[Pick the date]

WORKING WITH
UNDERSTAND THE NEEDS OF
AND LEADING WORKING WITH AND LEADING
PEOPLE
PEOPLE IN BUSINESS

College name: | Student name

Contents
TASK 1: RECRUITMENT, SELECTION AND RETENTION PROCESS .................................................... 2
Prepare document such as job descriptions and person specifications to select and recruit
new sales assistants for your company. [AC1.1] ........................................................................ 2
Assess the impact of existing legal, regulatory and ethical considerations on the recruitment
and selection process for sales assistants’ job. [AC1.2] ............................................................. 4
Take part in the selection process as an HR assistant and describe your experience. [AC1.3] . 5
Evaluate your own contribution as an HR assistant to the selection process. [AC 1.4] ............. 6
TASK 2 STYLES AND IMPACTS OF LEADERSHIP ............................................................................... 7
Explain the skills and attributes needed for leadership in the business organisations. [AC2.1] 7
Explain the differences between leadership and management. [AC2.2] ................................... 8
Explain ways leaders and managers adopt to motivate staff to achieve organisational
objectives. [AC2.4] ...................................................................................................................... 9
Explain ways leaders and managers adopt to motivate staff to achieve organisational
objectives. [AC2.4] .................................................................................................................... 11
TASK 3 EFFECTIVE WORKING IN A TEAM ...................................................................................... 12
Assess the benefits of team working in your organisation. [AC3.1] ........................................ 12
Demonstrate working in a team as a leader and member towards specific goals, dealing with
any conflict or difficult situations you have had faced. [AC3.2] ............................................... 13
Review the effectiveness of the team in achieving the goals of your company. [AC3.3] ........ 15
TASK 4 WORK AND DEVELOPMENT NEEDS OF INDIVIDUALS ....................................................... 16
Explain the factors involved in planning the monitoring and assessment of work
performance. [AC4.1]................................................................................................................ 16
Plan and deliver the assessment of the development needs of individuals. [AC4.2] .............. 16
Evaluate the success of the assessment process. [AC 4.3] ....................................................... 17
REFERENCES .................................................................................................................................. 18
TASK 1: RECRUITMENT, SELECTION AND RETENTION PROCESS

Prepare document such as job descriptions and person specifications to select

and recruit new sales assistants for your company. [AC1.1]
The process of selection and recruitment is initiated with the approval of recruitment process
from the authority of the company. The company describes the job position with its
specification and personal specifications required for the job. The recruitment process in an
organization can be explained as the employee recruitment process in figure 1.

STAGE 1 JOB ASSSESSMENT  Description of job

 Analysis of job position

STAGE 2 TYPE OF APPLICANT  The requirements needed among the

candidate

STAGE 3 COMMUNICATING APPLICATION  Use of marketing channels

 Advertising job requirement

STAGE 4 ASSESSING APPLICANT  Assessment of application

 Assessment of candidates

Figure 1: Employee recruitment process

The HR manager of retail group has specified the following job description and personal
specification for sales assistant job:
FOR SALES ASSISTANT

Closing date: 30/11/2016

Location: Across UK

Salary: 7.80 £ per hour

Vacancy: 15

Employment type: Permanent, 3 month probation period

Working hours: 40 hours per week

Job description:

 Inviting, guiding and assisting customers at store

 Helping customers in providing a better shopping experience
 Motivating sales at store and developing innovative ideas
 Working according to company’s policies and guidelines
 Supporting retail manager and inventory management at store

Person specification of the job can be depicted as the required skills and experience for the job.
The personal specification of the sales assistant job is as follows:

Experience requirements:

 Experience in sales at retail stores (minimum 1 year)

 Strong communication skills with professional skills
 Agree to go to all store locations in UK
 Cooperative working relations with colleagues at workplace
 Education must be at least a degree in business. BBA major in Sales management will be
preferred
Physical attributes required:

 Age must be between 24 to 35 years

 Flexible and positive working attitude
 Comfortable in team working
 Must have English as native language
 Self-motivated, dedicated and creative in nature (Shakelton, 2015).

Assess the impact of existing legal, regulatory and ethical considerations on

the recruitment and selection process for sales assistants’ job. [AC1.2]

The Human resource management of the retail store is responsible for the recruitment and
selection of sales assistant job. The process of recruitment, selection and hiring must fall under
the legal, regulatory and ethical considerations. These rules and regulations reduce the risk in
hiring procedures. In UK the business organization and employers have to follow a strict set of
rules and regulations for recruitment process. The following shows the impacts of various legal,
regulatory and ethical considerations which the retail store needs to follow:

Right of equality- The impact of right of equality suggests that all the applicants, which opted
for the job recruitment process, must be considered equal, irrespective of their age.

