ASSIGNMENT SAMPLE ON C11OE PRINCIPLES OF LAYOUT AND FLOW
Section 1: Curriculum Vitae
Section 2: Unit learning records
2.1 Effective self-management/postgraduate study skills
The first and foremost thing I got to learn during the sessions is to know about awareness. It enables me to learn about the reflective practitioner. Self-awareness has helped me in identifying my different skills and abilities along with my weaknesses that would help me in future (Carden, Jones & Passmore, 2022). The sessions also involve brainstorming activity; the brainstorming required me and my group members to introduce ourselves in the group.
In this activity, we are informed to demonstrate our skills and to share the area of interest with others. It acted as a self-assessment tool where I found the reasons why I am selecting the course and what would be my objectives to ensure successful accomplishment of the course. Sessions involve numerable self-assessment activities involving varieties of resources, learning units, and models to identify preferential learning.
Personally, the session helped me out in setting objectives and giving clear ct direction on how I can achieve the objectives. It also shows the right path about the way I could adoptexpected behaviour like effective communication skills, patience and more during the learning sessions to grab knowledge and understanding during the course.
Specific learning that has taken place
During the session, I gather knowledge about continuous professional development which is vital in the role of HR. I also came to know that it is significant for all the members of CIPD to focus on improving skills and making continuous development.
One of the important contributions of the session to me is that I have gained skills like punctuality and being organised during the entire session that is beneficial for me in future as well (Small, Shacklock & Marchant, 2018). It has also enhanced my listening skills that would help me in working professionally in future. As the course is highly participative and analytical, thus I needed to be regular and understand the application of theories discussed during the session to develop skills.
The last sessions on motivation theories and their linkages with the performance levels have impacted my learning’s about thinking ability and commitment to accomplish the course to get effective results. If I relate with the Boxall and Purcell (2003) model, based upon my understanding performance is directly related to ability, opportunity, and motivation level. The sessions helped me in elevating my motivation level and competencies to work in the field of HR. I have also developed some behavioural skills like communicating professionally; listening to individuals, punctuality and more that is must for developing HR skills and boost my performance as a student.
I will get so many opportunities to apply my learning in future endeavours. As an HR professional, I will work on improving the motivation level of the employees to improve their level of satisfaction which is of utmost importance at workplaces. There may be several tasks to be completed within a specific deadline. Improved motivation is beneficial for improving my ability to achieve the target in given time. For example, if I am motivated I would face difficulties easily and try to solve the problems effectively (Na-Nan &Sanamthong, 2019).I will focus on staying motivated and committed towards the end goal while performing HR functions.
During my course, at a certain point, I felt discouraged from receiving feedback on my reflective essay. It affected me deadlines a lot and made me feel that how I would be going to complete the entire course successfully. Afterward, I recollected myself and go through every session I attended. I work upon developing day-to-day plans and schedules that helped me out in meeting the and producing quality work results. The HR department in an organization is also affected by the change practices.
Thus, I will use my skills and improve my knowledge by working on a dissertation or performing research in my masters. It helps me to enhance the learning of uncovering the areas that play a vital role in change management.
During my master sessions, I will re-read my notes and focus on reducing my weaknesses to achieve future success. I aim at using the skills gained from the course effectively so I can achieve my future goals and objectives.At the workplace, I will focus on improving employee motivation and enhancing their skills to perform multitasking behaviour to get desired outcomes. I will enhance my learning by practicing the knowledge and experience I will gather through sessions and make continuous improvement in my work by taking guidance and analysing myself.
2.2 Learning record- Essential people management skill
The unit consisted of three lectures. These lectures have covered diverse skills and abilities required to manage people at workplace that is must for achieving organisational success. I have identified that there is much requirement of trust, loyalty, and faith when it comes to people management. I was aware of some people management skills but I have gained knowledge about it in-depth after attending lectures. The lectures will help me in understanding the role of people management skills while working as a HR practitioner or leader.I have also learned about the importance of conflict management while managing people as it is necessary for working as an effective team (Hoffman & Tadelis, 2021). The knowledge I gathered from the websites of the Hampshire country council and office for national statistics has enabled me to source the demographic details to accomplish my people management skills as the world is changing rapidly and making it difficult to manage people as their demands are also changing.
