5CO01 Organisational Performance and Culture in Practice

Task – Questions

Knowledge and understanding for this core unit will be assessed by written answers to the questions below.

1. Organisations differ in terms of structure, the products and/or services offered, and customers.
   1. Evaluate the advantages and disadvantages of two types of organisation structures, including the reasons underpinning them. (AC 1.1)
   2. Analyse connections between organisational strategy, products, services, and customers. (AC 1.2)
2. All organisations are affected to some extent by external factors and trends. The impact of these factors and trends could be positive, neutral, or negative, some are short-lived whilst others are long-lasting. Analyse a range of external factors and trends currently impacting organisations. Identify organisational priorities arising from the factors and trends analysed. (AC 1.3)
3. The CIPD’s report Workplace Technology: the employee experience (2020:2) states, ‘the impact of the latest technology revolution on how organisations create value and on the way people work spans all industries, economies and parts of society’. Assess the scale of technology within organisations and how it impacts work. (AC 1.4)
4. Drawing on your reading, explain one theory or model which examines organisational culture AND interpret one theory or model which examines human behaviour. (AC 2.1)
5. Assess how people practices impact on organisational culture and behaviour, drawing on examples to support your arguments. (AC 2.2)
6. Many organisations have managed considerable change in recent years. CIPD’s report, People Profession 2030: a collective view of future trends (2020) identifies ‘internal change’ as a key future trend.
   1. Explain different approaches to managing change. (AC 2.3)
   2. Discuss models for how change is experienced. (AC 2.4)
7. CIPD’s Good Work Index provides an annual benchmark of job quality. Data is gathered on seven dimensions of good work, including ‘health and wellbeing’. Assess the importance of wellbeing at work and factors which impact wellbeing. (AC 2.5)
8. Discuss the links between the employee lifecycle and different people practice roles. (AC 3.1)
9. Analyse how people practice connects with other areas of an organisation and supports wider people and organisational strategies. (AC 3.2)
10. People professionals provide a service to internal customers but to truly add value, people professions need to understand their customer’s needs. Discuss processes for consulting and engaging with internal customers to understand their needs. (AC 3.3)

5CO02 Evidence-based Practice

Scenario

Your company is planning its forthcoming annual development event and the topic that the people practice team will be showcasing is evidence-based practice. In readiness for this event your manager has asked you to complete two tasks.

Task One – Report

Your first task is to write a report which provides the audience with an understanding of what evidence-based practice is and the strategies that can be taken for effective critical thinking and decision-making, you must ensure that you:

• Provide evaluation of the concept of evidence-based practice and assess how evidence-based practice approaches can be used to provide insight in supporting sound decision-making and judgments for people practitioners across a range of people practices and organisational issues. (AC 1.1)
•  Provide evaluation of one appropriate analysis tool and one method that might be applied by organisations to recognise and diagnose current and future issues, challenges, and opportunities. (AC 1.2)
• Explain the main principles of critical thinking and describe how these might apply to individual and work colleagues’ ideas to assist objective and rationale debate. (AC 1.3)
• Explain a range of decision-making processes that can be applied to ensure that effective outcomes are achieved. (AC 1.4)
•  Assess a range of different ethical theories and perspectives and explain how understanding of these can be used to inform and influence moral decision-making. (AC 1.5)
• Appraise different ways and approaches organisations can take to measure financial and non-financial performance. (AC 3.1)
• Explain how people practices add value in an organisation and identify a range of methods that might be used to measure the impact of a range of people practices (AC 3.2) You should relate to academic concepts, theories and professional practice throughout your report to ensure that your work is critical and informed by using key academic texts, articles and relevant publications. All cited references used should be correctly acknowledged and presented in full in a bibliography at the end of your report.

