8600-327 Understanding Negotiation and Networking in the Workplace

Unit Overview

8600-327 Understanding Negotiation and Networking in the Workplace is a unit in the ILM Level 3 module that builds the capacity of the leaders to engage in effective negotiations and networks that helps to achieve the team’s and organisation’s goals and objectives. The leaders must ensure that they strategically place the market in a competitive place. This involves being able to network and build effective relationships with influential individuals, agencies, suppliers or other players within the market.

Negotiations are another duty of leaders in ensuring that they are able to strike the best deals in terms of business practices such as recruitment, purchases or other critical terms that they need to agree with external players in the industry. 8600-327 Understanding Negotiation and Networking in the Workplace is a unit that aims at improving the value that the leaders add in the process of negotiating and networking form the context of the organisation. This unit builds the relevant negotiation skills and abilities by providing information on the principles of negotiation and networking hence helping the learners to understand the roles that they should play to facilitate the required standards. 

The main purpose and aim of the unit are to develop knowledge and understanding of negotiation and networking in the workplace, which is required for the potential and practising first-line managers in their vapours engagement within the workplace and with external players in the industry. The unit is taught in 6 hours of guided learning and contributes 1 credit value towards the completion of ILM Level 3 module.

Suitability of the Unit

The unit is suitable to a variety of stakeholders within the organisation. The unit is versatile as it covers principles that are applicable in different contexts ranging from employment terms, purchases, and marketing, among other aspects that could influence the performance of the organisation. 8600-327 Understanding Negotiation and Networking in the Workplace provide the basic information that can be used by the learners to develop the desired standards and skills set that contribute towards negotiation and networking.

This unit is developed to meet the learning needs of the first-line managers. It helps them to effectively engage other stakeholders within and outside the organisation to ensure they arrive at optimum terms of engagement that are critical in facilitating their desired goals and objectives. This involves helping them to achieve win-win situations in the process of negotiation that are convenient for all the parties involved in the communication process. However, as identified, this unit is applicable in different contexts hence suitable for other leaders.

Middle and top managers must have negotiation and networking skills to promote the interests of the organisation across the industry and ensure that they are able to achieve desired terms with other stakeholders. Employees can also pursue the unit to build their ability to negotiate and network in different contexts, including better employment terms and build effective work-related relationships with others within and outside the organisation.

Learning Outcomes

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

• Understand the principles of negotiation

• Explain relevant techniques that influence others within the workplace to pursue a similar point of view in achieving workplace objectives

• Describe techniques ad approaches that can be used to reduce resistance and minimise conflicts hence facilitating the achievement of a win-win situation in the workplace during negotiations.

• Understand the value and concept of the network as it is relevant for the workplace context.

• Identify an appropriate network for a manager that helps to build the performance of the teams or areas of responsibility within the workplace.

• Describe methods that can be used to establish and maintain effective professional relations with networks identified as relevant to the work context.

Key Learning Areas

8600-327 Understanding Negotiation and Networking in the Workplace is a unit that helps build the ability to relate with others. With negotiation skills, the learners are guided to understand the principles of promoting the interests of their teams in different negotiation concepts. Whole networking helps to build the ability to develop professional work relationships within and outside the organisation. Some of the learning areas that are used within the unit to achieve these learning goals include:

Principles of Negotiation

In this area of learning, the learners are guided to understand negotiations, including formal and informal negotiations. They are guided to develop negotiation strategies, tactics and behaviours that help them to promote the interests of their teams in achieving the desired terms in the process. Negotiations involve effective communication and social skills that learners are guided to understand and develop to ensure they are able to influence others and achieve the desired terms.

The area of learning with 8600-327 Understanding Negotiation and Networking in the Workplace also helps to understand value systems and other barriers to acceptance and develop mechanisms that can be used to address such issues within the workplace. Negotiations are essential in conflict resolution within the organisation. Within this unit, learners are guided to understand conflict resolution as the responsibility of a leader and develop effective strategies to achieve a win-win situation in conflict resolution through effective negotiations. Lastly, learners are helped to identify different types and sources of peers in negotiations that could give them bargaining power within a negotiation process.

Principles of Networking

This area of learning helps to guide the learners on standards and principles of establishing effective networks. They are guided on appreciating the nature, purpose and value of networking in the workplace concepts. They are also guided to effective strategies of identifying relevant networks in their areas of responsibility and effectively developing the networks that contribute positively to the accomplishment of goals and objectives of their teams or organisation in general. This area of learning also helps to identify contact creation techniques with the network and the methods of establishing/ maintaining effective professional relationships with networks at various levels.

Evaluation

On completion of the unit, the learners are required to complete an evaluation which determines the achievement of the desired learning outcomes. The evaluation is conducted using a written assessment which measures the mastery of theoretical and practical concepts within the unit. Formative assessment can also be conducted using simulated exercises and supervised practice.