Employability Skills: Timbacourt Answers | Assessment Answer

Answer:

Task 1:

Be able to determine own responsibilities and performances

Develop a set of own responsibilities and performance objectives

To proceed with the report, store manager for Timbacourt for the new flagship store has been taken for the management level and junior sales executive from the junior staff level has been taken.

Job Responsibilities of Store Manager of Timbacourt (Andrews and Russell, 2012)

1. Finishes the operational requirements of the store by assigning and scheduling the employees
2. Following up on the work results
3. Maintains the job results of the store staff by counseling, coaching and disciplining the employees; forecast, monitoring and appraising the results of the job
4. Ensures the availability of the stock and the services by contract approval and maintenance of inventories
5. Maintaining the reputation and stability of the store in the shopping centre
6. Contributes to the team effort by attaining the results

Performance Objectives of Store Manager

1. Agreeing on the standards of performance with the staff
2. Monitoring the methods of performance against the job responsibilities
3. Review of the performance by holding meeting with each employees of the retail store
4. Dealing with the under performance by conveying the improvement areas
5. Performance Appraisal
6. Regular sessions on feedback
7. Communication of the direct reports
8. Enhancing team building

Job responsibilities of Junior Sales Executive

1. Be able to provide the high quality service to customer
2. Provide exceptional experience of shopping to the customers


Capitalize on sales by effective knowledge on fashion
Be efficient team member

style="text-align: justify;">Maintaining the stock rooms effectively
Assist the managers in the regular operations

Performance Objectives of Junior Sales Executive

1. Effectiveness in handling of the store activities
2. Understanding and knowledge of the work
3. Listens to the ideas by giving timely and relevant information
4. Effective in team work
5. Understands problems and gives apt solutions
6. Effective in time management

1.2 Evaluate own effectiveness against the defined objectives

The store manager and the junior sales executive can evaluate the effectiveness against their defined objectives by the following table:

Skill Areas	Evaluation Methods (Yes/No/Little/Other)
Knowledge of the work (fashion retail)
Problem Solving approach under pressure (understanding the complicated problems)
Ability to work with the other employees (Interpersonal Skills)
Ability to increase the sales by the increased satisfied customers (Customer satisfaction )
Knowledge of computer packages like spreadsheets, word processor (Proficient/ Intermediate)
Self-motivated and self-reliant
Capacity to respond to unpredictable situations
Capacity to determine strategy and effectiveness of self-monitoring
Ability to do research by searching relevant information source
Ability to manage time and meeting deadlines

Table 1: Evaluation of effectiveness against objectives (Daly, 2013)

Recommendations for improvement

Recommendations for Store Manager: 

• He has to set performance goals for the staff to attain productivity
• He should coach the employees so that they can overcome the issues in their performance
• He should encourage the employees to give new concepts and ideas
• He should listen to the problems of the employees in the store regarding any information they require or the customers requires.

Recommendations for Junior Sales Executive:

• He should focus on push sales strategy to increase the productivity
• He should improve the areas of handling customer grievances
• He should improve in the areas of knowledge about the linen and the updated fashion (de Oliveira and de Castro Guimarães, 2010)

Review how the motivational techniques can be used to improve the quality of performance

The motivational techniques that can be used in Timbacourt so that there is an increment in the performance are:

• Recognition: When the employees perform nicely in their job that it adds to the productivity of the company, the management should give recognition to that particular employee like a letter of appreciation, word of praise, etc. so that the employee gets motivated to enhance the performance level.
   
• Rewards and incentives: The employee can be given rewards for doing good sales and incentives too when they cross their targets so that they get motivated to do more sales.
   
• Encouragement of healthy competition: This will motivate the employees to increase the sales of the outlet (Griffin and Annulis, 2013)

Be able to develop interpersonal and transferable skills

Develop solutions to work based problems

Transferable skills can be developed in any time of life and thus the presentation and speaking skills is very valuable in fashion retail when it come to sell a product to the customers. The solutions to the work based problems in fashion retail in Timbacourt for the employees are as follows:

• Suppose a customer is unable to decide which cloth to purchase, there come the research and analytical skills to the staff at play. The employee should find solution to the problems of the customers who is unable to decide. He can ask about the taste and preference of the customer and develop a analysis on spot and assist the customer in purchasing the cloth. (Haasler, 2013)
   
• The staff should be able to communicate the updated fashion news and the new arrivals of garments in the store so that the customers get clarity in their choice and find their shopping a pleasant one.
   
• The new staff should possess knowledge in computer application so that he or she can handle the spreadsheets, MS-Access, etc. whenever required. (Lee, Ko and Choo, 2015)

Communicate in a variety of styles and appropriate manner at various levels

The styles and manner at various levels are:

Store Manager

• Team Work: The store manager should effectively work in teams to accomplish the goals
   
• Leadership style: The store manager should use effective leadership style, which is not too strict or too lenient on the employees.
   
