BSBLED401

Assessment Task 1: Report writing

a). The Australian human rights commission has introduced laws for the protection of people from discrimination and harassment(Hardy et al., 2013).

b).The followinganti-discrimination laws are governed by the Commonwealth or Federal Government:

At a federal level:

Age Discrimination Act 2004
Australian Human Rights Commission Act 1986
Disability Discrimination Act 1992
Racial Discrimination Act 1975
Sex Discrimination Act 1984.

At a state and territory level:

Australian Capital Territory – Discrimination Act 1991
New South Wales – Anti-Discrimination Act 1977
Northern Territory – Anti-Discrimination Act 1996
Queensland – Anti-Discrimination Act 1991
South Australia – Equal Opportunity Act 1984
Tasmania – Anti-Discrimination Act 1998
Victoria – Equal Opportunity Act 2010
Western Australia – Equal Opportunity Act 1984.

c).The Fair Work Act 2009 is looked by theFair Work Ombudsman (FWO)(Hardy et al., 2013).There are four enforcements to promote Commonwealth workplace lawunder this act. These are infringement notice which is a fine for violating pay slip and record keeping requirements, other is compliance notice that is a legal notice requiring the individual to take action to fix the breach, written enforcement undertaking in case of serious breach and litigation to enforce act and regulation and to obtain penalty for non-compliance.

d).Australian human rights commission governing anti-discrimination legislation in Australia.

e).Unlawful discrimination is treating an individual different or giving less favour due to different features (Sargeant, 2012) which can be gender, race, religion, ethnicity, caste, colour age, disability, etc. this can happen in training when the recruiter/manager do not take positive to fulfil training needs and do not offer training and exclude from development opportunity due to any attributes mentioned above.

f). Helen’s employer did not act in an ethical manner as the employer has rejected Helen from undertaking internal training which highlights violation of Age Discrimination Act 2004 under equality law.

g). Federal and state authorities can advise Helen to resolve the situation by reporting the problem to the HR and filing the Age Discrimination Claim to the authorities.

h). Performance and learning needshighlight educating about the technical literacy and training for the developing technical skill for performing job and improving performance at work.

i) Self-evaluation of Mary as Administrative officer can be done through SWOT analysis that can identify strength, weakness areas, opportunity to grow and risks.The performance needs include time management skills, interpersonal skills, communication skills and administrative skills.

Mary self-evaluation form

Existing skills

I have good organizational skills that have helped me to meet work deadlines and my interpersonal skills has helped me maintain cordial relationship with other workers and avoided conflicts. However, with increase scope of responsibility time management is not my strengths.

Job performance

Regularity at work (Rating: 4.5 out of 5)

I deliver high quality of work as per the work standards. (Rating: 4 out of 5)

I always meet my work as per given schedule. (Rating: 2.5 out of 5)

Creativity/ innovation at work ( 2 /5)

Customer focus( 3/5)

Flexible /adaptability as role of customer service or administrator (3.5/5)

Job knowledge related to customer service (3/5)

Professional development needs

Time management skills to set goals, prioritise work and to manage work interruptions and to make time plans for long and complex work activities.

j). Collect feedback

The feedback can be collected through one to one conversation with the employee, from colleagues and managers and through a client feedback form to obtain information about performance of Mary.

Client feedback form
Name of employee	Date
Employee title/job/position
Purpose:
Description of activities		Performance Score Rate (1 – very good, 2 -Good, 3 -Average, 4- Fair, 5-Poor)
Overall experience with the employee		4
Employee has sufficient knowledgeable and professional attitude.		3
Employee gave timely response		2
Employee attended to resolve customer issue/complaints/enquiry		3
Rate our customer service for placement or order through phones		4
Rate our customer service for follow up		3
Any other comments:

k/l/m – case study

Self-evaluation form for improvement areas

Title – Self Evaluation sheet
Purpose -To identify professional development needs and improvement areas
Respondent – Ms. Mary
Daily activities and responsibilities	Rate your level of skill ( 5 – Very Good, 4 – Good, 3 – Average, 2-Need improvement, 1 –poor )
To provide secretarial and administrative support services to staff in a specified time Process and monitor payment accounts File organisation skills Maintain positive relationships with staff, visitors and customer Communicating with customers Handling customer complaints Making reports, correspondence, presentations and spreadsheets	4 4 1 3 3 2 3
Other areas that require improvement	Ticks the areas where you feel training is necessary
Interpersonal skills	ü
Business correspondence
Time management skills	ü
Work –life balance
Any other, please specify : problem solving	ü

