We can provide you with general guidance on how to prepare for your exams. Here are some tips that may help you:

1. Review the CIPD Level 3 syllabus: Make sure you are familiar with the topics and modules covered in your course. This will help you focus your study efforts on the areas that are most important.
2. Use the CIPD Level 3 learning resources: CIPD provides a range of resources, including textbooks, online learning materials, and webinars, which can help you prepare for your exams. Make use of these resources to reinforce your learning.
3. Practice exam questions: Try to find past exam papers or practice questions that cover the topics you have studied. This will help you get a feel for the types of questions you can expect and give you an opportunity to practice your exam technique.
4. Study regularly: Don’t wait until the last minute to start studying. Make a study plan and stick to it, reviewing your notes and reading materials regularly to reinforce your understanding.
5. Seek support: If you are struggling with any of the topics, don’t hesitate to seek support from your tutors or fellow students. You can also join online discussion forums or study groups to share ideas and get feedback.

Remember, preparation is key to success in your exams. Good luck!

3CO01 Business, Culture and Change in Context

Task – Information sheet

In recent years, the environment in which organisations operate has been turbulent. People professionals have a key role in supporting and enabling the organisation to achieve its goals at time of greater or lesser stability. To ensure the people team have sufficient knowledge and understanding to do this, your manager has decided the team should have good knowledge of the external business environment, the organisation’s goals, its products/services and customers, organisational culture, and the importance of change management. Your manager has asked you to undertake some research, then share your learning with the rest of the team through an information sheet.

Your information sheet can be based on your own organisation or one(s) that you are familiar with, and should include the following:

• An examination of the key external influences impacting or likely to impact the organisation’s activities. (AC 1.1)
• A discussion of the organisation’s business goals and why it is important for organisations to plan for how they will achieve these. (AC 1.2)
•  A discussion of the organisation’s products and/or services and main customers. (AC 1.3)
• A short review of different technologies available to people professionals and how these can be, or are, used to improve working practices and collaboration. You might consider for example, technologies relating to communications, information sharing, record keeping, learning, wellbeing, productivity, or security. (AC 1.4)
• What is meant by organisational culture and why it is important to foster an appropriate and effective workplace culture. (AC 2.1)
•  How organisations are whole systems, in which different areas and aspects such as structure, systems and culture, are all inter-related, and how people professionals work and actions could impact elsewhere in the organisation. (AC 2.2)
• Why it is important that organisational change is planned, and effectively managed. (AC 3.1)
•  The nature and importance of different roles that can be played by people practice professionals, in relation to change agendas. You might consider roles such as: gatekeeper, champion, facilitator, critical friend or record-keeper. (AC 3.2)
• How organisational change can impact people in different ways, such as changing their role or status or financial situation, and the different ways people may respond to change. (AC 3.3)

3CO02 Principles of Analytics

The presentation must provide knowledge and understanding of how evidence-based practice informs organisational measures and outcomes and how creating value benefits employees, customers and wider stakeholders. Ensure that you:

• define what is meant by evidence-based practice and how it is applied within organisations, providing three examples of different types of evidence-based practice that can be used to inform principle-led judgements and outcomes for an organisation. (1.1),

• explain the reasons why it is important to use data to help assist organisational improvements and why this data need to be timely, ethical and accurate. (1.2)
• explain two different types of data measurements and information that can be used by people professionals, and how they are each used to collect and collate information to support effective decision making. (1.3)
• explain how organisational policies, procedures and other forms of evidence can be used to support appropriate choices and decisions. (1.5)
• explain the range of internal and external customers and stakeholders, that people professionals work with, and the part that influencing plays within the relationships (2.1)
• explain what is meant by creating value as a people professional, and identify benefits of providing value to customers and stakeholders (2.2)
• drawing on good practice examples, explain how the work that people professionals perform benefits others within an organisation in supporting good practice, open cultures, commitment and engagement. (2.4)
• explain how social media can be used internally and externally in workplaces to improve communication and organisational practices, highlighting the risks in a work context. (2.3)
• outline how you can, in your own work or a voluntary role, achieve and maintain a customer focused attitude to ensure consistent high standards and customer satisfaction. (2.5)

Task Two Example of Analysis of Data to Inform Practice

A mini survey on the quality of work has recently been carried out as a pilot and the raw data from the first three departments, Research & Design, Administration and Marketing has just been collected. The People Practice manager has asked you to represent the data as percentages and analyse the survey results.

