Case study

‘RML Beverage Drinks’ is a drinks company based in the UK. They currently have a team of 150 employees and an annual turnover of £6 million. In the last few years, the company has fallen upon some difficult times. Market conditions and a drive for healthier drinks have resulted in more consumers rejecting fizzy drinks. The company has started to diversify its product offering but, in the meantime, has been forced to downsize. The Managing Director (MD) of the company has requested that you act as a consultant to the firm and help support the company in the following workforce planning and talent management initiatives. You will be generating materials for managers on what is involved and how to undertake appropriate actions.

Preparation for the Tasks:

Refer to the indicative content in the unit to guide and support your evidence.
Pay attention to how your evidence is presented, remember you are working in the People Practice Team for this task.
Ensure that the evidence generated for this assessment remains your own work.

Task One – Presentation Pack

The MD has asked you to prepare a presentation to the managers to position them around key contemporary labour market trends and their significance for workforce planning. This will also cover turnover and retention trends and the factors that influence why people choose to leave or remain. The pack needs to include presentation slides and supporting notes.

The presentation must include:

• An explanation on how organisations strategically position themselves in competitive labour markets. (AC 1.1)
• An explanation of the impact of changing labour market conditions on resourcing decisions. (AC 1.2)
• A discussion on the role of government, employers and trade unions in ensuring future skills needs are met. (AC 1.3)
• An examination of turnover and retention trends and the factors that influence why people choose to leave or remain (AC 3.1)

It is essential that you refer to current labour market and turnover and retention trends / conditions to ensure that your work is contemporary and relevant. Please ensure that any references and sources drawn upon are acknowledged correctly and supported by a bibliography.

Task Two – Inhouse Manual

For this task you need to create chapters for an inhouse manual for managers on what is involved in Talent Management and Workforce Planning and how to undertake appropriate actions. As your manual is being prepared for managers, it should be written in a professional format and style.

Your manual should have a title page, contents page and a brief introduction. Your manual should be broken down into chapters covering the following:

Chapter 1 – Workforce Planning

• An analysis of the impact of effective workforce planning. (AC 2.1)
• An evaluation of the techniques used to support the process of workforce planning (AC 2.2)
• Explain approaches to succession and contingency planning aimed at mitigating workforce risks. (AC 2.3)
• Assess the strengths and weaknesses of different methods of recruitment and selection to build effective workforces (AC 2.4)

Chapter 2 – Talent Management

• Compare different approaches to developing and retaining talent on an individual and group
  level. (AC 3.2)
• Evaluate approaches that an organisation can take to build and support different talent pools. (AC 3.3)
• Evaluate the benefits of diversity in building and supporting talent pools (AC 3.4)
• Explain the impact associated with dysfunctional employee turnover. (AC 3.5)

Chapter 3 – Contractual Arrangements and Onboarding

• Assess suitable types of contractual arrangements dependent on specific workforce needs. (AC 4.1)
• Differentiate between the main types of contractual terms in contracts. (AC 4.2)
• Explain the components and benefits of effective onboarding. (AC 4.3)

Answer

Task one

Slide 2

Talent management is a vital part of an organisation as this is the process that ensures the organisation get and retain the best fit for a particular position. Talent management entails the attraction, identification, development, retention and deployment of value individuals to the organisation (CIPD, 2021). For talent management to be effective, it needs to sync with the business goals and strategies. High performance at the workplace, a learning culture and better employees are just a few of the benefits of having a proper talent management system in place.

Talent management goes hand in hand with workforce planning, which is a process through which the current workforce is analysed, future workforce needs are determined, the gap in the workforce needed and implementation of solutions (CIPD, 2021). It is essential to acknowledge that they are affected by both internal and external factors. Throughout the presentation, I will discuss this and more.

Slide 3

The current labour market has tremendously changed in a short period—the main reason being the current COVID-19 pandemic (CIPD, 2021). We quickly changed from working in offices to working remotely. As much as some organisations had slowly adopted remote working, it was quite a fast change that affected the labour market and organisations that can’t offer services or work remotely.

