Words: 4063
Manage personal work priorities and professional development When planning and organising your work, what qualities do you need to demonstrate in order to serve as a positive role model to others in the workplace?
To serve as a positive role model, you need to have the following attributes: Uncompromising Integrity High Energy Good at working priorities Courageous A committed and dedicated hard worker Unorthodox and creative Goal orientated Inspired & contagious enthusiasm Staying level headed A desire to help others grow & succeed. What are your own responsibilities and accountabilities in the workplace? How do you co ordinate your personal work goals, plans and activities to reflect on your organisation’s plans, your own responsibilities and accountabilities?
I have several responsibilities and accountabilities within my workplace environment. I am responsible for ensuring my Boss is aware of his schedules & day-to-day activities. I view my responsibilities as a part of who I am. My work must display that attitude and I am held accountable for anything that I am responsible for. I ensure that the flow of my work is reasonable, managed and established. I keep a positive attitude towards anything that may otherwise feel negative at times. I accept my responsibilities and admit my errors; I may have contributed to, to at the time. Whether that would be through poor decision making, lack of understanding, I am sure to point it out or have them pointed out.
I see the negativity as an opportunity to grow and I turn that feedback into something constructive, which allowsme to change the things that do not serve a purpose within my current work load. I manage my time effectively, I organise and roster and I ensure that my superior is made aware of any upcoming/shortcomingevents. Work responsibilities and accountabilities takes discipline, although we may falter at times, as we are imperfect, as long as the correct measures are taken to re-write a wrong, then something positive may be achieved in the long run. Not all wrongs can be redone, if that’s the case, then a repeat of it should not be made, the lesson learnt ends there in that particular matter. Goal setting is important.
Main points we should focus on are: Expressing our goals positively Setting Priorities Writing Goals down Keeping operational goals small Setting realistic Goals Using a balance score card would also help monitor, responsibilities & accountabilities for each individual & as an organisation. When performing in different work conditions and contexts, how do you evaluate your performance? Explain any work documents or reports you use to measure your performance. | We use PBO – Personal Business Objectives to measure and evaluate our performances within our organisation. It gives each employee the chance to be creative, innovative and proactive in the approach towards our own career roles. We discuss our visions with our superior who outlines whether some of the objectives we have listed are realistic enough and can be approached or whether we are in a fantasy realm where the real has been confused with actual and fictional.
Thisapproach allows us to open our views to other ways of thinking and to project our ideas throughout the organisation. We are then reviewed as to whether the vision as a team or as the individual are working through is coming together, if it’s not, then we are asked to discuss what “I” or “we” as individual have done to contribute to this side(down) effect. We asked to think, we are challenged into taking up new roles, to work from a deeper and more rooted approach and to ask for necessary assistance in order to gain the knowledge required to achieve the ultimate dream. I evaluate my performance by the work I carry out, I try to keep my objectives open and clear, with room for flexibility.
I try to achieve every goal I say I will complete, sometimes the time frames given may be a little unrealistic, that in it itself tells me something, it tells me something isn’t functioning right, I try to pin point and analyse as to where things may be going pear shape and as to why my main objectives are not being met. The questions come back down to me- am I putting in enough effort? How can my employer help me? How can we work together to ensure this doesn’t happen or how we can make this happen? These are the questions I tend to put forward and hope for answers. This is how I evaluate my performance and how my employer evaluates my efforts. It is a valuable time whetherpositive/negative feedback is taken and accepted with appreciation.
Things to keep in mind: A to do list. Prioritise task/objectives in terms of usable results (purpose) Include a time based safety margin in your list Delegate effectively Take appropriate action Learn to say No/ Plan time for yourself. How do you take initiative to prioritise and help meet competing work demands to achieve personal, team and business/organisation goals and objectives?
The initiatives I undertake to prioritise & help meet competing work demands to achieve personal, team & business/organisation goals & objectives are: Prioritisation Weekly Planning Monthly Planning Being Proactive- doing a to do list I take my time to initiate to prioritise & facilitate competing demands so that I can achieve personal, team & organisational goals and objectives. How do you make the best use of technology to manage your work priorities and commitments? By having access to the usage of technology to manage my work priorities and commitments, it has enabled me to enter a new dimensions. Technology plays an important rule into building a successful enterprise.
