HR Professionals' Knowledge and Training

This project report discusses the significance of HR professionals possessing a good understanding of business operations and other organizational functions. It highlights the need for companies to provide adequate training to employees, enabling them to handle problems effectively. The report also emphasizes the importance of well-educated and skilled HR managers in ensuring long-term sustainability.

Developing Individuals,
Teams and Organisation

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
TASK 1............................................................................................................................................1
P1 Knowledge skills and behavior required by HR professional................................................1
P2 Personal skills audit to identify knowledge, skills and behavior............................................2
TASK 2............................................................................................................................................4
P3 Difference between organizational and individual learning, training and development........4
P4 Needs for continuous learning and professional development...............................................6
TASK 3............................................................................................................................................7
P5 Contribution of HPW in employee engagement and competitive advantage.........................7
TASK 4............................................................................................................................................8
P6 Approaches of performance management..............................................................................8
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................9
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................11

INTRODUCTION
Development is very important in an organization to attain long term sustainability and goals
which is possible with development of every individual and the teams. A company can achieve
all its goals with the helps of the employees who are working in the organizations (PRATT,
2012). If HR professional are skilled and well educated than they can contribute toward
organizational success. Company chosen for this report is BBC which is a broadcasting company
and based in UK.
This report consists various topics such as different key points that are appropriate
professional knowledge, skills and behavior required by HR professionals, a personal skills audit
to identify all of these, difference between organizational and individual learning, training and
development. Need of continuous learning and professional development, contribution of HPW
toward employee engagement and competitive advantage and approaches of performance
management are also covered under this project report.
TASK 1
P1 Knowledge skills and behavior required by HR professional
In large organizations HR professionals are responsible to hire skilled employees in order to lead
the business toward success. They should have skills and knowledge that can help them to
perform their duties more effectively and appropriately (Bertin, Fry and Ragsdell, 2014). In BBC
HR managers should be able to handle all the critical problems which is possible with the help of
various skills, behaviors and knowledge. All of them are explained below:
Knowledge:
 Analyzing training needs, developing strategies: It is very important for HR managers
to have knowledge of business like need of training, development of strategies etc. if they
are not having the knowledge than they won’t be able to make any type of fair decision.
In BBC when HR professionals are hired by employers they want that all of them should
have good knowledge of business of that all their duties can be performed by them
appropriately. If there is lack or proper business knowledge than it may destruct or leave
negative impact on the business.
 Interpreting and advising employment law: HR managers should have knowledge of
labor legislation and employment laws so that they will be able to handle all the
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employees who are working in their organization. This will help them to understand all
the values of the workforce and they can allot them responsibilities according to this and
this will help to enhance their efforts at work place.
 Handling all the recruiting, selecting, hiring and interviewing candidates who have
applied for the job.
 Effective knowledge to work with different departments of the company.
Skills:
 Taking views of salaries in organizations system: IT skills are related to computer
system knowledge and it is required for HR managers that they should have IT skills so
that they may able to work on different software to reduce their work load and to gather
information of salaries that are paid to the employees. Such type of skills can facilitate
the HR professional of BBC while finding solutions for technology related issues and
also help to enhance their computer programming knowledge (McKenzie, van Winkelen
and Aitken, 2012).
 Decision making skills: HR managers should have good decisions making skills and
these skills can guide them to make right judgements to formulate plans that may help to
achieve all the organizational objectives. Such skills are very essential for all the HR
professionals of BBC because they have to take frequent decisions that may result in
favor of the company and help to attain all the predetermined goals and objectives.
 Grievance handling skills: It is vital for a company to have such HR professional who
are good in finding solutions for critical solutions. In BBC HR managers should be able
to resolve all the issues in less time so that organization could deal with all type of
problems effectively. These skills can help them to find more and more growth
opportunities that may take
 The Hr professionals should have skills to promote the equality and diversity at
workplace.
 Skills to develop and implement different policies that may help to deal with different
issues that are taking plan at workplace and affecting business activities.
Behavior:
 Ethical behavior: A HR manager should behave ethically as it can result in good human
relations. In BBC they are required to have this behavior with their collogues and
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subordinates. It also improves the quality of work because it can reduce the possibility of
conflicts within the organization. In situations of struggles HR professionals should
support their employees to build trust.
 Fairness: It means that every leader and managers should behave equally with each of
their follower and team members it will enhance the team spirit. This behavior of HR
professional can help to spread harmony at workplace.
