Analysis of Employee Development in Whirlpool: A Report

This report delves into the crucial role of human resources within an organization, specifically examining the employee skills, knowledge, and behaviors essential for success, as exemplified by a case study focused on Whirlpool. It explores the interplay between individual and organizational learning, highlighting the significance of continuous development for sustainable business performance. The report provides an analysis of required employee skills, including technical expertise, leadership, communication, risk management, and interpersonal abilities, followed by an in-depth examination of a skills audit conducted by Whirlpool's HR department to identify team strengths and weaknesses. The report concludes with a discussion of personal development plans for both employees and HR personnel, addressing potential barriers to effective career development and emphasizing the importance of adapting learning styles to maximize training and development outcomes. The report provides a comprehensive overview of employee development strategies, team dynamics, and organizational learning within Whirlpool, highlighting the importance of continuous development for sustainable business performance.

Developing Individuals,
Teams and Organisations

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
P1 Employee knowledge, skill and behaviour ...........................................................................1
P2 Analysis of personal audit......................................................................................................2
P3 difference between individual learning and organisational leaning .....................................4
P4 Need of learning for sustainable business performance- ......................................................6
P5 Benefit of high performance working-..................................................................................7
P6 Approaches to performance management .............................................................................9
CONCLUSION .............................................................................................................................10
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................11

INTRODUCTION
Human resources in any organisation play a very big role. This study describe about
skill s, knowledge and experience required in employee. Study also provide information about
individual learning and organisational learning and its impact on organisation. Whirlpool is a
big name in centennial equipment provider, this study based upon a case where high authority
working in north America find curial employee skill requirement and Working environment.
Study help in getting the idea about human management practice done by whirlpool.
P1 Employee knowledge, skill and behaviour
Employee skill knowledge and behaviour has major impact on organisation, because these
factor give shape to organisation culture and environment. It also decides quality of work,
creativity, efficiency. Following are some much required skills and behaviour required by
Whirlpool's HR.
Technical knowledge-
Whirlpool is a big name in offering innovative technological electronic equipment to
its customer. So employee must have background of education like graduate, diploma and
authorised license acquired in electrical subject. Employee must know testing currents,
repairing old devices, coding, mechanical skills, circuit optimisation skills, IOT experience,
digital analogue skills etc. He must be good at maths and physics. Apart from that employee
must have legal knowledge about wages and hour, employee benefit, equal pay Act,
Americans with disabilities Act so that he can safe his interest as well as co- worker's interest.
Leadership skill
Leadership skill like empathy, support, mutual accountability, control management ,
decision making c ability, delegation and empowerment help an employee to manage his team
effectively. Whirlpool works allot works in team so leadership skill must be there in
employee.
Communication skill-
Employee has strong verbal and written communication skill not only for face to face
conversation even he must be able to communicate through using internet like video
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conference call etc. communication not all about speaking, he should be good and empathic
listener. Employee also have knowledge of communicate and understand in technical reports
and instructions.
Risk taker and self managed learning skill-
There are so many situations can occur while perform some activity on machine that
need some extra effort and risk practice, so it is expected from employee that he handle risky
situation carefully. He must not try to avoid such kind of task. In addition, he also has self
managed learning quality which means apart from formal training program he put his personal
effort in learning from his daily experiences.
Personal and relation management skills-
Whirlpool want its employee know how to handle himself in tough situation where
time management and huge patience required because working on complex machine give so
much stress. Apart from this he should know how to manage confit and issue with team and
other stakeholders. Confidentiality of employee must be taken into consideration by H.R
because it will break the trust between employee and him, if H.R ignore the Confidentiality
requirement than Employee will not share any problem and information regarding
organisation in the future.
Creativity and innovation-
This is a very important element that a person who want to join whirlpool should have.
An employee should know what can be done so that it can increase product innovation and
better customer service satisfaction so that whirlpool's market share increases and it can get
more competitors advantage.(Potnuru. and Sahoo, 2016)
Teamwork
Whirlpool allot teams at initial level so that employee can learn from experience
collogues and share knowledge with other. Employee who is high self concern and selfish can
not sustain in team. So employee also have team making quality like supporting, sharing,
caring etc.
– Skill audits by whirlpool HR -
For conducting skills audit of whirlpool employee, human resources can go for 360
degree review, focus group review, assessment by subject matte and self assessment of
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competence by employee with validation by leader. First HR manager evaluate the feasibility
of skill audit technique he is going to do like 360 or focus and so on, he must check get
approval from finance department and higher authority.. He analyses all the data which is
gather and devolved new job skill requirement based upon research. HR adds current
deficiency in skill as part of training and development plan and required skill for job seeker.
