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A STUDY OF THE CHALLENGES FACING FRONT LINE

STAFF IN THE RETAIL INDUSTRY IN UK

Submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirement of the degree of

master of business and management of the University of Strathclyde

THE UNIVERSITY OF STRATHCLYDEDEPARTMENT OF MANAGEMENT

JASJOT SINGH

TADIGADAPA VENKATA SAI APARNA

TAY: 2011

SUPERVISOR: DR. GEORGE KOSHY


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Declaration

Statement of Academic Honesty

We declare that this dissertation is entirely our original work.

We declare that, except where fully referenced direct quotations have been included, no

aspect of this dissertation is copied from any other source.

We declare that all other works cited in this dissertation have been appropriately

referenced.

We understand that any act of Academic Dishonesty such as plagiarism or collusion

may result in the non-award of a Master degree.

Signature………………………………….. Date…………….

Signature………………………………….. Date…………….


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Acknowledgement

It is a pleasure to thank those who made this dissertation possible. We are grateful to our

supervisor Dr. George Koshy for his encouragement, guidance and support from initial to the

final level which enabled us to develop a deeper understanding of the subject.

We would also like to thank all the people who participated in this research and we appreciate

the effort and time, they have put in for the successful completion of this dissertation.

Lastly, we offer my regards and blessings to all of those who supported us in any respect during

the completion of the project.

Thank You

Jasjot Singh

Tadigadapa Venkata Sai Aparna


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Abstract

This paper discusses about the challenges faced by front line employees in retail industry which

is the most rising market in UK in the coming five years. With the development of the industry,

the level competition between the competitors also raised. The only way is to give service

quality by maintaining healthy relationships with existing customers and increasing the new

customer base. This has increased the importance of front line staff by the employers in this

retail industry. The front line employees have become the responsible people for facing the

customers and maintain the relationships with both the organisation and customers. Front line

jobs have become quiet challenging for the employees as they have to strive towards the

customer satisfaction at the same time satisfy organisation by trying to put them consistently in

the top list of the industry. In this context the challenges faced by frontline employees are

discussed in this research from the HR perspectives and are supported by various theories.

These HR aspects involved in the frontline employees are discussed and analysed by gathering

information through primary and secondary data sources. The primary data information is

analysed by using SPSS programme on the surveys, questionnaires and the interviews

conducted with the industry individuals and the findings are backed up with the secondary data

in the discussions part.

This study highlights the pragmatic view of what are the problems these employees face in this

retail industry in UK market and how to overcome the challenges faced by these frontline

employees by practising an effective HR system. This research discusses about the

characteristics that frontline staff should possess to recruit them; the motivating factors that are

required to maintain the staff retention, the performance management system to assess the

employees and the reward strategies that are employed for these employees.

Word Count: 19,811


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Table of Contents

Title Page ......................................................................................................................................... i

Declaration ..................................................................................................................................... ii

Acknowledgement ........................................................................................................................ iii

Abstract .........................................................................................................................................iV

Table of Content ............................................................................................................................ v

List of Table & Figures…………………………………………………………………………………………….……….….…..vi

Chapter One…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….1

1.0 Introduction……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….2

Chapter Two…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….5

2.0 Literature Review……………………………………………………………………………………………………………….6

2.1 Introduction………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..6

2.2 Practices in Retail Personnel Management………………………………………………………………………...9

2.3 Determination of Staffing Needs………………………………………………………………………………………11

2.4 Recruitment……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..13

2.5 Selection of employees…………………………………………………………………………………………………….14

2.6 Induction and Training………………………………………………………………………………………………………17

2.7 Motivation………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..20

2.8Organisational Culture……………………………………………………………………………………………………….28

2.9 Performance Management……………………………………………………………………………………………….30

2.9.1.1 Performance Appraisal and Reward System………………………………………………………………..32

2.91.2 Encouragement of Discussion………………………………………………………………………………………33

2.9.1.3 Constructive Intention………………………………………………………………………………………………..33

2.9.1.4 Set Performance Goals………………………………………………………………………………………………..34

2.9.1.5 Appraiser Credibility……………………………………………………………………………………………………34

2.9.1.6 Link to Rewards…………………………………………………………………………………………………………..34

2.9.1.7 360 Degree Feedback………………………………………………………………………………………………….34

2.9.1.8 Learning and Development…………………………………………………………………………………………35


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2.9.1.9 Measurement……………………………………………………………………………………………………………..35

2.9.2 Pay…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………36

2.10 Retention of Employees………………………………………………………………………………………………….37

Chapter Three………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..39

3.0 Research Methodology…………………………………………………………………………………………………….40

3.1 Introduction………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………40

3.2 Research Purpose……………………………………………………………………………………………………………..41

3.3 Research Approach…………………………………………………………………………………………………………..42

3.4 Research Strategy……………………………………………………………………………………………………………..43

3.5 Data Collection………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….44

3.6 Population and Sample……………………………………………………………………………………………………..47

3.7 Data Analysis…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….49

3.8 Quality Standards……………………………………………………………………………………………………………..49

Chapter Four………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….50

4.0 Data Analysis and Interpretations……………………………………………………………………………………..51

4.1 Findings…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….........51

4.1.1 Introduction…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..51

4.1.2 Findings of the Survey……………………………………………………………………………………………………51

4.1.3 Findings of the Questionnaire………………………………………………………………………………………..78

4.1.4 Qualitative Findings……………………………………………………………………………………………………….89

4.2 Interpretations………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….90

Chapter Five…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..93

5.0 Conclusions and Recommendations………………………………………………………………………………….94

5.1 Limitations………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..96

5.2 Further Studies………………………………………………………………………………………………………………...96

Chapter Six…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….97

6.0 Reflection………………………………………………………………………………………………………………...........98

Bibliography………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………...100

Appendices…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..105


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List of Tables & Figures

List of figures

Figure -1: The three tiered view of service organisation….…………………..................................7Figure -1.2: The five step MBO process……………………………………………………………………………..10

Figure -1.3: Ladder of motivating employees…………………………………………………………………….22

Figure -1.4: Abraham Maslow’s needs hierarchy……………………………………………………………….24

Figure -1.5: Expectancy theory of work motivation……………………………………………………………25

Figure -1.6: Inner working life theory…………………………………………………………………………………26

Figure -1.7: The case for high performance work systems………………………………………………….28

Figure -1.8: Hofstede’s five dimensions of culture……………………………………………………………..30

Figure -1.9: Graphical representation of gender…………………………………………………………………52

Figure -2.0: Graphical representation by age……………………………………………………………………..53

Figure -2.1: Graphical representation for importance of recruitment & selection

Methods…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………...54

Figure -2.2: Graphical representation of the importance of experience for a role……………..56

Figure -2.3: Graphical representation of the importance of training for a role…………………..58

Figure -2.4: Graphical representation of importance of association with company goals &

missions…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….60

Figure -2.5: Graphical representation of importance of motivation factor…………………………62

Figure -2.6: Graphical representation of importance of job satisfaction…………………………….64

Figure -2.7: Graphical representation of importance of competitive work environment……66

Figure -2.8: Graphical representation of importance of recognition for work…………………….68 Figure -2.9: Graphical representation of importance of getting feedback for work……………70 Figure -3.0: Graphical representation of importance of career development…………………….72

Figure -3.1: Graphical representation of importance of perks & incentives……………………….74

Figure -3.2: Graphical representation of importance of compensation factor……………………76

Figure -3.3: Graphical representation of length of work…………………………………………………….78

Figure -3.4: Graphical representation of satisfaction with the company……………………………79

Figure -3.5: Graphical representation of recommending job to a friend…………………………….80

Figure -3.6: Graphical representation of the positive aspects of a job……………………………….82

Figure -3.7: Graphical representation of level of motivation at work…………………………………83

Figure -3.8: Graphical representation of communication of organization

With its employees…………………………………………………………………………………………………………….84

Figure -3.9: Graphical representation of company’s flexibility with employee’s personal

responsibilities ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….85

Figure -4.0: Graphical representation of the competitive work environment…………………….86

Figure -4.1: Graphical representation of supportive work environment…………………………….87

Figure -4.2: Graphical representation of satisfaction level of employees for the recognition of

their contribution……………………………………………………………………………………………………………..88


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List of tables

Table -1.1: Drives versus motives ….…………………......................................................................23

Table -1.2: Approach to research methodology…………………………………………………………………….40

Table -1.3: Relevant situations for different research strategies…………………………………………..43

Table -1.4: Percentage of target population according to gender ………………………………………..52

Table -1.5: Statistical data analysis for gender ……………………………………………………………………..52 Table -1.6: Percentage of target population by age ……………………………………………………………..53

Table -1.7: Statistical data analysis for age …………………………………………………………………………..53

Table -1.8: Percentage of target population categorised by importance of recruitment &

selection methods ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………….54

Table -1.9: Statistical data analysis for effective recruitment & selection methods

…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….55

Table -2.0: Percentage of target population categorized by importance of having experience

for a role ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..56

Table -2.1: Statistical data analysis for having experience for a role ……………………………........57

Table -2.2: Percentage of target population categorized by importance of training…………….58

Table -2.3: Statistical data analysis for the importance of training ………………………………………59Table -2.4: Percentage of target population categorized by importance of association with

company goals & missions ………………………………………………………………………………………………….60

Table -2.5: Statistical data analysis of association with company goals & missions …………….61

Table -2.6: Percentage of target population categorized by importance of motivation

Factor………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….62

Table -2.7: Statistical data analysis for motivation factor…………………………………………………….63

Table -2.8: Percentage of target population categorized by importance of job satisfaction

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………64

Table -2.9: Statistical data analysis for importance of job satisfaction………………………………..65

Table -3.0: Percentage of target population categorized by importance of competitive work

environment……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….66Table -3.1: Statistical data analysis for importance of competitive work environment….…….67

Table -3.2: Percentage of target population categorized by importance of recognition

for work………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………68

Table -3.3: Statistical data analysis for recognition for work ……………………………..……………….69

Table -3.4: Percentage of target population categorized by importance of getting

feedback for work…………………………………………………………………………………….…………………………70

Table -3.5: Statistical data analysis for getting feedback for work.……………………..………………71

Table -3.6: Percentage of target population categorized by importance of career

Development………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………72

Table -3.7: Statistical data analysis for importance of career development…………………………73

Table -3.8: Percentage of target population categorized by importance ofperks & incentives..…………………………………………………………………………………………………………….74

Table -3.9: Statistical data analysis for importance of perks & incentives….……………………….75

Table -4.0: Percentage of target population categorized by importance of

compensation factor………………………………………………………………………………..………………………..76

Table -4.1: Statistical data analysis for the importance of compensation factor.……….……….77

Table -4.2: Percentage of target population on the basis of length of work………………..……..78

Table -4.3: Statistical data analysis for the length of work………………………………………………….78

Table -4.4: Percentage of target population categorized by satisfaction with the

Company…………………………………………………………………………………………………………….………………79

Table -4.5: Statistical data analysis for satisfaction with the company………………….…………….79

Table -4.6: Percentage of target population who would recommend their job to afriend………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………...80

Table -4.7: Statistical data analysis of recommending a job to a friend……………………………….80

Table -4.8: Percentage of target population having positive aspects to their job………………..82


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Table -4.9: Statistical data analysis for the population having positive aspects to their

Job…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….82

Table -5.0: Percentage of target population categorized by the motivation level at work..83

Table -5.1: Statistical data analysis for the target population’s motivation level at work….83

Table -5.2: Percentage of target population categorized by the level of agreement of

organization’s communication with its employees…………………………………………………………..84

Table -5.3: Statistical data analysis of Organization’s communication with its employees.84Table -5.4: Percentage of target population categorized by the flexibility of their

company with their personal responsibilities.………………………………………………………………….85

Table -5.5: Statistical data for the flexibility of a company……………………………………………….85

Table -5.6: Percentage of respondents on the level of competitive work environment……86

Table -5.7: Statistical data analysis for competitive work environment……………………………86

Table -5.8: Percentage of respondents who say their work environment is supportive……87

Table -5.9: Statistical data analysis for supportive work environment……………………………..87

Table -6.0: Percentage stating the level of satisfaction of employees for the

recognition of their work…………………………………………………………………………………………………88

Table -6.1: Statistical data analysis of employee satisfaction for the recognition

of their work…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………...88


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CHAPTER: One



1.0 Introduction

Company‘s front line employees are associated with the effectiveness of HR strategies than ever

before. With reduction in resources and a higher attrition rate than any other sector in the UK;

retailers with preceding people strategies are fighting to survive in an environment where

consumers are financially vigilant and challenging higher levels of service. Those with highly

customized, advanced in their HR strategies, however, are capitalizing on turnover and market

share through extremely engaged employees who stay in their jobs and present higher profits for

their organisations. (Bulletin, October,2008). As cited by Yvette Blount in (Blount, 2011)―The

front-line employees outline customer perceptions of service quality and play a significant role

in the service value chain. (Scotti et al., 2009). The employee interaction with the customer

determines the value of organisation from customer‘s thinking due to which the role of front -

line employees in this service sector has become really crucial (Fleming and Asplund, 2007).

The effectiveness of relationships between customers and company works when the

organisation offers value to customers and engender their loyalties (Plakoyiannaki et al.

