Maximizing Employee Performance in Whirlpool

The given report emphasizes the significance of HR professionals' knowledge and skills in inviting new talents to the firm and enhancing the existing workforce. It highlights the importance of individual learning and training for employees, which can lead to maximized employee performance and a competitive edge in the market.

Developing
Individuals, Teams
and Organisations

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
TASK 1............................................................................................................................................1
P1. Knowledge, Skills and Behaviour of HR practices..........................................................1
P2 Personal Skill Audit..........................................................................................................3
TASK 2............................................................................................................................................4
P3 Difference between Organisational and Individual Learning...........................................4
P4. Analysis of the need of continuous learning and professional development to drive
sustainable business performance:.........................................................................................5
TASK 3............................................................................................................................................7
P5. Contribution of HPW to employee engagement and competitive advantage:.................7
TASK 4............................................................................................................................................8
P6. Evaluation of different approaches of performance management:..................................8
CONCLUSION:.............................................................................................................................10

INTRODUCTION
Business growth and development is directly correlated and depends upon the practices
performance of employees. So it is becomes very essential for every organization to develop and
enhance the skills, knowledge and attitudes of their employees in order to attain competitive
advantage. It is essential for the top level management to identify and provide necessary training
to employees for developing their knowledge, skills and abilities to perform best at their specific
tasks. Developing and training employees at workplace helps organisation in achieve retention of
competent employees (Ford, 2014). This report mainly covers about the case study of Whirlpool,
a multinational company of United Kingdom. This organisation deals in different countries and
has manufacturing sectors that serves various home appliance electronic products in various
countries. This report mainly emphasis on different various types of required knowledge, skills
and behaviour that HR managers of Whirlpool should have to guide the roles and responsibilities
of employees. Further, difference between learning, training and development to enhance
performance of firm is specifies. This report also covers various HPW practices as well as
various approaches that is used for performance management.
TASK 1
P1.Importance of Knowledge, Skills and Behaviour in HR practices
To achieve high profitability and effectiveness of business, it is crucial for the
organisation to focus on developing skills, attitude and knowledge of employees that are directly
associated with organisation achievement. In context with human resources management, to
improve the performance of organisation and handle the manpower in proper manner, it is very
essential to train and develop employees to enhance their skills, attitude and knowledge
According to give case study, Whirlpool deals in electronic home appliance which requires an
updating in their overall organisation structure. In this aspects, HR managers is out looking to
represent a report at Confederation of British Industry workshop. This workshop allows to show
how performance management, better communication channels and collaboration support of
employees helps to create high-performance culture. So therefore, it is necessary to possess
required skills, behaviour and knowledge to perform best at their duties and tasks allotted.
Skills of HR professionals: It is important to have skills and abilities as this qualities
allows an individual to perform best at their jobs. With the help of effective abilities and skills
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employees are able to perform their roles and responsibilities. To sort out the issues and
problems, HR managers of Whirlpool should follow and possess appropriate skills that is
discussed below:
Good Communication Skills: Communication evolves with appropiate channel by which
an individual express and conveys ideas, thoughts and views. HR managers should try to
implement effective communication channel in the organisation through which employees feels
free to express their views with others. Employees get freedom to share their ideas and
knowledge with top level management that helps in decision-making and build strong employee
relationships.
Multitasking: As a HR manager, an individual has to handle and perform various roles
and responsibilities which includes formulating strategies and policies, managing manpower. HR
managers should be able to perform various roles and responsibility to become dynamic.
Knowledge of HR professionals: Knowledge includes information, his own learning
from surroundings, facts and skills that an individual obtain from the experience and education.
To run organisation in an effective manner, HR managers of Whirlpool should have following
knowledge:
Taxation: One of the primary role of HR manager is to generate compensation or salary
structure for the employees working in the organisation. It is very essential and crucial for HR
managers to have adequate information and knowledge that are directly related to tax
redemption. In relation with case study of Whirlpool, managers has dense knowledge and
information about taxation through which HR managers are able to manage and guide employees
about various policies, rules and schemes of taxation.
