BSBHRM501 Assessment Activities

Estimated Time

15 Minutes

Objective

To provide you with an opportunity to analyse business strategy and operational plans to determine human resource requirements

Activity

What is the link between operational and strategic plans?

A strategic plan is a company layout comprising of objectives and adapting of suitable methods to achieve the objectives. An operational plan is a complete plan in detail which will provide each department or team with a clear picture of methods that will help to achieve them the strategic goals.

Both, strategic and operational plan contribute towards adapting of feasible methods of administration and executing them in order to achieve success in a business or a non profit making business.

List at least five HR requirements that the HR department may need to source.

The five requirements are:

·         Training and development

·         Recruitment

·         Managing employee relations

·         Legal

·         Payroll Systems

Explain the resource requirements for each item. The answers will vary from organization to organization.

Estimated Time

15 Minutes

Objective

To provide you with an opportunity to review external business environment and likely impact on organization’s human resource requirements

Activity

What are the main external factors that will influence human resource requirement?

Estimated Time

15 Minutes

Objective

To provide you with an opportunity to consult line and senior managers to identify human resource needs within their area

Activity

Why is it important to consult with line and senior managers to identify human resource needs within their area? 

What can consulting with line and senior managers help you identify?

How can this information assist HR professionals?

Estimated Time

15 Minutes

Objective

To provide you with an opportunity to review organization’s requirements for diversity in the workforce

Activity

Diversity in the workplace is essential; within the organization it is important to ensure that they recruit and retain the person with the best skills and talent to fulfil the position. This should be regardless of gender, sexual orientation, race, religion or disability.

Name five reasons why following legislative guidelines helps to improve the organization’s profile and provides benefits to the organization.

Estimated Time

40 Minutes

Objective

To provide you with an opportunity to develop optionsfor delivery of human resource services that comply with legislative requirements, organizational policies and business goals

Activity

Cost benefit analysis can assist you in determining the options to deliver human resource services. What are you comparing when you calculate the CBA?  What benefits can you obtain by calculating the CBA over time?

What are the four steps of risk analyses? 

What is the importance of recommendations and their relevance to groups? 

What can be the impact if the human resource service options do not comply with legislative requirements and organizational policies? 

Your role is to deliver induction training to new employees.  Following the recommendations of the HR department, you offer to induct staff to your work area.  What legislative requirements would you need to know? 

Estimated Time

15 Minutes

Objective

To provide you with an opportunity to develop and agree on strategies and action plans for delivery of human resource services

Activity

What is consensus decision making?

Using the Consensus Decision-Making Flow Chart explain in your own words, how you would resolve a problem as a Manager.  You may use an example from your own work place to explain the flow chart.  Are there any ways in which to improve the process?

If you have no example to use, discuss the following in your answer:

Lee Jones has recommended that the paperwork for the processing of a new employee be changed.  Several members of staff will be affected by the change.  Chris will no longer need to enter the new data for the employee into the computer.  This would lighten Chris’ responsibilities and would no longer be needed to work in a full time position.  A scanner costing $2000.00 would process the paperwork in half the time.  Alex would have to file the information and would be placed under more pressure because he also generates the payroll for the fortnightly period.

Discuss the various scenarios.

Using the final decision in the consensus decision making flow chart, briefly outline how you would action the decision, using the action planning steps. 

Estimated Time

15 Minutes

Objective

To provide you with an opportunity to agree and document roles and responsibilities of human resource team, line managers, and external contractors

Activity

Using the last two questions in Activity 1F, recommend and discuss the documentation that you should use to implement the plan.  In your answer include that importance of documenting the roles and responsibilities of the HR team. 

Estimated Time

20 Minutes

Objective

To provide you with an opportunity to develop and communicate information about human resource strategies and services to internal and external stakeholders

Activity

What is a stakeholder?

What is an internal stakeholder? Give three examples.

What is an external stakeholder? Give three examples. 

Give five examples of direct communication. 

Give five examples of indirect communication. 

