Primary Research on Equality and Diversity in Workplace: Project Plan and Feasibility Assessment

Purpose of this assessment

The aim of this assessment is to offer you an opportunity to plan and carry out a piece of original research, demonstrating the skills required for managing and implementing a small business research project.

You need to carry out a piece of primary research on the subject of equality and diversity in the workplace. Equality in this context means ensuring that everybody has the same access to the same opportunities without any discrimination. For example, people are not rejected for a job, denied promotion, given less important work, awarded lower performance appraisal marks or treated in any other way that is unfair because of their race, age, gender, sexual orientation, disability etc. Diversity in this context means placing valuing on and respecting people’s different backgrounds, knowledge, skills and experiences and using these differences to create a productive and effective workforce.

Specifically, your topic needs to look at what issues and challenges may arise out of equality and diversity in the workplace and what measures could be taken to resolve them?  You are doing your research within a limited word count and timeframe, so you cannot address this topic in general terms – it must be focussed on a specific organisation to which you can gain access to gather primary data. The organisation could be in the UK, your home country (if not the UK) or anywhere else.  Given the limitations within which you are working, you should focus on either equality or diversity, not both. You may also decide to look at equality in relation to a specific characteristic – for example, racial equality – rather than equality generally within the organisation. The proposed research should be a realistic one for a student to do in the time available. You are not expected to propose a topic that would require a large research team or take years to complete!  

As your research report will include a short literature review, it is also important to consider whether there is enough literature when choosing your subject. This should not be a problem – there is a lot of material about equality and diversity in the workplace and finding one or two examples on which to model your own research should be perfectly possible and would be a very good idea.

You are strongly recommended to propose only one method of collecting your primary data – e.g. a questionnaire survey or semi-structured interviews, not both.

Based on the topic above, you are expected to create a project plan that addresses the feasibility of your research project. The plan needs to include:

1. A brief explanation of your proposed research topic and why you have chosen it.
2. An aim and some objectives for your proposed research.
3. A brief discussion of the scope and limitations of your proposed research.
4. Resources and cost considerations relating to your proposed research.
5. A project plan, Gantt chart or work breakdown structure in order to provide timeframes and stages for completion of your research.
6. A risk register covering the five main risks with the proposed research, including the size of each risk, planned mitigation measures and residual risk.

This provides evidence for LO1

Word count: 750 words +/- 10%, excluding project plan/Gantt chart/WBS and risk register

Submission Format

A research proposal identifying the topic you plan to research and including a rationale for the research, an aim and supporting objectives, a brief discussion of scope, limitation and resources, then a project plan and risk assessment for the research project.