Analysis of HR Skills, Development, and HPW for Organizational Success

This report provides a comprehensive overview of the essential skills, knowledge, and behaviors required of HR professionals, focusing on the context of Hamleys toy retailer. It examines the importance of problem-solving, decision-making, induction, and compensation skills, and the significance of employee engagement and transparency. The report includes a personal skills audit using SWOT analysis to identify strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats, leading to a detailed personal development plan. It differentiates between organizational and individual learning, training, and development, emphasizing the need for continuous professional development to drive sustainable business performance. The report also explores the contribution of High-Performance Work Systems (HPW) to employee engagement and competitive advantage within an organizational context, with justifications for its application.

Developing Individuals Teams
and Organisations

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
SECTION 1......................................................................................................................................1
P1 Appropriate and professional knowledge, skill and behaviour that are required by HR
professionals................................................................................................................................1
P2 Personal skills audit to identify appropriate knowledge, skills and behaviour and develop a
professional development plan....................................................................................................2
M1 Professional skills audit and professional development plan that demonstrates evidence of
personal reflection and evaluation..............................................................................................5
P3 Differences between organisational and individual learning, training and development .....5
P4 Need for continuous learning and professional development to drive sustainable business
performance.................................................................................................................................6
M2 Learning cycle theories to critically analyse the importance of implementing continuous
professional development............................................................................................................7
SECTION 2......................................................................................................................................8
P5 How HPW contributes to employee engagement and competitive advantage within a
specific organisational situation..................................................................................................8
M3 Benefits of applying HPW with justifications to a specific organisational situation...........9
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................9
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................10

INTRODUCTION
In an business organisation, managing as well as developing individual is one of the
important activity that help company in attainment of all the set goals and objectives. In order to
sustain in competitive business environment, development is significant as it provide assistance
in improving performance of team, individual and organisation as well. Thus, HR manager of
company also play a crucial role in providing proper guidance and development programs to its
employees in order to make them able to attainment of all the determined goals and objectives in
an effective way (McClory, Read and Labib, 2017). Current report is based on Hamleys, is one
of the oldest and famous multinational toy retailer. It was established in 1760 by William
Hamley Holborn in London. Report is going to discussed about different skills, knowledge and
behaviour that important for HR manager. Along with this, personal skill audit, organizational
and individual learning with training and development concept is also mentioned that help for
further improvement within the company. At last, role of HPW and performance management in
business organisation in order to improving better performance is discussed here.
SECTION 1
Appropriate and professional knowledge, skill and behaviour that are required by HR
professionals
HR professional is one of the important part of business organisation as they conduct all
the task and activities with the aim of attainment of set targets in allotted period of time. This is
the reason that HR manager has all the necessary skills, knowledge and behaviour so that they
can perform their job role with more efficiency. In context of Hamleys, it is significant for HR
advisor to have all he important skills, knowledge and behaviour to perform their job role:
Skills:
 Problem solving skills: In order to play HR job role, it is one of the important skill that
needs to have HR manager at working area. As they able in analysing employees issues
that they faced within the company. This will assist in reducing the possibilities of arising
any kind of issues in-front of employees at workplace (Finnerty and et. al., 2017). It is
seen that problem solving skills of the company must be very effective so that goals and
objectives are attained in specified time. There are different complex situation within
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business which have to be managed for completing the business objectives. There is need
to enhance own problem skills for meeting goals and objectives.
 Decision making skills: It is significant for HR manager to have capabilities of taking
right decision within the company so that set targets can be easily attained. In this, HR
manager needs to analysis all the elements before taking any kind of decision. This can
be beneficial in improving the possibilities of attaining all the targets in an effective
manner. Quick decisions are to be made within business organisations because they help
in avoiding several negative consequences. There is need to develop effective decision
making skill to manage the business activities properly.
Knowledge:
 Induction: In Hamleys, HR advisor needs to have proper knowledge about induction so
that manager can easily provide proper assistance to new employees at working area
(Safdar, Badir and Afsar, 2017). If manager have this type of knowledge than they easily
communicate with their employees and improve their efficient performance towards the
specified job roles. Induction skills help to manage new employees and provide them
effective way to manage the assistance for increasing employee engagement.
 Compensation and benefits: It is crucial for HR manager to have enough knowledge
about all the compensation, benefits, rewards and payroll as it may assist in improving
their performance at workplace. By this, manager can systematic updates all the activities
related with absence and any kind of employees leaves. This can be beneficial in
reducing the possibilities of arising issues related with employee payroll and benefits.
There are various ways to provide compensation and benefits to employees. There is need
to manage and create a proper plan for increasing employee involvement and
engagement. It is also required to have efficient skills and abilities to complete different
projects.
Behaviour:
 Employee engagement: It is significant for HR manager to have a behaviour of
engaging their workers as they motivate and influence employee to take participant
within the business activities. Flexible behaviour of manager can be beneficial for
workers to keep more engaged and comfortable within the company. By this they feel
that they are important and valuable for company
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 Be transparent: In context of Hamleys, HR manager has to be transparent behaviour so
that employee feel free in sharing their views points with manager. With the help of this,
positive and healthy relation between manager and employees can be easily developed.
