Developing Individuals, Teams and Organisations - Whirlpool Assignment

Developing Individuals, Teams
and Organisations

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
TASK 1............................................................................................................................................3
P1 Identify professional skills, knowledge and behaviour required by HR Professional......3
P2 Personal skills audit and professional development plan..................................................5
TASK 2............................................................................................................................................9
P3 Difference between individual and organisational learning & training and development9
P4 Need of continuous learning and professional development in sustainable business
performance..........................................................................................................................10
TASK 3..........................................................................................................................................13
P5 State how HPW contribute to employee engagement and competitive advantage.........13
TASK 4..........................................................................................................................................14
P6 Different approaches of performance management and their contribution....................14
CONCLSUION..............................................................................................................................16
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................17

INTRODUCTION
Employees forms the building block, the most important resources that are available with
any company. Thus to be competitive and attain sustainability, it is requisite for organization to
continuously develop and improve collective and individual capabilities of its people. This helps
firm to align efforts of its proficient team towards contributing in its specific objectives and also
to build an organization culture that encourages everyone to work above the line and hold
themselves accountable for completing their assigned tasks with best of their capabilities. The
report is based on the case study of Whirlpool, an American multinational company that deals in
manufacturing and marketing of home appliances (Aarons, Hurlburt and Horwitz, 2011). It was
founded in 1911 with its headquarters in Benton Charter Township, US. The assignment will
identify skills, knowledge and behaviour required by an Hr professional and will determine
difference between individual and organizational learning. Also concept of HPW will be
discusses along various performance management approaches.
TASK 1
P1 Identify professional skills, knowledge and behaviour required by HR Professional
The main prominent factor that significantly contributes in enhancing proficiency of HR
official is an array of knowledge, skills and capabilities to handle various complex situations.
These KSA are the core competencies that enables HR officials of Whirlpool to manage variety
of personalities, deal with conflicts, mentor others, hire people and so on. Thus ultimately it
supports Whirlpool to get an edge over its competitors by building and managing a dedicated
team of professionals that are working autonomously in attaining firm's objectives by
successfully undertaking their roles and responsibilities (Bolman and Deal, 2017). Thus, in this
regard managers of Whirlpool make use of CPD model:
CPD MODEL: It could be describes as the procedure of tracking and recording KSB and
experience acquired by an employees by both formal and informal means while working in an
organization. It assists managers of Whirlpool to record, review and reflect learning of their
employees and to further update and develop their professional competencies. The main
objective of applying this CPD model is the professional growth and development of workforce
by ensuring that there is continuous up gradation of KSB in relation to present set standards of
the same area of work. It further forms important criteria to plan and design suitable training and

development program for employees to overcome their current lacking and weaknesses.
Mentioned below are some skills that are essential for HR officer of Whirlpool to posses:
Skills:
 Multi-tasking Skills: HR is a field that is subject to various responsibilities that might
change on day to day basis. For instance,HR officers of Whirlpool need to
simultaneously manage job advertisement. Compensation, training programs, interviews
and grievances. For all these functions it I requisite to have skills to manage time and
multi task to perform well in their job (Choi and Ruona, 2011). Conflict Management: To redress conflicts between employees and management or
between different workers forms yet another core responsibilities of an Hr officer. Thus,
to undertake this role it is highly essential for Hr officers of Whirlpool to have
negotiations skills and patience that they enables them to solve problems at workplace.
Knowledge: Communication skills : Hr officers of Whirlpool are requisite to act a liaisons between
employees and other managers. Thus they are required to have command on written and
oral communication skills as they are responsible to clearly share information related to
company policies, norms, new changes etc. to entire workforce (Hartnell, Ou and
Kinicki, 2011.). Being it sending emails, preparing speeches, conducting interviews or
addressing a training session it is highly essential for Hr officers to be comfortable,s
peaking clearly and confidently. Law and government: Whirlpool being multinational firm is subject to adhere by
legislation and norms enforced by governments of various nations. Thus, Hr officers of
company are responsible to have thorough knowledge related to all legal codes,
democratic political process, agency rules etc.
Behaviour:
 Transparency and trustiness : HR officers of Whirlpool are expected to conduct their
job responsibilities by being fair and professional in handling issues related to
compensation and benefit, employees personal problems, violation of company;s
policies etc. without showing any biasness or under any due consideration. It is requisite
for Hr officers to maintain total transparency by speaking honestly, openly and ensuring

