Extended Diploma in Strategic Management & Leadership

Strategic Human Resource Management

Assignment Brief

As part of the formal assessment for the programme you are required to submit an assignment for each module. Please refer to your Student Handbook for full details of the programme assessment scheme and general information on preparing and submitting assignments.

After completing the module, you should be able to:

LO1 - Understand how the strategic management of human resources contributes to the achievement of organisational objectives.
LO2 - Be able to develop human resource plans for an organisation.
LO3 - Understand human resources policy requirements in an organisation.
LO4 - Be able to examine human resources management in an organisation

HSBC Hong Kong

(www.hsbc.com.hk please access to the company's website for information to complete the assessment. You must navigate around the site in order to find the relevant information).)

You are Head of HR of HSBCHong Kong and are required to write a formal report to management to examine four main HR areas to ensure that HR practices have a positive impact on the organisation. These areas include:
- The importance of Strategic Human Resource Management within HSBC.
- Human Resource Plans within HSBC, how they are developed and implemented.
- Current policy both internally and externally that affects HSBC.
- The role of Human Resource Management within HSBC.

The layout of the report is as follows:

1. An executive summary - this will give a summary of the areas within the report and include the justified recommendations to improve the effectiveness of human resources management within HSBC. (200 words)

2. An introduction - This will explain the purpose of the report and provide an overview of the importance of strategic Human Resource Management (SHRM) within HSBC. (200 words)

3. The main report will comprise of the following:

- An assessment of the purpose and role of SHRM within HSBC, and an evaluation of its contribution to achieving organisational objectives. (300 words)

- Formulate a plan to expand the ITDepartment within the organisation to include an analysis of the current competition and enhancements in technology. Provide a critical evaluation of how the plan will contribute to achieving organisational objectives. (800 words)

- Explain and analyse current internal and external policy to be considered when developing the plan and provide recommendations for implementation of the team in order to meet organisational goals. The internal and external policies to review include:
- Staff turnover
- Qualifications
- Government policy
- Labour market competition (600 words)(Assessment Criterion 3.1,3.2)
- Using Weber (1997) and Mintzberg (1987)analyse and critique an organisational design for HSBC. (300 words)(Assessment Criterion 4.1)
- Analyse how the expanded IT Department will be integrated into the culture of the organisation; refer to Schein (1992) to complete this section, and how performance of the entire team will be monitored. (500 words)(Assessment Criteria 4.2,4.3)
4. Conclusion - this will summarise the above report and highlight the main points of interest. (100 words)
5. References - have to be Harvard Standards.
6. Appendix - to include any supporting information.

Student Guidelines

1. You should write this assignment in a formal report format.

2. You must ensure that the submitted assignment is all your own work and that all sources used are correctly attributed. Penalties apply to assignments which show evidence of academic unfair practice. (See the Student Handbook which is in the Induction Area). Please also refer to the ‘Guide to Unfair Practice in Assessment' on the module page on ilearn.

3. You MUST underpin your analysis and evaluation of the key issues with appropriate and wide ranging academic research and ensure this is referenced using the Bournemouth University (BU) Harvard system. The ‘My Study Skills' area contains the following useful resources; Study Skills Guide (containing a BU Harvard Referencing section) and a BU Harvard Referencing Interactive Tutorial. You must use the BU Harvard Referencing method in your assignment.

4. You should use diagrams and tables of figures where appropriate ensuring to reference their source using the BU Harvard Referencing method.

5. You are required to write your assignment within 3000words in order for your research and summarising skills to be developed, and for effective time management. You are required to ensure that the assignment addresses all of the assessment tasks. In the interests of good academic practice, an assignment submitted with excessive word counts (i.e. more than 10% in excess of the limit) will be returned to you. You will be given a maximum of 48 hours to edit the work to reduce the word count to the permitted maximum. In the event that the submission is still regarded as excessively long then, in line with advice received from Pearson, we will be unable to accept it for marking and you will receive a Refer grade for Non-Submission.

The word count excludes the title page, reference list and appendices. Where assessment questions have been reprinted from the assessment brief these will also be excluded from the word count. ALL other printed words ARE included in the word count. Printed words include those contained within charts and tables.

6. Your assignment should be submitted as a single document. For more information please see the "Guide to Submitting an Assignment" document available on the module page on iLearn.Executive Summary
- Provide a summary of the overall report on what have been done including key findings and conclusion. (general and cover with key points).

Introduction
- Use SHRM theories to argue and justify the importance of SHRM.
- Describes HSBC company profile very briefly
- Highlights HSBC's strategic goals/objectives and strategies.

Task 1: An assessment of the purpose and role of SHRM within HSBC

- Use SHRM theories to discuss the roles and contributions SHRM can be made.

- Discuss specific HR needs to support the achievement of the strategic goals stated in Introduction. Discuss various HR practices leading to business results and/or long term capability improvement.

Task 2: Formulate a plan
- Discuss the IT objective and present technological initiative of your choice support by business reasons.
- Explain the current the competition and enhancement of the recommended technology. (what is available in the banking industry).
- Define HR Plan objectives and strategies to achieve the expected results.
- Identify HR resources (e.g. recruitment, training, compensation, incentive, work arrangement etc.) to support the execution of IT initiative.
- Elaborate and explain how the plan will lead to achievement of business objectives.

Task 3: Explain and analyse current internal and external policy
- Explain the current policies and discusses the external employment market highlighting those key factors affecting the four policies.
- Highlight the strengths and limitations of which of the policy.
- Select one area of each policy to discuss instead of discussing it broadly. Regulatory requirement must be addressed.
- Recommend if necessary.

Task 4: critique an organisational design for HSBC.
- Research Weber (1997) and Mintzberg (1987) to identify the core concepts and theories.
- Briefly explain the theories.
- Refer to HSBC Organization Chart to identify the approach of organization design.
- Argue the reasons, strengths and weaknesses of the current organization design referencing the theories.

Task 5: Analyse culture of the organisation
- Research Schein (1992) (Organizational culture and leadership's Structural model of culture indicating different levels of culture ) to identify the core concepts and theories of organization culture.
- Briefly discuss the theory.
- Analyze the current culture in brief in IT
- Highlight the HSBC culture required to achieve the
strategic goals.
- Recommend ways to integrate IT into the overall HSBC including the performance objectives, measurement, monitoring and corrective mechanism.