| Course | HR410 Talent Development and Learning |
|---|---|
| Unit | Unit 10 |
| Paper type | Development strategy report |
| Length | About 1,160 words, 7 pages double-spaced |
| Format | APA 7 student paper |
| School | Purdue University Global |
| Program | BS in Business Administration (Human Resources) |
| Updated | October 2026 |
Free sample paper for HR410 Unit 10
Thirty Advocates Where There Are Fourteen: A Unit 10 Development Strategy Report for a Member Services Center
[Student Name]
Purdue University Global
HR410: Talent Development and Learning
Unit 10 Development Strategy Report
[Instructor Name]
[Date]
Ridgemont Health Plan, its plans and every figure are composite and illustrative; the sources cited are real.
What the Organization Has Said
Ridgemont Health Plan's three-year plan commits to two changes within eighteen months: selling individual plans on the state marketplace and launching a self-service portal where members can check claims, order identification cards and update addresses. The plan expects the portal to absorb about 40 percent of current call volume, almost all of it simple.
What That Means for Member Services
The calls that remain will be the complex ones: other-coverage updates, claims appeals, disputes about premium bills and, with marketplace plans, questions about how subsidies are reconciled at tax time. Today, complex calls that front-line representatives cannot resolve go to 14 member advocates, the center's resolution specialists. With simple calls gone and marketplace members added, the center estimates it will need about 30 advocates, and representatives who handle complex calls routinely rather than transferring them.
Team leads will need to change too. Today they monitor handle time, which suits a center full of short calls. A center of complex calls needs leads who coach representatives through hard cases, since handle time on those calls will be long by design.
The Workforce Table
Representatives, first year. 23, including the recent hires trained on other-coverage updates. Readiness for the advocate path: not yet.
Representatives, experienced. 89. Readiness: about 12 ready now, about 25 ready within six to twelve months, about 52 not yet or not interested.
Member advocates. 14. All expected to remain, with three nearing retirement within two years.
Team leads. 14. Readiness to coach: assessed below.
The gap is therefore about 16 new advocates, plus three to replace retirements, or about 19 in eighteen months. The internal pool of about 37 ready now or soon is large enough if development starts early.
The Specialist Path
The path to member advocate has four parts, each linked to a capability the role requires.
1. The other-coverage program. Already built for recent hires, it becomes the first module of the path, extended with appeals and premium disputes.
2. A six-week rotation into the quality audit team. Representatives audit complex updates and appeals, learning what correct work looks like across many cases.
3. Mentoring by a current advocate. Each candidate is paired with one advocate for three months, meeting weekly to review hard cases the candidate handled.
4. An internal assessment. A work sample of five complex cases and a structured interview on judgment, scored against criteria set by current advocates. Candidates who meet the standard move to advocate.
DeRue and Wellman (2009) found that developmental challenge builds skill, but with diminishing returns when challenge becomes too great, and that feedback availability reduces that drop-off. The path raises challenge in steps and pairs each step with feedback from auditors or a mentor.
Each part of the path gives candidates harder cases than the last and someone to tell them how they did, which is how people learn work that cannot be learned from a course alone.
The Team Lead Path
The team lead path uses a readiness pool of eight, chosen by demonstrated coaching behavior rather than tenure. Candidates are observed in two coaching conversations with representatives and rated against a checklist: asking before telling, naming a specific behavior, agreeing on a next step and following up. Those selected receive a coaching course, practice with feedback from a current lead and responsibility for coaching two representatives for three months.
Ellinger et al. (2003) found that supervisors' coaching behavior was positively related to employees' job satisfaction and performance in a distribution setting, which supports making coaching the selection criterion for leads rather than seniority. Current team leads also receive the coaching course over the next year, since all of them will need to lead differently.
Individual Development Plans
Each participant's plan follows one template linked to both paths. It records the target role, the capabilities the role requires, the participant's current level on each, the development activities chosen from the path, a mentor or coach, dates and the evidence that will show progress. Team leads review plans quarterly with each participant. Noe et al. (2014) describe how much workplace learning happens informally, through work and relationships, so the template records informal activities, such as shadowing an advocate, alongside formal ones.
Who Might Not Take the Path
Not every experienced representative wants to become an advocate, and the strategy does not assume they do. About 52 are either not ready or not interested. For them, the portal still changes the job, since their remaining calls will be harder on average. Each will receive the other-coverage program and the appeals module within the first year, so that every representative can handle the most common complex calls without transferring them. Representatives who choose not to pursue the advocate path will not be penalized in ratings or schedules, and the path stays open to them in later cohorts.
Risks
The main risk is that the portal launches late or absorbs less volume than planned, leaving a center with more advocates than complex calls in the short term. In that case, new advocates would take a share of ordinary calls and continue to build experience, so the investment is not lost. A second risk is that current advocates, asked to mentor, have less time for their own cases; mentoring time is therefore counted in their workload targets.
The Budget
Specialist path. About $3,200 per candidate, covering backfill during the rotation, mentor time and assessment. For 19 candidates, about $60,800.
Team lead path. About $2,500 per pool member, covering the course and practice time. For eight, about $20,000.
Coaching course for current leads. About $1,200 each for 14, or $16,800.
Total. About $97,600 over eighteen months.
The Timeline Against the Portal Launch
Months 1 to 2. Select the first specialist cohort of ten and the team lead pool.
