University Essay: Knowledge & Creativity, HR Experience at Tesco

This essay, written by a student, reflects on their experience as an HR manager at Tesco, a multinational retail company. The essay fulfills the requirements of the 'Preparing for Success – Knowledge & Creativity' module, specifically addressing effective communication and the process of performance improvement. The student utilizes Driscoll's Model of Reflection to analyze their experiences, focusing on conflicts, communication, and the importance of teamwork and motivation. The essay details specific incidents, the student's actions, and the resulting learning experiences. The reflection highlights the development of communication, decision-making, and leadership skills, emphasizing the impact of these skills on their current entrepreneurial endeavors. The student's insights provide a practical application of theoretical concepts, demonstrating how reflection can improve individual performance and behavior within both professional and academic contexts.

Running head: KNOWLEDGE & CREATIVITY
Knowledge & Creativity
Name of student
Name of University
Author note

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Essay
The essay has been prepared to demonstrate about my own performance while
working as a HR manager at Tesco, one of the largest multinational retail supermarket chains
in United Kingdom. My experience while working as a HR manager at Tesco has been great
which not only has helped me to manage the human resources effectively, but has also
facilitated the ability to manage creativity and innovation within the organisation. The main
intention for writing this essay has been to acquire knowledge and understanding about the
views on the roles of working as a HR manager and science of reflection along with the
issues surrounding the reflective practice.
The entire discussion has been entirely based on the appraisal of the concept of
reflection from the perspectives of the area of practice and also analysing what and how it has
been possible. The structured reflection model introduced or proposed by Driscoll has helped
me to present the incident and allowed me to reflect my views on effective communication
practice, which has improved my performance within the workplace much more effectively
(De Alencar 2016). For me, the reflective practice has always been much more than just a
thoughtful practice, which has not only helped me to determine the situation, but also has
allowed me to acquire knowledge and skills about the learning situations, thereby, created
greater scopes and opportunities for me to learn, grow, develop as well as practice while
learning new things. While working as a HR Manager, I dealt with numerous employees and
have been involved in different kinds of situations, which also raised my skills and potential
to perform effectively and gain awareness about what thing is right and what is wrong to do
(2013). Moreover, I have kept an open mind about what and how we do things while at the
same time, gained awareness regarding the ways things are to be done.

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Being a HR Manager, I was assigned with the duties and responsibilities of managing the
human resources, i.e., the employees carefully and take care of their needs properly. My
communication and interpersonal skills largely improved as I managed to communicate with
employees regularly to resolve their queries and at the same time, made sure not to pressurise
them to carry on their tasks. It was my duty to keep them free from getting involved into
conflicts and this has largely helped me to create a healthy workforce too (Zeffane et al.
2011).
Rather than criticizing anyone for their tasks or putting blames or penalties for their
wrong doings, I made sure to compare and contrast the results while at the same time,
acquired feedbacks and opinions from each of them to ensure that the problems and issues are
resolved quite effectively. Considering the various aspects of reflection, I emphasized on
commitment, contradiction, conflict, challenge and support, creativity and innovation as well.
Based on the Driscoll cycle, I have acquire experience of working as a HR manager in proven
practice while working at Tesco, UK. There were often conflicts and misunderstandings
between the team members, which I was informed about by one of the team members. I
communicated with both the employees of the organisation who were involved in the conflict
and then analysed the situation, which allowed me to describe the event and find out the root
cause, which was basically due to the varied opinions among the team members. With this, I
managed to make them understand about the necessity of teamwork and collaborate with
each other so as to make decisions while at the same time, undertake necessary actions that
could be helpful for bringing positive outcomes in business (Plack et al. 2008). Moreover, I
also learned the importance of motivation and often praised the performances of workers and
provided them with good rewards and benefits, which helped in keeping them encouraged
and motivated as a whole. From these actions, I acquired a lot of skills and knowledge, which
facilitated my learning experience and also contributed to the creativity and innovation to

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bring better performance within the workplace as well as my own experience and
performance too.
Reflection
Based on my roles and responsibilities and professional experience, I learned the
importance of managing the human resources and also how it contributed to the management
of effective business functioning too. I have communicated and worked with multiple
employees, which improved my thinking ability to resolve conflicts, make decisions as well
as the communication skills, interpersonal skills and motivational skills improved largely too.
By learning and acquiring all these skills and knowledge, I personally believe that good
performances and behaviours are essential to keep the workforce motivated and encouraged
to perform to the potential as a whole.
I have also understood about the Driscoll cycle, which allowed me to gain a lot of
experience in utilising own skills and experience in practice while working at Tesco and even
provide description to the event that might be associated with the event experienced. Here, I
analysed the entire situation by interacting with the employees, which has improved my
communicating skills and even allowed me to discover about the learning experience in the
form of reflection process according to the Driscoll cycle or framework. My decision making
and ability to keep employees motivated also improved, which, also facilitated my learning
experience and ability to deal with conflicts and misunderstandings much more
comprehensively. I have learnt to undertake actions on my own and all these skills and
experience acquired by me have allowed me to establish myself as a successful entrepreneur
at present. Yes, it is true that my experience of working as HR Manager at Tesco for more
than 5 years helped me a lot to set my own business at present and hopefully, this would keep
on helping me to strive for excellence in the future as well.

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References
De Alencar, M.S. ed., 2016. Communication, Management and Information Technology:
International Conference on Communciation, Management and Information Technology
(ICCMIT 2016, Cosenza, Italy, 26-29 April 2016). CRC Press.
Lorenz, P., 2013. Leadership: The Importance of Communication and Sensemaking": A study
on internal communciation.
Plack, M.M., Dunfee, H., Rindflesch, A. and Driscoll, M., 2008. Virtual action learning sets:
a model for facilitating reflection in the clinical setting. Journal of Physical Therapy
Education, 22(3), pp.33-42.
Zeffane, R., Tipu, S.A. and Ryan, J.C., 2011. Communication, commitment & trust:
Exploring the triad. International Journal of Business and Management, 6(6), pp.77-87.