Personal Development Portfolio - Lab Report Example

Personal Development Portfolio Introduction This report is a personal development portfolio that is used as a means by which I can voluntarily collect information that reflects and records my work. In reflecting on experiences of the present and past activities, I am capable of: planning for the future; learning needs and identifying priorities; setting short and long term targets. Together with performance management and within the proper business and continuing personal development framework, I can think about my practice and career in a systematic and planned way. The personal development portfolio presents a basic structure that is used for collecting information (Smith & Tillema 2006). If I choose to use it, it is my portfolio, my property and I may use it in the way I feel is best for me. It is hoped I will use it at major points in the course of the year; find it valuable in my career; take it from one employment post to another; keeping it up to date at regular periods through the inclusion of information that is recent and disposing information that is no longer relevant to me. With time, the portfolio may consist of my confidential information, such as job applications and employment skills or behaviour. I will decide whether I wish to make such information accessible to other employees or not. No doubt I will already have documents and information that will be appropriate to be put in my portfolio. These pieces of information are in different places. The information needs to take time to be collected over an hour or month. I will most likely be surprised at the amount of time it will take me to collect all the pieces of information in a very short period of time. Situation In light of this explanation of personal development portfolio, it is important to examine my situation in detail. I am a second year undergraduate female student in Regents University, London focusing on a pathway in business management with a future of being an events manager. This is because my heart has usually held a deep longing to learn business management with an aspiration of concentrating on events management in particular, development and creation of large scale events, such as conferences, festivals, concerts, ceremonies, conventions, or formal parties. It is the process of coordinating and planning events that attracts me to events management that includes scheduling, acquiring necessary permits, budgeting, coordinating parking and transport, arranging décor, arranging for entertainers or speakers, and events security. I have rapidly learned that if an individual studies and works hard, the sky becomes the limit. This is because I have seen event organizers at the university organizing for concerts for students’ music bands and conferences for parents, students, and teachers. The coordination of transport and parking that is involved in a concert is amazing, especially when the numbers of people attending the concert are over one thousand. As I have grown, my dreams of becoming an events manager has made me become an aspiring student of business management at Regents University with the ability of enabling me to develop employment skills while learning and interning at the university or other workplaces near my home. My employment skills have been developed through professional attitudes, professional behaviours, and skills. Task My situation described above highlight the desires I have in life especially wanting to become an event manager of concerts and weddings through the study of business management in order to gain important employment skills. There are objectives that I need to fulfil by the end of my undergraduate business management at Regents University. First, is to complete my undergraduate business management degree. In completing this degree, I will have learnt numerous skills in management especially management of people and budgeting for events from beginning to the end without supervision from my university professor. Second is to become an event manager with concentration on wedding and concert planning and management. In becoming an event manager, I want to concentrate on planning that goes on in big weddings and concerts. Much of the planning I want to learn is on planning orders, budget, and disaster management. Since planning goes hand-in-hand with management, I want my event management skills to be unparalleled as compared to other event managers. Third is to gain employment skills that will assist me in managing events through learning professional attitudes, professional behaviours, and professional skills. Professionalism is important because it will show my employer how my professionalism helps contribute to a company’s success, especially in managing events, such as concert and weddings. Fourth is to apply employment skills on Regents University academic centre for Christians thought and action (Regent 2015). Since a church has individuals who are religious, in business management, learning about different cultures and how they interact with one another is important because it will allow me to gain important employment skills that will help me interact with people from different cultures without challenges. Action In order for employees to be recognized as worthwhile in a company, I have realized that a criteria needs to be put in place. The first criterion is for employees to have completed university with a recognized degree. The second criterion is maintaining professionalism at place of work through professional attitudes, professional behaviours, and professional skills. Third criterion is for employees to apply employment skills on Regents academic. Let us look at these criteria and evaluate how I fare in a workplace with my employment skills. First criterion In this criterion, it is vital to know that I am in the second year of my undergraduate business management degree, and on my way to complete it at year four. Even though, according to the criterion, I have not met the requirement for an employee with good employment skills, it is reasonable to assume that I will complete my education in year four. Second criterion In this criterion, it is important to look at professionalism in detail in order to know whether I have gained employment skills. Let us begin with professional attitudes then move to professional behaviours. When looking at these attitudes, initiative and ethical sensitivity attitudes materialize. While initiative attitude means having an ability to take action willingly, ethical sensitivity attitude means appreciating ethical aspects of business. In the course of my study at Regents University, I have taken initiative to help with event management at a local wedding in my neighbourhood. Even though I was not paid, I was able to help plan the wedding with little assistance that went on to be a wedding to remember. This initiative attitude has shown me that in order for people to want to work with me, they will first want to know that I am willing to help them where necessary without thinking too much about money. Religion is one thing that I have learnt to be sensitive with because many people come from different religions around the world. For example, in a Christian wedding ceremony, men and women mingle in a church during the procession of a wedding, while Muslims separate the men and women during the procession of a wedding. Even with the explanations I was given concerning the Muslim wedding, I did not find it to make sense. I thought it was all about elevating men above women and giving them dominating status in the religion. This made me learn a few important lessons. I have learnt that it is unethical to regard one religion unimportant over another religion. This I realized was unethical