Role of the global pandemic in accelerating workplace transformation

Part 1

Introduction

Introduction

The proposal is based upon determining the role of the global pandemic in accelerating workplace transformation regarding Sainsbury. After the pandemic outbreak, a drastic change in the operations of the organisation has taken place. On the basis of that, the researcher will conduct research on the impact of the pandemic that led to the paradigm shift within the workplace.

Background of the company

Sainsbury’s is one of the largest supermarket chains in the UK that holds a 16.0 % market share in the whole supermarket sector. The organisation offer the best quality food products to satisfy their huge customer base. They are supported by various brands such as Habitat, Sainsbury’s bank, Nectar, Argos and others. More than 189000 workforces are working for the company all over the globe. Its headquarter is situated in London in the United Kingdom. The CEO of the organisation is Simon Roberts (Sainsburys, 2021). In the year 2020, the net revenue earning was 152 million pounds. However, the recent pandemic has led to a huge loss in the sales of the company. Further, the organisation has to incorporate a drastic change in the workplace to adapt to the new working styles within the premises.

Background research

As per the report by Deloitte regarding the workplace transformation towards a digital age that focuses on the changes in the dimensions of the workplace ecosystem. The organisation shifting towards digitalisation needs to adopt new technology within the office premises. However, adopting the new transformation is creating various challenges for the organisation explicitly managing the employees. Therefore, the researcher will focus upon understanding the impact of the pandemic towards accelerating workplace transformation.

Aims

To understand the role of the global pandemic towards accelerating the workplace transformation – research on Sainsbury

Objectives

1. To identify the influence of pandemics leading to workplace transformation in Sainsbury.
2. To analyse the challenges faced by Sainsbury while implementing workplace transformation within the office premises.
3. To find out the effective strategies to overcome the issues faced by Sainsbury due to workplace transformation.

Research Questions

1. How the influence of pandemics leads to workplace transformation in Sainsbury?
2. What are the challenges faced by Sainsbury while implementing workplace transformation within the office premises?
3. What are the effective strategies to overcome the issues faced by Sainsbury due to workplace transformation?

Rationale

The outbreak of the pandemic has initiated various paradigm shifts in the operations and workings within the organisation. Challenges include adapting new advanced technology, employee training, designing new office spaces, and incorporating changes in the structure and culture. Further, to enhance the engagement level and productivity of the employees and develop the overall performance of the company. Thus, the researcher has ascertained objectives based on the topic, and further research will be conducted based on it.

Limitations

There are various limitations that can occur during the project, such as budget constraints that can halt the progress of the research. Further, time is very limited, and to accomplish the research within that can be hectic and missing the deadline may lead to the penalty.

 

 

Literature Review

Introduction

In the literature review section, the researcher will analyse various secondary resources based on the topic. The secondary analysis will be conducted through books, journals, websites, company portals and literacy work of another researcher on the basis of the objectives ascertained in the topic.

The influence of pandemics leading to workplace transformation

The Covid- the crisis has demonstrated the way the organisations have been working for years. As per McKinsey (2020), organisations have accelerated towards digitalisation to interact with customers along with the supply chain. Further, the internal operations have also changed due to the implication of technology within the office premises. In addition to that, the quick responses and favourable outcome have instigated the organisation to shift towards a modern workplace. Moreover, to survive in the competitive market and maintain the economic environment, it is important to focus on new strategies based on the demand and supply of the market (McKinsey, 2020). The pandemic has led the world to come to a standstill. Further, the government restrictions such as lockdown, social distancing and ban on travel have made the business operations very difficult.

Increasing remote working: During the pandemic, various organisation has to train their employees for remote working from their home. The organisation has to provide all the needed equipments and effective training to help the employees to work effectively during the pandemic. However, post-pandemic too, initiating changes in the minds of the individuals to provide them safety to come to office and work (IBM, 2021).

Changing needs and preferences of the customers: The customers taste and preferences have changedchanged drastically due to the pandemic. Now days, people are more inclined towards online shopping and any kind of online system. For example, customers in bank are focused on mobile and internet banking so that they don’t have to stand in long queue and work can be done from their home.

Enhancing the productivity level: The pandemic has brought various changes in the way of working within the office premises. The employees are facing issues in administering the new changes such as the high tech configuration and new advanced technological procedure are creating issues for them. Moreover, all these issues are hampering the productivity level of the organisation and deploying the value in the market (de Lucas Ancilla, del Val Núñez, and Gavrila, 2021).

The challenges faced by organisations while implementing workplace transformation within the office premises

After the lessening of the impact of the pandemic, the business are further moving towards normalcy and various issues are happening due to the pursuing of workplace transformation. Changes like redesigning of the business model, training to the employees, adaptation of digital procedure. Some of the challenges are commonly faced by the organisation are

Enabling of employee productivity: In the past year, the employees have worked from their home, and there were different policies and protocols implemented by the employers. However, now the organisation has to think about the mental health of the employees as there is huge change in the dimension of working from home and at the office. Further, many are not knowledgeable about using high technological equipments which is affecting their productivity level (FM systems, 2021).

Decrease in predictability and increasing protocols: The protocols have increased such as no congestion during breaks, sanitizing the whole premises from time to time, health and wellness and many others. Further, the virus is still not gone so, the preparedness of occurrence of any such situation again is very natural.

