Personal and Professional Development - Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation - Essay Example

? Essay on “Personal and Professional Development” Introduction Organization chosen for this assessment is HSBC Holdings plc. which is commonly called as HSBC. It is the third largest bank providing financial services in the world. It is a publicly held banking service. HSBC has its headquarters in London, United Kingdom. The bank was named after its founding member ‘The Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation Limited’ (hsbc.co.uk). The HSBC group is a global banking service. HSBC group has many branches which spread throughout Asia-Pacific, Europe, Middle East and Americas. HSBC was recognized in the Asia-Pacific region as the institution that provides finance to the increasing trade between China and Europe. The HSBC group was first opened in Hong Kong and then in Shanghai. HSBC group’s UK banking has been developing and improving from 1836. Acquisition of Midland Bank in Europe in 1992 has brought lot of pride, honour and reputation to the bank and this made the HSBC group grow as one among the leading banks in the world. Imperial Bank of Persia, which was also known as Bank of the Middle East was acquired by the HSBC group in 1959 along with its 26 branches. This entry of HSBC group into the Middle East provided the group to enter into the wider, and quickly varying financial markets in the world (hsbc.co.uk). HSBC group has well established markets in the South America as well as the emerging markets in the South and Central America. The HSBC group is categorized into four business groups. These include Commercial banking, Global banking and markets, retail banking and wealth management (hsbc.co.uk). The HSBC group provides HSBC Premier bank account for everyday banking accounts and services. The group aims at providing exclusive service in banking. Relationship manager helps the customers and gives tailor-made advices in wealth management, money management, preferential rates and terms, and globally linked-up online banking (hsbc.co.uk). Other facilities offered include internet banking, telephone banking, branch banking, and mobile. Through internet banking, a customer can have access to his/her account 24 hours a day (hsbc.co.uk). HSBC group provides wide range of products for accounts having personal banking. It provides insurances of home, travel, car, premier car, life, critical illness & income cover, and student insurance (hsbc.co.uk). Special feature of planning is rendered regarding health & family, home & lifestyle, work & retirement, and planning tools. HSBC also obliges its customers through online customer support centre that clears their doubts. Security centre assists HSBC’s customers to have a secured transaction while operating online. It helps by providing security downloads, and secure key (hsbc.co.uk). Task 1: a. Examine the benefit of self-managed learning to individuals and organizations and evaluate the various approaches involved. Self-managed or self-directed learning involves encouraging individuals to take responsibility for their own learning needs, either to improve performance in their present job or to satisfy their career aspirations (Armstrong, p. 560). According to Armstrong, self-managed learning has the process of recording achievement and action planning where the individuals can review what they have learnt, their achievement and their goals and action plan to achieve their goals and new learning which is to be acquired by them. The principle behind self-managed learning is that people learn, understand and retain the things they find out and helpful in improving their skills (Armstrong, p. 560). HSBC group must provide chances for its workers to learn new things so that they can acquire new skills for effective job performance. Self-managed learning helps the people working in an organization to find various methods of learning things which are from the society or at the workplace. Learners are to be provided with proper guidance, proper material and information and help they make use of it to a maximum extent. Personal development plans must be developed by the organization for self-managed learning process. Organizations motivate their employees in self-managed learning programmes to build skills necessary for the organization to excel in all aspects. Organizations’ performance management levels improve with a skilled and efficient labour force. Decision making, which is an important aspect for an organization, lies with the proficient employees who can judge and make decisions that are ethical and moral in a professional manner. Self-managed learning helps the organization in having effective risk management and problem solving procedures which can be easily implemented. Some of the approaches of self-managed learning as discussed in the ‘Approaches to self-managed learning’ are as follows: Seminars and conferences: Seminars and conferences have now become common and part of the professional world. These have a focused theme, from which people discuss, explore and learn many concepts about the topic. Participants give detailed reports of their findings and research providing people with an opportunity to express their own ideas about the subject. These make the people confident in speaking their opinions publicly and develop presentation skills which are required in the organization (Approaches to self-managed learning, n.d). Social Networks: Social networking sites such as LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter are used by most of the people. They use it to chat with friends, express their views and discuss with their friends about a particular topic. People can explore many things and information about business personalities and their success. Employees in an organization can find the success stories of their role models whom they admire. This helps them to remain motivated and succeed in their career. Internet: Internet turns out to be an effective tool for the people engaged in self-managed learning. Individuals can browse through the articles on management, risk assessment, risk management, building of strategies, etc. Knowledge acquired from such sources can be implemented whenever required at