Your organization has decided to reduce the rate of pay for overtime from time and a half to time and a third. It is the HR department’s responsibility to communicate this to the field staff. Select a method, or methods, of communicating this and explain you reasons.

Estimated Time

20 Minutes

Objective

To provide you with an opportunity todevelop and negotiate service agreements between the human resource team, service providers and client groups

Activity

List the service providers that your organization uses and the services that they offer.

Service agreements should identify the following:

Ø  Goals

Ø  The services that must be delivered

Ø  The support and resources required

Ø  The roles of the parties

Ø  The expected effectiveness of service delivery

Ø  Costs and payments

Ø  The way in which services are developed and provided

Choose one of the service providers chosen above and outline each of the areas that the service agreement should identify.

Using the answers that you have provided in this section, make notes on the service level agreements key clauses.

Estimated Time

10 Minutes

Objective

To provide you with an opportunity to document and communicate service specifications, performance standards and timeframes

Activity

What is the key importance of duration and communication in this process?

Estimated Time

20 Minutes

Objective

To provide you with an opportunity to identify and arrange training support if required

Activity

What information does the Performance Improvement provide you with? 

You use an external provider to deliver training to your staff.  Is this the only support that they need?  Why? Why not?

What support is offered to staff within your organization to develop staff?

What is the importance of the support programs? 

Estimated Time

15 Minutes

Objective

To provide you with an opportunity toagree on, and arrange monitoring of quality assurance processes

Activity

What is the importance of monitoring quality assurance in regards to external providers? 

When you monitor a program, what should you be able to identify? 

When should quality start to be monitored? 

Estimated Time

25 Minutes

Objective

To provide you with an opportunity to ensure that services are delivered by appropriate providers, according to service agreements and operational plans

Activity

When choosing an external provider, what do you need to know?What is a needs assessment?

Two staff has completed a needs assessment.  The HR manager has identified that they need training to update their computer skills.

Using the information that you have used, put together an outline of what you need to know and make recommendations on how you can do it.  Design a questionnaire if you find this easier.

Why do you need the external provider?

What should you keep in mind when you choose an external provider? 

Estimated Time

15 Minutes

Objective

To provide you with an opportunity to identify and rectify underperformance of human resource team or service providers

Activity

What is underperformance?

Why does underperformance arise?

List the steps that you may be required to follow if underperformance arises in your team?

Estimated Time

20 Minutes

Objective

To provide you with an opportunity to identify appropriate return on investment of providing human resource services

Activity

According to the Human Resource management performance model what areas should be measured to indicate an appropriate return on investment on HR services?Consider areas that this way of measuring performance may be problematic.

Estimated Time

10 Minutes

Objective

To provide you with an opportunity to establish systems for gathering and storing information needed to provide human resource services

Activity

Individually answer or discuss in pairs the following questions:

It is vital for HR to ensure that they maintain good data bases and that all information is current and relevant,ensuring at all times that data protection legislations are adhered to.

Name five types of information thatHR need to keep records on.

Estimated Time

20 Minutes

Objective

To provide you with an opportunity to survey clients to determine level of satisfaction

Activity

Individually answer or discuss in pairs the following questions:

What questions should you ask when you are going to develop a survey?

How can you control the size of the survey? Why would you need to control the size of the survey?

When asking survey questions, what should you not do?what is the difference between verifiable and unverifiable questions?

Estimated Time

15 Minutes

Objective

To provide you with an opportunity tocapture on-going client feedback for the review processes

Activity

What does feedback measure?

List the different types of feedback.

What should feedback focus on?

Estimated Time

15 Minutes

Objective

To provide you with an opportunity to analyse feedback and surveys and recommend changes to service delivery

Activity

You have been asked to review feedback for a recent survey from ten customers. Your organization has two training providers.  The feedback for training organization one identifies the seven customers is happy with their provider, one is not and the others are indifferent.

Draw a graph depicting these results.

The feedback for training organization two identifies four customers is happy with the provider, five are not and one is indifferent.

