Motivational Theory in practice at Tesco:

A Tesco Case Study

(Name)

August 16, 2018

(Name of Instructor)
MRK Elec 5 - Elective 5: Motivation Theories & Practice
 The aim of this report is to present some instances that theories can be
applied or practiced in the real world of marketing industry.

This case study looks at how Tesco motivates its employees by increasing
their knowledge, skills and job satisfaction through training and development and
providing relevant and timely reward and recognition.
 According to Rensis Likert (n.k) that “motivation is the core of management”.
Manager frequently challenged the responsibility to co-ordinate and motivate its
team. It shows how much capabilities does a manager has on how he manage and
motivates its employees to reach the organization strategic goals.

As stated by Robert Dubin motivation could be defined as “the complex of

forces starting and keeping a person at work in an organization”. Motivation is
something that moves the person to action, and continues him in the course of action
already initiated”.

Here the seven guidelines for motivation.

Positive Reinforcements/high expectations

Effective Discipline and punishment

Treating people fairly

Satisfying Employees’ needs

Setting work related goals

Restructuring Jobs

Base Rewards on job performance

Motivation is an effective way to obtain interests within the vicinity of the

company to attain the growth and the development. In today’s market industry there
are lots of companies which competes aggressively. So, I choose the Tesco as an
example how they motivate their employees.
 Tesco founded in 1919 by Jack Cohen who’s a market stallholder is selling
groceries in London. TESCO was formed out of a merger with T.E. Stockwell from
whom he purchased tea for sale on the stall.

Since then, Tesco has expanded across the world. Today, this successful
retail chain has around 6,784 stores spread across the world, the 12 major
markets being UK, South Korea, Ireland, Turkey, Thailand, Poland, India, Czech
Republic, Slovakia, Malaysia, Hungary and China. As a corporation, Tesco also
offers alternative goods and services such as insurance, banking and online
shopping. With net profits of around £3.4 billion Tesco has become the largest British
retailer and one of the world’s leading retail outlets on three continents. Tesco’s
growth has resulted in a worldwide workforce of over 468,000 employees.

In bracing this growth, Tesco needs staff that are motivated, flexible and well-
trained and who recognize customer needs. So, the company supported the Tesco’s
employees in their various roles and at different. It recognizes that employee
motivation is important for the continued growth of the company.

Motivated workers can help to attain the desired or greater outcome ahead of
time and can help to reduce the labor cost. It minimizes the supervision of the
manager and increase the good relationship into a customer. It also minimizes
mistakes on a work due to have more attentiveness of an employee.

Motivation comes in many different ways to let the workers will be enthusiasts
in their works/jobs. It may be financial and non-financial rewards to motivate
employees. In the article of Entrepreneur Asia Pacific (2017), there are tips to
motivate employees without resorting money.

First is autonomy. Employee wants to be part in every decision making. Each

and individual is essential to the company. Managers should be opened to all
opinions and suggestions in order to create a freedom to express his/her own
perspective. Research had shown that it can maximize the fulfillment of the
employee’s job satisfaction and having a good quality of work. Autonomy exhibit
happiness and motivated against to those decreasing employee turnover.

Second is Mastery. One of the factors why the employee stays longer it’s
because of the opportunities that the company have been given to them. Everyone
wants to get better on their jobs. They always strive for the opportunities on how they
will become more efficient and relevant to the company. It can help if the company
support and monitor how thieve progressed such as an evaluation, individual
development plans, and constructive feedback’s to their performance.

Third is purpose. To acquire the employee to be motivated is to have the

purpose. To the individual’s perspective, employees who understand their
profession’s purpose are like to be more creative, happier in their career, and in
choose to be engaged in every occurrence in the company. They tend to find the
company objective if it really suits them.

Next is offer specific and sincere praise. Employee recognition is what trying
to obtain by employees and doesn’t require a tremendous effort. A simple thank you
or appreciation would be great achievements and it will help to do more satisfactory
works.

Lastly, get to know them as people can also help to motivate. Business is a
business but it’s also good to know your colleague and employee. Employees want
to have a positive vibes in their workplace. Managers should be able to connect
his/her employee to use this as strength. Connecting each other will improve the
performance of their work. It also helps to differentiate who is good at that particular
area and who’s the one who needs help to improve.
 So, Tesco use different ways to motivate its employee some of them are
reward, training, and development. They supported the staff with a work/life balance
and offers reward through:

 Flexible working
 Free or reduced rate health benefits
 Discount gym membership
 Competitive Salaries
 Pension Scheme
 Christmas or pay slip vouchers
 And many more

Entrepreneur should carefully assess and try to avoid demotivated an

employee. It can result vast consequences for the company. It leads them to do a
poor quality work. In result to that, it can cause to the business standards
decreasing. They also showed opposing attitude towards their work. Thus, it
connects with their interaction to their colleagues. It’s even possible to have a
tension and not be able to complete the tasks. It also exhibits chronic lateness,
absenteeism and such. An unmotivated employee will be unsatisfied with the
ambience of their work. In result to this, the employee is inefficient anymore.

Tesco’s employee who’s motivated is doing a good performance and it

maintained the stability of staying on the company longer. They’re inclining to have
good social relationships to each other. They tend to cooperate in order to reach the
company’s goal and objective and not just in the company but also they are
motivated to achieve their own goals and objective. It gives positive feedback from
the customer and the reliance of the service been given to the customer. It can also
give a higher productivity to the company.
 In Taylor’s theory, some of his principle doesn’t apply or relevant anymore in
the companies of 21st century. Why? It summarizes as follows:

 Workers given a monotonous task so they can be an expert into it.

