A Comprehensive Report on Employee Motivation Strategies at Tesco

This report analyzes employee motivation strategies at Tesco, a leading retail company. It defines motivation and explores the incentives Tesco uses, including financial and non-financial rewards, training, and autonomy. The report also examines the detrimental effects of an unmotivated workforce, such as reduced productivity and poor customer service, highlighting the benefits Tesco gains from a motivated workforce. It critiques Taylor's theory of motivation, arguing its limited relevance in the 21st century, and evaluates four key motivational theories: Elton Mayo's, Taylor's, Maslow's, and Herzberg's, demonstrating their application within Tesco's operations. The report references relevant literature to support its analysis, providing a comprehensive overview of employee motivation within the context of a major retail business.

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Business Studies

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Contents
Task 3...............................................................................................................................................3
1. Describe what is meant by motivation. What types of incentives Tesco aims to motivate its
employees both by paying attention to hygiene factors and by enabling satisfiers.....................3
2. Describe the effects of an unmotivated workforce on a company. How does Tesco benefit
from ensuring that its workforce is motivated?...........................................................................3
3. Why is Taylor’s theory not relevant to companies and employees in the 21st century?.........4
4. Evaluate the four motivational theories in the study, demonstrating how each relates to
Tesco............................................................................................................................................4
References........................................................................................................................................6

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Task 3
1. Describe what is meant by motivation. What types of incentives Tesco aims
to motivate its employees both by paying attention to hygiene factors and by
enabling satisfiers.
Motivation
Motivation is defined as the aspiration to attain a goal or exact quality of performance,
promoting goal-directed behavior. It is one of the requirements that lead to effective
performances. Motivation is the basic need of the business organisations, giving motivation to
employees can support them to give their best performances in the workplace. It is the basics of
management in an organisation (Kuswati, 2019).
It has been considered that Tesco is the best operating market in retail manufacturing, with
concern to its growing sales amount. The human resource management of the Tesco Company is
very strong and they offered support to all their employees according to their positions in the
company. Tesco provides training to their employees, which helps them to improve their abilities
and learning skills.
To motivate employees effectively, Tesco provides non-financial rewards to them in many
forms. Moreover, Tesco motivates its employees by giving them a variety of rewards, such as
free health benefits, pension schemes, competitive salaries, pay slip vouchers, free memberships
to the gym, and many more (Kalušić, Talović, and Ormanović, 2019).
Tesco provides autonomy to its employees because each employee wants to take part in decision-
making. Giving freedom to the employee in decision-making makes they feel motivated and
happy. Tesco management uses effective ways of communication to encourage their employee
and make them able to give the best outcomes.
2. Describe the effects of an unmotivated workforce on a company. How does
Tesco benefit from ensuring that its workforce is motivated?
An unmotivated workforce creates negative impacts on organizations. Unmotivated employees
do not take interest in their roles and will not give the best performance. It is expected that
unmotivated employees are exposed to making more mistakes, which may cause negative effects
on their quality of work. An unmotivated workforce will not make any attempt to help and
satisfy their customers it results in reduced productivity, irreverent employee turnover, lost
revenue, poor communication, and low sales figures (Teh, 2014)

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Tesco understands that giving motivation to employees is essential for the continued success of
the company (Kalušić, Talović, and Ormanović, 2019). Tesco takes care of the needs of
employees in an adequate way by giving them support and praising their performances with
rewards. Tesco also maintained good social relationships with their employees and cooperated
with them to attain their goals.
3. Why is Taylor’s theory not relevant to companies and employees in the 21st
century?
Taylor’s theory is not relevant to the employees and companies in the 21st century, because this
theory was not based on quality but it was based on quantity production. This approach is
applicable in a few places only because the majority of the companies have to provide
impeccable quality products to their customers (Steel, and König, 2006).
Giving motivation to the employee is an important part of business management and its success,
while Taylor’s theory worked only for money production (Kalušić, Talović, and Ormanović,
2019). This theory explained that it is not necessary to provide emotional motivation to the
employee, and only used financial motivation. There are no real opportunities provided to self-
employees, so they improve themselves to be creative in their roles.
This theory did not value the needs of the employees. Employees did not enjoy their role,
because they need to be motivated and monitored closely.
4. Evaluate the four motivational theories in the study, demonstrating how
each relates to Tesco.
Elton Mayo Theory
According to Mayo's theory, dividing freedom among the employees in decision-making makes
them feel important and enhanced their motivational skills. He demonstrated that boredom and
task repetitiveness may decrease motivation among employees. Moreover, he demonstrated that
motivation can be promoted in the workforce by maintaining good teamwork, ensuring not to
give repetitive tasks, and providing effective communication skills (Fadeyi, 2020).
Communication is the most significant factor in motivating the employees. The Mayo Factor is
seen to be conducted throughout the Tesco Company because there is a motivated group of
employee’s works in partnership with others to achieve the best outcomes. Tesco also holds
meetings to carry out value awards and promote motivation by offering an effective career to
their employees to attain their success goals (Fadeyi, 2020).

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Taylor’s motivational theory
Another motivational theory of Taylor’s demonstrated that payment is an effective way of
motivating employees and improving production. He gives importance to the financial rewards
and illustrated that employees can be motivated by giving rewards because, at the perception of
rewards, they can put more effort. Although employees and companies, need to be independent
and innovative as suggested by mayo. Tesco went beyond Taylor’s theory of motivation because
it provided a simple pay increment (Fadeyi, 2020).
Maslow and Herzberg Theory of motivation
Maslow has discussed the ‘hierarchy of needs, it is concerned about our livings outside the work.
He suggested that basic needs and social needs play an important role in motivating employees at
work.
He further described that before motivating employees to an effective level. A company should
meet its lower levels of basic needs. According to this theory, Tesco provides many services to
their employees including pension and sickness schemes, and essential offers
Fredrick Herzberg's theory of motivation
Fredrick Herzberg's theory is also known as the two-factor theory; this theory explained that
intrinsic job elements such as recognition, responsibility, and achievement are motivating
factors. It is one of the satisfied theories of motivation and explains that satisfying and
identifying the desires, aims and basic needs of individuals may enhance motivations among
them. (Alshmemri, Shahwan-Akl, and Maude, 2017). This theory relates to Tesco because the
main purpose of Tesco is to give attention to the hygienic factors to satisfy and motivate their
employees.

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References
Alam, S. and Raut-Roy, U., 2019. Evaluating the Effectiveness of Reward Strategy at Tesco:
Evidence from Selected Stores in UK. Indian Journal of Industrial Relations, 55(1).
Alshmemri, M., Shahwan-Akl, L. and Maude, P., 2017. Herzberg’s two-factor theory. Life
Science Journal, 14(5), pp.12-16.
Fadeyi, A.P., 2020. An Analysis on the Application of Motivational Theories at Workplace and
the Impact on Employee Engagement: A Study of Tesco Ireland (Doctoral dissertation, Dublin,
National College of Ireland).
Kalušić, A., Talović, M. and Ormanović, Š., 2019. THE ROLE AND IMPORTANCE OF
MOTIVATION OF HRM. Sport Scientific & Practical Aspects, 16(1).
Kuswati, Y., 2019. Motivation role in improving work effectiveness. Budapest International
Research and Critics Institute-Journal (BIRCI-Journal), pp.281-288.
Steel, P. and König, C.J., 2006. Integrating theories of motivation. Academy of management
review, 31(4), pp.889-913.
Teh, P.N., 2014. Tesco Stores (M) Sdn. Bhd: Employee Retention Strategy to Reduce Cashier
Turnover Rate (Doctoral dissertation, Universiti Sains Malaysia).