Foundation Degree Work-Based Learning Project Report: B Clark

This report analyzes the work-based learning practices at B Clark Engineering, a family-owned SME. It identifies problems such as poor leadership, incorrect task allocation, inadequate training, and lack of flexibility. The report examines the negative impacts on employee performance, including decreased work efficiency, late arrivals, and customer complaints. It explores how to utilize job competencies, roles, and responsibilities, including soft and hard skills, to address these issues. Recommendations include adopting a situational leadership style, embracing flexibility, maintaining a professional code of conduct, and focusing on employee training. The report also includes a reflection on the situation, detailing the process of identifying root causes and suggesting improvements to leadership and training practices to enhance employee morale and performance.

Work Based Learning

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................3
i) Problems associated with B Clark SME engineering firm.......................................................3
ii) Ways to use job competencies, roles and responsibilities soft and hard skills ......................4
iii) Recommendation to B Clark..................................................................................................5
iv) Reflection to handle this situation..........................................................................................7
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................8
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................1

INTRODUCTION
Work based learning is defined as a learning practice use to acheve best level of learning
outcome at an organisation. This report will discuss about the B Clerk Engineering in respect to
the work based learning concept. This project will discuss different elements related to this topic
such as work based learning ideology. Henceforth, report will emphasis over the aspects that are
wrong in context to the business entity. The ways to utilise the job competencies will also
discuss in this project. Roles and responsibilities including soft and hard skills to evaluate B
Clerk current situation. Suitable recommendation will also provide to the business entity in order
to improve the respective situation of company. Furthermore, report will discuss the
MAIN BODY
i) Problems associated with B Clark SME engineering firm
In the case of B Clark, family owned specialized MOT firm, it is found that employees
started leaving organization, come late to office and also decreased their performance. All these
problems arose because of lack of participation by Mr Sabid, who was Russian youngster,
appointed by B Clark as a team leader. Initially, Mr Sabid was an effective team leader but
recently after some time he shown sign of a lack of effort and it impacted on other employees in
negative manner. So, as per the case scenario, some root causes can be discussed. As a trainee
team some root causes have been identified of these problems such as:
Poor leadership style: For becoming a successful leader for the long run it is important
for leader to adopt an effective style that can motivate employees. As it is seen that suddenly,
team leader, Mr Sabid started showing lack of participation. So, here the main root cause was:
poor leadership style. Leader must develop a style of leadership that can support, engage and
motivate employees (Puchalski Ritchie and et.al., 2020). They also need to make changes in their
style as per the situations arises in business environment.
Wrong allocation of task: As it is found that when Daughter of B Clark, Mrs Sara, head
of trainee department went for long 13 months of maternity leave then B Clark allotted
responsibility of training to Mr. Cooper, head of the operation. It is believed that tasks should be
allocated as per the experience and knowledge. So, here the main root cause of lack of
performance by employees was because of not understanding teaching and guiding behaviour of
Mr. Copper.

Training: it is found that Mrs, Sara, head of training department went for maternity leave
and for sometime employees may had face problems in performing work because of lack of
training. Training plays a vital role as it increases knowledge of employees but when employees
do not get proper and continuous training then it affects their performance. Due to lack of
training, employees start committing mistakes and increasing rate of mistake de-motivate them.
So, it is important for company to focus on providing proper training by experienced person in
order to boost confidence of employees (Ferdous, Ali and French, 2020).
Lack of flexibility: It is stated that B Clark, head of MOT firm is running business for 20
years. Business environment is made up of some factors where changes may happen any time.
For adapting changes and making employees flexible, it is important for manager to adapt
changes and developing appropriate models. An existing and old way of performing functions
can limit lack of flexibility and innovation within business. So, B Clark and team leader should
have focused on new and innovative ways of working. It can help employees in learning
something new and also makes them engaged with business.
ii) Ways to use job competencies, roles and responsibilities soft and hard skills
Company can focus over talent management strategies which will allow the B Clark
Company to achieve the well diversified control over operations and functional responsibility
undertaken by the organisation. The current situation of company understood in form of low
work efficiency, late coming employees, lack of efforts from the employees of company and
many such aspects. The existing training program could have been more modified by
implementing practical based learning program. This will create an interest of employees of
company to acquire both hard and soft skills (Geberemariam, 2017). It can clearly understand
that the culture of company is very negative that could cause the company suffering from
achieving the best level of work efficiency. Training campaign ruin by the organisation are only
successful only if the business entity significantly motivate the employees to learn new skills in
the training campaign. Further company can hold practice where it can take strong decisions
related to allocating incentives based on performance so that employees can put extra efforts to
improve the work efficiency so that more incentives could have been earned. This approach will
empower the business entity to engaged with the employee in respect to motivating them towards
achieving an effective flow of operations in respective market.

