positive
impact on the selection and recruitment. Asda however remains committed towards employing
best available candidate for filling the vacancies. This implies looking for an applicant from
largest pool of talent existing internally and externally.
Outlining Recruitment, Selection and Training Processes
As far as recruitment is concerned, ASDA resorts a dedicated career website for
promoting the career opportunities (Nobrega 2014). While recruiting, the retailer aims towards
attracting and retaining individuals who are not only talented but the most appropriate fit for the

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position. The online process of recruitment for Asda has not only made the process of
recruitment faster and efficient but but also helps the management in faster selection of recruits.
Last year, Asda advertised close to 27,000 jobs with devoted career site handling close to 1.5
million applications. The retailer also makes use of the social media channels like linkedIn and
recruitment firms like Remploy for potential recruits. This supermarket chain ensures fair
treatment to everyone so that they have equal opportunities for career progression. It however
follows the goal of recruiting colleagues who holds the same outlook and beliefs of the company.
For the selection process, the applications are first registered through the online
recruitment process which is followed by the process of shortlisting by the HR team
(Michalakeas et al. 2015). The selection process of Asda involves two vital documents, one is the
job description and the other is personal specification. The shortlisted candidates are either called
for interview or appointment in the assessment center. The assessment centre also known as
‘Asda Magic’ or ‘Asda Reality’ puts across an opportunity for the candidates to validate their
power that aligns with the belief, culture and the means of working of Asda. For internal
recruitments, a process of appraisal is applied for informing the process of employee selection.
An appraisal refers to the process where the colleague not only discuss the performance,
development opportunities and skills with the manager.
Training represents a planned procedure for modifying the skill, knowledge behavior and
attitude through an experience of learning for achieving efficient performance (Jain and Sharma
2019). Training helps in developing abilities of individuals for satisfying the future and the
current organizational need. In Asda, every new employee undergoes a training procedure
designed for the role. The training procedure of Asda revolves around the process of ‘colleague
steps’ that comprises of three stages ‘Step In’, ‘Step On’ and the ‘Step Up’. The ‘Step In’

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represents the induction program undertaking by the all newer employees. The process of
training ranges from attending workshops to undertaking any sort of formal qualification suitable
for the role. This finishes with a performance review and an accreditation certificate thereby
allowing colleagues to move onto ‘Step On’. This stage can only be reached after a service of
minimum six months. The stage is marked by achieving a retail apprenticeship, coaching and
additional responsibilities like moving into newer department and becoming training buddy.
Followed by a positive review, a trainee can move into the next step of career progression known
as ‘Step up’. An employee claimed that Asda had taught them to be in control of their self-
development and never be scared to take up a newer role.
Evaluation of How Recruitment, Selection and Training Processes Relates to Company’s
Organizational Culture
Asda believes in the philosophy that if the employees enjoys their work then the
customers will also enjoy shopping (nms-asda.com 2019). The numerous awards recognizes
Asda’s commitment towards its colleagues. The success of Asda is defined by its organizational
culture built over certain period of time. This portrays the employee behavior and varies from
how the colleagues treats the customers and the stakeholders and their treatment towards one
another. The company believes in the culture of trust across its operations. Thus, Asda represents
a company having a conscience and dedicated towards doing the accurate things for the
colleagues, customers and communities (corporate.asda.com 2019).
The organizational culture of the company aims at passionately engaging all colleagues
so that they support one another in maintaining an ambience of respect and trust. Every decision
of the company is backed up by a belief system where each employee possess the power to
influence the culture of the organization. The recruitment, selection and the training process

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relate to the organizational culture in providing excellent customer service, showing respect for
individuals, striving for excellence and acting with integrity.
In the year 2009, Asda conducted a survey on the customer’s thought about the
company. The results helped in creating ‘customer pledges’ that reflected the expectations of the
customers from the company. This was further replicated through creation of ‘colleague pledges’
that included opportunity for all, respect for one another, fairness at the work and the pride that
one holds while working in Asda.

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References:
asda.com , 2019. [online]. Available at https://www.asda.com/about [accessed 12 Dec, 2019]
corporate.asda.com, 2019. [online]. Available at http://corporate.asda.com/our-story/our-
history[accessed 12 Dec, 2019]
Jain, T.K. and Sharma, A., 2019. Impact of Training and development on Employee Performance
in Retail Sector: A Review paper. Available at SSRN 3316856.
Michalakeas, D., Clearesta, E., Gomes, F., de Luiz-Garcia, R. and Schoof, W., 2015. ASDA’s
fight for market share.
nms-asda.com , 2019. [online]. Available at
http://www.nms-asda.com/asda/main/philosophy/index.html[accessed 12 Dec, 2019]
Nobrega, L., 2014. The effective role of recruitment and selection practices in an Strategic
Planning of Human Resources.
Ockenden, N. and Stuart, J., 2014. Review of evidence on the outcomes of youth volunteering,
social action and leadership. London: Institute for Volunteering Research, 37.