1.  Review the sets of raw numerical data that have been provided in the tables below and convert them to percentages to illustrate the results.
2. Provide an analysis of these, identifying themes, patterns and trends that appear to be occurring. As a part of this analysis, consider the possible issues that have been revealed by the data.

Absence rates for each department over a three-month period as a total of hours based on a contractual week of 37.5 hours are as follows:

3.  Calculate how many working days are lost in a three-month period for each department based on the above figures.
4.  Estimate the projected average loss of working days over a 12-month period if these rates were to continue.
5. Calculate the costs of pay assuming all absentees are contractually paid full remuneration whilst off sick during the three-month period. (1.4)

3CO03 Core Behaviours for People Professionals

Task One – Ethical practice paper

You are currently studying for your CIPD qualification at a local study centre. Your study group has been asked to provide information about the role of a People Practice Professional, for a careers platform, and you and your fellow learners have decided to each write about a different aspect of the role.

For your contribution, you have decided to write about ethics and how a people practice professional would demonstrate and promote ethical practice at work. Having discussed this idea with your tutor you have agreed to write a short paper, covering all 4 points below.

1.  Explain what is meant by ‘ethical principles’ and ‘professional values’, and how these might inform the way people approach their work. (AC 1.1)
2. Identify a piece of legislation and a Code of Practice that support ethical and professional practice, with examples of how a people professional would conform to these. (AC 1.2)
3. Describe how a people professional would demonstrate respectful and inclusive working in relation to: (AC 2.1)
   • contributing views and opinions
   • clarifying problems or issues
   • working effectively as part of a team
4. Summarise different ways a people professional would stay up-to-date with people practice and world of work issues and developments, highlighting 2 ways in particular, that you have personally found effective. (AC 2.2)

Task Two – Professional Development Record

A crucial aspect of being a People Practice professional is staying up to date with issues and developments and ensuring professional currency by regularly upgrading knowledge and skills. This task is about how you, personally, do this.

The task requires you to provide a record of how you have maintained and upgraded your own knowledge and skills, along with your reflections on how effective this has been. Your ‘record’ can be presented as a simple written account or as a formal CPD Record and should cover at least 3 activities undertaken within the last year. (AC 2.3)

To complete the task, provide a written account/CPD Record, in which you:

• Describe (at least 3) activities you have undertaken to develop your knowledge, skills, and experience over the last year. Activities may be, for example, formal development activities such as planned learning events or programmes, informal activities such as researching online or reading a book, work-based activities such as participating in a particular work project or simply putting yourself in a work role or position that you knew would stretch and develop you. The activities may have been in response to an identified performance issue or problem or may reflect a new area of interest for you. Your record should explain the reasons for your choice of activity as well as what the activity involved. (This is the WHY and the WHAT of your CPD Record.)
• Reflect on the outcomes of each activity and their impact on your practice. For example: did you gain a greater understanding of, or more knowledge about, something and if so, how has that actually impacted your behaviour? How are you, or is your performance, different because of the learning undertaken? Was the activity worth doing in terms of its impact on your behaviour or performance? Did the activity make you aware of, or maybe generate, other development needs? What conclusions did you draw from this for further activities? (This is the SO WHAT! of your CPD Record.)

3CO04 Essentials of People Practice

Task One – Briefing paper

The People Manager asks you to prepare a briefing paper that will be used when they meet with line managers and introduce the services the new team will provide. The briefing paper should explain:

• the different stages of the employee lifecycle and the role of the people professionals in the lifecycle. (AC 1.1)
• different ways in which information for specified roles can be prepared.  (AC 1.2)
• different recruitment methods and when is it appropriate to use them. (AC 1.3)

• factors to consider when deciding on the content of copy used in recruitment methods. (AC 1.4)
• different selection methods and when it is appropriate to use them. (AC 2.1)
• the selection records that need to be retained. (AC 2.4)

In addition, your manager is keen that standard letters of appointment and non-appointment are used going forward. Your manager has asked you to draft a copy of each of these letters.

