3CO01-Business

Level 3

Foundation Certificate in

People Practice

• Version 1 – Released June 2024
• Expires June 2025
• Study Centre information only: Last moderation window is September 2025

This unit considers the impact of external influences and how the digital and commercial environment shapes businesses and the culture within which they operate. It considers the importance of people’s behaviour on organisational culture and its ability to manage change effectively.

Task – Written answers

To complete the task, you should provide a written response to each of the nine questions below.

You should relate your answers to your own organisation or an organisation with which you are familiar, ideally one that you have worked for. The same organisation should be used for all nine answers.

To be an effective people practitioner it is important to understand the goals of the business, the products, or services the organisation is selling or providing, the main customers of the organisation and how external factors, including technology impact the organisation’s markets and working methods.

1. Examine two key external influences impacting or likely to impact the activities of the organisation that you work for (or an organisation with which you are familiar) (AC 1.1)

2. Discuss the main business goal of the organisation that you work for (or an organisation with which you are familiar) and why it is important for that organisation to plan how they will achieve the goal. (AC 2)

3. Discuss the products and/or services of the organisation that you work for (or an organisation with which you are familiar) and discuss the organisation’s main (AC 1.3)

Technology has transformed workplaces and the people profession.

4. Review how file sharing technology and video conferencing can be used to improve working practices and collaboration within the people profession in your organisation (or an organisation with which you are familiar). (AC 4)

In 2023, a CIPD podcast asked the following question, ‘Has working remotely killed organisational culture?’ This topic is of interest in many organisations but before considering the impact of remote working on culture, it is important to understand what it meant by the term organisational culture.

5. Define organisational culture and explain why it is important to foster an appropriate and effective workplace culture in your organisation (or an organisation with which you are familiar). (AC 1)

6. Explain how culture is part of a whole system and explain how people professionals’ work and actions could impact elsewhere in your organisation (or an organisation with which you are familiar). (AC 2)

According to the CIPD’s Change Management factsheet, one driver of organisational change is economic downturn and challenging trading conditions.

7. Explain why it is important that organisational change driven by economic downturn and challenging trading conditions is planned, and effectively managed in your organisation (or an organisation with which you are familiar). (AC 3.1)

8. Explain the importance and role that could be played by people professionals in your organisation (or an organisation with which you are familiar) within change driven by economic downturn. (AC 3.2)

9. Discuss how organisational change, driven by economic downturn, could impact people in your organisation (or an organisation with which you are familiar) in different (AC 3.3)

Task – Questions

Vodacom’s organizational goals represent a clear plan for pursuing its vision and mission. They make sure that all the undertakings support the achievement of long term success of the business by setting strategic focus, co-ordinating contingents, and directing change. These objectives are critical for the business to maintain and enhance its performance as well as building organisational and individual capacity within the organisation. The Vodacom’s organizational goals help in aligning resources and guiding the decision making process. These objectives are essential for it to preserve its status while simultaneously fostering its innovation and            employee        growth (Mahoney, 2013). For instance the Vodacom business has a strategic research program aimed at getting insights to help advance the business. As such initiatives are anchored on goal strategies, it is certain that they help foster the achievement of the institution’s ultimate goal of making a positive impact, as well as personal growth among members.

By aligning these initiatives with organizational objectives, it is guaranteed that they help address both the institution’s overarching Vodacom’s objective and the personal development of its members. Similarly, the significance of aligning workforce competencies with future organizational requirements, fostering sustainable growth and adaptability, is demonstrated by the implementation of comprehensive training paths for all job families (Mahoney, 2013). Thus, to achieve these goals it is relevant to make a plan of action so to say: They enable the management to decide on resource usage, proactively plan for potential obstacles and measure performance. The planning process ensures that strategic goals created within the firm are coordinated with other processes.

In order to effectively accomplish these objectives, it is imperative to make a plan. This allows Vodacom organization to efficiently allocate resources, anticipate challenges, and evaluate progress. The planning process guarantees that strategic objectives are aligned with initiatives Also, planning creates accountability.

