Retail Talent Management Challenges: A John Lewis Partnership Analysis

This report examines the challenges of talent management in the retail industry, specifically focusing on the John Lewis Partnership (JLP) in the UK. The study aims to understand the impact of talent management on employee retention within JLP, evaluating the challenges faced and proposing recomm...Read More

MANAGING A
SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS
PROJECT

TABLE OF CONTENTS
Topic................................................................................................................................................3
Introduction......................................................................................................................................3
Research methodology.....................................................................................................................4
Risk Register....................................................................................................................................5
Time frame for project.....................................................................................................................6
References........................................................................................................................................8
APPENDIX......................................................................................................................................9

Topic
To study the challenges in Talent management in context to staff retention on the retail
industry: A study on John Lewis partnership
Introduction
Background: Talent management is the constant process which involves attraction of employees
and retention of high-quality employees. In present times, the businesses are facing many
challenges in talent management approaches due to rise in the total compensation demands,
tightening of the talent market, unappealing culture of company, rise of millennial expectations,
increased employee turnover and lack of appropriate and strong leadership (Whysall, Owtram
and Brittain, 2019). Retail industry is specifically undergoing this issue, there it is essential to
study the talent management challenges of John Lewis partnership which is involved in
supermarket, banking and finance, department stores etc, in the UK.
Aim: To examine the effect of talent management on employee retention at John Lewis
Objectives:
 To understand the process of talent management and employee retention in John Lewis.
 To evaluate the challenges JLP faces in talent management approaches regarding staff
retention.
 To propose recommendations for effective talent management approaches in the retail
industry.
Rationale and significance: The primary reason for the motivation for this study is the
disruption in organisations and human resource management in retail industry of UK due to
various reasons like workforce management, high turnover, Brexit, rise of technology, rising
consumer demands, increasing industry competitiveness etc. The report will prove highly
significant for companies, employees, stakeholders of JLP and other retail companies to
understand ways in dealing with obstacles in talent management.
3

Scope and limitations: The extent to which this study will cover the evaluation of challenges in
talent management will be limited to the various retail branches of the company JLP in relation
to specifically retention of staff. The study will be primary research based on questionnaire
method and sample size of 30 top management employees from the HR departments across retail
branches of the company. The topics will only focus on staff retention challenges for the
company and duration will be 86 days. The geographic location covered will only be limited to
UK based company branches.
Research methodology
The research type and method that will be undertaken for the project is qualitative study
as it involves collection and analysis of data by understanding the meanings, concepts, and
experience instead of numerical data to gain deeper insights in the problem and generating
recommendations (Kelly, 2017). The research approach will be inductive and research
philosophy will be interpretivism. The data collection method used will be primary data which is
the first-hand data collected using the questionnaire method.
The sampling done will be a non-probability sampling method of purposive sampling as
the senior human resource management employees of JLP will be contacted and distributed the
questionnaire. The sample size of the research will be 30 (Etikan, Musa and Alkassim, 2016).
The data analysis method tat will be adopted is thematic analysis on the basis of responses from
the questions. All the ethical considerations will be taken care of and all the respondents will be
provided informed consent form covering the areas of privacy, anonymity, confidentiality (Smith
and et.al., 2020).
4

Risk Register
S.No
.
Risk Description Size
of
risk
(1-5)
Mitigation strategy Residual
risk
1 Budgeting
risk
If the overall research
goes over the budget
than allocated.
4 Avoid- Creation of contingency
budget.
Low
2 Time risk If the research takes
more time due to data
collection.
3 Reduce- By improving the timeline
of the other phases and scheduling
activities.
Moderate
3 Respondent
risk
Issues of biasness,
subjectivity, validity
and accuracy of
responses by the
respondents
4 Mitigate- Improving the
objectivity of the questions,
multiple choice questions,
avoiding vaguely worded
questions
High
4 Reliability
risk
If the research is not
highly reliable and
the outcome is not
same if further
studies are
conducted.
1 Control- By conducting the
research in the most effective
manner, using enough questions,
having consistent environment,
measuring reliability.
Moderate
5 Research
method risk
The risk of
limitations of the
adopted qualitative
study by
questionnaire
method.
2 Avoid- setting goals, considering
outcomes, eliminating research
biases, effective analysis and
interpretation, framing relevant
questions, taking appropriate
sample size (O'Har, Senesi and
Molenaar, 2017).
Low
5

Time frame for project
Task Name Duration Start Finish Predecessors
Business research: Talent
management in JLP 86 days? Mon 23-11-20 Mon 22-03-21
Setting Aim, objectives,
rationale 2 days Mon 23-11-20 Tue 24-11-20
Literature review 10 days Wed 25-11-20 Tue 08-12-20 2
Research methodology 15 days Wed 09-12-20 Tue 29-12-20 3
Questionnaire distribution
and data collection 30 days Wed 30-12-20 Tue 09-02-21 4
Data interpretation and
analysis 19 days Wed 10-02-21 Mon 08-03-21 5
Conclusion and
recommendations 9 days Tue 09-03-21 Fri 19-03-21 6
Submission 1 day? Mon 22-03-21 Mon 22-03-21 7
6

Gantt chart
7

References
Books and Journals
Boštjančič, E. and Slana, Z., 2018. The role of talent management comparing medium-sized and
large companies–major challenges in attracting and retaining talented
employees. Frontiers in psychology, 9, p.1750.
Etikan, I., Musa, S.A. and Alkassim, R.S., 2016. Comparison of convenience sampling and
purposive sampling. American journal of theoretical and applied statistics, 5(1), pp.1-4.
Kelly, K., 2017. A different type of lighting research–A qualitative methodology. Lighting
Research & Technology, 49(8), pp.933-942.
Kossivi, B., Xu, M. and Kalgora, B., 2016. Study on determining factors of employee
retention. Open Journal of Social Sciences, 4(05), p.261.
O'Har, J.P., Senesi, C.W. and Molenaar, K.R., 2017. Development of a risk register spreadsheet
tool for enterprise-and program-level risk management. Transportation research
record, 2604(1), pp.19-27.
Smith, J., and et.al., 2020. Researcher Positionality in the Dissertation in Practice. In Practice-
Based and Practice-Led Research for Dissertation Development (pp. 43-63). IGI Global.
Tafti, M.M., Mahmoudsalehi, M. and Amiri, M., 2017. Critical success factors, challenges and
obstacles in talent management. Industrial and Commercial Training.
Taylor, S., 2018. Resourcing and talent management. Kogan Page Publishers.
Whysall, Z., Owtram, M. and Brittain, S., 2019. The new talent management challenges of
Industry 4.0. Journal of Management Development.
8

APPENDIX
9

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