HR Strategies at Sports Direct: Recruitment, Selection, Retention

This report examines the management practices at Sports Direct, focusing on recruitment, selection, and retention strategies for store managers and supervisors. It highlights the importance of staffing and HR functions, emphasizing recruitment, selection, training, development, promotions, and compensation. The report discusses the application of human relations theory and Herzberg's two-factor theory to improve employee relations and job satisfaction, ultimately enhancing retention. Additionally, it introduces a three-point plan—prepare, implement, and lead—to optimize the recruitment and retention processes. The analysis concludes that effective management practices, combined with the implementation of relevant theories and a structured plan, can address challenges and achieve organizational goals at Sports Direct. Desklib offers more resources for students seeking solved assignments and past papers.

Introduction to
Management
Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION ..........................................................................................................................3
Staffing & HR – Recruitment, selection and retention of store managers and supervisors........4

3 point plan.............................................................................................................................7
CONCLUSION ...............................................................................................................................9
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................10

INTRODUCTION
Management is the process of controlling or dealing with people or things. Management
is also administration that means controlling or checking or keeping a record of employees or
things or operations of a business organisation or any entity. It involves various activities like
planning, organising, staffing, coordinating and staffing of all activities within an institution,
business or non- business entities(Akerkar and Hong, 2020).In the present report, Sports Direct
company is taken into consideration. Sports direct is a company which is a Europe's biggest store
retailer. These managerial activities are followed or practised in these institutions for the
achievement of overall goals and objectives effectively and efficiently. It is very important for
every organisation to have professionals hired for its management activities.

MAIN BODY
Staffing & HR – Recruitment, selection and retention of store managers and supervisors
Staffing is basically the management practice that deals with the process of finding, evaluating
and selecting and then maintaining a operating relationship with existing and all new future
employees of an entity. It involves the basic step of fulfilling all available seats and roles with
right candidate inside an organisation. Staffing basically consists of many steps in its
management. This managerial activity consists of various different actions that need to be
followed for its working. These can be recruitment, selection, training, developing, promotions
and compensating of all existing and new employees(Averina, Avdeeva and Perevalova, 2018).
These managerial activities are a very important task for the HR team and its managers. HR is
basically responsible for all these tasks of recruiting, selecting and training and various other
human resourcing activities. Recruiting process involves process of finding and screening job
candidates for a particular job. Selection is that managerial activity that involves finding the right
candidate for a particular job position. This right candidate means that the person should possess
all skills and qualification for that particular job needed in that entity. Training is simply making
or developing skills in that selected employee for increasing efficiency and effectiveness in
working. When all these selected trained employees start performing well for organisation then
they become professionals in their fields (Colfer, Prabhu and Larson, 2021).It is important to
retain these employees within the entity for growth and development of that particular business
entity. This retention can be done with the help of promotions, incentives, rewards and many
other monetary benefits. These are given to those existing employees who are professionals of
their fields. Strategic planning, thought processing and various other thinking skills are required
for recruitment and retention of people in an organisation. These two are basic human resourcing
functions. For the growth in organisation, it is important to show talent and showcase one's skills
and abilities and these are also necessary for rewards and incentives. Recruiting and selecting
play a major role in retaining employees for entities. Sports Direct should issue pamphlets and
advertisements in newspapers, televisions and other social sites and can even take the help of
various internet sites and all for the recruitment process.
With reference to the problem related to recruitment, selection and retention there are
certain theories which can be implied at the organisational level of Sports Direct. At the

