Task One
Carefully read the following:
Boutique Build Australia was established in 1990 and is a boutique building company based in Sydney that specialises in the design and build of high quality designer homes for the Sydney metropolitan and surrounding areas. The company employs approximately 50 staff including the CEO, Operations Manager, Human Resources Manager, Marketing and Sales Manager, Customer Service Officers (6), architects (2), Site Managers (3) and a large team of tradespersons, some of whom are employed, and some are contractors. The personnel are generally managed as three overlapping teams: administration, sales, and on-site.
The company is in a period of growth and has opened an office in Brisbane with the goal of expanding into the Sunshine Coast and the Gold Coast over the next five years.
At a recent executive meeting, it was decided that Boutique Build Australia should participate in the upcoming Australian Home Show in Brisbane on a weekend in about three months’ time. It will run from Friday through Sunday, from 10am to 5pm, and be widely publicised in the media.
It is hoped that a strong presence at the show will attract the interest of potential customers. The company’s ongoing expansion also means that more tradespeople will be needed to work on new building projects. The show provides a great opportunity to make contact with many qualified tradespeople who attend the show. We would like to have at least three courtesy staff at the booth at all times, collecting details of potential customers and tradespeople. Ideally, these would be current Boutique Build office staff, who will be familiar with the company’s range of products and services. The data collected will then be given to the sales and marketing team.
This data is to be collected using two documents that have been used in previous projects, Customer Data Collection, and Team Member Data Collection.
It has been decided that several of Boutique Build’s tradespeople will build a kitchen in the congress stand, using some new material and new designs fromour architects. This will, hopefully attract, a lot of traffic to the stand. The company’s Master Builder will oversee the new kitchen’s construction and the training of the selected tradespeople. It will be vital that the tradespeople building the kitchen are able to speak with members of the public (and other tradespeople) to describe the work they do. As the stand will be quite small, a maximum of two tradespeople will be able to work on the kitchen at a time. It has been estimated that two tradespeople can build the kitchen in about 18 hours.
As Human Resources Manager, you will be managing the Home Show project, reporting to the company’s General Manager. You will also be in attendance at the Show, to manage the staff attending the stand. Several of the management team will also be in attendance at the Home show but will be involved in the ongoing running of the stand.
The staff selected to work on the stand will be directly answerable to the Project Manager, but the Master Builder will be in frequent attendance at the stand to keep an eye on the kitchen constriction, and the administration Manager will assist the courtesy staff with any questions that are outside their expertise.
Complete the following activities:
1. Write a draft project HR briefing report In order to commence the planning of human resources for the event, you are required to write a briefing report to provide to the General Manager that includes the following: A Work Breakdown Schedule should be created to set out the project organisation and structure. This will allow you to align individual and group competencies with project tasks. The personnel resource requirements for the show The expected staffing levels The individual tasks that will be expected of the staff members The competencies expected of staff. Project role descriptions. These role descriptions will be circulated among Boutique Build’s staff to see how many are interested in working on the stand during the Home Show. Ensure that these are written clearly, and in a language suited to the personnel you wish to have working at the stand. The role descriptions should include, as a minimum: o Authority level o Task responsibilities
Performance measurement criteria o Training plan o A request that interested staff should contact the Human Resources Manager and explain why they would like to be involved in the project.
2. You are also expected to explain the following in the briefing report: Your strategies for preparing and managing the staff who will work at the stand. Human resource management methods, techniques and tools that you will use to prepare the staff for their roles. These should include at least one training session for the selected staff, and include any staff skills training techniques, such as roleplays, that could contribute to their performance at the Home Show. Techniques for managing and improving staff performance that you intend to use with the selected staff, such as observation and assessment, or mentoring. The criteria that will be used to measure individuals’ performance, and the processes that will be used to determine these.
3. Use the Briefing Report Template to guide your work. You will be reviewing this report following a meeting with the General Manager, so save this version of the document as Draft Briefing Report.
2. Write an email to the General Manager (your assessor). The text of the email should be in grammatically correct English, written in an appropriate (polite, business-like) style. It should introduce and summarise the contents of the attachment, and seek their feedback and the time, date and place of your meeting.
Attach your draft briefing report to the email.
4. Review your briefing report. Incorporate the General Manager’s suggestions into an updated version of your briefing report.
