Pathway Project For Sustaining Career In The Retail Industry

Employability Skills in Retail Industry

The main objective of a pathway plan is to produce a written documentation as well as the identification of the action, which needs to be taken along with the resources that are needed to be put to use with the motive to support young minds. This is fundamental since it helps the individuals get prepared for their transition to their adulthood along as well as help them get aware about employability in both local and foreign environments (Gill 2014).

This report mainly deals with the pathway project that has been undertaken by our team along with the initiatives and action that has been taken to achieve the same. This report details about the complete understanding of the employability skills in the retails industry, which needs to be adopted to foster the understanding about the needed capabilities to survive in the retail industry. In this report, the key skills areas that have been worked upon is the interpersonal communication, the networking and time management, which have been both learned and utilized by me in the course of the pathway project.

The rationale of this report is to help clarify the significance of initiating this pathway project as well as help the young minds to gather the necessary skills, which is required to sustain them and establish their career in the retail industry.

The retail industry employs more than employees more than 15 million employees from corner to corner in the United Kingdom and is considerably supposed to generate more than 1.2 million new job opportunities for the population by the year of 2020. Most of these vacancies would require more enhanced skill sets, which most of the job seekers and new candidates do not posses. However, these special skill sets can be learned and developed within the nation’s 450 education institutes or community colleges, since there are no such institutions that can be referred as education. The education institutes have been functional in the development of career pathways, which ensures that the students are prepared to be successful in the existing financial and the potential financial economics as well as imparting the local economics with the skilled workforce, who would in turn meet the employer’s needs. I have helped in initiating this project to elevate the awareness, visibility and catalyze for the development of medium skilled retail career pathways in the education colleges all across United Kingdom. This would in turn be helpful since more students would be manifesting the competencies, which are necessary to thrive in the medium skilled retail profession and eliminate the home, national and Foreign Service skill gaps (Abell 2014).

Initiating the Pathway Project

Practically half of the U.K students have registered themselves in the higher educational institutions are studying in these educational institutes. However, it can be clearly defined that this pathway project for sustainability would be helpful for the students making the retail career more accessible with the manifestation of the demanding competencies (Ben-Ishai, Matthews and Levin-Epstein 2014). This pathway project career would enable the low earning student, irrespective of the color, race and generation, to enroll him or herself and ingest the stackable credentials, which would help them lead to better degrees and career opportunities in the retail industry (Said-Allsopp and Tallontire 2015).

The middle skills job can be defined as the jobs, which calls for more of theoretical knowledge, which is higher from that of high school grade, with comparatively lesser than a bachelor’s degree. These kinds of jobs are considerably full time in nature and helps provide the employees with wages and benefits to sustain themselves and their families (Sankardas and Rajanahally 2015). So based on my analysis, I have found that the medium skilled career options can serve as a breeding ground for the ongoing encroachment within the company. This would in turn acquire supplementary training while on the job or through educational institutions (Kannadi and Padaki 2017).

 TESCO Foundations have commenced this project under the name of Achievement of the Dreams, which mainly focuses on the purpose of educating the students under a program leading them to develop and strengthen their skill sets, necessary for bagging a desirable job in the retail industry. So according to me, this pathway project program mainly emphasizes on the students and need of manifesting the extra skills, which are higher than a high school grade and lesser than a four-year certified program (Mitra and Mishra 2016).   Based on my understanding the retail industry includes departments such as e-commerce, construction materials retail, leisure and hospitality and financial services. However, the areas of the employment in the retail industry include sales, management and administration, marketing, merchandising, logistics, supervision and accounting as well as risk management (Groezinger et al. 2013).

To help define the purpose of this project undertaken by us, retail pathway is a set of prolific credentials that would help the leading the student to middle skilled careers in the retail industry and is fundamental in the offering of numerous entry and exit options to help them assist in the movement to the subsequent level in their careers. With the help of the initiative, we have helped the students in the pathway program to receive comprehensive support from our end (Tan and TANG 2016).