organisational level in order to make good relation with employees and to retain for longer
period of time it is very important that to implement human relations theory (Osman,
2018).These problems can only be solved through implementing theories into effective manner
at the organisational level. Human relation theory basically related to the needs and requirements
of individual behaviours of groups and individuals. It basically takes an interpersonal approach
to manage human beings and it also presents the organisation with formal and informal elements
(Lynch, 2022). There are certain elements in human relation theory which are necessary for the
employees of Sports Direct organisation. These elements basically include the focus on people
rather than focusing on economics or machines and the environment of organisation is also not
into the context of organised social manner.
For motivating people towards their work within the organisation of sports Direct it is
very important to have good human relations and motivation also depends on the team work as
well. It basically requires the cooperation and coordination of individuals due to which they can
easily retain for longer period of time within the organisation (Uzo, Shittu and Meru, 2018).
The relations among humans within the team also fulfils the organisational objectives and
individual aspect as well. Organisations and individuals basically desires efficiency through
achieving maximum results with minimum inputs. So this theory needs to be implemented at the
organisational level of Sports Direct so that employees can retain for longer period of time. This
is the theory which is majorly focused on making the good relationship with employees and
candidates who are coming for interview so that they feel positive vibes towards the environment
of the organisation and perform with their full potential within the organisation.
The implementation of this theory lead towards the greater management where
employees feel valued and they are more engaged in their work and invested in their employees
as well. Human relation theory also lead towards the boosted productivity because employees
have a very great commitment towards their organisation and when employees motivation goes
on the higher stake then their productivity also get enhanced(Waters, 2019). Through
implementation of this theory, the power of retention has also increased which means that
employees are more likely to stick towards their long haul. So the implementation of this theory
plays a very significant role in terms of the problem of Sports Direct organisation.

For retaining the employees for longer period of time at the organisational level of Sports
Direct, a theory of Herzberg can be implemented into positive manner. This is a theory which is
related to the satisfaction level of employees where within the organisation there are certain
factors within the work place which causes job satisfaction while a separate set of factors which
causes dissatisfaction and all of them act into independent manner(Loon and et.al., 2020). This is
a theory which is also known as the Motivation hygiene theory and dual factor theory. At the
organisational level of Sports Direct, the people job satisfaction level depends on the two factors
which includes factors of satisfaction and factors for dissatisfaction. There are certain factors
which considers under the category of motivators/ satisfiers which basically include recognition,
performance, job status, opportunities for growth and responsibility as well.
There are certain factors which are in the dissatisfied manner which basically include
secondary working conditions, salary, relationship with colleagues, relationship between
employees and supervisor and physical work place as well. It has been observed at the
organisational level that offering the salary of higher scale does not necessarily mean that
employees feel satisfied towards their job role. There are certain combinations of situations
where employees feel motivated(Patterson and et.al., 2018). It basically include high hygiene and
high motivation which is basically the ideal situation where employees feel motivated and barely
have any kind of complaints. There is high hygiene and low motivation situation is also there
where employees have very few complaints but they are not really motivated towards their work.
There is also one more condition where it is about low hygiene and high motivation where
employees are motivated and their jobs also seems challenging. So within this theory, to retain
employees for longer period of time within organisation of Sports Direct it is very important that
to have higher level of motivation and proper supporting working condition should be there.
With the implementation of these two theories it is easier two solve the problem of
recruitment, selection and retention as well so that Sports Direct can work accordingly for it.
These theories helpful in such a context that it provides a support system for the organisation to
recruit people into effective manner and hire the candidate which is eligible for the desired
position according to their qualification and experience as well. This has been supported by the
Human relations theory. Another theory which is helpful in terms of retaining the employees for
longer period of time due to which organisational efficiency of Sports Direct has increased into
positive framework. So in the overall manner, these two theories are helpful in terms f solving

