Question
To demonstrate a commitment to HR ideally you will be an active CIPD member and have clear plans for continuing personal and professional development.
- Write a CV and supporting letter as the first step in applying for the HR post.
- Assume you have been included in the second stage of selection; you have been tasked with the following:
- Using appropriate e-technology prepare a short presentation in which you demonstrate how you meet the learning outcomes for the post. This presentation must be based upon your real-life experiences that can be verified.
The presentation is followed by an interview. Prepare your responses to the following: - Clearly identify and justify one SBL learning outcome where you would evaluate your skill and experience as particularly strong.
- Please reflect upon your presentation preparation for section a) above and explain what you could have done differently, and why.
- Please explain and justify with examples, your approach to continuous professional development, and your future plans.
- Using appropriate e-technology prepare a short presentation in which you demonstrate how you meet the learning outcomes for the post. This presentation must be based upon your real-life experiences that can be verified.
Evidence to be produced
Complete all activities in one document – The guided word count is 4,000 – 6,000 words.
Once you have fully prepared your briefing note, add your cover sheet and submit your assignment for marking.
Solution
Table of Contents
2.0 CV and Supporting Letter for HR Post 2
3.0 Meeting the Learning outcomes for the Post 7
4.0 Identification and Justification of SBL Learning outcome. 9
4.1 Interpreting financial information and manage financial resources. 10
5.0 Reflection of Presentation Preparation. 12
6.0 Approach to Continuous Professional Development and Future Plans. 16
6.1 My Skills Gap and Areas of Specialisation. 16
7.0 Conclusion and recommendations. 21
1.0 Introduction
In the modern business environment, a position of leadership in an organisation is noted as the ability to guide an organisation towards achieving their set goals, active decision-making, and aiding an organisation to leverage on a competitive advantage. This is affirmed in CIPD (2019a), that highlights that for a business leader to be successful and put in place multiple strategies, operate in a unique manner determined by their skills development. Having strong leadership skills contributes to positive impacts on people, teams, organisation, and the entire community. This informs the need for skills development for the leaders to improve performance and inform their fitness to a business environment. It is their core function for an organisation to establish an environment that enables business leaders for their role effectiveness. According to CIPD (2020), through a Continuing Professional Development (CPD), it is possible for the HR and L&D ability to be anchored on continuous self-improvement, hence successfully in their roles. According to CPD, there is no one-size-fits-all approach for skills development for the leaders and the necessity to advance a consistent development. In this report, a CV is developed and a supporting letter for application for an HR post. Also, through e-technology, a presentation demonstrating the meeting of learning outcomes for the position is made. Lastly, a reflection and an approach for continuous professional development have been established.
2.0 CV and Supporting Letter for HR Post
2.1 CV
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Newark, Nottigham, B43 1982
Phone: +44 4343 2232
Linkedin.com/in/xxxxxxxx
Personal Profile
Having obtained immense HR skills in my entire career life as a HR professional and appreciating the importance of Human capital in all business operations, I have made significant strides towards being accredited as CIPD Level 7 holder. Since I am looking to advance myself in the route of HR Generalist Role, this has enabled me to advance a critical analysis and successful evaluation. This has contributed to achieving a high track record in terms of results and customer expectations.
I am significantly a strategic and innovative person embracing strong IT and Financial skills based on complex information interpretation; I make informed decisions that steer a business vision into diverse initiatives. These initiatives are driven to deliver strong performance, profitability, and growth. I am a versatile, self-motivated, and innovative thinker, evident from my capacity to work flexibly, advising, and HR partnering on diverse projects with different people and across varying segments of an organisation’s operations. This is coupled by the capacity of building a high-level trust, credible level while collaborative working to achieve goals.
Work Profile
Wallis and Evans Company from 2010 – Present
Regional HR Manager for all 90 outlets with 700 employees
- Deputising and supporting the Director of operations in the delivery of the projects and support advanced to senior management
- Using a well structured and logical strategy to assimilate information and make appropriate decisions
- Deputise and support Retail Director in delivering business objectives and support the developing area management team.
