Addressing Diversity Problems in Marks & Spencer's Business Operations

This report examines the issue of workplace diversity within Marks & Spencer, a multinational retailer. It begins by identifying diversity as a significant problem, particularly concerning ineffective communication and potential discrimination due to employees' varied cultural backgrounds. The report analyzes the problem, diagnosing causes such as hiring from diverse backgrounds, geographical differences, and generation gaps. It then explores solutions like developing diversity policies, empowering staff through training, and avoiding unconscious prejudice. A detailed plan is developed, emphasizing diversity awareness training as a key solution, and the report outlines steps for implementation, resource allocation, and addressing constraints. The report concludes with an evaluation of the approach, considering potential alternative solutions to foster a more inclusive and productive work environment at Marks & Spencer.

Solve Problems in a Business
Environment

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
TASK 1............................................................................................................................................3
a) Identify a problem that exists within a business.....................................................................3
b) Analyse the business problem.................................................................................................4
c) Diagnose causes of the problem..............................................................................................4
d) Confirm with others that they understand the problem..........................................................5
e) Compare different solutions to the problem...........................................................................5
f) Agree upon a solution..............................................................................................................6
TASK 2............................................................................................................................................7
a) Develop a plan to solve the problem, taking into account any constraints.............................7
b) Explain why they have chosen their approach........................................................................7
c) Explain how they will know when the problem has been solved...........................................8
d) Allocate roles and responsibilities to support the plan...........................................................8
TASK 3............................................................................................................................................8
a) Carry out own actions as set out in the plan...........................................................................8
b) Review progress towards solving the business problem........................................................9
c) Make adjustments to the plan as necessary...........................................................................10
TASK 4..........................................................................................................................................11
a) Evaluate their approach to solving the business problem.....................................................11
b) Evaluate other approaches that may have been more productive.........................................12
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................12
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................13

INTRODUCTION
Business environment is characterised as the surroundings that contains internal and
external factors which impacts activities and functions of company. In today's competitive
market environment, businesses face various issues that hamper their performance (Alkhafaji and
Nelson, 2013). Various factors are exists within the market like technological, economical,
social, political etc. that impacts operations of an organisation in both positive as well as
negative manner. This report is based on Marks & Spencer which is British multinational
retailer that deals in home products, clothing and food products. The company was established in
year 1884 and its headquarters is located in Westminster, London, United Kingdom. This report
covers description of an issue that exist within business along with its analysis, causes, solutions
to problem. Apart from this, a plan is prepared in the report to solve the issue and justification for
selecting a particular approach. Moreover, roles and responsibilities are allocated to employees
and own responsibilities are carried out to support the plan. After that, review of progress and
necessary adjustments in plan are carry out. At last, evaluation of approach to solve business
issue and other approaches that may be more productive are defined in the report.
TASK 1
a) Identify a problem that exists within a business
There are many issues that an organisation face while running is business operations in
competitive business environment. These problems may exist within or outside the firm and
these requires to be considered on time in order to ensure the sustainability of company for long
term. Non- consideration of the issues may leads the entity towards low productivity and profits.
Whether an organisation is small or large, it have to deal with the challenges in more effective
manner. Marks & Spencer is an organisation of United Kingdom that deals in retail sector. It
offers food, clothing and home products to customers in most of the countries (Bøllingtoft,
2012). The company run its operations at many places and around 80,700 employees are working
in it with diverse cultural backgrounds. Due to this, firm is facing the issue of diversity at
workplace that leads it to ineffective communication and less productivity at workplace. It
sometimes also leads to discrimination at work place due to which a sense of dissatisfaction is
created among employees. People working in the organisation belongs from different places and
their culture, religion and language are also different. This makes it sometimes difficult for

