Performance Management and HR Skills

The provided report delves into the importance of good communication skills and conflict management skills for a human resources (HR) professional. It also presents a SWOT analysis and a professional development plan tailored to HR professionals. Furthermore, the report examines different approaches to performance management and distinguishes between training and development programs. This comprehensive report aims to equip HR professionals with the necessary knowledge and tools to excel in their roles.

Developing Individuals, Teams
and Organisations

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................1
P.1. Determine the appropriate and professional knowledge, skills and behaviours that are
required by HR professionals at Whirlpool. ..........................................................................1
P.2. Determine personal skill audit to identify proper skills, knowledge and behaviours and
develop a professional development plan for a particular job role at Whirlpool...................2
P.3. Difference between organisational and individual learning, training and development at
whirlpool.................................................................................................................................5
Difference between organizational and individual learning...................................................5
P.4. Determine the need for continuous learning and professional development to know the
sustainable business performance at Whirlpool.....................................................................6
P.5. Describe how HPW contributes to employee engagement and competitive advantage
within the company................................................................................................................7
P.6. Describe different approaches of performance management along with the examples and
how they support high-performance culture and commitment with respect to case study at
whirlpool.................................................................................................................................9
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................11
REFERENCE:................................................................................................................................12

INTRODUCTION
Developing individuals, teams and organisations means improving the performance of
individuals collectively as a team so that the performance of the organisation can be developed.
In this project, whirlpool company has been chosen. The whirlpool company is an American
multinational manufacturer of home appliances which was founded in year 1911 by Louis Upton
and Emory Upton. Company has its headquarter in Benton charter township, Michigan, United
States. Its revenues was about US$21.25 billion in the year 2017. This report on whirlpool
company will determine the appropriate and professional knowledge and skills required by HR.
further it covers, this report will also cover analysis on difference between organisational and
individual learning and development at Whirlpool.
MAIN BODY
P.1. Determine the appropriate and professional knowledge, skills and behaviours
that are required by HR professionals at Whirlpool.
In a company, human resource plays the role of managing the people of the organization.
The areas in which HR has expertise are hiring of new employees, coordination of employees
and training and development of new employees. Also, HR of company give suggestion to
managers on problems related to employees and that is how human resource helps a company in
achieving its goals and objectives. In Whirlpool, on the job trainings are being provided by HR
department to all the employees' weather managerial or non managerial. Whirlpool is focusing
more on its HR practices so that it can gain new market share.
In Whirlpool human resource department has professional knowledge and many key skills such
as good communication skills, multi tasking etc. Below here, In this report some key skills of HR
is being listed (Bezzina and et.al., 2017).
Skills:
1. Communication: communication skills is not only about speaking, being able to listen
what other person is saying is the real skill which a HR should posses. Oral and written
both communication are equally important as everyone in an organisation goes to HR for
advice and problems. Whirlpool HR department has good communication skills which
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helped the company to develop a satisfying working environment and managing all the
dispute because HR department of company listens all the problems of employees and
take necessary steps accordingly.
2. Conflict management: HR of whirlpool helps to solve the conflicts between the
employer and employee or between the two employees by listening to both the sides as
HR helps in resolving the conflict in proper way so that conflicts in the company can get
sorted.
Behaviour
1. Adaptability: Every organisation has to face so many changes so Adaptability is a
behaviour which means how one responds to change. As A HR managers of Whirlpool
are very flexible, they never resist to change and have the adaptability behaviour.
2. Transparency and trustworthiness: HR manager of Whirlpool knows what things are
going around in the organisation, as HR department deals with the highly confidential
information of the employees so they should keep it safe and should be honest with
employees without any judgement. So whirlpool HR has a behaviour of keeping
employees information safe and confidential.
3. Solutions oriented: HR at whirlpool are excellent negotiators with a attitude of
solutions. HR needs to be creative for being solutions oriented so it requires a certain
level of creativity (Moxen, and Strachan, 2017).
