Starter Activity - Spot the Difference

My two daughters love playing spot the difference. Come to think of it, so do I. If I love it, and my daughters love it, then maybe my students will love it.

So, thinking of a different way to deliver Hard and Soft HRM, I came up with this very, very simple idea. Spot the difference.

On a sheet of paper I had two stories of two different businesses. One who adopted a hard approach and one who adopted a soft approach. Wrote the stories myself I did. Both stories contained the key features of both approaches (temp contracts, autocratic management etc for hard and the opposite for soft) and lots of data (increasing labour turnover and absenteeism for hard, declining for soft etc etc etc).

Then, my students had to play spot the difference.

The results, well, each student had built up a complete picture of the difference between both approaches along with the key features and the pros and cons of each approach.

It worked a treat. Didn’t feel as though they were being taught at all. Far better than running through the differences on the board.

We then analysed the issues and did some evaluation.

Job done.