Write a 2500-word (+/- 10%) report that shows how you have identified a problem in service delivery, within your job role, and resolved it successfully. You should follow the report structure provided.

 INTRODUCTION                                  

Welcome to this Guide on meeting the requirements for the HR Level 5 EPA Mini Project. 

The purpose of this Guide, and the activities within, is to help you reflect on appropriate examples from your workplace to allow you to meet the Standard requirements.  The Project covers the following knowledge/skills elements:

Knowledge:

• Business Understanding
• HR Function
• MI & Technology

Skill:

• HR Consultancy
• Contributing to Business Change
• HR Information Analysis

On completion, you will have demonstrated that you:

BUSINESS UNDERSTANDING

understand what the organisation does, the external market and sector it operates in, its challenges and issues. understand business and HR KPIs and metrics, building a clear picture of how the business is performing.  understand the impact of this on your role.

HR FUNCTION

understand the structure and responsibilities of the HR function, policies and processes, and where to source HR specialist expertise.

MI & TECHNOLOGY

understand HR systems and where to find HR and management data, both internally and externally, including benchmarking. know how technology, including social media, is impacting the business and HR.

HR CONSULTANCY

develop and deliver HR solutions to the business that are appropriate to the organisational context. influence leaders and managers to adopt appropriate solutions. provide tailored HR services to the business as required by your role e.g. Performance Management, Resourcing, Development, Talent, Reward. contribute to the development of relevant HR policies & procedures and/or HR initiatives.

CONTRIBUTING TO BUSINESS CHANGE

lead the HR contribution to business projects and change programmes to support positive behavioural, business or organisational change

HR INFORMATION ANALYSIS

research, analyse and present HR / business data (both internal and external) to provide insight, support solutions to business issues and track performance.

Your choice of project, and the report you produce, need to cover each of these elements to achieve the Pass/Distinction.

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HR Level 5 EPA Mini Project: THE PROJECT

The key focus of the project is all about HR consultancy – investigating an HR-related issue, data analysis, making the business case for your proposed solution and then, once authorised, implementing your idea within a department or the organisation as a whole.

The HR issue can be on any of the following topics:

• Core HR (e.g. Employment Law, Employment Relations, Performance Management)
• Resourcing (covering the complete process from attraction to induction/onboarding)
• Total Reward (the principles and practices of reward, compensation and benefits.  It is advised that you should only choose this option if you currently work in reward as the main part of your job role)
• Organisation Development (e.g Organisation Development, Learning & Development, Talent Management)
• HR Operations (the principles and practices of running HR Operations.  It is advised that you should only choose this option if you currently work in a Shared Service Centre or similar)

By doing all this, you will be contributing to business change and analysing relevant data (thereby meeting the other 2 skill requirements).

(NB. This can be something you do now, or something you have actioned in the past)

Write a report on how you resolve the problem and implement your solution, ensuring that you cover each of these areas:

Knowledge:

• Business Understanding
• HR Function
• MI & Technology

Skill:

• HR Consultancy
• Contributing to Business Change
• HR Information Analysis

You should then complete a separate Reflective Activity (500 words), attached as an Appendix to the main report.

KEY MODELS/THEORIES etc THAT MIGHT HELP YOU IN YOUR REPORT

• Theories and academic models already studied during your programme e.g. Ulrich, Kotter

• Implications of relevant legislation or Codes of Practice in your chosen topic

• Learning theories (covered in Personal Development module) – for anyone choosing the Organisation Development option

• Relevant CIPD or sector-specific research or good practice

• Problem Solving: the IDEAL model i.e.

                 i.  Identify the problem – what is the real reason for the problem occurring? What is causing that problem?

                ii.   Define your goals – what do you want to happen at the end?  What does success look like?  How will you know if you have achieved your overall goal?

               iii.   Explore possible solutions – what are the different solutions available to ‘fix’ this problem?  Which is the best one?  What needs to happen to make it work?

               iv.  Action – choose and use a solution

                v.  Learn from your actions – has it worked?

HR Level 5 EPA Mini Project: STRUCTURE OF YOUR REPORT

(NB this report can be written in 1^st person) 

• Project title.  This wouldn’t go into the word count, but is more for a front page, containing the title for your project and your name and organisation?  E.g. for a title:

Investigation of Sickness Absence Statistics among administrative staff at XYZ NHS Trust and recommendations to address this

• Introduction.  This should be on 2 levels:

                 i.  Introduction to your organisation – e.g. how is it structured, what does it do, what issues are currently being faced in your sector, what are its values; what are your organisation’s business and HR KPIs and metrics?

                ii.  How does the HR Function fit into the overall structure of the organisation?  What are the especially key policies and legislation that apply within your own organisation because of the nature of the work done/sector?  What is your role within the HR function?

• Problem – what is the problem and what is the effect (i.e. what issues are being caused for the organisation as a result of this problem).  How will resolving it add value to the organisation?  e.g. productivity OR financial savings OR employee engagement OR contribution to corporate strategy and direction, etc

• Project objectives.  Your objectives are the different steps you will follow to be able to achieve the overall goal of the project.  These then become the actions you need to address as you work through completing your project.  These must be SMART actions

• Information gathered.  Have researched the issue, this is where you report your findings.  Think about how you are going to present these to the reader (i.e. the Assessor), so they are clear and easy to understand.  Feel free to use graphs, charts, diagrams or tables, for example.

• Analytical findings.  In this section you should analyse and interpret the results by drawing on the research you have collected and explaining its significance. In other words, once you have gathered all the information, you now analyse and discuss to see what it is actually telling you - how does it compare to other pieces of information gathered, how significant is this going to be for your project outcome, and so on.  Having analysed your research, what are the possible solutions?

You should ensure that any responses from individuals are anonymised, unless you have the express written permission of the individual to refer to their response by name.

In terms of writing the project, you can keep the Information Gathered and Analytical Findings separate, or you can combine them e.g. present some data, analyse it, present some more data, analyse that and compare to the first set of data and so on.  Either approach will work, it all depends on your personal preference really.

• Conclusions and recommendations.

                 i.   Conclusion.  This summarises the key arguments from the project (not dissimilar to a Summary).  There shouldn’t be anything included in this section that hasn’t been included in the previous section of your project.

                ii.   Recommendations.  Based on your conclusions, what recommendations will you be making to ensure you achieve the purpose of your project?  Or, having achieved the purpose of your project, what recommendations would you make in this area, for the future.  (It will depend on the nature of your project as to what approach to take for your recommendations).

• Implementation - how did you put your preferred solution into practice?

 HR Level 5 EPA Mini Project