Introduction of Tesco Business Issues

        The proposed study aims to conduct a research on a selected business issue that is related to Tesco PLC. Tesco is one of the largest retailers, operating in the supermarket industry of the United Kingdom. Lately, Tesco has been facing some overwhelming issue related to disparity in employees’ pay, specifically in female-headed Tesco stores. In this account, the proposed research will highlight the business issue of equal pay at Tesco. Moreover, the proposal encapsulates the significance of this issue in HR practices that would facilitate them in critically analyzing the issue of gender pay-gap in business. The proposed research intends to give insights to Tesco’s HR managers with the business issue i.e. disparity in employees’ pay. This would help them in formulating and implementing appropriate strategies and their implementation to tackle this issue. To establish a cohesive understanding, the present proposal will incorporate the background information along with an overview of the company, critical evaluation of the data sources, research aims and objectives, research design, and sources of data collection. Additionally, the present research proposal also encapsulates the sources that would be employed in communicating the findings of research to different stakeholders in order to persuade them to take relevant actions concerning the issue.

Research Background of Tesco Business Issues

Overview of the Company – Tesco PLC

        Tesco PLC was founded by Jack Cohen in the year 1919 as a group of market stalls. From its inception and a journey of this mediocre food market, Tesco has now become one of the leading supermarkets in the UK retailing sector. As a leading retailer, with 460,000 colleagues, Tesco serves millions of customers every week in stores as well as online. Its businesses operate with 6,809 shops around the world including Ireland, Poland, Hungary, Czech Republic, Lotus, Malaysia, India, and UK (Tesco PLC, 2018). During the 1990s, the decision to diversify the products and its geography led Tesco towards a period of enormous growth. Tesco, in terms of its profit measurement, is regarded as the second largest retailer in the world (Cushman and Burke, 2014, p.10).

Business Issue of Tesco Business Issues

        For the proposed research, the selected issue faced by Tesco PLC is the disparity in pays of female employees. Due to the inherent bias over gender, employees in Tesco stores have been underpaid. The claims for equal pay by female employees working in Tesco stores demonstrate a gender pay-gap. In comparison to the male workforce in Tesco stores who earn £11 in an hour, female employees in Tesco store earn around £8 in an hour on average. This shows that the male staff in distribution centres earns more than female counterparts who are working in Tesco stores. The full-time male staff earns £100 a week, or £5,000 a year. Moreover, as stated by Leigh Day (law firm), the claimants of gender pay-gap have instigated the legal proceedings to the Employment Tribunal (ET) in this concern (Scott, 2018).

HR Strategies for Enhancing the Business and Significance for Key Stakeholders

        Concerning the issue of gender pay-gap in Tesco PLC, the proposed study will bring the attention of HR managers to formulate the strategies in order to avoid such issues. In this regard, the implementation of meticulously proposed strategies would help HR practitioners in reducing the disparity in wage differentials on the basis of gender. Moreover, the insights given by the proposed research will help in identifying the effects of this issue on stakeholders (more specifically its employees) within the business of Tesco.

References of Tesco Business Issues

Cushman, D. and Burke, J., 2014. Introduction: Tesco PLC—an Open Business. In The 10 Principles of Open Business(pp. 10-23). Palgrave Macmillan, London.

Scott, K., 2018. Tesco to face legal action over equal pay. Employee Benefits. Accessed from https://www.employeebenefits.co.uk/issues/february-2018/tesco-equal-pay-claims/

Tesco PLC, 2018. Our Businesses. TESCO PLC. Retrieved from https://www.tescoplc.com/about-us/our-businesses/