Assessment Task
From your experience, evaluate real-life scenarios where you have demonstrated that you have acquired the behaviour, skill or knowledge in each of the selected assessment criteria below. Inform your answer with wider reading to critically analyse your performance. You may identify a different scenario for each assessment criteria or use a scenario to demonstrate up to any two assessment criteria. You could consider adopting the STAR approach when structuring your answer. If this approach is adopted the follow areas should be covered:
- Situation
- Task
- Action
- Result
The majority of words are likely to be allocated to the âactionâ and âresultâ parts of your answer.
LO2 Be able to achieve and maintain challenging business outcomes for yourself and organisations.
AC 2.1 success. Reflect on levels of self-awareness and self-management, leading to improved organisational
Working in Tesco plc, I learned that individual self-awareness and self-management contribute to the poor business performance of the company. Self-awareness allows me to know how I feel, what my strengths and weaknesses are and how they affect other people, whereas self-management is the effort to control those emotions and behaviours to get things done. The Tesco corporate culture is developed on the idea that people should be treated as we would like to be treated, and this helps employees to think over their actions and the impact they will have on their coworkers and clients (Tesco PLC, 2020). This emotional intelligence is not a soft skill but a business requirement that determines productivity, job satisfaction and net profit of the organisation. A survey of business executives discovered that people possess self-awareness, yet they have to work on this soft skill to achieve success in their careers and successfully manage people (Showry and Manasa, 2014). Therefore, with this type of self-awareness, I have been in a position to define areas of improvement and the strengths that can be used to enhance the strategic goals of Tesco within a retail context.
Stock loss is a challenge that has been persistent in my department at Tesco since it affects the profitability and is a key performance indicator (KPI) of the business. This was difficult in the peak seasons such as the Christmas season when the volumes of service and the temporary workers burden the issue. The current system was built on meeting yearly inventory reviews and a reactive model on stock loss, causing revenue shortages (Fazli et al., 2023). The management had been oriented to the introduction of new technology and processes. The choice to have a new system initially created anxiety and resistance in the personnel because of the fear of job insecurity, which gave a negative attitude towards the team.
My task was to assist in implementing a new inventory management system to improve the team’s support and effectiveness in managing stock levels and reducing waste (Samantara and Sharma, 2015). I needed to use my personal self-awareness to understand my own initial frustrations with the new time-consuming processes and then apply self-management to guide my team through this change. The aim was to have a sense of ownership and responsibility among colleagues to transform a task that meets the compliance and the standards of the company. Engaging other staff in the project made me achieve a shared goal for improved business outcomes. Thus, the task was to comply with Tesco’s high-performance working (HPW) principles that advocate for employee engagement and participation.
I started by reflecting on my own feelings of being overburdened by the additional tasks and chose a productive behaviour, which is a core aspect of self-management. I applied Daniel Goleman’s emotional intelligence model by recognising and understanding my own emotions and then managing my reactions to the situation (Channell, 2021). This would make sure that my own emotions do not harm the team. I was not afraid to admit my problems with the new system in the team briefing. This would aid in building confidence and a psychologically safe environment where others felt free to express their concerns. I would then collaborate with my manager to get more training and find mentors among those who had more experience than me to fill any gaps in my knowledge. The concept of self-management was utilized in the team by dividing the new procedures into time-limited action steps that were easy to implement with basic instructions. I implemented both extrinsic and intrinsic motivation schemes to acknowledge their good work and to give real-time positive feedback (Shin, 2009). These reward schemes helped to build their self-confidence and commitment.  We finalised by implementing a peer-recognition system to celebrate successes, which supported the desired behaviours.
The results of this approach were the best fit for the company, which showed that improved self-awareness and self-management brought positive business outcomes. My team’s engagement metrics saw an increase in feelings of being valued and understanding their contribution to the business strategy. In my department, we reduced stock loss by 15% within three months, which was a good measurable outcome that contributed to the store’s profitability and met a key business objective. Staff absences within my immediate team also decreased because self-aware and self-managed employees experience less stress and good mental health. The improved communication and staff expectations resulted in fewer errors in stock management and enhanced team collaboration because of good management of time for strategic development work. This experience proved my belief that having self-awareness and self-management in an organisation, the individual’s performance increases to drive sustained business growth and success.