- Using a well structured and logical strategy to assimilate information and data for decision making on a broader scale impacting on area, regional, and business practice enables different teams to move past their critical performance target and profits maximisation
- Financial and resources planning with a high-level accuracy to achieve deliverable and costs controls which are sustainable
- Delivering an approach for successful recruitment, appraisal, and performance management to teams for ensuring improved contributions and commitment levels
- Highlighting on fresh opportunities and influencing relevant development strategies
- Presenting fresh opportunities and influencing programs leading to improvement of the area and individual profile while at the same time working collaboratively with the rest of the organisation functions
- Building appropriate relationships through establishing external partnerships for maximising the overall sale and profitability
- Assuming a full responsibility to the entire 90 outlets in the entire Northern region which has enabled the region to perform as the leading 2 organisations
- Due to excellent performance, I received the best Commercial Regional HR manager award
Key Achievements
- Designing and delivering the business operations strategies aligned with the business and individual employees goals
- Formulation and delivering the management expectation with a high-level competency
- A review and delivery of fresh regional hierarchical structure by redeploying and managing employees redundancy
- I was among the people who conducted a review of the business financial reporting leading to streamlining of the communication process
- Developing and implementing employees scheduling process and creating an efficient payroll for achieving the overall set business objectives
Oracle UK Subsidiary- Regional HR Manager – 2005-2010
(10 Offices- 600 employees/ 5 Area Managers)
Please click the
Table of Contents
2.0 CV and Supporting Letter in Applying for the HR Post 2
2.2 Letter as first step in applying for the HR Post 7
3.0 Meeting the Learning Outcomes for the Post 8
4.0 Identifying and Justifying 7SBL Learning Outcome. 18
4.1 Selected Learning outcome. 18
4.2 Interpreting Financial Information and Managing Financial Resources 19
Recent Application of the Learning Outcome. 21
5.0 Reflection of Presentation Preparation. 22
5.4 Information technology skills 24
6.0 Approach of Continuous Professional Development and Future Plans 24
6.1 My Skills Gap and Specialisation Areas 24
6.2 Personal Development Plan (PDP) 25
7.0 Conclusion and Recommendation. 30
Appendix 1: Psychometric Test 33
Appendix 2: Insights Discovery Profile Assessment test 34
Appendix 3: Kolb’s Learning Cycle. 36
Appendix 4: Calendar in Time Management 37
Appendix 5: Webinar on Reflective Practice. 39
Appendix 6: Essentra’s Engagement Survey. 40
Appendix 7: My Questionnaire results on People Management Skills. 41
Appendix 8: Profit and Loss analysis for my analysis. 42
1.0 Introduction
In the contemporary business environment, successful human resource (HR) professionals are characterised with various approaches to their work roles, sharing a range of diverse personality traits, attributes and beliefs. This is supported by CIPD (2021) report that note that for a business leader success and prioritising on different strategies, their operations are dependent on success in their skills development. Possession of strong leadership skills lead to positive implications on people, teams, an organisation and overall community. This is further identified by Lee et al. (2020) as the need to have appropriate vision, good moral standards and harnessing innovativeness. In this regard, there is a need for developing appropriate skills for the leaders performance improvement. The HR plays a critical role in an organisation in establishing an appropriate environment which ensure the business leaders are effective in their job roles. Further, as evidenced in the CIPD (2021a), by adopting the Continuing Professional Development (CPD), there is a possibility for the HR and L&D to demonstrate their capacity which is anchored on a continuous self-improvement. This has a positive implication on aiding leaders success in their assigned job functions.
In this report, a CV and a supporting letter used for applying a HR post has been developed. Additionally, by using an appropriate e-technology (presentation), a demonstration of meeting a learning outcome for the post has been provided. At the end, a reflection and best practice in providing a continuous professional development has been provided.
2.0 CV and Supporting Letter in Applying for the HR Post
2.1 CV
James Smith
Bolton, United Kingdom (UK)
M1: 07904256171
Bolton, BL2 2QP
Linkedin:
Personal Profile
A confident and reliable HR Manager at strategic level with experience of assisting the full management of a business, creating and implementing policies and procedures, disciplinary procedures, equal opportunity, inductions, processes, employment contracts and employment documentation, employment law and key processes. These include disciplinary, grievance, redundancy, performance management, sickness absence and contractual changes, also having a proven ability to support a HR function by providing accurate and professional advice and guidance.
