DEVELOPING YOURSELF AS AN EFFECTIVE HR PRACTITIONER

KEY LEARNING - SUMMARY

Reflect on, and identify below, what you have learnt since your last submitted development plan (if this is the first development plan you have submitted for
the programme, then ignore this box on this occasion). Your learning might encompass both what you have taken from your study on the programme as well
as wider learning from work-related activities. Your reflection could reflect all or some of these suggestions: What I have learnt and understand better; What I
knew already that has been reinforced; What I need to reflect on further or think more about; What I can do now or do better; What I'm going to do differently
in future back at the workplace.

We recommend that you maintain a full Development Record (Learning Log) (available on the VLE) for CPD purposes as you go through the programme (this
does not have to be submitted with your assessments). The box below simply asks you to reflect on your key learning drawn from that and how it links (i.e. new
development needs that you have identified as a result of your learning) subsequently to your updated Development Plan below that you are submitting with
your unit assessment.

RAI
I was always aware of data protection and ensured that the data I worked with was held and processed in line with our policies which ensure we
are in line with data protection legislation. Further to this awareness, the RAI session really highlighted to me the importance of data protection
across all organisations and how much legislation surrounded it. While the work I do is in line with legislation, I have learnt that there is best
practice guidance which I should begin to take into account, such as removing the data which has an ‘expiry date’ from files. In terms of the use
of HR data within the organisation, I will no longer just send reports (such as sickness days) to senior management without an explanation of
what that data means to them. I will send the reports with an analysis and any suggestions for improvement my manager and I might have. To
make these suggestions relevant to management, I will keep in mind the organisations objectives and link it back to them. I feel that HR data is
becoming more important to the organisation I work for and recently the HR manager joined a directors meeting to discuss an exit interview
report she had put together. This is positive and shows progression towards a culture where HR is involved at strategic level. The contribution of
HR data was very useful to the directors and I think if more time were to be given to it, HR could produce new reports of equal use, for example,
how staff engagement and sickness levels are linked.

My objective to learn which functions and processes HR and Payroll have crossover with is proving trickier than I thought. There is only one
person in payroll and two in HR so we all have extremely busy jobs. Finding time to have these meetings is difficult but we both think they are
important so I need to ensure we keep pushing to rearrange missed meetings so that they don’t fizzle out. I have been enjoying working towards
my objective to keep up to date with employment law. Some of the articles in the newsletters are interesting and I enjoy being able to mention
the interesting and relevant ones to my manager. I feel that I will get a lot out of making time to read these newsletters throughout my career as
there is always something changing or something new being introduced.

HRC
Looking at PESTLEE gave me an interesting insight into how directors have formed business objectives around this analysis.
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DEVELOPING YOURSELF AS AN EFFECTIVE HR PRACTITIONER

It made me think on a more strategic level and gave me a better understanding of the factors affecting the company I work for. After talking
through different factors in the workshop, I appreciate the wide range of factors facing different companies in different sectors. Some of the
factors discussed were familiar to me because they were the same factors which affect my company, such as unemployment level and consumer
confidence, however I found it really interesting to hear discussion about factors which don’t affect my company such as government budget
cuts which affect public sector. I came to the conclusion that a lot of factors will affect the company I work for in one way or another because
our business depends on the recruitment needs of our client businesses (which changes according to the factors affecting each client) however
there are some key factors which have a direct effect on my organisation and these are the ones which the strategy is built around.

The session on how HR fits into the company made me really analyse how the different departments work together. I felt that while some
departments work together really well in my organisation, such as in the new starter process where HR, IT and finance departments work well
together (as described in my assignment), others could be improved. Sometimes, Sales and HR could work better together; the sales teams can
be lax in keeping HR informed on upcoming leavers. Sometimes the HR team find out too late and miss the opportunity to conduct an exit
interview which I think is a shame because with the company’s high turnover, the feedback from these exit interviews is important in identifying
why people leave. We do try to follow up with people but its tricky once they have left the office because they have moved on. I think the
processes where departments work together well are taken for granted, which is also a shame because of the hard work which goes into them.
However, it suggests the processes are so seamless, people don’t realise what’s involved! When a process doesn’t work as well, there are
consequences on the organisation and so for any processes where HR is involved, I will now be more aware and looking to identify areas where I
can improve the process. I think that sometimes, if you take the time to understand things from different perspectives in different departments,
you are able to spot an easy way to make the process simpler and improve how the departments work together.

