All activities should be completed You are required to report on an investigation you have conducted on the business and contextual factors impacting on an identified organisation (which may or may not be your own organisation) and HR issues within it. You are also required to indicate how the organisation should respond to these contexts in the short-term. Both internal and external sources of data may be used for this and they must be attributed in the report. In your report to the Chief Executive Officer, you are expected to cover the following issues: 1. an outline description of the organisation and the management functions within it, including how the HR function is delivered 2. how business performance addresses key contemporary business issues 3. an identification and evaluation of the major external contexts affecting the organisation, including any international factors 4. an identification of HR's role in responding to the contextual factors you've identified and the sources of data that can be used 5. recommendations for responding to these contexts, with costs where possible, and an outline communication plan for moving forward. Real examples from experience or research should be introduced into the report to provide context and illustrate the points being made. Assessment Criteria 1.1, 1.2 1.3 2.1, 2.2, 2.3, 2.4 5.1, 5.2 5.3 Evidence to be produced/required A written, evidenced based report of approximately 3000 words in length, together with a list of cited references. Guidence notes :Introduction Aim The aim of this assignment is to enable you to confirm your knowledge of business and external issues impacting your organisation's operations and the role of HR in supporting business performance. You will need to research and reflect on the key business and contextual factors affecting your organisation and develop recommendations for responding to these contexts in the short term. 1.Your organisation (or one you are most familiar with) (1.1, 2.1) • Organisation structure You should provide some general background information on your organisation eg. what sector does your organisation operate in (private, public, not for profit) ? What is the primary purpose of your organisation? What about its size and location etc? How is your organisation structured? Does it reflect a bureaucratic, functional, divisional or matrix structure (see Lesson 1)? You need to reflect on the potential strengths and limitations of this type of organisation structure. You should include a diagram to support the above discussion points (this will not form part of your wordcount). • Management functions Your organisation structure should confirm the key management functions of the business ie Finance, Marketing, Production, Sales, HR etc. The names of these management functions will be unique to your organisation as they will reflect elements such as business goals, values, sector specific terms, structure and size. You should briefly confirm the roles of each of these management functions ie how do the different management functions interact with each other in order to achieve the organisation's business goals? • Management style You need to confirm the style of management within your organisation and draw on relevant academic theory to support your assertions eg. Taylor (Scientific Management), Weber (Bureaucracy), Fayol (Rational Goal), Contingency or Chaos theories (see Lesson 1). • Culture You should comment on the predominant culture within your organisation, underpinning your work to models such as Charles Handy, Hofestede and Johnson & Scholes. 2. Delivery of HR (1.2) You need to describe how HR activities are delivered within your organisation eg. are HR activities centralised, devolved or outsourced? For some organisations this may be through larger internal departments with a number of HR specialist functions (eg. Resourcing, Reward, Learning and Development and Performance Management) or even outsourced to specialist agencies. For smaller organisations, HR services such as recruitment, induction, payroll and performance appraisal may be delivered through a combination of Senior Management/Partner, Payroll, Administration, Consultants and Outsourcing. • Purpose of the HR function You need to confirm the purpose of the delivery of these HR services for your organisation according to its values, culture and management style etc. For example, these could range from the desire to maximise employee engagement, the need to gain greater efficiency and savings or to optimise the people resource for the benefit of the organisation, stakeholders and society. You need to describe how the HR function and other management functions of the business interlink (or not) in supporting the achievement of business goals. • HR models Which HR model best describes how HR activities are delivered in your organisation? You need to reflect on HR models such as Ulrich's 3 legged stool (Lesson 1), Storey & Caldwell (Lesson 7) and Tyson and Fell (Lesson 7) to confirm the approach used in your organisation for the delivery of HR activities. 3. Business performance & the change agenda (1.3) What are the key pressures from the external and business environment affecting your organisation's performance? You should complete a PESTLE analysis (political, economic, social, technological, legal and environmental) to show evaluation of the key industry/sector and external environmental trends impacting on your organisation (this will be very useful to support your work in later sections of this TMA and will not form part of your wordcount). • Tools to measure business performance What tools does your organisation use to monitor business performance to address these industry/sector issues? Examples of tools which could be used to monitor and measure business performance include: profit and sales levels, quality standards, feedback from regulatory authorities (eg. Ofsted; FSA, HSE), balanced scorecards (balance of financial and non-financial data), Key Performance Indicators (KPI) and Human metrics data (eg. employee engagement surveys, staff turnover levels, performance appraisal scores and skills audits).could include benchmarks of profit, financial and non-financial data eg. balanced scorecard; Key Performance Indicators (KPI) and Human metrics eg. employee engagement surveys, levels of turnover and skills audits. See Lesson 2 for further guidance. You need to confirm which tools are used within your organisation and why these are most appropriate in supporting business performance. • Change agenda How does your organisation use the above business performance measures to help manage change effectively? You need to describe an example of a change initiative within your organisation and reflect on how effectively (or not) this change was implemented by referring to a change management model. See Lesson 11 for further guidance on Change management theories. 