Dear here is a attachment for a student group did it need the same style but different topic . as my friend in the group not there so you can make ME & B person The Question is make sure that you will focus in Strengths and weaknesses of group

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Workplace Productivity What research question will allow the full analysis of developing workplace productivity How to manage, develop and utilise current resources in a commercial vehicle workshop while maximising efficiencies and revenue? What is the problem and how can it be rectified? Successfully managing a fast-paced vehicle workshop needs strong leadership skills to ensure efficiencies and revenue are maximised. Workshops often suffer from weak leadership from junior management, due to the fact they do not want to put conflict between themselves and their team members as this will reduce productivity and their relationship will diminish. Junior Managers need the correct support from their Line Managers enabling them to gain new experiences and knowledge of how to get the best out of people without affecting relationships and the culture within the teams. The primary goals of any commercial vehicle workshop are as followed:

• Continuously improve efficiencies

• Continually reduce costs

• Maximise revenue

A competitor analysis has been conducted to analyse how LC Vehicle Hire is performing against competitors in the surrounding area. Please Table 1.1 for the competitor analysis: Table 1.1

This analysis highlights that LC Vehicle Hire is thirteen-point four percent less productive than the top competitor and eight percent from the bottom competitor. This highlight internal improvements need to be made. With support from Managers, the Junior Managers can be the core of continuous improvement methods which will develop the business in the right direction. Ensuring operational goals and objectives are met. One-hundred percent efficiency will never be achieved in a service industry, due to employees require breaks but by working smarter and

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employing continuously improving, ninety percent is possible due to selling all nine possible hours per Mechanic. Mechanics have a ten-hour day with two half an hour break. Please see Table 1.2 for the forecast of productivity efficiency ratio and revenue. Table 1.2

Managing Mechanics differently and working smarter will generate an additional £208,000 per annum, ensuring LC Vehicle Hire is highly competitive. This will allow for future investments for the business. As a result of the competitor and financial analysis, LC Vehicle Hire has implemented a five- year project what will be focused on the personal and professional development of Junior Managers. This will give additional revenue of £1,040,000, this will assist with the strategic goal of expansion of the business. How is personal and professional development moulded around the operation? The personal and professional development model used will need to be understood correctly, ensuring the project is successful. Honey and Mumford's development model will be used, Honey and Mumford's model requires a personality questionnaire to be completed. Please see below image:

(EMTRAIN's, 2017)

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Honey and Mumford's model was broken down into four different learning preferences. These are as followed:

• Reflector

• Theorist

• Pragmatists

• Activists

To identify an individual's learning style and habits, a questionnaire was developed, the data would be collected by a scoring system, for each question ticked, one point would be awarded. At the end of the questionnaire, the score would be totalled, this would assess the learning preferences. Please see Appendix One Personality Questionnaire Example (Bradford School of Management, 2016) for an example of the questionnaire. Once the data is collated, the information will be used when setting action plans and objectives for the Junior Manager. Understanding what learning style an individual prefers assists in the learning process and successfully completing targets. For example, if an activist were to study an academic subject and have no physical involvement with the education, he/she would not be suited to the activities which would have an adverse impact on the results of the learning activity. Therefore understanding the data from the personality questionnaire is key to a successful personal and professional progression plan (University of Leicester, 2017). How will the research be collated and what data will be collected? To ensure the research question is answered correctly and the objectives are met, the research onion will be used. This will ensure the project takes the correct course of action and the correct data is collated the research onion will be employed (Bradford University, 2009) .

(Tosey, 2012) To diagnose the research problem, the research onion will be used. The problem will be resolved and understood correctly by working from the outer layers of the onion inwards.

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To get to the cause of any problem the following must be analysed:

• Philosophies – In this case, the realism philosophy will be adopted due to the workplace problem been based on human values and beliefs.

• The approach taken is the deductive approach. This allows general points to be analysed so qualitative data can be collected.

• The action research strategy has been taken due to the nature of the research question. This will allow the following:

• Develop clear objectives. • Creates an understanding of how to achieve objectives

• The mono-method has been taken due to the fact qualitative data needs to be collected. • Need to collect people’s views, opinions, feelings

• The longitudinal time horizon has been chosen due to the fact it is a five-year project which faces long-term challenges which affect individuals such as employees need to change how the work and ethical matters need to be considered. (Mark Saunders, 2012)

The data collection methods used will be as followed:

• 360 Feedback questionnaires – This gains qualitative data. Bar and pie charts will be used to analyse the data, this will give clear identification of the results of the questionnaires so targets can be set

• Focus groups – Research of the problem and gain qualitative data. The information will be collated to identify any common trends.

