Infolink University Collage Dilla campus

Department of Secretarial Science

Course Material for Secretarial Since 3rd Year students

Customer Contact & Secretarial Operations Coordination

Level IV

Learning guide

Unit of Competence: Develop Individuals and Team

TTLM Code : BUF CSC4 15 0812

ELEMENT
Lo 1: Determine development needs

Lo 2: Develop individuals and teams

Lo 3: Monitor and evaluate workplace learning

L.O 2 Determine development needs
Developmental Needs
Help your people reach peak performance.
What's worse than training your workers and losing them? Not training them and keeping
them.
Most managers know that training is essential for team success. But many don't take the
time to understand team members' individual needs, even though it is the only way to
ensure that their people have the skills and knowledge they need to perform well and meet
their objectives.
However, how do you know who needs what training? And how do you avoid wasting time
and money on unnecessary training activities? In this article we'll explore the importance
of understanding your people's developmental needs, and we'll look at a process that you
can use to do this effectively.
Why Understand Individual Needs?
Clearly, some training needs will be universal, and will apply to many, if not all, of your
team members. However, everyone on your team is unique; they have different skills,
different levels of understanding, and different responsibilities and objectives.
Therefore, training and development shouldn't follow a "one size fits all" approach if you
want it to be effective. Instead, you need to take the time to understand the training that
each individual needs, so that you can provide the right training for the right people. As
well as improving performance, this saves time, resources, and money.
With this tailored approach, your people will also feel more empowered, and they'll be able
to link what they learn to their own personal objectives. This boosts well-being and morale.
Identifying Developmental Needs
The six steps below, which we've adapted from the American Society for Training and
Development's Strategic Needs Analysis, will help you better understand people's training
needs:
1. Reviewing team members' job descriptions.
2. Meeting with them.
3. Observing them at work.
4. Gathering additional data.
5. Analyzing and preparing data.
6. Determining action steps.
Let's look at each step in greater detail.
Step 1: Review Team Members' Job Descriptions

Start by thinking about what work your team members should be doing – this will be
defined by their job descriptions. Identify the skills that they may need to do things well.

Job descriptions can get out of date. Before using them to think about training, ensure that
they fairly reflect what individual team members actually do.
Step 2: Meeting with Team Members
Your next step is to meet one-on-one with each member of your team. Your goal here is to
have an open talk about the kind of training and development that they think they need to
work effectively and develop their career.

They might not feel that they need any training at all, so it's important to be up front about
your discussion. Use your emotional intelligence, as well as good questioning techniques
and active listening, to communicate with sensitivity and respect.

Step 3: Observing Team Members at Work

Next, keep an eye on how well your team members are doing with key tasks. (If
appropriate, use an approach like Management by Walking Around to do this.).
For instance, could they be quicker with key tasks, or are they procrastinating on projects?
This might indicate that they're not confident in their abilities, or are not sufficiently well
trained in key skill areas.

Try to be fair and straightforward when you do this. If team members know that you're
watching them, they might act differently, but if they discover that you're watching
secretly, it could damage the trust they have in you. So be sensitive, ask open questions,
and, where appropriate, explain your actions.
Step 4: Gathering Additional Data
If you approach data gathering in a sensitive way, you can learn a lot from others who work
closely with the person you want to assess.
These people could include internal or external clients, past bosses, or even peers and co-
workers.
Remember the following while gathering information from these sources:
• Make sure that you don't undermine the person's dignity, and that you respect the
context. For example, in some cultures, it may be acceptable to talk openly to co-workers.
In others, you will have to do this with a lot of sensitivity, if you do it at all.
• Avoid unfocused generalizations. Ask people to back up their comments with specific
examples.
You can also use information from past appraisals or feedback sessions.
Step 5: Analyzing and Preparing Data
Now, look closely at the information you gathered in the first four steps. What trends do
you see? What skills did your team members say they needed? Are there any skills gaps?
Your goal here is to bring together the most relevant information, so that you can create a
training plan for each team member.
Step 6: Determining Action Steps
By now, you should have a good idea of the training and development that each person on
your team needs. Your last step is to decide what you're going to do to make it happen.
There are several training and development options to consider:
• On-the-Job Training – this is when team members shadow more experienced team
members to learn a new skill. This type of training is easy and cost-effective to set up.

