Task 01

Personal & Professional skills review

1.1Methods to evaluate personal skills required to achieve strategic goals of the new position

Personal skills are important for person of an organization as it is a definite requirement for a person to climb in the career ladder, it is really important for the personal growth and the employee performance are depends on the skills of an individual has, most of the managers fails that because they do not have proper skills because the personality and the behaviour depends on the skills, 100% of an personal developments depends on the personal skills and employees should develop it for their career development, own personal skill has a direct impact on achieving of organization goals and individual personal development as well.

Personal Skills

Personal skills are concerned with how people manage and express themselves, it is related to the attitudes and the behaviour of an employee, these personal skills can be have within an employee by born with, natural talents and skills they have developed by learning and experiencing, the more a perspn developed their career the more they develop their personal skills as well

Hence to apply for the Branch manager Position at the newly opening branch within the next 6 months there are personal skills that should be obviously developed

  • Communication skills

Communication skills are simply we can tell describe as transferring information from one place to another, it is also can emphasize as transferring ideas in to words, this is an very important skill which a person should developed, presentation skills, negotiation skills are depend on communication skills, people could think differently and have various kind of ideas but converting those ideas in to words could be a difficult task it they do not have proper communication skills, to developed proper communication skills the person should be effective at the every point in communication skills that is sender to receiver and the effective communication channel that need to be used according to the situation, for an effective communication skills person should be developed the all communication channels and should have the ability to identify the appropriate source of communication need to be used according to the situation,

Branch Manager is the person who fill the gap between the Head office and the Branch, so to promote for this position communication skills are definite qualification, he may should have the ability to communicate the goals and the objectives of the bank to their employees, and deliver all the information accurately at the correct time, also he is responsible for the whole branch and the staff in it and so that he should be capable to listen to his subordinates well, it will helped to have a good relationship with the subordinates

  • Time management skills

Time management skills is another important skills for every person and it is a process of organizing and planning the time that may need for the each activity, this is a simple skill which a person should developed but most of the people fails by not knowing how it should be managed properly, the good time management skill always express your personality and it is really important for the personal development. It always enables a person to work smarter not harder, so that it should be developed properly.

As a manager it is important of developing a good time management skills as it can be an example for the subordinates, as a bank time management is really necessary, to give a proper customer service, achieve targets, and to achieve other goals of the branch, branch manager should developed the skills so that he could be able to support his employees to develop these skills as well

  • Conceptual skills

The skill which helped the people to think creartively while understanding ideas and complicated process, it also help in solving problems implementing new process and formulating new ideas and concepts in order to develop the business, most of the managers would need this skills as it is important of generating new ideas and visualizing about the future, so that it may also helped in develop new plans for the business success. It is important of developing conceptual skills as it is supports to develop innovation skills, critical thinking and implementation skills.

The Branch manager should have this skill in order to generate new process and ideas to the branch, new innovations could lead the branch for its development, as a leader he his responsible for implementing new process which helped branch for its success

  • Stress management skills

Stress is a negative factor where everyone can be affected and it could ruin our lives so it should be managed properly, when a person gets more responsibilities and tasks he could have more stress. In an organization there are could be various issues and the 100% of the issues are more stressful to deal with, anyhow the managing the stress is a skill that each person should be developed, as a manager of a bank there can be various issues like achieving monthly target, dealing with the competitors, make right decision at the right time, managing employees and providing good customer service with all, so doing all these things could be really stressful, but as a leader it should managed properly in order to success in their career.

  • People management skills

People management skill is an another critical factor which a manager should develop, since people are the most important resource of an organization and they should be manager properly in order to get the maximum performance from them. People could have various behaviours and attitudes but a good manager should identify those things and should be managed them accordingly

As a branch manager of a bank he has to take the responsibility of each subordinates maybe so he ought to motivate them, train them and should be able to get the maximum performance from them by rewarding accurately. As a branch to develop the branch all people should be work as a team so the manager should be able to help each and every employee to implement their ideas perform well and achieve targets and at the end to evaluate them accordingly

1.2 Techniques you applied to assess the professional skills required to support the strategic direction of the organisation through the new position

Professional skills are skills which are required to have in a person in order to achieve the strategic goals of the organization, as an employee all employees required to develop these skills, out of all the professional skills there are some important skills can be explained which a manager should be developed in order be good leader.

