Analyzing Employability Skills & Professional Development Techniques

This essay provides a comprehensive analysis of employability skills and professional development techniques, focusing on the importance of formal business meetings, meeting minutes, and strategies to overcome meeting barriers. It discusses the purpose and structure of formal meetings, emphasizing the need for clear agendas and effective communication. The role of meeting minutes in documenting agreements and action items is highlighted, along with creative techniques to enhance their effectiveness. Furthermore, the essay identifies common barriers to successful meetings, such as lack of clarity and changing priorities, and suggests practical solutions. The importance of interpersonal and transferable skills in professional growth is also examined, culminating in a personal and professional development plan.

Employability Skills and
Professional Development

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................3
Analysing tools and techniques to improve the interpersonal and transferable skills-..............10
Own personal and professional Development plan...................................................................12
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................1

INTRODUCTION
Formal business meetings are the essential part of an organization. Main purpose behind these
meetings are to achieve desired goal with the help of verbal communication as well. These
meeting have a tendency to record minutes and these minutes have fundamentals of the complete
meeting. In this essay consideration of business meetings are added to understand the importance
as well as agenda behind these meeting. Moreover, creativity behind the minutes also have been
added to understand the fundamentals of notes. Furthermore, the meeting barriers also have been
added in this report to understand their impact on business meeting and the ways to overcome
these issues also have been added to study further and implement in the procedure of effective
business meeting.
MAIN BODY
Consideration of formal business meeting
Formal meetings within a business or organizations can be defined as gathering among two or
more than two people assembled with the motto of achieving goal through interaction verbally.
The topics of these formal meeting are predefined in nature, they have their particular procedures
to do the things in appropriate manner a run by the authorized big people such as CEO, managers
etc. A set of objectives as well as the formal notices are included in this kind of meeting. These
meetings are formally in nature, and have lots of confidential as well as set of objective present
within (Humphries and Whelan, 2017). This sort of meetings always gets conducted at specific
time and predefined place as well although the place can be virtual platform as well as the
physically existed as well.
These meeting are always happened with the agreed agenda and for the further discussion
over these fundamentals also happen in this kind of meetings. All the agreements happens within
these kind of meetings, known as minutes in language. These are the main reason behind the
theory of meeting called as board of meeting or committee meeting or caucus meeting. Conclave
congress, council meeting or can be called as stockholder meeting. Many of times these meetings
are also named as symposium or summit meeting (McGregor. and Tang, 2017). With all these
different names, meeting remain formal among professionally related peoples.
These meeting are well planned in nature. In the planning account many of the strategies as
well as plans are added such as in between how many people the meetings will be hold within.

What agenda among the meetings should be discussed, in which way the complete meeting will
be perused etc. or these formal meeting chairperson as well as their secretary are the responsible
ones towards the organization of meeting (Menz, 2017). For the further informal meeting
discussion the responsibility falls over the team manager, team leader or the main person such as
whoever the one tends to call the meeting. In the condition where the situation is not clear about
the authorized one, it became a compulsory task to appoint a special individual that can be
responsible for the conduction of meeting. There are many factors exist in the meetings as per
the ongoing discussion.
Participants and purpose behind the meeting can be termed on the basis of planning.
After the term formal meeting and its idea, the purpose definition takes place. The topic about
meeting also counted under the agenda of meeting within the organization as well. However, the
attributes and factors vary with the type of business meetings. As an example the meeting within
the office includes the office member and manager of the office. If the meeting is between the
financial stakeholder than that meeting will include all persons who are investing within the
business. If the meeting conducted in between public consultant then the person like mayor, then
the person related to the consultancy will be included and many more (Bolten, 2020).
Furthermore, the number of person, types off person attending, or the methods also can be
included as the meeting can be conducted via physically as well as it can be schedule or
conducted by phone or online manner.
There are numerous ways to conduct the formal meeting depends upon the medium. If
the medium is physical than office board rooms, public meeting rooms whereas if the medium of
the meeting is virtual in nature then the meeting can be in term of phone, video conferencing etc.
The place and venue are the third most attribute towards the functioning of the formal meeting.
The place as well as the timing of the meeting also have been decided further. Person behind the
initiative of formal meeting decided the place to hold the meeting although the opinion of other
members also matters (Davidson, 2018). In the physical meeting the venue of the meeting
decided on the basis off convenience of every member who is going to join the meeting although
there are many more reasons behind the place like the topic of meeting, how many peoples are
coming to the meeting.
All these factors have vital role towards the appropriate venue deciding procedure. If
there are people in the meeting have special requirement then the place also needs this