Skill Highlights
Knowledge and expertise
| ◦ Contract Document Generating
◦ Contractual Writing ◦ Policies & Procedures ◦ Employment Law ◦ Data Analysis ◦ Tupe ◦ Document Management ◦ Performance Management
|
◦ Recruitment Methodologies
◦ Health & Safety ◦ Disciplinary & Grievances ◦ Absence Management ◦ Employee Relations ◦ Reward & Recognition ◦ Succession Planning ◦ Training & Development
|
Qualifications
Currently pursuing the CIPD Level 7 Qualification
Work Profile
A&F Sprinklers 01/2019– Present
Group HR Manager
Key Achievements
- Attained fast-track promotion through series of increasingly responsible positions.
- Managing large teams of employees in a busy work environment.
- Review, improve, implement the DPP’s and APP’s in line with the organizations objectives and long-term goals.
- Review and submit a regular report to immediate superior on which it describes the status of the department. This includes detailing the major accomplishments, strength and weakness and concerns and needs of the department/staff
- Responsible for the day-to day running of the business. Making sure that the organization continues to grow by way of developing new educational programs .
Duties
- Recruitment
- Reward and recognition
- Organisational design
- Employee engagement
- Employee relations
- Business planning
- Advising employees on policies and procedures
- Implementation and delivery of inductions and orientation
- Assisting company directors in running of the business and functions
- Overall responsibility of absence management
- Implementing recruitment strategies and planning recruitment needs for the business and departments
- Compliance of new starters and employees through the life cycle
Pall Mall Medical– HR Manager – 12/2015 to 01/2019
- Reduced company turnover by 55% within 12 months with a retention period increase of 76% in the same period
- Reduced employee absence by 92% in a 12-month period
- Full completion of Investor’s in People (2018)
- Successful implementation of staff forums to engage employees in the change of the business
- Implementing an appraisal and performance review process from initial concept to delivery
- Successful implementation of creating a full employee relation process in line with SLA
- Implementation of all HR policy, procedures, handbook and code of conduct
- Changing and improving the organisation’s culture
- Successful completion of creating an HR function
Project Work
- Dealing with all staff queries for 380 employees and providing HR support, guidance and expert advice to colleagues and managers
- Managing the end-to-end employee relation’s process including complex cases from sickness absence, work performance, conduct, gross misconduct and settlement agreements.
- Providing advice, guidance & support to company directors, line managers & employees
- Developing HR practices and processes to ensure consistency, including conducting disciplinary hearings and grievances and ensuring sickness/ absence is monitored and reduced
- Management of Health & Safety for the company including risk assessments, audits and revisions of policies and procedures
- Regular reporting to line managers and directors for sickness absence, compliance, HR updates
- Creation & implementation of HR documentation, policies, procedures, processes and protocols in line with legislation
- Ensuring all HR administrative records are updated and maintained
- Advising managers on staff development, training and succession planning
- Managed all aspects of recruitment, job descriptions, attracting, selection and interviewing
- Setting up and managing the appraisal and performance review processes
- Set up of new starters and leavers processes
- Introduced employee relations program and negotiating benefits and rewards
- Implementing HR planning process for effective management
- Delivering and implementing training and arranging external training
- Ensuring compliance for all clinical documentation to ensure CQC compliance
- Negotiating prices of training with external suppliers
- Co-ordination of new starters and leavers processes, ensuring paperwork is compliant
Premex Services– (05/2015 to 11/2015)
Ops Administrator
Jobwise– (03/2015 to 05/2015)
Recruitment Consultant
AVIS– (Cyprus)- (12/2013 to 02/2015)
HR Admin & Rental Agent
Morrisons– (08/2005 to 12/2013)
Grocery/HR Manager
Professional Affiliations
- Mock Interviews for different colleges
- Entrepreneurship affiliation and practices in UK and Cyprus
- The Ambassador Program in Pall Mall Medical organisation
- CIPD qualification and operations
- Misk Global Forum 14-15 November 2018
- Currently pursuing the CIPD Level 7 Qualification
2.2 Letter as first step in applying for the HR Post
James Smith
Bolton, United Kingdom
M1: 07904256171
7/12/2021
Dear Hiring Manager,
Balancing the needs of an organization with the strengths of the employees is crucial to a company’s success. As a highly accomplished Human Resources professional, I am able to drive organizational growth through the identification, recruitment and placement of key individuals that can support this objective.
