Reflective Essay: Managing ETDs and Skills Development in HR

This reflective essay, written by a Human Resource Manager at Rampar Trading, explores various workplace issues and the importance of skills development, particularly focusing on Education, Training, and Development (ETDs). The essay highlights the author's role in managing skills for ETDs, emphasizing the significance of Critical Cross-Field Outcomes (CCFOs) to improve employee performance and organizational results. The author discusses strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats related to ETD management, including the challenges of infrastructure quality in South Africa. The essay reflects on current practices, emphasizing the need for improved communication, employee training, and redesigned administration processes. It also examines how the author enables CCFOs to enhance employee competence and organizational productivity, including the importance of ethical guidelines and organizational learning. The essay concludes by summarizing the key needs for achieving better employee records and outlining ways to implement effective training and development programs.

Running head: REFLECTIVE ESSAY
Reflective Essay
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

1REFLECTIVE ESSAY
Introduction
My name is Pieter van Ellewee, the Training and HR manager working for Rampar
Trading. One of my main roles in the company is the skills development. I have almost 9 yers of
experience in the field of skills development. In this essay I will be discussing about the various
issues in the workplaces as I am the Human Resource manager in the organization I am working
in. I am entrusted with the various roles like managing the skills for ETDs in a smooth way and
taking the best options for their improvement. My belief in this situation is the critical cross field
outcomes or the CCFOs. The employees will perform better and make way for getting the
desired results for the organization. I will be focusing on these issues in this paper. I will be
highlighting on another issue that is the managing and administering the ETDs. The development
and training of the employees in South Africa will be a very complicated issue since the quality
of the infrastructure is not very high graded like USA or the European countries. Currently I am
in charge of the training department as the Human Resource Manager. I had been given the
responsibility of conducting the training program for the store managers, area managers, sales
assistants and others. I am responsible for providing the training to my juniors in several
departments. I prepare the proper schedules for providing the training. I have to plan and execute
all the schedules so I can give the proper training to the employees. I also choose the employees
who must go through the selection process. I give the training to the employees, and then I
complete the administrative work so I can complete all the administrative works. I always
manage a database in which I keep all the records for the training programs I have taken to
improve the skills of the employees. Then I can provide all this information about the training to
all the stakeholders and the SETAS.

2REFLECTIVE ESSAY
Purpose of the essay
The purpose of the essay will be to demonstrate the importance of the proper
communication between the management and the employees in the training department in which
I am currently working. The primary issues in managing and administering the ETDs will be
highlighted properly. I must collect all the necessary information. I have gone through the
analysis about my strengths and weaknesses and how I can improve upon them. Here I shall be
focusing on the ways to improve upon the CCFOs to manage the ETDs. The meaning of the
ETDs is the Education Training and Development.
Strengths
 The CCFO skills that I have discussed in these portions can develop my communication
skills.
 I have to make sure the enhancement in the administration process of the ETDs.
 I should also look upon the fact that the administration should direct all the processes
properly.
 Weaknesses
 The administration of the organization becomes too rigid. The lack of flexibility will
hamper the process.
 The Administration has to look into several processes that consumes much time.
 The managing of the process should need some resources. However these resources
are very costly indeed.
 Opportunities
 I will opt for giving the job training.
 I have to get the proper training resource materials.

3REFLECTIVE ESSAY
 I can get the proper benefits if I can indulge the communication skills properly.
 The administration should look to redesign the administration process.
 Threats
 The bad administration process will lead me to extra work.
 The administration processes can be outdated as well.
 The processes are very time consuming and costly..
Description and reflection upon the practice
It is believed that the current practices are not that much up to the mark for the
improvement in the productivity while managing the ETDs properly. The main responsibilities
will be highlighted to them largely amidst all the process (Arneson,, Rothwell & Naughton,
2013).
Secondly, learning programs can be arranged for me depending on my needs. Thus the
employees of Ramper Trading can learn about the professional associations regarding the
management of the ETDs. The cost estimation programs should be managed as well. These
learning programs will make me understand how they can cope up with each other. If I am
unable to do so, I will seriously be in a deep trouble (Anitha 2014).
Enabling of the CCFO
In this section I will be focusing on how I have enabled the critical cross field outcomes
for managing the ETDs. The employees have to understand the relevance of the of these critical
cross field outcomes. I will be discussing about two of the most important CCFOs that will be
important for managing and administering ETDs.

4REFLECTIVE ESSAY
The critical cross field outcomes will help to improve the performance and productivity
of the organizations on a global basis. These things are very important for me indeed. The need
for the training and development of the employees is an essential one. The employees will have
to be competent with all the skills that are required. I will highlight the basic criterion for the
training and development programs in the organizations. Rather, I should build good
relationships with them through proper communication (Keyton et al., 2013).
Secondly, some specific short courses should be arranged for the new employees at the
workplaces. I will personally look after this matter. I will make sure that the employees get all
the benefits and facilities at the workplace. The values and ethics that have to be maintained in
the organizations should be learned by the employees through the process of organizational
learning.
Conclusion
In the above essay, the basic needs for achieving the better records of the employees have
been discussed. The ways this can be achieved have been outlined as well. Some ethical
guidelines have to be maintained as well regarding the ethical issues and the training of the
employees. The training and development programs will have to be implemented properly as
well.
References

5REFLECTIVE ESSAY
Arneson, J., Rothwell, W., and Naughton, J. 2013. Training and development competencies
redefined to create competitive advantage. Training & Development, 67(1), 42-47.
Coates, M., 2013, July. Using google analytics to explore ETDs use. In Proceedings of the 13th
ACM/IEEE-CS joint conference on Digital libraries (pp. 437-438). ACM.
Elnaga, A. and Imran, A., 2013. The effect of training on employee performance. European
Journal of Business and Management, 5(4), pp.137-147.
Keyton, J., Caputo, J.M., Ford, E.A., Fu, R., Leibowitz, S.A., Liu, T., Polasik, S.S., Ghosh, P.
and Wu, C., 2013. Investigating verbal workplace communication behaviors. The Journal of
Business Communication (1973), 50(2), pp.152-169.
Kumar, S.S., 2012. Motivation as a strategy to enhance organizational productivity. Advances In
Management Vol, 5(7), pp.24-27.
Thomas, W.J. and Shirkey, C., 2012. The continuing cautionary tale of creative writing
ETDs. North Carolina Libraries, 71(1).