2008; George, 1990).‖ In order to bring into line with the needs of organisation and customers

and the transformation in the working style of service organisation has changed the role of

customer facing staff over years. The expectations that a customer and the organisation has from

front line employees are itself the major challenges as they work in an environment where

customer is always right for the organisation yet aiming the business profits. To reinforce

customer relationships and business profits the employees should be ready to deliver their duties

according to customer‘s needs and the way they want it. They who interact with customers will

have to do their own study of the desires and wishes of the customers at the time of service

delivery and must ensure the quality of service delivered at the same time. They are not just

called ‗service deliverers‘ but also ‗service marketers.‘ (Bowen, 1995). There are some

challenges that front line employees face physically and psychologically in this retail sector as

in service jobs, the work that must be done varies in pace, sometimes slow and sometimes fast,

and it varies in terms of demand for action placed on the workers and workers do not know

ahead of time what each customer will demand. Finally, consider the fact that the customers

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being served are there watching the production of their own service and sometimes even

participating in the production of that service. Services tend to be produced, consumed and

delivered relatively simultaneously as far as front line/ personal contact employees. Working

with people rather than objects and working with them present and frequently participating,

yields a psychological and physical closeness between service workers and customers. Dealing

with other people all day produces identification with those others in the natural course of

events. This happens because being pleasant and courteous irrespective of their emotions or the

ungrateful customer is usually a part of job description. These kinds of challenges faced by front

line employees can be solved by having successful HR strategies and policies. The HRM

policies and customs need to be associated to hold up the type of valuable worker (McAfee and

Brynjolfsson, 2008). From the stage of recruitment till the compensation factor, everything of

HR influences an employee in delivering a perfect job. Hiring people who can face these

challenges and pressures to motivating them to keep up the spirits and rewarding them for their

work to making payments that they deserve are few among the aspects of HR that are discussed

in this research. In order to have a better approach and understanding towards the subject that

has been chosen the research has been divided into different parts under different headings. This

research has a systematic approach towards the subject which has introduction, literature

review, research methodology, Data analysis and interpretation, and conclusions and

implications.

Introduction explains the initiation of the research giving brief overview of the challenges faced

by frontline employees in retail sector in UK. It acts as a trailer part to the entire research and

explains the approach that has been chosen by the researchers. Literature review takes through

the ideas that are selected for the research in detail. It includes the work done by previous

authors in our field that helps in giving a direction to the research and acting as a bridge

between the ideas and practicality behind the work. In literature review, the importance of

frontline employees and the challenges they face while performing their job, Retail personnel

management concepts, why there is necessity of strong HR to support these and what are the

challenges they face internally in the organisation from an employee‘s perspective and the HR







management practices to overcome them are highlighted and discussed. Research methodology

explains the practical and theoretical approach that has been chosen to move the research work

forward. It supports the primary data work carried for the project with theoretical facts. It gives

a motive to the primary data work. In the research methodology, explanation of primary

research design is provided with the aid of research purpose, research strategy, qualitative and

quantitative analysis with its limitations, primary and secondary research sources with their

advantages and limitations. Data analysis and interpretation helps in understanding the primary

data work attempted during the research and explains the realistic views of the subject from the

people‘s perspective in the relative field. It adds value to the work that has been yielded during

this entire research and helps in drawing conclusions to the subject from a pragmatic view. In

Data analysis the researcher has discussed about questions that have been conducted during the

surveys, questionnaires and interview to get vivid picture of the realistic employee‘s and

management views towards these employees. Discussions about these findings in data analysis

are fitted in the interpretations part and relate the practical work done by the researcher with the

theoretical data collected from the secondary source. Conclusions are the summation of the

entire study which explains the research queries that have been conferred at the start of the

research in the introductory part. Here the researchers have concluded the work and discussed

the implications that can be further studied in future related to this field.



CHAPTER: Two



2.0 Literature review

―A literature review uses as its database reports of primary or original scholarship, and

does not report new primary scholarship itself. The primary reports used in the

literature may be verbal, but in the vast majority of cases reports are written documents.

The types of scholarship may be empirical, theoretical, critical/analytic, or

methodological in nature. Second a literature review seeks to describe, summarise,

evaluate, clarify and/or integrate the content of primary reports."

Cooper, H. M. (1988), "The structure of knowledge synthesis",

Knowledge in Society, Vol. 1, pp. 104-126 as cited in (Insight)

2.1 INTRODUCTION

According to William, Daniel and Ronald (1988) retail personnel management has unique

characteristics that rise to unusually complex personnel problems. These unique characteristics

include:

1. Seasonal and irregular demand of employees due to rush times and increase in customer

base. The demand of employees increases from 50% to more than 100% during the

Christmas times.

2. Extensive use of part time help because of varying seasonal and irregular requirements

is the dominating group in the retail employment field.

3. Inexperience of employees

4. Consumer time preferences for store hours.

5. The importance of employee personality and appearance

6. Prevailing average wage rates

7. High rate of employee turnover is the most common problem because the number of

people employed and detached from employment is 50% to more than 100% of the

average total number of employees per annum.



Effective personnel administration is one of the most important aspects of retailing management

because of the rapidly rising payroll costs in retailing and difficulty in matching with

productivity levels previously achieved in higher volume due to declination of personnel. Some

retail firms believe that improvement in personnel management activities like selection,

training, motivation, control, evaluation and compensation is the most promising approach to

improve the retail productivity problems. It also helps the retailer in maintaining the desired rate

of profitability in the face of rapidly rising personnel costs.

To become a benchmark organisation it should consist of three tiers: a customer tier, a boundary

tier and a coordination tier for being a winning service. This three tiered model conceptualised

by Schneider and Bowen stands in sharp disparity to traditional ways of segmentation of

organisations like HR, Marketing and operations management connecting the accomplishment

in service to the effective management and incorporation of these tiers.

Coordination tier

(Management)

Boundary tier

(All points of customer contact)

Customer tier

(customers)

Fig 1.1- The three tiered view of service organisation

The boundary tier is the interface of the organisation to the customers. The boundary tier

delivers the service excellence of the organisation by meeting the three key customer needs such

as Security, Esteem and Justice. This has been called the ―moment of truth‖ as employees at

boundary tier especially act as glue that binds customers to the firm. The people within the

boundary tier who bring service play in some special roles deserve special attention. Service

employees are needed to exhibit more initiative, to handle stress more effectively, to be more

interpersonally sensitive and adaptable, and can blend with their colleagues who work in

manufacturing to fulfil the service characteristics like intangibility and customer contact .



Service employees perform at least two major roles within the company as they are both

physically and psychologically close to the customers they serve.

1. Impression managers: the service quality in customer‘s eyes is the behaviour of the

boundary tier employees and the pleasure in experiences they create for customers.

2. Gatekeepers of information: these employees act as directory on issues like customer

attitudes, information on competitors strategies, and ideas on how to enhance the

quality of service as they are being in continuous communication with customers and

maintain relationships with them.(Schneider & Bowen, 1995).

Human relations or human resource management is defined as the integration of people into a

work environment in a manner that facilitates cooperation, creativity and productivity (William

H. Bolen, 1988). Human Resources have to be managed strategically, it must be managed to

meet the market being served (Schneider & Bowen, 1995). As cited by Yvette Blount in

(Blount, 2011) ―Investment in employees by employers is to construct the abilities and

competencies they require to meet competitive needs. Employees are also shareholders.

Individual employees look forward to have a career growth and development along with the

remuneration from the organisation.(Wang, 2002; Geroy and Venneberg, 2003). Ideologies on

managing people in organisations are practised in human resource management (HRM). Job

description, recruitment and selection, training and development, performance management,

retention and employee engagement are the some of the relevant processes that are discussed

under HRM (Storey, 1995; Guest, 1997)‖. Discussion on recruitment, hiring, pay, training and

appraisal of front line employees while emphasizing on these workers individual skills, attitude,

and enthusiasm as one of the many rules are the success routes in winning the game in this retail

sector (Bowen, 1995). As cited by Yvette Blount in (Blount, 2011) ―Engagement of employees

is vital in attaining competitive benefits through employment of information systems and

successful relations with customers. HRM process will be victorious when employee‘s

mentalities and behaviours are lined up with an organisation's strategic objectives (Purcell et al.,

2003; Hailey et al., 2005). Attracting and retaining the qualified and competent employees for

well-designed jobs is not sufficient as the potentiality of employees, especially those who are






















extremely accomplished, will be biased, unless they can be absorbed with the organisation's

goals and motivated to fulfil the job requirements (Hunter and Lafkas, 2003).‖ How the

customer interactions link to the organisation‘s strategic position is explained with the

relationship between customers and employees in a service transaction.

2.2 PRACTICES IN RETAIL PERSONNEL MANAGEMENT

One of the major reasons for the low productivity and high expense structure in many small to

large retail companies is because of the lack of any formal personnel and organisational

management that results in lack of specific direction by subordinate executives, poor

communication between executive and subordinates, lack of motivation, and many other factors.

Management by objective (MBO) is a newly developed approach to personnel and

organisational management that focuses on performance output to be achieved and works back

to the personnel requirements and activities unlike traditional approach that focuses on the

personnel activities and allowing the output performance to be residual (William, Daniel and

Ronald, 1988). Management by objectives (MBO) was first explained by Peter Drucker in his

book ―The Practice of Management‖, published in 1954 and then extended by George Odiorne,

his student. The number of priorities for the manager of future is outlined by Drucker.

According to Drucker, managers often lose sight of their objectives because of something he

called ―the activity trap‖. They get so occupied in their existing activities that they forget their

motive. In some cases it may be that they become immersed in this activity as a means of

avoiding the painful truth about their organisation‘s condition. MBO requires employee to

establish individual objectives that are compatible with the broader goals of the organisation

(James R. Lowry, 1983).

An MBO system has major components:

1. A guideline statement of company strategy that includes the specification of critical

problems and opportunities facing the corporation, a forecast of economics conditions

for the budget period and any other relevant information.






2. Accountability statements that identify and establish target levels of performance for

each executive in the organisation and link each performance with company objectives.

This defining of accountability statements contributes to the sense of loyalty and

commitment by the employee and encourages the identification of realistic yet

challenging performance standards.

3. A personal review form that monitors performance on a continuous basis to insure the

achievement of target results on a programmed and predictable basis. Here the

formalised face - to - face review of actual performance by an executive and his or her

superior will provide a channel for open communication and encourages clarity and

honesty in executive performance review.

MBO is explained as a five step process that helps in attaining both personal goals and

organisational targets. (Communication Theory)

Figure 1.2: The five step MBO process

As cited in Tesco staff keeps hands on wheels article in Strategic Direction journal, ―The Office

of Government Commerce, which aids British government department delivers best value from

its spending, insists that performance-based management at any level in the organization should

demonstrate:

You know what you are aiming for;



You know what you have to do to meet your objectives;

You know how to measure progress towards your objectives; and

You can detect performance problems and remedy them.‖ (Emerald Insight Publication

Limited, 2009)

According to James R. Lowry (1983) and William, Daniel and Ronald (1988), the advantages of

MBO pointed out by some retail firms that have been employing this Advanced MBO system:

1. An improved understanding of company‘s priorities.

2. A stronger commitment to achieve target results.

3. Better coordination of the planning and control process.

4. Simplification of regular day to day operations of business.

5. An improved allocation of executive time.

6. More precise measurement of performance is achieved since actual results are measured

against performance standards that are clearly defined.

7. A potentially much higher level of morale can be established.

Companies like Tesco in retailing sector explain its organisational goals and strategies

to the employees and aligns them according to these goals. This strategic planning and

management is called as ‗steering wheel‘ that has been set against the objectives

designed by involving people of the organisation and many other stakeholders of the

organisation. Employees are evaluated and their performance is measured by how an

individual constitutes to the organisations profit by aligning themselves with

organisational goals and strategies. (Emerald Insight Publication Limited, 2009)

2.3 DETERMINATION OF STAFFING NEEDS

Should retailers fit jobs to persons or should they fit persons to jobs is the question that arises

even before recruitment which narrows it down to matching the jobs to people.

According to Ronald W. Hasty (1983) and William H. Bolen (1988) determining the staff needs

is the first step of HR process which involves defining, describing, and specifying about the job



that will help both the job applicants and current store personnel, know exactly what are the

duties and responsibilities of the position.

―You have to prepare the job description before you start hiring. There's a tendency for people

to worry about 'who' rather than 'what' too quickly.‖ – Stephen McClure.

―Developing your own job description shows you have a firm grasp of your current duties.‖-

John Lomax .

The job profile of the Front line employees for an employer would be they have to be

motivated, meet the needs of customers, and behave in ways that ensure customers feel secured;

self-esteemed and feel justly treated. Employers believe in hiring people who are willing and

able to deliver against customer expectations and needs. Service Business will be capitalizing

on the following formula for managing front line employees: employees require both ability and

motivation if they are going to perform effectively on the job (Schneider & Bowen, 1995).

There are certain set of people skills that are expected from a front line employees which play a

crucial role in giving a proper customer service. Possessing the People skills is the first step in

the job description for front line employees in retail sector. The talent to connect with a mixture

of people and assist to recognize and find what they are looking for are termed as people skills

that are required in this retail sector. At a management level experience, having excellent idea of

business principles is also useful. Employers in the industry look for talents including:

Customer services skills

Team working

Elasticity and malleability

Managerial and supervisory skills

Cash handling with good numeracy skills

Communication skills

E-commerce and ICT Skills

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Staff holding good people skills are required in this retail business that makes it relatively easy

to bag a job in the retail sector even without prior experience and thus makes it a prospective

sector to widen a career. Almost all type of qualifications is appreciated by employers these

days including NVQs, Diplomas and Degrees. NVQ levels one and two are given in retail

Skills, and the NVQ certification for sales, customer Service and retail management stands as an

example for the acceptance of qualifications by the employers. Qualifications like the Institute

of Leadership and Management (ILM) management are proven successful for considering the

applicant for the job applied. Retail apprenticeships are offered to demographic age group of 16-

24 years where they attain an understanding of work-based learning and knack to do the job that

is widely appreciated by retailers (Real Help North East).

