Identifying service providers and their services

List the service providers that your organisation uses and the services that they offer.

A.Internet service provider

B.Storage service provider

Service agreements should identify the following:

Goals- A. To provide the employees with easy access to internet and other resources provided by these service providers in order to ensure smooth flow of work within the organisation

The services that must be delivered-

1. access to internet, domain name, internet transit, web hosting, collocation etc
2. computer storage space, archiving and periodic backup

The support and resources required-

A.customer support and trust

B.Computers

A.It provides a direct connection from the network of the company to the internet, provides various internet service such as e-mails

B.To provide computer storage spaces and other related management to the organisation.

The expected effectiveness of service delivery- security, shorter installation time, accessible support, timely troubleshooting response, future oriented, reliable upload and download speeds, routing, 24 hour service facility etc.

Costs and payments- The service providers are paid for every month. However, the storage service provider is paid for each managed terabyte of the storage.

The way in which services are developed and provided

A.The internet services are provided by the ISPs through cables, routers, network and computers.

B.The storage service providers build and manages the fault tolerant and the highly available network at the company site and they provide access to their facilities as well.

Choose one of the service providers chosen above and outline each of the areas that the service agreement should identify.

Using the answers that you have provided in this section, make notes on the service level agreements key clauses.

Key Clauses Outline

Description of the service The internet service providers provide internet to the users by means of dial up service, cellular data service and the DSL service (Zott, Amit and Donlevy 2013). They serve large range of  companies by providing them with direct connection to the internet from the company’s network. They provides internet services such as access to e-mails, web hosting, security services and software tools.

Service definition ISP or the internet service provider is referred to an organisation or company that provides various services accessing related to the internet for business or personal purpose (Afuah and Tucci 2016). It refers to the gateway to the internet and everything that people do online.

1Performance tracking In case if the internet server of the organisation stops responding or the ILS crashes or one of the segment of the network goes offline and if the network is getting slow then it could be understood that the performance of the ISP is not efficient enough.

Developing service agreements

Problem management In case if there is any internet problem arises in the company, the facilities manager directly contact about the same to the ISP executive in order to sort out the issues as soon as possible. There are several times, when the ISP provider executive visits the company himself to identify and resolve the issue.

Fees and expenses The ISP offers a large range of services to its customers, which includes software, hardware, internet protocol transport, customer support etc (Srinagesh 2012). Internet is built on an expensive infrastructure that consists of the facilities of the phone companies, campus LANs, and the computing environment. Therefore, the expenses after it is little more than that for the storage services. However, the fees is same for each of the month despite of the quantity of internet usage.

Duties of the parties The duties of parties is ensure that they are doing their part in an effective manner and that the organisation that is depending on them is not getting negatively affected in any way because of their lacking performance

Security The service provider must make sure that any type of confidential or private document is not leaked through their service. They must ensure that the privacy of the company is fully maintained.

Express warranties or written warranties

Legal compliance Legal actions will be taken against the service provider in case it breaches the company laws, which includes leakage of company documents online

Variation of Agreement A precedent variation agreement in between both the parties has done.

Terminations In case any of any situation where it is seen that the working procedure in the company is getting hampered due to the dispute in the internet supply then the company will cut off the agreement done with the respective internet service provider company.

Objective To provide you with an opportunity to develop and agree on strategies and action plans for delivery of human resource services

Activity What is consensus decision making?

• Consensus decision making is the decision-making process of getting to the agreement between all the members included. It can also be defined as a system where instead of just voting and the win of majority it is a way of finding solution that can be useful for everyone.

Using the Consensus Decision-Making Flow Chart explain in your own words, how you would resolve a problem as a Manager.  You may use an example from your own work place to explain the flow chart.  Are there any ways in which to improve the process?

If you have no example to use, discuss the following in your answer:

Lee Jones has recommended that the paperwork for the processing of a new employee be changed.  Several members of staff will be affected by the change.  Chris will no longer need to enter the new data for the employee into the computer.  This would lighten Chris’ responsibilities and would no longer be needed to work in a full time position.  A scanner costing $2000.00 would process the paperwork in half the time.  Alex would have to file the information and would be placed under more pressure because he also generates the payroll for the fortnightly period.

