Topic 13 - How HR contributes towards business & financial objectives

Thank You very much. Its of great help.

Hi Trephena; I feel very discouraged and feel like giving up. This is my second attempt but i was awarded a failed grade; The first time my results were referred ACO and i was advised to take a different topic and case study. So i did as they said and this time around submitted chapter 13 and i worked very hard to get a pass but i was not awarded a pass. Here is the moderators last comment "You have obviously put a lot of effort into this project. You have the basis of a pass project but will need to remove some of the detailed analysis of compensation systems and replace it with more analysis of other important HR activities" other comments 1. The business models you have selected aren't sufficiently relevant to Topic 13. Your objectives 2. and 3. require a review of the main HR activities, which would normally be HR planning, recruitment and selection, training and development, and reward systems management. Your questionnaire covers most of these topics but your discussion of business models in Part 2 of the report doesn't. Force field analysis could be applicable if you considered a wider range of factors influencing staff retention. The 'Likert Scale' isn't a business model. 2. You have applied your business models in the design of your questionnaire but the analysis of the research findings needs at least some of the business models referred to in 1. above. 3. To strengthen the analysis and evaluation, you must apply business models to the analysis and evaluation of information gathered from your primary and secondary sources of information . As explained below in Section 6 below,you need to include more secondary data on a wider range of HR activities for this topic. 4. You will need to collect more secondary data on the HR policies and practices of the organisation you are studying. Also much more referencing of theory is needed in the analysis of your research findings (Section 3.2) The only thing i can think of now is crying and how hurting the results are. But i really need help now since i have just one last attempt

@trephena Is this forum still active because I'm doing topic 13 and i may need some help?

@tatie - yes I keep most of our topic forums open because the advice for most still applies and I do not have the time to repeat my advice. I suggest if you haven't already done so that you read all the posts on here and my articles on Evaluation and Referencing on our homepage www.opentuition.com/obu You will need to research an appropriate model that suits your organisation

@trephena I am facing some challenges with justifying my reason for choosing the topic in part 1. Do i answer this part in general or there is a certain way of answering that is expected?

Don't get hung up on this. Part 3 analysis is far more important. Answer Part 1 briefly and move on. As I have said elsewhere when it comes to the report the marker doesn't really give a fig about why you chose the topic. Save this if you want for the SLS :-)

Thanks a lot. I was beginning to lose sleep over it.

@trephena I was chatting with a friend of mine and she mentioned that I may need to have a comparing company to assist in my evaluation. Is this really necessary for Topic 13?

@tatie - no you do not need a comparator for T13 but you do need access to good inside information. You will have to start with establishing the company's objectives. You then have to have some good information about HR policies, methods and procedures. These are likely to relate to how it recruits, trains, motivates and retains the best staff it can. Staff turnover figures, possibly by department would be helpful. Financial information relating to revenue / profit per employee will be some of the objective measures required. Look through here to see if you can find models mentioned in a post. You can possibly use the balanced scorecard. Overall though you need a good structure to your report. Lots of RAPs fail because they are poorly structured and throw lots of theory at the reader and follow this with insubstantial evidence relating to their company (vague statements, sweeping comments unsupported by evidence) presented in almost a random way. The evaluation and analysis needs to be strong with valid facts, obvious links to the company's objectives set out so that the whole thing is coherent, logical and makes proper sense as a whole. Unless you work in the organisation and they will let you have access to company handbooks and policies and other inside information you are unlikely to be able to do this topic successfully (as I explained on page 1 of this forum to Alfred).

Thanks a lot for the response. My other question will be on the business models. Is the value chain analysis a good model to use in my evaluation. For example let's say the objective is to increase sales, can I use the value chain to determine the role played by each department and try to draw a conclusion on the contribution made by HR functions?