I am definitely beginning to see HR as a profession and not just a job. I am keen to progress in my career and I think learning to think
strategically rather than just providing a service will help me progress. My objective to improve by understanding the crossover between HR and
Payroll has, after we were successful in attending a meeting, resulted in a decision that we need to review our pension provider; there are
problems on both sides. As HR, we don’t believe it is an attractive enough package or a user friendly pension provider and from Payroll’s side,
they have been having technical issues with uploading money. This is a big task and so I don’t expect it the project to be looked into for a few
months – we need to get senior management on side.

RTO
I really enjoyed this session and was pleased to learn that my experience as a recruitment consultant was relevant for the short listing and
interviewing processes. I feel that I learnt a much more formal structure to interviews with the WASP model, listening for SMART answers and
probing in any section that the SMART answer is lacking. I think I have always interviewed in this way, but its helpful to have a structure to
help me plan interviews better and ensure I get the best out of them. For the skills assessment, I found it challenging working with someone
whose experience of interviewing is very different to mine but I know that this will happen throughout my career. They did teach me how to
score during interview because they do it in their job which is helpful – I can now see the benefits of scoring as it makes it easy to compare notes
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DEVELOPING YOURSELF AS AN EFFECTIVE HR PRACTITIONER

after interview rather than relying just on notes. We did this in the skills assessment and it was good to try it out in practise and not just theory. I
enjoyed the interviewing and while I don’t get involved in the recruitment process in my current role (we have a dedicated talent acquisition
team for this), I look forward to getting involved when I have an opportunity in the future. The feedback in the session was really helpful – I was
surprised at how quickly my interviewee answered her questions and will make sure in future that I have back up questions for these instances to
avoid the interview feeling too brief.

Workforce planning and writing job descriptions are new to me so I found the workshop and subsequent assignment questions on these really
useful in developing my understaning. I feel that I have now got a good general understanding of how to write job descriptions and I understand
how important workforce planning is for the company. Whenever someone new starts or moves teams, I have never before considered the
business reasons behind this, however I will now start observing the patterns of sales teams who are recruiting and whether they are developing
new business areas to help me start to understand the workforce planning in my company.

The work surrounding induction was valuable to me because I got to see what larger companies cover in their induction process. Other people
seemed to have a much more in depth and lengthy plan which is very different to the experiences I have had. I feel that if I were new to an
organisation, I would think much more highly of it if it had a thorough and structured induction and I therefore believe that for new starters at
my company, we could look to update and improve the induction process.

I am very pleased with my progress in trying to achieve my objective to improve reporting on the employee reward scheme. HR, finance and the
managers who give out points are all on the same page for the first time since the scheme began in 2012 and we are feeling confident that we
will not go over budget. There have been a few instances where the CFO has checked in on how things are going and was happy with what he
saw – I felt a sense of achievement from this.

PRM
This section of the course was new to me because I do not get involved in performance management in my current role. I feel like I have learnt a
lot, for example, discussing poor performance made me realise that poor performers were not necessarily slackers and I can now see that poor
performance can be caused by a number of different things including insufficient training or personal health problems which they have not asked
for support with. I will take this understanding back to my own job and I will not make assumptions. I found it very useful to gain an
understanding of HR’s role in performance management and I would like to start thinking about suggestions for changes I could make to
introduce more HR involvement in performance management. I know that senior management are keen to have HR involved at a more strategic
level so I think this would be a great opportunity for me. At the moment, our managers are very good at regular catch-ups and appraisals and are
good at identifying and dealing with poor performers. However, I do feel they would benefit from support on how to manage employees who are
top performers or those who have plateaued in their performance. I think managers can become complacent and either lose top performers to
competitors or fail to give support or create motivators for those have plateaued.