• Write letters of appointment and non-appointment for an identified role. (AC 2.5)

Task Two – Simulated interview

Appointment to the newly formed people team is not yet complete and your manager is keen to involve you in the selection of a People Assistant and has asked you to work as part of a team to:

• Devise selection criteria for the post of People Assistant using the job description (Appendix A). Use the selection shortlisting matrix (Appendix B) to shortlist applications against the selection criteria to determine candidates to be interviewed. (AC 2.2)
• Interview one applicant and decide whether they meet the criteria for the post. The interview could be a panel or one-to-one interview. The interview could be conducted face-to-face, by telephone or by web conferencing. (AC 2.3)

If working as a panel, it is essential that each member of the team actively takes part in devising the criteria, shortlisting, interviews and decision-making and that your contributions are clearly included in your submission. A copy of CIPD STARR Model Interview Questions (Appendix C) has been included that can be used when developing interview questions.

Task Three – Guidance document

As a healthcare organisation, the owners of Healthcare on Hand are keen to support well-being at work.  They have some concerns about work-life balance as their employees start work early, work evenings and weekends, in addition to providing healthcare support during weekdays. The owners are keen to comply with relevant legislation and aim to provide their employees with a work-life balance.  The clients of Healthcare on Hand are diverse, and the owners feel the diversity of their workforce should also reflect their client population but think there might be more to diversity than this.

Now the organisation has grown and the owners cannot be involved in all day-to-day issues, line managers will take more responsibility for employment relations matters. Your manager asks you to produce a guidance document to provide the owners and managers at Healthcare on Hand with a fundamental understanding of employment legislation and organisational practices.

The guidance document must include:

• An explanation of the importance of achieving work-life balance within the employment relationship with an overview of the regulations relevant to work-life balance. (AC 3.1)
• An explanation of what is meant by, and the importance of, wellbeing in the workplace. (AC 3.2)
• A summary of the main points of discrimination legislation. (AC 3.3)
• An explanation of what diversity and inclusion mean and why they are important. (AC 3.4)
• An explanation of the difference between fair and unfair dismissal. (AC 3.5)

Task Four – Briefing paper

Prepare a briefing paper, aimed at providing Healthcare on Hand’s management team with essential knowledge and understanding of performance management and reward. You need to ensure that you include an explanation of:

• the purpose and components of performance management. (AC 4.1)
• the main factors that need to be considered when managing performance. (AC 4.2)
• different methods of performance review. (AC 4.3)
• key components (financial and non-financial) that are required to achieve an effective total reward system. (AC 5.1)
• the relationship between reward and performance, and the links to motivation. (AC 5.2), and provide
• at least two reasons for treating employees fairly in relation to pay. (AC 5.3)

Task Five – Fact sheet

Employee development is important for both existing employees and new starters at Healthcare on Hand and falls under the remit of the People Team. To date, learning and development (L&D) has been limited to training courses that were necessary to ensure legal compliance. You have been asked to develop a fact sheet for managers to raise awareness of the benefits of L&D, different types of learning needs, L&D approaches, individual requirements and preferences and how L&D can be evaluated.  

Your factsheet should:

• Explain why learning and development activities are of benefit to individuals and organisations. (AC 6.1)
• Describe different types of learning needs and reasons why they arise for individuals and organisations. (AC 6.2)
• Summarise different face-to-face and blended learning and development approaches, including: facilitation, training, coaching, and mentoring. (AC 6.3)
• Explain how, in the design and delivery of learning and development initiatives, individual requirements and preferences must be accommodated. (AC 6.4)
• Discuss at least two methods of evaluating learning and development and its impact (AC 6.5).