SIMRAN MEHRA

COHORT GROUP – JULY 2019

UNIT NAME – 3HRC
COURSE TUTOR – JACQUI KING
TOTAL WORD COUNT WITH REFERENCES, HEADINGS & TABLE OF CONTENT – 2930
TOTAL WORD COUNT WITHOUT REFERENCES, HEADINGS & TABLE OF CONTENT – 2533
SUBMISSION DATE – 17 August 2019

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Table of Contents:
1. Understand the purpose of an organisation and its operating environment. .......................................................3
1.1 Describe the purpose and goals of the organisation........................................................................................3
1.1.A Mission & Values of an organization .........................................................................................................3
Case study: UnitedHealth Group ........................................................................................................................3
1.2 Describe the products, services, and customers of an organisation................................................................4
1.2.A Products and Services ...............................................................................................................................4
1.2.B Products & Services: Pyramid Consulting, Inc ...........................................................................................4
1.2.C Customers of an Organization ...................................................................................................................5
1.3 Analyze how external factors impact on the business activities of an organisation. ......................................5
1.3.A Case Study: Pyramid Consulting Inc. .........................................................................................................5
2. Organisation Structure and Functions of Different departments ..........................................................................6
2.1. Describe the structure of an organisation and the functions within it. ..........................................................6
2.1.A Organisation Structure ..............................................................................................................................6
2.1.B Description of Functions............................................................................................................................6
2.2 Explain how different functions work together within the organisation to optimize performance ...............7
2.3 Explain how the culture of an organisation affects its operations ...................................................................7
2.3.A Organizational Culture ..............................................................................................................................7
2.3.B Impacts of Organizational Culture.............................................................................................................8
3. HR and L&D activities that supports an organization’s strategy and Role of HR or L&D in supporting the line
managers and their staff. ...........................................................................................................................................8
3.1 Describe how HR or L&D activities support an organization’s strategy ...........................................................8
3.2 Explain the role of HR or L&D professionals in supporting line managers and their staff. ..............................9
References ............................................................................................................................................................... 10

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1. Understand the purpose of an organisation and its operating
environment.
1.1 Describe the purpose and goals of the organisation.
The purpose of an organization clearly defines what an organization wants to achieve, where an organization aims
to reach in long run, the purpose has to be very clear when defining an organization, that helps an organization
to achieve what they want to achieve in long run.

“We help businesses compete and win in global markets through Staffing and Solutions” (Pyramid Consulting Inc,
2019).

“Our commitment to ensure the success of our two customers: our clients and our consultants has driven our
incredible growth” (Pyramid Consulting Inc, 2019, pp. https://www.pyramidci.com/about-us/message-from-ceo)

Now, if you look at both the statements of Pyramid Consulting Inc, they both indicates a slightly different purpose.
The first statement depicts that their only goal is to ensure that businesses compete and win, that means the
clients or the companies are working for.
If you look at the second statement from the CEO of the organization, it depicts that they just not only care for
their clients but also the consultants, whom they would be placing to work with these organizations and consider
both the clients and their consultants as the potential customers.

1.1.A Mission & Values of an organization

Mission and Values are the long term goal of an organization on which they ensure to fulfil their purpose. Mission
and Values defines one shared goal or services for an entire organization to follow and to achieve their one goal
and purpose of an organization.

Case study: UnitedHealth Group

Name: UnitedHealth Group

HQ: Minnetonka, Minnesota, U.S.
Industry: Health Care: Insurance and Managed Care
No of Employee: 300,000 (2019)
Company Type: Public Company

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 PURPOSE GOAL VALUES

To help people maintain a healthy
lifestyle and environment. To build
healthier communities.
To serve people with health benefits
and services, to expand in quality
health care, to be loved by the people
and people can afford the best
quality of health care.
ICRIP: Integrity, Compassion,
Relationships, Innovation and
Performance.

1.2 Describe the products, services, and customers of an organisation

1.2.A Products and Services

A product or service is tangible or intangible that is sell by an organization to earn the desired profit or revenue.
Now it is important to understand for an organization that rather than selling a product or service, they should
be selling a value. In order to do so, an organization needs to realize the value of their product or service they
are offering.

Pyramid Consulting is a staffing and recruitment organization and they create value by putting the consultants
on work, getting them jobs, giving them a measure or mode to earn their living. Simultaneously creating value
for their clients by providing the quality workforce and supporting legacy systems.

