HR Skills, Development Plans, and Organizational Learning at Whirlpool

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of the role of HR in developing individuals, teams, and organizations, using the Whirlpool case study as a practical example. The report begins by identifying the appropriate and professional knowledge, skills, and behaviors required by HR professionals, including areas such as administration, customer service, and legal knowledge, as well as conflict management, multi-tasking, and professional behaviors like curiosity and collaboration. It then presents a personal skills audit and a professional development plan, utilizing the SWOT analysis to identify strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats, and detailing a plan to address weaknesses. The report further explores the differences between organizational and individual learning, training, and development, highlighting the objectives, aims, factors, developing areas, impact, and importance of each. It also discusses the need for continuous learning and professional development for sustainable business performance, examines the contributions of High-Performance Work Systems (HPW) to employee engagement and competitive advantages, and analyzes different approaches to performance management and their support for a high-performance culture and commitment. The report concludes with a synthesis of the key findings and recommendations for enhancing HR practices within the organization.

UNIT 35 DEVELOPING INDIVIDUALS,
TEAMS AND ORGANISATIONS

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................1
1. Determine appropriate and professional knowledge, skills and behaviours that required by
HR professional in the organisation.......................................................................................1
2. Presenting Personal skills audit and developing professional developmental plan...........3
3. Differences between organizational and individual learning, training and development. .4
4. Presenting the need of continuous learning and professional development for sustainable
business performance.............................................................................................................7
5. How HPW contributes to employee engagement and competitive advantages.................9
6. Different approaches to performance management and how it supports with high
performance culture and commitment..................................................................................10
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................11
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................13

INTRODUCTION
In every business, HR plays vital role to development of individual, team and whole
organisation. With this regard, performances could be increased easily which enable to develop
effectiveness of an enterprise. HR consists of their parts with different functions, operations to
perform several outcomes in desired manner (Coetzer, Bussin and Geldenhuys, 2017).
Present study is based on Whirlpool which faced crisis with respect to change and trying
to build structure to recruit new staff members. The selected business increase awareness of their
staff members to take appropriate decisions to develop positive results.
It covers appropriate and professional knowledge with skills that are required by HR
professionals to gain insights on the present report. Furthermore, it includes complete personal
skills audit to develop professional development plan with a given job role. At last, this report
discusses about HPW contribution towards employees’ engagement and competitive advantages.
MAIN BODY
1. Determine appropriate and professional knowledge, skills and behaviours that required by HR
professional in the organisation
With respect to increase appropriate working, knowledge, skills and professional among
HR of Whirlpool. With this regard, in the enterprise following professional areas can be cover to
accomplish desired results:
Professional knowledge
There are variety of specialised trainings with advanced professional learning that can
assist HR and other people to improve their knowledge, competency and skills.
 Administration and management: In Whirlpool, it is essential for HR to determine
knowledge of business and management principles. With this regard, they have to
focus on strategic planning, resource allocation, human resource modelling, etc.
(Mittal and Dhar, 2015).
 Customer and personal services: In order to increase effectiveness, it is essential to
focus on knowledge of principles and process in the chosen business to provide
customer and personal services. It includes buyer needs assessment, meeting with
quality standards for services and evaluation of customer’s satisfaction (Harvey and
Kitson, 2015).

 Law and government: HR manager of Whirlpool requires knowledge of laws, legal
codes, court procedures, and government regulations. This is because, in recruitment
and selection, rules like employment policies related to compensation, leaves,
appraisal etc. can be applied to find appropriate conclusion.
Professional skills
These skills assist to increase their efficiency and effectiveness to deal with creativity and
effectiveness. HR of the chosen business must contain the following skills to increase their
power:  Conflict management skills: HR of Whirlpool requires this skill to address
grievances among employees and managers. This is due to different personalities,
experience, etc. so the HR manager must focus on it (Gould, Lorencatto and Francis,
2014).
 Multi-tasking skills: HR also possess varied responsibilities so that they need to
prepare themselves for all kinds of roles. In addition to this, they need to manage job
advertisement, compensation, organising events, conducting induction programs etc.
at Whirlpool.
Professional behaviour
HR needs to implement appropriate value within the enterprise to behave professionally.
Therefore, it is important to implement HR functions and responsibilities to identify the
following key behaviour:
 Curiosity: Whirlpool HR needs to look for better things to increase learning. Hence,
information can be applied to gain insights and knowledge in structured way on the
basis of evidence availability (Pareek and Purohit, 2018).
 Courage to challenge: HR performs their functions to face crisis at Whirlpool. They
suggested re-structuring despite knowing the fact that it would be a task to change the
entire establishment but it turned out effectual for overall growth.
 Collaboration: It is one of the important professional behaviour which works to
increase effectiveness and attain more desired results by encouraging employees to
work in a team.
2

