8605-409 Managing Personal Development

Unit Overview

8605-409 Managing Personal Development is a unit within the ILM Level 4 module that aims at preparing leaders and managers within the organisations for different strategies and processes that are involved in creating personal development plans to improve their performance and contribution to the organisation. Managers should ensure that they effectively use feedback and data collected from their areas of practice to improve their abilities and proficiencies within the organisational context.

This development involves both work-related development and improvement of adaptive skills to their roles as leaders who influence the performance of others within the organisation. 8605-409 Managing Personal Development, therefore, provides the relevant support to ensure that the managers can evaluate their performance in areas of responsibility to identify strengths and weaknesses and implement the findings made to positively impact their performance and productivity. This unit helps prepare the middle managers to become employment or learning supervisors within the organisation to ensure they are able to mentor others within the workplace, and it is the responsibility of the ILM module to evaluate this goal.

As such, this is a critical unit that accounts for 15 credit values and a minimum of 6 hours of guided learning but should do over a long period to ensure the learners have mastered the skills and mastery of information that they need to achieve the desired level of mastery of the content. The main purpose of the unit is to enable the learners to develop a sense of responsibility and accountability associated with managing their individual work-related development with guidance from other stakeholders around the organisation hence facilitating continuous development in different organisational engagements.

Suitability of the Unit

All stakeholders need to ensure that they continuously manage their development to ensure they are able to improve productivity and boost their performance within the organisation. 8605-409 Managing Personal Development, therefore, provided the platform upon which the stakeholders develop the understanding of principles that they can use to effectively assess their performance and conduct effective work-related development to boost their abilities and contribution to the organisation.

The unit is designed to meet the learning needs of the line managers and regional managers who are at the middle levels of management within the organisations. This unit provides guidance to help middle-level managers to achieve the status of employment or learning supervisors who are able to become workplace mentors within the organisation. However, it is not limited to middle-level managers.

The top managers and first-level managers can use the information to boost their understanding of development strategies and opportunities and prepare them for other leadership engagements, respectively. The employees within the organisation and supervisors can also use the information provided within the unit as a stepping stone to preparing better performance and productivity hence impacting their performance within the organisation.

Learning Outcomes

Upon completion of the unit, the learners should be able to:

• Prioritise work-related development need with their employment supervisors or learning supervisors within the organisation they are engaged

• Evaluate the various development support and resources as well as the constraints within their areas of responsibility with their learning supervisors

• Develop a plan for development activities with the learning supervisor aimed at increasing their work-related performance

• Implement the strategies set out within the development plan

• Conduct a review at regular agreed intervals with the employment or learning supervisor that determine the effectiveness of the strategies and activities that have been put lance in meeting the learning needs

• Show understanding of the significance of learning and development in improving individual and workplace performance in their areas of responsibility

• Together with the employment or learning supervisors, evaluate the short-term goals to examine the progress towards achieving the long-term and medium goals

• Revise the development plans based on evaluation with the employment supervisors to ensure it is contextual and suited to the learner

• Evaluate together with the employment or learner supervisors the effectiveness of the development activities on work performance

Key Learning Areas

8605-409 Managing Personal Development is a wide unit that covers the strategies and techniques that can be used to achieve personal development. It covers different areas, including:

Word-Related Development Requirements

This area of learning lays the basic foundation for work-related development. The learners are introduced to the techniques of personal self-assessment that they can use to appreciate their strengths and weaknesses. They are also guided to understanding the different learning styles that can be used to improve the performance by facilitating development. In this area of learning, the learning cycle and its implication in professional development are also taught to the learners, so that they can appreciate the deep and surface concepts of learning. They are also introduced to the process of goal setting to determine the SMART goals that the development process aims at achieving.

Evaluation of Planned Development Activities

This area of learning aims at ensuring that the learners are able to develop and implement learning and development strategies to ensure that they achieve the desired levels of work-related development. The learners are introduced to the range of learning and development tools that are both formal and informal, as well as techniques for determining the efficiency and appropriateness of the learning goals and preferences; in this area, the learner is also helped to develop self-management skills that they can use in facilitating growth and development in personal and professionals aspects.

Impact of Development on Workplace Performance

This area of learning helps to align the process of personal development to the organisational goals and objectives. The learners are introduced to the process of goal setting. This involves understanding the SMART objectives and techniques that they can use to review the progress and achievement of the set learning goals and objectives. The learners are also guided in understanding different forms of performance appraisal that they can use to determine and evaluate the progress towards accomplishing the set goals and objectives.

Evaluation

Upon completion of the unit, the learners are put through an evaluation process. They are required to complete a written assessment that helps to determine the mastery of both theory and practice associated with the unit. The assessor can also use supervised practice to further ensure that learning goals and objectives are achieved.