Skill Audit and Personal Development

Introduction:

Personal development can be referred as the lifelong process, in which people assess and develop their skills, knowledge, qualities and potentials. Through personal development, individuals can develop their ability to achieve their future goals in order to maximise their potential as well as strengths. This assignment would represent a review of the own occupation, profession and job roles in the given organisation, the Vodafone Group Plc. Moreover, this study will also represent a skill audit which will illustrate the own knowledge, general skills and practise within the workplace setting. Through this skill audit, this assignment would represent the reflective description of the different professional and personal skills of individuals that assist them to achieve organisational goals. Finally, this portfolio would describe the relevant models of personal development that can be applied to develop the own learning and development needs.

Task 1:

Review of the occupation, profession in the Vodafone Group Plc, and review of the role within the organisation:

Occupation:

As stated by Hildebrand (2018), the occupation can be referred to as the action, designation and period occupied by an individual, in an organisation. Occupation is the job or profession of an individual. My occupation is service in Vodafone Group Plc. In this Company, I have the designation of Customer relationship management.

Profession:

The profession is more or less similar to the occupation. According to Olsen (2015), the profession can be referred to as the paid occupation of the individuals that involves prolonged training and formal qualification of the individual. I belong to marketing profession in the Vodafone Group Plc, in which I have to deal with different customers in the stores and make them convinces to buy different items of this company. In this profession, I have taken prolonged training to develop my skills and marketing knowledge which assists me to deal with the different types of the customer in the marketing field. As stated by Arthurson (2015), professions of an individual need the mastery of a complex set of knowledge perception and skill that would improve the practice experience of that individual. Every organised profession is controlled as well as organised by a particular government body. Therefore the staffs within any professions in an organisation need to comply with organisational legislation, ethical and moral values and the rules of the profession that is associated with the profession. I work in the marketing profession in Vodafone Group Plc, in which my designation is Customer relationship manager. I have to deal with the customer in order to take their orders, complaints and any queries. Moreover, I have to ensure that all the customers are provided with the proper information regarding the items that they buy. In thus marketing professional field I am able to develop my knowledge, understanding and skill.

Roles within the occupation:

Being a Customer relationship manager in Vodafone Plc, I have definite job roles and responsibilities. I have to deal with different job-related aspects in a well-organised manner in order to maintain a trustworthy relationship between the organisation and the customers.

Designation: Customer Relationship manager

Job Summary:

Being a Customer relationship manager I am responsible for acting as the liaison between the companies and customers. I am also responsible for dealing with the customer queries, complaints, account questions, cancellation of orders, billing and other queries.

Primary roles and responsibilities:

I deal with resolving the customer complaints through email, phones and social media. As stated by Olsen (2015), it is important for the customer care representative to focus on the customer complaint and try to provide a better solution in order to meet customer satisfaction. Sometimes, I make the direct call to the customer in order to understand their issues with the companies and try to solve the issues accordingly. Through these roles, I am able to maintain the strong relationship between the customer and the organisation. Being a customer relationship manager I have to make the healthy relations relationship with the customer after the serve or sale is completed. I also contact the existing customer and new customer of Vodafone in order to keep them up-to-date about the new offerings, discounts and internet connection of Vodafone. I always greet the customer with warm wishes when they contact me and ascertain ty reason behind their calling I am assigned to use the official telephone in order to contact a customer of Vodafone PLc in order to verify and check the validity of their account I also keep track of how long the customer using the Vodafone network and connective service. I have to call the customer to get the information about whether they are satisfied with Vodafone service. I am also responsible to track the proper customer utilisation trend thereby identifying the opportunities with the business team of Vodafone in erred to maintain the proper revenue. Being a customer relationship manager I am also responsible for checking the customer satisfaction rating. As stated, in order to maintain the healthy and long term relationship with the customer it is important for the customer care manager to determine whether customer is satisfied with the company service. In order to maintain proper customer satisfaction ratings with Vodafone service, I have to call the customer personally and get their feedback about the Vodafone service. I also interface with the company's compliance officer for ensuring that all the personal and professional database of the customer is well-protected and confidential. According to the Data Protection Act (1998), I maintain the proper confidentiality and privacy of customer related and organisation related database, in order to avoid the unauthorised access of the data In also assist the marketers' of Vodafone Plc in order to take the proper business decision. In this aspect, I provide the customer satisfaction ratings, their feedback about the Vodafone service and customer preference as well as interest. Through evaluating this database, I assist the marketers to take the right decision in favour of customer needs and organisational profit.