Good leaders must have effective skills in the field of people management skills as there could be various issues arise that a leader has to solve (Frey, Fisher & Smith, 2019). For example, I have seen that many people feel uncomfortable while communicating about their ideas and opinions. It is the responsibility of a good leader to make them feel comfortable and provide them open area for communicating their ideas.
When working in the company, I did not find it necessary to publish accounting details every quarter or half-yearly. Being a manager of the company, I had to convey all financial details to my employees. I felt it was completely unnecessary. After attending sessions, I have realized why financial computing is necessary. I have understood why the companies have to keep a check on the movement of funds. Keeping check on fund movements and managing the finance team is necessary for balancing investments, profit and loss. As per Cletus et. al. (2018), it is mandatory to understand that HR needs to manage people using the finances as they have to prepare employees to bring adoption and enhancement as per the finances of the company.
Through lectures, I have gained adequate knowledge that teamwork and people management goes together. It is must for a good leader to analyse that for effective teamwork it is necessary that manage people adequately (Santos et. al. 2018). From the lectures, I have understood the team effectiveness through Belbin’s team role. It has nine essential elements that helps in managing people working in a team. I have learned the essentiality of managing team and people for organisational effectiveness. The nine team roles are resources investigator, teamworker, co-ordinator, plant, monitor evaluator and specialist shaper, implementer and completer finisher (Bednár &Ljudvigová, 2020). All these nine roles come with different functioning that helps leader in managing people in the team.
With intense discussions and debates that occurred in the session, I have developed an understanding of managing the financials of the company and also realized the impact of how these elements cause a change in financial statements. I have got a detailed understanding of why budgeting is necessary and why the breakeven point is vital in a business context.
As an HR professional, it is significant for me to have a complete understanding of the employees working in the company. This understanding will improve my people management skills which helps me in developing an effective workplace environment and leading to organisational success in the marketplace (Armstrong, 2019). It gives me a clear picture of the company’s reputation and provides me with business awareness in which I am working. The knowledge will help me provide the effective experience of reading magazines and newspapers where I got to learn about the diverse people management skills that would help me to develop counterfeiting strategies (Succi & Canovi, 2020). I become able to analyze the full employee reports and this reports help me in analysing the way to manage people. My confidence level is also elongated as I can discuss the diverse people management skills of the companies in public and openly participate in the process of discussions that ultimately help me in reflecting strong side of me in my personality.
Thesepeople management skills would help me in boosting my HR practices. I become capable of identifying skills that employees are lacking and organize training and development sessions accordingly (Rana & Sharma, 2019). I can also figure out the impact of these training sessions on improving people’s skills and the way it would help in achieving organisational success.
2.3 Learning record – Finance and/or analytics for the HR practitioner
Teachers Feedback (We did not cover Change management in this subject) I need to wipe out everything from this page and I must write about HR Analytics, Finance Skills for the HR Practitioner) Please see Session- 6,9,10 on the Moodle please. I sent my Moodle link, username, and password. You can find everything there.
Initially, I thought the sessions on finance and analytics will provide me to learn about the theoretical models, tools, and processes that encompass performing some HR practices in organization’s place (Kremer, 2018). At my workplace, I have encountered diverse financial practices that could have potential impact on HR practices. I found that some of the changes turn out to be successful whereas some of them failed.
The learning programs have developed deep insight in me and I came out to be the most valuable person in analysing the causes that leads to introducing changes effectively and estimating the reasons why changes failed. After attending sessions, I have learnt that if financial budgeting of organisation is great then HR would be able to implement innovative and creative practices at organisation. Flexible attitudes drive people to accept the changes (Jayatilleke& Lai, 2018). Further, from the communication theory, it has been analysed that implementing practices and changes as per organisation’s finances is necessary for HR to manage people; otherwise, they can act as resistance as well.
The sessions on finance and HR analytics were highly beneficial for understanding the projects that go unwell and impact highly on the finances of the organisation. As per Beatty & Queen’s, (2019) for example, HR can make use of finance to identify the resources that could be beneficial for supporting organisation in achieving goals and aims of the organisation. It is all about HR practitioner to keep an effective balance between cost and revenue and take effective decisions.
