□ Based in central London the European Club was founded in 1900. The club is a non-profit making charity whose good works for the last 100+ years include offering scholarships for gifted children from poorer countries the opportunities to study in the UK. The Charity is governed by a Board of Trustees who also form part of the Board of Directors. The CEO sits on the Board of Directors whilst the General Manager and Club Secretary report into the CEO. The vision and mission statement is represented as “High quality hospitality at affordable prices.” A statement of values has been an agenda item for almost a year but has not been actioned.
□ Revenue for the charity is derived from the operation of the central London clubhouse (situated in a fashionable street in Mayfair London W1) containing a very ‘old fashioned’ and largely unused waiter service cocktail bar, The Fox and Hound and 50 seat restaurant, The Dining Rooms, 4 function rooms (no in-built meeting room equipment) and a number of bedrooms (50) which it lets to club members for a highly subsidised amount of just £75 per night. Many of these rooms have not been refurbished in quite a while.
□ The building itself has a certain faded grandeur but is in need of some much needed planned and reactive renovation and maintenance to furniture, fixtures and fittings. Some of the systems in the Club, including reservations and front office, are still on Excel spreadsheet functions. A manual process is used for creating reservations for the bedrooms, restaurant and bar and function rooms. There is however an online payment system used but there are three separate systems, one for each department. Wifi is available throughout the Club.
□ Many of the staff have been there for many years and the way things operate have not changed much for a long time. Whilst familiar and comfortable with the current ways of doing things, the staff often moan about the amount of time it takes and the inefficiency of the systems in place. There is a very defined hierarchy and staffing structure in the departments. The organisational chart below details the restaurant, bar and event management departments.
Scenario (Contd)
□ Staff are not encouraged to make decisions without reference to the head of department nor are they encouraged to put forward new ideas for enhancing or improving practice. Any changes to practice are often from the top down and staff opinions are rarely sought.
□ Morale, as measured by a small yearly staff survey, appears low, and many of the younger staff leave after just a couple of months citing lack of opportunities and poor training as a cause. The survey also shows that staff are not happy with their manager and feel that they do not get praised or rewarded when they do a good job.
□ The previous CEO had been with the charity for some 30 years and very much left the management of the club to the General Manager, who also retires later this year. The new CEO of the charity believes that there is a lot more that might be achieved, and good works undertaken, if the operation itself makes more money to invest into the charitable works, and she firmly believes that the organisation is underperforming and is inefficient.
□ Membership of the club has been falling steadily over the past five years and now stands some 50% of its original membership. A recent member survey shows significant complaints about the conditions of the facilities, especially the restaurant and bar which the members use to entertain as well as the drop-in customer service as well as the general lack of organisation.
□ The CEO has approached you and wants to employ your HR consultancy services to address the strategic HR issues around a modernisation plan for the restaurant and bar facilities of the club. The modernisation and renovation programme will includethe following:
□ The refurbishment of The Fox and Hound Bar, the Dining Room and the function rooms
□ Training and development of all staff on the new processes connected to the Bar, Dining room and function rooms.
Scenario (Contd)
□ The refurbishment has been given to an architectural firm that will employ its contactors and manage all the building work. They have promised to work to the project deadlines. Naturally this will mean the members of the club paying more for the services; however, this will bring the charges in line with similar institutions and facilities. The CEOs biggest concern is how to undertake this project with the minimum of disruption to both members and staff. It is not an option to shut the club down completely during the project. Business as usual, as much as possible, must be maintained.
Task 1 of 3 – Presentation (AC1.1, 1.2, 1.3, 2.1 & 2.2)
□ Scenario: The CEO has asked you to prepare a 15-minute PowerPoint presentation for the Board of Directors “selling” your consultancy services. You still need to pitch for the contract since the two other board members will be involved in the decision.
□ Instruction: Prepare a presentation in which you should:
□ Explain the importance of Strategic Human Resource Management (HRM)
(AC 1.1) and how you could add value to the Club. You should discuss how strategic HRM could be linked with other departments. (AC1.2) Explain the strategic human resources services you could provide to the Club and their purposes (AC 1.3)
□ Analyse the factors that the Club should consider before embarking up the renovation and restructure. (AC 2.1)
□ Determine some preliminary HR requirements for the organisation considering the new contract. (AC 2.2)
□ The Board is likely to ask questions – so be ready to answer any questions that may arise.
