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Problem based learning assignment, structure- report format and APA 6th referencing style.

Problem Based Learning Assignment: Managing organisational change

A US-based transnational firm, Fresh-R-Us, has recently acquired an Australian food processing organisation located in a small town in regional South Australia. The factory has a number of production lines canning fruit and vegetables sourced from local producerswhich supply the factory under contract. It has a workforce of 130 including 20 contract maintenance staff. Although the employees tend to work on one production line, their skills are sufficiently transferable to work across the factory.

A strategic review of the Australian operation found that the product quality was excellent however the firm's China-based factory could produce a similar, albeit not as high quality product, landed in Australia at half the cost. Fresh-R-Us has therefore decided to close a production line at the factory; a decision meaning that the firm will need to terminate sixty of the factory's full-time employees. Most,too, are longstanding workers with an average of at least five years' service. It wants to keep the line functioning for around eight months as this will provide management with the time it needs to satisfy its notice obligations to the local growers and to arrange for the product to be imported into Australia from the other factory in China.

As to employment relations, the Australian Manufacturing Workers' Union (AMWU) has a high density level at the factory with a strong shopfloor delegate structure,there appears to be little overt conflict, indeed none had occurred in the significant workplace change which had been achieved over the last decade to heighten productivity. The workforce and the AMWU adopted a very collaborative approach in the belief that change would save the plant from closure. An enterprise agreement applies to the factory - see other source material below.
The strategic review is, at this stage, secret.

It's expected the retrenched employees will have difficulty getting subsequent employment in the local labour market. One estimate suggests that only about a quarter of the workforce would retire if the given the opportunity.

The Director of HR/ER wants you to prepare a report setting out recommendations for how the production line closure will be actioned.You need to give consideration to issues such as the potential of conflict and resistance from the workforce and wider stakeholders, the extent to which the closure will confirm to ‘corporate social responsibility' principles and HRM and ER practice requirements including how the closure decision will be made known. This will include a draft statement which will be distributed to the workforce. Some (modest) explanation of Fresh - R - Us' legal obligations is required.

Your report should be no longer than 2,000 words (excluding references). The draft statement need to be included as a separate appendix. Please note, appendix draft is not included in the word count.

Report format must consist table of contents, introduction (states what all is included in the following report with bit brief background of the case), report body, recommendations (most important part carrying more weightage) and conclusion.