Vodacom is Africa’s largest telecom company that provides an extensive list of services and products to businesses as well as individual customers (Schmulian, 2013). For Individuals, it offers mobile services like voice calls both local calls and international calls. It also offers SMS and data services. The company also has adjustable tariffs in order to satisfy the demand for various users across the board. Vodacom also offers Value-Added Services like gaming, music / file streaming and other related digital content.  Vodacom Financial Services:

More to this, Vodacom is involved in mobile financial services that include the Vodacom M-Pesa, a mobile money service which allows clients to send and receive cash, pay bills and purchase goods using their mobile phones (Schmulian, 2013). They are mostly used in countries where the possibilities for receiving the banking services are constrained. In the same way, as a regional telecommunication company, it offers cloud services, corporate telephony and business connectivity to both small and medium Scale enterprises as well as to large scale corporations. Organizational consumers: the libertarian consumers mainly comprise individuals who require mobile communication, Internet connection, and financial services through mobile phones; businesses requiring telecommunication services with reliable connectivity, digital networks, and services, together with customer services. The company is well positioned in African region, especially among the lower income earners who rely on mobile phones and mobile money services. Also, it supports thousands of enterprise customers with various business solutions promoting economic development and improving connectivity for the whole continent (Schmulian, 2013).

The people profession has gone through rapid technological developments in the recent past years and this reveals the following trends. Many different methods and instruments have emerged at this stage, which can be applied to enhance practical activities in such spheres as recruitment, working performance, staff training, and interacting.

A human resources software like the Human Resource Information Systems (HRIS) or the Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS), and  Learning Management Systems (LMS) help in automating some HR tasks (Chemma, Abdelli, Awasthi & Mogaji, 2022). For instance, ATS keeps the job applications, track the candidates, and even helps in scheduling the interviews. HRIS systems control documents related to the employees, their payments, benefits and performance facts and figures within the same system and with the same accuracy. Instant Messengers such as Microsoft Teams, Slack and Zoom facilitate cross-organizational communication especially in case of hybrid working. These platforms include the use of such tools as Chat, Skype, Face Time and other tools for sharing documents and for holding meetings through video conferencing.

Linking with other applications or document creation and planning and scheduling and collaboration tools enable proper resource organization. Some of the common tools used by Human Resources managers and professionals are Employee Engagement Platforms like Officevibe or TinyPulse where feedback is collected,  surveys taken, and employee sentiment captured to help HR teams detect downtrends and act in response to low morale. This in turn helps in better staff retention, job satisfaction, and in the long run better performance.

Business intelligence efforts are not left out in the people profession, and Data Analytics and AI are part of the combination. The use of these technologies helps to predict the need for hires, determine the skills deficiencies, and appraise the employee performance (Chemma, Abdelli, Awasthi & Mogaji, 2022). AI tools can help with candidate search since it analyzes the resumes, and matches candidates to the jobs, thus making the process less subjective. Through these technologies, the HR professionals can be able to have informed decision making, increase workflow, have a better employee touch point and help to create a better organisational culture and ecosystem for employees and customers.

Organizational culture denotes the working environment, patterns of beliefs, attitudes, customs, and norms embraced by employees and embraced by an organization (Mullins & McLean, 2019). It covers areas like cross-functional relationships between staff, organizational vision, goals and objectives amongst others. Workplace culture at Vodacom plays an influential role in organizational success and helps boost motivation of employees and productivity. There are several reasons why there is need to cultivate a healthy organizational culture for several reasons. First of all, it provides the opportunity for hiring and keeping outstanding employees. Organizations with positive and supportive working environment are likely to attract and retain their employees (Mullins & McLean, 2019). Employees who are appreciated and recognized at the workplace are likely to be more productive in what they are doing. Secondly, the positive attitude at Vodacom helps raise the morale and customers’ satisfaction. In other words, happy employees are those who are in touch with their colleagues and are passionate with the company goals and objectives. This culminates in high productivity, creativity as well as innovation. Third, positive organization culture enhances employees’ health. It is well understood that a positive culture helps decrease stress levels as well as exhaustion. A positive work culture helps nurture a positive attitude and culture which is ideal for employees. It also helps in enhancing customers’ brand loyalty and overall reputation of the Vodacom business. In conclusion, it can be stated that it is crucial to develop an active and healthy organizational culture through fostering a positive, accepting, and interesting working climate. It is important to build a positive working environment as this largely makes employees feel appreciated. Cultures like adoption of remote working technologies shows that Vodacom places a high value on workforce development and innovation. By doing this, organizations like Vodacom stand to gain, stabilize, satisfy and improve their employees.

