Personal & Professional Development

Self-Learning
Pearson BTEC (HND) Business
Richard Docc

Self - managed learning as the name suggests is defined as skills and abilities developed by
learning done by own. In the todays world this is really very necessary as the world is so
competent and people dont have time to do professional development training for everything.

Introduction
Self - managed learning as the name suggests is defined as skills and abilities developed
by learning done by own. In the todays world this is really very necessary as the world is
so competent and people dont have time to do professional development training for
everything. This self managed learning can be helpful in both professional as well as
personal life. And self managed learning can help in enhancing lifelong development.

LO1 Understand how self- managed learning can

enhance lifelong development.
1.1 Evaluate approaches to self-managed learning.
These are many approaches through which self managed learning can be acquired.
Some of these are seminars, conferences, group discussion, debates, social networking,
internet, etc. We will discuss some of them here:

Seminar and Conferences: This is one of the most effective ways of self
managed learning. People who do not have proper communication skills and who
have public speaking phobia should indulge in more of these seminars and
conferences so that they can develop their communication skills. This is also a
wonderful platform for people to share their knowledge, their views, their
different perspectives towards things, etc.

Group discussions, debates: in group discussion and debates that are

speaking on the same topic and everyone gets a chance to put on their own views.
This gives different pictures of the same story. This people to grow and learn how
to make their point in front of other people ( 1999). The group discussions and
debates groom the personality of people and make them confident. It helps them
to learn the skill of convincing others. This is a great boon for people to
strengthen their communication skills.

Social networking: Today most of the people like to spend their time on social
networking websites and almost everyone use it. People great a great opportunity
to gain knowledge on the social networking websites where they can read what
happening in the current world from others posts. They can communicate with
other via chat, can post their views on different issues, they can follow people to
know what is going in their life. The social networking sites are a great boon for
self manages learning.

Internet: Internet has been transformed by a million times with the invention of
Google. Any information is just a Google search away from everyone. Information
on everything can be searched on Google and helps people to learn about
different things. There a lot of books available online which can help in self

HND Business Assignment

managed learning, lot of blogs are available, millions of websites, discussion

forums, etc.

1.2 Propose ways in which lifelong learning in personal and

professional development context could be encouraged
Lifelong learning in personal and professional development context can be encouraged
by many ways like doing a continuous SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, threats,
opportunities) analysis and self reflective learning. This should be done on a periodic
basis so that there should be a continuous development for lifelong which will be helpful
both in the personal and professional life. This can be done by constantly seeking
feedback from people after working on some grey area and improving that to make sure
that you are on the right track of development (Wilkins, 1997). By doing SWOT
analysis, one come to know about what are the fields they are good at and which of
them they need improvement in. This can also be encouraged if one speaks about their
problems, their shortcomings with others, share them with others and seek for methods
to overcome them and solve them. The encouragement can also be given by analyzing
the performance of people on a graphical basis and try and understand the weak links
and try to improve them. The SWOT analysis can be done by using various tools like Self
Reflective learning and continuing professional development.

1.3 Evaluate the benefits of self-managed learning to the

individuals and organizations
There are lot of benefits of self managed learning to the individuals and the organization
in which they are working. Self managed learning is really very effective as this is gained
by own experience, hard work, learning, training. This is acquired without
any professional help and has been developed by oneself so this remains for a long time
and helps people in their personal and professional life. The performance of any
organization depends on the performance of the employees working for it, hence of the
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employees are developing skills it will surely be beneficial for he organization itself and
its performance will get better (West, 1997).

LO2 Be able to take responsibility for own

personal and professional development
2.1 Evaluate own current skills and competencies against
professional standards and organization objectives
Currently I possess a lot of skills and competencies which is required in the professional
life and I am perfectly fit to help organization to meet their objectives. Some of my
current skills can be discussed as below:

Time management skills: I am good at managing time and I am always in

time for all my classes. I finish all my assign work in time and before deadline. I
always do proper planning to complete my work in time and work according to
my plan.

Communication skills: I am good and an effective communicator. I can good

at making a healthy conversation wit people but still I need some improvement in
my language skills. I sometime make some grammatical mistakes which need to
be improved. Also I need to improve on my public speaking skills.

Team skills: I am good at working in teams with the same objective and know
how to help others to get the work done. I also know how to get the work done
from others. I can gel with people very easily and make friends easily. I need to
improve my team leading skills a little bit more.

Management: I am a good manager of things and have worked in organizing

many events at college. I know hot to manage people and work properly. I need to
get some professional degree on this as the management skills taught in our
college in our course is limited and along with some professional experience
some theory is also important to understand different aspects of management.

2.2 Identify own development needs and the activities required to

meet them
It can be improved by taking part in more seminars, conferences, debates, elocution,
group discussions. This can also be improved by more and more reading. This can be
improved by reading novels, newspaper and practicing to speak as you read.I an also
improve my team leading skills by taking up new managerial roles and taking the
responsibility to finish jobs form end to end. Team leading skills can be acquired by
actually working in teams and taking the initiative to complete the work on self
responsibility. I can also acquire some technical skills which I am not efficient in by

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reading some technical books, doing practical assignments, etc. It can also be achieved
through proper training sessions (Hensley, 2003).

2.3 Identify development opportunities to meet current and future

defined needs
There are a lot of development opportunities to meet the current and future needs.
There are a lot of books available in the market which have lesion to improve the skills
like time management skills, how to improve the communication skills, about
developing different technical skills, How to become an effecti8ve team leader, etc.
There also a lot of books where some of the great businessmen have shared their
experiences and how they developed these skills with time and conditions. All these are
of a great value to develop these skills for us. There also a lot of blogs wrote which can be
found online where these things are taught with examples. Thousands of videos are
available online to develop these skills.