2. Presenting Personal skills audit and developing professional developmental plan
Being an HR of Whirlpool and by using SWOT analysis, I came to realize about my
strengths as well as weaknesses. Through SWOT analysis, I got to know that I have confidence
and good team skills with cross functional collaboration that can assist me to take risks and lead
Whirlpool towards success. I also have good management skills and strong risk-taking attitude;
on the other side, I also have some weaknesses, opportunities and threats which are mentioned
below in the tabular manner:
Strengths Weaknesses
 Strong leadership qualities
 Have skills that help to carry out
tactical duties.
 Conflict management
 Solve complex problems of
employees
 Have strong risk management skills
 Motivate and train new employees
to comfort them in working
environment.
 Self- Confidence
 Time management
 Slow decision making because of
emotional attachment
 Communication skills
 Lack of financial knowledge
Opportunities Threats
 Take a business at global level
 Raise in demand of company's
product will lead to grab
opportunities.
 Tough competition
 Sudden fluctuation in market will
lead to decrease profitability.
Professional Developmental Plan is a chart which must be prepared to reduce weak
points to grab more opportunities (Trequattrini, Lombardi and Battista, 2015) It is as follows:
Weaknesses Action should be taken Duration
3

Time ManagementI will attend many
workshops and seminars to manage my
schedule according to time.
1 month
Decision-making Because of emotional attachment, I might
delay to take decisions and for this, I start
avoiding impulsive or emotionally charged
decisions and look up a situation in both long
term and short term.
15 days
Communication skill I can start reading
articles and attend lectures in office and can
also start giving presentations to improve this
skill
25 days
Financial knowledge I may start learning
financial accounting by attending classes
related to finance to raise my knowledge,
which can further help me in my company's
accounting process.
2 months
Kolb learning style Concrete experience: In this consideration, continuous learning in Whirlpool
successfully develop with doing and having experience. Therefore, it determines
effectiveness to increase in the organisation. Reflective observation: Reviewing and reflecting on the experience which considered
reflective assessment in continuous learning. As a result, in the selected business
reflection assessment helps to deal further effectiveness. Abstract conceptualization: Furthermore, abstract conceptualization determine
conclusion and learning from experience that ascertained desired level of outcomes.
 Active experimentation: Active experimentation design with planning and trying with
learned activities which helps to show results that are accomplish in the study.
3. Differences between organizational and individual learning, training and development
4

Basis Individual learning, training and
development
Organizational learning,
training and development
Meaning In the context of Whirlpool, this is a
process that helps every individual to
develop their skills and knowledge
which help in their future.
Individual Learning is the smallest unit of
learning where individual learns new
things and explore it into their working
area (Baker and Sinkula, 2015)
In the context of Whirlpool,
it is completely depending
upon teams’, innovations and
productivity so this is
considered as that learning
process for every employee
to get an opportunity to
develop their skills and
knowledge related to specific
job profiles (Differences
between training and
development, 2018).
Organizational learning is a
process that helps Whirlpool in
creating, retaining and
transferring of knowledge to
improve performance to gain
experience. It has been
analysed that productivity will
raise if employees maintain
good organizational learning
such that they attain actual
results for the betterment
(Trequattrini, Lombardi and
Battista, 2015)
Objectives The main objective is to improve Development is an
5

