Personal And Professional Development

It covers study of employee knowledge, skills and behaviours required by HR professionals and analysis of factors to be considered while implementation and evaluation of inclusive learning and development to drive sustainable performance. In addition, the report covers application of knowledge and understanding ways in which High Performance Working contributes to employee engagement and competitive advantage. Moreover, evaluation of ways in which collaborative working and effectivecommunication can support high performance culture and commitment is also discussed briefly.

Task 1

P1. Knowledge, Skills and Behaviours required by HR Professionals

TESCO Plc, is one of the leading organisation in the UK which have more than 3,400 stores within the country and a huge workforce higher than 300,000 individuals supporting and managing the organisation (Tesco UK,2019). The company is one of the most trusted in the nation and deals in home and electrical appliances, merchandises, groceries, etc. HR professionals are quite crucial for a firm as big as TESCO which requires them to effectivelycarry out their each role with utmost sincerity and consistency. The reason for such consistency is that it holds the key to manage such a huge workforce overtime. However, it is imperative that various knowledge, skills and behaviours are possessed by these professionals to carry out their roles within TESCO. These skills and attributes as per their different roles is mentioned below:

Workforce Planning

The most important role of HR professionals within TESCO is planning of workforce, recruitment and selection. The better these individuals perform this role, better and competent would be the workforce within TESCO. Various knowledge, skills and behaviours for the role HR includes:

• Knowledge:Workforce Planning needs knowledge about effectiverecruitment and selection processes which enables them in carrying out in-depth evaluation of each candidate on the basis of their competence and skills apt for TESCO (West and et. al., 2014).
• Skills:They must have adequatelyanalytical and persuasive skills which would help them in analysing the skills gap in the company. Evaluation of competencies of candidates and persuading their behaviour help to attain them at appropriatepay scale which would result in acquisition of talented personnels quite economically (Raes and et. al., 2015).
• Behaviours:HR professionals of TESCO must be ethical while workforce planning and recruiting to ensure a diversified yet effective

Performance Appraisal

Retaining of employees is another crucial aspect for HR professionals at TESCO. For the same, a professional must undertake appropriate performance appraisal to encourage workforce to perform better. Knowledge, skills and behaviours as per this role are discussed below:

• Knowledge:HR professionals must possess knowledge about techniques of performance management and measurement to carry out effectiveperformance appraisal. In addition, they must be knowledgeable about Human Resource Information Systems (HRIS) like Applicant Tracking Systems and Zoho People to better handle employee performances and manage recruiting.
• Skills:Organisational and Decision-making skills are essential for organise employee performance and systematicmeasurement to conduct appropriate appraisal of each employee (Von Krogh, Nonaka and Rechsteiner, 2012).
• Behaviours:HR professionals must be purpose oriented as it would enable them to appraise performances effectivelyand without being bias.

Employee Relations

HR Professionals in TESCO act as a liaison between management and employee. Thus, it is of vital importance that they keep harmony within the company intact to ensure collective growth. Knowledge, skills and behaviour required for this role is mentioned as under:

• Knowledge:It is important for an HR professional in a firm like TESCO to possess the knowledge about various employee legislations like Employee Act, Equality Act and Ant-Discrimination Act which is essential to ensure togetherness of employees as well as management (West and et. al., 2014).
• Skills:Effectivecommunication and conflict solving skills are crucial for HR professionals to ensure harmony in the company.
• Behaviours:They must be solution oriented and adaptable to consider each important aspect into consideration and carry out policies in favour of management as well as employees.

P2. Complete Personal Skills Audit

For an HR professional, it is of vital importance that personal skills, knowledge and behaviours are evaluated on regular basis which identifies areas of strength and weaknesses and enlightens scope for improvement. To determine the same, SWOT analysis is being used which would help in analysing self knowledge, skills and behaviours as a requirement for HR professional. Personal SWOT analysis is discussed below:

• Strengths:

There are various knowledge, certain behaviour and skills which are my strengths and enhances effectivenessin my role as an HR (McCormack, Manley and Titchen, 2013). For instance, I have proper knowledge about recruitment and selection procedures and how best to conduct them in order to select the best candidates for the job. Another strengths are various skills like organisational and decision-making skills which I possess and effectivelyutilise as an HR professional. In addition, I am ethical and solution oriented and always practice my role as per these behaviours.