Knowledge
1. Industry Knowledge: HR of Whirlpool has knowledge about the trends and competitors
of the Home appliances industry. This lead HR to guide another departments about the
industry and accordingly they make changes in their organisation.
2. Legal Knowledge: HR of Whirlpool has legal knowledge such as knowledge of laws,
rules, regulations and guidances which help them to make policy and code of conduct
accordingly for the employees and organisation.
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P.2. Determine personal skill audit to identify proper skills, knowledge and behaviours and
develop a professional development plan for a particular job role at Whirlpool
Personal skill audit means to know the skills of an individual or group, which is very useful for
people to check their carrier track. And personal skill audit helps to know about the skills one
didn't know he had.
A personal skill audit is a way to know the strengths of an organisation just to get the best
Outcomes by knowing skills and knowledge of employees and develop a business plan
accordingly. Whirlpool conduct personal skill audit so that company can know the strengths,
skills and talents of its employees and of the organisation too so that it can develop a business
development plan accordingly after considering the audit details in to knowledge.
Professional development plan of Whirlpool is created by the manager of the company
who works with the staff persons to know the required necessary skills and resources to support
the staff person and their career goals (Boer and et.al., 2017).
Whirlpool has followed this process for creating professional development plan.
1. Identify core competencies : core competencies are skills and nature that employees try to
achieve for success in their careers. The best way to know the competencies is to measure
is to know the skills of the employees that are important to the company. A set of
competencies should be recognised by the quality research in a broader way.
2. Identify strengths: For the carrier level, if employee needs to achieve success one need to
identify weather he/she is adding value to the company with their talents or skills or not.
3. Know weaknesses: Whirlpool takes in to account the weakness of employee and it is
than addressed into employee's professional development plan.
4. Develop action steps : After knowing strengths and weakness, action development plan is
being formed which contains a combination of experiences and events so that employee
can create strengths and work on his weakness
5. Monitor progress: After setting development plan in to action. It's necessary to check in
with your employee, motivate them and keep knowing the feedback on their progress.
SWOT Analysis
STRENGTHS OPPORTUNITIES
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 Communication Skill
 Time management (Ahmed, Siantonas
and Siantonas, 2017).
 Technical Skill
 Computer Skill
WEAKNESSES
 Decision making skill
 Problem solving skill
THREATS
 use of EHRM software
Professional development plan for HR at Whirlpool
learning goals
and objectives
Current
proficiency
Activities for
improvements
Criteria for judging skill
development
Decision
Making Skill
2 By doing case study
methods
Feedback of employees
Problem
Solving Skill
3 By solving different types
of problems through
analysis.
Performance Measurement
From the above personal development plan it is being concluded that HR needs to work
on his listening skills and can do it by available audio's and videos and also, should work on
leadership skills because to be a HR of whirlpool one must have leadership qualities. (North,
and Kumta, 2018)
P.3. Difference between organisational and individual learning,training and
development at whirlpool
Difference between organizational and individual learning
Learning means gaining new facts and information, acquiring of knowledge and new policies
and procedures. At Whirlpool, organizational learning has been regulated in which learning at
individual level or at organizational level improves the performance of the organization. When a
difference comes in expectations and results, organizational learning occurs. So it shows that
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individual has to learn from mistakes before the organization do. Research shown that there is
positive relationship between individual learning and organisational learning. As organisational
learning gives good results in finance and competitiveness.
Organisational learning increases customer satisfaction and employees satisfaction too but
individual learning is more worried about their own self and try to avoid challenges which can
lead them to failure. Focus of every employee in Whirlpool is on individual learning rather than
organisational learning.
Difference between training and development
In Whirlpool training and development is a part of human resource department which focuses on
improving the performance of employees. Training in whirlpool is organised to grow employees'
skill and knowledge. Whereas, development is an educational process which is for growth of
employees.
Training is to learn particular task or skill any new program or protocol. But when we talk about
development it covers all type of knowledge and skills.
Whirlpool designs training and taught it to employees by a tutor or expert however, in
development focus is put on the particular individual, where company designs and personalize
development programs.