The HR department in an organization is also affected by the different finance practices. HR professionals must make effective and potential decisions while keeping the finances in concern. For example, if they are planning to have a training and education program at the organisation for employees they must initially determine the cost required for the program (Sagar, 2019). Further, it is necessary to analyse whether the organisation is capable to fulfill the need of resources required in terms of finance and whether the training program will benefit the organisation financially. Through HR analytics, HR practitioners would be able to identify the impact of diverse HR metrics on the entire business performance and make effective decisions based on the data. In my opinion, HR analytics is described as a data-driven approach to human resources management as per Mohammed & Quddus, (2019). As the competitiveness is increasing, HR must keep finances in concern before taking any crucial decision.
The learning point that I found most valuable for my skills is that the concept of HR management has change dramatically. The concern has drastically shifted from operational discipline to a strategic one. It helps me to analyse the points where the organization requires making changes in a business environment along with using available finances effectively. Some cases have helped me to examine the irrelevant use of finances that has affect the financial position of the company (Rosenbaum et. al. 2018). The reason for using finance ineffectively is the incapacity to identify the use of finance and underestimating the role of psychological maker and role of culture behind implementing change activities.
From these sessions, I have realized that before making any HR decisions, the HR professionals should ensure that the finance and accounting department are capable of bringing those changes (Lengnick-Hall et. al. 2018). For example, if the finances are not strong enough to hire an employee then HR must not think of hiring employee. The HR leader needs to use HR analytics as it would help them in identifying the annual employee turnover, regretted loss because of employee turnover and employees that are most likely to leave the company (Dahlbom et. al. 2020). Being HR professional, using effective data would be beneficial in collecting all the information required to answer those questions and make effective changes.
Consider how you can apply this learning in the future as an HR professional.
Being an HR professional, I will get several platforms where the HR makes finance related decisions. In such a process, I will first understand the way they are analysing the finances and then compare it to the way they are taking decisions. I will support my co-members to understand the fact and realize the need of why companies are taking these decisions and I will also communicate the importance of these decisions regarding finances to the individual level. I will also apply HR analytics concept that are relevant to the finance related decisions that occurs in the organization (Greasley & Thomas, 2020). With sessions, I will become the most active participant in making changes that best suits with the finance and HR analytics and that have the potential to impact the organisations goals and aims in future.
With improving skills and gaining experience, I will apply my skills in my professional tenure. Continuous learning is a key to success (CSCA, 2021). Thus, I will use my skills and improve my knowledge by working on a dissertation or performing research in my masters. It helps me to enhance the learning of uncovering the areas that play a vital role in finance and HR analytics. I will continuously read the cases and documents that are evidencing the use of finances in HR decisions within the organizations to improve my understanding and knowledge level to make me an effective HR professional.
Section 3: CPD learning record
3.1 Learning record – Work-based or Personal CPD activity
DescribingCPD activity
The last essay wrote by me before almost two decades ago. At my organization, I was only asked to prepare the business reports. While preparing the business reports, I only considered mentioning the facts and figures. Report writing and essay writing are completely different from one another. The requiring elements for these two also differ from one another (Storch, 2019). Based on my perception, an essay requires a more theoretical and descriptive approach as compared to writing reports in the context of business. At the workplace, I was never asked to support the outcomes with the theoretical models even I did not need to cite the resources and authors. There is also no need to carry out academic researches.
Therefore, I have started performing academic research from the very start of my course. I never missed an opportunity to get knowledge about conducting researches and developing academic essays that require more in-depth discussions and a set of information (Khan, 2020). I have chosen an essay based upon the role of HR and strategic HR practices in current environmental needs to gain new insights and develop the latest knowledge arena for improving my competencies using the theory of strategic contingency theory.
The expected outcome from the personal or workplace CPD activity is to build me a more responsible writer as compared to earlier times. I was expecting to become more informative based on the theoretical models and how to use theories and choose one that is the best fit for my data set. I also believed to become more ethical responsible in mentioning the references and make proper citations as the basic moral need.
Reflect upon and discuss the specific learning that has taken place for you.
