Group Project for MGT 4301 Human Resource Management

The final project will be to develop recommendations for HR practices for a company your group identifies. You will write a thorough business plan for human resource management in this organization as if you were external consultants. Although you should do everything possible to learn what the company is doing already, you are being graded on your ideas for how the companys policies and practices should work. Your audience will be members of the organizations executive committee who know a great deal about business on an applied level but may not know a great deal about human resources. Sections of the paper 1. Front material 1.1. Executive summary: this is an outline of your major points 1.2. Statement of the HR mission: these are the guiding principles behind your HR strategy 2. Organizational context (each person does one subsection of about 3 pages each) 2.1. Operating environment and strategy 2.1.1. Description of the companys competition and industry 2.1.2. Description of the companys competitive response/strategy 2.2. Organizational structure and culture 2.2.1. Description of the companys culture and values 2.2.2. Description of the companys primary jobs and work performed 3. Contents of the HR plan (pick one per person) 3.1. Recruiting and hiring methods 3.2. Training and development practices 3.3. Compensation and benefits 3.4. Performance management 4. Summary and description of how the parts fit together: reviews the subsections and describes how they all fit together into a cohesive HR system The bulk of the paper is the contents of the HR plan. As you can see, this leaves one major element per person. Each major element should be approximately eight to ten pages long. Each major content area should also have at least one summary figure or chart, as well as making sure that the material from the course has been carefully considered. Ultimately, success in each topic area means that you've convinced me that: a) you've properly identified the major issues of interest (where am I?)

b) you've identified reasonable goals (where do I want to be?) c) you've made a proposal for action that could address the problem (how will I get there?) d) you know how to demonstrate success or failure (how do I know if Im getting there?) The information below gives some initial ideas for each topic area to get you started.

Group Project Schedule and Accountability

Group members (names and e-mail addresses): 1) 2) 3) 4) Which organization will you be studying? _______________________________________ Breakdown of areas of individual accountability 1. Front material 1.1. Executive summary: this is an outline of your major points (THIS IS AN AREA OF COLLECTIVE RESPONSIBILITY) 1.2. Statement of the HR mission: these are the guiding principles behind your HR strategy (THIS IS AN AREA OF COLLECTIVE RESPONSIBILITY) 2. Organizational context (each person does one subsection of about 3 pages each) 2.1. Operating environment and strategy 2.1.1. Description of the companys competition and industry Name:_____________________________________ 2.1.2. Description of the companys competitive response/strategy Name:_____________________________________ 2.2. Organizational structure and culture 2.2.1. Description of the companys culture and values Name:_____________________________________ 2.2.2. Description of the companys primary jobs and work performed Name:_____________________________________ 3. Contents of the HR plan (pick one per person; each section should be approximately 8 pages) 3.1. Recruiting and hiring methods Name:_____________________________________ 3.2. Training and development practices Name:_____________________________________ 3.3. Compensation structure and benefits Name:_____________________________________ 3.4. Performance management Name:_____________________________________

4. Summary and description of how the parts fit together: reviews the subsections and describes how they all fit together into a cohesive HR system (THIS IS AN AREA OF COLLECTIVE RESPONSIBILITY)

Organizational context
The organizational context is background information about the organization. The overall goal of organizational context is to describe what types of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats are faced by the organization you are going to describe. An important point to remember is that this should not be an advertisement for your company; tell the company everything that they do wrong, tell them everything thats a problem, and give specific reasons why it will be difficult for them to change. Operating environment and strategy This section should provide an overview of the company so a person from the outside can understand what is involved. This requires knowing about four key things: 1. 2. 3. 4. What is the companys primary business and logistics? Who are the organizations competitors? How does this company differentiate itself? How does this point of differentiation affect the HR department?

The primary business and logistics information should tell me what the company produces and how big the company is using several measures of size. When describing the companys competitors I want similar information along with financial information on the companies in comparison to one another. Much of this information can be obtained from http://finance.yahoo.com/. This section should conclude with the identification of at least three major challenges that the company faces at the strategic level, along with a description of how the company as a whole is going to respond to these challenges, and what the implications of this response are for the human resources department. Organizational structure and jobs This section should describe the major cultural elements of the company, in other words, it should give a sense of the companys personality. Issues include: 1. How is the company structured? Is authority centralized or decentralized? 2. Is the company broken down into divisions? What are these divisions? 3. What are the companys core values?

4. What types of work (and workers) are needed by the companies? Unlike the operating environment and strategy section, this section will tend to be more people oriented. It also means you will have to make more inferences from what you see about the company. You certainly will want to find out what types of jobs are in the company and create at least a couple of broad job analyses. This information often is obtained from the company websites and from the O*Net.