Whirlpool has a limited training period of 3-6 months whereas development is a never ending
process. Hence, it is a long term process.
Whirlpool appoints trainer for trainees who guides them during training and in development
manager of company directs for the future projects.
All the employees of whirlpool gets training during the training program conducted by the
company (Stanton, 2017). Development is a self-improvement procedure, so every employee of
company is himself responsible for one's development. Training of a company is reactive process
whereas, development is a proactive process of an individual. Training increases the skills and
knowledge for a particular job on the other hand development is a self assessment procedure
where one person himself responsible for the development.
Here is the comparison chart between Training and development
Training Development
It is a process of learning so that employees Development is a never ending self
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gets an opportunity to develop there
knowledge and skills.
improvement procedure which focuses on
overall growth of the employees
Training is a reactive process Development is a proactive process
It is a job oriented process It is a carrier oriented process.
Training is to make the employee's
performance better.
Development process is to make the employees
ready for future uncertainties and challenges
(Boer and et.al., 2017).
P.4. Determine the need for continuous learning and professional development to
know the sustainable business performance at Whirlpool.
Whirlpool is the world's leading home appliances manufacturer. One of the leading
business magazine has named the company as “best places to launch a carrier” because of its
professional development programmes as professional development means continuous process
of learning and gaining new knowledge and skills. Whirlpool corporation directly allows the new
employees to handle challenging projects and projects. Whirlpool company believes in
continuous learning for growth of the company. As, continuous learning is about constant
expansion of skills of employees so that they can give best to the company. Business is all about
changes, There are number of innovations, lots of technological developments, Whirlpool adopts
such changes so that business of the company can be more innovative and it helps in personal
development as well (North and Kumta, 2018).
Whirlpool has expanded its business in all over the world. And economic conditions always
changes with time so continuous learning for dealing with such economic changes is very
important in the success of the organization.
In order for continuous learning, Whirlpool has different teams and programs so that
employees of the company can learn and grow more and it increases the productivity of the
company and continuous learning programme results in higher retention rates at Whirlpool
because employee learn on daily changing environment and can no longer feel of moving to
another job else people move from job to job so quickly.
Professional development helps in retaining the employees of the company and for
professional development, whirlpool make the employees attend local, regional and national
meetings which are conducted by Whirlpool and improve the job performance of employees by
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improving there existing skills and making employees learn about the new developments in their
field.
Whirlpool offers so many innovative and entertaining business opportunities so
employees gets excited for learning such innovative experiences which helps in the sustainable
performance of Whirlpool and of employees too.
Whirlpool company has its leadership development programs, which is a three year
programme in which employees are rotated in different fields of company such as marketing,
accounting etc. so that it can develop the skills of employees and helps in sustainable
development to company too (Ahmed, Siantonas and Siantonas, 2017).
Generally employees of the organisation gets unhappy with their jobs if they don't find
work challenging or exciting, so need of professional development arises which helps in learning
and development of an employee and does not let the employee feel dissatisfied and unhappy.
Need of professional development arises when company has low efficiency level.
Because professional development helps in improving efficiency of the company and it
reenergize staff of the organisation and its creativity and perspectives.
Whirlpool has started so many development programmes for employees to build their
confidence which helps employee to enhance their skills and gaining more and more
development certificates (Ahmed, Siantonas and Siantonas, 2017).
P.5. Describe how HPW contributes to employee engagement and competitive
advantage within the company.
Firstly, High performance working means to work in such culture where there is trust,
transparency and strong communication for every employee of the organisation. It is different
from traditional hierarchical structure and instead it creates a better structure where employees
are more motivated and engaged to their assigned work.
High performance working falls within three major areas.
 Involvement of employee
 human resource practices
 reward and commitment practices
Higher performance working of Whirlpool has adopted these basics to practice it.
1. Decentralised structure is followed in Whirlpool so that it allows employee autonomy
over their work style.
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2. Whirlpool adopts family friendly policies for flexible working
3. In the company all major information are shared with the employees so that employees
feel informed and consulted.
4. Whirlpool focuses on learning and development of employees so that employees can
learn new things and enhance the skills they already have.
