Unit 23 Personal and Professional Development Assignment

Introduction

Today, the role of the personal development has increased in everyone’s life even the company prefers the candidate who understand the concept of the personal and professional development. As known that everyone has a set of the goal and the objective for their own and everyone has a desired to fulfil them. Here the concept of personal development or growth arises to fulfil the need or the desire of own life. The personal development works as a catalyst in process of achieving the goal and objective. In the following paper we will discuss the various aspects related to the Personal and professional development and also study how it works in the person’s life and organisation’s life as well.

Task 1

1.1 Evaluate approaches to self-managed learning.

Self managed learning is a process that helps the individual to learn the different things and gain the experience that is the very important for the individual. It is not related to the thing that comes by attending the lectures in class even is the thing which could be learnt by the society where we live or from the company where we works and make the environment friendly. In the self managed learning, there is a big role of the technology that forces the individual to adopt the changes that come in the form of technology and give a chance to the individual to come with the new business strategy and ideas of the self managed learning (Babin et al. 2012). The self managed learning comes with the improvement in the knowledge for the long term and also with the learning techniques. This knowledge and the learning may be used in the personal and professional development later. Hence, to improve the self managed learning, it would be better for the individual that he observes the present situation, analyse the problems in the environment where he stay, make recommendation.  Besides this, the different approaches of the self managed learning are as follows:

• Seminar and conference: seminar and the conference are tools that help the individual to learn the different things about the personality. With the help of the seminar and the conference, the individual prepare a speech that includes their personal experience and sharing it in the public that helps in achieving the development in the personality and the personal skills.
• Social networks: To get socialize is a form of the self managed learning whether it may be in the local communities and the social networking sites such as face book, twitter etc. by having the social networking in the community, the individual get to know the communication skills that develops the personality and making the networks by social networking sites helps in increasing the technological skills through chatting, and the sharing their ideas.
• Internet: the internet has the big role in the self managed learning as the individual can learn the different things such as management studies, history and many more by surfing the websites on the internet. The sources of the internet in providing the knowledge are so big that the millions of users can fetch the same information at the same time on internet. Internet gives the knowledge of the different perception of the different authors on the same topics.

1.2 Propose ways in which lifelong learning in personal and professional contexts could be encouraged

The lifelong learning includes the learning of the individual to improves its strength and the helps or contribute in the personal prospective. The lifelong learning includes two aspects these are the personal capacity and the usage of the professional context. Following are the ways that improves the confidence and helps in lifelong learning in personal and professional contexts could be encouraged (Bauman, 2013).

• Self evaluation: the self evaluation analyses includes the SWOT analysis as by evaluating the strength and the weakness of mine, I will be able to evaluate the professional learning with the help of the professional learning tool and especially the self-reflective learning and continuing professional development. The self reflective learning is all about the reviewing the judgement, opinion that it depends on the people willing and be honest about it and also helps in maintaining and learning the new skills at work place. And the continuing professional development combines the developments, ideas that I have experienced in my life. The SWOT analysis of mine is as follows:

Strength Operation management Team leadership Quality assurance Goal and target setting skills Effectively evaluates goals Interdependent thinking skills Friendly Ambitious Assessment and training IT skills such as MS word, excel, power point	Weakness Communication skills Strategy formation
Opportunity New technology. Continue to higher education	Threat Recession Changes in demands

• Continuous learning: the continuous learning includes the growth into the personality from the experience of the life and event. This could be in any manner either in the personally or in professionally and applied on both the individual and the organisation. At the individual level, it is the growth in the behaviour, skills, talents and knowledge whereas at the organisational level it is in the improvement in the team skills, change in policies, culture etc.
• Effective leadership: the effective leadership is also the part of the lifelong learning that helps me in understanding how it influence the people of the different origin and allow them to work together and how the influence happens, personally and how it is empowering the team of the people professionally.
• Motivation and achievement: this is also a part of the lifelong learning that keeps the individual to get motivated and satisfy. And for the achievement it is necessary to have the objective that make the feel good at the time of the achievements.

