Individual Student Workbook for Managing People in Organisations

This workbook provides a reflection upon the learning developed from the seminar activities and class discussions for HR4052QA: Managing People in Organisations. It includes ten weeks of questions and answers related to recruitment methods, selection methods, diversity and inclusion, skills training and development, performance management, academic writing, referencing and plagiarism, and motivation and rewards.

INDIVIDUAL STUDENT WORKBOOK
Module Code: HR4052QA
Module Title: Managing People in Organisations
Student ID: ________________
Name of
Seminar Tutor: ____________________________
1

Table of Contents
Introduction.................................................................................................3
Week 2........................................................................................................4
Week 3........................................................................................................5
Week 4........................................................................................................6
Week 5........................................................................................................7
Week 6........................................................................................................8
Week 7........................................................................................................9
Week 8......................................................................................................10
Week 9......................................................................................................11
Week 10....................................................................................................12
Week 11....................................................................................................13
Reference list............................................................................................14
Appendices................................................................................................15
2

Introduction
This workbook provides a reflection upon the learning developed from the
seminar activities and class discussions.
The workbook includes ten (weeks 2-11), each includes one or two
questions with each answer in the region of 100 words per question.
3

Week 2: Recruitment methods
1. Explain why line managers adopt the rational approach to
recruitment?
You should cite relevant theory to support your points and
illustrate them with empirical evidence using Harvard
referencing.
In order to recruit the best and talented candidate for the company various approaches are
followed by the managers. It helps in recognising the ability of the candidates. The rational
approach is effective for various line managers because of the comfort factor of this approach
(Geetha,. and Bhanu ., 2018). The purpose of the manager is to avoid any confusion and
ambiguity in the working environment of the company. This approach is useful for the
managers as it helps in focusing towards common goals of the company and also selecting
best candidate for achieving the objectives and goals of the company
2. Describe the differences between a job description and
person specification?
You should cite relevant theory to support your points and
illustrate them with empirical evidence using Harvard
referencing.
 Job description refers to the overall description of the role and the main task
related to it whereas person specification highlights the description of the
qualification of the skills, knowledge and experience of an individual.
 Job description evaluates the task and responsibilities associated with the job
whereas person specification highlights the
 capabilities of the candidate that is required to perform the job(ELLIS , 2019).
 Job description points out the various information regarding the nature of work to
be performance and defining the training that is required for an employee on the
other hand person specification allows the applicant to analyse whether they are
eligible for the respective job role or not.
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3. List three ways to encourage diversity when recruiting
candidates?
You should cite relevant theory to support your points and
illustrate them with empirical evidence using Harvard
referencing.
Workplace diversity is increasing rapidly and it is observed that diversity recruitment provide
more additional benefits related to the productivity. Three ways to include diversity when
recruiting:
 Offer internship to the candidates: Various companies have included internal diversity
by offering internship to the candidates that encourage the candidate to get better
experience in their job role.
 Audit the jobs advertisement: It is important for the company to recruit diverse
candidate is to make audit related to the past recruitment ads and by evaluating it
make various modifications in the present format(Swartz, and et.al, 2019).
 Formulate the policies that invite diverse candidates: In order to recruit diverse
candidates while recruiting create strategies in order to accomplish the task and
implement effective company policies in order to appeal diverse candidates.
5

Week 3: Selection Methods
1. What are the problems with using selection interviews to
identify the best candidate in relation to reliability and
validity as a selection tool?
You should cite relevant theory to support your points and
illustrate them with empirical evidence using Harvard
referencing.
Various problems while using the selection interviews are :
 Inconsistency between the candidates: Sometimes it is observed that there is
inconsistency with the candidates for example scheduling the interviews etc which
creates a problem while selecting the efficient candidate(Scherpenzeel, , 2018).
 Interviewer bias: It is observed that due to biased nature of the recruiters it becomes a
problem in selecting and recruiting the eligible candidates for the job role.
 False information by the applicant: Sometimes it is observed that wrong information
id filled by the applicant which makes it difficult to recruit right candidates for the
job role.
It is very necessary to adopt for the specific tool and method for selecting relevant candidate
for the job role.
2. What are the advantages of using a competency framework
to design selection interview questions?
You should cite relevant theory to support your points and
illustrate them with empirical evidence using Harvard
referencing.
6