 The HR professional should able to deal with organizational grievances and behave
effectively and equally with the employees.
 HR professionals should have advising nature so that they may advise on the pay and
other remuneration issues of employees.
It is very important for the HR professional to have above mentioned skills, knowledge
and behavior so that all the business issues can be tackled effectively. These are also required to
handle the activities of the company.
P2 Personal skills audit to identify knowledge, skills and behavior
Personal audit plan: It is a written document in which HR professional analyze their skills and
examine their weakness which needs to be modified. A personal audit plan is made for the HR
professional of BBC to assess that in what skills he is good and bad. This can help an individual
to audit himself (Malik, 2018). The personal audit is as follows:
Decision making skills:
Skills Bad Average Good Very good
Ability to make decision in critical situation ✓
Able to make effective decisions ✓
Problem solving skills:
Skills Bad Average Good Very good
Ability to find more than one solution to the
problems
✓
Able to deal with problems effectively ✓
Find effective solution easily ✓
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Able to handle complex data and make
selective use of information
✓
IT skills:
Skills Bad Average Good Very good
Use of Ms word ✓
Able to work on Ms Excel ✓
Good knowledge of computer software ✓
Able to send professional mails ✓
Use and email ✓
Able to use power point ✓
Professional development plan: A professional development plan is a detailed document that
can help HR professional to analyze that what is the major problem and weak skills that needs to
be enhanced. This plan can help to make modification in those skills so that all the problems can
be resolves in less time (Muenjohn and et. al., 2013). A detailed professional development plan
was made by the HR professional for Jane Cambridge in which she can analyze all her strengths
and weaknesses that is as follows in which all the problems with solution are defined that
includes her personal development needs:
Skills Problems Training Professional
guidance
Duration
 IT Skills: IT skills of Jane
are weak and
she need to work
on it as the
knowledge of
Ms word and
excel is not good
and she is not
able to send
professional
mails which is
very important
she has to take
proper and
professional
training that may
result in
enhanced IT
skills. Training
can be provided
by the company.
If it is not
provided by the
organization
It is essential for
Jane as HR
professionals to
work under
professional
guidance of
skilled IT
manager who
can supervise me
while working
on different type
of software so
She can enhance
these skills in
two to four
months.
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for a HR
manager.
than she can take
it from outside
of the business
enterprise.
that the skills
can be enhanced.
 Problem
Solving
skills:
Jane's problem-
solving skills are
also weak and
she is not able to
find more than
one solution to
the problem and
also not able to
find solution
easily which is
very important
as a HR
manager.
she has to take
training from the
professionals of
the company so
that they may
guide me while
performing tasks
and at difficult
situations to deal
with them
effectively.
Senior managers
of the
organization can
guide her while
working and
directing her to
make right
solutions in
difficult or
critical
situations.
She can develop
her skills in 30
to 45 days with
the help of
managers.
With the help of above self-audit and personal development plan it can be examined by
Jane Cambridge that in what skills she need to make improvements in order to perform her duties
more effectively. It also guides her to make right decisions according to the situation in which
she need to perform more efficiently. All the weak skills can be enhanced with the help of
professionals and senior managers of the company. It is very important for HR professional to
enhance her skills while working under supervision of skilled seniors who can guide her while
finding solutions for problems.
TASK 2
P3 Difference between organizational and individual learning, training and development
Organizational learning: It a technique which is used to create, retain and transfer
knowledge within a company. In this type of learning leaders and managers give more
preference to organizational growth as compare to individuals. It is mainly focused on the
achievement of the goals of the company. This learning is used in BBC to attain predetermined
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objectives that are set by the owners or executives of the company in order to attain long term
sustainability.
Individual learning: It is focused on the development of employees of the company. It is
used by business enterprises to increase skills and knowledges of each employees. It results in
good and improved work quality of workers. This type of learning should be adopted by HR
professional of BBC as it can motivate work force and help them to perform better at work place
(Saunders, 2016).
Difference between organizational and individual learning:
Organizational learning Individual learning
It is focused with the needs of whole
organizations that are required to be fulfilled.
It is focused with the individual development
of employees.
A specific time table is followed by employees
of the company in organizational learning in
order to achieve predetermined goals.
Employees get motivated by individual
learning that mat help to enhance their
performance.
Good and effective solutions can be found for
business problems with the help of
organizational learning.