Collect feedback from relevant sources

Title – Client feedback form
Purpose -To obtain information from the client about the employee work delivery
Name of Respondent – Ms. Mary
Position – Administrative services
Service deliveries	Rating (5- Very Good, 4- Good, 3- Fair, 2- Poor, 1- Very Poor)
Overall experience with our employee	3
Satisfaction with timeliness of order placement	4
Level of satisfaction with customer support on phone	3
How good is employee in handling your issues, complaints with orders or delivery or enquiries?	2
How satisfied are you with customer follow up ?	3
Any suggestion to improve our customer service ?	–

Compare feedback on performance with established team learning needs

The competencies and skill areas for improvements in Mary indicate knowledge of the process of customer services and time management skills. The training program’s goals, objectives and delivery modes can be developed and agreed upon by undertaking a training need analysis to identify the knowledge gap, by analysing the job description and identifying the leaning style of the individual employee to decide on training delivery mode. On the job training, coaching and managerial training can lead to valuable outcome for Mary.For potential promotion, managerial and enhancement of technical ability is relevant.

Assessment Task 2: Case study and Report Writing

Mentoring and coaching
Describe what mentoring is and who could be used as a mentor.

Mentoring is a process that provides guidance, support and motivation to an individual to manage self-learning and develop solution for growth or career issues and development. With the help of proper mentoring, the individual can improve skills and performance for personal and professional development(de Janasz et al., 2013).Mentor helps the individual to think about how to progress in the career and realise individual potential. Thus, mentoring serve as an empowerment tool. The role of mentor can be taken up by any individual who has expertise or experience and has seen changes in management styles (Ghosh and Reio, 2013) and has ability to act as a leader and can train and coach to other individual who have less information or experiences or seek advice for career path.

In what situation would you use or appoint a mentor?

The mentor can be appointed in situation where organisation work is suffering due to poor performance of employees, poor worker and manager relationship, when an individual feel uninspired and unsatisfied from job (Ghosh and Reio, 2013), cope with stress at job, communication gap,unexpected changes in job role, performance reviews to identify the improvements area and for development of valuable skill for higher roles. When an organisation seeks to develop leaders and assist the employee in overcoming problems that hinder employee growth development and current progress, help to create a work-life balance and to retain its existing talent(de Janasz et al., 2013).

Describe what coaching is.

Coaching is a process that focuses on continuous development to achieve distinct personal or professional objectives. It creates performance driven culture that enable an organisation to cope with internal changes and external competitive pressures (Jones et al., 2016). Thus, coaching helps the organisation to manage and cope with industry specific challenges.

In what situation could a person benefit most from coaching?

A person can benefit from coaching in situation where individual need to acquire new skills and knowledge, develop new perspective and enhance interpersonal and managerial skills (Jones et al., 2016). In situation where an individual behaviour, skill and knowledge demands change the coaching is required to help individual adapt to new roles (Emil Berg and Terje Karlsen, 2012). Also, when an organisation seeks to develop specific competencies in employee for performance management tools, and is incorporating new system and during restructuring of management hierarchy situation can gain from coaching.

Describe the differences between the role of a mentor and a coach.

The role of coach is focus on tasks and activities and based on performance (Jones et al., 2016) whereas mentoring is relationship oriented and based on individual development (de Janasz et al., 2013). The coach is involved with individual for a shorter duration whereas the mentor role is of long duration and can even extend from few months to one to years.

Learning styles
Graham predominant learning style indicates auditory learning as he likes to make use of sound in learning that can be in form of talking to other over telephone and face to face meetings (Rohrer and Pashler, 2012). It is also evident as Graham is not very good at reading tasks he is does not prefer reading reports and minutes of meeting.On the other hand, Maria principal learning style highlights visual type as she makes use of visual aids such as charts and maps(Rohrer and Pashler, 2012). Also, Maria fails to notice any instruction that is given in verbally form.Gino major learning style is kinaesthetic as it involves physical experience such as movements of hands. This indicates Gino has learning by doing method where hemakes use of body, hands and senses (Gilakjani, 2011). Moreover, Gino take plentiful notes when learning something new which indicate the movement of hands to better concentrate on the details.

b. Strategies to assist different learning styles

Learning Styles	Strategies fortraining/professional development sessions
Visual	Include outlines and concept maps for the purpose of reading and taking notes.	Make use of visual aids such as objects, pictures, models, charts, diagrams, etc.	Include lots of reading content in handouts(Rohrer and Pashler, 2012)
Auditory	Classroom lectures	Brainstorming sessions	Questioning the trainees
Kinaesthetic	Role playing activities	Leave space in handout to allow the learner to make notes (Gilakjani, 2011).	Provide markers and coloured pens to learners to make them focus of key points(Rohrer and Pashler, 2012)

Develop teams and individuals

a.The relevant competencies that can be valuable if included in the professional development needs of each individual team member can be increase commitment to career, career motivation, and leadership inthe case of Graham, knowledge acquisitionand work-life balance for Maria and time management skills for Gino. The reasons for these competencies are apparent as Graham reported that he feels frustrated from his exiting job profile which might lead to job dissatisfaction whereas Maria has poor awareness in area of finance which is required as per the work profile and also has poor health status due to workload. Gino has backlogs of workand falls behind work due to poor management of time.

