Assessment criterion: 2.1 Identify an area of HR practice for investigation

The key to a critical review starts by carefully selecting an area of HR to review and developing a research question around this area.

To this effect, you must  provide:

• A discussion of the chosen area of HR;
• A justification for having chosen such area.

There must be an explanation of why this is important to the organisation.

The justification could include the benefits of addressing this area.  Current trends and/or benchmarking linked to the chosen area of HR may also be useful

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• Undertake a critical review of three secondary sources e.g. research digests, academic and professional literature, online databases, and key texts relevant to the selected area of practice.

Assessment criterion: 2.2 Conduct a critical review of different information sources relevant to the chosen area of HR / business practice

This section requires you to research, select and review at least 3 different and credible secondary sources on the chosen area of HR.

Credible sources include:

• An article from People Management
• An Article from Personnel Today
• Information from the Harvard Review
• A CIPD report
• ACAS best practice
• Statistics from the ONS
• An Academic text books
• Google Scholar
• Internal company information, for example Turnover Stats

You must provide a general discussion around the 3 sources (Literature review)

This could include:

• an overview of the research
• an evaluation of the effectiveness of the author’s argument,
• a comparison of the sources pointing out where they agree or disagree,
• the most persuasive points of each source,
• what the literature suggests about the topic.
• Whether the research is authentic, valid, reliable and current

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• Summarise the stages of the research process.

Highlight some of the different primary research approaches adopted by the authors and comment on the advantages and disadvantages of these different approaches.

Assessment criterion: 1.1 Summarise the stages of the research process and compare different data collection methods

You must provide a brief summary of the stages of the research process (VLC Week 1)

In addition, you must identify and evaluate two different primary methods, not necessarily the ones used in the secondary sources. The evaluation could include main features, advantages and disadvantages of each primary method.

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• Summarise the findings and draw meaningful conclusions from your review of the different secondary sources and make justified recommendations for sustaining and/or improving practice, including costs and time frames for implementation. Explain how you would present these to the identified stakeholders.

Assessment criterion: 3.1 Draw meaningful conclusions from the review and make justified recommendations for improvements in practice.

Here is where you bring the review and analysis of the sources together to answer the research question.

This section must include:

• a minimum of three recommendations based on the findings of the research;
• an explanation of how the recommendations will benefit the identified stakeholders;

You could provide a rough estimate of the timings and costs involved in implementing the recommendations.

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• Your CEO has asked each departmental head to undertake a critical review of their systems, processes and practices as part of a major organisational change agenda. You have been asked to review an area of HR practice and present a business report to key stakeholders with recommendations for improving practice. To provide the basis for your report, you have been asked to conduct a critical review of secondary sources relevant to the area of practice you have chosen. You should include a mix of narrative and diagrammatic forms, a description of your stakeholders and their needs from this report.

Assessment criterion: 4.1 Formulate a business report for identified stakeholders that include an appropriate mix of diagrammatic and narrative formats.

Here, you are assessed on the overall presentation structure of the assignment.  The business report must include:

• Introduction
• Main Body
• Conclusion
• Recommendations

You must also identify the key stakeholders who the report will impact. You could provide a stakeholder analysis to enhance this section.

This section also requires the presentation of information in diagrammatic (one diagram) and narrative format.

The diagram must be your own work rather than cutting and pasting from the VLC or other source, and could be achieved by gathering data from any of the secondary sources and producing:

• Pie charts
• Pictograms
• Bar Charts
• Line graphs
• Frequency diagrams

The presentation of information in narrative format is assessed by the inclusion of a literature and critical review of the chosen secondary sources.