CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1   BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY
All over the world, every organizationusually have resources at their disposal which they deploy to realizing their goals andobjectives. These resources are: Capital, Land, Labor (Human) and Technology. Humansare an organization's greatest assets; humans and the potential they possess drive anorganization change (Jahn, 2007). Today's organizations are continuously changing.Organizational change impacts not only the business but also its employees. In order tomaximize organizational effectiveness occasioned by the change, human resources—individuals' capabilities, time,and talents—must be managed. To ensure that change is efficiently driven by the human resources of an organization has necessitated the creation of a special section, the human resource department. Hence, human resource management is the responsibility of human resource department.
Human resource management therefore can be said to bethe strategic and coherent approach to the management of an organization's most valuedassets - the people working there who individually and collectively contribute to theachievement of the objectives of the business. The terms "human resource management"and "human resources" (HR) have largely replaced the term "personnel management" asa description of the processes involved in managing people in organizations. In simplewords, human resource management means employing people, developing their capacities, utilizing, maintainingand compensating their services in tune with the job and organizational requirement.
Human resource departments and units in organizations typically undertake a number of activities, including employee benefits design, employee recruitment, "training and development", performance appraisal, and rewarding (e.g., managing pay and benefit systems) (Pauuwe & Boon, 2009). Human resource department also concerns itself with organizational change and industrial relations, that is, the balancing of organizational practices with requirements arising from collective bargaining and from governmental laws (Klerck, 2009). According to Buettner (2015), activities of the human resource department includes job design and analysis, workforce planning, recruitment and selection, training and development, performance management, compensation (remuneration), and legal issues. Human resource department started as a result of the human relations movement of the early 20th century, when researchers began documenting ways of creating business value through the strategic management of the workforce. The function was initially dominated by transactional work, such as payroll and benefits administration, but due to globalization, company consolidation, technological advances, and further research, Human resource department as of 2015 focuses on strategic initiatives like mergers and acquisitions, talent management, succession planning, industrial and labor relations, and diversity and inclusion.
Human Resources department of any organization always focuses on maximizing employee productivity. Human Resources department manage the human capital of an organization and focus on implementing policies and processes. They also focus in on recruiting, training, employee relations or benefits. Recruiting specialists are in charge of finding and hiring top talent. Human resource department also ensure that employees are trained and have continuous development. This is done through training programs, performance evaluations and reward programs. Employee relations deal with concerns of employees when policies are broken, such as harassment or discrimination. Someone in benefits develops compensation structures, family leave programs, discounts and other benefits that employees can get. However, this study is examining the capacity of human resource department to drive organizational change in ASDA, one of the biggest retail stores in UK.
Asda Stores Limited is an American-owned, British-founded supermarket retailer, headquartered in Leeds, West Yorkshire. The company became a subsidiary of the American retail corporate giant Walmart after a £6.7 billion takeover in July 1999, and was the second-largest supermarket chain in Britain between 2003 and 2014, by market share.
Besides its core supermarket retail format, the company also offers a number of other products, including financial services and a mobile phone company using the existing network of EE. Asda's marketing promotions are usually based solely on price, and like its parent company, Walmart, Asda promotes itself under the slogan "Save Money. Live Better".