• Instructor-Led Training – this is similar to a "class," where an experienced

consultant, expert, or trainer teaches a group.
• Online Training and E-Learning – this can be particularly convenient and cost-effective.

• Cross-Training – this teaches team members how to perform the tasks of their
colleagues.
Cross-training helps you create a flexible team, and can lead to higher morale and job
satisfaction.
• Active Training – Active Training involves games, group learning, and practical
exercises. This type of training is often effective, because it pushes people to get involved
and be engaged.

• Mentoring or Coaching – these can be effective for helping your team members
develop professionally and learn new skills.
Make sure that you take into account people's individual learning styles before you commit
to any one training program. Remember, everyone learns differently; your training will be
most effective if you customize it to accommodate everyone's best learning style. A cost
benefit analysis might also be helpful here, especially if the training you're considering is
expensive.

Your ability to match the required skills and knowledge of team members with the
requirements of the organisation is a key factor in the successful management of learning
and development in your team.
These learning and development needs can emerge for a number of reasons.
The following lists a range of areas you should consider when identifying the skills that
need to be learnt or developed.
Task-specific skills
Learning how to carry out a task; for example, writing a report, taking stock of inventory
Process skills
Understanding and applying organisational processes; for example, processing invoices,
completing a new leave form
Interpersonal skills
Improving interpersonal relationships; for example, communicating between team
members, developing strategies to deal with conflict
Team skills
Improving the way the team works; for example, setting goals, dealing with changes
Individual team
member skills Improving the skills of team members; for example, time management,
writing a business case, using a software program
Training needs analysis
A training needs analysis (TNA) focuses on the skills, knowledge and attributes that need to be
developed and the type of training most appropriate to fill the learning gap.
A skills audit form is used to gather information when doing a TNA. Some forms also include
questions on people’s career paths and the training they need to assist them in this area.
Depending on the organization’s requirements, you might divide the questions into those for
the job, those relating to professional development needs and those that concern career paths.
Before you start, be clear about the purpose of the TNA, what type of questions you want to ask
and how you are going to collate the responses.

Generic, work-related Generic, work-related competencies underpin a person’s ability to

enter and remain in the workforce. They include being able to:
• work well in a team
• mix with people of different ages, sexes and races
• communicate effectively and solve problems creatively
• collect, analyse and organise information
• plan and organise activities
• use mathematical ideas and techniques and operate technology. School leavers entering
the workforce are expected to be competent in all these areas and able to apply generic
competencies to a range of situations and in different industries; for example, in retail,
hospitality, construction, health, sports and recreation.

Organisational policies and procedures

Organisational policies and procedures cover a wide range of subjects such as employment
conditions, work health and safety, technical processes, communication procedures,
performance reviews and security arrangements. Team members must be aware of the
organisation’s policies and procedures so they can consistently work within the
organisation’s requirements and help both the team and the organisation operate
smoothly, as illustrated below.

Develop a learning plan for individuals

Individual learning plans should be developed for each team member. Develop the learning
plan with the team member, helping them understand the need for each skill and how it
will benefit them in their work. It is important to encourage them to contribute to
solutions. Finalise the plan together so both you and the employee understand your
responsibilities.

L.O 2: Develop individuals and teams

Improving Team Performance

Do you know what your team needs to grow?

Your team is amazing. It works at the highest level of efficiency and reacts responsively at
lightning speed in every situation. At times where additional effort is required, your team
members step in and out of one another's roles deftly and at a moment's notice… right?

Developing your team is an important part of your job, whether you're a new team leader
or an experienced manager. And it doesn't apply only to new hires.

If you work in a small or medium-sized organization, you may perform the roles of
recruiter, trainer and team leader. The resources in this article can help you to perform to
the best of your ability in each of these roles

As a manager, however, you are in a great position to know how your people work, to
identify what training they need to perform better, and to work closely with HR or L&D to
deliver the right training to the right people at the right time.

