Strategies & Initiatives to Build a Diverse Workforce: H&M Case Study

This project provides an in-depth analysis of strategies and initiatives to build a diverse workforce in the UK fashion clothing retail sector, using H&M as a case study. The study explores the importance of an inclusive workplace environment, examining how it attracts and retains employees. The research incorporates primary and secondary data to determine effective strategies, including the role of ageing diversity and challenges faced by organizations. The project covers project management aspects with a Gantt chart, literature review, research methodology, data interpretation, and recommendations. It focuses on understanding the benefits of a diverse workforce, strategies for fostering inclusivity, and the impact of these practices on employee satisfaction, retention, and overall business performance within the context of the UK fashion industry. The project concludes with a reflection, evaluation, and recommendations for building a diverse workforce.

Managing a Successful
Business Project

Executive Summary
Study has been discussed significant importance of inclusive workplace environment is it
attracts and retained potential employees and to accomplish the business objectives. Study also
has been conducted research by collecting information from primary as well secondary
resources. Therefore, study also summarized research methods by supporting information and
data which has been collected through primary as well as secondary resources. Overall, the
purpose of the study is to elaborated the deep understanding on the topic of workplace diversity.

Table of Contents
Executive Summary.........................................................................................................................1
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
Overview of the study and Research Questions..........................................................................1
Aims :..........................................................................................................................................1
Objectives....................................................................................................................................1
Questions.....................................................................................................................................2
Project Management Plan...........................................................................................................2
Gantt Chart..................................................................................................................................3
Literature Review........................................................................................................................4
Research Methodology................................................................................................................6
Data Interpretation......................................................................................................................8
Results and discussion...............................................................................................................15
Reflection and Evaluation.........................................................................................................16
Recommendations.....................................................................................................................17
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................17
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................19
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Topic : “Strategies & initiatives to build a diverse workforce in the UK fashion clothing retail
sector”- A case study base on H&M
INTRODUCTION
Diverse workforce environment is a strategic imperative and a strategic advantage.
Customers suppliers and vendors increasingly expect their partners to have culturally relevant
workforce and who is work under the diverse workplace environment. In other words,
workplace inclusion assist employees of all ethnicity, background, religions and sexual
orientation thrive and feel safe in the modern workplace environment. Present research will be
base on the topic of strategic imperative to build up the diverse workforce environment. Further
research will outline the important aspect of the research topic. Furthermore, research outline the
concept of diversity in the context of strategic initiatives taken for the employees. Therefore
study will be perform their discussion in the context of H&M which is an Clothing organization
situated in UK.
Overview of the study and Research Questions
It has been observed that organizations often equate diversity in within the workplace
environment (Wondrak and Segert, 2015). Diversity within the workplace environment is
specifically generate more new ideas and innovative thoughts. Every organization creates their
own workplace ideas with having culture where all employees comes from different background.
The significant importance of inclusive workplace environment is it attracts and retained
potential employees within the organization. With high potential sources. Basically, the purpose
of this study is to examine the importance of strategies and initiatives adopted by the
organizations to adopt the better results and growth for the business. Apart from this it also
makes and differentiate one environment with other it also makes the good employee
performance (Jonsen, Schneider and Maznevski, 2016). Also the topic describes the ageing
diversity at workplace where the study outline the significance and role of aged workforce.
Aims :
“To examine the strategies and initiatives to build a diverse and inclusive workforce in the UK
fashion clothing”. A Case study base on H&M clothing.