2.4 RECRUITMENT

Recruitment is the bringing together of potential job applicants and the store (Bolen W. H.,

1988). According to Sparrow, 1994 Good recruitment is crucial to have successful human

resource management. Selection and training rely mainly on quality of starters pulled in through

the recruitment process that adds to effectiveness of human resource management. Recruitment

has to satisfy several purposes

1. To decide current and prospective staffing needs in combination with job analysis

and human resource planning

2. Pool of applicants must be raised at minimum costs

3. The success rate of the consequent selection process has to be high as some of them

will be turned out to be over or under qualified

4. The opportunity for consequent retention has to move up

5. Encouragement has to be provided for adopting own selection methods by means of

a sensible job preview

6. Congregation of responsibilities, legal and social obligations has to be achieved.

7. Organisational and individual effectiveness has to be inclined

8. The effectiveness of different labour pools has to be assessed.



Recruitment is about knowing where to look for the people who might be selected. Recruitment

can be done by

Considering the current employees for the role

Positioning the advertisements in newspapers and media as it serves the purpose of

attracting different set of job profiles to the next step,

Giving the responsibility to employer agencies in finding out the best set of people for

the role

Educational institutions hold a key to success in recruitment

The other step of recruitment can be through Referrals which might be a good or bad

source.

Unsolicited applicants can also be considered but they have to be tough competition for

the stronger candidates within the organisation. (Bolen W. H., 1988)

Online application is also kind of recruitment process that is widely in practice in the

retail industry through which an applicant is collected.

The other mostly adapted method of recruitment is approaching the applicants with their

details that are registered either through careers page of universities or through their

details that are available in high profile recruitment agencies. The examples that can be

discussed here are TKmaxx, Debenhams that does recruitment process through

university pages and companies like ASDA, Argos through recruitment agencies.

A business with a better image in the community attracts a broader variety of applicants,

providing a better set of candidates from which to choose. The best employees a company can

hire are the applicants recommended to the company by present employees and the worst

employees a company can hire are those who appear on the doorstep as a result of newspaper

advertisement (Bowen, 1995) that disagrees with Bolen‘s points that are discussed above.

2.5 SELECTION OF EMPLOYEES:

Selection of employees can be through a cognizant of available sources so that vacancies can be

filled without undesirable consequences that usually attend undue delay (William R. Davidson,



1988). Selection is the determination of which one of the applicants, if any, would be best suited

for the job. The real question is ―how many of these bodies are potential employees?‖ The use

of selection procedures is the only way to answer the question. (Bolen W. H., 1988).

Organisations make decision to hire people based on the behaviour that is observed but not what

they hear. A cardinal rule for selection is: the predictor of best future is the past behaviour

(Bowen, 1995). Selection involves many steps and application of these steps varies from

organisation to organisation. Selection is initiated with the Application form, psychological

tests, achievement tests, physical exam, Interviews and final compilation of all the above

information helps in determining the selecting of the candidate. (Bolen W. H., 1988). According

to Bowen, 1995 the following should be considered as selection methods:

The secret of valuable selection is to observe people‘s behaviour. One can be judged

truly on their behaviour when they are in pressure but not by the way they speak.

Service effectiveness is forecasted by measuring service disposition. The people who

are confident and optimistic about themselves are happier at work and the equation

leads to more contented customers as they are served by happier people.

Motivation and competency issues that interviewers must rate at the conclusion of a

structured interview that involves Client service, Oral Communication, Pressure and

adaptability, and interpersonal sensitivity.

There are two challenges involved in staffing procedure as in determining the demand

pattern for the role and hiring people who can fit that pattern.

Assessment Centre is the most widely used selection method in UK. UK companies believe

assessment centres to be the fundamental step in the recruitment process. 48% of UK companies

have success in their recruitment judgment because of employing this assessment centres and

this percentage is consistently increasing. One of the potential aspects of this assessment centres

is that they give an option of adapting a wide range of selection methods in the recruitment

process. Effective recruitment processes should:



Assessment centre is used as a method to assess and obtain information about the skills of the

participants by assessing performance and capacity of a group of applicants by applying

certain aptitude methods under trained evaluators.

The participants are tested on activities that are related to the job role either individually or in

groups by giving an example of the job so that the applicants can gain an experience and

understanding of the job they applied. Prospective job performance of the applicant can be

assessed by the interviewers with the existing job performance of that applicant. (Daniels, 2010)

Design of an assessment centre should reflect:

• The culture of the company

• The definite proficiencies essential to accomplish the job

• Budding sources of recruits

• The level to which recruitment is entrusted to line managers

• The HR strategy.

Assessment centres are planned in way to test suitability to varied aspects of the work

environment and the job role. This process helps in observing the behaviour and relating it with

the preferred role of the job applied. The length of assessment centres vary from half a day to

two full days sometimes even overnight. The job level decides the length and difficulty level of

the assessment centre. Assessment centre includes different types of activities out of which one

or the combination of many activities are applied according to the role applied that includes:

Interviews: These are conducted one-one or in a panel which can be a mixture of

competency or technical or biographical or functional interviews according to job that

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has been applied. An example of Tesco can be discussed for interviews where it

conducts one-one interviews.

Exercises: They are carried out in groups or individually and involve business games,

tasks, role plays, analysing case studies, etc. An example Camper can be discussed

where it involves group and individual tasks.

Presentation: Presentations are conducted either in very short period of intimation or

the applicant has been intimated to be prepared in advance. An example of KFC can be

discussed here where in a short period of twenty min a presentation has to be prepared

to present in front of the assessors.

Psychometric assessment: it consists of questionnaires regarding the personal

behaviour or traits of the applicant and ability tests to test their logical or analytical or

basic math skills. ASDA can be discussed as an perfect example here where it conducts

assessment in all the above listed ability skills.

In-tray/e-tray: - Prioritisation of emails or messages in a given time according their

importance and discusses the decision in front of the assessor with a justification or

agrees to group‘s priorities when working in a group is seen in this process. This will

help in analysing the applicant under different characteristics like intervention,

influences, conciliation and working under stress.

Debrief: It is a process of discussing the applicant performance, let them ask any final

questions before they leave and give suggestions when they are expecting to hear about

the result of the assessment centre. (Strathclyde, n.d.)

2.6 INDUCTION AND TRAINING

A brief orientation is necessary before training as it helps the new employee to get accustomed

to the new environment. Orientation/Induction is a process that is geared to the first few days on

the job, whereas training is a continuous process. Introduction of new employees to the

organisation and their duties in the organisation for their role and giving an exposure of work

culture is called Induction (The Times 100). Induction or Orientation will influence the length

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of stay of the new employees. Induction is a process where the employees get adapted to the

work environment. New starters get a chance to socialize and gain work relationships to suit for

their roles within the new teams. Induction is described as individual‘s initial contact with the

company to understand the business, work style and to gain speed in their job. This process is as

called as On boarding process that is beneficial for the both the organisation as well as

employees. Effective indication programme integrates staff into the organisation and increase

staff retention. A good induction programme explains about the facilities they possess, helps in

understanding how employees accommodate into the team and their role with organisation

strategy and goals. Orientation also creates an awareness of cross functional departments either

through face to face or with the use of technology and explains about the legal requirements,

terms and conditions, organisational culture and outline of job requirements. Failure of an

effective induction programme leads to low employee turnover rates and increase in the costs of

recruitment process (CIPD, 2010). Both new and old employees need training as there is always

a room for additional learning. (Bolen W. H., 1988). As cited by (Piyali Ghosh, 2011) in

‗Evaluating effectiveness of training programme with trainee reaction journal‘, ―Training is the

act of escalating the talent of an employee for doing a specific job. Flippo (1984). Goldstein

(1993) describes training as a methodical achievement of skills, rules, concepts or attitudes that

leads to enhanced performance in work environment. Chiaburu and Tekleab (2005) have

explained training as the process designed to improve the causal factor of individual‘s job

performance by a planned intervention. Training helps in aligning human resource and

organisational growth with individual, company and industrial growth (Sundarajan, 2007).

Companies facilitate employee‘s learning about the job related competencies that include

characteristics like personal behaviours, knowledge that are vital for success in the job (Noe,

2009).

Training and development help an organisation in optimising the utilisation of human resources,

which further helps employees to achieve organizational goals, as well as their individual

goals. Guzzo et al. (1985) expressed the view that training programme is the most powerful

activity among many organisational interventions. The goal of training is to enable employees





















to gain complete knowledge about the job, skills and behaviours required for the job that are

emphasised in training programmes and to apply them to their daily chore activities. Training

serves to improve the performance of employees, which, in turn, provides a competitive edge to

the organisation (Schraeder, 2009).‖ (Piyali Ghosh, 2011)

A positive training Program teaches proficiency and develops skill in a given job, with a view to

shortening the more gradual learning on the job that would otherwise be the only educational

process. It implies a systematic approach based on knowledge of the material to be taught, the

teaching methods to be used, and the characteristics and limitations of individuals who are to be

trained (William R. Davidson, 1988). The importance of training is not an issue that is decided

at one point in time and never gets revisited; training is a critical part of the continuous

improvement mentality of excellent firms. As the demands of the market change and as

companies make changes in how they are organised and structured or in technology that gets

adopted and implemented, then training becomes the vehicle for taking the existing workforce

and preparing it for change. The fundamental issue in training whether it be training of

individuals or training of teams, is to ensure that when customer meets employee, the encounter

unfolds in ways that yield sense of seamlessness for the customer (Bowen, 1995). There are

really two kinds of training, informal and formal training according to Bowen (1995)

Informal training: It is a kind of training where the service culture of the organisation is

promoted to the starters from their co-workers. Orientation programs and ice breaker

activities between the co-workers will enhance this kind of learning of the service

culture of the organisation.

Formal training: the effectiveness of training on the job will determine the extent to

which formal training is required and rewarded. This kind of training not only enhances

performance and ability, but also contributes to the motivation of employees.

According to (William R. Davidson, 1988), the objectives of training are it brings about an

improvement in employee skill; it tends to increase individual earnings, since more productive

workers are normally paid higher wages. Training also lower labour turnover and increases job






security. Training lessens supervisory problems by encouraging standardization in operating

methods. Training increases general level of morale.

Methods of training were discussed by Bolen (1988) that includes the following common

methods:

1. ―Go Get‘em‖ method where the management simply assumes that the employee knows

what to do. When learning does take place under this procedure, what is learned is often

wrong.

2. Sponsor method is a kind of orientation where an experienced employee is made

responsible for seeing that a new person becomes accustomed to the store and its

people.

3. Programmed learning method is an idea of repetition of the work to encourage learning.

4. Learner-Controlled Instruction method is a training program that involves the

development of checklist of tasks or exercises which a trainee must complete to

demonstrate mastery of a required skill.

5. Group method is often used to train employees in stores where the number of new

people warrants the group approach. Training employees prior to the opening of a new

store is also usually done as a group. The group method is used when the economies of

scale dictate its application.

6. Progression method is a step-by-step training that moves the trainee from position to

position as a means of learning various tasks in the store.

2.7 MOTIVATION

Motivation is termed as a something which turns down the employees' zeal to work without

pressure. Motivating is to provide employees with a need to perform a job. It is like to provoke

someone to behave either in a positive or negative manner. Stating that employees cannot be

motivated at work is like saying that there exist no influential leaders.

Motivation is defined as management‘s ability to get workers to act in a certain way under their

own volition. The employee who makes an effort to do job that management wants done can be



said motivated (Bolen, 1988). According to Professors (Uysal & Magnini, 2011) about

Customer service it‘s the frontline staffs that are the key to the bottom line. The frontline service

providers — employees who are in first contact with the customer are an important part of the

bottom-line, in both profit and customer satisfaction terms, they stated. The authors discuss the

importance of understanding how role ambiguity, role conflict, and lack of psychological

empowerment can deflate employee motivation; the challenges of managing ethnically diverse

frontline employees; and the need to use training opportunities to reduce ethnocentric attitudes

that may exist among staff. It can be seen that employees today do want something more - and

that is not just the money. According to Dr Kenneth Kovach in his studies on employee

motivation at George Mason University, cited in (Mowatt, n.d.) ―the number one motivator for

employees is interesting work ―. In context with that the question originates how to make a

potentially boring job into an interesting one. Providing Customer service turns into a skill when

it is furnished with an attitude of quality, mindfulness and service". In addition to the

discussion, Hasty (1983) said often employees are bound to perform tasks that are boring

involving no challenge or very little interest. Regardless of the monotony of the task, however it

has to be performed. Here comes the role of the supervisor, which is to keep motivating their

employees to perform all the duties. Motivating involves guiding employee‘s efforts toward the

accomplishment of the firm‘s objectives. Success depends upon manager‘s ability to know

employees on a personal basis, and to know and understand the nature and sources of job

satisfaction. The authors adds to the point stating, ‗‗the human need approach to motivation is

based on the premise that the most effective motivators are those that act as satisfiers of

employee needs and goals‘‘ (Hasty, 1983). The figure – 1.3 illustrates this viewpoint.



Source: Retailing by Hasty( 1983)

There exist certain theories of motivation which will explain how motivation works for

employees in day to day events.

Buchanan & Huczynski(2010), argues about needs, drives & motives in their text book. They

proposed, human being has an innate need for survival. Kanfer, et al.( 2001) emphasizes on

‗‗the needs importance as internal tensions that shape the arbitrating cognitive processes that

results in variability of the behaviour‘‘. ‗‗Needs for oxygen, water, food, shelter are

overwhelming. These needs are triggered by wants and are known as drives, whereas motive is

a socially adopted need triggered by a desire for fulfilment‘‘ (Buchanan & Huczynski, 2010).



Table 1.1- Drives versus motives

Drives Motives

Are innate Are learned

Have a physiological basis Have a social basis

Are activated by deprivation Are activated by environment

Are aimed at satiation Are aimed at stimulation

Source: Organizational behaviour by Buchanan & Huczynski (2010)p.266

‗‗Motivation theories which are based on drives and needs are called content theories‘‘.