Task Two – Quantitative and Qualitative Analysis Review

By way of exemplifying the importance of decision-making strategies and how these can be used by people practitioners to solve people practice issues, your manager wants you to illustrate to the audience how the people professional department interprets different types of data to inform sound decision making. Completion of these two activities will address the following:

• With reference to a people practice issue, interpret analytical data using appropriate analysis tools and methods. (AC 2.1)
• Present the findings for stakeholders from people practice activities and initiatives. (AC 2.2)
• Make justified recommendations based on evaluation of the benefits, risks and financial implications of potential solutions. (AC 2.3) Presented below are two sets of data. Firstly, review the absence data that is presented in Table 1 and provide analysis of it to show:

a)  trends across departments

b)  absence by type

c)  absence by gender

d)  total days lost through absence

e)  annual total costs through absence based on a 37-hour working week.

Present your finding using appropriate diagrammatical forms and make justifiable recommendations based on your evaluations.

Table 1 – Absence data

Table 2 gives the rating feedback scores from employees that work for manager A. Provide scrutiny of the applied scores and present written commentary on any themes or patterns that might be occurring and present recommendations based on your findings.

5CO03 Professional Behaviours and Valuing People

Task One –Professional, ethical, and inclusive behaviours.

In this task, you are required to demonstrate a professional level of knowledge and understanding in relation to ‘professional, ethical and inclusive behaviours’.

To complete the task, you should provide a written response to each of the points below, making appropriate use of academic theory and practical examples to expand your response and illustrate key points.

To help the reader, please make use of headings and assessment criteria references to signpost the assessment criteria being addressed.

1.  Define the term professional and explain what it means to be a ‘people professional’. (AC 1.1)
2.  Explore how the role of a people professional (either a generalist or a particular specialist) is evolving and the priorities this raises for continuing professional development (CPD) (AC 3.1)
3.  Discuss the concept of ‘ethical values’, and how at least three ethical values that you hold personally, impact (or could impact) on your work as a people professional. (AC 1.2)
4.  Explain why it is essential for people professionals to contribute confidently to discussions, and ways of doing this that are (AC 1.3): ▪ informed ▪ clear
   ▪ engaging.
5.  Discuss when and how to raise concerns when issues such as organisational policies or leadership approaches conflict with ethical values or legislation. (AC 1.4)
6.  Provide a robust argument for ethical people practice that is supported by academic theory and details both the business and human benefits of people at work feeling included, valued and fairly treated. (AC 2.1)
7.  Drawing on your own or a hypothetical example of providing a people practice solution to meet a particular need or introducing a new policy or initiative, describe:
   •  strategies for designing the solution/initiative so that it will be inclusive
   • strategies for checking that, when in practice, the solution/initiative engages and meets the needs of all those it is aimed at. (AC 2.2)

Task Two – Professional Development

This task requires you to evidence your commitment and approach to continuing professional development (CPD). It is divided into three activities, which must all be completed.

There are 2 different options for how you complete the 3 activities: these are ▪ The CIPD Profession Map Self-Assessment Tool,
▪ Offline documentation.

You should read the ‘General Instructions for the Activities’ first. Then read the ‘Guidance for Completing the Activities’ following the specific option you have chosen.

General Instructions for the Activities

ACTIVITY 1 (AC 2.3, AC 3.2). Using a range of information, including feedback from others, assess

your practice against the FIVE CIPD Profession Map core behaviours listed below. behaviours (all to be selected at associate level) are:

▪ Ethical Practice
▪ Professional Courage and Influence ▪ Valuing People
▪ WorkingInclusively
▪ Passion for Learning

Evidence to be presented:

• In the main body of your assignment, write a short summary (approx. 150 words), of the information used to inform your assessment
• Add your assessment pages as an appendix. ACTIVITY 2 (AC 3.3) Having identified your main development needs in relation to these 5 areas, formulate appropriate development activities to meet these needs and add these to your professional development/learning plan. Evidence to be presented:

•  In the main body of your assignment, write a short explanation (approx. 250 words) for your choice of development activities
• Add the relevant pages from your development/learning plan as an appendix. ACTIVITY 3 (AC 3.4) A key element of CPD is reflecting on the impact of our learning, so that we can make further decisions about how to progress. Select 3 formal or informal development activities you have undertaken over the last 12 months and reflect on how each of these activities has impacted your behaviour and performance. (Consider how effective the activity has been and the extent of its impact. You might also consider what new needs or action points the activity raised for you.) Note: this reflection is retrospective and not connected to the activities planned in activity 2 above.

