What is the most important long-term economic trend currently affecting your country? Justify your answer. Appraise the significance of this trend for your industry now and in the future.

7CO01 Work and working lives in a changing business environment

Question 4 (AC1.4)

What is the most important long-term economic trend currently affecting your country? Justify your answer. Appraise the significance of this trend for your industry now and in the future.

Question 6 (AC2.2)

Assess any one contemporary public policy development in your country in terms of its likely or potential future impact on work and employment. Justify your answer with reference to examples, statistics or published research.

Question 10 (AC3.2)

Resistance to change is inevitable but can be reduced. Examine to what extent the mantra `people support what they help to create` should underpin the approach taken by managers when restructuring an organisation. Justify your answer with reference to examples or to your own experience and observations.

Question 13 (AC 4.1)

You are asked to advise a public sector organisation of your choice that is keen to develop formal `values-based recruitment` (VBR) practices. Explain to managers what the purpose of VBR is and its major potential advantages and disadvantages. Propose one measure that could be swiftly introduced to make the organisation`s recruitment practices more values based. Justify your answer.

Marking Guidance

When marking assessments, it is important first to give full consideration to the general requirements set by QAA for Level 7. These are interpreted as follows by the CIPD; learners being required to demonstrate the following, where relevant to the assessment question:

(1) Systematic understanding of knowledge and techniques, and a critical awareness of problems and/or new insights in the field of study and area of professional practice.

(2) Originality in the application of knowledge relating to practical issues.

(3) Ability to make decisions about complex issues, both systematically and creatively, and justify their judgements in the absence of complete data.

(4) Ability to show self-direction and insight in tackling and solving problems, and in planning and implementing tasks at a professional level.

(5) Clarity and confidence in communicating conclusions, which can influence both specialist and non-specialist audiences.

(6) Demonstrate insight in tackling and solving problems, and in planning and implementing tasks at a professional level.

(7) Critical reflection and a passion for learning, to advance their own knowledge and understanding through independent learning and the development of new skills at a high level.

(8) Consistent and professional standard of presentation.

In addition, generic marking guidance is found in the following grid, which broadly distinguishes between grades by using descriptors under each heading:

Generic grade descriptors	REFER/FAIL / 1	PASS / 2	MERIT / 3	DISTINCTION / 4
Focus	Fails to address all the questions either sufficiently fully or directly.	An adequate attempt to address all the questions fully and directly.	A good attempt to address all the questions relatively well and directly.	An excellent attempt to address all the questions very well and directly.
Depth & breadth of understanding	Inadequate knowledge and understanding in respect of one or more of the questions. Limited depth and breadth of analysis.	Adequate knowledge and understanding across the questions. Satisfactory breadth and depth of analysis.	Full and solid knowledge and understanding across all the questions. Good breadth and depth of analysis.	Very full knowledge and understanding across all the questions. Excellent breadth and depth of analysis.
Strategic application & professional advice	Fails to provide appropriate or well-justified advice and/or recommendations. Lacks a strategic approach.	Provides adequately justified advice and informed recommendations Some strategic application.	Provides solid and thoughtful advice and well-informed recommendations. Clearly strategic in orientation.	Provides excellent advice and very well-informed recommendations. Strategically oriented in all respects.
Research & wider reading	Limited original research and/or appropriate wider reading for the assignment. Limited or no referencing.	Evidence of sufficient research and appropriate wider reading for the assignment. Satisfactory in-text referencing.	Evidence of significant research and thoughtful, appropriate wider reading for the assignment. A good standard of in-text referencing.	Evidence of considerable research and excellent, appropriate wider reading for the assignment. An excellent standard of in-text referencing
Persuasiveness & originality	Limited development of persuasive and original arguments. Inadequate use of examples.	An adequate attempt to develop original arguments and to justify these persuasively. Includes appropriate examples.	Some strong original arguments are presented which are mainly justified persuasively. Good use of examples.	Mostly strong original arguments are presented and justified very persuasively. Excellent use of examples.
Presentation & language	An inadequate standard of presentation or language. The assignment is poorly written and/or poorly structured. It is not at the level required for a management presentation.	A solid standard of presentation and use of language. The structure and ideas are satisfactory for a management presentation.	A strong and professional standard of presentation and use of language. The structure and ideas are well crafted for a management presentation.	An outstanding standard of presentation and use of language. The structure and ideas are very well crafted for a management presentation.