(Buchanan & Huczynski, 2010). The latest content theory of work motivation was formulated

by Nohria, Groysberg & Lee (2008) cited in (Buchanan & Huczynski, 2010). Their ‗emotional

needs‘ theory claims that a human being is driven by four innate drives:

the drive to acquire obtain scarce goods,develop social status

the drive to bond form connections with other individual and groups

the drive to comprehend satisfy our curiosity,master our environment

the drive to defend protect against threats, promote justice

According to Nohria, Groysberg & Lee (2008), Organizational policies and practices in the

above mentioned areas can enhance motivation.

Other than this, american psychologist (Maslow, 1943,1954,1971) developed a new theory of

motivation which says, needs are innate (including drives and goals) and identified nine of these

:-



Figure 1.4: Abraham Maslow‘s needs hierarchy

Source: (Maslow, 1943,1954,1971)

‗‗A Motivation theory that focuses on making choices with regard to goals is known as process

theories. Different from content theories, process theories give a role on decision making in

choosing the goals and how to pursue them‘‘ (Buchanan & Huczynski, 2010).

According to Buchanan & Huczynski (2010) ‗‗individuals are motivated by varied results,

culture encourages different practices of motivation‘‘. The theories of Nohria and colleagues,

and of Maslow, are universalistic which means it applies to everyone, and does not define

dissimilarity between individuals and cultures.

According to the American psychologist Edward C. Tolman, ‗‗expectancy theory is also termed

as process theory which says that individual motivation depends on the valence of outcomes, the

expectancy, that an attempt will lead to good performance, and the instrumentality of

performance in producing measured results‘‘. American psychologist Victor H. Vroom (1964)



was the first who formulated the expectancy theory of work motivation which was based on

three concepts:

Figure 1.5 : Expectancy theory of work motivation

Source: Expectancy theory of work motivation by Vroom (1964) cited in (Buchanan &

Huczynski, 2010)

For example, the force of motivation (F) to work hard is the product of above discussed

variables, This is because, the product F will be zero if one of the variables is zero.

F= V x I x E

According to the above equation by Vroom (1964):

If ‗V‘ is low that means one does not care about the grade he/she will get for the next

assignment, which means the person would not be motivated to work hard for it.

If ‗E‘ is low that means a person believes that tough long hours in the library will not get high

assignment grade, then the person wouldn‘t be motivated to work hard.

When ‗I‘ is low, it means if a person believes that a good grade will not contribute to a chosen

qualification, or to the preferred career, then the person wouldn‘t be motivated to work hard.

So, the above theory clearly explains that, ‗‗the force of motivation will be positve and strong

only when all the three elements in the expectency equation are positive and high for an

employee‘‘ (Vroom, 1964).

In addition to the above explained theories, Locke & Latham (1990) proposed a motivation

technique rather than a formal theory known as ‗‗Goal-setting theory‘‘, which is also a process

theory of motivation , arguing that motivation at work is influenced by complexity of the goal

,specificity of the goal, and knowledge of results. Goals that are challenging, goal which are



specific, Participation and Knowledge of results are the four propositions established under

goal-setting theory and properly backed up by the research. This theory has been tried out in

situations where short term targets are expressed in simple clear way and quantative manner.

Expectancy, goal-setting theories of motivation allow to make choices. These involve a, logical,

reasoned approach to the decisions that shapes a behaviour and do not permit the emotional

influence. According to the inner work life theory devised by Amabile & Kramer (2007), ‗‗a

human behaviour and performance at work are determined by the way in which the human

perceptions, motives and emotions have direct interaction with each other, triggered by

everyday events‘‘.

Figure 1.6: Inner working life theory

Source: Harvard Business review, p.75. From ‘‘Inner work life: understanding the subtext of

business performance’’ by Amabile & Kramer (2007)

Various authors have talked about motivation and have also discussed about the reasons why

employees get de-motivated. There are many reasons why employees get demotivated and feel

like quitting or reduce productivity, which is discussed below:



1) Not enough of monetary growth

2) Little or no appreciation

3) Less work or too overloaded

4) Extended working hours

5) Groupism

6) And sometimes even ragging

This is where the HR or supervisors come into play which has motivational tools with them

such as: pay increase, promotions, and prizes, paid vacations, insurance plans, praise,

recognition, and added responsibility for deserving individuals. Use of one or combination of

the above mentioned tools would be an ideal key to successful motivation.

Improving the quality of working life is also a crucial topic of discussion when motivation is

being talked about. Many organizations reconsidered improving the quality of working life

through employee empowerment, an organizational system that gives employees more liberty,

circumspection, and decision making responsibility. This has been lately linked with the

concept of employee engagement, which implies the point to which people enjoy, believe and

feel appreciated for doing their work.

These approaches converge in the high performance work system, which was first explored by

Peter Vaill (1982) stating,‗‗it is a form of organization that operates at levels of excellence far

beyond those of comparable systems‘‘. This is well explained by the following figure.



Figure 1.7: The case for high performance work systems

Source: Organizational behaviour by Buchanan & Huczynski(2010)

2.8 ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE

Organizational culture has been a fascinating topic since the early 1980‘s. The executives and

management consultants first adopted the organizational culture as a quick solution to virtually

every organization problem; which was later acquired by academics to understand behaviour in

organizations as an informative model (Morgan et al., 1983; Meek, 1988; Kennedy, 1982;

Martin, 2001; M, 2002). ‗‗The ultimate strength of an organization‘s culture lies in the

similarity of group membership, and the length of the experience along with the intensity of

their shared experiences in a group. One learns about a company‘s culture through the process

of Organizational Socialization‘‘ (Edger Schein, 1979). This is known as a process through

which an employee‘s behavioural patterns, belief and needs are acted upon to conform to that of

the organizations. Socialization is considered as significant, as John van Maanen and Edgar

Schein (1979) also debated on socialization, saying for the beginners it is about engaging the

values and behaviours which are required to hold up and flourish in their organization. Martin

Parker (2000) indicates that multiple cultures exist in organizations. These multiple cultures

show the means in which employees differentiate themselves within companies i.e. by their

profession, by their functionality etc. Whereas according to (Buchanan & Huczynski, 2010) the



managerialist perspective culture is seen as something that an organization has, which also

presumes that it can be created or modified by the corporate leaders. This has sparked three

debates. First, concerning how managers can change their company‘s culture from ‗weak‘ to

‗strong‘. Second, how culture can help a company innovate and adjust rapidly to environmental

changes. Third, the part played by leader‘s vision and styles of management in managing their

cultures.

According to Clint Swindall (2007), ‗‗there are two kinds of employees – engaged and

disengaged‘‘. Culture of an organization determines the engagement or disengagement of the

employees. Employees who are eager to contribute and dedicated to the vision of the

organization are termed as engaged employees whereas those employees which are not even

aware of the organization's vision and spend most of their time seeing the clock are called the

disengaged employees. The leaders of the organizations should establish a culture to defeat the

issues of employee disengagement (Swindall, 2007).

Geert Hofstede (1986, 1991) in 1980s, performed a cross-cultural study of employees of the

same multinational company situated in forty countries. Later working with Bond (Hofstede &

Bond, 1988) differentiated national cultures as - power, social, goal, uncertainity, and time.

These cultural orientations directly affects the perceptions, values, attitudes and motivation of

people who live in it. Like personality assessment, each of the orientations represents a separate

period of time, so each culture can be positioned as shown in the figure 5



Figure 1.8: Hofstede‘s five dimensions of culture

Source: Organizational behaviour by Buchanan & Huczynski(2010)

2.9 PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT

Performance management is known in the language of HR and people management from more

than four decades and its evolution as a fundamental people management tool which helps in

understanding its contribution and placement when relating it to other HR activities. Through

several reflections from MBO‘s to review performance, performance management has proved to

be the principal source of communication for the managers for what is expected from

employees and giving feedback on their performance of achieving goals.

So, what does Performance Management mean? It is a holistic procedure of joining all the

elements that constitute the people management practices including, learning and development.

It becomes complex and is misunderstood for this reason. Performance management aims to

associate individual‘s objectives and goals of the organization. Moreover, performance

management tries to fortify the skills of people to accomplish their potential to satisfy their

ambitiousness and also hike up the firm‘s profit.



Bevan and Thompson (1991), conducted a survey on performance management and determined

a big deal of confusion regarding what exactly does performance management mean, a number

of practitioners replaced it as a performance management tool, such as performance related pay

or performance appraisal. Only when Armstrong (2005), demonstrated that performance

management is a medium to incorporate certain amount of activities that focuses on contribution

by an individual, such as talent management, career planning, learning and development. They

also stressed that performance management as ‗‗a systematic plan which associates with every

action of the organisation with regard to the HR policies, culture, style and communications

systems. The nature of such a strategy counts on the organisational context and can vary from

organisation to organisation‘‘ (Egan, 2011) cited in (CIPD, 2011) In other words, performance

management is explained as :

• Effective – it should check if people hold the knowledge and the ability to perform.

• Strategic – it is about the wider issues and goals which are long-term.

• Integrated – it should connect the business aspects such as people management, and of the

individuals and teams.

Anything which is evaluated enables targets to be set, and against to that work of an individual

or group will be judged and so will influence the behaviour of an individual or function in a

positive manner to meet the targets (Athiyaman, 1997). According to, Professor John Purcell

(2003), the most crucial factor that affects the individual‘s willingness to perform is the

relationship that exists between an individual and their line managers. As Mohrman and

Mohrman (1995) further emphasised, ‗‗performance management is managing the business‘‘; in

other words, this is the everyday task of line managers cited in (CIPD, 2011). Other authors like

define performance management as an operational process, saying ‗‗ it is a system through

which organisations set its work goals, determine performance standards, assign work and

evaluate it, provide performance feedback, determine training and development needs and

distribute rewards‘‘ (Briscoe and Claus,2008)



Latham et al (2007), commented that a differentiating characteristic of performance

management in relation to performance appraisal is that performance management is an on-

going process and performance appraisal is done at distinct time intervals which is possessed

and carried out by line managers and not by the HR. Sparrow (2008), argue that performance

management changed its direction to a broader agenda for performance management with

emphases on open and honest communication among the managers and individuals and the

development of a relationship which is based on trust.

Performance management also acts as a guiding influence in communicating the business

priorities. John McCann, a national Audit Officer gave his view on performance management

that it is ‗a process for delivering the priorities of the business. Concerned consequences like

personal development, career management, etc., are crucial but basically it‘s about assuring the

senior level business plans to the junior level individual objectives. Appraisal process of the

staff provides the mechanism for delivering the business plan at all levels.‘ Lynn Smith from

Alliance Trust PLC summarized the functionality of the performance management by

expressing that ‗It is a mix of assuring people, if they are well aware of how they can help the

business to achieve its goals and aims as well as the individual having a clear thought about

their desires in terms of occupation and self-development.

2.9.1Tools for Performance Appraisal:

The main tools of performance management may be summarised as follows:

2.9.1.1 Performance Appraisal & Reward system

The history of performance appraisal is quite concise. It was first originated in the beginning of

20th century. As in discrete and conventional management procedures used in evaluating

performance at work, performance appraisal dates itself from the time of World War II.

Dulewicz (1989) stated performance appraisal as, "A general human behaviour to make

assessments for people working with and oneself as well". Appraisal is universal and cannot be

avoided. People are inclined to make judgements on work performance of others, including



subordinates, in a natural, informal and random manner. The human tendency of judgement can

lead to severe issues in the workplace related to motivation and ethics. There is very little

probability of assuring that the opinions made at the work place will be lawful, fair and

accurate, if a structured appraisal system does not exist.

Many renowned investigators have showed uncertainties about the validity and reliability of the

performance appraisal process. Few suggested that this process is so inherently blemished that it

may be not be possible to make it perfect (Derven, 1990). At the other extreme, there are people

who strongly advocated for performance appraisal. Some look at it as potentially ―the most

important feature of organizational life" (Lawrie, 1990).

In a landmark study by (Locher, 1977), there are three most common appraisal methods in

general use, these are rating by scales (56%), using essay methods (25%) and MBO methods

(13%).

2.9.1.2 Encouragement of Discussion

If the employees are given or have the opportunity to talk free and discuss their performance,

they will more likely consider it as fair. Potentially such employees will be able to achieve

future performance goals (Nemoroff, 1979).

2.9.1.3 Constructive Intention

It is considered very important that employees should know that negative appraisal feedback is

provided with a positive intention of improvement, i.e. to help those defeat the current

difficulties and to better their future performance. Employees will find the criticism useful,

when the belief that the appraiser's aims are encouraging and constructive (Fedor, 1989).

In contrasting studies by (Baron, 1988) "destructive criticism" - is undefined, not well informed,

unjust or presented unkindly will result into problems like anger, bitterness, tension and

conflicts at workplace, as well as increased opposition to advancement, problem denials, and

poorer performance.



2.9.1.4 Set Performance Goals

It has been presented in number of studies that setting goals at work is an important element of

motivating the employees. Goals excite employee to focus on attention and encourage them to

find new and better ways to work (Locke, 1981). Goals usefulness acts as a stimulus in

motivating humans which is one of the most proficient theories in management. It is also quite

clear those goals which are "particular, hard and accepted by employees will lead them to higher

levels of performance than easy one" (Harris, 1995).

2.9.1.5 Appraiser Credibility

It is important for the appraiser to be savvy and believable. Appraisers must be comfortable

with the appraisal techniques, and should know well about the employee's job and roles along

with his/her performance. When such situations are faced, employees take appraisal process as

accurate and fair. They also show acceptances of the feedback given by the appraiser and a

temperament to change (Bannister, 1986).

2.9.1.6 The Link to Rewards

People enjoy knowing that the contributions they make are acknowledged in the right way and

offering generous pays and reward packages is conceived as in the way it comes for the

companies to fulfil the desire. Rewards must, still be appealing in order to satisfy and motivate

the employee. Research has reported that ‗‗appraisees adopt process of appraisal, and find it

more satisfied, when the process is directly associated to rewards‘‘ (Bannister, 1990). Such

findings are challenges to some people who think that results from the appraisal and outcomes

of the reward must be kept apart from each other.

