Applying Strengths In HRM, Shaping Career Aspirations - An Essay.

Write a brief overview of what you are studying and what your career aspirations are

? Identify your key strengths for your desired career choice by critically appraising elements of the Clifton Gallup Strengths and Johari’s Window theories (give examples of your strengths from both)

? How can you apply elements of these theories to achieve your career aspirations?

? Analyse two companies in your sector – What are their history, values and ethics? (choose different sizes e.g. local/regional or regional/global)

? How do elements of each company’s values and ethics align with yours? (you must refer to theories from this module)

? How can networking help you become more commercially aware of your sector? (you should relate

aspects of theory specifically to your sector)

? Reflect on the networking events you have attended and the experience you had; discuss what skills you used

Identify your key strengths for your desired career choice

The term ‘resource’ means ‘source’. Sources can be used when required ( Mansour & Dean, 2016). Human Resources refer to the human techniques, skills, aptitudes, ideas and so on. An organization’s growth depends mostly on the management of the human resources (Chowdhury & Miah, 2016). Therefore, Human resource can be defined as “The total abilities, skills, talents, knowledge, aptitudes, approaches, values, creative, attitudes” in an employee. Hence, HRM is defined as the use of resources in such a way that they give maximum profit to the organization” (Personneltoday, 2010).

Being an understudy of HRM, I have some goals for my career path. I am not only looking for a job title but I want a work life that is not only profitable but also more entertaining as well. I am interested to take a work that improve my skills and add new experiences to my career aspirations. There are many people who dreams of moving from a staff worker job to a job in management. I am also one of them who want to be in a management team and this is my major career aspiration. Management is a field that provides someone to be with opportunities of being creative, enhance ones self-esteem, able to handle more responsibility and also makes earn you more money (Edmunds, 2018).

I want to be on executive level in one of the top management companies, this requires hard work, skills and knowledge, and key strength in a person to achieve that position. It has been more than three decades to Clifton Gallup strength finder that is useful as a tool for study of success in different cultures and across wide variety of functions. It enables someone to discover core strengths and talent in 34 general areas (Gallup, 2018).

It is a psychological tool that is used for training and understanding of self-awareness, interpersonal relationships, inter group relationships, personal development, team development, communication improvement and group dynamics. There are only few tools that emphasis on soft skills and it is one of them (Selfawareness, 2013).

                                                                   Source: (Selfawareness, 2013)

My key strengths include adaptability, context, harmony, includer and restorative.

Adaptability: I live in the present moment. Although I have future plans for my career but they are not a fixed destination for me. According to me career goals is a place that I will create for myself by making choices right now. Adaptability makes me quicker to respond to the demands of today. This quality makes me flexible also as I can manage different task at once while remaining productive in the task (Perkins, 2004).

Context: Although I live in the present moment but sometimes it is necessary to look back and remind the experiences from the past to gain lessons from the past experiences. This makes me realization of initial intentions of those that were embellished with time but context theme reveals those intentions again. This makes me capable of taking better decisions and brings back my confidence (Perkins, 2004).

Applying elements of Clifton Gallup Strengths and Johari’s Window theories

Harmony: I respect opinions of others and never try to impose my beliefs on others. According to me as teammates everyone is sailing in the same boat and there is no need to rock the boat just to show that one can do that. I believe that one should keep their opinions in check and always provide support to each other to be more productive for oneself as well as for the organization (Perkins, 2004).

Includer: My philosophy of working is based on the fact that benefits as many people as possible. Everyone is important and hence no one should be ignored. A good leader is one who can bind up his team and make them work together (Schreiner, 2006).

Restorative: I do not dismayed when some problem is encountered either I love solving problems. I enjoy the challenges and always love to find their solutions. I believe problems challenge ones potential and give someone the opportunity to push their limits (Perkins, 2004).

I want to apply my key strengths and skills in the right direction that would help me in achieving my goal. Adaptability will help me in this as success to reach to the top level depends upon the response to constantly changing environments. It is a long way process and I have to go through different and changing circumstances.

It requires knowledge and experiences to be successful. Reading is the best way for gaining knowledge and will make me think more clearly. Context strength will help me in this as it will allow me to go through my past experiences and the past projects before proceeding further and help me in not repeating the past mistakes.

Harmony will help me in building a network of people that has different perspectives and at the time of expertise need I can rely on them. Openness to differing perspectives will help in learning, which is the key factor to succeed in future.

A good leader always supports his team and makes them feel important (HumanResources, 2018). An employee gives his best for the organization when he feels that organization considers him as a valuable asset of the company.

While performing different task and working on different project one has to go through different kind of problems. It needs strength to face those problems without getting distressed from them and always come up with a solution for any kind of problem.

I would love to be a part of two best companies in United Kingdom. First one is Tesco and the other is Sainsbury’s.

Tesco was originated in 1919 by Jack Cohen but the name of Tesco was given in 1924 and its headquarters are located in Welwyn Garden city. It is a multinational groceries and general merchandise retailer. It has emerged as one of the best and largest companies in UK. Tesco has shops in seven countries. Businesses operated by Tesco include electronics, petrol, books, telecoms, clothing, software, furniture, financial services, and internet services. Tesco has more than 440K employees and has 6800 shops around the world. Dave Lewis is the chief executive and Jason Tarry is the CEO of the company. Core purpose of Tesco is “serving customers a little better every day”. Tesco understand their customers and act responsibly to meet their needs. Tesco values are working as a team; give respect to each other, and share knowledge and experiences in helping to grow everyone (Tesco, 2018).