1.2.B Products & Services: Pyramid Consulting, Inc

1. Pyramid Staffing – Four Lines of Business

a. Pyramid Consulting (Technology) – These are contract roles majorly and related to emerging technology
b. Pyramid Consulting (Professional) – This segment is bifurcated for Professionals from the different
domains such as Call center, Accounts & finance, Marketing or HR etc.
c. Pyramid Consulting (HealthCare) – HealthCare is for clients in Healthcare or Insurance industry.
d. Pyramid Consulting (SEARCH) – Pyramid Search is their dedicated permanent placement division.
2. Pyramid Solutions
a. Strategic Development
b. Development & Maintenance
c. Data & Analytics
d. Quality Assurance
3. Pyramid Academy

“Pyramid Academy is trying to cover the scarcity of the diverse IT resources by providing training on nice
IT related skills.

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1.2.C Customers of an Organization

Customers of an organization are the target market for an organization. An organization must be aware of their
customers, consumers and their target market. They should know their likes and dislikes. An impeccable
knowledge and research on customers really helps a business to excel.

“Our commitment to ensure the success of our two customers: our clients and our consultants has driven our
incredible growth”. (Pyramid Consulting Inc, 2019)

In the above statement from the CEO of Pyramid Consulting Inc, he has mentioned and talked about Pyramid’s
two customers, their clients and consultants. Here clients refer to the established and Fortune 500 organization
for whom they provide the staffing service and consultants refer to the individuals to whom they recruit for
these clients. This way Pyramid is B2B when dealing with their clients and B2C when dealing with their
consultants because Pyramid is selling staffing services directly to other organization when dealing with clients
and Pyramid is selling jobs to directly individuals who needs jobs when dealing with consultants.
The location of the above mentioned clients, consultants and jobs is the U.S.A which makes the segment to be
Geographic Market Segment.

1.3 Analyze how external factors impact on the business activities of an organisation.
In order to analyze the impact of the external factors on the business activities of an organisation, it is first
important to analyze the external factors first which could affect the business activities in an organization.
PESTLE analysis is a vital tool to analyze any external factor that could affect an organization. PESTLE stands for:
Political, Economic, Socio-culture, Technology, Legal and Environment. (AVADO Learning, 2019)

1.3.A Case Study: Pyramid Consulting Inc.

Pyramid is a US-based Staffing and Solutions organization and has offices at different locations, the USA, the UK,
India and Singapore. India with the maximum workforce which serves the clients and consultants sitting in the
UK and the USA.

Using PESTLE, let’s understand the external Factors that could impact Pyramid Consulting in near future.

1. Political – Change in government of any country could lead to change in rules and regulations and
legislative bodies. This change could be positive or negative.

2. Economic – Economy in the USA and India has vast difference, economy of both the states will fall or
rise will directly impact on the wage rates of the workers. Similarly interest rate and income tax are as
vital as a wage rate. Minimum wage is another factor which could definitely affect the business
activities.

3. Socio-culture – Pyramid’s maximum workforce is in India, which means working in odd shift (Night shift).
Working opposite of circadian clock affects health, so majority of workforce would someday want to
move in the day shift for better health, which will lead to attrition.

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 4. Legal – Changes in any laws and regulations in the USA or India, such as labor laws, employment law in
any of the countries of work location specially the USA, will affect the business activities vastly since
Pyramid’s clients & consultants.

2. Organisation Structure and Functions of Different departments

2.1. Describe the structure of an organisation and the functions within it.

2.1.A Organisation Structure

Case Study: Pyramid Consulting, Inc

Structure Followed: Tall

VP - Director -
Operations Quality
COO
VP - HR &
CEO Training

VP - Finance
CFO
& Accounts

2.1.B Description of Functions

1. Operations – This department ensures that all the Sales, business development, transactional and paper
work, customer service is performed without any hassle. Operations is an amalgamation of multiple
departments and ensures day to day business operations are met on timely manner.
2. HR & Training – This department includes Recruitment, human resource and training & development.
Recruitments takes care of the hiring needs, whereas HR ensures that the policies are adhered by the
people of the organisation and there training and development helps nourish the organisation by
providing necessary and timely training to the new and existing people inside the organisation.
3. Finance & Accounts – This department is responsible for all the finance and accounts, payroll,
incentives, bonus and tax related matters. Budgeting and planning also falls under the same segment.
4. Quality – This department takes care of the quality and compliance of the entire organisation and
ensures that the SOPs are followed and adhered by each department, along with they ensure that the
quality is maintained in each segment and department.

