Workplace Language Analysis

Our company has hundreds of employees with diverse backgrounds and experiences. We want to understand how our employees communicate with each other and identify positive communication patterns to reinforce and negative communication patterns to correct. We would like to collaborate with students to analyze how our employees communicate. This will help us gain insights into power dynamics, positivity levels, gender relations, ideologies, and communication efficiency. This will involve several different steps for the students, including: Systematically observing and recording oral and written communication in our organization. Analyzing data and determining patterns of significance. Recommending strategies to reinforce positive communication and correct negative communication habits. Bonus steps in the process would also include: Assisting in developing training material for a communications course.

Reducing Employee Turnover

In recent years, managers of our company have observed a decrease in the life cycle of our employees. Previously, individuals progressed through one or more roles within the organization over 2-5 years before leaving and moving onto new organizations. However, we are unable to pinpoint the exact reason for this. Tasks include: Conducting research on current human resources and workforce trends to determine common reasons people are leaving their jobs today. Formulate (number) strategies to reduce turnover in the company based on the common reasons for turnover that were found in the research stage. Decide on the best strategy based on its predicted effectiveness, cost effectiveness, and the logistics of putting the strategy in action. Students will create a report detailing their research findings, as well as an implementation plan for each strategy they explored.

Employee Survey Creation

Our company has hundreds of employees with diverse backgrounds and experiences. We want to understand how we can increase employee satisfaction and team efficiency. To understand employee perspectives, we would like to collaborate with students to create an anonymous survey for our workforce. This will involve several different steps for the students, including: Researching platform options to conduct the survey. Identifying the most suitable survey platform for our company. Conducting research on key topics that should be included in the survey. Recommending multiple-choice and short-answer questions to gauge employee opinions. Bonus steps in the process would also include: Testing and improving the questionnaire based on feedback. Administering the survey and analyzing results.

Website Development

Our company advertises thousands of products online. We hope to update and revamp our existing website to attract more customers. We would like to work with students to develop a new website that is easy to maintain while providing an appealing interface for users. This can be achieved through common site building tools such as Wix, Webflow, and WordPress. This will involve several different steps for the students, including: Researching different site-building tools and their associated advantages / disadvantages. Conducting a needs analysis to determine which platform is most suitable. Building a website, with our assistance in providing the content. Providing training on updating and maintaining the website. Bonus steps in the process would also include: Testing prototypes with customers and refining ideas with feedback.

Store Layout Optimization

We have been serving customers for decades, and we would like to increase sales in our store. We believe that changing the layout of our shop could lead to more revenue per customer. We would like to collaborate with students to generate profitable layouts for our store. This will involve several different steps for the students, including: Familiarizing themselves with our products and services. Researching commonly used floor plans in stores. Considering factors such as traffic flow, customer behaviour, product placement, displays, and customer amenities. Creating a blueprint of a recommended store layout. Bonus steps in the process would also include: Recommending changes to improve our store’s accessibility.

Staffing and Volunteer Recruitment Optimization

Our company has dozens of staff members and volunteers with diverse backgrounds and experiences. However, we have had some challenges recruiting top-quality talent. Finding individuals who can invest their time in our mission can be costly. This project will involve several different steps for the students, including: Documenting the current state of our staff and volunteer recruitment process, from the time the resource need is identified to the time the position is filled. Creating visualizations such as data flow diagrams to identify strengths and pain points in our recruitment process. Assessing our current process and making recommendations for improvements and efficiencies. Documenting and mapping a target state process. Suggesting feedback mechanisms to gather input from staff, volunteers, and applicants.

Health & Wellness Program Implementation

Our company has hundreds of employees with diverse backgrounds and experiences. We would like to implement a formalized health and wellness program to elevate their overall well-being. However, we do not have an adequate understanding of what types of initiatives will be valuable to our employees. We would like to collaborate with students to gain an understanding of what components should be included and the implementation strategies available. This will involve several different steps for the students, including: Analyzing data from employee interviews and surveys. Researching current trends in corporate health and wellness. Developing a realistic health and wellness program. Providing metrics to justify the implementation of the program. Recommending steps to implement the program within our company. Revising and improving the proposed program based on feedback.

