You may complete this assessment based on your own workplace, an organisation of your choice or on the CoffeeVille case study (see below).

Should you choose to use the CoffeeVille case study, you can access all their supporting documents by clicking here. The 'intranet' tab on this site will direct you to the following CoffeeVille documents:

Business Plan 2011/12
Operational Plan 2011/12
Policy and procedure documents
Employee handbook.

A range of other documents is also within this intranet providing valuable background information about the operation of the business.

Note: CoffeeVille currently has policy and procedures that relate to human resource management and an employee handbook; however, they have not developed specific policies and procedures for all their human resources processes.

Part A: Report - Human Resources strategy and action plan

Follow the instructions below to write a business report and submit for assessment.

Instructions

You are to prepare a business report suitable for presentation to the executive management team that details the human resources strategy, policies and procedures to support the organisation.

Your report must include the following elements:

1. Executive summary.

2. An analysis of the current business strategy and operational plans identifying where they don't adequately support the achievement of the organisations objectives.

3. An analysis of the external business environment (eg. unemployment rates, competition for workers, shills and labour shortages, market trends, economic conditions, changes in technology and industry changes) identifying the impacts on the organisation's human resources requirements.

4. An analysis of the organisations requirements for diversity in the workforce.

5. Proposed human resources strategies and action plans in line with legislative requirements, confidentiality considerations, organisational policies and business goals.

Selecting one human resources specialty (eg. Recruitment and selection, learning and development, employee relations, remuneration and staff benefits etc), develop a cost-benefit analysis, risk analysis and action plan that supports the overall human resources strategy.

6. Document the roles and responsibilities of the following positions as required to support the proposed action plans:

6.1. Human Resources team

6.2. Line managers

6.3. External contractors

7. Determine appropriate human resources information systems (HRIS) or methods of gathering and storing information needed to support the human resources strategy and action plans. Provide three examples of how this approach can be used on human resource information.

8. Develop a communications plan that incorporates the following stages in the review and implementation of the proposed human resources strategy and action plans:

8.1. Consultation with line managers and senior managers to identify human resources needs

8.2. Communication of human resources strategies and services to internal and external stakeholders

8.3. Negotiation and consultation of the SLA including service specifications, performance standards, monitoring and timeframes

8.4. External training delivery

8.5. Feedback and evaluation process including customer satisfaction surveys and ongoing client feedback processes

8.6. Recommendations for change to the process from feedback process

9. On completion of the communications plan above, you have emailed the executive team the proposed HR strategy. They have replied with conditional agreement to the strategy, however have asked for further clarification on the roles and responsibilities of the different stakeholder groups. Referencing the roles and responsibilities documents developed in point 6 above, develop a communication to go to the executive team outlining the different roles in the action plan developed and requesting full agreement and approval of the HR strategy and action plans proposed.

Submit this communication as an appendix to the report developed in Part A.

Assessment Part A word count: minimum 1800 words to maximum 2000 words.

Part B: Communications & Report - Service Level Agreement (SLA)

Follow the instructions below to complete communications required to plan and negotiate a SLA followed by a business report style SLA.

Instructions

You are to negotiate and develop a SLA to support the proposed human resources strategy and action plans developed in Part A.

1. Before commencing detailed documentation of the SLA, you need to negotiate the high level details with the Human Resources team, external service providers and client groups. To begin this process, develop a short communication outlining the SLA elements (see Table A below) and how they relate to one element of the human resources strategy and services for each of the following stakeholders:

1.1. Human Resources team

1.2. External service providers

1.3. Client groups

2. In negotiations with the external service providers, an external training organisation have challenged the class sizes proposed. Provide them with a follow up communication detailing the reasoning for the recommendation for class sizes at this level and suggest a compromise in order to gain agreement.

3. Develop an SLA to support one element of the proposed human resources strategy that address the SLA elements found in Table A