Given this is a new trend, the lack of skilled or qualified labour has been a problem that recruiters have highlighted. Though recruiters also attribute the problem to be facilitated with the current immigration laws that are not favourable so reducing the labour force available. This means that the labour market is quite competitive, and employers need to position themselves to get the best from the pool strategically. Organisations need to position themselves strategically in the competitive labour market. It must attract and retain the best talent with desirable company culture, leadership style and employee engagement.

In a competitive labour market, Higgs Model defines four organisational positions: Employers of cash, who pay handsomely but do not treat their people well are cash. Employers of value pay less yet provide rewarding employment, e.g., non-profits. Employers of churn pay little and treat employees brutally, resulting in a significant turnover. These businesses struggle to hire new employees and retain existing ones.

Finally, there is an Employer of choice, a mix of high pay and treatment. This is the sort of employer you need to be in a competitive labour market. Companies should invest in three critical elements if they want to become an employer of choice (Turner, 2019);

Organisational values are guiding principles that offer direction on how to accomplish stuff in an organisation, including how the organisation interacts with its employees and customers. They include organisational ideals like diversity and inclusiveness, work-life balance, and professional advancement. Organisational perception, an employer branding, which is the organisation’s reputation in society.

By becoming an employer of choice, organisations could improve their labour market position by planning retention strategies to maintain their top performers.

Slide 4

Resourcing entails attracting and hiring the appropriate people for the right job at the right time and the right price. Understanding the labour market position, your unique people offer, and job analysis can help to guarantee that positions are appealing to a diverse group of individuals.

The labour market is one of the essential issues in this respect. The labour market circumstances directly impact the supply of human resources, which in turn affects human resource planning strategies and activities. Aside from that, labour rules and regulations impact organisations’ human resource practices.

The Labour Market changes every now and then and employers have to put this into consideration when making resourcing decision. For instance, outsourcing HR services has been proven to provide the most qualified individuals. If the available work force is less this would be a good method for organisations to use in recruiting

Slide 5

Skills are crucial to our future and to building stronger communities. A skilled workforce is necessary to drive private-sector growth, creating new jobs and income for individuals (BIS, 2010). The demand for skills cannot be satisfied by one sector alone but by companies, trade unions, and governments working together.

Government’s role

The Government Can Fund Apprenticeships and Recognise Their Value: Because people lack the necessary qualifications and organisations in Manufacturing and Supply Chain Engineering exist, the government should work with them to satisfy the country’s skill set requirement (BIS, 2010). Regulators should provide a stable policy environment. Also, the government should help companies regulate training budgets:

Employee Role

Employers should create and enforce professional standards, standard operating procedures, and operator technique sheets that outline several rules, regulations, and procedures for future workers or technicians (BIS, 2010). An employer must reinvest in the existing workforce. As the available workforce need diverse skill development, employers should have an excellent strategy to develop existing employees.

Unions

A Trade Union Learning Representative can analyse, plan, and support training needs. Trade Union Representatives can assess each worker’s training needs and plan learning sessions in cooperation with company conversations. Trade unions can also mediate disputes between workers and employers during the selection of skill sets and training event planning(BIS, 2010). Moreover, trade unions may help reduce various uncertainties or hazards, such as political obstacles.

Slide 6

Employee turnover is the percentage of employees who leave a company over a certain amount of time (usually on a year-to-year basis). This is generally shown as a percentage of the total workforce. While retention is how long a company keeps its workers (CIPD, 2021). It can be expressed as a percentage of total workforce numbers or as the percentage of employees with a certain length of service (usually one year or more).

Turnover rates can be very different between jobs and businesses. Most jobs with the highest pay levels are in retailing, hotels, catering and leisure, call centres, and other low-paid private sector service groups (CIPD, 2021). People are leaving the hospitality industry and health and social care and manufacturing for other jobs.

The COVID-19 pandemic has been terrible for many businesses, so some employers have thought about hiring extra workers to keep their businesses running. There are a lot of resources for employers in our Responding to the coronavirus hub that can help them deal with the virus. For employees, the pandemic has made job security more critical than flexibility or pay when they decide to stay at the same place they work.

