| Course | HRM-7600 Human Resource Management - Talent Management |
|---|---|
| Module | Module 1 |
| Paper type | Written assignment: the HR function and its strategic role |
| Length | About 903 words, 6 pages |
| Format | APA 7 student paper |
| School | Thomas Edison State University |
| Program | Master of Business Administration |
| Updated | October 2026 |
Free sample paper for HRM 7600 Module 1
From Paperwork to Partnership: Repositioning HR at a Growing Credit Union
Student Name
Master of Business Administration, Thomas Edison State University
HRM-7600: Human Resource Management - Talent Management
Mentor Name
Month Day, Year
From Paperwork to Partnership: Repositioning HR at a Growing Credit Union
The course text defines human resource management as the organizational activities aimed at attracting, developing and maintaining an effective workforce, and argues that HR contributes most when it is treated as part of the organization's strategy rather than as an administrative service (DeNisi & Griffin, 2020). This paper applies that view to Keystone Valley Federal Credit Union, a composite cooperative lender owned by its members in central Pennsylvania with 1,150 employees across 31 branches, a contact center and a lending operation. The board has approved a plan to grow commercial lending and digital banking, and the chief executive has asked whether HR, as currently organized, can support that plan.
How HR Works Today
The HR department has five people: a director, two generalists, a payroll and benefits specialist and a recruiter. Interviews with the director and a review of how staff spend their time suggest that about 70 percent of HR hours go to transactions such as payroll corrections, benefits questions, leave paperwork and offer letters. About 20 percent goes to compliance, including training records and employee relations cases, and only about 10 percent to planning work such as workforce forecasting, succession or the design of jobs for the new lending units. Turnover among branch tellers is 34 percent a year, and the commercial lending team has filled only two of six new positions in nine months.
The Strategic Role Described in the Text
DeNisi and Griffin (2020) distinguish HR's operational responsibilities, which keep the organization running and compliant, from its strategic responsibilities, which involve shaping workforce decisions so they support the organization's goals. A strategically oriented HR function forecasts the skills the strategy will need, designs jobs and rewards that encourage the behavior the strategy requires, and gives line managers the data and advice to make good people decisions. The text also stresses that HR is shared work: line managers carry out much of it, and the HR department's job is to equip them.
What the Evidence Says
Research supports the claim that HR practices affect organizational results. Huselid (1995) surveyed close to a thousand U.S. companies; those that relied more heavily on rigorous hiring, training, incentive pay and employee involvement reported lower quit rates, higher sales per employee and better market and accounting returns. Combs et al. (2006) reviewed 92 studies in a meta-analysis and estimated that an increase of one standard deviation in the use of such practices was associated with about a 4.6 percentage point increase in return on assets, with larger effects when practices were used as a coherent system rather than one at a time. Neither study proves that HR alone causes better results, since successful firms may invest more in people, but both suggest that systems of practices matter more than isolated programs.
The Gap at Keystone Valley
Measured against the text and the research, the credit union's HR function is strong on operations and weak on strategy.
| Strategic responsibility | Current state | Gap |
|---|---|---|
| Workforce planning for growth | None for commercial lending or digital roles | Large |
| Selection systems | Unstructured interviews by branch managers | Moderate |
| Rewards aligned with strategy | Teller incentives tied only to transaction volume | Moderate |
| Manager support and data | Turnover reported once a year, without causes | Large |
| Compliance and administration | Accurate and timely | Small |
The gap is not a failure of effort. The department is small for an organization of this size, at about one HR employee for every 230 workers, and transactional work crowds out everything else.
Recommendation
The credit union should free HR capacity first and then redeploy it. A self-service portal for pay stubs, benefits enrollment and leave requests, together with a simple case system for questions, can absorb much of the transactional load. One of the generalist roles should become an HR business partner for the lending and digital divisions, responsible for workforce planning, job design and recruiting for the growth plan, while the other supports branches and the contact center with a focus on teller turnover. The director should report quarterly to the executive team on turnover by role and cause, time to fill and progress on lending hires. A coherent set of practices, structured selection, a teller career path and incentives that include service quality, should follow, consistent with the evidence that practices work best as a system.
The trade-off is cost and disruption in the short run. The portal will cost money and require training, some employees will dislike losing face-to-face help with routine questions, and the generalists will need development to work as business partners. Those costs are modest compared with the cost of failing to staff the growth plan.