• Staff surveys – This gains qualitative data. Bar and pie charts will be used to analyse the data, this will give clear identification of the results, so focus areas can be investigated.

• SWOT Analysis and Action Plan developed by Line Manager and Junior Manager. This highlight key areas of focus and assists with an understanding of what needs to be maintained and how it will be achieved. Please see Appendix Two SWOT Analysis and Action Plan, this is the documents what will be used.

• Monthly meetings to support the action plan. This gains qualitative data. Minutes will be taken for analysis of data taken from the meeting, these will be used constructively to ensure continued improvement.

• Staff performance appraisals will be used to collect quantitative and qualitative data. The data will be presented in pie and bar charts and tables, this will allow managers to gain an understanding of the general employee views and satisfaction levels.

These data collections will be periodically run so variances can be displayed. Analysing variances will allow for continuous improvement and also the motivation of employees. What ongoing data collection is required to manage performance? There are many different methods to use to measure and manage performance in a vehicle workshop. Having too many measurements can affect the productivity of the workshop as administration duties will increase. Complex data collection methods may also have a negative impact on productivity, employees need to understand what the measures are and how they are measured. Mean Use the mean number of vehicles outputted by the workshop per week. Employing this method will allow it to be used on individual employees to assess weekly or monthly performance. This would give the Junior Manager the ability to assess how many vehicles an individual Mechanic has outputted per week or month, this can be developed into a performance management tool

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and objectives can be set per employee. This will also give the operation an opportunity to create a staff leadership board. For example, it would allow a Manager to see who services more vehicles per month so rewards can be given. On the other hand, it will highlight areas of improvements such as training needs. Range Using the leadership board, the range of the leader board can be used when assessing the performance of the employees. For example, the bigger the range, the bigger the performance gap is between the employees. In a vehicle maintenance department, ideally, there should be no performance gaps in teams, having a gap identifies problems such as skill shortages or personnel problems and actions need to be taken to reduce the gap. Key Performance Indicators (KPI's) KPI's are commonly used within businesses to manage key areas, these key areas of an operation usually consist of the following:

• Operational facts

• People facts

• Financial facts

• Customer facts

To operate efficiently key statistics will be measured, these will have benchmarks which live data is collated and measured against. Managers analyse KPI's to assess performance. Employees are set objectives around KPI's to ensure business objectives are consistently achieved. For an example of how a business analyse KPI's, please see Appendix Three Key Performance Indicator (KPI) Example. The example shown is a performance scorecard of a vehicle maintenance workshop, it collates a wide range of KPI's, this is an ideal method to collate all data so it can be analysed and communicated out to groups of employees. Frequency Tables and Histograms When a vehicle goes into a workshop for an inspection it has a set time for the work to be carried out. Often vehicles spend longer than they should in the workshop resulting in reduced sold hours. For example, if a vehicle goes in for inspection, the customer will be charged one set fee, this inspection will take two hours to complete but if it takes three hours to complete, the customer does not get charged for the additional hour, instead the business absorbs the cost, this labour what cannot be sold. The objective of a workshop is to sell as many hours as possible and have minimal unsold hours, this maximises revenue. To measure the performance of the workshop against unsold hours, histograms can be used. These will measure the frequency of how many vehicles go over the set two hours inspection time. Analysing this data will help the Managers set targets for employees/teams for performance management. The aim would be to have zero unsold hours. Management Accounts Management accounts, profit and loss account's assist managers with analysing facts and figures of operations. These give managers an understanding of how operations are

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performing and areas of improvements. From these managers will set objectives/targets for employees to ensure the financial aspect of the operation is successful. How will Managers know the project is heading in the correct direction? Gibbs reflective cycle will be used every six months to ensure the project is heading in the correct direction and the correct support and resources are been applied. Gibbs has highlighted six steps in project reflection, this is to ensure that the entire project is critically analysed and the project is progressing well to achieve the objective. The six steps in Gibbs reflective cycle are as followed:

• Description of the project.

• What are the feelings towards the project?