Contents of the HR plan

This is the largest section of the paper, and is also the most difficult. To make this easier I am providing a few pointers that will help. Most importantly, be certain to outline your major points in advance and write clearly about how these points will be filled in with actual resources. If there are several different employee groups (e.g., managers, creative talent, manufacturing, etc.) be sure to emphasize how all of these areas are different and will require different HR practices. Recruiting and hiring methods The daunting task of making sure that your company will have the right employees involves several distinct processes. The most important division is between recruiting and hiring. Within the recruiting section you should describe what the companys main recruiting goals are, how these goals line up with various recruiting methods, and what the company should eventually decide to do to achieve its goals. The hiring methods section should build on how applicants have been recruited, and address the likely pool that the organization will have to select from. Specific areas of interest include describing what specific traits the company should emphasize, how the company will make its initial cut from all the applicants who appear, and the methods you would advise them to use for their final selection decisions. Training and development practices Transmitting organizational culture is the critical distinction that marks newcomers who are outside the company from those who are inside. Understanding socialization practices involves a clear description of how the companys culture is transmitted. There are numerous ways that companies use to let employees know what the company is like, including speeches by the CEO, mentoring, the types of offices and uniforms worn by employees, formal orientation sessions, and company picnics. Dont limit yourself here be creative. Besides letting employees know about the organizations culture, it is also important to have policies and practices in place that encourage employees to learn and develop on the job. Proper training and development opportunities are critical components of an organizations efforts to remain competitive in a changing business environment. Moreover, there is a great deal of evidence showing that most people prefer opportunities for variety

and growth in their work, so good development practices can enhance employee satisfaction and reduce turnover. Compensation structure and benefits One of the main reasons why people go to work is to receive a paycheck. In the compensation structure and benefits portion of the paper, you should consider how the company is going to compensate employees. The companys pay policy will address how the company will determine its competitors for employees, and the degree to which the company has a strong top-down leadership structure with comparatively less empowered employees (in which case wage differentials for increases in rank are large) vs. a more egalitarian, participative approach (in which case wage differentials for increases in rank are small). Benefits are the non-monetary portions of the companys wage bill, and reflect such diverse topics as pensions, fitness club memberships, and onsite daycare. In the discussion of benefits careful attention must be paid to how much these things are going to cost, why you think employees would prefer these benefits to money that they could spend however they want, and what additional rewards the company receives over cash compensation by providing benefits. Performance management Another consideration in designing a companys overall HR management plan is how to get the very best performance possible from every employee. The first stage in improving motivation is identifying what it is that employees want. Describe some of the ways that organizations can gather information on employee preferences, along with some basic information about what people in general typically want out of their work. Having measured preferences, the company needs to design a way of recognizing this performance through financial rewards. In incentive pay you should think about things like how often incentives will be provided, whether incentives will be provided to individuals or groups, and also address all the potential downsides of giving incentives. You should also take non-monetary rewards and stress management into account here.

Summary and description of how the parts fit together

This is one of the most challenging and important sections of the paper. In the summary you will review all the major parts of your HR plan and explain how these parts fit together. One of the most effective methods for doing the summary is to work from a table like the one below: HR Area Recruiting and hiring methods Training and development practices Compensation and benefits Performance management Typically, a table like this takes up somewhere between a half page to a page. Its a good idea to do this in landscape layout. After putting together this table, the members of your group should be able to see quickly how the various areas of the HR proposal are related to one another, and identify areas of complementarity between them. What is proposed? What is the goal of this program? How will it be evaluated?

Important details to consider

This proposal must be typed, using double-spaced 12 point Times New Roman font, 1 margins for top, bottom, left, and right sides. Use headings frequently in your proposal. I mention headings using where am I, where do I want to be, and so on. I dont mean that literally, you should have more professional headings, I just want to give you an idea of how to structure this. Final project structural tips: 1) Every section should begin with a single paragraph describing what the section will cover and why it is important for HR. 2) Major heading one: where am I statement in one or two paragraphs 3) Major heading two: where do I want to be statement in one or two concepts 4) Major heading three: how Im going to get there statement in several subsections a. First state what the class-related or research derived action will be b. Then describe how you will actualize this action c. Finally close this with a concrete example of what youre going to do, potentially supported with a graphical illustration or figure 5) Major heading four: how Ill know if Im getting there statements a. Give examples of at least one hard measure youll take (e.g., company stock performance, cost per unit, number of customers per hour, etc.) b. Give examples of at least one soft measure youll take (e.g., surveys of customer satisfaction, employee satisfaction, organizational commitment, etc.) 6) Major heading five: conclusion of the section with a summary figure Project checklist Individual sections _____ 1. I included references for my sources. _____ 2. I tried to make use of visual demonstrations of information like graphs or tables. _____ 3. I explain any specific terms that Im using in detail. _____ 4. I always explain what statistical or graphical information means rather than presenting the information free of context. _____ 5. I read the paper out loud to make sure it makes sense and is written in a grammatically coherent manner. _____ 6. I included reference to topics presented in the course making specific reference to how the course material applies to the situation at hand.