• Weaknesses:

However good I am at the above mentioned skills, behaviours and knowledge, there are various attributes which are yet to be improved. For example, I am yet to use Human Resource Information Systems (HRIS) as a routine element in my HR role. Moreover, I lack communication skills and fail to persuade or convince other individual in regards of any subject matter or point of view. I possess some knowledge about employee legislations however, there are yet very aspects of these legislations which are needed to be learnt.

• Opportunities:

With my strengths, there are ample opportunities in the organisation which could be accomplished by me during my HR Role. As an example, recruitment and selection procedures would allow me to bring a pool of skilled talent in the firm requiring minimal training and development to enhance their performances. Moreover, decision-making skills would allow me to handle complex situations easily without compromising any aspect of my job role.

• Threats:

There could be various threats in store for me for the skills, knowledge and attributes which I lack. Various examples of these threats would be that firm would require professionals that are inclined towards using appropriate and advanced technology. Another bigger threat is that within TESCO, communication and persuasion is very necessary for carrying out HR duties effectively.

Thus, all the attributes are necessary for me to excel my performance and become even better in the carrying out HR duties. Moreover, to ensure a long term in the firm, it is crucial for me to develop knowledge on HRIS, employment legislations as well as communication skills effectively. Thus, it is essential for me to construct a professional development plan to appropriately carry out these duties.The Professional Development Plan is mentioned below:

Task 2

P3. Difference between organisational and individual learning, training and development

TESCO is a global organisation where each staff and employee is essential and work as to effectively attain personal and organisational objectives. However, there is a brief difference between individual and organisational learning which is mentioned below:

• Organisational Learning:

The knowledge about procedures, practices, frameworks, etc. which is facilitated uniformly throughout the organisation refers to organisational learning. For instance, employees as well as management learn about various new techniques of product packaging or branding would be organisational learning.

• Individual Learning:

All the learning and acquisition of knowledge on a personal level is referred as individual learning. As an example, an employee in TESCO would learn individually new techniques for customer management which would be learning on an individual level.

Difference between individual learning and organisation learning

It is also a regular practice within TESCO to train and develop their personnels in order to help them achieve their personal goals effectively. Currently, TESCO is effectively managing their employees by providing them periodic training and development. There are various aspects, however, which is essential for making this practice even more effective. For instance, every now and then there are new approaches to marketing and sales. Training and development would ensure effective learning of these aspect and better performance within the market. However, both these terns are distinctive in nature (Nahavandi, 2016).

• Training:

The procedure which is undertaken by companies in order to enhance a particular skill for a specific job role is referred as training. It is an extremely important process which TESCO follows up each time they hire new clients and periodically for the existing ones.

• Development:

It refers to overall improvement of an employee within an organisation at personal and professional level. For example, employees within TESCO would be appraised on basis of their performances and would learn aspects personally ensuring their improvement.

The role of training and development within TESCO is that it effectively helps the employees within the company to get familiar with advanced and effective methods that could help them in performing better. In addition, it helps in removing irregularities in performance which could enhance market position of TESCO within the market.

Difference between training and development

P4. Need of Continuous Learning and Professional Development

There is a huge workforce supporting TESCO and thus, to ensure consistency in its market position and effective status globally, it is crucial that employees learn continually and ensure professional development (Robbins and Judge, 2012). These factors are important for growth of an organisation and employees for long-term. Need for continuous learning and professional development is discussed below:

Continuous Learning:

It is a process which is related to constant enhancement of knowledge, skills and various attributes which is necessary for employees at TESCO. The firm is very certain in upgrading its human resources to perform in a better and competent way. Continuous learning is necessary because they would be contributing in the firm' s success in a better manner and would be able to achieve personal objectives effectively as well. Continuous Learning would aid in attaining sustainable business performance as employees would effectively continue to learn better alternatives and methods to achieve desired results and effective performance, which is necessary for a consistent performance. To facilitate the same, the firm adopts periodic training and development, both on-the-job and off-the-job to ensure maximum performance from each employee. In addition, the firm also monitors their performance to enhance self capability.