1.3 Evaluate the benefits of self-managed learning to the individual and organisation

Self managed learning gives several benefits to the individual or the organisation such as positive attitude, decision making etc. basically the self managed learning is associated with the learning of the past personal experiences that could be applied on the organisation to achieve the goal. The benefits that are associated with the self managed learning are as follows:

• Communication skills: the communication skill is one of the benefits that are gained by the self managed learning. The self managed learning gives the confidence of the independent working. In the independent working the individual has to present the idea in front of the other employee of the organisation and also communicate the result of the process that is followed by them (Bjork,  Dunlosky,  Kornell, 2013). Hence the communication skills that is oral and written both are improved with the self managed learning.
• Improve the skill that presentation: As discussed above that the self managed learning gives the confidence of the independent working. This independent working gives strength to present the idea and also improve the skills that is related to the presentation of the idea, positive attitude and the confidence in public speaking for the individual and organisation too.
• Team working: for the organisation it is very important the work or the task should be done by the team. Many researchers show that the success of the organisation depends on team building or working of the organisation. The self managed learning also improves the team working and the team building within the organisation. At the individual level the team working, improves the skills of the communication, cooperation.

Task 2

2.1 Evaluate own current skills and competencies against professional standards and organisational objectives

The organisation always prefers the candidate who helps the organisation in achieving the goal and the objective. So the criteria that the organisations follow at the time of the hiring of the candidate are the SMART objective and prefer the candidate who is expertise in the knowledge of the area where the organisation needs to put the candidate. Besides this, some skills such as communication skills, Leadership skills and the time management all are the plus point in the hiring for the organisation (Chinn and Moorley, 2014).

The skills of the employees affect the process and the actions of the organisation a lot. When I try to figure out the qualities in me that can benefits the organisation is the friendly nature, ready to learn new things that helps in maintaining the good working environment. A proper evaluation of my skills and the competencies against the professional standard and organisational objectives is as follows:

Skill	Activities involved to excel the skill	Personal remarks	Rating out of 10.
Problem solving skills	I observe the situation and try to find out what is right first and then find out the solution of the problem.	As I worked as a warehouse manager in Amazon to there are the various exercise and the activities that helps me lot in the improving the skills of problem solving and in present learning most of things from seniors and studying about it in cases.	8
Time management	Regular maintain to do list. Always check the list in morning and prioritise the time accordingly.	Time management is essential factors for the organisation and always try to follow to do list and also has some time to the interruptions.	9
Strategy formation and decision making.	As known that there are many factors that surrounding the organisation such as competitors, political factors etc. these factors regularly try to harm the organisation in any mean so it is very important to keep the watch on these factors and make the decision to solve the problem strategically.	Strategic formation is an exercise that cannot be maintained instantly. It need the regularly study of the case and the problem solving decisions.	6
Motivation	There are the various activities present into the organisation that excel the quality.	Motivation is an ability that inspires the followers to accomplish the task. The factors such as increment etc, works as a motivator factors that increase the reaction of the process into the organisation. A good leader could also works as a motivator.	8
Leadership skills	The activity that I performed to excel the skills includes the observation of the senior on the leadership’s decision and tries to find out the outcome of the decision taken by on the leadership.	A leader is the person who led the team and tries to accomplish the task on time. An organisation always needs a good leader.	7.5
Communication skills	The newspaper and the novel keep my vocabulary strong and I need the improvements in this area.	The good communication is must for the individual and the organisation the good communication skills gives the confidence in the public speech and presentation.	6
Social skills	I involve in the activities or the functions organise by the organisation and try to make in contact to the employee of the other department.	Social skills includes the having the good relationship with the other into the organisation.	8

2.2 Identify own development needs and the activities required to meet them

The skills analysis that is done by me on my abilities and competencies against the professional behaviour and the organisational objective describes the two area where I need the improvement these are the communication skills and the strategy formation. In today scenario, it is very important to present the idea and the view especially in the corporate world.  To present the idea the skills that the each and every employee of the organisation must possess is the strong communication skills. The communication skills include both the oral and the written communication in order to send the message to the other. I need the improvements in both communication skills as the oral communication is helpful in present the views or opinion on the topic and the written communication includes the email and the circular writing (Dowson, 2015). These both communications skills have their importance in order to maintain the competitive advantage for both the individual and the organisation and also helps in achieving the goal and the objective set by both the individual and the organisation. Another weak area is the strategy formation, as I have worked in the many organisations and I was also facing the same problem with the strategy formation. As mentioned earlier that the organisation is surrounded by the various factors. The organisation need to follow the rules set by these factors so the importance of the strategy formation is arises. The competitive advantage, high sale, good working environment could be maintained by the strategy formation and it also helps in reduce the negative effect on the organisation.

