Developing Individuals, Teams, and Organizations at Whirlpool

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of developing individuals, teams, and organizations within Whirlpool, a major home appliance manufacturer. It begins by outlining the essential knowledge, skills, and behaviors required of HR professionals, including reward management, resource management, and performance management. The report then delves into personal skills audits, identifying strengths and weaknesses and proposing professional development plans. A key section explores the differences between organizational and individual learning, utilizing Kolb's learning cycle and learning styles to illustrate effective training and development strategies. The report also examines the critical role of continuous learning and professional development in driving sustainable business performance, with an emphasis on the impact of high-performance work systems (HPWS) on employee engagement and competitive advantage. Finally, it covers approaches to performance management, offering a holistic view of HR development within the context of a large organization.

Developing Individuals,
Teams and Organisations

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
TASK 1 ...........................................................................................................................................1
P1. Professional knowledge, behaviours and skills that are required by an HR professional1
P2 Personal skills audit for developing professional development plan...............................3
TASK 2...........................................................................................................................................5
P3 Difference between organisational and individual learning, training and development...5
P4 Need for continuous learning and professional development to drive sustainable business
performance............................................................................................................................8
TASK 3............................................................................................................................................9
P5 HPW contributes to employee engagement and competitive advantage within a specific
organisational situation...........................................................................................................9
TASK 4..........................................................................................................................................11
P6 Approaches to performance management.......................................................................11
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................13
REFRENCES.................................................................................................................................14

INTRODUCTION
The key to success for any organisation is effective working of the teams and individuals
within the department. The excellence in performance of teams are the building blocks for
highly ranked companies. This report is about the effectiveness of developing individuals and
teams of Whirlpool. It is the largest manufacturer and distributor of home appliances. It has
headquarters in United States, Micigan and Benton Charter Township. This report includes
knowledge, skills and behaviours required by HR professionals and the factors to be considered
when implementing and evaluating inclusive learning and development to drive sustainable
business performance. It also defines contribution of HPW to employee engagement and
competitive advantage.
TASK 1
P1. Professional knowledge, behaviours and skills that are required by an HR professional
Human resources professional are responsible for performing many works in company
such as hiring, performance management, training, rewards, team building, compensation,
pensions, loyalty program, hiring.
Knowledge required by HR professionals
It is understanding, familiarity and understanding of something or someone which
includes information, skills, descriptions that is acquired by learning, education, discovering. The
experience which an individual has that shows the awareness, intelligence and information. It
means being familiar with the information of something that is acquired through experience. The
knowledge that must be require by an HR professional are discussed below.
 Reward Management: The HR professional should have all relevant information
regarding rewards for employees and staff. This is required in every organisation for
proper management of awards (Dixon-Woods, 2014). Thus motivate worker for
performing well.
 Resource Management: An individual must be aware about the strengths, weaknesses,
comparison between the requirements of the roles and responsibility of the job and
personal skill profiles. This will be beneficial in analysing the special qualities of the
workforce and to implement them as an advantage over other competitors of the
company.
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 Performance Management: Performance Management includes the monitoring and
controlling of the staff member's performance within the organisation. Having the
knowledge of performance management helps the HR manager of Whirlpool to manage
and measure the work performance of an individuals as well as team and organisation.
Skills Required by an HR professional
Human Resource manager is the person who has the responsibility of recruiting and
selecting skilled candidates within firm (Eime, 2013). They monitor recruitment and selection
process. So, to be an HR professional an individual must have the following skills:
 Attentive Listener: A human resource professional must be active listener posses
effective observation skills. Being an attentive listener also helps in gaining information.
 Recruiting and hiring skills: The main responsibility of a HR is to select and recruit
people for the organisation. For hiring the suitable and best candidate for the organisation
an HR manager must have recruiting skills so that they can know the state of mind of the
people , have a healthy interaction and make formally genuine connectivity with the
people.
 Organisational scheduling skills: Remaining organised in the work is another essential
skill which an individual must have to be an HR. The person should make plans for
achieving the objectives, arrange meetings and appointments in a professional manner.
An employee should be able to find out the priorities and coordinate with various
departments of the firm to schedule the calender (Holden, 2012).
