Developing Individuals, Teams, and Organizations: A Report

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DEVELOPING INDIVIDUALS TEAM AND
ORGANISATIONS
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Contents
INTRODUCTION............................................................................................................................. 3
LO1.................................................................................................................................................3
KNOWLEDGE, SKILLS, AND BEHAVIOR REQUIRED BY HR PROFESSIONALS................................3
PERSONAL SKILLS AUDIT............................................................................................................4
PROFESSIONAL SKILLS AUDIT.....................................................................................................6
LO2.................................................................................................................................................8
DIFFERENCE BETWEEN ORGANIZATIONAL AND INDIVIDUAL LEARNING, TRAINING AND
DEVELOPMENT.......................................................................................................................... 8
NEED FOR CONTINUOUS LEARNING AND PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT................................9
LEARNING CYCLE THEORIES.....................................................................................................10
LO3............................................................................................................................................... 12
CONTRIBUTION OF HPW IN EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT AND COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE.......12
BENEFITS OF HPW....................................................................................................................13
LO4............................................................................................................................................... 16
DIFFERENT APPROACHES TO PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT................................................16
EVALUATION OF DIFFERENT APPROACHES TO PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT.....................18
CONCLUSION............................................................................................................................... 20
REFERENCES.................................................................................................................................21
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INTRODUCTION
The human resource plays an important role in all organizations on matter what is the size of
the organization. The success of the organization depends on its ability to expand and enhance
the capabilities of the employees. Therefore, the HR department of the organization hires train
and prepares them to increase the productivity of the organization. This report includes the
activities of different HR professionals which will help the individuals as well as teams to
increase their performance (Shuffler et al., 2018). The organization can only get success if the
efforts of the teams are coordinated with each other and all are focused to achieve the
common organizational goals. This report includes the example of Sainsbury which is the
second-largest retailer in the UK. The company was started in the year 1869 and its
headquarter is in London. The Company’s major focus on the delivering quality of goods and
services to customers and for achieving this vision Sainsbury working on developing the skills,
knowledge, and abilities of the employees.
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LO1
KNOWLEDGE, SKILLS, AND BEHAVIOR REQUIRED BY HR PROFESSIONALS
The skills, knowledge, and behavior required by the HR professionals of the Sainsbury are as
follows:
 Communication skills
The communication skill is the basic requirement for the job of HR in the Sainsbury. This
skill is not only required for the professional career but also required in personal life. HR
is an individual who acts as a link between the employer and the employee.
Communication skills include both oral and written communication which makes the
process of communication effective (Cohen, 2015).
 Critical thinking process
An effective HR manager means the characteristic which helps the HR manager to
balance the typical situations by taking time to think out of the box about the
combination of the solutions. HR professional develops a positive environment in which
all the employees work together for improving the business operations of the Sainsbury.
 Adaptability and flexibility
The organization does not always face a similar situation and HR professional must
change his approach to meet the organizational requirement. It is the responsibility of
the HR professional to maintain a high standard in the Sainsbury by changing according
to the environment (Ahmad et al., 2015).
 Listening skills
The skill required in the HR professional is the ability to listen to other people. The
employees face several problems in the organization which is to be solved by the HR
professionals. So HR professional of Sainsbury must be able to listen to the problems of
employees.
 Employee relations
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The success of the Sainsbury depends on the strong relationship with employee and
employer as well as professional who act as a link between these two. It is the
responsibility of the HR professionals that he creates a satisfying environment for the
employees as well as employers. This skill will decrease the conflicts by listening to both
the parties (Naim and Lenkla, 2016).
PERSONAL SKILLS AUDIT
A personal skills audit is used in the HR department where an individual assess his skills and
knowledge for identifying the current and future requirement of the skills. The personal skills
audit includes the analysis of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities as well as a threat for the HR
professionals in the Sainsbury:
Strengths
With the help of personal audit, the strengths identified for the position of an HR professional
in the Sainsbury are planning and prioritizing skills, communication skills as well as adaptability
and flexibility. All these skills are very crucial for the justifying the position of HR in the
Sainsbury.
Planning and prioritizing: I am able to plan the different activities of the organization and
completing important task before the deadline so that there will be no delay in achieving the
objective of the company (Khelil et al., 2016).