requirement as well such as if the person or meeting attendee is disabled then the support he
needs should be available at that place for the appropriate meeting conduction. For the time
prospectus the meeting should be held on the most appropriate time suitable for the maximum
attendees (Oliva and Kotabe, 2019). For the effective meeting conduction agenda should be pre
decided. In informal meeting the agenda can also includes the topic like issue employees are
facing, and they can be recorded by communication with the employees. However, in the formal
meeting one sided communication happens maximum of the time. Chairing meetings are also a
part of the meeting happing in the formal sense. In these meeting the meeting organizers also
asks about agreement of the other employees as well. Such as “Employee evolvement ”.
About meeting minutes
Meeting minutes are the formal notes' agreement happens within the meeting. These are
officially important and noted with the reference of formal meeting (Guldmann and Huulgaard,
2020). The minutes of the formal meeting includes key points including the agreement, action
towards the agreement as well. These minutes also known as the results of meeting that should
be remained in the mind of other people.
About the legality of the meting as well as to avoid the dispute matters also the meeting
minutes are been to recorded within. These minutes are personally written y secretory or it can
also be written by someone specifically. One more reason lies behind the meeting minutes is if
someone is absent during the meeting then in the form of zest of the meeting, minutes have been
noted (Dandage, And et. al., 2018). Minutes are always written in the clear manner and shows
accurate amount as per the preceding as well. These minutes always contains the decisions,
details as well as assignment within it. With the minutes a person can understand the complete
details of the meeting, what happened, what arguments take place, about all results, action plans
and results as well.
The main format of the meeting minutes follows a particular way as if the meeting is
dependent upon the voting based then the complete ideology, fundamentals, agreement and in
the last results in the form of resolution and voting takes place. To avoid the miss-happening in
the future or for the avoidance of the dispute or confusion, the meeting minutes are important. So
that it can summarize all things discussed in the meeting and helps to solve the argument as well
happens at the time off live meeting (Cuervo-Cazurra and Rui, 2017). For the future references

as well the minute follow up is important as it is the conclusion of the meeting so to proceed
further towards the decided result or agreement it is compulsory to follow strictly those agendas.
For the creativity within the meeting minutes few points can be focused upon: With brain
writing techniques, the meeting minutes can be formed more creative and effective as well. Brain
writing techniques used by the participants to write down the idea regarding the question asked
in the meeting as well as these ideas can be refined by passing them to the higher authority. By
braking larger group in the smaller one, minutes can became clearer in understanding as larger
group have tendency to create confusion (Li And et. al., 2019).
By considering issue sites the meeting minutes can be written as the issue sites helps the
chair as well as all the members to have followed up towards the issue as well as their solution
for the future reference clarity. Icebreaker also has tendency to happen within the formal
meetings so it became compulsory to insert creativity within the minutes so that it can be
responsible towards purposefulness meeting.
In further for the next meeting as well as place also included for the increased creativity
of the minutes. Action items are also added in the creativity. As an example, if the meeting is
happening in physical manner then the minutes includes the place , time, agenda, action as well
as future plans to be discussed also have been added in the meeting minutes over time. On the
other hand, if the meeting is online then the referenced venue have been used for the future
reference (Gümüsay, Smets and Morris, 2020). The meeting minutes are the most important
results of the formal meeting and these are always been written in the official manner as well.
That this leads the meeting more purposeful in the manner.
Analyse barriers of meeting and how to overcome them.
Lack of clarity in agenda leads the meeting towards meaningful most of the time and
unsuccessful some times. When the subject of respective formal meeting is not clear within the
members in the terms of who or when or where type doubts occur in the mind set then it became
a barrier in terms of lack in clarity. To overcome this type of barrier, it became compulsory to set
everything clear such as the agenda about which the meeting is about to hold, topics to be
discussed during the meetings. Bullet listing of the important topics to be discussed among the
upcoming meeting is one of the best way to deal with haziness. Prior bullet pointing helps the

meeting to be summarized and meeting all the desired objectives before even starting the
meeting (Cnossen, de Vaujany and Haefliger, 2021).
Changing priorities as well as schedules also counted as barrier in the way to success of
a formal business meeting. Within the fast paced as well as customer centric environment it is
possible to have changes in the schedule of meeting as per the changes in priority. As an example
in the business or organization there can be a situation where organizer or the key person of the
respective meeting is unable to present on the specific time then it became compulsory to
reschedule the meeting and find a new time slot to conduct the meeting, These type of barriers
can be overcome with the help of advanced software tools. Mobile meeting management
software tools can manage the meetings and can set reminder for other members to notify them
about the changes as well.
Late comers or attendees get lost on the allotted time of meeting causes a huge
disturbance among the successful conduction of the meeting. It also hampers the functioning of
respective meeting. In the office there can be many of the boards rooms and employees get
confused among which they have to go for the meeting can loss the count of time and these late
arrivals leads towards information repetition within the meeting and sometimes meeting do late
start. Even on virtual meeting also the server or the network can cause the time mismanagement
during the meetings. To overcome these barriers embedded functioning can help through the
way-finding within the offices. In case of virtual meetings as well technologies can help through
the way to find whether the attendees are available or not and by contacting them or reminding
them about the meeting can be a solution of this barrier.
Overloaded meeting room, this barrier comes across the meeting happens physically.
There may be chances that on the decided time boards room is overloaded and taking 10-15
minutes extra in previous meetings then the meeting can be disturbed either by late timing or
can effect the meeting process if the end time of decided meeting can not delay. To overcome
these types of barriers mobile apps with the build-in personality can be a way to arrange the
meeting as per schedule. These applications can schedule the meeting in calendar with the
specific date as well as time and if the schedule is changed then also it can be synced within the
application. With the changes in calendar, reminder can also be added in the respective slot so
that the chances for getting confused can be reduced.