working performance that can be done
to enhance person's knowledge.
Individual training is done on the basis of
their own level to raise their own potential.
educational process that
helps to improve overall
growth of employees. The
main objective is to prepare
employees to face future
challenges and is provided by
specialists only.
Aim It is a short-term process which creates
positive impact upon them. By
individual training and development,
people get motivated to raise their skills
and capabilities in achieving their
future goals.
Its aim is to build an
individual a successful
professional career so that
they are able to achieve
company's prescribed goals
and objectives. On the other
side organizational training
is done to improve
performance of all employees
and this training is provided
by HR and leaders whose
main focus is to improve
their present performance.
Its main emphasis is for
future development (Dixon,
2017).
Factors Affecting
this learning
It depends upon individuals only
whether to share their experience or not
with others, as this might affect
company's overall performance. As
Whirlpool had a problem related to
team sharing and collaboration so to
overcome it, an individual learning will
As per the case of Whirlpool,
organizational learning helps
employees to resolve their
conflicts by providing
transparent communication
between them (Fortis and
et.al., 2018). Organizational
6

be helpful for overall growth. learning is a form of
learning, in which managers
or HR of Whirlpool can
easily improve working
efficiencies of their
employees by providing
proper training such as
HPW etc.
Developing areas Individual learning, training and
development helps to grow their own
personality which further help to raise
their efficiencies.
Learning could be enhanced
by placing new information
on the top and this style of
management somehow could
affect employee's approach
to learning. Therefore,
individual learning is a
process through which
activities and interaction
with employees will generate
knowledge and wisdom
(Revans, 2017).
Impact Individual development is a lengthy
process that are done to attain their
future goals (Hotho, Lyles and
Easterby-Smith, 2015)
Organizational training and
development create positive
impact upon working
environment by maximizing
productivity and profitability
of a company.
Importance Individual learning, training and
developmental helps an individual to
enhance owns personality development,
communication skills that further help
Organizational learning,
training and development
helps to raise employee's
efficiencies that further help
7

in attaining their future goals. By this, it
creates a positive impact upon
individual's position so that it will help
to take better decision for their future
career.
to lead company's
profitability. By
organizational learning and
training, employees as well as
managers of a company will
easily attain their all defined
goals.
4. Presenting the need of continuous learning and professional development for sustainable
business performance
CPD is a combination of approaches, methods and techniques that help managers and
HR to grow. The main focus of Continuous professional development is on results to improve
the standards and skills for individual as well as for industries. Continuous learning and
professional developmental is quite important for Whirlpool. It is an expansion of skills that are
set through learning and increasing knowledge. In the quoted company, it helps to further expand
abilities that lead to change environment and new developments (Waldkirch and et.al., 2018).
By using Continuous Professional Development, employees of a company will definitely raise
their efficiencies for working which will further help for sustainable business performance.
Continuous learning and professional development contributes to maximize staff potential and
also improve their morale by rewarding them on yearly appraisals. So it has been realized that
continuous learning will recognize talent that leads to define the objectives and clear goals of a
business.
Importance of continuous learning: As Whirlpool have unproductive weekly meetings
and even did not focus on resolving urgent operational issues so it was quite necessary to identify
the importance of continuous learning. If the employees of a company are not sharing good
bond and communication, then it is necessary to develop continuous learning because it makes
people more accountable and involve every individual in decision making so that they might
realize the responsibilities and further help in recognising talent and provide resources to set up
new goals (Liu and et.al., 2018). When employees continue their learning to enhance their
8

knowledge, they also get benefits as it ensures greater work engagement and promote
commitment to specified job roles. Therefore, continuous learning and professional development
contributes to maximize staff potential and also improve their morale by rewarding them on
yearly appraisals (Bolden, Jones and Gentle, 2015). So it has been realized that continuous
learning will recognize talent that leads to define the objectives and clear goals of a business.
Kolbs learning cycle: the theory is work on two level i.e. four stage cycle of learning
and learning style. The author also states that learning involves the acquiring of abstract concepts
which are further applied flexibility in range. In learning cycle the first stage is concrete learning
in which there is an encounter of new experience, then in next stage, reflective observation in
which a person reflect on the experience on the personal basis. Then comes abstract
conceptualization, where new ideas are formed on the basis of existing ideas. Last stage comes,
active experimentation stage where the learner of Whirlpool applies the ideas of his surroundings
in order to see if there is any modification in the next appearance. Learning style are as
mentioned below:
 Diverging: In this kind of learning style, a person in Whirlpool look at different
perspective and that is why they have a strong imagination capacity, emotional strong in
arts and also prefer to work. This characteristics is of concrete experience and some
reflective observation.
 Assimilating: This style involves some logical approach and people require a good and
clear explanation rather than practical opportunities. Thus if the people in Whirlpool
adopt this style are less focused on people and more interested in the ideas and abstract
concepts.
 Converging: this style is also necessary for the people of Whirlpool because through this
they can easily solve the problems and find best solutions as well.
 Accommodating: This is the last style in which people prefer to take practical and
experimental approach. Such that are attracted with new challenges and experience and
also carry out to do plans as well.
Importance of Continuous Professional development
 Increased retention: As competition is high in market and if employees continue
their learning and develop new ideas with their innovative skills then they will
definitely raise company's working performance. As the employees of Whirlpool
9

