HRM Dissertation: Equality and Diversity Issues at M&S, University

This research project investigates the impact of a lack of equality and diversity practices on human resource management within Marks & Spencer (M&S). The report begins with an executive summary, followed by an introduction outlining the background of M&S, research questions, aims, and rationale. Chapter 2 provides a comprehensive literature review, defining equality and diversity in the workplace and examining the challenges faced by HR due to the absence of these practices at M&S. Chapter 3 details the research methodology employed, while Chapter 4 presents data analysis using frequency distribution analysis. The project concludes in Chapter 5 with conclusions and recommendations, summarizing the findings and suggesting effective strategies for HR managers to address issues related to equality and diversity. The study utilizes secondary sources, questionnaires, and analytical techniques to achieve its objectives, aiming to provide insights into the importance of diverse work environments and the implications of neglecting diversity and equality in HRM.

Research Project
(Human Resource Management
Dissertation)
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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Main purpose of this report is to identify the issues faced by HR due to lack of diversity and
equality practices at workplace. In order to accomplish this purpose, different activities were
completed by the researcher. Literature review is an effective activity that has been completed by
investigator with the use of secondary sources i.e. books, articles, publication research etc.
Research methodology is another section that is main and it was done by researcher with the
better use of questionnaire, and many other methods. Data analysis has been completed by using
frequency distribution analysis as an analytical technique. This technique helped researcher in
analisation of quantitative data within minimum time duration. At last, conclusion and
recommendations have been done by summarising entire information in short and clear manner.
This helped researcher in achieving of research aim and objectives.
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Contents
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY.............................................................................................................2
CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION....................................................................................................4
Background of M&S....................................................................................................................4
Research questions.......................................................................................................................4
Research aim................................................................................................................................4
Rationale of research....................................................................................................................5
CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW.........................................................................................6
Explain about the equality and diversity at workplace of an organisation..................................6
What are the issues or challenges faced by human resource due to lack of equality and
diversity practices at workplace of M&S?...................................................................................7
CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY...........................................................................10
CHAPTER 4: DATA ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATION....................................................13
CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION.....................................................23
Conclusion.................................................................................................................................23
Recommendation.......................................................................................................................23
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................25
APPENDIX....................................................................................................................................27
Questionnaire.............................................................................................................................27
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CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION
In globalised world, majority of business organization required diverse employees in
order to improve their brand image. It may increase innovation at workplace that assist in
attaining competitive advantage at market place. Thus, it is crucial for business to manage
equality and diversity at workplace with the aim of keeping positive working environment
wherein diverse workers easily perform their task and activities in an effective manner. For every
business organization it is required to maintain equality and diversity at their workplace by
providing equal opportunity to the workers and managing diversity in an effective manner.
Along with this, company also provide equal opportunities to each and every employee through
which they get motivated towards the set goals and objectives. By managing equality and
diversity business can easily enhance their productivity level (Pearson and et. al., 2019).
Background of M&S
Present report is based on M&S which is a British multinational retailer and operates their
business in over the nation. Company was founded in 1884 by Michael Marks and Thomas
Spencer and headquartered in London, England, UK. M&S specialise in selling of clothing, food
products and home products. Company also focus on equality and diversity at working area with
the aim of making employees efficient and productive. This will directly contribute in attaining
success at market place.
Research questions
 Explain about the equality and diversity at workplace of an organisation.
 What are the issues or challenges faced by human resource due to lack of equality and
diversity practices at workplace of M&S?
 What are the effective ways through which HR manager of M&S can easily solve issues
associated with lack of equality and diversity within an organisation?
Research aim
To identify impact of lack of equality and diversity at workplace for human resource
manger of company: A study on M&S
Research objective
 To develop basic knowledge about the equality and diversity at workplace of an
organisation.
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 To ascertain challenges faced by HR due to lack of diversity and equality practices at
workplace of M&S.
 To identifying the practices that can be implemented by HR manager in order to resolve
issues of equality and diversity.
