Creating A Service Level Agreement (SLA) And Feedback Survey

Situation 1 and 2

Question:

Task 1: Written Report

For this task, consider the following situations in order to complete the question below:

Situation 1

Due to the volume of new staff required, the decision has been made to retain the services of an HR Consultancy Firm who will be seeking to assist in providing Inductions, WHS training, and HR advice and service training in line with BEST Pearls preferred methodology. This HR

Consultancy Firm is known as “Hewitt Associates” and they are one of the world’s leading HR consulting and outsourcing companies.

Hewitt Associates (https://www.hewittassociates.com/), have appointed Mr Richard Mayall as the Client Manager looking after BEST Pearls, and he will be handling ongoing negotiations between BEST Pearls and Hewitt Associates. BEST Pearls will shortly be engaging in correspondence with Hewitt Associates to arrange any necessary Service Level Agreement(s). However, before this occurs, you will need to look over the current direction and strategy of BEST Pearls and identify any other weaknesses/threats that may be faced or need to be addressed.

Situation 2

BEST Pearls is now in a position to go ahead and retain the services of Hewitt Associates. You have contacted Mr Mayall and he has indicated that Hewitt Associate will be well placed to assist BEST Pearls as soon as there is an agreement in place which is satisfactory to both parties.

You have been appointed the task of arranging a Service Level Agreement (SLA) between the two parties for the provision of Employment Contract Advice, Inductions and initial OH&S training for new starters.

(A) Establish a service level agreement* (SLA) between BEST Pearls and their HR solutions provider, Hewitt Associates. Your SLA will need to include the service specifications, performance standards and timeframes required from the agreement.

(B) (Linking from Assessment One) Develop the human resources strategies and services for BEST Pearls’ employees and its HR provider, Hewitt Associates.

(C) Identify and design training support for BEST Pearls’ employees, considering the organisation’s goals and strategies.

(D) Develop tools to monitor the quality of training provided by Hewitt Associates, including actions to rectify under-performance.

(E) Outline the confidentiality requirements associated with this HR-related SLA.

(F) Briefly outline and identify the advantages in using Hewitt Associates’ services.

Task 2: Create a Feedback Survey

(A) Acting as the HR Manager, you have been asked to design a client feedback survey that Hewitt Associates could use to determine the level of satisfaction that BEST Pearls feel towards the SLA.

You will need to consider the purpose of this survey by Hewitt Associates (to analyse feedback and adopt possible changes recommended by BEST Pearls), including:

1. Approvals to variations in service delivery between Hewitt Associates and BEST Pearls;

2. Change of processes across the organisation;

(B) Design an employee’s feedback form to determine the level of satisfaction of the training provided by the HR provider, considering any benefits for their improvement.

(A) Service Level Agreement

Statement of Intent

The aim of this agreement is to provide a basis of close cooperation between Best Pearls and Hewitt Associates for HR consultancy services to be provided by Hewitt Associates to Best Pearls to ensure services are delivered in a timely and efficient manner.

Establishing a Service Level Agreement (SLA)

This agreement is contingent on each party knowing and fulfilling their responsibilities and working in a manner that creates an environment conducive to the achievement and maintenance of targeted service levels.

Service Specifications

Hewitt Associated will provide the following services:

Service Type	Description of Service	Response Time	Performance Standards
Employment Contact Advice	Ensuring that the contract of employment and associated paperwork in relation to employees is completed accurate and in a timely manner (Snell & Bohlander, 2012).	Within 48 hours	Services provided within specified timeframe and to expected quality. Employee Feedback about the quality of response provided
Advice amendments as and when required.	With 24 hours
Handle employee queries related to employment contract	Within 24 Hours
Inductions	Book induction events.	Within 48 hours of the joining date of new employees	Induction for new hires started on the third day of joining. Events were well informed to employees and trainers. All training materials were available. Feedback provided by employees after the induction session was completed
Confirm Trainers availability	Before 24 hours the induction is scheduled
Ensure that schedule is effectively communicated to employees	Before 24 hours the induction is scheduled
Ensure all training materials and other necessities are available	Before 24 hours the induction is scheduled
Ensure adequate number of feedback forms are available	Before the end of induction session
Ensure that employee feedbacks is collected	Within 48 hours of competition of induction
Initial OH&S Training	Book Training events	Within 5 days of completion of induction	All activities are performed within defined time frame. Feedback received from the employees undergoing the training.
Confirm trainers availability	Before 24 hours the training is scheduled
Effectively communicate Schedule to new hires	Before 48 hours the training is scheduled
Ensure all material related to policies and procedures for effective management of Health and Safety are referred in-details	Before 24 hours the induction is scheduled
Drills related to Health and Safety are properly organised and communicated	Within 2 days the OH&S training is completed
Within 2 days the OH&S drills are completed
Feedback related to OH&S training is collected

Client Responsibility:

The client undertakes to provide Hewitt Associates with necessary information and support as an when required and make them aware of related issues that come up as soon as reasonably practicable (Pattanayak, 2005). They must promptly respond to requests for training and development.