• Evaluation.

• Analysis.

• Conclusion.

• Action plan. (University of Cumbria, 2016) Without project reflection, there is a risk of the project not achieving the overall goal which will have a negative impact on the businesses strategic plan. What happens when the project is completed? Once the project is successful and workshop is maintaining efficiencies. The planning of the strategic objective of the business will require a project to be implemented to ensure the investment is successfully implemented. One proposed project would be to have a workshop extension and recruitment of additional employees to hold additional ramps and equipment so more vehicles can be inspected. This would require the following:

• Budgets.

• List of resources required.

• Financial analysis of business and proposed resources.

• When proposing a project for investment, the following investment appraisal tools will be needed to assess the value of the proposed project(s)

• Payback Periods assessments.

• Accounting Rate of Return (ROCE) assessments.

• Net Present Value (NPV) tables.

• Adjusted Present Value (APV) tables.

• Internal Rate of Return assessment.

• Future value assessment.

• Compound Interest Rate assessment.

• Discounted Pay Back Period assessment.

• Profitability Index's (Kaplan Financial Limited, 2016)

Without correct financial appraisal of a project, an informed decision will not be able to be made.

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References

Bradford School of Management, 2016. Pre-Course Workbook - Personal and Professional Development (In Company), Bradford: Bradford School of Management. Bradford University, 2009. Chapter Three; Research Methodology. [Online] Available at: https://bradscholars.brad.ac.uk/bitstream/handle/10454/4243/Chapter-Three- Methodology20June2009.doc?sequence=10 [Accessed 2nd July 2017]. EMTRAIN's, 2017. Learning styles quiz. [Online] Available at: http://www.emtrain.eu/learning-styles/ [Accessed 27th June 2017]. Kaplan Financial Limited, 2016. Fundamentals of Business Economics. 2017 ed. Berkshire: Kaplan Publishing UK. Mark Saunders, P. T., 2012. The Layers of Research Design. Rapport, 30(Dec 2012), pp. 58,59. Stephenson, L., 2017. SWOT Analysis and Action Plan, Leeds: Luke Stephenson. Tosey, M. S. a. P., 2012. The Layers of Research Design. [Online] Available at: https://www.academia.edu/4107831/The_Layers_of_Research_Design [Accessed 27th June 2017]. University of Cumbria, 2016. Gibbs’ Reflective Cycle. [Online] Available at: https://my.cumbria.ac.uk/media/ReflectiveCycleGibbs.pdf [Accessed 2nd July 2017]. University of Leicester, 2017. Honey and Mumford. [Online] Available at: http://www2.le.ac.uk/departments/gradschool/training/eresources/teaching/theories/honey- mumford [Accessed 27th June 2017]. Wm Morrisons Supermarkets Plc, 2016. VMU - KPI review, Wakefield: Wm Morrisons Supermarkets Plc.

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Appendix One - Personality Questionnaire Example

Personality Questionaire.pdf

(Bradford School of Management, 2016)

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Appendix Two SWOT Analysis and Action Plan

(Stephenson, 2017) This document was made by Luke Stephenson for this project and will be used to collate information on the Junior Manager and the action plan is set out as a table which will be used to develop the best way possible to ensure all goals are achieved.

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Appendix Three - Key Performance Indicator (KPI) Example

(Wm Morrisons Supermarkets Plc, 2016)

Carry Over from

Previous Week Target Sunday Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday Actual completed Carry Over to next week

People

Total Parts Spend for Week

Holidays allocated MHE (Shifts)

Weekly MHE Parts cost per fleet

Weekly RGV Parts cost per fleet

Absence %

Staff ideas / suggestions

O Licence Compliance

Unit Planned maintenance

MHE Planned maintanance

MOT Pass Rate (Trailers)

Trailer Planned maintenance

Total Trailers off road

Total Units off road

Holidays allocated RGV (Shifts)

Total MHE off road

Critical VOR

Utilisation %

Overtime shifts planned

MOT Pass Rate (Units)

People attending courses

O p

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P e o p le

F in

a n c e

C u s to

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r

VMU - KPI review

O p

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ti o

n s

P e o p

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in a n c e

C u s to

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W/C

O Licence Compliance MOT Pass Rate YTD Absence / Lost hours YTD Number of days since last ancident /

incident Staff ideas YTD

Comments / Notes