disclosure of every fact and figure to workforce that are likeable to impact them in any
which way
 Ethics and confidentially: HR officer is the who one collects and keep the relevant and
personal information of employees. It is very important for important for manager to keep
the personal information of employees private and do not share it with other employees
working in entity and to any other unauthorised individual. Further, it is very important to
carry out all activities and take decisions in ethical manner.
P2 Personal skills audit and professional development plan
A personal skill audit is a significant tool that helps an individual to ascertain and
document their knowledge and skills so as to identify what are key areas of lacking that needs to
be improved. It enables individual to evaluate themselves in light of certain personal attributes
and skills that are essential for a bright career growth ( Herrmann and Herrmann-Nehdi, 2015.).
It is formulated through a comparative analysis of skill metrics of a firm with the present level of
core competencies of its workforce in context to predetermines skill set for carrying out a
particular job responsibilities. Being associated with a global brand Whirlpool as a Hr officer I
am required to have certain prominent skills such as team building, conflict resolution, decision
making etc. thus for analysing my current level of Skills sets and ascertain key areas of
development and lacking I have prepared a personal audit plan for myself as mentioned below:
Personal skills audit of Jane Cambridge is described below:
Skill Very Good Good Adequate Little or no
experience
Information
Technology
Use Microsoft
office word
✔
Use Excel
Spreadsheet
✔
Use specialist HR
software
✔
Use a database ✔
Use the internet ✔
Use Email ✔
Use PowerPoint ✔
Skill Very Good Good Adequate Little or no

experience
Communicati
on skills
Drafting
contracts of
employment
✔
Taking notes
of disciplinary
hearing
✔
Write reports ✔
Produce
materials to
support
presentations
✔
Delivering a
training
session
✔
Resolving
disputes
✔
Interviewing ✔
Advising on
HR issues
✔
Skill Very Good Good Adequate Little or no
Experience
Problem
solving skills
Make good
use of verbal
reasoning
skills, able to
handle
complex data
and make
selective use
of information
✔
Explore more
than one
solution in
order to solve
a problem
✔
Consider the
ideas of others
to help solve
problems
✔

Following are strengths and areas of lacking that are been revealed by my personal skill audit
plan:
Strength Weakness
 As far as technical knowledge is
concerned I am having proficiency in
this regard. So far I have all technical
skills and knowledge related to my area
of work.
 I am quiet flexible and adaptive that
forms my major area of strength. This
skill of mine helps me to mould my
behaviour, strategy and working style
as per giving condition. Thus, I am able
to gain support and cooperation of my
staff in most of situations.
 I lack skills in the aspect of decision
making skills wherein I score average.
It is due to the fact that being a flexible
person I sometimes with my team
providing them freedom to apply their
own working style in their assigned
tasks. This leads to delay in decision
making on my part due to non -
completion of work on deadlines.
 This also effects my leadership skills
which also I need to improve.
 Also there is scope for me to improve
my analytical skills were also I score
average.
Personal development plan (PDP) for HR officer role
PDP is also known as individual development plan that could be described as the process
of formulating an appropriate plan of action that is specifically based of values, awareness’s
reflection and establishment of aims with prospect of developing career, education or for self –
improvement (Hislop, 2013). On basis skill audit of mine mentioned below is a PDP plan for
enhancing my decision making, analytical and leadership skills.