Human resource is considered the most precious asset for an organisation (Armstrong, 2011). An effective HR strategy is important to ensure high performance and overall productivity (Bhatia, 2007). BEST Pearls is looking forward to hire Hewitt Associates as an external HR consultant who will be responsible for provision of Employment Contract Advice, Initial OH&S training and induction for new starters.

BEST Pearls looks forward to develop an environment where all employees are encouraged to learn and develop. They want to ensure that right people are attracted, maintained and retained in order to achieve desired organisational goals.

Hewitt Associate as an external HR consultancy will ensure that BEST pearls have updated information related to Employment Contracts and adequate changes are made as and when needed. They will be responsible for ensuring that all activities related to induction and initial OH&S trainings of newly hired employees is conducted in a timely and effective manner.

A training support comprises of a schedule of activities ensuring that training goals are met, learning objectives, methods, subject areas, trainees, trainers, locations and methods of assessment (Deb, 2006). Training support for induction of BEST Peral’s employees is shown below:

1. Getting information on the numbers of new hires to be trained.
2. Booking rooms and needed training materials.
3. Booking timeslots from trainers (in case of induction trainers include companies top executives who will brief the new hires about company and its processes) (Lawler & Boudreau, 2009).
4. Ensuring needed training materials are ready ( hard and soft copies)
5. Informing the schedules to new hires.
6. Ensuring assessment materials and Feedback survey materials are ready.
7. Ensuring that training are conducted effectively as scheduled.

There are a number of tools that can help monitor quality of training delivered by Hewitt Associates (Wilson, 2005). Checklist for supervisory visits can be effectively used in the given case. Checklist will contain following questions:

1. Ratio of learners to facilitators; total number of new hirers attending the sessions (Holbeche, 2012)
2. Time allocated for workshops
3. Frequency of questions asked and answers delivered as per expectations
4. Frequency of assessments and timely delivery of results

Hewitt Associates will ensure confidentiality of the employee information and important materials/documents furnished by BEST Pearls is preserved and protected (Cooper & Burke, 2011).

Hewitt Associates is one of the world’s leading HR consulting and outsourcing company. They provide their services globally in more than 120 countries (Aon Plc, 2015). They have years of experience in HR field and have around 66,000 talented employees serving customers of different types and sizes. Their customer-oriented approach makes them the best choice for BEST Pearls.

(A) Client Feedback Survey

The below mentioned questions must be rated in scale range of 1-3;

1- Strongly disagree
2- Neither Agree nor Disagree
3- Strongly Agree

Overall, the service level Agreement meets the expectation of BEST Pearls.

1-                       2-                      3-                   

Service level targets are effectively reflected and meet expectations.
   
1-                     2-                      3-                     

The services offered in the agreement compare to your ideal service.

1-                       2-                     3-               

Are there any recommendations that can help improve the response time, quality and processes mentioned in the agreement?

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Based on your recommendations will changes of processes across the organisation be accepted as and when required?

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________

The below mentioned questions must be rated in scale range of 1-5;

1: All of the time

2- Most of the time
3- Some of the time
4- Hardly ever
5- Never

Services	1	2	3	4	5
Trainings schedules are well informed
Trainers are knowledgeable, interactive and encouraging
Materials and documents used are up to the mark
Purpose behind the session is clear
Trainers encourage you to ask questions
Answers provided are satisfactory
Training is conducted as scheduled
Any changes are well-informed

References

Aon Plc. (2015). Aon. Retrieved 2015, from Aon: https://www.aon.com/about-aon/company-overview.jsp

Armstrong, M. (2011). Armstrong’s Handbook of Strategic Human Resource Management. London: Kogan Page Publishers.

Bhatia, S. (2007). Strategic Human Resource Management : Winning Through People. New Delhi: Deep and Deep Publications.

Cooper, C. L., & Burke, R. J. (2011). Human Resource Management in Small Business: Achieving Peak Performance. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing.

Deb, T. (2006). Strategic Approach to Human Resource Management. New Delhi: Atlantic Publishers & Dist.

Holbeche, L. (2012). Aligning Human Resources and Business Strategy. New Jersey: Routledge.

Lawler, E., & Boudreau, J. W. (2009). Achieving Excellence in Human Resources Management (Stanford University Press ed.). Stanford.

Pattanayak, B. (2005). Human Resource Management. New Delhi: PHI Learning Pvt.

Snell, S., & Bohlander, G. (2012). Managing Human Resources. New York: Cengage Learning.

Wilson, J. P. (2005). Human Resource Development: Learning & Training for Individuals & Organizations. London: Kogan Page Publishers.