2.9.1.7 360 Degree Feedback

360 feedbacks is a performance appraisal system that collects feedback from a number

of sources, including colleagues, direct reports and customers. It was claimed by its



admirers that 360 degree feedback gives managers and individual‘s a amended

information of skills and performance, as well as working relationships.

360 Degree Feedback, 360 Degree Appraisal is the names for a process which is

increasing in use and gaining popularity in the UK, just like in the US. Organisations

using the process in the UK include WH Smith, Tesco and Forward Trust.

2.9.1.8 Learning & Development

Development of employees is the major path to bettered organisational performance, which in

return calls for an apprehension of the processes and techniques of organisational, team and

individual learning. Getting reviews on performance development may be viewed as learning

events, which can be encouraged to conceive about how they want to be developed. This can

lead to the writing of a personal development plan (PDP) setting out the actions they offer to

take to meet their development needs.

2.9.1.9 Measurement

To effectively manage the performance, individuals must be aware of the factors on which their

performance will be evaluated. Measures should not be hidden and must be applied fairly across

the organisation. Measurements should be relevant to both inputs and outputs and in an ideal

manner a mixture of individual and team measures should be there.

Talking about the performance measure examples, they are not in-depth, as performance

measures are always job-specific.

Individual output measures have:

Achievement of pre-set targets.

Achievement involving descriptions or rankings like ‗excellent‘, ‗good‘, ‗satisfactory‘

or ‗poor‘ performance



Specific examples of performance, such as approvals received for particular pieces of

work.

Instances for individual input measures are:

Competence

Skills and experience

Potential to develop and/or acquire new skills and progress to next career level

Behaviours associated with developing and sharing knowledge

Communication skills and other attributes that enhance team roles.

Team measures include:

Contribution by individuals to the team through participation in different team projects.

Supporting members of other teams so that they can achieve their objectives

Understanding of team role

Engagement scores.

(CIPD, 2011)

2.9.2 Pay

Often Performance management is associated with performance-related pay (PRP), although not

all firms which use performance management have performance related pay. However, PRP is

crucial in many performance management schemes as it:

Motivates people in their work

Delivers the message that performance is important

Is fair to reward people according to their performance.

‗‗There is a substitute to performance related pay called competence-related pay, which is

associated to one‘s competence levels using a competence profile or by model. Other possible



pay schemes are team-based pay and contribution-related pay, which may involve of associating

pay to competence as well as the outcomes‘‘ (Gillian, 2007).

2.10 RETENTION OF EMPLOYEES

Recent approaches in assessing customer satisfaction can be implemented to frontline

employee‘s satisfaction and retention. This demands a change in management prototype, from

frontline employee as servants which are less paid to frontline employee as customer. The

frontline employees are considered as someone who should listen to management, but the

management must also listen to its employees.

To attract and retain key employees should be the top priority for every organization. No matter

if it is naivety or any other reason for that matter, if the organization fails to carry out effective

employee retention strategies it will damage the image of the company. Finding the right

candidate is easy and requires significant investment both financially and timely. When an

employee quits the firm, it means that the hiring, training process has to begin from all over

again. Losing a valuable employee could also negatively impact on organizational performance.

The firm has to face a double setback if the individual concerned later on falls into the lap of a

competitor. It‘s amazing to see that, many senior managers have to face troubles when they fail

to appreciate the link between staff turnover and how their firm performs (Anon., 2003).

It is clearly understood that organizations which have satisfied employees have satisfied

customers. As a results organizations which have satisfied employees also have higher levels of

customer retention (Schneider, 1985), which increases the profitability of an organization

(Reichheld, 1990).

The employee should be treated as a customer; this belief has been already developed. Berry

(1981) states managing customers or employees do not change the purpose. Individuals and

organizations are involved in both the cases. The importance of satisfying needs and wants

remains constant no matter it‘s for an employee or a customer. This means that management of

employees is same as the management of customers. On carrying out a satisfaction process for

both employees and customers, many similarities can be examined in between them. ‗‗Needs

and wants of a customer is satisfied when they are aware of the goods and services to have value



which fits or outgoes their expectations‘‘ (Anderson, 1993). So it can be said that an employee

needs and wants are satisfied only when they receive that reward from the organization, these

reward could be anything like pay, promotion, incentive, recognition, personal growth,

meaningful work, allowances etc. So, if the value given by an organization is less than what an

employee or customers expect, then their needs and wants aren‘t satisfied. Retention of both

customers and employees is linked with high satisfaction level. It is further expressed that,

‗‗Satisfied customers will return for a repurchase (Anderson, 1993; Rust, 1995) whereas

satisfied employees have higher chances of not leaving an organization‘‘ (Mobley, 1979).



CHAPTER: Three



3.0 Research Methodology

According to the research questions, in the table given below are the aspects considered for this

study on the left and the other side of the table explains how the aspects are answered through

the primary data. The ones in black shows that the aspects are attained through survey and

questionnaire and the red ones are the aspects that are covered through interviews respectively.

Moreover, secondary data acted as a base for all the work during this research.

Table 1.2 – Approach to research methodology

Aspects considered Aspects covered

Recruitment and selection Job profile, Selection and recruitment

Training Training

Employee engagement Employee engagement

Motivation Motivation

Job satisfaction Job satisfaction

Organisational culture Organisational culture

Appraisal Feedbacks and recognition

Retention Retention

Rewards Rewards

Pay and compensation Pay compensation, payment

3.1 INTRODUCTION

Research in understood as search for knowledge. The Advanced Learner‘s Dictionary of

Current English established the meaning of research as ―a careful investigation or inquiry

especially through search for new facts in any branch of knowledge‘‘. Redman and Mory (1933)

state research as a ―Well- planned attempt to gain new knowledge‘‘. In contrast to that (Goddard

& Melville, 2001) argue that , research is not only gathering information rather, it is about

answering questions which are not being answered yet or creating questions which does not

exist.



Every research has a different purpose. Therefore, research methodology is defined as a

designed process under which a research is carried out (Remenyi D, 1998)‘. Thus, the focus of

this research is to determine the challenges faced by front-line staff in retail industry in UK.

3.2 R ESEARCH PURPOSE

The purpose of a research is to find out answers to questions through the application of

scientific operations and the most common purpose for conducting a research is descriptive,

exploratory or explanatory.

1. Descriptive: This kind of research seeks to describe a situation, a problem, a phenomenon,

service or programme in a systematic way. According to Eriksson & Widersheim Paul (1997),

‗‗when the problem is well defined but the key objective is not to conduct relation between

causes and symptoms, in such a scenario descriptive research is appropriate‘‘. Further stating, in

descriptive research , the researcher knows what they want to study but have no idea about the

answers.

2. Exploratory: It is a kind of research which is attempted to explore an area where not much is

known or to look into the possibilities of working on a particular research study. Exploratory

research is relevant when a particular theory is not clear. When during a research key features

and relations are hard to find out, exploratory research would be helpful (Eriksson &

Widersheim Paul, 1997).

3. Explanatory: Explanatory research is performed to answer the Why questions. This type of

research is conducted in order to find out certain behaviour in the market. It uses theory and

builds on exploratory and descriptive research. The research published in journals is

explanatory.

Since the aim of this research is to achieve an understanding of the challenges faced by front-

line staff in retail industry in UK, The research topic and questions called for exploring the

answers of the challenges faced by front-line in the present scenario by directly interacting with

managers and employees plus observing their behaviour. Since the research is based on HRM so

somewhat it contains descriptive influence as well which sets as a base for the entire research



process. Thus the design of the research will be exploratory; however also to some extent it will

be descriptive.

3.3 R ESEARCH APPROACH

In different situations, when certain entities act differently, there quantitative and qualitative

research methods explain better about the society. There are difference between the research

methods, however the main difference is that in quantitative research method result is attained

by using few variables on many respondents, Surveys and questionnaires are the suitable

methods for quantitative research while a qualitative research method uses few respondents with

number of variables in order to achieve a deeper understanding (Darner & Freytag, 1995).

Quantitative research is considered to be well structured and use of numerals‘ play a crucial role

in the conducting the analysis (Solvang & Holme, 1991). Quantitative research is a descriptive

research design. This research is commonly developed from exploratory research findings

(Malhotra & Birks, 2007). On the other hand, Qualitative research is about gathering, analysing

and interpreting the data which cannot be measured. A qualitative research method is chosen

when complete understanding of the data becomes important which being collected and studied.

(Lincoln & Guba, 2000) Claim that qualitative research involves an interpretative and realistic

approach: ―This means that person carrying out a qualitative research analyse things in the

natural context, attempting to make sense of it, or to interpret.

Therefore this research will adopt the qualitative method of interviews to make thorough

understanding of the employee motivation, turnover, satisfaction experience etc. of both

employees and the employers. This method is designed to help the researcher to enquire and

understand the challenges that are faced by the front-line staff in the retail industry in UK.

Thus, the research topic demands the mix of the two methods, which can help the researcher to

attain the view of the participants through interviews, surveys and questionnaire‘s. However, the

idea of combined methods is debatable, since Barbour argues that ‗‗mixing methods creates

problems because every method has its own presumptions in terms of the theoretical model that

is brought to have on the research‘‘ (Barbour, 1998). On the other hand, some researchers state

that it is possible to use mixed methods. For example, Fellows & Liu (1997) propose, ‗‗the use

of qualitative and quantitative techniques together to study the topic – which is very powerful



for gaining insights and results, and for assisting in making inferences and drawing

conclusions‘‘. Therefore, for this research, both qualitative & quantitative analysis will be

appropriate and also can help to determine the challenges faced by front-line staff in retail

industry in UK.

3.4 R ESEARCH STRATEGY

According to Yin (2003), there exist five primary research strategies that are discussed in the

table below and which provides an abstract of the comparative functioning of each type of

research strategy under every condition and can be ignored for the nature of the research.

Research strategies are derived from the questions of the research plus from the level of

command and the concentration of attention of the interviewer (Yin, 2003).

Table 1.3: Relevant situations for different research strategies

STRATEGY Form of research

question

Requires Control of

behavioural events

Focuses on

contemporary

events

Experiment How, Why Yes Yes

Survey Who, What,

Where,

How much,How many

No Yes

Archival Analysis Who, What,

Where,

How much,

How many

No Yes/No

History How, Why No No

Case Study How, Why No Yes

Source: Robert K.Yin (2003) p.19

After examining the conditions of this research, an approach to survey would be the most

suitable research strategy because the questions of the research are framed as ‗What‘-‗How‘

questions and require no control of behavioural events. The Survey strategies are usually

associated with the exploratory research (Saunders, et al., 2003), and incline to explain incidents

or phenomena with the purpose of predictive outcomes. Survey will allow us to gather a



prominent amount of data from a sizeable population. As per Saunders, et al. (2003) the survey

strategy is easy to understand, so it is sensed as authoritative by people in general

3.5 DATA COLLECTION

Secondary Research Sources

The initial question of the research question implies understanding the trends in recruitment changing

over the years for front-line staff. This demands secondary research, which is studying the data which

exists already, and acts as a base for primary research(Bradley, 2007). The secondary research is used for

the purpose of ‗providing a background‘ to the study undertaken.

Therefore, in the context of this dissertation secondary research will include the following data sources:

1. Journals – Journals are vital data source for any research and are also known as periodicals as

they are published in fixed intervals, serials and magazines. Currently most are printed; they

appear in electronic forms as well via the internet. Therefore, various journals have been

accessed already and will be accessing further in order to answer the research questions for the

project.

2. Books – Books were particularly being useful as primary source to help understand and clarify

the research questions and objectives or the methods of research that will be used for this project.

The material in books is systematic and approachable than in journals, getting together a wider

range of the topic (Saunders, et al., 2003).

3. The Internet

The background secondary research has been helpful in giving a better perception and understanding of

the recruitment trends for the front-line staff as illustrated in chapter 2, the literature review. Secondary

research is a prime source of ideas and prelude theories for adding up to the primary research to be

conducted. Secondary research is conducted by detailed explanation of the HR practices in the retail

industry in UK. Thus, the analysis of the secondary data in the literature review is not complete and

would be meaningful with the course of Primary Research.

Advantages of secondary data:

Support in solving the research problem

Secondary data can have less resource requirements



Secondary data can provide relative data and data which are in context to a particular

thing.

Permanence of data

Limitations of secondary data:

Can be collected for a purpose but then does not matches the need

Access may be costly

No real control over data quality

Lack of availability – either data not available or very difficult to obtain.

Primary Research Sources

‘’If the information you need is unavailable or hasn‘t been gathered, you‘ll have to gather it

yourself ’’ (H. Dan O‘Hair et al, 2001).

Primary Data is the data which is not collected before and is collected for the first time for a

research study, using methods unlike in secondary research.

Data will be collected through interviews, surveys & questionnaires for this research. The

questions designed for the interviews will aim to explore the personal experience of the

management of the organization and questionnaires will give an insight of the challenges faced

by the front-line employees. Thus interviewing is the only approach that offers a scope for the

interviewee to tell detailed answers to the questions of the interviewer. The survey will contain a

generalised version which is precisely opinion poll that will set up a base for the questionnaires

which will give the direction towards the research objective.

Advantages of Primary Data:

Direct answers to the research questions can be attained through primary data

Limitations of research through secondary data can be trouble-shooted by getting a

reliable material from primary research.

Both qualitative & quantitative data can be collected.

Un-biased information



Original & Accurate data

Limitations of Primary Data:

Large volume of data

Could be expensive

Time Consuming

Huge Volume of population

Reliability of data could be questionable

Why Questionnaire?

As very well stated by James Key (1997), ‗‗the questionnaire is most often a very concise, pre-

planned set of questions designed to yield specific information to meet a particular need for

research information about an apt topic‘‘. Questionnaire can be proved as a successful measure

for the research topic if the responses are accurate and helps in adding to the work that is been

carried out. Questionnaire being a quantitative measure is sometimes considered to initiate with

a pilot study approach before getting into the real work. Pilot Study is a strategic approach to

improve the quality of the questionnaire by running an experiment with a set of questions

designed as a questionnaire regarding the concerned study.