(Costa. And et.al., 2015.)
Hence, in the context of Whirlpool, for carry out activities effectually HR manager
must have following aspects:
Skills
 Planning & Organizing
 Analytical skills
 Time management
 Interpersonal skills (communication, leadership, teamwork & development)
 IT or computer skills
Knowledge
 About laws and legislation related to human resource management
 About Recruitment & selection process
 Training & development aspects
 Performance appraisal and grievance handling
Behaviour
 Motivator
 Passionate
 Positive attitude and emphasis on Team-work
P2 Analysis of personal audit
In whirlpool crisis north regional staff set a required skill for technical team, because
whirlpool is so much depend on this team for future technical changes it wants to bring in its
product and service. Human resource department conduct behavioural and skill audit for team.
Whirlpool wants more innovation for future technology provide to customer before its
competitors. So HR department conduct skill audit for “electrical team” which contribute
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direct in product innovation. Outcome of audit is given below, on the basis of which HR plan
to take corrective action as soon as possible and HR also make professional development plan
based upon .weakness of employee and team for formulation future hirings' skill requirements.
if an organisation do not conduct skill audit programme than training and development
programme become ineffective and give less benefit than expected. (Sessa and London, 2015)
Strength of team and employees-. Whirlpool electrical team is overall technical fit
for their job apart from few employees. Team also able to handle serious technical issue. All
the team members are very much keen of machine which help them to maintain their self
motivation. Team member look for innovation and creativity. Employee and team members
personally attached. The Latest technical changes it adopted by self managed learning by the
employee. High level of experience and competency give strength team to compete their
complex project on time with maintained quality. Team also take risk whenever required for
better performance. Employees are aware about industry trend and customer expectation
which can be seen in their work. Technical communication is performed by them very
smoothly.(Salas.and et.al., 2017)
Weakness of team- H.R of whirlpool find that their electrical team has so many problems
which affect team function currently and if this problem will continue than company may face
problem even regarding for their future idea and thinking. They have lack of clarity about
companies future plan and even some employee are not able to recognise their job role clearly.
So many interpersonal conflicts are happing regarding because of lack of trust and mutual
understanding. Some employee do not technical competencies and time management skill
which affect overall productivity of team.. Team know how to tackle machines but they do not
know how to present their idea and stagiest in front of higher authority. Team. Commination
skills with clients are bad. Employees even have lack trust and self growth objective rather
than team growth.(Nilsen, Emmerling. and Fieselman, 2018)
Objectives What I will do to
achievement this
What would be
my hurdle in
achieving my
What will be my
success criteria
Target and
review duration.
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goal
Planning and
organizational
skills
Team member
are poor in
planning and
organisation that
can be improve
by giving case
study reading.
Scheduling task
is major hurdle
Feedback from
seniors
2 months
Commination
skill
Provide classed
for soft
commination
Previous
Education
background
Feedback from
customer and
clients
1.5 month
Team working Informal event
conduct like
party and tour for
building relation
Time and cost Improved
relation and less
conflict in future
3 month
Personal audit of whirlpool H.R
Whirlpool H.R have poor of listening and empathy skill which affect its interpersonal relation
with other employees , he is unable to understand and solve problem of Whirlpool's employee,
this lead to frustration and employee high turnover ratio, although H.R have nice academic
background.
PDP plan for whirlpool H.R
Objectives What I will do to
achievement this
What would be
my hurdle in
achieving my
goal
What will be my
success criteria
Target and
review duration
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Improve listening
and empathic
skill
Increase social
awareness
knowledge of
H.R by using real
life case studies.
Personality of
HR and his
background.
Improved
interpersonal
relation with
employees and
positive feedback
from employees
3 month.
Barrier of PDP
 If an individual have lack of basic knowledge, weak education background, inadequate
skill, mental struggles like poor self confidence, low emotional intelligence, in such
CDP can not give effective outcome by short term training and development session.
 Employee takes these sessions as time wasting activity when organisation decide to go
with on job training because employee want to finish their work as they have
deadlines.
 Senior employee do not accept training session as a positive activity because of their
ego.
 Inaccurate information and wrong perception also affect it for instance if an employee
done something wrong once, but manager make perception for that employee as poor
employee and design a CDP for it, in such case training was not required as these was
just a mistake not a habit.
