BSBSTR601 Manage Innovation And Continuous Improvement Assessment

Assessment task 2

Part A

Instructions to Learners:

You are required to submit the report they developed using the scenario below.

Woodhouse Recruitment is based in central Melbourne and is a recruitment agency offering recruitment services, including sourcing, screening and selecting candidates to meet clients’ requirements. The company was established in 2010 by Simon and Petra James, a husband-and-wife team who are the Directors of the company.

The company also employs a receptionist, five recruitment consultants and an Administration Manager. The agency plans to recruit a further two new consultants to start with the company in early 2020.

The company specialisms in the following areas of recruitment for both permanent and temporary staff:

• Administration and office support, Accounting, IT, Sales and Marketing. The company sees its point of difference as being an owner operated, boutique recruitment agency. The company currently has approximately 30 clients who regularly use their services.
  At a recent management team meeting, the management team (the Directors, Administration Manager, the Accountant and the Senior Recruitment Consultant), discussed the need to implement systems and processes for continuous improvement and innovation into the company. This is in part based on the need to stand out from the competitors in an industry where there are a large number of recruitment agencies.
  A number of issues were discussed at the management meeting, which the management team feel need further exploration as part of introducing continuous improvement systems and innovations.
• Services Standards

  The company states on its website that it has the following delivery service standards:

  • Service Promise – we are clear in what we offer and the benefits it brings to you
  • Service Delivery – we offer consistent and reliable service to you
  • Customer Relationships – we are open and honest with all of our customers
  • Compliance – we ensure we adhere to all ethical and legal requirements.
  
  However, service standards have not been clearly defined and there are no performance indicators in place to measure performance.
  Cost associated with improve service standard $500,000
  Tangible and intangible benefit($value) $700,000
• Key performance indicators
  No formal performance indicators are in place to measure key service standards including how quickly candidates are recruited to fill jobs or how many of the candidates pass the trial period effectively.
  Cost: Cost of appointing a consultant $40,000
  Tangible and intangible benefit($value) $100,000
• Social Media
  There is no social media strategy in place. Currently the company is not using social media to market positions or to source candidates but recognises this is an area for development. Currently most candidates are usually found through the existing database (60%) or through advertising on job search websites.
  Cost associated with establishing social media platform $100,000
  Tangible and intangible benefit($value) $500,000
• Staff professional development
  While all recruitment consultants are expected to have minimum qualifications and experience, there is no process in place to ensure that recruitment consultants continue to participate in professional development activities to keep their skills up to date. There is also no performance appraisal system in place. Cost associated with conducting staff professional development(yearly) $50,000
  Tangible and intangible benefit($value) $400,000
• Sustainability
  The business currently does not have any formal sustainability initiatives in place and is conscious of moving towards a green office environment both to be an environmentally friendly business, as well as to reduce costs.
  Cost associated with sustainability initiatives $400,000
  Tangible and intangible benefit($value) $900,000
• Stationery
  All company stationery purchased is of the highest quality non-recycled and bleached paper that comes wrapped in non-biodegradable packaging and is sourced from overseas. The accountant has identified that the cost of the stationery is astronomical and we should be reducing costs and sourcing Australian products.
  Cost associated with stationery purchased $400,000
  Tangible and intangible benefit($value) $900,000
• Recruitment Database
  The database that the company was purchased off the shelf and keeps crashing because it is not able to cope with the amount of data that it contains. The recruitment consultants say that they are not able to customise the fields to include the data they need nor does it provide accurate reports. The Directors disagree with this feedback and have so far refused to spend money on investigating a new system.
  Cost associated with implementing recruitment Database $100,000
  Tangible and intangible benefit($value) $250,000

Key business performance statistics are as follows:

• Annual sales revenue for financial year 2018 - 2019 is $1,350,000, an increase of 10% from the previous year. The target sales revenue was 12%
• Increase in profits for this financial year compared to the last one is 9%. The target was 10%
• 16% of placements are in the IT area, 18% in accounting, 20% in sales and marketing and the remainder in administration and office support.
• 60% of revenue is from repeat client business, the target was 70%
• Fill rate is 40% (where fill rate is the number of job orders filled by the number of job orders received multiplied by 100).
• Average time to fill contracts for 2018 were as follows:
  • Temporary contracts was 8 days
  • Contract work is 20 days
  • Permanent search 23 days
  • Executive search 33 days

Key performance indicators currently used to measure business performance focus on financial indicators, including net operating profit and sales revenue. The company also tracks its fill rate and is seeking to improve this to the industry average of 47% over the next year.

Based on the information provided in the scenario, select two topics or areas that you can research and review, develop continuous improvement options and plan to implement innovative processes for. One of these topics must be a sustainability program.

Prepare a report that outlines the following for both topics:

• Your topics or areas for improvement that you will plan a continuous improvement and innovative processes for, one being a sustainability program
• Identify and discuss a range of strategies that you can implement to monitor and evaluate the current performance and sustainability of your topics/areas for improvement.
• Analyse and provide a detailed account of the current supply chain and the (operational, product or service) systems the business is using to deliver their service. What is working well and what could be improved? Do you think
• Identify how the topics/areas for improvement performance could be measured, including an outline of the assessment tools or techniques that could be used. Evaluate the effectiveness of each tool/technique.
• Identify at least two specialists that could help Woodhouse Recruitment. This may be to identify technology and electronic commerce opportunities or to implement your ideas. Provide their contact details, the services they offer and your rationale as to why it may be beneficial to use their services.
• Conduct research and analyse and report on trends and opportunities relevant to Woodhouse Recruitment in relation to your topics/areas for improvement. Use the resources provided by the trainer plus other external resources for this research.
• Compare Woodhouse Recruitment's business performance statistics to industry benchmarks and speculate as to why they may not have met their targets.
• At the end of your report, introduce and briefly discuss three examples of other innovative business ideas that Woodhouse Recruitment could adapt and implement.

Part B

You are required to attend a presentation meeting. Your trainer will organise a group of Learners (2 or3) to attend the presentation. You will be playing the role of the management team.

Trainers – organise a meeting within a group of 2-3 learners to attend the presentation and play the identified roles. Learners will need to be prepared to ask questions and to offer suggestions.

At the meeting, you should discuss the key findings of your report, as well as your ideas for continuous improvement and innovation in the business. Trainer – brief Learners prior to the meeting on sharing ideas. Based on the report, comment on the ideas provided by the Learner.

Trainer – at the end of the meeting you are required to provide feedback to the Learner and agree on the details of their initiatives.

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1. During the meeting, you will need to demonstrate your interpersonal skills, as well as your ability to build trust and confidence and encourage creativity in the management team. To do this you will need to demonstrate throughout your presentation your ability to clearly and confidently present information, encouraging questions from the team and discussion and active listening techniques.
2. At the end of the meeting, you will need to take on board feedback provided and agree with the management team on the best way forward with your continuous improvement and innovation initiatives.