Rationale of research
Main reason behind selecting this research or topic is to identify issues associated with
lack of diversity and equality practices at workplace and its impact on Human resource. It is an
effective and essential topic that is important at academic and personal level. At personal level,
this tropic research will support researcher by increasing its research skills that results in
completion of full project effectively. At academic level, this research support students by
increasing their knowledge about the importance of equality and diversity. Along with this, if
this research will be published will helps societies, individual or an organisation by increasing
their knowledge about the issues of lack of diversity and equality (Butterby and Collins, 2019).
The main reason behind selecting this research is to evaluate the issues that are related
with lack of equality and diversity at working area. As implementation of equality and diversity
at workplace is essential activity for business organization that directly support in increasing
employee’s efficiency level towards the company and its job roles as well. Along with this,
current research topic also provides vast information that help investigator and business
organization in increasing their understanding. With the help of this, company can easily
measure different practices that help them in resolving issues to manage equality within the
organization. Apart from this, it also allows investigator to effectively execute research activities
that directly contributes in improving the possibilities of attaining positive and reliable outcomes
at the end of the project. By conducting this research, it has been said that researcher will be able
to increases their academic knowledge related to the topic and help others in order to enhance
their understanding about the topic.
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CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW
Explain about the equality and diversity at workplace of an organisation.
According to Mayhew (2020), equality and diversity at workplace can be defined as equal
chance for everyone such as employees through diversity so that the employees can accomplish
their potential. The author supposed that the equality of entirely dependent upon acceptance of
diversity because it has a variety of benefits for the company and even for the employees.
According to the views of DeCenzo, Robbins and Verhulst, (2016), equality and diversity
both are broad aspects that play an important role in maintaining effective working environment.
Equality in a company makes sure that every individual gets equal opportunity for showcasing
his/her talent. There should be no discrimination or should be treated indifferently just because
of their characteristics. Whereas, diversity is accepting the differences between people or group
of people with a positive value and attitude. Both the factors are important in a company because
it helps an organisation in providing better services and facilities to its valuable customers.
It has also been identified that equality as well as equality diversity at workplace provide
with numerous benefits which moreover, assist company in embracing its profits and sales. An
increase in opportunity can be noticed when an organisation implement equality in terms of
hiring competent candidates. Every individual who wants to work love to be a part of a
corporation where every discrete person is equal. With the change in course of time, scenario of
workplace is also changing rapidly. People are more focussed on working in collaboration or as
teamwork (Barak, 2016). Thus, creating an environment where every individual from which ever
background, they belong if treated equally, this will moreover enhance collaboration.
For an organisation, maintaining brand reputation is very important. With the increase of
digital media, companies remain in competition and fierce to make its corporation “Best Places
to Work” lists that is provided by different magazines, news channels or websites. Therefore,
having an excellent workforce and culture of organisation helps company in maintaining positive
brand image amongst its customers. Therefore, it has been concluded that management team of
Marks & Spencer effectively implement Equality and diversity practices, makes people to work
together even they are from different backgrounds. It provides workers with free openings for
expressing their views and ideas related to a situation. Therefore, equality and diversity provide
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company with problem-solving and innovative employees also, collective approach of all these
increased productivities of an organisation (Bratton and Gold, 2017).
What are the issues or challenges faced by human resource due to lack of equality and diversity
practices at workplace of M&S?
According to the Renee (2019), Diversity in the surroundings promotes attractiveness,
recognize and teamwork. Companies that conquer certain variety problems frequently obtain
greater productivity, income and organization morale. Along with this, lack of diversity and
equality at workplace create major issue for HR by increasing employee turnover, lack of
employee engagement, poor moral etc. that results in poor business performance at marketplace.
As per the opinion of Paik (2015), when companies seek for equality and diversity, they
can face many issues or challenges. These challenges can be from internal issues which can rise
anytime for example: discrimination, harassment, etc., as well as external issues such as
economic crisis within the country etc., however, both the factors depend upon the nature of
business. Therefore, if a company wants to avoid such kinds of risks than it is important that they
have proper planning and preparations. To have a proper understanding of the challenges some
of the points are explained below:
Communication: This is one of the basic ways of getting involved or talking to each
another. If there is miscommunication with team members or people who are working together
than a high variance in employees’ performance can be seen. Therefore, while establishing
equality and diversity practice in an organisation communication emerges as a common problem.