the workplace. This enables life-long learning to an individual which benefits the organization in its overall performance. b. Discuss how lifelong learning could be promoted within the context of personal and professional development. Lifelong learning can be promoted within the context of personal and professional development through Continuing Professional Development (CPD) and Personal SWOT Analysis. SWOT Analysis helps in assessing the personal strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. It is important to assess these features because one may not exactly know what opportunities he may have until then. This helps individuals to learn from their peers and learn new things to build their personality to have advancement in career (mindtools.com). CPD schemes are to be designed to build professional skills required in the individuals. Professionals inherit both formal and informal learning among the people. These were supported by the two models of ‘mandatory’ and ‘voluntary’. In the mandatory approach, monitoring of CPD is considered to make sure of the compliance with its requirements, whereas voluntary approach is self-monitoring of the learning outcomes (eds. Cunningham, Bennett & Dawes, p. 169). Task 2: a. Undertake a personal skills and competencies audit with an assessment of the skills needed to work professionally in an organizational setting. Personal skills and competencies necessary to work professionally in a HSBC group organization according to ‘Commercial Banking: Skills & Talents’ are broad business understanding of the procedures involved and people skills are needed. One of the key positions in banking is credit analyst which requires accounting and writing skills. High percentile is not required when compared to work ethic. A consumer service is a competent skill required in the banking industry. Banking industry requires knowledge of software and other banking procedures to survive, because online banking is flourishing. To get the top executive position, MBA in commercial banking from a prestigious institution is not mandatory. Professionals in marketing are also required to promote the new brands and products whenever HSBC launches it. b. Carry out a personal strength and weakness analysis by identifying your development needs and opportunities. Strength analysis: I have a strong understanding of people skills and can manage many customers at a time. I am competent for the banking industry as it requires People skills. My qualification is bachelor of business administration; therefore I can easily pursue MBA in commercial banking to get one of the top executive posts in banking sector as I have background of these concepts. I feel satisfied and comfortable when I serve the customers. I have an opportunity to bloom in the banking sector. Weakness analysis: I have poor understanding of the business procedures involved especially in the banking sector and I lack accounting skills which are necessary to have a successful banking career. c. Devise a personal and professional development plan with specific development objectives. Personal and Professional development plan – Objectives To have broader understanding of business procedures To upgrade technologically To learn accounting package To improve soft skills To improve problem solving skills Plan: I will ensure to learn and acquire broader knowledge and understanding of the practical skills required in the business procedures in banking. I would learn about the technological advancements in the industry. I would also gain complete understanding on accounting and acquire soft skills required to achieve an executive post for my career advancement. I would improve my skills on problem solving at the workplace by having negotiations between the conflicting parties. Task 3: a. Discuss how you would proceed to implement your personal and professional development plan by making reference to the process and key activities to be carried out. Implementation of my personal and professional development plan For gaining complete and broader understanding of the business procedures that are involved in banking, I would attend a conference in my university auditorium, where I can attain a thorough understanding of the topic. I would eagerly participate in the discussions with the conference reader and other participants to express my views on that particular theme. This would primarily assist me in gaining the knowledge about the topic and secondly helps me to develop interpersonal skills, presentation skills and confidence. To upgrade myself technologically, I would attend a training session conducted by the organization that would support the new comers in the organization in developing technical skills. I would actively participate in the training and development session to achieve the competent skills. Accounting is easier to my peers, as they have strong background of it. I would chat and discuss with my friends using social networking sites. They can easily suggest me the accounting software required to develop these skills. If any assistance required on usage of this software, they can always help me as most of my friends are also proficient. To attain soft skills, I would self re-evaluate my skills. To improve my proficiency, I would research through internet to study about the biographies of famous leaders who have bloomed in this industry. Leadership skills exhibited them would be made inherent and evaluated every often to increase my competency levels. Negotiations would be made between the conflicting parties at an early stage to avoid huge deprive in the performance management of the organization, HSBC. This would help me foster problem solving skills, without creating panic at that particular situation. b. Critically evaluate the process reflecting on the learning against expected aims and objectives and review the plan based on the feedback. Outcome1: Broader understanding of the business procedures in banking can be obtained by attending seminars or conferences. This is possible to some extent. There is also a possibility that theoretically learnt skills are not practical. It will be difficult to attain best practical skills just based on theoretical seminars or conferences. Experience working in that particular