Sainsbury's Case Study: Employability Skills and Development Portfolio

This case study analyzes employability skills and professional development within Sainsbury's, a leading UK supermarket chain. It discusses methods for improving learning and development at work, emphasizing the importance of feedback, journaling, learning from failures, setting targets, and fostering meta-learning skills. The report also explores tools and techniques to enhance interpersonal and transferable skills, such as active listening, the 7C's of communication, peer support, team working, and internal transfers. Furthermore, it assesses a personal and professional development plan, outlining goals, strategies for achievement, and required support. The study concludes that proficiency in employability skills is crucial for employee growth and organizational success, highlighting the value of continuous self-assessment and development.

Employability Skills and
Professional Development -
portfolio - Case study

Table of Contents
Table of Contents.............................................................................................................................2
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................1
Ways of improving the own learning and development for work..........................................1
Tools and Techniques to enhance the interpersonal and transferable skills...........................2
Assessment of personal and professional development plan.................................................4
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................7
References:.......................................................................................................................................8

INTRODUCTION
In the modern working environment the organisations highly appreciate the employees
that have capability of analysing their self performance and learning. For the employees there is
requirement of effective employability skills which are the transferable skills that make an
employee employable (Fahimirad and et. al., 2019). The employability skills is the set of skill
such as communication skills, problem solving skills, team working, self motivation and much
more. Along with all these skills the personal development skills are also mandatory for
employees in workplace to work effectively. Personal development plan is the self assessment
plan to assess the employee’s strength and issues with the employability and used to develop
strategies to reach the desired goals. The present report is based on the Sainsbury a British
leading supermarket chain based in London, UK. The company owns 16% of market share of the
UK retailing sector and has aim of providing the high quality products and services. The reports
will aims to discuss the ways to improve owns learning and development for work. Further, there
is the discussion on the tools and techniques to enhance the interpersonal and transferable skills.
In the end there is the assessment of personal and professional development plan.
MAIN BODY
Ways of improving the own learning and development for work
Learning and development are the part of working as they are the key element for the
employees workplace satisfaction and motivation. There are different ways by which employees
at the workplace gain the learning and development such as either through training and
development programme organised by the line management, through peer to peer learning, self
development plans etc. Beside this, the own learning and development for work is important as it
help in development of the personal development skills which assist in personal and professional
growth. There are different ways to improve the own learning and development that are
discussed below:
Ask for feedback: at the workplace for the own learning and development the asking for
feedback from the managers and supervisors is the key method. This will help the individual to
improve and enhance the professional learning for the work as the honest feedbacks from the
supervisors leads towards the constructive criticism by which individuals find a way for the
improvement (Sarkar and et. al., 2020). This way is the most unbiased and positive way to
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improve learning and development for the work and also results are highly productive and
contains long term benefits to an individual as an employee.
Keep a journal: Writing a everyday journal is highly useful for a person as an employee at the
work. Journal writing helps an employee to gain the self awareness and reflect on the current
events in its own perspective thereby increasing the through process towards the situation and
letting the personal to gain better decision making skills. This also helps in setting the goals and
targets that must be achieved in the future as employees letting a person to improve the learning
and development for work.
Learn from the failure: for the work employees best way to improve owns learning and
development is to learn from the failures. To a person the failure is the milestone to crack in
order to attain the success at the work. But with every failure there are some lessons that must be
learned by the individual for the won learning and development in order to understand the
mistakes encountered due to which failure has occurred must not be repeated. Therefore, for this
learning from failure is key way by which employees can gain own learning and development for
work.
Set target: for the individual at work to improve the own learning and development for the key
area of interest of study or for work identification of the learning a person want to work on and
using the skills. Setting the goals and targets let the person to allocate all the actions and
resources in the direction to improve the own learning and development of the particular subject.
Such as if to work effectively in Sainsbury the person requires effective marketing and sales
pitch skill for which person has to learn communication skills, concepts of marketing and sales
etc. Thus therefore setting targets are helpful for the own learning and development for work
(Nisha and Rajasekaran, 2018).
Foster meta learning skills: In order to improve the own learning and development the
individual needs to develop some set of skill set which is used in the past to perform some tasks.
Such skills that are been used in the past are termed as the Meta learning skills. Thus to grow the
learning and development abilities for work development of the Meta learning skills leads to the
fostering the learning opportunities and also help in extracting the learning from the workplace.
Tools and Techniques to enhance the interpersonal and transferable skills
Interpersonal skills are the individual’s behaviour and tactics that helps the person to
interact with the other person at the workplace in effective manner. In basic words the
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interpersonal skills are the abilities to communicate and listen actively with the others in the
organisational setting. In an organisation, for the employees strong interpersonal skills are
highly valued and help an employee to behave as a team player and also assist in maintain
healthy relationship with other members of the organisation.
The tools and techniques to improve interpersonal skills are:
Practice active listening: in order to enhance the interpersonal skills active listening is key
technique and practice that an individual must work on. The practice of active listening allows a
person to listen and understand the perspective and the message of other person. Thereby
creating mutual respect and which foster a cooperative effective interpersonal communication.
Thus, it is highly observed that this technique strongly helps in developing interpersonal skills.
7C’s of communication: this is one of the key tool to foster the effective interpersonal