Before attending sessions, I was unorganized and was not aware of the way an effective piece of the article can be written. I even did not know how to communicate the information correctly to engage the audience (Stich, 2020). I always follow the same practices of making notes of important points to consider while making the final draft of the essay. My aim of communicating all information descriptively does not lead me to limit the given word count. Initially, I found that my essay did not have a logical flow of information that looks irrelevant to the audience. I felt the need of deleting some sentences which makes complex for me to filter which ones to be kept and which ones to be deleted to improve the essay.
The learning I have gathered through these sessions is highly impactful and will surely contribute to me in the future. I mainly learn about what information to be consolidated when drafting an effective essay. I also learned to maintain the logical order of the vast information. More importantly, I learned about using proper words and reducing grammatical errors to express the idea and communicate information precisely having dense meaning. I have also learned to use proper punctuation so the readability of article can be enhanced. I learned to make proper citations and referring materials that are relevant for developing essays on given assignments.
How will you apply this learning in the future?
The overall learning experience of writing an essay or developing a piece of information is highly valuable for me. Learning how to use the words, maintain logical flows, and use proper grammar will surely help me in preparing future essays given to me in the course I have opted for. I will first analyze the topic and develop aims of gathering the kind of information that will be relevant and valid for the given topic. I use proper language, vocabulary that sounds effective to the readers.
The learning will contribute to my academic as well as professional life (Kuo, Barnes & Jordan, 2019). I will be able to prepare the reports as well as structure descriptive and analytical information in front of the employees to make it easy to interpret and communicate the same with all of the employees at the workplace. I will make proper use of words, punctuation, and grammar and maintain the word counts. The learning experience will enable me to improve my prose style to write effective academic essays. I become able to perform research and communicate clear outcomes to the audience so that the information can be shared effectively with the readers. I learned to apply theories and apply references correctly as one of the critical ethical regulations followed in developing articles and writing academic articles.
Section 4: Personal development plan
The below table shows the personal development plan for the twelve months following the portfolio submission. It will also include PDP areas to my personal and professional development/ career and studies on PGDHRM courses.
| What do I want/need to Learn? | What will I do to achieve this? Learning method. | What resources or support will I need? | What will my success criteria be? | Target dates for review and completion |
| I want to be a coach or guide to provide help to the people who want to learn at the workplace or in the classroom during my PGDHRM courses.
|
To be a coach or guide, I will take guidance from my mentors and learn about the skills required to become a facilitator. | I will require academic literature as the major source and also a person who will observe during my teaching sessions to convey my loopholes and areas of improvement. | My success will depend on the positive feedback given by the learners as well as my tutor or person who will be going to observe me during teaching sessions. | I have to complete this within three months after portfolio submission and review it every two months to make improvisation. |
| I want to become a better change manager so to lead people toward change. The reason for choosing this as a development area as that change is a continuous thing that cannot be eliminated from the business life cycle. | To understand the concept of changes, I will read newspapers, magazines and discuss with my superiors in manage changes to apply my learning. | I will need newspapers, magazines, business reports, or digital libraries to access the information non-leading changes in real business organizations. | The benchmark of success will be motivating people to perform changes and execute new processes that lead toward changes in the workplace by active participation. | I have to finish this in a quarter of the year and I need to revise my learning every month to develop strategies for managing change. |
| I want to gain skills related to effective HR professional and improve my insights on current HR trends. | I have to perform the case studies and keep proper awareness of the latest HR trends and technologies to improve my HR competencies. | I will need access to digital libraries and need bulletins every day to monitor the HR trends. | Solving an HR issue at the workplace and cases effectively shows my success of the milestone I have planned for improvement. | A half-yearly period will be needed to improve the desired skill sets and it will be reviewed on a consistent, basis monthly to remain updated. |
| I want to learn about the employment legislation and HRIS (Human resource information system)
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The learning method which should be used to impart knowledge on employee legislation is to read the books and norms stated by the government on labour laws and employment contracts. I will also use the analytical study to obtain knowledge on the latest HR technology ( Silva, & Lima, 2018). | I will need access to digital libraries and government data to fetch knowledge on labour laws to develop employment contracts in times of pandemics. I have to keep watch on the latest technology trend suitable to perform HR functions. | I will need academic literature and attend CPD sessions. I need to attend coaching sessions with supervisors. | Need to complete within five months and to be reviewed every six months. |
| I will develop communication and critiquing skills.
