Research Aim
It has been observed that in a retail sector employees are the frontline troops in the combat to win and survive and retail customers while also attracting new customers. Thus, it is very important for the leaders and managers to pay an attention to the manner they communicate with the customer and finally made a sale. Also, their way of interaction has a great impact on customer that if they like interaction and service provided by the company’s retail staff they will definitely come again for spending. In retail sector not only for retail staff training and development is important, because training and development is important for your HR, production and marketing department also. Training and development plays significant role in every department of retail business. For example, in HR department is vital part when business needs best use of their manpower. Training and development is a crucial aspect for the succession planning of the business as it supports in enhancement of expertise such as team management and leadership.
Training and development are playing significant role in the business innovation and development. The fast-paced and dynamic corporate environment requires training and development plans to retain up with novel challenges. Thus, this research study aim to examine how the training and development considered as the source of competitive advantage while also examining the training and development initiatives adopted by the Tesco organization of UK.
- To examine the effectiveness of the training and development programs in retail stores
- To analyze how does training and development impact competitive advantage in retail sector
- To discuss how Tesco UK is gaining competitive advantage from training and development
Q1. What is the effectiveness of the training and development programs in retail stores?
Q2. How does training and development impact competitive advantage in retail sector?
Q3. What are the training and development programs Tesco is adopting to gain competitive advantage?
Effectiveness of the training and development programs in retail stores
According to the Asfaw, Argaw & Bayissa (2015) training and development denotes to the learning activities adopted and created by the business corporation to improve the knowledge and capabilities of workforces though delivering information and coaching on how to compete certain tasks and responsibilities in an effective and efficient manner. In simple words, the word training represent the procedure of enhancing the capabilities, aptitudes and skills of the staff members to accomplish certain tasks and responsibilities. Training is a short-range responsive procedure meant for operators and procedure though development is intended constant practical procedure meant for managers and leaders. In training workers’ goal is to progress extra abilities and in progress, it is to progress a total behavior and character.
Seibert et al. (2017) observed that training is regarding identifying that what are your abilities, skills and competencies and also after few time where you will be there with your abilities, skills and competencies. Through training, individuals can acquire novel information, novel approach and revive their current knowledge and competencies. This is the key purpose there is ample development and develops up the efficiency at work. The cause behind providing the training is to make an influence that persists outside the finish time of the training itself and worker gets modernized with the novel wonder. Training can be presented as abilities and capabilities progress for persons and groups.
Research Objectives
According to Urbancova et al. (2021) better and inordinate client service is enormously significant in any profession or work inside the retail segment as workforces are continually communicating with clients. The worker signifies the whole corporation, thus it is enormously vital to deliver inordinate facility in direction to appeal and retain clients. One of the utmost significant characteristics in a successful worker is the confidence, which occurs only when the worker is well educated and up-to-date regarding the goods and amenities their corporation provides and sells. Numerous workforces are not able to positively deliver acceptable service to their clients due to their deficiency of goods and services knowledge, in direction for staffs to be fruitful in the work of sales associates and client service which are very important part of profession in retail business. Retailers cannot bear to lose their clients with lack of worker training, meanwhile that will be neglect on their part. The complete performance of the business depend on profoundly on the worker’s performance, thus training is essential for together the worker and the corporation in direction to enhance the performance.
Training and development impact competitive advantage in retail sector
According to the Davis (2019) it has been observed that in a retail sector employees are the frontline troops in the combat to win and survive and retail customers while also attracting new customers. Thus, it is very important for the leaders and managers to pay an attention to the manner they communicate with the customer and finally made a sale. Also, their way of interaction has a great impact on customer that if they like interaction and service provided by the company’s retail staff they will definitely come again for spending. In support to this Wedzerai et al. (2020) stated that in retail sector not only for retail staff training and development is important, because training and development is important for your HR, production and marketing department also. Training and development plays significant role in every department of retail business. For example, in HR department is vital part when business needs best use of their manpower. Training and development is a crucial aspect for the succession planning of the business as it supports in enhancement of expertise such as team management and leadership.