Communication skills: This skill helps in maintaining a strong relationship with employers as
well as employees. Communication skills include presentation including diagrams, charts, etc.,
verbal and written skills.
Flexibility and adaptability: The external environment of the Sainsbury continuously changes
and to maintain top position in the market, it is essential that HR professionals should change
their approaches and techniques to achieve the organization objectives.
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Weaknesses
Delegation
As an HR manager of the Sainsbury, sometimes in hesitate to give my roles and responsibilities
to other individuals. This is because of a lack of trust and belief in other people that they will do
in the same way. Therefore, it can be said that lack of confidence at the time of dealing with
other people.
Leadership
Leadership is the ability to get the work done by others. The employees of the Sainsbury need
continuous motivation and inspiration to complete their work and I am unable to target every
employee to get their work done (Alexander et al., 2018).
Opportunities
Knowledge of technology
At the position of HR, I can record the information and data of employees in the database by
using HRM software. This technology will make my work easy and accurate. But it requires
complete knowledge of software, internet, Microsoft office and many more.
Team-building skills
The main role of the HR manager is to solve the problems of the employees but when I work in
a team or solve the problems of the teams then it will help me to improve my team-building
skills.
Threats
Easily affected by negative aspects
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I easily get affected by the negative aspects of the environment such as seniors or my
competitors. But I try to turn it into opportunities with my communication and interpersonal
skills to make better decisions.
PROFESSIONAL SKILLS AUDIT
A professional skills audit is a tool to identify the requirement of the skills to justify the given
position. A personal skills audit will help me to identify the requirement of professional skills
and the time required to learn those skills. The table shows the required skills, the time
required and the type of training method:
Required skills Type of development Time duration Implemented
through
Knowledge
HRM Software Training needed 3 months Mentoring
Technical knowledge Training needed 2 months Manager
Microsoft office Training needed 1 month Manager
Skills
Delegation Seminars and training
needed
1 month Employees and
manager
Leadership Workshop and
training needed
1 month Employees and
manager
Planning and
prioritizing
Training needed 2 months Managers
Problem-solving skills Workshop required 2 months Managers and
employees
Team-building skills Training needed 1 month Managers and
employees
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LO2
DIFFERENCE BETWEEN ORGANIZATIONAL AND INDIVIDUAL LEARNING, TRAINING AND
DEVELOPMENT
Individual learning and organizational learning
Individual learning is a self-directed process which is leading to enhance the adaptive capacity
of the individual. The methods adopted in the Sainsbury for individual learning are observing
other individuals; involved in routine activities; interacting with customers as well as working
under the experienced employees etc. all included in the individual learning of the Sainsbury
(Bell et al., 2017).
Individual learning is a part of organizational learning because individual learning will directly
contribute to the success of the organization. In other words, it can be said that when the
individual learns the organization automatically learns and develops. Organization learning will
only be encouraged if the managers are open to invite feedback and implement them for the
betterment of the organization.
Individual and organizational training and development
Individual training is the process of learning particular skills and knowledge of the employees to
increase the productivity and performance of their present roles. Individual development is a
more specific term and is focused on the personal growth of the employee rather than a job.
Individual training and development programs increase the motivation level of employees,
enhance engagement and also increases speed, productivity, and competency.
Individual training and development procedure helps the organization to retain the right
employees in the right position. The Sainsbury also uses employees as an important asset for
competing with competitors and achieving sustainable competitive advantage. Organizational
training programs will help the Sainsbury to increase the profitability, decreasing turnover of
employees and securing top position in the industry (Manuti et al., 2015).
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Difference between individual and organizational learning and training and development
Organizational learning, training, and
development
Individual learning, training, and
development
Organizational learning is based on the
learning of individual and team to achieve
organizational objective
Individual learning is based on self-
commitment and intrinsic motivation
Organizational learning can only be completed
by hiring skilled professionals who have
complete knowledge in a particular field.
This can be done through teaching and self-
study
All the employees and teams equally
contribute to the process of organizational
learning because all are equally responsible
for achieving organizational goals (Burke and
Noumair, 2015).
Individual himself have to put additional
efforts for taking the individual learning
process
All the employees display seriousness towards
attaining the company's goal.
