Managing Successful Business Projects Assignment Sample

Introduction of Managing Successful Business Projects Assignment 

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The business environment is revolutionizing day by day and it is has become necessary for organizations to understand the importance of talent management in such a scenario. Talent management is when an organization makes sure not only to increase the performance of the employees but also to motivate and retain them at the same time. This research will be conducted to see what the talent strategies are which are used by an organization to attract and retain people. 'Talent Management' (TM) is the theme of this research while investigating how an organization manages talents and also investigating good practice within other businesses functions. The research will be conducted by using the organization Sainsbury.

Company Background

Founded in 1869 by John James Sainsbury with a shop in Drury Lane, London, Sainsbury’s became the largest retailer of groceries in 1922. In 1995, Tesco overtook Sainsbury's to become the market leader, which has since been ranked second or third, being overtaken by Asda from 2003 to 2014, and again in 2019.

Project Planning

Project Aim

Primarily the key aim from the conduction of this project is to highlight the prime talent management strategies and practices used in Sainsbury’s and their influence on the performance of the organization as a whole. Talent management (TM) is important within all kinds of organizations to effectively handle the employees and their successful journey in the organization.

Project Objectives

• Understanding the concept of talent management and its benefits for the organizations.
• To find out the best strategies of talent management to be utilized by Sainsbury’s for better performance as a whole company.
• Identifying the benefits arising out of using such talent management strategies into Sainsbury’s business operations in relation to the HRM.
• To recommend better strategies and practices associated with talent management to the HR managers of Sainsbury’s.

Research Questions

• What is talent management and how does it benefit the organizations?
• What talent management strategies are being utilized by Sainsbury’s for effective HRM practices?
• How the company Sainsbury’s is benefitted from utilizing such practices in their business activities?

Project Management Plan

A project plan is a formal document used by the project managers to define the important element and detailed aspects associated with the project. This includes the scope, goals, budget, strategies, as well as timelines to achieve the project milestones. This plan helps in keeping the progress of the project on the right track.

Project Timeline

Project Activities	Start date	Completion	Time (in weeks)
Analysing the topic	18 July 2021	24 July 2021	1 Week
Determining research aim, objectives, and questions	25 July 2021	1 Aug 2021	1 Week
Research method identification and selection	2 Aug 2021	15 Aug 2021	2 Weeks
Project management plan development	16 Aug 2021	22 Aug 2021	1 Week
Developing the scope and details of the project	23 Aug 2021	29 Aug 2021	1 Week
Research structure development	30 Aug 2021	5 Sept 2021	1 Week
Performing primary research	6 Sept 2021	12 August 2021	1 Week
Performing secondary research	13 Sept 2021	19 Sept 2021	1 week
Recommendations	20 Sept 2021	26 Sept 2021	1 week
Reflective practice (critical analysis)	27 Sept 2021	2 Oct 2021	1 week
Preparation of presentation	3 Oct 2021	9 Oct 2021	1 week

Project Scope

This project aims at evaluating the most efficient Talent management (TM) initiatives of the prime organizations globally. This project is based upon small-scale research on the topic of TM and has to be carried out within 12 weeks of initiation. The research is not limited to any source of data and all the available sources will be exploited to achieve the goals laid out in the project. Methodologies of varying nature along with adaptive approaches will be inculcated for the purpose of due completion of this project. Roper reporting and documentation will be carried out to close out the project.

Project details

Initiation: The first major stage that occurs in the project management process is the project initiation stage. This stage encompasses the need of the project and what all benefits can the organization get from adequate completion of the project. The development of goals and objectives that the project caters to is done in this stage. Analyzing how feasible these objectives are is also carried out in the initiation stage (Aleksic, 2017).

Project planning: A project plan sheds light upon the structure the project is going to have. How the activities of the project will be conducted is included in a project plan. The resource generation and utilization along with a proper work breakdown structure are developed in a project plan. All the activities that are done before initiating the actual work of the project are included in a project plan (Ribeiro, et al, 2019).

Project execution: When a project is pushed into the phase wherein it starts following activities that are directly connected to the goals set, then it is said to be in the execution phase. For the execution of any project due approvals and consultations have to be taken from the line managers and also the senior managers. The execution phase takes all these approvals and duly works within them (Aleinikova, et al, 2020).