Documenting and communicating service specifications, performance standards, and timeframes

Using the final decision in the consensus decision making flow chart, briefly outline how you would action the decision, using the action planning steps.

As a manager, I shall first distribute the work that Alex alone have to do after the implementation of a new scanner for doing the paper work, equally between Alex and Chris. In this way, Alex will not feel over burdened by his job role. Chris too will get the opportunity to continue working as a full time employee of the company. This will help me and may company to get saved from employee retention, as if I demote Chris from his position in the company and shift him to a part time employee, this will be a factor of worries for Chris and he no longer will be willing to work for my company even as a part time employee. In case of Alex, he too will feel heavily burned by his job role and may decide to leave the company. Hence, instead to turning chris into a part time employee, I will distribute the work among the two. I shall dicuss my proposal with the team and test for a census at first. They will vote for their opinions about the same and then I will look forward for their suggestions so that I can make necessary and fruitful modification in my decision. If this will get approved by each and every member of the team then I will go for it and implement this in my organisation and in case if they do not support my decision and suggest some other proposal which I find more beneficial, then I will implement that.

Objective To provide you with an opportunity to agree and document roles and responsibilities of human resource team, line managers, and external contractors

Activity Using the last two questions in Activity 1F, recommend and discuss the documentation that you should use to implement the plan.  In your answer include that importance of documenting the roles and responsibilities of the HR team.

Documentation is the legally written record of events related with the employment (Menon et al. 2014). It is the legally mandated record that is to be maintained and retained by the organization. It constitutes all the required company practices and policies, investigations, recognitions and rewards, failure to accomplishments as well as performance evaluations. Documentation about the employees is generally negative and positive when required. It is not judgmental instead it is factual. It provides all the actions like, when to take disciplinary actions and formal employee recognition.  During the legal proceedings, documentation concerned with the past performance of the employees is proved to be critical to the result the employers experiences from the events.

I would need documentation for critical situations, whether negative or positive. It is also recommended that the manager should have a record of the performances of the employees for a particular sapn of time. As the documentation related to employee performance would allow me to discipline, fairly promote and reward the employees. Furthermore, documentation would also include computer software instructions and working procedures.

1. Two staff has completed a needs assessment.  The HR manager has identified that they need training to update their computer skills.

Using the information that you have used, put together an outline of what you need to know and make recommendations on how you can do it.  Design a questionnaire if you find this easier.

In the current scenario, Google have made its way to the popular lexicon. Older employees can find their careers stymied due to lack of computer know-how. Computer literacy is currently viewed as a must-have for the office employees, from the executives to receptionists. Trainings are given to these employees to update their basic computer skills like navigating file system and menus. Microsoft office programs knowledge is essential especially, word, excel and power point. Essential internet skills, like web browsing, email and searching.

The employees hired are tested for their computer skills, as it is a great way to ascertain the skills they possess and what is lacking so that proper benchmark is evaluated.  For retail operations, the new employees should be trained on POS software operations.  Optimal training method should be provided to upgrade the employee’s computer skills. On –the-job, training and informal training should also be given through supervisors for a computer literate environment. In order to stay competitive, it is necessary for the business to enhance the computer skills of the employees.

References

Afuah, A. and Tucci, C.L., 2016. Internet business models and strategies (p. 358). New York: McGraw-Hill.

Menon, S., Singh, H., Meyer, A.N., Belmont, E. and Sittig, D.F., 2014. Electronic health record–related safety concerns: a cross?sectional survey. Journal of Healthcare Risk Management, 34(1), pp.14-26.

Srinagesh, P., 2012. Internet cost structures and interconnection agreements (pp. 121-154). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Zott, C., Amit, R. and Donlevy, J., 2013. Strategies for value creation in e-commerce:: best practice in Europe. European Management Journal, 18(5), pp.463-475.