Placement Essay: Roles, Responsibilities, And Goal Setting.

Your responsibilities in the Workplace

The report is a placement plan that describes my personal goals and objectives as well as expectations and responsibilities that I will be fulfilling in my host organization. This is a document that outlines your placement's responsibilities, expectations, and assessment processes.

My placement started on 28^th February with Australian centre for pacific island research (ACPIR). I am currently working with Dr. Thane Militz in USC’s Tropical Aquaculture Research group which collaborates with the Papua New Guinea (PNG) National Fisheries Authority on fisheries/aquaculture research.

Every work has some roles and responsibilities and before my internship began I had a meeting with all staff members for induction and to update everyone about their everyday work responsibilities. My working days include Monday, Tuesday (half day) and Thursday.

After a week of my placement, another meeting was conducted to review everyone’s performance and every member presented their research through PowerPoint presentation.

Every job role has key responsibilities to make the person fit into the role. My responsibilities involves below mentioned tasks which helped me perform my job efficiently:

• Collection of Data From Secondary Sources
• Data management and entry of useful data of the organization with the help of Microsoft excel.
• Standardization of production measurements
• Adjustment of sales data for inflation
• Visualizing data using Microsoft excel
• Preparing presentations on performance of business with large data set
• Scheduling meeting with supervisor to discuss weekly progress

What your host organisation expects from you

For gaining sustainability and competitive edge in the industry, every organization requires that its employees work diligently and contribute towards organization’s objectives. Following are some of the components that is expected from every employee by the host organization:

Behaviour: Ethical and good behaviour of employee in the workplace is directly linked with company’s operations, processes and overall success. Employee having professional behaviour generally results in collaboration and development of team dynamics in order to enhance company’s image while poor behaviour generates negative public image (Farooq et al., 2021).

Time management: Every organization expects its employees to finish work on time, maintaining workplace attendance and arriving at the work at defined time. This helps the management maintain a culture that involves discipline and values. Managing time makes the employees more productive, less stress and achieves targets (Aeon & Aguinis, 2017). Furthermore, employees who manage their time in the workplace are often offered more opportunities to grow in their career.

Less absenteeism: Taking leaves without prior notice often makes the work suffer. This impacts the whole team performance and impacts profitability of the company. Hence, it is very vital for an employee to manage absenteeism and if leave is required, prior permission must be taken from supervisors.

Meeting target: Every organization has set of goals and objectives that are needs to be achieved at the end of every month and year. For managing performance of employees, it is very vital to make sure that they are meeting target (Aeon & Aguinis, 2017). Meeting targets will not only make employees motivated to gain reward and recognition but also make the organization more productive and responsible in front of stakeholders.

What your host organisation expects from you

Quality management: The main objective of every company is customer satisfaction. When employees are able to deliver project as per the defined standards, it help in generating quality products and make the clients retain for longer period of time. So, vale delivery is on priority list of every organization (Ross, 2017). 

What you expect from yourself

We all have aspirations in life, and those expectations would vary as we acquire new experiences and knowledge. Some of the things that I expect from myself are:

• To acquire new skills and gain more experience by working with competent seniors
• To achieve success in life through dedication, honesty and hard work.
• To fill my head with positivity, optimism, and a cheerful attitude, and to eliminate all weakness and pessimism.
• To become strong and financially independent along with a strong sense of gratitude.
• To find my inner capabilities and work on them during leisure time.
• Develop empathy for my fellow beings and do my job with full enthusiasm.
• Learn to make a balance between personal and professional life.
• To help my parents in their old age, and if I ever have the opportunity to work with a genuine community for the poor, I will take the opportunity.

What goals you and your host organisation want to achieve from your placement

• I want to develop my skill set in coordination with my work responsibilities in the workplace.
• To be able to understand past exports for commercial exports to PNG
• To be able understand consumer behaviour patterns for PNG handy craft sector
• To gain proficiency in my technical skills like MS-excel
• Develop good and ethical workplace behaviour.

How you propose you will achieve those goals

I will achieve my goals by having SMART objectives for them. At work, to avoid ambiguity I will prioritize my work on daily basis, so that I can achieve it in assigned deadline. I will develop an action plan for my goals based on SMART framework so they are time-bound and achievable.