Use a line graph to demonstrate these results.

Read the graphs, assess them and recommend which training organization the company should retain.

Estimated Time

15 Minutes

Objective

To provide you with an opportunity to obtain approvals to variations in service delivery from appropriate managers

Activity

Why is it important to make sure that you obtain the appropriate approvals to variations in service delivery?

Why do organizations have paper trails in regards to obtain approvals?

What steps do you need to follow to obtain approval to change service delivery in your work area?

Estimated Time

15 Minutes

Objective

To provide you with an opportunity to support agreed change processes across the organization

Activity

What role can HR play in organization change?

Estimated Time

15 Minutes

Objective

To provide you with an opportunity toensure personal behaviour is consistently ethical and reflects values of the organization

Activity

Outline the Code of Ethics that you follow as a part of your role within your organization.ow would you ensure that personal behaviour is consistent and reflects the values of the organization?

Estimated Time

15 Minutes

Objective

To provide you with an opportunity to ensure Code of Conduct is observed across the organization, and its expectations are incorporated in human resource policies and practices

Activity

In your own words, define what a code of conduct is and what you will find in the code of conduct.

Estimated Time

15 Minutes

Objective

To provide you with an opportunity toobserve confidentiality requirements in dealing with all human resources information

Activity

What is the difference between confidentiality and privacy?ow does this apply to the human resources department?

Estimated Time

15 Minutes

Objective

To provide you with an opportunity to deal promptly with unethical behaviour.

Activity

How should unethical behaviour be dealt with? 

Estimated Time

15 Minutes

Objective

To provide you with an opportunity to ensure all human resource staff understand requirements regarding their ethical behaviour

Activity

How can you ensure that human resource staff understand requirements regarding their ethical behaviour?

Estimated Time

45 Minutes

Objective

To provide you with an opportunity to demonstrate your knowledge of the foundation skills, knowledge evidence and performance evidence.

Activity

Complete the following individually and attach your completed work to your workbook.

The answers to the following questions will enable you to demonstrate your knowledge of:

Ø  Reading

Ø  Writing

Ø  Oral Communication

Ø  Numeracy

Ø  Navigate the world of work

Ø  Interact with others

Ø  Get the work done

Ø  Identify the key provisions of legal and compliance requirements that apply to managing human resources

Ø  Summarise the organization’s code of conduct

Ø  Explain human resource strategies and planning processes and their relationship to business and operational plans

Ø  Describe performance and contract management

Ø  Explain how feedback is used to modify the delivery of human resources

Answer each question in as much detail as possible, considering your organizational requirements for each one.

For this activity you will need to demonstrate the process you would go through to determine strategies for the delivery of human resources services, how you would manage and evaluate the delivery of human resources services, and how you would manage the integration of business ethics in human resources practices.

Ø  Explain how to analyse business strategy and operational plans to determine human resources requirements

Business strategy or strategic planning can be defined as the outline of the company objectives and the necessary methods adapted to implement and successfully achieve the set objectives. On the other hand, operational plans are detailed plans that give a clear view to the team or departments of the operations to be undertaken to accomplish the goals. Strategic plans are full proof plans giving an overview of the working of the whole organization and the operational plans will break down the operations of each department with achieving the same goal with their part of specific contribution.

Ø  Demonstrate how to review external business environment and its likely impact on your organization’s human resource requirements

 External factors are a crucial part of the business to view, as it affects the business operations and other decisions influencing its success. External factors can be studied with the help of PESTLE analysis. It is a tool used to analysis political, economical, social, technological, legal and environmental issues that can affect the company decisions.  These external factors vary from region to region.

Political factor relates to the issues such as increase or decrease in tax laws, employment laws, trade control, and tariffs.

Economical factors determines the economy decisions which can affect the company policies, such as interest rate, foreign exchange rates, inflation rate which can affect the company’s pricing strategy of the product.

Social factors study the market environment and identify the social factors affecting the market, such as cultural trends, population.