Sr.
No
Learning
Objective
Current
Proficiency
Target Proficiency Development
Opportunities
Time Scale
1 Decision
making
Skills.
In present scenario I
score average in my
decision making
skills that further
requires
improvement
To take Speed up and
authentic even in most
complex situations
For developing
this competency,
I will gain
further
experience and
knowledge of
business analysis
process. Also I
will make use of
Six Thinking
Hats technique
that would help
me to analyse
different aspects
related to a
situation.
10 January
2019.
2 Leadership
Skills
Being too flexible
as a leader I score
average in my
leadership skills.
To perfectly balance
authoritative aspects of
leadership to make
employees follow
instructions with
participative leadership
style.
By attending
open leadership
development
courses. Tailored
leadership
training courses
01 march
2019.
3 Analytical
Skills
Currently I am
having average
analytical skills
To develop proficiency
to visualize, articulate
and solve both intricate
and fundamental
To improve this
skill I will
attend analytical
skill training
10 March
2019.

problems and issues involving
workshops on
critical thinking
and strategic
management
TASK 2
P3 Difference between individual and organisational learning & training and development
Training could be described as procedure of enhancing knowledge, skills and core
competencies of an individual by making them indulge in various teaching and learning
activities. This helps in improving their capabilities to carry out there present and future job
related requirements (Katzenbach and Smith, 2015). Development on other hand refers to
growth of an individual by systematically making use of scientific and technical knowledge for
attaining specific objectives. Whirlpool being a global multinational brand is quiet specific about
maintaining a proficient staff that are well trained and skilled. Thus, company manages proper
training and development programs for inducing necessary skills related to technical aspects,
analytics and soft skills. Both terms are distinct from one another on certain grounds that are
mentioned below:
Difference between training and development
Basis for
comparison
Training Development
Meaning It is associated with employee learning
where in they are provided with
opportunities to gain KSA that are
essential for them to undertake their
current or future job complexities.
Development is an educational process
that focuses on growth of managerial
staff.
Objective The main objective of training is to
make employees professional by
improving their work performance
It aims towards enhancing employees
confidence and proficiency in order to
take higher job responsibilities and
challenges

Aim It is generally provided to lower level
management staff such as executives
to induce them with required KSA.
It is given to middle level management
such as managers for improving their
personality, GK and concepts.
Learning : It is a process of acquiring new skills, behaviour, knowledge and preferences or to
make changes in them in context to various advancement and changes introduced in a particular
field of knowledge (Landy and Conte, 2016). In context of Whirlpool, continuously learning is
essential for both organization and individual point of view so as to improve and maintain
productivity level and to attain both personal and professional aims and goals. It is classified
into to forms that are been explained along with their differences:
Difference between organisational learning and individual learning
Basis for
comparison
Organizational Learning Individual Learning
Meaning It implies a procedure that is
concerned with forming, absorbing
and sharing knowledge and learning
with the company.
It could be described as process of
gaining knowledge about macro
sources and its stimuli response by an
individual.
Objective It is related with enhancing
performance and productivity of an
individual by inducing them with
specific knowledge and skill.
It is associated with formulation of
distinctive policies and procedures that
managers of Whirlpool are to adopt
and communicate to various
departments
P4 Need of continuous learning and professional development in sustainable business
performance
Continuous learning: It refers to constantly making efforts to update KSA and to learn
new ones. This involves gaining knowledge about changing environment and associated new
developments in the field. In context to Whirlpool, it enable firm to shape up its team by making
them adaptive to market dynamics (Nahavandi, 2016). It assist both firm and its employees to
achieve higher growth by gaining high emotional intelligence through self awareness, self