Significance of Pathway Project

The colleges’ retail pathway enhancement efforts has been designed by our assigned team to strengthen short term education programs, which are comparatively less than six months duration, that are in turn nested and associated within a broader and cohesive retail pathway (Kraak and Paterson 2016). Therefore, in this case time management is one of the considerable skills, which has been complied by me. I have understood that time management is one of the significant managerial skills, which in turn has helped me comprehend how important it is to follow while proceeding with any project. It helped me learn that around 80% of the total project is being offered in a minimum timeline for its completion and this is where my competence has been tested. So based on the fundamentals, all the important concerns of this pathway project have been completed within 3 months of time. In this time, the request and submission of the proposal along with notification of the institutions with the meetings as well as institutional activities have been completed, to avert any crisis in the crucial mid points that can jeopardize the success of this pathway project. It helped me understand that delay the project timeline can negatively affect the goodwill no matter what is the reason for the delay.

Based on the rationale and objective of this pathway project, the framework of the assigned plan has been designed by us in certain and definite way so that the initiative meets the criterion and the objectives which had been defined previously. We have designed the project structure keeping the following criteria in sight, which are a follows.

1. The well thought-out arrangement of the course with the guaranteed course offerings
2. Comprehensible and easy accessibility of the career pathways along with short term credential information, which includes information related to the medium skilled jobs and distinctiveness of their operational environments such as earnings and benefits along with full time status. Student would also provided with full accessibility to the visual mapping of the pathway, including the opportunities for the accomplishment of additional educational opportunities with a more advanced degree and a transfer to four year institutions (Unwin and Wellington 2013)

We have structure the professional educational framework to meet the allotted parameters so that it does not tampers with the purpose and objectives of the project, keeping the necessities of the students in mind, which have been explained below.

1. Structure pathways are composed of stackable credentials, which would lead the medium skilled careers in the retail industry and offer the growing students multiple entry and exit points to impart them assistance in the course of their transition to higher levels in their careers (Boughzala 2013)
2. The labor market and the workforce data has been utilized to help improve in demand retail career pathways and programs. However, it is important to note that technical assistance would be provided and colleges are expected to comply with the same to help develop the capacity to compile, analyze and use the labor market themselves
3. Short time (six months or less) retail program of study with course focused on the medium skilled retail competencies as defined by the employers in the retail industry
4. Training and education in soft skills such as collaboration and communications have been designed and developed in context with the retail employers and have been strategically implemented in the structured program of the study. Colleges have been instructed to collaborate with the employers to understand and analyze about the significance of these skills  for the defined medium skilled retail careers
5. The courses which are being offered, compensate for credit and is fundamental in its application for the future credentials
6. The credit for the prior learning have been embedded inside the career pathway programs
7. The pathway programs includes work based learning, which includes the internships along with structured practicum and on job shadowing
8. The community (education) based learning experience such as the volunteering opportunities, which mainly focuses on the development of the employer-identified competencies. So ideally, the students are being offered to have the opportunity to gain course credit for all these experiences
9. This program offers an accelerated and contextualized developmental education for the retail pathway students

While working on this pathway project, I have developed my interpersonal skills, which has favored me to gather more and individuals to enroll themselves in this project. With my interpersonal skills, I have worked more on the relationships with my clients and co-workers, including my team. Based on my work experiences, I have understood that interpersonal communication is one of the key skills, which is most needed while working in a team consisting of different members.

This skill helped me gather new learning experiences and helped me utilize my existing skills, while working with my defined team under the assigned project. Even though I had to interact with a small yet efficient team, yet this skill helped me interact with the various officials apart from the members of my team. Therefore, in other words, interpersonal are an effective set of skills, which has helped me manage my team and their efforts along with the other individuals who have been involved in this project with equal contribution. Being a member of the pathway project team interpersonal communication has been helped in making crucial decisions, which requires judgment from every individual in the core managerial duties. In case of lags and pitfalls, my previous experiences of encouraging the teammates and motivating them helped me revive the losing energy and enthusiasm of my teammates. Even though my communication skills have not been stained under immense pressure of handling a huge team, however, it has been tested to handle different individuals who are equally involved in the project, ranging from the project team, the student, the colleges and their officials.

Middle Skilled Careers in Retail Industry

Based on the interpersonal skills and learning, the wrap up services has been structure to help add advantage to this project, which has been explained below.

