WORK BASED LEARNING

Work Based Learning

Work Based Learning

Introduction

The strategies employed by work based learning (WBL) play a vital role in the development and training of the future leaders and contributor of the workforce. Work based learning can be defined in a number of ways depending on the educational and work involvement level of the students and the organization. However, a broadly speaking WBL involves the industry placement programs that allow students to work and learn from the experience in a business organization. These programs are brought in collaboration between the universities and the industry in order to identify and prepare the future leaders and allow them to relate their class based learning to the industry (Lemanskis 2011, p5).

Work Based Learning at UForm

Uform

Uform was established in the year 1993 and has been continuously growing its business ever since. The Donnelly family who laid the foundation of the company has now expanded in the manufacturing and distribution of various furniture products including kitchen doors. The company has developed its marketing and distribution efforts by building long term relationships with retailers and distributors in the kitchen industry in the United Kingdom. It is their continuous investment in the Research and Development activities along with coming with innovative product ideas that has allowed the company to grab the number three position in the United Kingdom (Articad 2006, p1).

Job Description

I have had the privilege to work with the company for some while as a Business Development Coordinator. There is a lot of responsibility and activity surrounding this position because of the type of business mode followed by Uform. The company requires the Business Development Coordinator (BDO) to continuously look out for new business opportunities and making sure that the current clients are satisfied with the level of service that they receive. BDO is responsible for creating leads and designing effective deals and offers that meet their specific needs. BDO works closely with his sales team and motivates them to achieve higher levels of customer satisfaction to boost growth.

The continuous strive to increase the clientele of the company and maintain the current clients as well make the job of Business Development Executives a lot stressful. This puts a lot of stress on the need of a well designed Appraisal System which can identify the star performers by gathering data relating to their performance and feedback from peers. There was no such system that was in place in Uform when I joined the company. The general feedback received from many colleagues made it evident that the need for a appraisal system needs to be studied and brought into the attention of the upper management.

Appraisal System

For this purpose, there was a need for to conduct research to identify the positive impacts that can be gained by implementing a streamlined appraisal system in the company. The upper management would never have sanctioned such an ambition initiative without having seen some research data that could get their buy in for the project. Therefore, I set out to conduct the necessary ...