114321
Managing Talent & Performance
COURSE GUIDE
Semester 2, 2024
What is this course about?
Summary of the course
Welcome to the 114321 (Talent & Performance Management) Course!
Effective people management serves as a cornerstone of organisational success. This is often achieved through well-integrated and efficient HR policies and practices. These include appropriate interventions in such areas as recruitment and selection; training and management development; job grading and pay; health and safety; diversity and inclusion management; and compliance with employment law. These issues are fundamental to the work of HR practitioners and are addressed in course 114241 (Principles of HRM).
Organisations seek talented individuals and look for new ways to manage them. A talented workforce is crucial to execute strategy and achieve organizational performance. This focus is more important given the recent changes in the world of work (e.g., work disruptions and technological advancement) and the resultant need to secure new skills to maintain competitive advantage. Building on the HR insights from 114241, this course focuses on proactive ways to manage high-potential and high-performing employees. Talent management is a strategic and contemporary approach to attracting, identifying, developing, and retaining individuals with exceptional skills and abilities. This is a systematic approach involving strategic work analysis, managing talent pipelines, and creating a learning culture. In this way, organisations ensure that they have the right workforce to meet immediate needs and deliver on future strategic direction.
This course examines the theory and practice of managing talent and performance in contemporary contexts. The subject requires an attitude of scholarship on your part, that is, close engagement with the literature (recommended readings) and a preparedness to ask questions and actively engage in discussion. However, you should find the material interesting as well as sometimes challenging!
In summary, this course explores talent management as a strategic approach to achieving organisational goals. Particular emphasis is given to organisations ' responses to trends in both their internal and external environment.
Course student learning outcomes
In your assessed work, you will be able to:
• demonstrate an understanding of how strategic talent management is different from traditional ways of managing employees;
• establish a link between talent management strategies and organisational success; and
• apply and evaluate talent and performance management policies and practices.
By taking this course, you should develop an understanding of and skills to identify real-world organisations' strategic choices and best practices for managing their talent. You will also be able to evaluate why some organisations are more effective at acquiring, developing, and retaining talented employees. This will develop your critical analytical skills and HR-related competencies and bring practical benefits to your future employment.
More specifically, students who successfully complete this course should be able to:
1. Identify and explain the relevance of strategic human resource management theories, principles, and practices for organisational success.
2. Identify and apply relevant human resource management theories, principles, and practices to acquiring, developing, and managing talent in organisations.
3. Critically evaluate the relevance of human resource management theories, principles, and practices for organisational success.
Relationship to other courses
The prerequisite course for 114321 is 114241 (Principles of HRM). The general prerequisite is at least 45 credits from the 200-level.
114321 is part of the major in Human Resource Management and Employment Relations. It is one of the advanced specialist courses in the major. Where other courses in the major focus on specific techniques and theories that HR practitioners use, this course considershow these might be used to manage a talented workforce within the strategic context of organisations.
Course role in the development of programme learning goals
Business programmes at Massey aim to help students learn to be independent and analytical thinkers who can communicate effectively. Managing Talent & Performance (114321) contributes to these goals by developing the skill of applying HR concepts and techniques in proactive ways that build and maintain talent to fulfill (and even shape) the strategic needs and intentions of organisations. A traditional and reactive HR approach lacks the agility to respond to the dynamic business environment. The course helps students develop the ability to think through strategic implications and communicate their insights to other decision-makers.
How is this course assessed?
Formal Requirements to pass this course
Your performance in the course is assessed through three assessments. To pass this course, you will need to do each of the three assessments and achieve an overall pass mark of 50%. Note that the assessments are interconnected and should be used to buildupon each other.
The assessment at a glance
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Assessment type/title
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Learning Outcomes
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Percentage Weighting
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Due Dates
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Assessment 1:
Interview Report
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1,2
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40%
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16th August (End of Week 5)
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|
Assessment 2:
Business Proposal - A
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1,2,3
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30%
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20th September (End of Week 8 )
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|
Assessment 3:
Business Proposal - B
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1,2,3
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30%
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18th October
(End of Week 12 )
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Instruction relating to the use of Generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) in the Course Assessments
The use of generative artificial intelligence is NOT ALLOWED in the course assessments.
Please take note of the University 'sUse of Artificial Intelligence in Assessment Policy .
The University will use various detection strategies to identify suspected use of artificial intelligence, including detection software.
Refer toartificial intelligence aidsfor an indicative, but not exhaustive, range of aids that should not be used for this assessment.
You are required to list all the technology you have used to assist you in writing this
assessment. This includes, amongst others, writing assistants, language translation
programmes, coding or calculation programmes, statistical programs, Microsoft Office or Google Docs. The list should appear at the end of your assignment, following the
sources/references/bibliography you used.
It is strongly recommended that you retain drafts of your work, regardless of language, as these may be required to be presented as evidence in the case of an alleged breach of Academic Integrity.
Assessment 1: Interview Report
Assessment Task
You are required to select a New Zealand organisation (that you are familiar with or work for) and conduct an interview with its HR manager to identify and understand the current issues that the organisation is facing with regard to strategic human resources and talent and performance management.
Format
Using the interview data, you are required to write and submit a 1500-word interview report presenting the interview findings in terms of critical challenges and their impact (Please refer to the Stream site for a suggested structure of the interview report).
Assessment Instructions
I. Selecting Organisation and Identifying the HR Manager
Students are to choose a New Zealand organisation they are familiar with or work for.
