MODULE: UNDERSTANDING BUSINESS ORGANISATIONS ASSIGNMENT TITLE: TOURISM SERVICES CENTRE DECEMBER 2013

Important Notes: Please refer to the Assignment Presentation Requirements for advice on how to set out your assignment. These can be found on the NCC Education Campus. Scroll down the left hand side of the screen until you reach Personal Support. Click on this, and then on Policies and Advice. You will find the Assignment Presentation Requirements under the Advice section. You must familiarise yourself with the NCC Education Academic Dishonesty and Plagiarism Policy and ensure that you acknowledge all the sources which you use in your work. The policy is available on Campus. Follow the instructions above, but click on Policies rather than Advice. You must complete the Statement and Confirmation of Own Work. The form is available on the Policies section of Campus. Scroll down the left hand side until you reach Personal Support. Click on this and then click on Policies and Advice. Please make a note of the recommended word count. You could lose marks if you write 10% more or less than this. You must submit a paper copy and digital copy (on disk or similarly acceptable medium). Media containing viruses, or media which cannot be run directly, will result in a fail grade being awarded for this module. All electronic media will be checked for plagiarism. Marker's comments:

Moderator's comments:

Mark:

Moderated Mark:

Final Mark:

Understanding Business Organisations

December 2013

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NCC Education 2013

Introduction
You have just been appointed as the new Manager for the Tourism Services Centre (TSC) within the largest city in your region. The TSC provides guidance and information to both business visitors and tourists in the following areas: Accommodation Venues for holding business meetings and events Local attractions and sporting activities Food, drink and shopping The arts (architecture, museums, film, music, theatre etc.) Enquiries come from a variety of sources including phone calls requesting information, a few visits from business people and tourists to the TSCs offices and, increasingly, via the tourism website run by the TSC. To date, the TSC has housed all of their administrative, financial and secretarial staff in large centralised office in a business park located three miles out of the city centre. However, there have been a number of problems which have impacted upon the day-to-day operation of the TSC, in particular: A perceived lack of service to visitors, who are unable to visit the Tourism Services Centre in person when they are visiting the centre of the city and all of the associated facilities and attractions Poor morale of staff due to a perceived lack of effective communication between management and staff Lack of adequate training of staff, resulting in very little opportunity of career progression for the staff in post The above factors have resulted in a period of conflict between the management of TSC and the trade union representing the staff employed by TSC. The current staff levels (excluding yourself) are as follows: 2 Senior Information Officers 10 Information Officers (including 3 who are multi-lingual) 2 Administrative Assistants 1 Finance Officer 3 Accounts Assistants 1 Secretary to the Department 1 Publications Officer 1 Receptionist 1 Web Master (responsible for running and maintaining the TSC website) In addition to the above, you intend to appoint a Human Resources (HR) Manager to help address the staff-morale problems mentioned earlier. This post will be in addition to those detailed above. The decision has been taken to restructure the TSC, so that it has a main office in the centre of the city, together with two other satellite offices (Office North and Office South) located alongside two of the major tourist attractions in the city, both of which are one mile from the centrally located office. You will be responsible for managing all of the staff located in the three offices.

Understanding Business Organisations

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NCC Education 2013

You have been asked to plan and manage this restructure and announce it to the staff. You are aware that there may be some resistance to the changes because: Staff who are asked to work in the satellite offices may be concerned about working remotely from the central office, where they believe all of the important decisions are made For the staff working in the central office, the journey to work is likely to be longer, more problematic because of city centre traffic and they will incur higher travel costs

Assignment
The first stage of the assignment is to set up the Organisation Structure that you propose to put in place for the TSC. You have been given a budget for 23 members of staff (in addition to yourself), which is made up of the 22 existing members, plus the new Human Resources Manager. All of the staff will be allocated across the 3 new offices you plan to establish. In order to appoint the new HR Manager you have been asked to put together a briefing document that clearly spells out the major benefits that will arise from the appointment of this person, and write a draft outline of the job advert that will be placed to recruit this person. As part of setting up the new structure you have also been asked to put together an outline budget for the proposed expenditure of the TSC for the new financial year. The current levels of poor morale and lack of career progression may make it difficult to sell the concept of the organisational restructuring to the staff. You have, therefore, been asked to identify possible areas of resistance to change by the staff and recommend ways in which these can be addressed. Finally, you have been asked to present your plans to the staff involved in order to help ensure that they are supportive of the new structure.