employees to understand what other person wants to say. All this ultimately impacts the
operational performance of company in negative way (Botha, Kourie and Snyman, 2014).
b) Analyse the business problem
In context of business, diversity refers to the condition in which an organisation is having
people with diverse backgrounds. As Marks & Spencer is a large organisation and perform its
operations in many countries, large number of employees are employed by firm which are from
diverse backgrounds. This pose challenge of poor or ineffective communication at workplace in
front of organisation. As the people are from different cultures, their languages are different that
create hurdles for them in communicating with others and understanding what other people say.
In many situations, diversity issue arise at workplace that creates tension between employees.
This brings a communication gap between employees that hamper theirs as well as
organisational productivity. This also results in discrimination at workplace due to which a sense
of dissatisfaction is develop among employees. They becomes demotivate and takes less
participation in activities of company. This declines the productivity of both workforce and
organisation. When there are differences in communication and language, embracing diversity
becomes difficult for Marks & Spencer. This also results in lack of agreement among employees
and management which makes it difficult for company to running its business activities in an
effective and efficient way (Chiu, Tzeng and Li, 2013). All this impacts negatively to the
operational performance of organisation and results in the declining productivity of company.
c) Diagnose causes of the problem
There are many causes due to which diversity issue takes place within the organisation.
Some of the causes are mentioned below:
Hiring people from diverse backgrounds: Large organisations hire employees from
different places. This leads to bring differences in the culture and language of employees who are
from diverse backgrounds. Due to having people from different cultures, it creates the issue of
diversity at workplace and leads to ineffective communication among employees.
Geography: For maintaining production, firm use local available human resource to
fulfil the workforce requirement of organisation. It population of the place where firm is located
consist of diverse demographic, then firm develop workforce on the basis of that population.
This leads to bring diversity issue at workplace and brings communication gap among employees
(Draman and Edmondson, 2012).

Generation gap: It is also one of the cause that leads to issue of diversity at workplace. In
the large companies, more diversified age groups people are exist, from senior citizens to
teenagers. Due to this, social circles may be develop and some individuals may isolated from
team. This sometimes leads to disagreements among employees on how work and activities must
be done. It creates communication gap among workforce and hamper their performance that
negatively impacts organisational productivity (Dyllick and Muff, 2016).
d) Confirm with others that they understand the problem
Diversity at workplace is a serious issue that an organisation face in the present
competitive market environment. Firm requires to consider the issue and understand the key
causes behind arising the problem. In Marks & Spencer, for understating the issue, management
of company will conducts the meeting and discusses about the issue. They take opinions of other
members in the meeting for reaching to the effective solution to the problem. Employees are
also asked to share what problems they are facing due to having diverse cultural backgrounds.
An effective discussion on the topic helps in defining possible solutions to overcome the issue of
diversity at workplace. In the meeting, effective communication tools will be use in order to
ensure that all the information on the topic will be communicated in proper way. The suggestions
for resolving the problem will be taken from each member who is available in the meeting.
Employees are also asked to share their views on the issue and provide the possible solutions to
overcome that particular issue. Proper understanding of issue associated with diversity and its
causes will helps management in devising effective solutions to overcome it. Group meetings are
the effective way of gaining understanding about the topic and resolving it (Groebner and et. al.,
2013).
e) Compare different solutions to the problem
For overcoming the issue of diversity at workplace, there are range of solution that an
organisation can use. In Marks & Spencer, the issue of diversity takes place at workplace due to
which organisational communication becomes ineffective and impacts negatively to productivity
of company. Some of the potential solutions to overcome the problem are mentioned below:
Development of diversity policies: It is necessary for organisation to develop and
implement effective diversity policy within company as this helps in eliminating any kind of
discrimination from workplace and treating all the employees equally. The policy must be
formulate in such a way that ensures respectful cooperation and communication among

employees and permits representation of perspectives of all employees. By using effective
communication tools at workplace, organisation can ensure effective communication of policies
to all members of company (Gupta, 2013).
Empower staff: Firm can provide diversity awareness training to management team that
equips them to develop an inclusive work place crosswise backgrounds and generations.
Providing learning to employees on the way of developing a respectful culture within
organisation helps Marks & Spencer in reducing the issue of diversity at workplace. Bringing in
an outside support to render employees with useful tools to resolve issues of communication and
eliminate potential conflict of culture clash helps in resolving the issue.
Avoid Unconscious Prejudice: This is the another solution to resolve issue of diversity
from work place. Firm can bring in experts from outside to analyse the state of diversity at
workplace. This will help in determining the loopholes that could undermine inclusive culture of
company. Firm can also ensure that its hiring process is clear and transparent and the recruitment
team will not discriminate the candidate on any basis. This will help in promoting diversity in
Marks & Spencer.
f) Agree upon a solution
There are various solutions that an organisation can adopt to eliminate the issue of
diversity from workplace (Kim and Chung, 2014). Some of the solutions includes development
and implementation of diversity policies at workplace, empowering staff members by providing
them learning on diversity and avoiding unconscious prejudice by treating all the candidates
equally. All these solution will help Marks & Spencer in eliminating issue of diversity from
workplace. Among all the solutions, empowering staff members is the most appropriate solution
that can be used by organisation as this helps in motivating employees and aware them about
the issue of diversity. Providing them with diversity awareness training helps company in
promoting diversity at workplace. This will help in bridging the communication gap between
employees and leads towards high productivity. Apart from this, diversity training also helps in
removing discrimination from workplace that takes place due to diverse cultures, backgrounds,
religions, beliefs and gender of people. By effective training programme, employees gets
awareness regarding the benefits of working in team at workplace and they also learns to work
with coordination (Kolk, 2016). All this will help in improving productivity and performance of