Organisations are mostly viewed as systems since they are made of series of components including departments, teams, processes as well as human beings all of which are inextricably linked (Information Resources Management Association, 2018). he nature of the system is that every component is dependent on one another which shows that if something occurs or an action is taken on one aspect then it will affect every component of the organization. Whole system concept recognizes the fact that the organization is not just an accumulation of its components but is a complex structure in which the actions of each component affect the others. Since business organizations are systematic, the steps you take and the decisions you make as a people professional will affect other sectors of the business at large. For instance, decisions of talent management within organisations, do not only impact the HR function but can also impact the capability, ethnic structure of a team, and output of the team or department. In this way, proper selection assists in delivering right and diversified talent required across teams leading to innovation consequently affecting business performance, and global competitiveness (Information Resources Management Association, 2018). Because of this, it is clear that human resource management development in terms of bettering skill or leadership program can enhance employee commitment, motivation status, organisational standards, retention rates and also customers’ satisfaction. For instance, leadership education efforts can make the teams more effective in interacting with each other, make decision making more efficient, and increase cooperation between departments and lead to better business performance. Further, what people professionals do tends to influence employee relations and the overall organizational culture. Work climate, which forms part of the strategic organizational culture if frequently enhanced based on creation of an organisational climate can have a positive impact on various areas such as communication, employee relations and trust as it relates not only internally to organizational members but externally to customers (Information Resources Management Association, 2018).

The importance of planning and managing change in the workplace is because change when planned and well managed has got long term positive impact on all the company’s employees and the business in general. This may be due to forces outside the organisation such as changes in their market or due to internal forces such as changes in technology or process.

Strategic planning helps an organisation to forecast on what may go wrong, on how exactly to budget for the project, and on what exactly they want to achieve and by when (Nayani, 2022). These two strategies can be used in combination in order to help raise employees expectations and describe why change is necessary in order to achieve desired results. Accomplished goals may also help to define roles and responsibilities and potential threats, in order that no part of the organization is left out of the change process. Change is not easy to manage but managing is also important as well. This includes management support, helping the employees, and managing change to support the change initiative. The process of change alters employee committment, their way of communications and desire to participate in training programs which all lead to support of the change rolled out. Finally, planning and managing change in a better way results into more effectiveness, increased employee motivation, and enhanced business outcomes. An organization that can manage change well is adaptable, is more receptive to market forces, and its sustained success is assured (Nayani, 2022). In summary, the maintenance of operational stability and the attainment of desired outcomes are contingent upon the effective planning and management of change. A structured approach guarantees the effective implementation of changes, which in turn promotes long-term success, innovation, and resilience in the workplace.

Managers and change leaders including the human resource practitioners and the organizational development specialists are important when it comes to managing change processes in organisations (Starbuck, 2023).  This is important in guaranteeing that change initiatives not just achieved, but is also embraced by organizational members to support change sustainably. Their key duty is to be change champions, constantly linking organizational objectives to human capital interests. They are involved in developing change strategies that include the processes that involve individuals hence making change not to be about mere processes. It should be more about listening to the employees concerns, overcoming the resistance and building trust on the organizational culture. It is the people professionals duty to coordinate when it comes to training and development for the employees so that they are able to meet the changes in the system. They are very important in helping to cultivate growth mentality within the employees, hence enabling flexibility. Also, they ensure that the effects of change initiatives are reported from time to time providing information for leaders to note any harms likely to occur during change initiatives.