1. With the help of this pathway project, we have contributed the efforts in the active recruitment of the students by balancing and between the employer and the community partnerships, in the effort of identifying the prospective students for the retail pathways
2. With this pathway project we have positively encouraged and supported job placements, which in turn have supported the students to get better opportunities under the influence of the community ( education) college and the retail employment partners
3. We have contributed in the proactive connection with the students to help promote the retention and persistence through the retail pathway program, where each student would be receiving
4. Comprehensive academic supports including academic planning and frequent advising
5. Social and moral support including easy accessible financial information,  financial support and assistance as well as financial literacy educational opportunities
6. Through this project, we also imparted the students with career supports such as career mapping and comprehensive career advising. We have played our part in encouraging the colleges to assign staffs and members to play the role of career navigators for the students, in the retail pathway program thus strengthening the advise support system (Kruijssen et al. 2016)

 In order to strengthen the pathway project and its components, the colleges, which have been selected for this projects have been made sure to comply with the conditions which helped me work on my networking skills to maintain the relationships in turn keeping the objectives of this project in sight. In other words, as per my personal view it can be elaborated that networking is a simple way of building relationships. It has been one good experience to see how the networking process goes in the management of the undertaken pathway project.

 Networking helped me persuade the people who have been gradually convinced to engage themselves in the project and contribute their efforts in the same. My networking knowledge have not only helped me gather knowledge but also helped me convince my team mates to use their networking skills, so that weight age can be added into this project, thus making it successful. I have used my networking skills to help increase the external resources such as the financial support, which can cost money, to increase the project budget. Since, it can be considered that a bigger resources pool can help deliver a better efficiency of the project, in its objectives and purposes.

Based on the skills, capacity, networking and relationship management skills, the certain conditions, which have been structured to meet the criteria has been elaborated below, which are as follows.

• Work upon the existing relationships with the retail employees to help identify the desired competencies of the medium skilled retail employees. Facilitate the hiring of the students who successfully complete the pathway project and the retail program. The colleges must understand and comply with the values and the undergraduate competencies (González-Rivera 2016)
• Colleges have been conditioned to agree and comply with the collection, analyzing and the utilization of the information and data regarding the labor market and workforce. This also implies with the understanding and analysis of the student level data design and delivery with a continuous improvement in the retail careers pathways
• The colleges have been asked to work in collaboration and with cooperation with the external evaluator and the internal data coaches, throughout the entire project duration in order to gather and share the student level data for the evaluation (González-Rivera 2016)
• The sharing and dissemination of the outcomes, is not only limited within the institution but also shared with each and every of the contributors, which includes the partners, the local retail employers and the communities. This has been explained and conditioned from our end to the participating colleges in the assigned project (Burt, Johansson and Dawson 2015)

While the commencement of this project, I came across certain challenges, which posed as the threats to the undertaken project. The main concern, which I came across, is the complications that arose due to the increase of the harshness in the market conditions, where pressure have been exerted to reduce the costs and making them more economical and effective. The second challenge that I have come across is the unwillingness to enroll in the project, since most of the students did not comply with the fact that a mere skill gathering program can help them get a good career prospect in the future. The third challenge, which I have faced is the indifferences between the team members due to different views, while taking decisions.

In all the challenges, my existing and new skills came to rescue, where, I have used my interpersonal skills as well as my networking skills. I have used these skills to gather interested investors who are willing to collaborate with our project in exchange of  certain commercial and business benefits as well as imparted proper knowledge regarding the purpose of this assignment to the individuals in concern. With the help of my interpersonal skills, I have been able to counter against the indifferences between the different team members and gradually we have been able to comply with each other until the completion of the project. With my time management skills, I have been able to understand and calculate the time that has been spend to attend these challenges, so that my assigned project does not lag beyond the allotted and targeted deadline.

Professional Educational Framework

Conclusion

With the help of this pathway project, which has been undertake by TESCO, in the contribution of skills to new candidates concludes that this project is one of the crucial assignments since it has been receiving positive response and feedbacks from different ends. It can further be added that this project has been crucial since this project is a significant effort to help the students to a get a better job in the retails industry with the current scenario exhibiting higher traits of competition. This report also concludes that the existing retail market is one of the highest recruiting industries and due to the lack of adequate skills. Several individuals can get a desirable job with their capabilities due to such an initiative. Therefore, this pathway project takes up the responsibility of imparting necessary skills to these individuals, in order to help them develop necessary knowledge, training and skills, which is most expected from the employers in the retail industry. This pathway project also helped me gather important knowledge in the managerial grounds, which in turn can be utilized in different and diverse managerial operations.

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