In individual learning, the individual has to
show some seriousness towards satisfying
individual needs (Tews et al., 2017).
The organization shows interest in the training
and development of individuals for increasing
productivity and performance.
Individual shows interest to show the interest
in their overall development
NEED FOR CONTINUOUS LEARNING AND PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT
Continuous learning and professional development is the self-motivation of employees to
acquire new knowledge and skills for developing competencies and future opportunities. The
adaptation according to the changing environment is a very crucial step towards driving
sustainable performance of the business. Continuous learning at the individual level means
working on several approaches to enhance knowledge daily. On the organization basis, they
prefer to invest more on providing training and development to employees to increase the
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productivity rather than hiring from an external source because existing employees know the
operations and training will help them to increase their performance. Most of the companies
and even Sainsbury avoid hiring the individual from the external source because it is time and
money consuming procedure. The practices used by the Sainsbury to implement continuous
learning and training method are workshops, seminars, development programs as well as a
presentation to update the knowledge of employees according to changes in the external
environment. Continuous learning will also help the employees to face the unexpected
situation arises in the future and takes out the individual out from the comfort zone to learn
and grab new opportunities (Al Asmari, 2016). The employees increase their current skills and
knowledge with the help of continuous learning a development which contributes to the
success of Sainsbury.
LEARNING CYCLE THEORIES
The learning cycle used in the Sainsbury to implement continuous professional development is
the Honey and Mumford style of learning. The theory of Honey and Mumford is described as
follows:
Honey and Mumford
There are four different styles identified in this theory which is mostly preferred by the
individuals and used to increase productivity and owns learning capability. The four methods of
learning identified in this theory are as follows:
Activist
Activists are the individuals who learn by performing the activities. They usually learn by
experiencing things and learn through their actions. The individuals who fall into this category
are open-minded and see all the activities without biasness. The activities included in this
category are competitions, puzzles, group discussion, role-play, etc.
Theorist
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These individuals try to understand the logic or theory behind the actions. They appreciate
reading the facts and figures to better involvement in the learning process. Their results are not
affected by the emotions rather than they continuously keep questioning. The activities
involved in theorist are quotes, statistics, stories, models, etc.
Pragmatist
They focus on implementing the learning theories and models in the actual world. They do
experiments with the existing theory or idea to think about it and see what works in reality
(Kumar and Pande, 2018). The activities included in pragmatist are discussions, case studies,
problem-solving, etc.
Reflector
These people learn through thinking and observing the activities i.e. they learn through
watching or observing the activities of other people and then concluded according to his
present knowledge. The activities included in this category are feedback, interviews, coaching,
observing activities, etc.
Figure 1: Honey and Mumford Learning Styles
[Source: Howes, 2014]
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LO3
CONTRIBUTION OF HPW IN EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT AND COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE
Knowledge is the awareness or understanding of facts or circumstances extended through
experience. Knowledge is the collection of meaningful and relevant data that contributes to the
completion of work systematically and beneficially. Understanding relates to a physiological
process that benefits in correlating the things and contributes in making relation with the
object. The combination of knowledge and understanding will contribute to the high
performance of the individual (Katzenbach and Smith, 2015).
HIGH-PERFORMANCE WORKING
High-Performance Working is a process that is adopted for improvement of an organization's
capacity for attracting, hiring, selecting, developing and retaining the high performance of the
staff (Katzenbach and Smith, 2015). Sainsbury’s is a retailing company and provides variability
in products worldwide. The adaptation of high-performance working will benefit the company
in increasing the capacity of the business. High-Performance Working affects the competitive
advantage and employee engagement within the organization and contributes to business
profit. The HPW is the integration of various human resource management practices and
methods that contributes to producing a superior performance of the employee (Sainsbury’s,
2019). The contribution of HPW to the employee engagement and competitive advantage is as
follows-
Employee engagement
Employee engagement relates to the relationship between the organization and employee that
contributes to business success. Employee engagement is the concept of engagement of the
employee to the work for the growth of the business. HPW contributes to engaging the
employee of Sainsbury's company in getting engaged with the help of knowledge and
understanding (Raziq and Maulabakhsh, 2015). The improved capability, knowledge and
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