Employees quit for many different reasons. Sometimes, they’re drawn to a new job or the idea of time off from work. If someone is unhappy with their job, they might be pushed to look for another one. These push issues include a lack of employment and changes in the way businesses work

(Pandita & Ray, 2018). A mix of pull and push influences could also be at play.A bad relationship with one’s line boss leads to disengagement, which may be a big reason someone quits.

Exit interviews can be done to determine why people are leaving their jobs.

Slide 7

Slide 8

Task 2

Chapter 1

AC 2.1 – An analysis of the impact of effective workforce planning.

Workforce planning refers to aligning the available labour with the labour demand. It is not a complex process, but it involves several activities such as analysing the current workforce, assessing the future workforce needs, distinguishing the gap between present and future, and employing solutions to ensure that an organisation attains its set goals (CIPD, 2020).

An effective workforce plan focuses on getting the required number of individuals with the right skills. It ensures this is done at the right time, right cost, and in a proper manner to ensure the achievement of an organisation’s long-term and short-term goals (Downs, 2016). Workforce planning varies depending on the company’s size and needs. Large organisations tend to have a team dedicated to workforce planning, while other organisations may start the process following specific events such as mergers, downsizing and acquisition.

Effective workforce planning comes in handy when it comes to identifying the company’s obstacles and other hindrances to strategic changes and providing solutions to mitigate risks to strategic objectives. Some of the positive impacts of an effective workforce plan are; Reduced labour costs, Improved employee retention and Improved employees’ work-life balance. Enhanced employee retention is achieved by conducting a thorough assessment of the capability of the current workforce and the business needs. This way, an organisation is better positioned to know what measures to take to maintain a qualified workforce (Downs, 2016). Improved productivity and quality output are attainable by ensuring there are no delays of labour supply that affect the performance of an organisation. An effective work plan facilitates the achievement of the production goals and gives direction regarding workforce supply in an organisation. It also acts as a guiding tool in regards to recruiting decisions, which position needs to be filled first.

AC 2.2. An assessment of the methods used to help with workforce planning.

Workforce planning plays a significant role in the performance of an organisation, and all stakeholders should be involved to ensure they understand the organisations resourcing needs (Downs, 2016). It is important to note that the workforce planning process can take many forms, but there are five ideal stages that are essential in the process.

The first step is to understand an organisation and its operating environment. It involves getting to know the organisation’s current structure and how it would be in future. Identifying if the organisation is open to new changes, upgrading its structure and process, and adopting new technologies (Pierce, 2017). The second step is the analysis of the workforce. It involves identifying and analysing the talent, abilities, skills, and knowledge of the current workforce (Pierce, 2017). It is also essential that we assess the level of job satisfaction and security among the existing employees during this step.

The third step is to determine the future workforce needed; having evaluated the current workforce and understanding the future position of an organisation, it would be possible for people practitioners to predict the future skills set required. Scenario planning can be used to assist in formulating adaptive plans to achieve future goals. The fourth step is to develop an action plan that can be quickly adopted and bring about change if need be. Effective communication is needed during the implementation of the action plan to improve the efficiency of workforce planning. The fifth and final step is to keep an eye on and evaluate things. It involves reviewing the results regularly to see if they work or not and what needs to be changed (pierce, 2017).

 AC 2.3: Approaches to succession and contingency planning meant to protect the workforce from risks.

Planning for your employee’s future is one of the most important things you can do to keep your business safe. According to CIPD (2020), succession planning is the process of finding and developing people who could become leaders and managers in the future. The main goal of succession planning is to make sure that the most important jobs and roles in an organisation are always filled if someone resigns or leaves suddenly (CIPD, 2020b). There are a lot of different ways to plan for the future.

The traditional way to think about succession planning was for big businesses to make very detailed; private top-down plans meant to find an internal successor for each of the top jobs (CIPD, 2020b). However, most businesses now have flat rather than hierarchical structures. Modern succession planning is about being open and diverse, and it is linked to an organisation’s talent management process. It means that the successor is chosen based on their talent, skills, and abilities, and they don’t have to come from inside the company. They can also be hired from outside the company (CIPD, 2020). Progressive organisations are an excellent example of how modern people think. These companies use a whole workforce approach to managing and developing talent. They then figure out which business roles are essential at all levels of the organisation. The modern approach has proven to be more effective in dealing with workforce risks as it is based on abilities and growth at all levels of an organisation.

