You are required to produce a report that critically evaluates an HRM priority area in your organisation, particularly in light of recent changes to both the internal and external working environment. You should select one of the following
Task:
You are required to produce a report that critically evaluates an HRM priority area in your organisation,
particularly in light of recent changes to both the internal and external working environment. You should
select one of the following priority areas, ensuring your choice is well-justified in the context of your
organisation:
• Strategic HRM (Lecture 2)
• Organisational culture change and development (Lecture 2; Canvas Starter and Chapter 4)
• Recruitment, selection and onboarding (Lecture 2; Canvas Chapter 6)
• Performance management (Lecture 3; Canvas Chapter 5)
• Employee engagement (Lecture 4; Canvas Chapter 7)
• Organisational learning (Lecture 4; Canvas Chapter 8)
• Managing equality and diversity (Lecture 5; Canvas Chapters 1, 2 and 3)
• Emotional intelligence (Lecture 5; Canvas Chapter 9)
You should critically analyse the chosen priority area in your organisation, identifying its weaknesses and
the impact this has had on the effectiveness of the HRM function. You should also consider the wider-
organisational impact of these shortcomings. You must use organisational examples to support your points.
You should provide feasible recommendations as to how the chosen priority area could be improved in
your organisation, and these should be realistic within the specific context of your organisation.
Note: These recommendations will form the basis of Assignment 2.
Ensure you develop a full business report, including a title page; executive summary; table of contents; lists
of tables/figures/appendices, if relevant; main body of writing; reference list; and, appendices. Your module
lecturer will provide additional guidance as to what could be included in each of these areas.
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GUIDANCE FOR STUDENTS IN THE COMPLETION OF TASKS
- Engagement with Literature Skills
Your work must be informed and supported by scholarly material that is relevant to and focused on the
task(s) set; you should make use of scholarly reviews and primary sources, as appropriate (for example,
refereed research articles and/or original materials appropriate to the discipline). You should provide
evidence that you have accessed a wide range of sources, which may be academic, governmental and
industrial; these sources may include academic journal articles, textbooks, current news articles,
organisational documents, and websites. You should consider the credibility of your sources; academic
journals are normally highly credible sources while websites require careful consideration/selection and
should be used sparingly. Any sources you use should be current and up-to-date, mostly published within
the last five years or so, though seminal/important works in the field may be older. You must provide
evidence of your research/own reading throughout your work, using correctly a suitable referencing system,
including in-text citations in the main body of your work and a reference list at the end of your work.
Guidance specific to this assessment: You should refer to at least 10 credible sources per 1,000 words.
You should refer to journal articles, relevant websites, text books, current news items and benchmark your
organisation against other organisations to ensure your assignment is current and up-to-date. At least a
quarter of sources should be dated within the last 12 months and include organisational examples. High-
level referencing skills using Harvard convention must be demonstrated throughout your work and all
sources listed alphabetically within your reference list.
2. Knowledge and Understanding Skills
At level 7, you should be able to demonstrate a systematic understanding of knowledge, and a critical
awareness of current problems and/or new insights, much of which is at, or informed by, the forefront of
your academic discipline, field of study or area of professional practice, with a comprehensive
understanding of techniques applicable to your own research or advanced scholarship. Your work must
demonstrate your growing mastery of these concepts, principles, current challenges, innovation and
insights associated with the subject area. Knowledge relates to the facts, information and skills you have
acquired through your learning. You demonstrate your understanding by interpreting the meaning of the
facts and information (knowledge). This means that you need to select and include in your work the
contemporary concepts, techniques, models, theories, etc. appropriate to the task(s) set. You should be
able to explain the theories, concepts, etc. meaningfully to show your understanding. Your mark/grade will
also depend upon the extent to which you demonstrate your knowledge and understanding; ideally each
should be complete and detailed, with comprehensive coverage.
Guidance specific to this assessment: Your work should demonstrate understanding of organisational
priority areas and the HRM practices that facilitate it, as well as the role of HRM within the wider
organisational structure.