Guidance for Completing the Activities (select ONE of the options below)

OPTION 1: The CIPD Learning Hub self-assessment tool and learning plan. This can be accessed at https://learninghub.cipd.org/d2l/home/6720.

• For the self-assessment (Activity 1), access the tool (see link above). Select ‘Self-assessment’, ‘Associate level’, and add the 5 required behaviours – then complete your scoring. As you work through, take copies/screen-prints of each assessment to add as an appendix to your assignment. If you forget or make a mistake, simply opt to redo the process.
• For the formulation of development activities (Activity 2), follow up your self-assessment by selecting ‘View recommendations’ where you will be able to select and add different activities to the ‘My Learning Plan’. Whilst the system presents you with suggested activities, it should be clear to your assessor that you have selected/added options that you determine to be most appropriate for your needs. Take copies/screen prints of the activities you have formulated to add as an appendix to your assignment.
• For the reflections activity (Activity 3), select ‘My CPD Reflections’ and complete the ‘reflections ‘forms’. Embed these into your assignment (or attach as an additional PDF report if preferred). However, please ensure you still comply with the required word count for this activity. (Important information regarding screen shots: We recommend editing out any personal data before submitting screen shots. This can be done quite easily using, for example, the ‘snip and sketch’ facility built into most office-based software and explained online as well as in our CIPD tutorials.) OPTION 2: Offline Documentation.

• For the self-assessment (Activity 1), complete the self-assessment for the core behaviours by adding an ‘X’ in the relevant columns.
• For the formulation of development activities (Activity 2), determine appropriate development activities to meet your needs in relation to these 5 areas and add these to your (own format) professional development plan (PDP). The relevant pages (extract) of your PDP should be added as an appendix to your assignment.
• For the reflections activity (Activity 3), provide your written reflections within the main body of your assignment.

5HR01 Employment Relationship Management

Task 1 – Briefing paper

You have been asked to produce a briefing paper which outlines ways that employee engagement can be improved.

Your briefing paper must include:

1. A review of emerging developments to approaches to employee voice and engagement, followed by three recommendations for improvement. These recommendations must include clear and actionable justifications. (AC1.1)
2. Acriticalevaluationoftheinterrelationshipbetweenemployeevoice and organisational performance with a focus on high-performance work practices. (AC1.4)
3. An assessment of surveys, suggestion schemes and team meetings as approaches that can be used drive employee engagement (AC1.3).
4. Adiscussionofthedifferencesbetweenemployeeinvolvementand employee participation and how they can help build effective employment relationships. (AC1.2)
5. Explain the concept and design of better working lives and ways to promote good physical and mental health work practices. (AC1.5)

Task 2 – Written answers to the following:

1. An explanation as to the differences between organisational conflict and misbehaviour, which includes the differences between informal and formal conflict and resolution. (AC2.1)
2. Ananalys is of the key causes of employee grievances.(AC3.2)
3. An explanation of at least two skills required to successfully handle grievances and disciplinaries and the importance of handling these effectively, to avoid legal claims. (AC3.3, 3.4)
4. Outineoneofficialandoneunofficialactionanemployeemighttake during conflict, explaining their key features and differences between them. (AC2.2)
5. Anassessmentofemergingtrendsinconflictsandindustrialsanctions. (AC2.3)
6. Describe, and differentiate between, conciliation, mediation, and arbitration as methods to resolve conflict formally before it escalates to an employment tribunal. (AC2.4)
7. Anexplanationoftheprinciplesofthekeylegislationrelatingtounfair dismissal law and the process an employer should follow to manage capability and misconduct issues. (AC3.1)
8. A comparison of various employee bodies, including union and non-union forms of employee representation. (AC4.2)
9. Evaluate the purpose of collective bargaining with reference to substantive and procedural agreements (AC4.3)