Week 1 Project
Instructions
Supporting Lectures:
Review the following lecture:
Role of the Consultant
Introduction
For this assignment, you will assume the role of an HR generalist. You play an essential and strategic role in supporting organizational productivity, growth, and longevity for your company. It is your role to protect the organization from legal and regulatory issues. At the same time, your job is to support the management and employees equally in line with organizational goals, policies, and procedures.
A manager and his or her employee contacted you separately to complain about one another. The manager is complaining that the employee has an attitude about the manager, the managers work, the department where the manager works, and the organization. The manager is concerned about the loss of productivity this employee is costing his or her department, as well as the impact of morale other employees. The employee is complaining that the manager is a dictator, does not care about people, only cares about productivity, and is inflexible. Both complained that the other does not communicate effectively.
Using your skills as a consultant, select some tools at your disposal to approach this problem. Remember, you have no direct power over these employeesyou are acting as a consultant.
Tasks
Explain whether to focus on relationships or on processes and goals of the organization.
Describe your consultative goals and consultative roles.
Evaluate the steps you will take to influence the manager and the employee, through indirect control, to remedy the conflict.
Explain your approach using the techniques of content and personal side of working with people to resolving this conflict.
To support your work, use your course and textbook readings and also use the South University Online Library. As in all assignments, cite your sources in your work and provide references for the citations in APA format.
Submission Details
Create a 35-page Word document.
Name your file as SU_HRM5090_W1_Project_LastName_FirstName.
Role of the Consultant
Working with people and working with teams are the basic functions in business today. There is increasing demand for people to work in teams, and this
applies not only to HR personnel but to almost every department in almost every signicant organization. Personal and interpersonal skills are critical for
people to learn and develop for career advancement and success. The link between human relationships and a consultant is strong because successful
consultants learn to manage relationships. Successful consultants learn to leverage structure, strategy, and, of course, technologywhich today we rely
heavily uponto achieve specic goals.
Whenever you give directions or provide instructions to people but have no direct power over people, you are acting as a consultant. The HR department is
a great example of a group of people who work closely with others within their organization but have no direct management control over people whom
they support on a daily basis.
An HR professional provides support to people and departments by providing information, recommendations, planning, training, and assistance and thus
fullls the role of a consultant. Employees, managers, and departments often rely on the HR department for support, thus fullling their role as clients to
the HR consultant. Using interpersonal skills, the HR agents seek to inuence clients through indirect control, meaning that they can inuence others
through their role as consultant but do not direct others since they lack direct control that a manager or supervisor has.
Since HR personnel lack direct control, they must learn to use inuence by acting as a consultant and not as a manager. The consultant must be careful not
to cross over the line by giving orders, directives, or commands. At the same time, the consultant seeks to inuence others with the goal of making positive
change.
Consultant vs. Manager
Consultant Manager
Aligns with a rms policies and procedures Gives orders, directives, or commands
Inuences through collaboration Inuences through power and/or authority
Provides information to support Provides information to achieve objectives
Has no power and/or control over people Has direct power and/or control over people
Gives advice Gives directives/orders
Has no authority or responsibility for objectives Has full authority and/or responsibility to meet objectives
AdditionalMaterials
From your course textbook Flawless Consulting: A Guide to Getting Your Expertise Used, read the following chapter:
A Consultant by Any Other Name . . .
From the South University Online Library, read the following articles:
Resourceful Consulting: Working with Your Presence and Identity in Consulting to Change
(https://www.thecampuscommon.com/library/ezproxy/ticketdemocs.asp?
sch=suo&turl=http%3a%2f%2fsearch.ebscohost.com.southuniversity.libproxy.edmc.edu%2ogin.aspx%3fdirect%3dtrue&db=nlebk&AN=784462&site
live)
Designing Organizational Structures: Key Thoughts for Development (https://www.thecampuscommon.com/library/ezproxy/ticketdemocs.asp?
sch=suo&turl=http%3a%2f%2fsearch.ebscohost.com.southuniversity.libproxy.edmc.edu%2ogin.aspx%3fdirect%3dtrue&db=a9h&AN=128651874&si
live)
https://www.thecampuscommon.com/library/ezproxy/ticketdemocs.asp?sch=suo&turl=http%3a%2f%2fsearch.ebscohost.com.southuniversity.libproxy.edmc.edu%2flogin.aspx%3fdirect%3dtrue&db=nlebk&AN=784462&site=eds-live
https://www.thecampuscommon.com/library/ezproxy/ticketdemocs.asp?sch=suo&turl=http%3a%2f%2fsearch.ebscohost.com.southuniversity.libproxy.edmc.edu%2flogin.aspx%3fdirect%3dtrue&db=a9h&AN=128651874&site=eds-live
