Industrial Relations Integrated Project (Human resource)
The integrated project enables students to develop practical skills within the Industrial
Relations context as a line manager working in an engineering context. The project
requires students working together to exchange ideas, experience and finally prepare
an individual business report addressed to the Human Resource Manager of their
organization outlining the Disciplinary Policies and Redundancy Procedures that
exist in their organization. Each student will submit an individual report.
To do this project successfully students will need to:
1. Briefly describe their organisation (or the business unit).
2. Describe the existing Disciplinary Policies and Redundancy (e.g. considering
the termination of an employee) Procedures in the organisation in some detail. As
part of this description, draw a flow chart, showing the process that might
conclude to the termination (discharge) of an employee. The actual process should
be depicted here, rather than the preferred process.
3. Identify and present the Disciplinary Policies and Redundancy Procedures
recommended in the Industrial Relations and/or Human Resources Management
literature (e.g. the disciplinary model). Use a flow chart showing the literature
based Disciplinary Policies and Redundancy Procedures.
4. Identify and discuss the difference between the Disciplinary Policies and
Redundancy Procedures found in your organization (point 1) and those
recommended in the literature (point 3). The discussion should focus on the ‘gap’
between the literature and your organization policies and procedures.
5. Recommend improvements to the existing Disciplinary Policies and Redundancy
Procedures.
6. Summarize the recommendations in an executive summary of the report, and
7. Submit the project to the Industrial Relations Manager.
12. PROJECTS @ REFERENCING WORK
Many of your projects at Degree level are RESEARCH based projects. Carrying out
your own research should be an interesting and rewarding thing for you to do. If you
do it properly it will be a valuable learning experience and it will give you an
enormous sense of satisfaction. However, you need to be aware of the following
factors.
1. TIME
Researching is looking at something in detail and it involves examining a situation in
depth and looking at the situation from different perspectives. Therefore, researching
into something takes time and effort. You cannot do research effectively in one day.
When you are carrying out research you need to plan your time effectively so that you
use it in the most productive way.
2. SOURCES
As stated above, research usually involves examining a situation from different
perspectives. In order to do this you have to look at a VARIETY of sources. These
days there is a mass of information available to you. You may collect more
information than you need. The skill is in sorting the information to suit your project,
you will often discard more than you actually use.
You should try to use:-
Secondary Sources
(a) Reference Book – These can be a little out of date but they are often a good
source of information for basic statistics. Even if they are out of date you can use
them for comparison.
(b) Text books – Again these can often be out of date but they are useful for finding
out standard information which can be developed.
(c) Magazines & Newspapers – Good source of information. Usually up to date.
Most libraries keep backdated copies of these publications.
(d) Internet – A wonderful source of information but surfing the net can be very time
consuming. Make sure you have an idea of what you are looking for before you
start to explore this arena.
Primary Sources
(e) Interviews – Sometimes it is essential to collect information from individuals.
This is usually done through questionnaires. Personal interviews are a valuable source
of information but designing the questionnaire, collecting the information analyzing
and presenting the information takes time. Planning is essential to this process.
3. SOURCING INFORMATION
It is inevitable, when you carry out research, that you will use other peoples’ ideas and
information. This is not wrong, if fact it is what you must do. What is wrong is to take
another persons work and present it as your own. This is called PLAGIARISM (see
handout) if your teachers suspect that the work is plagiarized they will give it you
back unmarked and you may Fail that project at the very best if your work is returned
you will only receive the minimum mark for your work. So, whatever information you
collect you must read, understand and then present that information IN YOUR OWN
WORDS. If you are unsure of your English get your work checked by your English
teacher BEFORE YOU HAND IT IN.HIGHER COLLEGES OF TECHNOLOGY 12
To overcome the problem of plagiarization whenever you use another writers
information or information collected from primary sources you must SOURCE that
information. You must say where you got the information from with dates, page
numbers where appropriate.
Some handouts are attached which give detail on how to source your material.
4. QUOTING
Quoting is using someone’s exact words. If you do this you must put the quote in
quotation marks for example you might write:
When I interviewed Mohammed he said, ‘I like my job very much. I have worked here
for five years and in that time I have been promoted twice.”
You should not need to quote very much as it is essential to put things in your own
words. If you do quote you must be accurate.
IF YOU HAVE ANY QUESTIONS ON THIS PLEASE ASK
RECOMMENDED READING:
Butler, J. E., Ferris, G. R., and Napier, N. K., (1991). Strategy and Human Resources
Management, South Westen, Cincinnati.
Dessler, G, Griffiths, J, Lloyd-Walher, B, and Williams, A, (1999). Human Resource
Management, Printice Hall Publications, (ISBN 0 7248 0536 2)
Greenlaw, P. S., and Kohl, J. P., (1986). Personnel Management – Managing Human
Resources, Harper & Row, New Work.
Hackman, J. P., and Oldham, G. R., (1980). Work Redesign, Addison-Wesley,
Reading, MA.
Kramar, R, McGraw, P, and Schuler, R. S., Human Resource Management in
Australia, Longman International Publishing, 3rd edition, 1997. (ISBN 0 582 81113 9)
Murphy, K. R., and Cleveland, J. N., (1991). Performance Appraisal: An
Organisational Perspective, Allyn & Bacon, Needham.
Stone, R. J., (1995). Human Resources Management, 3