Various companies use competency framework to define the selection criteria in order to
improve the performance. These framework helps in identifying the and also designing the
competency based tools for evaluating the candidates and making relevant and reliable
decision and select the best candidate for the specific job profile. The advantage of this is
that
 It provide valid and job related standard against the applicant and their competencies
in performing the specified job role(Oberländer, , Beinicke, and Bipp, , 2020).
 It also helps in improving the transparency in the selection process by effectively
communicating with the employees in order to know their behaviour.
 It also helps in creating effective and efficient recruitment and selection process.
7

Week 4: Equality, Diversity and Inclusion
1. A friend suggests that George should implement mandatory
diversity training. Based on your reading of the Dobbin and
Kalev (2016) article, do you agree with George’s friend?
Provide specific examples from thearticle to back up your
point why you agree/why you do not.
I do not agree with the George for the purpose of implementing the mandatory diversity
training. This is so, because, after reading the Dobbin and Kaley (2016) article, I have
identified that the positive impact of the diversity training lasts only for a day or two (Lee,.
and Kim, 2020). For example, a research from University of Toronto states the biases
behaviour of people towards the black people. Another research states that a that managers
are discriminating between the black and whites by tagging the blacks with fail and whites
with promoted.
2. Please recommend to George twoalternative diversity
management interventions, that academic research has
proven to be effective.
You should cite relevant theory to support your points and
illustrate them with empirical evidence using Harvard
referencing.
8

Equality :
One of the most important diversity management intervention is treating each and every
candidate within the organization with equality irrespective of their age, caste, gender,
cultural background or any other basis for that matter. This helps the employees within an
organization to gain confidence and develop a feeling of importance among themselves
(Wisniewski,Zierer,. and Hattie, 2020).
Organisational culture
The other alternative is that develop an inclusive organisational culture and also creating the
effective diversity management and also build the best leadership team that helps the
organization to grow and with the application of effective leadership skills it helps to build
favourable working environment and enhance the communication at the workplace
9

Week 5: Skills, Training and Development
1. What are the challenges which Covid 19, has created for
adult learners’ employability in the labour market?
In several countries, the teachers have temporarily suspended their teaching classes due to
lockdowns. Various educational institutions faced the challenges of organising online courses
and classes ensuring that every student can access to the educational facilities provided by the
institutions (James, and Thériault, 2020). For example in Ireland, teachers have struggled in
setting up online classes due to high cost of infrastructure and complex provisions of learning
due to the emergence of Covid-19. The other challenges faced by the teachers were staffs
were regarding the infrastructure and funding facilities and also struggled to the online
training capacities of the staff and teachers. Due to lack of funding they did not have
necessary equipments that are required for digital leaning for adults
2. Why is coaching by line managers important for the
performance of their teams?
What benefits does conducting induction for new joiners
have for organizations?
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Coaching is considered as a useful approach that enables the team members to move forward
in an appropriate direction by generating awareness and also responsibility towards the
company which helps in effectively achieving the objectives of the company. There are
several benefits of coaching that is conducted by the line managers as it helps in
strengthening the relationship between the line managers and team members which also acts
as a motivator resulting in improvements in the performance of the employee. The support
from their line managers helps in boosting their skills. The main purpose of conducting the
induction is to ensure that the new employees integrate and gets familiar with the new
organisational culture (Hsu, and et.al, 2019). The induction program covers all the aspects of
the company associated with the goals and vision of the company and at the same time
ensures that the employee understand their job role effectively.
Week 6: Performance Management
1. Please copy and paste a fully completed table assessing the
performance review practices that you have experienced in
your current job role.
Performance review practices Solution
Feedback In my current organization, the performance
feedback is the most used performance review
practice which helps the employee in identifying
the areas in which there is a scope of improvement
within the organization. If the feedback involves a
negative comment it helps in determining the areas
which needs to be improved (Gomez, and Bernet,
2019.). While if an employer provides the
employee with positive comments, it helps in
inspiring them to work hard and contribute towards
the goals of the organization. Feedbacks serves as a
guide to the employees in my organization and
helps them in formulating different strategies which
can help in improving the productivity and
performance of the employees.
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2. Identify one area of performance review in your current job
role that is weak and explain why this is a problem.
You should cite relevant theory to support your points and
illustrate them with empirical evidence using Harvard
referencing.
Communication is the one area which I have identify and assess from the
performance review and this is one of my weakest skills. The lack of
communication createslots of issue for me in the term of completing the
group work on time. I am unable to express my idea and thoughts in from
of crowd which reduces my image in the front of higher authority. This is
one of the biggest problems for me (Kantareva and Veselinova, 2021).
Week 7: Academic writing, referencing and plagiarism
1. What have you learnt about academic writing that will do
differently as a result of your learning from today’s
lecture/seminar?
12