It helps to enhance work quality of each
employee of the company.
Main objective of this learning is to enhance
skills and knowledge of the workforce of the
company.
Main objective of individuals learning is to
fulfill all the needs and requirements of every
employee of the company.
Organizational and individuals learning both are interrelated with each other as individuals
learning can help to bring organizational learning and help to establish a successful company.
Individual learning help to increase the retention level and involvement of employees in the work
that help the organization to get more success.
Training: In most of the companies training programs are held to enhance skills of new
employees and to provide them information of their responsibilities. It is mainly used for new
works of a company to aware them about their job responsibilities. In BBC training is conducted
to guide staff members while they are performing their duties in order to attain organizational
goals (Aswathappa, 2013).
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Development: Development programs are focused to provide growth opportunities ot the
old employees of the company. HR professionals of BBC should formulate development
programs to enhance employees engagement in the organsiation.
Difference between training and development:
Training Development
Training programs are held by managers for
new employees.
Development plan are mainly designed for
existing employees of the originations to
provide them growth and development
opportunities.
It is used to provide information of job roles
and responsibility to the employees who have
recently joined the company.
Knowledge and skills are enhanced with the
help of such plans.
It costs less for the company. Cost of development plan is very high as
compare to training programs.
Training is provided for a fix time period as it
is for new jonnies of a company.
It is a continuous process and there is no time
boundation for such programs.
Training and development bot are related to each other as if the employees are getting
training then only they may perceive development. In the situation of bad or no training the
employees will not be able to be developed as it comes from good experience of work which is
possible with the help of proper training.
The organizations who are not adapting organizational learning than they have to deal
with various issues like decreased effectiveness of employee’s performance, less solutions for
the issues and decreased skills and knowledge of the work force.
If BBC is not adopting the organizational and individuals learning than it also increase
the problem of misunderstanding among the teams that are formed by the organization. If the
company is not using both the elements than it will also lead the organization toward failure.
P4 Needs for continuous learning and professional development
Continuous learning: it is mainly related to the learning for an individual in which there
are various opportunities are provided to the employees of the organization by the HR
professional. As it is a continuous process hence it is called continuous learning.
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Professional development: It is a learning process that results in various growth
opportunities for individuals as well as organization. It depends upon the academic qualification
and formal course work which has been acquired by individuals.
These are required for an organization to attain long term sustainability as both helps to
enhance employees motivation and their work quality. Professional development also help to
improve the performance of employees and also guide them for personal growth as it is very
beneficial for the organization. If the company is not using both the elements than it may
decrease its effectiveness and also may reduce its values and market image.
Both the the above mentioned elements are very important for an organization to attain
long term sustainability. These factors may help to grow faster by increasing efforts of
employees with high contribution. If BBC is able to provide growth opportunities to the staff
members than it can help the organization to be successful in less time. There are various
organization who are not providing such type of chances to the workers that results in less
engagement of them in work (Nissen, Evald and Clarke, 2014). Continuous learning and
professional development can guide the HR professionals to create appropriate opportunities for
employees in order to attain higher employee engagement. Following are the needs of both of
them for a sustainable business:
 Enhances skills of employees: Continuous learning helps employees to enhance
their personal skills such as decision making and problem solving. In BBC HR
professional consider this element as the essential and very important part of higher
employee motivation.
 Create growth opportunities: Efforts and dedication of employee can result in
increased employee engagement and growth opportunities. In BBC various chances
are created for the workers to enhance their personal skills.
 Increase employee retention: Professional development helps to increase rate of
employee retention as it results in more and more growth opportunities. BBC is
providing proper training to the employees to enhance their skills and this can help to
increase retention rate of employees.
Continuous learning and professional development also results in higher job satisfaction,
staff retention, job enrichment, staff motivation and better service delivery to the clients. If the
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organization are not adopting both the concepts than it may harm their effectiveness and may
also result in conflicts among employees and management of the company.
Different types of consequences may take place if the organization is not using
continuous learning and professional development. These consequences may affect the work
quality and performance of the organization. It is very important for the company to use both the
elements so that managers may take immediate actions and resolve all the issues. It includes
decreased employee involvement, reduced motivation level and improper management of teams.