who had low collaborative working nature and communications skills was
overcome by using CPD because it helped to fill gaps between knowledge and
skills and can make them more productive and efficient (Woodcock, 2017).
 Make succession planning easier: CPD helps to make plans better as it enhances
customers’ loyalty as well as maintains relationship between them that leads to
raise company's performance. It is quite necessary for HR Manager of Whirlpool
to follow continuous learning as well as professional developmental to reach at
global market because it provides the best information that might help staff to
innovate new ideas and enhance company's productivity with profitability
(Importance of CPD, 2018).
 Improved efficiency: As Whirlpool has problems related to less- productivity so
by improving efficiency of employees will help in developing the production
level. With the help of continuous professional development, employees and
managers will be updated about new technologies and information to raise
organization's productivity. Another most important benefit is that it delivers a
profound understanding and knowledge. Further, it also helps to improve quality
of life, raise sustainability of environment with increasing profitability
(Anagnostopoulos, Byers and Shilbury, 2014).
Barriers of learning with solution:
 Social and cultural barriers: in this barrier, if the people who working in Whirlpool go
to a new culture then sometimes they do not get the expected environment and thus it
hampers the learning process. In order to overcome this, they should get proper support
or motivation or some training session so that they feel comfortable in the areas.
 Not getting proper support: It is another barrier that affect the larning in which a person
do not get proper support from their family and Office. In order to overcome this, people
who working in the Whirlpool should provide proper training sessions and motivation so
that it will help them to grow up.
5. How HPW contributes to employee engagement and competitive advantages
As per present case, Whirlpool faced several challenges and crisis to execute
organisational and strategic changes. With t the barriers to learning including how to overcome
these.his regard, team decided to restructure and develop awareness to gain employees’
10

engagement with competitive advantages (Dietz, van Knippenberg and Restubog, 2015).
Therefore, HPW implementation at workplace contributes to effective results in the business:
Contribution in employee engagement: With effective HR strategy, technology has been
used to reduce manual work performance among staff members. Simple and desired work could
be performed with appropriate contribution of staff members to accomplish all tasks in
successful manner. Furthermore, it can be stated that performance could be successfully update
to gain significant advantages. It assists to answer basic aspects that increase employees’
engagement in Whirlpool. This also develops significant advantages to implement appropriate
training programs. These strategies play important role with successive planning and
development (Van Dongen, Lenzen and Beurskens, 2016). In addition to this, HPW employee
engagement contributes by improving staff members’ skills, and inducing better cooperation
among them. As a result, employees are highly involved in designing and implementation of
processes which assist to perform better functions at Whirlpool. In order to improve
organisational performance, measurement system assists to develop significant advantages which
regularly develop benchmarks towards the best enterprises. Therefore, reward scheme is also
considered to improve employee engagement.
Contribution in competitive advantages: At Whirlpool, HPW contributes to constantly
seeking towards competitive advantages. In this business, different ways are considered to focus
on competition to stay ahead in existing markets. It assists to lead with appropriate functioning to
gain more profitability and effectiveness. This method builds on basis of several categories to
implement competitive results (Lewis, 2018). Innovative strategies are also a way to gain more
competitive advantages by applying high performance working. Furthermore, HR innovation
assists to build differentiation in competitive environment with unique characteristics of
Whirlpool. As a result, HPW helps in developing more sales, market share and profitability on
the whole. It increases value of the entire organisation in positive manner.
6. Different approaches to performance management and how it supports with high performance
culture and commitment
Performance management defines as the communication of desired work in terms of roles
and responsibilities of the administration of a company. It measures employees’ performance as
a backbone to an enterprise which contains several programs in an organised manner.
11