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2.2 Explain how different functions work together within the organisation to optimize
performance
Recruit
ment/Hi
ring

Quality Successful
and
Compli
& Trained HR
ance Resources

Trainin
g&
Develo
pment

These functions have to come together to meet one desired goal which is to attain and retain the best successful
and trained resources.
1. Recruitment/ hiring - Team should ensure that they are providing turnkey solution within the
organisation, recruitment team will communicate with Operations to know the requirement, so that
hiring is on point.
2. Human Resources - Should be able to ensure that the SOPs are cascaded to these new resources in a
timely and efficient manner, and should ensure that all the key points are covered of the Pyramid’s eco-
system. HR should communicate with the recruitment team to know the joining dates and their
respective departments.
3. Training & Development - Ensuring that the necessary training has been provided to these new
resources in order to perform their duties. They should communicate with recruitment, HR & operations
department to know the details of new joiners such as their department and areas of training.
4. Quality and Compliance - They should ensure that all the standard quality parameters are met and
compliances are being followed. Quality check and feedback reports will get routed to training team to
conduct effective refresher, TNA, TNI and TNE.

Outcome: Hiring of a new employee who will become an asset for an organisation with the vital skill set
advanced training.

2.3 Explain how the culture of an organisation affects its operations

2.3.A Organizational Culture

Power Culture:
Pyramid is a growing and developing organisation and at certain stages we can feel the power culture because:
a. New Initiatives are being taken.
b. Employees are getting retained.

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 c. Frequent changes in the management level.
However, Pyramid is getting bigger and better and thus approaching towards a more formal approach and the
organisation also follows Role culture:
Role Culture:
a. Pyramid do have different departments
b. Hierarchy is being followed
c. Regular activities and roles are being fulfilled
d. People wants to take new initiative but control themselves because of power or role.

2.3.B Impacts of Organizational Culture

Impact of Power Culture:

Productivity: Enhancement in productivity as there is no long hierarchy or layers and the ideas get presented in
front of the management directly and chances of implementation are higher.

Cost: Being less people involved in decision making, thus less manpower which ultimately saves cost of an
organisation, can also be interpreted as micro managing.

Impact of Role Culture:

Productivity: Can be little on the lower side, as there will be a lot of layers involved in decision making practice
and thus an employee can feel demotivated which in turn will affect the productivity.

Cost: This could be less cost effective as a lot of layers of managers are involved at this level, however people at
lower or midlevel management could feel a little safer because of the proper hierarchy.

There is no silver bullet, Organizations are opting for hybrid methodology.

3. HR and L&D activities that supports an organization’s strategy

and Role of HR or L&D in supporting the line managers and their
staff.
3.1 Describe how HR or L&D activities support an organization’s strategy
At Pyramid Consulting, Inc. It’s main business is Staffing and Recruitment and majority of the revenue is earned
by the staffing and recruitment segment thus the main goal of organization is to have enough recruiters in order
to meet the recruitment needs and requirements from the client’s end. This industry has a lot of competition
and thus lack resources with desired skill set due to which the attrition percentage in our organisation and in
this industry is around 80% which is a huge number.

Activities HR and L&D can perform keeping in mind these three points which is Quality, Coverage & Attrition.

1. Taking Strategic Initiatives

Quality Hiring & Involving Operations & Training into your Action Plan. By ensuring that not only recruitment but
training and operations are also involved at the hiring stage, this will enable the organisation to come together

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for a common perspective and goal and it will help everyone to stay on the same page. Because once the hiring
is done by the recruitment team, training team ensure to deliver them the training and training team has to
evaluate whether the new hires are trainable or not similarly once these trainable resources are now trained
they will be deployed to the operations to work with them.