AC 2.4 – The strengths and weaknesses of different ways to recruit and choose workers to make them effective.

Recruiting is the process of finding the right people for the right job at the right time and the right price, according to Green (2020). On the other hand, selection refers to shortlisting and evaluating the hired people. Companies need to find the best people to work for them, so recruitment is essential for their resourcing. People who work for an organisation are in charge of hiring and deciding who gets hired and who doesn’t, which may be done differently.

Outsourcing some of the work to a recruiting agent could be part of an outside strategy. Even though this method is very costly compared to the rest, it provides the best candidates. The method is popular among businesses that don’t have an HR department (CIPD,2020). Other ways to find new employees are online sources, internal referral schemes, and local arrangements based on an organisation’s relationship with the community, schools, or job centres. The CIPD (2020) website lists psychometric tests, interviews, and assessment centres as selection methods. Selection is to be done fairly, taking into account the needs and goals of the organisation.

Chapter 2

AC 3.2 On both an individual and group level, there are different ways to grow and keep talent.

Many formal and informal learning activities help people become better at their jobs in an organisation. Businesses can take different steps to develop and keep employees and teams using other methods and tools. The main benefit of using learning and development programs for talent development and retention is that it improves employees’ skills and abilities and makes them better able to meet their needs in the future (Downs, 2016).

Coaching and mentoring are critical informal ways to help people learn and develop talent. It is designed to meet each person’s unique needs.

Coaching and mentoring create programs that help people become better at their jobs. Coaching is an excellent way to improve skills, but mentoring involves getting an employee ready to take on more responsibility. This method encourages face-to-face interactions between the coach or mentor and the mentored person (Downs, 2016). It is an excellent way to keep talented people from leaving the company because it improves the relationship between employees and their managers when they work together as mentors. It helps them understand each other better, which is essential for its success.

 AC 3.3: Different ways an organisation can build and support different types of talent pools.

Talent pools are groups of employees who are being trained to take on more responsibility in certain parts of the business. Talent pools are the foundation for planning for the future of your company. People who should be in talent pools are high-performing employees, people who have a lot of potentials, and people who fit in with the culture and values of the company (CIPD, 2020a). There are many things that an organisation can do to build and support an adequate talent pool.

The first thing that organisations need to do is set up a process that keeps track of their current talent needs and predicts what they will need in the future. An effective talent management system is required for this kind of analysis, and technological tools can also be used. Employers and employees need to communicate openly and work together to find and keep good employees and build a good talent pool.

Second, an organisation should connect both inside and outside. An adequate talent pool includes people who work for the company and people who might help it in the future. People who work for companies can use social media to find and keep track of the best candidates and build their talent pool (CIPD,2020a). Businesses should use the internet to find and keep good employees.

3.4) Benefits of diversity in building and supporting talent pools.

It’s good to have a wide range of people in your talent pool. A diverse workforce is essential for a company to have a wide range of talented people. It also guarantees organisations access to various skills that improve their performance and competitive advantage. With a diverse workforce, organisations can get the best people worldwide, which is good for them (CIPD, 2020a). Various employees can work with a wide range of customers, which leads to more customers and better productivity at the company.

Diversity also makes an organisation more marketable, which helps the business grow by giving it new opportunities. People choose to work for organisations that support and include a diverse workforce brand because they think they are good places to work. Diversity in hiring and retaining employees is important for developing a good company reputation. A business can be more productive and do better work with a better competitive advantage.

 AC 3.5 – Describe the adverse effects of having many bad employees leave simultaneously.

People who have a lot of employees leave are called dysfunctional employees, which is usually a higher rate than the standard turnover rate that an organisation sees. Dysfunctional employee turnover costs the organisation both money and time. Financially, the recruitment and selection process can be costly because of the resources to find and hire a good group of people (Peters, 2020). Businesses that don’t have a lot of resources can also lose money because it might take longer than expected to find skilled workers. If an employee leaves badly, the company loses time and money that could have been used to work and make money.