Right to employment- The candidate must pose a valid work permit to work in the country, the
employer needs to verify the criminal records of candidates if they have any.

Discrimination act against sex- The impact of sex discrimination act depicts that the employer
cannot discriminate between the candidates fir employment. They need to provide equal and
fair opportunity to all the candidates and offer same salary as well.

Race relation act- The impact of race relation act concludes that the candidates will not be
discriminated on the basis of their race or nationality if they have valid work permit to work in
UK.
Marketing stage- The impact of law in marketing stage can be explained as the Human resource
management of retail group needs to follow the ground rules of advertising. The business
organization cannot provide any discrimination against caste, ethnicity, gender, age and
nationality of the candidates.

Interview stage- The impact of law in interview stage depicts that the recruitment department
of business organization does not need to ask questions over candidate’s nationality or religious
orientation. The conversation must also not involve any kind of sexiest comment and any kind
of biased behaviour (Bryson, et al. 2013).

Take part in the selection process as an HR assistant and describe your

experience. [AC1.3]

The recruitment and selection process is a continuous process with different stages of various
crucial steps. These steps involve advertising of recruitment process through marketing
channels, shortlisting the candidates from the received applications, use of various selection
steps for verifying the candidate’s skills and personal interview for final selection process of the
candidate. The criteria of selection process are chosen according to the post and skill
requirements of job. The appropriate measures such as portfolios screening, aptitude, written
tests and group assessments are used for the selection process. The retail group had a
systematic manner for selection process. In the process of recruitment of sales assistant I
experienced the following process in the Human resource department. Selection and
recruitment process of retail group utilises a systematic process which includes application
forms submission process, written tests, document verification and personal interviews.

Applicant form- The human resource management of retail group recruits candidates using
application forms. These forms have all the details of the applicants with their resumes and all
the relevant information. The candidates can fill the forms through the website of the company
and submit their application online till the specific date.

Screening process- The submitted applications are processed and screened for the eligible
candidates for further process of recruitment and selection.
Written tests- The short listed candidates are contacted and called for written tests which
check their aptitude and theoretical knowledge. The written tests are provided with practical
activities to judge the experience and knowledge of the candidates. The passed candidates are
shortlisted for further recruitment process.

Interview- The recruitment panel of the company take personal interview of the final
candidates and recruit them on successfully clearing the personal interviews (Kundu, et al.
2015).

Evaluate your own contribution as an HR assistant to the selection process.

[AC 1.4]

As an HR assistant to the retail group, I had variable roles in recruitment and selection process
of the company. The process of recruitment and selection process is explained below in the
following table:

This table involves a step-by-step phenomenon to efficiently perform the hiring and selection
process in Human Resource department.

Step 1 Job analysis- identifying the need or

vacancies
Step 2 Developing the description of position
Step 3 Developing a recruitment plan
Step 4 Establishing search committee
Step 5 Implementation of recruitment plan post
position
Step 6 Review applicants and developing short lists
Step 7 Conduction of Interviews
Step 8 Hiring candidates
Step 9 Finalization of recruitment process
Initially I was appointed to provide a meaningful job description of the sales assistant profile at
the company. Secondly, my job was to present an advertisement with all the necessary details
of the job. The HR department fulfilled the initial steps of the selection procedure. My role was
to short list the eligible candidates for written tests and then assists the HR manager and
selection panel in interview process. I provided my assistance in preparing documents for the
employees in selection procedure as well (Barry, 2015).

TASK 2 STYLES AND IMPACTS OF LEADERSHIP

Explain the skills and attributes needed for leadership in the business

organisations. [AC2.1]

Leadership is crucial for managers in order to achieve the organizational goals and objectives. It
is explained as the act of managing and directing the employees or individuals towards the
organizational goals and objectives. The organizational success is directly linked to the
leadership among a business organization. A strong and effective leadership delivers increased
output results in an organization. A leader requires skills like clear vision of its objectives,
guiding nature, motivating team members, problem solving behaviour, creative in nature and
strong knowledge of the field. Leader imposes responsible nature and need to develop skills
necessary for the job. One needs to develop a clear vision in order to build a strong influence
over the employees. The employees take directions from their leader and he must have a clear
vision of goals and objectives in order to direct the employees. Moreover, leader requires skill
set of tactful and diplomatic nature. They need to pursue problem solving nature and involve in
developing future policies for development of organization. Leadership required pushing other
forward by encouraging and motivating them.

