HRM3701
Assignment1Semester
2 2024 (585848) - DUE
26 August 2024
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[Type the company name]
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Contemporary Issues in Human Resource Management
HRM3701 Assignment 1 COMPLETE ANSWERS) Semester 2 2024 (585848)
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Operational context NOVA Economics is a specialist economic and
development consulting firm which employs 120 people, the consultants are
all economists, financial analysts and computer scientists. Most of the staff
are between their 30s and mid-40s many with master’s degrees and some
with PhDs. Founded in 2002, NOVA Economics provides clients with the in-
depth expertise and analysis necessary to make the right choices. The
consultants combine a deep understanding of the Southern African business
and policy context with specialist skills in international trade, public policy and
regulation, competition economics and climate change. The work is very
technical, involving large amounts of data analysis. Where NOVA Economics
does not have specialist skills in-house, the consulting firm was able to draw
on a network of local experts and academics as well as their strategic
business partners in Australia and Europe. Before lockdown, staff were used
to remote videoconferencing with clients, and company policy allowed working
from home one day a week, but this wasn’t particularly commonplace. The
Managing Director Yash Ramkolowan commented that ‘even if once a week
someone would work from home, the rest of the team would be in the office,
so it did have the feeling that most people were in the office most of the time.’
In terms of flexible hours, there was already a culture of flexing the start and
end of the day, both for work–life balance needs and to enable meetings with
“THEIR” clients in different time zones. While some staff made use of this,
many also worked traditional office hours, and core hours of 11.00 to 15.00
were in place. The type of knowledge work done by NOVA Economics could
hardly be better suited to working from home, or indeed to flexing hours; as
Yash commented: ‘In terms of our client needs, there isn’t any specific need to
be in the office or producing from very set hours. A lot of the work that we do
is quite internally focused.’ The consultants’ work is also mostly highly
plannable: they speak regularly to clients but have a good deal of autonomy
over when those calls take place. However, when the pandemic enforced
total, five-days-a-week homeworking, something was lost from team
communication. Head of HR Kate Dabula commented: ‘There is no substitute
for that soft social interaction that happens by default, when you are in the
