QAB020C414S: Introduction to Management Report on Sports Direct

This report analyzes Sports Direct's management practices, addressing key issues such as human resource challenges, including attracting and retaining talent, and the gender pay gap. It examines the company's work culture, focusing on values, stakeholder communication, and the impact of negative employee feedback, while also applying Quinn's competing values framework. The report further investigates Sports Direct's corporate social responsibility (CSR) and sustainability performance, including ethical concerns like child labor. Finally, it addresses problems related to poor customer service, proposing solutions such as staff training, performance benchmarking, and improved store operations. The report concludes with recommendations for improvement across these critical areas.

Introduction to
Management (Level
04)

Contents
INTRODUCTION.......................................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY..............................................................................................................................................3
Problem 1................................................................................................................................................3
Problem 2................................................................................................................................................4
Problem 3................................................................................................................................................6
Problem 4................................................................................................................................................7
CONCLUSION...........................................................................................................................................8
REFERENCES............................................................................................................................................9

INTRODUCTION
The business is the entity which is involved in the process of carrying on the occupation,
profession or trading of the goods or services. It is important to manage the business so that it
can be managed in an appropriate manner. Management can be referred to as the planning,
organizing, motivating, leading, decision making and controlling the financial, human resource,
physical, information resources of the company in order to reach the pre- determined goal in an
efficient and effective manner. The managers are required to carry out their managerial functions
and these activities and functions are applied to all the levels of the management and to all kinds
of activities and companies which are to be managed. The main role of management is to
identify the specialized group of people who are required to direct the activities and efforts og
other people for the common aims (Daft, 2021). The organization chosen is Sports Direct, a retail
sportswear and fashion company which was founded in the year 1982 and is headquartered in
United Kingdom. This report shall deal with four problems, the first is relating to staffing and
human resource, second relates to work culture in business, third is meeting the sustainability
standards and the stakeholders mapping and last is poor quality of customer service in their
stores.
MAIN BODY
Problem 1
Issue 1 Human resource and Recruitment practices
As the company Sports Direct is facing problems relating to retaining and attracting the
workforce, the organization must get involved in many Human resource practices which can help
it in overcoming the following challenges-
 Attracting new talent managers- As the organization is facing issue to bring new talent,
it can use the recruitment approach such as advertisement on digital mediums such social
media and traditional mediums such as newspaper and radio so that it can attract large
audience in short span of time. This practice of recruitment will help the sports Direct to

attract new talents and will also ensure cost effective approach is taken in order to
minimize expenses.
 Offer suitable rewards and incentives- In order to motivate the employees, the Sports
Direct must get involved in reward management so that it can offer incentives to the
existing employees so that they can effectively contribute to the organizational goals and
objectives (Deepak and Jeyakumar, 2019).
 Retain mangers for beyond one year of employment- In order to ensure retention of the
employees, the company Sports Direct must get involve in internal approach of
recruitment such as promotion so that the managers are motivated to work beyond one
year and this will help in ensuring them that they are valued so that they are motivated to
give their best. Moreover, Sports Direct can also initiate training programs for the
managers so that they are trained to become efficient and their promotion shall also be
justified.
Issue 2 Gender pay gap
As Sports Direct is facing issue relating to gender pay gap as women are earning median
bonus pay 48.3% lower than men. The organization must ensure that it comply with the
provisions of the Equality Act so that there is fair and equal opportunity being given to all and
no person is discriminated against the protective characteristics such as sex, disability, age,
marriage, etc. As women in Sports Direct are facing gender pay gap in median bonus pay, this
practice must be eliminated by the company and transparency in pay must be increased. There
must also be equal and fair opportunity to both men and women and their hourly pay must also
be based on their work so that there is equality in their pay. The biasness in this must be closed
so that both feel satisfied and happy with their work. This will also help in retention of the
talented workforce. The company must arrange training programs for both men and women so
that both can become efficient in their work (Delery and Roumpi, 2017).
Problem 2
Issue 1 enhancing work culture
 The first value of Sports Direct is that it offers dynamic range of iconic brand to the
customers by aspiring to become international leader in sports, luxury apparel and
lifestyle. In order to meet this value, the organization must work to make its work culture
customer centric so that each employee can focus on the needs and wants of customers
and contribute in achieving it through their offering.

 The second value is that they value their stakeholders such as employees, customers,
shareholders, brand partners, etc. They can create the work culture in the workplace by
ensuring sufficient and clear communication between all the stakeholders so that each
feel valued. The clear communication can be ensured by way of participative leadership
style where each employee has right to put its opinion.
 The next value is to treat people with respect and dignity and offer customers with
innovative retail experience and also delivering the value to shareholder while adopting
the principles of accounting which are simple and consistent. This can be achieved that
creating healthy and positive environment by providing requisite training to all
employees so that they feel valued and respected (Guest, 2017).
Issue 2- Quinn’s competing values framework
This model offers four types of management model which helps in increasing the
effectiveness of the company. Each model is opposite of each other. These are discussed below-
 Clan culture- This management model is focused on the people, cooperation and
teamwork as it involves internal orientation. It believes in supporting each other so that
together respond to world.
 Adhocracy culture- It focuses on change, innovation, entrepreneurship and growth. They
are believed to be fast paced and are focused to take risk.
 Hierarchy culture- They are focused on control and are inward looking. They value
process, efficiency, control, quality and smooth.
 Market- they are outward looking and are focused on the control and stability. The
market organization is the outcome and the action driven which are focused on wining
and competing the market (Minnema and et. al., 2018.).
Sports Direct must use the clan culture so that they can work with collaboration and are glued
together for the desired goals. This management model will help in building the healthy work
culture by clear communication among and all and the team work.
Issue 3- Negative comment by staff

