(Solution) 7HRC Exam Assessment 1 (40572/01)

Question

Assume the role of the HR consultant who is also a co-opted member of the Board of Trustees. The Board has asked you to look at two very specific aspects of the Hospice: The future of workforce planning and resourcing (reporting on both employees and volunteers) and the fitness for purpose of the Hospice governance.

  1. Critically review the case study organisation through a SWOT analysis of its administrative employees. Make recommendations based upon the strengths and opportunities you have identified. Justify your recommendations.
  2. Critically review the Hospice’s deployment of voluntary workers.  On the basis of this, recommend actions the Hospice should take to ensure it is not over-reliant upon voluntary workers whilst at the same time ensuring they remain committed to the Hospice. Justify your recommendations.
  3. The Charity Governance Code (2017) published ‘The Seven Principles of Good Governance’ (for smaller charities) which the Board of Trustees is expected to follow. These are: organisational purpose; leadership; integrity; decision-making, risk and control; board effectiveness; diversity; openness and accountability. Critically review the work of the Board of Trustees against ANY THREE of these principles.
  4. Provide the Board of Trustees with a set of proposals to ensure it engages with the strategic direction of the Hospice and improves its governance. Justify your proposals.

Solution/Answer

Question 1

SWOT Analysis of Administrative Employees

SWOT analysis which is an abbreviation of Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats is a tool that is applied in self-evaluation of an individual strengths and weaknesses with the opportunities and threats being evaluated. They are both external and internal factors respectively (Gürel & Tat, 2017). In regard to the administrative employees, their SWOT analysis include;

Strengths

They are involved in addressing existing gaps as a result of the employees absenteeism from their function. This has transitioned from their initial inclusion in the organisation by only meeting and greeting the employees for new patients and visitors. A second strength include an increase in the overall efficiency and accuracy of the reports shared with the organisation Boards of Trustees. Also, the administrative employees promote flexibility in the overall organisation functions and daily operations.

Weaknesses

Their current work role status is yet to be clarified since they assume a voluntary role in their organisations. Also, they are a limited number of employees occupying the administrative role which leads to failure to cope up with the extensive hospice growth. There is also lack of a clear strategy followed in the replacement of the trustees which affects their ability to effectively conduct their roles.

Opportunities

The increased growth of the size of the hospice presents an opportunity for the organisation to continue playing their critical roles in the organisation. Also, increased turnover of the employees due to reduced Health Authority Funding presents an appropriate opportunity for the Administrative employees to increase in the available opportunities. The use of the elderly mentors in mentoring the new administrative staff presents an opportunity for their growth.

Threats

This include the inward and outward migration of the different areas will mean that the number of available potential administrative employees will be reduced. This will directly threaten the organisation sustainability and existence of sufficient number of employees in carrying out their roles. The reporting structure threatens the satisfaction of the administrative employees and their readiness in execution of their functions.

Recommendations

The Hospice Board of Trustees need to ensure that the administrative employees have a clearly defined work role. The workforce planning must include setting elaborate details on the scope of the employees functions. As noted in CIPD (2019) the core function of the workforce planning should involve analysis of the current workforce, determination of the future workforce needs and to identify prevailing gaps between current workforce and future ones. A second recommendation is for the board of trustees to ensure there is a sufficient budgeting and allocation of resources. This would lead to an increased satisfaction of administrative roles and proceed with their roles promoting efficiencies and effectiveness of their functions.

In regard to the opportunities identified, one of the recommendations would be for the hospice to ensure that part of their growth is increasing the administrative employees capacity by enrolling in different career development opportunities. As noted in Office of HR (2020) part of workforce planning would involve assessing the learning gaps and to establish the targeted talent management interventions. These interventions can be best harnessed by capacity development of the employees.  Also, apart from using mentors for the new employees, coaching strategies can equally be adopted for the administrative functions and being successful in their assigned roles. As recommended in Personnel Today (2020) this can be inclusive of both virtual and one-on-one learning process as part of coaching process. This would also ensure that the administration employees capacity is growing in tandem with that of the rest of the Hospice. This will equally promote the effectiveness of the resourcing process and being fit to the hospice governance.

Question 2

Hospice’s Deployment of Voluntary Workers

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