  • Leadership

 

Leadership is a very important skill that a person should develop, it can do a huge change for a organization, leaders are the person who are pushing their employees towards the goals of the organization. A good leader can manage his employees very well, leadership cannot be taken from every person, for that he/ she should develop leadership skills, a good leader can motivate his employees achieve the goals and objectives of the organization

  • Mentoring

Mentoring is an important skill that a person should develop, for a manager it is an obvious skill to be developed. It support and encourage employees to manage their own leaning and develop their skills and build their careers, mentoring help people to identify their own potentials and helping them to develop the skills, mentoring is two people process and mentor should be able to build the trust of his employees, mentor should have the ability to solve all the career issues of his employees and boost his employees to achieve his career goals and objectives

  • Coaching

Coaching is unlocking a person’s potential to maximize their own performance, a good manager should be able to identified all his employees abilities and should help them to meet their goals and objectives, coaching is a process where a manager has to have well experience on the skill and train the employees to develop their skills. Manager should be able to motivate the employees to achieve their own goals and objectives. When employee train their own selves to develop their skills ultimately it helps to achieve the organizational goals and objectives as well

  • Conflict Management

Conflicts are obvious thing can be happen when working as a team, employees. Employees can have conflicts within the group, so a manager should be able to have good conflict management skill to ,manage those conflicts without doing favouring to one side, it can be difficult but a good manager should improve those skills.

With analysing above professional skills, it is indeed of developing those skills in order to work as the branch manager of the upcoming branch, according to the Job description of the Branch manager developing these above skills are really important in order to manage the employees well

Task 02

2.1 Carrying out a skill audit to evaluate the strategic skills needed to meet current and future leadership requirements

Skill Audit

Skill audit is a tool which determined the gap between exciting skill and the future skills which required in both and the future positions. It emphasize which skill a person has and which skill should be developed, it helps in identify whether this person is suitable for the position or not and how the person should be trained in order to fill the gap, skill audit should be done in a process and the process could mentioned as below

Skill audit process

  • Identification of excising skills and knowledge

As the first step in the skill audit process it is necessary of identifying the skills and knowledge a person currently have, it will helped to get an understand about the level of skills which you currently have and how you perform in the current position. What strengths and weaknesses you have now.

  • Identification of future skills and knowledge needs

 

It is important of understanding the skills and knowledge you need to perform in the upcoming positions. It helps to identify, how far the person is suitable for the upcoming position.

  • Rating for the ability

Once identifying the both exciting skills and the future skill needs we can rate for the exciting skills, it can be done by using a score card, each skill can be recorded and rate it accordingly

  • Review the ability ratings

As the next step once the exciting skills are scored can be review the ratings and identify the ability of the person to perform the future positions, it helps to identify the gap between current skills and future skill needs and can determined how far the person is suitable for the current position and how he is performing in the current position as well

  • Analyzing the future Development

As the final stage of the process, using all the information we collects and understanding how the skills should be developed and which areas should be developed more. It helps the person to fit well for the future position and.

This process is really important of doing accurately in order to identify the skill gap of the person and to do this process well we can use below methods,

  • Personal SWOT analysis – Identifying the personal Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats
  • Psychometric testing – It’s a standard and scientific method to measure the people behavior and mental ability

 

  • 360o reviews – Getting feedback about the performance from the direct manager, Peers, Internal & External clients, Subordinates

As I will be hoping to get a promotion as a Branch Manager in next 6 months it is important of doing a skill audit in order to identify the current skills and future skills for the future position as it is important for me to arrange myself handle the position well

By using the above mentioned process I have done a skill audit in order to identify the Skill gap between the current skills and future skills needed for me to perform the future position,

The result of the skill audit could be mentioned as below

SkillsLevel of ability for performing in current jobLevel of ability for perform for the future job
ExcellentGoodPoorVery poorExcellentGoodPoorVery poor
Time Management
People management
Negotiation skills
Communication skills
Analytical skills
Strategic planning skills
Customer service skills
Soft skills
Stress management skills
Hard skills
Admin skills

 

 

By analyzing the above skill audit report there are excellent skills which have already developed and there are skills that needed to be developed in order to achieve the goals and objectives as the new branch manager of the bank. Branch manager is n very responsible position and the whole branch has to lead by the branch manager so he should have very powerful skills to perform the job, hence it is important of developing the skills which have been identified,

2.2 Carry out a skills audit to evaluate the strategic skills needed to meet prevailed, current and future leadership requirements

According to the skill audit there are identified skills which needs to be developed in order to perform in the future position, the developing process should done within 6 months period, so it is necessary of identifying the appropriate learning method to use for skill developing process.