As the company Sports Direct are facing huge problem in their work culture which is also
reflected through the negative comment posted by the staff. One of the employee have
commented on the rude management as there is no team work and there is poor management.
This can be improved by ensuring that there is participative management style being adopted by
company so that each team can work collaboratively and there is clear line of communication.
This management style will help in managing the activities of business timely.
Another management practice which the company can use is to engage the staff in
training programs so that they can become efficient in their working. This will also help in
increasing the employee productivity which will contribute to the health culture (Gerke,
Woratschek and Dickson, 2020). One of the comment from the staff was that they are treated
unfairly at the workplace which lowers their morale to give their best as they are not happy with
working with Sports Direct. So company can initiate to comply with Equality Act and promote
equal opportunity for all so that the talent is identified in the company and it can move forward
towards success.
Problem 3
Issue 1- Improvement in CSR and sustainability performance of company
The key areas of CSR framework for Sports Direct include health and safety,
environment, people, customers and community. The stakeholder mapping technique is referred
to as the process and tool which is used to categorize and clarify the stakeholders by drawing
pictures of the stakeholder group, their interest, power they possess and whether they represent
the supporting factors for company. As the company is being accused of ‘Greenwash’, it is
fooling the customers about its CSR initiative.
The organization must get engaged in taking initiative to produce such products which
are environmental friendly and must get the aim to have optimum utilization of the resources
with minimum wastage. It must take involvement of all people or staff so that their corporate
social responsibility goals are achieved. The company must reinvest its economic development
so that it can contribute to the society at large (Franco and et. al., 2020).
Issue 2- Child labor

It is the ethical duty of the company in regards to the sustainability. In order to prevent
recruitment of child in the production of company’s product and to prevent child labor. The
Sports Direct must initiate programs which can create awareness regarding prohibition of child
labor and must take steps if any child is recruited in the production. . The company must review
its legislation relating to child labor and must identify if there is any hazardous activity being
carried on in the company. It must take strict action if any child is being recruited in the
organization (Huang, Luo and Wang, 2019).
.
Problem 4
Issue 1- Poor customer service
As Sport Direct is facing issues relating to poor customer service, the Regional manager
must ensure that there is proper training being given to the staff as to how to communicate wth
the customers and how to maintain proper stock in the stores. The training will help improving
the performance of the staff so that customer needs are fulfilled.
In order to measure and test the service quality in the stores, the company can set the
internal or performance benchmarking so that the actual service quality is monitored. In
performance benchmarking, Sports Direct can set the standard of performance to which every
staff has to reach so that proper service quality is maintained and also the internal benchmarking
will help in comparing the performance of each staff with other so that the best one can be
rewarded. This will work as motivation for all (Wang, Hsieh and Sarkis, 2018).
Issue 2- Weak store operations procedure
The contingency plan is the course of action which is designed in order to help the
company to respond to the significant future event which may or may not occur. The Sports
Direct must prepare the contingency plan which must have performance review of all the staff so
that they can effectively contribute in the good service quality. Moreover, it must determine
some standards which are required for the quality management system together with resources
required, risk and opportunities and implement the change which is required to ensure that
service quality is maintained.

The mechanism must be set which shall deal with the complaints of customers and
another mechanism must be their which will deal with purchase queries so that customers feel
valued and can get satisfactorily service. The customer service team must recruited which will
handle these areas and the other staff must be given training as to how to communicate with the
customers in stores so that they can be trained to help the customers happily. This will help in
enhancing the customer service and their satisfaction (Brockhaus and et. al., 2017).
CONCLUSION
It is concluded from the above report that management plays an important role to manage
the activities of business which involves managerial functions such as planning, organizing,
staffing, directing and controlling. The sports Direct Company is facing huge problem relating to
customer service and retention of talented staff. So the company can ensure staff retention and
attract talented managers by many recruitment practices such as internal and external
approaches. The work culture of company can be improved by ensuring healthy and positive
environment which can be created when there is clear communication among all and
participative management style is adopted. The company must take some CSR initiatives so that
it can achieve the CSR goals. At last it is concluded that poor customer service in organization
can be improved by providing proper training to all staff so that they can improve the
performance of store.

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Brockhaus, S., and et. a., 2017. Please Clap! How customer service quality perception affects the
authenticity of sustainability initiatives. Journal of Marketing Theory and Practice. 25(4).
pp.396-420.
Daft, R.L., 2021. Management. Cengage Learning.
Deepak, R.K.A. and Jeyakumar, S., 2019. Marketing management. Educreation Publishing.
Delery, J.E. and Roumpi, D., 2017. Strategic human resource management, human capital and
competitive advantage: is the field going in circles?. Human Resource Management
Journal. 27(1). pp.1-21.
Franco, S., and et. al., 2020. Are you good enough? CSR, quality management and corporate
financial performance in the hospitality industry. International Journal of Hospitality
Management. 88. p.102395.
Gerke, A., Woratschek, H. and Dickson, G., 2020. The sport cluster concept as middle-range
theory for the sport value framework. Sport Management Review. 23(2). pp.200-214.
Guest, D.E., 2017. Human resource management and employee well‐being: Towards a new
analytic framework. Human resource management journal. 27(1). pp.22-38.
Huang, Z., Luo, Y. and Wang, D., 2019. Online customer service quality of online shopping:
evidence from Dangdang. com. Cluster Computing. 22(6). pp.15285-15293.
Minnema, A., and et. al., 2018. Managing product returns within the customer value framework.
In Customer engagement marketing (pp. 95-118). Palgrave Macmillan, Cham.
Wang, Z., Hsieh, T.S. and Sarkis, J., 2018. CSR performance and the readability of CSR reports:
Too good to be true?. Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management. 25(1).
pp.66-79.