2.4 Devise a personal and professional development plan based on

identifies needs.
I can devise a proper plan to have a proper personal and professional
development according to the identified needs in the above segment. I am planning to
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take part in more of such activities where I can take more responsibilities to do the work
and get opportunity to learn these skills. I will be organizing events on my own and will
proactively take part in the extracurricular activities. My plan from the current situation
would be to go further and improve my technical skills and management skills. Here I
would like to take on some more educational qualification on different skills like
management skills in marketing. I also want to improve on my time management skills
which will be helpful in me personal as well as professional life. I would be taking part in
more management related tasks; I would read management related books where I can
learn the skills and techniques to develop these skills. To improve my time management
skills, I am planning to do more and more activities and try to prioritize my work
accordingly.

LO3 Be able to implement and continually revise

own personal and professional development
3.1 Discuss the process and activities required to implement the
development plan.
There are many process and activities which are required to implement my development
plan. Some of these activities can be discussed as below. While doing these learning and
reading books, plan to study alone in a comfortable yet quiet environment. I will be
setting up goads for myself and would monitor my performance accordingly on a regular
basis to study the progress. I will be creating a connection the skills which I already
acquire and new material and will try to understand the similarities between the things
which I already know and the things in which I need improvement.These activities will
also include certain training sessions, discussions with my colleagues and friends, taking
part in seminars and conferences, and constantly read about great leaders and the
valuable experiences, participate in presentations, attend more talk shows of different
people, participate in groups to complete tasks, take more responsibilities, organize big
events, manage people, etc.

3.2 Undertake and document development activities as planned

The development activities as planned can be documented and undertaken accordingly.
This can be done on a time scale basis. So this can be done for a 6 months basis. In the
first month I would like to critically analyze which are my shortcomings and try to find
out possible solutions to overcome that. Then in the next three months I can just work
on developing on these skills by selecting the best possible solutions to them. These can
by done by taking up the activities as planned in the above segment. For the next month
I will try to take proper feedback and try to analyze the improvements in my
performance based on the activities undertaken to improve my weak skills. This will the
feedback month. Here I will take the feedback from my friends, colleagues, family to
understand if there was any improvement and if there are still some gray areas to work
on. In the next and the last month of the development plan I will b doing the
improvements according to the feedback received and try to overcome the weaknesses

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which was still there. This way on a half yearly basis the development plan can be
developed which will be helpful to improve personal and professional skills which will
be beneficial for them as well as for the organization for which they are working or will
be working.

3.3 Reflect critically on own learning against original aims and

objectives set in the development plan
The activities which were planned in my development plan have very well served its
objectives, my learning was at par with the original aims and the objectives of the
development plan. The time management skills which were planned as in the plan has
been effective in serving its purpose. The time management activities included to start
the work as soon as the work is assigned, it also included breaking the big tasks into
smaller sub tasks and assigning short deadlines to these sub tasks. It included to
prioritize the work accordingly and completing the work as per the priority. All these
were I have also reviewed my performance while undertaking the activities in my
development plan and have critically analyzed my performance and have found out that
the self-learning activities have helped to develop the skills which I was planning to
develop.

3.4 Update the development plan based on the feedback and

evaluation
Based on the feedback the development plan can be updated. According to the feedback
I have got from my friends and colleagues, I need to improve my communication skills
and my team leading skills. These can be improved by taking steps in this direction. In
order to improve on the weaknesses and improvement area discussed above a lot of
things can be done. The most important and effective way is self managed learning. I
can achieve the above skills by taking part in more activities.

LO4 Be able to demonstrate acquired

interpersonal and development skills
4.1 Select solution to work base problem
In the case mentioned of Star Tel, a 3 star hotel in London, clearly the problem lies with
the staff and inappropriate training to them. First of all as it is evident from the case
itself that the staff at the reception is inadequate and more people should be recruited
for the reception job as there is only one person who is attending customers, taking
calls, doing bookings, etc. So there should be more staff appointed at the reception. Also
the staffs are careless and not properly trained to attend the customers properly. So they
need to undergo a proper training to develop proper skills to manage customers and
serve them in an efficient way. Secondly the IT infrastructure is also poor. The payment
process is creating problems; hence the company needs to take help from a renounced
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IT company to solve their IT problems and develop a robust payment process to satisfy
the customers properly.

4.2 Evaluate and use effective time management strategies.

The effective time management skills are really very important to be developed for the
success of any individual. In this world, everyone wants their work to be done in time
and to develop such a situation, time management strategies play a crucial role. The job
in the current times needs a lot of work to be done within deadlines and a lot of pressure
is put in the employees. To be able to manage so much work at the same time and to
complete them within deadline, it is really very important to strategize to manage time
effectively. sThis time management skills will help the individuals to always be able to
complete their work in time and will help them to prioritize their work effectively assign
the priority to them so that all of them gets completed in their different deadlines.

Conclusion
There are many skills which is necessary to posses to lead a successful personal as well
professional life. Some of these skills are proper time management skills, effective
communication skills, good team working skills, managerial skills, etc. People cant go
for personal and professional courses for these skills to be acquired. All these can be
achieved by proper self managed learning. People also needs to be creative in their
approach and always should be on their forefront to develop new and creative things.
Different people have different extent of these skills and they should work on their
weaknesses to develop these skills and these are some of the most important recipe of
success.

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