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People and Operations Management

People in Organisations

Candidates are expected to gain an understanding of people at work in an integrated context within the organisation and the wider environment. They are required to understand the interrelationships between organisational structure, leadership style and motivation in a business, and to evaluate the implications of these for the effective planning and management of human resources.

Management Structure and Organisation, and Motivation are covered in the People in Organisations section of AS Module 2. Both topics are part of the full A Level specification, though no further content need be taught. The topics should be revisited to provide theoretical underpinning to the new material on Communication, Employer/Employee Relations and Human Resource Management.

Communication

Relationship between motivation and communication

• Effect of poor morale on communication and vice versa;
• importance of feedback.

Barriers to effective communication

• Attitudes,
• intermediaries,
• lack of common language or sense of purpose.

Difficulties for larger organisations and possible solutions

• Communication overload,
• many layers of hierarchy,
• over-reliance on written;
• the use of information technology;
• decentralisation.

Employer/Employee Relations

Emphasis should be on recent and potential approaches and initiatives, and be linked to an organisation's underlying approach to motivation or leadership.

Differing approaches to employee relations at the collective and individual level

• Individual versus collective bargaining;
• secure, full-time, salaried versus temporary and sub-contracted work.

Employee participation and industrial democracy

• Works councils;
• employee shareholders;
• autonomous work groups;
• practical problems and benefits of working in teams;
• impact on motivation.

The role of trade unions and ACAS

• Objectives, functions and organisation of unions;
• industrial disputes and methods of resolution (including conciliation and arbitration);
• single union and no strike agreements;
• the role of ACAS.

Principles of employment law

• Individual labour law;
• collective labour law;
• impact on business of employment legislation.

Human Resource Management

This section emphasises the alternative approaches to HRM (dependent upon leadership style) and the criticisms of them. HRM can be a strategy for the personal development of all staff or a control mechanism.

Workforce planning

As an integrated process bearing in mind production, marketing and corporate plans.

Methods of remuneration

As AS Module:

• Financial incentives, but with added emphasis on goals of HRM.

Measurements of personnel effectiveness (labour productivity, labour turnover, absenteeism and health and safety)

• Ability to calculate and evaluate;
• causes and effects;
• importance as indicators of personnel strategy.

Operations Management

Candidates are expected to gain an understanding of operations management in an integrated context within the organisation and the wider environment. The material set out below should be related to that of the AS Subject Content, especially the Operations Management section of Module 2. Candidates are required to analyse and evaluate the use of different operations management tools to enhance decision-making in order to improve efficiency and quality.

Productive Efficiency

Research and Development

• Function of R & D;
• importance of science and technology in innovation and developing product quality;
• relationship of R & D to product design, product life cycles and market research.

Critical path analysis

• Drawing simple networks,
• calculating Earliest Start Times and Latest Finish Times,
• identifying the critical path,
• calculating total float;
• understanding the business implications of CPA,

especially for efficiency, business decision-making, time-based management and working capital control.

Controlling Operations

Application of IT within and between organisations

Impact on:

• stock control,
• production eg CAD/CAM,
• communications eg Internet,
• accounting (especially budgetary control),
• employment and location, eg teleworking.

Facilities

The focus must be on business based decision-making using methods such as break-even analysis or investment appraisal (but qualitative factors should not be underestimated).

Regional location

The business approach to location decisions, including:

• costs,
• resources,
• infrastructure,
• the market,
• government intervention and
• qualitative factors.

International location

As above plus multinational strategies including:

• avoiding protectionism and
• achieving high economies of scale.