Capstone Project Proposal Template

What is the problem, challenge, opportunity, or issue facing the organization or industry
that you would like to research and address?

15 years ago, Sedgwick Claims Management Services had approximately one thousand

employees. Currently, the company has more than twelve thousand employees that are stationed

in the United States, Canada, England and Puerto Rico. The company has seen significant

growth in a short period, especially in the Eden Prairie location in Minnesota. Currently, the

Eden Prairie site is running out of space, and the leaders are contemplating offering work from

home opportunities for hourly wage employees. Sedgwick’s hourly employees make up the

majority of the workforce. The challenges Sedgwick faces is how to make this transition without

losing the support of their partners, without decentralizing daily operation and increase internal

and external growth. Sedgwick must also go completely paperless, monitor and track

telecommute employees’ productivity, scheduling and enhance technology system to make

telecommuting more operational. 

Why is it a management concern?

The managers at Sedgwick are accustomed to managing their employees at the worksite.

They have unlimited access to their employees. The employee, in turn, could ask any questions

about any issues and have the answers without delays. For this transition to be effective, the

managers must change their mindset and perspective and adapt to a new way of managing. The

managers must make the employee see how this new change will benefit not just the company

but also the individuals. The employees must also trust that the implementation of this new

concept will not impact their performances in a negative way and that they could handle work at

home without interruptions and system failure. Sedgwick’s leaders must also demonstrate to
their partners how this new shift in operation will result in better service, faster services and

better all-round operations.

What is the intended outcome? (A solution to a problem? Address of an HR issue.

Revised HR policies? An opportunity for a new HR program? Etc.)

The traditional physical workplace is no longer a strategy that seems to be working for

Sedgwick in building the organization’s long-term performance result. The need to address the

lack of spacing availability to deal with high caseloads and low employment is evident. The

company is on schedule to hire a significant number of hourly employees and interns this

summer to help with new business acquisitions. However, with limited physical spacing and

limited resources for building a new infrastructure Sedgwick is contemplating work from home

alternatives. There are many great benefits to telecommuting. This author hopes to research this

subject intensively and to identify companies who have successfully implemented this concept.

This author wishes to offer Sedgwick, a model that will guide them to making this transitional

change a simple one by revealing advancement that has taken place over the years that has made

work-from-home operational and effective.

Identify resources you expect to use for your research? (This is preliminary, of course.)

For this research paper, this author will interview Providence Okoye Napolean, a lawyer

in Washington D.C. and Judith Cesalien John a pharmacologist student at the University of

Florida to get a fresh prospective on this subject. This student will also utilize the school library

databased, OCLS for peer-review articles. The five articles this author have identified as a

starting point are titled ‘has your office become a lonely place,’ ‘too close for comfort?

Investigating the nature and functioning of work and non-work segmentation preferences,’

‘application attraction to flexible work arrangements; separating the influence of flextime and
flexplace,’ ‘gauging perceived benefits from working from home as a job benefit’, and ‘does

working from home work? Evidence from a Chinese Experiment’. The various federal and

public websites such as the United States Department of Labor, Society for Human Resource

Management and Harvard review will also be used during the research process. Courses in the

graduate program that will prove to be affective in implementing this transitional change will be

the labor management, organizational and renewal and development courses as well as the

ethical and legal course and evidence based and total reward courses.