Lifelong Learning and Development Plan for National Trust

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Personal and professional development

Contents
Introduction....................................................................................................................................................3
Lo1.................................................................................................................................................................3
Evaluation of self-managed learning approaches......................................................................................3
Propose ways in which your lifelong learning in personal and professional context could be encouraged
at the national trust.....................................................................................................................................5
Benefits of self-managed learning for an assistant manager and the company national trust...................6
LO2................................................................................................................................................................7
Evaluating own skills and competencies against the professional standards for a Membership and
Visitor Welcome Manager and against organizational objectives of Travelodge hotel............................7
Own development needs and required activities.......................................................................................7
Development opportunities to meet your current and future defined needs..............................................8
Personal and professional development plan based on identified needs...................................................8
LO3................................................................................................................................................................9
Discussion of the processes and activities required to implement the development plan.........................9
Undertake and document development activities as planned..................................................................10
Reflect critically on own learning against original aims and objectives.................................................10
Updating of the development plan...........................................................................................................11
LO4..............................................................................................................................................................11
Select solutions to work-based problems.................................................................................................11
Workplace bullying and harassment........................................................................................................13
Time management strategies....................................................................................................................13
Conclusion...................................................................................................................................................14
References....................................................................................................................................................14
1

Introduction
Personal and professional development of individuals decides a new career path and creates new
opportunities for them. It helps in boosting the confidence of the employees and prepares them to
attain their future career goals. Management of own personal and professional skills is necessary
to achieve the career these goals. Self-direct learning enhances the opportunity for lifelong
learning (Bush et al., 2018).
National Trust is the charity organization founded in 1895 and it is taking care of woods, forests,
beaches, coastlines, fends, historic houses, islands, nature reserves, miles and pubs as well the
largest art collection. The organization is taking responsibility for restoring them, open and
protects them so the people can enjoy by visiting them. More than 20 million visitors are visiting
its properties each year and the visitor services teams ensure that every customer who is visiting
the places can gain a wonderful experience.
In this assignment report, the discussion will be done on how self-managed learning and lifelong
useful for the people of an organization and how these can be achieved. Assessment of self-skills
and competencies is necessary to evaluate own current performance with the future career goals
and that will be discussed in that report along with the development plan for an individual on the
basis of current skills and future required skills. Further, this assignment report will include
work-related problem in the context of national trust organization and their proper solution with
time management strategies for the employees.
2

Lo1
Evaluation of self-managed learning approaches
Self-managed learning
In the self-managed learning process, the learner himself owns the learning by aligning it with
the need of the organization. The learner takes all the learning related decision by him and also
works with other people to achieve the learning objectives. It includes the way in which any
person can manage its own learning without depending on others (Zepeda, 2013). National trust
organization can organize self-managed learning programs for its employees that will allow them
to learn through the situation by themselves so that they can easily learn the things without the
help of their senior people. It is an approach in which an individual takes his own initiative to
acquire new knowledge and skills. To manage the self-learning one must have decided SMART
goals because on the basis of desired goals a person will take his own learning decision.
Learning totally depends upon the condition and the knowledge an individual going to gain from
that situation and that must be matched with the goals of the individual (Bourner, 2011)
Approaches
Learning through internet research
An employee of a national trust organization can conduct the research through the internet to
gain new knowledge, skills, and information. He can himself easily do this process by collecting
the relevant data from the internet. There are a wide variety of data, tools, research information
available on the internet which helps in to learn something new and beneficial for an employee
of the national trust (Cunningham, 2017).
Learning from the people
Employees of national trust can enhance their knowledge by learning from the people. Suppose
if an employee in the national trust is good at providing best visitor services than everyone can
observe his behavior and skills to get some knowledge. This type of learning makes a significant
impact on the employee because he acquires knowledge of someone else with the knowledge of
own self and combination of this results in a great learning (Cunningham, 2017).
Conferences and seminar
National trust can organization different seminar and conferences on the new topic that could
provide help to its employees in providing good visitors services. For example, a conference held
to distribute information about delivering the best customer experiences in the organization.
Conferences are held by the management of the national trust and they should focus on
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conducting day to day seminar and conferences for the employees so that they can learn
something to do their job well (Cunningham, 2017).
Coaching and mentoring
a coach can be appointed by the national trust or hiring of a mentor can help its visiting to
understand new things and skills so they can treat their visitors in a very well manner. Assistance
from the coach and mentor will improve the knowledge and behavior of the employees towards
the visitor and they will be able to deliver more efficient customer services (Cunningham, 2017).
Secondment
In this self-managed learning approach, the visitor service team can be transferred to another
organization where the people can learn by observing other’s behavior. National trust
organization can take initiative action on that and can transfer its employees to an organization
where people are more knowledgeable and competent (Cunningham, 2017).
Social media
Social media like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram are also distributing important information
through the internet. This will enhance the knowledge of the employees and learning situation
can be easily managed by the learner himself. Today social Media are considered as the best
approach of self-managed learning and it covers information from the overall world
(Cunningham, 2017).
Propose ways in which your lifelong learning in personal and professional context could be
encouraged at the national trust
Self-directed learning is the process in which employees are directed by themselves to acquire
new knowledge and skills from a particular situation and it is necessary to be a self-directed
learner in the national trust organization so that employees can their own decision of what to
learn and how to learn to provide the best customer services to the visitors. The development of
skills and knowledge should be done on a continuous basis because learning is part of every day.
The people who are a self-directed learner and focused on continuous learning from the situation
can easily acquire new knowledge, and competencies (Bunderson and Boumgarden, 2010).
Personal and professional activities conducted in the organization helps in to gain new
information and that enhances the learning power of the team. Sharing of knowledge with other
enhances self-knowledge as well as knowledge of others. Group participation in the activities
and active involvement in the situation is also helpful in growing lifelong learning capability
(Pedler, 2011). The manager of national trust should develop some training and development
programs like an apprenticeship, transfer scheme, and other informational programs to gain and
understand new things from the world which is good for their personal and professional
development (Mazzotti et al., 2018).
4

