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Higher National Diploma in

Business
Assessment Brief

Student Name/ ID Number:

Unit Number/ Title: Unit 35: Developing Individuals, Teams and Organisations

Academic Year: 2020 - 2021

Unit Tutors: Onur Cokuludag, Cuneyt Ozarıkan

Assessment Number/ Title: Professional Development

02.05.2021
Hand-out Date:

Submission Date: 27.06.2021

Unit Learning Outcomes

LO1 Analyse employee knowledge, skills and behaviours required by HR professionals

LO2 Analyse the factors to be considered when implementing and evaluating inclusive learning and
development to drive sustainable business performance

LO3 Apply knowledge and understanding to the ways in which high-performance working (HPW)
contributes to employee engagement and competitive advantage

LO4 Evaluate ways in which performance management, collaborative working and effective
communication can support high-performance culture and commitment

DAL_BUS_HND_Summer 2021
Assignment Brief and Scenario

Professional development is a mutual process where performance of employees improve and as a result,
the organization benefits from this since it supports organisation’s strategy. This assignment brief has been
designed to raise your awareness towards the foundations for your own continuing professional
development which will support your future engagement in lifelong learning. It may also encourage you to
contribute to the development of others and make a positive contribution to the sustainable growth of the
organisations you work for.

Imagine that following your HND in Business, you get a job in the Human Resources Department of a
company as a HR assistant manager. Your line manager has asked you to take a training
programme during which you are expected to manage a set of activities.

Activity 1 – Preparing a Briefing Note on Employee Knowledge, Skills and Behaviours

As a first activity in this direction, your responsibility is to analyse the employee knowledge, skills and
behaviours required by HR professionals in a briefing note.

Your work will be of higher value to the organization and for your own development if you can;
 produce a detailed and coherent professional development plan setting out learning goals and
training in relation to the learning cycle to accomplish sustainable business performance
objectives; or
 provide a detailed professional skills audit and professional development plan demonstrating evidence
of personal reflection and evaluation

To be successful in this activity, you must at least:

 determine suitable and professional knowledge, traits and behaviours that are required by HR
professionals; and
 analyse a completed personal skills audit to identify appropriate knowledge, skills and behaviours
and develop a professional development plan for a specific job role [of your choice – your current job
role if appropriate].

Activity 2 – Producing a Written Report on Implementing & Evaluating Inclusive Learning &
Development for Sustainable Business Performance
As at first sight you appear to have carried out the first activity successfully, so your next charge is to
produce a written report in which you analyse the factors in inclusive learning and development that
will drive sustainable business performance.

In order to achieve this, you can:

 apply learning cycle theories to critically analyse the significance of implementing continuous
professional development.

In this area, you must at least:

 analyse the differences between organisational & individual learning, training & development; and
 analyse the need for continuous learning and professional development to drive sustainable
business performance.

Activity 3 – Writing a Report on Understanding how HPW Contributes to Employee Engagement &
Competitive Advantage
As you approach to the end of your in-house training programme, you are instructed to write a report on
the ways which High-Performance Working (HPW) contributes to employee engagement and
competitive advantage.

DAL_BUS_HND_Summer 2021
In order to achieve to the highest standard, you should:
 provide valid synthesis of knowledge and information that results in appropriate judgements on how
HPW and mechanisms used to support HPW lead to improved employee engagement,
commitment and competitive advantage.

Your work will still be regarded as having merit if you can:

 analyse the benefits of applying HPW with justifications to a specific organisational situation [of
your choice – your current job/ workplace if appropriate].

As a minimum, you must:

 demonstrate understanding of how HPW contributes to employee engagement and competitive
advantage within a specific organisational situation [of your choice – your current job/ workplace if
appropriate].

Activity 4 – Writing a Report on Ways in Which High-Performance Culture & Commitment can be
Supported

Lastly, your line manager asks you to write further report to evaluate ways in which performance
management, collaborative working and effective communication can support high-performance
culture and commitment.

This report will be well-regarded if you can:

 critically evaluate the different approaches to performance management (e.g. collaborative working)
and make judgements on how effective they can be to support high- performance culture and
commitment.

In this final report, you must at least:

 evaluate different approaches to performance management (e.g. collaborative working), and
demonstrate with specific examples how they can support high- performance culture and
commitment.