Personal skills audit to identify appropriate knowledge, skills and behaviour and develop a
professional development plan
It is important for HR manager to analyse or determine all the necessary skills that needs
to improve personal and professional growth. This can be beneficial in analysing actual
performance of individual at working area (Grant, 2017). In order to determining this, SWOT
analysis is one of the important tool that provide assistance to HR manager in identifying the
appropriate skills, knowledge, opportunities, strength and threat. With the help of this, manager
can make their personal development plan that provide overall analysis of HR performance. This
can be understood by following points:
Strength:
As an HR manager, it is crucial to have all the necessary skills that help them in
executing entire activities of business organisation in an effective manner. In Hamleys, as a HR
advisor, I have different skills that is my strength and also help in performing my job role along
with higher efficiency. In relation to this, I have an effective team building and communication
skills through which I can easily motivate my team members to do well. Along with this, I am
also able in managing payroll of employees at working area. The HR managers of Hamleys are
providing quality toys to customers. This has enhanced the customer satisfaction level. This is
strong factor for this company to develop effective reputation within marketplace. This provides
help to company for creating good brand awareness.
Weaknesses:
This aspect negatively affect on my overall performance within the business organisation.
Thus, it is significant for me to analysis so that proper improvement can be done effectively. As
a HR advisor, I am weak engaging employees at working area that put adverse impact over the
performance of company. In addition to this, sometime I also fail in making proper decision
within the business that may create issues in developing employees performance. In addition to
this, I am weak in managing workers activities at workplace. Due to this, employees get
demotivated towards their job roles. There are some weaknesses that this company has and these
have become hurdle in attaining goals. There is requirement for this company to conduct more
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effective research in order to know needs and requirements of customers. There is need to
manage and formulate effective strategies so that goals are attained easily.
Opportunities:
In order to execute My job role as a HR advisor my strength provide huge opportunities
through which I can improve their efficiency level to perform job role. As team building and
communication skills support me in improving employees performance and develop an effective
team as well. In addition to this, by providing proper benefits and payrolls also help in keeping
employees satisfied with their job responsibilities. This will directly contributes in improving
positive performance of company at market place. Within marketplace, there are lot of
opportunities that can be achieved. The toy company is having effective way to manage the
functioning by grabbing several opportunities within business. It is suggested for toy company to
develop efficient plan that can help in completing several projects.
Threats:
In business organisation, as a HR advisor my weakness create threats that put its negative
impact over my performance level. This is the reason that it is important for me to take
appropriate steps for eliminating the same (Pratono, 2018). Due to improper decision making
skill I am not being able to taking important decision for company and its employees as well. In
addition to this, ineffective management of employees is also create issues in completing allotted
task activities in provided time frame. There are several threats that this company has to face
while running a toy company. There is need to handle various operations related to
manufacturing of toys and their delivery to customers through right manner. Main threat for this
toy company in attaining organisational goals include lack of customer awareness and customer
satisfaction.
SMART objectives
 To increase the performance by 10% within 6 months
 To increase customer satisfaction by 5% in a month
Therefore, it is important for me to overcome from the above mentioned weakness so that
I can easily perform my job role as a HR advisor in Hamleys. For this, I develop my personal
development plan thorough which I can work on my weakness and convert into strength. This
PDP plan mentioned below:
Personal development plan
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Development
objectives
Priority What activities
do I need to
undertake to
achieve my
objectives
Support
sources to
achieve my
objectives
Actual date Target date
Improper
management
It is on high
priority
because as
an HR
advisor I m
able to
managing
employees
activities at
workplace.
By taking
participate in
management
activities I will
improve my
management
skills.
By taking
assistance of
online sources
and
management
activities I can
manage
employee
performance.
15th
November
2020
17th November
2020
Employee
engagement
It is on
lower
priority
because
engagement
of
employees
can be
developed
by leader
and
manager.
To analyse the
ways to engage
workers is
important for me
in which I also
tries to
communicate
with employees
so that they
highly engaged
with business
activities.
By
understanding
various
strategies
approached to
engage
employee I
can easily
engage them
at workplace.
21st
November
2020
25th November
2020
Decision
making skill
It is one of
the major
priority for
Analysis all the
elements present
in the business. It
I take
participate in
business
14th
November
2020
18th November
2020
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improveme
nt because
there are
various
decision
related with
my job role
is required
to be taken.
provide
assistance in
making proper
decision.
activities that
assist me in
improving the
decision
making skills.
Professional skills audit and professional development plan that demonstrates evidence of
personal reflection and evaluation
Personal skill audit and PDP are important evidence that used for developing skills and
knowledge of an individual. By this, all the determined goals and objectives can be easily
attained without any kind of issues and obstacles (Swanwick and McKimm, 2017). In addition to
this, professional development plan is also assistance in improving skills of individual by
converting weaknesses into strength in an effective way.
Differences between organisational and individual learning, training and development
Organisational leader is a process that consist creating, retaining and transferring
appropriate knowledge within the company. In this, company also improve the same over time
because it is based in gaining experience. Mainly, it is bridge between working and innovating
that support business organisation in attaining their targets in an allotted period of time.