The current situation of company clearly reflect that employees are not willing to pout
efforts for achieving the best level of effectiveness in respective market. The practice related to
incentive benefit would motivate human resources of putting that extra effort so that more work
efficiency could have been achieved by the company. The business entity can also take guidance
of continuous monitoring practices over the performance of employees in the organisation. This
will allow the organisation to not only monitor the performance of employee by continuously put
efforts to deliver such a responsibility but also to guide the work force to improve the work
efficiency.
Monitoring and evaluation practices
Management of the B Clerk can implement 360 degree monitoring and evaluation related
practices. This is an effective tool that is used to consider all areas related to the human resources
associated at the organisation that can guide the company about the individual performance of
work force at the organisation level (Tengan and Aigbavboa, 2017). This practice involve
monitoring the performance by the senior authority in each individual department of company.
As the head of department get to coordinate with other employees part of company over a
continuous basis this practice will allow the business entity to easily monitor the performance of
every single human resource.
Evaluation will also done about the performance of employee. Proper scoring is granted
to employee that can denote the performance of the employee at work place. The feedback form
is also filled by the department that contain different section denote a certain level of scoring. In
the end all scores are accumulated to project the final score of the respective employee (Heinlein,
Cawley and Vogt, 2019). Evaluation will further be coordinated by the senior authority that will
guide the top management about the areas where employee need development. This entire
practice will allow the management to continuously monitor the performance of under performed
colleagues. Constant development in man power at the organisation will empower the business
entity to sustain a effective flow of operations under the respective market.
iii) Recommendation to B Clark
As it is seen that there are various issues that are being associated with the B Clark in the form of
adequate leadership style, lack of flexibility to change, management issue and various other. So
it is being recommended that:

As Mr Sabid who shows high performance in the beginning of his appointment period
but whose performance go slows down and due to that B Clark faces many issues in the form of
getting customer's complaints, low and poor working of employees. So in this case it can be
recommended that adoption of appropriate leadership style will help in getting rid of the issue.
This mean that adoption of situational leadership style by Mr Sabid will help it to manage its
work along with its performance level. As leadership is the main part of every organization that
lead them to achieve growth and success (Rahbi, Khalid and Khan, 2017). So it is being
recommended that appropriate adoption of leadership and its style is very essential in case of B
Clark.
Likewise, it is also recommended that changes are very necessary. As B Clark is running
its business from the last 20 years in the same mode so it is very essential that it should adopt the
concept of flexibility whereby it can adopt changes concerning the business environment or
changing need of employees. This means that as changes are very volatile and if the company
will not moult its work as per changing requirement then its performance will be greatly affected
so it is being recommended that adoption of flexibility approach will help the B Clark to grab
opportunities and success.
It is also being recommended that B Clark has to maintain a professional code of conduct.
This means that as when Mrs Sara was on maternity leave and her position regarding training
and coaching was delegated to Mr Cooper who was operation head. As training and coaching
was working as an essence of success for B Clark but due to wrong delegation of authority and
power the outcome of the training got affected and a s result of that the success is being affected.
So it is highly recommended that there should be an appropriate delegation of power matching to
skills and experience is required in B Clark so that the performance level will maintain.
Since, training is the key element that lead to success of company along with raisng the
level of performance (Maity, 2019). But in case of B Clark, when Mrs Sara went on maternity
leave and the department was head over to Mr Cooper then it has created a major training gap.
So it is recommended to B Clark to give high focus over the concept of training so that its
employees will not feel low and the efficiency of the employees will be raised and maintained
high. This means that B Clark have to focus over providing of training on regular interval to its
employees in order to restore success and get rid of customer problems and declining employees
morale issue.