 It was closely associated to an autocratic style of leadership
 Employees paid by the company through per item they produced or
paid by piece rate.
 Employees are primarily motivated by money.

Employees don’t want to work in a usual routine. They’re finding what’s new
for today and opportunities that might develop their skills. Taylor’s theory believe
that employees should be assigned of what they have been acquired for so long that
they can be excel but employees nowadays want to discover of what they can do out
of their capabilities.. They want a manager or a company who should push them
through their limit in order to obtain new skills and knowledge. Managers should
avoid being a bossy it’s because it can exhibit lack of self-confidence to the
employees. They will felt that they are not worth to be trusted of. It proves that they
are not only motivated by money.

There are different motivational theories that applied to Tesco. Taylor’s

research stated that employees work purely because of money. It can produce
higher productivity if employees paid. So, Tesco implement Tesco’s Employee
Reward Programme. Hence, the employees have financial reward packages. These
are the following reward that given by the Tesco to the employees.

 Employee Discount Card

 Christmas or payslip vouchers
 Private Healthcare – free or at special rates
 Holiday Discounts
 Pension scheme providing equal contributions from the company
 Mayo Effect is also practiced on Tesco. The diagram shown is what mayo
effect is.

Illustration 1

Elton Mayo suggested that repetitiveness of tasks led to reduced motivation.

He believed that motivation was enhanced by making employees feel significant,
providing them freedom to make choices and recognizing their social needs. At
Tesco, mayo theory can be exhibit throughout the operation of the company.

Communication is essential factor in motivating employees. Managers grasp a

daily Team Meeting to brief the employees of what is the objective of the day and
recognizing the top employee who displayed good characterism. These awards can
be given from any member of staff to another as a way of saying ‘thank you’ and
celebrating achievements. Tesco also offers training and seminars for their
employees. They want their employees’ not just employees but also leaders whom it
can be develop within the company. The company also emphasizes the
development of the whole person and has implemented a system of 360 degree
feedback. All Tesco employees have a Personal Development Plan which they build
through their 360 degree feedback and other tools. This allows Tesco managers to
provide significant feedback to employees to help in developing their personal
development. Therefore it can help to achieve their undeveloped skills by providing a
relevant trainings and seminars. It can establish the good relationships between
employees and employer. It showed that the employee is devoted to the values of
the company.

Another theory is practiced in Tesco is Maslow motivation theory. The Maslow

motivation theory is one of the best known and most influential theories on workplace
motivation. This is the key summary for Maslow:

 Employees motivated by meeting the needs in order the hierarchy and

not skipping each level.
 Wages are part of inadequacy needs.
 Company should meet the employees’ lower level of needs before
motivating on the higher level.

So Tesco dispense all the hierarchy needs of the employees.

Illustration 2
 Lastly, Frederick Herzberg contributes a theory that may be applied in the
marketing industries. He developed the Two-Factor theory of motivation. The
diagram has shown of what is under of satisfiers and hygiene factors.

Illustration 3

Tesco aims to motivate its employees for the both hygiene factors and
equipping satisfiers. The company involves employees in decision making
throughout the operation and empowering them on their responsibility. It also holds
conferences which employees can be part of the discussions on pay rises.
Moreover, they can contribute ideas that can be help to increase their sales and
productivity.

Conclusion:

Motivating employees is one of the most vital tasks that should managers
need to comply. It is one of the crucial key in reaching the goal to have the company
be successful.

There is no a concrete strategy or technique of how to motivate people,

though by the help of different motivational theories there is the idea to practice on
motivating employees. It empowers the managers to develop not just only an
individual potential skill but also for the company’s performance. The main objective
of the company is to outlast, maintain, nurture and fulfil the objectives when the
employees are happy with their work.

Early motivational theory such as that of Taylor suggested that wage is way of
motivating employees to improve production. However companies need employees
to be innovative and independent thinkers as shown by Mayo.

Maslow and Herzberg denoted that employees are motivated via different
motivational theories. Tesco provides managers and employees to collaborate each
other to enjoy their work. Since every employee is unique, with distinct needs and
desire, the company allows recognition of their abilities and achievement, as well as
potential development. The company ensures the welfare of each individual and
through this, it bestows their career growth. Thus, Tesco also benefits of the
practiced they have been implementing all this year. It does establish of the
company to have a good customer service by their proficient employees. Motivated
workforce does help in making the Tesco be in the largest British retailer.
References:

TESCO. (). Tesco Case Study | Introduction - Motivational theory in practice at

Tesco | The Times 100, The Times 100: Business Case Studies. Retrieved at August
23, 2018, from the website: https://businesscasestudies.co.uk/tesco/motivational-
theory-in-practice-at-tesco/conclusion.html

KHURANA, H., & JOSHI, V. (2017). MOTIVATION AND ITS IMPACT ON

INDIVIDUAL PERFORMANCE: A COMPARATIVE STUDY BASED ON
MCCLELLAND’S THREE NEED MODE. INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF
RESEARCH IN COMMERCE & MANAGEMENT,8(07), 109-115. Retrieved from
http://ijrcm.org.in/article_info.php?article_id=7770

Dubin, R. (1987). The World of Work: Industrial Society and Human Relations. New
York: Garland Publishing.

Rampton, J. (2017, September 12). 10 Tips to Motivate Employees without

Resorting to Money. Retrieved from https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/300155