The leadership attributes includes focused over outcomes, finding out opportunities, using
innovative and creative techniques to handle problem situations, working together with other
members of organization, collaborating with people, leading with honesty and integrity (Clarke,
2013).
Explain the differences between leadership and management. [AC2.2]

Figure 2: Manager Vs Leader

[Source: http://www.xoombi.com/blog/the-myth-about-leadership-vs-management]

Leadership and management are required tools for a business organization and both are
important for the functioning of the company. Leadership depicts the various functions which
involves guiding, inspiring and motivating the work force to achieve the organizational goals
and objectives. On the other hand a manager needs to manage, organize, control and plan the
different functions of organization (Du, et al. 2013).

The major differences between leadership and management are explained below in the
following table:

Leadership Management
 1. Leader inspires and empowers the
human resource of company
2. Leadership focuses over people and
motivates them to achieve results
3. Leader have approach to create a
mission statement
4. The roles of leader involve clear
visionary and strategic thinker
5. Leadership utilises methodology
which evaluates the needs, strengths
and marketplace
6. The outcome of leadership shows long
range goals and objectives
1. Manager organizes and directs the
human resource of company
2. Management focuses over things and
process
3. Mangers have approach to deliver the
mission statement
4. The roles of manager involve
productivity expert and an enterprise
builder
5. Manager uses methodologies which
plans budget, organises teams and
maintain quality in business
6. Management have an effective and
efficient outcome for project managing

Explain ways leaders and managers adopt to motivate staff to achieve

organisational objectives. [AC2.4]

Leadership style denotes the approach of management towards the business and its different
functions. There are various types of leadership styles used in the business environment, which
are democratic, autocratic, transformational, transactional, laissez faire etc. The different
leadership styles are used to fulfil the requirements and purposes of different types of
organizations and their functions. Business organizations have different functions, goals and
work culture, so the leadership styles are utilised according to the necessities of the company.
The leadership styles have their own pros and cons which are evaluated before applying them
to the various functions of any organization. The different leadership styles are as follows:
Democratic Leadership: Democratic leadership can be explained as the involvement of work
force and staff members which allow the participation of everyone and provides a better
decision making for an organization. It is considered to be the participation leadership model in
which everyone in the organization hold responsibility in making a decision. This approach is
considered as an effective tool for providing higher productivity and better contribution among
organizations.

Autocratic Leadership: Autocratic leadership is utilised in the organizations where the

operational activities are required under full control. This type of leadership takes full control in
their hands in order to take decision by them. The staff members and employees are expected
to follow the decisions of their leader without any kind of intermission. There is a space in this
style where the management staff can provide their input to the leader for decision making
process.

Transformational Leadership: As clear from its name transformational leadership is used for
the transformation or changes among an organization. The transformational leadership utilises
the staff members, employees and leader to work together in order to examine the change and
create a new vision for a business organization. This type of leadership provides visionary and
inspirational approach for the achievement of organizational objectives. Also, it helps in
encouragement of staff members and employees, as they are involved in the decision making
process.

Transactional Leadership: The transactional leadership is more like a give and take relationship
which depicts a set architecture of goals and objectives for the employees. These set goals and
targets must be achieved by the employees to gain the rewards and punishments according to
their performances. The transactional leadership is used to control the productivity of an
organization. It is a responsive leadership which works under organizational culture and
motivates employees to achieve the targets for their self-interests. This type of leadership helps
organizations to achieve effective production and improve organizational performance (Pacleb,
et al. 2016).
Explain ways leaders and managers adopt to motivate staff to achieve

organisational objectives. [AC2.4]

The organizational objectives are achieved through the work ability of staff members and
employees. The Human resource of the company is majorly responsible for the achievement of
organizational objectives. Thus, the leaders and managers have to motivate the human
resource of the business organization and they utilise motivational theories. The motivational
theories have two major ways which can be utilised in motivating the staff members and
employees. These are the monetary and non-monetary methods. The monetary methods use
financial incentives while non-monetary methods use non-financial incentives. Both the
methods are explained in detail below:

Monetary motivational methods:

The monetary motivation methods use financial benefits to the employees such as salary hike,
cash rewards, bonus, additional pay etc. The managers and leaders motivates the employees by
increasing their salary on a systematic manner, this helps the employees to increase their work
capacity in an organization. The employers also utilise other financial gifts and bonuses in order
to motivate the employees. The strategy is to provide the financial rewards to the employees
on achievement of a specific task or target. This helps organization in completion of
organizational goals within the specific period of time with greater efficiency.