Name this Revised Briefing Report.
5. Allocate personnel to the project. Assume that your project role descriptions have been sent to Boutique build staff, and many administration staff and tradespeople have expressed interest in working on the Home Show stand. The staff’s responses have been recorded in the Staff List, and each applicant’s line manager has given a brief summation of their abilities.
Review the Staff List and decide which staff members would be most appropriate to work at the stand during the show.
Review the Recruitment, Selection and Induction Policy and Procedures to ensure that your staff allocation is in accordance with this.
Use the Staff Allocation Report Template to write a short report on why you have chosen each of the staff on your list. Refer to the Recruitment, Selection and Induction Policy and Procedures when appropriate.
6. Write an email to the General Manager (your assessor). The text of the email should be in grammatically correct English, written in an appropriate (polite, business-like) style. It should introduce and summarise the contents of the attachments.
Attach your revised briefing report and your staff allocation report to the email.
Task 2
Prepare for project personnel training. Review the case study scenario and your HR briefing report.
Spend some time thinking about how the stand would look, and any health and safety issues that you think that the staff member should know about.
2. Conduct a personnel training session. (Present) Your assessor and at least one other student will roleplay the staff members you have selected to work at the stand during the Home Show.
During the training session, you should: Use the human resource management techniques and tools that you included in your briefing report. Show the staff how to use the Customer Data Collection and the Team Member Collection documents and explain why these are being used. Demonstrate how to approach someone who is looking at the stand and ask for their details. Explain the criteria that will be used to measure staff performance, and the processes that will be used to determine these.
During the training session, demonstrate effective communication skills including:
Speaking clearly and concisely Using non-verbal communication to assist with understanding Asking questions to identify required information Responding to questions as required Using active listening techniques to confirm understanding
Task 3
The team at the stand has been busy, and you have heard other team members speak in a disparaging manner about Anna’s performance.
Complete the following activities:
1. Meet with (your classmate). You are required to role-play a meeting with to discuss her/his performance, and to overcome shortfalls that have been noticed.
At the meeting: Point out the unacceptable behaviour Describe clearly what the expected behaviour is. Reinforce how important the data collection for Boutique Build’s expansion plans. Point out that working at the stand is considered to be normal working time, and a negative assessment will carry over to their work conditions in the office.
At the end of the meeting, tell Anna /Andrew that you will stay at the stand close to them for the next hour or so, modelling the behaviour that you expect of them.
You should also provide some counselling where necessary or refer to someone who has the skills to help her.
During the meeting, demonstrate effective communication skills including: Speaking clearly and concisely Using non-verbal communication to assist with understanding Asking questions to identify required information Responding to questions as required Using active listening techniques to confirm understanding
2. Write a short performance report on your meeting with Anna / Andrew. The company’s Recruitment, selection and induction Policy and Procedures requires a record of the conversation to be submitted to Human Resources for filing.
The text of the email should include a short report on Anna / Andrew’s behaviour at the show, what you discussed with them at the meeting, and how their subsequent behaviour was.
The report should be about two paragraphs long.
Task 4
Assessment Task 4 Instructions
Carefully Read the following:
The Australian Home Show has just finished, and the Boutique Build stand was very successful. Staff at the stand received many compliments on the way that the new kitchen was built in the stand. Anna continued working on the stand efficiently following your talk with her and an hour’s mentoring.
Attendee numbers were much larger than expected due to a reduction in banks’ mortgage rates in the week prior to the show. The details of 550 customers were taken during the show. Many tradespeople attended the show, too, interested in what the current trends were. The details of 160 tradespeople were taken during the show
Boutique Build Australia’s project management policy and procedures require a short report be sent to the General Manager following the successful conclusion of every project, and that the Project Manager officially disbands the project team by email.
Complete the following activities:
1. Write an email to the General Manager (your assessor). The text of the email should be in grammatically correct English, written in an appropriate (polite, business-like) style.
The email text should: Summarise conclusions you have drawn about the project’s performance Identify and document human resource issues and recommended improvements
2. Write an email to the project team (your assessor). The text of the email should be in grammatically correct English, written in an appropriate (polite, business-like) style.
It should summarise the points made in your email to the General Manager and thank them for their participation.