By having remote access, wireless communication, it means we are able to jump into the network, complete any demands that may or may not be urgent. Have access to a company representative 24 hours depending on the area range and meet client needs. When technology is used right and managed, the business world is transformed into a more productive realm & is probably more environmentally friendly meaning less paper is sometimes consumed. I use technology to complete and plan schedules of tasks. I use certain softwares to provide reporting to my manager, whether it is financially or just plain operational. We have certain software which we are able to extract specific information from and use that data to plan it, plot it or graph it. |Q. 6.
How do you manage and coordinate work-life balance to manage stress at work and maintain a healthy life? I manage and coordinate a work-life balance to manage stress at work and maintain a healthy lifestyle, by controlling my emotional needs. When we use Emotional intelligence to overcome any emotional barriers within the work environment we are opening a passage between the mind and the heart and allowing clear thoughts to run freely, in a natural way and not in a restrained manner. It takes a lot of practice and mental alertness to be able to control the sudden emotions that seem to overflow our daily lives. Self control and stamina need to be enforced.
There are other factors that need to be taken into account also: Decrease or discontinue caffeine Make time for regular exercise Relax and recharge Get quality sleep Take time-out Have realistic expectations Reframe attitude Challenge your belief systems Cultivate a great support system Laugh Keeping an open minded attitude will not only brings about balance, it will also give a great enhancement to our emotional lives, by restoring order and healthy boundaries. How do you assess your skills and knowledge towards determining your developmental needs and plans to maintain work standards? What actions do you take when you have determined your developmental needs?
I assess my skills & knowledge towards determining my developmental needs & plans maintain work standards by taking the appropriate actions and taking ownership of my career, and focusing on professional developments to help me better understand the following: Assess personal knowledge and skills Able to identify the competency standards to which I (we) should aspire Able to determine my (our) own development needs & priorities and plans Better able to recognise opportunity More aware of he trends and directions in technology & society Increasingly effective in the workplace Able to help , influence and lead other by my example Confident of my (our) future employability Have a fulfilling and rewarding career Able to demonstrate continuing commitment to my (our) profession. The organisation monitors our own skill and knowledge through out PBO’s and our own KPI’s. It would also be useful to use the SMART approach. S- Specific Target | |M- be Measurable ( I must be able to recognise when I have achieved it) | |A- be Achievable, | |R- Realistic and | |T- Time-bound ( have a deadline) | | | |I’m always willing to learn something new and to implement my learning’s into my work. | | | How do you seek feedback from employees, colleagues and clients to identify improvements in performance? How do you use | |the feedback process? |Effective forms of feedback from the workplace can include: | |Formal & informal performance appraisals | |Feedback from supervisors & colleagues | |Feeback from suppliers | |Feedback from internal & external clients/customers (informal or in the form or surveys and questionaries) | |Personal reflection and self-assessment | |Data derived from organisational monitoring and control process | |Observation and measurement of end products | |Measurements related to mistakes, rework and waste. | | |With the information that is gathered, it helps me (the organisation) to: | |Continue to perform well in these areas | |Continue improving in these areas | |Transfer successful skills and techniques to other areas of work. | | | |I observe both the negative and positive feedbacks from both my employer or employees or associations, it helps me improve in | |areas I may have never considered looking into before. | | | What is the importance of participating in various networks in order to achieve more contacts, skills and knowledge? | | |The benefit of belonging to professional networks and associations are that you not only get the chance to make good contacts,| |but you can learn about the latest’s developments in your field and advertise yourself and business. By attending functions | |you can make known to your peers that you exist. Education is another major benefit. Business fails when they stay in their | |own paradigm and resist change. | | | |Building a solid establishment will enable you to gain further interests and opportunities to developing the future growth of | |the business. By expanding the diameters and business knowledge bank. To have a successful business we must identify and | |communicate our intent to make something happen.
In a highly purposeful manner, we must keep our goals in mind and we must | |search and form fruitful and powerful relations. | | | Manage personal work priorities and professional development Scenario Assessment Part 1 You have been finding it difficult to meet your work priorities and coordinate your team and your tasks as required. Consequently, you feel stressed and find it difficult to maintain a good work-life balance. After discussing this issue with your manager, you agree with him that the reasons why you cannot meet your work goals and maintain a good work-life balance are: You do not understand your own work goals • You find it difficult to align your own work responsibilities and accountabilities with the organisation’s wider plans You are required to: 1. Analyse the issues affecting your team and your performance as described by your manager 2. How you can go about improving your team and your performance based on the above information? The underlying issues affecting the team will be that there is no sense of direction. If there are no goals in place or I don’t understand the goals needed to undertake to lead my team, my team can not be forced to produce quality work. My main objective would be to sort my priorities out and set some goals.