Moreover, these differences can hamper the activities and productivity of less effective teams
result in low level of synergy (Munday, 2019). In order to solve such issues, it becomes
important for a company to have self-monitoring of things which needs to be look after. Along
with this, presence of mind of employees are also required so that calm nature can be maintain if
any issues like this arises
Age Ranges and Generation Gaps: In corporation that are big in sizes, age of staff
members can range from teenagers to senior citizens. However, sometimes this creates
generation gap because young employees might feel like not to listen to senior workers. Thus,
for companies they should work on bridging this gap in order to establish a better team. As a
result, with a combination of young talents and experienced thoughts goals and objectives can be
attained more easily (Vance and Paik, 2015).
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Resistance to Change: If a working group is assimilated with more diversity than it can
work as a barrier further can hamper momentum of culture of an organisation. There are some
people who are happy with the things that are going on and resist if some kind of flexibility or
evolutions are added because they don’t want to change their habits. Therefore, before
implementing any kind of alteration it is important that employer or superiors provide
appropriate details to its employees. In the present context of Marks & Spencer, it has been said
that managers provide flexibility to their staff members so that they can easily adopt change and
produce best and most effective outcome (Nachmias, Aravopoulou and Caven, 2019). What are
the effective ways through which HR manager of M&S can easily solve issues associated with
lack of equality and diversity within an organisation?
According to the Callister (2019), Equality act 2010 is a best practice for an organisation as
it will help them to protect their employees from any kind of discrimination at workplace. Under
the Equality Act 2010, employees have a obligation to their workers to protect them from any
form of harassment, discrimination and bullying in the place of job. However, we understand
that place of job discrimination continues to be a major situation - throughout all enterprise
sectors.
On the other hand Proctor, (2018), although company can face challenges while
implementing equality and diversity but there are some practices by applying which all these
issues can be resolved. However, doing this company can not only come out from problems but
also an increase in profits can also be seen. Some of the points are explained below that can be
implemented by HR managers are as follows”
Hiring: In order to build a diverse workplace, it is important that company hire talents
not only with great minds but also from diverse backgrounds. This will enable organisation with
in implanting equality and diversity. Besides this, unbiased hiring will break the glass of
favouritism and workplace will become more diverse (Jozwiak, 2019).
.
Encourage employees for working with diverse groups: On a regular basis, company
should shuffle team members so that they become habitual in working with other members as
well. This will help employees in understanding value of each other and also break down
preoccupied notions about any specific culture. By looking at the positive impact, this kind of
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action will increase knowledge and skills of an individual which can further be implement in
their work.(Berman, E. M. and et. Al., 2019)
Zero-Tolerance Policy: Company should make sure that their employees are safe while
doing their job in respective organisation. Generally, to have a hold on equality and diversity,
documentation is the best way. There are trends of calling an individual with slurs, calling with
nick names, discrimination, bullying etc., in the current research project, it has been identified
that Marks & Spencer have Zero-Tolerance Policy, including actions to be undertaken if any
rules and regulations are violated. All these norms and complaint policies should be told
previously to employees while hiring so that they can have an idea of where to report when such
kind of misconduct happens with them (Hatton, 2019).
.
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CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
Primary methods
Primary methods are generally used by researchers in order to collect first-hand and
accurate information from the respondents. Different primary methods include questionnaires,
surveys, field tests etc. Primary methods are both time as well as cost effective and help in
gathering data that is specific to a particular research. Primary methods usually involve directly
asking questions to the respondents and collecting desired data (Bark, Kragt and Robson, 2016).
Primary research methods enable the researcher to focus on specific issues of their research and
thus have a greater control on the way in which information is collected. Also, the information
that is collected is their own and can be kept with them. Also, the researcher can customize the
data collected by him as per the requirement of the research. The results that are presented by
analyzing information collected through these methods is accurate and can be relied upon by the
readers. Also, the process of data interpretation and analysis can be done more efficiently. For
primary methods to be effective, the research has to take care of everything including designing
of questionnaires and collecting replies from respondents.