LO1 Evidence
□ Explain the importance of Strategic Human Resource Management (HRM) (AC 1.1) and how you could add value to the Club. You should discuss how strategic HRM could be linked with other departments(AC1.2). Explain the strategic human resources services you could provide to the Club and their purposes (AC
1.3)
□ For AC 1.1 – Start with 2-3 definitions of SHRM by various authors. Put and refer to 1 or 2 HRM Model as discussed in LO1 ( Harvard, Patterson, Guest, Bath)
□ For AC 1.2 – Start with explaining the role of HR and the activities is performs in the organisation. Use the Human Resources Planning process/ activities like recruitment, selection, compensation, training, development, appraisals, labour relations etc to cover this task
□ For AC 1.3 – start with listing the other departments and then list the role of HR in working with them. For. e.g. Appraisals, reviews, training and development which HR delivers to the staff members of other departments.
LO2 Evidence
□ Analyse the factors that the Club should consider before embarking up the renovation and restructure. (AC 2.1)
□ For 2.1 – start with discussing Human Resource Planning which covers training, development, re-skilling, up-skilling, succession planning,
restructuring within the Club
□ Determine some preliminary HR requirements for the organisation considering the new contract. (AC 2.2)
□ For 2.2 – Here you need to consider and talk about job description, skills, experience, matching personnel experience / skills with workforce experience and factors within the Club leading to restructuring
□ Develop a human resource plan for an organisation.
(AC2.3)
□ Here you need to talk about the HRP and how is it done, use a table to develop a HR plan for European Club or any other chosen organisation.
□ Refer to the Network Rail or the University HR Plan templates provides on moodle
Evidence
□ Submission:
□ 1x PowerPoint Presentation Slides
□ Referencing:
□ Each PowerPoint must reflect any supporting Harvard style citations.
□ A comprehensive Harvard style reference list must be included at the end of the presentation
Task 2 of 3 – HR Plan and Memo (AC2.3, 3.1, 3.2 & 3.3)
Scenario: You have been successful in securing the contract, and you have a lot to do. The management priority is to have a HR plan in place as soon as possible, but you feel that a HR policy is equally important, if not more. Therefore, you have decided to create the outline of HR plan, but to include it together with a memo about creating an HR policy.
Instruction: You therefore need to prepare:
□ An outline of a human resource plan. (AC 2.3)
□ A memo concerning the importance of HR policy,(AC 3.1) the memo should provide examples of regulatory, legal and ethical concerns that should be covered within the policy (living wage vs minimum wage, maternity cover, Equality Act 2010, termination of employment, etc.) which would be important to the Club. (AC 3.2)
□ Assess the impact of business ethics, CSR, and sustainability requirements on human resource policies for an organisation. (AC 3.3
LO3 Evidence
□ A memo concerning the importance of HR policy,(AC 3.1) the memo should provide examples of regulatory, legal and ethical concerns that should be covered within the policy (living wage vs minimum wage, maternity cover, Equality Act 2010, termination of employment, etc.) which would be important to the Club. (AC 3.2)
□ AC 3.1 – you need to write a memo and, in this memo, cover the Club HR Policy or your chosen organisation. The HR policy would cover things like recruitment, expenses and benefits, paternity or maternity leave, harassment or bullying, grievance and dismissal; protected disclosure/whistle blowing etc
□ AC 3.2 – The memo on HR Policy should have a paragraph of each of the ACTs which are usually part of the employee handbook. These include
□ HASWA 1974
□ diversity and equality. 2010
□ working time directive
□ Data protection Act 1998
□ AC 3.3 you need to cover the ethical requirements of HR policies in the
European Club o Start by covering ethics in HRM, discrimination, harassment, racism, gender preference, compliance with environment and CSR side of things in the organisation.
Evidence
Delivery and submission:
□ 1x HR plan (circa 1000 words)
□ 1x memo (circa 500 words)
Referencing:
□ Each section must reflect any supporting Harvard style citations.
