BUS 2025/2000/2027 Case study assessment.
HRM at Old City Sports and Leisure Centre
You are the new HRM Business partner appointed by the local council to ‘turnaround’ a longstanding inner city sports and leisure centre which has just reopened after the COVID 19 crisis. You are keen to take forward what you learnt at University regarding HRM strategy and the role of HRM in contributing to organisational success. You want to make a difference. You are required to work with the manager of the Old City Sports and Leisure centre. The manager has worked at the centre since he left school 20 years ago and has worked his way up the structure where he started as a gym instructor. He is somewhat set in his ways and sceptical about the role of HRM. How could you persuade him?
Following major refurbishment by the council, the existing centre has very good facilities, but is costly to run and has been receiving very poor customer feedback and declining membership numbers. Common complaints include limited opening hours, long queues at reception, unfriendly staff, poor group fitness timetable and frequent cancellations due to staff availability and sickness. Are there any ideas that you might offer here?
The council considered closing Old City, but Management Consultants argued that both potential market demand and local social need remained strong (many socially excluded groups would not be able to afford the more expensive private alternatives) and that the main problem was “inflexible and old-fashioned HRM”. The issues particularly seem to be lack of workforce planning and attracting talented staff.
The centre is open from 9am to 7pm Monday to Friday and 10am to 4pm at weekends. The existing workforce of about 35 employees are mainly employed on a full-time Monday to Friday, 9-5 basis – with overtime payments for weekend and evening work – and are represented by a trade union for collective-bargaining purposes. Most staff are trade union members. There are opportunities for developing staff with a new appraisal scheme but staff are fearful that it might be wrongly used as a disciplinary tool and are refusing to engage with the managers. What could you do to change their views?
While many staff have worked for the centre for over 10 years, existing staff are believed to be very demotivated, while the facility struggles to attract and retain new staff. Currently there is no clear strategy to replace leavers. Practice has been to put up a card in the reception area saying that CVs can be left with the receptionist. Once recruited there is no induction plan for incoming staff as they are expected to shadow existing staff. The latest employee survey confirmed morale of current employees is low, and that staff are worried about potential changes and feel uncared for by the council. A number of issues here that you might wish to consider.
In particular, a majority of staff feared the impact of any HRM change on their job role and security, while 60% of women (who constitute half the work force) found existing working arrangements ‘inflexible and difficult to combine with family life’. A particular concern in this respect was the emergence of private low cost rivals which employ very few permanent staff, favouring highly flexible staffing arrangements including zero hour contracts and self-employed/freelance staff. There are no black or disabled staff at all at Old City sports centre although the complex is within a diverse neighbourhood. The women at the centre tend to be in the low paid jobs at the bottom of the structure. There does not seem to be any equal opportunities policy or training.
Assignment task
Drawing on your knowledge of HRM, you are required to research and write a (maximum) 2000 (plus/minus 10%) word report for the Council who have asked you develop a strategy to help overcome the existing challenges, and recommend improvements in their approach to HRM
Suggested report structure
• Contents page with short executive summary.
• 1. Introduction – outlining the structure and scope of the report and identifying some key academic/research literatures and HR theories that inform your report. You should give a brief history of HRM here. If you are making any assumptions about the case, you should state these assumptions here.
• 2. Recommendations: Identification of the main areas you would address. This section will include your analysis of the case study and the areas you have chosen to focus on. You should identify what your new strategy would be and how it would overcome previous problems. This should draw upon both relevant HR theories and give case study examples of successful ‘real world’ practice in other relevant organisations. You do not need to attempt to cover every possible issue or theory, but should focus upon those you believe to be most important based on your analysis of the case.
• 3. Challenges – identify the problems and obstacles you might encounter in implementing your recommendations, and what could be done to overcome these.
• 4. Conclusion – A conclusive summary of key points and recommendations, including what your strategy would be and how it would overcome the problems identified
. • 5 References – a full list of all material cited in the report.
Some points to note
You are only expected to address areas covered in semester 1 of the module.
You should adopt the Harvard referencing style.
Footnotes and appendices are not required and should not be used.
Your report should be presented in a clearly legible font (e.g. Arial or Times New Roman) in 12pt and have 1.5 line spacing.
Your report including executive summary/ contents page/ references in text should not exceed 2000 words(plus/minus 10%)
Your reference list at the end of your report should adopt Harvard style and is excluded from the word count,
Your report should be submitted via Canvas
There is a marking grid posted on the Canvas site which will be useful for you to read ahead of your report.
There is also Business School guidance provided on best practice.
Hand in date/s PLEASE NOTE YOUR MODULE DATE/TIME of HAND IN
BUS 2027 Monday 21 December 2020 4pm (NO LATER than 1600 hours)
BUS 2000 Monday 4 January 2021 4pm (NO LATER than1600 hours)
BUS 2025 Friday 15 January 2021 4pm (NO LATER than 1600 hours)
