Talent Management Strategies at Asda: Acquisition and Retention

This research report analyzes the talent management strategies employed by Asda, a British supermarket chain, to acquire and retain a competent workforce. It begins by introducing the concept and importance of talent management, highlighting its role in attracting, motivating, and retaining high-quality employees to achieve long-term business objectives. The report then delves into the specific talent management strategies used by Asda, such as flexible working environments, employee engagement in decision-making, and online pre-selection processes. It also examines development programs like Stepping Stones and Stores of Learning. Furthermore, the report identifies challenges faced by Asda in implementing these strategies, including motivating employee passion and overcoming managerial resistance to new interests. The research methodology employed is primarily quantitative, utilizing a deductive approach and survey strategy. The report concludes with recommendations for Asda to enhance its talent management practices.

Research Project

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Most of the organisations represent their faith in human capital in terms of referring towards
the talent to develop belief that will be for their people to help the company to accomplish their
goals and objectives. Talent management is the systematic process to analyse the vacant job post,
hiring deserving candidates, developing skills to match the post and also retain workforce for the
longer period of time to achieve business objectives. In regard of this, number of strategies are
used by organisations to retain their workforce as it helps them in achieving their desired goals
and objectives. These strategies can move the talent management of company beyond essential
activities such as talent acquisition and performance management to have proper growth, and
inclusive talent system. The aim of this report is to analyse the effective talent management
strategies which are useful for companies to retain and attract number of candidates.

Contents
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY.............................................................................................................2
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................4
Background of the topic...............................................................................................................4
Background of the company........................................................................................................4
Rationale of the study..................................................................................................................4
Research aim................................................................................................................................5
Research Objectives.....................................................................................................................5
Research Questions......................................................................................................................5
LITERATURE REVIEW................................................................................................................5
Concept and importance of talent management...........................................................................5
Talent management strategies used by Asda to acquire and retain competent workforce within
the organization...........................................................................................................................6
Challenges faced by Asda while implementing talent management strategies at workplace......7
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY....................................................................................................7
DATA ANALYSIS.......................................................................................................................11
FINDINGS.....................................................................................................................................19
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................20
RECOMMENDATIONS...............................................................................................................21
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................22

INTRODUCTION
Background of the topic
The concept of talent management is related with the dedication of company in order to attract,
retain and effectively develop the best employees and candidates with the market. It leads to
encompass by diverse organisational strategies which are being designed to help company to
enhance the potential of their workforce. At the time of hiring and retaining workforce,
organisation need to know about the best talent to get success in the hyper competitive and
increased critical global economy (Bratton, 2020). For this, the need to hire, develop and retain
talented individuals but for this, companies need to be aware regarding the management of talent
as it is the critical resource to accomplish the best possible outcome. Talent management is the
critical process that leads to make sure that company must have the quality and quantity of
people in order to meet the current and future priorities of business. This process is undertaken as
the key aspect of the life cycle of employees considering the selection, development, succession
and performance management.
Background of the company
For this research, Asda is considered which is a British supermarket chain and headquarter
in Leeds, England. Company was founded in 1949 and then merged their retail business with
associated dairies company of Yorkshire. Company was expanded into the southern England
during 1970s and 1980s and then sold the acquisitions during the 1990s to concentrate on
supermarkets. Asda was the second largest supermarket chain in United Kingdom among 2003
and 2014 sold by the market share at which point it fell into the third place.
Rationale of the study
The main objective of conducting this research is to effectively explore the actions which
are taken by business organisation to effectively understand the significance of talent
management and related strategies within an organisation. It is useful for the manager of
company to enhance their skills and knowledge on the grounds of suitable topic and related area.
Besides from this, after carry out the project activities, organisation can effectively achieve and
analyse the impact of equality and diversity in the business organisation. With the help of this,
the researcher and organisation can achieve positive and accurate outcomes in their project

activities at the same time and also make sure that the overall project achieve success with
authentic information.
Research aim
“To identify the effective talent management strategies used by an organization to acquire
and retain competent workforce”. A study on Asda
Research Objectives
 To understand the concept and importance of talent management.
 To analyze the talent management strategies used by Asda to acquire and retain
competent workforce within the organization.
 To examine the challenges faced by Asda while implementing talent management
strategies at workplace.
Research Questions
 What is the concept and importance of talent management?
 What are the talent management strategies used by Asda to acquire and retain competent
workforce within the organization?
 What are the challenges faced by Asda while implementing talent management strategies
at workplace?
LITERATURE REVIEW
Concept and importance of talent management
According to the viewpoint of Momtazaian, (2020), Talent management is the process of
attracting, motivating, retaining high quality and developing skills in the employees to improve
their performance. The main purpose of talent management is to create a flexible environment
for the employees to attract them towards the organisation in order to achieve long-term business
objectives. The process involves identifying the suitable candidates for the vacant positions and
train them by developing their skills. It helps in maximizing the value of employees. The process
includes the following key steps: Planning: It is the first step in the process of Talent Management. It helps in identifying
the requirement of human capital and in developing the roles and description of the job. Attracting: The next step in this process is deciding whether the candidate requirement
should be filled from within the organisation or from external source.