I have learnt objective, style, avoidance of slang and critical analysis
about the academic writing in today’s lecture. I have learnt how to
critically write about any concept in the report or essay. I have learnt that
writing pros and cons of any concept or topic is a critical writing. In
academic writing I also need to avoid use of “In my opinion” but instead I
need to use “from above discussion” etc (Onia and Elkhder, 2021). The result
of which I am now able to prepare a academic report, essay or assignment
in attracting way. I have also learnt that in academic writing I also need to
avoid abbreviation.
2. What have you learnt about plagiarism OR referencing that
will do differently as a result of your learning from today’s
lecture/seminar?
I have learnt that plagiarism is illegal action in which students present
other authors, ideas, thoughts and ideas as their own work. I have learnt
that plagiarism is a violation of academic integrity which I should take into
consideration. I have also learnt that in order to avoid plagiarism I can use
referencing (Malkoc and Dal, 2021). The referencing will allow me use other
author thought and ideas into my work with proper citations. But I need to
convert this in my own language. The today’s lecture learning will help me
give credit to authors and do not violate academic integrity.
13

Week 8: Motivation and rewards
1. Identify the main pros and cons of “Payment by Results”
(PBR).
You should cite relevant theory to support your points and
illustrate them with empirical evidence using Harvard
referencing.
Pros of “payment by results”:
 It is highly flexible.
 It provides greater attention of sustainability.
 It also provides greater transparency and accountability.
 This involves more rigorous monitoring and evaluation which
ultimately result into more reliable outcome.
Cons of “payment by results”:
 Initial there is a lack of clarity about the outcome
 The tight timescale result into poor innovation in some areas.
 This is a disincentive for providers that share their learnings.
 This is highly risky for the providers as well as investment pre-
contracts (Amzalag Shapira and Dolev, 2021).
2. Identify at least three of the more significant components
of financial reward other than salary. Argue the benefits
and drawbacks of each of them.
You should cite relevant theory to support your points and
illustrate them with empirical evidence using Harvard
referencing.
14

The three significant components of financial rewards except salary are as
follows:
 Bonuses
 Promotion
 Insurance
Benefits of Bonuses:
 It motivates the employee to work harder.
Drawbacks of Bonuses:
 This result into the spike of the company turnover rate.
Benefits of Promotion:
 This motivates the employee as well as result into the reduction of
attrition.
Drawbacks of Bonuses:
 The drawback of promotion is that based on the past achievement,
future success of employee cannot be guaranteed (Abdalla and Abdalla,
2021).
Benefits of Insurance:
 This result into the higher attraction and retention rate of talented
employees.
Drawbacks of Insurance:
 The employee can not use this financial reward after leaving the job
which result into expensive life insurance purchase.
15