2.3 Identify development opportunities to meet current and future defined needs

There are the numbers of the employees work together into the organisation. At the time of the hiring of the candidate, the organisation always prefers the candidates who have talent to meet the goal and objective of the organisation. The main problem that arose is the diversity in nature, culture, sex because of the diversity in region that arise the main reason of the conflicts. This is the basic need of the organisation to remove the conflicts between the employees so that they could get the team work (Galvin, 2014). The conflicts could be removed only by the understanding the culture of each other that could be gained by the good communication skills. The good communication plays a very important role in the removing the conflicts. As mentioned earlier that I am friendly in nature and try to maintain the good relationship with the other employees that makes the people around me happy. The good conduct and respecting each other culture also strengthen the relationship between the employees. Hence the team building and the work could be getting if each and every employee of the organisation respecting each other culture. One of the reasons behind strengthen my communication skills is the taking the part in the team building and perform the task as it also improve the skills for the individual and the organisation too.

2.4 Devise a personal and professional development plan based on identified needs

The main purpose of the personal and professional development plan is to overcome the weakness of the individual in the given timeline. As mentioned in the above task, my areas for the improvement are the strategic formation and the communication skills. These are the area that needs the improvements from the side of the organisation as they are very essential to achieving the goal of the organisation too. Following is my Personal and professional development plan that needs the time of about 7 months in making the improvement in my weak areas.

Skill	Activities involved	Resources to be utilized	Time scale (out of 6 months)
Writing skills	Attending the classes for the making the writing skill such as email etc. good. Drafting sample letters based on the topics of importance.	Generally, the news paper, books and the novel to make the vocabulary strong.	3 months.
Oral communication	Attending classes for the same. Attending courses for improvement Interacting with people	Practise through mock presentation and try to present my views on various topics.	2 months
Strategy formation	Attending seminar and the conferences on the strategic management.	Case studies, observations, seminar and conferences.	1 month

Task 3

3.1 Discuss the processes and activities required to implement the development plan

There are many activities and the processes that need to implement the development plan. First activity is related to the keep the PPD on track. The questionnaires are designed to keep the tract of the PPD plan as it would also help in measuring the improvement or development in the personality. As my weakness areas are highlighted with the time limit so it s my responsibility to accomplish the task at the given time. For that purpose a focussed approach also needed at the time of the development of the plan. The focussed approach would help me the concentration on the task. Besides this the hard work, honesty and respect of the managers and the senior could be helpful in the implementing of the personal and professional development plan (Graves, 2013). Before the implementation of the plan the activity that is needed to understand is the scope of the development plan as the trends and culture of the organisations also keeps changing as the employees working into the organisation changes and these new employee comes with the new trend and generation. So it is very important for me to identify the rate of the changes into the organisation first and then calculate the scope of the personal and professional development plan. The activity or the skills that has the high scope will get the high priority and would be accomplished first.

3.2 Undertake and document development activities as planned

The activities that are mentioned into the development plan are the most essential and the important activities to me same as the execution of the same activities (Guffey and Loewy, 2012). The documenting is the activity that involved the write down of all the important though of the day on regular basis. At the time of the starting of the personal and professional development plan, all the experience, feedback and the observation are written down on the paper. The benefits of the documenting is that it helps a lot in learning of the things and the experience and the benefits all could be remembered from the one time of revision. Besides this, the gap area between the different activities and problems could be filled up by documenting. I have documented almost all the experience such as the interaction between me and the seniors, advice of the seniors and the managers, their opinions and I regular maintain the documenting and try to write down all the area and the experience that can give me benefits in the implementation of the personal and professional development plan. Besides this, I also noted down the difficulties that I faced at the time of the application of the particular activity or the strategy.

3.3 Reflect critically on own learning against original aims and objectives set in the development plan

The personal and professional development plan was developed by me at the time when I realise the improvement into the areas where I am not able to perform good. As mentioned into the development plan that there are two areas that needs the improvement these are the strategy formation and the communication skills. As known that I have joined the classes for the improvement in the communication and in my most of free time I do the practise of the presentation and the writing skill through email writing. Besides this I am also practising to improve the area of the strategy formation. The time limit was also set with the activities and skills that is going to be performed by me but I think that the time limit that is set with the activity was not enough as the oral and the written communication could not be improved in the two months as set in the personal and professional development plan. Same with the strategy formation, it is good that the case studies and the observation of the decision making or the strategy formation of the seniors helps me lot but It seems that the strategy formation could not be improved at the time period of the three months (Lane, 2015).

3.4 Update the development plan based on feedback and evaluation

In my development plan, I mainly focused on the three skills which I think needed to be developed and they should become my strengths for bright future. I have given a time scale of 3 months to improve the writing skills and the activities mentioned were mainly related to the reading, but I think that only reading the news papers and article might not be enough for improving the writing skills. I need to to some practice in writing and social media, blogs and preparing the diary could help in achieving this goal (Moon, 2013).

