Syllabus: AQA - AS and A Level Business
Module: 3.6 Human Resource Management
Lesson: 3.6.3 Making Human Resource Decisions: Improving Organisational Design and Managing the Human Resource Flow

Introduction

This article supports teachers delivering AQA AS and A Level Business, specifically section 3.6.3: Making Human Resource Decisions: Improving Organisational Design and Managing the Human Resource Flow. The unit focuses on how businesses structure their workforce and manage people through key organisational transitions such as recruitment, training, redeployment and redundancy. It aligns with commercial awareness and workplace readiness themes and supports whole-school careers provision under Gatsby Benchmark 4.

With increasing demand for commercial literacy across the curriculum, this topic provides an excellent opportunity to bring the world of work into the classroom while building decision-making skills assessed directly in exam settings.

Key Concepts

Students studying this section of the AQA specification will need to understand:

• Organisational Structures

  • Types: Functional, product-based, regional and matrix structures

  • Impacts of span of control, hierarchy, centralisation vs decentralisation, and delegation

  • The importance of authority lines and flexibility

• Organisational Design

  • How structure affects decision-making, communication and efficiency

  • Reasons for redesign (e.g. growth, change in strategy, efficiency drives)

  • Strategic value of changing structure in response to internal or external pressures

• Human Resource Flow

  • The full cycle: HR planning, recruitment and selection, training and development, redeployment and redundancy

  • Legal, ethical and operational considerations of redundancy and redeployment

  • Aligning human resource planning with business objectives

Each element connects to real decisions businesses make to stay agile and competitive in fast-moving environments.

Real-World Relevance

Organisational restructuring is commonplace in both public and private sectors. For example:

• BT Group recently underwent a significant organisational redesign, reducing management layers and redefining roles to improve responsiveness and reduce cost. This restructure included a programme of voluntary redundancies and retraining.

• NHS workforce planning provides a public-sector example of human resource flow in action, particularly around redeployment during the COVID-19 pandemic and post-crisis reallocation of staff to community services.

• Tesco’s move to regional structures to improve efficiency in supply chain and logistics offers a real-world example of the impact of decentralisation.

These scenarios can be explored in class to demonstrate how theory is applied in diverse sectors.

How It’s Assessed

This topic is typically assessed through a range of styles within Paper 1, 2 or 3 of the AQA A Level Business exam:

• Short-answer knowledge questions on types of structure or definitions (e.g. span of control, decentralisation)

• Calculation or interpretation questions (e.g. HR metrics like labour turnover in relation to redundancy decisions)

• Application questions based on business scenarios requiring students to evaluate organisational design or HR flow strategies

• 20-mark evaluative essays, often based on restructuring or workforce decisions, requiring students to justify recommendations or assess impacts on stakeholder groups

Common command words include explain, analyse, assess, evaluate – all requiring structured reasoning and application of knowledge to context.

Enterprise Skills Integration

This topic integrates key enterprise and workplace readiness skills:

• Decision-Making & Problem-Solving: Students must weigh options (e.g. whether to centralise or decentralise) using evidence and predict potential outcomes.

• Commercial Awareness: Understanding how internal structure affects strategic capability reinforces students’ grasp of how businesses function as systems.

• Workplace Readiness: Concepts like hierarchy, communication channels, and redeployment expose students to organisational dynamics they will experience in real workplaces.

Our Skills Hub Business and Skills Hub Futures tools include scenario-based HR challenges, where students simulate restructuring decisions and employee redeployment – building strategic thinking and employer-relevant language.

Careers Links

This unit naturally connects with multiple Gatsby Benchmarks:

• Benchmark 4: Curriculum-linked careers learning – students see HR as a dynamic function across sectors

• Benchmark 5: Employer interactions – use of real HR case studies and guest speakers enriches understanding

• Benchmark 6: Simulated restructuring activities in our tools replicate real workplace scenarios

Relevant career paths linked to this topic include:

• Human Resources Officer

• Talent Acquisition Specialist

• Operations Manager

• Training and Development Coordinator

• Industrial Relations Officer

Students gain insight into how organisations manage people strategically – a skill valued across all sectors.

Teaching Notes

Top Tips for Delivery:

• Use organisational charts from well-known companies (e.g. Google, NHS, BT) to demonstrate different structures.

• Run a simulation task where students must advise a business undergoing change on whether to restructure, redeploy or make redundancies.

• Link recruitment planning to earlier marketing modules – what makes an employer attractive?

Common Pitfalls to Avoid:

• Oversimplifying structure types – many companies use hybrid approaches.

• Treating redundancy only as a cost-cutting measure – emphasise legal and ethical considerations.

• Forgetting the link between structure and communication – use examples to show the strategic consequences of poor design.

Extension Ideas:

• Invite a guest from HR or operations management to discuss how organisational changes are handled in practice.

• Use a flipped classroom approach: students research recent restructuring in a company of their choice and present the impact on stakeholders.