5. This organization should give regular appraisals to employees and focus on employee
support system
6. Employees of this company get reward for their hard work and honesty (Margaryan,
Littlejohn, and Stanton, 2017).
Now as Whirlpool follows such practices for its employees results in higher employee
engagement because due to such practices by company employee's job satisfaction and positive
Attribute approach of measuring performance mood gets enhanced, which results in more
employee engagement in company.
High performance work system is very important in today's competitive environment. As,
high performance work system facilitates employee skills and involvement and motivate them to
the best. Every organisation has so many competitors who give tough competition in pricing of
the product or by giving same or better quality product so its become tough for an organisation to
come with a better and different concept always for their organisational values.
In this system, employees feel that they are important for the organisation, this lead
organisation to gain employees loyalty for the longer time. Employees feel satisfied which
improve their performance efficiency. This lead organisation to achieve their target before or on
time which increase their profitability and market shares. This lead company to gain competitive
advantages over its competitors.
P.6. Describe different approaches of performance management along with the
examples and how they support high-performance culture and commitment
with respect to case study at whirlpool.
Measuring performance of employees is most important part of organization and it is the
backbone of company's management. Generally, performance management is over simplified
and they take it as if it is all about targets and measures but it is not about only targets and
measures, if it is about targets and measures than company would have taken all the decisions by
using computers.
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So here the different approaches of performance management are described.
1. Comparative approach
2. Attribute approach
3. Behavioural approach
4. Result approach
5. Quality approach
Comparative approach of measuring performance Whirlpool follows comparative approach
in which employees are being ranked on the basis of their performance. And every individual of
the company is being ranked as top performer to the lowest performer, and top performer are
awarded for their performance and can be promoted to upper positions for their performance,
while the poor performers are given chances for improving their performance and if they fail to
meet the requirements then HR department of Whirlpool take strict action against them and ends
up with hiring new talents (Approaches of performance measurement, 2017).
Attribute approach of measuring performance- Whirlpool rate their
employees on the basis of some specific parameters such as
 innovation
 teamwork
 problem solving skills
 Communications
In this approach employees are rated on a scale of 1 to 5 that is from lowest to highest but here
the disadvantage of this approach is that it is only accurate in finding the best and the worst
performer, but it is a simple way of measuring performance of employees that is why
organization goes with this approach.
Behavioural approach of measuring performance- This technique is the
oldest way of performance measurement. Different vertical scales are made for behavioural
approach for different section of jobs. This can be done through BOS technique or BARS
technique. BARS stands for behaviourally anchored rating scale which consist of five to ten
vertical scales. These scales are based on parameters which are called anchors which are decided
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by the employees of the company. Employees are ranked on the basis of anchors as per their
performance.
BOS stands for behavioural observation scale which is a version of BARS. It tells about the
employee behaviour more specifically. The overall score is the average of all frequencies. And
this approach is suitable for accuracy and reliableness (Rijamampianina and Carmichael, 2018.
Result approach for measuring performance
This approach is the most simple approach where company rate there employees
on the basis of there performance results. There are two types of result approach.
 Very first is balanced scorecard technique which concentrates on customer
and financial aspects more and on the overall growth of the company.
 Second result approach is Productive measurement and evaluation system. It
is the best approach to motivate employees for productivity and knowing the
feedback.
The main benefit of this approach is that it converts planning in to
operations.
Quality approach of measuring performance- Whirlpool organisation focuses
on overall quality and improving the business process by adopting and improving customer
satisfaction by minimising errors and achieving regular service improvement. And this approach
has so many advantages such as,
 solutions of all the problems through a teamwork,
 Both the internal and external factors are involved,
 many resources are used to know the performance,
 appraisal of employee and system
CONCLUSION
From the above report it has been concluded that one requires good communication skills
and conflict management skills to become a HR of company further this report shows SWOT
analysis and professional development plan for HR and its skills and capabilities. On the other
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hand, this report studied about the different approaches of performance management as well as
this report will clear difference between training and development programmes.
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