Investigating Gender Pay Gap in the Workplace: A Tesco Equality Study

This report investigates the gender pay gap within Tesco, a major UK retail company, examining equality and diversity in the workplace. It begins with an introduction to the concept of equality and diversity, highlighting the significance of addressing the gender pay gap. The report outlines the project's aims, objectives, research questions, and a project management plan, including a work breakdown structure and Gantt chart. It then presents findings from both primary and secondary research, including a literature review on the gender pay gap, its impact on business performance, and challenges in creating an inclusive work culture. The research methodology, including interpretivism and descriptive design, is explained. Data analysis is conducted, and findings are presented using appropriate tools and techniques. The report concludes with recommendations for minimizing the gender pay gap at Tesco and a reflection on the learning process. This report is a valuable resource for students studying leadership management and related fields, offering insights into workplace equality and practical strategies for improvement.

EQUALITY AND
DIVERSITY IN THE
WORKPLACE

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
Background.................................................................................................................................1
LO 1.................................................................................................................................................1
P 1. Devising aim and objectives of the project..........................................................................1
P 2. Produce a project management plan...................................................................................2
P 3. Produce a WBS and Gantt chart.........................................................................................4
LO 2.................................................................................................................................................6
P 4. Small scale research including primary and secondary methods.........................................6
LO 3.................................................................................................................................................9
P 5. Present finding and data using appropriate tools and techniques........................................9
P 6. Recommendation as outcomes of data analysis and findings ...........................................19
LO 4...............................................................................................................................................21
P 7. Reflection on own learning and performance....................................................................21
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................21
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................23
APPENDIX....................................................................................................................................24

TOPIC: “ Gender pay gap is the current issue of equality and diversity in the workplace: A
study on Tesco”.
INTRODUCTION
Background
Equality and diversity is considered to be the effective strategy which helps in promoting
equal opportunity to all individuals. This helps each employee of the company to create an
effective positive culture which is free from discrimination, biasses and prejudice. There are
many companies who faces the issue of gender pay gap and as a result, it affect the overall
working environment of the company in negative way. Thus, gender pay gap is the difference
between remuneration for men and women who are working within the company where women
are generally paid less than men. This study will produce a project management plan with
appropriate Gantt chart. It will also carry out appropriate research methodology which helps in
collecting relevant information related with the research topic. Furthermore, data analysis and
interpretation is carried out through questionnaire in order to meet aim and objectives of the
research (Brown, 2017) Lastly, it will also include appropriate recommendation and reflection.
The chosen company for this report is Tesco which is a top multinational retail company
in UK and provides range of clothes, furniture, home accessories to their customers at reasonable
rates. Firm also operates at more than 11 countries with thousand of stores, which clearly reflect
that company has more than 4 lac employees. The company also faces an issue of gender pay gap
and that is why, through the research, company implement strategies to reduce the issue up to
some extent.
LO 1
P 1. Devising aim and objectives of the project.
Aim and objectives
Aim
“To investigate the existence of gender pay gap in the context of retail industry: A study
on Tesco.”
Research objectives
 To determine the importance of equality and diversity.
 To identify the impact of gender pay gap upon business performance.
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 To determine the challenges faced by company to create inclusive work culture for
employees.
 To recommend different strategies in order to minimize the gender pay gap in Tesco.
Research questions
 What is the importance of equality and diversity?
 What are the positive and negative impact of gender pay gap upon business
performance?
 What are the challenges faced by company to create inclusive work culture for
employees?
 What are effective recommendation strategies to minimize the gender pay gap in Tesco?
Problem statement: This research study will highlight on investigating the existence of gender
pay gap in the context of retail industry. This study helps in critically evaluating the various
problem faced by the employees due to gender discrimination. This study is based on the gender
pay gap theory which helps in determining the psychology behind the wage gap between men
and women. The theory associated with the gender pay gap helps in analysing the factors which
in turn results in gender pay gap and also find recommendable strategies in order to minimize the
gender pay gap in company.
P 2. Produce a project management plan
Project management plan (PMP) is an effective strategy which is used to evaluate every
phase of the particular project (Mello, 2019). PMP includes time, cost, scope, quality, resources,
risk, communication, issues, schedule, etc. The key stages of Project management plan mainly
consists of project initiation, project planning, project execution, project monitoring, project
controlling and project closure.
The major advantage of PMP is that it helps in planning and proper execution of the plan.
It helps in defining the project in depth and helps in establishing boundaries in order to achieve
desired results. PMP is important because it helps in guiding various stakeholders of the
company and is beneficial in proper execution of the project plan.
Scope: The scope of the study is very wide as it helps in gaining wider perspective on the
equality and diversity within the workplace (Moreno and et.al., 2016). It also helps in
demonstrating the impact of discrimination and prejudice within the workplace.