Keep the goals realistic, be open minded, take further education if need be. By setting goals, it will improve my performance, my team’s performance and organisation’s performance. The constant stress that I am currently experiencing in this scenario will be due to not being able to manage or lead; a leadership course may need to be taken. This will give me wisdom and insight on how a leader must behave in order to lead a team. I must then develop those skills and lead by example. I must implement a balance score card, KPI’s, graph any performances or evaluate them not only on myself but within the team, asking for their input so that clear goals as a team/organisation are being set.
I need to work out what my role within those goals actually mean & what I am contributing. Once the goal settings have been set in place, it’s a matter of keeping focused, determined, building the right connections and using all technologies and utilities to get the work done and bring the vision to light. Need to make plans as to what resources will be needed, restructure if necessary, openly discuss the objectives and be assertive in all aspects and areas of dealings. With setting protocols in place, progress will be made and obstacles will be managed, the team would move forward with the organisation, all at the same time, shaping my own responsibilities & accountabilities within the organisation.
Also requesting continuous feedback, by all associated, bringing cards into the table and establishing or demolishing some strategies will bring the results needed in the future. Building a solid network would improve my ability to lead also. Everything must take shape and be balanced. Part 2 One of your valued team members commenced work recently (3 months ago) and you can see a lot of potential in her abilities because of her positive attitude to work. However, the team member is finding it difficult to learn all the skills and knowledge required of her. She takes part in all the learning sessions and activities and does what she is asked to do. How would you approach the issues relating to this team member? Include in you answer issues such as: How you will determine the team member’s current skill and knowledge levels • The required skills and knowledge before the team member can attain competencies required • The learning styles of the team member • The ways in which you could develop the team member’s skills and knowledge I would determine her knowledge and skills based on her previous performances. I would sit down with her and discuss with her possibilities of furthering her education. Maybe ask her, if she is finding it difficult to understand or relate to her current role. Is it because she doesn’t understand the goals she has set out for herself or the goals the organisation has.
I would strengthen her weakness and bring it to light, in a diplomatic approach, also show her support so she knows that we want to do right by her, so she will do right by the organisation. Discuss options as to where improvement is needed; help her to incorporate a balanced lifestyle as well as a balanced work life. If an employee has potential, we need to open up those channels, so she can express them freely and feel confident to tackle her every day tasks. We may need to set out a to do list, which underlies how each task must be handled, but I will need her to them think for herself, she will need to be guided at first. The things we agree on working together will become her objectives, if studies will need to be undertaken, studies and resources will be supplied.
Next time we do the review, I will bring up these objectives and monitor whether she is competent and has improved. In the meantime, I will analyse her learning abilities, as to whether she is more a visual person, audio, reflector or as to how she actually learns best. Once we have found the best solution for her, we will focus on bringing out those qualities and giving her the right resources to make her shine. This will develop her knowledge, may be it will introduce her to new ways of working, thinking, acting, her beliefs may change and in time, she will grow confident and will be able handle the workload, productively, constructively and powerfully. Manage personal work priorities and professional development Project Assessment Part 1
Analyse and discuss the strategies you use to manage your teams and your own work priorities. How effective are these strategies? The strategies I followed are listed below and a description has been given. I try to Identify my goals: I ask myself questions like, what are my measured goals? Do I have hourly, daily or weekly targets that my team must meet; what about the new goals such as reviewing productivity? Then I plan from there and work on my targeted list. I try to know my team: I get to know the individual strengths and weakness for each team member. One of my colleagues works extremely fast but occasionally misses some of the details. Another is incredibly thorough but has issues with the volume of work processed.
Then there’s a colleague that has spectacular customer relationships but can never say “no” to the clients whereas another employee has excellent technical skills but falls short in people skills. I really need to know all this very, very well. I use this knowledge to balance the productivity of my team (well my boss’s team). Match tasks with staff: I use the information I gleaned from the above steps to match people with work. This is termed skill-based work assignment. I want to play into each person’s strengths and minimize work assignments that would target his or her weaknesses. If I ever got the opportunity, I would put people together that have complimentary skill set. I would meet with my team members: Regular one-on-one meetings are critical to good management.