Week 9: The psychological contract and employee engagement
1. Present a reliable definition of Employee Engagement.
You should cite relevant theory to support your points and
illustrate them with empirical evidence using Harvard
referencing.
Employee engagement is basically a human resources concept which
state the enthusiastic and dedication level of employee towards their job
or work. In other term, employee engagement is the strength of the
employees mental and emotional process with the help of which they can
strongly connect with its work, team, team leaders and organization (Khan
and et.al., 2021). Example of employee engagement practices are
comfortable working desk, performing employee recognition, involving
employee in the business decision making process etc.
2. Identify at least three of the benefits of Employee
Engagement to organisations.
You should cite relevant theory to support your points and
illustrate them with empirical evidence using Harvard
referencing.
16

Three benefits of employee engagement to the organizations are as
follows:
 Better team performance:The employee engagement will help
the company to manage and enhance the performance of team
which further result into higher profitability of company. Thus,
employee engagement also leads to increase in profit of the
company.
 Increased employee productivity:Another benefit of employee
engagement is increased employee productivity which ultimately
result into the reduction in cost of sales and increment in sales
revenue of the business (Suliman and et.al., 2021).
 Reduce employee turnover rate: With the help of the employee
engagement, the company able to reduce its employee turnover
rate and enhance the talented employee retention as well as
attraction rate.
Week 10: International differences in organisations and
management
1. What are the challenges of leading in global firms?
The various challenges of leading in global firms are as follows:
 Inspiring others: The first challenge state that inspiring the
employees in global firms is toughest challenge as each employee
have their own cultural norms, values, beliefs, knowledge and
attitude. So, understanding each employee expectation and lead
accordingly is tough task in global firms.
 Keeping them engaged: Keeping employees of global firms
engaged is tough task for the employee as they affect the overall
performance of employee (Racero, Bueno and Gallego, 2021).
 Leading a diverse team: The diverse team of global firm do not
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feel comfortable with other culture so leading the diverse workforce
is a challenge for the leaders.
2.
List the reasons for expatriate failure in global firms?
The list of reason of expatriate failure in global firms are as follows:
 Lack of local support: Many times, global or international
business do not receive local support which leads to expatriate
failure. Without local support the assignment started moves in
wrong direction very quickly.
 Disconnection from home country: The global firms in order to
make its strong presence in foreign country sometime disconnected
with the home country which leads to expatriate failure (Verma and
Kumar, 2021).
 Domestic difficulties: The domestic difficulties are also one of the
reasons behind the failure of expatriate failure. Thus, the company
should consider this factor.
Week 11: Leadership style
1. Present definitions and give examples of these five
concepts:
 Transactional Leadership
 Transformational Leadership
 Contingency Leadership
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 Situational Leadership
 Inclusive Leadership
You should cite relevant theory to support your points and
illustrate them with empirical evidence using Harvard
referencing.
 Transactional Leadership: This leadership style should focus
ongenerating the result and performance within the existing
structure of an organization. For example, setting clear goals and
objectives.
 Transformational Leadership: The transformational leadership
style on the other hand emphasize result via changing organization
structure. For example, Steve Jobs is an example of transformational
leader.
 Contingency Leadership: This is a leadership style which state
change in the leadership of the manager as per any contingency
arises. For example, this theory is best for the hospitals for dealing
with patients.
 Situational Leadership: This is a leadership style in which leaders
need to react according to the situation in hand. For example, the
leader of fast fashion organization should adopt situational
leadership style.
 Inclusive Leadership: This style helps the leaders to include
different culture people in organization and support diversity. For
example, global retail firms should adopt this style (Stoller, 2021).
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Reference list
Please include here in a-b order of Author’s Surname all the references
and citation used in this workbook
Abdalla, M. and Abdalla, M., 2021, July. The grey hoodie project: Big
tobacco, big tech, and the threat on academic integrity. In Proceedings of
the 2021 AAAI/ACM Conference on AI, Ethics, and Society (pp. 287-297).
Amzalag, M., Shapira, N. and Dolev, N., 2021. Two sides of the coin: lack
of academic integrity in exams during the corona pandemic,
students' and lecturers' perceptions. Journal of academic ethics,
pp.1-21.
ELLIS, P., 2019. Recruitment: the role of the manager (2). Wounds UK.15(3).
Geetha, R. and Bhanu, S.R.D., 2018. Recruitment through artificial intelligence: a conceptual
study. International Journal of Mechanical Engineering and Technology. 9(7). pp.63-70.
Gomez, L.E. and Bernet, P., 2019. Diversity improves performance and outcomes. Journal of
the National Medical Association. 111(4). pp.383-392.
Hsu, and et.al, 2019. Managerial coaching, job performance, and team commitment: the
meditating effect of psychological capital. Advances in Management and Applied
Economics. 9(5). pp.101-125.
James, N. and Thériault, V., 2020. Adult education in times of the COVID-19 pandemic:
Inequalities, changes, and resilience. Studies in the Education of Adults. 52(2). pp.129-133.
Kantareva, P. and Veselinova, T., 2021. Leadership and leadership styles
in healthcare management. Medicus. (3). pp.51-55.
Khan, Z.R. and et.al., 2021. Initiating count down-gamification of
academic integrity. International Journal for Educational
Integrity. 17(1). pp.1-15.
Lee, H.W. and Kim, E., 2020. Workforce diversity and firm performance: Relational
coordination as a mediator and structural empowerment and multisource feedback as
moderators. Human Resource Management. 59(1). pp.5-23.
20

