1) A skills audit involves gathering information about employees' capabilities for specific tasks or job roles. This allows organizations to understand strengths, weaknesses, and training needs. 2) Psychometric testing assesses abilities, personality, and interests in a structured way. These tests are commonly used in recruitment to help employers select candidates. 3) Identifying individual and organizational learning needs is important for optimizing performance. Methods include skills audits, gap analysis between current and required skills, and understanding individual learning styles.

1. Unit 2
Advanced Professional
Development
1

2. Skills Audit
• A skills audit provides a convenient way of
gathering information about the available
capabilities of people for a specified task.
• This may be a particular task to be carried
out within a project or it could be a more
general requirement for a specific job role.
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3. Leadership Skills Audit
A leadership skills audit, for example, provides a definitive measure of
leadership skills and ability, including:
1. A definition of leadership.
2. The main inhibitors to leadership development.
3. How to identify the competencies most vital to leaders in your
organisation.
4. How to develop a leadership model that is appropriate to your
organisation.
5. Developing a leadership performance profile.
6. How to administer the profiles and get feedback.
7. Rules for analysing the resulting profile data.
8. How to use and communicate data derived from the audit.
9. How to build the leadership skills audit process into an annual cycle.
10. How to use the assessment data to build a comprehensive, targeted
leadership skills training program. 3

4. Skills Assessment Methodology
Personal profile using • The best place to start with is
self-assessment tools yourself - but what do you need
• A profile is a means of self- to know about yourself?
evaluation. It is a personal • There are three main aspects of
record which is for you to keep. your 'vocational profile'.
It is for your own use to help you – Skills, Motivation and
identify strengths and Personality.
weaknesses, and to plan how to • Can I do the job ?
develop your skills in particular – Skills: demonstrated through
qualifications, abilities, experience,
areas. aptitude tests
• The profile focuses on a range • Will I do the job?
of skills concerning research – Motivation: interests, values, ambitions
and communication and will help • Will I fit into the
you with the formal team/organisation?
selfassessment exercise – Personality: personal traits, attitudes and
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required for this course. preferences

5. Skills, Motivation and
Personality
5

6. Personal profile using self-
assessment tools
• It may also be essential to consider
• Nevertheless, the more sources
constraints and special
available the fuller the picture.
circumstances, such as any physical
or health disabilities, geographical • By reviewing these you will also
restrictions, and limitations of finance take the first step towards
or family circumstance. identifying evidence of your
capabilities; evidence you can
• Assessing 'Skills' is not
include in your CV or cite at job
straightforward. You can be skilled at
interview.
one thing, but find something similar
quite difficult. • You want to get a job that uses
your skills to the full, which plays
• Or you can be confident in using a
to your strengths and lets you
skill in some settings, but not in
make an effective contribution.
others.
• But what are your skills?
• So to gain a rounded picture of your
skills and abilities you will need to
draw on many sources of information
which will require careful interpretation 6

7. To assess your strengths and weaknesses in terms of 'transferable skills' that can
be equally applied to both the academic and work setting.
7

8. Other Skills Audit
• http://www.businessballs.com/personalprofileindicator.pdf
• A particularly good site can be found at http://www.psychometric-
success.com
• Developing your own style is fundamental to professional and personal
development.
– Go to the following site and try some of the activities suggested.
– http://www.studyskills.soton.ac.uk/studyguides/Learning%20Styles.doc
– Go to the following website and read some recent research articles on
learning styles
– http://www.learning-styles-online.com
– Also, go to http://www.skills4study.com and click on Learning Games.
– You may also like to go to the following sites, which identify different learning
styles as advocated by Kolb
http://web.cortland.edu/andersmd/learning/Kolb.htm
– For more detailed information on management and development, you are
8
directed to: Mumford, A (1986). Handbook of Management Development.
Gower.

9. Psychometric testing
• A psychometric test is a way of assessing
a person's ability or personality in a
measured and structured way.
• There are three main types of tests:
– Ability tests.
– Personality tests.
– Interest tests.
9

10. Psychometric testing
• Some tests are used by employers to help them in
their recruitment process while other tests can help
people with career decision-making.
• It is common for graduate employers to use
psychometric tests as part of their selection process.
– Organisations believe such tests help them recruit the right
people with the appropriate mix of abilities and personal
qualities.
– They are also useful for "sifting out" large numbers of
applicants at an early stage and so saving the employers
both time and money.
10

11. Psychometric testing
Ability tests • Specific ability tests
• General intelligence There are two types of
tests specific ability tests:
– Some tests assess your • Attainment tests
general ability (your – These examine the skills and
intelligence). knowledge you already
possess.
– They are not dependent on
– They are designed to assess
prior learning or knowledge what you know at the time of
but more on how good you the test such as for a driving
are at solving problems test or a word processing test.
using logical thinking. These can be known as work-
related tests.
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12. Psychometric testing
Aptitude tests • The two most common
• These are more of a forms of aptitude tests are
measure of your potential verbal and numerical
for certain activities. reasoning tests.
• They do not rely on any • There are also more
previous knowledge or specialised tests which
training, but more on can be used if you are
your natural ability or applying for particular
aptitude. careers in IT, science or
engineering, for example.
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13. Personal SWOT analysis
• A personal SWOT analysis attempts to
answer the simple question, 'what are you
like?'
• The purpose of this is to understand where
you are at the moment and where your likely
vulnerability lies.
• By analysing four key factors, it is possible to
build a strong picture of yourself.
13

