Importance of Ongoing Professional Development and Self-Directed Learning

Professional
Identity
and Practice

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...............................................................................................................1
LO 1...................................................................................................................................1
Explore the importance of on-going professional development and self-directed
learning to enhance professional identity and career opportunities..............................1
LO 2...................................................................................................................................4
Assess own skills, competences and the different learning and development
approaches....................................................................................................................4
LO 3...................................................................................................................................7
Design a professional development plan, within a specific work context.....................7
LO 4...................................................................................................................................9
Demonstrate a range of service industry and transferable skills for a job application..9
CONCLUSION.................................................................................................................15
REFRENCES...................................................................................................................16

INTRODUCTION
In an organisation it is essential for an individual to have proper understanding
and knowledge of their identity as well as practices as it help them in conducting their
work in effective manner. Here professional identity is considered as belief, code of
practices, values, moral, legislations and so on which guide a person to conduct their
work in more proper and ethical way (Badwall, 2015). Along with this it will also lead to
attainment of positive as well as desire outcome at the workplace. Organisation
selected for this Holiday Inn which is a operating in hotel industry. It is founded by
Kemmons Wilsom in year 1952 as well as its head office is situated at
Buckinghamshire, United Kingdom. They are operating their business at international
level. For this assignment job role selected if Operation manager. The main aim of
conducting this report is to define advantages of ongoing professional development
according to the employers expectations in order to enhance competences as well as
skills. Moreover it will also include skills, competences, different learning and developing
approaches which are required for specific job role. This report will also include
professional development plans along with different transferable skills of particular job
role.
LO 1
Explore the importance of on-going professional development and self-directed learning
to enhance professional identity and career opportunities
Role of Ongoing Professional Development
Continuous professional development is a process that recognizes and traces
the record of experience, knowledge and skill that an individual earns. A person
develops professionally either through experience, formal or informal ways. All
professionals require continuous development of their skills in order to achieve goals
and objectives (Carrillo, Baguley and Vilar, 2015). The process include various
components such as coaching, mentoring etc. The benefits of ongoing professional
development are explained below -
Benefits for employees
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 Intrinsic Motivation: Intrinsic motivation refers to seizing in a particular
behaviour because there are personal rewards attached with it. The employees
of the respective organization are motivated through training.
 Personal satisfaction: By getting training and development at the workplace,
employees able to enhance their skills which lead to their self satisfaction
(Cruess and et. al., 2015). In respect of staffs working at Holiday Inn are involved
in numbers of practices which are conducted for enhance their personal
satisfaction such as training and development according to requirement. Through
this staff also able to conduct work effectively for attaining desire goal.
Benefits of Employer Employees retention: By providing effective training and developing employer
able to motivate as well as encourage their staffs. In respect of Holiday Inn, their
manager conduct several activities in order to motivate their staffs that directly
lead to retention of staffs for long time durations.
 Skilled Employee: By providing proper training and development to staffs
Holiday Inn management able to get skilled employees who will help employer in
attaining predetermined goal in effective manner. Moreover it will encourage
employers in adopting technology and new technology.
Expectation of professional standard
There are various expectation of employers at Holiday Inn from the employee
who come at the position of operational manager, some of the major expectation of
professional standards, some of them are given below:- Personal presentation and appearance- According to this expectation,
employee working on job role of Operational manager at Holiday Inn must be
very presentable as well as their appearance should be good so that guest get
impressed with them (Gibbs, 2015). Along with this they also must have
knowledge as well as understanding of good gestures and postures while
interacting with guest or visitors.
 Working ethics and responsibility- Employers of respective company also
expect that operational manager must have proper understanding as well as
knowledge of workplace ethics as well as job role responsibilities. As it will help
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