8607-505 Managing Individual Development

Unit Overview

8607-505 Managing Individual Development is a unit within the ILM Level 5 Qualification in Leadership and Management that covers critical aspects of leadership. The unit provides the learners, mainly practising or potential middle-level managers, with information on promoting continuous individual development. One of the main roles of leaders within the organisation is ensuring that the people under their areas of responsibility are effectively managed. This ensures they are provided with the necessary support to acquire information and skills that help them to adapt to the requirements that are laid on them within the organisation.

Leaders must set out practices and programs to facilitate individual development. Together with the individuals being guided, they conduct a learning needs analysis and put up strategies to ensure that these needs are addressed. It is, therefore, important for the leaders to have an understanding of the techniques and principles that they can implement in developing these desired levels of performance in terms of individual development.8607-505 Managing Individual Development is a unit that helps to build the understanding and gaining skills required to play roles of developing individuals within the organisation.

The unit helps to develop an understanding of the different approaches that can be used to conduct performance gap analysis and develop techniques for the development. This makes this unit critical in helping the leaders and managers to fully play their role in influencing the performances of people within the organisation. The aim of the unit is to develop the ability among the middle managers to be able to manage individual development of those within their areas of responsibility. It is taught in 18 hours of guided learning and contributes 4 credit values to the completion of the module.

Suitability of the Unit

8607-505 Managing Individual Development is a critical unit in improving the potential and performance of leaders. All stakeholders who have influence over people within their areas of responsibility must be able to effectively provide opportunities for growth and development. This involves understanding the needs of development among the individuals they lead or manage. Leadership responsibilities further require the individual to effectively conduct performance analysis and put up effective strategies to address the shortcomings or gaps identified within the performance analysis.

8607-505 Managing Individual Development is, therefore, a unit suited significantly to improve the ability of leaders within the organisation.The unit is designed to meet the Learning needs of the practising or potential middle managers within the organisation. These are stakeholders with a larger span of authority within the organisation. In setting the operational practices, the middle managers can include principles of managing individual development with the strategies and plans hence ensuring that individuals in their areas of responsibility are effectively managed to achieve desired development.

 However, the unit is also applicable to other leaders, including team leaders and executive management. It helps them to understand the practices and procedures of identifying learning and performance gaps and putting up interventions to address these gaps. The unit also helps external consultants, especially in human resource management, to provide information-based support to decision making within the organisation.

Learning Outcomes

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

• Conduct an effective performance analysis with individuals within their area of responsibility to identify development needs from performance gap analysis

• assess the efficiency and suitability of various development vehicle not meet the needs of the individuals within the organisation

• Develop and justify an effective personal development plan to meet the needs of the individuals identified within the organisation

• Explain processes put up to monitor the performance development plan and its efficiency in meeting the learning needs and objectives of the individual

Key Learning Areas

8607-505 Managing Individual Development focuses on guiding the interaction between the leader or managers and the people they lead in ensuring they are able to develop desired performance through developing them. The unit, therefore, focuses on learning areas of identifying learning needs and implementing interventions to address these needs. Some of the main learning areas within the unit include:

Evaluating Individual Performance

This area of learning lays the foundation for conducting effective individual development. The learners are guided in understanding the concept of performance gap analysis and techniques that they can use to conduct performance assessment. They are guided on mastering skills that promote fair and objective assessment in understanding the training needs and the role of training in improving eh ability of the learner. They are also guided to create a link between quality, appraisal and training which are important in individual development.

Implementing Personal Development Plans

This area of learning is important within the unit. It helps to identify the attaining and development techniques that can be used in various contexts and their strengths/ weaknesses. Learners are also guided to understand the learning styles and opportunities that they can use within the organisation to achieve desired performance in individual development. They are also taught on the significance of reporting and recording performance through performance assessment.

It focuses on boosting the ethical understanding and values of the learners by guiding them in understanding the role of confidentiality, responsibility and other mechanisms in preparing effective development plans and implementing them. In providing ability to develop, learners are guided to understand different approaches such as training, coaching, mentoring and other techniques that they can use in providing the learning experiences. Lastly, the learners are guided to understand the approaches of receiving feedbags as one of the tools for evaluating the effectiveness of training.

Evaluation

On completing the unit, the learners are required to complete an evaluation. A written assessment is used to determine the mastery of theory and practice that has been taught within the unit. Other approaches, such as simulated exercises, case studies and supervised practice, can also be used to ensure the learner can use the information in a practical setting.