As per the study of Jain & Sharma (2019) one of the key challenges of a retail sector organization is to remain ahead of its opponent’s and rivals. Evolving a competitive benefit can be a tedious job and includes executing masses of dissimilar approaches crossways all the departments to make your retail business stand out from the crowd. Training and development can perform an immense role in creating a real change to your competitive benefit. By making certain that staffs are continually developing, the business automatically attains further value and remains to move forward with a robust position in the marketplace where they are operating.
In present corporate environment, contemporary businesses are identifying that an employees with greater skills is one of the main key elements for sustainable competitive benefit. For any business, suitable selection is one of old-style means to achieve this benefit where at the similar time tactically concentrated training and development proposes an extra flexible and long-standing benefit. Business can purchase abilities over hiring new employees or can develop expertise over Training and Development programs. The continued existence of any business in the competitive business environment lies in its capability to train its employees or workforce to be innovative, advanced, inventive who will perpetually improve performance and upsurge competitive benefit. Though, training and development performs a significant role to improve the efficiency of a business corporation. It is one of the utmost persistent practices for refining workers’ performance improving organization output in the work place (Daniel, 2019).
Research Questions
Training and development programs of Tesco
Tesco is one of the largest supermarket chain of UK which operates in around 12 countries while having more than 2318 stores and employs around 367321 employees operating their stores globally. Tesco retail super market chain is developing to meet customer requirements and also aims to make certain that their employees partake the essential abilities to prosper at the present and for the future time period. For the training and development purpose Tesco has designed its owned online learning platforms over which employees at Tesco have admittance to online learning podiums, providing them the chance to attain the information and abilities to aid and help them to get on and be at their greatest. It carries together all our resources that make up the essentials which form prospect at Tesco retail supermarket; Performance, Professions and Learning. Familiarizing to current important variations that impacted everybody in the year 2020, numerous of their face to face workshops have shifted to an online mode. Moreover, Tesco also have special training for line manager training which focuses on developing the various skills such as agility and adaptive mindsets (Tesco PLC, 2022).
The world of business is moving at speed and Tesco has identified that they should prepare their employees with the expertise they require to be successful currently and in the future time period. Also, emphasizing on building on current skills, Tesco is generating opportunities for employees to reskill in parts where demand is estimated to upsurge and observing to expand their talent pools, thus the company can continue to resource the abilities they require in the future time period. To emphasis on this, a novel strategic workforce preparation team has remained set up to support build an image of their future employee’s supply and demand: the critical abilities, roles and job families Tesco will require to carry its approach, and how they fulfil these. This vision is used to recognize and shape the training requirements and organizational competences for the upcoming time period; for instance, Technology and Networks being Tesco major areas of emphasis, safeguarding company are developing the critical abilities essential to carry upcoming corporate strategy (Tesco PLC, 2022).
Research Philosophy
While concerning to this research study, the best and appropriate research philosophy will be the positivism method. This research philosophy is appropriate for gathering and collecting the acceptable and reasonable data and information related to the research theme. Positivism research denotes to the process of gathering the data over which the investigator attains the understanding of the social world in an impartial way (Alharahsheh & Pius, 2020). In addition, this method will help researchers to recognize the importance of training and development in retail industry and also how the retail businesses is adopting competitive advantage over training and development programs. Moreover, this research philosophy is also relies on quantitative data which positivist believe is more reliable than qualitative research study.
Research Approach
While concerning to this research study researcher has selected the inductive research approach as it comprises commencement with a set of observed opinions, looking for designs in those opinions, and then conceiving regarding those patterns. Moreover this research approach is appropriate and suitable for this research strategy as it commences with the opinions and theories are suggested on the way to the end of the research procedure as an outcome of observations (Danaee, 2020). This will help researcher in receiving the opinions of various HR managers, employees, and other management people of Tesco through survey which will help researcher in solving the research concern while examining the findings of the research.