Malkoc, N. and Dal, S., 2021. The Relationship between Management
Styles and Trainers' Job Motivation in the Public
Institutions. International Journal of Evaluation and Research in
Education. 10(1). pp.108-114.
Oberländer, M., Beinicke, A. and Bipp, T., 2020. Digital competencies: A review of the
literature and applications in the workplace. Computers & Education. 146. p.103752.
Onia, S.I. and Elkhder, E., 2021. THE EFFECT OF PRINCIPALS'MANAGEMENT
STYLES ON TEACHERS'PERFORMANCE IN PRIVATE PRIMARY
SCHOOLS IN OMDURMAN LOCALITY IN SUDAN. MANAGERE:
Indonesian Journal of Educational Management. 3(1). pp.62-74.
Racero, F.J., Bueno, S. and Gallego, M.D., 2021. The impact of leadership
styles and motivations: lessons from Open Source Software projects
for educational organizations. Technology Analysis & Strategic
Management, pp.1-15.
Scherpenzeel, A.C., 2018. How representative are online panels? Problems of coverage and
selection and possible solutions. In Social and behavioral research and the internet (pp. 105-
132). Routledge.
Stoller, J.K., 2021. Leadership essentials for chest medicine professionals:
models, attributes, and styles. Chest. 159(3). pp.1147-1154.
Suliman, M. and et.al., 2021. Effect of nurse managers’ leadership styles
on predicted nurse turnover. Nursing Management. 28(3).
Swartz, and et.al, 2019. The science and value of diversity: closing the gaps in our
understanding of inclusion and diversity. The Journal of infectious
diseases, 220(Supplement_2), pp.S33-S41.
Verma, P. and Kumar, V., 2021. Developing leadership styles and green
entrepreneurial orientation to measure organization growth: a study
on Indian green organizations. Journal of Entrepreneurship in
Emerging Economies.
Wisniewski, B., Zierer, K. and Hattie, J., 2020. The power of feedback revisited: A meta-
analysis of educational feedback research. Frontiers in Psychology. 10, p.3087.
21

Appendices
The ‘Appendices’ is an optional Section only.
You have the option if you want to please include any relevant ongoing
work relating to the different sections: for example, references/screenshot
to a website you visited; photos/scans of any notes you have made; etc.
If you do include any appendices, please give a title and a number each
one of the appendices:
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