Analyzing two companies in your sector

Sainsbury’s was founded in 1869 by John James Sainsbury in London. It is the 2^nd largest chain of supermarkets in UK. It holds the 16.9% of the supermarket sector. Woolworths operates in the retail stores. Sainsbury’s works in the three divisions i.e. Sainsbury’s Supermarkets, Sainsbury’s Argos, and Sainsbury’s Bank. David Tyler is the current chairman of Sainsbury’s. There are more than 1400 stores of Sainsbury’s and they are giving employment to more than 13K people. Sainsbury’s work strategy is they know their customers better than anyone else. It is an exciting business as retailing never stands still (Sainsbury's, 2018).

I think my strengths are best aligned with these companies as Tesco and Sainsbury’s both are employee and customer oriented companies. To get into a team and work as a team it requires an includer that can effectively work with team and also appreciate and respect opinions of teammates and maintains harmony among colleagues. Both promote people development and provide different platforms to employees to enhance their careers. Both firms has come a long way and has a wide history of success journey. It will give a chance to learn and grow experiences from their journey to a context.

Networking is an art of building alliances and is considered as a critical skill for employees in all job roles. Networking is a vital tool for building careers and making connections (CHRM, 2018). In this century everything is changing at an incredible speed and it is not possible to grow if one is going to remain relevant in this uncertain future. To stand out in this competitive field, it is necessary to make connection with people who are helpful and guide one to achieve ones goals by sharing the information and knowledge that matters (Middlemiss, 2017). Networking is about finding and connecting with people who allows others to innovate. And to make connections with such kind of people, it is first important for someone to drive their key strengths and skills and thus find out with whom they must build connection.

Last month an event occurred in the community where all the professionals of HRM gathered along with the researches in the same field. I got a chance to interact with them and ask various questions related to my course. They were very helpful and motivating. Communication and the confidence helped me a lot to start conversation with them. I told them about my career aspirations and ask for their guidance. They shared their knowledge and experiences with me for answering questions I have asked from them. It was a great source of enthusiasm and guidance that will be going to help me in future for achieving my goals. Even I got a chance to develop personal contacts with some of them to seek for their help in the future.

Conclusion:

Human Resource and management provides one many areas of career development. Understudies of HRM enhance their techniques, skills, ideas, and aptitude for making career in the field of management. As an understudy of HRM, I also have goals of reaching at higher positions in the field of management. In this report I have discussed two theories that are Clifton Gallup strength finder and the Johari’s Window model that are being used as a tool for determining ones key strength, personality, behaviour and the areas that need improvement for becoming HR professionals. My dream companies are Tesco and Sainsbury’s, and I am looking to be a part of one of these companies in future. I am working on my key strengths that I possess and enhancing my skills to get my dream position. Apart from skills and knowledge, there is one more important factor for HR professionals and anyone who wants to achieve success in their job roles is ‘networking’. Interaction and developing contacts with people who help in achieving goals by sharing their knowledge, skills and experiences is very important to be successful in any career.

Reference:

Mansour, B. E. & Dean, J. C., 2016. Employability Skills as Perceived by Employers and University Faculty in the Fields of Human Resource Development (HRD) for Entry Level Graduate Jobs. Journal of Human Resource and Sustainability Studies, Volume 4, pp. 39-49.

Chowdhury , T. A. & Miah, M. K., 2016. Employability skills for entry-level human resources management positions: Perceptions of students and employers. Australian Council for Educational Research, 25(2), pp. 55-68.

CHRM, 2018. Significance of Networking in HR. [Online]
Available at: https://www.hrmonline.co.nz/news/is-networking-important-for-hr-242516.aspx

Edmunds, S. A., 2018. Some Examples of Career Aspirations. [Online]
Available at: https://work.chron.com/examples-career-aspirations-16147.html

Gallup, 2018. Understand how your talents work with others. [Online]
Available at: https://www.gallupstrengthscenter.com/home/en-us/cliftonstrengths-themes-domains

HumanResources, 2018. Relationship-Building: Networking. [Online]
Available at: https://hr.berkeley.edu/development/career-development/career-management/relationship-building/networking

Middlemiss, N., 2017. Is networking important for HR?. [Online]
Available at: https://www.hrmonline.co.nz/news/is-networking-important-for-hr-242516.aspx

Perkins, E., 2004. Clifton Strengths Finder Resource Guide. [Online]
Available at: https://students.sunyocc.edu/uploadedFiles/_Shared_Content/Departments_and_Offices/Other_Groups/StrengthsQuest/Mgmt%20ResourceGuide.pdf

Personneltoday, 2010. HR networking: Top tips and the benefits. [Online]
Available at: https://www.personneltoday.com/hr/hr-networking-top-tips-and-the-benefits/

Sainsbury's, 2018. The five Pillars of our Strategy. [Online]
Available at: https://www.about.sainsburys.co.uk/about-us/our-business-strategy

Schreiner, L. A., 2006. A Technical Report on the Clifton Strengthsfinder with College Students, s.l.: s.n.

Selfawareness, 2013. Understanding the Johari Window model. [Online]
Available at: https://www.selfawareness.org.uk/news/understanding-the-johari-window-model

Tesco, 2018. Core Purpose and Values. [Online]
Available at: https://www.tescoplc.com/about-us/core-purpose-and-values/