• Problem-Solving Style: When there is any issue in the store with any stock or any customer, the store manager should be able to solve the problem tactfully.

Junior Sales Executive

• Communication style: The sales executive should communicate any issues or workplace problems to the management in a formal way. If the issues need serious attention, than it should be focused on by the team leader.
   
• Creative Selling Style: The sales staff should be able to sell the high end fashion clothes to the customers.
   
• Work Responsiveness: When any issues arise, it is good to solve the problem mutually with the customers or give alternate solutions. (Lievens, 2013)

Identify effective time management strategies

Store Manager:

• Focus on one task at a time
• Focus on the SMART goals
• Short meetings for the day’s retail operation should be done at the beginning of the day with the team leaders of the sales team

Junior Sales Executive

• Identification of the time when the performance is at its peak so that one hour during that time should be given to generating productivity
• When attending a customer, another sales executive interrupts; either take the customer to the clothes rack by yourself or leave it to the other executive.
• Analyze when a customer has the intention to buy, if they do not have any intention attend the other customers. (Maxwell et al., 2010)

Understand the dynamics of working with others

Explain the roles people play in a team and how they can work together to achieve shared goals

In a team, any individual play a role because the individuals construct it. The roles of working in a team are mentioned below:

• Requirements of job: The job site has to categories the obligations and the rules where the job particulars are given for the work process of the management. The expectations of the customers are required to be planned here.
   
• Allocation of resources: Here the resources are required to be arranged for the current stock and the management of team. The team building has to be planned and necessary tools are to be taken. (Miller, Biggart and Newton, 2013)
   
• Communication of the team: The jobs are required to be confirmed when it is allocated so that it is finished within a stipulated time. Distribution of jobs must be done as per the capabilities of the members
   
• Fulfilling requirements of job: The human resource department should complete the requirement of job in a proper manner. It must be made certain that the requirements are constructed, completed and implicit.

Analyze team dynamics

In a place of work, the team is familiar with the importance of affiliations with the others and so team dynamics is necessary. Teamwork is important for the policy of decentralization. Assistinf the team members is the job of the store managers. The team members should foresee the barriers in the work and must solve together (Saunders and Zuzel, 2010). This is the contribution of an optimistic dynamic of the team. In Timbacourt, Westfield Shopping Centre, the team members should understand their individual objectives and give their best to attain the same.

Suggest alternative ways to complete tasks and achieve team goals

Formation of the work objectives of the team is required to attain the objectives and goals of the team. In fashion retail to be successful in the business, the alternative way to accomplish the goals is “specialization”. Here, every member of the team will perform continuously for their prescribe job role to achieve their target. AS commented by (Shen and Li, 2015), the assigned job to the team members according to their expertise will generate increased sales and accomplishment of target will be easier.

M1 Identify and apply strategies to find appropriate solutions

Depending on the requirement of the new staff for the flagship store in task 1, the strategies of specific job descriptions were analyzed. The strategy like five step problem solving approach is identified that comprises the following steps:

• What is the problem?
• What is the suggested plan?
• What may happen if?
• Try the strategy
• Measure the output

Another strategy that is applied to find appropriate solutions is FMEA Tool (Failure Modes Effects Analysis) that understands the potential problems to the process even before they occur. This will minimize the product failure in the store, early identification of the risk (Suneela, 2014). Track the improvements process, documentation evaluation and constructing effective plan of test.  

The performance appraisal tools like balance score card, checklist, etc has been studied to carry out the research.

M2 Select/ design and apply appropriate methods/ techniques

The techniques available to carry out this study were the process and steps of recruitment of candidates. The methods of recruitment of staffs and potential employees include:

• Indirect Method like advertisement, professional journals, etc
• Direct Method like visiting professional institutes
• Third Party Pay Role like the payroll will be decided by the other institutions and not the company directly

The learning methods of talent management have been applied here.

The methods of performance objectives that has been applied is the graphic rating scales as the store is a production oriented workplace, the scale of rating consists of standards of performance, job responsibilities and is scaled from 1 to 5 for rating the employee (Torres, 2014).  The following diagram shows the method:

 D2 Take responsibility for managing and organizing activities

The use of HR metrics and workforce analytics will assist in managing and organizing the activities in differentiating the efficient employers and effective employees. The following is analyzed and researched upon:

• Reporting incorporates the decisions on what, how, when and to whom
• Dashboards to reflect on the efforts for the alignment of analysis of real time of the organization and the processes of HR
• Data Mining for the information of the human capital to judge the effectiveness of the employees
• Workforce Modeling to understand the efficiency of the employers that will be understood from the change required in the organization.