Secondary methods
Secondary methods to collect information in a research include textbooks, online
websites, blogs, review articles, news articles etc. Secondary methods do not involve a lot of cost
as the information is available readily. The secondary methods are easy to access and also
involve low cost. The data or the information that is accessed by the researcher is not collected
by him but some other person (Kortz and van der Hoeven Kraft, 2016). These methods can help
the researcher in getting useful insights about the problem. This can further lead to the research
question being answered effectively. Secondary methods of research are more economical than
primary methods as the information regarding any problem can be achieved instantly. Secondary
information can also be obtained through various reports that are published on the government
websites. The researcher can summarize the data available on various sources in order to analyse
the same in his/her research. Lastly, newspapers, radio, journals, magazines etc. are some other
methods in which secondary data can be collected.
Quantitative Research
It can be defined as research wherein the data that is collected and analysed in presented
in the form of numbers, statistics, graphs and tables etc. It can be used to quantify a problem by
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generating numerical data and the methods to collect data in this kind of research are more
structured as compared to qualitative data (McNiff, 2016). The results that are obtained through
quantitative research are usually for a large size of sample. The research can use various tools in
order to collect data like questionnaires, graphs, computer software, telephone interviews, online
polls etc. This particular research is quantitative and the results are depicted in the form of tables
and graphs.
Qualitative Research
This kind of research can be defined as research that is primarily focuses on gathering
data through conversations and open-ended communication. The results that are obtained are not
presented in the form of tables or numbers. Instead the results explain about behaviour and
observations etc. The different ways in which a researcher can collect data for a qualitative
research are one-to-one interviews, focus groups, case studies, record keeping etc. Qualitative
research provides detail and depth in the particular topic of the research and creates openness by
encouraging respondents to expand their responses. It also provides an insight into content that
can be implemented for practical use. The sample size in a qualitative research is smaller as
compared to quantitative research. Lastly, qualitative research is an open-ended process wherein
the potential for bias in the data is eliminated.
Research Approach
Research approach can be defined as a plan that comprises of the various assumptions of
the different methods of data collection etc. There are two types of research approaches namely,
inductive as well as deductive research approaches. Deductive approach evaluates the validity of
assumptions whereas; inductive research approach deals with theories and observations that are
proposed at the end of a research process (Quinlan and et. al., 2019). For this particular research,
inductive research has been used by the researcher as t is majorly used in forecasting and
predicting.
Sampling
Sampling is the process in which pre-determined number of observations are taken from
a relatively larger population. The process of sampling depends on the type of analysis that has
to be performed. Sampling is of two types namely, probabilistic as well as non-probabilistic. For
the respective research, probabilistic sampling has been used. The process can help the
researcher in understanding the characteristics of a large population without investing in a lot of
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money. In a probabilistic sampling each observation in the sample will have an equal probability
of getting selected. Sampling is one of the most helpful components of the research as it is not
possible for the researcher to collect information from a large number of respondents, analyse it
and then present the results (Thomas, 2017). An organization can generate effective results by
prepare a sample and also, does not involve a lot of cost. Lastly, sampling ensures that accurate
results are obtained for the research and are reliable. The sample size selected for this research is
50 respondents; all these respondents are the staff members, stakeholders and customers of the
company.
Questionnaire
A questionnaire can be defined as an instrument that is used in a research and consists of
a serious of questions, both close as well as open ended in order to collect information from the
respondents. Questionnaires are a relatively quick, cheap and efficient way of obtaining
information in large amounts from a sample of people. The information that is collected from a
questionnaire is reliable, first-hand and accurate. Questionnaires come in handy when the
researcher wants to collect information from a large group of people about a particular topic. For
this research, a questionnaire has been used to collect information from the sample of people.
This is because they are easy to analyse and all the people in the sample respond to similar
questions. Other biggest advantages of questionnaires are that they are efficient, generate quick
results as well as can be compared easily.
Data collection methods: In order to collect data about the topic, there are two methods
which are primary and secondary. Within an investigation, both primary and secondary source of
data collection has been used by researcher. For gathering primary data about the issues faced by
HR due to equality and diversity, questionnaire has been used because it will support investigator
in collecting of reliable and valid data within limited time period. For collecting secondary data,
number of books, articles, publication research, and magazines sources were used for literature
review.
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