Assessment 3: Report – Workplace Conflict Resolution
Type: Case study report
Due Date: Sunday 2 June, 23:59 (Melbourne time)
Word limit: 2000 (+/- 10%), excluding reference list
Weighting: 40%
Overview
You have been employed as a HR consultant by a medium sized business that has no definitive conflict resolution polices and processes in place.
You are required to write a business style report for your senior manager, and you must base your report on the questions outlined in the assessment details section. In your report, please address the below questions separately.
Include synthesis and discussion of relevant concepts, research, and legal/regulatory considerations when it comes to conflict in the workplace. These should motivate a series of recommendations for how potential conflict should managed in the workplace.
Please read the following sources as background reading (both readings are also available in your Reading List):
Currie, D., Gormley, T., Roche, B., & Teague, P. (2017). The management of workplace conflict: Contrasting pathways in the HRM literature. International Journal of Management Reviews, 19(4), 492-509. (See Week 10 of your Reading List)
Fair Work Ombudsman (2021) Effective Dispute Resolution Best Practice Guide, pages 1-12. (See Week 8 of your Reading List)
Assessment criteria
This assessment will measure your ability to:
Discuss and critically evaluate relevant theory and research (10 marks)
Apply understanding of professional appropriate practice (10 marks)
Research and Reference (10 marks)
Communicate in a clear, well-structure and professionally presented report (10 marks)
View the marking rubric (below) for further guidance on expectations and the allocation of marks
Course learning outcomes
This assessment is relevant to the following course learning outcomes:
CLO4: Demonstrate an understanding of the processes of negotiation and conflict resolution in terms of the role of the HR practitioner, unions and other stakeholders.
CLO5: Identify, evaluate and develop ethical, equitable, socially and culturally responsible solutions to emerging employment relations and human resource challenges.
CLO6: Effectively communicate practical and innovative solutions whilst being accountable, responsible and reflective re. individual learning and professionally appropriate practice.
Assessment details
You have been employed as a HR consultant by a medium sized business that has no definitive conflict resolution polices and processes in place.
You are required to write a business style report for your senior manager, and you must base your report on the questions below. In your report, please address the below questions separately. Include synthesis and discussion within your work of relevant concepts, research, and legal/regulatory considerations when it comes to conflict in the workplace.
These should motivate a series of recommendations for how potential conflict should be managed in the workplace.
Question 1: Identify and critically analyse the role of key actors (HR, unions and stakeholders) and considerations (legal and financial) in workplace conflict resolution.
Question 2: Present and justify recommendations for how conflict should be managed and resolved in the workplace.
This will be a written report (2,000 words) and you are required to use a minimum of 12 scholarly sources.
Suggested Structure for your report:
Title Page: Name of the report, student number, name of tutor and class time and day
Executive summary (100 words): Overview of the report. Summarise all the main aspects of the report and your findings here (please kindly note that the executive summary is not part of the word count)
Introduction (around 200 words): Summary of the main topics and themes that will be examined in this report.
Body (Discussion and Recommendations – around 1,600 words): Answer each question separately and ensure that in each question you have evidence of academic literature and show an understanding of key theories and critique when appropriate.
Conclusion (around 200 words): Summarise all the main points
Reference List: Ensure that you have your reference list in an alphabetical order and ensure that you use RMIT Harvard style referencing within your work.
AI tools cannot be used in the completion of this assessment task
In this assessment task, you must not use any AI tools (excluding text editing software e.g., Grammarly) to generate any materials, content or ideas related to the task.
Resources
The following resources may provide further guidance in terms of how to write an effective report also and ensure in your work, you use the business style report within your work:
RMIT Learning Lab: Writing a reportLinks to an external site.
Referencing guidelines
Use RMIT Harvard referencing style for this assessment.
You must acknowledge all the courses of information you have used in your assessments.
Refer to the RMIT Easy Cite referencing tool to see examples and tips on referencing the appropriate style. You can also refer to the library referencing page for more tools such as EndNote, referencing tutorials and referencing guides for printing.
Submission format
Use Word or PDF. The assessment will be submitted in Canvas as a file upload.
Academic integrity and plagiarism
Academic integrity is about the honest presentation of your academic work. It means acknowledging the work of others while developing your own insights, knowledge and ideas.
You should take extreme care that you have:
Acknowledged words, data, diagrams, models, frameworks and/or ideas of others you have quoted (i.e. directly copied), summarised, paraphrased, discussed or mentioned in your assessment through the appropriate referencing methods
Provided a reference list of the publication details so your reader can locate the source if necessary. This includes material taken from Internet sites
If you do not acknowledge the sources of your material, you may be accused of plagiarism because you have passed off the work and ideas of another person without appropriate referencing, as if they were your own.
RMIT University treats plagiarism as a very serious offence constituting misconduct.
Plagiarism covers a variety of inappropriate behaviours, including:
Failure to properly document a source
Copyright material from the internet or databases
Collusion between students