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Time: The project team will take around 12 weeks to complete the particular project.
This helps in controlling the time spent on each activity.
Cost: This helps in estimating, evaluating, allocating, funding and controlling the cost of
the project. The estimated cost to carry out the particular project is £1000.
Quality: This helps in determining the acceptable level of quality by mitigating with
particular standards and policies. The researcher will cite the data and use valid references. The
team will also take feedback from the tutor which in turn helps in maintaining effective quality
of work.
Communication: This is considered to be a systematic tool which helps in
communicating with various team members with the help of questionnaire, email, telephone,
message, video conferencing, voice call, etc.
Risk: This is considered to be as an uncertain event which might hamper the performance
of the business. There are several risks associated with the project which mainly includes time
boundedness, limited resources, limited finance, etc. analysing risk helps team members in
developing plans and address the issue.
Resources: There are several resources which is required in order to carry out all the
project task in a systematic and efficient manner. Resources required to carry out the study are
human resources, financial resources, equipment, stationary, facilities, etc.
Milestone schedule
Milestone Due date Justification
Identification of aim and
objectives
11/12/2019 The team will formulate aim
and objectives and complete in
2 days before in order to take
feedback from tutor and make
necessary changes.
Research methodology 05/01/2020 This will be completed 5 days
before in order to evaluate if
the data collected is valid and
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relevant.
Data analysis 28/01/2020 Data collected will be
interpreted, analysed and
completed 6 days earlier in
order to take feedback from the
tutor and make relevant
changes.
P 3. Produce a WBS and Gantt chart.
Gantt chart
s. no. Task Name Duration Start Finish Predecessors
1 Selection of topic 5 days Thu 11/28/19 Wed 12/4/19
2 Developing research aim and
objectives 7 days Thu 12/5/19 Fri 12/13/19 1
3 brief plan development 5 days Mon
12/16/19 Fri 12/20/19 1,2
4 Research methods selection 15 days Mon
12/23/19 Fri 1/10/20 3
5 Preparing questionnaire 10 days Mon 1/13/20 Fri 1/24/20 4
6 Sending questionnaire for data
collection 8 days Mon
12/23/19 Wed 1/1/20 3
7 Recording data set in a
structured format 9 days Thu 1/2/20 Tue 1/14/20 6
8 Interpreting gathered data set 15 days Wed 1/15/20 Tue 2/4/20 7
9 Concluding findings and
recommending solutions 12 days Wed 2/5/20 Thu 2/20/20 8
10 Taking feedback 4 days Fri 2/21/20 Wed 2/26/20 9
11 Doing changes as per the
feedback provided 2 days Thu 2/27/20 Fri 2/28/20 10
12 Final submission 1 day Mon 3/2/20 Mon 3/2/20 11
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Work breakdown structure
It is a project deliverable which tends to focus on organizing the hierarchical
decomposition of work into manageable actions.
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LO 2
P 4. Small scale research including primary and secondary methods
Secondary Research: Literature Review
Theme 1: “ Gender Pay Gap”
Gender pay gap is the average difference in the wages and remuneration of man and
women in the organization. O'Neill (2019) explains that Women are the gender which is always
considered as a gender which is paid less as compare to the men. At the same time author explain
that providing the equal wages to all the gender in the organization always help the organization
in promoting the good name of the company in the market.
“Impact of gender pay gap upon business performance”
Gender pay gap is the difference between the remuneration for the men and the female in
the organization. Gender pay gap used to create the variety of the factor in the organization
which generally used to impact the business. Guerra-Santin and Tweed (2015) has a opinion that
discrimination and uncertainty are the two thing which generally occur in the workplace due to
the gender pay gap at the workplace. As women in the workplace always desire for the same
amount of the pay for the services which they are rendering in the organization. This eventually
affects has the negative impact on the working environment of the organization.
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Mello (2019) highlights the fact that the women used to have better mind planning skills.
This skill includes the patience and observation skill. This eventually creates the situation of the
uncertainty among the employee in the organization. At the other end Meyers, Gamst and
Guarino, (2016) has a opinion that Gender pay gap also used to lower down the confidence level
and the motivation level of the women employee in the organization. As all the employee in the
organization used to work for earning the good amount of the wages but the activities like
gender pay gap used to have the very bad impact on the morale of the women employee which
generally used to impact the confidence and morale of the business.
