a) Critically assess the key principles and theories underlying strategic people management and explain how their application enhances organisational and individual performance.
b) Critically evaluate the effectiveness of different approaches and the relationships between effective people management and organisational performance.
c) Demonstrate effective communication and practical problem-solving skills to effectively manage people in a range of organisational contexts
d) Critically reflect on the roles and functions that managers perform in the context of the challenges and risks they have to address in the changing environment.

Context:
Though challenging, group assignments are designed to reflect the reality of the workplace. In this instance, people coming together to contribute knowledge, experience and skills to produce a desired outcome.
This assessment encourages students to develop their knowledge in relation to the key topics of attracting, developing and retaining employees, teamwork, performance management, team development and change management.
Students will be allocated into groups by the learning facilitator. The group will work together to analyse the given company and provide recommendations to improve on attracting, developing and retaining employees, teamwork, performance management and team development.

Instructions:
Your group is from a well-regarded consultancy firm and has been engaged by your client, ComSyst Technologies (CST) to provide advice on addressing a variety of challenges.
CST is a multi-national communications software and systems developer serving the defence and emergency services industries. CST has offices in Australia, New Zealand, the United States, Philippines, India and South Korea.
CST has recently lost three major tenders to competitors and their market share has declined substantially in the last two years. This has been attributed to some significant people related issues including poor employee performance, low employee engagement, a decline in staff retention and resignations of some key specialists. Technological advancements elsewhere have highlighted a gap in CST’s technical skills and capabilities.

Your brief from the client is to prepare a report with recommendations to achieve the following objectives over the next two years:
1. Ensure CST is well positioned for the future by attracting and retaining the best talent possible
2. Create a team based high performance culture
3. Build employee capability and performance

To address these objectives your consulting team will need to draw on content from modules two, three and four. Some consideration may need to be given to other module content if deemed relevant. It is also expected that groups conduct research beyond the resources provided on the subject site

For each of the objectives mentioned above, you must include at least one real world example / case study from the literature of how other organisations have successfully achieved the same or similar.

Your group must prepare a business style report for the Chief Executive and Board of ComSyst Technologies. Whilst the format may vary, it must include the following:
 Cover page
 Executive Summary
 Table of Contents
 Introduction
 Background
 Main Discussion
 Recommendations
 Conclusion
 Appendices

You may make any necessary assumptions; however, any significant assumptions should be detailed in your report.
Groups will be assessed against the learning rubric below.
Teamwork and group participation will constitute 20% of the mark for the assignment for each member of the group.
Group participation will be determined as follows:
 Each participant in the team will evaluate the other member’s contribution using a participation score matrix (see Appendix 1 Team Participation Score Matrix)
 Each participant is to assess their peers according to the Peer Evaluation Grading Scheme (see Appendix 2)
 Each participant is also required to complete a self-review using the score/rate found in the Team Participation Score matrix.
 The score matrix will be individually submitted to the Facilitator at the same time as the group (collective) report submission.
 The Facilitator will take into consideration the average “team participation score” for each member to determine the weighted ‘Teamwork’ criterion rows in the final marking rubric for this assessment (see below).
 All peer evaluations are confidential and individual rankings will not be released to other members of the group.
 Failure to submit a self-review and peer review correctly, or at all, will result is zero grading for this assessment criteria.
 Groups should refer to the marking rubric to ensure all the assessment criteria are addressed