14. Personal SWOT analysis
• Your personal values are the • Being clear about and knowing
things that are important to what's important to you is vital,
you and that you look for in and will be a great guide to you
your life and relationships. as you move onwards and
• Personal values can include; upwards.
family, money, the • It will
environment, independence,
– 1. Keep you on track and
ambition or honesty. motivated.
• It's important to set your – 2. Help with making decisions.
goals in line with your – 3. Add to your sense of fulfilment
values; otherwise you may
end up where you thought
you wanted to be, only to be
disappointed
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15. Strengths and Weaknesses
are usually things internal to
you - about your skills,
personality character, etc.
Opportunities and Threats are
usually external - about people
you know, job openings that
might occur, and other external
factors that might impact on your
life. 15

16. Assessment and management
competence standards
• A competence standard is a requirement or condition for the
purpose of demonstrating a particular competence or ability,
such as a particular level of knowledge, or the strength or ability
to carry out a particular task within a set period.
• Professional and qualifications bodies need to be very clear
about what is (and is not) a competence standard.
• Institutions which use an interpretation of competence
standards as a basis for admitting students and making
adjustments would do well to check that they have a correct
understanding of what the relevant professional or qualifications
body has defined as competence standards.
• Competence standards are not the same as subject benchmark
standards, and there may be scope for some confusion here.
16

17. Gap Analysis
• From an organisational perspective,
understanding and knowing what and where the
knowledge, skills and abilities of your
employees lie is essential and critical in the
modern working environment.
• Recognising individual employee strengths and
being aware of their weaknesses will allow an
organisation to optimise peoples' strengths and
support their weaknesses.
• This can be achieved by carrying out what is
known as 'gap analysis'. 17

18. Individual Research
1. Go to the following sites and make notes accordingly
http://www.hull.ac.uk/php/cesagh/documents/GAPANALYS
IS.rtf
– Case Study 1: Skills gap 'threatens UK future'
Story from BBC NEWS: http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-
/1/hi/education/4501346.stm
– Case Study 2: India firms warn on IT skills gap
Story from BBC NEWS: http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-
/2/hi/south_asia/6124872.stm
2. For those of you who wish to undertake further study, you
are directed to (Pedlar et al, 2007) Chapter 5 - Assessing
Yourself and Setting some Goals for Self-Development,
and Chapter 6 - How to Select and use the Activities. 18

19. Identifying learning and
development needs
• There are three contexts in which learning and
development needs may be identified:
1. Organisational.
2. Group or team.
3. Individual.
19

20. Identifying learning and
development needs arise out of
There are at least eight potential 4. Changes in personnel
influences that stimulate the organisational change; a different
requirement for new and improved mix of people need multi-skilling,
skills. changes to roles and
responsibilities cause key staff to
1. Annual (or more frequent)
be overloaded.
organisational proactive event.
5. Changes in financial support
2. Changes in the marketplace mean
across several sites cause a
customers change, new customers
reassessment of the scope and
emerge, customer expectations
potential of training.
change, competitors become more
powerful, and new competitors 6. External influences, such as
emerge. environmental, financial or legal
pressures.
3. Changes in technology and
working practices are a constant 7. Group problem-solving, or reaction
feature of organisational activity. to change event.
8. Individual problem-solving, or20
reaction to change event.

21. 21
There are twelve fundamental methods of
identifying learning and development needs
available:
The key principles for applying these methods
include:

22. Learning and Development
• Any work related activity contains the potential
for learning.
• This could be new learning or confirmation of
previous learning.
• There are a number of ways in which you can
learn at work, which we can collectively call
learning experiences.
• These include:
– Learning from the job that you are doing
– Learning using knowledge, skills and insight.
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– Learning from previous experience.

23. Learning Cycle
(adapted from Kolb 1984).
Shows that skills are
improved by:
1. Having a learning
experience (new or
from previous
activities).
2. Reviewing the
learning experience -
in other words, how it
went.
3. Learning lessons
from the experience.
4. Planning how you
can improve
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24. Identifying Your Own Style
• Identifying the way in which you learn will also help
you with your learning and development needs.
• Individuals are unique and, as a consequence, are
likely to develop their own differing learning styles as a
result of their experiences within an organisation and
in other areas of life.
• These individual styles can be contrasting.
• However, the important rule to remember is that, no
matter how diverse learning styles may appear, as
long as they are effective in the majority of cases then
they should be seen as productive.
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25. Identifying Your Own Style
• The aims of analysing learning styles are to:
1. Realise that there are many different
learning styles.
2. Discover resources where you can assess
your learning style.
3. Realise there are strategies you can use to
make best use of your natural learning style.
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26. LEARNING STYLE AUDIT
1. To score, use a scale from 0 to 10; 0 being nothing like you and 10
being completely like you.
2. At the end of each section total your score. This will give you an
indication of your preferred learning style.
1. The higher the score indicates your preferred learning style,
although it should be noted that, it is possible to have high scores
in more than one category.
2. Whilst the principles of progress through the learning process are
to be maintained, the importance of finding out about you
preferred learning style or combination of learning styles is that it
will give you a greater understanding about how you would
approach a new learning opportunity and how you may be able to
adapt to situations which do not necessarily suit your preferred
style. 26

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