Equality and Diversity Issues in ASDA: A Project Report Analysis

This report presents a case study on ASDA, examining its response to equality and diversity issues in the workplace. The introduction outlines the project's aims and objectives, focusing on identifying equality and diversity concepts and organizational strategies. A literature review explores strategies like preventing unconscious bias, implementing equality policies, and ensuring fair treatment. The project management plan details the scope, quality, cost, time, resources, communication, and risk management. The work breakdown structure and Gantt chart aid in task management and scheduling. The research methodology includes primary data collection via questionnaires and secondary data analysis. The questionnaire results reveal insights into employee perceptions of equality, pay gaps, and ASDA's responsiveness. Qualitative questions provide in-depth understanding. Analysis of the findings, recommendations, and reflections are included, followed by a conclusion and references. An appendix contains the project logbook.

Managing a Successful
Business Project
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Table of Contents
Part 1................................................................................................................................................3
Introduction......................................................................................................................................3
Project aims and objectives for a chosen scenario...........................................................................3
LITERRATURE REVIEW..............................................................................................................3
Project Management Plan................................................................................................................4
Work breakdown Structure and Gantt chart....................................................................................6
Research Methods/ Questionnaire:..................................................................................................8
Project Part 2..................................................................................................................................11
Analysis of the findings.................................................................................................................11
Recommendations..........................................................................................................................20
Reflections.....................................................................................................................................20
Conclusion.....................................................................................................................................21
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................22
Appendix:.......................................................................................................................................23
Project Logbook for the chosen organisation.......................................................................23
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Part 1
Title: “How my company responded to current issues of Equality and Diversity at work place”.
A case study on ASDA
Introduction
Equality and Diversity are the two basic aspects that are part of any organisation and have to be
taken into consideration to manage the overall workforce. This concept is based on providing
equal and fair treatment to employees according to the equal number of opportunity is a
respective of the gender biasness. Present research report is based on analysis of the issues faced
by large organisations in terms of issues of equality and diversity and how the management is
responding to these issues.
Project aims and objectives for a chosen scenario
Aim of the research: “To identify the basic concept of equality & diversity and strategies
adopted by organisations to deal with the issues of equality & diversity” A case study on
ASDA
Objectives of the research:
1) Basic concept of equality and diversity
2) Issues prevailing in a organisation related to equality & diversity
3) Formation of strategies to respond to issues of equality and diversity
LITERRATURE REVIEW
Formation of strategies to respond to issues of equality and diversity
According to views of Lynne Callister, 2019 there are some of the strategies that can be adopted
by organisations for the purpose of dealing with issues of equality and diversity. Populist
discrimination has been a major concern for organisations in present times because of the
changing nature of employees. According to the equality act 2010 employees possess a
responsibility to protect their employees from any type of bullying discrimination and
harassment at workplace. According to studies majority of Waterloo co-workers experience
workplace discrimination and this is treated as towards each race and gender. There can be
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formation of some of the strategies in order to deal with the issues of workplace discrimination
or issues of equality and diversity practices. There has to be identification so prevention of
unconscious bias. Employees have to focus on putting equality policies in place. There has to be
emphasis on treatment of employees fairly in their daily activities and all the work related
decisions (Bowl, 2018). Each employee must be treated fairly. Employees have to focus on that
all the communications are free of any type of discriminatory language that is typing on
intentional or creating a perception of an inequality among the employees. Employers can focus
on use of objective criteria in functions such as training recruiting promoting so that there can be
clear objective criteria that can help in performance based decisions according to merit criteria.
Management has to be proactive so that if there is any type of unintentional biases can be
corrected in the provided time period so that employees are not having high dissonance. With
instance to ASDA there has to be focus on curbing out of any type of indirect discrimination by
adopting such mentioned strategies that can lead to damaging the overall brand image of
organisation.