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DEVELOPING YOURSELF AS AN EFFECTIVE HR PRACTITIONER

At University I studied Psychology so I found it really interesting to apply some motivational theories (which I have academic knowledge about)
to performance management (a real life application of the theories). Applying these theories to the workplace has highlighted to me how
complex, yet important, it is to keep every employee motivated and how different things motivate each person. It’s clarified how the outcome of
a reward needs to be very clear for every employee. I felt that personally I relate most the cognitive theory – I want to be treated equally to the
sales side of the business and feel demotivated when I feel I’m working as hard as them for less reward. I will be identifying what motivates me
and will discuss with my manager whether the company are able to offer me rewards for the work I do. I think this should extend to other non-
sales employees too.

When reflecting on my development plan, I was pleased to conclude that I have achieved a few of my objectives. I did want to attend training on
how to write in a polite but assertive way but I think this was just a one off course. I have caught up with someone who did attend the training
and took a few tips from them and have had my manager checking the tone of some of my emails where I tried to be more assertive. I will just
need to keep an eye out in case there is another course that could help me.

MER
This was a really helpful session and I can easily apply what I have learnt to my current role because I am increasingly involved in employee
relations. I found it really interesting to think that there is a psychological contract; I realise that it has definitely always been there to put a label
on it makes it stand out in my mind. I need to remember it because keep to the psychological contract creates a good working relationship. I will
consider it in employee relation queries and having a clear label to it will help me explain, should I need to, the importance of the psychological
contract to managers. The importance of communication between employee and employer really struck me; from a personal perspective I have a
good level of mutual trust and respect with my manager but when we looked at case studies of tribunal claims, it became clear that there wasn’t a
good relationship or good communications between the claimant and their manager. When we were discussing these case studies, it became clear
that so many of these issues could have been easily prevented by the employee keeping the employer informed of any problems they have and
the employer offering as much support as possible.

The recruitment company I work for are specialists in recruiting to temporary and contract roles, so we have a lot of people working for us who
are not permanent employees. I get a lot of employee relation and agency worker queries relating to our candidates, so I will definitely be
looking to utilise the method of testing for employment status. I think most will be workers but it is always useful to check and this testing isn’t
something I was previously aware of. It is a very complex area so I am grateful for any tools I can use to help me decipher the rights of the
candidates and the responsibilities of the client and my organisation.

When discussing discrimination and the protected characteristics, I realised that a lot of discrimination is disguised as ‘banter’ in the workplace,
especially in the sales environment at my organisation. While people rarely raise grievances, the topic of banter does come up in conversation
and has been mentioned in a few exit interviews. I therefore think there’s probably more HR can do in terms of training here. I am not aware of
any training at the moment and therefore people probably aren’t aware that their banter could be discriminatory.
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DEVELOPING YOURSELF AS AN EFFECTIVE HR PRACTITIONER

SUMMARY
I have learnt so much from this course; from the detailed information in the textbook, finding out how other HR departments work from
discussion during workshops and from the reflection in this key-learning summary. I feel that getting into the practise of reflection is a key skill
that I will take with me and continue to do following the completion of this course.

During my reflection of the RTO, I identified that the induction at my organisation wasn’t as in-depth as other organisations and I felt it needed
to be improved to be more thorough and structured. My reason for this was that new starters would think more highly of the company early on. I
discussed this with my manager and director and they agreed with me. Once I am qualified, I will be promoted to HR Officer and my first task
will be designing a new induction for new starters, which I will then run. During my reflection of the PRM, I identified that the HR team in my
organisation are not as involved with performance management as HR teams in other organisations which I thought was a shame. Recently, I’ve
done a few exit interviews with people who failed their probation period and they were surprised that they were being asked to leave the
organisation. They were under the impression that they were performing well. This suggests to me that their manager may not have been
managing their performance effectively or have failed to adapt their teaching style to their new starter. I think I should look into whether our
training department offer training on how to manage performance and if not, look to work with them to devise a course. Alternatively, we need
to encourage a culture where managers turn to HR for advice on how to manage poor performance or discuss strategies on how to retain top
performers. At a more strategic level, I think the organisation would benefit from looking at the possibility of having a dual career path. At the
moment, we have one route for promotion which is managing a team. I know some people do not want to be people managers (and some who
are not suited to it) so we should begin to think about whether a dual career path would work for our organisation.