iv) Reflection to handle this situation
Situation that involves reduced performance of some trainees and one of the best
performer of team Mr Sabid was quite worrisome. The reason is their reducing work
performance along with this late arrival, sick leaves and complaints of customers made the
situation more important to consider (Farahian, Avarzamani and Rajabi, 2021). I was selected by
management team to determine root cause of current situation. I identified that there are several
reasons because of which performance of employees in training team was reducing. One of the
important reason was leadership and style of leadership. The identification was done through
observation and conversation with some employees and team-members of training team. Mr
Sabid was leader of team and as his performance was reducing it made negative impact on other
team-members. This is because leader is a person who has great impact on other team-members
and their performance and behaviour. Along with behaviour of leader, effect of leadership style
was also negative on team-members. This means that conversation with team-members helped
me in understanding that leadership style of Mr Sabid was not very good and because of this
their performance got negatively affected. I identified that one of the reason because of which
performance of Mr Sabid was negatively affected was change in position of Head of coaching
and training department. This means that Mrs Sara Head of Coaching and Training department
was absent and in this time Mr Cooper was managing position of Head of coaching and training
department and Mrs Sara returned it affected training team and Mr Sabid, team leader of training
team. This is because he saw a change in management and leadership of department. The time I
was working on identifying root causes I realised that flexibility is also one of the reason because
of which performance of Mr Sabid as well as other team-members was being negatively affected
(Asfeldt, Hvenegaard and Purc-Stephenson, 2018). In changing times it is very important that
employees in organisation are provided adequate flexibility so that they can maintain their work-
life balance. Mr Sabid was new to UK and initially was performing well because of his aptitude
but he also requires flexibility so that he can adjust in new country with his family, which is very
difficult. This means that collectively organisational, leadership and other personal issues
contributed in reduced performance of employees of training team and performance of Mr Sabid.
In order to solve problem understanding of problem and its causes is very important and
on the basis of identified problems certain solutions were also proposed for management. This

means that in order to cope with sudden changes in leadership, Mrs Sara should communicate
with training team and Mr Sabid so that they can cope with sudden changed in leadership. In
order to problem which was caused by lack of flexibility in B Clark, flexible timing policy
should also be developed by organisation so that they can create work-life balance (Lam, 2018).
Creation of work-life balance for employees and Mr Sabid will lead them to have focus on their
work in organisation.
CONCLUSION
B Clark is a emerging organisation that could entertain reduced performance in the recent
years. Company could not able to perform in the best way possible in the recent years due to low
performance of employees in company. There are several reasons has been reported like late
coming employees, not putting extra efforts or many such cause that could make the business
entity suffer to perform in the best way possible. It can reflect that company can use practices
like 360 degree customer feedback form so that business entity can perform in the best way
possible. This can state as the key recommendation that company can follow to improve the
work culture. In every business entity it becomes essential to analysis the individual performance
of business entity. Company should also adopt constant practice related to leadership at the
organisation level. This will make the business entity to keep the culture effective as employee
will be keen towards the policies and practices used by the business entity.

REFERENCES
Books and journals
Asfeldt, M., Hvenegaard, G. and Purc-Stephenson, R., 2018. Group writing, reflection, and
discovery: A model for enhancing learning on wilderness educational
expeditions. Journal of Experiential Education. 41(3). pp.241-260.
Farahian, M., Avarzamani, F. and Rajabi, Y., 2021. Reflective thinking in an EFL Writing
course: To what level do portfolios improve reflection in writing?. Thinking Skills and
Creativity. 39. p.100759.
Ferdous, T., Ali, M. and French, E., 2020. Impact of flexibility stigma on outcomes: role of
flexible work practices usage. Asia Pacific Journal of Human Resources.
Geberemariam, T. K., 2017. Post construction green infrastructure performance monitoring
parameters and their functional components. Environments. 4(1). p.2.
Heinlein, S., Cawley, P. and Vogt, T., 2019. Validation of a procedure for the evaluation of the
performance of an installed structural health monitoring system. Structural Health
Monitoring, 18(5-6). pp.1557-1568.
Lam, R., 2018. Promoting self-reflection in writing: A showcase portfolio approach. In
International perspectives on teaching the four skills in ELT (pp. 219-231). Palgrave
Macmillan, Cham.
Maity, S., 2019. Identifying opportunities for artificial intelligence in the evolution of training
and development practices. Journal of Management Development.
Puchalski Ritchie, L.M. and et.al., 2020. Impact of peer-trainer leadership style on uptake of a
peer led educational outreach intervention to improve tuberculosis care and outcomes in
Malawi: a qualitative study. BMC Health Services Research. 20. pp.1-10.
Rahbi, D.A., Khalid, K. and Khan, M., 2017. The effects of leadership styles on team
motivation. Academy of Strategic Management Journal. 16(3).
Tengan, C. and Aigbavboa, C., 2017. Level of stakeholder engagement and participation in
monitoring and evaluation of construction projects in Ghana. Procedia engineerin. 196.
pp.630-637.
1