Project Management Plan
Project Management plan:
It refers to a plan that is used to define the various steps as well as phases of research
report. It enables the researcher in monitoring, controlling of different activities related to
project. Project management plan assist researcher to carry out the overall project in an efficient
manner and draw the necessary suggestions (Harding, Nelson and Glover, 2016). The essential
elements of project management plan are scope, quality, communication, cost, resources, and so
on. This plan helps in identification of value proposition as well as the reason for which the
project is being carried out. Management plan for the current project is stated as follows:
 Quality: The researcher needs to gather data from authentic and reliable source in order
to deliver quality results. To ensure good outcomes and provide necessary suggestions it
is essential to consider the quality of data as well as information. Along with this,
researchers can also set some standards so that they able to maintain good quality of
overall research project.
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 Cost: During the research an investigator has to incur some essential expenses. That cost can
be related to travel, management, staff salary and many more. Researcher have to gather
information from respondents for that sometimes they have to travel, it incurred cost. Apart
from this they use a lot of resources in research and need to pay for that.
Description Amount (in pounds)
Staff Salary 40
Travelling Cost 20
Survey 30
Management Expenses 40
Cost of tools and Equipments 20
Total 150
 Time: Every research project has a predefined time within which the investigator should
complete it. They have time for different activities related to project such as data
collection, data analysis, making interpretation, suggestions and so on ( Heagney, 2016).
In the given report researcher has time of 10 weeks to complete the overall research
report.
 Scope: The scope area of above stated project is to identify the impact of practices related
to equality and diversity at work place. In ASDA, Mangers are coping up with various
diversity and equality issues such as gender and pay gap, race and age equality. The
project report will help managers in order to deal with such issues in an efficient manner
arise at work place.
 Resources: To carry out the research researcher will be required various resources such
as journals, books, subscriptions and so on. They also required some interns or staff to
assist them in work. Along with this, they also need fund to pay for above mentioned
resources.
 Communication: While undertaking a project researched have to communicate with
project mangers about the progress of report. So that, they can evaluate the growth of
project and make necessary improvements (Kobelt and et. al., 2017). Both the parties can
communicate through e-mails, telephoning conversation etc.
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 Risk: Uncertainties is also associated with research report. Researcher can encounter
various risks such as technical risk, financial risk and may more while undertaking a
project. They should prepare strategies and plans so that they can reduce down the impact
of contingencies.
Work breakdown Structure and Gantt chart
WBS:
WBS is a structure is a basic technique that can help a investigator that can divide the whole
project in manageable chunks. It facilitate in determination of activities that have to be
performed. There is a sequence of activity that is associated with allocation of roles according to
competence of team members. It is a technique of project management by which the entire
projects is divided into small and manageable tasks. This tool assists the researchers to determine
various activities that they need to execute in order to accomplish the research project in a
stipulated period of time. It used for deciding the sequence in which different activities should
be performed to complete overall project in an efficient manner.
Gantt chart: It is also an essential technique of project management. In this the available time is
divided among various activities as per the complexities of a particular task. There are two
dimensions in this tool. The activities or task need to be performed are mentioned on vertical
axis while the time limit is mentioned on the other side of chart that known as horizontal axis. In
this tool, a predefined time is allocated to each and every essential activity. That will help to
complete the overall project in specific period of time (Özbilgin and Slutskaya, 20170. The
project manger can easily track the performance of employees with the help of this chart by
monitoring time frame to complete different activities
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Research Methods/ Questionnaire:
Research is a study that is undertake by a researcher to analyze the existing problem or
issue in detail to provide necessary suggestions for further improvements (Wildemuth, 2016).
Research Methodology refers different tools and techniques such as qualitative and quantitative
and many other to analyze, collect as well as interpreted the data. Different sources of data
collection are outline below:
 Primary Sources: When information is gathered by investigators themselves, ii is known
as primary data. Information collected through primary sources is completely raw,
authentic and reliable. It includes the sources like questionnaire, survey, face to face
interviews, observation and many more (Young, 2016). In the above sated report data has
been gathered from 30 respondents. This data is first hand and collected for a specific
research.
 Secondary data: It is the data that already has been collected by some other researcher.