Objectives
 To determine the strategies and initiatives which improves diverse workforce in UK.
 To investigate the role play of ageing diversity in workplace environment.
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 To identify the diversity challenges and issues faced by the organization.
 To identify the importance of inclusive workforce environment at workplace.
Questions
Q. What are the strategies and initiatives which improves diverse workforce in UK.
Q. What are the role play of ageing diversity in workplace environment.
Q. What are the diversity challenges and issues faced by the organization.
Q. What are the importance of inclusive workforce environment at workplace.
Project Management Plan
Scope : Scope of the study define the importance or substance of the selected topic.
Scope is one of the major substance that helps to create the positive outcomes of the study. In
other words, scope is one of the those things that can be difficult to determine (Harding, Nelson
and Glover, 2016). On the same side it can be anything that can affect the scope of the study and
also influence the other systematic way of research outcomes and performance. However, scope
also decides the aim and objectives of the research topic which clearly helps to understand the
purpose of the study. As like the given topic is to determine the strategies and initiatives that has
been taken by the organization to introduce effective lighting source. Present study scope is to
justify that inclusive and diversity is essential for the productive growth of the organisation and
also the role play of ageing workforce diversity (Burnette, Williams and Imker, 2016).
Cost: Cost plays a most essential role to accomplishing the research goals. Without
investing funds research can never happen. So it has been defined the cost is important element
in project management which is required as per the resources. Like for present research it will be
cost around £550 (Eskerod and Jepsen, 2016). also, it is important for project manager to ensure
the cost and make sure to complete the project duration under the pre decided budget cost.
Time : Time is the core element of the whole research process which create reliability of
the project. Time can be become the profit and can become constraint for the project as well. It is
also analyse that every project has one starting data and ending date. So as with the present
project 25/07/2016 to 29/08/2016.
Resources : Resources which is required by project members during the implementation
process. Like human resource who is directly connected with the other stakeholders every time.
Technical resources which helps to get the fast results and transform the statistics results.
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Financial resources which helps to fulfil the project requirements. So it has been analysed that
resources is one of the another most crucial element in project management.
Risk : Risk is uncertain and uncontrollable majorly risk present in project are limitation
of resources, limitation in understand or ethical or legal risk can be occurred while implementing
or gathering the data information (Chen, Kang and Lee, 2017). Along with that, it more
effectively capable and long lasting decision making process to be more energetic.
Communication : Communication is the way to transfer the information from one place
to another. Also, it can help to clearly understand the aim and purpose of the research to.
Communication forms or medium can helpful to get the direct medium and approach to
communicate with other people (Lientz and Rea, 2016). So as performed this project it will
taking help of communication mode like through e-mails, Skype, face to face etc.
Gantt Chart
Task Name Start Date End Date Duratio
n (Days)
Days
Complet
e
Days
Remainin
g
Percent
Complet
e
Task One 25/07/2016 30/07/2016 5 2.50 2.50 50%
Task Two 27/07/2016 01/08/2016 5 3.75 1.25 75%
Task Three 27/07/2016 04/08/2016 8 2.00 6.00 25%
Task Four 29/07/2016 06/08/2016 8 8.00 0.00 100%
Task Five 01/08/2016 09/08/2016 8 6.00 2.00 75%
Task Six 01/08/2016 05/08/2016 4 1.40 2.60 35%
Task Seven 03/08/2016 10/08/2016 7 1.75 5.25 25%
Task Eight 05/08/2016 12/08/2016 7 4.90 2.10 70%
Task Nine 03/08/2016 09/08/2016 6 0.90 5.10 15%
Task Ten 06/08/2016 10/08/2016 4 2.40 1.60 60%
Task Eleven 07/08/2016 13/08/2016 6 3.90 2.10 65%
Task Twelve 10/08/2016 16/08/2016 6 1.50 4.50 25%
Task Thirteen 14/08/2016 19/08/2016 5 1.50 3.50 30%
Task Fourteen 15/08/2016 23/08/2016 8 4.00 4.00 50%
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Task Fifteen 16/08/2016 26/08/2016 10 4.00 6.00 40%
Task Sixteen 17/08/2016 28/08/2016 11 3.85 7.15 35%
Task Seventeen 18/08/2016 29/08/2016 11 1.65 9.35 15%
Literature Review
As per the view of Trehan and Glover (2019), there are various strategies as well as
initiatives that improves the workforce diversity in UK. Creating workforce policies which are
friendly enough is one of the main strategy which eventually leads top diverse workforce within
the organization. Having a well defined strategies at the workplace eventually leads to better
employee engagement and their commitment which in turn increases the work force diversity of
UK. For example While posting the various job opening, the person description can be tailored
so as to reach the wider audience of different parts of the world which ultimately will result in
the migration of varied range of people in UK. Understanding the values and ethics of each and
every employee as the organization have people from different states and countries will lead to
the immigration of people from different places and will increase the diversity of UK.
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Task One
Task Eight
Task Fifteen
7/25/16
7/30/16
8/4/16
8/9/16
8/14/16
8/19/16
8/24/16
8/29/16
9/3/16

