8600-303 Planning and Allocating Work

Unit Overview

8600-303 Planning and Allocating Work is a unit within the ILM Level 3 that builds the capabilities and knowledge of the leaders in the process of developing an effective assessment of organisational responsibilities and targets to effectively allocate duties in the team. Leaders must ensure that there is a policy that is put in the palace to influence the process of completing various tasks that are assigned to teams that they are leading within the organisation. This process involves being able to set effective objectives that contribute to the process of acceding to the determined objectives within the team.

Planning is a strategy that involves being able to identify the different objectives and steps that are designed to achieve these goals and objectives. In the process of work planning, the leader must be able to effectively allocate work to different individuals within the team base on their abilities and skills. 8600-303 Planning and Allocating Work is a unit that builds the ability of the leaders to achieve this duties and responsibilities relating to allocating and effective planning work.

The main purpose and aim of this unit are to develop knowledge and understanding on methods that can be used to effectively plan and allocate work among the reacting or potential first line managers pursuing this unit. The unit is important in boosting both the theory and practice associated with understanding the role of leaders in achieving this obligation. This unit is taught in 9 hours of guided learning and contributes 2 credit values towards the overall completion of ILM Level 3.

Suitability of the Unit

Leaders in different sections within the organisation must be able to effectively organise their work and plan effectively to ensure that they are able to achieve the set duties and responsibilities. This involves being able to set objectives for their teams that they must achieve to contribute to  success and  productivity. 8600-303 Planning and Allocating Work is, therefore, a unit that is highly applicable to different leaders within the organisational context.

The unit is designed for first-level managers, junior managers and supervisors within the organisation. These are individuals tasked with leading project teams which are put in place to achieve specific goals and objectives. In their duties, they must ensure that all individuals within the team are actively involved in the accomplishment of the team goals based on their capabilities and potential.

However, this unit is applicable to other stakeholders, such as the middle managers who are responsible for planning and allocating duties. Like the regional, department or line level and the top management who set the policies and procedures to be followed within the organisation to achieve the strategic goals and objectives. Members of teams can also pursue this unit to ensure they build their personal and professional abilities and make prepare them for future leadership roles within the organisation.

Learning Outcomes

Upon completion of the unit, the learners should be able to:

• Identify the organisational targets that are relevant to the tasks assigned to their teams

• Develop SMART objectives that help the team to achieve the targets that are set within the organisation

• Implement various techniques of planning to achieve the objectives that have been developed

• Establish effective strategies and approaches to monitor and control planned activities within their areas of responsibility

• Mobilise resources that are required within the team to complete the planned activity

• Effectively allocate work to team members

• Assess and support team performance in the process of achieving the set objectives

• Identify various causes of variance from the planned activity

• Identify actions that can be put in place within the team to overcome the issues of variance

• Propose approaches that can be used to maximise involvement of team members in improving performance to meet set objectives

Key Areas of Focus

8600-303 Planning and Allocating Work addresses the process of setting out objectives for teams that are associated with organisational targets and ensuring that effective strategies are put in place to achieve this objective. Some of the key learning areas include:

Work Planning

This area of focus identifies the significance and principles of work planning. It provides the learners with the knowledge of setting SMART goals and objectives within the team that are aligned to the organisational targets and objectives. The area further helps to determine methods of performance measurement and planning techniques that can facilitate effective recording, monitoring and controlling of the accomplishment of different tasks within the team. It builds the ability of the manager to effectively set targets and time schedules that dictate the pace of accomplishing the tasks.

Allocation of Work

This area of learning focuses on the principles of effective work allocation within the workplace. The learner is guided in understanding the skills that they require to effectively allocate and manage performance within the team settings.

They are provided with the types of quality standards that are applicable within the team in ensuring that performance and standards are maintained, as well as methods to monitor actual performance against this standard that are set in relation to targets and time schedules. This area further builds communication abilities in managing the individuals within the team to facilitate maximum performance and monitor the systems that have been put up to achieve team goals.

Improving Performance

This area of learning focuses on understanding the influence that the leader has in improving the ability of individuals within the team to achieve the set goals and objectives. It focuses on recording the outputs and variances in completing the tasks and allocated responsibilities and determining the impacts of the variances on the overall outcome of the process. This area of learning further helps the learners to master skills of diagnosing underperformance from the root cause and putting up corrective actions to address underperformance within the teams.

Evaluation

On completing the unit, the learners are assessed to determine the accomplishments of the learning goals and objectives. The assessment consists of a written assessment where the learners provide responses to questions on the unit. Supervised practice and simulated exercises are other forms of formative and summative assessment that can be used to determine the ability of the learner to practically use the learned concepts.