For over 10+ years, I have applied employment strategies to acquire talented candidates in order to fill key roles within organizations. Additionally, I have worked to build programs that support HR initiatives while implementing internal processes that facilitate organizational objectives. My employee well-being program proved to be very successful with employee job satisfaction increasing by 48% after implementation. I have also committed my sections to a greener initiative by implementing online programs and systems, eliminated paper production, which reduced our yearly financial budget by 70%.
I have earned a reputation for my ability to work with individuals at all levels. This is due in part to my promotion of open communication between employees, managers and executives. I am eager to bring my commitment to maintaining high levels of operational performance to your organization. I would greatly appreciate the opportunity to discuss my qualifications with you.
I have enclosed my resume, which further details my professional achievements. I look forward to speaking with you to discuss my interest in working for your organization and the fresh approach I would bring to the position. I appreciate your consideration and thank you for your time.
Sincerely,
James Smith
3.0 Meeting the Learning Outcomes for the Post
My self-management can be identified as the ability of managing my actions, thoughts and feelings in a flexible approach to obtained the desired results. To achieve this, I normally use the Moon (2001) handbook of reflective and experiential learning. Here, I am able to achieve an improved wellbeing and gaining on a sense of self-efficacy and connectedness to the rest for coping up with dynamics of my relationships. By being self-managed at work, I manages to concentrate appropriately on all my assigned job roles. My approaches include the following;
Self-Awareness– Being the head of HR in A&F Sprinklers, I have always taken it to be my role to improve my self-awareness which enables me to discover my personality. At one point, I participated in a Management Development Program in my organisation which included completing Insight Discovery Profile Assessment, Psychometric tool informed by the Psychology of Carl Jung (Schon, 1983). As shown in Appendix 1, I took part in activities relating to numerical reasoning, verbal reasoning, inductive reasoning, diagrammatic reasoning, logical reasoning and error checking.
By reflecting on Gibbs (1996), this has always been providing me with appropriate insights for my profile, management style used, decision-making, key strengths and my weaknesses, communication styles and areas for development based on my profile. This means that I am not in a rush in making decisions and I always take a step back and analyse all the existing information for making the best decision. In 2019, after taking part in the management development program, I participated in an Insights Discovery Profile Assessment test (see appendix 2). My scores evidence that I am passionate on Human Resources as a profession with my personal is on developing colleagues and employees.
Time Management– This is one of the most essential skill which I have carried with me in my current job function. This is evidenced by my capacity of meeting limited deadlines and crucial timelines. My best practice entails the application of Kolb (1984) cycle for managing sustainable development (Fenech et al., 2020). As shown in appendix 3, I am positioned as a pragmatist which entail converging, thinking and doing. At one point, the Line manager in my recent organisation had noted how I am a good planner and I am always up-to-date in all my activities. From this, I had been recommended for pay increase in my role.
I normally use my calendar which I have saved in my Microsoft Outlook planer (see appendix 4). I developed this after being recommended by my line manager who noted it to be important for improving my skills. As shown in appendix 4, I classify my tasks un the important (orange flags) and the urgent tasks (red flags) categories. The important tasks are critical as they do not exclusively demand prompt action and critical tasks demand my immediate action. I always prioritise the important and urgent tasks.
Stress Management– My current role as a HR manager can be identified as significantly demanding. I have to ensure I achieve a work life balance juggling between my job functions, community responsibilities and family life. This has a direct effect on my ability to manage my stresses hence affecting the approach I take in people relations. I hence manage to always be conscious in managing stress levels through setting my priorities to be on my work roles and to set appropriate timelines. Through this and actively engaging my colleagues, I am able to manage their expectations in full.