not only employees, but of organisation also. Clear communication of training objective will
help in attaining them in more proper way (Mohrman and Lawler III, 2012).
TASK 2
a) Develop a plan to solve the problem, taking into account any constraints
For resolving the issues of diversity, it is requires by management of firm to get proper
understanding of issue by considering all the possible root causes due to which the issue take
place within organisation. After that, manger of Marks & Spencer requires develops a diversity
plan. The main purpose of this plan is to promote diversity among employees. For this, firm
requires to employ various strategies like developing a sense of belongingness among everyone,
use of appropriate leadership style, provide diversity awareness training, hire experts from
outside etc. After that, management communicates this plan to employees in proper way by using
various effective communication tools. Proper communication of this plan will assists in
attaining its goals on time. Manager will convey the benefits of having diversity at workplace to
employees and encourage them to work in team and share their views to team members in order
to promote diversity. Further, manager gathers all the resources that are required to implement
the plan in proper way (Ramadani, 2015). After this, all the obstacles or constraints are taken
into consideration by management such as non-participation of employees in training
programme, communication errors etc. and solutions to overcome these issues are determine. At
last, an action plan is created by management in which all the necessary steps that are taken to
resolve the diversity issue from workplace and proper evaluation is done to ensure that the plan
works well.
b) Explain why they have chosen their approach
The approach to providing diversity awareness training to employees is selected as this
helps attracting and retaining a quality employees within firm. This helps in developing effective
culture at workplace and creating positive working relationship among employees. Training
programme ensures greater productivity in team and maximises its performance. This approach
helps Marks & Spencer in promoting coordination and team working within firm that leads to
development of a healthy workplace culture. Training programme helps in improving motivation
level of employees and developing a sense of belongingness and satisfaction among them. The
productivity and performance of employees will also increases by this (Park and Allen, 2013). It

will leads to increase in participation of employees in activities of organisation and enables
them to work collectively towards attainment of goals and objectives of company.
c) Explain how they will know when the problem has been solved
After implementing the plan, it is necessary for management of Marks & Spencer to
ensure that the implemented plan works well. It can be determine by the improving productivity
and profitability of organisation. Positive environment at workplace, motivated and engaged
employees, better outcomes etc. are the areas that depicts that the problem has been solved. Firm
can compare the past and current performance in order to ensure that to what extent, performance
of employees will improve and how well they are performing towards attainment of objectives
of company. The another way to know that the problem has been resolved includes measuring
the profitability of company. Increased revenues of firm also determines that the employees of
company are highly motivated and works effectively to attain organisational goals (Rouhani,
Ghazanfari and Jafari, 2012).
d) Allocate roles and responsibilities to support the plan
For supporting the plan develop for resolving the issue of diversity from workplace,
various roles are responsibilities are allocated to different members of team. This is to ensure
that the plan is implemented in proper way. For providing awareness on diversity to employees,
it is the responsibility of management to hire an expert from outside. Human resource manager
of Marks & Spencer is responsible to communicate the information related to training to
employees, like the timing of training, the place where training is conducted etc. All these
informations are communicated by HR manager. Managers are responsible to formulate
appropriate strategies that helps in improving motivation of employees and develop sense of
belongingness among them. The other members of management are responsible to ensure that all
the activities set in plan are working well. The employees or staff members are given with the
responsibility to attend training programme. All these responsibilities are allocated to ensure
successful achievement of goals of training programme (Sung and Choi, 2012).
TASK 3
a) Carry out own actions as set out in the plan
The action plan for resolving the issue of diversity at workplace in Marks & Spencer is
mentioned below:

