Professional and Personal Development: Skills and Competencies Report

This report provides a comprehensive overview of personal and professional development, exploring approaches to self-managed learning, the encouragement of lifelong learning, and the evaluation of its benefits. It includes an assessment of current skills and competencies against professional standards and organizational objectives, along with the identification of development needs and opportunities. The report outlines a personal and professional development plan, detailing the processes and activities required for implementation, and critically assesses learning outcomes. Furthermore, it examines solutions to work-based problems and the effective use of communication and time management strategies. The report also includes an evaluation of the author's skills and competencies, identifies development needs, and outlines opportunities for personal and professional growth, culminating in a development plan and its implementation.

Professional and personal development
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Table of Contents.............................................................................................................................2
Introduction......................................................................................................................................3
Task 1...............................................................................................................................................3
1.1 Evaluate approaches to self-managed learning.....................................................................3
1.2 Ways of encouraging lifelong learning in personal and professional contexts....................4
1.3 Evaluate the benefits of self-managed learning....................................................................4
Task 2...............................................................................................................................................5
2.1 Evaluate own current skills and competencies against professional standards and
organisational objectives..............................................................................................................5
2.2 Identify own development needs and the activities required to meet them..........................6
2.3 Identify development opportunities to meet current and future needs.................................7
2.4 Devise a personal and professional development plan.........................................................7
Task 3...............................................................................................................................................8
3.1 Discuss the processes and activities required to implement the development plan...............8
3.2 Undertake and document development activities.................................................................9
3.3 Critically assessing the own learning against original aims and objectives set in the
development plan.......................................................................................................................10
3.4 Update the development plan based on feedback and evaluation......................................10
Task 4.............................................................................................................................................11
4.1 Select solutions to work-based problems............................................................................11
4.2 Explain different style of communication at different levels..............................................11
4.3 Evaluate and use effective time management strategies......................................................12
Conclusion.....................................................................................................................................12
References......................................................................................................................................14
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INTRODUCTION
Personal and professional development is an instrument used by an individual to set out
goals, objectives, strategies , future targets of their own life. It helps an individual his strengths
and weaknesses to move ahead in life. It clearly defines the core competencies of an individual.
The project report is all about the approaches to self-managed learning,ways of developing
personal and professional development and their benefits. It also clearly evaluates the current
skills and professional competencies. Identification of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and
threats. It also includes the personal and professional development plan. Proper implementation
of the plan and activities conducted for the plan. It also defines the problem.
TASK 1
1.1 Evaluate approaches to self-managed learning
Self-managed learning is a technique is used by every individual to increase their
competencies in order to achieve the overall growth (Mills, 2013). It is a process by which an
individual find new learning aspects of work within the organization with respect to long term
career development goals. A person can learn anything through research on a particular subject
they are looking to learn. Following are the different approaches of self-managed learning:
Seminars – An individual can learn new learning skills by attending seminars. It is an effective
tool to provide a lot of opportunities to present their knowledge about any topic to another.
Social networking- There are different social media sites such as Twitter, Facebook which
people can use to learn unique things or can chat with their friends. The people also earn high
level of satisfaction.
Internet- It is one of the common mode of learning new things by simply surfing on the internet.
In today's internet friendly environment everyone is acquainted with Google . It is used by
specialists for research purpose using several kinds of websites (Palaiologou, 2016). It is
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used by millions of the people at the basic level and not extends to higher level of searching on
internet.
Following are the different kinds of learning styles used by an individual:
David Kolb's model- Its is based on experiential learning model which outlines two retated
approaches towards grasping experience that is concrete experience and abstract
conceptualization and another two transforming experience such as reflective observation and
Active experimentation. This model is the ideal learning process engages all four modes in
response to the different situations.
Peter Honey and Alan Mumford's model- This is another learning model which involved four
stages which involves Activist, reflector, theorist and pragmatist. These four learning styles are
assumed to acquired preferences that are adaptable or can changes according to the different
circumstances.
VAK model- Walter Burke Barbe and colleagues proposed three different learning styles models
are the following:
 Visualizing
 Auditory
 Kinaesthetic
Visual- It involves learning through pictures, shapes, sculpture and paintings.
Kinaesthetic- It consists of learning with the help of gestures, body movements, object
manipulation and positioning.
