Order 1253098: Business

Qualification

BTEC Business (Extended Diploma) – ALL PATHWAYS

Unit number and title

16

Learning aim(s) (For NQF only)

Assignment title

The Essentials of Human Resource Management.

Assessor

Des Corlis; Scott Haragan; Barbara Mercer; James Brown

Hand out date

14 September 2018

Hand in deadline

21 September 2018

Vocational Scenario or Context

As a WKC business student, you are trying to gain as much experience of business functional areas as possible and have managed to gain a two-week placement with a leading company in their Human Resources (HR) department. There is the possibility of an internship at the end of your course depending on how well you complete the placement in researching and reporting back on the following factors:

1. The internal and external factors that are involved in the HR planning in organisations

2. How the employee skills required are identified

Your placement provider is very keen for you to demonstrate a range of communication skills and expects your feedback in a variety of formats.

Task 1

In order to complete this section of the assignment, write an essay describing the factors that impact Human Resource (HR) planning in an organisation of your choice.

You will need to consider:

a) Internal planning factors such as organisational needs, skills requirements, workforce profiles

b) External planning factors such as supply of labour, labour costs, workforce skills, government policy, labour market competition, changing nature of work, employee expectations, impact of automation, demand for products and services

You now need to develop your work to explain why HR planning is important in your organisation? You should explore the following:

a) Why your organisation needs effective HR planning to succeed

b) What constitutes effective HR planning

Make sure you provide specific examples and that you have clearly demonstrated and explained the advantages of good planning and how poor planning can have severe implications.

Checklist of evidence required

Essay

Criteria covered by this task:

Unit/Criteria reference

To achieve the criteria you must show that you are able to:

P1

Describe the internal and external factors to consider when planning the human resources requirements of an organisation.

M1

Explain why human resource planning is important to an organisation

Task 2

Through your research for Task 1, you should have developed a good understanding of your chosen organisation and now need to describe how it identifies the labour (employee) skills it needs now and in the future. Consider the different ways it could find out the existing skills base. Are there particular skills sets that will become more or less in demand? Importantly, how can the current skills sets be identified and are there implications to the methods involved?

Prepare a presentation (no more than 15 slides) for your placement manager.

Checklist of evidence required

Presentation

Criteria covered by this task:

Unit/Criteria reference

To achieve the criteria you must show that you are able to:

P2

Describe how the skills that employees require to carry out jobs in an organisation are identified

Vocational Scenario or Context

You are trying to gain as much experience of business functions as possible and have managed to gain a two-week placement with a leading company in their Human Resources (HR) department. You have already demonstrated your understanding of many of the key factors that are involved in HR planning and your placement provider now wants you to explore how employees are motivated.

Task 1

In this task you need to explain the views and ideas of at least three writers who have shaped the waysthat organisations motivate their employees. Their ideas should be related to processes such as reward systems and employee-engagement practices in an organisation of your choice.

You should then compare how the different theories contribute to the techniques used for employee motivation in a specific organisation. This could be achieved by looking at jobs in the organisation and explaining how factors such as pay, status, team membership etc. impact staff motivation. It is likely that more than one theory could apply to a particular job.

Once your analysis is complete, you should also reach justified conclusions about how the organisation might modify and develop the motivational techniques and associated reward systems it uses. You should consider the following:

· How it could learn from practice elsewhere to adapt its own motivational techniques?

· Detailed suggestions/recommendations that are backed up with relevant evidence

· The theories and systems it currently uses and why you think they could be improved. This may require “tweaking” of existing systems, or it may require a complete change of the theory used.

Checklist of evidence required

Business report

Criteria covered by this task:

Unit/Criteria reference

To achieve the criteria you must show that you are able to:

P3

Outline how an organisation motivates its employees.

M2

Compare the motivation theories in an organisation.

D1

Suggest with justification ways of improving motivation in an organisational setting.

Vocational Scenario or Context

You are trying to gain as much experience of business functions as possible and have managed to gain a two-week placement with a leading company in their Human Resources (HR) department.

You have already demonstrated your understanding of the key factors that impact HR planning as well as how employees can be motivated and your placement provider now wants you to explore the various ways in which employees can be engaged and encouraged to cooperate for the good of the business, as well as the overall management of staff including performance measurement. As before, your provider is very keen for you to demonstrate a range of communication skills to show your versatility.

Task 1

Your first task is to explain how an organisation of your choice (your case study from the first two assignments) obtains the cooperation of its employees.

Yourfindings should be in the form of a poster and should include some or all of the following:

· Contracts of employment - contractual entitlements, employee and employer rights, types of employment contract, disciplinary procedures, grievance procedures, union membership, codes of behaviour

· Employee involvement techniques -membership of work groups, suggestion schemes, devolved authority and responsibility, open communications, types of communication, organisational culture, national accreditation, sporting activities, rewards and benefits etc.

There may be other ways in which the organisation gains the cooperation of staff and these should also be included in the poster. Make sure you illustrate it with some specific examples.

Checklist of evidence required

Poster

Criteria covered by this task:

Unit/Criteria reference

To achieve the criteria you must show that you are able to:

P4

Explain how organisations obtain the cooperation of their employees

Task 2

Getting the best out of staff is essential to the success of an organisation and you have now been asked to identify the main methods which two organisations use to measure staff performance. You should also state what performance indicatorsare used and why, given that different measures may be used for different categories or levels of employees.

Checklist of evidence required

Essay

Criteria covered by this task:

Unit/Criteria reference

To achieve the criteria you must show that you are able to:

P5

Explain how employee performance is measured and managed.

M3

Explain how the results from measuring and managing performance inform employee development.

D2

Assess the importance of measuring and managing employee performance at work.