BUHRM5912-Human Resource Management

Assessment Task 1: Individual report 

Write an individual report on the following scenario .

Today, the success of HR practitioners largely depends on how agile they are in responding to the emerging challenges occurring in the internal and external environment. Given this backdrop, with reference to the Environmental Influences Model (see figure 2.16 of the textbook), examine how major demographic changes are likely to affect future HR planning and job design in an organisation or industry you are familiar with. As an HR practitioner, suggest a set of justified recommendations for how top management or an industry peak body should respond to these demographic changes.

General advice:

To complete this individual assessment, you should refer to the textbook chapters of 2, 4 and 5 and find out relevant journal articles. You could choose any organisation or industry you are familiar with. This does not necessitate that you should be a current employee of an organisation/industry. If you are not a current employee of any organisation, you may choose an organisation or industry you are familiar with by browsing their official website.

1. Introduction: Your introduction should briefly describe your chosen company or industry and the purpose and content of the report

2. Analysis of the potential impact of changing demography on the HR planning and job design of [for example, ABC company or industry]: Using relevant HR related theories and concepts from the textbook and from any relevant HR journal articles or HR industry reports, you are required to examine the effects of changing demography on HR practices.

3. Recommendations to address the identified impacts:

Being an HR practitioner, propose a set of justified recommendation(s) for your peak industry body or top management utilising some aspects of your analyses and findings from relevant research and reports. 

Assessment Task 2: Analysis of an HR problem or issue

Task: In week 4, students will form their self-selected group comprising 3-5 members and notify the lecturer/tutor of its membership. However, the lecturer has the right to disband any group or form a new group for the benefit of the class. Each group should identify an HR problem/issue of an organisation they are familiar with or working for or they have access to (preferably an organisation where at least one group member works or has worked previously or the lecturer could assign an organisation to each group to complete this project). It is acceptable to withhold the name of the chosen organisation/industry, for example, in the report you could name your chosen organisation as ‘ABC Company’. The focus has to be on a contemporary HR problem/issue that your chosen organisation or industry is experiencing.

This task is designed to develop your ability to:

contribute fruitfully to a group task;

assess an HRM issue or problem as objectively as possible;

appreciate the potential of theory(ies)/concept(s) in managerial decision making and problem-solving;

apply theory to ‘real-life’;

take responsibility for resolving the identified problem or issue by developing justified recommendation(s) and designing a practical action plan ofimplementation (rather than merely making recommendations with no action plan) To support the findings of your analysis and justify your recommendation(s), you are required to use relevant HR literature.

Part 1 of this assessment is a written group report of 4000 words (worth 30 marks). The same grade will be awarded to each group member on the group report as long as no contrary information is reported by any members in terms of equal contributions to the group project. Please note that there are penalties in place for exceeding the word limit (5% above or below the given word limit is acceptable; references and appendices are not counted towards the total word count). Beyond the 5% threshold, 1 mark will be deducted for every 10% exceed of the given word limit.

This report is to address the following areas: 

Provide a brief introduction to the organisation (it is acceptable to withhold the actual name of the organisation).

Describe the problem as much as possible in terms of the observable or measurable symptoms it manifests, for example, high absenteeism, high employee turnover, workplace bullying/harassment, biased recruitment and selection process, ambiguous performance appraisal process, workplace diversity etc. You would be aware of an HR problem/ issue either from the internal documents of the organisation being an employee of the organisation or from the company website, media releases, newspaper reports etc. which would provide you with evidence to substantiate your claim of an HR problem that exists in your chosen organisation/industry.

The issue/problem should then be considered and analysed in terms of concepts/models/theories drawn from any topics studied as part of this subject. To give some examples, your group may choose to adopt different negotiation tactics, change the existing recruitment and selection method, re-design jobs, or arrange a special training program and so on. Try to choose the topic that seems to offer the most useful insights into the problem. Project topics should be chosen from the contents of BUHRM5921. Each group must obtain endorsement from the Lecturer for their project topic and keep them updated regarding progress. 

Prepare a set of justified recommendation(s) with the support of your analysis of different findings from relevant HR literature and industry reports