The next skill I mentioned was oral communication skills and after the peer feedback and my own evaluation, it seems that I need to give more time to oral communication skills as they need to be developed in a very precise manner when it comes to professional communication. Hence, the time for this activity needs to be increased. Same is the case with strategy formation skill. Strategy formation is something which cannot be learned in a month and I also need the opportunities to practice the skills which would take some time. Hence, I should try to get an internship where I could learn and implement the strategy formation techniques (Lane, 2015).

Task 4

4.1 Select solutions to work-based problems

Hilton London Heathrow Airport Hotel is a renowned organisation still the organisation has been facing the issue of employees leaving the organisation and switching the jobs. This type of problem could be very serious for the performance of the company as the experienced employees are leaving the organisation and this kind of talent could not be hired at once from the market. Also, the HRM department of the Hilton London Heathrow Airport Hotel would have to go for a lengthy and costly recruitment process to recruit the new employees to fill the vacant jobs and then they have to plan the induction and training for the new employees.

Although, there are some solutions which can be used to address the problem, yet it is the decision of the company management and HRM department to choose the right solution which suits the organisation (Graves, 2013).

Some of the solutions to address the problem of employee turnover are:

• Understand the reason behind the employee turnover.
• Try to retain the employees by fulfilling their needs
• Hire some new employees and train them for the future needs so that the organisation would have the resources in reserve in case some employee decides to leave the organisation. But this would be an extra burden on Hilton London Heathrow Airport Hotel
• Arrange an exit interview for the employee who has resigned from the organisation and try to know why he is leaving and then use that experience in improving the human resource policies.

It is not necessary that only one of the above provided solutions has to be selected. Some of them could be used simultaneously to address the issue with a better success rate. Hence, I would recommend that Hilton London Heathrow Airport Hotel should go for understanding the employee needs and then find ways to fulfil these needs by rewards, recognition and promotions.

4.2 Communicate in a variety of styles and appropriate manner at various levels

Communication gap might be a reason for the employees’ dissatisfaction and employee turnover problem at Hilton London Heathrow Airport Hotel. Hence, it is necessary to maintain appropriate communication at every level of the organisation. The structure of Hilton London Heathrow Airport Hotel is divided as per the hierarchy levels and there are many levels of roles and responsibilities in the organisation (Dowson, 2015).

The senior authorities can conduct meeting quarterly to discuss with their employees the achievements made by the hospital and how they plan to develop in future.

Since the organisation has hierarchical structure, the horizontal communication style would not suit the organisation if implemented rigidly because in this case the lower level employees would not be able to bypass their direct reporting manager and some of their issues might go unheard (Warren, 2014). Hence, the Hilton London Heathrow Airport Hotel needs to prepare and implement a combination of horizontal and vertical communication style where in some specific cases; an employee should have the right to bypass his direct reporting manager in case his / her problems are not being solved.

4.3 Evaluate and use effective time-management strategies.

The absence of the effective time management strategic has also become an issue for the Hilton London Heathrow Airport Hotel and the employees need to follow some of the time management strategies mentioned below:

• Always keep an appointment diary to make sure that all the engagements are attended properly
• A To Do list could be very useful for the employees working at Hilton London Heathrow Airport Hotel
• Carry a schedule and record all your thoughts, conversations and activities for a week. This will help you understand how much you can get done during the course of a day and where your precious moments are going (Zepeda, 2014). 
• Always give yourself some time to plan the activities of a specific period and then try to maintain the course.
• When you are at work, try to bloke the personal work in the office hours so that you could do your work properly.
• Try to prepare the goals and objective in a SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Time Bound).

Conclusion

The organisation always seeks the candidate who has developed their skill for their own because they know the value of the personal and professional development to achieving the objective and goal and helps the organisation to achieve the set goals. So, with the hiring of the right candidate, the organisation automatically achieved the goal that has been set by the top management. Different solutions to work based problems are also provided using the case study of Hilton London Heathrow Airport Hotel

References

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Bauman DC (2013), Leadership and the three faces of integrity, The leadership quarterly
Bjork RA,  Dunlosky J,  Kornell N (2013), Self-regulated learning: Beliefs, techniques, and illusions, Annual Review of Psychology
Chinn T, Moorley C (2014), Using social media for continuous professional development, Journal of advanced nursing
Dowson P (2015), Personal and Professional Development for Business Students
Galvin S (2014), Closing the Preparedness Gap through Leadership and Professional Development
Graves N (2013), Learner managed learning: practice, theory and policy Annual Review of Management.
Guffey ME, Loewy D (2012), Essentials of business communication
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Moon JA (2013), Reflection in learning and professional development: Theory and practice