The Corporate Culture at Tesco

Tesco: A Case Study 

Tesco, which is based in Chester, Hertfordshire, is considered to be among the top multinational grocery and general merchandise retailer in the UK. It is the second largest retailer in the world and employs thousands of employees around the world. The company is known for its innovative policies including technological improvements in providing services to its employees. However, the company has been faced with organizational issues in recent years due to problems with its corporate culture. This has made the company’s productivity to decline because its corporate culture has severely eroded the confidence and trust it had enjoyed from its employees, consumers and shareholders. The company’s organizational culture is the main problem affecting its operations (Tesco, 2019). 

The Corporate Culture at Tesco 

The company has become to be known for its risk taking and account manipulating practices which has affected its activities from its frontline team, management, suppliers, consumers, employees and shareholders. This has greatly eroded its company value, share price, and reputation. By failing to pay creditors and overstating its profits, it has demonstrated an organizational culture that has been built over time where certain unprofessional behaviors have been overlooked and unchecked by people who are responsible for its operations. A company that does not prize openness, transparency and honesty attracts negative perceptions from the public in the long run. Even though the company’s mission and vision is to be a transparent and open, its activities and practices are contrary to this belief 

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Weaknesses 

Not only does the company have corporate culture and organizational problems, it also seem to have lost its identity. This is because it attempts to do everything for everyone forgetting its core business concepts. This has diluted its customer preposition. The company’s disregard to professional ethics has dampened the morale of its employees, consumers and stakeholders which has greatly affected its [productivity and inefficiency. There is lack of teamwork spirit, loss in employee and customer loyalty, and a general apathy of its operations by major stakeholders. These organizational issues has made the company to be vulnerable to competition from other retail outlets such as Aldi and Lidl. 

Proposed Solutions 

A company like Tesco should be able to evaluate how its employees behave at work including their knowledge, confidence and understanding when making important business decisions to create an appropriate workplace culture. Employees must take responsibility for their actions for the company to move forward. The company needs to go back to basics and re-evaluate its workplace culture as relates to customer proposition and strategies. It should employ the right kind of staff and create an organizational culture that can move it forward. This can be done by imbedding a new company vision where senior managers need to lead by example. 

The company culture change messages should be reaffirmed continuously to ensure that every employee understands. It should be able to measure employee’s understanding of their tasks and responsibilities to know if there are still gaps in its operations and if its staff has adopted the right kind of behavior. This will help the company to provide interventions that are aimed at closing the skills gap, help its employees to change and understand the acceptable and unacceptable behaviors. The company should, therefore, not only adopt new processes and policies but also help its employees to understand them in order to drive change (Clarke, 2018). 

References 

Clarke, M. (2018) How can Tesco rescue its brand reputation and restore customer loyalty? Cogniso .Retrieved from: https://cognisco.com/insight-whitepapers/how-can-tesco-rescue-its-brand-reputation-and-restore-customer-loyalty/ 

Tesco Controls, Incs (2019). Company Culture. Retrieved from: https://tescocontrols.com/about-us/careers/your-career-join-in/company-culture/