 Lack of resources like money, equipment , place can affect the carrier development
plan for instance company know that marketing team urgently need training session
but it is not necessary that it has enough money for it because of poor sale or adverse
economic condition.
 Availability of time affect a team hugely because marketing team has so many projects
, so it is hard to team to attend the sessions.
Whirlpool is one of the leading electronic essentials' provider company for a log time
because company has enough finance to acquire the latest technology changes in market.
Company try to put all the technical changes before its competitors to grab the market share
and competitor advantage. Company facilitate carrier development programme to its
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employee in from of training and development for every technological changes take place. It
boosts the morale, employee confidence, performance and employee engagement. A
motivated employee actively participate in innovation. Innovation help whirlpool again to
compete from its competitor and sustain market share and sale of company.
There are four types of leaning style according to David Kolb leaning model are as follows
that HR of Whirlpool can follow-
Concrete Learning: This is the first stage of learning which states that Human
Resource Manager learn from getting experiencing. Such as field work, lab session etc. In this
a HR cannot learn by reading or watching any particular things.
Reflective Observation: This is the second stage of the kolb learning cycle where
Human Resource Manager consciously reflect back on that experience. Human Resource
Manager discuss various question at this stage to clear the confusions.
Abstract Conceptualization: This is the stage where individual start attempting the
learning in the previous stage. Learner put his/her knowledge into action.
Active Experimentation: This is the last stage where Human Resource Manager
consider how they are going to put what they have learnt into practice. At this stage, Human
Resource Manager plan for future improvement by refining the current knowledge, skills and
experience.
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TRAFFIC LIGHT SKILL AUDIT
Need to work on it. Not totally sure Confident
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P3 difference between individual learning and organisational leaning
INDIVIDUAL LEARNING
Individual learning is focused on personal
growth and improvements, increases
competence. This is a learning process in
which individual first find its learning and
objective and choose to learn method with his
own.
ORGANISATIONAL LEARNING
Organisational learning is learning effort of
an organisation due to changes in changes
working environment, competition policies,
new technology and innovation.
Organisational learning is also influenced by
changes in organisation culture and individual
learning.
In individual process an individual start to
learning to smooth new or try to improve on
skills which he most useful for conduct a
particular work or handle situation. For
instance an employee who has to deal with
client regularly, feel interpersonal skill and
communication skill demands improvement,
as he is poor in them. An individual who work
in technical department than his learning need
would be new computer language and adopt
the latest software knowledge which help him
in designing of electric equipments.(Mone,
M. and London, 2018)
In organisation leaning whirlpool learn form
his employee when organisation receive any
information from employee and this
information further shared with other
employees. For example an individual
working in production department learn by
his daily experience about how to minimise
errors by implementing a particular trick, and
he shares this trick or idea with whirlpool's
higher authority and with collogues. If
organisation labelled his personal trick or
idea as organisation's standard process which
has to follow in production activity. Then it
will become whirlpool learning . Organisation
will use this idea in future also help in
minimise operational cost by reduce error
An individual put his personal effort like
experience, capability, skills, knowledge and
Organisation implement training and
development program for its employee on the
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self teaching resource to lean new thing.
Employee do not need outside motivation to
make himself fit
basis of suggestion received by individual
learning. In organisational learning whirlpool
has to give motivation to other employee to
make themselves competence according to
organisation need and for make organisation
fit for competitive advantage.
If individual do not learn from their own daily experience it will become so tough for them in
sustain and employee can not grow more because he is unable to do anything. Organisation
learning help Whirlpool in making training and development plan for its employee.
Organisation who ignore the importance of organisation learning will face problem in
handling external environmental issues.
Difference between training and development-
Training is more focus on increase skill and
knowledge that will help in a particular job.
Development focuses on enhance behavioural
skill this process include all the behavioural
aspect of growth of individual as well as
organisation.
Training is conducted for short period for
acquire a particular skill. For example
training of doing work on particular machine
or learn new computer language. Training on
communication skills etc.
Development is a long term process where
efforts are made to change an individual
behaviour for future career growth. For
instance whirlpool conduct development
programme to its production for reduce
interpersonal conflicts. Employee get
personalise development programme like
stress management activities and time
management guidance.(De Jong. and et.al.,
2016)
Training can give by supervisor and leader of
the employee under which he is performing
Development programme demand manager to
provide its guidance and support, because
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