A more common problem is to include pilot study participants or sites in the main study.

Concerned about the above issue, the option of pilot study was not being considered. In

addition, conducting pilot study for a small number of target groups would not give an accurate

result.

‗Problems might arise where a pilot study requires a substantial investment of sources &

resources. Researchers might be lured to carry out significant changes in the main study rather

than deciding that the aimed study is not possible with the resources available, time, population,

etc. considering the above points and knowing the fact there are equal optimistic aspects to the

pilot study, it was not considered as option because of the time constraint and reluctance from



the people who were responding to the surveys which will be discussed as a major limitation

factor for our primary data collection in the coming chapters.

In context to the research topic, researcher observed that planning a structured questionnaire

will be most appropriate approach in meeting the requirement of this project. The reason behind

choosing questionnaire for this dissertation was to provide opportunity to front-line employees

working in different retail organizations to reflect their feedback on their experience. The

questions designed covered the topics such as satisfaction rating working with the company,

positive-negative aspects of the job, motivation, culture, competition and recognition in the

work environment. Each respondent was handed the same set of questions formulated in exactly

the same way.

Why Interview?

‗‗An interview is direct face-to-face effort to find authentic and valid measures in the form of

verbal responses from one or more respondents‘‘ (Key, 1997). Interviews allowed us to observe

both verbal and non-verbal behaviour of the participants. After spreading out the questionnaires

the next major requirement for this study was to conduct face-to-face interview. The interviews

helped us in identifying the generic HR practices of an organization designed for the front-line

employees. The questions addressed areas like importance of front-line employees for the

organization, training practices, motivation, retention policies, pay, compensation and

importance of employee satisfaction for the organization. As different organizations have

different strategy and plans for the employees, so different views have been obtained from the

managers in the retail industry in UK

3.6 POPULATION AND SAMPLE

‗‗All the items under consideration in any field of inquiry constitute a ‗Population‘ which is the

subject of research interest‘‘ (Kothari, 1985). Oxygen molecules in the universe, frogs in South

African rivers could all be populations, i.e. groups that need to be studied. It is often not

practical or possible to study an entire population, e.g. someone trying to determine the average

length of adult frogs in South Africa would find it impossible to do this by measuring each and



every frog in the entire country. In becomes mandatory to make general findings based on a

study of only a particular sub-set of population in such cases. Such subsets are called samples

(Goddard & Melville, 2001).

According to, Nachmias & Nachmias (1987), the sections which are involved in the research

problem it is inconceivable to gather the data. Therefore a small sample is chosen which as a

result could represent the characteristics of the complete section.

Since this study attempts to focus on exploring the challenges faced by front-line staff in retail

industry in UK, so the customer facing staff in retail industries was chosen for questionnaires

and the manager of the companies were chosen for interviews as the target people for this study.

The samples of this study were employees from KFC, Subway, TKMaxx & G4S etc. This

sample was chosen because these particular industry employees have the highest customer

interaction as compared to other retail industries.

Apart from the above chosen samples, the alternative sample types are called probability and

non-probability sampling. In probability samples every component has an acknowledged

probability of getting considered in the sample but the non-probability samples, researcher is

not allowed to determine this probability (Kothari, 1985). Non-probability sampling is different

and has a benefit of knowing the number of non-responses and test the accuracy of the results

for the analysis. In addition, the non-probability is also called deliberate sampling because it

involves deliberate selection of particular units of the population. Sampling has judgement

sample method, one of the methods of non-probability sampling which means non-probability

sampling method is used by researcher‘s judgement (Bradley, 2007). Qualitative research

involves judgement sampling, which is used quite often and the desire is to develop theories

rather than to generalise to larger populations. According to Zikmund (1994), the data will have

less accuracy because the researcher chooses the sample exclusively on its personal judgement.

Therefore, this study follows non-probability sampling.

The total number of respondents were 85 for the questionnaire but the sample chosen was 80

respondents because rest of them were incomplete which is one of the major issues when

distributing it online.



3.7 DATA ANALYSIS

To analyse the data collected from a questionnaire survey, hold of statistical software is

demanded, and therefore using the SPSS software programme the data will be analysed and

graphical representation will be shown in order to explain the analysis. On the other hand, the

interviews were recorded and those will be transcribed and will be put into the explanation of

this study.

3.8 QUALITY STANDARDS – VALIDITY AND R ELIABILITY

Polit, et al.(2001:308) define validity as ‗‗the degree to which an instrument measures what it is

supposed to measure‘‘. According to Polit, et al.(2001:309), three aspects of validity are

important namely: content, criterion-referenced and construct validity.

Documentation used as sources of proof and interviews, increased the validity of this study.

During the interviews, every information provided by the participant was voice recorded to

ensure that information is well collected without any loss of valuable information and later

verifying the answers for validity of the information gathered. Internal Validity can be defined

in the way that the observed effects are the outcomes of the experimental treatment, showing the

relativity between the level of certainty and the internal validity (University of the West of

England, 2006).On the other hand. ‗External validity is explained as the research findings that

can be applied to the real world, going outside the controlled setting of the research‘.

Regarding reliabilty, Polit, et al.( 2001:305) describe it as ‗the consistency with which an

instrument measures the attribute.‘ The questionnaires & interview questions were given to the

participants a couple of days before so that they have plenty of time to give well constituted

answers for the questionnaires as well as during the interviews.

The comparison of the documented facts were made with the results obtained from the

interveiws and questionnaire surveys.



CHAPTER: Four



4.0 Data analysis & interpretation

4.1 Findings

4.1.1 INTRODUCTION

Use of both qualitative and quantitative approach in the research methodology, the interviews,

surveys and questionnaires that were designed helped in analysing the data and leading us to the

further step of research findings. The data collected helped in understanding symbiosis between

the organisation and employees in order to be winner in this service industry. The topics under

HR are closed examined as individual aspects some of which are answered through interviews

from organisational perspective while some are answered using surveys and questionnaires from

employee perspective. A balance is maintained between the questions to attain the research

objective of understanding the HR practices involved for front line employees. SPSS

programme was used as a tool of statistical data analysis for the surveys and questionnaires by

considering only the fully completed forms.

There are 82 respondents for the surveys and questionnaires and out of those 80 were selected,

who are working as front line employees in different organisations in the retail industry in UK.

The mean and standard deviation of the data is calculated to give a better understanding of the

needs of the target group respectively.

4.1.2 FINDINGS OF THE SURVEY

The following are the findings from the responses that are collected through survey which

explains the necessity of the factors that are considered for any job.



1. What is your Gender?

Figure 1.9 – Graphical representation of gender

# Answer Response %

1 Male 54 65%

2 Female 29 35%

Total 83 100%

Table 1.4- Percentage of target population according to gender

Statistic Value

Min Value 1Max Value 2

Mean 1.35

Variance 0.23

Standard Deviation 0.48

Total Responses 83

Table 1.5- Statistical data analysis for gender

Fig 4.37-4.39 gives the number of participants involved in the surveys and questionnaires

according to the gender demographics. Out of the number of people answered this 65% are male

and 35% are female.



2. Which category describes your age?

Figure 2.0- Graphical representation by age

# Answer Response %

1 Below 16 0 0%

2 16-20 5 6%

3 21-25 64 77%

4 26-31 14 17%

532 or

Above0 0%

Total 83 100%

Table 1.6- Percentage of target population by age

Statistic Value

Min Value 2

Max Value 4

Mean 3.11

Variance 0.22


Total Responses 83

Table 1.7- Statistical data analysis for age

Fig 4.40-4.42 shows the age demographics of the target population. Majority of the population

lies between the 21-25 years who are working in this retail sector that is 77% and 17% are from

26-31 years. The remaining 6% is at 16-20 years. The mean value being 3.11 shows that

approximately people lie between 21-30 years who are working in this retail sector.



3. How important is to have an efficient recruitment and

selection methods?

Figure 2.1- Graphical representation for importance of recruitment & selection methods

# Answer Response %

1 Very Important 64 79%

2 Important 15 19%

3 Neutral 1 1%

4 Not Important 1 1%

Total 81 100%

Table 1.8- Percentage of target population categorised by importance of recruitment & selection

methods

Statistic Value

Min Value 1

Max Value 4

Mean 1.25

Variance 0.29




Total Responses 81

Table 1.9 – Statistical data analysis for effective recruitment & selection methods

Fig4.1-4.3 shows the percentage of respondents working in the retail sector that are

differentiated according to their prioritization in importance of recruitment and selection. 79%

of the population feels the need of efficient recruitment and selection procedures as very

important while 19% agree to the fact that it is important. 1% of the population individually

belongs to neutral and not important fields stating either they don‘t have idea about how

important it is or it doesn‘t affect them which are negligible. The analysis from these figures

state that the efficient recruitment and selection procedures are very important as its mean is

1.35.



4. How important is to have experience for the role you apply?

Figure 2.2- Graphical representation of the importance of experience for a role

# Answer Response %


2 Important 35 43%

3 Neutral 24 30%


Total 81 100%

Table 2.0- Percentage of target population categorized by importance of having

experience for a role

Statistic Value

Min Value 1

Max Value 4

Mean 2.36

Variance 0.78




Total Responses 81

Table 2.1 - Statistical data analysis for having experience for a role

Fig 4.4-4.6 will give the scope of understanding the importance of having experience for the

role you apply. According to the target population responses, 43% population feels it is

important to have experience while 30 % have a neutral opinion. On the other hand 16% feel it

as a mandatory criteria and 11% does not find the need of it. The mean value is 2.35 which

demarcates that importance of having training falls between important to neutral fields.



5. How important is to get training for the role you are selected

for?

Figure 2.3- Graphical representation of the importance of training for a role

# Answer Response %


2 Important 25 31%

3 Neutral 2 2%


Total 81 100%

Table 2.2 - Percentage of target population categorized by importance of training.

Statistic Value

Min Value 1

Max Value 3

Mean 1.36

Variance 0.28




Total Responses 81

Table 2.3 - Statistical data analysis for the importance of training

Fig 4.7-4.9 depicts that 67% of population from the target group consider that training is very

important and 31% felt it is important leaving the remaining 2% in the neutral region. The mean

value of 1.36 puts the bar between the very important and important fields stressing on the

training needs.



6. How important it is to associate with company goals &

missions?

Figure 2.4- Graphical representation of importance of association with company goals &

missions

# Answer Response %

1

Very

Important

48 59%

2 Important 27 33%

3 Neutral 5 6%

4

Not

Important

1 1%

Total 81 100%

Table 2.4 - Percentage of target population categorized by importance of association with

company goals & missions.

Statistic Value

Min Value 1

Max Value 4



Mean 1.49

Variance 0.45


Total Responses 81

Table 2.5- Statistical data analysis of association with company goals & missions

Fig 4.10-4.12 shows that 59% of the population feel associating with company goals and

strategies is very important and 33% say it as important. While 6% have a neutral opinion 1%

this as insignificant aspect. The mean value being 1.49 lying between very important to

important shows the significance of associating with company goals and strategies.



7. How important is motivational factor?

Figure 2.5- Graphical representation of importance of motivation factor

# Answer Response %


2 Important 24 30%

3 Neutral 1 1%


Total 81 100%

Table 2.6- Percentage of target population categorized by importance of motivation factor

Statistic Value

Min Value 1

Max Value 3

Mean 1.32

Variance 0.25


Total Responses 81



Table 2.7- Statistical data analysis for motivation factor

Fig 4.13-4.15 gives the population opinion about the importance of motivational factor. 69% of

population feels it as a very important factor while 30% feel it to be only important. Remaining

1% fall under neutral and none of the target population chose ‗not important‘ option. The mean

value again stands at 1.32 between very important and important.



8. How important is job satisfaction?

Figure 2.6- Graphical representation of importance of job satisfaction

# Answer Response %


2 Important 18 22%

3 Neutral 3 4%


Total 81 100%

Table 2.8- Percentage of target population categorized by importance of job satisfaction

Statistic Value

Min Value 1

Max Value 3

Mean 1.30

Variance 0.29


Total Responses 81



Table 2.9- Statistical data analysis for importance of job satisfaction

Fig 4.16-4.18 gives a picture of 74% feeling the importance of job satisfaction as very high and

22% as important 4% being on the neutral option. The mean value being 1.30 moves the graph

towards the very important option proving the necessity of the job satisfaction.



9. How important is competitive work environment?

Figure 2.7- Graphical representation of importance of competitive work environment

# Answer Response %

1

Very

Important

30 37%

2 Important 37 46%

3 Neutral 13 16%


Total 81 100%

Table 3.0- Percentage of target population categorized by importance of competitive

work environment

Statistic Value

Min Value 1

Max Value 4

Mean 1.81

Variance 0.55




Total Responses 81

Table 3.1- Statistical data analysis for importance of competitive work environment

Fig 4.19-4.21 shows that 46% people feel having a competitive work environment is

important while 37% feel it is very important. On the other hand 16% of people

preferred a neutral opinion and a 1% negligible population as not important. The mean

value being 1.81 the graph moves towards important depicting the necessity of this

competitive work environment.



10. How important is recognition for your work?

Figure 2.8- Graphical representation of importance of recognition for work

# Answer Response %

1

Very

Important

52 64%

2 Important 28 35%

3 Neutral 0 0%

4

Not

Important

1 1%

Total 81 100%

Table 3.2- Percentage of target population categorized by importance of recognition for work

Statistic Value

Min Value 1

Max Value 4

Mean 1.38

Variance 0.31




Total Responses 81

Table 3.3- Statistical data analysis for recognition for work.

