Reference no: EM132312218

BUSINESS REPORT FORMAT

The report must be five pages long (NOT including the title and contents page) and follow the guidelines in the Style Guide provided to the students.

Students must provide their planning document as part of the assessment. This document is required to demonstrate that they have thought through their report and planned each part of it - this forms part of the overall assessment for this module.

If the student submits the report and not their planning document, they are not to be marked as satisfactory until the planning report is submitted and reviewed

Referencing - Students have used the Harvard Referencing Style

Structure
Report is structured in the following manner:
Title Page Contents Page
Executive Summary
Introduction
Main Body Summary Recommendations
References
Appendixes (as appropriate)

SCENARIO

You are working as the accountant for AKC Architectural Firm which is a mid size firm based in the inner suburbs of Melbourne. The majority of staff employed at AKC are married with young or teenage children, and after a human resources review it has been discovered that there is a high rate of staff absenteeism due to staff having to stay home to look after sick children or school related activities that staff need to attend.

The management of AKC know that they have excellent staff and a good culture/staff morale and based on this would like to investigate options for instigating a more flexible work culture.

They have asked you to undertake a report that examines whether the firm can support having staff work from home. This report will cover both the administration and architectural staff.

Some of the questions you will have to investigate may include:

- Does the firm have the appropriate software/access that will allow staff to work effectively from home?

- Will the firm have to purchase additional resources (such as laptops and software etc).

- What (if any) would be the cost savings to the firm?

- Do staff need to be educated on the benefits of using a home office in relation to taxation?

- Based on a standard 38 hour working week, how many hours would be acceptable for a staff member to work home from.

- What processes would need to be put in place to stop staff from "abusing" the flexible work system.

- What issues could occur if a flexible working system is put into place?

- How can the firm ensure that there are adequate staff numbers on site?

- What different arrangements may need to be in place for different staff? Can flexible work hours work for administration staff?

This is not an exhaustive list, and there may be other issues that as the accountant you need to take into account when completing the report.

1. Planning your Report
Ask yourself.
- What is that the reader wants to read?
- Is it an informative, analytical, direct or indirect?
- Have you collected enough information?
- What are your points in the report? Table of contents
- Do you need further information?

2. Writing your report
- Be logical and don't move away from the main purpose of the report
- Write an executive summary
- Write and introduction
- The body; present analyse and interpret the information you collected
- Write the conclusion
- Write recommendations
- Don't forget the references
- Add appendix
- Graphics