Auditory- It comprises of listening, Rythm, tone and chants.
1.2 Ways of encouraging lifelong learning in personal and professional contexts
Lifelong learning is also known as continuous learning of a person that leads an
individual to the path of professional development. It can be done by conducting personal
assessment as means of lifelong learning by evaluating one's personal attributes and traits.
Following are the ways of encouraging lifelong learning in order to enhance the personal or
professional skill development:
Reflective Journaling – It is one of the significant method to enhance the lifelong learning
ability. It includes encouraging people to set up personal learning journal or blog to enhance their
skills and in-born talent.
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Discovery and Relevance – Motivational skills of a person and personal relevance are the
significant keys to improve the lifelong learning. It helps to develop reader's interest in a
particular and respective topic or a interesting subjects. It includes building a habit of sharing
their new discovery of knowledge with other people in order to test their relevancy of the content
and interesting and unique generation of idea behind them. It reflect the creativity and innovative
characteristics of an individual in their discovery report (David, 2016). It challenge the latent
expertise of an individual with respective to a particular field or subjects such as academics ,
non- academics.
Apprenticeships-It is a training method where I can join any organization for short duration to
get experience of working in a particular field. Here, I can use my existing knowledge to
understand the working process and suggest various ideas to bring improvement in current
working practices.
Self-evaluation-It is a good way to promote lifelong learning for me where I can use SWOT
analysis to assess my strengths and weaknesses. On the basis of gaining information, I can take
actions either to understand new things or to acquire new skills or to bring improvement in
existing one .
Continuous learning- lifelong learning can be continue by the assessment of experience. With
the help of it, I can evaluate those areas where I lack and by this, I can take actions to overcome
those loopholes. This process will assist me to increase my existing knowledge and gain new
skills. It will also help me to complete my assigned work in an appropriate and effective manner.
1.3 Evaluate the benefits of self-managed learning
Self-managed learning is all about people and their personal initiatives to manage their
learning skills. There are positive effect of self-managed learning on the personality development
of an individual. Following are the benefits of self-managed learning that affects the functioning
of an individual and the organisation:
 Communication skills- It helps to develop good communication skill of an individual
and also enhance the non-verbal skills which is helpful to the organization objectives. It
helps to face the complex challenges in the normal course of action. It create good
synergy of team which in turn enhances the overall organisational development.
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 Team work ability- Individuals have learnt many team management skills from their
past education through several kinds of group tasks or projects (Aponte, and Kissil,
2016). The past experience of learning team building skills can apply in the organisation
in order to achieve the desired objectives and goals of the company.
 Sound decision making- It helps an individual to take accurate and appropriate decisions
based on the relevant information and facts about the particular problem. It includes the
application of significant education and past work experience of a person.
 Conflict resolver- These skills are different in each and every person . It can be
developed with the passage of time.
Benefits for organization
 Achieving desired goals-Self-managed leaning approach helps the hotel to meet the
business objectives and goals. Under this, employees of the organization will learn
different knowledge that will assist them to complete their daily operations in an effective
manner.
 Improves decision making- With the help of self-managed learning, management of the
hotel can improve its decision making process. By this, it can learn from its past
experience and take actions according to it.
 Increasing productivity- Self-managed learning enables the hotel to raise its
productivity by developing a good and flexible working environment. It will assist the
employees to adopt new skills and knowledge in order to bring improvements in their
existing working practices.
TASK 2
2.1 Evaluate own current skills and competencies against professional standards and
organisational objectives
Presently I am working as a Finance manager of HSBC a multinational banking and
financial services company based in United Kingdom. I am serving my valuable services to the
company from last 5 years. I possess different personal characteristics and skills developed due
to quality oriented educational background (Scott, 2016). I have done MBA finance and CFA
professional course which provides me vast amount of knowledge about this field and this job
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designation will adds value to my overall personal and professional development. Following are
the personal assessment of my skills and personal attributes:
Strengths Weaknesses
 Good communication skills
 Analytical skills
 Keen observer
 Good writing skills
 Good listener
 Flexible
 friendly
 Time management
 Attractive personality
 Presentation skill
 Ample of knowledge
 Loyal and honest
 Lack of conflict management skills
 Lack of leadership quality
 No work experience
 Knowledge restricted to Finance only
Strength- I have all these strengths that is also my core competencies that can be used against
my competitors. These have developed during the education and rest are developed by playing
the role of finance manager of the company. It helps in enhancing my overall career
development.
