HR9615 - Compensation: conflict and cooperation

Activity and simulation are the main features of learning on this module. Employee rewards and employment relations are fascinating, complex games of power and conflict, with astonishing influence and reach across organisations. You will experience this complexity through a module-long simulation in which you will take on a key role in the design and negotiation of a new reward system for an organisation. You will learn by doing – creating a comprehensive reward system with all of the features and complexity that you would find in a real-life organisation. Along the way you will be responsible for pursuing the interests of either employer or employee, making use of power resources and negotiating skill to maximise the benefits for all, but particularly for ‘your side’.
You will experience a fully ‘flipped’ classroom – tutors will be on hand to assist, guide and advise, but you will find your own solutions to the challenges that you face, supported by a wide range of technologies.

In order to provide as much space as possible for you to explore the facets of this module, most of the academic support will be provided outside of the classroom. High quality, short-form videos will largely replace the traditional lectures in order to signpost the key areas of theory and insight that will enable you to succeed. Cooperation and collaboration are important features of the module both within and without the classroom, you will be supported to do this through the use of appropriate technologies. The core of the module will be concerned with making realistic choices about strategy, policies practices and tactics – utilising simulated organisational and labour market data in order to model the effects of your decisions, to argue for and achieve your objectives, and to compromise where necessary.

All modules at Northumbria include a range of reading materials that students are expected to engage with. Online reading lists (provided after enrolment) give you access to your reading material for your modules. The Library works in partnership with your module tutors to ensure you have access to the material that you need.

Knowledge & Understanding:
• You will learn a systematic and coherent body of knowledge concerning the role and function of employee rewards in the context of the employment relationship. (MLO1)

• Design, implement and critically appraise rewards and relations strategies, matched by the consideration of competing imperatives: from labour and product markets; and from the interests of the parties to the employment relationship. (MLO2)

Intellectual / Professional skills & abilities:
• Develop and critically assess skills in bargaining and negotiation as part of your team work. (MLO3)

• Critically reflect on your individual engagement with the subject and rewards process. (MLO4)

Personal Values Attributes (Global / Cultural awareness, Ethics, Curiosity) (PVA):
• You will be explicitly required to consider competing values, interests and objectives and to find imaginative solutions to conflicts and dilemmas. (MLO5)

You will receive near constant feedback throughout the module. All of the workshops are entirely focussed upon the main module project. Tutors are on hand throughout to facilitate, guide and support you towards this goal. As you work in your teams you will test your understanding by making choices and taking decisions – the activity will, itself provide feedback. At key points you will informally present your progress in role play to tutors acting as your bargaining ‘principals’. They will challenge you to defend your decisions and, particularly, your compromises – this will require you to develop sophisticated bargaining skills and capabilities.

The main project is a group report. At one level this report will detail the creation of a new reward system for a simulated organisation, but it’s not just about what you decided to do, it’s about how and why you decided. We are interested in how you negotiated the complexities and conflicts of rewards and the employment relationship. You will present this as a long group report, which draws upon the activities and feedback from the workshops.
There will also be a smaller, individual reflective report to consider what you have learned from your engagement with the module.

MLO1, MLO2, MLO3 and MLO5 will be addressed by the group report

MLO4 will be addressed in the reflective report

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Employee rewards and the employment relationship are at the heart of the life of all organisations. Rewards are why we come to work, a fundamental source of motivation and a subtle and powerful lever to alter employee behaviour. However, rewards are also the fundamental cause of conflict at work, the central objective of the employment relationship.

In this module you will build a reward system in the face of opposition: setting objectives, pursuing interests, overcoming resistance, finding creative resolutions and compromises to conflict. You will develop valuable skills in the crafting of rewards and in bargaining and negotiation. You will think strategically and tactically, and consider opposing values and interests. You will manipulate data and evaluate outcomes supported by innovative and accessible technologies.

The skills learned here have had a direct impact on graduate employment opportunities and provide access to career paths in the most lucrative area of people management.