communication skills. With the help of this theoretical tool the person can effectively build the
interpersonal conversation and ensure that they are maintain 7 different attributes of healthy and
effective interpersonal communication (Zaharim and et. al., 2010). Thus, through this tool the
individual at workplace can improve their interpersonal skills.
The tools and techniques to improve transferable skills are:
Peer to Peer support: in order to develop or enhance the transferable kills the best technique is
the peer and peer support and learning. In an organisation every employee has some different
skill set and contain some skills are the strengths this help the other person to earn those skills
from their peers. Thus, employees must communicate and guide each other to learn something
from each other there by gaining the transferable skills.
Team working: team working is also a effective tool for developing a transferable skills. In team
every person has different roles and responsibilities as per the project assigned to them. As the
project change, team change and automatically role of the employees in the team. This helps in
developing transferable skills.
Internal transfer: In an organisation like Sainsbury there are different operational departments
and all have different duties and role to play in achieving the organisational goals. To develop
transferable skills the employers conduct internal transfer by appointing the employee of one
department to other. This is effective technique to develop quick and strong transferable skills.
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Assessment of personal and professional development plan
Personal development plan
A personal development plan commonly known as a PDP is a action plan for an
individual to identify personal goals that a person wants to achieve. The PDP helps a person to
develop significant goals thereby mitigating the weaknesses and developing the strengths for
personal growth and learning (Zinser, 2003). The personal development plan is an ongoing
process which is continuously reviewed and facilitates a person to improve their working skills
and knowledge.
Goals How to achieve
goals?
How to measure
success?
Target date
To attain the effective
communication skills
In order to attain
effective
communication skills
for the growth of my
personality I will
enrol myself into the
communication
course to improve my
written as well as
vocal communication
skills. Also I will
work my listening
skills as for better
communication active
listening is key to
success. I will also
watch some English
dramas and movies
and read newspaper
and novels to speed
up my learning of
In order to measure
the success I will as
my colleagues,
supervisors, friends
and family for the
honest feedback
regarding my
improved
communication skills.
I will also develop
self awareness to self
introspect my success
in learning effective
communication skills
(Ayala Calvo and
Manzano García,
2021).
2 months
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effective
communication skills.
To enhance my
emotional intelligence
To gain emotional
balance in my life and
grow at personal level
as person it is very
important for me
enhance my emotional
intelligence. To
enhance my emotional
intelligence I will self
analyse my strengths
and weaknesses in
regards of my
emotions (Mello,
Varga‐Atkins and
Edwards, 2021). I will
meditate and write
journal to balance my
emotions.
To measure the
success of my
improvement of
emotional intelligence
I will self aware
myself as this the best
way to measure my
level of emotional
intelligence.
6 months
Professional development plan
Professional development plan is a well structured document that contains objectives,
required skills, competencies, goals that the employee of an organisation is required to learn or
achieves to gain continuous improvement and career development (Anisimova and McNeilly,
2021). For an employee of Sainsbury's it is very important to develop of professional
development plan in order to identify the milestones in terms of completion of the career
objective there by assessing the progress towards the desired outcome in the limited period of
time.
What do I need to
learn?
What actions I need
to perform to
What support and
resources I need to
Target time to
achieve
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achieve objectives? achieve objectives?
To attain new
technology oriented
software used by
managers
In order to learn new
technology advanced
software’s I will join
learning and
development session
at the organisation as
they are part of own
earning and
development. I will
also watch YouTube
videos and practice
daily on the software
to achieve my
objective of becoming
a successful manger
(Pushpakumara,
2021).
I will refer to you tube
videos, supporting
materials provided at
learning and
development session.
I will also need peer
to peer support to
achieve this goal.
8 months
To achieve promotion In order to attain the
following objective I
will take initiative to
take part in every
project at the
organisation, I will
take charge for project
as leader. I will also
perform to my best in
order to show my
capabilities and
potential. I will show
interest in taking more
I will need to assess
my achievements,
peer support, new
skills and most
importantly I will
require passion and
dedication to attain
my goals (Guàrdia
and et. al., 2021).
2 years
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responsibilities.
CONCLUSION
From the above report it is concluded that for every employee it is very important to have
efficiency in the set of employability skills. For the employees it is important to learn the
transferable skills that will help an individual to grow and grasp opportunities in the
organisation. Peer to peer learning, self developed action plan are some key tools and techniques
that helps an employees to enhance the interpersonal and transferable skills. Thus, a personal and
professional development plan are highly useful for an individual to gain self analyse their
strengths and flaws to become a resourceful and productive employee at workplace.
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References:
Books and Journals
Anisimova, A.G. and McNeilly, E., 2021. Ways to Develop Employability Skills in Teaching
Translation to Final-Year Students. Дискурс профессиональной коммуникации, 3(1),
pp.75-84.
Ayala Calvo, J.C. and Manzano García, G., 2021. The influence of psychological capital on
graduates’ perception of employability: the mediating role of employability skills. Higher
Education Research & Development, 40(2), pp.293-308.
Fahimirad, M and et. al., 2019. Integration and Development of Employability Skills into
Malaysian Higher Education Context: Review of the Literature. International Journal of
Higher Education, 8(6), pp.26-35.
Guàrdia, L and et. al., 2021. Graduates’ employability skills in East Africa. Journal of Teaching
and Learning for Graduate Employability, 12(2), pp.169-184.
Mello, L.V., Varga‐Atkins, T. and Edwards, S.W., 2021. A structured reflective process supports
student awareness of employability skills development in a science placement
module. FEBS open bio.
Nisha, S.M. and Rajasekaran, V., 2018. Employability skills: A review. IUP Journal of Soft
Skills, 12(1), pp.29-37.
Pushpakumara, P.B.S.L., 2021. Developing employability skills through peer-
assessment. Available at SSRN 3808967.
Sarkar, M and et. al., 2020. Academics’ perspectives of the teaching and development of generic
employability skills in science curricula. Higher Education Research &
Development, 39(2), pp.346-361.
Zaharim, A and et. al., 2010, April. Practical framework of employability skills for engineering
graduate in Malaysia. In IEEE EDUCON 2010 Conference (pp. 921-927). IEEE.
Zinser, R., 2003. Developing career and employability skills: A US case study. Education+
Training.
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