MOD003314 Introduction To Business

Every organisation has to implement few key aspects in its business operations which would not only help to make sure that the operations runs smoothly but also helps to ensure sustainability for the organisation in the market. These key aspects include motivation, leadership and management styles, communication, employee relations. The present report will explore these key aspects with reference to Tesco Plc which is one of the leading retail organisations in the world and have implemented each and every aspect mentioned above to good effect in its business operations.

Motivation is a relative term for every individual. The term motivation could be defined as the set of factors which influence one person to act on behalf of someone or something. In the contemporary business environment motivation is given paramount importance due to its ample potential to drive employees towards organisational goals and objectives. It is the impetus that compels an individual or a group of individuals to work for an organisation. There are number of multinational companies who have understood the importance of having motivation at the workplace and Tesco is one of them. It has understood that motivation is an added force which is required to drive the employee that extra mile which would be effective to get the best possible result from him or her. Motivation is a multifaceted concept and has been defined and looked at differently by different people and these theories by scholars have proved to be effective in different situations, but among them the most common are Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs Theory and Herzberg’s Theory of Motivation (Chung, Rutherford and Park, 2012).

Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs Theory is a very clear thought about the different needs one individual faces in his entire life and how he or she goes about fulfilling them. It is one of the well known theories and has been adopted by many different companies in the world as this is one of the easiest ways to understand human needs. Abraham Maslow basically divides needs in a hierarchical manner.

                                                                              Fig 1: Maslow Hierarchy of Needs  

As shown in the picture every human has five different stages of needs which move up chronologically and hence it is important for one person to fulfill one need before moving to the other. The physiological needs are food, cloth, shelter; safety needs are basic protection and security, social needs involve sense of belonging and love and care, esteem needs focuses on getting respect, recognition and status and then comes self actualisation when one person does fulfills something which he personally feels would complete him. Even though it is widely used it is criticised as the needs stated above might not follow chronological order and may overlap each other for instance lack of safety needs might require social needs to be fulfilled (Impact of Motivation on Employees, 2016).

Herzberg’s Motivation Theory is based on two different factors like motivators which satisfy people at the workplace and hygiene factors which could dissatisfy employees if not there or not handled properly. The motivator factors involve achievement, recognition, respect, responsibility, growth et cetera which are also called intrinsic motivating factors. On the other hand Hygiene factors include working conditions, salary, incentives, status, security et cetera.

It is important to mention that both the theories focus on certain meeting of certain set of needs which is capable of influencing employees and believe it would provide positive results. They both specify the criteria as to what motivates people which is another key similarity. Herzberg hygiene factors are to a large extent congruent to the physiological needs of the employees’ namely basic condition of the workplace, salary et cetera (Kim, Knight and Crutsinger, 2009).

Tesco has been effective in applying both the theories at the workplace. The organisation Both Herzberg and Maslow agreed that basic needs are important and in case of an employee his or her basic needs stands to be pay and a suitable work condition. The organisation Tesco is considered one of the multinationals that analyses each and every employee to improve their pay structure in order to make sure they are satisfied. The organisation implements the Herzberg Theory of Motivation in case of providing increments and monetary promotions by understanding people’s motivation of money and increments. The organisation is highly friendly towards its employee which creates sense of belongingness for the employees which clearly shows one stage of Maslow’s hierarchy theory fulfilled. The organisation provides health benefits, family holiday allowing the employees that influence them to a large extent. Employee rewards are provided with reference to the Herzberg’ theory of motivation and the organisation looks to fulfill the hierarchical needs of individuals working in the organisation (YURTSEVEN and HALICI, 2011).

Leadership and management play an important role in the operations of Tesco. In this highly competitive market having effective leaders and aware management team largely helps to develop a strong platform to continue with business operations and gain competitive advantage in the market. Both leadership and management are imperative for Tesco and it is essential for the organisation to make effective movement in the business. Even though leadership and management apparently seem to be similar but there is a thin line of difference between the two and Tesco as an organisation have understood that very well. Leadership could be defined as the process motivating and driving people to achieve organisational objectives. On the other hand management is the process of planning, organising, controlling and leading people in an organisation. There are different kinds of leadership styles available which are effective in management of an organisation (Mahajan, 2011).

There is a strong relationship between strategic management and leadership in Tesco as the management makes the decisions and the leadership tends to implement them in the business so it becomes extremely important to make sure that the leadership styles resemble the management approach at Tesco. There are different kinds of leadership styles available for a business like autocratic leadership where the leader or the manager makes all the decision by himself and doesn’t let employees get involved in the decision making process. On the other hand democratic leadership style is where the manager and the employees participate in the decision making process that gives a shared ambience to the organisation. Laissez Faire Style of leadership is where there is no role of the leader in decision making process and the leader doesn’t take part in decision making (Pinnington, 2011).