3. Cognitive and Intellectual Skills
You should be able to: evaluate critically current research and advanced scholarship in the discipline;
evaluate methodologies and develop critiques of them and, where appropriate, to propose new
hypotheses; deal with complex issues both systematically and creatively to make sound judgements in the
absence of complete data. Your work must contain evidence of logical, analytical thinking, evaluation and
synthesis. For example, to examine and break information down into parts, make inferences, compile,
compare and contrast information. This means not just describing what! But also justifying: Why? How?
When? Who? Where? At what cost? At all times, you must provide justification for your arguments and
judgements. Evidence that you have reflected upon the ideas of experts within the subject area is crucial
to you providing a reasoned and informed debate within your work. Your choice of methodologies to gather
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data and information must be rigorously defended. Furthermore, you should provide evidence that you are
able to make sound judgements and convincing arguments using data and concepts. Sound, valid,
persuasive conclusions are necessary and must be derived from the content of your work. Where
relevant, alternative solutions and recommendations may be proposed.
Guidance specific to this assessment: All claims should be backed up with contemporary evidence from
credible and reliable sources. Your work should be well underpinned through use of an appropriate number
of relevant and credible sources.
4. Practical Skills
At level 7, you should be able to demonstrate originality in the application of knowledge, together with a
practical understanding of how established techniques of research and enquiry are used to create and
interpret knowledge in the discipline. This includes acting autonomously in planning and implementing
tasks at a professional or equivalent level, originality in tackling and solving problems, and decision-making
in complex and unpredictable contexts or situations.
You should be able to demonstrate mastery of the leading edge subject-related concepts and ideas as they
relate to real world situations and/or particular contexts. How do they work in practice? You will deploy
models, methods, techniques, and/or theories, in those contexts or circumstances, to assess current
situations, perhaps to formulate plans or plausible, justifiable recommendations to solve problems, or to
propose new models, or to create artefacts, which may be innovative and creative, thereby demonstrating
your understanding of how the boundaries of knowledge are advanced through research and/or application.
This is likely to involve, for instance, the use of real world artefacts, examples and cases, the application of
a model within an organisation and/or benchmarking one theory or organisation against others.
Guidance specific to this assessment: Reference to organisational examples in relation to the chosen
priority area and the role of HRM in achieving organisational goals/objectives is essential.
5. Transferable Skills for Life and Professional Practice
Your work must provide evidence of the qualities and transferable skills necessary for postgraduate-level
employment in circumstances requiring sound judgement, personal responsibility and initiative in complex
and unpredictable professional environments. This includes demonstrating: the independent learning
ability for continuing professional development to advance existing skills and acquire new competences of
a professional nature that will enable you to assume significant responsibility within organisations; that you
can initiate and complete tasks, projects and procedures, whether individually and/or collaboratively, to a
professional level; that you can use appropriate media to effectively communicate information, arguments
and analysis in a variety of forms for a variety of audiences; fluency of expression; clarity and effectiveness
in presentation and organisation. Work should be coherent and well-structured in presentation and
organisation.
Guidance specific to this assessment: This assignment should be:
• Writing: Written in UK English in an appropriate business/academic style, using Microsoft Word
• Focus: Focus only on the tasks set in the assignment.
• Length: 2,500-words +/- 10% (marks will be deducted if this is exceeded, in line with Academic
Regulations)
• Formatting: Typed on A4 paper in Times New Roman, Arial or Calibri font, size 11 with at least 2.5-
centimetre margins, 1.5 line-spacing and numbered pages.
• Document format: Report format, with a clear title page, including name and student ID number,
executive summary, table of contents, and reference list (using Harvard referencing throughout).
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STUDENT FEEDBACK FORM
This section details the extent to which the assessment criteria are demonstrated by you, which in turn
determines your mark. The marks available for each category of skill are shown. Lecturers will use the
space provided to comment on the achievement of the task(s), including those areas in which you have
performed well and areas that would benefit from development/improvement.