because the different religions felt like their religion was being insulted without any thought to their beliefs and values. Professional behaviours involve self-management and critical analysis. In self-management, the focus is on gaining the ability to work in a structured and efficient manner. In the wedding I took the initiative to plan mentioned above, I realized that a lot of self-management involved using one-self skills in managing people and planning the wedding in a structured and efficient manner. This I accomplished through delegating work to different people, such as five girls arranging flowers and ten men arranging chairs that made planning and managing the wedding efficient. In critical analysis, the focus is on having the ability to deconstruct a situation or a problem. Before I took the initiative to plan and manage the wedding mentioned above, I had to talk to the bride and groom who were reluctant to allow me to handle the event. However, after much convincing I was able to plan and manage the wedding event. This made me realize that good employment skills come from being able to critically analyze problems and situations and finding ways to handle them. Professional skills involve political sensitivity, problem solving and negotiation. In political sensitivity, the focus is on employees appreciating how an organization actually works. In the Regents University academic centre for Christian, the church is organized according to positions. The priest oversees the functions of praying and meeting with new members of the church, while the church accountant accounts for money collected in tithes and offerings. I learnt that a good employee knows that working is not only about completing tasks, but sticking to specific tasks given. In problem solving, the emphasis is on selecting and utilizing appropriate methods to come up with solutions. When I talked to the bride and the groom, we came up with a solution that saw me planning and managing their wedding. This was done through negotiating who could plan and manage the wedding the best. I realized that problem solving employment skills need negotiating of problems to come up with a solution. Third criterion In this criterion, applying employment skills is regarded as important. Regent’s academic activity like running the church at academic centre for Christian needs employees to apply employment skills like problem solving in solving marital problems of church members. Results In our action discussion, the outcome impacted on me, my performance, and the wedding company I took in the wedding mentioned above. The professional attitude impacted me with the ability to take action willingly without being forced, while professional behaviour helped me to understand how to defuse a situation or a problem especially when critically analyzing problems for solutions. My performance, on the other hand, has been impacted greatly by professional skills especially when it came to problem solving. Negotiation played an important role in coming up with solution to problems, in particular when I came and negotiated my way and planned the wedding after a lot of negotiations. I have learnt that in order for a person to be employed, employment skills need to meet certain criteria that cover essential needs of a business employer as seen in action section above. In the course of learning employment skills, I realized that there are several things that I will do differently. I will come up with my own criterion that is above normal workplace employee standards in order to give myself a competitive edge against fellow employees. However, even with the skills discussed above, I would like to learn the skill of being patient because during the wedding planning and management, I realized that many people were trying my patience and this was making it difficult for me to plan and manage the wedding efficiently. Hence, being patient and able to tolerate people will ensure I work even with the most impatient people in the event management business. Critical Reflection This reflective review exercise has affected my decisions and thinking when looking at employment skills. I have realized that I feel impatient when working with many people who refuse to allow me to delegate work to them. For instance, when I was given the responsibility of planning the wedding by the bride and groom as discussed above, I started to feel impenitent because some men were taking a long time to bring more chairs for the guests. I had to send more men to go and get more chairs for the guests. However, I kept this feeling under control by remembering my studies in business management concerning managing and dealing with people. I realized that these men were not being paid well and hence they were not motivated to carry more chairs into the hall for guests. Therefore, I came up with a compensation strategy that awarded more money to men who carried more chairs to the hall. I negotiated with them on this compensation strategy for about thirty minutes. This strategy was accurate because more chairs were brought in the wedding hall by the men because they wanted to earn more money. This compensation strategy had significance in my event management career because it showed me that no career in the world is easy. At first, I thought when I delegated the work to people at the wedding event they would just follow my plan. What I did not realize, as explained in the compensation strategy, was that the men were having problems that almost left the wedding hall without chairs. This situation in the wedding relates to employment skills as we have seen from the discussion. Just in brief, negotiating and problem solving skills that I used in coming up with a compensation plan were some of the useful employment skills I learnt. In solving the compensation plan for the men carrying chairs by negotiating with them on a price ensured the wedding hall was filled with many chairs for guests. I realized during the planning of the wedding that the bride and groom, as well as the workers in the wedding, saw me as a person with a plan that benefited everyone. This made me feel like an event’s manager lady as one mother praised me saying, “I like how you dealt with those difficult men. Please, help my sister plan and find workers for her wedding.” This made me very happy because even before finishing my business management degree, I could already see myself as an event’s manager. However, I will strive to change my impatience behaviour to accommodate or tolerate those people who make me impatience for one reason or another. I have an action plan that will see me become one of the best event’s managers in one of the biggest event management companies in London. This plan will involve me working for people for free in wedding and concert planning. With time, my experience will increase and this will give me a chance to gain competitive employment skills that will ensure I get employed after finishing my business management degree. Conclusion It is evident from the discussion that coming up with a personal development portfolio is important because it allows a person to collect personal information and realize their status of their employment skills. If the collected personal information indicates that the person needs to learn more employment skills, then the person will have to learn more employment skills. Personally, my collected personal information has shown me that I can become a good event’s manager. Bibliography Regent.edu 2015, The Nation's Academic Centre for Christian Thought and Action. [Online] Available at: http://www.regent.edu/acad/undergrad/discover/ [Accessed 18 Apr. 2015]. Smith, K & Tillema, H 2006, Portfolios for professional development, Nova Science Publishers, New York. Read More