management and self assessment. At individual level, it is associated with diversifying and
acquiring KSA in context to Whirlpool's frequent core competencies requirements to maintain its
proficient workforce capable of handling present as well future job related challenges. At
organizational level, it represents various market dynamics changes, upgrades and complexities
that are been encountered by Whirlpool while conducting its business operations around the
globe.
Professional development: It involves wide range of specialized training, advanced
professional learning or formal education that assist Whirlpool and its employees to improve
their competences, skills, professional knowledge and effectiveness (Penuel and et. al. 2012).
For this company conducts various workshops, conferences, formal courses and informal
learning techniques. Whirlpool to encourages professional development in its organizational
culture make use of several approaches for developing professional KSB such as lesson study,
technical assistance, consultation, coaching, mentoring etc.
In context to Whirlpool mentioned below are some prominent importance for adopting and
implementing these learning and development approaches: Assists in problem solving: In context to Whirlpool these learning and development
approaches enables firm to efficiently adopt and adapt to changing market situations and
to develop amicable relations between employees and management. Further as company
is having proficient employees it encourages them to participate in decision making
process and to share their opinions, creative ideas and suggestions with management.
Thus, it provides managers with pool of innovative ideas and recommendation for
solving a particular issue out of which most appropriate ones could be adopted by
Whirlpool.
 Adoption of latest technology: In today's era of digitalisation where in every business
irrespective of their size and type is subject to encounter frequent technological
obsolescence, these learning and development approaches helps firms like Whirlpool to
remain competitive,. It is because of the fact that with continuous learning firm is able to
be aware and well notified about latest up gradation that are been introduced in market
are our adopted by competitors. Professional development on other hand induces
employees to acquire necessary KSB to adopt and absorb those technological updates.

Thus, Whirlpool is able to maintain the competency of its workforce and market position
of its brand (Robbins and Judge, 2012).
Honey & Mumford
Learning styles given by Honey and Mumford are as per the supposed preference to learning.
Four learning styles can be summarised with the following given characteristics:
 Activist: These are the individuals who learn new things by doing it. These kind of
people ned to get the experience or into the action what they want to learn. Features
of these type of individuals is that these remain open to problem solving sessions and
to group discussions.
 Theorist: This aspect involve those individuals who seek to understand the theory
behind action. They like to rea facts to engage more in learning process.
 Pragmatist: Individuals who known how to put their learning in to the real life action
is come under this category.
 Reflector: Individuals who learn by thinking about what is happening and by
watching other individuals in come in this category.
Figure 1: Peter Honey and Alan Mumford Learning Styles. 2018

Source: Peter Honey and Alan Mumford Learning Styles. 2018
TASK 3
P5 State how HPW contribute to employee engagement and competitive advantage
High performance work system (HPW) is a perfect combination of right type of
technology, people and organisation structure that aims towards attaining optimum utilization of
firm's limited resources. In context to Whirlpool HPW assists firm to apply perfect
amalgamation of its proficient workforce, advance technology and effective firm structure to
determine and grab prevailing market opportunities for achieving its pre set goals and objectives.
Employee engagement: Large number of employees work in an organisation and
perform different kind of job roles so that company can attain its set objective. various strategies
and motivational tools are used by manager to encourage employees to perform well so company
can attain its objectives and can sustain in market for long run. One of the way to motivate
employees to perform well is by engage them in process of decision making and other relevant
business activities. When managers take ideas and opinions from employees and involve them in
decision making process then it enhance employee’s morale and improve their performance at
workplace. This make the employees feel that company value them and improve their
performance at workplace which help entity in satisfy the needs of its target customers.
Competitive advantage: In context of business, an attribute or feature that provide
specific benefit to an organisation as compare to its other rivals exist at marketplace is known as
competitive advantage. Moreover, competitive advantage is known as the conditions that provide
opportunity to firm to manufacture products and services at lower price by maintain the equal
value. This help in attract more number of customers which results in increase company’s
profits. Competitive benefit generate value for both company and its stakeholders due to
existence of some specific conditions. Increase number of high performing workers at workplace
provide competitive advantage to company.
It is subject to involve various elements like task design, employees, reward system and
information systems that assist various departmental manager to work in close coordination for
smoothly carrying out all business activities (Shin and et., al., 2012). Mentioned below are
various HPW practices that are adopted by Whirlpool to encourage involvement of its workers
so as to develop their KSA in reference to various business functions.