D3 Demonstrate convergent/ lateral/ creative thinking

To stay ahead of the competition a business has to have creative thinking in it. The employers need the candidates who possess the talent of “thinking out of the box” during sales and the employees need to be recognized in their job. Proper training of the employees imparted by the employers will demonstrate the efficiency and the effectiveness of the employers and the employees (Tuan, 2011).

Task 2: 

Be able to develop strategies for problem solving       

Evaluate tools and methods for developing solutions to problems

Recruitment methods for recruiting staffs for online business:

• The recruiter will give a scenario to two interviewees which will help the recruiter to analyze that person.
   
• Before taking the interview the recruiter’s sets some criteria’s and on that they will recruit the best fit employees for their organization and for that characteristics need to match with the recruiter’s criteria.
   
• The analyses done by the interviewees with that the recruiter also look that how he is handling the situation and those factors are matching with the criteria of the recruiter or not.
   
• Among the two interviewees the criteria selected by the recruiter will match then that person will be hired.

Develop an appropriate strategy for resolving a particular problem

Appropriate strategies for solving particular strategies:

At first we need to analyze the problem and according to that the steps will be taken to resolve the problems. Like-what is the current situation of the problem in comparison to the expected situation? What are the expectations from the problem? Whether the problems will affect in any way for achieving the goals of the organization?

The depth of the problem will be seen and along with that it will also be seen that how much the problem is affecting the organization. Like-How much the problem is affecting the organization? How much the problem is affecting the stakeholders of the organization? What steps the stakeholders and the employees taking to deal with the problem?

After the criteria’s are set for dealing with the problem then according to those criteria’s the strategies will be implemented so that there is no way of risking the organization (Wibrow, 2011). Along with that organization also have to keep under their notice that in future they can avoid these types of problems and if by chance these types of problems arise again then they can tackle that tactfully without panicking. If they solve the problems tactfully then they can avoid risk for their organization (Rasul, and Puvanasvaran, 2012).

 Evaluate the potential impact on the business of implementing the strategy

When a strategy is being implemented in the business then a potential impact is expected and that also for the betterment of the organization. Before implementing the strategies the organization checks that the strategies which they are thinking of implementing in their organization will fit the organization or not. If the strategies is not according to the growth of the organization then they have to change their strategies and then they will at first in some part of the organization to check that the strategies is working according to their plan or not and what benefits the organization is getting by implementing those strategies. After seeing the affect of the implemented strategies the organization then they can implement those strategies in those part of the organization wherever it is required. As the organization will always want to implement the best possible strategy for their organization so that they get the best result from their employees working there and the organization also gets the best result and feedback from the market (Srivastava, and Khare, 2012).

M3 Present and communicate appropriate findings

In the whole report, it is seen that when the recruiter is hiring an employee for their organization; then they have to look for the skills that those skills are there within the interviewee or not. If the skills in the interviewee does not match with the selected criteria by the recruiter then they will not select that interviewee for the post for which they are recruiting them (Rasul, and Mansor, 2013). If the skill matches with the selected criteria of the recruiter then the recruiter will hire that interviewee for that post for which the interview is taking place. Along with that the organization also checks that the employees they are hiring has the capacity of solving the problems their organization is facing (Benson, and Filippaios, 2014). When there will be the brainstorming session for dealing with the situation that has arise then the higher authorities will expect that most of their employees, comes with the some or other idea for dealing with the problem as this scenarios will show which employee has the capability of handling the risk situation tactfully or not (Riebe, and Jackson, 2014).

D1 Use critical reflection to evaluate own work and justify valid conclusions

The strategies that has been adopted by the recruiter is sort of one of the best strategies as this will let them know that the employee they want to hire for their organization is capable of handling all the situations as in the online retail store. It is not easy to work with the operation system as customers are applying their order through online and after that the employees has to look after everything from taking the order till the delivery so when they will recruit for their organization they have to look for all the factors which they want in their employees (Jackson, 2014). Along with that the employees need to have the potential of solving problems which their organization will face and that also tactfully (Griffin, and Annulis, 2013).

D3 Demonstrate convergent/ lateral/ creative thinking

When an employer will assign a task to their employees they will assume that the employee will do that task without any problem and if they face any problem then the employee will ask for any help and the employer is there to guide their employees (Shukla, 2012). As the employer will want that employees will complete the task and along with that the employee will also want that if they are facing any problem then the employer will help or guide them to overcome that problem. If the employer thinks that, they will assign the work to their employees and the employees will do that job without any help then there will be problem in the work and te employer has to face the problem as the employee has finished the work without any guidance from the employer (Jackson, 2013).

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