Behaviour required by HR professional
Behaviour is the way one conducts himself within the workplace. The following
behaviour traits must be adopted by an employee to be an HR professional:
 Curious: To increase the productivity of firm it is essential for the person to show
eagerness for achieving the targets. HR professional should have a future perception and
should bring out creative methodologies that enhance the performance of the
organisation and helps to raise the profits for the company.
 Collaborative: HR professional needs to give the best performance individually as well
as in team. This behaviour shows team work of staff. Thus collaboration helps in
achieving result with good standard.
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P2 Personal skills audit for developing professional development plan
Personal skill audit is activity of recording and measuring skills and capability of group
and individual. The main behind for this is to find knowledge and skills of staff required by an
organisation. Every company should conduct personal skill audit to know about their staffs
knowledge, skills and behaviours towards the organisation. It also helps in finding strength and
weakness of worker and improving them with different professional development plan.
By the help of personal skill audit an individual knowledge, skill and behaviour is
identifies. My personal skills audit as a job role of product approval senior engineer are
determine as:
Requirements Persona
l audit
(rating
scale: 0-
10)
GAP Remedial
action/strategy
Deadlines
for remedial
action
Resource
Management
8 I need to know
about material and
man required in
organisation.
I need to improve
this by help of HR
report and
analysing each
and every factors,
1 Months
Collaborative 8 I was unable to do
communication
with the
employees.
In this, I requires
training for
working in a team
and completing
the task.
2 Months
Reward
Management
9 I need to give
excellence
performance in
the organisation
so that I can be
appreciated .
To enhance this
skill, I should
work hard and
with full potentail.
On-going
Organisational
scheduling skills
10 I don't do research
and do planning
on the given topic
I need to focus on
my work to
improve my skill
On going
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which is gap. and learn new
things.
I identified my strength and weakness from the personal skill audit. The strength helps in
achieving goals and objectives for business. Similarly, weakness loses many opportunities in
business which need to be improved.
Strength Weaknesses
Organisational and scheduling skills Resource Management
Reward management Collaborative
After analysing my strength and weakness, I overcome my weakness with help of
personal development plan which is described below:-
OBJECTIVES Resources required Issues faced at
the time of
achieving
objectives
Success criteria Target dates
PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT PLAN
Resource
Management
I need to make proper
report, data for
knowing about
material, man and
other factors needed
in organisation.
I was unable to
collect proper
data because of
professional
team in
company.
I can improve by
hiring efficient
team in
organisation to
know about
resources
requirements.
Ongoing
Collaborative I should participate in
group assignment
work.
I did not
consider myself
capable enough
for team work
I should improve
this by working in
the teams.
Ongoing
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handling.
Benefits of Skill Audit
It is the method of measuring the skills of an individual or a group. It helps in
determining the gap between the skills within the organisation. It is important for the workplace
so that the company can identify their knowledge, behaviour and skills. It also helps in analysing
the weakness and resolving it.
Disadvantages of Skill Audit
Without the help of the personal skill audit the weakness and strength of a organisation is
not found and the company will not be able to rectify their mistakes.
TASK 2
P3 Difference between organisational and individual learning, training and development
Organisational Learning: It refers to the process that increases its capability of making,
sustaining and exchanging of knowledge within the workplace. As the organisation becomes old
its experiences increases, and this experience helps in gaining knowledge. This knowledge is
utilised by various units such as individual, group and organisation (Huczynski, 2013).
Individual learning: It refers to the potential of gaining knowledge of an individual at
their own level within the organisation. It also helps in increasing the knowledge of a person and
helps in development of an individual.
Kolb's Learning Cycle
Kolb's experiential learning theory works on two different levels which are a four-stage
cycle of learning and four separate learning styles. It includes the abstraction of concepts that can
be adjusted to various range of conditions.
The Experiential Learning Cycle
It is the cycle in which the learner needs to touch all the stages of the experiential
learning cycle . The four stages of the cycle is discussed:
Stage 1 Concrete Experience: This is the first stage of the cycle under which a new
experience is analysed or improvisation in the existing experience is done.
Stage 2 Reflective observation of the new experience: It is the second stage of the process
after having concrete experience, the experiences are being analysed. It involves the description
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of the usage of the existing experience so that our experiences make sense but it also creates
confusion when the experiences are not suited according to the plan.
Stage 3 Abstract conceptualization: The third stage modifies the existing abstract concept
or give the rise to a new ideas. This process also resolve the confusion created in Reflecting
observation (Pakdil, 2014).