For higher level marks (Merits and Distinctions), it is essential that the learner develops an original argument and justifies it with reference to wider reading, published research, examples and/or statistics. Sources cited must be credible and authoritative. Work, which is wholly, or mainly, simply a summary of reading should not be awarded a Merit or a Distinction.

In order to achieve a Pass mark, a good level of knowledge and understanding is required, as well as some good evidence of appropriate and thoughtful wider reading. Answers must, also, be full, direct and well-informed.

Further, specific marking guidance is as follows:

LO1 Understand ways in which major, long-term environmental developments are affecting employment, work and people management in organisations.

1.4 Appraise the significance of long-term economic trends for work, employment and management practice in organisations.

Question 4

What is the most important long-term economic trend currently affecting your country?  Justify your answer. Appraise the significance of this trend for your industry now and in the future.

Learners have plenty of choice in addressing this question. They may reflect on major macro-economic trends such as increased or decreased rates of growth, or at more specific trends such as increasing inequality or examples of industrial restructuring over time. The more effectively and thoughtfully justified the choice, the higher the mark should be. The second part of this assessment then focuses on specific implications for and impact on an industry with which the learner is familiar. Answers will vary considerably here. Poor rates of economic growth, for example, will have a bigger potential impact on public sector budgets over time than they will on a specific part of the private sector which is not so affected as it provides essential rather than desirable products or services. There will nonetheless be some impact to discuss. Supermarket chains, for example, tend to be robust businesses that ride lengthy periods of recession well and have continued to expand throughout recent years in countries where economic trends have reduced consumer confidence. But that does not mean that they have not had to respond in a variety of ways to tailor their offering to the needs of consumers with reduced disposable income. What matters when awarding marks is that learners provide full and well-informed answers that accurately assess conditions in their own industries and link these back to the longer-term economic trend identified at the outset. The question also makes specific reference to the future. Answers can be more speculative here, but for high marks they must be authoritatively argued and effectively referenced.

LO2 Understand current and short-term developments in the people management business environment.

2.2 Assess developments in public policy which are affecting work, employment and people management in organisations.

Question 6

Assess any one contemporary public policy development in your country in terms of its likely or potential future impact on work and employment. Justify your answer with reference to examples, statistics or published research.

Learners have plenty of choice here. Their choice of subject could concern an area of education and training policy, industrial policy, immigration policy, employment policy, living wages, pensions / retirement or welfare policy or economic policy generally. All have an impact on labour markets, on the capacity or willingness of people to seek out job opportunities and on demand for employees too. What matters in the terms of the question is that the choice focuses on a contemporary policy development in the learner`s own country. The need is first to explain how the policy is affecting or will affect work and employment and secondly to justify the argument made persuasively using stats, examples or research findings. There is less scope here for personal observation or reflections on the student`s own organisation, but these can be included too as part of a broader argument.

For UK learners, immigration policy is likely to be a common choice here as it has been so prominent in the media in recent years and is a subject that is both well-researched and contested. It is important in such cases that learners reflect critically on what is actually happening rather than simply on media accounts or political spin. The rhetoric is all about reducing net migration, and particularly illegal immigration, but the reality is that government policy has for several years sought to encourage skilled migration as well as overseas students by making it easier in practice to settle in the UK if you are relatively highly paid and skilled. So when marking assessors should take care to focus on accuracy. Similarly in respect of training policy and apprenticeships, the terms of debates in the media are sometimes a touch misleading as is the case when pensions are discussed or university funding etc.