The ways that people go in learning process is could be different to one person to another, when person could learn something through reading another person could learn the same thing by visualizing, because people have different strengths in how they take in up and process information’s hence it is necessary of identifying the proper learning method to use for different people,

There are learning methods which emphasize the different learning styles, those could be mentioned as below

 

  • Kolb’s experiential learning cycle

Kolb’s experiential learning cycle emphasize that people learn by experiences in cyclic way, he says first people feel things then observe things , learning from the experience and trying out what learn, this can be supported by reading, training and building up a framework to fit in to the experiences, according to him learning should be applied flexibly according to the situation,

 

  • Concrete experience – Engaging in an activity or the experience (Feeling)
  • Reflective observation – Reflecting on the experience ( watching)
  • Abstract conceptualization – Gaining knowledge or skills from the experience (Thinking)
  • Active experimentation – Apply the learning experience and trying out new skills (Doing)

This learning style could be implemented for the people who would like to learn things through experiencing and for the people who would like to implement new things

  • The VARK model

One of the most common model which uses to learn things, it describe the learners as Visualize, Audible, Readable, Kinaesthetic the way they absorb the information

  • Visualize – The people who trying to learn things though watching , that means they would take information through pictures, graphs and symbols
  • Audible – The people who absorb things by listening, they like to hear lectures and have discussion
  • Readable – People who would like to learn things through reading, they like to read articles, news papers and learn things
  • Kinaesthetic – These people would like to learn thins by doing experiments, they would like to learn things by experiencing it

This style could implement for any person, since it is consist of all the learning styles, but the important thing is to identify to whom to implement what.

Though it has different leadership styles it is important of identifying the best learning style for the each person. For learning things and developing skills in order to fit for the Brach manager position I implemented Meyers- Brigs Type indicator test to find out which type of learning style is suitable for me.

Meyers – Brigs Type Indicator

This is a personality test which could measure the psychological type of a person, can be measured how the persons behaviour and how person absorbs the information and make decisions according to the information, according to that personal test, has been identified 4 types of psychological scales

Extraversion – Introversion

Extravertors show their feelings, learn through talking and a good team players

Introveerts prefer privacy and they do self learning, hide thir feeling and work alone

Sensing – Intuition

Sensing people use their five physical sensos, they like to learn thorgh real life experinces

Intutive – they like to learn by using thoer own imaginations and misses some facts

Thinking – Feeling

Thinking people use logic and objectives in thoer learning

Feeling people use values and subjective ideas they use lots of words

Judging – preserving

Judging people would like to learn things stuctures, plans and rules

Perserving – these pople are laid back, relax and flexible for he situation

2.3 Describe the Personal Development Plan (PDP) you have constructed in order to achieve expected levels of leadership and managerial skills

Personal Development Plan is a process of identifying what are your goals, how it is can be achieved and how you’re going to achieve those. What are the strengths and weaknesses, what are the opportunities and threats that you have to face to, personal development plan is a process that should be done in s proper way. Personal development plan can identify how far he/she is suitable for the upcoming career opportunities and it will also help the person to to develop his skills

It is important of doing a SWOT analysis when constructing a personal development plan and that will help to identify the external and the internal environment. SWOT analysis will indicate what are the strengths and opportunities’ that a person has and what are the weaknesses and threats that has to be faced,

and it can be done with a SMART plan

S – Specific

M – Measurable
A – Achievable

R – Realistic

T – Time

As the promotion will happen after 6 months it is necessary of constructing a proper personal development plan and it will be useful to overcome the weaknesses which have identified from the skill audit. Ad to get a the thorough knowledge about the work route of the Branch Manager as it will help me to perform in my job as well

 

A proper personal development plan should be consist of below steps

 

  • Define the goals –

This is the first step that needs to be followed, this is not a new thing since whichever the work done, and it is doing according to a goal. Defining a goal could help to work according a plan, hence to build a proper personal development plan it is important of identifying the goals and the other steps will be done according to the define goal.