Stage 4 Active experimentation: This the last stage of the process, under which the
learner implements the plan to see the pros and cons of the experience. It is stage of practising
the experiences and if it fails then it has to be restarted from the reflecting stage.
Learning Styles
There are four Kolb learning styles which are mentioned below:
Diverging: This styles states that each individual has its own way of thinking. They do
not do things rather than watch the actions of people. The sees the situation from several
perceptiveness.
Assimilating: Under this style the ideologies and concepts are given more importance
than people. The people involved under this style requires a practical opportunity rather than
theoretical explanations (Ryan, 2013).
Converging : The people who adopts converging learning style will use their knowledge
in finding the solutions to the practical issues and can easily solve problems. Usually refer to
technical tasks and are less bothered about people and interpersonal aspects. They do and think
for the solutions of the problems.
Accommodating: This learning style is a thought process rather than a thinking process.
Here, people use the results of other people and go for a practical approach, they are usually
attracted to new experiences (Seers, 2012).
Difference Between individual Learning and organisational learning
Organisational Learning Individual learning
It means increasing and gaining the capabilities
of learning within the whole organisation.
It means to learn and gain knowledge
capabilities within an individual.
It covers the whole organisation. It is restricted to an individual.
It helps in the development of the employees
of the organisation.
It helps in the training of an individual within
the workplace.
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The learning can be determined by measure the current performance of employees with
expected. In this manner. Manager of Whirlpool can determine the learning needs to staff
members. In order to overcome from this or make improvement in learning, Whirlpool will
conduct training and development programmes. With the help of this working capabilities as
well as efficiencies of staff can be improved in an effective or efficient manner.
Training: It is developing or teaching oneself or others for skills and knowledge related
to specific competencies. It has goal for improving capability, performance, capacity and
productivity. The main role of training is to enhancing the capabilities as well as knowledge of
an individual so that they can perform in a better manner. It will help in develop the positive
impact on performance level of an individual and organisation.
Development: It is process which strives for building capacity to sustain and achieve
new desired which benefits community or organisation and world. Under this, development bring
all the staff members to higher level so that they have same knowledge as well as skills. It will
help in minimize the weak links with in organisation wick negatively impact in business and its
activities.
Training and development
Training Development
Training is the short term process under which
the employees themselves according to their
job.
Development is a long run process where the
overall development of an employee is done,
This process is a job oriented process. This is a career oriented process.
Training is given by the trainers to the staff
members.
Development is done by the individual himself.
Under the training process the management
takes the initiative.
Under development process an individual takes
the initiative.
It requires job responsibility. It requires job growth.
Role of Training and Development with examples
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Training and development have a significant role to play within a business enterprise.
This procedure is aimed at enhancing the skills, competencies and knowledge base of employees
so that they can work with their best efforts and ensure the accomplishment of organisational
goals and objectives. For example- With reference to Whirlpool, the employees within this
organisation get motivated when they receive training and tend to work by utilising their
potential. Further, in the group tasks taking place within Whirlpool, training and development
programmes provides assistance to team members in reducing the conflicts and dealing with
collaborative projects in an organised and coordinated manner.
The training and development helps in enhancing the skills and the core competencies of
employees so that they can perform in a better manner and gain better understanding about
performing business activities. Its helps in increasing motivational level of Whirlpool employees
so that they can focus on attaining the specific objectives within given period of time.
Reasons for need of Training
An organisation is surrounded by a complex business environment whereby changes take
place at a constant rate and these have a significant impact upon the internal as well as external
factors of company. In this regard, the need for training arises within Whirlpool to equip the
workforce with the required skills and competencies so that they can complete the tasks within
stipulated course of time even in the presence of complex corporate situations.
Effects of Training upon entity
Learning is determined through training and development session designed by the human
resource manager of Whirlpool. Because in this, several activities are conducted which assist in
enhancing skills and knowledge related to specific work. Along with this, expertise or
professionals are called up for providing training session which result in getting more better
results in term of learning skills. Through this, individuals working within Whirlpool succeed in
increasing their skill set and knowledge base so as to feasibly execute all the activities in a timely
manner. This implies the attainment of organisational objectives within the stipulated course of
time.