Impact of these roles on the organisation:

My roles as the Customer relations manager (CRM) have the potential impact on the organisation structure, functions, origin and culture.

Being a Customer Relationship manager I am responsible for mentioning and privacy of the database of organisation and its customers. In this aspect, I have to contact the compliance officer of Vodafone in order to maintain the confidentiality of the database to eliminate the chances of unauthorised access.

I am also responsible for providing the proper training to all the customer care staffs in order to maintain the well-organised employee structure in this organisation

I assist the marketing managers of Vodafone in order o take the effective customer-related decisions, by providing them with the customer related database such as their feedback about the Vodafone service and customer satisfaction ratings.

I conduct the customer survey in a regular manner, which assists the organisational to improve customer satisfaction customer relations. Through this a\survey I am able to assist the organisational leaders to understand that whether the customer is happy with Vodafone service. Moreover, this survey assists me to direct the market laser to determine the number of customers in this organisation.

As a customer relations manager, I have to conduct the promotional and awareness campaign that assist the organisation to make proper idea generation, overseeing the production ad proposal preparation. Through conducting the awareness campaign, I focus on providing the up to date information to the customer about the newly launched service, discounts and internet facilities of Vodafone.

Being a customer relationship manager I focus on maintaining coordination with each department of Vodafone. Through maintaining proper communication, interaction and exchanges of ideas and onions, I am able to maintain the well-organised structure of the organisation. Through synergistic working, I am able to inform about each customer and organisational related information to the different department of the organisation.

In my workplace, I always focus on maintaining the ruled and regulation of organisation in order to maintain the disciplined framework and positive organisational culture. I also assure that all the customer care staffs would be highly polite and professional in terms of dealing with the customers.

I am also responsible to provide the customer-related reports to the higher officials of this organisation, which maintaining the strong information sharing system in the workplace. Through providing the timely database regarding customer preference, their feedback, satisfaction level and customer behaviour, I assist the organisation to set the proper marketing strategies in order to grab the majority of the customer in the market.

I also manage and negotiate the agreements by conducting proper business contract process. Through this process, I am assigned to provide a proper database to the managers and higher officials in order to make them, up to date with the customer base of the organisation.

Being a customer relationship manager I am also responsible for maintaining the positive and cultural environment within the workplace. I conduct the regular training and assessment for the customer relationship staffs in order to maintain strong cooperation among them. Moreover, I also assure the organisational that all the customer care staffs would follow all the legislation and organisational regulation in order to perform their activities.

Own roles and responsibilities in understanding current issues:

Being the Customer Relationship manager I am not only responsible for maintaining a healthy relationship between the customer and the organisation, but also responsible for determining the issues and risk associated with the customer related operation. As the customer relationship manager, I focus on eliminating the conflict and misunderstanding among the customer care staffs and higher official. Through assisting the staffs in order to solve different issues I always try to maintain the disciplined framework within the workplace. Vodafone Plc operates across the world with an ever-increasing number of customer. The increasing number of customer sometimes poses a huge workload on the customer care staffs that creates the dissatisfaction and misunderstanding among the staffs regarding doing the overtimes. In this aspect, I use to apply my communication and interpersonal skill in order to solve the situation by distribution the task evenly among all the staffs. As stead by Player et al. (2018) one of the major issues in the organisation is misunderstand and organisational conflicts, that can arise from different work-related issues. Moreover, I also focus on setting a proper risk assessment framework in order to determine, identify and eliminate the risk associated with the customer related jobs. On the contrary, Banwell and Kerr (2016) argued that assessing the risk is not enough for dealing with the current issues of organisation, rather than manager needs to focus on maintaining the develop g proper organisation resources. Being a Customer relationship manager of Vodafone, I am responsible for managing and developing the internal organisational resources in the customer care department, in order assists the organisational to position proper competitive advantage. In this aspect, I focus on developing the internal organisational resources such as skills, knowledge and perception of the customer care staffs, organisational reputation, brand image and intellectual property. Through development of these internal resources I am able to promote the organisational strength and eliminate the weakness of the organisation Moreover, I focus on maintaining proper information delivery system in the organisation, in which I deliver all the customer related information to staffs and managers of different department in my workplace, through slathering the regular information, I use to keep the organisational up-to-date with the customer preference, their satisfaction level and staffs; requirement. This process eliminates the chance of misunderstanding and chaos in the workplace.