Individual learning is refers to the effective procedure that includes change within an
individual behaviour. By this, person can easily increase their knowledge by learning different
materials and aspects to fulfil their set goals in an appropriate way.
Training and development is one of the effective activity that used by company to
increase employee skills and knowledge towards the specified job roles (Ismail and Abdullah,
2017). By this, employees can handle their responsibilities for doing their current job duties.
Difference between organisational and individual learning
Basis Organisational learning Individual learning
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Meaning Organisational learning is focus in
improving the overall experience
of company.
Individual learning is the process in
which an individual change their
behaviour and knowledge as well.
Aim The main aim of organisational
learning is to effectively
understand the entire function of
company (Lin and Sanders, 2017).
Primary purpose of individual
learning is to develop workers
performance by improving their skills
and knowledge towards the allotted
job roles and responsibility.
Difference between training and development
Basis Training Development
Definition Training is consider as an act of
increasing skills and knowledge
towards the specific job role.
Development is based on overall
growth of workers in order to execute
present task in an effective way.
Skills The main focus of training is to
improve job related technical
skills.
Development is an activity that focus
on developing technical, human and
conceptual skills of employees.
Focus Training has short term focus as it
concerned with imparting
particular job related skills.
Development is refers to long term as
it develop competency of managerial
employees to make them able to
handle complex tasks.
Role In this activity, trainer takes
initiatives in improvising
performance of employees.
It is related with self development
process in which employees
motivated for their self development.
It is career centred in nature.
Through the analysis of own skill by using the skill audit questionnaire, it is concluded
that there are few effective skills that help in attaining goals and objectives. Managing own self
is the most important factor that helps to develop and create the managing of skills in order to be
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competitive within market. It is important for me to develop effective strategies and plans for
completing the targets and goals assigned to the individuals. As a HR manager, it is very
important for completing the targets assigned for handling all business activities properly and
increasing employee engagement.
Need for continuous learning and professional development to drive sustainable business
performance
Continuous learning is play a significant role in business organisation because it is a
process of learning new and innovative skills as per continuous basis. It also includes self-
initiative that provide assistance in improving the knowledge at working area. In addition to this,
it is important for company in attaining competitive advantage from its competitors. In relation
to Hamley's, continuous learning provide assistance in developing employee performance at
working area. One of the main advantage of continuous learning is to create innovation at
workplace and also keep workers able to take challenges for accomplishing their targets (Ellis,
2018). This is the reason that it is totally depend over the employees skills and knowledge
because it provide assistance in taking participate within the business activities of Hamley's. In
order to drive sustainable business, continuous learning is one of effective activity that promote
innovation in executing task activities within the company. With the assistance of this, HR
advisor get various benefits like it promote innovation at workplace, increase productivity level
of company, increase employee motivation, create positive and healthy working environment
and many more. All these are beneficial for company in improving overall performance of
Hamley's at market place.
In addition to this, professional development is a process of learning that help in
developing as well as improving individual skills and knowledge to attain all the predetermined
goals and objectives in an appropriate way (Drury-Grogan, Conboy and Acton, 2017). Mainly, it
include wide variety of training, formal education and professional learning that help manager in
improving their competence, skills and effectiveness at workplace. In relation to Hamley's, if
manager provide better development to their employees than they perform well as also tries to
give their best efforts for accomplishing their targets in an efficient way. As training as per
continuous basis help workers in improving their learning at workplace. This is the reason that
continuous learning and professional development help business organisation to sustain in
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market for longer period of time. By this company can easily attain competitive advantage from
its rivals.
Learning cycle theories to critically analyse the importance of implementing continuous
professional development
Kolb learning style is an effective theory of learning cycle that includes various stages
that help workers in developing their learning activities. It includes steps concrete experience,
Reflection observation, Abstract conceptualization and active experiments (Moxen and Strachan,
2017). All these stages help people in continuous professional development. With the help this,
individual can easily attain their targets.
SECTION 2
How HPW contributes to employee engagement and competitive advantage within a specific
organisational situation
High performance working is consider as an effective system of working that is
beneficial for workers to keep them motivated and encouraged towards their goals and
objectives. Mainly, HPW is a practices that improve capacity of organisation to attract, select,
hire and retain higher performing employees at working area (Waddell and et. al., 2019). In
context to Hamleys, High performance work is used to create value within the company by
eliminating cost and at the same time also improve productivity level. As per current scenario,
Covid-19 is one of the biggest issue that almost organisation have faced in executing their
business activities. In this situation, HR manager is responsible for keeping employees
performance high by providing them guidance and assistance. As there are some contribution of
high performance working in Hamleys in the Pandemic situation of Covid-19 are as follows:
 Transparency in communication: HPW is a practices that support business
organisation in developing workers efficiency so that they perform well and attain their
targets. In this, HR manager of Hamleys provide information about the strategies and
plans that they execute or implement Covid-19 situation. For this, manager use effective
communication tool to interact with their workers and understand their view points. This
can be contributes in increasing employees performance at working area.
 High productivity: When employees enough efficient for executing as well as
performing their job role then they attain their targets. This is possible when workers of
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