Professional Development:

This sort of development is facilitated regarding overall professional improvement in an individual within a company. TESCO requires this development to ensure whether an employee effectively achieve their full potential for achieving company's objectives in a systematic and adequate manner. Training within the firm is continuous and aims at ensuring professional development. This would help employees in developing an overall personality which would effectively help them in experiencing personal growth which is a contributing factor in effective business performance. Thus, such consistency through professional development would make it easier for TESCO to achieve its objectives. The importance of implementation of continuous professional development is being analysed through Kolb Learning Cycle which is mentioned below:

• Concrete Experience:

Training and Development within TESCO is a regular practice and each employee is given multiple training sessions throughout their work, related to marketing, effective sales and even customer management. The company provides diverse training sessions to its employees on a constant basis.

• Reflective Observation of new Experience:

Usually, through training and development, the company witness substantial improvement in performance of the staff. However, there are various instances, especially in customer service where changes are inevitable and new aspects are required to be taught which sometimes couldn't be achieved by standard range of training given by the firm (Choi and Ruona, 2011).

• Abstract Conceptualisation:

From the experience above, the firm must effectively adopt new on-the-job training methods such as effective monitoring where employees could be guided throughout their performance and shortfalls be effectively removed which would give personalised touch to employees and would improve their performance.

• Active Experimentation:

To achieve this, TESCO must develop new and innovative ideas like interactive sessions and mock drills where new situations would be created on the basis of which training would be given to staff to ensure their continuous professional development (Huczynski, Buchanan and Huczynski, 2013).

Task 3

P5. Contribution of HPW in employee engagement and competitive advantage

High Performance Working refers to a practice which is performed by companies aiming at gaining strong competitive advantage over other companies and effectively achieve organisational objectives. This practice is necessary for ensuring smoothness in operations and manage themselves effectively between the social systems such as people and technical systems like processes and machines.

For instance, there was a case quite recently when the firm was dragged to court by almost 17 of its employees due to pay cuts in their wages. The dispute affected almost 38,000 employees who got paid on hourly basis. Moreover, the effect of its decisions was witnessed mostly on employees who joined even before 1999 (Tesco workers take company to court over alleged discrimination,2019). Such instances have a negative impact on employee engagement and commitment, which requires the company to work towards restoring the power within the workforce and ensure long-term engagement and commitment. For the same, High Performance Working is required which consists of practices required for ensure competitive advantage of the firm within the market. These practices are mentioned below:

• Transparent Communication:

High Performance Working requires facilitation of a culture with transparent communication within an organisation. The situation with TESCO makes it evident for the firm to follow this practice throughout their organisational levels to ensure appropriate employee engagement with the company. It would be effective as feeling of discrimination will not arise if company would maintain complete transparency in communication and discuss each policy and change with their workforce. The trust which company would show in employees would result in their long-term commitment with the firm. Transparency would also result in engaging employees in decision making which would would be helpful in development of strong policies related to employees which would ultimately lead to better performance standards and thus, acquisition of competitive advantage in the market (Herrmann and Herrmann-Nehdi, 2015).

• Performance Appraisals:

Another High Performance Working practice as per the situation in TESCO is performance appraisal. Each old employee within the firm as well as new must be appraised as per their performance and dedication they have shown while working in TESCO. Such appraisals would encourage them in increasing their performance outputs and putting in more efforts to enhance their capabilities. Thus, performance appraisals would help in achieving employee engagement and commitment. Moreover, performance appraisal would engage each employee in working at a higher level to acquire higher returns which would also be effective enough for TESCO to gain a competitive edge.

• In-House Problem-Solving Practices:

HPW also needs firms to follow in-house problem-solving sessions which keeps up the reputation of the company and aid in solving sever conflicts internally. As per the scenario, TESCO must set up effective departments which would deal with ongoing conflicts and present solutions in favour to employees as well as the firm. This would give a sense of security to employees that their problems are being dealt with and thus, problem-solving would help engaging them for a longer term with utmost commitment. Moreover, since each conflict will be resolved in-house, the reputation of company within the market would be intact, thus, giving appropriate competitive edge against other companies (Aarons, Hurlburt and Horwitz, 2011).

Task 4

Evaluation of different approaches to performance management

Performance Management refers to effective activities which is considered as to manage the execution of activities by employees in relation to set standards and developing frameworks for improvement. It is a crucial approach which is adopted to ensure high performance culture and commitment.

TESCO could use various techniques in relation to managing performance of their employees which would be contributing in relation to sustainable business operations and adequate achievement of objectives. These approaches are mentioned below:

• Comparative Approach:

As one of the crucial performance management approaches, this aspect is related to ranking employees performance after comparing them with others in a group. For TESCO, Forced distribution technique would serve as an appropriate method to compare performances of employees.