 Selecting: The process of selecting involves the testing and checking of the candidate
through written test and interviews to examine the most suitable candidate for the profile. Developing: According to this process a candidate is trained for the organisation through
orientation programme, counselling, mentoring and enhancing their skills according to
the requirement of job profile. Retaining: An organisation to become successful it must retain its employees through
providing promotions, increments, growth opportunities, rewards and role in decision
making.
 Transitioning: The growth of individual employee plays a vital role in transformation
and evolution of an organisation.
To achieve organisation's goal a company, need to have a right amount of employees with right
skills to perform their job timely (Monteiro and et. al., 2020). Talent management is an essential
part of an organisation. Workforce planning is essential at ASDA for its growth and determining
the demand and supply of the organisation and to build a strategy to close the gap. It will help
ASDA to respond better to the recession. Employees are the largest asset for the efficient
working of ASDA and that is what makes it a successful supermarket chain.
Talent management strategies used by Asda to acquire and retain competent workforce within
the organization
According to the viewpoint of Saraswat, (2019), ASDA is a British supermarket chain that
is the largest employer. Companies believe that Employees are the most powerful brand
ambassadors for them. They are very clear about their hiring strategies that they hire great talents
and train them for skills. They provide a similar profile for their customers and colleague. They
consider their employees as their customers. ASDA has provided a flexible working environment
for its employees.
ASDA engaged their colleagues in decision making which made it more successful retailer
organisation. It has provided an encouraging environment for their colleagues that makes them
confident to make decision for the customers in the moment. ASDA have an engagement survey
quarterly which contains a number of questions (Dom and Ahmad, 2020). They also have
leadership indices which helps them to comparing the working of different managers of various
stores and what they are doing in their stores to stand out different from others.

They have their dashboards and KPIs to keep a track on the patterns of performance.
ASDA use online pre selection process for hiring suitable candidates and this process filters out
the less suitable candidates. The recruitment process starts approximately 20 days before the
opening of a new store. ASDA has a program called Stepping Stones that is a seven step
development program that helps the employees in developing technical and behavioural abilities
that are needed to become a departmental manager. The Stores of Learning programs of ASDA
provides technical and leadership training programs to their departmental mangers who are new
to business. ASDA monitors their employees regularly by keeping a record on how they are
completing their job, their punctuality, dedication, quality, attitude and motivation towards work.
Challenges faced by Asda while implementing talent management strategies at workplace
According to the viewpoint of Andre, (2015), Talent management is the systematic
attraction, identification, development and engagement of those individuals who are having
specific value to the organisation considering the view of their high potential for the future as
they are fulfilling business and critical roles. Some of the challenges which are faced by Asda are
discussed as:
 Asda, sometimes does not motivate passion of the workforce and most of the employees
want to work in the environment that suits to their values, attitudes and expectations.
Highly talented workforce believe that they are worth more than that they want to be
aligned with the organisation.
 The managers of Asda also sometimes become barrier to embrace the new interest
considering the changing nature, needs and behaviour of youth recruits. They also tend to
interact with the world with the help of effective technology considering their instinct.
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
Research methodology is basically a path through which investigator require to conduct the
whole study. In addition to this, it is the process that is used by researcher in order to collect as
well as evaluate data associated to the topic. Moreover, it shows the path by which investigator
develop the problem as well as objectives and present their results from the information obtained
during the study (Lepeley, 2020). For this, research onion framework is used that involve various
layers and is given below:

Research Philosophy: It is referred as the process of identifying, selecting and
interpreting the data which is required in order to collect data in an effective manner. It is
important for researcher to select an appropriate research philosophy as the overall result is
based on it. It is defined as the three are mainly two forms of research philosophies that is
positivism and interpretivism (Chawla, 2020) . As per the research topic, positivism research
philosophy is valuable and effective. One of the main reason to select this philosophy is it
help in achieving positive and valid results in less time as well as resources. Moreover, it
also assists researcher in getting more appropriate decision within real time situation.
Research Approach: It is defined as the process that will be following in researcher
with the objective to evaluate data about specific topic. The two forms of research approach
are deductive and inductive (Atiku and Fields, 2020) . For the present study, deductive
approach is used as it assists in evaluating data which is quantitative form. In addition to
this, it is analyzed that deductive approach is based on the facts due to which valid and
reliable conclusion is drawn.
Research Strategy: The main strategies of research are survey, case study, experiment
and so on. As per the research topic, survey is undertaken as an effective research strategy.
It helps researcher in collecting information which further assist in attaining valid and
reliable outcome. In addition to this, it also helps in gathering appropriate data from the
participants.
Research Choice: It is considered as one of the important form of research
methodology that is mainly associated with two types that is qualitative and quantitative. It
is analyzed that both these methods are effective but according to research title, quantitative
research choice is effective and useful (Nayak, 2020) . This help researcher to gain numerical
as well as reliable data in less cost and time. Apart from this, it is analyzed that using of
quantitative method is justifiable as it assists in collecting facts properly and systematically.
Sampling: It is defined as the process of selecting sample from the whole population by
two different methods which is probability and non-probability sampling. For the present
study, researcher make use of probability sampling method. One of the reason to choose
probability sampling method is it assist investigator to select large sample size in less time
frame. The 30 employees of Asda is selected as respondents for collecting information. The

