Understand the reasons behind organisations changing the structure and location of HR service provision.

Links to changing organisational and HR strategies; new thinking about supply chain management, service delivery and value-adding operations and processes; criticisms of traditional HR service structures and processes based on centralised models of the HR function; the economic, quality and efficiency arguments behind third-party delivery of HR services. Understand the different HR service delivery models available to contemporary organisations.

Internal and externally located shared service delivery models; purchasing of specific HR services from third parties, for example, contracting for legal advice in employment matters; outsourcing all or parts of HR service provision; in-sourcing and the development of a market for HR service provision; using consultants instead of or in support of internal service delivery.

How strategically orientated HR services are structured and provided; the provision of transaction services covering HR administration, records, information- and data-handling and payroll; client-facing HR services including business unit advice and support, internal consultancy provision, training needs analysis and training provision, coaching and mentoring.

Understand the challenges involved in maintaining and managing HR services and how standards are established and monitored.

Processes and tools to identify and implement improvements to service delivery; utilising technology across end-to-end processes and with multiple users; service performance data collection and analysis; monitoring and evaluating data and information to ensure ongoing service quality; organisational performance and organisational change; internal and external benchmarking; key performance indicators and targets; cost and efficiency monitoring to increase quality, reduce cost and eliminate duplication.

Criteria for choosing partners and external providers; systems and processes that measure the efficiency and effectiveness of third-party suppliers; service-level agreements and contract management; intellectual property and knowledge transfer; stakeholder and employee relations interests and issues; communications.

Understand what knowledge is, the different forms it can take and how it can be understood. Different ways of conceptualising knowledge: knowledge as truth, as fact and as belief; the objectivist and practice-based perspectives. Different categorisations of knowledge: tacit and explicit; knowledge of what, why and how; knowledge in context; knowledge that adds value Understand how knowledge within an organisation can be accessed and fully utilised.

Knowledge as a source of power: knowledge and organisational hierarchies, knowledge as a resource; individual and organisation barriers to knowledge-sharing.

Be able to contribute to the generation of knowledge through the design of different learning experiences and mechanisms. How knowledge is created: the role of experience in knowing, experiential and accelerated learning; systematic research, research methods, techniques of reasoning, experimental design.

Formal and informal mechanisms for sharing learning: communication systems, communities of practice and networks; levels of learning; single- and double-loop learning.

Understand how knowledge can be used to support sustained organisational performance.

The link between learning, knowledge and job performance; organisational learning and performance; personal, managerial and cultural factors that mediate between this relationship; leveraging and applying knowledge in the performance domain; translating knowledge into organisation activity.