Non-monetary methods:

The non-monetary methods are also useful in increasing the motivation of the employees and
achieving organizational goals. These benefits involve social recognition, feedback systems,
holiday packages, award systems, respect to employees and employee care management. The
social recognition leads to providing a special title or publically motivating the employees.
Feedback system depicts a proper feedback is provided to the employee for the work done by
them, this particularly helps them to clarify their doubts regarding jobs. Awards system provide
awards to the employees for their outstanding work, this motivates other employees also to
work effectively. Employee care systems help the employees to solve their problems (Mitchell,
et al. 2012).

TASK 3 EFFECTIVE WORKING IN A TEAM

Assess the benefits of team working in your organisation. [AC3.1]

Team working is a crucial tool in the development of efficient working in an organization. Team
working helps in a coordinated approach to handle work which leads to effective working and
timely completion of work. I had worked as an intern for the retail store company, which had
utilised team work and group culture to increase the efficiency of their organization. The team
working helps in increasing motivation of the employees, effective utilization of resources,
builds a learning environment and enhances the performance and production capacity of the
organization. The benefits of team working at retail store are broadly defined below:

Motivation of employees: The team working helps in providing a group culture in the
organization which utilises working of different employees in a combined manner. This
promotes different skilled members working together and delivering innovation as an output.
The combination of various skills together leads to fast working which motivates employees to
work in groups and finish the organizational tasks. These organizational tasks are the results of
innovative approach of the employees which promotes higher output among the organization.

Effective utilization of resources: Team working at retail store promoted the effective
utilization of resources. This can be explained as the individual employees with different skill set
comes together as a team and work in groups; this process leads to utilization of resources.
When the employees were working individually the resource utilisation was not conducted in a
proper manner, but when they come together and work as a group, the different skill set of the
employees work in an effective manner to produce results in a better manner. This results in
the overall production capacity of the company and meaningful results.
Learning environment: The team building at retail store promoted a valuable learning
experience for the employees, as the different skilled workers come together and works on a
single project they provide practical training to other employees as well. The employees learn
new ways of improving their own skills and knowledge to accomplish the tasks. Thus, the team
working leads to building a practical training and learning environment to the employees, as it
helps in improving individual’s skill.

Enhanced productivity: The team working provides a group of employees working together to
achieve same organizational goal. The individual working alone takes a long time in achieving
their goals and while they are in groups they can coordinate and provide effective productivity.
Thus, team work leads to enhance productivity and effective performance of the business
organization (Nancarrow, et al. 2013).

Drawbacks of teamwork

The major disadvantages of team work involve limited participation or unequal share of
responsibilities among team members, limited creativity or specific work process, longer
process to get desired results and inherent conflicts. The unequal participation depicts non-
uniform work behaviors of team members and the individual working styles pose unequal share
of workload over team members. Secondly, the limited creativity explains the team members
must always focus over the process and work on specific projects that their individual inputs
are on the back burner. Team work inherits major issues concerning clashes between team
members and difficulty in accepting other’s inputs in the process which results in conflicts.

Demonstrate working in a team as a leader and member towards specific

goals, dealing with any conflict or difficult situations you have had faced.

[AC3.2]

A leader acts as a captain to the boat which is responsible for all the operational functionality of
an organization. Any kind of difficult situation must be handled by the leader itself to avoid the
adverse results. A similar case took place in my work place where I was working as a team
leader at Tesco and I was assigned the job of handling the sanitary department of the store. The
team members faced issues concerning keeping the store clean. A major conflict observed
among team when the costumer started complaining regarding the sanitation at store and
team members started blaming each other for their failed job when I confronted them. I took
this opportunity and tried to resolve the conflict effectively. Initially I interviewed my team
members to understand the main issue. From observations and findings I found out that the
major failure at work was due to increased footfall of customers during the weekends and low
number of employees over these days. Thus, I hired temporary staff members for weekends to
increase the efficiency of staff and sanitation at the store. In this way I resolved conflict
situation at my workplace.

Even after using a problem solving attitude and precautions some difficulties always arise in an
organization such as conflict scenario. At retail store the leader utilised Belbin’s team roles to
avoid and manage the conflict situation. The nine team roles in Belbin’s model are explained
below:

Plant: Plants are the people which are the inventors; they are creative in nature and builds
ideas in a team. In a dilemma or a problem situation plant helps in providing valuable solution
in the team.