Task 2:

Explore and audit the transferrable skills:

According to Amar et al. (2017), skill audit is important for the organisational staffs and manger in order to evaluate the strength and weakness of their skills. Through an audit of trafficable skill, I am able to understand the areas of improvement that assists me to develop my interpersonal skill in terms of achieving the organisational target. Through this skill audit, I have found m skills which I can apply in order to maintain the strong relationship between the company and the customers. I have strong communication skill, interactive skill, decision making skill, problem-solving skill, critical thinking skill, independent learning skill and listening skill and leadership and management skill.

Please note: 1 = extremely confident/competent, 2 = good level of confidence / competence, 3 = Average confidence / competence, 4 = some confidence / competence – some room to develop, and 5 = little confidence / competence – room to develop significantly

Personal Development Action Plan:

Task 3:

Exploration and evaluation of models of professional development informed extensively from current research and practice:

As stated by Gallois and Giles (2015), personal development is the lifelong process that is associated with developing own skill, knowledge and qualities in order to achieve personal and professional goals. Different theories and model s are developed in order to discuss the personal development of individual and its impact on the personal and professional life of the people.

Theories of communication skill:

1. Aristotle’s theory

Based on this theory, verbal communication is one of the most important skill in order to interact with the different people in the community (Arnold and Boggs, 2015). Being a customer relationship manager of Vodafone Plc, I have strong verbal communication skill that assists me to make the perfect communication with my subordinate staffs. Listen to their issues and interact with the customers. Through skill audit, I have been informed that I have a strong ability to make an effective face to face communication with any officials of the organisation. Moreover, the skill audit also informs me about my ability to resolve the customer queries and issues through making effective verbal communication with them via phone. According to Peterson et al. (2016), verbal communication is important for customer care service, in which managers need to communicate verbally with the customer to get detailed information regarding their feedback, issues and queries. Analysis of verbal communication skill during the skill-audit assists me to understand how this verbal communication can be applied in the workplace in order to make proper interaction with the staffs and managers. Through using this verbal communication process, I am able to understand the problems, needs and preference of the staff's and customers. Moreover through communicate verbally directly with the staffs; I can instruct them easily regarding any task related process. Therefore, the verbal communication process is highly effete for me to conduct care as well as transparent communication between the staffs and manager in order to maintain proper information delivery system. On the contrary, Arnold and Boggs (2015) argued that, although verbal communication is important for the managers, in some cases written communication is important to transfer the official information to the higher officials. Through the skill audit, I am able to know that I have poorly written communication skill, which put me into trouble many times. I am unable to make the simple and small sentences while writing the formal document or official application that is difficult to be understood by the staff and managers. After that, I have taken professional training on written communication in order to improve the skill. Now I am able to make proper written communication such as creating the emails, firming documents and drafting the database of customers.

2. Lasswell's Model:

Based on this model, communication is a multidimensional process that is associated with the critical process of sending receiving and understanding the message. At my workplace, I am able to send correct and appropriate information through the verbal and non-verbal communication process. As stated by Peterson et al. (2016), managers need to develop the ways of information sharing process through the communication, in which the receiver gets the correct message timely. I always try to send information regarding the customer database and staffs activities to the higher official within time. Moreover, I also analyse the situation before using a particular type of communication process. On the contrary, Arnold and Boggs (2015) argued, sometimes, managers are unable to determine which type of communication would be justified for the receiver to get the authentic and proper massage. in order to communicate with the customer with speaking and hearing disabilities, I use the non-verbal and written communication process in order to make them understand about the predict description and solve their queries. Moreover in order to deal with the staffs with disabilities, in use is written and non-verbal communication, in which I use signs, facial expression and the gesture, which assist the staffs to receive the message easily.

Models of Leadership skills:

There are two major models of leadership style, such as autocratic, democratic, free rein and paternalistic leadership model.