TASK 3
P5 Contribution of HPW in employee engagement and competitive advantage
HPW (High Performance Working): It is an approach which is used by organizations to
increase the level of effectiveness and efficiency of employees. HR professional of BBC use this
technique to examine that employees are working appropriately or not to achieve organizational
and individual objectives and goals. This can enhance employee’s engagement and competitive
advantage as it helps to analyze performance (Duffield and Whitty, 2015).
Employees engagement: It refers to the involvement of staff members in organizational
activities which is possible if they are getting benefits from their employers. It is essential for a
business enterprise enhance interest of employees to reach the goals. If HR professional fails to
build engagement than it is not possible to identify growth opportunities as well as reach to the
objectives. HPW contributes in high involvement of workers in the tasks because it helps to
provide them opportunities in which they can perform effectively and they will get high benefits
for good performance.
It also helps to achieve competitive advantage because if workers are working effectively
than an organization can become more competitive in the market that mat reduce the competition
with the competitors. If company is motivating employees by providing them benefits and
rewards than it may help to achieve higher level of performance which will also contribute in
increased productivity and profitability. It can be attained by managing quality of products and
work done by workforce. Company may adopt HPW to manage and control employees because
it can enhance their involvement in work which can help to achieve competitive advantage
(Harrison, 2012).
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For example, if BBC is adopting high performance working than it can contribute to
enhance employee engagement and competitive advantage because it helps the employees to
improve their performance by providing them end numbers of opportunities. In BBC HR
professionals use high performance working to build interest of employees by providing them
that work which can be easily done by them. It is vital for an organization to support its
employees while they get bored of their job responsibilities. HPW is a good and eligible tool
which is used by business enterprises to enhance employee’s engagement and competitive
advantage.
Activities involved in HPW: Managers of BBC can conduct different activities to
increase employee engagement and competitive advantage. All of them are as follows:
 Organization may offer monetary benefits to the employees for their good performance
and their involvement in work.
 Managers may conduct different type of games for the employees at workplace to
motivate and boost them.
 BBC can formulate different types of schemes for the workers in which they will be
rewarded according to their performance. These rewards may be in the form of monetary
or non monetary benefits.
Outcome of HPW: Following are the outcomes of HPW
 HPW results in higher engagement of employees in organizational activities.
 It also motivates employees to work harder so that all the goals can be achieved whether
these are related to organization or individual.
 It help the organization to attain competitive advantage with the help of higher employees
engagement.
Factors that facilitate the HPW system in BBC:
Role involvement: In this factor the managers assign different roles to the employees so
that they may put their full efforts to accomplish their target.
Organizational involvement: In this factor BBC implement strategies in which problem
solving teams are formulated, formal job descriptions are provided to the employees and other
different types of teams are formulated in order to enhance engagement of workforce. These
teams are project teams, marketing teams etc.
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Skills and knowledge acquisition practices: In this factor all the job related information
is provided to the employees so that they may become aware of their actual duties.
If the organizations are not promoting HPW than their staff may strike and it can also
result in decreased interest on them in their duties. Managers of HPW should support this system
otherwise the organization may have to face a failure. If employees of BBC are not very much
interested in their work and they are not engaged in the organizational activities. In this situation
HPW can help the managers to enhance their interest and engagement in the work of
organization. Different consequences are as follows that may occur if organizations are not
adopting HPW:
 Reduced work quality of employees as they are not motivated.
 Negative market image of the organization as it will not be able to work effectively.
TASK 4
P6 Approaches of performance management
Performance management: It is technique in which leaders and managers work together to
analyses business and overall employee performance. In BBC it is used to determine contribution
of employees toward organization (Performance Management, 2018). Following are the
approaches of performance management that are used by HR professionals of BBC:
Figure 1Performance management approaches, 2018
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Source: Performance management approaches, 2018
 Behavioral approach: This the oldest approach of performance management, that
consists vertical scale of different job roles. In this method performance is ranked
between five to ten points. In BBC it can be used to analyze behavior of employees
toward their job. For example, HR professional can rate employees with the help of this
techniques and examine that they are working appropriately or not. This will help to
manage and measure all the activities that are performed by workforce of an organization.
 Result approach: In this approach employees are rated according to their result of
performance. It is used in BBC to motivate workforce and enhance their work quality by
analyzing their efforts to fulfil their duties. In such type of method firstly presentation is
measured first and then feedback is provided (Hennink and et. al., 2012). For example,
managers can examine outcome of efforts of workers and provide them rewards for good
performance this will motivate them to enhance work quality.