Measures of Success
Within a year, HR time spent on planning and manager support should reach at least a third of hours, the four open commercial lending positions should be filled, and teller turnover should fall toward 25 percent. These measures connect HR's work directly to the strategy, which is the test DeNisi and Griffin (2020) propose for a strategic HR function.
Conclusion
Keystone Valley's HR department does its operational work well but has no capacity for the strategic work the growth plan requires. Research on high-performance work practices suggests that investing in a coherent HR system pays off. Shifting routine work to self-service and placing a business partner beside the growing divisions would let HR contribute to the strategy rather than only keeping records for it.
References
Combs, J., Liu, Y., Hall, A., & Ketchen, D. (2006). How much do high-performance work practices matter? A meta-analysis of their effects on organizational performance. Personnel Psychology, 59(3), 501-528. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1744-6570.2006.00045.x
DeNisi, A. S., & Griffin, R. W. (2020). HR (5th ed.). Cengage Learning.
Huselid, M. A. (1995). The impact of human resource management practices on turnover, productivity, and corporate financial performance. Academy of Management Journal, 38(3), 635-672. https://doi.org/10.5465/256741
Reading the HRM 7600 Module 1 assignment instructions
HRM-7600 requires three written assignments that ask you to consider human resources and talent management concepts from several perspectives, together worth 18 percent; the course also has five discussions, a synchronous event, a midterm on Modules 1 to 4 and a three-part final project. Because the public syllabus does not tie each assignment to a module, this sample uses Module 1's material on the HR function in the assignment format. Describe a real or composite organization, compare its HR function with the strategic role in DeNisi and Griffin, bring in research evidence, and recommend changes with costs and measures. Write in APA style with headings. Keep the focus on decisions a manager could act on.
Inside the HRM 7600 Module 1 example
The paper starts from the textbook's definition and a business problem, a growth plan HR must support, so the analysis has a purpose. It describes current HR work with numbers, sets out the strategic role from the text and summarizes two studies, noting their limits. A table compares responsibilities with the current state and rates each gap. The recommendation addresses the cause, too much transactional work, before adding practices, and a separate paragraph names its costs. Measures of success connect HR's work to the strategy, closing the loop the textbook describes. The conclusion repeats the diagnosis and remedy in three sentences without adding new material. Every figure supports a step in the argument.
Reading the HRM 7600 Module 1 grading rubric
Mentors mark each HRM-7600 written assignment on a 100-point scale. Mentors reward accurate use of the textbook's concepts, such as the difference between operational and strategic HR, and evidence beyond the textbook, especially research on HR practices and performance. Analysis should be specific to the organization, with numbers where possible, and recommendations should solve the problem identified rather than list best practices. Stating costs and measures of success shows the general management view the MBA expects. Headings, an orderly structure, a table if it clarifies, and accurate APA references finish the paper. Acknowledging the limits of research, such as correlation rather than causation, adds credibility. Concise writing that stays on the problem is valued.
HRM 7600 Module 1 help from the desk
A frequent weakness is a list of HR best practices with no diagnosis of the organization's actual problem. Another is recommending new programs without asking whether HR has the capacity to run them. Our writers can prepare HRM 7600 written assignments drawn from your own employer or a case your mentor provides. Begin by estimating how HR staff spend their time and what the organization's strategy requires from its workforce. Compare the two, find the largest gap, and propose the smallest set of changes that closes it. Then add one paragraph on what the change costs and one on how you will know it worked. Use research to support each step. Keep the paper tied to one problem.
Write yours, or have the desk draft it
This paper is an original model document written by our desk, not a submitted student paper and not an official Thomas Edison State University document. Read it for the moves, then write your own to the instructions in your classroom. If you want one built to your exact prompt and rubric, the first custom sample is free and arrives in 24 to 48 hours.
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HRM 7600 Module 1 questions, answered
Where can I find a free HRM 7600 Module 1 sample paper?
The page above carries it: a credit union's HR department, a composite, measured against the strategic role described in the course text.
What is the difference between operational and strategic HR?
Operational HR keeps the organization running and compliant through payroll, benefits and records; strategic HR shapes workforce decisions so they support the organization's goals.
What are high-performance work practices?
Bundles of practices, for example rigorous hiring, substantial training, pay linked to results and employee involvement, that research links to lower turnover and better results.
What textbook does HRM-7600 use?
DeNisi and Griffin's HR, fifth edition, published by Cengage.
How many written assignments does HRM-7600 have?
Three, which share 18 percent of the grade; the rest comes from discussions, a live session, the midterm and the final project.