HR7003 Twin river cafe

Academic Year 2019/20
Assessment Guide
Term 13th September 2019- 20th December 2019
Module Leader   Name: Dr Lazarus T. Mabvira Email: L.T.Mabvira@uel.ac.uk Room: US2.33 Student Hours: Wednesday  13-1500hrs                          Thursday      14-1600hrs	Other Tutors   Rebecca Page-Tickell    Michael Harrison Kellici Gerta Kareem F. Sani

Assessment

Individual Coursework

20th  December 2019 @ 2359hrs

This assignment accounts for 50% of the module marks.

Your Task:

The Twin Rivers Café is a company that prepares meals for tourists and citizens in its kitchen located next to the local airport. The company’s planning and actual budgets for July appears below:

The Twin Rivers Café

Planning and actual budgets for the month ended July 31, 2018

                                                                        PLANNING               ACTUAL

Budgeted meals quantity (q)                   18 000                        17 800

Revenues (£4.50q)                                     £81 000                      £80 100

Expenses:

Raw material (£2.40q)                                 43 200                        42 720

Wages and salaries (£5 200+£0.30q)      10 600                        10 540

Utilities (£2 400 + £0.05q)                             3 300                          3 290

Facility rent (£4 300)                                      4 300                          5 100

Insurance (£2 300)                                        2 300                          2 600

Fuel                                                                  2 480                          2 490

Net Operating Income                               £14 820                      £13 360

Required:

1. What is the objective of preparing a budget for Twin Rivers Café? (10 marks)
2. Prepare a report showing the company’s revenue and spending variance for July and explain why this variance should be of concern to management? (20 marks)
3. Which activity of variance should be of concern to management? Explain (40 marks)
4. Advise the Twin Rivers Café on what they need to do to support their objectives. (20 marks)

The word count for this assignment is 1,500 words and will not include the title page, executive summary, contents page or bibliography.

It is important that you show knowledge of key debates within the wider literature. Also, it is strongly advised that you are critical in your writing and ensure a good level of integration and coherence in applying theories. Please work on, and ensure an excellent level of criticality, coherence, and flow of your report. This will require effective discussion and clarity.

Please note that a significant amount of the marks are awarded on the basis of wider reading, critical and logical presentation, quality of argument, referencing, academic integrity and academic writing conventions. Please see Assessment Criteria on the Moodle.

Reassessment

The reassessment will be a resubmission of this report, with tracked changes made in response to the feedback given. The date for Reassessment is 24^th January 2020.

The Learning Outcomes assessed by this assessment are:

Knowledge

1. Analyse and critically evaluate major ideas and practices in the field of people management.
2. Evaluate major contemporary theoretical and managerial perspectives on people management.
3. Demonstrate an understanding of different markets and sources of finance; and the role of budgeting in an organisation. 
4. Be able to assess budgets based financial data to support organisational objectives (CMI Los 2).

Thinking skills

1. Engage critically and analytically with literature relating to major developments in the field of people management.
2. Appreciate how research into effective people management underpins thinking in the other, more specialised fields of HRM and HRD practice that you will be studying.
3. Analyse the information contained in a company’s annual report; and appraise finance and investment decision.

Skills for life and work (general skills)

1. Develop and express strong, original and well-justified arguments to support your views.
2. Advise colleagues and senior managers about making improvements to management systems and thinking in organisations.
3. Demonstrate an understanding of the context within which accounting operates, and the various local and international standards that need to be complied with.

Subject-based practical skill

1. Ability to effectively apply HR theories and models to situations and various scenarios.
2. Effectively apply key ratios appropriate for analysing the financial performance of the organisation.
3. Effectively apply budgets and investment appraisal techniques.

We strongly suggest that you try to submit all coursework by the deadline set as meeting deadlines will be expected in employment. However, in our regulations, UEL has permitted students to be able to submit their coursework up to 24 hours after the deadline.  The deadline is published in this module guide.  Coursework which is submitted late, but within 24 hours of the deadline, will be assessed but subjected to a fixed penalty of 5% of the total marks available (as opposed to marks obtained).  If you submit twice, once before the deadline and once during the 24-hour late period, then the second submission will be marked and 5% deducted.  This rule only applies to coursework.  It does not apply to examinations, presentations, performances, practical assessments or viva voce examinations.  If you miss these for a genuine reason, then you will need to apply for extenuating circumstances, or accept that you will receive a zero mark.

Further information is available in the Assessment & Feedback Policy at

https://www.uel.ac.uk/Discover/Governance/Policies-Regulations-Corporate-documents/Student-Policies (click on other policies)

1. Assessment criteria for the task:

Assessment Criteria	Maximum Mark
Objectives of Preparing a Budget	10
Revenue and Spending Variance Report	20
Variance which should concern Management	40
Advising Twin Rivers Café	20
Clarity & Structure: i.e. detailed, coherent and formal structure should be demonstrated. It also should be well presented	5
Referencing: appropriate application of Harvard referencing should be evident.	5
Total Mark	100

• Guidance on referencing

As a student you will be taught how to write correctly referenced essays using UEL’s standard Harvard referencing system from Cite Them Right. Cite them Right is the standard Harvard referencing style at UEL for all Schools apart from the School of Psychology which uses the APA system. This book will teach you all you need to know about Harvard referencing, plagiarism and collusion.  The electronic version of “Cite Them Right: the essential referencing guide” 9th edition, can be accessed whilst on or off campus, via UEL Direct. The book can only be read online and no part of it can be printed nor downloaded.

Further information is available at:

• Details of submission procedures:

Notice is hereby given that all submissions for this component must be submitted to Turnitin.”  If you fail to submit component to Turnitin, in accordance with the guidance provided on the Virtual Learning Environment (Moodle), a mark of 0 will be awarded for the component.

Submitting Assessments Using Turnitin:

Turnitin is required for coursework assessments, such as report/research papers or projects in Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, and in PDF format.  There are two main reasons we want you to use Turnitin:

• Turnitin can help you avoid academic breaches and plagiarism.  When you use Turnitin before a submission deadline, you can use the Originality Report feature to compare your work to thousands of other sources (like websites, Wikipedia, and even other student papers).  Anything in your work that identically matches another source is highlighted for you to see.  When you use this feature before the deadline, you will have time to revise your work to avoid an instance of academic breach/plagiarism. 
• Turnitin saves paper.  When using Turnitin to electronically submit your work, you will almost never have to submit a paper copy. 

Late Submissions Using Turnitin

UEL has permitted students to be able to submit their coursework up to 24 hours after the deadline.  Assessments that are submitted up to 24 hours late are still marked, but with a 5% deduction.  However, you have to be very careful when you are submitting your assessment.  If you submit your work twice, once using the original deadline link and then again using the late submission link on Turnitin, your assignment will be graded as late with the 5% deduction.

Turnitin System Failure

Best Advice: Don’t wait until the last minute to submit your assessments electronically.  If you experience a problem submitting your work with Turnitin, you should notify your lecturer/tutor by email immediately.  However, deadlines are not extended unless there is a significant systems problem with Turnitin.  UEL has specific plans in place to address these issues.  If UEL finds that the issue with the system was significant, you will receive an email notifying you of the issue and that you have been given a 24-hour extension.  If you don’t receive any email that specifically states you have been given an extension, then the original deadline has not been changed. 

• Feedback and return of work:

Work should be submitted on Turnitin and all feedback will be on Turnitin. This will be released to students on 30^th December 2019 at 1700hrs.

You may submit formative work to your seminar tutor by 20^th November 2019. Generic feedback will be given to the whole class.