2.2 Identify own development needs and the activities required to meet them
After analysing my personal strengths and weaknesses the next step is to determine my
future development needs. The weaknesses are the inherent limitation of myself will become my
development needs which can be achieved by hard work (Chen, 2016.). Following are the
development needs of an individual and activities to achieve all the respective needs are :
 Conflict management- It is one of the biggest needs which I want to achieve in near
future. After giving 5 years in this organisation I am unable to overcome this problem.
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Playing a role of Arbitrator is quite difficult to resolve all the problems of other
employees in the same organisation. This can be developed by attending workshops,
seminars, expert training.
 Leadership Qualities- It is on of the qualities required by every manager of the
company. I want to develop this trait in future to increase my overall scope and future
performance. It can be improved by taking responsibility of whole team, team work or
projects.
 Work experience- This also poses threat for me with lack of experience in other fields. It
can be achieved by doing internships in another company to gain the exposure outside the
organisation. It helps to increase the power of knowledge of an individual.
2.3 Identify development opportunities to meet current and future needs
I have seen that my current level of job offers several kinds tasks, projects , duties which
help me to achieve personal and professional development (McMillan, and McConnell,
2016). Currently I adopted multi cultured environment and try to get comfortable in the overall
surrounding. I am keen observer and quickly learn the new and different things in order to avoid
the boredom in the work. I need some skills to improve my performance and get couple of
opportunities such as overall personality development, ability to handle people, take strategic
decisions, building close relationship with the customers. I also want to improve my leadership
qualities to lead my team.
My future need is to take personal development to the another level with high level of
accuracy and reliability. I need to achieve Technological skills in order to keep pace with the
new and different technologies. Another significant needs are maintaining proper alignment
between personal life and professional life, Development of the employee, sound decisions,
monitoring the changes in the environment. It also helps an organisation to achieve the
excellence by increasing commitment and loyalty towards an organisation (Korhonen, and
Weil, 2016). The strategies used by an individual will help the company to achieve success.
2.4 Devise a personal and professional development plan
The personal and professional development plan is a formal means of identifying the
inner qualities that can be utilised by an individual in enhancing their overall future growth and
career development. It helps an individual to recognise their strengths and main motive of future.
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Target Current skills Targeted
skills
Development
opportunities
Activities
requirement
Time
period
Time
management
Prioritize work.
scheduling
Making tasks of
everyday.
well discipline
Time
management
device.
Software
Close
review of
work.
Easy to meet
deadlines of
future projects.
Saves time and
utilize the
saved time on
bigger projects
of the
company.
Assignment of
deadly tasks.
Exercises to
improve.
Within
next 6
months
Communication Ability to
handle clients.
Appropriate
language.
Good writing
skills
Proper chain
of
communicat
ion used.
Ability to
learn new
things.
Good
communication
leads an
organization
towards the
path of success.
It assures
authenticity of
information
passed.
Seminars,
conferences,
workshops and
training
1 month
IT skills Handle manual
operations.
Theoretical
knowledge of
all
technologies.
Practical
application
of
technology.
Technical
expert
required
Keep a pace
with dynamic
environment.
Global
advantage of
world
technology.
Training by the
experts, ERP
used in the
business, On –
the job training
Within
next 1 year
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TASK 3
3.1 Discuss the processes and activities required to implement the development plan
Personal development has been one of the renowned trends of human resource
management started in the year 1990. According to the personal survey reports of the employees
found that employers demand unique characteristics such as cost efficient, innovative ideas,
creativity in the business operations (Jaffe,and Pradarelli, 2016). From business
perspective, personal development plans are resource intensive. It facilitates an individual to
become autonomous. Some of the resources are required in implementation of the personal
development plan:
 Top management support- For proper implementation of the development plan
accurately as per the plan formulated by an individual. The support of competent
authority will boost up the confidence of person.
 Proper communication- It is important aspect in the whole process of implementation.
It is required from beginning till the end of the process in order to ensure its correctness.
 Training and support- Training is given to all the persons engaged in implementation
process. Training enhance the performance and potentials of an individuals.
 Confidentiality- It plays an important role in the overall procedure of implementation.