  • Prioritize

There can be various goals that we define, but it is necessary of identifying

the most important goal out of the list, this will be the key goal that have to be achieved and to work for, when the key goal is achieved it is easy for achieving the other goals as well

  • Set a deadline

When there is goal that need to be achieved and it is indeed to have a proper date plan for the each job, means that should know when need achieve this goal and to set a time frame for the each job, when setting the goal it should be specific and reliable so that it can be fix in to a proper time frame and can be committed well to achieve the goal in a fixed time period

  • Understand the strengths and weakness

Once the goals sets, it is important of identifying the strengths and weaknesses, SWOT analysis will help to understand the own strengths and weaknesses of a person. Each person has their own strengths and weakness but identifying those are the most difficult part, but to have a proper personal development plan, identifying those will be really necessary.

 

  • Recognize opportunities and threats

What ever the work we do facing for threats and opportunities are obvious thing, but if a person could well recognize those it will be really easy to face for those, there are plenty of opportunities and millions of threats in the environment and have to identify those and in order to reach for the goal successfully

  • Develop new skills

In order to achieve the goals properly a person should be develop a new skill, which she/he doesn’t have currently and which is necessary for achieving the goals, as the world is developing day by day people are developing their skills and to be a first class employee it is important of developing a new skill where you could compete with the other employees

  • Get support

When we trying to achieve goals there are areas that we need someone’s support on it so, where will need support on identifying and developing strengths and weaknesses.

  • Measure progress

Finally, after completion of all the above areas, it is important of measuring your own progress, it can be motivate the person since it shows how the person is progressing and how he is reaching for the goals, also could identify the areas which is not going according to the plan can work on it.

A proper personal development plan should be done according to the above mentioned process and I have prepared my own personal development plan which is relevant for the Branch manager promotion which I am hoping in next 6 months

  • Define the Goals
  • To be promoted as the Branch manager for the newly opening branch,
  • To be the best Branch Manager among the branch managers
  • To have 100% performance as the Branch manager
  • Prioritize
  • To be Promoted as the Branch Manager

 

  • Set a deadline
  • Within next 6 months
  • Understand the strengths and weakness
  • Team player
  • Problem solving skills
  • Communication skills
  • Good decision maker
  • Innovation skills
  • Flexible
  • Impatiens
  • Too sensitive
  • Trust people easily
  • Lack of time management skills
  • Lack of stress management skills

 

  • Recognize Opportunities and threats –
  • Good guidance from the line manager
  • Good customer base
  • Lots of personal commitment
  • Lack of knowledge in overall business

 

  • Develop a new skill
  • Time management skill is a really important for a manager. Hence should develop this skill and make it as a strengths
  • Since I am weak in stress management, need to be develop this skill
  • Get support
  • Get support from my supervisor since he is always there tp support me
  • Getting support from the HR department to participate in time and stress management program
  • Measure the progress
  • Can measure the progress through the feedback form line managers, subordinates, and peers
  • By doing a self assessment

As the Assistant Manager of the credit department of the Bank I have created personal development plan and now I have made a report in order to fit this plan in to a time frame which is 6 months

What do I want to learnWhat do I have to doWhat support and resource will I need How can measure the successDead line
Gaining knowledge on the overall businessDoing a research on overall businessSenior managers and the other employees of the departmentGetting Feedback from all senior managers about the research reportWithin 5 months period
Widen the knowledge on leadershipObserving on senior managers and getting involved with their work and learning through experienceSenior ManagersPerformance appraisal

Feedback from my peers and subordinates

Within next 4 months

 

Improving time and stress management skillsParticipating in training programs

Have a proper plan for worl

HR department

Lime Manager

Training Institutes

Self-assessment

Line Managers feed back

Within 3 months period
Improve planning and decision making skillsGetting knowledge thorgh experience and participate in trainings programsSenior managers

HR department

Training Institutes

Performance appraisalWithin 3 months

This report is consist on all the skills that I have to develop in order to get the promotion as the Branch Manager of the upcoming branch and it includes all the short, middle and longtime goals, this will help me to get the promotion and perform well in that position

