Assignment Part A: Learning and Development Report

You have just been appointed as a Human Resources (HR) consultant, working with the clients HR team. You
have been given the following projects to complete in the next year. Your role is to review and critique
current organisational practice in respect of learning and development, suggest new approaches with full
justification of such (drawing on appropriate theory, research and organisational examples), and present
detailed recommendations for implementation.
Choice of organisation: You may decide to use your own organisation for this coursework. However, if this
is not appropriate you have three alternatives: a small, private sector organisation or charity; a large, public
sector organisation; or a case study of an organisation with which you are very familiar.
(Note: As we refer in the separate questions to changes and implications for the organisation’s current
policies, you may make assumptions about the organisation’s current policies so long as you state your
assumptions clearly, in an appendix for example).
Guidelines for Part A
The following provides you with more explicit guidelines on how to structure your report and draw on the
course materials to effectively address the report requirements.
1 Introduction
Your introduction should begin with a clear statement of purpose. You also need to provide a theoretical
context for your report, stressing in the process the importance of the area you have chosen to examine as
a core competence and a necessary precondition for long-term organisational effectiveness and success.
2 A Critical Overview of the Area – academic and practice-based
You will begin with a critical overview of the subject area drawing on relevant literature and examples and
case studies to illustrate the trends and issues facing HR practitioners and managers and the most common
academic and professional approaches to this area of HR practice.
Then you will provide a critical overview of the organisations current practice to include the organisation’s
current internal and external context, any changes or challenges they are dealing with (internally or
externally) and the key strategy and policy approach and any other issues that are pertinent to the subject
area. Your overview should be written with reference to appropriate academic sources.
3 Diagnosing the Issues
What are the issues that your organisation is facing. You may wish to conduct some key expert interviews in
the organisation in order to uncover the detail around the practice-based issue you have chosen. You may
want to use an academic model or framework or a piece of academic research or commentary to
compare/contrast or structure your discussion of the issues facing the organisation. You need to identify
your organisations current practice and compare it to academic/professional knowledge in the area and
draw out any strengths or weaknesses or gaps. Once you have identified and justified a range of relevant
theory and research that will help you understand the issue, explain what the main practice-based issues are
and why these need to be resolved.
4 Conclusions
In this section, you should distil the key issues arising from the body of your report. You need to make sure
that your conclusions are consistent with the arguments you will have put forward in the preceding
discussion. Justify and explain the key findings that you need to take forward and act upon. Conclude as to
how this might inform your future practice and lead to new understanding about practice.
5 Recommendations for Planning and Implementing any Change
Drawing on the above analysis you will frame your recommendations as to how management should plan
and implement the proposed changes. You need to ensure that these have operational significance and result
in changes to practice. You can also critically reflect on the significance of your recommendations,
underlining why they are worthy of management’s attention. This section should flow smoothly from the
conclusions.
6 List of References
You need to adhere closely to the APA Referencing Style both in the body of the report and in the reference
list. Importantly, you need to draw on a good range of books, academic journal articles and, if relevant,
credible online sources to show evidence of wider reading and engagement with the module materials. You
will find detailed guidelines on how to reference your work via your student portal or by clicking on the
following link: http://www2(dot)napier(dot)ac(dot)uk/ed/plagiarism/students.htm.
Appendices
Should be numbered and used judiciously to include information that supports the main discussion. These
should not be used as a dumping ground for ‘excess’ information that could not be included in the body of
the report, which would otherwise denote an inability to write in concise terms and respect the prescribed
word limit.