Evidence required: Complete:

Activity 1 (LO1) A Briefing note on employee knowledge, skills and behaviours

Activity 2 (LO2) Written Report on implementing & evaluating inclusive learning &
development for sustainable business performance

Activity 3 (LO3) Written Report on understanding how HPW contributes to employee

engagement & competitive advantage

Written Report on ways which high-performance culture &

Activity 4 (LO4)
commitment can be supported

DAL_BUS_HND_Summer 2021
 Learning Outcomes and Assessment Criteria
Pass Merit Distinction
LO1 Analyse employee knowledge, skills and behaviours required by
HR professionals
P1 Determine appropriate and M1 Provide a detailed
professional knowledge, skills and professional skills audit and
behaviours that are required by HR professional development
professionals. plan that demonstrates
evidence of personal
P2 Analyse a completed personal reflection and evaluation.
skills audit to identify appropriate
knowledge, skills and behaviours
and develop a professional
development plan for a given job D1 Produce a detailed and
role. coherent professional development
plan that appropriately sets out
learning goals and training in
LO2 Analyse the factors to be considered when implementing and relation to the learning cycle to
evaluating inclusive learning and development to drive sustainable achieve sustainable business
business performance performance objectives.
P3 Analyse the differences between M2 Apply learning cycle
organisational and individual theories to critically analyse
learning, training and development. the importance of
implementing continuous
P4 Analyse the need for continuous professional development.
learning and professional
development to drive sustainable
business performance.
LO3 Apply knowledge and understanding to the ways in which high-
performance working (HPW) contributes to employee engagement
and competitive advantage
P5 Demonstrate understanding of M3 Analyse the benefits of
how HPW contributes to employee applying HPW with
engagement and competitive justifications to a specific
advantage within a specific organisational situation. D2 Provide valid synthesis of
organisational situation. knowledge and information
resulting in appropriate judgements
on how HPW and mechanisms
used to support HPW lead to
LO4 Evaluate ways in which performance management,
improved employee engagement,
collaborative working and effective communication can support high-
commitment and competitive
performance culture and commitment
advantage
P6 Evaluate different approaches to M4 Critically evaluate the
performance management (e.g. different approaches and
collaborative working), and make judgements on how
demonstrate with specific examples effective they can be to
how they can support high- support high- performance
performance culture and culture and commitment
commitment

DAL_BUS_HND_Summer 2021
Submission Guidance
While Higher National programmes are vocational and flexible, so that the points below are not formal
Pearson BTEC requirements, nonetheless for this assignment it is recommended that you give attention
to the following points.
For your briefing note and written report, it is recommended that as far as possible it should be;
 professional in style, with clear and accurate language, and appropriate formal tone; with key points
emphasised concisely, use of headings and subheadings, bullet points, etc.;
 professional in presentation format, for example using bold, text boxes, graphics, etc.;
 with referencing of research sources, using the Harvard referencing system;
 with a separate list of references or bibliography provided at the end; and
 word count of approximately 2,500 - 3,000 words
(Note that Pearson BTEC does not have formal requirements on word count. You will not be
penalised for exceeding or producing less than, the number of words indicated. The intention is to
offer a guideline to assist you in producing an assessment that will be considered sufficient to
demonstrate your understanding by an objective third party.)
 You will be evaluated on the assessment criteria for LO1, LO2, LO3 and LO4 – i.e. P1,P2,P3,P4,P5,
P6 –M1,M2,M3,M4 – D1,D2 (given above).

Plagiarism

Any act of plagiarism will be seriously dealt with according to the Academy’s and awarding bodies’
regulations. In this context the definition and scope of plagiarism are presented below:

Plagiarism is presenting someone’s work as your own. It includes copying information directly from the
web or from books without referencing the material; submitting joint coursework as an individual effort;
copying another student’s coursework; stealing coursework from another student and submitting it as
your own work. Suspected plagiarism will be investigated and if found to have occurred will be dealt with
according to the Academy procedure. For further details please refer to the plagiarism policy and the
student code of conduct.

You are reminded that you must sign a declaration that the work submitted is your own - see the
“Learner Declaration” below.

Learner Declaration

I certify that the work submitted for this assignment is my own and research sources are fully
acknowledged.

Student signature:

Date:

DAL_BUS_HND_Summer 2021