2.4 Assessing and evaluating the outcomes of the personal development plan

With the information from the personal development plan to get the maximum result from the is, it is necessary of identifying the suitable areas that we have to really consider, it will help to accomplish the personal development well, the areas could be mentioned as below

  • Set realistic goals –

The goals which are defining should be realistic and achievable, that means the goals should be practical and should be relevant to the organizational goals and objectives, if the goals are unrealistic and cannot be achievable what ever the work done it cannot be success and it can reason to arise demotivation and personal morale can be failed, so setting a realistic goal would be really important

  • Take action

Once we done with setting a realistic goal it is time to take actions to achieve those, should work hard and be motivated to achieve the goals, and should be able to take risks, without that we cannot be expected to reach the goals

  • Be open to opportunities

Though stuck in to a one goal, it is important of identifying other opportunities as well, in the environment thre are plenty of opportunities that we should identify as it will help to achieve our personal goals as well

  • Be motivate about the end result

It is important of being motivate about the end result as it will boost a morale to achieve the goals, whenever doing something be alert and visualized on end results

  • Evaluate and celebrate the success –

Through the all hard work and difficulties once done and achieved with the goals finally the journey should be evaluate and the success should be celebrated, it will help in achieving future goals and objectives as well

Finally it is important of evaluating the impact of the learning and how it has helped to developed the required skills in order to promote for the upcoming position

According to the position that I am hoping to promote in next 6 months the evaluation of the impact from the learning could be mentioned as below

  • Leadership skills –

Leadership skills are really important for any person who is willing to develop the career and to take future opportunities, it is not only needs for managers but for all employees, a good leader can motivate the employees and take them towards achieving the goals and objectives of the organization as well as persona according to the promotion that I am hoping to get in next 6 months leadership skills are really important as I have to manage a whole branch

  • Professional skills –

Professionals skills also an indeed requirement when it’s come to develop the career life, professional skills like coaching, mentoring, counseling, multitasking, presentation skills, negotiation skills are really important for a professional body, so it has to be develop in order to be a professional and successful manager

  • Personal skills

As a person development of the professional skills are really important as it will help not only for the work life also for the personal life, while developing the professional skills, it in indeed of developing the personal skills like time management, communication skills, stress management skills as it will show the personality of a person and it is important of climbing the career ladder

Conclusion

According to the promotion that I am hoping to get in next 6 months as the Branch manager for newly opening branch there are areas that need to be really consider and developed, the bank branch manager position is not an simple position since the branch manager has to get the whole responsibility of the bank , hence he should be a person who has a wide knowledge and well skilled person, so developing all personal and professional skills are really necessary since it will helped to achieve whole branch goals and objectives and it may helped to take all the employees towards the goals o the branch, in order to identify the skills that need and what skills need to be developed I have to implement a skill audit for me by doing a SWOT analysis since it helps me to identify my strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats so that I can understand what skills should be developed , in order to develop the skills I have to identify which learning style is suitable for me and I did a personality test to identify the best leaning method as it will help me to learn things in a proper way, I was an extra voter so I decided to learn through experiencing and I used Koll’s experiential learning style

In order to take our self to achieve a goals the creating proper personal development plan will be important, since it includes the goals that we need to achieve, how we should achieve, what are the circumstances that we had to face and what are the final results, so that we can make our plan in proper way through a time fame, as a final process it is important of understanding the ways of achieving the personal goal and what are the impacts that we can have through the personal development plan

References

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Maxi (2011) The definition of personal and professional skills – essay. Available at: https://www.allbestessays.com/English/The-Definition-of-Personal-and-Professional-Skills/18282.html (Accessed: 25 November 2016).

2015, C. (2015) How to conduct a skills audit and identify skill gaps. Available at: http://www.cognology.com.au/learning_center/how_to_identify_skillgaps/ (Accessed: 26 November 2016).

wrote, M. (no date) Myers-Briggs personality testing: Understanding how we relate to the world. Available at: https://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newCDV_51.htm (Accessed: 26 November 2016).

Solutions, U. (2016) Personal development planning. Available at: http://www.managers.org.uk/knowledge-bank/personal-development-planning (Accessed: 29 November 2016).