CIPD Level 7CO01 Work And Working Lives In A Changing Business Environment Assignment, UK

Introduction

Your knowledge and understanding of the material covered in this core unit will be assessed through your answers to four of the questions listed below. Your assessor will let you know which questions you are to answer. You are expected to complete all the learning for the unit, irrespective of which questions you are asked to answer.

The four questions will be drawn from different learning outcomes, featuring one assessment criterion in each learning outcome. These questions encompass a wide range of generalist HR, OD & L&D subject areas.

You will write four answers of approximately 1000 words to the questions posed and submit them together in a single document. This constitutes your assessment for this unit. The total word count for the assessment will therefore be 4000 words, plus or minus 10%. The bibliography or list of references is not included in the total word count.

You must demonstrate within the submitted evidence (through headings and sub-headings) which learning outcomes and assessment criteria you have addressed. We are unable to moderate your work if this is not included.

As this is an Advanced Level Diploma, it is important that you are able to demonstrate not only good knowledge and understanding of the material associated with each learning outcome, but also the ability to develop an original argument and justify it persuasively with reference to wider reading. Examples of approaches taken in a range of organisations are also an effective means by which to justify your arguments.

The six main criteria that CIPD requires centres to use when marking your assessment are outlined below, but it may be that not all these criteria are present in every question.
(1) focus
(2) depth and breadth of understanding
(3) strategic application and professional advice
(4) research and wider reading
(5) persuasiveness and originality
(6) presentation and language

Assessment Questions

Question 1

Assess the trend towards greater globalisation of international business activity and consider whether this has now peaked and there will be reduced globalisation in the future. Justify your answer.

Question 2 

Critically evaluate whether advancing technologies, and particularly artificial intelligence (AI), will soon destroy a good proportion of existing jobs, leaving many people either unemployed or under-employed. Justify your answer with reference to examples.

Question 3

What do you consider to be the most significant current demographic trend affecting your country? Justify your choice. Evaluate its significance for labour markets, employment and the world of work.

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.

Question 5

Evaluate how technological developments are currently affecting the practice of recruitment and selection in organisations. Drawing on examples from your own experience and reading, explain why these developments are occurring and what benefits flow from them for employers. Justify your answer.

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.

Question 7

Analyse a major legal development or likely future development in your country and justify a proposal for a change in your country’s current employment law based on this. Explain what your proposed change would involve, what it would look to achieve and in what ways it might be contested either by some employers, employees or their representatives.

Question 8

Critically discuss the current state of the major labour markets in which your organisation competes for staff in terms of both demand for and supply of skills. Explain whether these labour markets are loosening, tightening or stable. How do you anticipate that this situation may change over the next ten years? Justify your key points with reference to statistics and examples.

Question 9

Analyse any one of the major published models that have been developed to guide managers when leading organisations through major change episodes. Explain what features of the model you find most and least useful from the perspective of contemporary people management. Justify your answer with reference to published examples or your own experience and observations.

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.

Question 11

Evaluate the current trend for organisations to move from a five-day to a four-day working week without reducing their employees’ pay. Justify your answer with reference to published research and your own thinking in respect of your organisation.

Question 12

Assess the contribution of people management professionals in helping their organisations to become more creative and innovative. Justifying your answer with examples, assess the roles played both by organisational culture and human resource management practices in promoting innovation and creativity.

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.

Question 14

Explain what the term ‘psychological resilience’ means in practical terms. Evaluate your own organisation’s activities in the promotion of better resilience and set out any one new measure you would like to see adopted that will help your people become more psychologically resilient. Justify your answer.

Question 15

A colleague asks you to recommend how your organisation could make its activities more ‘green’ (i.e. environmentally sustainable). Critically evaluate underpinning theory and practice in this area and make recommendations for your organisation.

Question 16

Critically discuss the view that organisations can never be considered as true equal opportunity employers unless they have in place formal measures to tackle the prevalence of unconscious bias among managers and employees. What kinds of measures would you expect to see in place in an organisation that was serious about reducing unconscious bias? Justify your answer with reference to published research.