Technological factors bring a lot change in the market. This environment examines the awareness of the market in the field of technology. 

Legal factors pertain to the rules and legislations led by a country which affects the business decisions. These can be consumer laws, safety standards.

Environment factors include all the factors related to environment such as carbon emission, environmental pollution or hampering the animals.

Ø  How would you communicate with management to identify human resource needs in relevant areas

Communicating with management is necessary, in order to identify the gaps and requirements for improvements for a productive team. Communication is possible by designing feedback forms for the employees working and identifying the needs required by the answer of the feedback forms. Another way of intra-communication can be done by arranging meeting with each departmental head or representatives who could represent the issues faced by the employees of that particular team. In addition, 360 degree feedback form is another important tool which provides an individual’s performance feedback from its superiors or other sources on the basis of their behaviour and outcome.

Ø  Explain how you would develop options for the delivery of human resources services that comply with legislative requirements, organizational policies and business goals.

To prepare the proposal in order to improve internal services of the employees, there is a need to develop options to deliver the human resource services. Initially calculating the cost benefit will help to assess the decisions taken is in accordance with the present economic. To prepare cost benefit analysis various types of cost are to be taken into consideration such as direct cost, subscription fees, maintenance and indirect cost, labour cost to implement the training, licensing and transportation cost. Then after completing the cost benefit analysis, risk analysis is to be ensured. Identifying the threats, estimating the risk, managing it and lastly reviewing it and analysing the result and implying it with both legislative and organizational policies. Enterprise and award agreements comprising of deduction from wages, pay rates and other environmental issues that may affect the industry and industrial relations to be maintained according to the various acts such as workplace regulation relations act. Organizational policies considers of the code of ethics, conduct and practices. These are all which can affect the company objectives and to be taken care.

Ø  Demonstrate how you would develop and communicate information about human resources strategies to internal and external stakeholders

It is important to communicate with the internal and external stakeholders in order to keep them updated with the company goals and strategies.

To develop and communicate information first the company need to identify its goals and strategies for future operation, the roles and responsibilities and the resources needed. There are two ways of communication internal and external. Internal communication includes presentations, meetings, newsletter, visits to the branch and training and annual performance reports. On the other hand, seminars, press releases, updating of websites and advertisements are to be considered as external communication.

Ø  Describe the process you would go through to develop, negotiate, implement, monitor and evaluate service agreements between the human resources team, service providers and client groups

A Service agreement is an agreement. It acts as a communication vehicle in between of both the parties to meet their expected requirement. The requirements of both the parties are identified and met in order to create the agreement between the provider of the service and the receiver of the service. Then in the agreement two aspects to be kept in mind are duration of the service and communication between the parties. Communication is an important tool which should meet the organizational protocols that the information provided is distributed to all. A partnership agreement has a clear statement of negotiating the agreement when the requirements of any one of the parties are not met. While negotiating the agreement fees and payments are considered. The payments are to be paid timely and in proper fashion.

Ø  Explain how you would identify and rectify under performance of the human resources team and/or service providers.

Underperformance can be defined by the poor or low performance. It can be identified as such individual not following the organization policies and procedures or not fulfilling the standard requirements. These issues can take pace due to many reasons such as cultural differences, personal issues and workplace bullying.

However, these reasons of underperformance can be rectified with the help of providing training and coaching. Accordingly, observing the employees performance can help to evaluate the effectiveness of the training. Further if no improvements seen then appropriate support can be provided. Hence, termination of the employee can be considered in severely poor performance.

Ø  Develop a process to evaluate the delivery of human resources service including gathering and storing information, determining client satisfaction, analysing feedback to inform recommended changes, and obtaining approval and support from appropriate managers.