It is gathers through various books, journals, articles, newspapers, websites and other
researches. As data is not raw so that it required some modifications according to the
requirement of present research. This method of data collection is time as well as cost
effective.
Apart from the above sated methods, data can be gathered from some other important
techniques that are as follows:
Qualitative Method: It is a non numeric method of research. In this data is expressed
into words rather than numbers. Qualitative methods is use to gather detailed as well as in -depth
information on a specific topic from respondents. Under this, focus group interviews, group
discussions are carried out in order to receive opinion, thoughts of audience on a given topic
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(Nachmias, Ridgway. and Caven, 2019). Questions are designed in such a manner that
investigator will be able to get in depth information.
Quantitative research: It is a useful method when the data is numeric and present with graphs
and charts. In this method various mathematical as well as statistical tools are used to analyze
and interpreted the available data. With the help of Qualitative method data can be from large
population through surveys, questionnaires, observation etc. The questions are generally close
ended or MCQ so that the researcher can get quick response from respondents (BooysenBendl
and Pringle, 2018).
Questionnaire
Questions Frequency
Q1) For how many years how are you working in this
organisation?
a) 0-2 years 8
b) 2-4 years 12
c) More than 4 years 10
Q2) Do you feel that the provisions of Equality Act 2010 are part
of your organisational policies?
a) Yes 10
b) No 5
c) In some cases only 15
Q3) What is equality for you as an employee in ASDA?
a) No discriminatory policies 8
b) Equal pay for same designation 5
c) Equal opportunities in decision making process 9
d) All of above 8
Q4) what can be some of major reasons for gender pay gap in your
organisation?
a) Discriminatory workplace environment 8
b) Providing benefits to employees not according to their 4
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contribution level
c) No Performance based recognition 5
d) All of above 13
Q5) Do you believe that ASDA is responding timely to issues of
equality & diversity that are faced by employees?
a) Yes 8
b) No 12
c) Sometimes 10
Q 6) What can be major impact on employees when there are large
number of issues related to equality & diversity?
a) Reduction in employee motivation level 8
b) Internal conflicts 8
c) High employee turnover 5
d) All of the above 9
Q 7) What are some of the ways that ASDA has been using to
respond to issues of equality and diversity?
a) Equal employee compensation 8
b) Timely performance based appraisal 4
c) Using objective criteria for the purpose of decision making 5
d) No indirect discriminatory practises 6
e) All of above 7
Q8) What are some of benefits associated with implementation of
strategies to deal with issues of equality & diversity?
a) Timely decision making 4
b) Higher employee satisfaction 6
c) Enhancement in employee productivity 8
d) Cost effectiveness 4
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e) All of the above 8
Qualitative questions:
Q9) From below discussed strategy which can be most suitable for
ASDA to respond to issues of equality & diversity& why give
your personal view points ?
a) Inclusion of a diverse workforce
b) Development of a inclusive environment at workplace
c) Use of participative style of leadership of decision making
process
Q 10) What can be three major benefits for implementation of
equality & diversity practises in organisation?
a) ..........
b) ...........
c) .............
Q 11) Suggest some measures that can be adopted by organisations
for enhancing equality & fairness in dealing with issues of equality
& diversity?
..........................................................
Project Part 2
Analysis of the findings
Theme 1: Tenure of working
Q1) For how many years how are you working in this organisation? Frequency
a) 0-2 years 8
b) 2-4 years 12
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c) More than 4 years 10
Interpretation:
From the above mentioned figure it can be clearly seen that out of 30 respondents when it was
asked about the tenure of working in ASDA. Equal distribution among the respondents as there
were 10 employees who are working for a period of more than five years 12 respondents who
have a tenure ranging between two to four years and remaining had a tenure between zero and
two years. It can be summarised that low employee turnover as one third of the total number of
respondents are working for a period of minimum four years.
Theme 2: Provisions of Equality Act 2010
Q2) Do you feel that the provisions of Equality Act 2010 are part of your
organisational policies?
Frequency
a) Yes 10
b) No 5
c) In some cases only 15
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