2. Organisation Development Plan for the Fresh Graduates in order to reduce the costing
Like I mentioned above that attrition is the utmost challenge being faced by Pyramid at this point of time and
this due to competition and lack of resources with the desired skill set and due to attrition, the resources with
desired skill set hunt for high amount of salary.
Now instead of poaching for the experienced candidates who are demanding high amount of salary, provide
training to the fresh graduates who are graduating from the college directly, being novel these new people are
open to learning and ready to work on less salary as compared to the experienced candidates.
Developing an effective Training & Development Plan to train these fresh graduates to become a future asset for
the organisation.

3. Risk Analysis
Considering 80% attrition in the organisation it’s important to analyze risk and attrition by collecting HR data,
joining data and exit data. The reason for the exit should be recorded and analyze closely and amendments
should be made according to exit data.

Proper organisation development design has to implement in order to create culture and values among the
organisation.

3.2 Explain the role of HR or L&D professionals in supporting line managers and their staff.
Now in order to achieve the strategic objectives it is important to maintain sanity with the day to day, daily,
weekly and monthly tasks that is with the operational objectives. Operational objectives may be short term
objectives as compared to strategic objective but these short term objectives helps to achieve the bigger goal of
an organisation that is strategic objective.

In respect to the activity 3.1, let’s understand Pyramid’s operational objectives:

1. Campus Recruitment Planning

In the above activity 3.1, I have shed light on hiring fresh college or university graduates, in order to accomplish
this goal and start with hiring or recruitment, R&D on colleges and universities who are welcoming the new
organisation for campus recruitment and collaborate with these universities to know the various details such as
number of students, their field of studies and completion of their courses, salary, perks and other terms and
conditions.

Once this campus recruitment planning and mapping is done, fresh graduates can be hired following different
rounds of interviews with the recruiter, trainer and operations manager.

2. Induction & Introduction

HR who conducts the induction is the first face of the organisation for all the new joiners who joins this
organisation, HR has to ensure proper information about the organisation is delivered to them, including current
management, training, admin, IT and quality department in the organisation.

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 3. Training & Development
Trainer to ensure the training and information related to organisation and process has been parted to the new
joiners successfully. Any RED FLAGs should be raised on the very first day or the date of the occurrence. Proper
training plan should be followed so as to deliver the right set of training to the new joiners, trainer should
ensure that training plan should be an amalgamation of classroom and practical training and should include OJT
period which is “On the Job Training” will help them to implement the skills and training fearlessly during this
period and rectification can be done with the help of the “TNI”, “TNA”, “TNE” and refresher and once they are
all set, they can be further deployed to the operations floor.

References
Indeed.co.in. (2019, July 21). UnitedHealth-Group/reviews. Retrieved July 21, 2019, from Indeed.co.in:
https://www.indeed.co.in/cmp/UnitedHealth-Group/reviews
Pyramid Consulting Inc. (2019, July 21). about-us/message-from-ceo. Retrieved July 21, 2019, from Pyramid
Consulting Inc: https://www.pyramidci.com/about-us/message-from-ceo
Pyramid Consulting Inc. (2019, July 22). academy. Retrieved July 22, 2019, from Pyramid Consulting Inc:
https://www.pyramidci.com/academy
Pyramid Consulting Inc. (2019, July 21). fourside-pyramid/pyramid-vision. Retrieved July 21, 2019, from
https://www.pyramidci.com: https://www.pyramidci.com/fourside-pyramid/pyramid-vision
Pyramid Consulting Inc. (2019, July 21). Pyramidci.com. Retrieved July 21, 2019, from www.pyramidci.com:
https://www.pyramidci.com
Pyramid Consulting Inc. (2019, July 22). solutions. Retrieved July 22, 2019, from Pyramid Consulting Inc:
https://www.pyramidci.com/solutions
Pyramid Consulting Inc. (2019, July 22). staffing. Retrieved July 22, 2019, from Pyramid Consulting Inc:
https://www.pyramidci.com/staffing
UnitedHealth Group. (2019, July 21). About Us. Retrieved July 21, 2019, from UnitedHealth Group:
https://www.unitedhealthgroup.com/about.html
UnitedHealth Group. (2019, July 21). about/mission-values.html. Retrieved July 2019, 2019, from
www.unitedhealthgroup.com: https://www.unitedhealthgroup.com/about/mission-values.html
UnitedHealth group. (2019, July 21). investors/annual-reports.html. Retrieved July 21, 2019, from UnitedHealth
Group: https://www.unitedhealthgroup.com/investors/annual-reports.html

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