LO3 Understand how change, innovation and creativity can promote improvements in organisational productivity.

3.2 Examine ways that organisations address resistance to change and recognise the levers that will achieve and sustain change.

Question 10

Resistance to change is inevitable but can be reduced. Examine to what extent the mantra `people support what they help to create` should underpin the approach taken by managers when restructuring an organisation. Justify your answer with reference to examples or to your own experience and observations.

The notion that change is less commonly resisted when individuals perceive that they, at least in part `own` the process and are genuinely involved in it is attractive and has plenty to offer at the level of the team. At this level genuine participation is possible leading to a situation in which employees are less likely to resist because they have had a say and influenced what happens.  It becomes less meaningful at the level of the organisation or parts of larger organisations where individuals often feel powerless to influence outcomes even when invited to put forward their own ideas about how matters should proceed. More often than not senior managers engage in a process sometimes labelled `pseudo-consultation` which is more about them communicating what they plan to do, than it is about meaningful employee involvement in the change management process. Moreover, even when there is a genuine desire to involve employees, the size of any consultation process means that individual voices tend to get diluted. It is also, of course, always very difficult to stand up and voice concerns in respect of highly political change management episodes in which some will be `winners` and others `losers` or potential winners and losers.

We should therefore expect learners to be critical of the idea and the mantra while also accepting that it can have some validity in some situations. They should certainly not accept it uncritically. This still leaves plenty of room for original argument and for examples to be used to justify key points as is required in the question. The fuller, more persuasive and better informed the answer, the higher the mark should be. As always some will be tempted to describe rather than to analyse for much of their answers. At Level 7 this is not what we are looking for and marking should reflect this.

LO4 Understand the key interrelationships between organisational commitment to ethics, sustainability, diversity and wellbeing.

4.1 Propose initiatives aimed at improving an organisation’s ethics and values.

Question 13

You are asked to advise a public sector organisation of your choice that is keen to develop formal `values-based recruitment` (VBR) practices. Explain to managers what the purpose of VBR is and its major potential advantages and disadvantages. Propose one measure that could be swiftly introduced to make the organisation`s recruitment practices more values based. Justify your answer.

Values-based recruitment essentially entails selecting people for roles whose personal values fit with those of the organisation that is recruiting them. It involves giving less significance to skills, qualifications and experience (although by no means ignoring these) and placing more emphasis on the reasons a person has for applying for a job and pursuing a particular career. It is now widely used across the public sector, but is also increasingly used in the private sector too. It is in effect a refined version of the commonly long-applied principle of `select for attitude, train for skill`. It is associated with formal statements of organisational values and recruitment / selection methods which seek to appoint people whose values match those of the organisation. Examples might be professionalism, commitment to diversity & inclusion, customer focus, compassion etc).

The major advantages that advocates of VBR point to are reduced staff turnover, better employee relations, more harmonious relationships between team members and improved organisational performance. If there is less clash between individual values and that of the organisation, employees will both be happier in their roles and more productive. Round pegs in round holes. There is less written about disadvantages but there are some general ones associated with competency-based recruitment that is general and not so focused on the skills and experience required to do a specific job. One potential disadvantage is that the organisation ends up with teams of people who are very similar. There may be reduced diversity as result as managers look to select people who match their own values. Aside from the legal and ethical implications, this may mean that teams are less inclined to question things or be innovative due to groupthink. Organisations may also over time become less agile and able to respond well when values need to evolve in new directions to meet new sets of circumstances.

A wide range of interventions could form a good answer to the final part here. More informal styles of selection interviewing are associated with VBR as are person specifications that give prominence to certain defined values as `essential characteristics of job holders`. The way in which recruitment literature is written is another example. The answer asks for an intervention that could be swiftly implemented, so costly and time consuming changes like developing new assessment centre exercises is not so appropriate a suggestion here. The fuller, more original, better-informed and well-justified the answer, the higher the mark should be.