Autocratic leadership model:

In my workplace, I rarely follow this model, which is based on the fact that the entire power would be centralised in the manager. As stated by Storey (2016), this type of leadership has several criticisms due to the conflicts between managers and staffs happened during this leadership. Being a customer relationship manager I focus on providing the freedom to staffs regarding expressing their viewpoint and decisions. Therefore I rarely follow this autocratic model as it makes the staffs unhappy and dissatisfied. Moreover, in most of the department of Vodafone, I have seen that managers follow the autocratic model of leadership in order to dominate and control their staffs; however, this can leads to termination, huge turn over of staffs and poor relationship between the managers and the staffs. Therefore, in why workplace I use the democratic leadership model which assist me to provide the proper support and freedom to the staffs to taken their decision and to share their point of view regarding any organisational aspects. On the contrary, Offermann and Coats (2018) argued autocratic leadership is important in order to maintain the well-organised and disciplined workforce. I have faced certain difficulties in the workplace for following democratic leadership, in terms of managing different teams. Due to the use of democratic leadership, I have allowed the staffs of different team to take their decision and represent their viewpoint about the organisational objectives. This created huge complications in order to take one suitable and effective decision for the company. Therefore I need to develop both the autocratic and democratic leadership style in order to deal with different leaders’ situation in the workplace.

Democratic leadership model:

In this type of leadership managers take any office; a decision with consultation with their subordinates (Storey, 2016). I strictly follow this leadership model, in which I encourage the participation of the staffs in order to formulate any organisational plan or strategy. On the contrary, Offermann and Coats (2018) argued that sometimes involving the subordinate in order to formulation official plan can create conflicts among the staffs and managers. Being a customer relationship manager of Vodafone I have faced such difficulties in order to discuss the strategy that the company was going to take for offering better internet connection to the customer. This creates conflict among the staffs regarding who can be the better advisor for formulating this strategy. As stated by Amanchukwu et al. (2015), autocratic leadership is better in case of taking highly confidential decision for the company. When I discuss some profit and revenue related strategies with my higher official I use to maintain the autocratic model so that I can strictly order to the staffs to follow my instruction in terms of meeting the objectives.

Models of decision making skill:

Different models are developed in order to analyse the effectiveness of decision making skill in the professional and personal development of individuals.

Rational or Classical Model:

This model is associated with the classical approach in order to understand and develop decision-making skill. Based on this model it can be stated that, for making the proper decision in the workplace, I need to first understand the problems, objectives and criteria of the issues. As a customer relations manager, I have faced several customer related issues, which I solve through using proper understand and decision making skill. I always analyse the reason behind the issues and then set the objectives and strategies to deal with these issues in an effective manner. On the contrary Beach and Lipshitz (2017) argued that many times the people are unable out the actual reason behind the critical issues which make the individual depressed. At my workplace, while dealing with customer complaints, sometimes I am unable to find out the proper reason behind the issues. At this time I use my critical thinking skill which assists me to analyse the complaints in a proper manner in order to set the proper objectives and strategies to deal with the issues.

Bounded rationality Model:

This model highlights the importance of decision making skill in order to achieve organisational goals (Lerner et al. 2015). Being a customer relations manager I have to maintain proper relations between the customers and the company. Moreover, I have to deal with several customer related aspects, such as customer complaints, queries, their feedback and customer oriented strategies. During the skill audit, I am able to know that I have strong decision making skill that I can use to achieve the performance goals. The rationality of decision-making model needs better understand about the issues of the situation on which the strategies would be set. Before making any decision I focus on understanding the actual issue and reason behind each issue, then I set the strategies with consultation with managers and higher official. Then, if the higher official approves the strategies, I share their strategies with my subordinates in order to make them understand the ways in which they can implement the strategy.

Conclusion:

From the above mentions discussion, it can be concluded that personal development is the life long process that develops the own skills, knowledge and qualities of the individual. Through developing and managing effective skill, people are able to deal with professional and personal issues. Personal skills and qualities assist individual to analyse the reason behind different issues in order to solve them. Moreover, personal development assists people to develop communication, decision making and problem-solving skill that assist them to give better performance in the organisation. Skill audit is an important process that makes the person able to fund out the strength and weakness of their personal and professional skill. Through improving the personal and professional development individual would be able to achieve the organisational goals and contribute their best effect to manage the high-quality service.

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