Introduction
Tesco is a leading retailer in the UK. It serves millions of customers in a daily basis and it has a very diverse work environment, where employees are chosen depending on their talent only not depending on gender or race. Its ultimate goal is to earn customers and staff loyalty by providing the best services for its customers and creating the most friendly environment for its staff. Moreover, Tesco depends a lot on diversity within its workforce and within Tesco, “everybody is welcome”. This paper will focus on how Tesco employs diversity, inclusion and equality as a large company. It will answer some question regarding this topic.
Question 1: Describe what is meant by diversity and equality. Diversity means relating and working with people how are having different backgrounds, cultures, perspectives and views. It is about bringing different qualities to the workforce regardless of their race, gender, nationality, background, language…etc. On another hand, equality means giving every person a chance or opportunity to reach their potential, not permitting any bias, prejudice or discrimination effect on achieving it.
Equality can play a role in gender, sexual orientation, and race. Tesco promotes equality of opportunity for all groups of people. Its policy ensures that its workforce has a balance of different people where at Tesco “everybody is welcome”. To maintain equality, it has established different networks to ensure fair treatment and engage more with its people. For example, it has established a network called “Out at Tesco” that represent those with different sexual orientations. It contains lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender members and all are recognized and respected by other groups.
Question 2: Explain which groups are particularly covered by equality laws. There are many groups of people that are covered by the equality law at Tesco such as women, old people, and people with different sexual orientations. Women are supported in developing their careers and raise their profile. At Tesco, all women’s issues are considered and supported it offers many training, monitoring and career sponsorship programs. Also, people with different sexual orientations are covered and recognized by the equality law.
Tesco has over 1,000 lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender members working within its walls. They also have an aging workforce where number of old people are working and sharing their previous experiences. Besides, it protects racial groups from any discrimination. Tesco help Asian groups to raise their profile of careers as well as Africans or black people. For instance, Tesco has established a network called “ABC Network” that provides training and development opportunities for black people to reach higher positions in the organization.
Question 3: Analyze Tesco’s diversity strategy, explaining why it is important to the workforce, the customers and, the business. Tesco is greatly depending on diversity to achieve its ultimate goal. It believes in the idea that diversity brings with it a verity of talents. By using diversity strategy, recruiting and finding the right person for the right job will be possible and highly achievable. Moreover, having a mixture of people with different age, color, sexual orientation, and race can opens up new ideas and opportunities that may arise its productivity and innovation.
Its strategy that ensures that “everyone is welcome” encourages people to reach their potentials and to be more productive which is beneficial for the workforce and the business itself. Besides, Tesco deals a lot with charity and charity organization. It has launched many projects and programs as a charity to support different groups of people. For example, it sponsors a five-year project that empowers young wheelchair users or people with disabilities. It provides training for disabled people that help them to be more prepared to the workforce by improving their skills as well as helping them to be more confident and independent.
At a workforce level, it encourages employees’ development and hardworking. It also ensures that workers can fulfill their potential. At a customer level, a diverse workforce reflects the real society as well as the customer base and this means a better understanding to customers’ needs and desires. At a business level, diversity strategy brings a broad range of skills, talents, experiences, and knowledge to the organization in order to deliver the best services, increase the productivity and reduce the waste.
Question 4: Describe the different network groups and organizations that Tesco support. Evaluate why each is of importance in helping the business be more competitive than its rivals. Tesco has created a number of networks to engage more with all its staff and workers. It has four different networks: Out at Tesco, Women in Business, Tesco Asian Network and ABC Network. The terms “Network” refers to a pattern of social or professional relations over a set of individuals or organizations who share information, knowledge and experience.
Out at Tesco network represent a group of individuals with different sexual orientations where all lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender members are recognized by other groups or networks within the organization. Women in Business is a network that supports women’s rights and issues and help them to achieve their goals and potentials. It provides the support to women to develop their career through training, monitoring and career sponsorship. This network is really crucial as we all see now how women are leading the market and how effective they are in the business field.
Supporting women can be a great strength and competitive advantage for Tesco against its competitors. Another one is Tesco Asian Network which help in promoting career profiles for Asian groups by holding events yearly to support Asians and give them the chance to share their experiences and see the job opportunities at Tesco. ABC Network is the most recent network and its aim is to make Tesco as the the employer of Choice for African, Black British and Caribbean people. It provides some training and development programs and opportunities for black people to help them in reaching high positions within the business.
By doing this, Tesco can promotes racial equality in order to promote its productivity and achievements. Tesco also has strong relationship with different organizations such as Whizz-Kids, Stonewall…etc. Stonewall considers Tesco as a “Diversity Champion”. It a charity the help in protecting rights of lesbians and gay men. Employer Forum on Disability which is known as EFD is also working with Tesco in find jobs for people with disabilities and it encourages to choose Tesco as the great work environment for them.
The last organization, that Tesco supports, is Opportunity Now. It provides the support for gender equality in organizations and businesses. It is committed to support both gender but it focuses more in women since women are the most under-represented group. Each of these groups, networks and organizations believe in equality and giving the chance to all people to reach their potential and show their talent regardless of color, disability, race, sexual orientation or gender. Indeed, this will improve the business operations, increase productivity and maximize profits.
Conclusion
As Tesco is only concerned with the talents, all groups of people are equally encouraged to be part of it. “Everybody is welcome” to achieve goals and potentials. Tesco believes that every individual is unique and with special skills. He/she only needs to realize those skills and talents that are embedded inside. Tesco’s diversity strategy approved its effectiveness thorough providing better services in a competitive market. This paper has discussed some questions about Tesco and how its diversity strategy works.