For perfect implementation of the decisions privacy is always there in order to protect the
overall plan from external virus. These virus can infect the business growth.
3.2 Undertake and document development activities
Following are the development activities planned by an individual in order to ensure its
effectiveness:
 Training – The training is given to all the employees of the organisation in order to guide
them to complete the common goals (Ball, 2016). The internal staffs are trained
regarding completing the work on time and by maintaining proper discipline. The
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employees are trained to increase their functional growth and efficiency in each and
every services they are serving to the company.
 Mentoring and supervising- The actual staff of the enterprise are administered and
monitored by the brand management owners. The working of all of them is closely
monitored in order to find out any pitfalls.
 Consultation- It is one of the time of right guidance given to all the employees.
Counselling is important to judge the psychology of all the employees. It helps an
organisation to motivates all the internal staff towards the completion of all tasks and the
duties on time.
 Working groups- The employees are divided into several teams and allotted topics to
research collectively on the respective topic. It enhances the spirit of whole team and
completing tasks in order to meet the deadlines. It also learns patience to handle complex
tasks and be calm in tough situations.
3.3 Critically assessing the own learning against original aims and objectives set in the
development plan
Self-managed learning method helps me to maintain a good balance between my persona
aims with the aims and objectives of the whole organisation. By devising personal development
plans I have analysed three different target areas to be focused in future in order to achieve the
career enhancement. My learning skills that can be partly developed through the educational
background and party developed with the time I devoted in this job. I know the importance of
time after completing 19 years of education (Ollis, and Harrison 2016). I have the ability to
manage the time and work according to the schedules. I have participated in many events that
enhances my communication skills which is very important matter for any organisation. Events
such as debates,extempores, hosting of many events. These clearly reflects my leadership
qualities in order to lead a group of individuals. I have done computer diploma that covers each
and every aspect of the computers. I also have practical exposure of working with the computers
that will be an advantage for me to adapt with the new technology easily without any barrier in
the path of success.
After preparing PPD plan and its successful implementation helps me learn different
knowledge and develop new skills. So, it is important to judge or evaluate the effectiveness of
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own learning against aim and objectives that were set in development plan. First activity is time
management which is very important factor which needs to be taken care by every individual and
business enterprises. Time can be managed by assigning different tasks among group of
individuals in order to support them in order to complete goals and the objectives within the
stipulated time.
3.4 Update the development plan based on feedback and evaluation
In today's competitive world it is important to update itself with the changes in the whole
environment. The actual feedbacks are the key aspects in increasing the overall performance of
the development plan. Feedbacks are the strengths of this plan which gives the reactions of the
business environment in both directions internal as well as external. Internally it clearly defines
the comments and the suggestions of the people within the organisation (Doherty and van
Mersbergen, 2016). External feedbacks are those which depicts the true performance of the
business and its viability on the external environment. The status of these feedbacks can be
changed by proper handling of all the business operations. An individual should enhance their
conversation skills to reach the outside environment. It also helps to increase the overall
versatility of the organisation structure in order to handle many tasks at a same time. First
activity is time management which is very important factor which needs to be taken care by
every individual and business enterprises.
S.No. Learning
objective
Type of goals
(Short or Long)
Development
opportunities
Criteria for
judging success
Time scale
1 Time
Management
Long term By using Time
management
techniques
Achieving
appropriate
results
6 to 7 weeks
3
Communicati
on skills
Long term By organizing
the meetings on
schedule time
and placing a
complain box in
Judging
performance of
the staff
members
8 to 9 weeks
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each and every
department.
4. IT skills Long term Lead the events,
taking
responsibilities of
particular work
By achieving
the objectives
of planned
work
4 to 5 weeks
TASK 4
4.1 Select solutions to work-based problems
Problem or difficulty arises at the workplace in absence of coordination among the
employees while handling many business processes (Jourdan and Simar, 2016). It is the
responsibility of every manager in the company to resolve the problem by taking appropriate
decisions to avoid the further danger situations. Following are the relevant solutions to the
problems at the workplace:
 Identify the issues- In clearly defines the nature of the problem and categorise all the
problems in different category in order to find out the solutions to the problems.
 Understand everyone's interest- It refers to identifying the critical needs of both the
parties to provide them best solutions to their problems in order to satisfy both the
parties.
