Business and Management

HR CHALLENGE: PRESENTATION TO LEADERSHIP

Introduction

HR professionals are more often being included in the leadership discussions for organizations. Sharing information and recommendations about employee engagement and development is part of your role as a trusted stakeholder. This assignment gives you the opportunity to practice creating a thoughtfully designed PowerPoint presentation that you could use to present data and recommendations to the leadership team at CapraTek.

Scenario

The leadership team at CapraTek has agreed that a “pulse” survey would provide much-needed information about the specific feelings and concerns from this organization. Ultimately, they will use your presentation of the plan outline to help them decide how to spend the money, time, and resources to conduct an engagement study. CapraTek is an organization that has 360 employees in three research and development divisions across two locations.

CapraTek has had some difficulty in retaining millennial employees at entry and mid-levels in all fields across the organization. Also, the level of satisfaction of the overall boomer workforce is not as positive as it could be. The HR team has observed that they are not applying for advancement opportunities. This is an area of concern. The HR team does not have any specific data on generation X employees. No survey has been done. They are just starting to think about generation Z employees, as the youngest group is just graduating from college. There also seems to be issues with how our work areas in the company spaces are organized, which may have some connection to generational preferences, but we are not sure. There is a great deal more information that we don’t know because the company does not have an active survey program.

The current perspective among the executive leadership of the organization is that there are no employee engagement issues or concerns. There have been some comments that HR is not sourcing the best possible candidates for hiring and that is having an impact on retention rates.

Your Challenge

As an HR professional at CapraTek, you have been tasked with preparing 10–12 slides that could be presented to the leadership team about employee engagement issues, the goals for the engagement study, the likely budget and timeframe, as well as how you will select the best strategy to conduct the engagement study for the different generations in your workplace.

Instructions

Create an effective 10–12-slide presentation deck with detailed presentation notes elaborating on each bullet point that could be presented to a leadership meeting. Your presentation should describe the engagement issues to address at CapraTek, how the engagement research tool will be selected, and the time/budget/plan to implement the engagement research strategy.

Include the following in your slide presentation and presentation notes:

* Analyze the current employee engagement situation at CapraTek from observations of the different generations.

* Re-read the weekly introductions and discussions from the first six weeks of the course to make observations of the different generations at CapraTek.

* What issues do you see from the employees’ perspective?

* What issues do you see from the managers’ perspective?

* Define the goals and the purpose of collecting engagement data from employees.

* What is the purpose of collecting engagement data from employees?

* How will the data collected be used to address the engagement issues identified above?

* Analyze the common process in the field for selecting appropriate engagement survey questions and/or selecting the right survey tool.

* Estimate the approximate budget, time, and resources needed to implement an engagement research strategy for CapraTek.

* 360 employees at CapraTek, three divisions, two work sites.

* Describe the overview of the implementation plan for engagement research at CapraTek.

* An effective PowerPoint presentation for this purpose typically includes:

* 1 title slide, APA formatted.

* 1–2 introduction slides explaining the employee engagement context at CapraTek, taken from the scenario above and the first six weeks of unit introductions and discussions.

* 1–2 slides identifying the main engagement issues for the different generations.

* 1–2 slides defining the goals for the engagement study and how the data will be used to address the issues.

* 1–2 slides analyzing the common process for creating or selecting and engagement research tool.

* 1–2 slides with an approximate needed budget, time, and resources needed to implement an engagement research strategy.

* 1 conclusion slide with an overview of the implementation plan for the engagement research at CapraTek.

* 1 slide with APA-formatted references.

* Presentation notes under each slide to describe the main points of emphasis.

•
• For the two scenarios provided, prepare a recommendation for mentoring or coaching for HR
leadership in an internal memo that is a total of 2-3 pages. Today’s employee has different expectations from work than employees have had in the past.
Employees want their organizations to offer extensive opportunities for growth, learning, and
advancement. In addition, employees have expectations that go beyond the present. The vast majority
of employees in the organization have aspirational desires for career advancement. A challenge HR
professionals and learning-development staff and supervisors are experiencing is guiding employees
towards their long-term goals. Some employees aspire to become organizational senior leaders and will
likely be in roles that will prepare them for that opportunity. Other employees want specialized tracks to
success, tracks that will move them into senior positions with responsibility over products and
programs. Another group of employees isn’t sure what they really would like their careers to be and will
benefit from exposure to different roles and responsibilities across different disciplines in the
organization. Employees often have visions of their professional future that require mentoring to achieve. Mentoring
will maximize the benefit of the experiences, learning, and development they will have while working in
your organizations. In addition to mentoring, many employees will need coaching at different stages of
their development in the organization. Coaching may be needed for many organizational roles and
activities. Mentoring The nature of mentoring varies, and the type of mentoring we give depends on the needs of different
employees. What might seem an easy, quick session with one employee might turn into an extensive
engagement for another. Mentoring in organizations may be formal or informal. Formal mentoring
usually involves a group of dedicated members of the staff willing to guide employees through
professional learning they do not know and may not understand. Formal mentoring may be
administered by the learning and development office of human resources. Some organizations have
ongoing informal mentoring that manifests based on professional affinity between a prospective mentor
and mentee. The benefits of mentoring are significant and allow employees to learn from past
experiences of their mentor. This relationship can help encourage social confidence, support individual
community and open networks to the mentee they did not know existed. Coaching Organizations must be capable of responding to performance, leadership, and other aspects of
organizational life that require attention. An activity that can help improve all these areas is coaching.
Coaching is a demanding skill that requires training and knowledge on how to execute it and directly
support the employee’s challenges. Some challenges require more sophisticated coaching by certified
coaches, but other less demanding coaching needs are often performed by supervisors or managers. HR Challenge

