If you guys could 'mark' these two question/answers for me to provide some sort of insight as to what the fuck is going on, I would greatly appreciate it. I've completed two exams (minus the 10 markers as I don't know how to answer them yet) and I decided to correct one against the answers. This was the COMPAK 2012 practice exam. When cross marking my answers with their answers, I am effectively wrong, not on topic or I am completely structuring it wrong which is making me extremely worried for my exam as I only started studying on the weekend and there isn't much time to go, as I more or less failed (the true meaning of fail - below 50%) the practice exam that I marked. There were some questions there that I know that I stuffed up from not reading the question, but I've compared some of my answers which have gotten me 2/6 and 0/6 respectively, as they are completely unrelated whilst my friend who has done like 50 practice exams and has barely dropped a mark all year is telling me they are right but that he 'isn't a marker.'
Question 1 - c. Aldi and Costco understand the importance, both legally and ethically, of providing a safe and healthy workplace at their supermarket outlets.
Identify and explain the steps of a policy development process that they would need to follow in order to create an effective occupational health and safety policy. (6 MARKS - I got a 2 for listing the rights steps but all my examples and links were wrong supposedly for OHS).
''Policies provide the general framework for guiding an organisation through decision making processes or to specific actions, and policies may be developed wherever an organisation believes it is necessary. The first step is to identify a pressure for developing a new policy, which in Aldi, for example, it could be about how emploeyes have to wash their hands before they handle the food or produce or not touch it at all. The second step is where research is conducted, which is essential where Aldi establishes the legal standing for touching food with unclean hands before selling it, and how to minimise this action and if need be, develop the process for repercussions if someone breaches the policy. The third step is to notify the stakeholders of the policy, and listen for theiir feedback. Aldi management may describe the situation surrounding cleansiness, germs and diseases to employees, shareholders and customers to notify them on this state of affairs. The fourth step is that a draft policy is made and is circulated to stakeholders, and corrections are made which is where Aldi will trial the new policy within its operations and will begin to monitor the effectiveness of the policy on the issue. The fifth step is to finalise the policy and issue it to all the stakeholders of Aldi, and is also where Aldi's management will decide whether the policy was worth implementing at all as a strategy to tackle the cleansiness issue around their produce. The sixth step is where the policy is reviewed after a period of time, which could be when diseases cease to exist within human biology and you can touch food or empty your fluids on the produce, which would present no physical harm to any persons. All of these steps would essentially create a policy surrounding organisational health and safety, as management have a responsibility to remove danger from the workplace and ensure steps have been taken to minimise any harm.''
My comments on this; With the actual answers to this question, it is nothing like it. I thought I would only link it to one organisation instead of two to give a more accurate answer but knew I'd be risking some marks for not linking; They didn't do any real-life application linking, which is what I mean; whenever they spoke about a policy, they spoke about OHS and never gave any 'example insight.' They set out the answers in terms of steps, so, for example, the second step says 'Both organisations must undertake research and analysis into what guidelines must be included into the policy and what procedures and processes must be included and adhered to in the workplace. Initially, this will require them to refer to the relevant legislation. They may also refer to similar documentation prepared by other organisations.'' As you can see, their answer is fantastic and I could only aspire for mine to be like that, but even though none of what they really just said would come to my mind, nor in that order or in that level of 'specification,' I thought mine was still good,thinking I hit all the relevant points and I actually thought I was meant to create an example around OH&S instead of specifically addressing OH&S, but yep.
Question Two - e. The Human Resource (HR) management team has appointed you as an HR consultant and has asked you to review its staff motivation strategies.
Compare two theories of employee motivation—Maslow’s hierarchy of needs theory and Locke’s goal-setting theory—that will assist the HR management team to manage staff motivation effectively in order to maximise the contribution of employees to the overall performance of the organisation. (6 marks)''Maslow's hierarchy of needs is a physiological hierarchy developed by Abraham Maslow which states employees have ascending sets of needs in order to be motivated, which include lower order or extrinsic needs from physiological to safety/security needs, to upper order or intrinsic needs from social, esteem and self-actualisation needs. Locke's theory is a motivation theory that if management set specific, measurable and applicable goals for employees to achieve, and if their performance is up to scratch, they will be reviewed with feedback in a positive way thorugh appraisals and rewards, motivating them. (No idea how to define this, lol). The similarities between Maslow and Locke is that Maslow has intrinsic neds as the highest needs for motivation, and locke has intrinsic needs throough setting goals and achieving them, both sharing a powerful process to motivate employees. However, before Maslow reaches intrinsic needs, employees must satisfy the lower order or extrinsic needs before the employee has any motivation, whilst Locke's theory only caters to intrinsic needs.''
My comments: From this, I honestly thought it wasn't that great. It asked me two 'compare' the two theories and I didn't really know how to get into it, so I thought it I provided my lengthy definition or explanation on what they basically are, it would naturally appear as a comparison. With the rest of the similarities and comparison, I more or less drew from the same idea but flipped the coin and turned it around as a difference, if you know what I mean (:S). I also feel as though I did not really draw into or specify on any idea 'that will assist the HR management team to manage staff motivation effectively in order to maximise the contribution of employees to the overall performance of the organisation' but I feel as though that somewhat came naturally with how I structured my answer. From that, I thought I would maybe drop 1-2 marks out of 6 and I could understand why as I don't really know how to compare the motivational theories, and despite this same friend giving me a 6/6 or 5/6 minimum for not drawing on more length and specification into the similarities and differences, the answer from COMPAK was completely different than what I wrote.
If you read all this, I thank you so much! Please provide some criticism of where or if I can improve, as I'm really nervous for the exams now due to starting my study so late and this COMPAK company has got the hairs on my skin sticking up feeling absolutely horrible for the next week, as I have studied like 10 hours a day for the past 5 days. 
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