Work breakdown structure (WBS)

A WBS bifurcates the elements of a project in small identifiable and similar groups so that implementing activities related to the bifurcated elements becomes easy. The elements of a WBS are formal and require intricate details as these will be the driving forces that will keep the project in line with whatever goals have been already set. Enough room shall be provided for adaptability in a WBS as a stringent one will hinder the appropriate project completion (Pradika, et al, 2020). The WBS for this project is made according to various phases and can be termed as a work breakdown structure accumulated in various phases.

Gantt chart

Activities/Weeks	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12
Topic selection
Determining research aim, objectives, and questions
Identification and selection of most suitable research methods
Project management plan development
Project scope and details development
Research structure development
Performing primary research
Performing secondary research
Prepare recommendations and justification
Reflective practice
Preparation of presentation

Primary research and secondary research

Primary research

When data is collected from a source that has no previous exploitations, then it is considered as the primary source of data collection. Observations, Surveys, Questionnaires, focus groups, interviews, etc., are some of the major data collection sources for this method. For this research, a short questionnaire has been prepared to understand the talent management activities of Sainsbury’s (Clarke, et al, 2020). A group of 50 people were recruited from the employee base of Sainsbury’s for the purpose of answering the questionnaire.

Questionnaire

1.     Are you aware of the TM initiatives of Sainsbury’s Yes   No   Neutral   2.     Does talent management hold importance in a workplace? Yes   No   Neutral   3.     Is the management at Sainsbury’s  open to feedback and allow employees to give insights into Important decisions Yes   No   Neutral   4.     How would you rate the TM initiatives of Sainsbury’s Very good Good 3 Not good Poor           5.     Is the performance evaluation structure at Sainsbury’s in accordance with industry standards? Yes   No   Neutral   6.     Do you feel that you can excel in your career constantly working with Sainsbury’s? Yes   No   Neutral   7.     Is the management good enough in resolving the major issues of the employees? Yes   No   Neutral   8.     Do you think Sainsbury’s takes the talent management function of the business seriously? Yes   No   Neutral

Secondary research

When the already available sources of data are exploited for the purpose of research then the data collected is known to be from the secondary sources. This research aims at evaluating the TM practices of competitors of Sainsbury's and hence will collect data from rival organizations' journals and reports. Also, certain data will be collected to ascertain the benefits of TM initiatives for a business.

ASDA is one of the prime competitors of Sainsbury’s and has immaculate TM activities within the organizational structure. The induction program that familiarizes new hires to the company of ASDA is an award-winning 'Best Welcome' alongside a store appreciation day wherein a new employee is duly given a whole day to understand the working of a store and does nothing else. The training initiative of ASDA are ‘service’ day and a selling skills day to get employees acquainted with different aspects of the job. After new joiners have spent at least 12 weeks in the organization, ASDA provides them with colleague discount cards. Swapping an unwanted shift is a normal thing in ASDA as the organization promotes flexible working for its employees. ASDA has initiatives like holiday payments, increased pensions, discount vouchers, etc., (Marinakou, 2019).

Walmart is one of the biggest organizations operative in the world today and has some efficient TM initiatives that have helped the organization in reaching such heights. The performance appraisal system of Walmart is one of the best in the industry as the employees are not just told about the loopholes that were present but also comprehensively told about how these are to be closed down. AI-based HRM software is used by Walmart to analyze the ream an individual performance. This makes the overall process less time-consuming and facilitates efficiency (Latukha and Veselova, 2019). The usage of performance interviews makes Walmart an organization wherein personal growth can be achieved and career development can be done. Job rotation is practiced at Walmart religiously and employees are given various chances to improve upon their skills. A person-organization fit analysis is done frequently at Walmart to identify personnel who lack skill. After due identification, proper training programs are conducted to make the people get in line with the organizational goals (Hunt, et al, 2018).