□ A comprehensive Harvard style reference list must be included at the end of the work.
Task 3 of 3 – Report (AC4.1, 4.2, 4.3, 5.1, 5.2 & 5.3)
□ Instructions: Having done all of the preliminary work for the Club, you should now write a report in which you should:
□ Examine the impact of different management and leadership theories on organisational strategy and structure. (AC 4.1)
□ Describe the impact of organisational strategies(AC 5.1), structures and culture on the management of HR. (AC 4.2) ¤ Determine the effectiveness of the current Club HRM, and critically discuss the link between leadership
& management and HRM. (AC 4.3)
□ Present an analysis of how the existing culture and structure of the Club might impact on the success of the Club project and the motivation of the staff. (AC 5.2)
□ Explain how you would develop,(AC4.2) monitor and evaluate a leadership strategy that supports the development or revision of the Club’s organisational mission, vision, values and objectives. (AC 5.3)
Evidence for LO4
□ 4.1 – Cover the culture and structure in European Club, Use the organogram provided in the scenario and relate it to the culture its promotes. You can use any one of the theoretical models: Schein, Hofstede, Handy; culture of organisation; interrelationships between HRM activities and culture. Use can also use the matching model of HRM to explain the impact of organisational strategy, structure and culture on the management of European Club
□ 4.2 you can use the HR plan developed in AC 2.3 to elaborate it to cover the HR strategy. Refer to the image on slide 7. Include SMART objectives
□ You need to relate and explain one of the organisational theory underpinning HRM: organisational structure theories: Handy, Mintzberg, Weber; HRM impacts and structure forms: product based, functional, divisional, geographical; matrix: centralisation, decentralisation.
□ 4.3 here you to cover performance management techniques like
□ Balance Scorecard
□ Benchmarking
□ Performance Indicators / KPI
Evidence LO5
□ Present an analysis of how the existing culture and structure of the Club might impact on the success of the Club project and the motivation of the staff. (AC 5.2)
□ For implementation and measurement of HR approaches you need to cover here HR Metrics – Staff Turnover, Absenteeism, Employee Retentions etc
□ Relate the Staffing, compensation and benefits and job description to the Club Project and its motivation for the staff
□ Explain how you would develop,(AC4.2) monitor and evaluate a leadership strategy that supports the development or revision of the Club’s organisational mission, vision, values and objectives. (AC 5.3)
□ 5.3 you need to talk about strategic leadership development; leadership requirement for organisational aspects e.g. mission, vision and objectives; strategic development; organisational strategy formulation.
Evidence
Delivery and submission:
□ 1x Report (circa 2000 words)
Referencing:
□ Each section must reflect any supporting Harvard style citations.
□ A comprehensive Harvard style reference list must be included at the end of the work.
Final Evidence submission
□ PowerPoint presentation (1000 words equivalent.) □ HR Plan – 1000 words.
□ HR Memo – 500 words
□ Report – 2000 words
Important Points
► Ensure at least 12-15 references
► Referencing should be in Harvard Style
► Give Proper headings and subheadings o Make your document look presentable and professional o Number your figure and tables
► Follow the numbering on the assignment presentation as against the assignment brief
► Keep a check on word count (+/- 20% tolerance limit)
► Word limit assignment report – 4500 words minimum in order merit or distinction
► Task 1 and 2 – word limit 3500 words
► Task 3 presentation with speaker notes – 10-15 slides with 1000 words Useful Tips
□ Read the Tasks Carefully
□ Focus on Details
□ Command Verbs
□ Broadly, Just as guidance I suggest that for Action / Command Verbs, you can
□ cover the tasks by writing them
□ Explain, Define, Describe, – 100-120 words
□ Assess / Examine / Clarify/ Analyse – 150-170 words
□ Compare/ Contrast/ Critically / Evaluate – 175-225 words
□ Harvard Referencing
□ Referencing needs to be Harvard i.e. author, date style
□ For eg. (Slack, Johnston, Brandon-Jones, 2011) in text
□ In the reference towards the end it will come as shown