P4 Need for continuous learning and professional development to drive sustainable business
performance
Continuous learning: It is a ongoing process which meets the ability to bring
improvisation and build knowledge for doing tasks and adjusting to the changes in the
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organisation. Continuous learning is required by the employees for improving and developing
themselves.
Professional Development: It is the process of learning and maintaining the level of
qualification with professionalism which involves conferences and informally learning
opportunities. Whirlpool organise classes or give training for improving skills within the
organisation to achieve the objectives effectively and efficiently (Strode, 2012).
The need of continuous training and professional development are as follows:
Improves Capabilities and efficiency: Continuous learning and professional
development helps in improving capabilities of an individual or groups. In context to whirlpool it
has improved a lot by bringing modifications in their technology and products. This also helps in
achievement of the organisational target. Employee must focus on increasing the potential and
working efficiency. This eventually leads to resistance of the employees within the organisation
and increases the productivity of the firm.
Maintenance of standard: Every personnel in the organisation works to fulfils its
requirements and basic needs. Continuous learning and professional development helps a person
to maintain his living and working standard. In whirlpool, the company takes the responsibility
of their human resources as well their working standards. It also helps in driving sustainable of
whirlpool.
Adopting market change: The company must adapts itself to the changing dynamics of
the environment. Every company must prepared for the changes within the environment. In
whirlpool, the company is flexible to the conditions of the market which helps in the sustainable
of the company (Tynjälä, 2013)
CPD (Continuous Professional Development)
It is a continuous cycle of maintaining, documenting and developing professionals skills
of the employee. , These skills may be learned through training within the workplace or
monitoring others.
Advantages of CPD
 It helps the employees to boost the morale and be confident while working.
 It assists in achieving goals and objectives.
 It improves up-skill and motivate to engage in innovative solutions.
Barrier To CPD
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The barriers to CPD are lack of participation in organisation activity. Company have
different perception individual for performing task which is against norms which might decline
quality are barriers for effective CPD.
TASK 3
P5 HPW contributes to employee engagement and competitive advantage within a specific
organisational situation
High Performance Work: High performance work describes the process of working
used to achieve higher level of performance of the organisation as well as the individual. It
involves quality, innovation rate, productivity and cycle time performance. It helps in giving
customer satisfaction and meeting the requirements of the customers and concentrates on the
working of the human resource.
Employee Engagement: It refers to the relationship of organisation with its employees.
It is the capacity of the employees to be dedicated towards their work. It encourages the staff
members and helps in bringing innovation to the products and increase the productivity of the
organisation as the members feels a responsibility in bringing innovation in the products and
services of the organisation and remain committed to the company and bring out effective
performance from the employees (Tynjälä, 2013). Engaged employees are one who has passion
about working and takes actions or decisions which help in increasing the organisation's interest
and reputation.
Competitive Advantage: Competitive advantages are the situations that allows a
organisation to sell the good and services at easily affordable prices and helps a company to
increase their sales volume as compared to their competitors. It can be achieved by high level of
work performance by the employees.
Contribution of HPW to employee engagement and competitive advantage is given as
follows:-
Employee Attitude: It encourages the staff members and helps in bringing innovation to
the products and increase the productivity of the organisation as the members feels a
responsibility in bringing innovation in the products and services of the organisation. It brings a
positive attitude within the employees and has higher employee engagement within the company.
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In whirlpool, the performance of the company was decreasing due to the negative behaviour of
the employees therefore collaboration, employee engagement and competitive advantage
activities brought good results for the company (Tynjälä, 2013).
Better organisation: Every organisation has its own unique plan of actions which differs
itself from its competitors which influence the targeted customers and new employees. It
increases concentration and create a sense of responsibility among the employees. Creates a high
reputation and goodwill in the society and contributes in building strong relationship within and
outside the organisation. Employee engagement helps in innovation and discussion of ideologies
and strategies. Here whirlpool gives high performance work by creating reputation of its home
appliances between its consumers. Therefore, there is a lot of scope of the organisation's
sustainability within the competitive world.
Better financial results: High performance working can achieve better financial results.
Effective and efficient engagement of the employees increase the profits and productivity of the
firm which deliver excellence in financial results. Due to successful accomplishment of the
financial targets , the firm holds a high rank in the market which eventually lead to increase in
their market share. Every business concentrates at low input resulting in high output. Therefore,
whirlpool has created a market planning strategy and effective use of manpower leads to better
financial results.