To gather information from the clients it is necessary to take surveys and gather data and store them in both in electronics and in paper. The information of personnel, employment contracts, application forms, trainings of employees and appraisal. The information obtained through email should be saved in its original format. All the gathered information should be recorded in the same manner and easily is accessible by the organization. To determine client satisfaction it is necessary to collect valuable data from each of them systematically. Then analysing feedback is recommended with proper changes needed in the situation. Suitable recommendation can increase the performance of the group or individual and hence can help to achieve the company objective effectively. For any changes there must be proper training or coaching schedule to be made and distributed among the learners. The objectives of the training to be identified and approvals to be taken from the appropriate team leaders and managers to execute.

Ø  Explain the process you would follow to manage the integration of business ethics in human resources practices. Ensure you identify organizational ethics and values, how this is incorporated into human resources policies and practices, and how unethical behaviour is identified and managed.

Organizational ethics and values affect the organizational goals. There may be cultural differences among the organization. However, this brings innovative ideas in the organizational production. The ethical behaviour includes proper dress code, formal relationships with the employees, working to promote the organizational goals and attention towards duty. All these ethics and values are to be incorporated with the help of training or orientation, coaching, mentoring the roles and responsibilities to the employees. Unethical behaviour in the workplace can be considered as misusing of the company working hours, disrespecting or abusive behaviour with other co-workers of the organization. Cyber loafers are terms used for the employees using internet to visit such websites which are not related to work, lying to employees or theft can all be included as an unethical behaviour. After identifying the unethical behaviour, next comes to deal with the situation. It is necessary to first collect and investigate all information about the situation and then accordingly work out with the solution. Then assessing for the same situation under company policies for assistance. Then the factor to be identified that either it is illegal or unethical. Counselling is said to be much effective in some cases.

Estimated Time

60 – 120 Minutes

Objective

To provide you with an opportunity to demonstrate your knowledge of the entire unit.

Activity

This is a major activity – your instructor will let you know whether you will complete it during class or in your own time.

Attach your completed answers to the workbook.

You must individually, answer the following questions in full to show your competency of each element:

1.       Determine strategies for delivery of human resource services

A strategic plan is a company layout comprising of objectives and adapting of suitable methods to achieve the objectives. An operational plan is a complete plan in detail which will provide each department or team with a clear picture of methods that will help to achieve them the strategic goals.

Both, strategic and operational plan contribute towards adapting of feasible methods of administration and executing them in order to achieve success in a business or a non profit making business.

2.      Manage the delivery of human resource services

Communicating with management is necessary, in order to identify the gaps and requirements for improvements for a productive team. Communication is possible by designing feedback forms for the employees working and identifying the needs required by the answer of the feedback forms. Another way of intra-communication can be done by arranging meeting with each departmental head or representatives who could represent the issues faced by the employees of that particular team. In addition, 360 degree feedback form is another important tool which provides an individual’s performance feedback from its superiors or other sources on the basis of their behaviour and outcome.

3.       Evaluate human resource service delivery

To gather information from the clients it is necessary to take surveys and gather data and store them in both in electronics and in paper. The information of personnel, employment contracts, application forms, trainings of employees and appraisal. The information obtained through email should be saved in its original format. All the gathered information should be recorded in the same manner and easily is accessible by the organization. To determine client satisfaction it is necessary to collect valuable data from each of them systematically. Then analysing feedback is recommended with proper changes needed in the situation. Suitable recommendation can increase the performance of the group or individual and hence can help to achieve the company objective effectively. For any changes there must be proper training or coaching schedule to be made and distributed among the learners. The objectives of the training to be identified and approvals to be taken from the appropriate team leaders and managers to execute. 

4.       Manage integration of business ethics in human resource practices

Organizational ethics and values affect the organizational goals. There may be cultural differences among the organization. However, this brings innovative ideas in the organizational production. The ethical behaviour includes proper dress code, formal relationships with the employees, working to promote the organizational goals and attention towards duty. All these ethics and values are to be incorporated with the help of training or orientation, coaching, mentoring the roles and responsibilities to the employees. Unethical behaviour in the workplace can be considered as misusing of the company working hours, disrespecting or abusive behaviour with other co-workers of the organization. Cyber loafers are terms used for the employees using internet to visit such websites which are not related to work, lying to employees or theft can all be included as an unethical behaviour. After identifying the unethical behaviour, next comes to deal with the situation. It is necessary to first collect and investigate all information about the situation and then accordingly work out with the solution. Then assessing for the same situation under company policies for assistance. Then the factor to be identified that either it is illegal or unethical. Counselling is said to be much effective in some cases.