Dysfunctional turnover has adverse impacts on an organisation. It leads to more work for the employees who stay, hurting their productivity and morale. Because of this, the business will have to pay more for it because the rate of production and performance will go down. HR professionals need to develop and implement a strategic workforce plan that makes it easier to recruit and hire people and reduces the rate of turnover in an organisation (Peters, 2020).

Chapter 3

 AC 4.1 – Determine which types of contractual arrangements are best for your company based on your workforce needs.

When an employer and employee sign a legally binding agreement, it’s called an employment contract (Suff, 2020). To make sure you understand how contracts work, it’s essential to know that they’re made up of both written terms and implied terms that the employee and the employer agree on, both of which are written down. Employment law says that different types of employment contracts in the UK can be used, but they must meet specific rules.

First, there is the contract for a long-term job. This contract is long-term in nature. It’s when the employee and the employer agree to keep working together until one of them decides to break the deal (Suff, 2020). In this contract, the employee is entitled to all the benefits that the Employment Act says they should get. People who work for government institutions or agencies are the ones who use this type of contract the most in their jobs (Suff, 2020).

The second type of contract is called a fixed term or “temporary” employment contract. In this contract, the time frame of engagement is stated, the day it starts and when it will end, and both sides must sign it (Suff, 2020). It is important to know that people who work on short-term contracts get the same benefits and rights as people who work on long-term contracts. At the end of the contract, if the employee and the employer both agree to the terms, the contract may be renewed. Depending on the employer and employee agreement, the new contract terms can be retained or changed or retained. The contract will be over if they don’t agree to the terms.

The third type of contract is between an independent contractor and a company. Self-employed people also do their work, so this is also called that. If an independent contractor, they don’t have an employment contract. Instead, they have a work contract. It means that they have to make sure that they pay their taxes and other statutory deductions and benefits. Consultants, like engineers and lawyers, usually work independently (Suff, 2020).

 AC 4.2 – Identify the main types of contractual terms in a deal.

Contractual terms are made up of two main parts:  written down terms and implied terms. Expressed terms are the terms that are communicated either verbally or written in the contract. Written terms can be found in the employment contract or other company documents (Suff, 2020). Employers should make sure that the terms they use are in line with the law, and they should be careful to meet the minimum legal requirements for each term they use. For instance, at the point of hiring a new employee, the employment contract must include clear terms about the worker’s wages, work hours, and vacation time, which are all clear terms supported by the law.

Implied terms refer to contracts that aren’t written or spoken but come from things that happen together or a shared understanding. They can be suggested facts or part of the law itself. An example is overtime. Even if the terms for overtime were not included in the contract, there is an implied contract that all employees working overtime should be compensated. The main differences between stated contractual terms and those that are implied are shown in the table below.

Terms that are implied	The words that are said
Terms and conditions can be inferred from how the people involved act. In the contract, either verbally or written	the terms and conditions are set out
Because of actions	something comes into being
Implied facts or implied law can both be true	Must meet the minimum legal standard.

AC 4.3 – Describe the parts and benefits of good onboarding.

Onboarding is how new employees get used to their new jobs and work environment. It is important to remember that new employees need to be onboarded and employees who have recently been promoted, people who work from home, and people who have been moved. A practical part of onboarding includes orientation, functional training, role clarification sessions, team integration, and a leadership assessment (Sherwood, 2017).

People who join an organisation for the first time should be oriented. People learn about the organisation’s products, activities, and structure after being greeted by the group’s leader. Role clarification is very important for employees to know how to help the company reach its goals (Sherwood, 2017). It usually takes between 60 and 90 days for a new employee to become part of a team and test their leadership skills.

The main benefits of a good onboarding program are: It doesn’t take long for people to get used to their new place of work, employees can easily fit into their work teams or groups, the new employees quickly learn about the company’s values and culture, a place that is easy to get around makes it easier for people to be more productive and employees can work to the best of their abilities. 

References

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