These are two individuals that are in need of professional coaching or mentoring. Consider which
approach would be most effective for each case. Joaquin aspires to become a manager in the organization. He is currently in the very early stages of his
career as a financial management professional at CapraTek. He is struggling with understanding what he
could do to achieve his dream of becoming an executive at the company years from now, or possibly for
one of CapraTek’s competitors. Steve is a Baby Boomer who had worked at CapraTek, retired, and was offered the opportunity to return
to the company because he possessed a very specific bio-tech background that was in high demand in
the competitive landscape. Now that he is back and has made some very significant contributions to the
company’s bio-tech projects, he would like to work in human resources, as he wants to make his new
career about people. The HR business partner that you support as part of the learning and development office for CapraTek
has asked you to make a recommendation for each of the individuals above to begin a mentoring or
coaching process within the company. Instructions For the two scenarios above, prepare a recommendation for HR leadership in an internal memo that is
2–3 pages.
• Select and explain whether mentoring or coaching would be the better approach to
support each employee’s professional development needs.
• Describe the nature of mentoring OR coaching best practices, relevant to each
individual.
• Evaluate the benefit to the organization from each individual’s mentoring or coaching
program.
• Develop a communication strategy to inform the direct managers and their employees
about the decision to initiate the mentoring OR coaching process. Additional Requirements The deliverable for this assessment applies professional skills in Human Resources Management (HRM)
to workplace situations which you will likely encounter in your day-to-day work in HRM. As part of your
learning, we focus on the development of effective professional communication skills for the workplace.
• Length of paper: Your coaching and mentoring recommendations should be a total of
two recommendations and 2–3 pages in length.
• Organization: Make sure that your writing is well-organized, using headings and
subheadings to organize content for the reader.
• Font and font-size: Times New Roman, 12-point.
• Number of resources: A minimum of four course resources.

• Evidence: Support your thoughts and ideas with data and in-text citations. Use current
APA format for in-text citations and create a reference list at the end of your
documents.
• APA formatting: Resources and in-text citations are formatted according to current APA
Style and Format.
• Written communication:
o Convey purpose, in an appropriate tone and style, incorporating supporting
evidence and adhering to organizational, professional, and scholarly writing
standards.
o Write for a specific audience, using the vernacular of the profession.
o Use spell-check and other tools to ensure correct spelling and grammar. Competencies Measured
• Competency 2: Apply theories and models of professional learning.
o Describe mentoring and coaching best practices from scholarly sources.
• Competency 3: Evaluate approaches for the design, development, and implementation
of programs which support learning needs in the workplace.
o Evaluate the benefit to the organization from each individual’s mentoring or
coaching program.
• Competency 4: Develop approaches to support learning, career development, and
mobility of individual contributors, managers, and leaders.
o Explain whether mentoring or coaching would be the better approach to
support each employee’s professional development needs.
o Develop a communication strategy to inform the direct managers and their
employees about the decision to initiate the mentoring OR coaching process.
• Competency 5: Communicate clearly, accurately, and professionally for the HR field.
o Convey purpose, in an appropriate tone and style, incorporating supporting
evidence and adhering to organizational, professional, and scholarly writing
standards.

