This manual is for HRM-FPX5118 Assessment 3, start to submission. The later work in Human Resource Legal Challenges and Solutions usually asks you to stop analyzing a single matter and produce advice a leadership team could act on, which in a newly organized workplace means a bargaining brief: the duties that attach once a unit is certified, the information the employer must hand over, the changes it may no longer make on its own, and what the proposals on the table actually cost. Method, structure and a worked excerpt are set out below. Would you rather delegate it? A premium original sample arrives within 24 to 48 hours and is revised at no charge until every criterion clears. Your courseroom may print this as HRM FPX 5118 Assessment 3 or HRM5118 Assessment 3; it is the same deliverable, and HRM-FPX5118 Assessment 3 is what this manual walks through.
One honesty note before the manual: Capella revises courses and scoring guides over time, so always write to the exact scoring guide attached to your assessment in the courseroom. The course identity above is verified on capella.edu; the method and structure below are our tutors' approach to it, not Capella's official rubric text.
How HRM-FPX5118 Assessment 3 is scored
Four levels per criterion, no letter grade, and the top level description tells you precisely what the extra move is:
| Level | What it means on a bargaining advice deliverable |
|---|---|
| Distinguished | The statutory duties are stated with their sections, the employer's room to move is described accurately in both directions, every proposal carries a costed number, and the advice tells a named role what to do on a named date. |
| Proficient | The obligations are correct and the recommendations are reasonable. Competent advice that leaves the arithmetic to somebody else. |
| Basic | A general account of collective bargaining with the employer's position asserted, the numbers absent and the timing vague. |
| Non-performance | A required element is missing outright, most often the status quo obligation on unilateral changes or the response to the information request. |
Advice is graded as advice. If the guide says recommend, a paragraph that lays out considerations and stops has not recommended anything.
The HRM-FPX5118 Assessment 3 method, step by step
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Set the frame in one paragraph, and set it honestly
The unit is certified and the question in front of the employer is how to bargain well, not how to undo the result. Say that plainly.
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State the duty with its section, and state both edges of it
Section 8(a)(5) of the National Labor Relations Act of 1935 makes refusal to bargain collectively an unfair labor practice, and section 8(d) defines the duty as meeting at reasonable times and conferring in good faith without compelling either side to agree to a proposal or to make a concession. Both halves belong in the brief.
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Sort the subjects before the first session
Wages, hours and other terms and conditions of employment are mandatory subjects, and the employer may not change them unilaterally once the obligation attaches. Other matters are permissive, and insisting to impasse on a permissive subject is itself a problem.
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Answer the information request as a process, not a judgment call
Requests for data about employees in the unit are treated as presumptively relevant, so the working assumption is production rather than resistance, with confidentiality handled by an accommodation such as redaction or a protective agreement rather than by refusal. Give the process an owner, a fourteen day service standard and a log, since a slow response is a recognized form of refusal.
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Cost the package in cents per hour
Total hours are 214 employees times 2,080, or 445,120. A three percent first year increase on a 22.85 dollar average base is 0.6855 dollars an hour, and the wage-driven roll-up of payroll taxes and benefits at 23.4 percent adds 0.160. An 84 dollar monthly increase in the employer health contribution for 178 participants is 179,424 dollars a year, which is 0.403 an hour. A one point rise in the retirement match adds 0.2285. The package is 1.477 dollars an hour, or 657,442 dollars in year one. Then show the compounding, because three, two and a half and two and a half is not eight percent by year three but 8.21, and the base it is applied to has grown each time.
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Write the calendar, then self-score
Name who holds the pen, who has authority to move money, when the internal costing is refreshed and what the employer will do if talks stall, remembering that a lawful declaration of impasse depends on the state of negotiations rather than on a date somebody picked. Then mark each criterion yourself and rewrite anything below the top column.
A structure that maps to the criteria
Planning figures for a graduate advisory brief, not Capella requirements; grow whatever your guide emphasizes.
| Section | What it must do | Guide word target |
|---|---|---|
| Situation and purpose | The unit, the certification, the audience for the brief, and the decisions it is meant to support. | ~150 words |
| Statutory duties | The bargaining obligation with sections cited, what it does and does not compel, and the consequence of getting it wrong. | ~300 words |
| Subjects and the status quo | Mandatory and permissive subjects sorted from the actual proposals, and the changes the employer may no longer make alone. | ~250 words |
| Information requests | The presumption, the confidentiality accommodation, the owner, the service standard and the log. | ~200 words |
| Costing the package | Total hours, each element converted to cents per hour, the year one total and the compounded position at the end of term. | ~350 words |
| Sequence, authority and limits | Who does what by when, the escalation path, and the sentence referring legal strategy to counsel. | ~250 words |
| References | Current APA, statutory sections as they now read, and agency material labeled as interpretation. | as needed |
Annotated sample excerpt
A model paragraph of ours, showing how advice reads when it is written to be acted on. Study the moves, then write the version that fits your own scenario.
Converting every element to a cents per hour figure lets the committee compare proposals that are quoted in different units, and it produces one number the finance director can carry into the forecast.1 On 445,120 annual unit hours, the union's opening position costs 1.477 dollars an hour in year one, or 657,442 dollars, of which the wage line is only 46 percent and the health contribution is a further 27.2 The figure rests on two assumptions I have not been able to verify from the payroll extract, namely that participation in the health plan stays at 178 and that overtime hours hold at last year's level, and a ten percent rise in overtime would add roughly 0.09 dollars an hour to the roll-up.3
- 1The paragraph opens by saying why the measure was chosen.
- 2One total, then the composition of it.
- 3The assumptions are named and one of them is stress tested with a figure.
The full premium sample for your exact assessment, written fresh to your scoring guide and issue, is free to request. Study it, revise it into your own voice, and submit work you understand.
The five mistakes that cost Distinguished
- A brief that argues against the certification. The unit exists, and advice premised on wishing it away is unusable to the leadership team that has to sit down next week.
- Good faith read as an obligation to agree. The duty requires conferring, not conceding, and a brief that omits that half will steer an employer into avoidable cost.
- A unilateral change made while talks are open. Adjusting a mandatory subject without bargaining is the classic first contract error,.
- Proposals costed in percentages only. Percentages hide the roll-up and hide the compounding.
- Impasse treated as a calendar event. Whether negotiations are genuinely deadlocked is judged on their state, so a brief that schedules impasse has misunderstood the concept.
Pre-submission checklist
- Every criterion carries its own labeled section in the brief
- Statutory sections cited as they currently read, with both edges of the duty stated
- Mandatory and permissive subjects sorted from the real proposals, not from a textbook list
- Information request process given an owner, a standard and a log
- Package costed in cents per hour with the roll-up and the compounded end position shown
- Named actions with dates, a scope sentence for counsel, and current APA verified both ways
Bargaining brief due?
Send the criteria, the unit description and any wage or benefit data you are permitted to share. Eight people work the deliverable and the premium original sample returns in 24 to 48 hours with the package costed and every duty cited to its section.