Lack of actions, it is one of the worst outcome in the list of barriers. If the actions are not
followed up in the end then the clarity of action does not meet with desired output. This can also
lead towards the conduction of extra meeting to conclude the things that have been discussed in
the prior formal meeting (Bolten, 2020). To overcome the issue, meeting always should be
effective towards the key points. In the end of the meeting, follow-ups, to-dos and clearance
about action items should be discussed. Follow up of all the key point also helps in reminding the
employees about the associated action they need to perform to get the appropriate results.
Lack of input is also comes under the category of barrier among the business meeting.
As an example a person sometimes became leader and sometimes became participants in the
meeting. In every meeting, there should be thinkers as well as doers in the room so that the
collaboration do help solve the challenges as well as helps in pushing the task through. But if
people do not have ideas about this, or they were not prepared towards idea presentation then it
also leads the meeting towards obstacle. To overcome this issue, strong collaboration within the
meeting is compulsory as this can help in managing the inputs (Guldmann and Huulgaard, 2020).
This collaboration overall helps the meetings to be more innovative, productive as well as
focused on the same time.
From the above essay, it can be concluded as formal meeting are particular towards their
specific agendas and objectives and minutes of these meetings are also have been recorded for
the future reference as well. In this essay we have studies about the consideration of formal
meetings. Moreover, the importance of meeting minutes and the information these minutes
includes also have been discussed in details. Furthermore, the barriers come across the meeting
such as lack of clarity, inputs, rescheduling and way to overcome them also has been discussed
in this essay for the effectiveness of the meeting.

Assignment 2
1. Way to improve self learning and development:
To sustain as well as for the growth among the work it is important to self learn as well as
development and these skills help oneself as well as organization to grow within the industry.
Bettering the personality also helps in career advancement as well as leads to accomplish the
objectives in professional life. With the help of steps to improve, skills also can be acquired
regardless of traditional education and settings of occupation. Knowledge of well-developed
hard as well as soft skills at the same time helps a person to aids a verity in the workplace
portfolio. Self learning and development boost up the confidence of a person in the workplace at
the same time.
 Self analysis : Self evaluation also plays an important role in the self learning as well as
development. With the help of SWOT analysis a person can do his own personality
analysis as well. Strength, weaknesses are the main factors that help to understand the
existence level of a person. By reducing the weakness and boosting the strengths it is
possible to improve the self learning as well. Opportunity and threat analysis also helps
the person in their development.
 By creating milestone: After self-analysis, milestones can be set to improve the
personality of an individual at work. Smaller goals or aims enables a person to experience
a success on the way. Testing on the short term guides a person that he is doing the right
thing on the right way or not. Testing assesses as well as offers an experience to a person
of being tested as well as develop the knowledge to go with the qualities after testing as
well. Creation of short milestones helps the person to get ready for the bigger
opportunities as well as big challenge appears at work.
 Putting in the time: The main way to achieve success is putting efforts in terms of time
to achieve the targets. Putting hour requirement towards the target results in the term of
success within work. Success or development requires time, even when a person is
successful in the manner of social as well as personal also he has to put more time
towards practising those skills to get developed.
 Maintaining motivation: For the self learning and development, motivation is the key
element associated with the motivation itself. Maintained motivation leads towards better