I feel like I have really stepped up at work since starting this course, and recent good feedback from my manger and the managing director has
given me a great sense of achievement. I am also on the verge of being promoted to HR Officer with an administrative assistant, which is an
indication of how far I have come as an HR professional. My three new objectives in my development plan are linked to my new position and
will help to provide me with some focus as to how to ensure I make that transition successfully.

Development Plan

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DEVELOPING YOURSELF AS AN EFFECTIVE HR PRACTITIONER
NAME: xxxxxx
COVERING THE October 2015
PERIOD FROM:
This record sheet is for your guidance only – you may present your development plan in any other format.
Planned outcome
Where do I want to be by the end of this period? What do I want to be doing? (This may be evolutionary or “more of the same”.)
What do I want/need to learn?
I want to learn which functions and
processes of payroll and HR
crossover and identify areas where
we can streamline and improve.
I need to learn how to get up-to-date
information about HR including
employment law updates, legislation
changes etc. I will specifically focus
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What will I do to achieve this?
Monthly meetings with payroll to
discuss processes and solve any
problems as well as time on the
desk with payroll during the
working day.
I will need to sign up to relevant
newsletters, magazines and
identify useful websites. I will then
need to schedule time in my diary
on a monthly basis to read each
MEMBERSHIP
NUMBER:
TO:
What resources or support will I need?
I will need support of my payroll
colleague as well as my line manager. I
will need to be able to take time off my
desk to sit in a meeting with payroll or to
sit on the desk with payroll.
Relevant websites, organisations and
publications. Support from HR
colleagues who can let me know the
best websites, magazines, websites etc.
to source up to date information from.
October 2016
What will my success criteria be?
I will know what payroll does and
which processes crossover with
HR. I will have identified ways to
streamline processes and there
will be increased efficiency.
To be signed up or registered with
all the relevant sources of up to
date information and have taken
the time to read each month.
Target dates for review and
completion
Complete June 2016
Review monthly (in the monthly
meetings) The last couple of
months have been extremely busy
and our meetings have been
cancelled. I have been spending
time on the desk with payroll
during the working day. I need to
make time for these meetings. We
have had a couple of these
meetings and they have been
productive, we have decided to
review our pension provider due to
realising there are problems on
both sides. These meetings are
becoming more important because
the payroll lady will soon be going
on maternity leave – we are
sharing more information to help
bridge any gaps in the near future.
I have achieved this and given a
report to the finance team
demonstrating the crossover and
to help increase efficiency, they
are looking into a new HR/Payroll
system
Complete June 2016.
Review Jan 2016 I have signed up
to a number of newsletters, am
taking time to read them and am
DEVELOPING YOURSELF AS AN EFFECTIVE HR PRACTITIONER
on areas relevant to my organisation,
e.g. agency worker legislation.
Learn how to deal with ER issues
independently
What do I want/need to learn?
I want to learn what is involved in
getting my organisation re-accredited
with IiP ours is due to expire in 2016.
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source and become aware of
changes and updates.
I will learn how to gather the
information around the issue
before then applying my ER
knowledge (or finding relevant
information on sites such as
ACAS)
What will I do to achieve this?
I will need to look on the IiP
website and speak to the relevant
IiP assessor to find out what we
need to do as an organisation to
achieve reaccreditation.
Websites such as ACAS, help from my
manager
What resources or support will I need?
I will need the IiP website and guidance
from those at IiP. I will also need support
from my manager, as she will be
involved in the reaccreditation too.
I will be dealing with queries on my
own rather than relying on my
manager.
What will my success criteria be?
I will know exactly what we need
to do in order to be reaccredited
with IiP.
discussing points of interest with
my colleagues.
I attended a CIPD workshop on
the new gender pay gap reporting.
I am now keeping up to date with
changes in employment law and
discuss with my manager how we
will be address them (e.g. modern
slavery act statement and gender
pay gap)
Complete June 2016
Review weekly I have been
dealing with an increasing amount
of these but would like to be able
to respond quicker. This will
require me making time to focus
on queries as soon as I get them.
I have independently dealt with a
couple of simple discrimination
related queries. I am taking on
increasing queries where my
manager is not around and am
feeling more confident in