4. External contextual factors affecting your organisation (2.1, 2.2, 2.3, 2.4) • positioning What are the key factors affecting your organisation from the external and business environment? What is your organisation's market position? You will need to draw on the PESTLE analysis you have already completed in the previous section in order for you to show an evaluation of the market and competitive context of your organisation. It is recommended that you complete a PORTER's 5 Forces analysis (see Lesson 3) so that you are able to clearly show an evaluation of the competitive context of your organisation ie. analysing the threat of new organisations to the same industry/sector; assessment of the power of buyers (extent to which there are alternative options to 'shop around'); power of suppliers (the smaller the number of suppliers, the higher their level of power); threat of substitution and competitive rivalry(any scope for differentiation to stand out from the crowd). • social, demographic and technological trends What are the key social, demographic and technological trends affecting your organisation – now and in the future? You need to refer back to your PESTLE analysis in section 3, to review the specific issues relating to social, demographic and technological trends and their impact on your organisation. You should support your work by underpinning to relevant external sources of data to support your assertions eg. ONS (Office of National Statistics); OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development); UK Government Departments (eg. BIS- Department for Business Innovation and Skills); UK Census; UKCES (UK Commission for Employment and Skills); CIPD Labour Outlook and other sector specific data sources eg. Care Commission; Ofsted, FSA, HSE (Health & Safety Executive). • globalisation and international trends How is your organisation affected by globalisation and international trends? These trends could impact on the supply chain of goods for your organisation, affect the supply and demand for, skilled labour, access to digital networks, the demand and cost of raw materials and transportation. You could also refer to the threats from emerging economies (BRIC) and Multi National Corporations. You should describe what is meant by globalisation and identify at least two examples of global/international trends which affect your organisation. • Government and EU Policy and Regulation You need to describe how Government and EU policy and regulation affect your organisation. You need to cover one example for UK Government policy (eg. Taxation, National Insurance, Equality Act 2010) and one example for EU policy and regulation (eg. Working Time Directive, EU Trade and Export Agreements). 5. The role of HR in responding to contextual factors (5.1, 5.2) To what extent does the HR function within your organisation contribute (or not) towards business planning? You need to confirm HR's role in business planning eg. is HR involved in developing long term people management strategies or is their role more concerned with their practical implementation? You should support the above discussion points by providing specific examples of HR practice which contribute to business planning eg. development of strategies or their implementation relating to areas such as Resourcing, Reward, Performance Management, Talent Management and Learning and Development. • identifying short and long term priorities/obstacles and risks From your analysis of the contextual factors affecting your organisation in section 4 above, you need to confirm those that relate to short or long term priorities and give consideration to any obstacles and risks associated with addressing them. • Environmental scanning You need to describe examples of data sources that HR could consult in order to respond to the short term contextual factors you identified in section 4 above. Please note that you should aim to cover at least two short term issues which need to be addressed by your organisation, covering a balance of both internal and external data sources. You will explain why these sources of data are relevant to your organisation's context and how they help to inform business planning. For example, one key contemporary issue faced by your organisation might be a shortage of talent which is needed to ensure sustainable business performance. Here, HR could consult the following data sources to support business planning : CIPD and Labour Outlook to monitor trends in skills and salary levels; UK Census for monitoring population fluctuations and dispersion; UKCES to monitor trends in national and international age and education distribution; sector specific data to monitor trends relevant to the business operation which could then lead to targeted recruitment campaigns, redundancy and outsourcing; and CIPD and Croner Pulse 'People Predictions for the future' for trends in Talent Management to attract and retain the required talent. 6. Moving Forward What are your recommendations to respond to the short term contextual factors (you need to cover at least two examples) that you have identified in your work above? What are the potential cost implications for implementing your recommendations? A general indication of potential costs (eg estimate of hours needed for their implementation) is sufficient- you do not need to be specific here. Describe how you would communicate your recommendations for maximum effect and to ensure that you persuade others to take your ideas forward. You need to ensure that you cover: • Who would you communicate your recommendations to you and why • What methods you would use and why • When would you present your recommendations and why Word count Please ensure that you work to the wordcount guideline which is 3,000 words for this TMA, with an accepted 10% variation. Referencing Ensure that you attach an alphabetical list of all the sources you have cited in your report following the Harvard Reference System. Please refer to the Harvard Referencing guidance (available from your Tutor Group Notice Board) for further guidance. Guidance on using Tables and Appendices You may use tables and diagrams as a means to further support your work but these should not be used as a replacement for essential information which should be covered in the main body of your work. You may also use Appendices to present relevant supporting information- see below for further guidance: Assignment main body • You need to ensure that you cover all the critical information relevant for addressing the TMA brief questions in the main body of your assignment. • You can use tables/diagrams to summarise and support the points you have raised in your written analysis but these should not be used as a replacement for your analysis. Appendices • You should use the appendix section selectively. Appendices should be relevant to your assignment and support your findings and analysis- again, not used as a replacement for your written work in the main body but rather to supplement your ideas. Tables • Tables (and diagrams) should be used to support the critical points you cover in the main body of your assignment. They can be very useful to help exemplify /reinforce the key points you have raised but again, they should be used selectively, summarising key points and not replacing your written analysis.