Resource Investigator: Resource investigators are the extroverts which helps the team in
providing resources. They are enthusiast in nature which has a good contact system out of the
team. This helps them in accumulation of resources when a plant provides a new idea in a
team.

Co-ordinator: Coordinator helps in managing the team with a manipulative approach, they
clarifies the decisions and helps other to focus over the task. They are mature and stable in
nature as they step back to see the wider scope of a decision. They recognise the abilities of
team members and helps in assigning the tasks according to their abilities in team.

Shaper: Shapers help in pursuing the organizational objectives in a team as they provide
necessary zeal and motivation to the team for performance.
Monitor evaluator: The monitor evaluators utilises analysis to evaluate the work process of
team. They patiently observe the organizational tasks and verify them to the planning process.
They need to have a wide clarity in their work to monitor and evaluate the working procedure
of the team.

Team Worker: Team workers are the major part of any organization as they are the ones which
perform the hard work. They keep a low profile and go unnoticed but their input is the most
crucial in any team as well as organization.

Implementer: Implementers are the ones which deliver the work and contribute silently in an
organization.

Finisher: They are the ones which move ahead and finish the tasks which are assigned in an
organization.

Specialist: Specialist has additional knowledge of their fields and provides assistance of their
skills in the team (Aritzeta, et al. 2007).

Review the effectiveness of the team in achieving the goals of your company.

[AC3.3]

The effectiveness of team can be evaluated with the achievement of team objectives and taking
feedbacks from the team members. The group culture and team working at retail Store
Company helped in providing efficiency in organizational working. The team working enabled
motivation in employees, effective productivity, enhanced work culture and quality among the
organization. Being a retail store organization, the company required effectiveness among the
business processes. Thus, team building enabled managers to motivate the employees through
group culture. The motivated employees led to effective working which increased the
productivity of the company. The increased productivity led to efficient working environment
through team working of staff members. The whole team working experience led to the
establishment of quality work culture in the company and led to effective and efficient output
results (Beblin, 2012).

TASK 4 WORK AND DEVELOPMENT NEEDS OF INDIVIDUALS

Explain the factors involved in planning the monitoring and assessment of

work performance. [AC4.1]

The performance assessment can be used to explain factors involved in planning the monitoring
and assessment of work performance in a business organization. This process will help in the in
measuring and monitoring of performance in the following manner:

1. Appraisal interviews can be utilised in order to measure the performance level of the
employees.
2. Performance appraisal system provides a monitor over employees to check their
performance quality in organization.
3. Survey systems in the organization helps in measuring the performance check over
employees. The surveys and feedbacks coming from clients and customers can be
collected and processed to monitor the performance level of the employees.
4. The organization can utilise random quality control check system which will check the
attentiveness and quality of work at the company. This will help in monitoring the
quality in work and attentiveness of the employees (McCamish, et al. 2015).

Plan and deliver the assessment of the development needs of individuals.

[AC4.2]

The individual development needs can be evaluated through the following measures in the
organization:
Evaluation of strengths: The planning process of development requires the evaluation of
strengths of individuals. Thus, the individuals must be evaluated on the basis of their work
abilities in the organization.

SMART goals and objectives: The organizational goals must be reviewed and altered according
to the SMART objectives, which depicts Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Time
bound goals. The SMART objectives denote that the goals must be calculated and efficient for
the employees, so they can achieve them.

Training Employees: The employees must be trained initially to enhance their effectivity and
skills in the organization. Secondly, strengths and objectives must be accumulated towards
organizational goals. The working capacities of the employees must be improved according to
the organizational objectives through training and development exercise (Meijers and Lengelle,
2012).

Evaluate the success of the assessment process. [AC 4.3]

The staff members and employees must be provided proper training and development to
enhance their working capacities. The enhanced working abilities will provide effective and
efficient working environment to the business organization. After the training and development
procedure, the employees’ performance must be evaluated. The evaluation process will utilise
surveys and feedbacks from customers and quality checks which will define the enhanced
working ability of the human resource of the organization. The evaluation of employees
working abilities after the training process will depict the success of whole assessment process.
Also, a feedback from employees can be collected which can be a self-reflection report of
training program. This will help in assessing the experience of employee pre and post training
program. The employee experience provides an effective idea of whole assessment process of
the organization (Raff, 2012).
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