answering them on my own. I am
soon going to be promoted to an
advisory job role so will be able to
improve on my ER knowledge
even further.
Target dates for review and
completion
Complete March 2016. We will not
begin reviewing this until spring
2016 so I will need to amend my
target date to October 2016 . I
have been involved in setting up
interviews with our IiP assessor
who is coming in during May. We
were successfully reaccredited for
another 3 years
DEVELOPING YOURSELF AS AN EFFECTIVE HR PRACTITIONER
I want to learn how to write in a more
succinct, polite but assertive way in
my emails to people internally and
externally.
I want to learn an improved way of
reporting on our employee reward
points scheme to make end of year
reconciliation with finance easier as I
am responsible for ensuring we stay
within budget.
I want to learn how to design and
carry out internal employee surveys
How to improve the usability of the HR
information on the intranet
NEW OBJECTIVES MOVING
FORWARD
I need to pass this course in order to
get promoted from HR Administrator
to HR Officer.
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I will need to attend a relevant
training course
I will need to meet with my
financial controller to discuss and
agree on an improved reporting
method for 2016 to ensure we stay
on budget.
I will need to seek advice from
external sources on how to get the
most out of an employee survey
I will need to review the current
intranet, gain feedback on what
does/doesn’t work and devised
solutions for how to improve it.
I have passed all sections of the
course up to now, so I need to
ensure I work hard on the MER
I will need time off the desk to attend the
course
I will need time from my financial
controller and I will need to create an
appropriate spread sheet to use for the
reporting
I will need support from my manager and
to find an external source that can offer
me the guidance I need.
I will use the internet to search for ideas
on how to present information effectively
as well as speaking to colleagues to find
out what information they find difficult to
locate.
I will need to use the internet, CIPD
workbooks, textbook and notes from the
workshop in order to compile all the
I will feel confident writing an email
which is to the point without filler
worked but without sounding rude
At the end of quarter 1 I will do a
review with the financial controller
to check that we are on budget
and that the report is accurate and
correct.
I will be able to design a good
survey which will give us useful
data
A new and improved HR intranet
area
I will pass MER and DEP,
therefore passing the whole
course.
February 2016
Unfortunately I was absent on the
day of the training course so will
need to book onto the next one
which becomes available. There
still hasn’t been another of these
courses, I may still intend on going
on the first one available though.
March 2016. I have developed a
spread sheet with the financial
controller which I am updating on
a monthly basis. We have
reviewed this new spread sheet
and it is working well. I am working
with directors and senior
managers to help keep them in
budget. Managers are taking
responsibility for their own budget
which means we are overall on
budget for 2016.
August 2016. I attended a
business forum about designing
surveys which helped me get more
out of the survey I am currently
designing. My manager and one
of the company directors are really
pleased with what I have devised
so far and will be issuing the
survey to employees soon.
August 2016. I have done an initial
redesign of the HR area and
although it is early days, I feel like
I have fewer queries as to where
to find HR related things.
August 2016
DEVELOPING YOURSELF AS AN EFFECTIVE HR PRACTITIONER
I need to build on my supervisory
skills as, with my upcoming move to
HR Officer, I am working with an
administrator who is taking some
workload from me
I need to take on the task of quarterly
exit interview analysis from my
manager as part of my new role
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and DEP to ensure that I pass the
overall course.
I will need to do a good handover
on the tasks she is taking over
from me and to work closely with
her to ensure she is equipped with
the knowledge and has the
resources to do a good job.
I will sit down with my manager to
find out what analysis she does
and what needs to be included in
the report which goes to directors.
I will then need to own this
process myself.
information I need to write an
assignment which meets the criteria
I will need some support from my
manager in the form of feedback on how
things are going. I will also need to
ensure I can make time for the
administrator as she will need a lot of
input from me at the start.
I will need support from my manager and
time to take on this new task (which will
hopefully come from handing over some
of my current admin tasks to the new
administrator)
The administrator will have December 2016
successfully taken over the tasks
from me and I will be supervising
her on a day-to-day basis.
I will have analysed the exit September 2016
interview data for Q3 of 2016,
written the report and sent it to
directors.