Learning styles are the way in which an individual decides his own style of learning from the
environment There are different learning styles can be used by the visitor services team of the
national trust (Schmeck, 2013)
Active Learner
In this style, the learner is active and ready to gain new knowledge. He enables himself to learn
from the entire situation by remaining active to grasp new knowledge (Schmeck, 2013)
Pragmatics
In this style, people are focused on the Application of new knowledge in the real world practices
to get a better understanding. They are not only active learner but applies a practical approach to
experience in real life (Schmeck, 2013)
Theorists
I this style the people believe in fact based data and report and want to get the full understanding
of the concept. They do not believe the things just by looking at them they always look for facts
and ideas behind that (Schmeck, 2013)
Reflectors
In this style, the people observe the relevant things and want to have a brief understanding of the
situation before using the knowledge. They are highly focused on the learning situation
Kolb’s learning style theory
This theory suggests that the concrete experience of an individual reviewed by himself to
understand that if he had experienced this before and after that individual tries to understand the
concept of his new experience to experiment in into different learning situation.
Hence, personal assessment of skills is necessary to understand the impact of learning. A self-
assessment model and evaluation technique can help in to know learning outcomes (Truong,
2016).
Benefits of self-managed learning for an assistant manager and the company national trust
Self-managed learning is useful for both the manager and the national trust organization. A
manager can improve his knowledge and skills and can take own decision during the learning
phase and that would help him to assist his teammates as well while the organization can
improve its overall performance through self-managed learning activities some of the benefits
are described as follows (Johnson et al., 2015):
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Benefits for the manager
 Manager can acquire new skills, knowledge, information, and behavior through the self-
managed learning process (Cunningham, 2017)
 Manager can guide its team to give more focus on self-directed learning so that it will
reduce workload from him
 Self-managed learning will help him to take own learning decision in a different situation
 The manager doesn't need to depend on others for learning if he takes responsibility own
learning and development (Cunningham, 2017)
 it will enhance the performance of the manager to lead the team in a better way
 Manager can play his role better through the self-directed and self-managed learning
Benefits for the national trust
 Growth and success of the national trust could be achieved if self-managed learning is
adopted by the visitor services team
 National trust can have employees with high knowledge and qualitative skills
 Improved knowledge and skills through self-direction will help in delivering the best
customer experience
 The national trust will not be responsible for taking learning decision of its employees
and it will reduce the pressure from the company
 The management of national trust doesn't need to provide direction to the employees for
what to learn and how to learn (Cunningham, 2017)
 On-going and long-life professional development is helpful for the national trust to adopt
future challenges (Cunningham, 2017)
 Performance of the overall national trust organization can be achieved by enhancing the
performance of the visitor's services team
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LO2
Evaluating own skills and competencies against the professional standards for a
Membership and Visitor Welcome Manager and against organizational objectives of
Travelodge hotel.
Competencies and skills against the professional standards of membership and visitor
welcome manager
I have good marketing skills as I have worked in the same field for 5 years. I have good people
management skills and I am motivated by myself. I have a good performance record and I am a
result, oriented person. I like to face challenges and I can do work under pressure in difficult
situations. I have sufficient knowledge of data analysis and IT tools. I am good at delivering the
best customer services. I have enough risk management capability as I take a risk as an
opportunity for the business. I need to improve my communication skills, risk management
skills, leadership skills, customer service skills, problem-solving skills, marketing skills,
customer relationship skills, and technical skills to perform the job role of visitor welcome
manager (Ellinger and Ellinger, 2014).
Hence, assessment of current skills and competencies helps in understanding the current
knowledge you have to perform future job roles and on the basis of self-assessment an individual
can decide and design development activities for him with the help of an effective development
plan (Panadero et al., 2017)
Competencies and skills against the organizational objective of the national trust
The national trust organization is building a connection between people and places and focused
on learning with each other. The organization is taking care of the different places just to deliver
the best customer experience and services so that they can enjoy. I have experience in delivering
good customer services and building a good relationship with the community. I can manage the
financial performance of the firm with my hard work and efforts. I am open to learning new
things and challenges in the working environment of the national trust (McNiff, 2010).
Own development needs and required activities
Development needs activities
Risk management skills Identification of risk and effective planning to
manage the risk
Leadership skills Inspire, motivate and guide the team
effectively
Customer relationship skills Good communication, support, and guidance to
the customers
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Problem-solving skills Use of case study and other problem-solving
technique
Ability to meet with the
target
Setting goals and work hard to achieve the
goals
Working ability according to the objectives of
the organization
Learning from the organization and its people
Time management and flexibility Learning from the time requirement and
adoption of new changes
Strong written and oral communication Improve oral communication by
communicating with others effectively and
practice of writing daily
Marketing skills Get motivation from the experienced people
and set the target for self
Development opportunities to meet your current and future defined needs
Skill development needs Development opportunities
In the national trust
Development opportunities
outside of the organization
Marketing skills Improvement of marketing
skills by gaining knowledge
from experienced people
Improving sales knowledge by
conducting market research
Working ability according to
the organizational objectives
Learning from the
organizational environment,
culture, and objectives
Searching for organizational
information with the use of
internet
Leadership quality Guiding, supporting and
effective communication with
the employees
By leading an informal team
of people
Risk management Identification and evaluation
of organizational risk
Research on the risk
management plan
Problem-solving Participation in the problem-
solving method
Use of the internet to find out
different problem-solving
approaches
8