Another strategy which will be helpful in increasing workforce strength of UK is
effective communication which will create a diverse workforce within the country. Employing
the effective internal communication policies within the organization will make the employees
more engaged in various tasks and activities and will also make them feel comfortable for
interacting with the top management. This will in turn stimulate greater feedbacks and will
ensure greater employee retention. Thus, this will attract the candidates from farther area and
place for employment and will enhance the diversity of workforce in UK. This will also lead to
the greater effectiveness of recruitment and selection and thus will strengthen the workplace
culture of the organization.
Now a days, each and every organization is equipped with the workforce from the varied
cultures who have different values, customs and ethics. Besides the employees form different
state and country the ratio of the older employees within the organization have also increases and
thus has compelled the organization to modify their policies and practices accordingly. The
major advantage of having the ageing diversity at the workplace environment is that it fosters the
knowledge base. As the older employees are likely to have more experience as compare to the
younger employees thus the amount of knowledge which the ageing people posses is
automatically larger. This in turn impacts the overall performance of the organization as there
would be greater ability and potential to deal with varying roles. Besides this, having the older
employees not only is productive for the organization but also for the younger employees who
are able to learn form their experiences. This helps them in solving the issues not only in their
professional life but also in the personal life. Their experiences and learning provides the other
employees with wide range of knowledge which eventually helps them in achieving the
organizational objectives. This benefits the H & M in a great way as they have majority of
employees who are older.
According to Kaminska and Borzillo (2018) the most common diversity challenge which
the organisations normally faces is the difference in the ethics and the cultures. There remains
some employees in the organization who hold the prejudice against some people who belongs to
different culture, backgrounds etc. As the organization comprises of the employees from
different background thus there cultural and thought differences clashes at some or the other
point. Another challenge which the dominates the organization due to the ageing diversity is the
difference in their language as well as the communication. The variety of people working in an
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organization have different language and generally communicate in different form as all comes
from different background. This becomes the basis of conflict among employees as every
individual interpret the message passed by the another in different way and in their language.
This distorts the communication and thus becomes the main challenge faced by the organization.
These are the various challenges which are faced by H & M as their organization contain people
from varied cultures.
As illustrated by Supalo (2015) the primary importance of inclusive workforce at the
workplace is that it results in greater job satisfaction. An inclusive organization values the
contribution of the employee and thus recognizes their hard-work which eventfully raise their
satisfaction level towards the organization and work. Another benefit of having the inclusive
workforce environment is that it results in lower turnover number. Due to increased satisfaction
level, employees tend to retain in the organization when they see that the company is embracing
their backgrounds and perspectives. This eventually raise their morale and thus helps the
organization to reduce the turnover number.
Research Methodology
Data sources
The source which is being used for the collection of data is is primary source. Primary
source usually provides the first hand information which helps the researcher to analyse the
results and draw conclusions. Within the primary source, the data and information is collected
through the use of questionnaire (Sutton and Austin, 2015). A questionnaire is the series of
question on the paper which h is used for gathering the information on various attributes. In this
research, questionnaire is used which was being distributed to different target customers for their
feedback and thus they data was collected through the administration of this questionnaire.
Sampling process
Sampling process is basically used for the statistical analysis of the sample collected for
the purpose of research from larger population. There are various types of sampling process and
each process has its own advantages. This sampling process is generally divided on the basis of
the amount of sample taken which differs in every process. Here, among the various processes,
random sampling is used. Random sampling is basically the sampling process in which each and
every sample has the equal probability and opportunity of being selected. In short, every member
of the sample are exposed to the similar opportunity of being chosen in the sampling process.
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Research techniques
In order to make the process of research effective, various techniques are used which
helps the researcher to perform the work more thoroughly. There are mainly two research
techniques qualitative and quantitative (Johnston, 2017). Here for the research process,
qualitative technique is used. Qualitative technique is basically the research technique which
focuses on gathering the information via open-ended communication. It is the procedure of
collecting non-numerical data.
Methods for gathering data
Data is usually gathered through variety of methods but the most important method
which is being used here is the questionnaire. This the primary source of data collection and
within that source, questionnaire is the method through which the information on various
attributes have been gathered. Open ended questionnaire has been used for ensuring the
effectiveness of research.
Questionnaire
Age :
Name :
1. How long you been working with H&M ?
 1 year
 1-2 year
 More than 2
2. What processes are currently in place to achieve organizations diversity goals and
objectives ?
 Recruitment
 Empowerment
 Recognition of diversity champions
3. What initiatives H&M takes towards diversity incorporated into the following ?
 Organizational core values.
 Quality Programs
 succession planning
4. Does diversity strategies measures effectiveness for the company development
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 Yes
 No.
5. Who has lead responsibility for managing diversity in your organizations ?
 Equal opportunity civil right
 Diversity office
 Human Resources
6. What are the issues company faced while implementing a diversity planning ?
 Communication Barrier
 Resistance to change
 Wage Equity
7. Which strategy is implemented for workplace diversity within H&M ?
 Train diverse approaches
 Improve communication between employees
 Recruit Diversity
8. What employees groups does your organization currently have in place ?
 Task force
 Union
 Change agents
9. Does employees are satisfied with the strategies of diversity ?
 Yes
 No
10. Review and give you suggestions on the ageing workforce strategies ?
Data Interpretation
Theme 1: Long you been working with H&M
1. How long you been working with H&M ? Frequency
1 year 6
1-2 year 4
More than 2 10
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