environment is considerably important to have clearer picture of the business needs. Outcome 2: After attending the training session for the technological improvements in the banking sector provided by the organization at the workplace, I must reassess my skills for my efficiency in understanding improvements in technology by taking an exam. The learnt skills are practiced daily to become expertise. Attending a training session doesn’t mean having proficiency in it. There is a chance of not retaining all the technical skills learnt. Outcome 3: Learning accounting package easier from peers is easy to understand as explanation provided will be in clear and concise instructions. While chatting there is a possibility of misconception. Peers intend to say something and the individual may learn something different to his understanding. Reassessment and double check of the concepts learnt from other sources is highly commendable. Outcome 4: Extracting information and learning from internet sources provides a wider range of tools required and many doubts arising on soft skills can be researched on web. Biographies of leaders can be helpful in learning soft skills but certain circumstances and situations which has lead the leaders develop extraordinary skills may not favour others. Some skills which they do not possess can be inherent to the individuals. So, it depends upon the situation and behaviour of persons. Outcome 5: All the problems may not necessarily solve the issues through negotiations as both the parties may not agree to it. Alternative measures must be incorporated. Task 4: a. Investigate work-based problems and suggest solutions. Work based problems stand up in the organization. These problems hinder the effective performance of the firm. Problems may arise because of individuals’ Personality conflicts, personal trauma. Conflicts between people arise because of orientation of the company structure or supervisory issues. Management should try to solve these issues taking each and every aspect into consideration. People working in teams also face problems unable to follow the instructions provided by their team leader due to ambiguity created in their personal and team goals. Team leader must provide clear instructions and discussions must be transparent. Certain problems spread like fire throughout the organization, which needs a check within the organization to stop it from further expansion and reduce the probability of the occurrence of the same issue again. Problem solving lies with the management. b. Examine a range of methods and styles to successfully communicate the problems and solutions at different levels within the context of effective time management. Solutions to the problems as discussed by Pirraglia (n.d) at different levels within the context of effective management to successfully communicate these problems are as follows: Employee issues: Management must have to find the cause of the problem or find the one who keeps the issue stagnant. If it lacks addressing to these issues, management will end up in having ambiguous communications between the managers and the employees. All the employees have to answer to various levels of supervisors, which is not a sign of good communication in the organization. Team Problems: Persons when disconnected with other team members from their team would make the team non-functional and inefficient. This occurs due to a breakdown in management or organizational communications. This issue can be resolved when the team leaders provide constant feedback and remain unified. Managers are required to take immediate action after the diagnosis of the problems to prevent serious performance breakdowns (Pirraglia, n.d). Organization-wide Problems: Smaller and minute employee and team issues spread throughout the organization. Instantaneous remedial action is required to avoid such conditions again. Measures to stop organization wide problems are crucial as these issues result in forming of two groups within an organization. Things that affect the organizational performance and the organizational culture must be stopped within the time as the workers do not get used to it. Organizational problems must be resolved as soon as possible. Technology Infrastructure: ‘Many IT organizations at large banks continue to support a sprawling mix of redundant applications, aging technologies, and systems that are fast approaching obsolescence‘(The Wall Street Journal, 2012). These result in complex IT portfolios that have outcomes of high operational costs and an IT portfolio would be unequipped to have the digital services customers demand increasingly. Therefore, banks have to start rationalizing their IT structure to build the bank of the future, until you have another bank account. Therefore appropriate measures must be taken to address the issues at various organizational levels to improve the performance at each level of an organization with effective time management. References 2013 Banking Industry Outlook 2012, The Wall Street Journal, viewed 2 April 2013, http://deloitte.wsj.com/cio/2012/12/21/2013-banking-industry-outlook/ Approaches to self managed learning 2013, UKessays.com: the UK’s expert provider of custom essays, Nottinghamshire, viewed 1 April 2013, http://www.ukessays.com/essays/education/approaches-to-self-managed-learning-education-essay.php Armstrong, M 2003, A Handbook of Human Resource Management Practice, 9th edn, Michael Armstrong, London. Commercial Banking: Skills & Talents 2011, Careers-in-Finance, viewed 1 April 2013, http://www.careers-in-finance.com/cbskill.htm Cunningham, I, Bennett, B & Dawes, G (eds.) 2000, Self Managed Learning in Action: Putting SML into Practice, Gower Publishing. Ltd. HSBC Premier Bank Account 2013, HSBC, United Kingdom, viewed 1 April 2013, http://www.hsbc.co.uk/1/2/current-accounts/hsbc-premier Personal SWOT Analysis: Making the Most of Your Talents and Opportunities 2013, Mind Tools: Essential skills for an excellent career, viewed 1 April 2013, http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newTMC_05_1.htm Pirraglia, W n.d., Organizational Problems in the Workplace, Chron.com, Texas, viewed 1 April 2013, http://smallbusiness.chron.com/organizational-problems-workplace-12570.html#gsc.tab=0 Read More