Task 1 - 6 Marks
You need to have an understanding of the range of general administrative and information support services that would typically be found within a Tourist Services Centre. You should therefore carry out some research to establish this information. This research could involve: Using the Internet to find details of the types of services offered by tourist offices Looking for relevant job adverts in your local papers to get an understanding of the types of jobs that might be offered within tourist offices. You should briefly summarise your findings and conclusions.

Task 2 4 Marks
Produce a project plan for the way you intend to complete the rest of this assignment. Use the timescale you have been allocated for this assignment i.e. from the date you start to the date you submit your assignment. Submit a copy of your plan to your tutor BEFORE you proceed further with the assignment.

Task 3 20 Marks
Produce an Organisation Chart that you believe would enable TSC to provide high quality information and web services to both tourist and business visitors to your city, together with efficient and effective internal administrative and financial support. Identify which of the three offices each member of staff would be placed in, together with clear lines of responsibility. You should also attach brief notes explaining the reasons for your choice of posts within each office.
Understanding Business Organisations December 2013 Final NCC Education 2013

Task 4 14 Marks
Prepare an outline budget showing the expenditure of TSC for the new financial year. The budget should include staff costs, overhead costs and any capital costs that you think might be incurred by the new structure.

Task 5 16 Marks
List FOUR possible reasons why there might be resistance from the staff to the changes that you have recommended to the Board of Directors. For each reason identified, give a brief description of an approach that could be used to counter this type of resistance.

Task 6 20 Marks
Put together a briefing document of no more than 500 words that justifies the proposed appointment of the new Human Resources Manager. The document should clearly explain why such a role is required and how it will help in addressing the current problems of low morale amongst staff, the lack of training and career progression, and the conflict between management and the trade union. In addition, draft a job advert of no more that 250 words which specifies the main tasks that the post holder will be required to undertake, and the previous experience that is desirable.

Task 7 20 Marks
Using PowerPoint, or a similar tool, put together a maximum of twelve slides that could be used as the basis of a presentation to the existing staff you are responsible for. The objective of the presentation is to gain their commitment and support for the changes you are proposing, so you should ensure that it focuses upon the benefits they can expect to gain through the implementation of the changes, together with the wider benefits gained by TSC. You should also include a short note of no more than 100 words that demonstrates how your presentation has addressed the Communication, Education and Consultation aspects of the Management of Change Process.

Guidance
This assignment is wide ranging and incorporates a range of topics from the syllabus. If you are unsure about any aspect of the assignment, then consult with your tutor/lecturer prior to commencing Task 2 of the assignment.

Submission Requirements
1. A word-processed, printed document containing all the written components of the assignment (Tasks 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6) signed and dated by your tutor/lecturer. 2. Printed versions of the organisation structure you have prepared for Task 3 and the presentation you have prepared for Task 7. 3. A copy of all the electronic material (Tasks 1-7) on appropriate medium (floppy disk, zip disk, CDROM etc.).

Understanding Business Organisations

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Final

NCC Education 2013

Warning: All media must be virus free! Media containing viruses, or media which cannot be run directly, will result in a FAIL grade being awarded for this module.

You must read and understand NCC Educations policy on Academic Dishonesty and Plagiarism. You must complete the Statement and Confirmation of Own Work form and attach the completed form to your assignment.

Understanding Business Organisations

December 2013

Final

NCC Education 2013