Individually complete the following and present it as a portfolio:

In the last quarter, almost none of the HR Departments goals have been met.  We are paying two Computer Companies to maintain the computer systems and three organizations are offering the same services for training.  Your job will be to narrow the strategic plan into operational plans and ensure that all goals are reached in the next six months. You are not familiar with the HR Department so you will need to rely heavily on the skills of other staff by obtaining ongoing feedback from the HR team and employees who are familiar with your goals.

Ø  The Strategic Plan is to find one provider for each of the computing and the training services.  Set realistic goals and develop an outline of an operational plan around it. Identify gaps in needs and outline how you would address them (i.e. training or coaching – how would you support this initiative?

The goal is to be train the employees efficiently according to new technology required by the organization. Training the old employees instead of hiring new people will benefit the company to not to waste time on hiring process and extra cost for training them from the beginning. Training the old employees will ensure the company to be able to train its loyal employees working in the organization for long time. The training should be provided to the team leaders and the employees of the same team. Training will be provided in the working hours which can slow the production for the training period, but will give real basis of experience. Once training is provided to the teams they can even train the new employees much efficiently with their self experience.

Ø  In consultation with managers you need to gather data to obtain feedback from internal clients who are being serviced by each party. Design the tools and explain how you would distribute them.

The chosen method to gather data from internal clients will be close ended questionnaire survey. The questionnaire will be distributed after the completion of service in order to get real time information from the clients via email. The objective to identify the level of satisfaction received by the clients from the service provided by the external providers.

Ø  How would you display the results of the survey?

The results of the survey are to be represented in a meeting with all the departmental heads and senior executives, with graphical representation showing the effects of the trainings on the company production and slide presentation to demonstrate the significance and consequences in the decision making.

Ø  Outline a report format on how you would analyse and communicate your findings.

The above taken survey should be examined to get the results in a format that can be easily analysed. The gathered data should be presented in graphs with the help of text and numbers. Bar charts and graphs are good to be demonstrated and easily understandable to others.

Ø  You find that no policy has been developed for the organization’s customer service surveys.  Develop one on the expected ethical personal behaviour of the HR team and how any unethical behaviour will be addressed to all staff with access to the results.

The expected ethical personal behaviour of the HR team are:

·         All the employees of the organization should be treated equally irrespective of their behaviours.

·         No discrimination on the basis of racism, sexual and disability should be tolerated.

The ‘Hot Stove Rule’ developed by McGregor is required in the organization in order to address the unethical behaviours of the employees. This rule includes 4 characteristics, first to immediately understand the effects and cause of the offense which is termed as immediate burn by touching the hot stove. Second, there was already a warning before hand as it was known that penalty needs to be paid for the offense. Third, there must be a strict disciplinary action taken according to the offense and lastly the discipline should be impersonal. The actions and the rule are to be same for all the employees of the organization.

Ø  Remembering that goals are not being met, redevelop and negotiate service agreements with the parties and address how you would support them to ensure that these goals are being met.

These goals are being met and can be addressed out by taking face to face interviews with the parties and collecting the information of the training results. These results will show the effectiveness of the training and if further required then support in the form of counselling and advance coaching is to be provided.

Ø  Who needs to provide approvals for any variations? Delegate a member of your team and address what procedures should be developed to obtain approvals.

The information should be first given to the computer system department and then the requirements to be framed according to their needs. This will enable them to be prepared for the training.  The final approval is to be taken from the top level management on a priority basis and then after their approval it is to be implemented.

The team leader of the computer system department will be forwarding the information via emails to each of the employees that to be given training in order to maintain a record of the learners interacting with the external provider.