Tesco is an organisation which has come up the ladder with the help of its employees and hence it is very particular about its leadership style. The company prefers to follow a transformational theory of leadership which focuses on helping the manager and the leaders to achieve new things through a shared environment and hence it implements a democratic style of leadership where the organisation is able to involve its employees in the decision making process which helps to make the best possible decisions (Theories of effective leadership, 2017). Decision making is also facilitated by the flat hierarchical organisational structure of Tesco as it suits the democratic style of leadership. The decisions are communicated through a flat hierarchy which helps to make quick decisions and also show the good terms that the managers and leaders are in with the employees. The Flat organisational Structure at Tesco allows the staffs to provide their precious insights for the organisational decision making which largely contributes towards the growth and success of the organisation (Ramlall, 2008). 

                                                                           Fig 2: Hierarchical Structure Tesco Plc

Communication is one of the key aspects in every successful organisation.  Effective communication may lead an organisation to success whereas failure in communication might pile to the agony of an organisation due to poor decision making. Communication could be defined as the process of interaction professional or personal but in this case it is professional (Choren, 2015).

Every organisation implements number of key strategies to improve the communication process within the organisation as effective communication is able to contribute to the organisational success. Effective communication has several positive impacts as it reduces confusion within the workforce as well as between the management. Effective interpersonal communication is important and can bridge professional gaps between the employees and lead to better professional relationship and better understanding which also makes group assignments easier and provides better result. Effective communication makes better connection and provides better insights which lubricate the process of decision making within the organisation allowing leverage to the management and employees to communicate among them to come to a best suited conclusion (The importance of being different [business communication], 2007). On the other hand poor communication could give rise to all sorts of problems for a company. Poor or no communication creates gap between employees and managers creating professional gaps at work which naturally leads to poor result. Poor communication could also affect the overall decision making process as a group with poor communication often creates rivalry among themselves where they think about individual interest and not the collective interest leading to wrong decision making that affects the overall result of the organisation (Russell, 1997).

Tesco is very particular about the implementation of its communication methods. At Tesco communication happens in two different ways verbal and non verbal. The verbal communication is implemented in order to operate properly for instance group meetings where the leader or the managers communicate verbally to understand issues, one on one session between employees and managers to convey performance indicators and performance reports and also for grievance management. The Non verbal communication is used to convey messages within a given network. Tesco Plc has a dedicated Intranet and separate server to help the employees communicate among themselves which largely helps to address key issues and grievances. The management mostly communicates verbally as well as through electronic communication and mass messaging system which is effective to reach the employees. Verbal communication is implemented to address group of people on a particular issue which is important. Any kind of notification is done with the help of email system. Even though the company employs all possible means of communication but the staffs could voice for an online employee feedback system which is not in place at the moment which presently the employees could do through written communication. An online forum could also be made for the employees to voice their grievances and issues which is another key mode of communication (Workplace communication for the 21st century: tools and strategies that impact the bottom line: v.1: Internal workplace communication; v.2: External workplace communication, 2013).

For Tesco communication is the ultimate source of ideas and insights. Applying all possible means of communication the organisation has been able to get employee insights; consumer feedbacks which have helped to improve its services as well as better communication with the employees have improved employee relations of the organisation. More it communicates with the employees more the employees feel engaged with the organisation which improves the relations with the employees (Thursfield and Hamblett, 2001).

In a recent turmoil with the organisation Tesco, the staffs of company started a strike from the Valentine Day this year. Strikes are neither favorable for any organisation nor for the workers who work in an organisation and hence it was important for Tesco to understand this. The strike happened for a reason which was brewing for a long period of time now. Normally Tesco is known to provide effective pay to all its employees but in this case the main reason for the uncalled for indefinite strike is the “pay”. As stated by the Employee Union, the organisation has reportedly made the workers working in the company since before 1996 for a greatly reduced pay which was not accepted by the members and the company was planning to instate the same within a short period of time. Due to this reasons from 14^th of Feb 9 branches located in different parts of UK had closed down to get ultimate justice. In this case it is important to mention that Tesco failed to have proper employee relations. The company did not respect the loyalty showed by people working for a long period of time in the organisation (Murray, 2017). In this case to resolve this matter it is important for the organisation to have a proper panel to discuss the matter and have a mutual settlement of the dispute between both the parties. The company should focus on having a panel that understand employee sentiment and could communicate with them well which would help to understand the problem. In this case payment reduction is the problem and hence it is important for the organisation to make suitable decisions which would not harm the employees as well as also keep the interest of the company intact (Kelly, 2015). In this case the main conflict lies in the fact that the organisation wrongly tries to reduce the payments of the staffs working for a long time but it wouldn’t be possible without having a proper discussion. When both the sides will agree to meet the problems will reduce and this is expected to address the issues of both the sides and hence it could be said that meeting and a mutual settlement will be effective in resolving the conflict between the employee union and the organisation Tesco (Fitzgerald, 2017).

From the above discussion it is conspicuous that every organisation needs to have the key aspects of motivation, leadership and management, communications and employee resolution process in place in order to address any difficult situation which has been shown with the help of Tesco Plc.

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