Personal and professional development plan based on identified needs
The current and future
requirement of skills
How to develop When you are going to
develop
Marketing skills Research and learning from
experience holder
At the time of training and
development In the
organization and conducting
research for 1 month
Working ability according to
the organizational objectives
Understanding the
organizational objectives,
values, and expectations
3 days continue research on
the company’s website
Leadership quality Practicing leadership styles
among the team of an
organization
Learning of leadership
approaches on the internet
before joining the
organization and real practice
in the organization
Risk management Understanding of different
risk management approaches
and real practices
Internet research before
joining the organization and
practical approach while
working in the organization
Problem-solving Use of different problem-
solving method and critical
thinking
At the time of working in the
organization
9

LO3
Discussion of the processes and activities required to implement the development
plan
Research on the internet
To apply the plan in practice the research should be conducted through the internet to know and
understand the different risk management approaches, problem-solving method and leadership
approaches used by the different organization (Truong, 2016).
Training and development
The national trust organization is responsible for designing and developing different
development and training programs for its employee so that he can get the better understanding
of organizational expectations, standards, and objectives and this will help him to perform his
future job roles (Bauer, 2010)
Learning from experienced people
Experience people in the sales and marketing field could be the source of inspiration for new
joiners so the national trust should facilitate a formal and informal meeting with the experience
people (Bauer, 2010)
Communication and collaboration with the team
Effective communication and collaboration with the team will improve the leadership style of a
manager so that he can be a good leader in the national trust (Truong, 2016).
Active participation in the work
Active participation in the work practices will help in acquiring new skills and that will enhance
an employee's self-learning capability. The employees of national trust should give their active
contribution in the work they perform (Brown, 2015).
Learning by doing
If an employee will take responsibility for the problem-solving by using his own approach that
will improve his problem-solving skills. Use of all the approaches of learning in practical life is
necessary to experience them in real life environment (Brown, 2015).
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Undertake and document development activities as planned
Firstly, an individual is required to do research on the internet for a few days to get a better
understanding of the organization he is going to join and the different approaches of problem-
solving, learning, risk management, leadership so that I can acquire new knowledge and skills in
the advance and can prepare himself to perform future job roles (Rhode et al., 2017). After
receiving the sufficient knowledge and skills the individual should join the organization where
he will get the training to understand his roles and responsibility and the organization is
responsible for on-going development of the individual so that individual can gather some
knowledge as the changes arise in the organization. Experience people of the national trust will
describe how to be a successful visitor welcome officer and how to generate sales or revenue for
the organization. Learning through observation and applying theoretical practices in the real-life
environment will help an individual to develop his skills and competencies. Seminars,
conferences, different training, and development programs in the organization will bring out new
information and skills in the individual (Rubens et al., 2018)
Reflect critically on own learning against original aims and objectives
Understanding of theoretical things and then putting them in real life is quite difficult to obtain
the reliable result so the skills acquired through the internet sometimes cannot be applied in the
real life because the different situation requires different skills and approaches. Advance
preparation of developing skills is necessary as it facilitates a clear understanding of the skills
and knowledge (Suñol et al., 2016). Marketing skills cannot be improved by just listening to the
experience of the people here the practical approach is necessary to improve this skill and it
requires a long way to improve sales skills. Training and development program may provide a
theoretical framework but the real-life experience of the things is necessary. Leadership and
problem-solving skills cannot be improved by observing others here the individual himself is
responsible for doing the practical things. Continuous development of the individual can help
him to gain new skills but it takes lots of time (Choy and Chua, 2019).
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