The Role of Professional Development and Self Appraisal

Personal development is essential to the successful performance of any organization. In 21st century, with growth of scientific and technology the expectation of people with professional knowledge and skills also increased. The organization of professional training has become one of the main functions of personnel management. Organizations such as IBM, Motorola, General Motors annually spend billions of dollars on professional development and training of their employees and even created for its own standing universities and institutes.

In the UK, the QAA (2004) define PDP as: Personal Development Planning is a structured and supported process undertaken by an individual to reflect upon their own learning, performance and/or achievement, and to plan for their personal, educational and career development. The primary objective for PDP is to improve the capacity of individuals to understand what and how they are learning, and to review, plan and take responsibility for their own learning.” A Professional Development Plan (PDP) sets out the identified learning and training activities that support staff development so the job can be undertaken effectively.

Activities for professional development are workshops on marketing for department staff personnel, trainings, appraisals, career planning. In the large multinational corporations there are special departments for professional development, led by the director or vice president. The main purpose of the plan – development of “recipe” for improves employee performance. There are several forms of plans such as an individual development plan and personal goals. Individual development plan is a self-employee, his vision of how it could improve the results of professional activities and activities that could help him in cultivation. Often individual plan contains an item on the long-term professional development employee, the development of his career. Personal goals – a limited set of key objectives for the employee to appraisal period. Many organizations are using today and individual development plans and personal goals. Throughout the appraisal period manager supervises the staff, including the implementation of individual plan. The organizations periodically evaluate their employees in order to improve their performance and determine the needs of professional development. The results of evaluation are important element of human resource management, as provide an opportunity to make informed decisions regarding salary, promotion, dismissal of employees, their training and development. The choice of methods to assess personnel for each organization is a unique challenge to solve it can only guide the most organization .System assessment take into account and reflect several factors: the strategic objectives organization, state of the environment, organizational culture and structure, tradition of the organization, characteristics of employment in its workforce. In organizations with stable hierarchical structure can be effectively used traditional methods of assessment; for dynamic organizations operating in a changing external environment, more suitable non-traditional methods. Many employers now expect employees to understand their own performance – and to know how to adapt to meet times of increased workload, stressful situations or conditions of change. Employees are expected to respond well to change. Whilst some employers offer training, it is more typical for employers to expect graduates to arrive ready to manage both their own performance and the performance of other people. It is also important to be aware of how own behaviour affects other people. Professional development has a positive impact on the employees themselves. Increasing the skills and acquiring new skills and knowledge, they become more competitive in the labour market and gain additional opportunities for professional growth within their organization and outside it. This is especially important in today’s context of rapid obsolescence of professional knowledge. Professional training also contributes to the general intellectual development of employee.

A Flower Power Company has two factors to look when operate a business. The external aspect engages the situation out the market, and other components outside the entrepreneur and the business. External factor includes opportunities and pressure of fears. Opportunities are those external factors that can cause the Flower Power to prosper, provided company are able to respond to them correctly. In the internal factor of business owner Mr.Tomlinson can include his strengths and weaknesses according to business. He can increase his strength by developing his personal development. The more powerful internal factor, more powerful business. Benefits of Personal Development plan for the Flower Power Company:

1. Individual growth of each employee with improved skills, knowledge, experience and most important attitude.

2. Improve Decision making Power: Personal development improve decision making power so Manager can take decision faster.

3. Building up moveable skills like self-awareness, ability to learn new things, flexibility to change, empathy, good time management.

4. Motivated and loyal employees, linking its professional career with the company that reduces labour turnover;

5. Improve technical and communication skills. Employee can handle client better and communicate with them efficiently.

PDP would help Flower Power to minimise the learning cost and increase productivity, improve performance and increase commitment to the organisation’s goals (motivation).The same time PDP would help to develop employee’s skills for future career within or outside the company, improve the competitiveness of employees in the labour market, increase motivation and loyalty to the company and sense of responsibility which would encourage job satisfaction with opportunity to professional growth and improving living standards. PDP would improve general intellectual development of staff, strengthening their self-confidence. As a result the public would get better-qualified members of the higher productivity of social work at no additional cost. The Flower Power like other organizations exists to achieve company’s goals. Feedback has beneficial effect on employee motivation, allowing them to adjust their behaviour in the workplace, thus improving performance, planning training. Staff evaluation enables identify gaps in the work of each employee and provide measures for their elimination. Evaluations of staff identify their strengths and weaknesses professional quality that allows carefully prepares individual development plans and effectively plans a career, decisions on compensation, promotion, dismissal.