_____ 7. I also made sure that I wasnt just regurgitating my course notes. _____ 8. I included subheadings to indicate problem, solution, action, and evaluation _____ 9. Where feasible, further subheadings were also provided. Group cohesion _____ 10. We included a title page clearly indicating who did what. _____ 11. We went through all the HR policies together to make sure they fit together. _____ 12. Our final summary explains how everything ties together; its not just a review. _____ 13. The sections all look stylistically identical and are written in a cohesive manner. _____ 14. The later sections of the paper make reference to earlier sections.

Grading policyIndividual sections

I have the following very specific grading system, which is based on a behaviorally anchored ratings performance appraisal system. For each section I fill out the following form giving points according to the scoring system. The individual part is worth 150 points: Area 1 (20%): Logical structure of arguments Point Description s 10 Lack of statement of principal premises for arguments or unsupported assertions 20 Some logical errors or a small number of very fundamental errors in reasoning 30 Generally clear arguments with most major terms defined and explained 40 Consistently clear and valid arguments with well-defined terms and explanation of what they mean Area 2 (20%): Clarity and ease of reading Point Description s 10 Poorly structured paragraphs and complete lack of narrative flow; disjointed construction, frequent misspellings, subject/verb disagreement, wrong tenses, and fragments 20 Some structure to the proposal, but some digressions and lack of consistency, occasional misspellings and related grammatical errors 30 Evident structure with explanations of how the proposal works with some subheadings, very few and minor spelling and grammatical errors 40 Clear explanation of structure and frequent, appropriate use of subheadings to guide the reader, no grammatical mistakes, along with clear, concise use of language Area 3 (20%): Demonstrates original/creative thought Point Description s 10 Complete reliance on already existing information with no independent thought 20 Very heavy reliance on irrelevant facts with low insight into critical issues 30 Creative use of existing material to generate a solution custom-made to your problem 40 Highly innovative idea, combining multiple disparate themes from existing literature Area 4 (20%): Use of figures, data, examples, and references to explain major points Point Description s

10 20 30 40 Area 5 Point s 10 20 30 40

Extremely abstract and provides no grounding information to support points Use of weak statistics or highly idiosyncratic evidence with no explanation of what they mean Concrete use of statistics, references, or examples to make the problem and solution tangible Use of high quality statistics or examples to demonstrate either the problem or solution, with thorough explanations (20%): Connection to major course topics Description Seems almost like the person never opened their textbook or took notes Use of course materials in a very rote manner; basically copying from the book and slides Thoughtful application of key course topics to the specific situation Includes several key course topics and extends them in a compelling and creative manner

Grading policyGroup sections

I also evaluate proposals using the following overall rating, which contributes an additional 50 points. This cannot be subdivided among the group members; it is shared by all equally: Area 1 (25%): Overall integration of HR with the business as a whole Point Description s 1 Deals with very minor, unimportant issues that wouldnt affect a business much 8 Deals with a low importance issue that arises in very few businesses 16 Addresses a common applied problem showing relevance to organizational functioning 25 Addresses a fundamental applied problem showing relevance to many areas of organizational functioning Area 2 (25%): Evidence of critical thought in summaries Point Description s 1 Uncritical acceptance/rejection of every claim made in a proposal using unclear standards 8 Acceptance/rejection of claims made in the proposals using standards inconsistently 16 Weighing of available evidence usually using standards of logical clarity and scientific validity 25 Careful, consistent weighing of available evidence using standards of logical clarity and scientific validity describing drawbacks of any proposed plans Area 3 Point s 1 8 16 25 Area 4 Point s 1 8 16 25 (25%): Coherent combination of major sections of the proposal Description Sections seem almost completely unrelated with no transitions Sections somewhat inconsistent with one another Sections are set up in a clear order with segues to connect them together Logical set up for each section that induces the reader to continue reading (25%): Overall appearance and style of the proposal Description Sections are in wildly different levels of formality or in different fonts Sections look similar based on formatting, but theyre actually very different in terms of their content with some parts clearly inconsistent with others Sections look similar based on formatting, and have content that addresses other parts of the HR system in brief Each section makes reference to previous sections and thoroughly considers

how all the parts will work together