Hiring Consultancy

Our company has dozens of employees with diverse backgrounds and experiences. However, we have had some challenges hiring and retaining top-quality talent. We would like to collaborate with students to overhaul our hiring process and develop a system for effectively building our workforce. This will involve several different steps for the students, including: Familiarizing themselves with recruitment best practices and our values. Evaluating our current recruitment and selection procedures. Developing and recommending hiring systems and processes, based on best practices and our organizational needs. Considering the use of psychometric tests, assessment exercises, and standardized interview practices. Bonus steps in the process would also include: Recommending feedback mechanisms for job applicants.

Financial Risk Analysis

As a growing company, we are interested in understanding the state of the market we are in, and our organization’s level of risk. In this project, students will assess our company’s risk by building a financial risk model to determine our best course of action. Students will perform a sensitivity analysis to help us eliminate some of the uncertainties we face and determine the reliability of risk estimates. This may involve: Using mathematical and statistical tools to analyze private and public data. Evaluating metrics associated with the risk level of our company such as volatility, correlations for returns, forward/futures contracts, cash flows, variance, and economic states. Building a financial risk model including sensitivity analysis to determine the reliability of the model’s findings. Creating a report to present the results and recommendations from various forms of analysis to be presented to the project manager.

Training Module Development

Our company provides regular training for employees, so they are up-to-date on ethics and safety standards as well as changes within the industry. We would like to collaborate with students to examine our company’s training programs and recommend areas for further training and development. Tasks may involve: Familiarizing themselves with our company’s training programs and their objectives, templates, and implementations. Conducting research on corporate training programs of other organizations. Analyzing data from employee interviews and surveys regarding training. Identifying topics of future training such as those related to new employee training, new product training, security procedure training, leadership development, diversity training, mentorship programming, or sexual harassment training. Recommending next steps for improving our company’s training programs.

Redesigning a Human Resources Performance Evaluation

As our organization grows, it is important to stay up to date with the industry’s evolving human resources practices to manage our employees effectively. In this project, students will design a preliminary model of a new performance evaluation system that emphasizes our company goals, and draws a focus to our main challenges that staff are facing. Tasks include: Speaking to current employees and management to determine the needs and challenges of our organization for a performance management system. Researching performance management options that may suit the needs of our team, focusing on measurability and reliability. Establishing a rollout plan that outlines how our organization will transition to using a new performance management system. Using a weighted decision matrix to decide on a method based on factors such as efficiency, user-friendliness, measurability, reliability, and cost- effectiveness.

Survey Creation

Our company advertises thousands of products online. The main problem we are trying to solve is to garner more user feedback through users’ experiences. We would like to understand our strengths and areas of improvement from a customer perspective. We would like to collaborate with students to develop a survey that can generate accurate data for future decision-making. This will involve several different steps for the students, including: Conducting background research on our products and customers. Researching platform options to conduct the survey. Identifying the most suitable survey platform for our company. Recommending multiple-choice and short-answer questions to gauge customer opinions. Bonus steps in the process would also include: Testing and improving the questionnaire based on feedback.

Financial Business Plan

We are excited to be launching a new business, (name of business and brief description of what the company will do). With any launch, having a financial plan is one of the keys to success, and we would like to involve students in creating one for our new venture. This will involve several different steps for the students, including: Learning about our business strategy from various employees to become familiar with our goals, mission, and products. Creating forecasts using Excel (or another financial software) for sales in the first year of operation as well as an income projection (conservative and aggressive). Working with our team to develop an expense budget. Conducting a break-even analysis timeline using financial projections. Reporting on projected assets and liabilities. Including visual comparisons such as graphs and charts to show the differences between the conservative and aggressive income projection.

Competitive Employee Onboarding Plan

One of the most important aspects of starting a position in a new company is the onboarding process. In addition to making us a more compelling firm to work with than our competition, we want our onboarding process to promote our company culture to accelerate the learning curve of working for us and increase our employee retention. This will involve several different steps for the students, including: Discuss our onboarding practices with current employees to determine their effectiveness and where improvement is needed. Research our own as well as competitors’ current onboarding practices. Research which onboarding practices are best at reaching employees and making a lasting impact. Create a report detailing all research findings and a new onboarding plan for our company. Reporting on cost estimates and allocating funds in the most efficient way.