Cognition of government's rules and regulations: HR managers should have proper and
dense knowledge about laws and legislations implemented by Government. Whirlpool is
operating in various countries, therefore; to run business in legal manner HR manager should
have good knowledge about the government laws of various countries (Schaubroeck, Lam and
Peng, 2011).
Behaviour of HR Professionals: This deals with the attitude of an individual through
which they perform their specific tasks and duties. In context with HR managers, they should
carry positive attitude to guide the employees for different roles and responsibility. Some of the
behaviour adopted by HR managers are as follows:
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Ethical Behaviour: To run organisation it is essential to adopt and implement ethical
behaviour so that they HR managers can directly or indirectly influence employees to follow the
appropriate rules and regulations. The ethical behaviour implementation helps in formulating
useful strategies that profits customers, stakeholders along with working employees.
Adaptability: This behaviour deals with flexibility and adjustability of an individual at
workplace. It is very important for HR managers to have the quality of adaptability to manage in
different culture of organisation in effective way.
P2 Personal Skill Audit
Personal skill audit deals with the process by which it is easy to determine an individual
strengths and weakness in an appropriate way (Pinjani and Palvia, 2013) By this process, it is
easy for an individual to find that in which area they need to emphasis to develop skills through
training programs. Personal skill audit help employees to perform better by conducing roles and
responsibility in effective way. Auditing skills varies with the different profession of individuals.
HR managers of Whirlpool needs to evaluate their own skills that is related to decision-making,
presentation skills, IT skills, conflict resolution and leadership.
According to the performance requirement, I have prepared a business plan for evaluating
own strength and weakness. A sale is developed below in which skills and competences is self
scored as well as by others (out of 10) to identify the differences
Skill Audit
Skills and
competences
Self assessed score Score from others Difference
Communication Skills 6 5 -1
Multitasking 7 5 -2
Taxation 5 4 -1
Cognition of
government's rules
and regulations
7 6 -1
Ethical Behaviour 9 6 -3
Adaptability 7 5 -2
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The main benefit from the personal audit is that I am able to identify the strength and
weakness in different era which mainly involves decision making, conflict resolution, and
leadership skill along with presentation skills. The disadvantage without skill audit is that an
individual will lack to identify its weak performance in order to improve it for achieving goals
and objectives of the organisations.
Strengths: I have moderate communication skills that allows me to appropriately
communicate with individuals and provide appropriate instructions regarding the work. This also
help me to manage manpower for attainment of business objectives. Besides this, my multi-
tasking are also somewhat moderate whom I tried to use at the time of performing different tasks
at a single time in effective manner.
Weakness: Personal skill audit determine that I have lacking in adaptability as I can't
appropriately function against change.. Along with this, I also lack in ethical behaviour as I tend
to get biased during complex decision making. In addition, I have very low knowledge about
taxation which is essential for the job role.
Professional development plan: This document is prepared for improvement of
weakness for execution of tasks effectively. It can be said that even though I have moderate
command over some skill but still it is essential for me to develop all of my skills in order to
perform my job responsibility in Whirlpool effectively. There is scope of making improvements
in all the skills thus the PDP plan is presented below:
Skill Current
proficien
cy
Target
proficiency
(2 months)
Objective Hurdles for
achieving
objectives
Development
opportunity
Ethical
Behavio
ur
2 5 To effectively
take unbiased
decision and
ensure healthy
working
environment
within the
Conflict of
Interest could be
one of the biggest
hurdles within the
same.
Watch videos of
expert on YouTube
to acknowledge their
ethical working
manner.
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company
Adaptabi
lity
2.5 5 To appropriately
function while
simultaneously
accomplishing
complex and
numerous
activities
It might be tough
for functioning
effectively while
performing
activities with
distinct nature.
Undergo training
exercise to improve
efficiency in different
working conditions.