The strengths of the team that can be utilised to develop a strategy for development of team members can be management of multiple tasks, team managing skills of Graham, good business and administration skills from Maria and good interpersonal skills and teamwork from Gino. The team weakness can be time management skills, communication skills, organising skills, responsibilities of assigned roles and lack of motivation for career growth.

Assessment Task 3: Case Study

Program Selection
a) The best suited program is Option 3 that is a short online session which includes self-paced learning activities because Gino learning style is kinaesthetic and this session allow him to learn by doing things while other two options do not give physical experience to learn.
b) Strategy benefits the team and individuals within this can be well adapted to suit the specific workplace situation and it supports development of time management skills and time management plans which is essential for team members such as Maria and Gino while Graham can be benefitted by productivity lesson plan in this program which also provide mentor training. The chosen program offers development opportunities for each member and can assist in development of the competencies required in the assigned job role.
c) Organisational requirements

The organisational requirements can be identified in consultation with the employee and work teams. Some key organisational requirements identified are business and performance plans, process, system, and requirements for timely management of activities by team members. Gino also requires time management plan as the there is backlog of work and he falls behind majority of the work assigned. Moreover, Gino has a tendency of getting bored easily thus, this can be addressed with the chosen program which is of short duration which help Gino to concentrate without getting sidetrack which is possible in long sessions and this programemphasise on time management overview and time management plans which is an ongoing requirement.

Professional development session evaluation

Questionnaire to evaluate and assess any professional development courses by team member or participant learner

both in-house and external professional development facilities

What training materials were provided?

How well the organisation supported development of training program?

Was the training material available for reference by other team members?

relevant learning and development deliveries and outcomes

Did the program objectives were clearly stated?

Were the topics discussed in the program relevant to work?

Did the program meet your learning needs and expectations? Why not?

Which new skills or knowledge gained from this program?

How organisation benefit from your participation in this training program?

Presenter appraisals.

Did the program/course presenter achieve the mentioned objectives?

Were the concepts explained clearly?

How well the presenter encouraged participate during the course?

How well individual questions discussed?

Did the trainer’s has in-depth knowledge of the subject?

3.Review of progress

The main criteria to assess a professional development program can be appropriateness of the program for the learner, new skills, knowledge or competencies developed from the program, application of new skills/knowledge in work and success of the program in meeting the organisational requirements and individual needs from the program.
Gino has failed to prioritise the task i.e. the meeting with client over assisting felloe colleagues. This can be addressed by setting priorities and by minimising interruptions from a co-worker that hamper productivity.
Gino needsa productivity session that can help to deal with issue of interruption from a co-worker and can learn and discuss about the workplace factors that hampers productivity and can apply the techniques to regularly attend productive meeting by prioritising work and managing workplace interruptions.
Professional development progress report

Six month progress report
Successes:	Completed three months
Action items:	Over the next three months require more participation in form of reports and time based activities and demonstration
Name of participant	Areas for action	Action to be taken	Time
Graham	Productivity and communication skills	Business reading and writing	3 months
Maria	Time management	Workshops and seminars	3 months
Gino	prioritising skills and management of productivity	Appoint mentor	Ongoing

References

de Janasz, S., Behson, S. J., Jonsen, K., & Lankau, M. J. (2013). Dual sources of support for dual roles: how mentoring and work–family culture influence work–family conflict and job attitudes. The International Journal of Human Resource Management, 24(7), 1435-1453.

Emil Berg, M., & Terje Karlsen, J. (2012). An evaluation of management training and coaching. Journal of Workplace Learning, 24(3), 177-199.

Ghosh, R., & Reio, T. G. (2013). Career benefits associated with mentoring for mentors: A meta-analysis. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 83(1), 106-116.

Gilakjani, A. P. (2011). Visual, auditory, kinaesthetic learning styles and their impacts on English language teaching. Journal of Studies in Education, 2(1), 104-113.

Hardy, T., Howe, J., & Cooney, S. (2013). Less Energetic but More Enlightened: Exploring the Fair Work Ombudsman’s Use of Litigation in Regulatory Enforcement. Sydney L. Rev., 35, 565.

Jones, R. J., Woods, S. A., & Guillaume, Y. R. (2016). The effectiveness of workplace coaching: A meta‐analysis of learning and performance outcomes from coaching. Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, 89(2), 249-277.

Rohrer, D., & Pashler, H. (2012). Learning Styles: Where’s the Evidence?. Online Submission, 46(7), 634-635.

Sargeant, M. (2012). Age discrimination in employment. UK: Gower Publishing, Ltd..