 Comparative approach: As the name describes it is based on comparison and
concentration of employees is ranked by comparing it with other in the group. They are
ranked higher to lower performer. This technique can be used by HR managers of BBC to
rank high to low involvement of employees. For example, it can help to identify the
individuals who are working hard and managers can provide right benefits to the
workforce to motivate and to enhance their involvement level.
 Attribute approach: In this approach employees are rated according to their skills such
as problem solving, team work, communication, creativity, judgement and innovation
skills. In BBC this approach can be used to enhance employee’s performance by
analyzing their efforts. For example, it can be used to identify best skilled employee who
can provide best and valuable opinion to resolve performance, this results in higher
performance as it helps to select skilled employee.
 Quality approach: This method is used to increase the level of customer’s satisfaction
by reduction quality errors in the products or services. This approach is used by HR
professionals of BBC to take feedbacks from consumers to identify problems in their
products. For example, if employees take regular feedbacks from clients of the
organization than it may help to improve their quality and results in higher performance
level (Davison, Ou and Martinsons, 2013).
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Purpose of performance management:
 Main objective of using performance management approaches is to analyze performance
of each employee so that reward can be provided to them according to their performance.
 To keep a track record of workforce and their activities in order to measure
organizational performance.
 To assure that employees are performing assigned tasks effectively.
If the organization is not using performance measurement or management approaches
than it may result in misconception as the performance cannot be measured appropriately. KPI is
a tool that may be used by the company in order to measure performance as it is a performance
indicator. It help to identify that organization is going to attain success or failure in future.
Another tool can be used which is 360 performance appraisal in which overall performance is
measured of employees of so that they get appraisal according to their performance. For
example, if 360 appraisal method is used by BBC than it may help to analyses that employees is
good in what skills, what is their behavior at work place etc.
CONCLUSION
From the above project report, it has been concluded that HR professionals of a company
should have good knowledge of business and other functions of the organization as it can help
the company to attain long term sustainability. It is very important for the company to provide
proper training to the employees of the company so that they can handle all the problems
effectively. If the organization is not having a well educated and skilled HR managers than the
company cannot survive in the market as the critical problems are solved with the help and
opinion of HR professionals.
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REFERENCES
Books and journals:
PRATT, J., 2012. Professional Identity in a Multi-agency Team(Doctoral dissertation, Durham
University).
Bertin, P., Fry, J. and Ragsdell, G., 2014. The tension between competitive and collaborative
forces in agricultural research: Impact on knowledge sharing within a public sector
organsiation. Academic Conferences and Publishing International (ACPI).
McKenzie, J., van Winkelen, C. and Aitken, P., 2012, September. Developing Effective Change
Leadership to Build the Knowledgeable Organisation: A Paradoxical Foundation.
In European Conference on Knowledge Management (p. 726). Academic Conferences
International Limited.
Malik, A., 2018. Managing Change and HRM. In Strategic Human Resource Management and
Employment Relations(pp. 119-131). Springer, Singapore.
Muenjohn, N. and et. al., 2013. Developing Soft Skills of Leadership: A Review of Hotel
Management in Asia.
Saunders, R., 2016. Professional development, instructional intelligence and teacher emotions:
A mixed methods study of a four-year systemic change initiative (Doctoral dissertation,
Murdoch University).
Aswathappa, K. E. M. A. L., 2013. Human resource management: Text and cases. Tata
McGraw-Hill Education.
Nissen, H. A., Evald, M. R. and Clarke, A. H., 2014. Knowledge sharing in heterogeneous teams
through collaboration and cooperation: Exemplified through Public–Private-Innovation
partnerships. Industrial Marketing Management. 43(3). pp.473-482.
Duffield, S. and Whitty, S. J., 2015. Developing a systemic lessons learned knowledge model for
organisational learning through projects. International journal of project
management. 33(2). pp.311-324.
Harrison, R., 2012. Employee development. Universities Press.
Hennink, M. and et. al., 2012. Defining empowerment: perspectives from international
development organisations. Development in Practice. 22(2). pp.202-215.
Davison, R. M., Ou, C. X. and Martinsons, M. G., 2013. Information technology to support
informal knowledge sharing. Information Systems Journal. 23(1). pp.89-109.
Online
Performance Management. 2018. [Online]. Available through:
<https://www.saba.com/blog/a-simple-definition-of-performance-managementand-why-
everyone-plays-a-role>
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