For instance, during implementation of transparent communication, departmental heads within TESCO would be part of the group as they would be the ones communicating with the employees in a better and effective manner (Langkamp Bolton and Lane, 2012). Moreover, the criteria would be feedbacks given by employees to upper management regarding knowledge of various aspects related to the firm. It would help in managing performance in relation to implementation of transparent communication within their respective departments. As an example, most number of positive feedbacks would be given a rate of more than 7 out of 10, and department with most negative feedbacks will be rated below 4. This would allow them to manage their performance and setting up standards for implementation.

• Attribute Approach:

Under this approach, employees' performances would be managed on the basis of set attributes where problem-solving would be the one for TESCO employees. For this, graphic rating scale would be the method to manage their performances. The criteria would be number of conflicts happening within the company. TESCO employees would be rated on a scale of 1 to 5 and further these parameters would be broken as above, equal or below standard limit.

However, since the judging aspect is subjective, this would be tough for TESCO to manage performances of their employees. However, since the criteria is quantifiable, this method could serve as an effective one for TESCO.

• Collaborative Approach:

Another approach through which high performance work culture and commitment could be ensured in TESCO is through collaborative approach. The aspect through which this could be achieved is by integrating efforts of all the departments within organisation to ensure appropriate performance appraisal culture within the country. An accumulated effort would be taken by each department to effectively implement performance appraisal within their departments. Managers and seniors would be providing training and through effective leadership, will be guiding employees towards success. The criteria to judge effectiveness of performances would be the number of appraisals.

However, this might be ineffective if completely applied on the firm as that might as its wide implementation would cause a burden on the management with increasing number of appraised employees. However, this would help in increase their performance and establishing high performance work culture and commitment within the organisation, which would ultimately be beneficial for the company (Katzenbach and Smith, 2015).

Conclusion

Thus, it is concluded by the above mentioned information, that personal and professional development is a key aspect for an employee in enhancing their performance. Moreover, it is crucial to develop individuals, teams and organisation to ensure collective growth. It is crucial to analyse knowledge, skills and behaviour as it would give a way for professional development. Continuous learning and professional development are effective aspects to enhance performance of an organisation as a whole. High performance working within an organisation is effective as per to ensure employee engagement, commitment and competitive advantage. Lastly, it is crucial to consider performance management techniques to effectively manage and enhance employee performance within an organisation.

References

Books & Journals

• Aarons, G. A., Hurlburt, M. and Horwitz, S. M., 2011. Advancing a conceptual model of evidence-based practice implementation in public service sectors. Administration and Policy in Mental Health and Mental Health Services Research.38(1). pp.4-23.John Wiley & Sons.
• Choi, M. and Ruona, W. E., 2011. Individual readiness for organizational change and its implications for human resource and organization development. Human Resource Development Review. 10(1). pp.46-73.
• Herrmann, N. and Herrmann-Nehdi, A., 2015. The Whole Brain Business Book: Unlocking the Power of Whole Brain Thinking in Organizations, Teams, and Individuals. McGraw Hill Professional.
• Huczynski, A., Buchanan, D. A. and Huczynski, A. A., 2013. Organizational behaviour (p. 82). London: Pearson.
• Katzenbach, J. R. and Smith, D. K., 2015. The wisdom of teams: Creating the high-performance organization. Harvard Business Review Press.
• Langkamp Bolton, D. and Lane, M. D., 2012. Individual entrepreneurial orientation: Development of a measurement instrument. Education+ Training. 54(2/3). pp.219-233.
• McCormack, B., Manley, K. and Titchen, A. eds., 2013. Practice development in nursing and healthcare. John Wiley & Sons.
• Nahavandi, A., 2016. The Art and Science of Leadership -Global Edition. Pearson.
• Raes, E. and et. al., 2015. An exploratory study of group development and team learning. Human Resource Development Quarterly. 26(1). pp.5-30.
• Robbins, S. P. and Judge, T., 2012. Essentials of organizational behavior.
• Von Krogh, G., Nonaka, I. and Rechsteiner, L., 2012. Leadership in organizational knowledge creation: A review and framework. Journal of Management Studies.49(1). pp.240-277.

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