the problems of recruitment, retention and selection as well. That's why its very important to
implement these theories into effective manner so that results can be achieved into the favour of
organisational growth and development as well.
3 point plan
Three point plan is prepare, implement and lead. When there is limited time for a task, we need
to focus and work more and it is necessary to keep a tracking record of all tasks. Three point plan
helps with that (Tahir., 2018). It consists of three tasks that are prepare, implement and lead.
Sports Direct should use this plan for more effective and efficient recruiting and retaining of
store managers and supervisors. This can be explained in the following way:
1. Prepare: In this step, Sports Direct should prepare for its plan to recruit candidates. It can
take help of advertising agencies, social sites and many job seeking profiles for letting
candidates in their profile (Ployhart, and Weekley., 2017). This is simply an easy task
from which candidates get to know about the job vacancies and then they can apply for
the position. Various strategies and different planning policies should be adopted for all
these activities. Sports Direct can also take help from various job agencies and
recruitment companies.
2. Implement: Having these points and tasks in mind, and after the preparation step, it is
easier to maintain a level of urgency for these posts that is supervisors and store
managers. In this implementation step, Sports Direct can implement and start working by
selecting the right candidate from all those candidates. It is the duty of HR manager and
team to implement all these activities. It is important for the HR team of Sports Direct to
supervise and take control of all these training, with a complete monitoring of what
methods and techniques should be used in this process.
3. Lead: With the completion of implementation step, the next step involves the leading
step. To follow up with this step, Sports Direct should start leading those selected
candidates. This lead can be taken up with the help of training and passing of knowledge
to these new candidates by the old or existing employees(Lin and Sanders., 2017).This
training will directly result in the efficiency and effectiveness of new employees and this
will lead to the achievement of Sports Direct goals of retaining employees. These
employees can be retained with the help of different incentives, rewards and benefits in

any form that is in monetary terms or kind. By keeping a check on competition in
industry, current environment, needs and basic amenities of its employees, future
perspectives of Sports Direct, the team should pay, increase or decrease in its values or
paying schemes.

CONCLUSION
It can be concluded from the above report that management is a very basic and important
task for every activity and is necessary in every business entity for performance of its functions
and operations. Managerial activities consists of various tasks and it is important for every team
to perform their respective. It is the responsibility of human resource manager and HR team to
perform the duties of recruiting, selecting and retaining employees in its organisation. With the
explanation of all the above theories and three point plan, it can be said that Sports Direct will be
able to address all its issues and problems soon and will be able to achieve its pre determined
goals and objectives.

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Akerkar, R. and Hong, M., 2020. Introduction to Emergency Management. In Big Data in
Emergency Management: Exploitation Techniques for Social and Mobile Data (pp. 1-
14). Springer, Cham.
Averina, T., Avdeeva, E. and Perevalova, O., 2018. Introduction of Management Innovations in
the Work of Municipal Organizations MATEC Web of Conferences 170.
Colfer, C.J.P., Prabhu, R. and Larson, A.M., 2021. Introduction to Chapter 4. In Adaptive
Collaborative Management in Forest Landscapes (pp. 86-86). Routledge.
Lin, C. H. and Sanders, K., 2017. HRM and innovation: a multi‐level organisational learning
perspective. Human Resource Management Journal, 27(2), pp.300-317.
Loon and et.al., 2020. Thriving in the new normal: The HR microfoundations of capabilities for
business model innovation. An integrated literature review. Journal of Management
Studies, 57(3), pp.698-726.
Lynch, M.E., 2022. Introduction to management. Clinical pain management: A practical guide,
pp.131-137.
Osman, K.T., 2018. Management of Soil Problems: An Introduction. In Management of Soil
Problems (pp. 1-14). Springer, Cham.
Patterson and et.al., 2018. 2018 Ottawa consensus statement: selection and recruitment to the
healthcare professions. Medical teacher, 40(11), pp.1091-1101.
Ployhart, R. E. and Weekley, J. A., 2017. Strategy, selection, and sustained competitive
advantage. In Handbook of employee selection (pp. 115-133). Routledge.
Tahir, R., 2018. Expanding horizons and expatriate adjustment: Perceptions of Western
expatriate managers in multinational companies in the United Arab Emirates. Cross
Cultural & Strategic Management.
Uzo, U., Shittu, O. and Meru, A.K., 2018. Introduction: Indigenous management practices in
Africa. In Indigenous Management Practices in Africa. Emerald Publishing Limited.
Waters, D., 2019. Supply chain management: An introduction to logistics. Bloomsbury
Publishing.