Research Strategies
Literature Review
Research strategy delivers the complete path of the research comprising the procedure by which the study is directed. Case study, experiment, survey, action research, and grounded theory are some of the instances of the research strategy. While concerning to this research, researcher has selected survey research strategy (Mohajan, 2018). Through survey research strategy, researcher aims to collect the survey form Tesco management people, HR manager of Tesco various stores and also with some employees. This will help researcher in gain an up to date information about how Tesco is adopting the competitive advantage over training and development programs. It is a suitable research strategy as it is inexpensive, practical solution for collecting the information and also a fast method to get the outcomes which researcher requires.
Ethics and Access
The research investigator has to encounter the guiding principle provided by the university and also, writing the research study must be free from individual and political partiality. Moreover, in this research study, researcher is gathering the data and information over primary and secondary basis so researcher will consider the principles such as informed consent, confidentiality and also consider the plagiarism and copyright of data. Additionally, a researcher should have to use correct citations in every paragraph and references in the last of the research study which will upsurge the trustworthiness of data and supports a researcher to evade copyright or violation responsibility (Artal & Rubenfeld, 2017).
Data Analyses
While concerning to this research, researcher has selected the statistical data analysis methods which is a process of carrying out numerous statistical processes. It is a type of quantitative research study, which pursues to quantify the information, and characteristically, put on some form of statistical examination. Quantitative data fundamentally includes descriptive data, for instance survey data and observational data. Moreover statistical data analyses help researcher to present the data in charts and graphs also which will help reader in effectively understand the findings and outcomes of the results (Ott & Longnecker, 2015).
References
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Artal, R., & Rubenfeld, S. (2017). Ethical issues in research. Best Practice & Research Clinical Obstetrics & Gynaecology, 43, 107-114.
Asfaw, A. M., Argaw, M. D., & Bayissa, L. (2015). The impact of training and development on employee performance and effectiveness: A case study of District Five Administration Office, Bole Sub-City, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Journal of Human Resource and Sustainability Studies, 3(04), 188.
Danaee Fard, H. (2020). Inductive approach to building theory: Grounded theory strategy. Commercial Strategies, 3(1), 57-70.
Daniel, C. O. (2019). The effects of human capital development on organizational performance. International Journal of Scientific Research and Management, 7(1), 952-958.
Davis, P. J. (2019). Training Employees to Be a Source of Sustained Competitive Advantage. Journal of Applied Business & Economics, 21(5).
Jain, T. K., & Sharma, A. (2019). Impact of Training and development on Employee Performance in Retail Sector: A Review paper. Available at SSRN 3316856.
Mohajan, H. K. (2018). Qualitative research methodology in social sciences and related subjects. Journal of Economic Development, Environment and People, 7(1), 23-48.
Ott, R. L., & Longnecker, M. T. (2015). An introduction to statistical methods and data analysis. Cengage Learning.
Seibert, S. E., Sargent, L. D., Kraimer, M. L., & Kiazad, K. (2017). Linking developmental experiences to leader effectiveness and promotability: The mediating role of leadership self?efficacy and mentor network. Personnel Psychology, 70(2), 357-397.
Tesco PLC. (2022). Skills & Training. https://www.tescoplc.com/sustainability/taking-action/looking-after-colleagues/job-creation-and-skills/skills-and-training/
Urbancová, H., Vrabcová, P., Hudáková, M., & Petr?, G. J. (2021). Effective training evaluation: The role of factors influencing the evaluation of effectiveness of employee training and development. Sustainability, 13(5), 2721.
Wedzerai, A. G., Chiliya, N., Chuchu, T., & Ndoro, T. (2020). An application of internal marketing for sustainable competitive advantage in Johannesburg construction firms. African Journal of Business and Economic Research, 15(1), 183.