Importance Of Learning And Development Interventions In Supporting Business Strategy At Sainsbury’s Supermarket Limited

A critical analysis of the chosen method of training needs analysis

Sainsbury is the leading supermarket chain organization in the United Kingdom. It was founded in Holborn, the United Kingdom in 1869 by John James Sainsbury and his wife. Currently, Sainsbury has 1,423 grocery stores in the UK, in which total 815 were convenience stores. This paper is highlighting importance of practical training and evaluation of after training and executing programs of training for the staffs in Sainsbury’s supermarket limited, United Kingdom. The motive of the survey is to find how the effect of the training is improving training is skill, knowledge and behavior. The project also facilitates the company to understand better how the field training is important to improve and lead training programs to grab the opportunity of present and post-training. The main objective of Sainsbury’s is to meet customer needs and give an opportunity to all the employee’s to develop their skills.

Many organization fails to define the training value to improve their competitiveness. A Training Needs Analysis (TNA) is a procedure which an organization’s human resource development (HRD) wants are identified and expressed. The process can identify:

• The target of a Sainsbury and its impact in reaching those targets.
• Difference between the skill of an employee’s and the skills needed for positive performance for a current job as well as perform successfully in the future job.

TNA provides clear direction to identify training needs as well as helps to analyze how previous training was effective. The two results of TNA are the non-training need and a training need. Performance gap has to be disclosed through training need. The organization applies this process when an employee has a lack of knowledge and attitudes towards work and does not know how to do the job. Sainsbury’s introduced diversity management at a workplace to inspire all employees to perform better for a positive result (Chkanikova and Mont, 2015). Diversity policy has been used by the organization to provide training to all the employees and give a written paper to guide the managers on equal opportunities for gaining more awareness of the customer needs. Sainsbury started using a new way of learning is ‘Disability confident’ that proves to be beneficial to all the employees in stores ahead disability awareness to become confident to overcome with a disability. This organization believes that having a diverse workforce, several creative concept, and understanding. Sainsbury provides work-based learning for a train to gain and conducts management training and development programme (Liu, Gibson and Walton, 2017). It supports in the long term and creates a self-learning environment to the managers by providing management-related magazine, books, and newspaper.  

The primary role of the HR function is to look after the employees and to find out the best skilled employees those who can contribute toward the development and growth of the firm. The HR managers at Sainsbury critically motivates the employees in order to bring positive outcomes for the organization.  It is the primary responsibility of the HR managers of Sainsbury to support the business strategies and they are doing it effectively with the help of various effective learning and development interventions.

Critically analysis how training intervention would provide an example of how HR can support an organization

At Sainsbury, the social division of partners and business with many companies is directed by the human resource to be sure that the development strategy of an employee is related to offer organizational goals. For the development of a financial position, HRM strategy is used by Sainsbury (Kopnina, and Blewitt, 2018). Workforce and performance of an employee have been controlled by the Human resources management department at Sainsbury. Human resource manager responsibility is to see new recruitment to retirement procedure of the staffs. The role of the HRM is to identify the skills of employees and to focus on the performance they apply for the development of the organization. The practices and policies of HRM must meet with the strategy to adopt upcoming competitive environment and with the condition of the business that fit in an organization. At Sainsbury, if the turnover of labor is high, then it considered as a failure by the department of HRM. And if the turnover of labor is low then is considered to be successful by the HRM department (Gillon et al., 2014).

Role of the HR Function within Sainsbury

The study aims to improve and to progress performance (Welsh et al., 2018). It will help in the development of the employees working at Sainsbury’s Supermarket Ltd. The survey will assist in evaluating the new products, technologies and the latest developments an organization is using. According to employers, the motive of the training is to be sure that all the employees understand their job and provide them to be successful in the chosen area. A various collection of experience and talents allows an organization to deliver services to customers. To understand if they are competitively compared to their competitors, they need to compare their product’s prices with competitor’s product. Sainsbury’s can enter the markets of arising organizations through partnerships or joint ventures to explore these markets (Scarborough et al., 2015).

The report determines that Human resources policies used by an organization are benefited for improving their level of customer service, organization development, and its sales (Pulker et al., 2018).