others stage from The Leadership Pipeline. Organizations must determine how to prepare or “grow” future leaders for all levels. The first level of
leadership is of great importance because it is the employee-facing aspect of management. The
employee-facing aspect of management is about employee engagement. The first level of organizational
leaders is the first line of supervisors throughout the organization. This creates a worthy goal for
companies to grow quality first-line supervisors. In the flatter, modern organization there are more first
line leaders, but there are fewer paths for them to become strategic leaders. One of the most important aspects presented in the leadership pipeline approach by Charan, Drotter,
and Noel (2011) is the time necessary for development and transition to the next level of leadership
competency. They make the point that a leader cannot transition from one stage to the next without
demonstrating a good command of the leadership competencies for the level they want to grow out of.
It is a tenant of the pipeline approach that leaders don’t move to the next stage when they only have
shaky performance of the competencies at the previous level. References Charan, R., Drotter, S., and Noel, J. (2011). The leadership pipeline: How to build the leadership powered
company, Second Edition. Jossey-Bass. Skillsoft Books BusinessPro Collection. HR Challenge You are an HR professional who needs to be a strategic thinker. You must consider the enterprise-wide
effects from the decisions you make. Your plan for the leadership development program must ensure
that leaders learn and practice the skills to lead others and prepare for the next stage of the leadership
pipeline. CapraTek is not yet in a position where the company can effectively manage a broad leadership
development program through all the stages of the leadership pipeline. At this time there are many leadership roles in the organization, but there is no uniformity of
qualifications for selection. Also, there are no current polices that provide guidance or pathways that
would help aspiring employees and current supervisors or managers know how to prepare for and
compete for advancement. The learning and development staff will create the first level of a leadership development program
(leading others) that will focus on the second stage in the leadership pipeline (Charan, Drotter, and Noel,
2011). The reasoning behind the emphasis on the first stage is there is a need to prepare prospective
first-line supervisors because they have the greatest impact on the largest number of employees in all
areas of the organization. It is expected that two cohorts of supervisory candidates will participate in the
program during each year, with approximately 20 participants from a broad range of occupational fields. In the future, the program can be expanded, but for now the scope of the program should serve as a
pilot for a more comprehensive program that will include all levels of the leadership pipeline: leading

others, leading leaders, functional leaders, business leaders, group leaders, and enterprise leaders
(Charan, Drotter, and Noel, 2011). As the program is developed, learners should recognize that the
creation of these types of programs often coincides with obstacles. Some of these barriers include what
part of the organization should have responsibility and what part of the organization will be responsible
for costs and participation approval. Lastly, it is essential in most organizations that new programs of
this scope be challenged during the review process, long before implementation. As such, seeking the
active support of one or more senior executives as program champions is something that should be
considered in this assessment. Instructions Write a 4–5 page plan with outline of a first-level manager leadership program based on the leading
others stage from the leadership pipeline: 1. Read chapters 2 and 3 from The Leadership Pipeline.
o Charan, R., Drotter, S., and Noel, J. (2011). The leadership pipeline: How to build the
leadership powered company, Second Edition. Jossey-Bass. Skillsoft Books BusinessPro
Collection. 2. Write an introduction to the leadership development program including:
o Explain the theory for developing frontline leaders from scholarly sources, including The
Leadership Pipeline.
o Provide an example of how you would go about program development and
implementation, given the information provided above and in the text.
o Select 2–3 activities from above for your abbreviated leader development program
activities and support their contribution to the program with references. 3. Analyze selected parts of the leadership development program so that concepts are integrated
into how they would support the program deployment or the employee development. 4. Explain the rationale for your selection of program activities. 5. Analyze how the plan could be expanded to include other stages of the leadership development
program within the company, according to the text and other references. 6. Write a conclusion that summarizes the rationale for the leadership development program, the
highlights of the program you designed, and how the program could be adapted in the future. Additional Requirements The deliverable for this assessment applies professional skills in Human Resources Management (HRM)
to workplace situations which you will likely encounter in your day-to-day work in HRM. As part of your
learning, we focus on the development of effective professional communication skills for the workplace.
• Length of paper: Your leadership development plan should be 4–5 double-spaced pages, not
including a resource page.

• Organization: Make sure that your writing is well-organized, using headings and subheadings to
organize content for the reader.
• Font and font-size: Times New Roman, 12-point.
• Number of resources: A minimum of four course resources.
• Evidence: Support your thoughts and ideas with data and in-text citations. Use current APA
format for in-text citations and create a reference list at the end of your document.
• APA formatting: Resources and in-text citations are formatted according to current APA Style
and Format.
• Written communication:
o Convey purpose, in an appropriate tone and style, incorporating supporting evidence
and adhering to organizational, professional, and scholarly writing standards.
o Write for a specific audience, using the vernacular of the profession.
o Use spell-check and other tools to ensure correct spelling and grammar. Competencies Measured
• Competency 1: Analyze the strategic role of human resource development to create an agile and
innovative workforce.
o Explain the theory for developing front line leaders from scholarly resources.
• Competency 2: Apply theories and models of professional learning.
o Describe the rationale for selection of leadership development activities that are varied
and aligned with the “leading others” stage.
• Competency 3: Evaluate approaches for the design, development, and implementation of
programs which support learning needs in the workplace.
o Analyze how the plan could be expanded to include other stages of leadership
development.
• Competency 4: Develop approaches to support learning, career development, and mobility of
individual contributors, managers, and leaders.
o Explain how the leader candidates will be evaluated and given feedback throughout the
program that will promote career development.
• Competency 5: Communicate clearly, accurately, and professionally for the HR field.
o Convey purpose, in an appropriate tone and style, incorporating supporting evidence
and adhering to organizational, professional, and scholarly writing standards.