Business owners of Whirlpool, continuously measures employees’ performance to
identify and assess contribution of each member to create high growth for better survival rate for
retention (Johansson, D. Miller and Hamrin, 2014). It assists to evaluate staff requirements such
as ambient atmosphere by providing leisure rooms where they can relax or take breaks, or by
organising informal meetings and interactive session, which create positive impact on future
development.
Following are certain approaches of performance management that successfully applied
in the chosen business:
 Comparative approach: This approach includes ranking of employee's performance
with consideration of other in a particular group. Individuals are ranked on the basis
of highest to the lowest performance. For instance, Whirlpool implemented ranking
of their staff members to assess their performance for restructuring purpose. As a
result, it increases high performance culture in positive manner to develop operative
outcomes. Different techniques can be used by Whirlpool for comparative approaches
with forced distribution technique. This approach has been undertaken with small
group of employees who have similar job profiles (Sharma, Mithas and Kankanhalli,
2014). Hence, scale is based on subjective judgement.
 Attribute approach: This approach is rated on the basis of specific parameters for
problem solving skills, teamwork, communication, innovation, etc. In the selected
business, on the basis of subjective measurement, the entire growth cannot be
prepared in the right way (Nolan and Garavan, 2016). Main advantage of this method
is that simplicity will be implemented for operations at Whirlpool. For example,
attitude requires measurement of all staff members as per specific parameters of
problem solving, team work cooperation, innovation capabilities of them.
Consequently, it aids to implement effective team of HR.
 Behavioural approach: It is one of the oldest performance management approaches
which contains series of vertical scales in different dimensions of a particular job. It
includes behavioural anchored rating scale, which measure on five to ten vertical
scales. Employees are also ranked on the basis of their own performance. Recently, it
is used to provide more specific description along with frequency with regard to
employee behaviour for effective results (Harris, Pattie and McMahan, 2015).
12

Supervisor also tends to closely leads with biased rating. For example, HRM of
Whirlpool supports the high-performance culture with behavioural rating of their
employees, which was centred on their participation and outcomes, to gain and attain
more desired results at workplace.
 Result approach: This approach is simple and straight forward that rates employees
as per their performance or results. It is one of the types which contain assessment of
results. There are four perspectives taken here such as financial, customer, internal &
operations and learning and growth. In the selected enterprise, this approach helped to
effectively motivate employees to increase their productivity and measure feedback.
The main advantage of this approach is measurement which converts strategy into
particular operations (Gillard, Gibson and Lucock, 2015). For example, at Whirlpool,
financial indicators must be implemented in particular profile to increase desired level
performance of staff members for employees’ retention and overall productivity.
CONCLUSION
From the above report, it can be concluded that development of individual, team and
organisation continuously increases in systematic order. Furthermore, report summarized about
CPD plan which helped to increase more effectiveness with personal audit and assessment. It
helped in increment of overall production and accessibility to gain competitive advantages and
employees’ engagement in constructive method. Moreover, there are different approaches of
performance management that has been explained with its significance that contributed towards
high performance culture and commitment towards an organisation.
13