Organization competitiveness and growth depended upon its ability and reached its benefits. The survey recognizes the skill gap is to have present and plan for employee and management. Training programs on the computer and general courses are not what they might excite them anymore (Stokoe, 2014). An organization should keep practical training and campaign to innovate their talent. To study the real world fieldwork provides various opportunity. It increases employee’s skills and knowledge towards the products and customer need. Sainsbury employers play a constructive part which mainly focuses on control, reward, and structure. For leading Sainsbury towards its ambitions, employers required various competencies and skills which can be discussed about a strategy of various levels. To accomplish the strategic ambitions of Sainsbury, employers need to audit their knowledge, skills, and capabilities. For this employers need to point out the question what an organization need and where they want to be in future. This helps in carrying out gap analysis which can be the basis of an individual to develop a plan.

The skill gap exists because the training method is not a field related. The timed practice takes to put the training information into practice in the field (Medina et al., 2015). If any new employee works practically in a field, the knowledge will discover more than to gain knowledge from a computer training. It is noticed by a survey that to what is the target of an organization and what should be done. Fieldworks are important in acquiring knowledge practically.

After announcing a fall of 1%, Sainsbury’s has warned of hard times ahead in basic yearly profits (Maguire, Burgoine and Monsivais, 2015). Also, Capacity growth appears to be hitting up, which will keep promotional pressures high. Many competitor supermarkets give practical knowledge to their knowledge is the big challenge for Sainsbury. Sainsbury should release more products for sale or customer will prefer other stores or supermarket to buy the product. And should provide field training to the employees to avoid customer’s negative comment. Introduction of some new product should be done by Sainsbury which will be beneficial for an organization to overcome the challenges.

Conclusion

Research reveals that by applying a diverse workforce employee from multiple backgrounds adopt new concepts that are flexible in implementing to fluctuating markets and customers demand. Programs of staff training help to provide the values associated with customers focused on quality and performance. It also facilitates a solid reputation of an organization as an employer brand and supports the growth of inspiration and employees. The study aimed to reflect upon the private retail sector organization and especially the Sainsbury’s supermarket Ltd with the experience and knowledge to explore the evaluation of training practices for the growth of the organization. It also discussed the effect of future training evaluation that facilitates all the stakeholders of Sainsbury’s Supermarket Ltd. This particular study in Sainsbury’s supermarket Ltd provided post-training evaluation, values in searching training program evaluation and an analytical review of the concept data based on training.

References

Chkanikova, O. and Mont, O., 2015. Corporate supply chain responsibility: drivers and barriers for sustainable food retailing. Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, 22(2), pp.65-82.

Gillon, A.C., Braganza, A., Williams, S. and McCauley-Smith, C., 2014. Organisation development in HRM: a longitudinal study contrasting evolutionary trends between the UK and USA. The International Journal of Human Resource Management, 25(7), pp.1002-1023.

Kopnina, H.A. and Blewitt, J.N., 2018. Human resource management, green jobs, and a green economy. In Sustainable Business (Vol. 157, No. 178, pp. 157-178). ROUTLEDGE in association with GSE Research.

Liu, Y., Gibson, G.R. and Walton, G.E., 2017. A three-stage continuous culture approach to study the impact of probiotics, prebiotics and fat intake on faecal microbiota relevant to an over 60 s population. Journal of Functional Foods, 32, pp.238-247.

Maguire, E.R., Burgoine, T. and Monsivais, P., 2015. Area deprivation and the food environment over time: A repeated cross-sectional study on takeaway outlet density and supermarket presence in Norfolk, UK, 1990–2008. Health & place, 33, pp.142-147.

Medina, L., Acosta-Perez, E., Velez, C., Martinez, G., Rivera, M., Sardinas, L. and Pattatucci, A., 2015. Training and capacity building evaluation: Maximizing resources and results with success case method. Evaluation and program planning, 52, pp.126-132.

Pulker, C.E., Trapp, G.S.A., Scott, J.A. and Pollard, C.M., 2018. What are the position and power of supermarkets in the United kingdom food system, and the implications for public health? A systematic scoping review. Obesity Reviews, 19(2), pp.198-218.

Scarborough, P., Matthews, A., Eyles, H., Kaur, A., Hodgkins, C., Raats, M.M. and Rayner, M., 2015. Reds are more important than greens: how UK supermarket shoppers use the different information on a traffic light nutrition label in a choice experiment. International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity, 12(1), p.151.

Stokoe, E., 2014. The Conversation Analytic Role-play Method (CARM): A method for training communication skills as an alternative to simulated role-play. Research on Language and Social Interaction, 47(3), pp.255-265.

Welsh, K.E., Mauchline, A.L., France, D., Powell, V., Whalley, W.B. and Park, J., 2018. Would Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) be welcomed by undergraduate students to support their learning during fieldwork?. Journal of Geography in Higher Education, pp.1-16.