Identifying Training Needs

Often, just asking the right questions can reveal knowledge and skill gaps in your team. For
example, what is the key part of a person's role? And what is your team's most urgent
performance issue?
This is particularly helpful if your workplace doesn't have a culture of performance
management – that is a system of regularly appraising and improving people's
performance. If your team members are not used to having their performance appraised
and developed in this way, they may view it as a negative judgment of their competency.
Gathering specific information about what they need to be successful in their roles will help
them to feel positive about developing themselves.

It can be helpful to appraise yourself in this way too. You may identify areas where you can
improve that will, in turn, help your team to grow.

Choosing the Right Training Methods

Now that you've identified areas where your people can improve, you can choose training
to suit their needs. However, finding the right balance between different ways of learning
that will suit everyone can be a challenge. model, for example, suggests that 70 percent of
learning happens through experience, such as daily tasks; 20 percent through
conversations with other people, such as coaching; and 10 percent through traditional
training courses. Here, you need to give people the opportunity to use the skills they need
to develop, discuss them with more experienced practitioners, and then train
appropriately.

Coaching

It's worth bearing in mind that many performance gaps should be closed with better
communication rather than with a training program. your team members by having
confidential and relaxed one-on-one conversations with them. Having these conversations
regularly will help you to identify and deal with a range of issues effectively, from helping
people achieve their goals to addressing performance problems.

Team Building Activities

Team building exercises can be fun and effective ways to improve teamwork and identify
people's strengths and weaknesses. If you decide to run one, you should select the exercise
very carefully, so that it meets your training objective.

It's important to identify your team's biggest challenges before you choose an exercise. By
doing this, you can ensure that the event is more than just a nice day out of the office. For
example, if you have noticed that poor communication has led to your team making
mistakes or missing deadlines, you may want to select exercises that improve skills like
listening, empathy and verbalization.

Delegating Work

Can also strengthen your team. You may feel nervous about handing over responsibility for
your projects and tasks to someone else, but you don't have time to do everything yourself.
And your team members need opportunities to learn new skills and gain experience.

If you have not delegated tasks that your team has the potential to perform, make a list
prioritizing your most important tasks and delegate those at the lower end. Your people
can work their way up the list as they gain experience.

This approach will help you to connect with your team members, set clear goals, and be an
example of integrity and fairness. It allows you to develop a team that is highly motivated
and consistently achieving its individual and shared goals.

Managing Talent

in place for identifying and developing people with key skills, abilities and potential across
your organization. As a manager, you can identify members of your own team with specific
talents, help to retain them, and develop their abilities. You can work with HR to hire staff
with the right skills, and support their development with an effective

Succession Planning
Once you have identified your team members' abilities and performance levels, you can put
plans in place so that you don't lose vital skills and knowledge if any of them decide to
move on. Good

Ensures that individuals pass on their skills, experience and knowledge to their colleagues
well before they leave. Being prepared and managing these transitions will help you to deal
with the change more easily.

If you have people on your team with roles so essential that even a day's illness would
throw everything into chaos, it may be advisable your team members in one another's
responsibilities. This will provide you with a flexible team that can step in and help one
another at a moment's notice.

Key Points

An effective team doesn't come into existence by accident. There are lots of things you can
do to make your team a high-performing one.

It begins with clearly defined roles for your team members that will help keep them on
track and achieve their targets. Observing them at work will identify their strengths and
weaknesses, and will enable you to match training to their learning styles. As well as
signing your people up to training courses, you can get involved in their learning by
coaching them.

Topic 3: Monitor and evaluate workplace learning

Introduction
Monitoring is a continuous process that provides early indications of progress in
implementation so a program, intervention or response can be corrected in a timely and
responsive manner. It is the ongoing and coordinated review of the response to measure
whether planned activities deliver the expected results. On Social Media this process is
faster and can happen in real time.
  Evaluation, on the other hand, occurs less frequently and is usually more
comprehensive
 Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) are management tools that ensure a protection
program is running efficiently and stakeholders are accountable for their activities.