The people professional contribute in developing strategies that incorporate human element and therefore ensure that change process is not only process driven but is empathetic and is all inclusive (Starbuck, 2023).  This involves comprehending the concerns of employees, handling resistance and establishing a culture of trust and open communication. Most importantly, people profession acts as a middle ground between the top management and the subordinates to deliberate on their behalf and vice versa. People professionals discuss the vision and reasons for change making the employees to embrace the process. So to sum it up, every organization that expects to effect change management has to include people professionals as one of their cornerstones. Their capacity to consider organizational objectives together with the employees’ welfare is a formula that makes change appropriate to guarantee sustainability.

Change can be perceived differently across people, depending on how they see things, what their past experiences have been, and what function they serve in the firm. To some, change can be an opportunity and excitement to foster innovation and seek personal development. For some individuals and even entire organizations, it might feel unsettling, distressing, or resistance might set in, particularly when there are shifts in the status quo such as common patterns, functions, and interactions. The most typical response to any change is to worry about what lies ahead. It’s natural for employees to be concerned about job security, meeting new expectations, and not having to deal with old systems again. Such responses could bring about resistance in one form or another, whether that will be through low engagement levels or low output. On the other hand, change may fuel motivation and creativity and act as a leaver (Starbuck, 2023).  Some of the individuals that regard change as an opportunity would see it as such and embrace change by the use of new systems or fitting into new roles to outgrow their career. The people professionals are also reliable advocates for change since they are able to see its importance. The alteration is also experienced in the context of intercession and endorsement. Open and honest communication reduces the barrier to risk-taking and helps in building confidence, but more often than not absence of any communication increases uncertainty. Likewise, training and emotional support as economic resources can play an indispensable role in how people cope with the change. However, organizational change may be experienced differently by various groups throughout the organization.

References

Chemma, N., Abdelli, M. E. A., Awasthi, A., & Mogaji, E. (2022). Management and information    technology in the digital era : challenges and perspectives. Emerald Publishing

Dinçer, H., & Yuksel, S. (2020). Strategic priorities in competitive environments : multidimensional             approaches for business success. Springer.

Information Resources Management Association. (2018). Computer systems and software engineering    : concepts, methodologies, tools, and applications. IGI Global. https://doi.org/10.4018/978-1-           5225-3923-0

Mahoney, J. A. (2013). Strategic communication : principles and practice. Oxford University Press.

Mullins, L. J., & McLean, J. E. (2019). Organisational behaviour in the workplace (Twelfth edition).               Pearson Education Limited.

Nayani, F. (2022). The power of employee resource groups : how people create authentic               change (First Edition). Berrett-Koehler Publishers.

Schmulian, S. (2013). Multinational subsidiary evolution : Vodafone and its South African subsidiary,        Vodacom .

Starbuck, C. (2023). The fundamentals of people analytics : with applications in R. Springer.                 https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-28674-2

Assessment Criteria Evidence Checklist

You may find the following checklist helpful to make sure that you have included the required evidence to meet the task. This is not a mandatory requirement as long as it is clear in your submission where the assessment criteria have been met.

Declaration of Authentication

Declaration by learner

*This must be a true signature, so a handwritten signature, or a photo or scan of a handwritten signature, or an e-signature. A typed signature is not acceptable.

Assessment Criteria marking descriptors.

Assessors will mark in line with the following assessment criteria (AC) marking descriptors, and will indicate where the learner sits within the marking band range for each AC.

Assessors must provide a mark from 1 to 4 for each assessment criteria within the unit. Assessors should use the mark descriptor grid as guidance so they can provide comprehensive feedback that is developmental for learners. Please be aware that not all the mark descriptors will be present in every assessment criterion, so assessors must use their discretion in making grading decisions.

The grid below shows the range for each unit assessment result based on total number of marks awarded across all assessment criteria.

To pass the unit assessment learners must achieve a 2 (Low Pass) or above for each of the assessment criteria.

The overall result achieved will dictate the outcome the learner receives for the unit, provided NONE of the assessment criteria have been failed or referred.

Please note that learners will receive a Pass or Fail result from the CIPD at unit level. Referral grades can be used internally by the centre.

Marking Descriptors