 Selective hiring of employees: Whirlpool being one of the leading brand is quiet peculiar
about quality in every business related aspect be it products, services, technology or
people. Thus firm follows a distinctive hiring policies under which it selects the best
prospective candidates in terms of qualification and core competencies from pool of
applicants so that to ensure right person at right job at right time. For instance firm
generally accepts Masters Degree holders in Business Administration, Computer
Application, Technology etc. This criteria ensures performance of task with full accuracy,
efficiency, minimum mistakes and highest outcomes.
 Flexible Job statement: Whirlpool implies total transparency in its communication with
workforce that enables its employees to have clear idea about their expected goal and
roles. This ultimately assist them to gain efficacy in attaining their assigned tasks within
deadlines. Also Whirlpool provides flexible shifts timing to its employees that help them
to maintain balance between their professional goals and personal commitments.
TASK 4
P6 Different approaches of performance management and their contribution
Performance management: This is known among employees and managers who make
plans together, monitor and review performance of an employee and its contribution in overall
success of company. Feature of this process is that it supports in set objectives, set performance
standards and also help in determine the training needs of employees.
Collaborative working: an environment in which people supports each other in their
cooperative working and to deal with issues is all come under collaborative working. One of the
main benefit of this type of working is that is that it builds trust among workers working in
organisation and help in attain optimum utilisation of all business resources.
Effective communication: Transformation of information from one individual to another
is known as communication. It is very important that communication take place at workplace
should be clear and effective as this help worker to perform their roles in better manner and at
the same time bring cooperation among various department.
It refers to method of managing and controlling workforce, departments and other business
operations to ensure that objective are been accomplish within deadlines as per set standards.
Whirlpool managers by applying this approach monitors, document and reviews performance of
its employees, make comparison between actual and expected results and identify deviations.

They further provide proper guidance to each individual by suggesting best course of actions to
be adopted in order to overcome their areas of lacking. Thus it ultimately results in enhancing
quality of work and productivity of team. Whirlpool managers adopt various approaches for
performance management system that help in developing positive work culture, enhancing KSA
and to improve personality and quality of work of its employees. Mentioned below are some
prominent approaches that whirlpool applies:
Comparative Approach: This approach assist mangers of Whirlpool to identify deviation
in its employees permanence and to ascertain problems that are been encountered by them while
performing their assigned tasks. Managers of Whirlpool provide viable solutions to these issues
and also applying grading system where in best performers are given certain rewards and
benefits (Von Krogh, Nonaka and Rechsteiner, 2012). Forced distribution, graphic rating scale
and paired comparison all are the major techniques which manager can use under comparative
approach. With help of this approach, managers of Whirlpool can identify the gaps between
current and standard performance of employees and can provide proper training to fill the
identified gap. Managers can examine the effectiveness of using this approach by determine the
improvement take place in employee’s performance. With this manager can create and maintain
a culture of having high performance and commitment.
Result Approach: Whirlpool administration apply this approach where in it assign
SMART objective to its teams on the basis of which employees are required to execute their
tasks within specific time frame. Here in managers maintains a scorecard which has 4
alternatives like customers, operations, internal or finance. Feature of this approach is that it is
simple as workers are examine on the basis of results of their performance. With help of this
approach managers of Whirlpool can transform business strategy into day to day operations of
company. For examine the effectiveness of this approach, manager of Whirlpool can examine the
results of employee’s performance at workplace.
Quality approach: This approach assist managers of Whirlpool to measure performance
level of its employees. This approach mainly focuses on minimizing errors at employees end and
continuously improvising services so as to increase customers satisfaction (Wates, 2014).
Applying this approach managers of Whirlpool continuously take feedback from clients, peers
and various departmental managers on professional and personal traits so that issues related to
performance could be resolves effectively. This approach mainly focusses more on continuous

improvement of business process. Feature of this approach is that it ensures assessment of
system and employees working in enterprise. Problem solving take place under this through
teamwork. Managers of Whirlpool can examine effectiveness of this approach by determine
company’s growth and success. With this, overall performance of business can be improved and
company can promote a culture of having high commitment and performance.
CONCLSUION
The project undertaken concludes that it is requisite for any firm to develop KSA of its team
and individual on regular basis so as to maintain firm's growth and sustainability. Further
essential KSA are analysed that are essential for HR officer to have in order to undertake
various HR roles and functions. Further skill audit and PDP plans are been formulated that
reveals strength , weaknesses and steps that are been undertaken to overcome those lacking.
Also how HPW contributes in employee engagement is been determined by explaining its
importance in organization contexts. Lastly performance management and its various approach
are discussed.

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