Overview: For your term project, you and/or your team will help a fictious organization meet a Human Resource Management (HRM) need. Using a case-based scenario, you will analyze and apply course concepts to develop solutions about Human Resource (HR)-related issues that the organization faces. You may work alone or in a team of up to five members (you+4 others).
The learning goals of this term project are:
• To help you put into practice the HRM concepts that you have learned throughout the program.
• To give you experience about critically analyzing HR issues and propose useful and feasible solutions and evaluation metrics.
• To provide an opportunity to view the functions of HRM as a system of related parts.
• To build competencies related to the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) Competencies Model.
• To give you an opportunity to work in teams and learn from each other.
About the Project
For this assignment, you may work alone or in a team to help a fictious organization with an HRM issue. The purpose of the assignment is for you/your team to apply course concepts to a case-based organization and its practices. You/your team are/is tasked to create a written proposal that addresses one major issue and the recommended solution to implement in the organization. The overarching steps for this assignment are listed below.
Overarching Project Steps
A. Before you Start
• Step 1: Decide if you will work alone or in a team
Each option has its advantages and challenges, and the decision whether to work alone or in a group is up to you. I recommend considering your work-life schedule, special circumstances, and preferences for studying. Those who decide to work in a team will need to complete Team contract document to set the expectations for group members to work successfully together and prevent disputes if arise throughout the term. Also, those who work in teams will need to submit individual Peer evaluation form at the end of the project. Refer to the course schedule in your syllabus to see deadlines for these forms.
B. Study the Case
• Step 2: Meet the organization (Review the case)
Alone, or as a group, you will meet with the organization reading the case study titled “Hudson College” provided for this assignment. The case study will provide you/your team background information about the organization and the issue(s) that the organization is facing. When reading the case, give attention to the company
background, organizational structure and culture, and try to identify the issues/problems as you notice.
• Step 3: Identify one major HRM issue (What is the main HR-related problem?) This step is very important for your paper as you will build the rest of your work on it. At the end of Step 2, you/your team should be able to identify and articulate one major HRM issue that the organization is facing. As you read the case, you may realize that the organization may face several HR issues. However, for this assignment, you/your team need to select one major issue that you think what matters the most for the organization and focus on it. While doing so, you need to provide the reasoning/justification for your identified issue. In other words, you need to clearly explain how you identify your chosen issue using specific/relevant information from the case. For example, if you identify the problem as being about the selection processes of the organization, you need to clearly explain why. At the end of this step, you/your team need to have a clear idea about the HRM problem and be able to articulate it successfully. *There is an optional submission opportunity for you/your team if you want to get feedback regarding your identified issue. Please see below.
• Step 4: Conduct research to identify possible solutions (What are the best practices available to the problem?)
In this step, you/your team will use your problem definition to guide your research into identifying evidence-based HR solutions that would best address the organization’s issue. You are expected to review and identify best practices associated with the HR process or function that is the problem. In other words, what does research say regarding your identified problem and possible solutions for it? For this section, you need to use at least 10 peer-reviewed journal articles published 2001 or later. Please see the approved list of journals at the end of this document.
• Step 5: Identify the best solution (What is your recommended solution?)
Now that you reviewed the literature and identified possible solutions to your identified issue, you/your team now need/s to recommend a specific solution for the identified problem. You/your team will also need to develop the criteria, logic, and arguments as to why your solution will be most effective in addressing the issue facing the organization. In other words, you need to answer why your recommended solution fits best for this organization.
• Step 6: Propose a strategy to implement and evaluate your solution
Until this step, you identified the HRM-issue, conducted your research, identified the best practices based on your research and proposed your solution to address the issue. Now, you will need to identify an implementation strategy for your solution (think change management) for the HR department. When developing your implementation strategy, you also need to briefly discuss how the solution can be disseminated from the HR department to the rest of the departments in the organization. You may want to consider the organizational structure and culture. Also, I recommend reviewing Chapter 9 in our textbook (Hunt) for some guidance and ideas regarding change management and implementation strategies. Finally, you/your team need to identify measures and metrics that will evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed solution. In other words, how will the organization know that this solution was successful? How they are going to measure it?
C. Prepare and Submit
Please submit all deliverables to the designated dropbox folders under Activities > Assignments in D2L course homepage before the due dates.
• Optional submission: Submit your identified issue for feedback
This is an optional opportunity for you/your team to receive feedback on your identified HRM issue that the organization is facing. Please submit your identified issue as outlined above in Step 3 (issue definition and justification) in a Word document by the end of Week 3 to the designated dropbox folder.
• Step 7: Submit a short report of your written proposal
In this step, you need to submit a short report (mini version) of your final written proposal. I will review your short report and provide feedback as necessary so that you can incorporate the feedback in your final written report. Your short repot needs to include all the required sections of the final written proposal: I expect you to put all the sections and provide sound and brief information for each. In other words, your short report needs to stand alone as a detailed outline of your final report. Please see the Content > Term Project folder > Short Report overview and grading rubric in D2L course homepage for more information.
• Step 8: Submit your final written report and peer evaluations
Complete and submit your proposal to the designated dropbox folder in D2L. You are expected to implement the feedback received from your short report to your final report. Your final report should follow the required format on Page 5 and include the exact sections as specified. You can add sub-sections as necessary. Finally, those who conducted the project in teams need to submit individual peer evaluations.