As seen with global organizations like ASDA and Walmart, adequate TM can take the organization a long way. Sainsbury’s has had certain problems related to appropriate TM in the recent past. Talent management is a high-priority function and is of core value to the management of Sainsbury’s. An efficient talent management program helps an organization in bringing the top talent within their organizational structure with effective recruitment activities. The critical roles of the organizational hierarchy can be filled in a wonderful manner by proper TM practices and initiative. The main role of TM arises in the retention of top talent (van Hoek, et al, 2020). Employees change organizations on the basis of various variables and TM aims at eliminating such variables. Researches show that a well-structured TM system increases the employee retention of an organization by 69%. When the employees are more engaged in the business activities and find their work valued and career on the right track, they perform to the best of their abilities. This can happen with a good TM structure. It is seen that organizations that have adopted better TM initiatives were able to increase their profitable ventures by 21% (Béraud, et al, 2021).

Secondary research results

In this part of the research, the initiatives in regards to TM of top global organizations were evaluated. Also, certain benefits that an efficient TM system can bring were discussed as well. It was seen that an organization like ASDA depends highly upon employee motivation to inculcate a superior TM structure. The benefits that the organization provides to the employees let them feel more at home when within the organization. It makes the employees feel being cared for. Such a strategy seems to be a potent one for a retail service organization. Whereas, Walmart focuses more so employee training and career development through the various appraising incentives they inculcate. This gives the employees of Walmart an inherent long-term value proposition and keeps them engaged with the organizational goals.

Evaluation of both research methods

In the usage of primary method, there was a high degree of customization available. The questions formulated were in line with the organizational structure of Sainsbury’s and Catered to the exact needs of the employees. The results derived from this method are first-hand and are directly linked to the organization in question, so there is a high level of viability in this method. The negative point of using this method however is that the sample size taken was a relatively small one and provides somewhat limited results (Crowley-Henry and Al, 2018).

The secondary research method brought in ease of research as the sources were already available and just a revision of available literature was needed. This method turned out to be less costly as well as the information for the most part was easily available online. The data however is in regards to varying organizations and their unique organizational structure so can be a bit unreliable at times. Personal bias is a factor that affects the reliability of this data in a major way. It is applicable at various places and can provide quick evaluations (Paisey and Paisey, 2018).

Recommendations

Below are the recommendations for Sainsbury’s for a better TM system:

• The employees at Sainsbury's have complained of the average availability of career growth opportunities. Sainsbury’s being such a big organization can employ large-scale internal recruitment activities. Why go for external people when critical positions can be filled by people who know the organization well. This will help Sainsbury’s to foster trust within the employees and there will be healthy competition within them, thus the engagement rate of the employees towards the organizational goals will increase (Self, et al, 2019).
• Initiatives related to financial benefits like a better-linked performance to pay system, distribution of coupons and discount cards, etc., can help in increasing the motivation level of bottom-level employees. The introduction of a better pension plan to safeguard the retirement plans of old employees, and the induction of flexible work hours can help Sainsbury’s in increasing employee engagement (Krishnan and Scullion, 2017).
• Introduction of tech-savvy procedures that help the employees in communicating with the top-level management. The usage of a micro-tailored appraisal system can help the cause of Sainsbury’s in increasing interaction between employees and management (Luna-Arocas, et al, 2020).

Reflective practice

I developed a project plan by myself for this project and realized the importance of it in the execution and completion of a project. The plan was detailed enough to get me through this project but some improvements can still be made to it. While conducting the research on talent management I realized that I am good with my observational skills, however, I need major improvements in my analytical skills. I gained knowledge about how proper research shall be conducted and which method is useful for what kind of research.

Though I conducted the research properly but overall I think that I did an average job and can improve a lot in my professional career from this experience. I did face certain problems while conducting the research. I was struggling to communicate with the managers and employees while conducting the primary research. I sorted it out temporarily by choosing the formal doors of communication but I also realize that for research conduction through the primary method, one also needs to build interpersonal connections and communicate informally. This project will help in dealing with complex projects in the future.

Conclusion

In the above report, a project management activity was conducted for Sainsbury’s on the topic of effective talent management. By the use of primary research and secondary research, the top TM activities of global organizations were also evaluated. Analysis of the data collected along with some recommendations for Sainsbury's was a major part of the project as well.

 

References

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