These meetings have several purposes. Give feedback on job performance: Discuss the previous week’s objectives including what went well, what areas might improve for next time and how that improvement might be obtained. This will lead into… Outline the goals for the next meeting: These are typically referred to as “action items” and will form the basis for the next weekly production review. Learn about staff issues: I will be a bit out of touch now and I absolutely must realize that. The only way to keep track of issues that affect the performance of my team (and therefore my job) is to listen to my employees! Ask for ideas: my staff wants to feel engaged.
Without exception, the number one motivating factor behind people leaving a job is poor management – that very often stems from feeling ignored. I will be graded not only on my team’s performance, but also on my turnover rate. Motivation: People motivate themselves. The best managers find ways to get their people to become motivated to do their jobs well and with pride. I would use sessions to find out what motivates my employees and use that feedback to improve their contribution. Be visible: I must not isolate myself from the team. Sometimes the initial workload will seem overwhelming and I might have a tendency to sequester myself away from the staff to keep up – especially with the new paperwork workload I would have.
I absolutely must not give the appearance of being an “ivory tower” inhabitant. If my team members don’t see their leader, they’ll develop an attitude of anarchy. Things will go very badly for me. Even if I’m managing remote staff, I will need to make sure they “feel” my presence. If I manage multiple shifts, I will make sure I visit all shifts regularly. Document team activities: My personal performance review will focus largely on my team’s performance so I will make sure I keep a written record of issues and accomplishments. This will be especially important if there are significant issues that arise. Problems are expected; how will I and my team handle those problems must be a focus of my efforts.
Reward performance: This doesn’t mean money… although money is nice, it’s not a primary motivator for on-the-job performance. Recognition is much more effective. If I have the authority, I would perhaps grant performance leave (an extra day off for doing something exceptional). I would make the rewards regular and make them attainable but difficult. When I give a reward, I will make it well known (reward publicly, admonish privately) Learn coaching: There will inevitably be times when I will need to correct behavior. I will need to learn to do this properly. If I do it correctly, I will get the results I want. If I do it poorly, things can go horribly wrong. Part 2 Write a report on your own professional development.
This report was requested by your senior management and will dictate your professional development in the next few years. As a minimum, your report must outline the following: • Your current skills and knowledge level • The competencies that you will need to achieve in order to have effective professional development • Any new skills and knowledge that you may require • The goals and priorities • Timelines for achieving the goals and objectives • How will you measure progress? • Feedback process that will be used Please type or write your answers legibly on separate sheets of paper and attach to this assessment. During my time within my current role, I’ve come across new skills & knowledge to help me perform my task at a new dimension.
I’ve learnt that communication skills along with diplomacy are an effective way of projecting work across without the need of being forceful. In order to achieve my professional development to reach full competency within my role, I may need to under take further studies, to develop any new skills that I have not touched basis on. I eventually want to be in a leadership role, but in order to do that certain education needs will need to be met. My goals will be to serve the organisation to the best of my abilities, to push my own boundaries but to not burn any barriers in the process. To evolve and mature into understanding the business world and how it functions and flourishes.
My priorities would be to educate myself and to manage, to perform to withdraw, to achieve to accomplish, to accept failures and take responsibilities for any personal mistakes, whatever action or consequence I must face, I must face with confidence, with logical analytical reasons, but to also know that at times, my own creativity and problem solving skills will need to be prominent in order to make tough decisions. My focus will be my priority; it will be my source of discipline. Everything takes time, so time will be my guide. I plan that within the year, I have completed some of the modules that need me to get me to that objective. It will take away time from my daily life, but it will not be my main focus at all times, I will balance the act of work, personal life, family & friends & quality time. I will measure my progress through constant feedback, researching and when applying new strategies to my workload, I will see whether the new implement is being fruitful or time wasting.
I will psychoanalyse my own attitude, to see whether it is something within that is causing something to not be or achieve it’s fullest potential. I will ask feedback from my staff, my boss and anyone within or outside the team. I will listen to all input/opinions and will be constructive as to how I use that information and how I chose to follow it. The feedback process I would use would most likely be documented, face to face, I will graph any performance to show a time line as to where I want to be and by when I want to be there, that way it gives me a time line as to when I want the dream achieved, knowing that it is only a guide and that time may sometimes be needed to be given or taken in order to accomplish any results.