Goal 1 Action step
description
Department
responsible
Beginning
date
Finish date
The goal is to
aware people on
workplace
diversity
Providing effective
training programme.
Human Resource
Department
13/11/19 20/11/19
List of resources Adequate amount of
finance to conduct
training programme
Finance
department
Desired outcomes Attain workplace
diversity.
Human Resource
Goal 2 Action step
description
Department
responsible
Beginning
date
Finish date
The goal is to
reduce
communication
gap.
Conduct regular
meetings and group
activities.
Administration 15/11/19 15/12/19
List of resources Communication tools Administration
Desired outcomes Attain effective
communication at
workplace by bridging
the gap.
Administration
b) Review progress towards solving the business problem
Proper implementation of the above mentioned plan helps in resolving the business
problem in more effective way (Trkman, Budler and Groznik, 2015). Training programme on
diversity awareness provided to employees by human resource department of Marks & Spencer

will helps in promoting diversity at workplace. By this training programme, management
enables to resolve the problems in an effective way. The action plan for goal 2 also helps in
ensuring effective communication at workplace by bridging the communication gap. In this, use
of effective communication tools will proves to be very beneficial as by this, management will
enables to communicate all the information on topic in proper way that leads to clear
understanding of goals. However, it is necessary that if some loopholes exist in the plan then it
needs to be consider and remove in order to ensure effective attainment of goals and objectives
of company (Tseng and et. al., 2013).
c) Make adjustments to the plan as necessary
For successful implementation and attainment of goals and objectives of firm, i.e., to
resolve the issue of diversity, some necessary adjustments will be made in the above prepared
action plan (Renwick, Redman and Maguire, 2013). The improved plan which is the continuation
of above developed action plan is mentioned below:
Goal 1 Action step
description
Department
responsible
Beginning
date
Finish date
The goal is to
aware people on
workplace
diversity
Providing effective
training programme.
Along with this,
conduction of more
group activities will be
more beneficial as this
helps people in
interacting with each
other and understanding
their views. This will
leads to effective of
goal of company, i.e.,
workplace diversity.
Human Resource
Department
25/11/19 05/12/19
List of resources Adequate amount of
finance to conduct
Finance
department

training programme.
Desired outcomes Attain workplace
diversity.
Human Resource
Goal 2 Action step
description
Department
responsible
Beginning
date
Finish date
The goal is to
reduce
communication
gap.
Conduct regular
meetings and group
activities. Along with
this, for getting more
effective results,
empowering staff to
share their views is also
the best way to
improve their
communication.
Provide training on the
ways to improve
communication.
Administration 16/11/19 31/12/19
List of resources Communication tools Administration
Desired outcomes Attain effective
communication at
workplace by bridging
the gap.
Administration
The revised action plan developed above helps management of Marks & Spencer in
eliminating the issue of diversity and maintaining healthy culture at workplace. Apart from this,
the plan also helps in improving communication among employees that will support in
maintaining diverse workforce culture within organisation (Li and Liu, 2014).

TASK 4
a) Evaluate their approach to solving the business problem
In order to resolve the issue of diversity, the effective approach which will be taken into
consideration by firm is providing diversity training to workforce that helps in making them
aware about the benefits of having diverse workforce at work place (Botha, Kourie and Snyman,
2014). This training will provide to empower staff to share their ideas and views with each other
that will facilitates effective communication among them. Training promotes coordination and
collective working among workforce that will help in improving productivity of employees as
well as organisation. By the help of training, employees will learn to develop a respectful
culture within firm that will results in existence of good working environment.
b) Evaluate other approaches that may have been more productive
Apart from the training approach, some other approaches are also there that can be
employ by Marks & Spencer to reduce the issue of diversity from workplace. Avoid
Unconscious Prejudice and development of diversity policies and communicating them
appropriately among employees may also have been more productive for company as this will
helps in eliminating discrimination from workplace and maintaining healthy culture in
organisation. Hiring people without any discrimination ensures availability of skilled employees
who are having knowledge of diverse areas within company (Chiu, Tzeng and Li, 2013).
Training provides learning to employees that helps in work collectively within firm.
CONCLUSION
As per the above mentioned report, it has been concluded that the issue of diversity at
workplace pose a challenge in front of company to maintain diverse workforce within
organisation. Issue of diversity at workplace a leads to ineffective communication, conflicts and
reducing productivity of employees. The causes of diversity issue existing at workplace includes
generation gap, geography and hiring of people from diverse backgrounds. Consideration of root
cause of issue is very crucial for company as this helps in devising strategies to resolve issue in
an effective and efficient manner. The issue can be resolved by providing training to employees
on diversity awareness and formulating and executing appropriate policies within organisation.
Development of action plan will helps in reducing issue in systematic way and after reviewing
the plan, it is necessary to make necessary adjustments in plan if needed.