PROJECT A – OFFICE WORKSPACE AUDIT (70 marks)
An office ‘workspace’ is the space where an employee usually sits when performing their office-related or administrative tasks. Imagine that the Administration Manager of a business that you are either working in, or are familiar with, has asked you to conduct an audit of the design and layout of the workspace(s) being used by the administrative staff, with a view to you providing feedback on the effectiveness of these features, and to recommend
improvements.
Using the office design principles discussed in Module 6, you need to:

1. Create a single checklist (in Word) of office design, layout, environment and safety factors that you plan to evaluate. The checklists provided in the appendixes of Reading 6.3 by Worksafe Victoria, can provide a starting point (focus on the design and layout aspects of these checklists) but you should add to this checklist based on your reading of the modules and wider readings. The detail and design of the checklist if up to you to create. List the resources that you use to form your checklist at the bottom of the checklist and also include them you in reference list.
2. Use your checklist to then evaluate the effectiveness of the design of the administrative/office workspace, in a genuine workplace that you can examine.
3. Write a 1,000 word (+/- 10%) email to the Administration Manager of the workplace you inspect, to report your assessment of the strengths and weaknesses in the workspace design and layout, and provide recommendations for improvement. Justify your recommendations so that the Administration Manager can see the value that making your suggested changes might offer. Attach the checklist that you developed as an appendix to this email.

Further instructions for this project:
1. In your email, make sure that you initially and concisely describe the current workspace provisions you are evaluating in terms of its location, layout, use, as well as the primary, secondary and tertiary spaces.
2. To demonstrate to the Administration Manager that you are not simply fabricating advice on your personal opinion, support your assessment and suggestions by including
intext references to the study module(s), relevant required reading(s) plus at least 4 other relevant, scholarly and credible references that you have found from your own wider reading. Include these references in the reference list at the end of your assignment.
3. Suggestions for types of administrative workspaces you could examine:

1. For those of you already performing administrative work or working in a place that has office facilities, you may choose your own workplace.
2. It could be an office workspace that exists as only a small part of a larger work space such as the office area in a retail store, restaurant, warehousing or manufacturing facility, so long as the area you are assessing is an area dedicated to and set-up, even at a rudimentary level, for people to perform administrative and clerical duties for the business.
3. A public space such as a library where people sit to do private study and (or) a place where staff administer customer facing roles, such as Centrelink, the Transport Department or other government department that has waiting areas and customer service areas where people meet or consult with customers and engage in some form of administrative work. You are required to audit only what you can examine as a public visitor, only access private areas if you have permission. (Provide this assessment guideline in seeking permission, if you wish.)
4. Any type of professional or service provider’s office that you might visit where there are waiting and receptionist areas and(or) consultation rooms, such as a bank manager, doctor, dentist, lawyers, student services if you are an on-campus student. You are required to audit only what you can examine as a public visitor, only access private areas if you have permission.
5. In fundamental terms, any form of ‘office’ environment, where people meet and/or, importantly, where a person/people engage(s) in some form of administrative work. You are required to audit only what you can examine as a public visitor, only access private areas, if you have permission.

4. USE OF IMAGES: photographs of the workspace are not expected to be submitted with your assignment. If you wish to take images to assist you with your recall, you must seek permission from the business owner to do so and explain why and how you will use such images. (Provide this assessment guideline in seeking permission, if you wish.) It is recommended that you do not share any images and that you do not use them for purposes beyond this assignment.
5. Write the email to the Administration Manager (including a subject line), in a style that demonstrates a professional standard of workplace communication and office etiquette – write as you if you were genuinely writing to your supervisor at work.
PROJECT B – Presenting audit findings (30 marks)
Now that you have completed the office ‘workspace’ audit, the Administration Manager would like you to convene a meeting to present these audit findings to the Executive Infrastructure Committee (EIC). This executive level committee is concerned with ensuring all spaces used by the organisation fit the operational needs of the organisation. Given the executive nature of this committee, the Administration Manager would like to know how you will approach this task.
Write a 600 word (+/- 10%) email to the Administration Manager and discuss the following key points:

• The meeting will be convened virtually, how will you ensure the meeting runs smoothly?
• What preparations will you undertake before the committee meeting is held?
• What will you do during and after the meeting to ensure the meeting is successful?

As a starting point, you will find the materials presented in Section 4.2 of Module 4 on effective meetings, as well as Reading 4.3 by Fulton-Calkin (2007) will provide you with information you can use to plan and execute the meeting.
Further instructions for this project:

1. To demonstrate to the Administration Manager that you are not simply fabricating advice on your personal preferences and opinion, support your analysis and suggestions by including intext references to the study module, relevant required reading(s) plus at least 2 other relevant, scholarly and credible references that you have found from your own wider reading. Include these references in a reference list on a separate page at the end of your assignment.
2. Write the email to the Administration Manager (including a subject line), in a style that demonstrates a professional standard of workplace communication and office etiquette – write as you if you were genuinely writing to your supervisor at work.

Additional instructions for assignment 2

1. You MUST use the template available on the MGT3201 StudyDesk for your assignment. This template contains the marking criteria sheet upfront for the evaluator to complete. You write your assignment from page two of the template.
2. Citing and including in your reference list relevant course readings are expected in your response. This enables us to assess how well you understand the primary material associated with the course.
3. Assignments heavily over the word count for each project can be marked up to a point of the evaluator’s assessment of 10 percent over the set word limits for each project. An excessive word count provides the student with an unfair advantage, and it places an unreasonable demand on the evaluator’s time allocation per student.
4. Use Harvard AGPS referencing conventions.
5. Presentation requirements:

1. Present your answers using 1.5 line spacing, Times Roman 12 point font (the template is already set to these requirements).
2. Page numbers, headers and footers have been included in the template. You need to insert your student details into the header.
3. Use of diagrams and/or brief tables of text are not necessary but permissible in the body of your essay. Keep tables to a minimum and specifically in relation to diagrams, limit yourself to one (1) diagram. Diagrams will account for 40 words. Tables and diagrams (if used) must be numbered and titled and must be cross referenced and explained in the body of your answer – do not rely on them to do the ‘explaining’ for you. You must provide a citation underneath diagrams and tables: if you have developed it yourself, cite it as ‘Source: Developed for assignment’. If you adapted someone else’s work, cite (Adapted from: author year, pg. no); if it is a direct cut and paste, cite (Source: author year, pg. no).
4. Compile a single Reference list on the last page of the assignment (as allowed for in the assignment template) according to Harvard AGPS requirements.