Although they are often combined as “M&E”, monitoring and evaluation are distinct
activities with different purposes.

Steps to an Effective Monitoring Plan

The following steps can help you create an effective monitoring plan for your Social Media
strategy/ project. Remember, this plan will be just one part of the overall monitoring plan
for the CBP strategy/ program.

Step 1: Identify the purpose of your monitoring strategy

Our Social Media activities should be guided by clearly defined goals related to our overall
CBP strategy. A goal is a broad statement of purpose that describes the expected long-term
effects of a program or campaign. Goals should address the audience and the change we
want to see.
Step 2: Decide who and what to monitor and who will do the monitoring
If you have SMART objectives, then you need SMART indicators to measure them. You can
measure the performance of your Social Media strategy by using two types of indicators:
• Qualitative metrics
, where non-numerical values measure opinions about a given situation, e.g. comments
expressing positive/negative attitudes towards Refugees;
• Quantitative metrics,
where numerical values measure things like the percentage of Refugees reached via your
Social Media account or the number of times they engaged.
For a comprehensive understanding, it is best to combine both types. Remember, as with
objectives, so with indicators: they must be SMART if they are to be usable and useful. A
good monitoring plan will use SMART metrics to measure SMART objectives, and ensure
that collect and analyze only the data needed to report on those metrics is collected and
anaylzed.

Quantitative Metrics for Social Media

While increasing reach, followers and impressions are crucial to achieving your CBP
program objectives, the ultimate goals in a Social Media strategy are increased engagement
and documenting. It is important to monitor the unintended consequences of using Social
Media systematically, particularly looking at any protection risks or concerns that had not
been identified before.
There are three levels of engagement on Social Media, which are based on a qualitative
assessment of the behaviour of your audience on the platform:
• Low: Information goes one way. You push it out and your audience receives it and takes
no action;
• Medium: Information goes two ways. You provide information and your audience
responds (likes, replies or shares it);
• High: Your audience begins to create and share information. They may contribute photos,
videos or blogs, and give insight on how to improve a campaign or take action.
Campaigns with medium to high engagement are more likely to see positive results. By
monitoring Social Media engagement throughout your campaign, you can change your
strategy if you’re not achieving the desired results.
Examples of Qualitative Social Media Metrics:
• Content of individual messages;
• Tone of comments and responses: positive, neutral or negative?
• Sentiment associated with certain conversations;
• Issues discussed, and how;
• Popular subjects and outliers;
• Rumors, misinformation and word-of-mouth issues;
• Use of words associated with xenophobia or hate speech.
Step 3: Consider how often you need to report to stakeholders
At this stage, consider the various stakeholders inside and outside UNHCR and how often
you need to update them on the progress of your Social Media strategy /project. This will
depend on the decisions they are making with the findings of the monitoring, and the time
they need to do that.
An example might be the appearance of sporadic but consistent comments about how
much people have paid for relocation with UNHCR

Step 4: Create your monitoring plan (process and schedule)

what tools you can use to monitor and track your metrics and progress. Many Social Media
platforms, such as Facebook Insights and YouTube Analytics, include built-in metrics tools.
There are also paid services that offer more comprehensive monitoring across platforms
Step 5: Identify reactions to monitoring findings
While your initial Social Media strategy may focus on building an audience, ultimately you
want those people to DO something after interacting with you. With the right
indicators/metrics, Social Media performance measures help you see how awareness
becomes action and you can use these insights in your overall protection and
communication planning.

Monitor and evaluate workplace learning

The purpose of encouraging workplace learning, and facilitating a workplace learning and
development program, is to establish continuous improvement in work performance.
Monitoring and evaluation play key roles in identifying the value of the program
and determining further development needs. For those with responsibility for team
performance, evaluation of learning programs should be an integral part of the continuous
improvement cycle.
Each team member must be encouraged to monitor their own work performance and
continually look for ways they can develop their skills and knowledge.