Identify and contact an HR manager from this organisation who potentially has the knowledge and is willing to participate in an interview about strategic HR and talent management issues.
II. Preparing for the Interview
Research the organisation and HR manager's background (e.g., experience and skills) to design and tailor your interview questions.
Develop a list of 10-12 open-ended questions focused on critical areas such as the role of human resource/talent in the organisation's strategic direction, employer brand and talent acquisition, talent selection tools, training and development
programs for talent development, performance management and enhancement, and retention strategies.
Ask follow-up questions where needed.
III. Conducting Interview
If possible, share the interview questions with the HR manager in advance.
Schedule and conduct the interview, ensure you take notes, and record the conversation with permission.
IV. Compiling the Report
Write a 1500-word (+/- 10%) report presenting the insights gained from the interview.
Based on the HR manager's responses, identify and analyze the key issues relating to talent and performance that the organization is currently facing.
Describe each issue in detail and discuss how it impacts the organization, supporting your argument with direct quotes from the HR manager interview.
You can provide full interview transcripts as an appendix to the report, which will not be counted in the word count.
Marking Guide
The marking guide is on the next page (it is also available as a PDF document on the Stream site).
Assessment 2: Business Proposal - A Purpose
Outline ways that an organization of your choice can make strategic improvements to processes involved with finding and employing talent.
Format
Complete two documents to add to your Work Portfolio for the course. Each document will
address an area in which strategic improvement can be made to an HR process associated with finding and employing talent. This might be to do with work analysis, recruitment, selection, or onboarding. Each document should be approximately 1000 words in length and include the
following:
Context: A brief description of the role that is the focus of the document and its importance to the organization.
Target Condition: An outline of the desired state that needs to be achieved and why this is strategically important.
Current Condition: A description of where the organization currently is in relation to the target condition.
Next Step: Description of how the Plan, Do, Check, Act process can be applied to the nextstep toward the target condition.
Commentary: An explanation of how the improvement process described in the document: (1) incorporates best practice from relevant literature; (2) is tailored to fit the organization; and (3) contributes to a strategically important HR goal (e.g. Employer Branding).
Marking Guide
The marking guide is on the next page (it is also available as a PDF document on the Stream site).
Assessment 3: Business Proposal - B
Purpose
Outline ways that an organization of your choice can make strategic improvements to processes involved with developing and managing talent.
Format
Complete two documents to add to your Work Portfolio for the course. Each document will address an area in which strategic improvement can be made to an HR process associated with developing and managing talent. This might be to do with training, succession planning, executive coaching, or performance management. Each document should be approximately 1000 words in length and include the following:
Context: A brief description of the role that is the focus of the document and its importance to the organization.
Target Condition: An outline of the desired state that needs to be achieved and why this is strategically important.
Current Condition: A description of where the organization currently is in relation to the target condition.
Next Step: Description of how the Plan, Do, Check, Act process can be applied to the nextstep toward the target condition.
Commentary: An explanation of how the improvement process described in the document: (1) incorporates best practices from relevant literature; (2) is tailored to fit the organization; and (3) contributes to a strategically important HR goal (e.g., Employer Branding).
Additional Requirement: Provide a 500-word summary of your entire Work Portfolio,
explaining how the strategic improvement contributes to issues identified in the Interview Report (A1) and to the overall health of the organization.
Marking Guide
The marking guide is on the next page (it is also available as a PDF document on the Stream site)
Communicating with each other
Further to our interaction in the lectures (Auckland and Palmerston North internal students) and on Zoom (distance learning students), the primary means of communication are the Stream forums. These can be found under the Keeping in Touch/Paepaekδrerotabin the course Stream site. Please use these forums to communicate with us, rather than contacting usvia email. This is because messages from individual student email accounts are sometimes misidentified by Massey email systems as spam and filtered out – ensure we hear from you by communicating via the Stream forums. There are several forums, each with a different purpose. They include:
News forum : This is a one-way forum for you from our side. Look here for important updates about this course. Note that these announcements will automatically be sent to your registered email address. If you see an email with 114321 in the subject line, PLEASE READ IT - it will be important!
Student Discussion: Use this forum to chat with your classmates. Staff will not monitor this forum.
Personal Communication: Use this to confidentially communicate with course staff about private matters, such as ill health, personal issues, etc.
Course Information: (think of this as a "Student to Coordinator Public Questions forum"). Use this to post general course-related questions and receive answers that are visible to all participants.
Other forums may include one or more Assessments Forum for queries about assessments.
If you "subscribe" to a forum, new messages get emailed to you (this is automatic for the News Forum, but for the others, you need to subscribe yourself).
While the Course Information and Forum posts are very useful, they are not used frequently, so staff may not notice them immediately. If one has not been answered, please inform us byemail or Personal Communication that a question is waiting for an answer.
Communication expectations
As Massey's guidelines stipulate, we expect everyone in the Massey community to communicate courteously, appropriately, and constructively in all exchanges.
In terms of specific messages, it's essential to be clear from the outset both what we expect of you and what you can expect of us. Here is what you can reasonably expect of us:
• responses to all discussion forum postings within 48 hours during the working week (Monday-Friday);
• responses to any personal communication within 48 hours during the working week. Within reason, we also have a couple of expectations of you:
• use a meaningful subject line in your discussion postings;
• use the Stream discussion forums appropriately;
• support your colleagues in the course – that means encouraging, helping, and respecting your fellow students.