 List the solutions- It involves collecting of all the solutions to the respective problems .
It is done by conducting brainstorming and group discussions.
 Evaluate the alternative- It shows the pros and cons of the selected solution to the given
problems. It checks the viability of the selected option.
 Document the agreement- The oral evidence does not count in terms of the reliability.
Therefore, it is better to write down all the details.
Good communication
 At workplace employees can face the issue of lack of communication.
 Communication is very important at the workplace because weak communication can
disturb the functioning of the business.
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 It is essential that the entire team of workers make efforts jointly with perfect integration
and coordination between them.
Decision making
 One should have the ability to take Decision making decision on its own.
 Workers must take initiative to participate in the decision making process.
 For that purpose analyzing and analytical power of the person is required to be strong.
Avoiding arguments
 While working together, often it is happened that workers enters into arguments and
disagreements due to differences in opinions and thoughts.
 Views and opinions of all should be listened and then after careful analysis, relevant
solution must be applied.
Presence of motivation
 The people working in the organization are required to be enthusiastic in whatever they
do. Motivation is to be given adequately from the side of management in form of cash or
kind.
Training & development
 These activities can also help in avoiding work based issue.
 Generally these types of issues arise due to lack of expertise and skills within employees
Through training, their performance can be increased.
4.2 Explain different style of communication at different levels
Communication play a important role in communicating relevant information , facts
about the internal and external environment. It is helpful for all the three levels of the
management are Top level management, Middle level management and lower level management.
 Top management- It is the highest level of management consisting CEO, MD and Board
of directors of the company (Dagan and Ben-Porat, 2016). At this level
communication is done by E-mails, by sending emails for seeking permission ,
transmitting any information.
 Middle level managers- It is regarded next best level of the management comprises of
General manager, departmental managers, Executives. Here communication is takes
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place by conducting meeting, conferences and seminars in order to interact with all the
managers to transmit relevant information.
 Lower level management- It comprises of workers and subordinates. Here
communication is takes place by issuing notices because it is not possible to interact with
all the workers at a same time.
 Non-Verbal communication- It includes facial expressions, voice tone, voice pitch,
gestures displayed through body language which is known as kinesics a sign language. It
is that type of communication channel which requires facial expressions to share its
thought or relevant information rather than by spoken words.
 Verbal communication- It is opposite of non-verbal communication which includes
sharing information by word of mouth. Sender or receiver can communicate and
exchange its thoughts and ideas by spoken words. It is also known as descriptive as well
as expressive function.
4.3 Evaluate and use effective time management strategies
Developing time management skill is journey that begins with a guide and requires a lot
of practice to safely reach the respective destination. Following are the time management
strategies:
Weekly reviews- It involves closely review and monitor any changes occur in the decided plans
by the organisation (Swain 2016). Once in a week the reviewing of the assignments, notes and
calendar.
Dedicated study spaces- it involves using short time between the break, and no involvement of
phones to distract the employees while doing their work without getting involved in any of the
activities other than work.
Prioritize work assignment- It is one of the trusted method of time management. It helps to
build an habit of planning the daily targets and work according to the decided targets. It enhances
the flexibility of an individual to change their goals as per the demand of the organisational aims
and the objectives.
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Identification of resources- It contains all the sources of information from which an individual
can find out all the requisite materials which can be used in the whole process of management of
the time as per their want and expectations of the environment.
Scheduling of activities
Scheduling of activities is very important and it is related with arranging the activities according
to their importance and time period. Scheduling makes all the things easier and transparent
saving lot of time for the employees.
Avoiding multitasking
Another thing which can be done in order to save the time is to avoid multitasking work. It is
good to be versatile but it requires lot of concentration and focus. Doing multitasking work can
create lot of confusion and puzzlement consuming lot of time also. Hence it is sometimes good
to be non multi talented
CONCLUSION
From the above study it can be concluded that the personal and development plan is
essential requirement of every other individual in their career development. It clearly shows the
self-managed learning approaches and their benefits. It also evaluates the personal assessment of
an individual. It also clearly identifies the development opportunities and future needs of an a
person. It also devise a personal and professional development plan to help an individual in
defining its future performance. It also mention the implementation process of development plan
and significant importance of the time management strategies that can be useful for an individual
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