reason of selecting employees as respondents is they have knowledge about ground
workings and can provide better information to researcher.
Research Instruments: There are diverse ways of the studies along with interview,
questionnaire, observation, modelling, awareness organization and plenty of others. All those are
important contraptions of the studies however for amassing information approximately the
importance of talent management in enhancement of organizational growth, questionnaire is a
critical device as it enables in gathering of number one and quantitative kind of information in
minimal time of period (Ramaprasad and et. al., 2020).
Data collection: There are essentially crucial techniques of information series that are
primary and secondary. Both are beneficial techniques for the research as it enables in attaining
of every goal in a successful manner. In order to accumulate primary information, questionnaire
is the best suited technique. For build-up secondary information, there are numerous ways
including journals, books etc.
Data analysis: It is referred to effective analysis of data because the manner to assess
quantitative and qualitative information with the aid of using studies analytical techniques. It
leads to examine the factors primarily based on quantitative facts and to assess it, frequency
distribution evaluation might be utilized by researcher (CHIMWENE, 2020).
Research Ethics: It is important for researcher to follow all the ethics and principles of
researcher as it assist in implementing activities in a systematic and proper manner . There are
various principles of ethics such as confidentiality, informed consent, anonymity and many more
(Kişi, 2021). Following of all these ethics help researcher in implementing activities without any
issues and discrepancies.
Questionnaire
Q1. Are you aware with the concept of talent management?
a) Yes
b) No
Q2. What is the importance of talent management in an organisation?
a) Increase in productivity
b) Retention of competent workforce
c) Development of brand image
d) Employee satisfaction

Q3. What is the influence of talent management on the productivity and performance of
employees in an organisation?
a) Positive influence
b) Negative influence
c) Neutral
Q4. As per your view point, what are strategies used by Asda to acquire and retain competent
workforce within the organization?
a) Training and development
b) Rewards and recognition
c) Offering impressive salaries
d) Allow participation in decision making
Q5. According to you, is above mentioned strategies assist Asda to attract and retain
employees for longer time period?
a) Yes
b) No
Q6. According to you, how does Asda identify talent at workplace?
a) By performance
b) By competencies
c) By results
d) By knowledge and capabilities
Q7. What are the Challenges faced by Asda while implementing talent management strategies
at workplace?
a) Increase in cost
b) High employee turnover ratio
c) Give engaging work
d) Lack of leadership
Q8. According to you, is it important for Asda to deal with the challenges of talent
management rapidly and effectively?
a) Yes
b) No
Q9. As per your view point, Does talent management assist Asda in improvement of its

productivity level?
a) Agree
b) Disagree
Q10. Provide any suggestions to Asda in attraction and retention of competent employees for
longer time in organisation.
DATA ANALYSIS
Theme 1: Concept of talent management
Q1. Are you aware with the concept of talent management? Frequency
a) Yes 24
b) No 6
Interpretation: From the above graph it is interpreted that out of total 30 respondents, 24
participants have knowledge about concept of talent management. In addition to this, the
remaining 6 participants have no knowledge about talent management concept. It is important for
company to make its employees aware about such concept so that they are able to retain and
manage talented employees in an effective manner.
Theme 2: Importance of talent management
Q2. What is the importance of talent management in an organisation? Frequency
a) Increase in productivity 8
b) Retention of competent workforce 7

c) Development of brand image 8
d) Employee satisfaction 7
Interpretation: By analysing the above graph, it is analysed that talent management plays
vital and help company to gain higher growth and success at marketplace. The 8 participants out
of total 30 respondents said that talent management help in increasing productivity due to which
the performance of company is improved. In addition to this, there is retention of competent
employees and is said by 7 participants. The other 8 participants said that there is development of
brand image due to talent management. The remaining 7 participants perceive that an
organisation is able to satisfy its employees in an effective manner due to talent management.
Theme 3: Impact of talent management on performance and productivity of staff members
Q3. What is the influence of talent management on the productivity and
performance of employees in an organisation?
Frequency
a) Positive influence 20
b) Negative influence 6
c) Neutral 4