Developing Professional Practice (5DVP)

Description of the unit developing professional practice

The course module on developing professional practice provides learners with information on how to use knowledge, skills, and behaviour in their profession. The course is very important to the HR professionals who work towards ensuring that they use their professions to carry out different roles within organisations. Students pursuing this course module relate with the evaluation of the CIPD HR Profession Map. The map provides an analysis of the knowledge needed by the HR professionals and experts in carrying out the different HR functions. The skills needed have also been identified, and the professionals get the opportunity to relate with the improvement of the required skills as they grow and develop in their careers. The map also provides a guide on the behaviours that guide professionals in carrying out their roles and objectives. In addition to the profession map, the unit provides students with an opportunity to create a continued personal development plan, which is important in assessing their strengths on what they have learnt as they grow and develop their careers. The unit therefore helps the professionals excel in their personal careers, and their interpersonal skills as well. It is therefore a very important unit that guides the students in the paths taken towards achieving their career goals and objectives. Some of the issues that the students will learn in the unit include;

Contribution of HR professional in organisations

HR professionals carry out executive and administrative roles to ensure that they deliver the best practices to the organisation. In these roles, the HR professionals are considered to be professional thinkers, in that they have to relate with the right behaviours, skills, and knowledge needed to enhance functioning in the organisation. The students taking this course have the responsibility to ensure that they identify with the management functions to enhance good functioning of the organisation they work for. Professionals have to ensure that they have the skills needed to ensure that the carry out the different functions in the organisation, and when they carry out the identified roles, they get experienced and in the process get to develop their careers. In this perspective, it is important for the students pursuing the course to understand exactly what they are expected to do to enhance improvement towards growing their careers.

Problem-solving techniques

The HR professionals experience different kinds of challenges in their line of work. This unit therefore provides knowledge on how the professionals should address the challenges and deal with the issues affecting them. Some of the techniques identified to be the source of problem solving by the professionals include testing of the reliability and validity of the information, using decision making tools, and carrying out situational analysis. Professionals should relate with these techniques to ensure that they solve problems and address challenges experienced within the organisations and in line with their career developments. In addition to this, it is important to relate with the aspects of conflicts, which are considered to be disagreements within the workplace. Students should be able to learn that they would be facing different types of conflicts while moving up their careers. Therefore in order to ensure that they deal with the conflicts in the best way possible, they should be able to understand methods of solving conflicts, which include compromising, accommodating, collaboration, and avoiding. These should be considered differently depending on the situation. Therefore, as students grow and develop their careers or professions, they have to understand the issues that will be facing, and this is well developed in this course for them to understand exactly what they are supposed to do and the options they are expected to take.

Group dynamics

The unit provides information on the different aspects of group dynamics and their impacts on professional development. The fact that organisations operate with different departments and teams means that as professionals develop their careers, they relate with different people, who impact their decisions as well as their roles in HR. In this perspective, the issue of understanding group dynamics is important for the students, as this will help them learn how to work in groups. Different models have been developed to help bring out an illustration of the group processes and how they impact the HR. The need to consider all these aspects means that the students will have the knowledge on how to relate their career progression to the impacts that the teams brings on them and their involvement in enhancing career development.

Influencing, persuading, and negotiating with others

Professional development is among the many units that help HR professionals engage in the process of influencing others. HR professionals should have a positive influence in order to bring about a positive impact or outcome. The professionals by the end of the course should have gained persuasion skills, to ensure that they are able to effectively persuade others while at the same time be able to negotiate with them. These are important issues needed in creating a successful professional development path. This, therefore, means that the students taking the course should be ready to gain the right skills needed to create appositive outcome from the experiences that the professionals have with other professionals and with the organization as well. The skills help professionals develop new positive behaviors, and thus help the professionals go through a learning process that is important in career development.

Learning outcomes

By the end of the unit, learners should;

• Be able to understand the contribution of the HR professional to the organization
• Learn the techniques used by the management in the context of Human Resources
• Be able to effectively identify and use problem-solving techniques in the context of Human Resources
• Be able to identify the elements of group dynamics
• Be able to identify examples of conflict resolution methods
• Learn how to influence, persuade, and negotiate with others for development of solutions for better outcome
• Be able to produce a personal development plan

Winding-up

The unit on developing professional practice helps students who are willing to progress in their careers by using the knowledge and skills needed in their profession. Those who take the unit develop unique kinds of behaviours that they use as the guide to enhancing progress in their careers. The students pursuing the course module are able to assess their career growth especially when they create the development plan. Through this, they get to note and identify the new concepts they have learnt, and their impacts on the success of the organisation. It is therefore a good course for the HR experts wishing to progress their careers in HR.