Months 2 to 8. First cohort completes the path. Assessment at month 8.
Months 8 to 14. Second cohort of nine completes the path.
Month 15. About 30 advocates in place, three months before the portal launch, leaving time for the new advocates to handle real complex calls before volume shifts.
Month 18. Portal and marketplace launch.
Measures
The strategy is judged by the number of certified advocates against the target of 30 by month 15; the share of complex calls resolved without transfer; error rates on other-coverage updates and appeals; how often team leads hold coaching conversations; and retention of experienced representatives, since a visible path should reduce departures. Cappelli and Keller (2014) describe talent management as anticipating needs and building the capability to meet them, rather than reacting to vacancies, and these measures show whether the center is doing that.
References
Cappelli, P., & Keller, J. R. (2014). Talent management: Conceptual approaches and practical challenges. Annual Review of Organizational Psychology and Organizational Behavior, 1, 305-331. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-orgpsych-031413-091314
DeRue, D. S., & Wellman, N. (2009). Developing leaders via experience: The role of developmental challenge, learning orientation, and feedback availability. Journal of Applied Psychology, 94(4), 859-875. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0015317
Ellinger, A. D., Ellinger, A. E., & Keller, S. B. (2003). Supervisory coaching behavior, employee satisfaction, and warehouse employee performance: A dyadic perspective in the distribution industry. Human Resource Development Quarterly, 14(4), 435-458. https://doi.org/10.1002/hrdq.1078
Noe, R. A., Clarke, A. D. M., & Klein, H. J. (2014). Learning in the twenty-first-century workplace. Annual Review of Organizational Psychology and Organizational Behavior, 1, 245-275. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-orgpsych-031413-091321
Reading the HR 410 Unit 10 instructions
The final HR410 assignment asks you to write a development strategy that connects people to where the organization is going. Start from the organization's own plans and translate them into the capability the workforce will need. Build a workforce table showing current staff by level and readiness, and size the gap. Design development paths for the key roles, combining formal programs, experience and relationships, and explain each part with research on development. Choose candidates by demonstrated behavior where possible. Provide an individual development plan template linked to the paths. Address people who do not take a path. Set out risks, a budget and a timeline against the organization's key dates. Close with measures. About seven pages moving from strategy to people is common for this final report in the course.
How the HR 410 Unit 10 example is put together
The sample quotes Ridgemont's plan for marketplace plans and a portal and translates it into a complex call mix, with a margin note. A workforce table sizes the gap at about 19 advocates. The specialist path combines four parts, with DeRue and Wellman on challenge and feedback, and the highlighted sentence explains the design. The team lead path selects eight by observed coaching, citing Ellinger and colleagues, with a margin note. An individual plan template records informal learning, following Noe and colleagues. Sections address representatives who do not take the path and risks, followed by a budget of about $97,600, a timeline reaching 30 advocates by month 15 and measures framed by Cappelli and Keller.
HR410 Unit 10 rubric: what earns full points
HR410 instructors grade the development strategy on its link to organizational direction and on the quality of the paths. The capability gap should follow from the organization's own plans. A workforce table with readiness shows the gap is sized from evidence. Paths should combine formal learning, experience and relationships, each justified with research. Selecting candidates by observed behavior earns credit. An individual plan template linked to the paths shows how strategy reaches people. Attention to those who do not take a path shows fairness. Risks, budget, timeline and measures should be realistic and consistent. Sources should be cited in APA 7 throughout.
HR410 Unit 10 help: mistakes that cost points
Many HR410 development strategies list training courses without connecting them to what the organization will need. Others size no gap, so the scale of development is guessed. Students often build paths from courses alone, ignoring experience and mentoring. Candidates are chosen by tenure. Staff who do not take a path are forgotten. Budgets and timelines do not match the organization's key dates. Start from the plan, size the gap, build mixed paths, select by behavior, link plans to paths, address everyone, set budget and timeline against key dates and measure progress. Once the paths are sketched, our team can help turn them into the full report.
Get an HR410 Unit 10 example written to your instructions
What does the organization in the case say it needs next? That statement anchors the report, so send it with any earlier development work, the final unit's wording and the rubric. Individual paths tied to that gap arrive within 24-48h, every name and figure in them invented. A first custom sample is free. The paper above is an original model document written by our desk, not a submitted student paper and not an official Purdue University Global document.
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HR410 Unit 10 questions, answered
How is a development strategy different from a training plan?
A training plan addresses one performance gap with one program. A development strategy starts from what the organization will need and builds several paths toward it over a longer period. The example reuses the adjustment program as one component of the specialist path, which shows how a single program fits inside the larger strategy.
Does the report need a succession section?
It is a frequent requirement at this point in the course, and the example handles succession through the team lead readiness pool. Candidates are chosen on observed coaching behavior and developed through a defined path. A section focused on a different level, such as department managers, would use the same structure with its own criteria.
Where can I find a free HR410 Unit 10 sample paper?
A complete HR410 Unit 10 development strategy report is on this page, building advocate and team lead paths for a health plan's member services center.
Why choose team lead candidates by coaching behavior?
Tenure shows how long someone has been in a role, not whether they coach well. Observing coaching conversations against a checklist shows the capability the role needs.
What belongs in an individual development plan?
The target role, the capabilities it needs, the person's current level on each, chosen activities, a mentor, dates and the evidence that will show progress.