Personal development plan is something that happens over time. There are many methods, plans and programs through people can improve their skills. There are a number of different theories related to how people learn. Bass and Vaughn suggested that there are five ways of learning: trial and error, where the learner repeats the successful actions and avoids the unsuccessful ones until an effective actions have been developed; perceptual organisation, where the learner creates an organised pattern of activities before taking any action; behaviour modelling based on observation others before making a decision, mediation when the learner uses language to obtain knowledge and reflection(British Dental Journal,2001). According to David Kolb (1984, Appendix 1) people learn differently because they have individual preferences for learning through doing or learning through thinking. Kolb believed that learning was composed of four discrete experiential methods: immersing oneself in a ‘concrete’ experience in a completely non-judgmental way, being able to consider that experience and reflect on it from a number of different angles, then work out rational theories based on the observations and finally put the ideas into practice to make decisions and take actions .Although Honey and Mumford have based their learning styles on a similar model with David Kolb (Appendix, 2). They suggest that people tend to prefer different methods of learning, four states relate to their own version of the learning cycle where by people have an experience, reflect on it, draw their own conclusions (theorize) and then put the theory into practice to see what happens. Based on the result they then move round the circle again if required until they are successful (British Dental Journal, 2001).

According to Honey and Mumford Learning Cycle I would say that I am a Reflector. As a Reflector I like working closely with someone experienced and learning through observation and discussing. I also learn much from books. I, like a sponge, collect (by listening and observing) as much information as possible from experienced people, then think and analyse the data before coming to a conclusion.

Different people learn more effectively in different ways. For some the concept of learning by activity (activist) is by far the most attractive, while others are much more reflective (reflectors) by nature and prefer to be given information and allowed time to think about it before doing anything. In order to gain benefit from the training needs analysis the Flower Power management needs to provide appropriate methods of learning for the different individuals in the organization. As people tend to learn more effectively in different ways (referred to as learning styles) company needs to identify the styles of different people to try and match their style with an appropriate form of training. An effective method of self-appraisal is to identify strengths and weaknesses and to examine both the opportunities and the threats (HNC/HND Management, p.138). By conducting a SWOT analysis, which was created by Albert Humphrey, a developing plan will begin that defines exactly what is expected of individuals and develops the attributes of individuals and their workplace. A Manager of Flower Power can then keep track of how the individual is progressing towards their goals and reward successful completion.

Based on Honey and Mumford learning cycle result I build my personal SWOT. I have 15 years of experience as a nurse and speak several different languages. This is give me a strengths in my present job as a Deputy Manager in a Care Home where is my nursing experience play important role in making decisions dealing with elderly peoples. I have very positive relationship with my clients and staff which make my working day enjoyable. I know my weaknesses such I didn’t have management experience when start work as a Deputy Manager and my language vocabulary is not on a high level, I have a child what can cause a difficulties to ….. Understanding what my strengths and weaknesses I am actively working on developing my management skills by doing NVQ4 Management and Leadership at work and the same time doing Foundation Degree in Management at Blackpool University. To improve my writing and communication skills I have done interpreter course and and actively reading English books. To …… Awareness of possible threats such as family commitment, loosing job, failer of assessment or exams gives me a chance to minimise negative consequences (Appendix, 3).After analysing my strengths, weaknesses, opportunity and threats I have produced my Personal Development Plan which in itself provide some sense of achievement and clear my mind because I have a plan(Appendix, 4)

Career planning is an employee organization to promote the steps of the official qualifying and growth, helping him to develop and implement professional knowledge and skills in the interests of the firm. Timely staffing of all key departments of the business is impossible without a clear plan, develop and implement personnel policies. Leader must know how to solve problems as efficiently and appropriate use of relevant technologies and methods of personnel management. And if the skilfulness involves practical mastery of relevant skills, then the appropriateness of the adequacy of the method used to understand the situation in the organization.