From the review of my immediate supervisor in Pall Mall Medical organisation, in line with the identified skills, I have primarily been able to develop them with time through an active implementation of the different tools and tips achieved in the upskilling webinars which I have attended while working in this organisation. I feel that I am able to practically implement various theories as this is appropriate practice in learning the best through a hands-on approach. As evidenced in the Dewey (1933), this is identified as the active, persistent, and careful consideration of beliefs supposed to form knowledge in light of the grounds that support it and further conclusions to which it leads (Mules, 2018). The webinar that I attended was titled C2L Jam on reflective practice (see appendix 4).
As evidenced in Kotter (1977), the managers ought to successfully apply power and their authority in influencing and encouraging an appropriate employee behaviour. This is as opposed to using the traditional power and authority which introduce coercion and disciplinary procedures to manage the staff. For my practice, I am good in team building, implementing negotiation skills, managing conflicts, leading others and assertiveness. My expertise are evident from a recent insight which I had been given by my current employer digital team. I was recommended to be using the Essentra’s engagement survey (see appendix 5). From this, I am able to link my performance with the administrative roles, answering questionnaires, external benchmarking and evaluating the overall response rates.
As a best practice of leading and influencing others, I ensure that I am an excellent team player. Apart from this, I ensure I coach, mentor and motivate the rest. This is while appropriately delegating tasks and ensuring I manage change successfully. For instance, in my current organisation, I have been the Chair of the Social Values team. While operating as a member of this team, I lead a total of 11 employees from various departments in developing a detailed strategy for engagement and communication approaches for the organisation. I ensure I take part in monthly meetings, took part in group information gathering sessions and all members contribution to the plan being noted. Being the Head of HR, I ensure an elaborate and clear communication, efficiencies and sharing appropriate thoughts, ideas and important information intended to make sure the different team members are in similar levels of knowledge and understanding.
At one of the management Development Training, the facilitator offered me with open-ended questions for establishing the different stakeholders relations within the organisation. As shown in appendix 6, my performance was successful and I managed to answer all the questions in an effective manner.
When I am exercising the role, I ensure that I am able to resource the best teams, performance review, appropriate project management skills and presenting information and capacity development. The involvement of different groups allow for creativity and excitement in the entire process.
My financial management skills were evident at the initial phases of my career at A&F Sprinklers organisation where I was mandated with managing their different subsidiaries financial performance and services. This had been prompted in my excellent performance with an A+ grade in finance related units in by bachelor degree. My areas of mastery include;
Mastery of HR/Payroll System– As illustrated in figure 7, through my ability to successfully conduct a profit and loss analysis to recommend to the finance team on the beast practice in managing the HR/Payroll system called Cintra IQ intended to provide an appropriate support for all my colleagues who would have otherwise implemented this task for the shared services function.
I normally use the Cintra IQ, HR and Payroll System in a daily basis for processing the daily HR job roles. I have in the past managed to acquire the essential knowledge of the system application by using training provided Cintra IQ themselves. It is evident that I am forgetful on particular areas which I intend to improve as part of my CIPD 2018 new professional map self-assessment.
Microsoft Office Modules– In managing the finances, I ensure that I utilize both the Microsoft Office and our in-house payroll and HR system known as Cintra IQ. I am able to utilize the Microsoft Office modules in producing various reports in an Excel format with formulas which are of very high level. Nevertheless, I am not able to apply pivot tables and advanced functions in my practice.
From these postgraduate skills, I am at all times requested in my organisation to offer key performance indicators and HR reports for the auditors, senior management, the board of management and risk management teams. Depending on what I am requested for, I make sure I make critical decisions on the best strategy to follow. I have already started using my CIPD Level 7 qualifications to be best positioned in executing my entire HR functions roles with great proximity and success.
Also, in all assessments which I have done in all my qualifications, I always apply a critical analysis which has enabled me to score with distinction and emerged at the top of my class. This is an indicator of my proficiency as a HR professional of being able to adopt what I learn in class to active job roles in both short- and long-term basis. I am nevertheless struggling in finding fresh ideas since my intentions are focusing on simplicity and practicality to be able to deal with different situations and engaging on all activities in a disciplined way.
4.0 Identifying and Justifying 7SBL Learning Outcome
4.1 Selected Learning outcome
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