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Akinci, C. and Sadler‐Smith, E., 2018. Collective Intuition: Implications for Improved Decision
Making and Organizational Learning. British Journal of Management.
Anagnostopoulos, C., Byers, T. and Shilbury, D., 2014. Corporate social responsibility in
professional team sport organisations: Towards a theory of decision-making. European
Sport Management Quarterly. 14(3). pp.259-281.
Baker, W. E. and Sinkula, J. M., 2015. Maintaining Competitive Advantage Through
Organizational Unlearning. In Proceedings of the 1999 Academy of Marketing Science
(AMS) Annual Conference (pp. 206-209). Springer, Cham.
Bolden, R., Jones, S. and Gentle, P., 2015. Developing and sustaining shared leadership in
higher education. Leadership Foundation for Higher Education.
Coetzer, M.F., Bussin, M. and Geldenhuys, M., 2017. The functions of a servant leader.
Administrative Sciences. 7(1). p.5.
Dietz, B., van Knippenberg, D. and Restubog, S.L.D., 2015. Outperforming whom? A multilevel
study of performance-prove goal orientation, performance, and the moderating role of
shared team identification. Journal of Applied Psychology. 100(6). p.1811.
Dixon, N. M., 2017. The organizational learning cycle: How we can learn collectively.
Routledge.
Fortis, Z. and et.al., 2018. Unknown knowns and known unknowns: Framing the role of
organizational learning in corporate social responsibility development. International
Journal of Management Reviews. 20(2). pp.277-300.
Gould, N.J., Lorencatto, F. and Francis, J.J., 2014. Application of theory to enhance audit and
feedback interventions to increase the uptake of evidence-based transfusion practice: an
intervention development protocol. Implementation Science. 9(1). p.92.
Harris, C.M., Pattie, M.W. and McMahan, G.C., 2015. Advancement along a career path: the
influence of human capital and performance. Human Resource Management Journal.
25(1). pp.102-115.
Harvey, G. and Kitson, A., 2015. PARIHS revisited: from heuristic to integrated framework for
the successful implementation of knowledge into practice. Implementation science. 11(1).
p.33.
Hotho, J. J., Lyles, M. A. and Easterby‐Smith, M., 2015. The mutual impact of global strategy
and organizational learning: Current themes and future directions. Global Strategy
Journal, 5(2), pp.85-112.
14

Johansson, C., D. Miller, V. and Hamrin, S., 2014. Conceptualizing communicative leadership:
A framework for analysing and developing leaders’ communication competence.
Corporate Communications: An International Journal. 19(2). pp.147-165.
Liu, W. and et.al., 2018, August. Achieving Multiagent Coordination Through CALA-rFMQ
Learning in Continuous Action Space. In Pacific Rim International Conference on
Artificial Intelligence (pp. 132-139). Springer, Cham.
Mittal, S. and Dhar, R.L., 2015. Transformational leadership and employee creativity: mediating
role of creative self-efficacy and moderating role of knowledge sharing. Management
Decision. 53(5). pp.894-910.
Nolan, C.T. and Garavan, T.N., 2016. Human resource development in SMEs: a systematic
review of the literature. International Journal of Management Reviews. 18(1). pp.85-107.
North, K. and Kumta, G., 2018. Knowledge management: Value creation through organizational
learning. Springer.
Pareek, L.U. and Purohit, S., 2018. Training Instruments in HRD and OD. SAGE Publishing
India.
Revans, R., 2017. ABC of action learning. Routledge.
Sharma, R., Mithas, S. and Kankanhalli, A., 2014. Transforming decision-making processes: a
research agenda for understanding the impact of business analytics on organisations.
Trequattrini, R., Lombardi, R. and Battista, M., 2015. Network analysis and football team
performance: a first application. Team Performance Management. 21(1/2). pp.85-110.
van Dongen, J.J.J., Lenzen, S.A. and Beurskens, A., 2016. Interprofessional collaboration
regarding patients’ care plans in primary care: a focus group study into influential factors.
BMC family practice. 17(1). p.58.
Waldkirch, and et.al., 2018. "Organizational learning can be a key shared value that perpetuates
the family's and the family firm's culture across generations. Imprinting theory helps to
explain the impact that lessons learned and transmitted can have on the development of
human resources in the family firm. However, the results of imprinting may not
necessarily be positive, particularly when imprinting manifests itself in
negative..." Human Resource Management Review 28. no. 1 (2018): 56-67.
Woodcock, M., 2017. Team development manual. Routledge.
15

Online
Differences between training and development. 2018. [Online]. Available through:
<http://topdifferences.com/difference-between-training-and-development/>.
Four Methods of Competitive Advantages. [Online] Available through:
<https://smallbusiness.chron.com/four-methods-competitive-advantages-32344.html>.
Importance of CPD. 2018. [Online]. Available
through:<https://cpduk.co.uk/news-articles/view/importance-of-cpd>.
16