For sharpening my technical skills I would rather practice it for 1 hour daily and watch YouTube tutorials that help in learning such skills. For acquiring a good moral and ethical behaviour in personal and professional life, I think communication is the key in this area. For improving my communication skills I will develop active listening, conducting presentations, interact with people, accept feedback and criticisms, read books and articles and participate in events.

Why achieving those goals is important to you

Achieving above goals is very vital for my career development. As my host organization is planning to partner with national fisheries authority in PNG and the commodities examined of commercial importance to coastal community. If I am able to understand the consumer behaviour patterns, I can help my company in meeting client’s expectations and demands.

Similarly, technical skills make a person work more efficiently and step ahead in the career. Every employer nowadays is looking for candidates who possess some technical skills. This will help me secure a good job in Australia. Also, if I am positive, ethical and hardworking I will be able to thrive in the organization wherever I will work in future.

How achieving those goals will enhance your employability

Having a set of defined goals and objectives and an action plan to achieve them makes a person more disciplined in life. My main goal is to improve my skill set. Skill set will assist me in making my CV stand out from others. A good set of technical and soft skills always attract the attention of employers. I will be more likely to come up with innovative, game-changing ideas and solutions if i gain new knowledge and aptitudes. At work, lifelong learning is critical for adapting to the changes and seizing new possibilities - it will allow me to become more adaptable, which is an important ability in today's workplace.

What you expect from yourself

Skill set development is highly required in the labour market because employers look for candidates who are flexible and competent in abilities for taking risks in business environment (Holland, 2018). 

How achieving those goals will add value to the operations of your host business or organisation

With my technical skills and good communication skill, I can help my organization achieve good customer service by interacting with customers on constant basis. My current job role is to manage data. Data management involves huge confidentiality and I can make sure that it is conducted in an ethical manner. Checking standards measurements in production will help my company manage quality management and deliver right products to the clients and on assigned deadline. Also, with my technical skills I can assist my seniors in adjusting sales data and visualizing it in a clear format.

Hence, by establishing processes and regulations for data usage and fostering trust in the data used to make decisions across the business, data management will help to reduce the risk of errors (Gharaibeh et al., 2017). Company could respond more quickly to market shifts and client demands if they have access to trustworthy, up-to-date data.

How you will monitor and evaluate your progress towards meeting your responsibilities, expectations and goals

I will monitor and evaluate my progress towards my responsibilities and goals on the basis of following steps:

Feedback from supervisor: Getting feedback from supervisors is very vital in understanding the progress of the goals and responsibilities. If my performance exceeds the expectation of my seniors and I receive positive feedback, then I am on the right track. However, if I receive negative feedback for my performance, then I will take it as an opportunity to improve and find out loop hole and work to fix it on priority basis.

Regular meetings: Conducting weekly meetings with my supervisor will help in monitoring the progress and also make me clear my doubts while communicating directly. This will not only improve my communication but also help me become more accountable towards my work.

Self-assessment tools: Undertaking self-assessment activities available online to test one’s technical and soft skills is a good way to monitor one’s progress. I will undertake tasks that include excel sheets, communication, and also for enhancing other skills like critical analysis, decision making, problem solving and other. This will help me understand areas where I need to put more effort. 

References

Aeon, B., & Aguinis, H. (2017). It’s about time: New perspectives and insights on time management. Academy of management perspectives, 31(4), 309-330.

Farooq, K., Yusliza, M. Y., Wahyuningtyas, R., Haque, A. U., Muhammad, Z., & Saputra, J. (2021). Exploring challenges and solutions in performing employee ecological behaviour for a sustainable workplace. Sustainability, 13(17), 9665.

Gharaibeh, A., Salahuddin, M. A., Hussini, S. J., Khreishah, A., Khalil, I., Guizani, M., & Al-Fuqaha, A. (2017). Smart cities: A survey on data management, security, and enabling technologies. IEEE Communications Surveys & Tutorials, 19(4), 2456-2501.

Holland, C. (2018). Benefits of a mediators' skill set.112.

Ross, J. E. (2017). Total quality management: Text, cases, and readings. Routledge.