8607-527 Partnership Working

Unit Overview

8607-527 Partnership Working is a unit within the ILM Level 5 qualification in leadership and management that focuses on building the ability to understand the role of partnership working. Within the organisation, companies must ensure that they engage in beneficial partnerships. This helps them to effectively contribute in the accomplishment of the organisational goals and objectives. It is the role of different stakeholders including shareholders, executive managers, middle managers, junior managers and the employees to contribute to the sustainability of the partnership.

These stakeholders must ensure that they play their roles to facilitate efficiency within the organisation that contributes towards sustaining the partnerships. This helps to ensure the organisation meets its obligation within the partnerships. It is therefore important for different stakeholders who are involved in making decisions at the strategic and operational levels to pursue training that helps them understand principles of partnerships and implement effective management of the partnerships.

8607-527 Partnership Working is a unit that focuses on providing the leaders with this information. The unit provides the learners who are mainly stakeholders within the organisation with necessary training and learning that builds the understanding towards facilitating partnerships. The main purpose and aim of the unit is to develop an understanding and ability of an organisation to work effectively with partner organisations this is aimed at achieving a common goal or shared interests within the partnerships. The unit is taught in 10 hours of guided learning and contributes 4 credit values towards the completion of the ILM Level 5 qualification in leadership and management.

Suitability of the Unit

Partnerships have become a common approach or practice that facilitates attainment of the desired organisational goals and objectives. They involve being able to understand the principles of partnerships that contribute towards developing partnerships that are able to contribute to the accomplishment of the organisational goals and objectives as well as the shared interests within the partnership. Partnerships are developed in two main dimensions. The unit is suitable for stakeholders involved in this levels of operation. It helps them to understand their roles and responsibilities in developing the desired levels of partnership and contributing towards effectiveness in the organisation.

8607-527 Partnership Working is a unit that is designed to suit the learning needs of the middle managers within the organisation. This are leaders in the operation levels of the organisation. They oversee activities within departments, lines or regions and are therefore paramount when establishing partnerships. The unit is however also applicable to other stakeholders within the organisation.

Executive managers re in the strategic level and can benefit from the content of the unit as it helps them to understand their strategic roles in promoting the success of the partnership. Lastly this unit is applicable to other stakeholders including the executive consultants who are required to provide strategic and operational support in decision making within the partnerships. This unit also helps the employees to prepare for leadership positions that they could get in future.

Learning Outcomes

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

• Understand the difference between strategic and operational partnerships

• Understand the key principles of building effective partnerships that focus on working at both the strategic and operational levels

• Understand the approaches that can be used to build effective partnerships between stakeholders with a common goal or shared interest

• Analyse potential partner interests and expectations that are evident within the organisation

• Assess the long and short term benefits that can be acquired from effective partnerships within the organisation

• Understand barriers to effective partnership working might be overcome within the organisation or area of responsibility

• Understand the process for establishing trust and agreement on specific aims and objectives of the partnerships

• Show knowledge of the monitoring and review processes and procedures that are developed to facilitate the achievement of agreed goals and objectives in the partnership working agreement

Key Learning Areas

8607-527 Partnership Working is a unit that helps to build knowledge and understanding in the principles of partnership working. The unit therefore covers content that revolves around effective partnerships and processes involved. Some of eth main areas covered include:

Principles of Partnership Working

This area of learning plays the primary foundation to understanding the principles of partnership working. It helps to understand the main principles including openness, trust, and honesty and shared goals between the partners. It also helps the learners to understand the principles of communication between partners within the workplace. This area of learning also focuses on understanding both strategic and operational partnerships from the perspective of the workplace.

Needs and Expectation of Partners

This area of learning helps to understand the principles of partnership and appreciate the needs and expectations of each partner. This area of learning helps to understand the benefits of partnership in handling complex problems that are out of the area of specialty of the organisation cross the organisational boundaries or necessitating pooling of resources such as employees, financial and expertise. This area of learning also helps to understand the different expectations of partners within the partnerships hence improve the success of the overall process.

Reaching a Partnership Working Agreement

This area of learning covers the process of developing the actual working partnerships. The area involves understating the negotiation skills that are used to achieve the desired levels of agreement between the partners. The unit also improves the ability of the learners to effectively handle the negotiation process to ensure they are able to develop a shared goal and common interests. This area of learning also helps to understand features of partnerships that include formality, collaboration, individual visions and benefits to each partners. The learners are also taught on effective approaches to monitor and review the process of partnership to achieve the goals and objectives.

Evaluation

This unit is important to build the understanding of the principles and roles of partnerships within the workplace. On completing the unit, the learners should be able to master the practical and theoretical aspects that have been learned. Assessment is done using a written assessment, supervised practice and simulated exercise that helps to determine the accomplishment of learning goals and objectives.