Commu
nication
Skills
3 5 It is considered as
an essential skill
in the profession
of HR as they are
required to
communicate
with the
numerous of
people at the time
of bringing fresh
talent in company
Ineffective
listening skills
might be seen as
the main hurdle in
bringing right
candidate in the
company
By indulging into
more number of
interaction session
human resource
manager can easily
develop
communication skills
and also bring best
candidates in the
company who will
attain organisational
objectives in quick
manner.
Multitas
king
2 5 HR manager have
to perform
various task in the
company at the
same time which
depicts that they
are required to
hold capacity of
handling two or
Prioritising and
confusion are
considered as the
main hurdle for
HR manager
whenever they
indulge into two
or more tasks at a
same time.
In order to develop
this, HR manager is
required to take
advises from their
superiors about how
they manage the
work in similar kind
of situation. As a
result, with the
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more tasks at
single time.
experience and
practice HR manager
can easily develop
their multi-tasking
skill and serve
company in more
effective manner.
Taxation 2 5 To adhere all
laws in the
company and
inform employees
about the same.
Lack of up
gradation in
taxation with the
current field is
main hurdle that
affects HR
manager in
compliance of all
laws within the
company.
This knowledge of
HR can be developed
by attending
seminars, reading
monthly journals,
government website
etc. at daily basis so
that it will keep them
updated about the
changes in taxation.
Cognitio
n of
governm
ent's
rules
and
regulatio
ns
1 5 To gain
knowledge and
raise awareness
among the
employees about
the rules and
regulations
applicable on the
company.
Convincing
employees to
adhere these laws
within the
company main
hurdle for HR
manager.
Regular based
meeting will be
helpful for HR
manager in
implementing all
government rules and
regulation in the
company. This is
because, in these
meetings they can
convince employees
about legal terms by
telling them about its
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benefit for
themselves as well
as company.
From above it is analysed that individual possess certain skills but need to acquire other
other skills which can lead to growth. As per PDP plan, individual needs to behave ethically by
which they can take effective decisions confidently and ensure an effective working
environment. Apart from this, individual need to have adaptability by which they can conduct
different activities effectively and work under any condition. For thus, it is required to undergo
training sessions to ensure adaptability in workplace. Along with this, it can be said that by
following all of the above stated development methods, human resource manager can easily
develop their communication skills, multitasking, taxation and cognition of government's rules
and regulations.
TASK 2
P3 Difference between Organisational and Individual Learning
Individual learning: Individual learning deals with the capacity to build skills and
knowledge through self-reflection. In this learning session, training as well as separate
development programs are framed on the basis of need of an individual. As an example,
individual learning within Whirlpool might be based on facilitating information regarding one
specific job role, such as sales representatives. Its impact would be enhanced effectiveness
within the specific job role for which individual learning is facilitated.
Organisation learning: In context with the organisation learning session, training and
development problems are designed and framed accordingly to acquire skills and knowledge to
work in team or group. For instance, within Whirlpool, the application of organisational learning
could be regarding enhancing the efficiency of marketing team due to providing them effective
knowledge in relation to new methods of marketing.
In order to attain competitive advantage, Whirlpool generally conducts both types of
learning sessions in order to enhance the skills of the employees in order to become more skilled
to upgrade the level of performance.
Difference between individual and organisational learning
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Individual learning Organisational learning
 Individual learning mainly involves and
deals with development an individual at
the individual level.
 Helps in improving individual
performance. Time is not fixed under
individual learning courses.
 Organisational learning deals and
emphasis on all the requirement that is
crucial for employees to perform best at
their roles and responsibilities. In
involves with providing training to
workers in order to work in team or
group
 It is generally based on learning within
a fixed time duration with a particular
time frame.