Fig 4.22-4.23 this shows how important is recognition for the work for an individual working in

this sector. The majority of the population felt this as either very important or important like

64% and 35% respectively. The mean value being 1.38 shows the favourability towards very

much importance of recognition as a part of the job role.



11. How important is getting a feedback for your work?

Figure 2.9- Graphical representation of importance of getting feedback for work

# Answer Response %


2 Important 32 40%

3 Neutral 2 2%


Total 81 100%

Table 3.4- Percentage of target population categorized by importance of getting feedback for

work

Statistic Value

Min Value 1

Max Value 4

Mean 1.52

Variance 0.45




Total Responses 81

Table 3.5- Statistical data analysis for getting feedback for work

Fig 4.25-4.27 explains 56% population feel the necessity of having a feedback at very high

while 40% feel it as important.2% prefer it as neutral option and 2% don‘t see the necessity of

having feedback system. The mean value is at 1.52 that shows a level of importance between

very important and important options.



12. How important is career development?

Figure 3.0- Graphical representation of importance of career development

# Answer Response %


2 Important 16 20%

3 Neutral 2 2%


Total 81 100%

Table 3.6- Percentage of target population categorized by importance of career development

Statistic Value

Min Value 1

Max Value 4

Mean 1.32

Variance 0.42


Total Responses 81


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13. How important are perks and incentives?

Figure 3.1- Graphical representation of importance of perks & incentives

# Answer Response %

1

Very

Important

34 42%

2 Important 41 51%

3 Neutral 5 6%


Total 81 100%

Table 3.8- Percentage of target population categorized by importance of perks & incentives

Statistic Value

Min Value 1

Max Value 4

Mean 1.67

Variance 0.43




Total Responses 81

Table 3.9- Statistical data analysis for importance of perks & incentives

Fig 4.31-4.33 explains that 51% of population feels perks and incentives as an important and

42% feel it as very important.6% population are not much bothered about the perks and

incentives while 1% don‘t think it as not important. The mean value being 1.67 states that perks

and incentives are also important for an employee.



14. How important is the compensation factor?

Figure 3.2- Graphical representation of importance of compensation factor

# Answer Response %

1

Very

Important

26 32%

2 Important 37 46%

3 Neutral 17 21%


Total 81 100%

Table 4.0- Percentage of target population categorized by importance of compensation factor

Statistic Value

Min Value 1

Max Value 4

Mean 1.91

Variance 0.58




Total Responses 81

Table 4.1- Statistical data analysis for the importance of compensation factor

Fig 4.34-4.36 shows that the target population has different opinions regarding the

compensation factor as 465 of population believe it to be important, 32% feel it to be very

important and 21% have a neutral opinion with 1% feeling no importance to it. The mean value

is 1.91 falls into important category that shows the significance of compensation factor.

The following are the findings for the responses in the questionnaire which was answered the

questions whether the people working in front line staff are happy with their current roles in

their respective organisation that covers equal amount of aspects.



4.1.3 FINDINGS OF THE QUESTIONNAIRE

1. How long have you been working in your organization?

Figure 3.3- Graphical representation of length of work

# Answer Response %

1Less than 6

Months23 28%

2 6 months – 1 year 29 35%

3 1-2 years 23 28%

4 3 or more years 8 10%

Total 83 100%

Table 4.2 – Percentage of target population on the basis of length of work

Statistic Value

Min Value 1

Max Value 4

Mean 2.19

Variance 0.91


Total Responses 83

Table 4.3- Statistical data analysis for the length of work

Fig 4.43-4.45 discusses about the number of years the employees are working in their current

organization in their current role. According to the responses, 35% of people fall in the category

of 6 months to one year. 28% fall in less than 6 months and another 28% are in one to two years

respectively. There is 10% population falling under three or more years. The mean value being

2.19 states that majority of population falls between 6 months to one year.



2. What is your overall satisfaction rating with your company?

Figure 3.4- Graphical representation of satisfaction with the company

# Answer Response %

1 Very Satisfied 24 29%

2 Somewhat Satisfied 40 48%

3 Neither Satisfied Nor

Dissatisfied18 22%

4Somewhat

Dissatisfied1 1%

5 Very Dissatisfied 0 0%

Total 83 100%

Table 4.4- Percentage of target population categorized by satisfaction with the company

Statistic Value

Min Value 1

Max Value 4

Mean 1.95

Variance 0.56Standard Deviation 0.75

Total Responses 83

Table 4.5- Statistical data analysis for satisfaction with the company

Fig 4.46-4.48 shows that 48% of the population is somewhat satisfied with their organization

while 29% are very much satisfied with their work and their organization. On the other hand

22% of them are neither satisfied nor dissatisfied with their organization. The mean being

1.95 shows that majority of population are almost satisfied with their organization.



3. How likely are you to recommend your job to a friend or

colleague?

Figure 3.5- Graphical representation of recommending job to a friend

# Answer Response %

1 Very Likely 26 31%

2 Somewhat Likely 41 49%

3 Neither Likely

Nor Unlikely10 12%

4 SomewhatUnlikely

3 4%

5 Very Unlikely 3 4%

Total 83 100%

Table 4.6- Percentage of target population who would recommend their job to a friend

Statistic Value

Min Value 1

Max Value 5

Mean 1.99

Variance 0.91


Total Responses 83

Table 4.7- Statistical data analysis of recommending a job to a friend

Fig 4.49-4.51 shows that 49% of the population would prefer to recommend the job to their

friend or colleague while 31% are very much interested in recommending the job to a friend.

12% have neutral opinion. 4% fall under somewhat unlikely and the other 4% fall under very



unlikely. The mean value being 1.99 depicts that probability of an individual referring the job to

his friend or colleague is somewhat likely.



4. There are more positive than negative aspects to your job?

Figure 3.6- Graphical representation of the positive aspects of a job

# Answer Response %

1 Strongly Agree 14 17%

2 Agree 47 57%

3 Neither Agree

Nor Disagree13 16%

4 Disagree 8 10%

5 StronglyDisagree 1 1%

Total 83 100%

Table 4.8- Percentage of target population having positive aspects to their job

Statistic Value

Min Value 1

Max Value 5

Mean 2.22

Variance 0.78Standard Deviation 0.88

Total Responses 83

Table 4.9- Statistical data analysis for the population having positive aspects to their job

Fig 4.52-4.54 shows that 57% of target population agrees that there more positive aspects than

negative aspects to their job while 17% strongly agree and 16% neither agree nor disagree. On

the other hand 10% disagree to this aspect and 1% strongly disagrees with it. The mean value is

2.22 stating the target population falls between Agree to neutral option.



5. What is your level of motivation at work?

Figure 3.7- Graphical representation of level of motivation at work

# Answer Response %

1 Highly Motivated 28 34%

2 Somewhat Motivated 38 46%

3 Neutral 14 17%

4

Somewhat

Demotivated 2 2%

5 Highly Demotivated 1 1%

Total 83 100%

Table 5.0- Percentage of target population categorized by the motivation level at work

Statistic Value

Min Value 1

Max Value 5

Mean 1.92

Variance 0.71


Total Responses 83

Table 5.1- Statistical data analysis for the target population‘s motivation level at work

Fig 4.55-4.57 insights that 46% people are somewhat motivated at their work but 34% are

highly motivated.17% are neutral about this aspect, 2% are somewhat demotivated and 1% is

highly demotivated. The mean value is 1.92 which says that most of the population falls at

somewhat demotivated but not fully satisfied.



6. The Organization clearly communicates its goals and

strategies to you?

Figure 3.8- Graphical representation of communication of organization with its employees

# Answer Response %

1 Strongly Agree 31 37%

2 Agree 39 47%

3 Neither Agree Nor

Disagree10 12%

4 Disagree 3 4%

5 Strongly Disagree 0 0%

Total 83 100%

Table 5.2- Percentage of target population categorized by the level of agreement of

organization’s communication with its employees

Statistic Value

Min Value 1

Max Value 4Mean 1.82

Variance 0.61


Total Responses 83

Table 5.3- Statistical data analysis of Organization‘s communication with its employees

Fig 4.58-4.60, 47% agree that the company communicates its goals and strategies finely and

37% feel that communicate very well but 12% neither agree nor disagree and 4% disagree with

this idea. The mean value is 1.82 which inclines to Agreeing level for this question.



7. How flexible is the company with respect to your personal

responsibilities?

Figure 3.9- Graphical representation of company‘s flexibility with employee‘s personal

responsibilities

# Answer Response %

1Very much

flexible19 23%

2Somewhat

flexible46 55%

3 Moderate 16 19%4 Not at all flexible 2 2%

Total 83 100%

Table 5.4- Percentage of target population categorized by the flexibility of their company with

their personal responsibilities

Statistic Value

Min Value 1

Max Value 4

Mean 2.01Variance 0.52


Total Responses 83

Table 5.5- Statistical data for the flexibility of a company

Fig 4.61-4.63 55% feel the company is somewhat flexible with their personal responsibilities

and 23% feel that they are very much flexible on the other hand 19% have moderate opinion

about this and 2% of the population it is not at all flexible. The mean value being 2.01 states that

most of the population believes that company is somewhat flexible with their personal needs.



8. How Competitive is the work environment at your

company?

Figure 4.0- Graphical representation of the competitive work environment

# Answer Response %

1 Highly Competitive 32 39%

2 Somewhat Competitive 34 41%

3 Neutral 16 19%

4 No Competition at all 1 1%

Total 83 100%

Table 5.6- Percentage of respondents on the level of competitive work environment

Statistic Value

Min Value 1

Max Value 4

Mean 1.83

Variance 0.61


Total Responses 83

Table 5.7- Statistical data analysis for competitive work environment

Fig 4.64-4.66 shows that there is more a less equal percentage for people who feel the work

environment highly competitive and somewhat competitive with 39% and 41%. On the other

hand 19% population believe that the competitiveness is neutral and 1% feel there is no

competition at all. The mean value being 1.83 the level competency falls between high to

somewhat competitive.



9. How Supportive is the work environment?

Figure 4.1- Graphical representation of supportive work environment

# Answer Response %

1 Very Supportive 39 47%

2Somewhat

Supportive32 39%

3 Little Supportive 9 11%

4 No Support 3 4%

5 No One Cares 0 0%

Total 83 100%

Table 5.8- Percentage of respondents who say their work environment is supportive

Statistic Value

Min Value 1

Max Value 4

Mean 1.71Variance 0.65


Total Responses 83

Table 5.9- Statistical data analysis for supportive work environment

Fig 4.67-4.69 shows that 47% people are very supportive at the work place and 39% are

somewhat supportive while 11% feel the environment is little supportive and 4% feel that they

are not supported at their work place.



10. Are you satisfied with the recognition you receive for your

contribution?

Figure 4.2- Graphical representation of satisfaction level of employees for the recognition of

their contribution

# Answer Response %

1 Very Satisfied 28 34%

2 Somewhat Satisfied 34 41%

3 Neither Satisfied NorDissatisfied

12 14%

4 Somewhat Dissatisfied 7 8%

5 Very Dissatisfied 2 2%

Total 83 100%

Table 6.0- Percentage stating the level of satisfaction of employees for the recognition of their

work

Statistic Value

Min Value 1

Max Value 5

Mean 2.05

Variance 1.05


Total Responses 83

Table 6.1- Statistical data analysis of employee satisfaction for the recognition of their work



Fig 4.71-4.73 41% are satisfied with the recognition they get for their work and 34% get very

much satisfied. On the other hand 14% are neither satisfied nor dissatisfied and 8% are

somewhat dissatisfied. 2% are very much dissatisfied for the recognition they receive. The mean

value is 2.05 which state that people are somewhat satisfied with the recognition they achieve.

4.1.4 QUALITATIVE FINDINGS

The interviews from the management people of different organisations answered most of our

questions relating to HR aspects from organisational perspective that are listed in the research

methodology. The answers are collective recorded as there are set of similar responses and a

point of data saturation was attained during this qualitative research.

Front line employees are considered to be really important people for the organisation. They

feel them to be the ‗face of the organisation‘ and they are the ‗jigsaw of the organisation‘.

When coming to the recruitment and selection of such important employees of the organisation

they adapt to a number of different methods of recruitment and selection. The recruitment

methods that are widely followed in the retail industry in the current scenario are through online

application, advertisements in media, personal references or in-store applications. The selection

methods are getting tougher so as to select the exact suitable profile for their organisation which

is been carried out through telephonic interviews, assessment centres where they different levels

that have to cleared like Group discussions, individual presentations and case studies that have

to analysed individually. During this selection procedures they are assessed on many aspects

like how well they handling pressurised situations, how well they are working as a team, etc.

According to the employee‘s performance and their ratings in such aspects decide the success in

their application.

After the careful selection of these employees, they receive start up packs, undergo Induction

programmes and hands on job training for 10-12 shifts/4 weeks during that they are mostly put

under the senior member of the organisation to gain the knowledge about the work done in that

role. They are assessed on their performance and given a feedback to develop at their work.



During the employee work period, the motivational practices used by the organisation are the

employees are recognised by their efficient work style like trade-ups that have been achieved by

them, number of customer complaints registered under them, etc. and are awarded with

cash/incentives or gift vouchers or by giving a recognition card.

The employee turnover of the organisations in this retail industry is generally at 85-90% per

annum. This is because of the employees who are leaving to university studies and moving to

higher positions in their job.

Career development by offering work at different challenging roles at head offices or other store

offices is used a retention policy for these front line employees in these retail organisations.

Employee satisfaction is considered to be the most important factor for the organisation in retail

industry. They create friendly environment at the work place, look after their basic needs so that

they have a two way communication. They generally tend to follow a flat organisational

structure as a part of their organisational culture.

The pay and perks/incentives for the front line employees varies according to the age

demographics and their work style in this retail industry in UK and the method of payment is

usually in cash or vouchers in the organisation.

On a whole most of the organisations in this retail industry believe that they possess a very

effective HR system for their organisations that closely monitor the employee from his entry

into the company till they leave the company and some of the companies have given names for

their HR departments in the organisation.