|
I will attend the workshops during my master degree course. | I will need money to attend the course. | Effective accomplishment of the workshops and obtaining knowledge on communication and critiquing skills. | Attending course for one or two days. |
Section 5: Self-reflective summary
One of the greatest motivations for choosing the PGDHRM course is to enhance my HR skills and competencies to shape my career in the field of HR. The purpose is to improve my knowledge to perform better as an HR professional in my career stage (Jekiel, 2020). The course helped me in uncovering the facts and exploring the areas in which I never realized their need. Later on, I came to realize that choosing the course is one of the best decisions I have made and it has provided me immense opportunities to improve my performance. I felt that if I have opted for this earlier, I could have produced better results than could contribute to improving my career span.
The sessions are very effective that infuse a great level of knowledge in me about communication, professional development, and change management (Kalogiannidis, 2020). The most effective learning I have come across in learning years is to get knowledge about managing funds or financial management activities that businesses perform. My knowledge was limited to realizing the profits and losses and preparing the reports. I have never been to calculating the finances that is the major part of the business upon which entire business decisions are made.
Coming from an HR background, the companies aim to spend money or make investments on matching the skills of the employees. It requires training and development sessions which incur costs. With gaining financial management, I become able to calculate the profits and losses by making a comparison between the performances before and after training to evaluate the cost-effectiveness of the training program (Cassar et. al. 2018). The sessions gave me a deep understanding of managing funds vital for business operations.
The unit based on HR analytics is also impactful. Earlier I never thought about why businesses fail in managing HR and people and why the efforts made at workplace went wrong most of the time while performing changes in HR functions. I keep blaming the employees and systems for improper planning of the activities. But after attending sessions, I realized that there are many facets which the HR practitioners have to deal with before performing changes. These are making kind and psychology of the finance departments to coordinate with HR and make profound decisions (Mayo, 2018). The theoretical models have enabled me to develop an understanding of how to use information and data in HR analytics effectively and what are the behavioural factors that need to be worked upon while introducing changes within the organization.
It was fun and interesting to learn about the HR strategies and management tactics followed at the organizations to retain and encourage employees. The sessions involve case studies, discussions, debates that helped me to put forth my ideas and opinions to make me better at sharing my views in public. It has also elevated my listening skills to know about the ideas and thoughts of the people shared within groups. I have gained great learning experience to become an effective manager and leader which is essential to manage the employees at the workplace. I also learned about how to perform effective communication to avoid conflicts and improve collaboration at the workplace to attain integrated outcomes (Cletus et. al. 2018). The learning point that I found most valuable for my skills is change agent. It helps me to analyse the points where the organization requires making changes in a business.
I believe that the course is valuable for me as it has infused a sense of continuous development and learning in me (Zhu et. al. 2020). It helped me in developing learning solutions for myself to make continuous improvements. After attending the course, I have become an effective HR practitioner to manage the workforce and deploy better strategies to produce effective results. As the course has motivated me for continuous improvement, I will keep enhancing my skills and expanding my knowledge to reach the great height of my career and become the best HR person.I will always prefer to share my knowledge with others and receive knowledge from them to improve my HR competence. I will also look forward to making a significant contribution to the HR field by performing critical researches. I have chosen an essay based upon the role of HR and strategic HR practices in current environmental needs to gain new insights and develop the latest knowledge arena for improving my competencies.
References
Books and Journals
Armstrong, M. (2019). How to Manage People: Fast, effective management skills that really get results (Vol. 148). Kogan Page Publishers.
Beatty, C. A., & Queen’s, I. R. C. (2019). From HR practitioner to HR leader: Competencies required. Queen’s University Industrial Relations Centre (IRC).
Bednár, R., &Ljudvigová, I. (2020). Belbin team roles in a start-up team. In SHS Web of Conferences (Vol. 83, p. 01002). EDP Sciences.
Carden, J., Jones, R. J., & Passmore, J. (2022). Defining self-awareness in the context of adult development: a systematic literature review. Journal of Management Education, 46(1), 140-177.