Theme 3: “Challenges faced by company to create inclusive work culture for employees”
Inclusive culture is the culture in the organization where there is a sort of respect, equity
and positive recognition of different culture. All the organization used to make the variety of the
efforts to introduce the inclusive working culture in the organization but used to face the variety
of the issue in the same. Moreno and et.al., (2016) highlights that the communication issue is
one of the common issue which is faced as different department in the organization always find it
difficult to understand the other department in the organization. Manetti and et.al (2015)
highlights that the cultural difference is the another issue which is faced by the organization at
the time of implementing the inclusive working culture as in the organization all the employee
used to belong to different culture and has different sort of the preference in the organization.
Research Methodology
Research methodology is a technique that identifies and analyse the respective research
based topic.
Research Philosophy:-
It is the way of gathering and analysing the data with respect to the phenomenon. There
are two types of research philosophy that is Positivism and interpretivism. In Positivism the
collected data is quantitative in nature that is, data collection is done with the help of survey,
structured questionnaires etc (Saunders And et.al., 2015). On the other side in interpretivism, the
qualitative data is been collected with the help of unstructured interviews, by observation etc. For
the present study, The interpretivism research philosophy was used as data collected was
qualitative in nature and through this, researcher may easily attain the aim i.e. To investigate the
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existence of gender pay gap in the context of retail industry and also conduct the research in
more precise manner.
Research design:-
It is a technique that helps the researcher to have different components of research
altogether into a logical form with the help of which research based problems can be handled
efficiently. There are two types of research design that is descriptive and exploratory. In
Exploratory research, different online survey where open ended questions are asked by the
researcher. On the other side, descriptive research is quantitative in nature and bulk of online
surveys are conducted and these are usually structured and preplanned in design. For the present
study, researcher used descriptive design in order to identify the opinion and behaviour of people
and also attain the aim and answer the research question as well (Meyers, Gamst and Guarino,
2016).
Research Approach:-
It is a plan having different steps and assumptions with respective to data collection and
its analyses. There are two types of research approach that is inductive and deductive. In
deductive research, a set of hypotheses is been formed that will be accepted and rejected during
the research and in inductive no hypotheses is formulated as aim and objectives are required to
achieve. For the present research, inductive approach is been used as no hypotheses was
formulated and the respective aim and objectives were achieved, in order to present the research
in more precise manner.
Data collection:-
It is a process with the help of which important information from relevant sources is been
calculated for finding the solutions of different problems and evaluating the outcomes with
respect to the research. There are two methods to collect the data that is primary and secondary
method. For the present study, data is collected with the help of primary method that is the help
of questionnaires and for secondary data collection methods, researcher uses different books and
journals in order to determine that gender gap is the issue of equality and diversity in the
working area (Guerra-Santin and Tweed, 2015).
Sampling:-
It is the group of people or items from a large population that is taken a sample for
measurement. There are two types of methods for sampling that is random and purposive
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sampling. For the present report, random sampling method was used where 20 employees of
Tesco were selected that helps to identify their view point related to gender pay gap.
Data analysis:-
It is a process of analysing the data that is collected by observing the samples and there
are various analytical and statistical tools that are been used for the same. For the present report,
researcher chooses thematic data analysis in which different graphs and data are presented that
helps to evaluated the data given by the working employees of Tesco and accordingly, analysed
whether equality and diversity is there in its work culture (Quinlan and et.al., 2019).
Ethical consideration:-
There are some values that the researcher have to follow in order to conduct the research
ethically. Researcher has to talk with the managers of Tesco and have to take permission in order
to conduct the research and asking questions from the working employees. It is also the
responsibility of the researcher, not to disclose the data and keep it safe.
LO 3
P 5. Present finding and data using appropriate tools and techniques
Theme 1: Maximum number of employees have been working for 12 to 24 years in the
company.
PARTICULARS NUMBER OF
RESPONDENTS
% OF RESPONDENTS
0 to 6 years 3 15%
6 to 12 years 4 20%
12 to 24 years 8 40%
More than 24 years 5 25%
TOTAL 20 100%
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15.00%
20.00%
40.00%
25.00%
0 to 6 years
6 to 12 years
12 to 24 years
More than 24 years
Interpretation: From the above conducted research from 20 employees of the Tesco
related with equality and diversity within workplace. It has been analysed that out of the total
pool of 20 employees, 13 employees are working in the organization from more than 12 year in
the organization. So, it can be said that there is the employee in the organization which will
understand the different policy or the change which will be brought in the organization. As this
employee has built a good trust with the company. Specifically, out of the total pool of 20
employee 3 employee are having 0-6-year experience, 4 are having 6-12 year, 8 are having 12-24
and 5 are having more than 24 year.
Theme 2: Highly agreed, equality and diversity within the workplace is important for higher
performance and productivity.
PARTICULARS NUMBER OF
RESPONDENTS
% OF RESPONDENTS
Agreed 4 20%
Highly agreed 6 30%
Disagreed 3 15%
Highly disagreed 2 10%
Neutral 5 25%
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