Example: KFC has named its HR department as ―Chronus‖.

4.2 INTERPRETATIONS

Efficient recruitment and selection methods are a crucial step for a successful HR as it is their

responsibility to choose the most capable employees for the organisation. The deserving

employee will not miss out the chance in getting the job if there is proper and efficient

recruitment and selection system like using online psychometric test during the application





Competitive and supportive work environment determine the organisational culture that an

employee is working. The level of competitiveness and supportiveness is important for a front

line employee as it helps in blending with the team and contributes to the team work in a cross

functional work environment. The importance of organisational culture for a frontline employee

is discussed in the literature review by many authors like Geert Hofstede, Edger Schein and

Buchanan & Huczynski.

Feedback system is required to rate an employee on his work and guide him through his

mistakes which are considered to be the most important as the performance of an employee can

also be measured by the organisation using this method. This helps in determining the

employee‘s capabilities and to assess them for their promotions and reward systems. This is

better explained in performance management in chapter two by authors and from web pages like

Beven & Thompson, Baron & Armstrong and Professor John Purcell

Career development is a very important factor for a front line employee to stay in an

organisation for a longer period of time. This is used as a retention strategy by the organisation

in order to cease their employees from leaving the company and to attain a high employee

turnover rate. This is supported by discussions on retention in the literature review by authors

like Schneider & Bowen, Berry, and Anderson.

Pay, Perks and incentives are very important for a front line employee at the end of the day any

employee expects the get paid for what he/she deserves. Perks and incentives not only act as

reward system for an employee but also motivation that is been explained in literature review by

authors like Gillian.

Front line employee‘s expectations from the organisation regarding the flexibility towards their

personal responsibilities is high and according to the quantitative findings they feel the company

is flexible to their needs and even companies make it a point that they are catering to the needs

of the employees as this keep them in the organisation as internal customers for a longer time.

This can explained using the secondary data in the literature review chapter.



CHAPTER: Five



5.0 Conclusion & Recommendation

The research that was carried out generated some conclusions based on the findings which were

summarized in the previous section. On the basis of the research objectives presented in the first

chapter, it is possible now to deduce certain conclusions. Both theoretical and practical aspects

are covered to explain these difficulties faced by the employees who act as face of the

organisation. According to research study, continuous developments in management of an

organisation are taking place to support the front-line employees. Most of the organisations

these days believe employees to be the back-bone of the organisation and are practicing

strategies to satisfy these employees. Employees are considered as internal customers for an

organisation. They are the people who drive the company forward. It was also observed during

this study that front-line employees are the adaptable people and capable of multi-tasking for

cross functional work in the organisation as they work under the most pressurised situations.

Acting as the initial contact of the business and maintaining the relationships with the customers

and at the same time being parrot talkers of the organisation is one among the major challenges

for these front line employees in a business to customer environment. The other challenges they

face are the technological advancements, awareness of the products and being up to date about

their services and products. Sometimes lack of autonomy is also a problem observed in the

organisations for these employees as they don‘t get to make the spot decisions for the customer

requirements.

According to the surveys and questionnaires, majority of respondents feel there should be

effective recruitment and selection methods, training for the job role is more essential and

crucial over having an experience for the job. In the case of motivation, nearly 70% respondents

stated motivation at work is highly important and when asked about their own motivation level

at work, 46% said they are somewhat motivated and 34% said they are highly motivated. This

clearly states that there is a gap between people who are somewhat motivated and highly

motivated. So, it can be assumed that, people who are somewhat motivated do not receive the

appropriate motivation which they should. This is the root cause of the problem and directly



influences the employee‘s performance. But this is not the case in ever y organization; in some

organizations employees do not feel demotivated because the company‘s environment is highly

supportive and motivating, for e.g. KFC. But, in some it‘s worth discussing. Taking an example

of Subway no financial reward is offered to the employees except the late night or early

morning travel allowance, which creates dissatisfaction among them. So the researcher thinks

some kind of financial reward should be given to the employees in order to keep them

motivated.

Every organization has different strategies and policies for its employees. So in the interviews,

it was noticed that employee turnover is different for different organizations in the retail

industry. This implies the organizations which have low employee turnover are not keeping its

employee satisfied and as a result employees are leaving the company. Therefore, challenges

here arise for both employees and the organizations, although it more challenging for the

organizations to better the performance and productivity, which can only be achieved by

motivated and enthusiastic employees. The company‘s interviewed also depicted dissimilar

methods of giving perks, incentives and compensation benefits.

At the end, going through the research and its findings, the recommendation for this research

would be that, organizations with front-line employees should introduce a customer relationship

management program which should be taught as certified course to the front-line employees.

This is an emerging field of business management which allows understanding the behavioural

science of customer‘s from technological and managerial perspective as the career development

plan. It prevents loss of valuable employees and helps staff retention. From this research, it was

analysed that managing people is really challenging and involves binding with customer

emotions at the same time associating with goals and strategies of the organisation. All such

aspects can be attained by fulfilling the needs of employee motivation and making them to abide

by the organisation for a longer period of time.

Apart from the customer relationship management program, a well-designed employee

motivation program should also be taken into consideration for the front-line staff in the retail

industry. A program like this should comprise elements of communication and healthy



relationships among all the levels of the staff in the organization. It will help the organization in

inspiring the employees and preventing them from leaving the job.

5.1 LIMITATIONS

Time constraints and hesitant behaviour of the employers due to their hectic schedules

acted as a barrier for the methodology. Therefore, the counts of interviews were not

enough for this project.

Secondly, though the discussions of this topic are about the retail sector in UK and

during the practical work the city of residence of the researcher was focused for the

primary data collection. So financial constraint was also the hindrance for the researcher

to consider retail industries in other cities in UK.

Lastly, as the retail sector is very huge in UKand due to the above mentioned

constraints, sample size of the research was not up to the expectation. Satisfaction was

not attained because of the sample size that participated and reverted to the primary data

work.

5.2 FURTHER STUDIES

For further studies, it is recommended that in conducting a research in this area, a wider range

of sample size should be considered both for qualitative and quantitative research in unlike areas

to achieve a better sense of the challenges faced by the employees. A well-organized pilot study

should also be carried out in order to improve the standards of the questions.



CHAPTER: Six



6.0 Reflection

The root to the idea for choosing this topic for dissertation was to get a detailed understanding

of the HR policies and strategies that are applied for developing an employee from the budding

stage to an experienced professional. The choice of study on front line employees and the

challenges they face was initiated from the personal and peer experiences. The necessity of front

line employees and the treatment towards them is majorly focused by the employers in the retail

sector as there are concentrated in an industry where customer satisfaction is the key to success

and establishment in the industry. While attempting this project we have gained a deep insight

into the above related aspects both theoretical and practically by studying many case studies that

have been passed in research and by getting overview from the industry practitioners. Literature

review added to theoretical perspective of the subject during which, we have gained knowledge

about not only the area we choose to work upon but also various others aspects of HR. Better

understanding of the subject helped us in extracting the information that fits to the research

work. It has thrown light on the topic for which we had knowledge only at the cream level.

While working on research methodology we grasped the meaning and importance of presenting

an academic report from a managerial perspective. This helped us by giving a direction to next

step in the work while supporting with the literature review. Primary data work was the first

attempt in our entire academic career which has given great knowledge about the reality in the

industry. Gathering primary data ad reaching the target of the population was a challenging task

as there were many constraints while working on it like approaching the people for filling

surveys and questionnaires and conducting interviews with the employers. Our communication

and networking skills were enhanced very much when we started working for the primary data

due to which we were successful in conducting interviews and filling the surveys and

questionnaires. It helped working upon our confidence and developed an optimistic view that



moved us towards the completion of work in time. Use of SPSS programme in Qualtrics for

surveys and questionnaires gave us a new dimension of the technology and we could perceive

the ease of using technology. Extraction of primary data from this qualtrics site depending on

the comfort and simple representation of the graphs designed on the mutual consent guided us in

analysing the primary data work. Analysis of the work was done at a pragmatic level covering

all the necessary points that have been collected from primary data and supported with the

secondary work in the literature review. Moving towards conclusions we acquired a proper idea

of all the topics we have focused during this research. Keeping the reality in mind we suggested

some implications that were sensed through the work and from the personal experiences that we

possess. When working in a group, there many things to be considered that will get through the

successful completion of the work. Considering and appreciating the strengths of people

working in the group is the major characteristic as that helps in dividing the work according to

one‘s capabilities and it makes it possible to get the better work at manageable level.

Application of this characteristic helped us in concentrating and working on the topics that we

are good and comfortable at. We made it a point that we are cross checking each other‘s work

on regular basis just to have a follow up of the work. We were self-driven and motivated

towards the work, even in trying times of confusion and exhaustion; we could push ourselves

hard enough to cover that extra mile. The amount of learning that has taken place and the

experiences gained through this project will stand us in good stead all along our careers. The

key point we learnt was to be focused in gaining knowledge of the subject rather than being

apprehensive about marks. We are confident that the knowledge we gained while working

during this research in the theoretical and practical concepts of HR aspects and this topic would

make us good competitors to our colleagues or friends at professional front in future. It gives a

great pleasure in working in groups as we could enhance our professional and personal skills

individually. Without the support of supervisor nothing could have been possible as his

suggestions are the ones that brought us into the right track from the start and made us reach the

target line. Finally we would like to add up this one point whether we have become the master

of something or not we can definitely claim that we have become the jack of all with all mutual

understanding and the great accompaniment of our supervisor.



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Appendices

Survey

Dear Participant

We are the postgraduate student of Business & Management from the management departmentof University of Strathclyde.

You are invited to participate in our study of ‘The challenges faced by front-line staff in retail

industry in UK ‘. This is purely an academic piece of research and please note that your participation is anonymous and all your responses will be kept confidential.

We understand you must be extremely busy but we would appreciate if you could spare fewminutes of your time on contributing to our research.

Thank you for your time and cooperation!

Sincerely

Jasjot & Aparna [email protected]

[email protected]

MSc Business & ManagementDepartment of Management

University of Strathclyde



How important is to have an efficient recruitment and selection methods?

1. Very Important

2. Important

3. Neutral

4. Not Important

How important is to have experience for the role you apply?

1. Very Important

2. Important

3. Neutral

4. Not Important

How important is to get training for the role you are selected for?

1. Very Important

2. Important

3. Neutral

4. Not Important

How important it is to associate with company goals & missions?

1. Very Important

2. Important3. Neutral

4. Not Important

How important is motivational factor?

1. Very Important

2. Important

3. Neutral

4. Not Important



How important is job satisfaction?

1. Very Important

2. Important

3. Neutral

4. Not Important

How important is competitive work environment?

1. Very Important

2. Important

3. Neutral

4. Not Important

How important is recognition for your work?

1. Very Important

2. Important

3. Neutral

4. Not Important

How important is getting a feedback for your work?

1. Very Important

2. Important

3. Neutral

4. Not Important

How important is career development?

1. Very Important

2. Important

3. Neutral

4. Not Important

How important are perks and incentives?

1. Very Important

2. Important

3. Neutral

4. Not Important



How important is the compensation factor?

1. Very Important

2. Important

3. Neutral

4. Not Important

THANK YOU

QUESTIONNAIRE

What is your Gender?

Male

Female

Which category describes your age?

Below 16

16-20

21-25

26-31

32 or Above

How long have you been working in this organization?

Less than 6 Months

6 months – 1 year

1-2 years

3 or more years

What is your overall satisfaction rating with your company?

5 - Very Satisfied



4 - Somewhat Satisfied

3 - Neither Satisfied Nor Dissatisfied

2 - Somewhat Dissatisfied

1 - Very Dissatisfied

How likely are you to recommend this job to a friend or colleague?

5 - Very Likely

4 - Somewhat Likely

3 - Neither Likely Nor Unlikely

2 - Somewhat Unlikely

1 - Very Unlikely

There are more positive than negative aspects to my job?

5 – Strongly Agree

4 - Agree

3 - Neither Agree Nor Disagree

2 - Disagree

1 – Strongly Disagree

What is your level of motivation at work?

5 – Highly Motivated

4 - Somewhat Motivated

3 - Neutral

2 - Somewhat Demotivated

1 – Highly Demotivated

The Organization clearly communicates its goals and strategies to me?



5 – Strongly Agree

4 - Agree

3 - Neither Agree Nor Disagree

2 - Disagree

1 – Strongly Disagree

How flexible is the company with respect to your personal responsibilities?

Very much flexible

Somewhat flexible

Moderate

Not at all flexible

How Competitive is the work environment?

4 – Highly Competitive

3 - Somewhat Competitive

2 - Neutral

1 - No Competition at all

How Supportive is your work environment?

5 – Very Supportive

4 - Somewhat Supportive

3 – Little Supportive

2 – No Support

1 – No One Cares

Are you satisfied with the recognition you receive for your contribution?

5 - Very Satisfied

4 - Somewhat Satisfied



3 - Neither Satisfied Nor Dissatisfied

2 - Somewhat Dissatisfied

1 - Very Dissatisfied

THANK YOU

INTERVIEW QUESTIONS

Q1. How important are the front-line employees (Customer Facing Staff) for your Organization?

Q2. How is selection & recruitment carried out in your organization?

Q3. Tell us something about the training practices for front line staff in your organization? What

kind of training do you provide and how long does it lasts?



Q4. How do you think employees are motivated in your organization? What practices does your

organization follow to motivate the front line employees?

Q5. What is the employee turnover of your organization?

Q6. What policies & practices are designed to prevent valuable employees from leaving the job?

Q7. What is the pay & compensations for the boundary tier (front-line staff)? How often perks &

incentives are assigned to the people.



Q8. What are the methods of payment in your organization?

Q9. How important is employee satisfaction to you and what are the factors that are considered

in keeping the employees satisfied?

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