There are some barriers included in High Performance Working given below:
Barrier of Belief- In the high performance working, beliefs drive attitudes that
demonstrates by behaviours. In addition to this, until beliefs are determined, the behaviours will
not be change.
Barrier of Ethics- Under this, lack of the shared and unified ethics within Whirlpool
develop incredible barriers. When an organisation has the clear articulated about what ethics
means then high performance working will be more easier.
TASK 4
P6 Approaches to performance management
Performance management is the process which makes sure that the goals and objectives
are achieved in a efficient and effective manner. It concentrates on the performance of the
individual, team and organisation as well (Watson‐Manheim, Chudoba and Crowston, 2012). It
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is a ongoing process of planing objectives, measuring the progress of the employees and
delivering feedbacks to the staff members for achieving the targets. An organisation measures
the performance of the employees through the six major approaches which are being discussed:-
Comparative Approach: This approach is used to rank the performance of the
employees after comparing the performances with other members in the group. The ranking is
done on the basis of measuring performance from lowest to the highest. This approach utilises
several techniques such as paired comparison, and graphic scale rating. In whirlpool, this
approach is used with the employees having similar kind of job profiles and ensures promotion
and rewards to the top performers based on rankings done. It has been evaluated that this
approach helps in developing skills on timely basis so that productivity of organisation can be
enhanced and growth of individuals and corporation can be ensured.
Quality Approach: This approach concentrates in the improvisation of the satisfaction
of the customers by minimizing the errors. They consider both the factors that is person as well
as the system. Feedbacks are also taken during this approach to solve the issues related to
performance of the employees. With the help of this approach within Whirlpool, it has been
evaluated that employees as well as systems solve their issues and problem by working in a
collaborative manner (West, 2014).
Collaborative working approach: Collaborative working approach means to work in a
coordination with other subordinates within the organisation (West, 2013). It is a Problem
solving techniques which has the following process: problem identification; generate the solution
to the problem, examination and agreement; implementation and follow up. In Whirlpool this
approach is used to resolve the conflicts among the employees and to produce the best results
while working and collaborating with other subordinates within the company (Performance
Management, 2018). Under this approach, employees and managers both are working together to
attain specific target without arising the conflict.
Other than these some of the other performance measurement techniques mention below:
Better conversations- To shifting away from annual review needs to managers of
Whirlpool to have the disciplined approaches how they communicate with staff regarding their
performance. In addition to this, frequent feedback works better when the managers can aids the
staff members to check their roles and effect on objectives.
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Better Manager Training- The better performance management in new paradigm will
rely on the managers. It means that those mangers which require extra training and development
to aids staff members to be succeed. The training can consist how to help the staff members to
orient their objectives around the corporate strategy, committing to the regular feedback and
coaching staff related to career paths.
Team work: Organisation should make team for difficult task to complete it easily and
creative way. Thus, whirlpool also make teamwork for performing work at workplace for
achieving goal and objectives. The team work is helpful in performing different activities at
workplace. If all employees will work in a team then they all will work together and focus on
attaining the set objectives. Through this, positive impact will be developed on productivity of
business.
Feedback and motivation: Employee should be checked on regular basis and provide
feedback to improve them. Similarly, they should be provided awards, rewards, cash, gift for
motivating them to work effectively in order to achieve goal and objective. It also create
sustainability for both company as well as individual. Feedback is necessary to know about the
opinion of other people on specific area. With the help of this, management can make
improvement. On the other hand, motivation is a main factor and helpful in improving
performance level of employees. The Whirlpool can motivate its employees with the help of
providing positive working environment, reward etc.
Above mentioned approaches help in developing performance of staff members working
within an organisation.
CONCLUSION
From the above report it can be concluded that employees requires professional
knowledge, skills and behaviour for the business and a personal skill audit related to these
factors. Form this audit, the weakness and strengths of an employee is being analysed and a
personal development plan is prepared to overcome the weaknesses. Differences between
organisational and individual learning, training and development is also mentioned. Whirlpool
has adopted Kolb's Learning cycle to analyse the need for continuous learning and professional
development to drive sustainable business performance. It also includes the ways in which high
performance working contributes to employee engagement and competitive advantage. The
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assignment elaborates the approaches to performance management and their contribution to high
performance culture and commitment.
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