Training and development
Training is referred as systematic group of activities that mainly emphasis on providing
appropriate instructions to employees in order to increase their level of performance to achieve
organisation goals and objectives.Development involves with all rounded development of an
individual so that no issues arises in future to handle the working situation. (McCormack,
Manley and Titchen, 2013). Both training and development plays important role to improve
skills and knowledge of employees. Training is continues learning process through which an
individual person gets an opportunity to develop their skills, knowledge and opportunities. For
instance, training could be provided for an individual to enhance their skills related to a
particular job role of HR Assistant. Development is usually done for high executives and it is
concerned with overall growth and development of a person. HR managers of Whirlpool
conducts and implement both session for enhancing the overall abilities and knowledge of
employees regardless of any particular job role.
Difference between training and development
Training Development
 The main objective and intention of
providing training to employees is to
 Development programs are generally
conducted to prepare an individual for
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improve performance of employees at
work or specific tasks.
 It is a job oriented process with fixed
time frame.
 Training scope is narrow in compare to
development programs.
present as well as future challenges.
 It is a career oriented process with long
time duration throughout life span.
 Developing program has wider scope in
compare to training sessions.
P4. Analysis of the need of continuous learning and professional development to drive
sustainable business performance:
Learning can be referred to a change in the behaviour of a person due to the experience
that person gains overtime. It is a transformative process of building and enhancing a person's
knowledge.
Professional development: This process can be defined as a lifelong assessment of the
qualities and skills of an individual, which allows it to maximise its potential by consider their
life goals and set targets to achieve them. These activities help an individual to improve their
identity and awareness, enhance the quality of their life and realise their aspiration and work
towards it (Sessa and London, 2015).
Whirlpool, seeing the current competitive environment, needs skilled employees and
would want to retain those who are enhancing their talents overtime and contribute to the
organisational success.
Relevance: Continuous learning would enable the employees to keep updating
themselves overtime and be relevant according to the trends and market preferences. This
enhance their adaptability in the dynamic environment with continuous innovations in
technology, changes in market schemes, political scenarios, etc.
Performance Enhancements: Professional development overtime would help the
employees to improve their performance in areas that are difficult for them to succeed. Through
regular performance reviews and training, one can achieve sustainability and even improvement
in their workplace. This would help the firm set new targets for other employees and would
facilitate healthy competition in the firm (Mone and London, 2018).
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Competence: Whirlpool needs employees that can set the firm over its competitors in the
market. Continuous learning would help them developing perfection in their work and they can
become more competent by exploring new ventures and taking new challenges. That would
make the effective while dealing with their competitors in the market as they would possess
advance set of skills which would also in return,
Innovation: When an employee continuously learn from its business environment, it
allows them to experiment more and modify their methods of working. As a result, the employee
would introduce innovative ideas and skills in the company which would make it more effective
in achieving its objectives and would enhance the productivity of others. In context with HR
managers of Whirlpool they allow their employees to share and implement their ideas in order to
enhance the performance of the organisation.
Continuous Professional Development drives sustainable business performance within
Whirlpool in various ways, which are mentioned below:
 The first and foremost aspect in relation to the sustainable business performance is that
CPD ensures that all the capabilities possessed by individuals are continuously monitored
and enhanced, driving them towards consistent performance.
 CPD encourages individuals to enhance their competence with respect to their job roles
to develop more skills which allows them to perform even better, thus, assuring the firm
of consistent and sustainable business performance.
TASK 3
P5. Contribution of HPW to employee engagement and competitive advantage:
High Performance Working or HPW is referred to an approach implemented towards
management of organisations that focuses on stimulation of effective involvement of employees
and their commitment to attain higher performance levels (Jiang and Liu, 2015).
A report was presented by the HR consultant at the annual Confederation of British
Industry workshop highlighting different ways in which high-performance culture and
commitment are supported by performance management, collaborative working and effective
communication. Whirlpool must adopt high performance working as it is of immense importance
when the firm needs to engage its employees more and to gain a competitive advantage over its
competitors.
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These contributions of HPWs are as follows:
Shared Commitment to the company's vision and extraordinary goals: The vision of the
company should be articulated clearly to its employees along with proper knowledge of the
expected pathway by which company wishes to accomplish those goals. This would engage the
employees to fulfil these visions as their goals are clear and would enhance their performance in
order to do so. Moreover, this would help the firm to gain a competitive advantage as the
employees will be putting their best efforts to achieve these extraordinary goals (Anitha, 2014).