Cassar, V., Tracz-Krupa, K., Bezzina, F., & Przytuła, S. (2018). “The times they are-a-changin”: Reconstructing the new role of the strategic HR manager.
Cletus, H. E., Mahmood, N. A., Umar, A., & Ibrahim, A. D. (2018). Prospects and challenges of workplace diversity in modern day organizations: A critical review. HOLISTICA–Journal of Business and Public Administration, 9(2), 35-52.
Cletus, H. E., Mahmood, N. A., Umar, A., & Ibrahim, A. D. (2018). Prospects and challenges of workplace diversity in modern day organizations: A critical review. HOLISTICA–Journal of Business and Public Administration, 9(2), 35-52.
CSCA, C. (2021). Driving Change through Continuous Learning. Strategic Finance, 103(3), 8-8.
Dahlbom, P., Siikanen, N., Sajasalo, P., & Jarvenpää, M. (2020). Big data and HR analytics in the digital era. Baltic Journal of Management.
Frey, N., Fisher, D., & Smith, D. (2019). All learning is social and emotional: Helping students develop essential skills for the classroom and beyond. ASCD.
Greasley, K., & Thomas, P. (2020). HR analytics: The onto‐epistemology and politics of metricised HRM. Human resource management journal, 30(4), 494-507.
Hoffman, M., &Tadelis, S. (2021). People management skills, employee attrition, and manager rewards: An empirical analysis. Journal of Political Economy, 129(1), 243-285.
Jayatilleke, S., & Lai, R. (2018). A systematic review of requirements change management. Information and Software Technology, 93, 163-185.
Jekiel, C. M. (2020). Lean human resources: redesigning HR processes for a culture of continuous improvement. Productivity Press.
Kalogiannidis, S. (2020). Impact of effective business communication on employee performance. European Journal of Business and Management Research, 5(6).
Khan, M. Y. (2020). PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT PLAN.
Kremer, K. (2018). HR analytics and its moderating factors. Vezetéstudomány-Budapest Management Review, 49(11), 62-68.
Kuo, M., Barnes, M., & Jordan, C. (2019). Do experiences with nature promote learning? Converging evidence of a cause-and-effect relationship. Frontiers in psychology, 10, 305.
Lengnick-Hall, M. L., Neely, A. R., & Stone, C. B. (2018). Human resource management in the digital age: Big data, HR analytics and artificial intelligence. In Management and technological challenges in the digital age (pp. 1-30). CRC Press.
Mayo, A. (2018). Applying HR analytics to talent management. Strategic HR Review.
Mohammed, D., & Quddus, A. (2019). HR analytics: A modern tool in HR for predictive decision making. Journal of Management, 6(3).
Na-Nan, K., &Sanamthong, E. (2019). Self-efficacy and employee job performance: Mediating effects of perceived workplace support, motivation to transfer and transfer of training. International Journal of Quality & Reliability Management.
Rana, G., & Sharma, R. (2019). Emerging human resource management practices in Industry 4.0. Strategic HR Review.
Rosenbaum, D., More, E., &Steane, P. (2018). Planned organisational change management: Forward to the past? An exploratory literature review. Journal of Organizational Change Management.
Sagar, K. (2019). SHRM: A Research-based Overview for the Practitioner. NHRD Network Journal, 12(3), 214-224.
Santos, G., Afonseca, J., Lopes, N., Félix, M. J., & Murmura, F. (2018). Critical success factors in the management of ideas as an essential component of innovation and business excellence. International Journal of Quality and Service Sciences.
Silva, M. S. A. E., & Lima, C. G. D. S. (2018). The role of information systems in human resource management. Management of Information Systems, 16, 113-126.
Small, L., Shacklock, K., & Marchant, T. (2018). Employability: a contemporary review for higher education stakeholders. Journal of Vocational Education & Training, 70(1), 148-166.
Stich, J. F. (2020). A review of workplace stress in the virtual office. Intelligent Buildings International, 12(3), 208-220.
Storch, N. (2019). Collaborative writing. Language Teaching, 52(1), 40-59.
Succi, C., & Canovi, M. (2020). Soft skills to enhance graduate employability: comparing students and employers’ perceptions. Studies in higher education, 45(9), 1834-1847.
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