learning as well as development in the personality of a person. To keep motivated
themselves, there are few techniques exist such as setting high expectation towards the
progress, being realistic towards the setback, efforts or hard work, setting milestones that
are related to real situation at the work, rewards for the achievements, success recording
towards the milestones etc. all these factors have importance towards the development as
well as the learning process. These setbacks are very useful towards the motivation
maintenance as well as development within the work as well. These promising activities
help to improve skill development in the person have gives a person bigger long term
vision towards success in the organization.
 Hunting out the interest: If a person is interested in the improvement himself then it
became easier for him to get learn new things as these things are of his interest. As an
example if a person is interested in his soft skill improvement within the organization
then he will learn as well as develop his personality way faster than usual. This way
learning and development can be improved within. These all things are linked with one
another in a way to develop the learning as well as personality within work place.
Analysing tools and techniques to improve the interpersonal and transferable skills-
Tool for enhancing the interpersonal skills:
Body Language- Body Language is one of the best tool to improve the interpersonal skills.
Proper and positive body language is very important in communication as it shows the interest or
the way to communicate with others (Beanlands and et.al., 2019). One of the essential feature of
body language is smile. The other way of presentation is hand shaking with the other people to
show gratitude towards them and it also increases the credibility. It also includes the dressing
sense as body language has a direct impact on others. It also includes gestures and postures of the
body and the eye contact with the other person at the time of communication (Hill and et.al.,
2019). Facial expression is one of the important part of body language while communicating
with others. Positive body language enhance the presentation power and also improve the
communication skill.
Technique for enhancing the interpersonal skills:
Behaviour Role Modelling Technique- It is one of the technique which is used to improve the
interpersonal skills and can be understood through the process of copying or showing the

modelled behaviour (Cruz, Saunders-Smits and Groen, 2020). It involves showing the proper
and correct way of behaviour or doing things. Behaviour modelling technique also includes the
practising and feedback of good behaviour. It teaches the correct way of behaving in problematic
situation and how to apply the skills in positive manner at the time of any problem (Deep and
et.al., 2020). It helps in improving the individual efficiency and success and focuses on real
behaviour instead of theories. The steps of Behaviour Role Modelling Technique are as follows:
Modelling- It includes showing of the standard behaviour model.
Role Playing- It includes the practising of the good or correct behaviour according to the
situation.
Feedback- It is an important part of this technique in order to show how much a candidate learn
to behave.
Execution- Execution is also an essential part of this technique. It includes the application of the
newly gained skills.
Tool for enhancing the transferable skills:
Group Presentation- Transferable skills are those skills that a person can learn through the
training, education and employment (Larsen, Mangrio and Persson, 2021). So, Group
presentation act as a tool which can be used to improve the transferable skills of a person. Group
presentation helps in making the communication effective and clear and also helps in enhancing
the power of interaction with other people. It assists in building the positive attitude towards
work. It also facilitates the way of presenting in front of other people. Through group
presentation a person learns how to work as a team and increases its capability or credibility. By
gaining the knowledge of teamwork a person can be able to improve many qualities in them such
as leadership, critical thinking, positive attitude, etc. (Huffman, Tallant and Young, 2019).
Group presentation also helps in enhancing the problem solving skills through which a person
can find the solution of the problems. With the help of group presentation a candidate can
analysis the situation and tries to find or develop the new ways or strategies in order to overcome
that situation or problem. It also motivates the people to work efficiently and effortlessly.
Technique for enhancing the transferable skills:
Self Analysis Technique- Self analysis technique help a person to improve the transferable
skills by approaching the skills that are already gained by them through the experience of their
past or current work (Dillahunt and Hsiao, 2021). In this technique a person first analysis its own

transferable skills like positive attitude, communication power, leadership qualities, adaptability,
problem solving behaviour and creativity, etc. Then apply it in day to day life and as well as at
workplace. In this technique daily or day today life experience and works plays an important role
and can be used as a tool for self analysis. This technique helps in recognizing or identifying the
strengths, weaknesses and the in build skills of a person (Williams and et.al., 2020). Self analysis
technique give motivation, increases the self confidence and enhance the efficiency or
capabilities of a person. It also helps in identifying the interest of a person in a particular work or
a job and increases its potential to do work properly and effectively.
Own personal and professional Development plan
Personal development plan
The need of personal development plan is to improve the skills of own that can be very
helpful in the future. Personal development is very important as it leads to achieve personal and
career goals, advance in career, improve our strength and talent. Following are the points through
which I can develop my personality. Overcome fears: fear prevent me from growing and progressing. Afraid of public
speaking is a great barrier in the personal development. I can overcome this fear with by
taking class or joining a group that will help me in better public speaking. Fear of taking
risk will not bring me better results, in order to overcome this fear I will find a mentor
who will guide me and build confidence in me to take risk. Read: reading is the best source of expanding knowledge and personal development. It
also improves vocabulary. A good habit of reading will develop critical thinking skills in
me. I will read one article per day or one book per month in order to gain information. Learn something new: the interest in learning something new creates a versatility in a
person. This personal development plan will help me in becoming better person. For
example- learning new language, or how to write creatively. Observe others: it is the most important factor in the personal development plan.
Watching and learning from people who inspire us creates an huge personality
development in us. I Identify the quality of people whom I admire and trying to replicate
those in myself.