IT protocols and security issues: The modern workplace requires shifting of huge data base into the cloud computing. Further, the dependency is increasing more towards internet and therefore, cyber security issues are also increasing. The threats of cyber security are surfacing over the organisations as the employees are moving towards working remotely (Deloitte, 2021).

The effective strategies to overcome the issues faced by organisation due to workplace transformation

There are various change programs that organisation can incorporate to overcome the workplace transformation.

Structuring the team to enhance the potentiality: According to Dery, Sebastian and van der Meulen, (2017),it is important to analyse the strength and weakness of the each team member and work upon it by incorporating face to face sessions. Further, the leaders need to implement change program by engaging the team members and understanding their perspective.

Empowering towards innovation and creativity: It is important to give opportunities to the employees to provide their feedback and point of view regarding any matter. Further, focus towards developing new ideas and focusing on creativity level to empower the employees in the workplace (Canedo et al., 2017).

Summary

In the above literature review, concepts in regards to the objective of the determined topic are further demonstrated. However, while analyzing the secondary research some gaps has been identified that will further focused in the research project.

 

 

Research Methodology

Introduction

The methodology section of the research proposal will present the appropriate methods that are required to complete the research. Further, this will help the research to determine successful outcome for the project.

Research Onion

Source- (Oden, 2019)

The particular research will be conducted by implying all the stages of the Saunders research onion.

Research Design

It is a framework of the research methods that will be chosen by the researcher. There are two types of research design such as qualitative and quantitative research. Both the research are suggested in the proposal as quantitative presents numerical based data and qualitative will present theoretical analysis which are effective for this particular research.

Research Philosophy

Research philosophy determines the nature, development and source of the knowledge required to complete the project. There are three types of research philosophy such as realism, positivism and pragmatism. For this particular research, both positivism and realism is suggested based on the nature of the project (Žukauskas, Vveinhardt and Andriukaitienė, 2018).

Research Approach

Research approach illustrates procedures along with the plans for the research that demonstrates the board assumptions to understand detailed collection, interpretation and analysis. For this particular research both deductive and inductive approaches can be selected (Newman and Gough, 2020).

Research Strategy

Research strategy refers to the plan of action that provides direction to the thought process of the researcher. For this particular research, both mixed methods along with qualitative research methods will be suggested based on the objectives determined.

Research Choice

This mainly highlights the data collection method that is required for the project. There are several kinds of data collection such as experimental, observational, derived and stimulation. Based on this particular research, both experimental and observational are suggested.

Research tools and Technique

This section illustrates the tools and techniques that are further used in the primary and secondary research methods. Primary method involves numerical analysis through survey, focus groups, interviewing while secondary method is based on theoretical analysis from books, journals and also structured interview (Alase, 2017).

Sampling

The outbreak of the pandemic has created a barrier for the researcher to conduct primary research effectively. Therefore, based on the research topic online survey will be conducted wherein the respondents are the employees of Sainsbury. The employees will be selected through random sampling method.

Time Horizon

The time horizon presents the timeline that will be invested to complete the project. It showcases the time frame and shows them ways to achieve the different goals of the project. In this particular project, longitudinal time horizon will be followed as the project is needed to be completed within a specified time (annuity, 2021).

Ethical Consideration

This can be considered the most significant part of the research. In order to conduct the survey, the researcher has taken consent from the entire participant. Along with this, the researcher also to protect all the data by using a strong Id and password. Further, the researcher has also followed the data protection act throughout the research.

Summary

In the research methodology section alternatives method has been discussed in the proposal. Further, justification regarding the methods has also been demonstrated.

Gantt Chart (Appendix 1)

Budget (Appendix 1)

References

Books & Journals

de Lucas Ancillo, A., del Val Núñez, M.T. and Gavrila, S.G., (2021). Workplace change within the COVID-19 context: a grounded theory approach. Economic Research-Ekonomska Istraživanja, 34(1), pp.2297-2316.

Dery, K., Sebastian, I.M. and van der Meulen, N., (2017). The Digital Workplace is Key to Digital Innovation. MIS Quarterly Executive, 16(2).

Canedo, J.C., Graen, G., Grace, M. and Johnson, R.D., (2017). Navigating the new workplace: Technology, millennials, and accelerating HR innovation. AIS Transactions on Human-Computer Interaction, 9(3), pp.243-260.

Žukauskas, P., Vveinhardt, J. and Andriukaitienė, R., (2018). Philosophy and paradigm of scientific research. Management Culture and Corporate Social Responsibility, 121.

Alase, A., (2017). The interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA): A guide to a good qualitative research approach. International Journal of Education and Literacy Studies, 5(2), pp.9-19.

Newman, M. and Gough, D., (2020). Systematic reviews in educational research: Methodology, perspectives and application. Systematic reviews in educational research, pp.3-22.

 

 

 

Appendix 1

Gantt Chart

Week	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
Identify Research
Formulate the Title
Research background
Problem  Statement
Aims and Objectives
Rationale for Study
Literature Review
Methodology
Design Questionnaire
Proofreading
Submission Deadline
Dates	05/10	12/10	19/10	26/10	02/11	09/11	16/11	23/11	30/11	07/12

 

Budget

Aspects	Costs
Project management cost	£120
Internet cost	£70
Library cost	£45
Data collection cost	£70
Miscellaneous cost	£20
Total Cost	£325