Shared Accountability for results: Whirlpool must share accountability of their work and
result with their employees. The employees must be rewarded for their innovative and effective
work. This would help in encouraging the morale of workforce which would contribute towards
enhancing their performance at workplace, thus, achieving better results.
Transparent Communication: At all the levels of the organisation, employees should be
aware of the strategic direction the company's taking to overtake its competition. Whirlpool must
introduce flexible methods and systems of communication in an organisation so that the
information between the levels of the company could flow with ease and each employee be
aware of its operations and what is expected of them. This would make their performance more
effective which would facilitate the employees to be compete with company's rivals.
Constructive Conflicts: Conflicts are a result of different ideologies towards achieving
similar goals. These conflicts in the company should be constructive, i.e., the end goal should be
to derive the best possible strategy to achieve the plans. All the members should be equally
consulted and firm should consider their ideas. This would help employees come up with
different and effective strategies that is necessary for their performance growth.
Mutual Respect and Solidarity: It is crucial for the employees in the company to work
with unity, sharing unified goals which would develop its inner strength. Managers at Whirlpool
must consider each employee as their equal so that the employees also feel their responsibilities
towards the goals of the organisation. This would increase their engagement in the company and
would enhance their work performance.
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TASK 4
P6. Evaluation of different approaches of performance management:
Performance management of employees is one of the most critical aspects of the working
of a company. In Whirlpool, this management should be made on the basis of employee's
contribution towards the growth of the firm (DeNisi and Smith, 2014). Since Whirlpool is a large
organisation, it is essential that it retains its skilled employees and strengthen its internal
relationships. Performance management would help the firm achieve that smoothly. There are
different approaches by which the HR of Whirlpool could manage performance of employees.
These approaches are:
High Performance Culture and Commitment: Under this, a culture within organisation
is created which focuses on high performance. Employees receive training based on their
performance result. Whirlpool can use tools like Balanced Scorecard Technique and Productivity
Measurement and Evaluation System (ProMES) for this approach. This approach would
encourage the employees to increase their productivity and to measure the feedback. The firm
can calculate its productivity as a summation of various factors. These factors include the
objectives of the company, their competency, their effectiveness towards evaluation of employee
performance and its feedback. This approach helps converting the strategy of the firm into
operations as it takes the external environment into consideration and not just financial
indicators. This, allow the employees to learn more about their work and be more effective in
their job.
Collaboration: It uses a blend of all the approaches mentioned above. Whirlpool can
combine the approaches as well as all resources according to their organisational needs and use
them make their employees more competent. Using different combinations and revising these
strategies would help the employees to maintain and sustain the level of their performances even
during drastic changes in business environment. (O’Neill, Sohal and Teng, 2016).
Bottom Up Approach: Establishment of goals within Whirlpool could appropriately be
performed using this approach which begins with organisational employees. After this
establishment, the performance of each employee within the organisation could be managed
against the setting up of individual goals and prioritising them with organisational objectives.
Communication: Another effective and essential approach which could be effectively
utilised within Whirlpool is that the organisation's managers could communicate with the
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employees regarding their performance. Furthermore, this could be quite a disciplined approach
which would ensure a better management of performance of the employees by directly
contacting them about the same.
Thus, it is concluded by the above report, that appropriate knowledge and skills of HR
professionals of Whirlpool would invite new talents in the firm and enhance the existing
workforce. Also, the firm gives emphasis on individual learning as well as training and
development of its employees. HPW would enable Whirlpool in maximising its employee
performance and to gain a competitive edge in the market. The managers should conduct more
training programs for the personal growth of the employees which would engage them in
accomplishing the vision of the company. The company can use several approaches to evaluate
the performance of their employees. The employees, in turn, could have a reliable feedback on
the basis of which they work towards their shortcomings and increase their level of performance
in the organisation.
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