Programme module · Kent Business College
Level 7 module 3: turn organisational priorities into a credible people strategy through 14 weekly online sessions with KBC.
Translate a strategic ambition into the people, skills and working arrangements needed to deliver it. Strategic Human Resource Management develops your ability to examine workforce requirements, compare responses and build a people strategy that managers can put into practice. You consider the employee experience alongside organisational priorities and test whether policies reinforce one another.
The KBC UK teaching route comprises 14 weekly two-hour sessions, totalling 28 live hours. This original indicative learning sequence develops a workforce case through analysis, planning and review. It supports the Strategic Human Resource Management subject; the issued OTHM coursework brief controls the assessed task. Further directed learning, reading and assessment work sit alongside the live sessions.
Explore the focus and practical output of each teaching session. Open individual sessions below, or expand the complete plan.
Trace a business objective to the work and capabilities it requires. Examine the assumptions connecting people practices with results, and distinguish an HR activity from the outcome it is intended to support.
Practical output: A strategy-to-people contribution map.
Follow a staffing decision through operations, finance and customer delivery. Identify competing priorities, shared information needs and the decisions that require joint ownership rather than an isolated HR response.
Practical output: A cross-functional decision and responsibility map.
Translate a proposed service change into roles, skills, availability and management capacity. Explore how technology, customer expectations and delivery commitments alter the type of work before estimating headcount.
Practical output: A workforce-demand model with explicit assumptions.
Review available workforce information for definitions, gaps and quality. Examine skills, experience, deployment and likely movement, keeping individual information proportionate to the purpose of the analysis.
Practical output: A workforce evidence register and capability profile.
Compare the current position with more than one demand scenario. Distinguish an immediate staffing shortage from a longer-term capability gap and identify which assumptions could change the recommended response.
Practical output: A prioritised gap analysis with scenario triggers.
Compare ways of meeting the need, including recruitment, learning, partnership and changes to work design. Assess lead time, cost, capacity and the management effort required by each option.
Practical output: An options appraisal and phased workforce plan.
Examine how recruitment, development, reward and performance policies interact. Identify conflicting signals and consider how employees may experience the proposed approach across different stages of their employment.
Practical output: A policy-coherence review and improvement priorities.
Identify the jurisdictions and policy areas affected by a proposed change. Frame questions for current specialist advice and consider fairness, employee voice, social responsibility and longer-term workforce consequences.
Practical output: A policy review brief with advice and consultation needs.
Investigate how organisational design and informal expectations affect the workforce plan. Test whether managers have the authority, skills and incentives to implement the proposed people practices.
Practical output: A culture and structure impact assessment.
Investigate a case of declining performance and avoid assuming a single cause. Compare support, role clarity, development, workload and reward responses, with measures appropriate to the problem.
Practical output: A coordinated performance and retention proposal.
Sequence actions around budgets, recruitment lead times and operational capacity. Allocate HR and line-manager responsibilities, prepare communication and identify dependencies that could delay implementation.
Practical output: A costed implementation roadmap and ownership matrix.
Choose measures that connect the plan with organisational and employee outcomes. Examine definitions, denominators and reporting frequency, and test whether an attractive indicator could encourage an unhelpful behaviour.
Practical output: A people-strategy dashboard with measurement notes.
Use new case evidence to review the strategy. Compare expected and observed results, investigate other explanations and decide whether to adjust an action, a target or the original workforce assumption.
Practical output: A review paper and revised people priorities.
Present the integrated recommendation to HR, finance and operational stakeholders. Defend trade-offs, address employee consequences and revise the plan after challenge so its implementation requirements are clear.
Practical output: A completed people-strategy pack and improvement record.
Apply the learning
In this original fictional case, a services business plans a new offer while experienced specialists are stretched and new starters take time to become effective. The dataset includes workload, skills and recruitment assumptions. Develop a response that goes beyond adding headcount: compare capability development, work redesign and external resourcing, then explain the cost, employee implications and review arrangements.
Use anonymised, public or suitable synthetic material where workplace information is confidential. The issued assessment brief confirms the required evidence.
Kent Business College, UK, delivers the teaching. OTHM unit achievement requires the issued coursework to meet every applicable assessment criterion, with centre assessment and OTHM external verification.
Two teams with the same number of employees can have very different capacity. Experience, work allocation, systems, supervision and the mix of tasks all matter. The case asks you to explain the work before selecting the staffing response.
A useful workforce model makes uncertainty visible. If demand arrives later than expected, a recruitment plan may need to change. If the new service requires unfamiliar expertise, training time and management support become part of the delivery plan. You practise showing how these assumptions affect the choice.
A high number of completed training sessions does not show whether the workforce can perform the required task. Similarly, faster recruitment can be unhelpful if new colleagues lack the support needed to succeed. You design measures that reflect the purpose of the intervention and examine the evidence behind an apparent improvement.
The resulting people plan connects with the strategy and leadership modules. It can also inform the additional KBC Applied Strategy and Leadership Studio, where learners bring subject decisions together. The studio develops application without adding regulated credits to the six-unit OTHM diploma.
Its focus is strategic people management. You learn to identify relevant policy questions and the need for current advice in the applicable jurisdiction, rather than treating one country’s rules as universal.
Yes, subject to KBC’s admission decision. The case work is useful where a manager needs to connect workforce capacity, capability and employee experience with delivery objectives.
The 28 live hours sit within a unit specified at 100 GLH and 200 TQT. Your study plan allocates additional guided activity, reading and coursework. The whole OTHM diploma is 120 credits, 600 GLH and 1,200 TQT.
No. The fictional case supports the learning. Any agreed workplace alternative should use authorised, appropriately limited information and follow the assignment and organisational requirements.
Further reading and programme references · reviewed 18 October 2026