Term Paper Project Timeline
Step Task Start Finish
A. Before you start
Step 1 Decide if you work alone or in a team Form your team, submit team contract Week 1 Week 2
B. Study the Case
Steps 2-6 Review the case, identify the issue, research possible solutions, propose your solution, develop implementation strategy and identify evaluation metrics to the proposed solution Week 2 Week 4
C. Submit
*Optional submission Submit your identified issue and justification (Step 3) for feedback Week 3
due July 12, Sunday 11:30 pm
Step 7 Submit short report Week 5
due July 26, Sunday 11:30 pm
Step 8 Submit final written proposal
Submit Peer evaluations (for teams only) Week 8
due Aug 12, Wednesday 9:00 am
Term Project Final Written Proposal: Required Format
General Formatting and Submission Guidelines
• Times New Roman font; Size 12; Double-spaced
• 12-16 pages long (excluding the Title page, References, and Appendix)
• 1-inch margins on all sides of the paper
• Turn in the paper in Microsoft Word format (.doc, .docx)
• Turn in the completed paper by the deadline using the D2L Dropbox feature
• Turn in only one copy of the paper, that is only 1 person to submit the paper but make sure everyone’s name is listed on the title page
• For assistance with APA citation format, see https://guides.library.pdx.edu/bizapa and Purdue OWL: APA Formatting and Style Guide. Also, here is a sample paper with APA format.
Your paper should follow the exact sections outlined below:
- Title Page (1 page)
• Title of your proposal
• Names and email addresses (For teams: include all group members’ names and email addresses -without this, they will not get credit) - Executive Summary (1 page)
• Provide an overview of the paper including a brief description of the organization, the issue the organization is facing, and summary of your recommendation - Issue Definition (1-2 pages)
• Provide a brief background of the organization.
• Identify the overarching HRM-related issue that the organization is facing. You are expected to provide your rationale for choosing the issue referring to the specific points/discussions from the case. Your issue definition should be clear and relevant to the case. You may want to review the HRM functions covered in the course.
• Note that there may be several issues related to HR functions involved in the case, however you need to focus on only one overarching issue. For example, you may notice that the organization has issues relevant to different HR functions such as selection, training, onboarding, performance management, etc. As opposed to attempting to address each of those concerns, you are expected to choose one overarching/core issue that you think matters the most for the organization. Your research and proposed solution will need to be based on this core HRM issue. - Literature Review and Best Practices (3-4 pages)
• Conduct your research to identify possible solutions (best practices) related to the HR process or function regarding the issue you described in the previous section.
• It is important that your identified issue and research section should be relevant. In other words, stick to solutions that are related to your identified issue only.
• For example, if you identify the issue as being related to employee onboarding process, conduct your research to describe the best practices about onboarding process -as opposed to, for example, those related to succession planning or selection.
• Once you conduct your research, summarize the HR literature about the best practices related to the issue being faced by the organization.
• Note that the goal of this section is NOT to summarize journal articles. -rather, use journal articles to identify themes of practices that have empirical support for addressing the issue being faced by the organization.
- Recommended Solution & Criteria Used to Identify the Solution (3-4 pages)
• Based on your research, provide a recommendation for the solution(s) that best fits the organization’s needs.
• Make sure to identify the criteria that you used to identify the recommended solution(s). Why does your recommendation logically address the organization’s issue?
Your recommendations should:
• Be logical and reflect an understanding of the literature. I expect you to apply key course terms and concepts where appropriate.
• Be feasible given the organization (for example, public vs private, industry, etc.).
• Be based on the issue you identified (i.e., not generic best practices or advice). Please refrain from making recommendations related to other topics. For example, if the issue is described as being related to employee trainings, your proposed solution needs to address this issue (not, for example, compensation and incentives).
• Be supported by the journal articles you selected. Cite the appropriate journal articles to give credit where credit is due. Do not use direct quotations –instead, use your own wording (rephrase, explain with your own words). Be sure to cite your articles using APA style.
- Implementation and Change Management Strategy (1-2 pages)
• Develop an implementation strategy to implement the solution in the HR department (think change management strategies).
• Identify any challenges that the organization may need to address in order to effectively implement the solution to the entire organization. - Proposed Metrics to Evaluate the Solution (1-2 pages)
• Provide a basic method that the organization can use to evaluate whether the solution you proposed was effective (i.e., what type of data should they collect, what method, and how often). For example, if you proposed a new training program, when and what type of data need to be collected to measure the success of the program?
• Remember that your measures should specifically align with the proposed solution. - Conclusion (about 1/4 – 1/2 page)
• Your conclusion should be about a paragraph long capturing the identified issue that the organization is facing, your recommended solution, and why your recommended solution suits the best for the organization. - References List
• Provide a list of all the sources including the journal articles you used
• Use APA citation format
• For assistance with APA citation format, see https://guides.library.pdx.edu/bizapa and Purdue OWL: APA Formatting and Style Guide. Also, here is a sample paper with APA format.
- Appendix (optional)
• Include any documents that you would like to submit (e.g., figures, tables, example questionnaires, example training programs, etc.)
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