Individual Assignment Question (Required word count 2,000)

Flywheel, Schuster and Flywheel Plc is a large organisation, which manufactures wheel nut widgets for the automotive industry. The company Headquarters is located on the same site as the oldest plant in the West Midlands. In total, the West Midlands site employs 300 manual staff and 100 administrative staff. There are also plants in South Wales where the ratio is 100/15, the North East of England (ratio150/15), and Southern Scotland (ratio 80/5). Currently the HR function is based within the headquarters complex and all strategic decisions are taken within this HR team and cascaded to the other plants, each plant employs a small HR team led by an HR administrator. Negotiations relating to terms and conditions are conducted on a national scale with the recognised Trade Union. The company relies on skills training by local FE colleges for all levels of manual employees and engages in minimal in-house development of staff. Following a recent visit by a firm of management consultants, the company were advised to undertake a programme of change involving; reducing the workforce by 35%, (including the possible closure of the West Midlands Plant) make significant investment in new machinery, in all but the West Midlands plant, major restructuring of the HR function involving the appointment of HR professionals at the smaller plants, make substantial changes in terms and conditions for the staff involving a move to 24/7 production, and introduce a new pay system based on appraisals. TASK The company have decided to move forward in all these areas and as the HR Director, you have been asked to develop a plan, which moves the situation forward, The plan you write should develop an HR strategy to move this process forward. The strategy should identify and assess the problems that might arise. Remember this is an HR module and the plan you construct should deal solely with HR issues and should not be the development of a broader business plan stick to the issues dealt with in this module. The assignment must be correctly referenced (the Harvard System is recommended) and include a detailed Bibliography which identifies ALL material you have read in developing your argument. All figures/diagrams/tables must be accurately sourced and included within the main text. In order to address the question you are expected to read widely and offer a considered, critical analysis of the key debates which demonstrates your ability to express the issues fully.

Prescribed Texts - Academic Year 2011/12 Mandatory reading by all students following this module:

Beardwell, J and Claydon, T. (eds) (2010), Human Resource Management: A Contemporary Approach, Prentice Hall, London.